glory we must be raised hereby into the greater suspition of it and the more resolvedly set against it As Herod did put to death even the innocent children lest Christ should escape that so he might make sure work for his Crown So must we subdue our sensuall desires by denying them sometimes even in lawful things lest we should be carryed to that which is unlawful before we are aware and we must avoid the very occasions and appearances of evil and restrain our selves in the liberty that we might take and not go as near the brink of danger as we dare For it concerneth us to make sure work where the Reign of Christ and our own salvation is so much concerned as in our victory over the world it is 4. The whole life of Christ on earth was one continued conflict with the world They believed not on him even when they saw his Miracles They hated him even while he did them good They afforded him not a settled habitation So in the height of its Glory the world must not be trusted by us Though it afford us sustenance for our outward man yet must we hate it and we must allow it no settled entertainment in our hearts Christ was in the world and the world was made by him and yet it knew him not Iohn 1. 10. We converse in the world and our outward man must live by it as in it we received our life and yet we must not know it in its separated capacity The world could not hate them that were of the world but Christ it hated because he was not of it Iohn 7. 7. and 15. 18 19. and 17. 14. So must we hate the world because it is not of that nature nor for that Interest as the New creature is though worldlings that are of it cannot hate it The nearer Christ was to the end of his life the more cruelly and maliciously did the world use him And the nearer we are to our parting with the world the more must we contemn and hate it 5. The world did arraign and condemn Christ as a Malefactor they charged him to be a Deceiver and one that did his mighty works by the power of Beelzebub So must we justly charge the world to be a Deceiver and work its strange stupendious delusions by the power of Satan the great deceiver and as a Malefactor must we attach arraign and condemn it They came out against Christ as a thief with swords and staves Mat. 26. 55. we must come out against the world as that great thief that would rob God of his honour and interest Christ of his Kingdom and us of our salvation and by the sword of the Spirit must disarm and conquer it The world judged Christ to be a blasphemer and guilty of death because he said that he was the Son of God and should sit at his right hand We must condemn the world of Blasphemous usurpation that would needs become our God and usurp the Divine prerogatives and honours They spit upon Christ in token of hatred and contempt And we must as it were spit at the pleasures and profits and honours of the world and manifest our defiance and hatred and contempt of them They buffeted Christ in manifestation of their malicious enmity And the world and our flesh must not scape our hands though our war be but defensive yet must we offend that we may defend So fight I saith Paul 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. not at one that beateth the air that maketh a shew of enmity when there is none as children in sport or sencers that have not intent to kill but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first verb signifieth to buffet and beat black and blew as we say Et valid is ictibus subjicere reluctantem as Beza speaks and the second verb signifieth to bring into servitude or into the state of a servant which is indeed the very work that we have to do with the flesh and the world They reproached Christ when they had smote him and tauntingly bid him Prophesie who smote him And the world and all the Idols of it deserve no better of us when they will usurp the place of God and we may well scorn such a God as Elias did Baal and as God useth to do by the Idols of the heathen Fine gods indeed that can neither save themselves nor us The world did strip Christ and put on him a robe and a Crown of thorns and a reed into his hand and again spit upon him and mocked him And this contempt in our apprehensions must we cast upon the arrogant world we must strip it of its vain shew and give it the honour of a reed for levity and of thorns for unprofitableness and vexation for as thorns it vexeth when it promiseth felicity and as thorns it choaketh that word of truth and as a reed it is shaken with every wind No backwardness of the Judge and no intercession of his wife could rescue Christ from the malice of the Jews but the more is said for him the more they cry Crucifie him And as resolvedly-must we persecute the world No intercession of our flesh or backwardness of carnal Reason must take us off but we must be content with nothing but its Crucifying When Pilate drew back they knockt all dead with this malicious voice Iohn 19. 12. If thou let this man go thou art not Caesars friend whosoever maketh himself a King speaketh against Caesar So must we quicken and provoke our Reason by arguments drawn from our fidelity to Christ and say If we favour this world we are not â—lse friend of Christ for whatsoever would make it self our King and our felicity and would steal away our hearts is not Christs friend When Pilate saith Shall I crucifie your King they cry out we have no King but Caesar. And when the flesh or carnal Reason saith Will you cast away your comforts your peace your happiness your lives We must say We have no comfort but Christ no peace but Christ no happiness no life but what 's in Christ. The world crucified Christ between two thieves And we must crucifie the world between two thieves viz. the flesh on the one hand and the Devil on the other which would both have robbed God and us Though through the power of a Crucified Christ the one of these even the flesh may be so refined as to be admitted into Paradise The world vvritt over the head of Christ as the cause of his death King of the Iews And vve must write this over the Crucified vvorld This is it that would have been our King and God and Happiness so let all thine enmies perish O Lord. We must pierce the very sides of it and let out its heart-blood We must nail its hands and feet the very instruments or means by vvhich
will let no other prosper under them They draw as much as they can to themselves For themselves is their care and daily labour Psal. 49. 18. They all mind their own things but not the things of Christ or their Brethren Getting and Having and Keeping is their business and as swine are seldom profitable till they die Benefit 12. THE last Benefit that I shall mention is this If you are now Dead to the world and the world to you your natural Death will be the less grievous to you when it comes It will be little oâ— no trouble to you to leave your houses or lands or goods to leave your eating and drinking and recreations to leave your employments and company in the world for you were dead to all that is worldly before Surely so far as the Heart is upon God and taken off these transitory things it can be no grief to us to leave them and go to God It is only the remnants of the unmortified flesh together with the natural evil of death that maketh death to seem grievous to Believers but so far as they are Believers and dead to the world the case is otherwise Death is not neer so dreadful to them as it is to others except as the quality of some disease or some extraordinary dissertion may change the case Or as some desparate wicked ones may be insensible of their misery How bitter is the sight of approaching death to them that laid up their treasure on earth and placed their happiness in the prosperity of their flesh To such a fool as Christ describeth Luke 12. that saith to himself Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years How sad must the tidings of death needs be to him that set his heart on earth and spent his daies in providing for the flesh and never laid up a treasure in heaven nor made him friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness nor gave not diligence in the time of his life to make his Calling and Election sure To a worldly man that sets not his heart and hopes above the face of death is unspeakably dreadful But if we could kill the world before us and be dead to it now and alive to God and with Paul die daily it would be a powerful means to abate the terrours and a certain way to take out the sting that death might be a sanctified passage into life So much of the Benefits of Mortification AND now what remains but that you that are Mortified Believers receive your Consolation and consider what the Lord hath done for your souls and give him the praise of so great a mercy Believe it it is a thousand fold better to be Crucified to the world then to be advanced to prosperity in it and to have a heart that is above the world then to be made the possessor of the world And for you that yet are strangers to this mercy O that the Lord would open your hearts to consider where you are and what you are doing and whether you are going and how the world will use you and how you are like to come off at last before you go any further that you may not make so mad a bargain as to gain the world and lose your souls O that you did but throughly believe that it is the only wise and gainful choice to deny your carnal selves and forsake all and follow Christ in hope of the heavenly treasure which he hath promised And let me tell you again as the way to this That though melancholly may make you weary of the world and stoicall precepts may restrain your lusts yet it is only the power of the Holy Ghost the Cross of Christ the belief of the promise the Love of God the Hopes of the everlasting invisible Glory that will effectually and savingly Crucifie you to the world and the world to you It is a Lesson that never was well taught by any other Master but Christ and you must Learn it from him by his Word Ministers and Spirit in his School or you will never Learn or Practise it aright The second PART Of the CHRISTIANS Glorying SECT XXIII HAving thus dispatched the first part of my subject concerning a Christians Crucifixion to the world by Christ and his Cross I come to the second Part concerning the Glorying of a Christian The Iudaizing Teachers did Glory carnally even in a carnall worship and carnall priviledges and in the carnall effects of their Doctrine on their Proselytes but Paul that had more to Glory in then they doth disclaim and renounce all such Glorying as theirs and owneth and professeth a contrary Glorying even in the Cross of Christ and his Mortification The Observation to be handled is that True Christians must with abhorrency renounce all Carnal Glorying and must Glory only in the Cross of Christ by whom the world is Crucified to them and they unto the world In handling this I shall briefly shew you 1. What is included or what we may Glory in 2. What is excluded or what we may not Glory in For the former here are two things expressed in the Text in which a Christian may and must Glory 1. The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Our Crucifixion to the world hereby So that the Positive part of the Doctrine containeth these two branches which I shall handle distinctly before I speak to the Negative part 1. True Christians that are Crucified to the world and the world to them by the Cross of Christ may and must Glory therein 2. Yet so as that their Glorying must be principally in Christ and their own Mortification must be Gloryed in but as the fruit of his Cross. For the first Part it must be understood with these necessary limitations 1. As Glorying signifieth a self-ascribing and Proud conceit of our own Mortification and is contrary to Christian self-denyal and humility and Glorying in God so we must take heed of it and abhor it 2. As Glorying signifieth any outward expression of this inward pride either by words or deeds we must also avoid it with abhorrence 3. So must we also do by all unseasonable offensive ostentation which may seem to others to savour of Pride though indeed it proceed from a better cause 4. But as Glorying signifieth the apprehension of the Good of the thing and our Benefit by it and the due Affections of Content and Joy and Exultation of mind that follow thereupon thus must a Christian Glory in his Mortification by the Cross of Christ. We commonly call this act a Blessing of our selves in the apprehension of our case As the carnal ungodly world do Bless themselves in their Possessing carnal things so may a Christian bless himself that he is Crucified to them that is he may rejoyce in it as a great blessing of God that tendeth to further blessedness 5. And when we are called to it we may express to others our Glorying herein But
