true Man had a true Body and a true Soul That his sayings were true He was a true Prophet That his sufferings were true He was a true Priest That as he was truly dead so he as truly rose ascended and is the Lord both of the dead and of the living and is a true King That he hath truly and fully accomplished his whole undertaking Am I speaking to Jewes or Pagans that I need prove this Am I not speaking to Christians who must prove themselves lyars their profession a lye and their faith vain if they deny these things But wherefore was all this What came Christ into the world for Wherefore was he born Wherefore did he live dye rise ascend What was the intent of all this Why it was to make a total and blessed change upon the miserable condition of whomsoever of this sinful world shall embrace and give entertainment to him 't was to make this old world new this crooked world strait this miserable world blessed 'T was to bring deliverance to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Isa 61. 1. To make an end of sin to finish transgression and to bring in everlasting righteousness Dan. 9. 24. 'T was to undo all that mischief which sin and the Devil hath wrought and brought upon this world 1 John 3. 8. For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil 'T was to abolish death and bring life and immortality to light 'T was to redeem from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. 'T was that being delivered from our enemies we might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our lives Luk. 1. 74 75. That they who live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 15. Hereupon sayes the Apostle Tit. 2. 11 12. The grace of God which bringeth salvation teacheth us that denying all ungodliness and worldly lâ—st we should live righteously soberly and godly in this present world And lastly to redeem us 1 Pet. 1. 4. To an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fades not away reserved in heaven for us 1. To an inheritance Christians are not brought out of Egypt and redeemed from their house of bondage and then left to shift for themselves or to perish in the wilderness they are redeemed to an inheritance they are a purchased people and there is for them a purchased possession 2. An incorruptible and undefiled inheritance an enduring possession and an holy habitation Holiness is a great part of the blessedness of the Saints Sinners you that despise holiness despise one of the riche stjewels in the Crown of glory 3. Reserved in heaven there 's the good land where their inheritance lies that 's the Country which Christ hath purchased for his ransomed ones The whole land is theirs theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven This is that Redemption which by the Gospel is preached unto you and if Christ had failed of performing and accomplishing of any of all this he had been but an incompleat and imperfect Redeemer By the way learn what great reason there is that the Gospel should have better entertainment than for the most part it meets withal in the world one would think who considers what entertainment it hath and the Ministry of it that it were some dismal word and a dreadful errand that it came upon if Christ had come to destroy the world could he have had less welcome If the Gospel were as the Law not only a dead but a killing Leter a Ministration of Death and Condemnation If the Ministers of the Gospel had been Messengers sent up from the bottomless Pit to deceive the Nations to destroy Souls to drag them down to everlasting darkness there could hardly have been a greater hate and out-cry then there is against it and them Surely such a message and such messengers deserve better welcome and better usage But to our purpose You have heard what that Redemption is which the Gospel brings us Now doth Christ do his work by haives Deliver out of Prison and leave his ransomed Ones in their vile Prison-garments change their Relations and never change their Conditions redeem them from death and not redeem them from iniquity Was this the intent of Christ in dying for sinners that they might play the beasts and the rebels more securely Did this grace abound that sin might super-abound Doth the law of faith make void the law of righteousness Doth it not establish it What 's the import of those several expressions forementioned That he might redeem from all iniquity and purifie a peculiar people zealous of good works that we might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness that they that live should not live to themselves but to him that dyed for them that denying all ungodliness c. Is not all this included in the redemption which Christ hath wrought And what doth all this import other then that godliness we are pleading for Is this a part of that which Christ hath redeemed us to and is there nothing in it Hath Christ sweat and groaned and laboured and travel'd in pain and all this to bring forth a lye Hath he dyed to purge and purifie and wash and cleanse his people and when all comes to all at this nothing but a cheat Did Christ dye but in conceit and arise and ascend but in conceit As certain as it is that Christ did not