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 â—â—aw found no place â—â—â—â— But â—â— 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 〈…〉 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 Râ—b Baâ—oâ—â—â—â— 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
know by your own experience thâ—se 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 flâ—shly 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 haâ—â— had most of his Love and Care and what hath been next his heart and which he hath preferred wheâ—â—hey 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 â—in 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
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 modesâ—e ac sine recusatione parento consequents You may not sell poyson to him that you know would poyson himself with it though to sâ—ll 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 wâ—â— 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 prâ—ximatâ—ly 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. Hoâ—kers last Book unhappily ended before he gave us the full reason of his judgement in Eccl. Pol. l. 8. p. 2â—4 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 penalâ—y 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 perâ—icious 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
more for Heaven or Earth And therefore that thou art capable of self-judging in this case Perhaps you will say that while I am directing you to be Holy I suppose you to be Holy first For all this seemeth to go far towards it But I must profess that I see not any thing in all these suppositions but what I may suppose to be in a Heathen And that I think all this is but supposing thee to have the use of thy Reason in the points in hand Speak freely Is there any one of all these points that thou canst or darest deny I think there is not And therefore if Heathens and wicked men deny them in their practise that doth but shew that sin doth bruitifie them and that as men asleep or in a crowd of business they have not the use of the Reason which they possess in the matters which their minds are turned from § 21. 18. Yea one thing more I think I may suppose in all or most that will read this Book 18. That most among us profess to believe in Christ and confess the Gospel to be true c. that you take on you also to believe in Iesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier and that the Scriptures are the Word of God And if you do so indeed I may then hope that my work is in a manner done before I begin it But if you do it but opinionatively and uneffectually yet God and man may plead with you the truths which you profess § 22. Having told you what I presuppose in you I proceed now to the Directions But I again intreat and charge thee Reader as thou lovest thy soul and wouldst not be condemned for Hypocrisie and sloth that thou dost not refuse to put in practise what is taught thee and shew thereby that Abâ—â—nt omâ—ia â—â—d oâ—ta sunt Câ—â— in Cat. Maj. Dii immortales sparserunt animos iâ— corpora humana ut essâ—nt qui terras tuerentur quique coelestem ordinem contemplantes imitarentur eum vitae â—odo atque Constantia Câ—c in Cato majore Ex terrâ sunt homines non ut iâ—colae habitatores sed quasi spectatores superarum rerum atque 〈…〉 tium quâ—â—um spâ—ctacuâ—um ad nullum aliud genus animantium pertinet Cicero 2. de Nat. Deor. Sic habeto te non esse mortalem sed 〈…〉 us hoc Idem Somn. Scip. Cum natura caeteras animantes abjecisset ad pastum solum hominâ—m erexit ad coeli quasi cognationis doâ—â—ciâ—iique pristini conspectum excâ—tavit tum speciem ita formavit oris ut in ea penitus reconditos mores effingeret Cic. 1. de Legib. Nisi Deus 〈◊〉 tâ— coâ—poris custodiis liberaverit ad coelum aditus patere non potest Cicero Somn. Scip. Animi omnium sunt immortales sed bonorum diâ—iâ—i Cic. 2. de â—egib Boaorum mentes mihi divinae atque aeternae videntur ex hominum vita ad deorum religionem sanctimoniamque migrare Idem Animus est ingeneâ—atus à Deo ex quo vere vel agnatio nobis cum coelestibus vel genus vel stirps appellaâ—i potest Idem 1. de Leg. whatever thou pretendest thou are not willing to do thy part for thy own salvation no not in the most reasonable necessary things Direction 1. IF thou be truly willing to be sanctified and a child of God Remain not in a state of Ignorance Direct 1. but do thy best to come into the light and understand the Word of God in the matters of salvation § 1. If knowledge be unnecessary why have we Understanding And wherein doth a man excell Qui seipsâ—m cognoverit cogno â—â—t in sâ— omnia Deum ad cujus imaâ—iâ—â—â—â— factus est M 〈…〉 d on câ—jus si â—ula 〈…〉 n geâ—it 〈…〉 as omnes cum quibus symboâ—â—m habet Paul Scaligeâ— Thes. p. 72â— a Beast If any knowledge at all be necessary certainly it must be the knowledge of the greatest and most necessary things And nothing is so great and necessary as to Obey thy Maker and to save thy soul. Knowledge is to be valued according to its Usefulness If it be a matter of as great concernment to know how to do your worldly business and to trade and gather worldly wealth and to understand the Laws and to maintain your honour as it is to know how to be reconciled unto God to be pardoned and justified to please your Creator to prepare in time for death and judgement and an endless life then let worldly wisdom have the preheminence But if all earthly things be dreams and shadows and valuable only as they serve us in the way to Heaven then surely the Heavenly Wisdom is the best Alas how far is that man from being wise that is acquainted with all the punctilio's of the Law that is excellent in the knowledge of all the Languages Sciences and Arts and yet knoweth not how to Live to God to mortifie the flesh to conquer sin to deny himself nor to answer in Judgement for his fleshly life nor to escape damnation As far is such a Learned man from being wise as he is from being happy § 2. Two sorts among us do quietly live in damning ignorance First Abundance of poor people who think they may continue in it because they were bred in it and that because they are not Book-learned therefore they need not learn how to be saved and because their Parents neglected to teach them when they were young therefore they may neglect themselves ever after and need not learn the things they were made for Alas Sirs What have you your lives your time and Reason for Do you think it is only to know how to do your worldly business Or is it to prepare for a better world It is better that you knew not how to eat or drink or speak or go or dress your selves than that you know not the will of God and the way to your salvation Hear what the Holy Ghost saith 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. But if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them Darkness is unsafe and full of fears the Light is safe and comfortable A man in ignorance is never like to hit his way Nor can he know whether he be in or out nor what enemy or danger he is near It is the Devil that is the Prince of Darkness and his Kingdom is a Kingdom of darkness and his works are works of darkness See Ephes. 6. 12. Col. 1. 13. 1 Iohn 2. 11. Luke 11. 34 35. Grace turneth men from darkness to light Acts 26. 18. and causeth them to cast off the works of darkness Rom. 13. 12. Because we are the children of light and of the day and not of darkness or of night 1
Love of God and therefore it is Best 20. The grand impediment to all Religion and our Salvation which hindereth both our Believing Loving and Obeying is the inordinate sensual inclination to Carnal self and present transitory things cunningly proposed by the Tempter to ensnare us and divert and steal away our hearts from God and the life to come The understanding of these Propositions will much help you in discerning thr Nature and Reason of Religion DIRECT II. Diligently labour in that part of the life of faith which consisteth in the constant use of Christ as the Means of the souls access to God acceptance with him and comfort from him And think not of coming to the Father but by him § 1. TO talk and boast of Christ is easie and to use him for the increase of our carnal security and boldness in sinning But to live in the daily Use of Christ to those Ends of his Office to which he is by us to be made use of is a matter of greater skill and diligence than many self 〈…〉 Professors are aware of What Christ himself hath done or will do for our salvation is â—â—â—â— directly the thing that we are now considering of but what Use he requireth us to make of him Paul Sâ—aiiger Thes. p. 725. Christus solus quidem secundum utramque naturam di 〈…〉 Id. p 725. in the life of saith He hath told us that his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed and that except we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have no life in us Here is our Use of Christ expressed by eating and drinking his flesh and blood which is by faith The General parts of the work of Redemption Christ hath himself performed for us without asking our Consent or imposâ—â—g upon us any Condition on our parts without which he would not do that work As the Sun doth illustrate and warm the earth whether it will or not and as the Rain falleth on the Grass without asking whether it consent or will be thankful so Christ without our consent or knowledge did take our nature and fulfill the Law and satisfie the offended Law-giver and Merit grace and conquâ—â— Satan Death and Hell and became the Glorified Lord of all But for the exercise of his graces in us and our advancement to communion with God and our living in the strength and joyes of faith he is himself the Object of our Duty even of that Faith which we must daily and diligently exercise upon him And thus Christ will profit us no further than we make Use of him by faith It is not a forgotten Christ that objectively comforteth or encourageth the soul but a Christ believed in and skilfully and faithfully Used to that end It is Objectively principally that Christ is called Our wisdom 1 Cor. 1. 30. The knowledge of him and the mysteries of Grace in him is the Christian or Divine Philosophy or Wisdom in opposition to the vain Philosophy which the Learned Heathens boasted of And therefore Paul determined to know nothing but Christ crucified that is to make oftentation of no other knowledge and to glory in nothing but the Cross of Christ and so to preach Christ as if he knâ—w nothing else but Christ. See 1 Cor. 1. 23. 2. 2. Gal. 6. 14. And it is Objectively that Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by faith Ephes. 3. 17. Faith keepeth him still upon the heart by continual cogitation application and improvement As a friend is said to dwell in our hearts whom we continually love and think of § 2. Christ himself teacheth us to distinguish between Faith in God as God and faith in himself Namquâ—â—mpâ—â—â—â—nâ— involute non â—â—â—â—haec soâ—um sed qâ—â—â—â—unquâ— Divinae â—â—eâ—ae prâ—dunt credit de quibus tamen nâ—n omnibus interrâ—gatur quod eâ— expresse â—â—iâ—e omnia illi minime opus sit omnia 5. c 6. p. 461. Christian Religion beginneth not at the Highest but the Lowest with Christ incarnate teaching dying â—â—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 1â—1 out of Iâ—â—tâ—r as Mediator John 14. 1. Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God or Believe ye in God â— believe also in me These set together are the sufficient cure of a troubled heart It is not Faith in God as God but Faith in Christ as Mediator that I am now to speak of And that not as it is inherent in the understanding but as it is operative on the heart and in the life And this is not the smallest part of the life of faith by which the just are said to live Every true Christian must in his measure be able to say with Paul Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me The Pure Godhead is the Beginning and the End of all But Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first born of every creature and by him all things were created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things do consist And he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence Col. 1. 16 17 18 19. In him it is that we who were sometime far off are made nigh even by his blood For he is our Peace who hath recâ—nâ—iled both Iew and Gentile unto God in one body by the Cross having slain the â—nâ—ity thereby and came and preached peace to them that were far off and to them that were â—igâ— For through him we both have an access by one Spirit unto the Father so that now we are no more i◠〈…〉 s and forâ—â—igners but fellow Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Ephes. 2. 1â— â—â—â—â—â—â—6 17 18. In him it is that we have beldness and access with confidence through faith in him Epâ— â—â—â—â—â— He is the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14. 6. It is by the blood of Iesus that we have boldness and liberty â— to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh Because we have so Great a Priest over the House of God we may draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith c. Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22. By him it is that we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and boast in hope of the Glory of God Rom. 5. 1 2. So that we must have all our Communion with God through him § 3. Supposing what I
