children fools or mad men use as long as you mind not and seek not after the One thing necessary What ever they may be to others they are no wiser or better to your selves This is my judgement yea this is the judgement of the Spirit of God Phil. 3. 8. If Paul was not mistaken your gain it self is to be accounted Loss and all but dung in comparison of the knowing and winning of Christ that you might be found in him and have his righteousness Think not the name of dung too base when God himself hath written it here upon your highest endowments and honours by his Spirit And indeed what will they all do more then dung to procure you the favour of God or the pardon of your sins If you offer him gold will it do any more then if you offered him so much dirt Is not the prayer of a beggar heard as soon as of a Lord or Gentleman If they would do any thing to buy you peace of Conscience or everlasting life or if they would but keep you alive on earth I should not marvail at your course But when they will do none of this but make your way to Heaven more difficult yea your salvation a thing impossible while you thus live after the flesh Rom. 8. 13. how then can any easier sentence be past upon your choice Be you the Greatest or the Wisest in your own esteem or in the esteem of others of your mind I believe yea I am sure that you are all this while but laboriously idle and honourably debasing your selves and delightfully tormenting your selves and wisely befooling your selves and thriftily undoing your selves for ever I have reason to say that your rising and honourable and voluptuous imployments are not only like childrens playing in the sand and making them houses with sticks and stones but so much more pitifull as the reason which you abuse exceedeth theirs And could you all attain to be Lords and Ladies I should look upon you but as a King or Queen upon a Chess-board as to any felicity that it bringeth to your selves whatsoever use the over-ruling providence of God may make of you for his Churches The wise Merchant is he that seeking pearls doth find this One of greatest price and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it even all the worldly treasures which you so highly value Mat. 13 45 46. There is more true Riches in this One pearl then in a thousand loads of sand or dirt If you will load your selves with mire and clay conceiting it to be your treasure your backs will be broken before you will have enough to make you rich O Sirs with what eyes with what hearts do you use to read such passages of Christ that speak so plainly to you as if he named you and so piercingly as one would think should make you feel Luke 12. 19 20 21. Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry But God said to him Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided so is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God Would you have Christ speak plainer to to you or closelyer apply it that you may perceive he speaks to you You have lost all the Labour of your lives but that 's not all 3. But furthermore consider that if the One thing needfull have been neglected whatever else you have been doing or whatever you have got unless as preparatory to this you have not only lost your labour but you have all this while been busily undoing your selves and labouring for your own perdition If it were but the loss of your Time and Labour you would then die but as brutes and be as if you had never been and to those that have brutified themselves this will seem more tolerable then to live in holiness to God But alas you have done much worse then this You have not only been digging your own graves but barring up against your selves the doors of heaven and kindling the unquenchable fire to torment you Mar. 9. 44. I beseech you give me a considerate hearing you ambitious Gentlemen you covetous worldlings and you that serve your lusts and pleasures Do you think you had been doing the the work of wisemen if you had all this while been burning your own fingers or cutting your own flesh or setting your own or your neighbours houses on fire What would you have us call that man that would live in such imployments as these and yet would be accounted wise or honourable Do I need to tell thee as Nathan did David that Thou art the man Do I need in so plain a case to tell you that you have been doing worse I speak not rashly a thousand times worse against your souls then this would have been which is supposed to be only against your bodies Alas self-destroyers what do you mean Did God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle and blow the fire of his wrath and fall into it when you have kindled it Have you no better work in the world to do then to prepare your selves a place in hell and with a great deal of care and cost and stir to labour for damnation as if you were afraid of losing it I know you will say God forbid we hope better we intend no such thing But alas the question is not What you intend but what you are doing Not whether it be your desire that everlasting death should be the wages of sin but whether it be the Law and unchangeable will of God Rom. 6. 23. If you seek not first Gods Kingdom and his righteousness and look not after the One thing needful with your chiefest Estimation Resolution and Endeavours as sure as Christ is true this will prove your case at last though now you wink and wilfully go on and will not believe it As sure as the Gospel is true this is true There are but two Ends Heaven and Hell and if you miss the former you fall into the latter If you live after the flesh you shall die whatever you imagine and you must mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the spirit if you will live Rom. 8. 13. If you see a man cutting his own threat and you ask him What are you doing man will you kill your self and he answereth you No God forbid I have no such meaning I will hope better Would you think that this would save his life or that his hopes and meanings would prove him ever the wiser man I tell you from the Word of God it is one of the plainest truths that is there contained that if you value not choose not and seek not the One thing Needful above all other things whatsoever you are all this while but sowing the seeds of endless misery whose fruit you must reap in outer darkness where will be weeping and
No it s you that would set up your wills too high in making us believe that you are not wilfully ungodly and impenitent but omit all the good and do all the evil that you do because you cannot help it You cannot but know that he is the sinner to be blamed and punished that Can and Will not rather then he that would but cannot do good and forbear the contrary You know that it is wilfulness and not unwilling impotency that the venome of malice and naughtiness lyeth in and therefore you are excusing your wills and laying all upon your Impotency which is but to excuse your faults I would make you know the baseness of your wills and that it is long of your badness that you are like to be undone if grace prevent it not by your through Conversion I do not say that you have any power but what you have from God but I say you have the Natural and Legal Power and more then Power even a Grant and Offer of such a mercy from God You have humane faculties and leave and offers and entreaties and you may have Christ and life as he is offered if you will When I say It is in your choice I do not say that you have the wit or the heart to make a right choice No if you had but so much wit and grace I need not use all these words to you to perswade you to chuse the better part Your Wills are free from any force that God puts upon them to determine them to sin or from any force that Satan or any enemy you have can use to determine them to sin All they can do is morally to entice you God doâ—â—â—ot make you sin If you chuse â—â—ur death and forsake your own mercy it is not God that determineth your Wills to make this choice Yea he commandeth and perswadeth and urgeth you to make a better choice And though Satan tempt you he can do no more You have so much power that you may have Christ if you will you cannot say I am truly willing to have Christ and cannot Thus much free-will undoubtedly you have But I must confess that your Wills are not free from the misguidingâ— of a blinded mind nor from the seduction of a sensual inclination nor from a base and wicked disposition of your own This kind of free-will you shew us that you have not But is your wickedness your excuse and is your wilfulness your innocency What then can be culpable Sirs I would not have you abuse God and befool your selves with names and words saying You have not power and free-will as if you might thus excuse your sin I have opened the matter in plain terms to you that children may understand it though learned men have endeavoured to obscure it God giveth you your choice though your own wickedness do hinder you from chusing aright You have a price in your hands but fools have not a heart to their own good Prov. 17. 16. I know you want both wisdom and a sanctified will and I know that your minds and wills are contrarily disposed You need not tell me that you are wilful and wicked when there must be so many words spoken and so many Books written and so much mercy and patience of God and so many afflictions from his hand and all will not serve to make you chuse the better part But if you were willing if you were truly willing the principal part of the work were done For if you are willing Christ is willing and if Christ be willing and you be willing what can hinder your salvation Having laid this ground-work from the plain Word of God methinks I may with this advantage now plead the case even with common Reason One thing is needful the Good part is that one and this is tendred to you by the Lord What is it then that you do make choice of and what do you resolve May you have Christ and Pardon and Everlasting life and will you not have them Shall it be said of you another day that you had your choice whether you would have Christ and life or sin and death and you chose destruction and refused life I beseech theâ— Reader whosoever thou art that readest these lines that thoâ—…ouldst a little turn thine ears to God and withdraw thy self from the delusions of the flesh and world and use thy reason for thy everlasting peace and consider with thy self what a dreadful thing it will be if thou be everlastingly shut out of the presence of God upon thy own choice And if thou lose thy part in Christ and Pardon and everlasting Glory upon thy own choice And if thou must lie in Hell fire and Conscience must tell thee there for ever Thou hast but the fruit of thine own choice Heaven was set open to me as well as others I had life and time and teaching and perswasions as well as others but I chose the pleasure of sin for a season though I was told and assured that hell would follow and now I have that which I made choice of and taste but the fruit of my own wilfulness Will not such gripes of conscience be a hellish torment of themselves and an intolerable vexation if thou hadst no more Had you rather have sin then Christ and Holiness Alas I see by your lives you had But had you rather have Hell then God and Glory If not then chuse not the way to Hell Why do you give God such good words and prefer your sin when you have done before him Why do you speak so well of Christ and Heaven and yet refuse them Why do you speak so ill of sin and the world and yet chuse them to the loss of your salvation Surely if you were soundly perswaded that Christ is better then the world and holiness then sin you would chuse that which you say is the best For that which men think indeed to be the best and best for them they will chuse and seek after And therefore when you have said all that you can in commendation of Grace and a holy life no wise man will believe that you are heartily perswaded of the Truth of what you say as long as you run away from Christ and follow the flesh and take that course that is contrary to your profession For that which you like best you will certainly chuse and seek with the greatest care and diligence Now you have your choice if you would have the better part now choose it 5. I Have one other Motive yet from the text to perswade you to chuse the better pâ—… If you chuse it it shall never be taken from you You hear 〈…〉 Resolution of Christ himself concerning Marie's choâ—… that which is spoken of her will be as true of you if â—…he same choice If all the enemies you have in the world should endeavour to deprive you of Christ and your salvation they cannot do it against your choice If by Power
be grievous to them 6. The very Bodily informities of Believers are a constant help to keep them humble They have all this treasure but is earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4. 7. Their souls are here so poorly lodged in corruptible Tabernacles of earth and so meanly cloathed with frail diseased mortal flesh that it is madness to be proud 7. And the many and great afflictions of the godly are medicines that are purposely given them by their Physicion to cure Pride and keep them humble Why else must their sufferings be so many and why must they daily bear the Cross but that they may be conformed to the image of Christ 8. And to the same end it is that God doth let loose upon them so many enemies All Satans temptations and the worlds allurements and vexations and all their disappointments here and all the scorns and mocks of the ungodly and the censures and slanders of wicked tongues and often bitter persescutions what are they but the bitter medicines of God permitted and ordered by him though cansed by the Devil and wicked men to save the servants of the Lord from the sin and danger of being lifted up Do you say that their Honour will make them proud Why you that thus oppose them and despise them are â—uring them of their pride and do not know it as Scullions scoure the rust off the vessels for their Masters use and as Leeches draw out the blood that causeth the disease and as the Jews by their sin promoted the Redemption of the world by the death of Christ When God seeth his servants in danger of being lifted up above measure he oft sendeth a messenger of Satan who may be an Executioner of Gods chastisements to buffet them 2 Cor. 12. 7. Sometimes by slanders sometime by reproaches sometime by imprisonments or greater sufferings and sometimes by horrid troublesom temptations 9. The very foresight of death it self is a humbling means and the last enemy Death is yet unconquered and our Bodies must corrupt in dust and darkness and be kept in the grave as common earth till the Resurrection that the soul may not grow proud that hath such a body 11. And the Day of Judgement is so described to us in the Scripture as tends to keep the soul in awe and in Humility To think of such a day and such a reckoning before such a God me 〈…〉 should humble us 11. And our Absolution and Glorification at that day is promised us now but conditionally though God will see that the condition be performed by all that he will save And therefore the poor soul is oft so far to seek about the certain sincerity of his own Faith and Repentance that most of the godly are kept in fears and doubtings to the death Yea and Humility and Self-denyal are part of this Condition And all their Honour and Glory with Christ is promised to the Humble only Humility is commanded them in the Precept Humility is it that they are exhorted to by the Ministers And Pride is threatened with everlasting wrath and described as the Devils image So that Holiness hath all the advantages against Pride that can be here expected 12. To conclude the Godly know that as they have nothing but from God so they have nothing but for God so that their own Honour is for him more then for themselves and it is essential to their Holiness to make God their end and set him highest and referr all to his Pleasure and Glory So that you see now that we may Honour them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 4. without being guilty of making them proud and that we must not deny them the Honour that God hath given them as their due for fear of their being proud of it Though this as all things else must be prudently managed to particular persons according to their various states And therefore let me here warn all you that profess the fear of God Take heed lest you be proud of any thing that God hath Honoured you with For if you be you see what an Army of Reasons and Means you sin against and consequently how great your sin will be And your consciences and the world shall be forced to justifie God and his Holy wayes and to prove against you that it was not long of them that you were proud and that none in the world was more against it then God and Holiness and that it was not because you were so Religious but because you were no more Religious And if Pride of Knowledge Gifts or whatsoever be unmortified in you it will certainly prove that you are none of the sanctified when your profession of Sanctity will never prove that Sanctity was a cause or confederate in your sin AND now I have shewed you the Honour of Godliness let us briefly and but briefly consider of your Honour that reject it and see then whether the godly or ungodly are more Honourable 1. Ungodly men have the Basest Master in the world Would you know who Let Christ be Judge John 8. 44. Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of your father you will do 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are taken captive by the Devil at his will that is to do his will It is he that stirreth you up to filthy talking to speak against Godliness to curse and swear and you do his will His will is that you should neglect a holy life and you do his will His will is that you live not after the spirit but after the flesh and you do his will O poor souls Do you think it is only Witches that expresly Covenant with him that are his miserable servants Alas it is you also if you do his will For if you will believe either God or common reason to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6. 16. The godly themselves were the servants of sin till they obeyed from the heart the doctrine of the Lord v. 17. And are you not come to fair preferment to be the Devils drudges Though he should cloath your Bodies with Purple and fine linnen and feed you sumptuously every day yet indeed you are no better as the case of that miserable man may tell you Luke 16. It is the greatest Baseness to have so Base a Master 2. And it is but an ignoble Base de sign that the ungodly carry on in the world What is it but to provide for and please their flesh It aimeth at nothing beyond this life And a beast can eat and drink and sleep and play and satisfie his lust as much as they A swine can carry a mouth full of straw to his lodging and a bird can build a nest for her young ones And what do ungodly men more in the world whether Gentlemen or Beggars the flattered Gallants or the poor day-labourers if they be not such as first seek Heaven