barely personate a Redeemer so certain it is that his redeemed do not barely personate Saints Let all the world be Judges what honour those persons have for Christ that have no better opinion of the fruits of his Death Hence it appears 1. That the Redemption of a sinner is the destruction of sin Christ dyed to save men from their sins not in them to redeem from iniquity all as well as from wrath 2. That Redemption and Regeneration are linked together He that is bought from being a â—lave is born a Son he that is not partaker of the renewing of the Holy Ghost is not partaker of the Redemption of Christ The Doctrine of Redemption by Christ is abused by wilful Sinners and made to serve as their great Plea against the necessity of Holinesse Convince them of sin of the necessity of turning of the danger of continuing and going on here they presently take Sanctuary Christ dyed for sinners and here they think themselves sufficiently secured not only against all the threatnings of wrath but against all exhortations to Holinesse Argue with them from the Command of God This is the Will of God even your Sanctification â—ast away your transgressions why will you dye turn and live From the threatnings of God If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye c. Yet this they think will answer all Your Arguments Christ dyed for Sinners I put
it If you have wasted away your encouragements and spent out your Sun-shine in a careless unprofitable life how do you think to be ever useful or serviceable in the dark If you cannot now bear the pains of a godly life how do you think you should bear both the pains and the charges of it If you could follow Christ no closer in the plenty of all things how do you think to follow him when it must be in hunger and thirst Dost thou talk of suffering for Christ and suffering for Righteousness and hope thou shalt never forsake him whatever come upon thee when thy heart tells thee how much thou hast slighted Christ neglected thy duty to Christ contented thy self with a cold heartlesse luke-warm Profession without the power of Christianity and that when thou hast had no pretence of damage or danger that was hereby like to come upon thee You that how can keep at distance from Christ for the satisfying of a lust have reason enough to fear that you will utterly forsake him if ye be put to it for the saving of your Life You that in a calm can ordinarily remit your Religion for the pleasing a lazy heart will be like enough to renounce your Religion in a storm to quiet a fearful heart He that can sell his Conscience for a Lust will hardly be perswaded to buy it with the losse of all that ever he is worth Thou sayest it may be with Peter Though I dye with him I will not deny him I but dost thou deny thy self for him now deny thy pleasures and thy ease and thy companions now Hast thou not many a time denyed him a Prayer or an Alms when he hath called for it Canst thou watch with Christ Dost thou walk with Christ as thou oughtest Dost thou live to Christ Art thou faithful in bringing forth fruit unto Christ the fruits of holinesse and righteousnesse If not how dost thou think to be able to suffer for him If the way of Christ be too strait for thee thou wilt find his burthen to be too heavy if thou canst not bear his yoke thou wilt be less able to bear his Cross Christians consider what your wayes and your doings are at present and if you find the Lord helping you to walk in all good conscience now you need not doubt of being enabled to witnesse for a good conscience when called to it If you keep the Word and do the work of the Lord you may expect his help for bearing his burthen If you be faithful in your lives you are the more like to be faithful to the death Because thou hast kept the Word of my patience I also will keep thee in the hour of temptation Rev. 3. 10. 2. What you are in the ordinary and smaller crosses that come daily upon you There is not that man that lives that meets not with his crosses which though they be many of them but light and inconsiderable things below the Spirit of a Christian to take notice of yet how sadly may we observe at what a loss they are presently by them Every little Wind raiseth a storm every little cross puts us out of course What breaches are often made upon our consciences what interruptions of duties what abatements of our comforts to what distance are we put from Christ and our holy communion with him and all meerly for a thing of nought We cannot bear an unkindness from a Friend or an injury from an Enemy the provocation of an evil tongue a scoffe or a slander but presently our spirits are in an uproar and there are such tumults raised up within us that for the time we forget that we are Christians Duties and Comforts Christ and Conscience Souls and the matters of Eternity and all regard to them are laid aside and turned out of doors Faith and Patience and Meekness and Moderation are either made to be silent or at least cannot be heard for the noise of our passions and disquiets and all this sometimes for such trivial things that when we come to our selves we are all quite ashamed of our selves Brethren such fails by