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 marvellâ—us 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 despâ—se 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 Hâ—b 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 hâ—ld 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 Eâ—geâ— l. 5. distinctly into Covenant with them which is to Accept the Mercies of and perform the 〈…〉 each person distinctly As to take God for Our God is more than to believe that there is a God â—nd 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
Heaven and audience with God and is dearly beloved by him in Christ. Thou seest in flesh a companion of Angels and one that hath the Divine Nature and must shortly be above the Stars in glory and must be with Christ and must love and magnifie God for ever And is not the amiableness of God apparent in such mercy bestowed upon sinful man And should we not now begin to admire him in his Saints and glorifie him in believers who will câ—me with thousands of his Angels to be glorified and admired in them at the last 2 Thess. 1. 10. O the abundant deliverances preservations provisions encouragements which all his servants receive â—â—â—â— God! Who ever saw the just forsakâ—n even while they think themselves forsaken For the Lâ—rd 〈…〉 h judâ—â—ment and forsaketh not his Saints they are preserved fâ—r ever The Law of his God is in â—â—s heart none of his steps shall slide Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end â—â— that man is peace Psal. 37. 25 28 31 37. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Psâ—lm 116. 15. Ye that love the Lord hate evil he preserveth the souls of his Saints be delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked Light is sowen for the righteous and gladness for the upriâ—ht in heart Psal. 97. 10 11. O love the Lord all his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the prâ—ud doer Psal. 31. 23. § 32. Direct 11. Insist not so much on your desires after vision as to undervalue the lower apprehensions Direct 11. of Faith but love God by the way of Faith as in order to the Love of Intuition We are exceeding â—pt to be over-desirous of sight and to take nothing as an object fit to affect us which sense perceiveth not When we have the surest evidence of the truth of things unseen it hardly satisfieth us unless we may see or feel And hereupon our Love to God is hindered while we think of him as if he were not or take the apprehensions of faith as if they were uncertain and little differed from a dream Yea it proveth the ground of most dangerous temptations to Infidelity it self While we take that knowlâ—dge which we have of God in the way of Faith the Love and Communion which is exercised thereby to be as nothing we are next tempted to think that there is no true knowledge of God and communion with him to be attained And when we have been searching and striving long and find that we can reach no more we are tempted to think that the soul oâ— man is made but as the beasts for present things and is uncapable of those higher things which are revealed in the Gospel and that if there were indeed a life to come and man were made to enjoy his God we should get nearer to him than we are and know him more and love him better But is it nothing O presumptuous soul to see God in a Glass in order to a nearer sight Is it nothing to have the Heavenly Ierusalem described and promised to thee unless thou see it and possess it Wilt thou travel to no place but what thou seest all the way Wouldst thou have no difference betwixt Earth and Heaven What canst thou have more in Heaven than immediate intuition Wouldst thou have no life of tryal in the obedience of faith before the life of fruition and reward Or canst thou think that a life of sight and sense is fit for tryal and preparation to shew who is meet for the rewarding life Unthankful soul Compare thy state with that of bruits Is it nothing for thee to know thy Maker in the Works of his Creation and Providence and in the revelations of grace and the belief of promised immortality unless thou presently see him in his glory When these thy fâ—llow creatures know him not at all Compare thy self now with thy self as heretofore in the dayes of thy ignorance and carnality Hadst thou then any such knowledge of God as thou now undervaluest or any such communion with him as thou now accountest next to none When the Light first shined in thine eyes and thou hadst first experience of the knowledge of God thou thoughtst it something and rejoycedst in the light If then thou couldst have suddenly attainâ—d but to so much as thou hast now attained wouldst thou have called it Nothing Would it not have seemed a greater treasure to thee than to have known both the Indies as thine own O be not unthankful for the little which thou hast received when God might have shut thee out in that darkness which the greatest part of the world lyeth in and have left thee to thy self to have desired no higher knowledge than such as may feed thy fansie and pride and lust Art thou so far drowned in flesh and sense as to take Intellectual apprehensions for dreams unless thy sense may see and feel Wilt thou take thy soul thy self for nothing because thou art not to be seen or felt Shall no Subjects honour and obey their King but they that have seen his Court and him Desire the fullest and the nearest sight the purest and the strongest Love and desire and spare not the liâ—e where all this will be had But take heed of being too hasty with God and unthankful for the mercies of the way Know better the difference betwixt thy travail and thy home And know what is fit for passengers to expect Humbly submit to an obedient waiting in a life of faith And make much of the Testament of Christ till thou be at age to possess the inheritance Thou must live and love and run and fight and conquer and suffer by saith if ever thou wilt come to â—â—â—â— and to possess the Crown § 33. Direct 12. It is a powerful means to kindle the Love of God in a believer to foresee by faith Direct 12. the glory of Heaven and what God will be there to his Saints for ever And thus to behold God in his Read 〈…〉 his Prognostiâ—on Si in â—â—â—â—lis sâ—de 〈…〉 haâ— sâ—â—vatur â—aeâ—editus 〈…〉 quaedam tâ—pida pâ—oserunâ— aliqui putantes eam se percipere in teâ—rena Jerusalem Mille ann's existimant esse deliâ—iarum praemia proprietatâ— recâ—pturâ—â— Qui iâ—â—rrogandi sunt quomodo astruant delicias corporales dum dicatur hanc haereditaâ—em nec corrum â—i posse nec marcesceâ—e Didymâ— Alexand. i. Petr. 1. câ—â—â—â— Millâ—nar GLORY is the use of GRACE Though the manner of knowing him thus by faith be far short of what we there expect yet it is the same God and glory that now we believe which then we must more openly behold And therefore as that Apprehension of Love will unconceivably excel the highest which can be here attained so the fore-thoughts of that doth excell all other arguments and means to affect us here and will raise us as high as means can raise us The greatest
of all the mercies of God Gen. 32. 10. The humble soul is the thankful soul and therefore so greatly valued by the Lord. § 6. Direct 4. Understand what Misery you were delivered from and estimate the greatness of the Direct 4. mercy by the greatness of the punishment which you had deserved Misery as well as sin must tell us the greatness of our mercies This is before opened Chap. 1. Dir. 9. pag. 21. § 7. Direct 5. Suppose you saw the damned souls or suppose you had been one day in Hell your selves Direct 5. bethink you then how thankful you would have been for Christ and Mercy And you were condemned to it by the Law of God and if death had brought you to execution you had been there and then Mercy would have been more esteemed If a Preacher were sent to those miserable souls to offer them a pardon and eternal life on the terms as they are offered to us do you think they would make as light of it as we do § 8. Direct 6. Neglect not to keep clear the Evidences of thy title to those special Mercies for Direct 6. which thou shouldst be most thankful And hearken not to Satan when he would tempt thee to think that they are none of thine that so he might make thee deny God the Thanks for them which he expecteth Of this I have spoken in the Directions for Love § 9. Direct 7. Think much of those personal mercies which God hath shewed thee from thy youth up Direct 7. untill now by which he hath manifested his care of thee and particular kindness to thee Though the common mercies of Gods servants be the greatest which all other Christians share in with each one yet personal favours peculiar to our selves are apt much to affect us as being near our apprehension and expressing a peculiar care and love of us Therefore Christians should mark Gods dealings with them and write down the great and notable mercies of their lives which are not unfit for others to know if they should see it § 10. Direct 8. Compare thy proportion of Mercies with the rest of the peoples in the world And Direct 8. thou wilt find that it is not one of many thousands that hath thy proportion It is so small a part of the world that are Christians and of those so few that are Orthodox Reformed Christians and of those so few that are seriously godly as devoted to God and of those so few that fall not into some perplexities errors scandals or great afflictions and distress that those few that are in none of these ranks have cause of wonderous thankfulness to God Yea the most afflicted Christians in the world Suppose God had divided his mercies equally to all men in the world as health and wealth and honour and grace and the Gospel c. How little of them would have come to thy share in comparison of what thou now possessest How many have less wealth or honour than thou How many thousands have less of the Gospel and of Grace In reason therefore thy thankfulness should be proportionable and extraordinary § 11. Direct 9. Compare the Mercies which thou wantest with those which thou possessest and observe how