worse then the creature and Heaven then earth and so much worse as not to be endured in your thoughts and affections in comparison of them You will never know your friends till you forsake these deceivers Nor ever know the Pleasures of a Holy life till you will let go the poysonous pleasures of sin And then you may find that Sanctification destroyeth not but changeth and recovereth your Delights and giveth you safety for the greatest peril health for sickness friends for enemies gold for dross life for death and the fore-tasts of Rest for tiring vexation 2. THE second sort that are hence to be Reproved are Those weak and troubled servants of the Lord that live as sadly as if they found more grief then pleasure in the wayes of God Indeed it is to be lamented that few of the heirs of life do live according to the happiness and dignity of their Calling nor are the great things that God hath done for them so apparent in the cheerfulness and comforts of their lives as they should be But some that are addicted to dejectedness do in a greater measure wrong Christ and themselves being alwayes feeding upon secret griefs and torturing themselves with doubts and fears and acquainted with almost no other language but lamentations self-accusations and complaints These poor souls usually discover honest hearts that are weary of sin and low in their own eyes and long to be better and do not dis-regard the matters of their salvation as dead-hearted ungodly sinners do Their complaints shew what they would be and what they would be sincerely that they are in Gods account But yet they live so far below the sweet delights which they might partake of and so far below the provisions of their Fathers house and the riches of the Gospel that they have cause to lament their excessive lamentations and more cause to reform this sad distemper and no cause to indulge it as usually such do And though with the most of them some natural passions and weaknesses and some melancholy distempers are so much the cause as may much excuse them yet because it is an evil which must be disowned and Reason must be the means where people have the free use of Reason I shall lay down some of the great inconveniences of this sad distemper and beseech those that tender the honour of God and would do that which is most pleasing to him and love not their own calamity that they will soberly consider of what I say and labour to regulate their minds accordingly 1. I desire the dejected Christian to consider that by his heavy and uncomfortable life he seemeth to the world to accuse God and his service as if he openly called him a rigorous hard unacceptable master and his work a sad unpleasant thing I know this is not your thoughts I know it is your selves and not God and his service that offendeth you and that you walk not heavily because you are holy but because you fear you are not holy and because you are no more holy I know it is not of grace but for grace that you complain But do you not give too great occasion to ignorant spectators to judge otherwise If you see a servant alwayes sad that was wont to be merry while he served another master will you not think that he hath a master that displeaseth him If you see a woman live in continual heavyness ever since she was marryed that lived merrily before will you not think that she hath met with an unpleasing match You are born and new born for Gods honour and will you thus dishonour him before the world What do you in their eyes but dispraise him by your very countenance and carriage while you walk before him in so much heaviness The child that still cryes when you put on his shoes doth signifie that they pinch him and he dispraiseth his meat that makes a sower face at it And he dispraiseth his friend that is alway sad and troubled in his company He that should say of God Thou art bad or cruel and unmerciful should blaspheme And so would he that saith of Holiness It is a bad unpleasant hurtful state How then dare you do that which is so like to such blaspheming when you should abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes 5. 22. Canst thou find in thy heart thus to dishonour and wrong the God whom thou so much esteemest and the grace which thou so much desirest For a wicked man that is far from God to go heavily or roar in the horrour of his soul is a shame to his sin but no dishonour to God and Holiness But for you that are near him in relation engagement and attendance to walk so heavily reflects on him to whom you are Related and from whom you look for your Reward 2. Consider also What a lamentable hinderance you are hereby to the conversion and salvation of souls Your countenances and sad complainings do affright men from the service of the Lord and as it were call to them to keep off and fly from the way that you find so grievous You gratifie Satan the enemy of Christ and Holiness and souls and become his instruments though against your wills to affright men from the way of life As the Papists keep their deluded Proselytes abroad from Truth and Reformation by giving them odious descriptions of the Protestants as if they were Hereticks proud frantick mad and scarcely men and when they burn them they adorn them with pictures of the Devil even so doth Satan keep poor souls from entertaining Christ and Truth and entering the holy pathes by making them believe that the servants of Christ are a company of distempered melancholy souls and that Godliness is the way to make men mad and that he that will set his heart on Heaven must never look more for a merry comfortable life on earth Hence comes the proverb of the Malignant Formalists and Prophane that A Puritane is a Protestant frightened out of his wits And will you confirm this slander of the Devil and his instruments Will you entice men to believe him Will you make your selves such pictures of unhappiness and wear such a Vizor of calamity and misery as shall frighten all that look on you and observe you and discourage them from the way which they see accompanyed with so much sorrow As you hang up dead crows in your field to frighten the rest from the Corn and as murderers are hanged in irons to terrifie all that see them from that crime or as the heads of Traytors are set up to the same end as proclaiming to all passengers Thus must you be used if you will do as they Just so would Satan fill you with terrours and overwhelm you with grief and distract you with causeless doubts and fears that you may appear to the world a miserable sort of people and then all that look on you will be afraid of Godliness and think they see it
seeing that have eyes or from seeing the Heavens that can see the smallest dust or atome But my admiration is abated when I consider that the wit that serveth to move a poppet is not enough to Rule a Kingdom and that sleeping Reason is as none and that it is the very art and business of the Devil to charm sinners to sleep and wake at once Dormire Deo at mundo vigilare to be asleep to God and awake to the world And that present things engage the senses and call off Reason from its work And that the seeming distance of the life to come occasioneth the neglect of stupid half-believing souls till they find it is indeed at hand even as Death though certain affecteth few in youth and health as it doth when they perceive that they must presently be gone And withall that a man is not a man in act till he be considerate and that it is as good be without eyes as still to wink We know what detained our selves so long in sleep and folly and we know what makes us yet so slow and therefore we may know what it is that thus unmanneth others Reader if thou be one of these unhappy souls Whether thy brain be so sick as really to think that there is no life to come for man or that there needs no such care and diligence to prepare for it or whether thy heart be so corrupt and bad as to be against the things which thou confessest to be Good and Necessary or whether thy Reason be cast so fast asleep as never soberly to consider of the only thing of everlasting consequence and concernment to thy self or whether thy Heart be grown so dead and stupid as to be past feeling and never moved and affected with the things which thou hearest and knowest and considerest to be so great and necessary which ever of these be thy sad condition I have now this one request to thee as a friend that truly desireth thy salvation and I tender it to thee with as earnest a desire as if thou sawest me upon my knees intreating thee for the Lords sake and for thy souls sake and as ever thou hopest for the comfort of a dying man and as ever thou carest what becomes of thy soul for ever and as ever thou wilt answer it to Christ and thy own conscience with peace at last that thou neither deny me nor put me off with a careless reading nor with contempt or disregard My request to thee is but this reasonable thing That thou wilt so long make a stand in thy way and grant me so much of thy time as once to read throughout this Treatise and Sâ—â—IOUSLY to CONSIDER of what thou Readest and heartily to beg of God upon thy knees to teach thee and lead thee into the truth and then to be true to God and to thy Conscience and Resolvedly to do that which thou art convinced is Right and Best and Necessary This is all my request to thee at the present Put me not off with a denyall or neglect as thou wilt answer it to God and as thâ—â— wilt not be a wilful self-condemner Hast thou spent so many hours and dayes in vain and cannot I beg a few hours of thee to Read and Think of thy Everlasting state If thou darest not Read and Think of what can be said about such things as these it is a sign thy case is indeed so bad that thou hast more need then others to Read and Think of them I know the Devil dare not give thee leave to do it if he can binder thee for fear lest thy eyes should be opened to see and thy heart awakened to feel the things which he so laboureth to keep away from thy sight and feeling till it be too late And wilt thou grant him his desire to thy damnation or Christ and his servants their desire to thy salvation Think of it well before thou answer it by word or deed Being in hope that thou hast granted my request to Read Consider Pray for help and faithfully do what God shall teach thee I shall now begin to open thee the way to the matter of this Treatise The summe of my business is to teach thee 1 Tim. 4. 8. that bodily exercise in Religion profiteth little but Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come I think it meet therefore to tell thee here in the beginning What Godliness is which the Apostle distinguisheth from bodily exercise in matters of Religion and which I have proved so Necessary and Excellent in this Treatise And this I must do 1. lest thou deceive thy soul by taking something else for Godliness 2. and lest thou lose thy labour in the Reading of this Book and hearing what Scripture and Preachers say for Godliness and 3. lest thou wrong me and thy self according to the custom of this malicious age by imagining that by Godliness I mean either Superstition or Hypocrisie or Schism or that I am perswading thee to sedition humor or needless singularity under the name of Godliness and Religion I shall therefore tell you distinctly here What Godliness is indeed and What it is not In General GODLINESS is our DEVOTEDNESS TO GOD. And all these things following are Essential to it and of ind spensible Necessity to salvation 1. That materially it contain these three things 1. The true internal Principle Soul and Life of Godliness which is the Spirit of God Rom. 8. 9. The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. The new and soft and single heart Jer. 32. 39. Ezek. 11. 19. The seed of God abiding in us 1 John 3. 9. 2. The Intention of the true ends of Godliness which is the Reward in Heaven Matth. 5. 11 12. Luke 18. 22. Matth. 6. 20 21. Rom. 8. 17 18. The Pleasing of God and the Beatifical Vision and fruition of him with Christ and his triumphant Church in the New Jerusalem for ever 3. The Reception and Observation of the true Rule of Godliness which is the Will of God revealed partly in Nature and fully in the Holy Scriptures This must be in our very hearts Psalm 37. 31. Jer. 31 33. and with delight we must meditate in it day and night Psalm 1. 2. To cast away and despise the Law of God is the brand of the rebellious Isa 5. 24. 2. It is Essential to Godliness that it formally contain these three Relations 1. It is a Devotedness of our selves as HIS OWN to GOD as our OWNER or Proprietary or Lord quitting all pretence to any co-ordinate title to our selves and resigning our selves absolutely and all that we have to him that by the right of Creation and Redemption is our Lord Psal 100. 3. 119. 94. Joh. 17. 6. 2. Godliness containeth a Devotedness of our selves as subjects to God as our Supream and Absolute Governor to Rule us by his Laws his Officers and his Spirit To give up
wailing and gnashing of teeth Mat. 13. 42 50. You are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God who will give to every man according to his works Rom. 2. 5 6. You are sowing in pleasure to the flesh in eating and drinking and mirth and honour but you shall reap in corruption lamentation and woe Gal. 6. 7 8. For woe to you that now laugh for you shall mourn and weep Woe to you that are rich and have no better but want the everlasting riches for you have received your conselation Woe to you that are full and yet are empty of Christ and grace for you shall hunger Luke 6. 24 25. These are the words of Christ himself and therefore true if Christ be true Yea more then this let me have leave to tell you for why should I not tell you of your greatest folly and that which is necessary for you to know As long as you neglect the One thing necessary you are acting the part of the most deadly enemies against your selves No enemy that you have in all the world could do that against you as you do against your selves You abhorr the Devil and I blame you not for his malice and enmity deserveth it But you do much worse against your selves then the Devil himself could ever do To tempt you to sin is not so much as to Consent to it and commit it He can but entice you and not constrain you It is you that are the neglecters of your Maker and Redeemer and the wilful rejecters of your own felicity Satan doth bad enough against you by temptation but you do worse by yielding and sinning much worse then all the Devils in hell could do against you For God hath not given all of them so much power over you as he hath given you over your selves Lord what a distracted case is the ungodly world in They hate any man else that they do but imagine is their enemy Though he do but diminish their worldly wealth or honour they cannot forgive him If a man give one of them a box on the ear he cannot bear it And as for the Devil who is the common enemy they spit at his name and think they bless themselves from him And yet these same men do spend all their care and time and labour in doing more against themselves then all their enemies could do in earth or hell and are worse then Devils to themselves and yet they never fall out with themselves for it but can forgive themselves as easily as if they did themselves no harm This is true too true Sirs as harsh as it seemeth to your ears And if it displease you to hear of it bethink your selves what it is to do it and how God and all wise men must judge of you that have no more mercy on your selves Certainly it is much worse to do it then to tell you what you do God tells men of their sin and God doth nothing but what is good but it is themselves only that commit it I beseech you do but understand what you are doing as long as the One thing necessary is neglected by you 4. Consider also that whatsoever else you have been doing in the world if you have not done the One thing needful you have unman'd your selves and lived below your Reason and in plain English you have lived as be sides your wits I give you no harder language then God himself hath frequently given you in his Word and then you will shortly give your selves if you repent not yea and sooner if you do repent If you have in this the use of your Reason you must needs know what you have your Reason for And I beseech you tell me for what you have it if not to serve and please your Maker and prepare for your everlasting state Is it only that you may know how to plow and sow and follow your trades and pleasure in the world and satisfie your flesh a little while and then die as the beasts that perish None of you I suppose will say so that calls himself a Christian If God had made you for no higher things then beasts he would have given you no higher faculties and endowments As they be not made to enjoy God so they have no knowledge of him he sendeth not his Word to them and calleth them not to learn the knowledge of his will But you know or may know that there is a God and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and are capable of Loving him intending him and serving him and therefore of enjoying him Beasts are not ruled by the hopes and fears of a life after this For their nature and end do not require it But men must be thus ruled or else there can be no sufficient ruling of them in an ordinary way Which shews that the Nature of man is capable of the things which are the matter of their hopes and fears Verily Sirs I think as to any good that cometh by it there is very little difference between having Reason and having none if we had nothing to do with it but cunningly to lay up our food and make provision for this corruptible flesh and had not another life to mind It were no such great difference in my opinion as it commonly goes for whether we were men or dogs if it were only for the matters of this transitory life For though I may not deny but yet man were the nobler creature yet alas the difference would be but graduall and small as an Ape or Dog excells a Swine And as to his Happiness it is doubtful whether Man would not have the worst of it For as brutes have not mans knowledge so they have not his toil and trouble of mind his care and fear and griefs and disappointments Nor have they so terrible fore-thoughts of death through all their lives as man must have much less such fears of what would follow after death And therefore I may boldly say that you have thrown away your wits and laid by your Reason as to the principal use of it if you have forgot or have not chiefly sought the One thing necessary Where were your wits when a lump of flesh was preferred before immortal souls and when the trouble and dung of a transitory world was more esteemed then God and endless Glory Where were your wits when you might have had Christ and Life in him and his pardoning healing sanctifying grace and you had no mind of him and were not sensible of your necessity and past him by with as much neglect as if you could have been saved without him When you might long ago have made sure of Heaven and now you are even ready to drop into Hell and stay but for a Feaver or Consumption or some other disease to cut the thred and turn the key unless a speedy sound conversion shall yet prevent it What have you done in