obstinately unreformed And is the case so altered think you now as that you are bound to make such children rich that parents then were bound to put to death 3. I am not bound to give unnecessary provisions to an enemy of God to mis-employ it and strengthen him to do mischief and be more able to oppress Gods servants or oppose his Truth or serve the Devil I for bear to mention the proportions of mens estates that I think they are ordinarily bound to alineate but shall leave you to Prudence and the General Rules lest I seem to you to go beyond my line But in general I must say that it is a selfish and an hainous errour to think that men should lay up all that they can gather for their posterity and all to leave them rich and honourable and put off God and all charitable uses with the crums that fall from their Tables or with some inconsiderable driblets If the Rich man in Luke 18. might have followed Christ on such terms as these he would hardly have gone sorrowfully from him 1. By this men shew that they prefer their children before God 2. And that they prefer them before the Church and Gospel and the Common-wealth When an herâ—ick Heathen would have confessed that his estate and children and his life were not too good to be sacrificed to his Countrey as the case of the Decii and many other Romans that gave their lives for their Countrey witnesseth 3. These men prefer the worldly riches of their children before the souls of men When they have so many Calls to employ their wealth to the furthering of mens salvation and put by all that their children may be rich 4. They prefer their childrens Riches before their own everlasting good Or else they would not deny themselves the Reward of an holy improvement of their talents and cast themselves upon the terrible sentence that is past upon unprofitable servants and all to leave their children wealthy 5. They prefer the bodily prosperity of their children before their spiritual Or else they would not be so eager to leave them that Riches which Christ hath told them is such a snare and hindrance to mens salvation 6. They would teach all the world the easie art of never doing good in life or death For if all must follow their principles then the Parents must keep almost all for their children and the children must do the like by their children and so it must run on to all generations that their posterity may be kept as rich as their predecessors 7. How unlike is this to the antient Saints and how unlike to the general precepts of self-denyal and doing good to all while we have time c. which Christ hath left us in the Gospel Enable your children to be serviceable in the Church and Common-wealth as far as you may but prefer them not before the Church or Common-wealth Wrong not God nor your own souls nor the souls or bodies of other men to procure your children to be rich It will not ease your pains in hell to think that you have left your children Rich on earth It s few of the great and noble that are Called They will have an easier way to heaven in a mean estate Their Nurses milk contented them when first they lived in the world and will nothing but Lands and Lordships and superlative matters now content them when they have a shorter time to use it Poor men can sing as merily as the Rich and sleep as quietly and live as comfortably and die as easily Cantabit vacuus They are free from abundance of your cares and fears The Philosopher that had received a great gift of Gold from a Prince sent it back to him the next morning and told him that he loved no such gifts as would not let him take his sleep for thinking what to do with it Direct 7. Lastly Study the Art of doing Good and making your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when you go hence you may be received into the everlasting habitations Remember how much of your Religion doth consist in the Devoting of your selves and all to God and improving his stock and being Rich in good works ready to distribute and communicate 1 Tim. 6. 18. And how much will be laid upon this at Iudgement Matth. 25. God doth not call upon you for your charity as if he would be beholden to you or needed any thing that you can give him but because he will thus difference his hearty followers from complementing hypocrites The poor you shall have alwayes with you and the Church shall alwayes want your help and Christ will be still distressed in his members to try the reality of mens professions whether they love him above all or else dissemble with him and wheeher they have any thing that they think too good for him It is a certain mark of an hypocrite to have any thing in this world so dear to you that you cannot spare it for Christ. Remember then that it is your own concernment If you would be ever the better for all your wealth nay if you would not be undone by it study how you may be most serviceable to God with it Cicero could say that to be Rich is not to possess much but to use much And Seneca could rebuke them that so study to encrease their wealth that they forget to use it If really you be Christians heaven is your portion and your end And if so you can love nothing else nor use any thing else rationally but as a means to attain that end See therefore in all your expences how you attain or promote your end Alas men are so busily building in their way that they shew us that they take not themselves for travellers They are so familiar with the world that they shew us they are not strangers but at home They make their garments so fine and lay such mountains on their backs that we see they mean not to be serious Runners in the Christian race The thorny cares that choak Christs seed do shew that they are barren and nigh to burning If you gather Riches for your selves Luke 12. 21. you are standing pits If you are Rich to God you will be running springs or cisterns There is a blessed Art of sending all your Riches to Heaven before you if you could learn it and were willing to be happy at those rates It is not for your Riches that God will either condemn or save you but for the Abasing or improving them Though Lazarus was a beggar yet Abraham had been rich whose bosom he was in Rich men must know saith Ambrose that the fault is not in Riches but in them that know not how to use them Nam divitiae ut impedimenta sunt improbis ita bonis sunt adjumenta virtutum O that you could but be sensible of the difference betwixt them that can say at last We have used our stock for the
might be effected And though the Mahometans are more cruel then the Heathens against any that openly speak against their superstition and deceit yet God would perswade some its like to think it worth the loss of their lives to make some prudent attempt in some of those vast Tartarian or Indian Countries where Christianity hath had least access and audience As difficult works as these are the Christian Princes and people are exceedingly too blame that they have done no more in attempting them and have not turned their private quarrels into a common agreement for the good of the poor uncalled world I have told you of divers waies in which you may secure your wealth from loss and make an everlasting advantage of it Those that have Power and not a Will shall lose the Reward and have the condemnation of unfaithful Stewaras Those that have Power and an envious evil Will that desireth not the Churches good shall moreover have the Punishment of Malignant enemies Those that have neither Power nor Will or are both Impotent and Malignant shall be judged according to what they would have done if they had been able Those that have an unfeigned Will but not Power shall be accounted as if they had done the works for God accepteth the will for the deed All these Good Works are yours poor Christians that never did them if certainly you would have done them notwithstanding the difficulty cost and suffering if you had been able But it is the godly Rich that are both Able and Willing and actually perform them that will profit both themselves and others that both their own and others souls may have the comfort of it I shall lay some of the words of God himself before your eyes and heartily pray for the sake of your own souls and the publick Good that you may excell Papists as far in Works of Charity as you do in the soundness of Doctrine Discipline and Worship Gentlemen excuse the necessary Freedom of speech and Accept the Seasonable Honourable Gainful Motion propounded to you from the Word of God by Feb. 20. 1657 8 Your faithful Monitor Rich. Baxter Sophronius Bishop of Ierusalem Prat. spir c. 195. referente Baronio ad an 411. delivereth this History following to posterity as a most certain thing THAT Leontius Apamiensis a most faithful Religious man that had lived many years at Cyrene assured them that Synesius who of a Philosopher became a Bishop found at Cyrene one Evagrius a Philosopher who had been his old acquaintance fellow-student and intimate friend but an obstinate Heathen and Synesius was earnest with him to become a Christian but all in vain Yet did he still follow him with those Arguments that might satisfie him of the Christian verity and at last the Philosopher told him that to him it seemed but a meer fable and deceit that the Christian Religion teacheth men that this world shall have an end and that all men shall rise again in these bodies and their flesh be made immortal and incorruptible and that they shall so live for ever and receive the Reward of all that they have done in the body and that he that hath pitty on the poor lendeth to the Lord and he that gives to the poor and needy shall have Treasures in heaven and shall receive an hundred-fold from Christ together with eternal life These things he derided Synesius by many arguments assured him that all these things were certainly true and at last the Philosopher and his children were Baptized A while after he comes to Synesius and brings him three hundred pound of Gold for the poor and bid him Take it but give him a Bill under his hand that Christ should repay it him in another world Synesius took the money for the poor and gave him under his hand such a Bill as he desired Not long after the Philosopher being near to death commanded his sons that when they buried him they should put Synesius Bill in his hand in the Grave which they did And the third day after the Philosopher seemed to appear to Synesius in the night and said to him Come to my Sepulchre where I lie and take thy Bill for I have received the Debt and am saified which for thy assurance I have subscribed with my own hand The Bishop knew not that the Bill was buried with him but sent to his sons who told him all and taking them and the chief men of the City he went to the Grave and found the Paper in the hands of the Corpse thus subscribed EGO EVAGRIUS PHILOSOPHUS TIBI SANCTISSIMO DOMINO SYNESIO EPISCOPO SALUTEM ACCEPI DEBITUM IN HIS LITERIS MANU TUA CONSCRIPTUM SATISFACTUMQUE MIHI EST ET NULLUM CONTRA TE HABEO JUS PROPTER AURUM QUOD DEDI TIBI ET PER TE CHRISTO DEO ET SALVATORI NOSTRO that is I Evagrius the Philosopher to thee most Holy Sir Bishop Synesius greeting I have received the Debt which in this Paper is written with thy hands and I am satisfied and I have no Law or Action against thee for the Gold which I gave to thee and by thee to Christ our God and Saviour They that see the thing admired and glorified God that gave such wonderful evidence of his promises to his servants And saith Leontius this Bill subscribed thus by the Philosopher is kept at Cyrene most carefully in the Church to this day to be seen of such as dâ— desire it Though we have a sure Word of Promise sufficient for us to build our Hopes on yet I thought it not wholely unprofitable to cite this one History from so credible Antiquity that the Works of God may be had in remembrance Though if any be causlesly incredulous there are surer Arguments that we have ready at hand to convince him by BLessed are the merciful for they shall obtain Mercy Mat. 5. 7. Read Mat. 6. 19. to the end of the Chapter Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Matth. 7. 21. Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a Rock c. Mat. 7. 24. Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your Good Works and Glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Mat. 5. 16. I have shewed you all things how that so Labouring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said it is more blessed to give then to receive Act. 20. 35. Give to him that asketh thee and of him that would borrow of thee tuâ—â— thou not away Mat. 5. 42. All these have â— kept from my youth up yet lackest thou one thing Sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me And when he heard this he was very sorrowful for
to all spiritual improvement No so far is this from being any part of our duty that it is none of the least of our sins The creature was the first book that ever God did make for us in which we might read his blessed perfections And the perverting it to another use with the neglect of this was mans first sin As it was the great work of the Redeemer to bring us back to God that made us and restore us to his favour so also to restore us to a capacity of serving him even in that imployment which he appointed to us in our innocency which was to see God in the face of his creatures and then to love and honour him and by them to serve him Though this be not our highest felicity yet is it the way thereto Till we come to see face to face we must be glad to see the face of God in the glass of his works But of this we have more to say anon in the application 4. Our Crucifying of or to the world requireth not any secession from the world nor a withdrawing our selves from the society of men nor the casting away the propriety or possession of the necessaries which we possess It is an easier thing to throw away our Masters Talents then faithfully to improve them The Papists glory in the holiness of their Church because they have many among them that have vowed never to marry and have no propriety in Lands or Houses and have separated themselves into a Monasticall society Aâ—â—high commendation to their Church when men must be Sainted with them if they will do no mischief though they make themselves useless to the rest of the world The servant that hid his Talent in a Napkin was condemned by Christ as wicked and sloathful and shall he be commended by us for extraordinarily devout Will you reward that servant that will lock up himself in his chamber or hide his head in a hole when he should be busie at your work Or will you reward that souldier that will withdraw from the Army into a corner when he should be fighting The world swarms on every side with multitudes of ignorant and impenitent sinners whose miserable condition cryeth loud for some relief to all that are any way able to relieve them And these Religious Monks make haste from among them and leave them to themselves to sink or swim and they think this