these lower temptations I cannot wonder if they make our hearts shake at the fore-fight of greater If every small party which the Adversary sends out against us doth put us to the rout How shall we stand when he comes upon us with his full body If we are overcome of the footmen how shall we contend with the horsemen If a rod or a little finger doth so disturb us how shall we bear the weight of the loyns or the stinging of Scorpions If we cannot bear an unkindnesse or a nod or a scoff or a slander what would become of us should we be brought to resist unto blood Beloved it is of greater import to Christians than they are aware of both to observe themselves daily and their carriages in these lower things and to inure themselves to patience and meeknesse of spirit under them Though it â—e no great vertue to be patient where there is no great provocation yet there may be great benefit by it If we could but shame our selves out of this folly and childishnesse of Spirit whereby we are apt to be moved with every toy if we could reason and pray our selves into such a fixed calm and quietnesse of spirit that we could keep our way with the neglect of such disturbances our lives would be both more comfortable and honourable at present and we should be in the better preparation for any harder things that might come upon us If we know how to be Christians among briars and thorns we shall be the better able to continue such among Spears and Arrows 3. What you are under the temptation of prosperity The World is a Christians Enemy it expresseth its enmity in its temptations the end of all its temptations is to draw us off from God Its temptations are of two sorts either of prosperity or affliction and both driving at the same end though in a different way Prosperity allures entices and flatters us away from God it steals away our hearts from God as Absalom stole the hearts of Israel from David by fair speeches by its fair and smiling face thereby drawing us into a neglect and forgetfulness of God to grow cold and remiss in our duty to God to let fall our love and affection and to lay aside our care of Religion Afflictions fright us from God dealing by us as Rabshakeh by Israel when he sought to get them off from Hezekiah by his threatnings and great words Isa 36. If you will not hearken to me I will make you drink your own piss and eat your own dung Afflictions are apt to weary men out of the ways of God to starve them out of their Religion to persecute them out of their Consciences and to make godlinesse too hot for them The stronger and the more dangerous of these two sorts of temptations are held to be the temptations of
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God Seemeth it a small thing unto you said David to be the Son in Law of a King Why what King was it It was one that was none of the best and yet he was a King and that was a great thing for such a poor man as David was to be Son in Law to a King But what is it to be Sons and Heirs to the King of Glory The Lord sayes to all his Sons as the Father of the Prodigal said to his eldest Son Luke 15. 31. Son thou art ever with me all that I have is thine Son Daughter saith the Lord thou shalt be ever with me all that I have in Heaven and Earth all is thine Mat. 5. Blessed are the Peace-makers why so they are the Children of God Gods children are blessed Children not one of them shall go without their Fathers blessing The Lord hath not only as Isaac a blessing for one of his Children but as Jacob he hath a blessing for every child If thou be Gods child God even thy God will give thee his blessing 5. The Kingdom Mat. 5. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Luke 12. 32. Fear not little Flock for it in your Fathers pleasure to give you the Kingdom To whom is the Kingdom given To the little flock not to the herds of Swine the droves of wild Beasts the prophane multitudes of this Wilde and wicked World but to the little Flock of Christ those few that he hath called out of the World who follow him theirs is the Kingdom What Kingdom Why the Kingdom of Heaven a Kingdom of Glory a Kingdom of Righteousness a Kingdom of Peace a Kingdom of joy and blessedness the everlasting Kingdom And here we are fallen upon that heighth and depth and length and breadth which cannot be fathomed or measured here is the wisdom of Christians they have gotten the birth-right and the blessing the Sonship and the inheritance theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven here is the faith and patience and hope and prayers and sufferings and labours of the Saints the riches of their faith the fruit of their patience the matter of their hope the return of their prayers the reward of their sufferings the end of their labours the everlasting Kingdom Now judge upon all this which hath been said whom will ye account the wise men shall those be accounted wise whom the world or those whom God accounts such Shall those pass for fools now who will be found wise at last Are those the wise men who never understood what they had to do here and so never minded nor heâ—ded that necessary work for which they were sent into the World Are our Infants and