theirs Many a time hath he offered this mercy to them and many a time hath he urged them to accept â—…t He hath set before them life and death and given them their choice and directed and perswaded them to choose aright Impossibility of attainment is not their hinderance for Mercy beâ—eecheth and importuneth them to accept it and grace and salvation are brought unto their hands O wonderful What then â—s left to take off a reasonable creature from minding and preferring its own everlasting great concernments Is it because they have done their work already and having made sure of heaven have time to turn themselves to other matters Alas no the most are far from any such assurance and have done but little to procure it If they were to die this hour they know not where their souls shall be the next And if death even now should lay its terrible hands upon them they have no other comfort then to yield â—â—to necessity and leave their souls by a short security to 〈…〉 passage of their unavoidable change Unless they are comâ—… by such presumptuous self-deceit which the next moment after death will vanish and never return unto them more Job 8. 13 14. 11. 20. 27. 8. Prov. 11. 7. This is the case of the miserable world but they have not hearts to 〈…〉 themselves nor can we make them willing to be delivered â—…use we cannot make them know their case If a man fall in 〈…〉 pit we need not spend all the day to perswade him that he is there and to be willing to be helpt out of it But with these fleshlyâ—â—iserable souls the time that should be spent by themselves and us for their recovery must be spent to make them believe that they are lost and when all is done we leave them lost and have lost our labour because we cannot prevail with them to believe it Drown they will and perish everlastingly because the time that should be spent in saving them must be spent in making them know that they are sinking and after all they will not believe it and therefore will not â—ay hold on the hand that is stretched forth to pull them out The Narrative of the savage people of Soldania doth notably represent their state Those people live naked and feed upon the carrion-like carkasses of beasts and hang the stinking guts about their â—ecks for ornamentâ— and wear hats made of the dung and carve their skins and will not change these loathsom customs Some of them being drawn into our Ships were carried away for England when they came to Landon and saw our stately buildings and cloathing and provisions they were observed to sigh much which was thought to have been in compassion of their miserable Countrey which so much differed from ours When they had stayed long among us and got so much acquaintance with our civility and order and all that belongs to the life of man as that they were thought fit to communicate it to their Countrey-men the next Voyage they were brought back and set on shoare in their own Countrey to draw some of the rest to come into the Ships and see and enjoy what they had done who had purposely been used as might most content them But as soon as they were landed they lept for joy and cryed Soldania and cast away their cloathes and came again in the sight of our Ships with dung on their heads and guts hanging about their necks triumphing in their sordid nakedness Just so do worldly sensual men in the matters of salvation If against their wills they are carryed into cleaner wayes and company and the beauty of holiness and the joyes of heaven are opened to them they are aweary of it aâ— the while and when we expect they should delight themselves in the felicity that is opened to them and draw their old acquaintance to it and be utterly ashamed of their former base and sinful state they are gone when the next temptation comes and return with the dog unto their vomit and with the washed Swine to wallow in the mire 2 Pet. 2. 21 22. and glory in their filth and shame and only mind their earthly things Phil. 3. 18. Use 3. BY this time you may see your selves that the disease of sinners is in their own hearts and it is that that must be healed if they will be saved But what should we do to get into those hearts to search your sores and work the cure I come now to the principal part of my message to you but will you indeed entertain it if it prove it self to be from God How the case standeth with mankind you have heard in my Text from Christ himself How One thing is needful and how the busie-idle world is diverted from this One thing by many needless troublesom things to their own destruction If hence I warn you of your danger and tell you of your duty and exhort you to take another course then you have done I hope you will confess I do but what is needfull both for you and me and what you have no reason to contradict Come then for the Lords sake and let us treat practically and successfully about so great a business and make something of it before we leave it and end not till we amend what we find amiss What course then will you take for the time to come Will you go on to trouble your selves about Many things and neglect the One thing needful as you have done Dare you harbour such a purpose Or dare you stifle those thoughts and motions that would tend to better purposes Or may I not hope that the Light hath shamed your sleepiness and works of darkness and that you are grieved at the heart for the sinful negligence of heart and life and resolved now to be new men For Gods sake Resolve Sirs What will you do Waver not but Resolve It s more then a thousand lives that lyeth on your Resolution I come to you this day as the Minister of the great Pastor of the flock that spake these words not only to acquaint you if you know not or to remember you if you know that One thing is needful but also with authority to command you in his name to Value it to Love it to Choose it to seek it and labour for it as the One thing needful What say you will you or will you not This unspeakable mercy I offer you from the Lord He is willing to put up at your hands all that is past and to lay all your sins on the score of Christ and freely to forgive you through the vertue of his blood if you will now at last bethink you better and come to Christ and live as men that know what they have to do If you will but see your former folly and heartily bewail it and set your hearts on the One thing needful he will encourage you and help you and bid you welcome and number you with his
or by Policy they would rob you of your Portion they cannot do it For which way should they do it They cannot turn the heart of God against you nor make him break his Covenant with you nor repent him of his Gift and Calling which he hath extended to you For he is unchangeable and loveth you with an everlasting love Mal. 3. 6. Jer. 31. 3. Isa â—â—â— 8. Jer. 33. 20 21 23. 50. 5. Rom. 11. 29. They cannot undermine the rock that you are built upon nor batter the fortress of your souls nor overcome your great Preserver and Defence nor take you out of the hands of Christ Psal 73. 26. 31. 2 3. 62. 2. 59. 9 16. Joh. 10. 28. Cast not away the salvation that is offered you and then never fear least it be taken from you See that you chuse the better part and resolvedly chuse it and it will be certainly your own for ever For man cannot take it from you nor Devils cannot take it from you and God will not take it from you Rust and moths will not corrupt this Treasure nor can thieves break through and steal it from you Mat. 6. 19 20. But you cannot say so of worldly riches If you chuse to be Lords and Princes on the earth you cannot have your choice but if you could you cannot keep it If you chuse the wealth and credit of the world and were sure to get it you were as sure to leave it For naked you came into the world and naked you must go out Job 1. 21. If you chuse your ease and mirth and pleasure these will be taken from you If you chuse the satisfying of your fleshly desires and all the delight and prosperity that the world can afford you yet all must be taken from you Yea quickly and easily taken from you Alas one stroak of an Apoplexy or a few fits of a Fever or the breaking of a small vein or many hundred of the like effectual means are ready at the beck of God to take you from all that you have gathered for your flesh And then whose shall all these things be None of yours I am sure nor will they redeem your souls from death or hell Luke 12. 20. Psalm 49. 7. If you be in honour you abide not in it but are as to your body as the beasts that perish If you think to perpetuate your houses and your names this your way is but your â—olly though your posterity go on to approve your sayings and succeed you in your sins Psalm 49. 11 12 13. The worldly wise man doth perish with the fool as sheep they 〈◊〉 laid in the grave Death shall feed on them and the upright shall have Dominion over them in the morning ver 10 14. They shall soon be cut down like the grass and whether as the green herb Psal 37. 2. I have seen the wicked in great prosperity and spreading himself like a green bay-tree yet he passed away and loe he was not yea I sought him but he could not be found v. 35 36. You think it a fine thing to have the fulness of the creature to be esteemed with the highest and fed and cloathed with the best and fare deliciously every day as the rich man Luke 16. but hath he not paid dear think you for his riches and pleasure by this time His feeding and fulness was quickly at an end but his torment is not yet ended nor ever will be You think it a brave thing to clamber up to riches and that which you call greatness and honour in the world but how quickly how terribly must you come down Go into the Sanctuary of God and understand your end Surely God hath set them in slippery places and casteth them down into destruction How are they brought to desolation as in a moment They are utterly consumed with terrours As a dream when one awakeneth so at the awakening shall their Image or shadow of honour be despised Psalm 73. 17 18 19 20. How short is the pleasure and how long is the pain How short is the honour and how long is the shame What is it under the Sun that is everlasting You have friends but will they dwell with you here for ever You have houses but how long will you stay in them It is but as yesterday since your houses had other Inhabitants and your Towns and Countries other Inhabitants and where are they all now You have health but how soon will you consume in sickness You have life but how soon will it end in death You have the pleasure of sin you say unto your selves Eat drink and be merry but how soon will all the mirth be mar'd and turned into sadness everlasting sadness When you hear Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul and then whose shall these things be Luke 12. 20. Oh miserable wretch If thou hadst chosen God instead of thy sin and the everlasting Kingdom instead of this world thou wouldst not have been thus cast off in thy extremity God would have stuck better to thee Heaven would have proved a more durable Inheritance For it is a Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. The day is near when thy despairing soul must take up this lamentation My dearest friends are now forsaking me I must part with all that I laboured for and delighted in I have drunk up all my part of pleasure and there is no more left My merry company and honours and recreations are past and gone I shall eat and drink and sport no more but God would not have used me thus if I had set my heart upon him and his Kingdom Oh that I had chosen him and made him my portion and spent these thoughts and cares and labours for the obtaining of his love and promised Glory which I spent for the pleasing and providing for my flesh Then I should have had a happiness that death could not deprive me of and a Crown that fadeth not away Neither life nor death nor any creature could have separated me from his love I need not then have gone out of the world as a prisoner out of the Gaol to the â—â—rr and to the place of execution My departing soul should not then need to have been afraid of falling into the hands of an unreconciled God and so into the hands of the Devils as his executioners nor of passing out of the flesh to hell Oh poor sinners for how short a pleasure do you sell your hopes of everlasting Blessedness and run your selves into endless pains O what comparison is there between the time of your pleasure and the everlastingness of your Punishment How short a while is the cup at your mouthes or the drink in your bellies or the harlot in your embracements or the wealth of the world in your Possession And how long a time must you pay for this in hell How quickly are your merry hours past but your torments will never be past
When your corpses are laid in the grave men can say Now he hath done his satisfying the flesh and following the world but never man can truly say Now he hath done suffering for it Your life of sin is passing as a dream and your honours as a shadow and all your business as a talc that is told but the life of Glory which you rejected for this would have endured for evermore Suppose as many thousand years as there are sands on the Sea or piles of grass on the whole earth or hairs on the heads of all men in the world yet when these many are past the Joy of Saints and the Torments of the wicked are as far from an end as ever they were The eternal God doth give them a duration and make them eternal When our joyes are at the sweetest this thought must needs be part of that sweetness that their sweetness shall never have an end If our short fore-taste be Joy unspeakable and full of glory what shall we call that Joy which flows from the most perfect fruition and perpetuation 1 Pet. 1. 7 8. We have Joy here but alas how seldom Alas how small in comparison of what we may there expect Some Joy we have but how oft do Melancholy or crosses or losses in the world or temptations or sins or desertions interrupt it Our sun is here most commonly under a cloud and too often in an Ecclipse and we have the night as often as the day Yea our state is usually a Winter Our dayes are cold and short and our nights are long But when the flourishing state of glory comes we shall have no Interscissioâ—s nor Ecclipses Tâ—â— path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4. 18. And the perfect day is a perpetual day that knows no interruption by the darkness of the night For there shall be no night there nor need of candle or Sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever Rev. 22. 5. This is the life that fears no death and this is the feast that fears no want or future famine the pleasure that knows nor fears no pain the health that knows nor fears no sickness this is the treasure that fears no moth or rust or thief the building that fears no storm nor decay the Kingdom that fears no changes by Rebellion the friendship that fears no falling out the Love that fears no hatred or frustration the Glory that fears no envious eye the possessed Inheritance that fears no ejection by fraud or force or any failings the Joy that feels or fears no sorrow while God who is Life it self is our life and while God who is Love is the fountain and object of our Love we can never want either Life or Love And whiles he feeds our Love our Joyful praises will never be run dry nor ever go out for want of fewel This is the true perpetual motion the câ—rculation of the holy blood and spirit from God to man and from man to God Being prepared and brought near him we have the blessed Vision of his face by seeing him and by the blessed emanation of his love we are drawn out perpetually and unweariedly to Love him and Rejoyce in him and from hence uncessantly to praise and honour him In all which as his blessed Image and the shining reflections of his revealed glory he taketh complacency which is the highest end of God and man and the very term of all his works and wayes I Thought here to have ended this First Part of my Discourse but yet compassion calls me back I fear lest with the most I have not yet prevailed and lest I shall leave them behind me in the bonds of their iniquity I daily hear the voice of men possessed by a spirit of uncleanness speaking against this Necessity of a holy life which Christ himself so peremptorly asserteth I hear that voice which foretelleth a more dreadful voice if in time they be not prevailed with to prevent it One saith What need all this ado This strictness is more ado then needs Another saith You would make men mad by poring so much on matters that are above them Another saith Cannot you keep your Religion to your selfe and be Godly with moderation as your neighbours be Another saith I hope God is more merciful then to damn 〈…〉 that â—â— not so precise Another saith I shall never endure so strict a life and therefore I will venture as well as others The summe of allis They are so far in love with the world and sin and so much against a holy life that they will not be perswaded to it and therefore to quiet their consciences in their misery they make themselves believe that they may be saved without it and that it is a thing of no Necessity but their coming to Church and living like good neighbours may serve the turn without it for their salvation And thus doth the malicious Serpent in the hearts of those that he possesseth rise up against the words of Christ Christ saith that this is The One thing needful And the Serpent saith It is more ado then needs and What needs all this ado Though I have fully answered this ungodly objection already in my Treatise of Conversion sect 36. pag. 284. c. and more fully in my Treatise of Rest Part 3. Chap. 6. yet I shall once more fall upon it For death is coming while poor deluded souls are loytering and if Satan by such sensless reasonings as these can keep them unready in their sin till the â—atal stroak hath cut them down and cast them into endless easeless fire alas how great will be their fall and how unspeakably dreadful will be their misery Whoever thou be whether hâ—gh or low learned or unlearned that hast disliked opposed or reproached serious godly Christians as Puritanes and too precise and that thinkest the most diligent labour for salvation to be but more ado then needs and hast not thy self yet resolvedly set upon a holy life I require at thy hands so much impartiality and faithfulness to thy own immortal soul as seriously to peruse these following Questions and to go no further in thy careless negligent ungodly course till thou art able to give such a rational answer to them as thou darest stand to now at the Barr of thine own Conscience and hereafter at the Barr of Christ Quest 1. Canst thou possibly give God more then is his due Or love him more then he deserveth Or serve him more faithfully then thâ—â— art bound and he is worthy of Art thou not his creature made of nothing and hast thou not all that thou art and hast from him and if thou give him all dost thou give him any more then what is his own If thou give him all the affections of thy soul and all the most serious thoughts of thy heart and every hour of thy time and