cruelty to be the top of piety Unworthy is that man to live on the earth that liveth only to himself and communicateth not the gifts of God to others And yet do these idle unprofitable droans esteem their course the life of perfection When we must charge through the thickest of our enemies and bear all the unthankfull requitals of the world and undergo their scorns and persecutions these wary souldiers can look to their skin and get out of the reach of such encounters and when they have done imagine that they have got the victory To live to our selves were it never so spiritually is far unlike the life of a Christian A good man is a common good and compassionate to the miserable and desirous to bring others to the participation of his felicity To withdraw from the world to do God service is to get out of the Vineyard or Shop that we may do our Masters work If you have riches it is not casting them away that shall excuse you instead of an holy improving them for God If you have possessions it is not a renouncing of propriety that shall excuse you from the prudent and charitable use of them The same I say also of Relations of Offices in the Church and Common-wealth God calleth you not to renounce them To crucifie the world is not to disclaim all the relations possessions or honours of the world These are not yours but Gods And as he put them into your hands and commanded you faithfully to use them as his Stewards so you must do it and not think it a good account of your Stewardship â—o tell God that you threw away the talents that he trusted you with because they were temptations to you or because he was austere I should have no great need to speak of this were there not such a multitude of deluded souls that have lately received the Popish dotages herein It s one thing to creep into a Monks Cell or an Anchorets Cave or an Hermits Wilderness or Diogenes Tub and another thing truly to be Crucified to the world and in the midst of the creatures to live above them unto God as we are anon to shew 5. To be Crucified to the world is not to forbear our lawfull trades and labours in the world He that bids us eat our bread in the sweat of our brows and would not have him eat that will not labour Gen. 3. 19. 2 Thes. 3. 6 10 12. did never call men to be begging Fryers nor licentious Prodigals nor idle Gentlemen nor lazy unprofitable burdens of the earth All idleness that 's wilfull is sinful but that which is cloaked with the pretence of Religion is a double sin When some servants grow lazy they will pretend piety for it and accuse their Masters of worldliness for setting them to work And some that have families will neglect their duty for them and all upon pretences of a contempt of the world But he that bid us use the world as not abusing it 1 Cor. 7. 31. did never mean to forbid us the use of it While such Hypocrites will needs be more then Christians they become in Pauls judgement worse then Infidels 1 Tim. 5. 8. They should not labour with a desire to be rich yet must they labour to give to him that needeth Eph. 4. 28. Idleness is not Mortification 6. To be crucified to the world or the world to us containeth not an unthankfull undervaluing of our Mercies It will not warrant us to say Health and Riches and Honours are contemptible and therefore I owe God but little thanks for them nor will it excuse any ingratefull insensibility of our deliverances 7. To Crucifie the world is not to take away the lives of the men of the world nor actually to use them as they used Christ. Though the Magistrate must bring a false Prophet to Capital Punishment that sought to turn the People from God yet every one might not do so nor is that any part of the sense of this Text nor was it thus that Paul did crucifie the world 8. Much less may it encourage any poor Melancholly tempted souls to be weary of their lives and to seek to make away themselves This horrid sin is far from the duty here required To be crucified to the world is not to rid our selves out of the world nor to do that to our selves which were so hainous a sin if we did it to another as not here to be lightlyer punished then with death And thus I have shewed you Negatively What it is not to have the
and their living without God in the world But when faith hath opened a mans eyes and shewed him God in every creature who was hid from him before then is the creature who was before his All annihilated to him in that separated sense and God becomes his All again and this annihilation of the creature is indeed its restauration objectively to its primitive nature and use and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now So that sensual men by making the creature an imaginary God or chiefest Good or All do make it indeed objectively to become Nothing and so their All their God their felicity is Nothing and so all their life is a Nothing When as the faithfull by Crucifying or Annihilating the creature as it would appear a felicity to us or any Good as separated from God do restore it to its true objective being and use by returning to God who is truly All and in whom the creature is a Derived Imperfect something and out of whom it is indeed a Nothing I will further illustrate it by one other similitude God gave the Ceremonial Law by Moses to the Israelites to be an obscure Gospell and to lead them unto Christ. The sacrifices and other typicall Ceremonies were the Letters of the Law and Christ was the sense The true Believers thus understood and used them but the Carnal Jews lookt only on the letter and lost the sense and thus separating the bare Letter from the sense that is the Legall works from Christ they thought to be justified by those works and by the Law in that separated sense But the Apostle Paul doth plead against thiâ— errour and tells them that Christ is the end of the Law to all Believers and that he is the fulfilling of it and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and that by the deeâ—s of the Law in this separated sense no flesh can be justified and that the Letter separated from the sense of it killeth but Christ by his Spirit who is the sense of it giveth life If these Jews had taken and used the Law as God intended it and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter and had understood that Christ was the very life and end and all of the Law Paul would never have cryed down the Law nor Justification by it in this sense for that had been to cry down Justification by Christ. But it was Justification by the Letter or the Law as separated from Christ who was the meaning of it So is it in our present case The creature is the letter and God the sense and Carnal men do understand only the Letter of the creature and fall in love with it and thus God cryeth down the world and vilifieth and speaketh contemptuously of the world When as if it had not been for the separation he would never have cryed it down nor spoken an hard word of it As the Law had never been so hardly spoken of if the mis-understanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called Vanity and a Lie and Nothing and a Dream and that which is not bread and that which profiteth not a Shadow a Deceiver with abundance of the like contemptuous terms if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God And thus I have shewed you in what Respects the World must be Crucified AND let me add in the Conclusion as most necessary for your observation that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the foresaid abuse and therefore when we have done all that we can in Crucifying and sublimating it we must never imagine that we can make it so wholsom or harmless a thing as that we may feed upon it without great caution and suspition or ever return to friendship with it again till fire have refined it and grace hath perfectly refined us And yet this is not long of the creature without us but of us and the tempter The world is in it self Good as being the work of God and it cannot be the proper efficient culpable cause of our sin For it hath no sin in it self I mean the world as distinct from the men of the world and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin But yet there is that in it which is apt to be the Matter of our temptation and so apt as that all that perish do perish by the world As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity Conjunct who have each person his several office for our recovery so there is no damnation but by the whole Infernal Trinity the flesh the world and the Devil Even to Innocent Adam the world must be the bait and Satan found somewhat in it that made it apt for such an office though nothing but what was very good But now that the flesh is become the Predominant part and power in us as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it the case is much worse and the world is incomparably a more dangerous enemy then to Adam it could be For though still the creature is good in it self yet we are so bad that the better the creature is the worse it becomes to us For we are naturally propense to it in its separated capacity and all men till regeneration are fond of it as their felicity and hug it as their dearest good and Sacrifice to it as their Idol So that an enemy it is and an enemy it will be when we have done our best as long as we are on earth For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased by that which God forbiddeth and there is a Devil to offer us the bait and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing the world which is the bait will still be the matter and occasion of our danger The consideration of this may cut the throat of licentious principles and hence we may answer the most of their vain pretended reasons who under the Cloak of Christian liberty would again indulge the flesh and be reconciled to the world But certainly it will never lay by its enmity till we lay by our flesh and therefore there is no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more but we must be killing it and dying to it to the last SECT IV. HAving thus shewed you in what Respect the world must be Crucified and so resolved the question as to the Object I am next to resolve it as to the Act and shew you wherein the Crucifying it doth consist The Apostle followeth on the Allegory which he took occasion of from the mention of the Cross of Christ. From thence therefore we must also fetch the proper sense As the world did use Christ or would have used him so we must use the world Not actually murder the sons of death as they did murder the Lord of Life but what Christ
was on the Cross in their eye that must the world be esteemed in our eyes To take it in order 1. The predictions of the Prophets before Christs coming were not regarded by the unbelieving Jews but the Prophets themselves persecuted So those that would perswade us of the felicity of any worldly enjoyments by extolling sensual pleasures or profits or honors would draw our hearts to them should be despised esteemed as deceivers by us No man is more serviceable to the Devil for our destruction then they that applaud any sensual vanity and would make us believe what great matters are to be expected from the world and so would be the Pandors of it to entice us to its unchast embracements Remember this when any would perswade you what a fine thing it is to be rich and great and somebody in the world what a merry life it is to drink and sport away your time These are the Prophets and Apostles of the Devil and the world and let them be regarded by you accordingly 2. As soon as Christ was born into the world his best place of entertainment was a common Inn and there he could have room but in a stable and in a manger the world would allow him no better accomodation and this was the welcome that it first afforded him Here you have two notable directions for your usage of the world 1. Begin to renounce it betime as it did Christ. As the world rejected Christ an Infant so we in our Infancy must reject the world This is to be solemnly performed in Baptism where as we are engaged to the saving Trinity and Baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost so must we solemnly Renounce the damning Trinity even the flesh the world and the Devil For so the Church hath ever done and the nature of the thing doth manifestly require it for the motus must have its Terminus à quo as well as ad quem It s a sad thing that so many well-meaning men should deny our Infant-capacity of this engagement but much sadder that they should do it with such violent Church dividing zeal as if the Kingdom of God lay in the exclusion of the seed of Believers out of it If it be true that all our Infant-seed are excluded from the Church I am sure it is so sad a truth that me thinks men should not so eagerly lay hold of it before they have better evidence to evince it It was once a mercy for Infants to be in Covenant with God and members of his Church and I do not think that it is now a mercy to be out or that the Kingdom of the Devil is the more desirable state and all men are in one of these Sure I am they were once members of the Church by Gods appointment and they that say they are cast out must prove it and better then any that yet have attempted it if they would have judicious considerate impartial men believe them Whoever cast them out sure Christ would not that did so much to enlarge the Church and better its state and manifest more abundant mercy and chide his Disciples that kept such from him and proclaimed that his Kingdom was of such I am not easily perswaded to believe that the Head and King of the Church hath actually gathered a Society of a false Constitution so long and that he that is so tender of his Church and hath bought it so dearly and ruled it so faithfully had never a true constituted visible Church till about two hundred years ago among a few such as I have no mind to describe and that we must