Direct 9. much thy receivings are greater than thy sufferings Thou hast many meals plenty for one day of scarcity or pinching hunger Thou hast many dayes Health for one dayes sickness and if one part be ill there are more that are not If one Cross befall thee thou escapest many more that might befall thee and which thou deservest § 12. Direct 10. Bethink thee how thou wouldst value thy mercies if thou wert deprived of them Direct 10. The want of them usually teacheth us most effectually to esteem them Think how thou shouldst value Christ and hope if thou wert in Despair And how thou wouldst value the mercies of Earth if thou wert in Hell And the Mercies of England if thou were among bloody Inquisitors and persecutors and wicked cruell Heathens or Mahometans or bruitish savage Americans Think how good sleep would seem to thee if thou couldst not sleep for pains Or how good thy meat or drink or cloaths or house or maintenance or friends would all seem to thee if they were taken from thee And how great a mercy health would seem if thou were under some tormenting sickness and what a mercy Time would seem if Death were at hand and Time were ending And what a mercy thy least sincere desires or measure of grace is in comparison of their case that are the haters despisers and persecutors of holiness These thoughts if followed home may shame thee into thankfulness § 13. Direct 11. Let Heaven be ever in thine eye and still think of the endless joy which thou Direct 11. shalt have with Christ. For that is the mercy of all mercies and he that hath not that in hope to be thankful for will never be thankful aright for any thing and he that hath Heaven in prâ—â—isâ— to be thankful for hath still reason for the highest joyful Thanks whatever worldly thing he want or though he were sure never more to have comfort in any creature upon earth He is unthankful indeed that will not be thankful for Heaven But that is a mercy which will constrain to Thankfulness so far as our title is discerned The more believing and heavenly the mind is the more thankful § 14. Direct 12. Look on earthly and present Mercies in connexion with Heaven which is their End and Direct 12. as sweetned by our interest in God that giveth them You leave out all the life and sweetness which must cause your thankfulness if you leave out God and overlook him A dead carkâ—ss hath not the Loveliness or Usefulness as a living man You mortifie your mercies when you separate them from God and Heaven and then their beauty and sweetness and excellercy is gone And how can you be thankful for the husks and shells when you foolishly neglect the kernel Take every bit as from thy Fathers hands Remember that he feedeth and clotheth and protecteth thee as his Child It is to Our Father which is in Heaven that we must go every day for our daily bread Taste his Love in it and thou wilt say that It is sweet Remember whither all his Mercies tend and where they will leave thee even in the bosome of Eternal Love Think with thy self How good is this with the Love of God This and Heaven are full enough for me Course fare and course clothing and course usage in the world and hard labour and a poor habitation with Heaven after all is Mercy beyond all humane estimation or conceiving Nothing can be little which is a token of the love of God and leadeth to Eternal Glory The Relation to Heaven is the life and glory of every mercy § 15. Direct 13. Think oft how great a mercy it is that Thankfulness for mercy is made so
that we can use to help them and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them Let Husband or Wife or Parents or the dearest friends intreat a hardned sinner to be converted and he will not hear them Let the learnedst or wisest or holiest man alive both preach and beseech him and he will not turn At a distance he may reverence and honour a great Divine and a learned or a holy man especially when they are dead But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth and intreat him daily to repent and he will either hate and persecute him or neglect and disobey him What Minister was ever so learned or holy or powerful a Preacher that had not sad experience of this When the Prophet Isa. 53. 1. cryeth out Who hath believed our report And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them and were abused and scorned and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved Nay Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed scorned and murdered by sinners what better should his ablest Ministers expect St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africk that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called they could not convert one hardned sinner by all their Authority Wit or diligence without the power of the Almighty God For will they be converted by Man that are hardned against God What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts and get within them and do them good Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgements of the Lord and of his wrath against them Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it or laugh at them Shall we tell them of Death and Judgement and Eternity Why we speak to the posts or men asleep They hear us as if they heard us not Shall we tell them of endless Ioy and Torments They feel not and therefore fear not nor regard not They have heard of all these till they are a weary of hearing them and our words seem to them but as the noise of the Wind or Water which is of no signification If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher that healed the sick and raised the dead they would wonder at him but would not be converted For Christ did thus and yet prevailed but with few Iohn 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most Acts 7. 57. 22. 22. Nay if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning he might affright them but not convert them for Christ hath told us so himself Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them they would be hardned still as Balaam and others have been Christ rose from the dead and yet was after that rejected We read not of the Conversion of the Souldiers that watcht his Sepulchâ—e though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels but they were after that hired for a little money to lye and say that Christs Disciples stole him away If Magistrates that have power on their bodies should endeavour to bring them to Godliness they would not obey them nor be perswaded King Hezekiahs messengers were but mocked by the people David and Solomon could not convert their hardned subjects Punish them and hang them and they will be wicked to the death Witness the impenitent Thief that dyed with Christ and dyed reproaching him Though God afflict them with rod after rod yet still they sin and are the same Psal. 78. Hâ—s 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face and let them see that they must presently go to judgement it will affright them but not convert them Let them know and confess that sin is bad that Holiness is best that death and eternity are at hand yet are they the same and all will not win their hearts to God Till Grace take away their stony hearts and give them tender fleshy hearts Ezek 36. 26. § 8. Direct 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world This fills the Direct 6. world with wickedness and confusion with Wars and bloodshed and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mahometanism for hardning their hearts against the Lord How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation because they hardned their hearts against the light of truth What vice so odious even beastly filthiness and bitterest hatred and persecution of the wayes of God which men of all degrees and rancks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts This is the thing that grieves the godly that wearieth good Magistrates and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers when they have done their best they are fain as Christ himself before them to grieve for the hardness of mens hearts Alas we live among the dead Our Towns and Countreys are in a sadder case than Aegypt when every house had a dead man Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground and most of our seats had not a dead man that sitteth as if he heard and kneeleth as if he prayed when nothing ever pierced to the quick We have studied the most quickning words we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner and yet we cannot make them feel As if we cryed like Baals worshippers O Baal hear us or like the Irish to their dead Why wouldst thou dye and leave thy house and lands and friends So we talk to them about the death of their souls and their wilful misery who never feel the weight of any thing we say we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears we cast the seed into stony ground Matth. 13. 5 20. It stops in the surface and it is not in our power to open their hearts and get within them I confess that we are much too blame our selves that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in our selves for which God now justly layeth so many of us by But yet we must say our importunity is such as leaveth them without excuse we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world we speak it to them in the name of God we shew them his
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
62. But I suppose thou wilt say that thou art willing to amend and leave thy sin but thou canst not do it because flesh is frail and company is tempting and God giveth thee not grace Willing thou art but yet unable But stay a little God will not so let thee carry it and smooth over thy wickedness with a lye Thy meaning if thou speak out is not that thou art willing presently and heartily willing to forsake thy sin but only that thou wouldst be willing if the drink and the Devil did not tempt thee And so thou wilt be willing to love God and be saved when nothing shall tempt thee to the contrary And wouldst thou thank thy Wife for such a willingness to forsake adultery when no body will tempt her to it or thy servant to do thy work when he hath nothing to tempt him to idleness or neglect Judge by this what thanks thou deservest of God for such a willingness But dally not with God and mock not thy Conscience but speak to the question Art thou willing to give over thy company and tipling from this day forward or art thou not Take heed what thou saist If thou say No God may say Nay to all thy cryes for mercy in the day of thy misery and distress But if still thou say that thou art willing but not able I will convince thee of thy falshood § 63. Quest. 1. Tell me then what force is used to make thee sin against thy will Wast thou carryed Quest. 1. to the Ale-house or didst thou go thy self Wast thou gagg'd and drencht Was it poured down thy throat by violence or didst thou take the Cup and pour it down thy self Who was the man that held opon thy mouth and poured it in Nay if it had been thus it had not been thy sin for no will no sin Or did they set a Sword or Pistol to thy breast and so force thee to it If they had that had not proved thee unwilling but only that they forced thee to be willing And their force is no excuse For God threatned Hell and thou shouldst have feared that most § 64. Quest. 2. Didst thou love the Drink or loath it when thou wast drinking it Didst thou Love it Quest. 2. against thy will when love and willingness are all one § 65. Quest. 3. Wilt thou forbear the next time till thou art carryed to it and till it is forcibly poured Quest. 3. down with a horn If not confess it is thy will § 66. Quest. 4. Couldst thou not forbear if the Iudge or the King stood by And canst thou not Quest. 