say that this One thing is needless for which thou hast all things Thou mayest then say that God made the world in vain and preserveth and governeth it in vain For all this is but for his service which thou callest vain Quest 11. Doth not Reason tell thee that the place in which thou must live for ever should be more diligently minded and prepared for then this in which thou must continue but for a while Alas it is so short a time that we must be here that it makes all the matters of this world as such to be inconsiderable things as dreams and shadows What great matter is it for so short a time whether we be rich or poor well or sick in credit or in contempt whether we laugh or weep When our part will be so quickly acted and we must go naked out of the world as we came into it For so short a time a poor habitation may serve the turn as well as the most splendid Palace A painful obscure afflicted life may do as well as the most plentiful provisions and the greatest ease and worldly honours The purple and fine linnen the silks and bravery will be soon forgotten and the soul in Hell will be no more the better for them then the rotten carkase in the grave The taste of the delicious meats and drinks will quickly be forgotten and sportful youth will be turned into cold and languid age and the most confirmed health into dolorous sickness and mirth and laughter into mournful groans And is such a transitory life as this more worthy of your care and greatest diligence then life eternal O one would think that the world that you must be ever ever in should never never be forgotten There is the company that you must live with for ever There is the state that you shall never change There is the Joy or Torment that shall have no end and while you forget it you are posting to it and are almost there And can you be too careful for eternity Quest 12. Consider also but the infinite Joyes of Heaven and tell me Whether thou dost think they are not worthy the greatest cost or pains that thou canst be at to get them Dost thou think that Heaven is not worthy of the labour that is bestowed for it by the holyest Saints on earth Will it not requite them to the full Will any that comes thither repent that they obtained it at so dear a rate If now thou couldst speak with one of those Believers mentioned in Heb. 11. that lived as strangers and pilgrims on earth as seeking a better even a heavenly Countrey that preferred the reproach of Christ before the treasure of the world and chose affliction with the people of God before the pleasures of sin for a season that were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might receive a better resurrection that had tryal of cruel mâ—â—kings and scourgings and of bonds and imprisonments and were sâ—oned sawn asunder tempted slain with the sword wandred about in sheep-skins and goat-skins being destitute afflicted and tormented though men of whom the world was not worthy Would any one of these now tell you that they did or suffered too much for Heaven Or that it was not worth ten thousand times more If thy tongue dare say that Heaven is not worth the cost or trouble of a holy life or if thy life say so though thy tongue dare not thou judgest thy self unworthy of it and sentencest thy self unto damnation Quest 13. And are the torments of Hell so small and tolerable that thou thinkest a holy life too dear a means for to prevent them Dost thou believe the threatnings of the Lord that he will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 1. 8 9. and yet canst thou say What needs all this ado to scape such endless misery Thou wilt take any medicine to cure but the gowt or stone if once thou have felt them Thou wilt draw out a tooth to prevent the pain of it And is Holiness so hateful or grievous a thing to thee that thou wilt venture on Hell it self to avoid it If so much of Hell be in thy heart already blame none but thy self if thou have thy choice Quest 14. Why wast thou baptized into the Covenant of holiness to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost if thou think it nâ—â—dless to perform thy Covenant A holy life is no more then in Baptism thou wast solemnly engaged too There didst thou renounce the flesh the world and the Devil and tookest God for thy portion and absolute Lord and gavest up thy self to be ruled by him and saved by Christ and sanctified by the holy Spirit and dost thou now say What needs all this ado Are we all by our Baptismal Vow engaged to a needless thing I tell thee there is not the holyest man on earth that doth any more then what he is bound to by the Covenant-Relations which he undertook in Baptism Quest 15. Moreover What an Hypocrite art thou to profess thy self a member of the Holy Catholick Church if Holiness which is the life of the Church seem needless to thee Why dost thou profess to believe and desire the Communion of Saints if the life of Saints seem needless to thee and thou wilt not have Communion with them in their sanctity Dost thou not plainly renounce thy Covenant and faith and duty when thou renouncest a holy life as a thing unnecessary Quest 16. Dost thou think or darest thou say that the bloody death and holy life of Jesus Christ were more then needs in order to thy salvation Unless thou be a prosessed Infidel I know thou darest not say so And if thy soul were worth the sufferings of the Lord of Life is it not worth all the cost and labour of thy duty Christ lived a life of perfect holiness he never sinned he fulfilled all righteousness he prayed all night and with greatest fervency preaching and doing good was his employment Though he hated Pharisaical superstition and the teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men and serving God according to mens traditions yet was there never so holy and pure and precise and strict and heavenly a life as Jesus Christ's And this was for our redemption and our example And darest thou say that this was needless Should we not endeavour to imitate our pattern Are they better that are likest Christ or they that are most unlike him And which dost thou think is liker Christ the holy or the unholy Sure we that fall so short of the example that Christ hath given us are far from being more diligent then needs when Christ went not too far nor was too strict that went so very far beyond us Quest 17. Look upon all the institutions of
the Lord On Magistracy and Ministry and the great works of their office On prayer and preaching and Sacraments and Discipline and all other Ordinances of God and also on all the frame of the holy Scripture and also on all the workings and graces of the Holy-Ghost and tell me whether thou darest say that all or any of these are in vain and whether that Holiness which all these are appointed for can be a vain and needless thing Quest 18. Darest thou say that Christ doth more then needs in his Intercession for us with the Father now in Heaven It is he that sendeth the spirit to sanctifie us It is he that prayeth that we may be sanctified by the truth We have no grace and holiness but what we have from him And darest thou say he doth too much It is he that sends his Ministers to call men to a holy life Look into his Word and see whether the doctrine which they preach be not there prescribed to them and the duties of holiness there commended If therefore it were erroneous or excessive it would be long of Christ and not of his Messengers or Disciples that speak and do no more for holiness then he bids them but fall exceeding short Quest 19. Art thou wiser in this and more to be believed then all the antient Prophets and Apostles and servants of God in former ages and then all that are now alive on earth that ever tryed a holy life The Scripture will tell thee that Abraham Isaac Jacob David and all the rest of the Saints that were then most dear to God were so far from thinking that a holy life was more then needs that they thought they could never be holy enough and blamed their defects when they excelled such as now thou blamest as too precise And if thou wilt preferr the words and example of a worldling or of a sottish sensual man before the judgement and example of these Saints the company that thou choosest and the deceivers whom thou followest shall be also thy companions in calamity where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see the Saints from East and West from North and South sit down with Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and you and such as you thrust out Even when the last in time whom you here despised shall be equal to the first and antient Saints Luke 13. 27 28 29 30. Why do you hypocritically honour the names and memorials of the Prophets Apostles and other former Saints and keep Holy-dayes for them and yet reproach their holy course and preferr the judgement of a drunkard or a malignant enemy of godliness before theirs For so you do when you argue against a holy life Quest 20. Dost thou think that there is now one soul in Heaven or Hell that is of thy prophane opinion and would say that a diligent holy life is more ado then needs for mens salvation Certainly those in Heaven have more knowledge and experience and love to God and man and goodness then to be of so impious a mind or once to entertain such beastly thoughts And those in Hell though still â—â— holy have learned to their cost to know the great Necessity of â—…ss And would tell you if they could speak with you that the most strict and heavenly life for millions of ages were not too dear for the escaping of the everlasting misery Why else do we find one of them in Luke 16. described as so desirous that oâ—… the dead might be sent to his Brethren to warn them that they come not to that place of torment And what is it that he would have had them warned of but that they should live a holy self-denying life and with all their diligence lay up a treasure in the life to come instead of liying so sensual and voluptuous and ungodly a life as he had lived The scope of the story tells us that this would have been his message if he might have sent Quest 21. Dost thou think in thy Conscience that at the hour â—â— thy death or at least at Judgement thou shalt think thy self that Holiness was unnecessary Doth not thy heart tell thee that then thou shalt be of another mind and wish with the deepest desires of thy soul that thou hadst lived as strictly and prepared for everlasting life as seriously and served God as diligently as ever did any Saint on earth But alas those wishes will be then too late Now is thy day and now thou takest thy work to be needless And to see the Necessity when time is gone will be thy torment but not thy remedy Not one in this Congregation or Town or Countrey not one in England or in all the world but shall be forced at last whether he will or no to justifie the wisdom of the godly and the worst of you shall then with ten thousand fruitless groans desire that you had imitated the holyest persons that you knew Not a tongue then shall say What needs all this ado for heaven Not a man there dare call his neighbour Puritane nor take up a contemptuous jear against the diligent servants of the Lord. Quest 22. Is not that man at the heart against the Lord that reproacheth his serious diligent servants and counts his work a needless thing Men are more willing to please those that they love and more ready to do the works they love If your son or servant speak against your service but as you do against Gods what would you think of their affections Doubtless it is no better then a secret hatred to the holiness of God and a Serpentine eâ—â—ity to his holy wayes that causeth all these sensless cavils and impious speeches against the life that he hath commanded us to live Quest 23. Is it not most unreasonable impiety for that man â—â— speak against too strict exact obedience and against serving God â—â— much that hath served the world the flesh and the Devil in â—â— vigour and flower of his dayes and this with pleasure and never said It is too much When thou wast drinking and sporting thou wast not aweary When it comes to a matter of riches or honour or ease or pleasure to gratifie thy worldliness pride laziness and voluptuousness then thou never saist It is too much And is all too little for sin and the Devil and all too much for thy soul and God Let Conscience tell thee whether this be just Quest 24. Is it not a foolish wickedness for that man to cry out against making haste to heaven and going so fast in the wayes of God that hath loytered already till the evening of his dayes and lost so much time as thou hast done If thou hadst begun as soon as thou hadst the use of reason and remembred thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth and never lost an hour of thy time since then till now thou hadst done no more then what thy God thy soul
clear in it self and much more clear how few do we prevail with Is not the Question Whether God or the Creature Holiness or Sin Earth or Heaven Short or Everlasting pleasures should be preferred as plain to a wise man as any of those that I mentioned before Is it not as plain a case to a man of judgement Whether Holiness with Everlasting joys be better then fleshly pleasures with damnation as whether a Kingdom be better then a Jayle or Gold then dirt or health then sickness Yet do your salvations lie upon this Question this easie Question I must again repeat it All your salvations lie upon the practical resolution of this easie Question Be but Resolved once that God is Best for you and Heaven is Best for you and accordingly make your Resolute Choice and faithfully Prosecute it and God will be Yours Heaven will be yours as sure as the Promise of God is true But if you will not Choose God and Glory as your Best but will Choose the world and simple pleasures as Better for you you shall have no better then you chose and shall suffer a double condemnation for neglecting and refusing so great salvation You hear now by mens talk and you see by their lives that the world is divided upon this Question What it is that is Best for a man and which is his Best and Wisest course One part and the greater think in their hearts that present prosperity is best because they think that the promised happiness of the life to come is a thing uncertain or iâ— there be such a thing they may have it after the pleasures of sin These are the Infidels Another part have a superficial dead Opinion that Heaven and Holiness are Best but the Love of the flesh and the world lyeth deeper at their hearts and beareth the greater sway in their lives and these are the Hypocrites that is Christians in Opinion and Profession and so much of their Practice as will stand with their fleshly interest but Infidels in their Practical estimation and at the Heart and in the reserves and secret bent of their lives Another part being illuminated and sanctified from above Believe the Certainty and Excellency of Glory and see the vanity and vexation of this life and taste the sweetness of the Love of God and perceive the Necessity and sweetness of that Holiness which others so abhor and hereupon give up themselves to God and set themselves to seek for the Immortal treasure and make it the principal care of their hearts and business of their lives to escape damnation and live with Christ in endless Glory All the world consisteth of these three sorts of men Infidels Hypocrites and true Believers Now the Question is Which of these three are in the right Both the other do condemn the Hypocrite that halteth between two opinions and One thinks that Baal is God that the World is Best and therefore he gives up himself to it and the other thinks that The Lord is God and Heaven is best and therefore he gives up himself to it And if it would do any thing with those that doubt towards the turning of the scales to tell you which side Christ is on it s told you here in my Text as plain as the tongue of man can speak One thing is Needful Mary hath chosen that Good part which shall not be taken away from her THe Doctrine which I am now to handle to you from the plain words of the Text is this Doct. That those that prefer the Learning of the word of Christ to guide them by Holiness to Everlasting Happiness before all the lower matters of this world are they that choose the Better part even that which shall never be taken from them If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn I had done my work I needed not to go any further You would be now resolved that Heaven and Holiness is best and would set your hearts and lives to seek it and so it would be your own for ever But this Text hath long stood in the Gospel and men have heard and read it often and yet the most are not perswaded and therefore I must try to open it a little farther to you and plead it with you and work the Reason of it upon your minds Reader our business is but to enquire What it is that is Best for Man to set his heart on and seek after in his Life and Enjoy for ever I say it is the Everlasting Enjoyment of God in Heaven For Christ saith so If thou think otherwise let us debate the case If thou believe as I do Live as thou professest to believe If men did but deeply and soundly know what it is that is best for them it would set right their hearts and lives and make them happy But not knowing this is it that keepeth them from God and Holiness and everlastingly undoes them Though I have often opened this heretofore on other occasions yet my present subject now requireth 1. That I tell you What that is that here is called The Good part 2. What it is that is set against it and by fleshly minds preferred before it And having briefly opened these two things I shall come to the Comparison and shew you which is the better part 1. That which Christ calls here that good part is 1. Principally the end of man or our everlasting Happiness with God in Heaven 2. Subordinately the Means by which it is attained 3. That Happiness which is the end comprehendeth in it these particulars which if you distinctly apprehend you will much the better understand the nature and excellency of it 1. The true Believer hath the small beginnings and earnests and foretastes of the Everlasting Blessedness in this Life in his approaches to God and living upon him by Faith and Love and â—â— his believing apprehensions of the Favour of God the Grace â—â— Christ and the Happiness which in Heaven he shall enjoy for ever 2. At death the souls of true Believers do go to Christ and enter upon a state of Happiness 3. At the last day the body shall be raised and united to the soul and the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory to judge the world where he will openly absolve and justifie the Righteous when he condemneth the ungodly and will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe and the Saints shall also judge the world and be themselves adjudged to everlasting Glory 4. Their everlasting habitation shall be in the Heavens even near unto God and in the presence of his Glory 5. Their company will be only Blessed Spirits even the holy Angels and glorified Saints with whom we shall be One Body and constitute the New Jerusalem and be perfectly one in God for ever 6. Their Bodies shall be perfected and made immortal spiritual incorruptible and glorious bodies shining as the Stars in the Celestial Firmament No more subject