now have a new and true Church-frame to begin when the world is almost at an end and that this glory reserved for our last daies consisteth in casting out our Infant-seed and leaving them in the visible Kingdom of the Devil till they come to age I am more out of doubt then ever I was that God would have our Infants renounce the world and be Dedicated unto him as the world did renounce Christ an Infant If an Infant-Christ must be the Head of the Church I know not why an Infant-sinner may not be a member of it And as the world without reason through malice rejected our Infant Head so God will find both Reason and Love to receive and entertain his Infant-members And as long as we have Gods express approbation in his Word for parents entring their children into his Covenant and have the examples of all Nations by the Law of Nature allowing parents to enter their children into Covenants which are apparently for their good and to put their names into their Leases with their own we shall not think our Infants uncapable of Covenanting with God nor of making this early Abrenunciation of the world 2. From hence also you may learn what room it is that the world should be allowed by you even the stable and the manger as it allowed Christ. This is a point of most necessary consideration The soul of man hath its several faculties As vegitative it hath its natural parts and spirits and powers and a naturall Appetite after the creature This is the stable and the manger where the creature as a natural good may be entertained It hath also as sensitive its power of sensation and sensitive Appetite This also may entertain the creature but not for it self nor by its own conduct but under the guidance of Reason to an higher end But the high and noble faculty of Reason and the Rationall Appetite may not allow it the least entertainment in its separated capacity as we are now discoursing of it It belongeth not to the Naturall or sensitive Powers to see and Love God in the creature and therefore it cannot be required of them and therefore they may receive their objects moderated by reason upon lower terms But it s the office of Reason as to moderate the senses so to behold God in all the objects of sense and no otherwise should it have to do with sensual objects of which more anon 3. It was not long that Christ had been in the world before Herod sought his Life and caused him to flie into AEgypt And as soon as we are capable of assaulting the world we must actually fall upon it and seek the extirpation of all its Interest from our hearts where Christ sets up his throne It was for fear of losing his Crown that Herod sought the death of Christ. It must be for fear lest Christ should be dethroned in our hearts and lose his regal Interest and lest we should lose the Crown of glory that we must endeavour the crucifying of the world When Angels and wise men did worship Christ yet Herod did seek his death and the more seek it because of their acclamations as being brought into jealousies of him by the Titles which they gave him So when the Princes and great ones of the earth do extoll the world and magnifie its
be apprehensive of the enmity of the world For as he that Loveth God and waiteth for the sight of his face in Glory must needs take all that to be against him and naught for him that would keep him from God and deprive him of that beatificall vision so he that knoweth what it is to love God must needs know by constant sad experience that the world is the great with-drawer or hinderer of that love When he sets himself in any holy imployment to mount his soul into a more heavenly frame and to get a little nearer God he feeleth himself too much entangled with inferiour objects these are the weight that presseth down and the water that quencheth the sacred â—lames and were it not for these O how much higher might our souls attain and how much freer might we be for God For it is a thing most certain to us by our constant experience that the more of the world is upon our hearts the less is there of God and the more of God the less of the world So that these two means alone The sincere Intending of God and Glory as our End and daily observation of our own hearts will easily convince us that the world is our great enemy And when we throughly apprehend it to be our enemy we have begun to crucifie it 2. The next act by which the world is crucified is A deep habituated apprehension of its worthlesness and insufficiency As the opposing world must be taken for an enemy so the Promising alluring world must be taken as it is for an empty thing The Life and Reign of the world in the unsanctified lieth first in their too high estimation of it They think of it as Good and Good to them and as a matter of some considerable worth and though they will say with their tongues that heaven is better yet all things considered they take the world to be more suitable to them and therefore they desire it more For Heaven is out of sight and beyond their apprehension and affection and as they imagine it is not so certain as the things which they see and feel and possess And therefore they resolve to grasp as much of the creature as they can and take that which they can get in hand and then if there be an heaven they hope they may have their part in it as well as others But saving Illumination doth put men into another mind It makes them see that the Invisible things are of greater Certainty then the visible and that a promise without possession is better security then possession without a promise and that for the Worth and Goodness between Eternal things and Temporal there can be no comparison If the world would have been content to have kept its place and to have borrowed all its honour and esteem from God and Glory as the end for which it must be used and regarded it might then have had the honour of being serviceable to our salvation and to our Masters work But seeing it will needs be a competitor with heaven it thereby disâ—obeth it self of its glory and becometh a vile contemptible thing And so must it be esteemed by all the friends of God A sound Believer looks on the world as the world lookt on Christ when he hanged on the Cross not only as a Malefactor but as a contemptible thing And as the world esteemeth the Saints themselves to be hypocrites deceivers fools weak despised a spectacle to the world yea as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things So must the Believer esteem of the world as seeming to be what it is not as a weak and insufficient thing as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 4. 11 12 13. the very filth of the streets that is swept away or cast upon the dung-hill or as a thing devoted to death for the averting of an imminent judgement Pauls judgement is in a prevalent degree the judgement of every gracious soul Phil. 3. 7 8. What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. Were the world but thus conceived of by a practical judgement it were half crucified already If men did verily think that the world is their Loss they would love it less and less greedily seek after it then now most do Gehezi would not have run after Naaman for his money if he had thought that it had been his loss Achan would not have hid the forbidden gold as a treasure if he had thought it had been his loss Who would be at so much care and pains for their loss as worldlings and sensualists are for their delights And if the judgement did once esteem the world as dung they would not be so greedy for it nor put it into their bosoms Who would fall in love with dung or dote upon filth or dogs-meat As the judgement doth esteem it the affections will be towards it And they that know not of a better condition will value this as the best though common reason will call it vanity But they that by faith have found out the true felicity have low and contemptuous thoughts of the world O what a carkaise what a shadow is it in their eyes What a poor low thing is it which the sons of men do tire themselves in seeking after What a dung-hill do they wallow in as if it were a bed of Roses What deformities do they dote upon as if they were the most real beauties A toad abhorreth not the company of a toad but shall not a man abhor it But we shall have occasion of saying more to this in the Application 3. The third act by which we Crucifie the world is a kind of Annihilation of it to our selves in our conceptions taking it as a very Nothing so far as it would be something separated from God or co-ordinate with him How oft doth the Scripture call it vanity a dream a vain shew a shadow yea nothing yea and less then nothing before God and lighter then vanity it self Isa. 40. 17. Psal. 62. 9. Iob 6. 21. The Princes of the earth who are something in the eyes of themselves and others appear as Nothing when God lets out his wrath upon them Isa. 34. 12. Even as the straw when the fire hath consumed it or the fairest buildings when it hath turned them to ashes For though the world be really something yet 1. In regard of the effects which it promiseth to seduced worldlings it may be called Nothing For that which can do Nothing for us in our extremity which hath no Power to relieve or satisfie us which leaveth the soul empty and deceiveth them that trust it may well be called Nothing in effect In genere boni that which can do us no
good is Nothing to us Let a needy soul betake himself to the world for comfort under the burden of sin for quiet and true peace to a wounded conscience and you will find it can do Nothing Seek to it for grace or strength against corruptions and temptations and you will find it can do Nothing Cry to it for succour in the depth of your affliction and at the hour of death and try whether it will present you acceptable unto God and bring your departed souls with boldness to his presence and you will find that it can do Nothing Whatever it promiseth and what ever it seemeth to deluded sinners when you look for any real good from it you will find it can do Nothing And therefore you may well take it as a meer Nothing to you 2. And in esse objectivo we may make Nothing of it by excluding it from any room in our souls as to those acts that do not belong to it 3. And as a separated being independant as to God so it is indeed Nothing for there is no such thing Much less as it is a separated Good or felicity to man Annihilate then the world to your selves When it would appear to you to be what it is not and would promise you to be what it cannot let it be as Nothing to you Conceive of it as of a shadow or a thing that seemeth to Be and is not Could you once make Nothing of it it would have no power over you nor any unhappy effects upon you You would not dote upon a known Nothing nor change your God and Glory for Nothing As Iob saith of the wicked Iob 27. 19. he openeth his eyes and he is not so we may say of the world when we open our eyes we shall see that it is not that which before seemed Nothing to us will appear to be All things and the world that seemed all things will be Nothing The summe of all that hath been said is this The opposing world must be apprehended as an enemy to God and us and so far Hated The glozing world appearing as our felicity or a competitor with God must be conceived of as Worthless and Contemned And the world as it would appear as a separated Good being any thing to us or having any thing for us out of God must be annihilated in our conceptions and taken as Nothing SECT VI. VVE are next briefly to shew you how it is that we are Crucified to the world having shewed you how the world is Crucified to us And in general the meaning is that we are as Dead or Crucified men to it in regard of those forementioned unjust respects in which the tempter would present it to us So that Crucified here is put for the absence of that Action and worldly Disposition which carnal men are guilty of So that it is a Moral and not a Natural death that is here mentioned and observably differeth from a Natural in these respects 1. A Natural death destroyeth the very Powers or Faculties of Acting But a Moral Death only destroyeth the Disposition and Action it self but not any Natural Power 2. A Natural death is Involuntary and in it self is neither a vertue nor a vice neither Morally Good or Evil. But a Moral death is principally in the Will it self and nothing is more voluntary and so it is the principal virtue or vice To be dead in sin and to God is the summe of all Evil And to be dead to sin and the world in Christ is the summe of Moral Good 3. Natural death hath no degree of life remaining saving of the separated soul. But Moral death may consist with much of the contrary life For it is denominated from the predominant habits of the soul which may stand with much of the contrary habit though subdued We cannot therefore gather that Paul was absolutely free from all sin because he was dead to it or crucified to the world For this is a Moral death consisting in a conquest of the enemy who may be said to be dead because he is overcome and consisting in the prevalent Habits of the soul which yet may have too much of the remnants of their contraries More particularly 1. If we are Crucified to the world our undue estimation of the world is Crucified We have no Idolizing over valuing regard to it in that measure as we are dead to it As the world do not Regard the works of the Lord Psal. 28. 5. Isa. 5. 12. So the Saints do not Regard the things of the world The life of faith doth so elevate their spirits that they are mounted up above the creature and look not upon the world or look upon it as a despicable thing They are above that which is the delight and imployment of others and that which the sensual call Felicity they still call Vanity And as a mans stomack abhorreth that which a dog or a swine will greedily devour so the soul of a Believer doth despise and abhor the delights of the ungodly As Pride makes the Rich look contemptuously and disregardfully upon the poor So the holy elevation of Believing souls doth make them look contemptuously and disregardfully upon all the glory of the world As faith doth bring them up to God and make him their Object and their All So doth it make them somewhat like him and minded as he is minded And as God regardeth not persons Deut. 10. 17. nor accepteth the persons of Princes nor regardeth the rich more then the poor Iob 34. 19. but is pleased more in the least of his image on the humble faithful soul then with all the glittering glory of the world so is it in their measure with his people Where they see nothing of God they feel no substance but so far as God appeareth to them in any creature or action or any means or benefit which they possess so far they perceive some substance in it As the natural man Receiveth not the things of the Spirit nor can know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. So the Spiritual man hath shut up his senses to the world and lost his perception of them because they are carnally so discerned The carnal man hath his senses quick in discerning and savouring the things of the flesh but to the things of the Spirit he is dead and sensless And contrarily the Spiritual man is dead and sensless to the things of the flesh and hath no savour in those things that are other mens delights Rom. 8. 10 5 6. He tasteth no more sweetness in their pleasures then in a chip He wonders what they can see or taste in the things of the world that they so run after it To be Rich or Poor do but little differ in his eyes To be high or low is all one to him considering these things as accomodations of the flesh though still he valueth any condition according to the respect it hath to God and so that is the