4. forbear when God stands by If thou wilt thou canst § 67. Quest. 5. Couldst thou not forbear if thou wert sure to be put to death for it If the Law Quest. 5. hang'd all Drunkards and the Hangman were at thy back Surely thou couldst And canst thou not then forbear if thou wilt when God hath made it worse than hanging and when Death is coming to fetch thee to execution § 68. Quest. 6. Couldst thou not forbear it in sickness if thy Physicion required it and told thee if Quest. 6. thou drink it will be thy death I doubt not but thou couldst If not thou art very unworthy to live that canst not deny thy self a Cup of drink for the saving of thy life And thou art as unworthy to be saved if thou wilt not do that to save thy soul which thou wouldst do to save thy present life § 69. Quest. 7. Yea couldst thou not forbear if it were but to save the life of thy Wife or Child or Quest. 7. Friend or Neighbour If thou knewest that forbearing thy forbidden Cup would save the life of any one of them couldst thou not Nay wouldst thou not do it If not thou tellest the world what a Husband what a Father what a Friend and what a Neighbour thou art that wouldst not forbear a Cup of Drink to save a Friend or Neighbours life I should think thee an unworthy friend if thou wouldst not do that much at thy friends request though there were no such necessity lay upon it It this be so I 'll never take a Drunkard for my friend for he would not forbear a Cup of Drink for ☞ my sake no not if it were to save my life If thou say God forbid I would do more than that Why then didst thou say Thou canst not forbear Mark how thy tongue reproves thy falshood And canst thou not do that for thy own soul which thou couldst do for the life or at the request of a Friend or Neighbour § 70. Quest. 8. Couldst thou not forbear if it were to get a Lordship or a Kingdom yea or to save Quest. 8. thy own estate if it were all in danger and this would save it I doubt not but thou couldst Why then dost thou say thou canst not do it § 71. Quest. 9. If thou wert certain that thou werest to dye to morrow wouldst thou be drunk to Quest. 9. night Or if thou wert sure to dye within this Week or Month wouldst thou be drunk ere then I do not believe thou wouldst Fear would so long shut thy mouth Thou seest then that thou canst forbear if thou were but willing and were but awakened out of thy stupidity and folly § 72. Quest. 10. What if thou wert sure that there were an ounce of Arsenick or other such poyson Quest. 10. in the Cup Couldst thou not then forbear it Yes no doubt of it It is plain therefore that thou speakest falsly when thou saist that thou canst not And is not Gods wrath and curse in thy Cup much worse than poyson § 73. Quest. 11. What if thou sawest the Devil standing by thee and offering thee the Cup and perswading Quest. 11. thee to drink it couldst thou not then forbear Yes no doubt of it And is he not as certainly there tempting thee as if thou sawest him Well the matter is proved against thee to thy own conscience that if thou wilt forbear thou canst § 74. Quest. 12. But if yet thou canst not bethink thee whether thou canst better bear the pains Quest. 12. of Hell For God is not in jeast with thee in his threatning If thy thirst be harder to bear than Hell then choose that which is easiest to thee But remember hereafter that thou hadst thy choice § 75. Yet art thou willing to let go thy sin for I am sure thou art able so far as thou art willing I will take thy case to be as it is that is that thou hast some half uneffectual willingness or lazy wish which will not conquer a temptation and that thou art some times in a little better mood than at other times and that thou lovest thy sin and therefore wouldst not leave it if thou couldst choose but thou lovest not Hell and therefore hast some thoughts of parting with thy Cups against thy will
If you be so proud or rash as to reply why should I leave my sport for another mans conceits or judgement I will tell thee that which shall shame thy reply and thee if thou canst blush 1. It is not some humorous odd fanatick that I alledge against thee nor a singular Divine But it is the judgement of the antient Church it self The Fathers and Councils condemn Christians and Ministers especially that use spectacula spectacles or behold Stage-plays and Dicing 2. Even the oldest Canons of our own Church of England forbid Dicing to the Clergy which is because they reputed it evil or of ill report 3. Many Laws of Religious Princes do condemn them 4. Abundance of the most learned holy Divines condemn them 5. The sober learnedest of the Papists condemn them 6. And how great a number of the most Religious Ministers and people are against them of the age and place in which you live you are not ignorant And is the judgement of the antient Church and of Councils and Fathers and of the most learned Protestants and Papists and the most Religious people besides many antient Laws and Canons of no force with you in such a case as this Will you hold to a thing confessedly unnecessary against the judgement of so many that account them sinful Are you and your play-fellows more wise and learned than all these Or is it not extremity of Pride for such unstudied empty men to prefer their sensual conceits before such a concurrent stream of wiser and more ponderous judgements Read but Dr. Io. Reignolds his Treat against Stage-Plays against Albericus Gentilis and you will see what a world of witnesses are against you And if the judgement of Voetius Amesius and other Learned men against all Lusory Lots be of no authority at least it should move you that even Mr. Gataker and other that write for the lawfullness of them in that respect as Lusory Lots do yet lay down the rest of the requisites to make them lawful which utterly condemn our common use of Cards and Dice much more our Gamesters So that all the sober Divines that ever I read or heard condemn all these And are you wiser than all of them § 26. 4. Besides this your Consciences know that you are so far from them using to fit you for your Callings that you either live idly out of a Calling or else you prefer them before your Callings You have no mind of your work because your mind is so much upon your play you have no mind of your home or family but are weary of your business because your sports withdraw your hearts And you are so far from using them to fit you to any holy duty that they utterly unfit you and corrupt your hearts with such a kind of sensual delight as makes them more backward to all that is good insomuch that many of you even grow so desperate as to hate and scorn it This is the benefit it bringeth you § 27. 5. And you cannot but know what a Time-wasting sin it is Suppose the game were never so lawful Is it lawful to lay out so many hours upon it as if you had neither souls nor bodies nor families nor estates nor God nor death nor Heaven to mind § 28. 6. And how much prophaneness or abuse of others is in many of your Stage-plays How much wantonness and amorous folly and representing sin in a manner to entise men to it rather than to make it odious making a sport and mock of sin with a great deal more such evil And your Cards and Dice are the exercise usually of covetousness the occasion of a great deal of idle talk and foolish babble about every cast and every Card and oft-times the occasion of cursing and swearing and railing and hatred of those that win your money and oft it hath occasioned fighting and murder It is one of the Roman Laws 12. tab Prodigo bonâ—rum suorum administratâ—o interdicta esto it self And even your huntings are commonly recreations so costly as that the charge that keepeth a pack of Hounds would keep a poor mans family that is now in want Besides the Time that this also consumeth So that the case is clear that our Gamesters and licentious sportfull Gallants are a sort of people that have blinded their minds and seared their Consciences and despise the Laws and presence of God and forget death and judgement and live as if there were no life to come neglecting their miserable souls and having no delight in the word or holy worship of God nor the forethoughts of eternal joys and therefore seek for their pleasure in such foolish sports and spend those pretious hours in these vanities which God knows they had need to spend most diligently in repenting of their sins and cleansing their souls and preparing for another world § 29. If yet any impenitent Gamester or idle Time-waster shall Reply I will not believe that my Object Cards or Dice or Plays are unlawful I use them but to fit me for my duty What! would you have all men live like heremites or anchorites without all pleasure I answer you but by this reasonable request Will you set your selves as dying men in the presence of God and the â—ight of eternity and provide a true answer to these few Questions even such an answer as your Consciences dare stand to at the bar of God § 30. Quest. 1. Dost thou not think in thy Conscience that thy Maker and Redeemer and his work and Quest. 1. service and thy family and calling and the forethoughts of Heaven are not fitter matters to delight a sober mind than Cards or Stage-plays And what can it be but a vain and sinful mind that should make these toys so pleasant to thee and the thoughts of God and Heaven so unpleasant § 31. Quest. 2. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that it is not to fit thee for thy Calling or Gods Quest. 2. service that thou usest these sports but only to delight a carnal fantasie Doth not Conscience tell thee that it is more the pleasure than the benefit of it to thy soul or body that draws thâ—e to it Dost thou work so hard or study so hard all the day besides as to need so much recreation to refresh thee § 32. Quest. 3. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that if thy sensual fantasie were but cured it Quest. 3. would be a more profitable recreation to thy body or mind to use some sober exercise for thy body which is confined to its proper limits of time or to turn to variety of labour or studies than to sit about these idle games § 33. Quest. 4. Dost thou think that either Christ or his Apostles used Stage-plays Cards or Dice Quest. 4. or ever countenanced such a temper of mind as is addicted to them Or was not David as wise as you that took up his pleasure in the word of God and his