Knowledge If I referr my health to thee as my Physicion thou must not refuse to try my pulse and see my urine and use the means to find out the disease Wouldst thou be my Lawyer and refuse to read my Evidences and study my case And wilt thou needs be judge thy self of the matters of thine own felicity or misery and yet refuse to read and hear and pray and meditate and use the necessary means of understanding Wilt thou lie in bed and work out thy salvation Wilt thou make use of no ones eyes but thy own and yet wilt thou wink or draw the Curtains or shut the windows and cast away thy spectacles and neither come into the sunshine nor use a candle This is but to say I will willfully condemn my soul and none shall hinder me 2. But yet another condition I must propose If thou wilt but as I said before of others a while make Tryal of a holy life and try in thy self what Faith and Hope and Charity are and try what selfdenyal is I will then referr the matter to thy self Go back from God if thou find any Reason for it and turn from Christ and Heaven and Holiness if thou do not like them But if thou wilt needs be the judge and wilt not be perswaded to try the thing thou art a partial self-deceiving judge 3. But it this much cannot be obtained at least be Considerate in thy judging If thou wilt but take thy self aside from the noise of wordly vanities and deceits and commune seriously with thy heart and bethink thee as before the Lord and as one that knows he must shortly dye Whether Heaven or Earth should be sought most carefully and Whether God or thy flesh should be served most resolvedly and diligently and if thou wilt but dwell so long upon these manlike thoughts till they are digested and Truth have time to shew its face I dare then leave the question to thy self The next time that the Sermon or any affliction comes near thee and awakeneth thy Conscience do but withdraw thy self into secret and soberly bethink thee of the matter what hopes thou hast from the world and what thou 〈◊〉 have from God what Time is and what Eternity is and give â—â—â— Conscience leave to speak and then I will venture the issue upon thy Conscience For thee I mean though I must stick to a better judge my self Doth not Conscience sometime tell thee that the Holyest persons are the wisest and that thy labour is liker at last to be lost and repented of than theirs Doth not Conscience sometime make thee wish that thou wert but in as safe a case as they and that thou mightest but die the death of the Righteous and that thy last end might be as theirs 4. But if all this will not serve the turn thou shalt be Judge thy self but it shall be when thou art more capable of judging If God by Grace shall Change thy heart I will stand to thy Judgement If he do not when thy graceless guilty soul shall pass out of thy pampered dirty flesh and appear before the dreadful God I will then leave the case to thy Conscience to judge of To all Eternity it shall be partly left to the judgement of thy Conscience whether sin or Holiness be better and whether Saints or careless sinners were the wiser and whether it had not been be ter sor thee to have spent that life in preparing for thy Endless life which thou spentst in slighting it and caring for the world and flesh Then thou shalt be Judge thy self of these matters but under a more severe and righteous judge And so as shall make thy tearing heart to wish with many a thousand groans that thou hadst judged wiselier in time But because that Judgement will be to desperation and too late for hope or any help let Conscience speak when thou lyest sick and seest that thou art a dying man Then judge thy self whether a Holy or a worldly life be better and whether it had not been thy wiser course to have sowed to the spirit that so thou maist reap everlasting life then to have sowed to the flesh from which thou now lookst to reap no better then corruption Be not deceived God is not mocked whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap Gal. 6. 6 7. But because it will be very late to stay till thy own Death draw so neer thee go but to thy neighbours that lie in sickness looking for the stroak of death Yea to thy companions in sin and folly and ask them then which way is better Ask them then which is the better part Whether now they had rather be the Holyest Saints or such as they have been Whether now they had not rather they had spent their time in the most careful seeking for Everlasting life then in doing as they have done Say to thy old companion now Brother I see you are near your end the mortal stroak of death is coming you are now leaving all the pleasures of this world I pray you tell me now your Judgement whether mirth and sport and feasting and drinking and wealth and honour be more to be sought then life eternal and whether Hearing and Reading the word of God and Praying and meditating and flying from sin be as bad or as needless a thing as we have formerly taken it to be Had you rather appear before the Lord in the case of those that we derided as Puritans and too precise for making such a doe about salvation or in the case that you and I have lived in Ask but this Question to thy old companions and try whether the Consciences of almost all that approach their end do not bear witness against ungodliness and do not justifie the holy diligence of the Saints It is but two days since a poor drunkard of a neighbour Parish being ready to pass out of this world did send hither and to other Parishes in the terrours of his soul to desire our Congregations to take warning by him and to strive with God if possible for some mercy for his soul that was passing in terrours into another world because of the guilt of his odious sin Well sirs I have gone along with you to all the creatures in this world that have any fitness to judge in this case and if all these will not serve we must go to another world for Judgement or stay till you come there 11. And really do you think if we could speak with Angels or departed Souls that they would not consent with God and all Believers in their Testimony O how they would rebuke their madness that make any doubt of so great so plain so sure a truth as this of the necessity and the excellency of a Holy life None are so fully resolved of this question as they that have tasted the End of both and past the righteous judgement of the Lord. They that are feeling the anguish of their
not what or for want of a little care in seeking it You say You know not whether there be a Hell for ungodly men or no But what if it prove true as certainly it will where are you then Will you venture your selves upon the Possibility of such an Endless Loss and Torment which now you might on reasonable terms escape You will confess that a Possibility of a Kingdom should be more regarded then a Certainty of a pin or a feather And a Possibility of some Tormenting disease but for twenty years should more carefully be avoided then the Certain stinging of a Nettle Quer. 2. You say You are not sure that there is a life to come But are you sure to continue the life you have Or is it any great matter that you are called to lose for the obtaining of 〈…〉 that you are not sure of You know the contrary or easily may do You are sure that you have not long to be here Nothing more sure then that you will shortly die And your are not sure but it may be to morrow And while you are here it is nothing worth the naming but what hath reference to another life that you do possess What have you to your flesh but meat and drink and sleep and lust and such kind of beastial delights Which it is better be without then have if we could also be without the need of them Can you call these by the name of Happiness without renouncing your Reason and Experience You say You know not what God will do for you hereafter But you know what sin and the world will do for you here Even Nothing but hold you in a transitory dream and then dismiss you into rottenness and dust If you were not certain of another life as long as you are most certain of the vanity of this doth not Reason tell you that a Possible Everlasting Glory should be preferred before a Certain vanity If you were not sure to get any thing by God and a Holy Life yet as long as you are sure even as sure as you live that you can lose nothing by it that is worth the talking of is not the case then resolved which way is the Better If you say you shall lose your fleshly pleasures I answer They are not worth the having The pleasure doth not countervail the trouble no more then the delight of scratching as I said before doth countervail the trouble of the itch Moderation and temperance is sweeter then excess If too much be better then enough and that which hurteth nature better then that which helpeth it then self-destroying and fighting against your bodily welfare would be best Is not a temperate meal more pleasant then a gluttonous surfet that is worse to the feeling of the glutton the next day Is not common food that costeth not much and kindleth no troublesom itch in a mans appetite more pleasant then enticing costly dainties Is not so much drink as nature requireth much better then that which makes the stomack sick the brain witless if not the purse pennyless and breedeth many noysom diseases to the flesh and hasteneth death that hasteth of it self By that time the gawdy apparel the dainty fare and drink is paid for and by that time the flesh hath suffered all that pain and sickness that are the ordinary followers of excess me thinks you should say that if there were no Hell your sin were a punishment it self and that in this life it brings more pain then pleasure and that such kind of pleasure is noâ— worth the keeping to the hazard of the least Possibility of 〈◊〉 Everlasting life Wouldst thou under thy hand and seal give away thy hopes and possibility of everlasting life and run the hazzard of an everlasting Torment for the Pleasures of sin or to avoid the trouble of a Holy life Why then thou maist as well even sell it all for pins or points or childrens rackets Then thou art as foolish as the worst of Witches that sell their souls to a lying spirit that whatever he doth promise them doth pay them with nothing but calamity and deceit When thou comest to know better what it is that the world can do for thee thou wilt then confess there was nothing in it that should not have been sleighted for the smalest hopes of an Everlasting life Doâ—t thou think the world will be much better to thee for the time to come than hitherto it hath proved Deceive not thy self it will prove the same yea and worst at last Look back now upon all the pleasures of thy life from thy infancy to this day and tell me what the better thou art for them If this were the hour of thy death would all the profits or pleasures of thy life be any comfort to thee or make thy death a whit the easier Have the dust or bones of the Carkasses of Voluptuous sinners any comfort or benefit now by all the pleasure of their former sin Surely I need not all these words to a man of common understanding to convinee him that if Heaven were as uncertain as the Infidel doth imagine a man of Reason should venture all that he hath upon the meer Possibility because his All indeed is Nothing and he is sure he can be no loser by the bargain it being not so much as the venture of a pin for the Possibility of a Crown Quer. 3. But that 's not all What if I shall prove to thee past all denyal that even in this life Holiness is far the most delightful gainful honourable life and that the ungodly live in a continual misery Will not this serve turn to convince thee that a Holy life should be undertaken for a meer Possibility of Heaven if we had no more Read but the Proofs of this anon and if I make it not good to thee call me a deceiver But if I prove that Holiness is the sweetest life on Earth and Heaven the sure Reward hereafter and that sin is a misery it self to the sinner and Hell the certain punishment hereafter then see that thou confess that God is a good Master and the Devil a bad one for at last thou shalt be forced to confess it Quer. 4. Well You say You are not sure that there is another life for man But have you used the Means to make it sâ—â— to you and to be well-resolved If you have then you have impartially searched and prayed and meditated on the Word of God and heard what can be said by Wiser men for that which you say you are not sure of but if you have trusted to your own understanding and neglected Meditation Prayer Enquiry and other needful means what wonder then if you be uncertain Even whether there be a Heaven or Hell It s no disgrace to Physick or Astronomy or Musick or Languages or Navigation but to you if you say that you are uncertain of all their conclusions when you never studied them or at least
Knowing that certain Duties are to be performed in order to the Pleasing of his Lord and what those Duties are which would not be if we were not capable of Pleasing him and so of being happy in him 5. Man is made capable of Desiring after the Everlasting Love of God and that above all things in this world And God hath not made such Desires in vain 6. Man is capable of Loving God as an Object Everlastingly to be enjoyed and that above all other things 7. Man also is capable of referring all the creatures unto God and using all things but as Means to this Everlasting end Thus do believers And surely all this is not in vain 8. Man is a Creature that cannot regularly be moved according to his nature to the performance of his Duty to God and Man unless it be by Motives fetcht from the life to come Take off that poise and all his orderly motion will soon cease Nothing below such Everlasting things are fit or sufficient Morally to govern him and cause him to live as man should live 9. He is possessed of actual fears of Everlasting Punishment and shall never perfectly overcome these fears by his greatest Unbelief 10. He is capable of fetching his highest Pleasures from the fore-thoughts of Everlasting Happiness and receiving from hence his encouragement in well doing and foretast of the Reward Now this being the Natural frame of man as is past denyal when Brutes have no such thing at all let Reason judge whether the God of Nature have made this nature of man in vain that we see hath suited every other creature to its use our horses to carry us and our Ox to draw for us and the earth to bear its several fruits for them and us And hath he mistaken only in the making of man and gone beyond his own Intention and fitted him for those uses and enjoyments that he was never meant for These are not Imputations to be cast upon the most wise and gracious God Quer. 10. Moreover I demand of you What is the End of man and all these special faculties if there be no life for him after this Either he hath an End which he is to intend or he hath â—one If none then he hath nothing to do in the world For all actions of man are nothing else but the Intending of some End and the choise and use of means for the attaining it Man must lie down and sleep out his days if this be true that he hath â—â— end Nay sleep it self hath some And he cannot choose but Intend some End and seek it if he would never so fain unless he will take some opiate stupifying potion or run mad And he that made him also and placed him here had some End in it For if man had thus no End he could have no Maker or Efficient cause For every Rational efficient intendeth an end in all his works And he that made men Rational is Eminently much more Knowing then his Creature And if we had no Maker then we have no Being and so are no Men. But if Man unquestionably have an End it is either something that is Nobler or Baser then himself and some state that is Better or Worse then that in which he seeks his end Baser it cannot be for that were Monstrous that Baser things should be the End of the more Noble Beasts are made for Man and therefore not Man for Beasts The Earth is made for Beasts and Men and therefore we are not made for the Earth Our Means is not our End If you grant that we are made for God that made us as nothing more sure then How is it that God can be our End if there be no life but this 1. Here we are but in seeking him and still are forced to complain that we fall short Here we are but in the use of means 2. We find that our Knowledge Desires and Love will here reach no higher then to carry us on towards that perfection that is in our eye and not to satisfie the soul The creature that doth attain his End hath Rest in it and is better then before But we have nothing here like Rest and should be in a worse condition hereafter if we had no more 3. Here we sin against the Lord and wrong him more then we serve him we know but little of him and his work and serve and praise him but a little and not according to the capacity of our nature And therefore if he have not a higher end for us and we a higher end to seek then any is in this world to be found our Natures seem to be in vain For my part though it be in weakness I must needs say it is my trade and daily work to serve my God and seek after an immortal blessedness And if I thought that there were no such thing to be had and no such use for me I must needs stand still and look about me or in my practice unman my self by a brutish life as I had brutified my self in my estimation and Intention For what 〈◊〉 I find to do in the world What should I do with my Reason and Knowledge or any faculty above a beast if I had no higher a work and end then beasts Verily if I had lost the Hopes of another life I knew not what to do with my self in the world but must become some other creature and live some other kind of life then now I live Quer. 11. Moreover I desire you to consider Whether it 〈◊〉 credible to a man of Reason that God made his noblest creature in this world with a Nature that should be a Necessary Misery and Vexation to it self above all the misery of the baser creatures and that the wiser any man is the more miserable he must needs be This is not credible Yet thus would it be if there were no life but this For 1. the Knowledge that man hath of a superiour Good which beasts have not would Tantalize him and torment him To know it and must not partake of it is to be used as a Horse that is tyed near his Provender which he must not reach 2. The Love and Desires and Hopes that I before described would all be our Vexation To Love and Desire that which we cannot attain and that with the chief of our Affections is but to make us miserable by vertue 3. To use all those Means and do the Duties before-mentioned in vain when we are not capable of the End is but to roll at Siâ—iphus stone and to be made to wash Blackamores or to fill a bottomless tub 4. No creature here but man hath Fears of any misery after death and therefore none would be here so miserable There is no Infidel but must confess that for ought hâ— knows there may be a life of punishment for the wicked And this may be will breed more fears in a confiderate man then Death it self alone could do 5.