that are upon his mind And yet his foresaid Intentions may be still effectuall to cause him to use the Means as Means For example A man that hath a journey to go is not alwaies thinking of the End of it by an actual observed Intention in every step of his way but perhaps may be much of the way taken up with thoughts and discourse of other things And yet he doth truly Intend his journeys End in every step of his way and use every step as a Means to that End And so is it with a true Christian in the work of God and the way to heaven Obj. But may we not use the creatures for Delight as well as for Necessity and is it not so commonly resolved Answ. The word Necessity is taken either strictly for that which we cannot be without and so there 's no doubt of it Or largely for that which is useful to the End And for Delights some of them are Necessary that is Useful Means to our ultimate End and these must not be opposed to things Necessary but may be used because Necessary As any thing which truly tendeth to recreate revive or chear the spirits for the service of our Master But no other Delight is lawful To esteem our fleshly Delight for it self and the creature for that Delight and so to use it is meer sensuality and the great sin which sanctification cureth in the soul. If Delight it self be desired truly but as a Means to God then the creature the more remote Means may be used for that Delight as its next End but not else Obj. But what man living is such as you here describe Is there any that are thus Crucified to the world as to have no separated esteem of it or thoughts or care of it or Love or Desire or the rest of these Affections Answ. It is one thing to enquire what we are and another what we ought to be and should be if we were perfect We ought to be such as I have mentioned but we are not such in perfection yet but only in sincerity And how that sincerity may be known I have elsewhere explained In a word In a perfect soul there is no Interest but Gods In a sincere soul Gods Interest is the highest and greatest In a perfect man God hath the whole heart and in an upright man he is nearer to the heart then any thing else In a perfect man there is a perfect subjection to God and in an upright man there is none hath Dominion but God he is highest and his Rule prevaileth in the main though some things that rebell are not perfectly subdued Obj. But I find that most of my Passions are stirred more sensibly about earthly then heavenly things How then can I say that I am crucified to the world Answ. In point of Duty all that Passion that is to be commanded by Reason should be mortified as is above-said But when you go to the tryal of your states in the point of sincerity it is hard trying by the Passions and you must rather do it by your Estimation and your Will as I have discovered more fully in a Treatise of Peace of Conscience SECT VIII II. HAving shewed you what it is to have the world Crucified to us and to be Crucified to the world I am next to shew you how this is done by the Cross of Christ. And here I must distinctly shew you 1. What the Cross as suffered by Christ himself hath done to the Crucifying of the world to us 2. What the same Cross as Believed on and Considered by us doth towards it 3. And what the Cross of Christ which we our selves bear in conformity to his sufferings doth towards it Of all which briefly 1. It is not only his Crucifixion but the whole Humiliation of Christ which is in this and other Scriptures called his Cross the whole being denominated from the most eminent part as was toucht before And there are five notable blows that the world hath received by the suffered Cross of Christ. 1. One is that Christ himself in his own person hath perfectly crucified and conquered the world so that we have a victorious Head and the world is now a conquered thing It assaulted him from his birth to his death and still he overcame It assaulted him by fair means and by foul by frowns and smiles by alluring baits and persecuting storms and still it was overcome The threatnings and persecutions could never draw him to the committing of a sin The enticing offers of it could never bring him to an inordinate esteem of it nor abate the least of his love to God In his great combat in the wilderness he was assaulted both waies Hunger could not make him tempt God or distrust The Kingdoms and Glory of the world were despised by him when they were the matter of his temptation He would not have so much as a setled habitation nor any worldly pomp or splendor that so he might shew that he contemned it by his actions If he had set by it he could soon have mended his condition When the people would have made him a King he past away from them for he would not be a King of the peoples making nor have any Power or Dignity which they could give He came not to Receive honour of men but to Give salvation to men When Peter would have perswaded him to favour himself as favouring the things of Man and not of God Christ calleth him Satan and bids him get behind him If he will do the work of Satan he shall have the name of Satan and the same words of rebuke that Satan had Even in their hour and the power of darkness Luke 22. 53. they could do nothing that might make the least breach in his perfection And when they boasted of their power to crucifie him or release him Iohn 19. 10. they could not boast of their power to draw him to the smallest sin Yea upon the Cross did he consummate his conquest of the world when it seemed to have conquered him and he crucified the world when it was crucifying him and gave it then the deadly wound And there did he openly make a shew of the principalities and powers which he had spoiled and there did he triumph over them while they mistakingly triumphed over him Col. 2. 14 15. If you say What is all this to us I answer When the world is once conquered the heart of it is broken And when our Head hath overcome it there is a great preparation made for our victory Else would he not have said to his Disciples Iohn 16. â—3 In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good chear I have overcome the world For as the consequence is good Because I live ye shall live also Iohn 14. 19. So it will hold Because I have overcome the world ye shall overcome it also Yea as it is said of his Works Greater works then these shall ye do Iohn
enemies If we could believe these mountains would be cast into the Sea and all things are possible to us if we could believe Mark 9. 23. 2. The believing Meditation of the Cross of Christ doth make us apprehensive of the Vanity and Enmity of the world and so doth kill our esteem of it and affection to it For when we consider how little Christ did set by it and how he made it his work professedly to contemn it this will tell us how to think of it our selves For doubtless the judgement of Christ was true He was able to discern between good and evil If it had been valuable he would have valued it He would not have contemned it if it had not been contemptible He could have had better usage in the world if he had desired it and thought it meet But he would shew us by his Example as well as by his Doctrine how to judge of it and what to expect from it If you saw the wisest man in the world tread a thing under feet in the dirt or throw it away you would think it were a thing of no great worth When you are tempted to set too much by your credit and to sin against God for the esteem of men remember that Christ Made himself of no reputation Phil. 2. 7. And can your reputation be less then none How did he value his honour with men that gave his cheeks to be smitten his face to be spit upon his head to be Crowned with thornâ— and his body to â—e arrayed contemptuously like a fool and at last to be hanged as a contemned thing among malefactors on the Cross to be reviled by those that passed by and by him that suffered with him Learn here of him that all of us must learn of how far to set by your honour in the world Are you tempted to set by the riches and full provision or possessions of the world Remember how Christ set by them When he might have had all things and refused to have a place to lay his head When he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich 2 Cor. 8. 9. And the best of his servants have followed him in this course to whom he would have given more of the world if he had seen it best for them For when they had dishonour they had honour with it and by it when they had evil report they had also good when they were poor they made many rich and having nothing possessed all things â— 2 Cor. 6. 8 10. When your flesh would have its pleasure remember him that pleased nor his flesh but submitted it to hunger and thirst and weariness to fasting and watching and praying whole nights and at last to scourgings and buffeting and crucifying When your appetites must needs be pleased in meats and drinks remember him that had Gall and Vinegar given him to drink When your bodies would be set out with such apparell as may make you seem comelyest in the eyes of others remember him that wore a seamless coat and was hanged naked on the Cross for your sakes When you are tender of every little hurt or suffering of your flesh though in a way of duty remember him that gave his hands and feet to be nailed and his side to be pierced to death for you When you are ashamed to be reviled for well-doing remember him that despised the shame Heb. 12. 2. And thus as the sight of the Brazen Serpent did cure them that were stung in the Wilderness so the Believing views of a Crucified Christ may get out the poison of worldly delusions from your souls 3. The Believing thoughts of the Cross of Christ will make us apprehensive also of our duty in contemning the world in conformity to Christ. For though we are not bound to be Crucified as Christ was unless God specially put us upon it nor bound to live without house or home in voluntary chosen poverty as Christ did because there were some special Reasons for his sufferings that are not for ours yet are we all bound to mortifie the flesh and contemn the world in imitation of him and to submit to what suffering God shall impose on us And in the example of Christs Cross this Duty must be observed 3. THE next thing to be declared is How the Cross which we our selves do suffer in obedience and conformity to Christ and for his sake doth crucifie the world to us and us to the world That the bearing of this Cross is necessary to all that will be Christs Disciples yea the daily bearing of it is plain Luke 9. 23. 14. 27. Mat. 10. 38. Two waies doth this tend to the crucifying of us to the world 1. It doth more sensibly convince us of the Vanity and Enmity of the world then any meer doctrine or distant examples and observations could have done I confess we see so much of the worlds deceit of others that might satisfie a reasonable man that it is vain But the flesh doth draw us into a participation of its bruitishness and reason will not see the light But the Cross doth convince even the flesh it self the grand deceiver When the malice of wicked men le ts flie at us and the world do spit in our faces as they did in Christs when we are made a common by-word and derision and become as the filth of the world to them and the off-scouring of all things when we have fears within and troubles without and the sorrows of death lay hold upon us and enemies compass us round about O how effectually will this convince us that the world is vain and worse then vain Who will look for Happiness from a known Enemy and Tormentor When we have Iobs Messengers of sad tidings and troubles are multiplyed When pain and anguish seiseth upon our bodies and grief hath taken up its dwelling in our very flesh and bones who then will admire or dote upon the world Who will not then cry out against it as Vanity and Vexation When friends abuse one another they will fall out for the time though they turn not enemies And even the wicked when they suffer in the world will speak hardly of it though the friendship of it still dwell in their sensual dispositions How much more will the Enmity be encreased in the Saints when the world doth use them as its enemies and spit out the bitterest of their malice against them If we have any thoughts of reconciliation with the world God useth to suffer it to buffet and abuse us that stroaks and smart may maintain the Enmity if nothing else will serve to do it Believe it Christians God doth not permit your sufferings in vain He seeth how apt you are to dote upon the world and how dangerous it will prove to you if you be not delivered from the snares of this deceiver and therefore he had rather that the world should make you smart awhile