beg his guidance and his blessing and run not without him nor before him Reckon upon the worst and foresee all temptations which would diminish your affections or make you unfaithful to each other and see that you be fortified against them all § 57. Direct 11. Be sure that God be the ultimate end of your marriage and that you principally Direct 11. choose that state of life that in it you may be most serviceable to him and that you heartily devote your selves and your families unto God that so it may be to you a sanctified condition It is nothing but making God our Guide and End that can sanctifie our state of life They that unfeignedly follow Gods counsel and aim at his Glory and do it to please him will find God owning and blessing their relation But they that do it principally to please the flesh to satisfie lust and to increase their estates and to have Children surviving them to receive the fruits of their Pride and Covetousness can expect to reap no better than they sow and to have the Flesh the World and the Devil the masters of their family according to their own desire and choice § 58. Direct 12. At your first conjunction and through the rest of your lives remember the Direct 12. day of your separation And think not that you you are settling your selves in a state of Rest or felicity or continuance but only assuming a companion in your travels Whether you live in a married or an unmarried life remember that you are hasting to the everlasting life where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage You are going as fast to another world in one state of life as in the other 1 Cor â— 29 30. You are but to help each other in your way that your journey may be the easier to you and that you may happily meet again in the Heavenly Hierusalem When worldlings marry they take it for a settling themselves in the world And as Regenerate persons begin the world anew by beginning to lay up a treasure in Heaven so worldlings call their Marriage their beginning the world because then as engaged servants to the world they set themselves to seek it with greater diligence than ever before They do but in marriage begin as seekers that life of foolery which when he had found what he sought that Rich man ended Luk. 12. 19 20. with a This I will do I will pull down my barnes and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods And I will say to my soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry But God said unto him Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided If you would not dy such fools do not marry and live such worldlings Tit. 2. Cases of Marriage Quest. 1. WHat should one follow as a certain Rule about the prohibited degrees of Consanguinity or Quest. 1. affinity Seeing 1. The Law of Moses is not in force to us 2. And if it were it is very The case of Pâ—lâ—gamy is â—â— fully and â—â—ainly resolved by Christ that I take it not to be necessary to decide it especially while the Law of the Land doth make it death dark Whether it may by parity of reason be extended to more degrees than are named in the text 3. And seeing the Law of nature is so hardly legible in this case Answ. 1. It is certain that the prohibited degrees are not so statedly and universally unlawful as that such marriage may not be made lawful by any necessity For Adams sons did lawfully marry their own Sisters 2. But now the world is peopled such necessities as will warrant such marriages must needs be very rare and such as we are never like to meet with 3. The Law of nature is it which prohibiteth the degrees that are now unlawful And though this Law be dark as to some degrees it is not so as to others 4. The Law of God to the Jews Lev. 18. doth not prohibit those degrees there named because of any reason proper to the Jews but as an exposition of the Law of nature and so on reasons common to all 5. Therefore though the Jewish Law cease yea never bound other nations formally as that political national Law yet as it was Gods exposition of his own Law of nature it is of use and consequential obligation to all men even to this day For if God once had told but one man This is the sence of the Law of nature it remaineth true and all must believe it and then the Law of nature it self so expounded will still oblige 6. The world is so wide for choice and a necessity of doubtful marriage is so rare and the trouble so great that prudence telleth every one that it is their sin without flat necessity to marry in a doubtful degree And therefore it is thus safest to avoid all degrees that seem to be equal to those named Lev. 18. and to have the same reason though they be not named 7. But because it is not certain that indeed the unnamed cases have the same reason while God doth not acquaint us with all the reasons of his Law therefore when the thing is done we must not censure others too deeply nor trouble our selves too much about those unnamed doubtful cases We must avoid them before hand because else we shall cast our selves into doubts and troubles unnecessarily But when it is past the case must be considered of as I shall after open Quest. 2. What if the Law of the Land forbid more or fewer degrees than Lev. 18. doth Quest. 2. Answ. If it forbid fewer the rest are nevertheless to be avoided as forbidden by God If it forbid more the forbdiden ones must be avoided in obedience to our Rulers Quest. 3. Is the marriage of Cousin Germanes that is of brothers children or sisters children or brothers Quest. 3. and sisters children unlawful Answ. I think not 1. Because not forbidden by God 2. Because none of that same rank are forbidden that is none that on both sides are two degrees from the Root I refer the Reader for my Reasons to a Latin Treatise of Charles Butler on this Subject for in those I rest As all the Children of Noahs Sons did marry their Cousin Germanes for they could not marry in any remoter degree so have others since without reproof and none are forbidden 3. But it is safest to do otherwise because there is choice enough beside and because many Divines being of the contrary opinion may make it matter of scruple and trouble afterwards to those that venture upon it without need Quest. 4. What would you have thâ—se do that have married Cousin Germanes and now doubt whether it Quest. 4. be lawful so to do Answ. I would have them cast away such doubts
strait or penurious therefore she will dispose of it without his consent this is thievery disobedience and injustice Quest. But as the case standeth with us in England hath the Wife a joint propriety or not Quest. 1. Answ. Three wayes at least she may have a propriety 1. By a reserve of what was her own before which however some question it may in some cases be done in their agreement at marriage 2. By the Law of the Land 3. By the Husbands consent or donation What the Law of the Land saith in this case I leave to the Lawyers But it seemeth to me that his words at Marriage with all my worldly goods I thee endow do signifie his consent to make her a joynt-proprietor And his consent is sufficient to the collation of a title to that which was his own Unless any can prove that Law or custome doth otherwise expound the words as an empty formality and that at the contract this was or should be known to her to be the sense And the Laws allowing the wife the third part upon death or separation doth intimate a joynt-propriety before Quest. 2. If the Husband live upon unlawful gain as cheating stealing robbing by the high-way c. Quest. 2. is not the wife guilty as a joynt proprietor in retaining such ill-gotten goods if she know it And is she bound to accuse her Husband or to restore such goods Answ. Her duty is first to admonish her husband of his sin and danger and endeavour his repentance in the mean time disclaiming all consent and reception of the goods And if she cannot prevail for his Repentance Restitution and Reformation she hath a double duty to perform the one is to help them to their goods whom he hath injured and robbed by prudent and just means The other is to prevent his robbing of others for the time to come But how these must be done is the great difficulty 1. If she foresee or may do that either by her husbands displeasure or by the cruel revenge of the injured party the hurt of discovering the fraud or robbery will be greater than the good then I think that she is not bound to discover it But by some secret indirect way to help the owner to his own if it may be done without a greater hurt 2. To prevent his sin and other mens future suffering by him she seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husbands sinful purposes to the Magistrate if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear My reasons are Because the keeping of Gods Law and the Law of the Land and the publick order and good and the preventing of our Neighbours hurt by Robbery or fraud and so the interest of honesty and right is of greater importance than any duty to her Husband or preservation of her own peace which seemeth to be against it But then I must suppose that she liveth under a Magistrate who will take but a just revenge For if she know the Laws and Magistrate to be so unjust as to punish a fault with death which deserveth it not she is not to tell such a Magistrate but to preserve her Neighbours safety by some other way of intimation If any one think that a Wife may in no case accuse a husband to the hazzard of his life or estate let them 1. Remember what God obliged Parents to do against the lives of incorrigible Children Deut. 21. 2. And that the honour of God and the lives of our Neighbours should be preferred before the life of one offender and their estates before his estate alone 3. And that the light of Reason telleth us that a Wife is to reveal a Treason against the King which is plotted by a Husband and therefore also the robbing of the Kings Treasury or deceiving him in any matter of great concernment And therefore in due proportion the Laws and common good and our Neighbours welfare are to be preserved by us though against the nearest relation Only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the Husband is to be preserved in the manner of proceedings as far as will stand with the interest of justice and the common good Quest. 3. May the Wife go hear Sermons when the Husband forbiddeth her Quest. 3. Answ. There are some Sermons which must not be heard There are some Sermons which may be heard and must when no greater matter doth divert us And there are some Sermons which must be heard whoever shall forbid it Those which must not be heard are such as are Heretical ordinarily and such as are superfluous and at such times when greater duties call us another way Those which may be heard are either occasional Sermons or such Lectures as are neither of Necessity to our selves nor yet to the owning of God and his publick Worship One that liveth where there are daily or hourly Sermons may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition and their other duties But in this case the Command of a Husband with the inconveniences that will follow disobeying him may make it a duty to forbear But that we do sometimes publickly owne Gods Worship and Church-Ordinances and receive Ministerial teaching for our Edification is of double necessity that we dâ—ny not God and that we betray not or desert not our own souls And this is especially necessary ordinarily on the Lords Dayes which are appointed for these necessary uses And here the Husband hath no power to forbid the Wife nor should she formally obey his prohibition But yet as affirmatives bind not ad semper and no duty is a duty at every season so it is possible that on the Lords Day it may extraordinarily become a duty to forbear Sermons or Sacraments or other publick Worship As when any greater duty calleth us away As to quench a fire and to save mens lives and to save our Countrey from an enemy in a time of War and to save our own lives if we knew the assembly would be assaulted or to preserve our liberty for greater service Christ â—et us to learn the meaning of this Lesson I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice In such a case also a mischief may be avoided even from a Husband by the omission of a duty at that time when it would be no duty for this is but a transposition of it But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation and not an act of formal obedience Quest. 4. If a Woman have a Husband so incorrigible in Vice as that by long tryal she findeth that Quest. 4. speaking against it maketh him worse and causeth him to abuse her is she bound to continue her disswasion or to fâ—rbear Answ. That is not here a duty which is not a means to do some good And that is no means which we know before hand is like iâ— not certain to do no good or to do more harm We must not by weariness laziness or â—ensoriousness take a case to
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 bâ—som 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
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.