which the Gospel worketh as well as small 3. That good which they had was wrought only by some â—eraps or parcels of the same holy Truth that is contained in the Scriptures And therefore even so much Truth among the Heathens as proficed them to any Reformation was the word of God and owned by him Quer. 6. Do you believe that Jesus Christ did rise again from the dead or not and that he and his Disciples did work those many uncontrolled Miracles or not If you do believe it then what need you further testimony to prove the doctrine to be of God or to prove that there is a Life to come Shall the Captain of our Salvation himself Rise from the dead and conquer death and ascend up into Heaven to shew us that there is a Life to come and yet will you not believe it Or would God lend to any man his Power to confirm a false doctrine to the world If so then 1. It would be God himself that should mislead us For it is he that worketh the Miracles or granteth special Power to the instrument to do it 2. Man should be unavoidably misled For if a man rise from the Dead and raise others and give to thousands the guifts of Languages healing and the like and all this have no greater contrary evidence from God of some contradiction or controllment I am unavoidably deceived and neither my greatest innocency or diligence or any other help from men could possibly relieve me And he that can believe that the Infinitely Powerful Wise and Good is either necessitated or disposed to deceive the world and Rule them by deceit and falshood and to lend his power to confirm a doctrine that he hateth and is against himself this man indeed believeth not that there is any God 3. Even the Brutists themselves and all the Infidels with whom we talk will confess that if they should see Christ Rise or see such Miracles they would believe and therefore they do confess that they are cogent Evidence to those that know of them Obj. Did not the sorcerrers in Egypt work Miracles Ans 1. Wonders they did but not Miracles 2. They were controlled and shamed and disowned by God by Moses his contradictory conqueting Miracles Obj. But some might have dyed between the Magicians wonders and Moses controlment and so have been unavoidably lost Answ 1. The time was neer and that not likely of those that knew of them 2. At the first wonder of the Magicians Aarons Rod swallowed up their Rods Exod. 7. 12. and therefore the conquest obliged them to suspend belief of the other 3. The Miracles of Moses were not to reveal a new doctrine of salvation that could not otherwise be known but partly to convince Pharaoh that the Lord was God and partly to cause him to let go the Israelites The peoples salvation lay not on the later and the former they had abundant means to know by the works and light of Nature it self And the Magicians wonders were not to reveal a New false doctrine any further then to contend againg Moses Miracles and if they had yet being against the doctrine of the whole Creation that revealeth the Creator no man could be excusable for believing them because God hath given so full a testimony before against them so that this objection is plainly but an impertinent cavil But I doubt not but you will say that you are not sure that Christ rose again and that ever such Miracles were done I Ask therefore Quer. 7. Whether it be possible that so many and so wise and godly men as their writings prove them should give up their lives and all that they had and could have hoped for in this world to perswade the world that they saw Christ Risen if it were false and to draw them to believe a falshood that tended to the worldly ruine of them all Quer. 8. And is it possible that if they had been so bad and mad that so many thousands would have believed them when their own frequent Miracles Language c. were the witness of their fidelity to which they openly appealed and this in the very age and place where all these things might easily be confuted if untrue If I should pretend to convince the world by Languages not learned and by other Miracles and guifts which I never had would countreys or any sober persons believe me or should I not be the common scorn Would the Churches of the world have been planted by pretended Miracles that never were would they all have given up estates and lives upon an evident lye It was easie for them all to see and hear whether these things were done or not And therefore he that seeth those Churches which were the proper effects of Miracles may know the Cause A real effect had a real cause Quer. 9. Was it possible that so many hundred or thousand persons dispersed about the world on a sudden could without coming neer each other agree both upon one and the same false doctrine throughout and on the same practices to deceive the world Quer. 10. Is it possible that among so many thousands that torments or death or common ingennity would not have forced some to have repented and opened the deceits of all the rest Quer. 11. Is it possible that so many Hereticks that did fall from them and set against the true Aposles would none of them have disclosed the deceit if really the Miracles had not been done Quer. 12. Is it possible that none of the Jews their bitter Enemies nor any of the Learned Romans of that age would have discovered the fraud and by writing confuted the matters of fact being publik and if false so easily confuted Where are the Books that ever any one of them wrote to disprove any of these Miracles If you say The Christians burnt them give us the least proof of it if you can When did any Jew complain of such a thing Nay how could the dispersed persecuted Christians destroy the writings of their reigning enemies The writings of Jews and Romans then written remain to this day and had fuller humane advantages of preservation then any that are against them No Jews or Romans complained or to do this day complain of such a thing nor tell us of any such writings of theirs that ever were in the world Quer. 13. Nay the Jews confessed the Miracles themselves and had no shift left for their unbelief but by Blaspheming the Holy Ghost and saying that they were done by the Power of the devil Quer. 14. All the dispersed Churches and Christians of the world have universally concurred in delivering us down these matters of fact and the Writings that contain them and this as a thing that they grounded all their hope of Salvation on and for which they contemned this present world And the Enemies that gainsaid their doctrine did not gainsay these matters of fact Could this be feigned Quer. 15. Have I not fully manifested in my
encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them Psalm 91. 11 12. He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone Matth. 18 10. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in heaven their Angels do alwayes behold the face of my Father which is in heaven Heb. 1. 14. Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to Minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation And have the wicked any such attendance for their security No but a fearful captivity to the Devil 7 Lastly that is the safest state where a man is safe from the Greatest Evil. Everlasting misery is the great evil which the Godly are initially saved from They are lyable to afflictions as well as others but not to Damnation and therefore they are safe They must be sick and die as well as others but they shall escape Eternal death Yea they are already passed from death to life 1 John 3. 14. and have Eternal life begun within them John 17. 3. He that hath the Son hath life 1 John 5. 12. John 5. 22. Verily verily I say unto you he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life ver 28 29. Marvail not at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good to the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of damnation Psalm 1. 4 5 6. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the Judgement nor sinners in the Congregation of the righteous For the Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish If yet you are unresolved whether Godliness be the only way of safety I dare say it is because you believe not the holy Scriptures For there the doubt is as fully decided as any one in all the world O how blessed is the state of the poorest most afflicted Saint that may alway say My soul is safe If my health or wealth or friends be gone yet am I safe from everlasting misery Other things I shall have as God seeth best for his honour and my spiritual good but salvation I may be sure of if I abide in Christ What needs he fear that hath escaped Hell But O the dreadful case of the ungodly that are passing to damnation when they never think of it Their Bodies may be strong their riches great and they may fare sumptuously every day Luke 16. 19. But O what a case are their poor souls in and where will they be when this mirth is ended Luke 16. 25. They are not safe from Hell one hour CHAP. VII Holiness is the only Honest Way WEE have tryed whether the way of Godliness or Ungodliness be the safest Let us next try which is the Honestest of which one would think we should never meet with a man so shameless as to make a question But experience telleth us that such there are yea and that they are very common Even in their reproaching of a Holy life they will joyn the boastings of their own Honesty and say Though we swear or are drunk now and then and make not such a stir about Gods service and our salvation yet we are as Honest as these preciser people that make more ado and censure us as ungodly As truly and wisely as if a common whore should say I am as Honest as these precise people that will not play the harlots as I do And as wisely as if a Thief should say Though I steal for need I am as honest as these precise people that will not steal But yet we have this advantage by these shameless boasts that still the Name of Honesty is in credit and the worst men honour it by pretending to it while they dishonour themselves by their renouncing the Thing it self and by the impudency of their pretences Honesty is nothing but true Virtue or the Moral Goodness of the Mind or Action An Honest man and a Good man is indeed all one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Greeks one that is both inwardly virtuous and manifests it in the cleaness and integrity of his life in the sight of men All men for ought I can perceive would be accounted Honest This reputation Honesty hath among its vilest enemies that they approve the Name and would not appear to be its enemies till they have put some other Name upon it While they hate Honesty and persecute it they would be called Honest men themselves And therefore by the consent of all the world friends and foes that is the Best way which is the Honestest O that you would all but stand to this in the choosing of your course and in your daily practice Will you all agree upon a Holy life if I prove it past all doubt to be the Honestest O that you would Yea if I prove that there is no man truly Honest in the world that is not truly Godly If you would stand to this you would soon be changed Indeed it is nothing but but Dishonesty that we would have you changed from And if you will not stand to this but will refuse Honesty when you know it for shame lay by the Name of Honesty and wish not men to call you Honest any more Either be what you would be called or give men leave to call you as you are Let us come then to the tryal and see who is indeed the Honest man the Godly or the ungodly 1. I have already told you that God who is the most infallible Judge hath given his sentence on his peoples side If you will think your selves that it is not those that Thieves and Harlots call Honest that are so likely to be Honest as those that wise men and vertuous men call so We have then far greater Reason to conclude that it is not those that you call Honest that are so fit to be judged such as those that God calls so How say you will you not freely give us leave to take Gods judgements or Word before yours If not we will take leave And God calls all the ungodly by the name of Evil and Wicked men and the godly are they that he calleth Upright Good and Honest The whole Scripture you know if you know any thing of it speaketh in this language Luke 8. 15. It is they that hear the Word and keep it and bring forth fruit with patience that receive it into honest and good hearts This is the life that is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour which is in all Godliness and Honesty These are inseparable Godliness
and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which signifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour but that which is frequently translated good is it which signisieth the truly Honest And you know none of the ungodly are ever called Good in Scripture but clean contrary Prov. 11. 6. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them but transgressâ—rs shall be taken in their own naughtiness So vers 18. 19 20. The wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward As righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil doth it to his own death They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight Everywhere you see how God abhorreth the ungodly and extolleth those that love and fear him Christ calleth the ungodly Evil men that â—â—t of the evil treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things Matth. 12. 35. All is evil the life evil the heart evil and the man evil Prov. 12. 26. The Righteous is more excellent then his neighbour but the way of the wicked seduceth them And Psalm 16. David calleth the godly The excellent in whom is all his delight It is an excellent spirit that is in them Dan. 3. 12. 14 and 63. and an excellent way in which they go 1 Cor. 12. 31. and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain Phil. 3. 18. Ephes 3. 18 19. You have Gods judgement of the case if that will satisfie you who it is that is the Best and Honestest man the Holy or the unholy 2. Do you think that man is an Honest man that will deny you your due and rob you of all that is your own Or rather is not the Just man the Honest man that will give every man his own I know you will give your voices for the latter O then take heed lest you condemn your selves If you be not Holy your own testimony doth condemn you For it is only the Godly that give God his own when the ungodly rob him of it Hast thou not thy Life and Time and Maintenance from God Hast thou not thy Reason and thy Affections and all thy faculties from him And should not all thou hast be employed for him Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest yea denyest him one day in seven when thou owest him all Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Makers due unto his vilest enemies That wastest thy means or strength on sin that spendest thy precious time on vanity that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts and that livest to thy flesh when thou shouldst live to God Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies and of all which thou dost not use for his service It is less dishonesty to rob thy Master that trusteth thee with his goods then to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time and parts and all things O blind unworthy sinners What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker or denyeth him his own when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you that in respect of God have nothing of your own Art thou better then God that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee and no dishonesty to wrong him or deny him that which is his own God hath an absolute Title to you and that on more accounts then one You are his own as you are his creatures All souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. And he hath Title to thee by Redemption as well as by Creation For to this end Christ dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of the deâ—d and of the living Rom. 14. 9. We are not our own we are bought with a price and therefore should glorifie God in our bodies and our spirits which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. For if one dyed for all then were all dead that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. And as you your selves are Gods own as he is your Creator and Redeemer so all that you have is his own as the bestower or as your Master that trusteth it in your hands Exod. 19. 5. Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine And saith God to Job Job 41. 11. What soever is under the whole heaven is mine Psalm 50. 10 11 12. Every beast of the Forrest is mine the wild beasts of the field are mine the world is mine and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 4. 7. What hast thou which thou didst not receive Thou hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God nor a thought nor a word nor a farthing of thy estate And is it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to thy flesh and deny them to him and think his service an unnecessary thing If thou wilt give the world and thy lusts any thing let it be that which thou canst truly call thine own As God saith to the Idolators Ezek. 16. 18 19. Thou hast set mine oyl and mine incense before them my meat also which I gave thee c. so may he say â—o thee It is his Time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sinful delights and his Provision by which thou hast â—ed thy lusts But the sanctified man is devoted to God His study is to give him his own All the business of his life which you account his over-much strictness and preciseness is nothing but his Honesty to God in giving him his own You look your horse should travail for you and your Oxe should labour for you and your servant work for you because they are your own And shall not we give up all that we have to God that are much more his own Will you hang them that take your Own from you and count them Honest that deal worse with God Say not If Christ were here we would give it him For he hath told you how you should use all his talents in his Laws and if you deny them to the poor or any holy use that he requireth them you deny them unto him Read Mat. 25. 10. 40 41 42. 3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an Honest man One that will abuse his Father or Mother and scorn the bowels from which he sprung All the world is agreed on it that such are dishonest Honour thy Father and Mother is called the first Commandment with promise Exod. 21 17. He that curseth his Father or Mother shall surely be put to death See Prov. 20. 20. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young