then undo you for ever and that it should buffet you then befool you out of your felicity The blows which the world giveth you do light upon it self As it Crucified it self in Crucifying Christ so doth it in Crucifying his people It killeth it self by your calamities And if it deprive you of your lives you will then begin to Live but the death which it bringeth on it self is such as hath no Resurrection If it kill you you shall live again yea live by that death but thereby it will so kill it self as never to live again in you The Cross is an happy Teacher of many excellent truths But of nothing more effectually then of the contemptibleness of the world If it turn our breath into groans we shall groan against it and groan to be delivered desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven 2 Cor. 5. 2. We shall cry to heaven against this Task-master and our cryes will come before God and procure our deliverance The world gets nothing by its hard usage of the Saints It maketh a Cross for the Crucifying of it self and turneth their hearts more effectually against it 2. And as it thus declareth it self contemptible and crucifyeth it self to us so doth it exercise us in Patience and awaken us to deeper considerations of its own Vanity and drive us to look after better things It forceth us also to seek out to God and to see that all our dependance is on him and draweth forth our holy desires and other graces And thus it doth Crucifie us also to the world It makes us go into the Sanctuary and consider of the End how the wicked are set in slippery places and that at last it will go well with the just It teacheth us to consider that while the Lord is our Portion we have ground enough of hope For he is good to them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord It is good for a man that he bear the yoak in his youth He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath born it upon him he putteth his mouth in the dust if so be there may be Hope He giveth his check to him that smiteth him he is filled full with reproach For the Lord will not cast off for ever but though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his Mercies Lam. 3. 24. to 33. And not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Rom. 5. 3 4 5. For if we suffer with Christ we shall also be glorified together and the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us And we our selves do groan within our selves waiting for the adoption the redemption of our body Rom. 8. 17 18 23. When Paul suffered for Christ the loss of all things he accounted them dung that he might win Christ. That he might know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and be made conformable to his death Phil. 3. 8 10. He rejoyced in his sufferings and filled up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church Col. 1. 24. And thus was he Crucified with Christ and yet lived yet not he but Christ lived in him and the life which he lived in the flesh he lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him Gal. 2. 20. SECT IX III. HAving thus shewed you how the Cross of Christ doth Crucifie the world to us and us to the world I am next to give you the Proofs of the point that thus it is with true Believers But because the Text it self is so plain and it is so fully proved on the by in what is said already and I have been somewhat long on the Explication I shall refer the rest of the Scripture-proofs to the Application where we shall have further occasion to produce it And I shall now only add the Argument from experience To the Saints themselves I need not prove it for they feel it in their own hearts In their several measures they feel in themselves a low esteem of all things in this world and an high esteem of God in Christ. They would count it an happy exchange to become more poor and afflicted in the world and to have more of Christ and his Spirit and of the hopes of a better world To have more of Gods savour though more of mans displeasure It is God that they secretly long for and groan after from day to day It is God that they must have or nothing will content them They can spare you all things else if they might have him And for those that never felt such a thing in themselves they may yet perceive that it is in others 1. You see that there are a people that seek more diligently after Heaven then Earth that are hearing the Word of God which instructeth them in the matters of salvation and are praying for the things of Eternal Life when you are labouring for the world You see that there are a people that seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and labour most for the food that perisheth not and are about the one thing Necessary which sheweth that they have chosen the better part 2. And you see that there is a people that can let go the things of the world when God calls for them That can be liberall according to their power to any pious or charitable uses That will rather suffer in body or estate even the loss of all then they will wilfully sin against God and hazard his favour 3. You have read or heard of multitudes that have suffered Martyrdom for Christ undergoing many kind of torments and death it self because they would not sin against him All these examples together with the frequent affirmations of the Scriptures may assure you that thus it is with true Christians The world is Crucified to them and they to the world SECT X. IV. I Am next to give you the Reasons of the Necessity of this Crucifixion the most of which also for brevity sake I shall reserve to the Application and at present only lay down these two or three briefly 1. The world is every carnal mans Idol and God cannot endure Idolatry To see his creature set up in his stead and rob him of his Esteem and Interest and be loved honoured and served before him and to see such contemptible things be taken as Gods while God himself stands by neglected he will not he cannot endure this Either Grace shall take down the Idol or Judgement and Hell shall plague the Idolator for he hath Resolved that he will not give his glory to another
unthankful to your own Parents disobedient to your superiours unfaithful to your equals and unmerciful to your inferiours There is no trusting a worldling he will sell his friend for money He careth not to wrong you in your life your chastity estate and name for his lustful ambitious and covetous desires For he directly breaketh the tenth Commandment which is the sum of the second Table requiring us to regard the welfare of our neighbour and not to maintain a private selfish interest against it So true is that of Paul 1 Tim. 6. 10. The love of money is the root of all evil As adhering to God is the sum of all Duty and Spiritual Goodness so adhering to the creature instead of God is the sum of all wickedness and disobedience And seeing all this is so I require you here in the name of God to cast out this wickedness and cherish it no longer Bring forth that Traytor that hath dethroned God in your hearts and exalted it self and let it die the death It subverteth Common-wealths and all societies it causeth perjury perfidiousness and sedition it raiseth wars and sets the world together by the ears it overturneth all right order and strikes at the heart of Morality it self and would make every man a Woolf or Tyger to his brother It is a murderer of your own souls and the cause of cruelty both to the souls and bodies of others It is a lyar that promiseth what it cannot perform It is a cheater that would deceive you of your everlasting happiness and tice you into Hell by pretences of furthering your profitâ— and contents It causeth parents to neglect the souls of their children and children to wish the death of their parents or be weary of them or disregard them and causeth Law-suits and contentions between brother and brother and neighbour and neighbour and fills the heart with rancor and malice and turneth families and Kingdoms into confusion it maketh people hate their Teachers and too many Ministers to neglect their flocks It adulterously seeketh to vitiate the spouse of Christ and take up the heart which was reserved for himself It robbeth him of his honour of our affections and obedience and Sacrilegiously defaceth the Temple of the Holy Ghost It will not allow God one free thought nor full affection of your heart nor one hour entirely improved for his honour This is the World and thus is it used by sensual men Judge now whether it deserve not to die the death and to be cast out of your souls and wherher we have not reason to say Crucifie it Crucifie it Ask me no more What evil it hath done You see it is such an enemy to the God of heaven that if you cherish it and let it live in your hearts you are not friends to Christ or your salvation Away with it then without any more ado and use it as the world did use your Lord and as it nailed him on the Cross so go to his Cross for a nail to fasten it and for strength to Crucifie it that you may be victors and super-victors through him that loved you and overcame the world for you Choose not to be slaves when you may be free-men and triumphers Take warning by all that have gone before you serve not a Master that casteth off all his servants in distress and leaveth them all in fruitless complaints of its unprofitablness Think not to speed well where never man sped well before you nor to find content where none have found it If all the worlds followers complain of it at the parting take warning by them and foresee the end Find out one man that ever was made happy by the world in a true and durable happiness before you venture your own hopes and happiness in such hands Put not your selves and all that you have in such a leaking vessel that never yet brought man safe to shore Will neither the experience of your own lives nor the experience of all the world before you delivered in the history of so many thousand years be a sufficient warning to you to avoid the snare What will you take then for a sufficient warning Were not reason captivated one would think that a walk into the Church-yard might satisfie you The sight of a grave or of a dead body should kill and disgrace the world in your eyes Do you see where you must lie and what that flesh which you so regard must be turned to and what is the most that can be expected from the world and in how poor and despicable a case it will then leave you and yet will you doat upon it and neglect and lose the life everlasting for it Will you be wilfully seduced by the vain-glory and oftentation of blinded worldlings when you are certain before-hand that they will not be long of the mind themselves that now they are Name me one man if you can that rejoyceth in his worldly prosperity now and speaketh well of it who rejoyced in it and spoke well of it two hundred years ago It s a child indeed that would have an house builded by every fine flower that he seeth in his way and forgetteth his home his friends and his inheritance When its two to one but the flower will be withered before his house be finished and the pleasure will not answer the trouble and cost Indeed if the world were a better place then that which we are going to I could not then blame any to desire to keep it as long as they can And yet if it were so the certainty of our removall should make us less regard it and look more to the place where we must evermore remain Much more when our home doth exceed this world in worth as much as in continuance It s folly enough to set a mans heart upon the fairest Inn that is in his way but to prefer a swine-stye before a Pallace where his Father dwells and his inheritance doth lie is somewhat worse then meer folly and its meet that such be used according to their choice It s meet indeed that we be patient in our Wilderness and murmure not at God for the sufferings that it casteth us upon But to love it better then the promised Land and to think or speak hardly of our happiness it self and those that would lead us to it this is unreasonable The Israelites were never so foolish as to build Cities in the Wilderness as desiring to make it their fixed habitations but contented themselves with moveable tents What a curse were it if God should put you off with earth and give you no other treasure and felicity but what it can afford You might well then look on your Inheritance as Hiram did on his twenty Cities in Galilee 1 King 9. 11 12. and disliking it call it the Land of Cabul It is the description of miserable wicked men to have their portion in this life Psalm 17. 14. Suppose you had the most that you