Offer of pardon to all that it is revealed to But it is an Actual Pardon to those that come in and conferreth on them the benefits of the Act as if they were named in it and is their very Title to their pardon of which their Consent is the Condition and the Condition being performed the Pardon or Collation of the benefit becometh particular and actual without any new act it being the sense of the Law it self or Conditional Grant that so it should do So as to the reality of the Internal Covenant-interest and benefits Iustification and Adoption it is ours by vertue of this Universal Conditional Covenant when we perform the condition But as to our Title in foro Ecclesiae and the due solemnization and Investiture it is made ours when Gods Minister applyeth it to us in Baptism by his Commission As the Rebel that was fundamentally pardoned by the Act of Oblivion must yet have his personal pardon delivered him by the Lord Chancellor under the Great Seal In this sense Ministers are the instruments of God not only in declaring us to de pardoned but in Delivering to us the pardon of our sins and solemnly investing us therein As an Attorney delivereth possession to one that before had his fundamental Title Thus God entreth into Covenant with man § 10. VI. The Qualifications of absolute Necessity to the Validity of our Covenant with God in Quis vero non doleat Baptismo plerosque adultos initio passim nostro tempore non raro ante persundi quam Christianam Catechesin vel mediocriter tenâ—ant neque an flagitiosae superstitiosae vitae poenitenâ—ia tangantur neque vero id ipsum quod accipiunt an velint accipere satis constet Acosta l. 6. c. 2. p. 520. Nisi peâ—ant instent Christianae vitae professione donandi non sunt Idem p. 521. And again While ignorant or wicked men do hasten any how by right or wrong by guile or force to make the barbarous people Christians they do nothing else but make the Gospel a scorn and certainly destroy the deserters of a rashly undertaken faith Id. ibid. p. 522. foro interiore are these 1. That we understand what we do as to all the Essentials of the Covenant For ignorantis non est consensâ—s 2. That it be our own act performed by our Natural or Legal selves that is some one that hath power so far to dispose of us as Parents have of their children 3. That it be Deliberate sober and rationall done by one that is compos mentis in his wits and not in Drunkenness madness or incogitancy 4. That it be seriously done with a real intention of doing the thing and not histrionically ludicrously or in jeast 5. That it be done entirely as to all essential parts for if we leave out any essential part of the Covenant it is no sufficient consent As to consent that Christ shall be our Iustifier but not the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier 6. That it be a Present consent to be presently in Covenant with God For to Consent that you will be his servants to morrow or hereafter but not yet is but to purpose to be in Covenant with him hereafter and is no present covenanting with him 7. Lastly It must be a Resolved and Absolute Consent without any open or secret Exceptions or Reserves § 11. VII The Fruits of the Covenant which God reapeth though he need nothing is the Pleasing of his Good and Gracious Will in the exercise of his Love and Mercy and the Praise and Glory of his Grace in his peoples Love and Happiness for ever The fruits or Benefits which accrew to man are unspeakable and would require a Volume competently to open them Especially that God is our God and Christ our Saviour Head Intercessor and Teacher and the Holy Ghost is our Sanctifier and that God will regard us as his own and will protect us preserve us and provide for us and will govern us and be our God and Joy for ever that he will Pardon us Justifie and Adopt us and Glorifie us with his Son in Heaven § 12. Direct 2. When you thus understand well the Nature of the Covenant labour to understand the special Reasons of it The Reasons of the Matter of the Covenant you may see in the fruits and benefits now mentioned But I now speak of the Reason of it as a Covenant in genere and such a Covenant in specie 1. In General God will have man to receive Life or Death as an Accepter and Keeper or a Refuser or Breaker of his Covenant because he will do it not only as a Benefactor or Absolute Lord but also as a Governour and will make his Covenant to be also his Law and his Promise and Benefits to promote obedience And because he will deal with man as with a free agent and not as with a bruit that hath no choosing and refusing power conducted by Reason Mans life and death shall be in his own hands and still depend upon his own will though God will secure his own Dominion interest and ends and put nothing out of his own power by putting it into mans nor have ever the less his own will by leaving man to his own will God will at last as a Righteous Judge determine all the world to their final Joy or Punishment according to their own choice while they were in the flesh and according to what they have done in the Body whether it be good or evil Matth. 25. Therefore he will deal with us on Covenant-terms § 13. 2. And he hath chosen to Rule and Judge men according to a Covenant of Grace by a Redeemer and not according to a rigorus Law of works that his Goodness and Mercy may be the fullâ—er manifested to the sons of men and that it may be easier for man to Love him when they have so wonderful demonstrations of his Love And so that their service here and their work and happiness hereafter may consist of Love to the Glory of his Goodness and the Pleasure of his Love for ever § 14. Direct 3. Next understand rightly the nature use and ends of Baptism Baptism is to the Direct 3. mutual Covenant between God and man what the solemnization of Marriage is to them that do before Consent or what the Listing a Souldier by giving him Colours and writing his name is to one that Consented before to be a Souldier In my Universal Concord p. 29 30. I have thus described it See the Râ—formed â—â—yturgiâ— pag. 68. External Baptism what Baptism is a holy Sacrament instituted by Christ in which a person professing the Christian faith or the Infant of such is Baptized in water into the Name of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost in signification and solemnization of the holy Covenant in which as a Penitent Believer or the seed of such he giveth up himself or is by the Parent given up to God the Father Son and Holy
The word obligation being Metaphorical must in controversie be explained by its proper Answ. terms The Law doth first constituere debitum obedientiâ— propter inobedientiam debitum poenâ— Here then you must distinguish 1. Between Obligation in foro conscientiâ— and in foro humano 2. Between an obligation ad poenam by that Law of man and an obligation ad patiendum by another Divine Law And so the answer is this 1. If the Higher Powers e. g. forbid the Apostles to preach upon pain of death or scourging the dueness both of the obedience and the penalty is really null in point of Conscience however in foro humano they are both due that is so falsly reputed in that Court Therefore the Apostles are bound to preach notwithstanding the prohibition and so far as God alloweth they may resist the penalty that is by flying For properly there is neither debitum obedientiae nec poenae 2. But then God himself obligeth them not to resist the higher powers Rom. 13. 1 2 3. and in their patience to possess their souls So that from this command of God there is a true obligation ad patiendum to patient suffering and non-resistance though from the Law of man against their preaching there was no true obligation aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam This is the true resolution of this Sophism § 65. Direct 34. It is one of the most needful duties to Governours for those that have a call and Direct 34. opportunity as their Pastors to tell them wisely and submissively of those sins which are the greatest enemies Vetus est verumque dictum Miser est Imperator cui vera reticentur Grotius de Imp. p. 245. Principi consâ—ile non dulciora sed optima is one of Soloâ—s Sentences in Laâ—rt de Solon Therefore it is a horrid villany of the Jâ—suites which is expressed in Secret Instruct. in Arcanis Iesuit pag. 5 6 7 8 11. to indulge great men and Pri 〈…〉 es in those opinions and sins which please them and to be on that side that their Liberty requireth to keep their favour to the Society So Maffaeius l. 3. c. 11. in vita ipsiuâ— Loyolae Alexand. Severus so greatly hated flatterers that Lampridius saith Siquis caput flexisset aut blandius aliquid dixisseâ— uti adulator vel abjiciebatur si loci ejus qualitas pateretur vel ridebatur ingenti cachinno si ejus dignitas graviori subjacere non posset injuriae Venit ad Attilam past victoriam Marullus poeta ejus temporis egregius compositumque in adulationâ—m carmen recitavit In quo ubi Attila per interpretem cognovit se Deum divina sâ—irpe ortum vanissime praedicari aspernatus sacrilâ—gae adulationis impudentiam cum autore â—armen exuri jusserat A qua severitate subinde temperavit ne scriptores caeteri a laudibus ipsius celebrandis terrerentur Callimach Exp. in Attila p. 353. to their souls and not the smallest enemies to their Government and the publick peace All Christians will confess that sin is the only forfeiture of Gods protection and the cause of his displeasure and consequently the only danger to the soul and the greatest enemy to the Land And that the sins of Rulers whether personal or in their Government have a far more dangerous influence upon the publick state than the sins of other men Yea the very sins which upon true repentance may be pardoned as to the everlasting punishment may yet be unpardoned as to the publick ruine of a state As the sad instance of Manasseh sheweth 2 Kings 23. 26. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal 2 Kings 24. 3 4. Surely at the Commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh according to all that he did and also for the innocent blood that he shed for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood which the Lord would not pardon And yet this was after Iosiah had Reformed So Solomons sin did cause the renting of the ten Tribes from his Sons Kingdom Yea the bearing with the High Places was a provoking sin in Kings that otherwise were upright Therefore sin being the fire in the Thatch the quenching of it must needs be an act of duty and fidelity to Governours And those that tempt them to it or sooth and flatter them in it are the greatest enemies they have But yet it is not every man that must reprove a Governour but those that have a Call and Opportunity nor must it be done by them imperiously or reproachfully or publickly to their dishonour but privately humbly and with love honour reverence and submissiveness § 66. Object But great men have great Spirits and are impatient of reproof and I am not bound Object to that which will do no good but ruine me Answ. 1. It is an abuse of your Superiours to censure them to be so proud and bruitish as not to Answ. consider that they are the subjects of God and have souls to save or lose as well as others Will you judge so hardly of them before tryal as if they were far worse and foolisher than the poor and take this abuse of them to be an excuse for your other sin No doubt there are good Rulers in the world that will say to Christs Ministers as the Prince Elector Palatine did to Pitisâ—us charging him to tell Mâ—lâ—h Adam in vit Barth Pitisci him plainly of his faults when he chose him to be the Pastor â—nlicus 2. How know you before hand what success your words will have Hath the Word of God well managed no power yea to make even bad men good Can you love your Rulers and yet give up their souls in despair and all for fear of suffering by them 3. What if you do suffer in the doing of your duty Have you not learned to serve God upon such terms as those Or do you think it will prove it to be no duty because it will bring suffering on you These reasons favour not of faith § 67. Direct 35. Think not that it is unlawful to obey in every thing which is unlawfully commanded Direct 35. It may in many cases be the subjects duty to obey the Magistrate who sinfully commandeth him For all the Magistrates sins in commanding do not enter into the matter or substance of the thing commanded If a Prince command me to do the greatest duty in an ill design to some selfish end it is his sin so to command but yet that command must be obeyed to better ends Nay the matter of the command may be sinful in the Commander and not in the obeyer If I be commanded without any just reason to hunt a feather it is his sin that causelesly commandeth me so to lose my time and yet it may be my