Children that mind nothing else but their play and their meat and their cloaths are those the wise ones of the World Are they the Wise Builders who have laid their foundation on the Sand When the Winds and the floods and the waves have broken down and blown away all that you have been Building will You then boast of Your Wisdom You that count your selves such Wise Men and demand what the Saints have gotten tell us what you have gotten by all your Wisdom The Saints have something to shew for themselves as Witnesses of their prudence Christ the hidden Manna that living bread that they have laid up for themselves against a time of need that peace which they have gotten to support them in a time of trouble these are some things to shew they have not foolishly lost their time every grace that they have gotten every comfort that they have treasured up there is something more to shew every dead lust pleads for them Sampson's dead Lyon was not a greater proof of his strength than Christians dead lusts are of their Wisdom they have gotten the birth-right and the blessing who was the wiser of the two Esau that sold the birth-right and lost the blessing or Jacob that got both they have gotten the Kingdom too theirs is the Kingdom of heaven whilst others have been dividing the spoyles here below scrambling for shadowes and fancies sharing the Dominions and Dignities and Preferments and Pleasures of this world amongst them these have been laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come doth this speak them such a foolish company as you would make them Have they made such a wise choice and taken such a wise course and yet must they go for fools Is this your serious and sober judgment Do you in earnest think that in that change which the Gospel hath made upon them they are changed for the worse that in the choice which they have made of God rather than the world of Christ in stead of their lusts of things eternal before things temporal that they have herein chosen to their loss Is this your thought will you write down this as your judgment and put your hand to it and be content that this writing should be produced at the last Judgment as the Test by which you will be tryed whether you are wise or foolish Are you Christians and do you believe the Scriptures and are you not yet ashamed that any such thoughts should come into your hearts Will you say The Devil is the best Master and he 's a fool that will not be his servant but Christ is an â—ard Master and none that 's wise will venture after him Will you say that Moses was a fool in refusing to be called the son of Pharoah's Daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin form season that the Apostles and the Disciples were fools that Peter and Paul and John and James were fools with the rest of those holy Men and Women who denied themselves took up their Cross and followed Christ and that the Scribes and Pharisees and Publicans and Harlots and Drunkards and Gluttons that made a mock and a scorn of him and them had more wit than they Is not this the very thing you say in charging folly upon those whose aim and desire is to walk in the same steps that those primitive Christians walked in before them Is this your Christianity Is this your reason and Religion and honesty speak out your hearts in plain termes No man would hearken to Christ unless he were a fool no man would be holy unless he were a fool no man would leave his lusts and his pleasures and his liberties and his vanities unless he had first lost his wits Or at least no wise man would take up more of Christianity than the name and the shell and the shadow none but a fool would make sure work for his soul would go through with Christ and Christianity would be an inward hearty resolved universal sincere Christian Would any wise man put it out of doubt that Christ is his put it out of doubt that his soul is
safe that he 's passed from death to life and shall never come â—â—to condemnation What do your bruitish hearts and wayes speak less or rather than this Sinners is this all the wisdom or honesty you have thus to speak or think If it be Be it known unto you all that these foolish Saints have more wit than to count the reproaches of such bruitish spirits to be any disparagement to them or their profession and therefore if you will mock on and go on to admire your selves and the oaks which you have chosen and the gardens which you have desired whilst you despise these and their wayes but however whilst they have this assurance that God doth not count them what you call them that You will not call them at last what you call them now you must give them leave though they think never so meanly of themselves yet still to have the same high thoughts of their God of their Gospel of that holy profession and way that they have chosen Vse 1. Let the ungodly World hence learn to have a better opinion of these men and to forbear reproaching them think with your selves upon what hath been said These men may be wiser than we are aware of they may be honest men we may be mistaken these may be the Israel of God those Nathaniels of whom Christ saith Joh. 1. 47. Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile these may be the little Flock on whom it is the Fathers pleasure to bestow the Kingdom these may be those litâ—le ones whom whosoever offends it were better that a milstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the midst of the Sea And what if they should be so In what case are you then that have reproached and persecuted them but I must be bold to tell there 's no May be in the matter I question not but if you would impartially weigh what hath been spoken and what shall yet farther be spoken you will see that if God hath any people in the world these are they and therefore my advice is that you refrain from these men and let them alone lest if you do go on you be sound fighters against God Obj. But where be there any such There be some that make a fair shew and make specious pretences to the strictness of Religion but they are hypocrites and deceivers and these are they that we only speak against Sol. 1. Let this be granted That such men as have been described if there be any such are truely wise men that men of such Principles that men of this profession if they really be what they profess and live according to their principles that these are men of wisdom do but grant that godliness is wisdom and the fear of the Lord is understanding I would that I could bring you thus far heartily to grant that godliness hath an excellency in it and that a life led according to those Principles of godliness which have been laid before you is the most excellent life Hence these two things will unavoidably follow 1. That by how much more exactly and strictly any persons live according to the Principles of godliness by so much the more have they attained to of true wisdom If Godliness be our wisdome and excellency then by how much the more precisely godly any persons are by so much the more wise and excellent by how much the more precise a Christian or godly man is by so much the more he is a Christian or a godly man and therefore let never any man be blam'd for that he is so much but that he is no more precise 2. By how much the more loosely any persons live from the Rules of Religion by how much the more liberty they take to walk after the flesh by so much the more foolish they are and so you may without controversie conclude that whatever these precise people be you that are Libertines to be sure are fools 2. Are there none such What hath God no people in the world hath the Devil gotten all God hath a people somewhere and a peculiar people whom he hath chosen to salvation whom he hath redeemed and called and justified and sanctified and set apart for himself from the rest of the world all are not Israel all are not Disciples but there are some whom God hath peculiarly set apart to himself from â—he rest of men and where are these to be found if not among these precise walkers the peculiar people of God are as hath been sufficiently proved an holy people an hearing people a praying people a zealous people a watchful gainful industrious sober meek merciful patient people and all this in sincerity Now where shall we look to find out such a people Must we rake the kennels and search the sinks of the earth Must we seek in the Ale-houses or Taverns or Play-houses Shall we take out the drunkards and riotous the swearers and lyars the covetous and oppressors the vain ones of the earth the blind People that bruitish generation that knows not nor mind not the Lord or his wayes and say of any of these surely here they be these are the people of God here be the men that are no hypocrites these are that Royal Priesthohd that holy Nation that peculiar people whom God hath called to shew forth his praise before the world Sinners if you have so much reason or conscience as to conclude that none of these are they then tell us farther who or where they are or else at last acknowledge that if God hath a people any where 't is amongst those that you have reproached 3. If you say there be hypocrites among them and these are they that you speak against and not gainst those that are upright let me give you this double advice 1. Take heed you mistake not the mark do not shoot at Saints indeed under the name and disguise of hypocrites do not count that hypocrisie which God accounts sincerity you may be mistaken as I told you before and what if you should be mistaken what if it should prove not only that the men which you reproach for hypocrites God should account sincere but if the very thing which you call their hypocrisie the Lord counts their excellency what if it should be so Then you have shot a fair shot every reproach which you have thus cast out is as so much dirt which you have thrown into the Face of God so many darts which you have shot into the Apple of God's Eye You who are so free in reproaching Professors take heed that it be not found that the ground of all your evil language against them and evil usage of them be not for that they are but for that they are not hypocrites 2. If they be hypocrites and only such that you speak against take heed you mistake not your Arrow do not cast that upon them for a reproach which is good do not take good names to reproach