this man will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Isa 66. 2. This is the Honourable entertainment of the Saints 7. And they are members of the most Honourable Society in the world The Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Luke 1. 33. Col. 1. 13. The Kingdom of God Luke 17. 21. 18. 17. The Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3. 2. 13. 31 33 44. It is the School of Christ or his University in which Believers are his Schollars learning to know him and serve him and praise him for ever and trained up for everlasting life Acts 11. 26. Luke 6. 13. Mat. 5. 1 2 c. It is the family or houshold of God Eph. 2. 19. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Heb. 10. 21. 1 Pet. 4. 17. It is the Spouse yea the Body of Christ Eph. 5. 25. So loved by him that he gave himself for it becoming the price of our Redemption and thought not his life too dear a Ransom nor his blood too precious to cleanse and save us Eph. 5. 25 26. Tit. 2. 14. The Church which every godly man is a living member of is a Society chosen out of the world to be nearest unto God and dearest to him as the beloved of his soul to receive the choicest of his mercies and be adorned with the righteousness of Christ and to be employed in his special service 1 Pet. 2. 4 5 9. John 15. 19. Eph. 1. 4. Psalm 132. 13. 135. 4. Eph. 5. 1. The Lord that Redeemed them is their King and Head and dwelleth in the midst of them and walketh among them as the people of his special presence and delight Psalm 2. 6. 89. 18. 149. 2. 46. 5. Isa 12. 6. Jer. 14. 9. Zeph. 3. 5 15 17. Rev. 1. 13. 2. 1. Psalm 95. 2. The Church is a Heavenly Society though the militant part yet live on earth For the God of Heaven is the Soveraign and the Father of it The glorified Redeemer is their Head The Spirit of Christ doth guide and animate them His Laws revealed and confirmed from Heaven direct and govern them Heaven is their end and heavenly are their dispositions employments and conversations There is their portion and treasure Matth. 6. 20 21. and there is their very heart and hope They are risen with Christ and therefore seek the things that are above For their life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 2 3 4. Their Root is there and the noblest part of the Society is there For the glorified Saints and in some sort the Angels are of the same Society with us though they are in heaven and we on earth The whole family in Heaven and earth is named from one and the same Head Eph. 3. 15. Heb. 12. 22 23. 24. We are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling c. This is the Honourable Society of Saints the eye the pearl of the whole Creation 8. Moreover the Godly have the most Horourable Attendance The creatures are all theirs though not in point of Civil propriety yet as means appointed and managed by God their Father for their best advantage The Angels of God are ministring spirits for them not as our servants but as Gods servants for our good As Ministers in the Church are not the servants of men but the servants of God for men And so whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or to come all are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. The Shepherds servant is not the servant of the sheep but for the sheep And so the Angels disdain not to serve God in the guarding of the weakest Saints As I formerly shewed from Heb. 1. 14. Psalm 91. 11 12. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them For he giveth his Angels charge over us to keep us in all our wayes they shall bear us up in their hands left we dash our foot against a stone Sun and Moon and all the creatures are daily employed in our attendance O how wonderful is the Love of God to his unworthy servants in their advancement Remember it when thou art scorning at the servants of the Lord or speaking against them that those poor those weak despised Christians that thou art vilifying have their Angels beholding the face of God their Father in the Heavens Take heed therefore that you despise not the least of these It is the warning of Christ Matth. 18. 10. The same blessed spirits that attend the Lord and see his face in blissful Glory do attend and guard the meanest of the godly here on earth As the same servants use to wait upon the Father and the children in the same family or the bigger children to help the less 9. And it is the Honour of the Godly that they that are themselves most Honourable do Honour them To be magnified by a fool or wicked flatterer is small Honour but to be magnified by the best and wisest men this is true Honour We say that Honour is in him that giveth it and not in him that receiveth But it is God himself that Honoureth his Saints It is he that speaketh all these great and wonderous things of them which I have hitherto recited Search the Texts which I have alledged and try whether it be not he And surely to have the God of Heaven to applaud a man and put Honour upon him and so great Honour is more then if all the world had done it Yet we may add if any thing could be considerable that is added unto the approbation of God that all his servants the wisest and the best even his holy Angels are of the same mind and honour the godly in conformity to their Lord. And here Christian I require thee from the Lord to consider the greatness of thy sin and folly when thou art too desirous of the applause of men especially of the blind ungodly world and when thou makest a great matter of their contempt or scorn or of their slanderous censures What! is the approbation of the eternal God so small a matter in thy eyes that the scorn of a fool can weigh it down or move the ballance with thee If a feather were put into the scales against a mountain or the whole earth it should weigh as much as the esteem or dis-esteem of men their honouring thee or dishonouring thee should weigh against the esteem of God and the honour or dishonour that he puts upon thee as to any regard of the thing it self though as it reflecteth on God thou
more certainly of the Invisible things then any Saints or Angels can tell them Why should not this I say be sweeter to them then all the fleshly pleasures in the world O that I could know more of God and more of the mystery of Redemption even of an obedient crucified glorified Christ and more of the invisible world and of the blessed state of souls on condition I left all the Pleasures of this world to sensual men O that I had more clear and firm apprehensions of these transcendent glorious things How easily could I spare the Pleasures of the flesh and leave those husks to swine to feed on O could my Soul get nearer God and be more irradiated with his heavenly beams my mind would need no other recreation and I should as little relish carnal Pleasures as carnal minds do relish the heavenly delights As earthly things are poor and low so is the knowledge of them As things spiritual and heavenly are High and Glorious mysterious and profound the knowledge of them is accordingly Delighful And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. Faith is the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. It is far pleasanter by faith to see the Lord thâ—… to see any Creature by the eye of flesh and sweeter â—y faith to see Heaven opened and there behold our Glorified Lord then to see a horse-race or stage-play or any of the folleries of the world 2. The knowledge of things to Come is specially desired and Godliness containeth that Faith which knoweth things to come How glad would men be to be told what shall besall them to the last hour of their lives The woman of Samaria Joh. 4. called out her neighbours with admiration to see Christ as one that had told her all that shee had done But if he had told her all that ever she would do for the time to come and all that ever should befall her it might have astonished her much more Believers know what hath been even before the world was made and how it was made and what hath been since then and they know what will be to all eternity A true Believer knows from Scripture whither mens Souls go after death and how their Bodies shall be raised again and how Christ will come to Judge the world and who shall then be justified and who shall be condemned and what shall be the case of the godly and the ungodly to all eternity And is it not more pleasant to know these things then to possess all the vain delights of the earth Can the flesh afford you any thing so delightful 3. Especially it is desireable and Pleasant to Know those things that most concern us Needless speculations and curiosities we can spare There is a Knowledge that brings more pain then pleasure Yea there is a Knowledge that will torment But to know our own affairs our greatest and most necessary affairs to know our threatened misery to prevent it and to know our offered Happiness to obtain it to know our Portion our Honour our God what can be more Pleasant to the mind of man Other mens matters we can pass by But to Know such things concerning our own souls as what we must be and do for ever and what course we must take to be everlastingly happy must needs be a feast to the mind of a wise man Ask but a soul that is haunted with temptations to unbelif whether any thing would be more welcome to him then the clear and satisfying apprehensions of a lively faith Ask one that lyeth in tears or groans through the feeling of their sin and the fears of the wrath of God and doubtings of his love whether the satisfying Knowledge of pardon and reconciliation and divine acceptance would not be more pleasant to them then any of your merriments can be to you Ask that poor soul that hath lost the apprehension of his Evidences of grace and walks in darkness and hath no light that seeks and cryes and perceives no hearing whether the discovery of his Evidences the assurance that his Prayers are accepted and the light of Gods countenance shining on him would not be Better to him then any Recreation or any Pleasure the earth affords Ask any man at the hour of death that is not a block Whether now the Knowledge of his salvation would not be Better and more Pleasnt to him then all the lust or sport or honours of the world 4. The Knowledge of the Best and Joyfullest matters must be the Best and Pleasantest Knowledge And nothing can be Better then God and Glory Nothing can be sweeter then salvation and therefore this must be the sweetest Knowledge I had rather have the pleasure of one hours clear and lively Knowledge of my salvation and of the special Love of God then to be exalted above the greatest Prince and to have all the Pleasures that my senses can desire The Delights of the flesh are base and brutish and nothing to the spiritual Heavenly Delights of the renewed mind 5. The manner of our Holy Knowledge maketh it more Delightful 1 It is a Certain and Infallible Knowledge It is not a may be or bare possibility It is not It is possible there may be a Heaven and Happiness hereafter But it is as true as the Word of God is true We have his own hand and seal and earnest for it Even his precious promises and oath confirmed by miracles and fulfilled-prophecy and bearing his own image and superscription and shining to us by its own light We have in our hearts the spirit which is Gods earnest by which we are sealed up to the day of our final full redemption And if the soul yet stagger at the promise of God through the remnants of unbelief that shall not make the promise of God of none effect but his foundation shall still stand sure His word shall not pass till all be fulfilled though heaven and earth shall pass away A message by one that were sent to us from the dead were not more credible then the Word of God And this Certainty of Holy Faith and Knowledge is a very great contentment to the soul When the Glory of the Saints is a thing as sure as if we saw it with our eyes and as sure as these things which we daily see it is a great pleasure to the soul when it can but apprehend this joyful Certainty 2. And that there is a certain easiness and plainness in the great and necessary points of faith as to the manner of Revelation doth add much to Faith's Satisfaction and Delight The points that life and death lie on are not left so obscure as might perplex us lest we did not know the meaning of them But they are so plain that he that runs may read them and the simple
the renewed state that grace hath brought them into For the Kingdom of God consisteth as in Righteousness so in Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Believers receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear that is they are not under the bondage of the Law nor have the spirit or state of mind which is suited to those Legal impositions and terrible comminations but they have received the spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba father that is As they are brought under a more gracious dispensation and a better Covenant and promises and God is revealed to them in the Gospel as a Reconciled Father through his son so doth he treat them more gently as reconciled children and the spirit which answereth this gracious Covenant and is given us thereupon doth qualifie us with a child-like disposition and cause us with boldness Love and confidence to call God Father and fly to him for succour and supply in all ouâ— dangers and necessities And how Pleasant it must be to a believing soul to have this spirit of Adoption this childlike Love and confidence and freedom with the Lord methinks you might conjecture though its sensibly known by them only that enjoy it Gal. 5. 22. The fruit of the spirit is Love Joy Peace c. when the word is first received by Believers though it may be in much affliction through the persecutions and cross that attend the Gospel yet is it ordinarily in the Joy of the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1. 6. The Holy Ghost is the Comforter of true Believers And if he have taken it upon him as his work he will surely do it in the degree and season fittest for them And if Joy it self be part of the state of Grace and Holiness you may see that it is the most delightful Pleasant course 7. Yea that we may have a Pleasant and comfortable life the Lord hath forbidden our distracting cares and fears and doubts and our inordinate sorrows and commanded us to cast our care on him and promised to care for us 1 Pet. 5. 7. and he hath bid us be careful for nothing but in all things make our wants known to him Phil. 4. 6. And can there be a course of life more Pleasant then that which dost consist in faith and Love and hope and Joy that 's built on God and animated by him and that excludeth inordinate cares and sorrows as health doth sickness where it is unlawful to be miserable and to grieve our selves and no sorrow is allowed us but that which tendeth to our joy where it is made our work to Rejoyce in the Lord yea always to Rejoyce Phil. 4. 4. A servant or tradesman will judge of the pleasure of his life by his work If his work be a drudgery his life is tedious and filled with grief If his work be Pleasant his life is Pleasant Judge then by this of a Holy life Is it care and fear and anguish of mind that God commandeth you no it is these that he forbiddeth Care not Fear not are his injunctions Isa 35. 4. 41. 10. Do you fear Reproach Why you do it contrary to the will of God who biddeth you Fear not the reproach of men Isa 51. 7. Do you fear the power and rage of enemies Why it is contrary to your Religion so to do God biddeth you Fear them not Isa 43. 5 13 14. 44. 2 8. Do you fear persecution or death from the hands of cruel violence why it is contrary to the will of God that you do so Matth. 10. 26 28 31. Fear not them which kill the body c. O blessed life where all that is against us is forbidden and all that is truly Joyous and delightful and necessary to make us happy is commanded us and made our duty which is contrary to misery as life to death and as light to darkness Come hither poor deluded sinners that fly from care and fear and sorrow If you will but give up your selves to Christ you shall be exempted from all these except such as is necessary to your joy You may do any thing if you will be the servants of the Lord except that which tendeth to your own and other mens calamity Come hither all you that call for pleasure and love no life but a life of mirth Let God be your master and Holiness your work and Pleasure then shall be your business and holy Mirth shall be your employment While you serve the flesh your pleasure is small and your trouble great vexation is your work and unspeakable vexation is your wages But if you will be the hearty servants of the Lord Rejoycing shall be your work and wages If you understand not this peruse your lesson Psal 33. 1. Rejoyce in the Lord O ye Righteous for Praise is comely for the upright Psal 97. 11 12. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Rejoyce in the Lord ye Righteous and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Phil. 3. 1. Psal 5. 11. Let all those that trust in thee rejoyce let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them let them also that Love thy name be joyful in thee Psal 32. 11. Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 132. 9. 16. Let thy Priests be cloathed with Righteousness and let thy Saints shout for joy 16. I will also cloath her Priests with salvation and his Saints shall shout aloud for joy such precepts and promises abound in Scripture which tell you if you will be Saints indeed that Joy and gladness must be your life and work I know objections will be stirring in your minds But forbear them but a while and I shall fully answer them anon 2. I have told you wherein the Inward part of Holiness is Delightful I shall briefly shew you that the Outward part also is very Pleasant and fit to feed these inward joys And 1. let us view the Duties that are more directly to be performed unto God and 2. The works of charity and righteousness unto men 1. How sweet is it to be exercised in the word of God In hearing or reading it with serious meditation For the man that hath been revived by it renewed sanctified saved by it to hear that powerful heavenly truth by which his soul was thus made new For the soul that is in Love with God to hear or see his blessed name on every leaf to read his will and find the expressions of his Love his great eternal wonderous love how sweet this is experience tells the Saints that feel it If you that feel no sweetness in it believe not them that say they feel it at leaâ—â— believe the word of God and the professions of his ancient Saints Psal 119. 97. O how I love thy Law it is my meditation all the day v. 103. How sweet are thy words unto my tast yea sweeter then