though the Kings of the Nations rule over them and exercise authority and are called Benefactours yet with them it shall not be so Answ. These were the old cavils of Celsus Porphyry and Iulian but very impudent As though Answ. Love and Patience were against peace and Government Christ commandeth nothing in all these words but that we love our neighbour as our selves and love his soul above our wealth and that we do as we would be done by and use not private revenge and take not up the Magistrates work And is this doctâ—ine against Government It is not Magistrates but Ministers and private Christians whom he commandeth not to resist evil and not to exercise Lordship as the Civil Rulers do When it will do more hurt to the soul of another than the benefit amounteth we must not seek our own right by Law nor must private men revenge themselves All Law-suits and contentions and hurting of others which are inconsistent with loving them as our selves are forbidden in the Gospel And when was Government ever disturbed by such principles and practices as these Nay when was it disturbed but for want of these when was there any sedition rebellion or unlawful wars but through self-love and Love of earthly things and want of Love to one another How easily might Princes rule men that are thus ruled by Love and patience § 81. Obj. 3. Christianity teacheth men to obey the Scriptures before their Governours and to obey no Object 3. Law that is contrary to the Bible And when the Bible is so large and hath so many passages hard to be understood and easily perverted some of these will be alwayes interpreted against the Laws of men And then they are taught to fear no man against God and to endure any pains or death and to be unmoved by all the penalties which should enforce obedience and to rejoyce in this as a blessed martyrdom Le Blank in his Travails pag. 88. saith of some Heathen Kâ—ngs They are all jealous of our Religion holding that the Christians adore one God great above the rest that will not suffer any others and that he sets a greater esteem and value upon innocent poor and simple people than upon the rich Kings and Princes and that Princes had need to preserve to themselves the affections and esteem of their subjects to reign with greater ease to the face of Kings and thâ—se that punish them are reproached as persecutors and threatned with damnation and made the vilest men on earth and represented odious to all Answ. The sum of all this Objection is that That there is a God For if that be not denyed no Answ. man can deny that he is the Universal Governour of the world and that he hath his proper Laws and judgement and rewards and punishments or that Magistrates are his Ministers and have no power So B. Bilson of subject p. 243. Princes be supream not in respect that all things be subject to their wills which were plain Tyranny not Christian authority But that all persons within their Realms are bound to obey their Laws or abide their pains So p. 242. but from him and consequently that the commands and threats and promises of God are a thousand fold more to be regarded than those of men He is a beast and not a man that feareth not God more than man and that feareth not Hell more than bodily sufferings And for the Scriptures 1. Are they any harder to be understood than the Law of nature it self Surely the Characters of the will of God in naturâ rerum are much more obscure than in the Scriptures Hath God sent so great a Messenger from Heaven to open to mankind the mysteries of his Kingdom and tell them what is in the other world and bring life and immortality to light and yet shall his revelation be accused as more obscure than nature it self is If an Angel had been sent from Heaven to any of these Infidels by name to tell them but the same that Scripture telleth us sure they would not have reproached his message with such accusations 2. And are not the Laws of the Land about smaller matters more voluminous and difficult And shall that be made a reproach to Government And for misinterpretation it is the fault of humane nature that is ignorant and rash and not of the Scriptures Will you tell God that you will not obey him unless he will make his Laws so as no man can misinterpret them when or where were there ever such laws God will be God and the Judge of the world whether you will or not And he will not be an underling to men nor set their Laws above his own to avoid your accusations If there be another Life of joy or misery it is necessary that there be Laws according to which those rewards and punishments are to be adjudged And if Rulers oppose these who are appointed to promote obedience to them they must do it at their perils For God will render to all according to their works § 82. Obj. 4. Doth not experience tell the world that Christianity every where causeth divisions and Object 4. sets the world together by the ears What a multitude of sects are there among us at this day And every The differences are oft among the Lawyers which set the Common-wealth on fire and then they are charged on Divines â— g. Grotius de Imper. p. 53. Si â—rma in eos reges sumpta sâ—nt in quos totum populi jus translatum erat ac qui proinde non precariò sed proprio jure imperabant laudari salva piâ—tate non possâ—nt quâ—mcunque tandâ—m praetâ—xtum aut eventum habuerint Sin alicubi Reges tales suere qui pactis sive positivis legibus Seraâ—us aliâ—ujus aut Ordinum decretis astâ—ingerentur in hos ut summum Imperium non obtinent arma ex optimatum tanquam superioâ—um sententia sumi justis de causis poâ—uerinâ— Multi enim Reges etiam qui sanguinis jure succedunt Reges sunt nomine magâ—s quam Imperio Sed fallit imperitos quod illam quotidianam maximè in oculoâ— in curâ—entem rerum administrationem quae saepe in optimatum statu penes unum est ab interiore Reipublicae constitutione non satis disceruunt Quod de Regibus dixi idem multo â—agis de iis acceptum volo qui â—e nomine non Reges sed Principes fuere h. e. non summi sed Priâ—i p. 54. one thinketh that his salvation lyeth upon his opinion And how can Princes govern men of so contrary minds when the pleasing of one party is the losing of the rest We have long seen that Church-divisions shake the safety of the State If it were not that few that are called Christians are such indeed and serious in the Religion which themselves profess there were no quietness to be expected For those that are most serious are so full of scruples
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 mastâ—â—â—â— 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 Saâ—rament 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
when it is not like to do more hurt than good either directly of it self or by mens abuse when Religion or the soul of any man or any ones body or estate or name is not like to lose more than my gain or any other benefits will compensate When all these concurr its lawful to go to Law § 29. Quest. 5. Is it lawful to defend my person life or estate against a Thief or Murderer or unjust Quest. 5. Invader by force of arms Answ. You must distinguish 1. Between such Defence as the Law of the Land alloweth and such as it forbiddeth 2. Between Necessary and Unnecessary actions of defence Prop. 1. There is no doubt but it is both lawful and a duty to defend our selves by such convenient means as are likely to attain their end and are not contrary to any Law of God or Man We must defend our Neighbour if he be assaulted or oppressed and we must love our neighbours as our selves Prop. 2. This Self-defence by force is then lawful when it is Necessary and other more gentle means have been uneffectual or have no place supposing still that the means be such as the Law of God or man forbiddeth not Prop. 3. And it is necessary to the Lawfulness of it that the means be such as in its nature is like to be successful or like to do more good than harm § 30. But on the other side Prop. 1. We may not defend our selves by any such force as either the Laws of God or our Rulers thereto authorized by him shall forbid For 1. The Laws are made by such as have more power over our lives than we have over them our selves 2. And they are made for the good of the Common-wealth which is to be preferred before the good or life of any single person And what ever selfish Infidels say both nature and grace do teach us to lay down our lives for the welfare of the Church or State and to prefer a multitude before our selves Therefore it is better to be robbed opprest or killed than to break the peace of the Common-wealth Prop. 2. Therefore a private man may not raise an Army to defend his life against his Prince or lawful Governour Perhaps he might hold his hands if personally he went about to murder him without the violation of the publick peace But he cannot raise a War without it Prop. 3. We may not do that by blood or violence which might be done by perswasion or by any lawful gentle means Violence must be used even in defence but in case of true necessity Prop. 4. When Self-defence is like to have Consequents so ill as the saving of our selves cannot countervail it is then unlawful finis gratia and not to be attempted Prop. 5. Therefore if Self-defence be unlikely to prevail our strength being inconsiderable and when the enemy is but like to be the more exasperated by it and our sufferings like to be the greater Nature and reason teach us to submit and use the more effectual lawful means § 31. Quest. 6. Is it lawful to take away anothers life in the defending of my purse or estate Quest. 6. Answ. 1. You must again distinguish between such defence as the Law of the Land alloweth and such as it forbiddeth 2. Between what is Necessary and what is Unnecessary 3. Between a life less worth than the prize which he contendeth for and a life more worth than it or than mine own 4. Between the simple defence of my purse and the defence of it and my life together 5. Between what I do with purpose and desire and what I do unwillingly through the assailants â—emerity or violence 6. And between what I do in meer defence and what I do to bring a Thief or Robber unto legal punishment And so I answer Prop. 1. You may not defend your purse or your estate by such actions as the Law of the Land forbiddeth Unless it go against the Law of God Because it is to be supposed that it is better a mans estate or purse be lost than Law and publick order violated Prop. 2. You may not against an ordinary Thief or Robber defend your purse with the probable hazard of his life if a few good words or other safe and gentle means which you have opportunity to use be like to serve turn without such violence Prop. 3. If it might be supposed that a Prince or other person of great use and service to the Common-wealth should in a frolick or otherwise assault your person for your estate or purse it is not lawful to take away his life by a defensive violence if you know it to be he Because though in some Countreys the Law might allow it you yet finis gratia it is unlawful because his life is more necessary to the common good than yours Prop. 4. If a pilfering Thief would steal your purse without any violence which hazardeth your life ordinarily you may not take away his life in the defending of it Because it is the work of the Magistrate to punish him by publick Justice and your defence requireth it not Prop. 5. All this is chiefly meant of the voluntary designed taking away of his life and not of any lawful action which doth it accidentally against your will § 33. On the other side Prop. 1. If the Law of the Land allow you to take away a mans life in the defending of your purse it removeth the scruple if the weight of the matter also do allow it Because it supposeth that the Law taketh the offendor to be worthy of death and maketh you in that case the executioner of it And if indeed the crime be such as deserveth death you may be the executioner when the Law alloweth it Prop. 2. And this is more clear when the Robber for your money doth assault your life or is like for ought you see to do it Prop. 3. And when gentler means will not serve the turn but violence is the only remedy which is left you which is like to avail for your defence Prop. 4. And when the person is a vile offender who is rather a plague and burden to the Common-wealth than any necessary member of it Prop. 5. If you desire not and design not his death but he rush upon it himself in his fury while you lawfully defend your own the case is yet less questionable Prop. 6. If a Thief have taken your purse though you may not take away his life after to recover it because it is of less value nor yet in revenge because that belongeth not to private men yet if the Law require or allow you to pursue him to bring him to a judicial tryal if you kill him while he resisteth it is not your sin because you are but suppressing sin in your place according to the allowance of the Law § 34. Quest. 7. May I kill or wound another in the defence or vindication of my honour or good name