can expect in the world would you be contented with this as your portion What is that you would have and which you make such a stir for Would you have larger possessions more delightful dwellings repute with men the satisfying of your lusts c. Dare you take all this for your portion if you had it Dare you quit your hopes of the life to come for such a portion You dare not say so nor do it expresly though you do it implyedly and in effect O do not that which is so horrid that your own hearts dare not own without trembling and astonishment I pray you tell me do you think that a sufficient Portion which the Devil himself would give you if he could or is willing you should have He is content that you enjoy your lusts and pleasures he is willing to let you have the honours and fulness of the world while you are on earth He knows that he can this way best deal with your consciences and please you in his service and quiet you awhile till he hath you where he would have have you He that told Christ of all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them would doubtless have given him them if it had been in his power to have obtained his desire Though you think it too dear to part with your wealth or pleasures for heaven and to be at the labour of an holy life to obtain it the Devil would not think it too dear to give you all England nor all the world if it were in his power that thereby he might keep you out of Heaven And he is willing night and day to go about such kind of work that may but attain his ends in devouring you If he were able he would make you all Kings so that he could but keep you thereby from the Heavenly Kingdom Alas he that tempteth you to set light by heaven and prefer this world before it doth better know himself to his sorrow the worth of that everlasting glory which he would deprive you of and the vanity of that which he thrusteth into your hands As our Merchants that trade with the silly Indians when they have perswaded them to take glass and pieces of broken Iron and brass and knives for Gold or Merchandize of great value they do but laugh at their folly when they have deceived them and say What silly fools be these to make such an exchange For the Merchants know the worth of things which the Indians do not And so is it between the Deceiver of souls and the souls that he deceiveth When he hath got you to exchange the love of God and the Crown of Glory for a little earthly dung and lust he knows that he hath made fools of you and undone you by it for ever Do you not think your selves that it is abominable madness in those Witches that make a Covenant with the Devil and sell their souls to him for ever on condition they may have their wills for a time I know you will say it is abominable folly And yet most of the world do in effect the very same God hath assured them that they must for sake him or the world and that they must not love the world if they will have his love nor look for a portion in this life if they will have any part in the inheritance of the Saints He offers them their choice to take the pleasures of Earth or Heaven And Satan prevaileth with them to make choice of Earth though they are told by God himself that they lose their salvation by it And here you may see what advantage Satan gets by playing his game in the dark and doing his work by other hands and keeping out of sight himself and deceiving men by plausible pretences Should he but appear himself in his own likeness and offer poor worldlings to make such a match with them how much would the most of you tremble at it and abhort it And yet now he doth the same thing in the dark you greedily embrace it If you should but see or hear him desiring you to put your hands to such a Covenant as this is I do consent to part with the love of God and all my hopes of salvation so I may have my pleasures and wealth and honour till I die Sure if you be not besides your selves you would not you durst not put your hands to it Why then will you now put both hand and heart to it when he plaies his game underboard and implicitly by his temptations doth draw you to the same consent What do the most of the world but prefer earth before heaven through the course of their lives They prefer it in their thoughts and words and deeds It hath their sweetest and freest thoughts and words and their greatest care and diligence and delight And what then do these men do but sell their salvation for the vanities of the world Believe it Sirs if you understood the Word of God and understood Satans temptations and understood your own doings you would see that you do no less then thus make sale of your precious souls And it is not your false Hopes that for all this you shall be saved when you can keep the world no longer that will undo the bargain If the Law of the Land do punish Murder and Theft with death he that ticeth you to commit the crime doth tice you to cast away your life and it will not save you to say I had hoped that I might have plaid the thief or murderer and yet be saved O Sirs if you knew but half as well what you sell and cast away as the Devil doth that tempts you to it sure you durst never make such a match nor pass away such an inheritance for a little earthly smoak and dust SECT XVIII Use of Exhortation MEN Fathers and Brethren hearken to the word of Exhortation which I have to deliver to you from the Lord. I know that this world is near you and the world to come is out of sight I know the flesh which imprisoneth those souls is so much inclined to these sensual things that it will be pleased with nothing else But yet I am to tell you from the word of the Lord that this world must be forsaken before it forsake you and that you must vilifie and set light by it and your heart and hopes must be turned quite another way and you must live as men of another world or you will undo your selves and be lost for ever If you have thought that you might serve God and Mammon and Heaven and Earth might both be your End and Portion and God and the world might both have your hearts I must acquaint you that you are dangerously mistaken Unless you have two hearts One for God and one for the world and two souls One to save and one to lose But I doubt when one soul is condemned you will not find another to be saved I
for a Camel to go throw a needles eye Which though it be possible doth plainly shew some extraordinary difficulty Mat. 19. 23 24. such use to go away sorrowful when they hear of forsaking all because they are rich Luke 18. 23. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith to be heirs of the Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Iam. 2. 5. And the Holy Ghost saith not without cause that Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called 1 Cor. 1. 26. But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised hath God chosen and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his prâ—sence v. 27 28 29. It is the common case of prospering worldlings to play the fool after all Gods warnings and in their hearts to say Soul take thy rest when they know not but that night their souls may be called for Luke 12. 20. O that you would be pleased but considerately to read those two parables or histories Luke 12. 16. and Luke 16. 19. which you have so often read or heard inconsiderately I beseech you think not that we wrong such men if we rank them with the most notorious sinners The Apostle reckoneth them with the most hainous sinners that should arise in the last daies 2 Tim. 3. 2 4. Covetous and lovers of their own selves and lovers of pleasures more then God and bids us turn away from such And he reckoneth them among such as the Church must excommunicate and with whom a Christian may not eat 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. And with the notorious wicked men that shall not enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 10. Eph. 5. 5. It is a sin not to be once named among the Saints Eph. 5. 3. In a word if you are worldly or coveâ—ous you are certainly wicked and abhorred by God how highly soever you may be esteemed of men Psalm 10. 3. The wicked boasteth of his hearts desireâ— and blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth If yet you think I use you unmannerly in speaking so hardly of you hear the Holy Ghost a little further Iam. 5. 1. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your garments motheaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flâ—sh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last dates And mentioning their oppression he addeth Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter In a word If Christ called Peter himself a Satan when he would have had him favour himself and avoid suffering because he savoured not the things of God but of men Mat. 16. 22. You may see that we call you not so bad as you are I Shall now take the freedom to come a little nearer you and close with you upon the main of my business Poor worldlings I come not hither to beat the air nor to waste an hour in empty words but it is Work that I come upon An unpleasing Work to flesh and blood even to take away your profits and pleasures and honours from you to take away the world from you and all that you have therein Not out of your Hands but out of your Hearts Not against your wills for that is impossible nor by unresistible force I would I could do that but by procuring your own consent and perswading you to cast them away your selves I cannot expect the consent of your flesh and therefore I will not treate with it but if yet you have any free use of your reason in matters of this nature look back upon the Reasons that I have before laid down and tell me whether you see not sufficient cause to forsake this world and betake your selves to another course of life and look another way for your felicity This then is the upshot of all that I have been saying to you and this is the Message that I have to you from God to require you presently to renounce this world and unfeigâ—edly to despise it and proclaim war against it and to come over to him that is your rightful Lord and will be your true and durable Rest. What say you Will you be divorced from the world and the flesh this day and take up with a naked Christ alone and the Hopes of an heavenly felicity which he hath promised Will you bring forth that Traytor that hath had your hearts and lives so long and let him die the death Shall the world this day be Crucified to you and you to it I am to let you know that this is the thing that God expecteth and nothing less will serve the turn nor will any worldly kind of Religiousness bring you to salvation This world and flesh are enemies to God and you have been guilty of High Treason against his Majesty by harbouring them and serving them so long And I am moreover to let you know that God will have them down one time or other Either by his Grace or by his Judgement Had you rather that Death and Hell should make the separation then that saving grace should do it Will you still hide it as sugar under your tongue Will you obstinately cleave to it when you know its vanity and the mischief that such contempt of God will bring If you do so God will embitter it to you in the end and he will make it gall in your mouthes and torment to your hearts and you shall spit it out and be forced to confess that it is no better then you were told I do charge you therefore in the name of the Lord that you renounce this world without delay and presently and effectually Crucifie it to your selves You once did it by your parents in Baptism and you have proved false to that profession Now do it by your selves and stand to what you do If it had not been a part of Christianity you had not been called to do it then And therefore you may understand that it is but to be Christians indeed that I perswade you A Christian worldling is as meer a fiction as a Christian Infidel Enter now into your own hearts with a Reforming zeal It should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost down then with every Idol that is there erected Whip out the buyers and sellers and overthrow the money Tables and suffer it not to be made a den of thieves Down with your Diana's Though the world worship her God and his sanctified ones despise her What the ungodly say of our Zion we say of your Babel Down with it rase it even to the foundation it is a thing to be destroyed happy is
heaven with God The worldling is rich for himself and all that he parteth with for Gods service or the poor is but the leavings of the flesh and that which it can spare when it s own desires are satisfied for so much an Epicure may part with to good uses But the sanctified doth employ his riches for God as being Rich to him and not to his Carnal self You see by this time who they be that are the fools in Gods account And that though the children of this world are wiser in their Generation then the children of light Luke 16. 8. yet the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and the foolishness of God is wiser then men 1 Cor. 3. 19. 1. 20 25. And you know that it is Christ that requireth you to forsake all that you have for him and dare you say that Christ commandeth you to be fools Is not that the wisest way which he requireth Obj. But Christ would not have us cast away that which he giveth us but only rather to forsake it then to forsake him and that I would do Answ. But if you forsake it not first in Affection and Resolution you will never forsake it actually when he calls you to it though you may be confident you should while you look not to be put to it In your hearts all must be now forsaken though you may keep some in your hands till God require it 2. And even in prosperity you must devote your wealth to God and use it more for him then for your selves if you will prove your selves to be his servants Quest. 