Believer knows that as his life and soul so his worldly riches are nowhere sure but in the hand of God And therefore if they can procure his security and get him to receive it and return it them in Heaven with the promised advantage they have then secured it indeed All is lost that God hath not in one way or other and all is secured that he hath and for which we have his promise This is laying it up in heaven Matth. 6. 21. While we keep it we cannot secure it from thieves When we have disposed of it according to the Will of God upon the warrant of his promise it is then in his Custody and then it is safe Neither rust or moath can then corrupt it nor the strongest thieves break through and steal To be Good and do Good is to be likest unto God and therefore must needs be the sweetest life 2. Works of Justice also have their pleasure For they demonstrate the Justice of God himself from whom they do proceed That which is most Pleasant to God should be most Pleasant unto us And as he hath bid us not forget to do good and to communicate because with such sacrifice he is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. so he hath told us that he delighteth in the exercise of loving-kindness judgement and righteousness in the earth Jer. 9. 24. He hath shewed us what is good and what doth he require of us but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God Mich. 6. 8. And therefore he commandeth Israel Hos 12. 6. Turn thou to thy God Keep Mercy and Judgement and wait on thy God continually Private justice between man and man and family-justice between parents and children masters and servants and Political justice between the Magistrates and the people do all maintain the order of the world and procure both publike and private peace It is selfishness and injustice tyrannie oppression disobedience and rebellion that procure the miseries of the world But Righteousness is safe and sweet 2. You have heard of the Pleasure of Holy Actions both Internal and External The truth is evident also from the Objects of these Acts and the matter from which a believer may derive his Pleasures And O what an Ocean of delight is here before us Were our powers capacities and acts but answerable to the Objects we should presently have the Joyes of heaven 1. A Believer hath the ever blessed God himself to derive his comforts from He hath his Nature and Attributes to be his comfort He hath his near Relations to afford him comfort and this is more then to have all the world It is a God of Infinite Power and Wosdom and Goodness that we believe in that we Love and Worship and Obey It is also a Father Reconciled to us that hath taken us in Covenant to him as his people through Jesus Christ And where shall we find comfort if not in God It is in vain to look for that from any creature that is not to be found in him Poor worldlings you have nothing that is worth the having but the crumms that fall from the childrens table God is our Portion and the world is yours and yet you have less even in this world then we You have the shadow and we have the substance You have the shell and we the kernell You have the straw and chaff and true believers have the corn Your comforts are shaken with every storm and tost up and down by the Justice of God or the Pride of man But God that is our Portion is unchangeable Yesterday to day and the same for ever We have a Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. Persecutors cannot take our God from us nor can any thing separate us from his Love Rom. 8. 36. They may separate us from our houses from our Countries from our friends from our riches our liberties our lives from our Books our company and Ordinances but not from God who is our great Delight In poverty in persecution in sickness and at death we have still our interest in God A Christian is never in so low a state but he hath a God to whom he may go for comfort who is more to him then your sweetest pleasures Is it not a pleasure to have such a God as can cure all diseases supply all wants overcome all enemies deliver in all dangers and hath promised that he will do it so far as is for our good If he want water that hath the Sea or he want land that hath all the earth or he want light that hath the Sun yet doth he not need to want delight that hath the Lord to be his God if â—e do but keep in the pathes of grace And are you yet unresolved whether Godliness be the most Pleasant Life Take all your pleasures and make your best of them may I but have the Lord to be my God and I hope I shall never desire to change with you 2. A Holy life is therefore Pleasant because we have a full sufficient Saviour from whom we may daily fetch delight The Eâ—ernal Son of God is become the Healer of our wounds our Peace-maker with the Father the Conquerour of our enemies the Ransom for our sins the Captain of our salvation the Head of his Church and the Treasure of all our Hopes and Joyes Sin and misery are the works of Satan which Christ came into the world to destroy If Hypocrites can steal a little Peace to their Consciences from a false conceit that they have a part in Christ what comfort may it be to the true Believer that hath a sure and real interest in him That is the sad and miserable life when you are out of Christ and strangers to his Covenant and cannot say his benefits are yours but you are yet in your sins without his righteousness But when we have a special interest in him the foundation of our everlasting joy is laid and the heart of sin and misery is broken What fear or sorrow can you name that I may not fetch a sufficient remedy against from Christ What can the Prince of darkness say to our discomfort which we may not answer by Arguments from Christ By this judge of the Comfort of a Holy life If the Godly over-look the Grounds of Joy that are laid in Christ and live in a mistaken sorrow that is not for want of Reasons and warrant to rejoyce but for want of a right discerning of those Reasons But what have you that are ungodly to answer against all the terrours of the Law or to answer against all the accusations of your consciences or to comfort you against the remembrance of your approaching misery While you have no part in Christ you have no right to comfort One thought of Christ to a believing soul may afford more Delight then ever you will find in a sinful life 3. Moreover we have the Holy spirit of Christ that is purposely given us to be
our Comforter And if that be not a pleasant life that is managed by such a Guide and that be not likest to be a joyful soul that is possest by the Spirit of joy it self there is no joy then on earth to be expected Hath God promised his Spirit to comfort you that are wicked in your sin No it is the malicious deceiving spirit that is your Comforter that by his comforts he might keep you from solid spiritual everlasting comforts But the Repenting Believing soul that is united unto Christ and hath already had the spirit for his conversion it is he that hath the promise of the spirit for his consolation And if that be not the most comfortable life where the God of Heaven becomes the comforter we cannot then know the effect by the cause If Life it self will quicken if light it self will illuminate the comforting spirit will certainly comfort in the degree and season as God seeth meet and the soul is fitted to receive it 4. Moreover we have the whole treasurie of the Gospel to go to for our Delight And little doth the sensual unbelieving soul know what sweetness what supporting pleasures may be from thence derived I had rather have the holy word of God to go to for contents then the treasures of the rich or the pleasures of the sensual or the flatteries and vain glory of the ambitious man All that the world doth make such a pudder about which they ride and run for which they so much glory in will never afford them so much Content as one Scripture promise will do to a truly faithful soul I must profess before Angels and men that I had rather have one Promise of the Love of God and the life to come which is contained in the holy Scriptures then to have all the riches pleasures and honours of this world My God this was my Covenant with thee and to this I stand O blessed be the Lord that hath provided us such a Magazine of Delight as is this heavenly sacred Book The Precepts appoint us a pleasant work The strictest prohibitions do but restrain us from our own calamities and keep out of our hands the knife by which we would cut our fingers The severest threatnings do but deterre us from running into the consuming fire and hedge about the devouring gulf lest we should foolishly cast our selves therein And these are the bitterest parts of that holy word But when we read the promises of a Saviour and the wonderful history of his Incarnation and of his holy self-denying life his conquests miracles death resurrection ascension intercession and his promise to return when we read of the foundation which he hath laid and the building which he intends to finish of his rich abundant promises to his chosen what provision do we find for our abundant joys No strait can be so great no pressure so grievous no enemies so strong but we have full consolation offered us in the promises against them all We have promises of the pardon of all our sins and promises of heaven it self and what can we have more we have promises suited to every state both prosperity and adversity What do we need which we have not a promise of And the word of God is no deceit What but a promise can comfort them that are short of the possession May I not have more joy in sickness with a promise then the ungodly without a promise in their health A promise in prison sets a man as at liberty A promise in Poverty is more then riches A promise at death is better then life What I have a promise of I may be sure of but what you possess without a promise you may lose and your souls and hopes with it this night There is no condition on earth so hard to a man that hath interest in the promises in which he may not have plentiful relief We live by faith and not by sense And we reckon more on that as ours which we hope for then which we do possess We are sure that there is no true felicity on earth It then we have a promise of Heaven when Infidels lie down in the dust with desperation have we not a more comfortable life then they 5. Moreover we have Heaven it self to fetch our comfort from Not Heaven in sight or in Possession but Heaven in Promise and seen by faith And if Heaven will not afford us pleasure whence shall we expect it Even sensual men can rejoyce as well in what they see not if they are assured it is theirs as in what they see And why then may not Believers do so much more A worldling when he seeth not his money in his chest or at use or his lands and cattel that are far from him can yet rejoyce in them as if he saw them And should not we rejoyce in the certain Hopes of Heaven though yet we see it not when I am pained in sickness and role in restless weariness of my flesh if then I can say I shall be in Heaven may it not be the inward rejoycing of my soul You know where you are but you know not where you shall be The Believer knoweth where he shall be as truly as he knoweth where he is unless it be one that by his frailty hath not reacht unto assurance who yet hath reached unto Hope What great matter is it if I lay in greatest pain if I can say I shall have everlasting ease in Heaven Or if I lay in prison or in sordid poverty and can say I shall shortly be with Christ Or if I had lost the love of all men and could say that I shall everlastingly enjoy the Love of God Most of your comforts do come in by the way of your thoughts And what Thoughts should so rejoyce the soul as the thoughts of our abode with Christ for ever If a day in the Courts of God be so delightful what is ten thousand millions of ages in the Court of Glory and all then as fresh as at the first day There it is that our sin will be put off Our carnal enmity laid by our temptations will be over our enemies will all have done our fears and sorrows will be at an end Our desires will be accomplished Our differences be reconciled Our charity perfected and our expectations fully satisfied and Hope turned into full fruition O may I but be able with stronger faith and fuller confidence to say that Heaven is mine and when this tabernacle is dissolved I shall be with Christ my life and my death will be delightful and I need not complain for want of pleasure Let who will take the pleasures of the flesh may I but have this In prayer in meditation in holy conference in every duty it is the expectation of approaching blessedness that drops in sweetness into all No wonder if it can sweeten a course of duty when it can make light the greatest sufferings and turn pain into pleasure
Let him take all there is no living quietly by 〈…〉 A dog at his carrion or a swine in his trough is not more greedy then many of these sensualists that labour of the Caninus appâ—titus to their trash But to Holiness they have no appetite and are worse then indifferent to the things that are inâ—…sirable They have no covetousuess for the things which 〈…〉 commanded earnestly to covet 1 Cor. 12 31. They have â—…tle hunger and thirst after righteousness that a very little or none will satisfie them Here they are pleading alwayes for â—â—deration and against too much and too earnest and too long And all is too much with them that is above stark naught or dead hypocrisie and all is too earnest and too long that would make Religion seem a business or would engage them to seem serious in their own profession or put them past jeast in the worship of God and the matters of their salvation Let but their servants or children neglect their worldly business which I confess they should not do and they shall hear of it with both ears But if they sin against God or neglect his Word or Worship they shall meet with more patience then Eli's sons did A cold reproof is usually the best and it is well if they be not encouraged in their sin and if a child or servant that begins to be serious for salvation be not rebuked derided and hindred by them If on their dayes of labour they over-sleep themselves they shall be sure to be called up to work and good reason but when do they call them up to prayer When do they urge them to read or consider or conferr of the things that concern their everlasting life The Lords own day which is appointed to be set apart for matters of this nature is wasted in idleness or worldly talk Come at any time into their company and you may have talk enough and too much of news or of other mens matters of their worldly business sports and pleasures But about God and their salvation they have so little to say and that so heartlesly and on the by as if they were things that belonged not to their care and duty and no whit concerned them Talk with them about the renovation of the soul and the nature of holiness and the life to come and you shall find them almost as dumb as a fish or as dry as a chip or as erroneous or insensible as those that speak but words by rote to shew you how little they savour or mind the things of the Spirit The most understand not matters of this nature nor much desire or care to understand them If one would teach 〈…〉 personally they are too old to be catechized or to learn though not too old to be ignorant of the matters which they were made for and are preserved for in the world They are too wise to learn to be wise and too good to be taught how to be good â—…ough not too wise to follow the seducements of the Devil â—…he world nor too good to be the slaves of Satan and the deâ—…rs and enemies of goodness If they do any thing which theâ—… a serving of God it is some cold and heartless use of wordâ—…ake themselves believe that for all their sins they shall be saved so that God will call that a serving of their sins and abomination which they call a serving of God Some of them will confess that Holiness is good but they hope God will be merciful to them without it And some do so hate it that it is a displeasing irksom thing to them to hear any serious discourse of holiness and they detest and deride those as fanatick troublesome Precisians that diligently seek the One thing necessary So that if the Belief of the most may be judged by their practices we may confidently say that they do not practically believe that ever they shall be brought to Judgement or that there is any Heaven or Hell to be expected and that their confession of the truth of the holy Scriptures and their profession of the Articles of the Christian Faith are no proofs that they heartily take them to be true Who can be such a stranger to the world as not to see that this as the case of the greatest part of men And which is worst of all they go on in this course against all that can be said to them and will give no impartial considerate hearing to the truth which would recover them to their wits but live as if it would be a felicity to them in Hell to think that they came thither by wilful resolution and in despight of the remedy And is it not a sad prospect to a man that believeth the Word of God and the life to come to look upon such a distracted world O Sirs if Jesus Christ be wise that condemneth their course and them then certainly all these men are fools And if Christ knew what he said we must needs think that they know not what they do O what is the matter that reasonable men should have no more use of their reason in things of such importance then thus to neglect their everlasting state for a thing of naught Did God make them unreasonable or give them understandings uncapable of things of such high concernment Or rather have 〈…〉 not drowned their reason in sensuality and wilfully poisoâ—…th malicious aversness to God and Holiness What is â—…ter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God made them believe that they shall dwell here for ever and never die No surely this is so gross a lye that the Devil himself cannot make them believe it They know that they musâ—… sure as they are alive And yet they prepare not but wâ—…eir dayes in scraping in this dunghill world as if they werâ—…o no further Did God never warn them by a Sermon or 〈…〉 to prepare for the life which they must live for ever Yes â—…y a time but they would take no warning Did God never â—â—ll them that after this life there is another where they must live in endless joy or torment Yes and they professed that they did believe it They heard it an hundred times over till they were weary of hearing it Did God make them believe that they shall die like beasts that have no further to go nor any other life to live No if they do believe this it is the Devil and not God that maketh them believe it What then is the matter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God shut up their souls in desperation so that it is in vain to seek or trouble themselves for that of which there is no hope Oh no! his compassion hath provided them a full remedy by the death of his Son Redemption is procured and he hath made them a deed of gift of Christ and pardon and eternal life and tendred it to them that upon theâ—â— acceptance it may be