Quest. 7. Answ. No not by private assault or violence But if the crime be so great that the Law of the Land doth punish it with death if that Law be just you may in some cases seek to bring the offendor to publick justice But that is rare and otherwise you may not do it For 1. It belongeth only to the Magistrate and not to you to be the avenger 2. And killing a man can be no meet defence against calumny or slander For if you will kill a man for prevention you kill the innocent If you kill him afterward it is no Defence but an unprofitable revenge which vindicateth not your honour but dishonoureth you more Your patience is your honour and your bloody revenge doth shew you to be so like the Devil the destroyer that it is your greatest shame 3. It is odious Pride which maketh men over-value their reputation among men and think that a mans life is a just compensation to them for their dishonour Such bloody Sacrifices are fit to appâ—ase only the blood-thirsty Spirit But what is it that Pride will not do and justifie CHAP. XI Special Directions to escape the guilt of persecuting Determining also the case about Liberty in matters of Religion THough this be a subject which the guilty cannot endure to hear of yet the misery of persecutors the blood and grones and ruines of the Church and the lamentable divisions of profâ—ssed Christians do all command me not to pass it by in silence but to tell them the truth whether they will hear or whether they will forbear though they were such as Ezek. 3. 7 8 9 11. § 1. Direct 1. If you would escape this dreadful guilt Understand well what Persecution is Else Direct 1. you may either run into it ignorantly or oppose a duty as if it were persecution § 2. The Verb Persequor is often taken in a good sence for no more than continuato motu vel ad extremum sequor and sometime for the blameless prosecution of a delinquent But we take it here as the English word Persecute is most commonly taken for inimico affectu insequor for a malicious or injurious hurting or prosecuting another and that for the sake of Religion or Righteousness For it is not common injuries which we here intend to speak of Three things then go to make up Persecution 1. That it be the Hurting of another in his Body liberty relations estate or reputation 2. That it be done injuriously to one who deserveth it not in the particular which is the cause 3. That it be for the cause of Religion or of Righteousness that is for the Truth of God which we hold or utter or for the worship of God which we perform or for obedience to the will of God revealed in his Laws This is the cause on the sufferers part what ever is intended by the Persecuter § 3. There are divers sorts of Persecution As to the Principles of the Persecutors 1. There is a Persecution which is openly professed to be for the cause of Religion As Heathens and Mahometans persecute Christians as Christians And there is an Hypocritical Persecution when the pretended cause is some odious crime but the real cause is mens Religion or obedience to God This is the common Persecution which nominal Christians exercise on serious Christians or on one another They will not say that they Persecute them because they are Godly or serious Christians but that is the true cause For if they will but set them above God and obey them against God they will abate their Persecution Many of the Heathens thus persecuted the Christians too under the name of Ungodly and evil doers But the true cause was because they obeyed not their commands in the Worshipping of their Idol Gods So do the Papists persecute and murder men not as Professours of the truth which is the true cause but under the name of Hereticks and Schâ—smaticks or Rebels against the Pope or what ever their malice pleaseth to accuse them of And prophane nominal Christians seldome persecute the serious and sincere directly by that name but under some Nickname which they set upon them or under the name of Hypocrites or self-conceited or factious persons or such like And if they live in a place and Age where there are many Civil Wars or differences they are sure to fetch some odious name or accusation thence Which side soever it be that they are on or if they meddle not on any side they are sure by every party whom they please not to hear Religion loaded with such reproaches as the times will allow them to vent against it Even the Papists who take this course with Protestants it seems by Acosta are so used themselves not by the Heathens but by one another yea by the multitude yea by their Priests For so saith he speaking of the Parish Priests Priests among the Indians having reproved their Diceing Carding Hunting Idleness Lib. 4 c. 15. pag. 404 405. Itaque is cui Pastoralis Indorum cura committitur non solum contra diaboli machinas naturae incentiva pugnare debet sed jam etiam confirmatae hominum consuetudini tempore turba praepotenti sese objicere ad excipienda invidorum ac malevolorum tela forte pectus opponere qui siquid à profano suo instituto abhorrentem viderint proditorem hypocritam hostem clamaâ—t that is He therefore to whom the Pastoral care of the Indians is committed must not only fight against the Engines of the Devil and the incentives of nature but also now must object or set himself against the confirmed custome of men which is grown very powerful both by time and by the multitude and must valiantly oppose his breast to receive the darts of the envious and malevolent who if they see any thing contrary to their profane fashion or breeding cry out A Traitor An Hypocrite an Enemy It seems then that this is a common course § 4. 2. Persecution is either done in Ignorance or Knowledge The commonest persecution is that which is done in Ignorance and errour when men think a Good cause to be bad or a bad cause to be good and so persecute Truth while they take it to be falshood or good while they take it to be evil or obtrude by violence their Errours for Truths and their evils as good and necessary things Thus Peter testifieth of the Jews who killed the Prince of life Act. 3. 13 14 17. I know that through Ignorance you did it as did also your Rulers And Paul 1 Cor. 2. 8. which none of the Princes of this world knâ—w for had they known it they would not have Crucified the Lord of glory And Christ himself saith Joh. 16. 3. These things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father or me And Paul saith of himself Act. 26. 9. I thought verily with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the name
the Jews Instances of this desperate sin are innumerable There is no way so common by which Satan hath engaged the Rulers of the world against the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and against the Preachers of his Gospel and the people that obey him than by perswading them as Haman did Ahasuerus Esther 3. 8 9. There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the Provinces of thy Kingdom and their Laws are divers from all people neither keep they the Kings Laws therefore it is not for the Kings profit to suffer them if it please the King let it be written that they may be destroyed When once the Devil hath got men by error or sensuality to espouse an interest that Christ is against he hath half done his work For then he knoweth that Christ or his servants will never bend to the wills of sinners nor be reconciled to their wicked wayes nor take part with them in a sinful cause And then it is easie for Satan to perswade such men that these precise Preachers and people are their enemies and are against their interest and honour and that they are a turbulent seditious sort of people unfit to be governed because they will not be false to God nor take part with the Devil nor be friends to sin When once Nebuchadnezzar hath set up his golden Image he thinks he is obliged in honour to persecute them that will not bow down as refractory persons that obey not the King When Ieroboam is once engaged to set up his Calves he is presently engaged against those that are against them and that is against God and all his servants Therefore as Rulers love their souls let them take heed what cause and interest they espouse § 26. Direct 6. To Love your neighbours as your selves and do as you would be done by is the Direct 6. infallible means to avoid the guilt of persecution For Charity suffereth long and is kind it envieth not it is not easily provoked it thinketh no evil rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the truth it beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things 1 Cor. 13. 4 5 6 7. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom 13. 10. And if it fulfill the Law it wrongeth no man When did you see a Man persecute himself imprison banish defame slander revile or put to death himself if he were well in his wits Never fear persecution from a man that Loveth his neighbour as himself and doth as he would be done by and is not selfish and uncharitable § 27. Direct 7. Pride also must be subdued if you would not be persecutors For a proud man Direct 7. cannot endure to have his word disobeyed though it contradict the Word of God Nor can he endure to be reproved by the Preachers of the Gospel but will do as Herod with Iohn Baptist or as Asa or Amaziah by the Prophets Till the soul be humbled it will not bear the sharp remedies which our Saviour hath prescribed but will persecute him that would administer them § 28. Direct 8. Passion must be subdued and the mind kept calm if you would avoid the guilt of Direct 8. persecution Asa was in a rage when he imprisoned the Prophet A fit work for a raging man And Nebuchadnezzar was in a rage and fury when he commanded the punishment of the three witnesses Dan. 3. 13. The wrath of man worketh not the will of God Iames 1. 20. The nature of wrathfulness tendeth to hurting those you are angry with And wrath is impatient and unjust and will not hear what men 〈…〉 say but rashly passeth unrighteous sentence And it blindeth Reason so that it cannot see the truth § 29. Direct 9. And hearkning to malitious backbiters and slanderers and favouring the enemies Direct 9. of Godliness in their calumnies will engage men in persecution ere they are aware For when the wicked are in the favour and at the ear of Rulers they have opportunity to vent those false reports which they never want a will to vent And any thing may be said of men behind their backs with an appearance of truth when there is none to contradict it If Haman may be heard the Jews shall be destroyed as not being for the Kings profit nor obedient to his Laws If Sanballat and Tobiah may be heard the building of the Walls of Ierusalem shall signifie no better than an intended rebellion They are true words though to some ungrateful which are spoken by the Holy Ghost Prov. 29. 12. If a Ruler hearken to lyes all his servants are wicked for they will soon accommodate themselves to so vitious a humour Prov. 25. 4 5. Take away the dross from the silver and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer Take away the wicked from before the King and his Throne shall be established in righteousness If the Devil might be believed Iob was one that served God for gain and might have been made to curse him to his face And if his servants may be believed there is nothing so vile which the best men are not guilty of § 30. Direct 10. Take heed of engaging your selves in a Sect or Faction For when once you depart Direct 10. from Catholick Charity there groweth up instead of it a partial respect to the interest of that Sect to which you joyn And you will think that whatsoever doth promote that Sect doth promote Christianity and what ever is against that Sect is against the Church or cause of God A narrow Sectarian separating mind will make all the truths of God give place to the opinions of his party and will measure the prosperity of the Gospel in the world by the prosperity of his party as if he had forgot that there are any more men on the face of the earth or thought God regarded none but them He will not stick to persecute all the rest of the Church of Christ if the interest of his Sect require it When once men incorporate themselves into a party it possesseth them with another spirit even with a strange uncharitableness injustice cruelty and partiality What hath the Christian world suffered by one Sects persecuting another and faction rising up in fury to maintain its own interest as if it had been to maintain the being of all Religion The blood-thirsty Papists whose Inquisition Massacres and manifold murders have filled the earth with the blood of innocents is a sufficient testimony of this And still here among us they seem as thirsty of blood as ever and tell us to our faces that they would soon make an end of us if we were in their power As if the two hundred thousand lately murdered in so short a time in Ireland had rather irritated than quencht their thirst And all faction naturally tendeth to persecution Own not therefore any dividing opinions or names Maintain the Unity of the