2. MY second Question to you is this You that are so loath to part with the world and be Crucified to it tell me What hath it done for you that you should be so fond of it and that it should seem worthy of such estimation and affection Hath it not put you to more care and sorrow then it is worth It never gave you solid Peace it never made you acceptable to God! You are not a jot better when you are rich then when you are poor unless grace do that for you that riches cannot nay and grace must do it not only without but against your riches All that the world can do for you is but to satisfie your sensual appetite and by the superfluity to please a Covetous mind And is this a matter of so great worth A beast may have his sensual delight as well as you And if man be better then a beast do you think he is not capable of a better and higher delight then beasts Will you call your selves Men and Christians and yet take up with the pleasures of a bruit and there place your happiness If the drunkâ—rd have an hundred barrels of Ale or Wine more then he can drink this doth not so much as please his appetite but only his faâ—â—â— So if you have never so much riches more then your flesh â—â— self hath use for this only pleaseth a covetous fancy All that you enjoy is but so much as may satisfie the luâ—â—s of your flesh And I pray you tell me Whether you do not your selves believe that a sober temperate heavenly Christian doth live as comfortable a life as you And Whether they have not more peace in their minds without your sinful sensual delights then you have with them Indeed it is but the distemper of your minds that makes that so pleasant to you which another that is well in his wits would be weary of As the swine takes pleasure to tumble in the mire which a wise man would not do Do you not sin against your own experience Have you not found that the world is an unsatisfactory thing and cannot help you in a day of trouble And yet will you stick to it Quest. 3. MY next Question is What hath the world done for any other that should perswade you to set so much by it as you do Did it ever save a soul or heal a soul or make a man truly happy at the last Look back in any credible Records to the beginning of the world and down to this day and tell me where is the man that is made happy by the world And Consider what it hath done for them all He that had most of it and made the best of it for the pleasing of his flesh had but a short taste of sonsual pleasures which quickly left him worse then he was before like cold drink to a man in the fit of an Ague And will you so far lay by your reason as to go against the Experience of all the world Do they all cry out against it as Vanity and yet will you take no warning Can you think to find that by it that no man ever found before you What art have you to extract such comforts from the creature that never man could do till now It is the shame of them that spend so much cost and time and labour in seeking that seed of Gold which they call the Philosophers stone because never any that sought it could find it but have all lost their labour So is it your far greater shame to run an hazard so much greater for that which never man from the beginning of the world could find till now â—olomon went as far as any in the pleasing of his flesh with the fulness of the world and in the Conclusion he passeth this sentence on it that All is vanity and vexation of spirit Quest. 4. MY next Question to you is this What is it that you do seriously expect from the world for the time to come that should perswade you to stick so close to it as you do Some great matter sure you think it will do for you or else you would never so esteem it I pray you tell me what it is Do you think verily that it will make you truly happy Do you expect that it should bring you to heaven I suppose you do not What then will it do for you It will neither prevent a sickness nor remove it It cannot take away a tooth-ake nor a fit of the gout or stone It will not save you from the jaws of death nor keep your bodies from rotting in the grave nor bribe the worms or corruption from devouring them When your Physitian tells you that your disease is uncurable and you see that there is no way but one with you and you must be gone there 's no remedy if then you cry for help to the world it cannot help you Friends cannot save you Riches and Honours Houses and Lands cannot preserve you Death will obey his will that sendeth it and you must away O who would love that and love it at so dear a rate which cannot help you in the time of your necessity Who would serve such a Master such an Idol God as cannot relieve you in the day of your distressâ—â— When conscience is awakened and begins to stir and gripe you and the wrath
insist on that which you dare not stand to And be of that mind which then you must condemn your selves Do you think that this is a reasonable course to be ventured on in so great a matter Quest. 9. MY next Question is this Do you ever mean to Repent of your fleshly and worldly-mindedness or not If you do not it seems you are far from a Recovery Many an one perisheth with bare uneffectuall purposes of Repenting but those that have not so much as such a purpose are graceless indeed But if you do purpose to Repent I would further ask you Do you think that is a right mind or a wise course which must be Repented of If it be right and wise what need you to Repent of it If it be not wise and right why will you now retain it yea and wilfully maintain it against the perswasions of God and man Doth not this proclaim that you are wilful sinners and that you know you sin and yet will do it even against your own knowledge and conscience that you know the world to be a deceitfull vanity and yet for all that you will stick to it as long as you can with the neglect of God and the true felicity And can you expect mercy and salvation that wilfully and knowingly do set your selves against it and reject it Quest. 10. MY next Question which I desire you to answer is this Do you in good sadness take the world for your enemy or for a hindrance to you in the way to heaven If you do not why did you in your Baptism renounce it and promise to fight against it And why have you professed since to stand to that Covenant And how then can you believe the word of God which so often telleth you what a hinderance Riches and Honours are to mens salvation But if indeed you believe that the world is your enemy and hinderance why then will you love it and be impatient if you want it and take such pleasure in it and desire to have more of it Do you love to have your salvation hindered or hazarded and will you love and long for that which is an enemy to it I think the way to heaven is hard enough to the best They need not make it harder then it is and be at so much labour all their lives to make themselves more enemies and more work and to block up the way while they pretend to walk in it O the hypocrisie of a carnall heart How notoriously do mens lives contradict their tongues When they will call the world their enemy and vow to fight against it to the death and at the same time will labour for it and greedily desire it as if they could never have enough That they will make so much of it as to neglect God himself and their salvation for it and make it the greatest care and business of their lives to get and keep it and all the while profess that they take it for their enemy This is dissembling beyond all bounds of shame Remember this when you are impatient of your low estate or contriving further accommodations to your flesh or hunting after a full estate Are these the signs of enmity to the world Do you hate your salvation that you so love the hinderers of it Either live as you profess or profess as you live Quest. 11. YET further I demand Whether indeed you do intend to Renounce your Christianity and all your hopes of heaven or not If you do you know whom to blame when you are deprived of it And I could wish you would first find out some better way or something that may be of valuable consideration to repair your loss But if you say you have no such intent I further ask Why then do you do it and do it after so much warning Do you disclaim your Christianity in the open light and yet say that you intend no such thing You cannot do it against your will And that it is in effect a Renouncing or Denying your Christianity yea and your salvation is plain For your Christianity containeth a Renouncing of the world and therefore it is part of our Baptismal Covenant If then you return to the world which you renounced you forsake your Christianity Had you rather forsake the world or Christ One of them you must forsake For he hath told you that Except you forsake all that you have you cannot be his Disciples Luke 14. and that you cannot serve God and Mammon Had you rather renounce the world or your salvation One of them you must let go For God hath said that the love of the world is enmity against God â—nd that if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him If therefore you will still say You hope you may keep both What do you less then give God the lye If you will still adhere to the world and yet say that you do not renounce your Christianity or Salvation you may as well say that though you joyn in Arms with open Rebels yet do you not forsake your Loyalty to your Prince Or though you live in Adultery yet you do not forsake your conjugal fidelity and chastity and that you do not cast away your life though you take poyson when you know it to be such or though you commit those crimes which must be punished with death I beseech you consider well Why you forsake Christ and why you will destroy your selves before you do it past remedy Quest. 12. MY last Question which I desire your answer to is this Do you indeed think that God is not better then the world and that Heaven is not more desiarble then earth and an endless glory then a transitory shadow Or is there any comparison to be made between them Have you considered what a sad exchange you make O unthankful souls Hath not God done more for you then ever the world did He made you and so did not the world He Redeemed you when none else could do it He preserveth you and provideth for you and all that you have is from his bounty He can give health to your bodies peace to your consciences salvation to your souls when the world cannot do it If the world be better then God in prosperity what makes you call upon God in adversity When any torment seizeth on your bodies or death draws near and looks you in the face then you do not cry O Riches help us O Pleasures or Honours have mercy upon us But O God have mercy upon us and help us Can none else help you in your distress and yet will you prefer the creature in your prosperity Ah poor deluded souls that follow the world which will cast you off in your greatest need and neglect him that would be faithful to you for ever The time is coming when you shall cry out The world hath deceived me I have laboured for nought but if you had been as true to God
as you were to it he would never have deceived you He would havâ— received your departed souls and made you like Angels and raised your bodies to glory at the last and perpetuated that Glory Will your Riches or Pleasures or Honours do this He would have rescued you from the devouring flames which your inordinate love of the world will bring you to O miserable change to change God for the world it is to change a Crown of Glory for a Crown of thorns the love of our only friend for the smiles of deceitful enemies Life for death and Heaven for Hell O what thoughts will arise in your hearts when you are past the deceit and under the sad effects of it and shall review your folly in another world It will fill your consciences with everlasting horrour and make you your own accusers and tormentors to think what you lost and what you had for it To think that you sold God and your souls and everlasting hopes for a thing of nought More foolishly then Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottagâ— If the Sun and Moon and Stars were yours would you exchange them for a lump of clay Well sinners if God and Glory seem no more worth to you then to be slighted for a little fleshly pleasures you cannot marvail if you have no part in them SECT XIX IF Reason and Scripture-Evidence would serve turn I dare say you would by this time be convinced of the necessity of being Crucified to the world and the world to you But sensuality is unreasonable and no saying will serve with it like a child that will not let go his apple for a piece of gold But yet I shall not cease my Exhortation till I have tryed you a little further and if you will not yield to forsake the world you shall keep it to your greater cost as you keep it against the clearer light that would convince you of your duty 1. As you love God or would be thought to love him love not the world For so far as you Love it you Love not him 1 Ioh. 2. 15. As ever you would be found the friends of God see that you be enemies and not friends to the world For the friendship of the world is enmity to him Iam. 4. 4. You are used to boast that you Love God above all If you do so you will not Love the world above him And then you will not labour and care more for it then for him Your love will be seen in the bent of your lives That which you Love best you will â—eek most and be most careful and diligent to obtain As they that love money are most careful to get it so they that Love heaven will be more careful to make sure of that As they that love their drink and lust will be much in the Ale-house and among those that are the baits and fewel of their lust So they that Love the fruition of God will be much in seeking him and enquiring after him and much among those that are acquainted with such Love and can further them any way in the accomplishment of their desires If you Love God then let it be seen in the Holy Endeavours of your lives and set your affections on things above and not on the things that are on earth For that which you most look after we must think that you most Love Can you for shame commit Adultery with the world and live with it in your bosoms and yet say that you love God 2. As you Love your present peace and comfort see that you love not but Câ—ucifie the world It doth but delude you first and disquiet you afterward Like wind in your bowels which can tear and torment you but cannot nourish you And if God do love you with a special Love he will be sure to wean you from the world though to your sorrow If you do provoke him to lay wormwood on the breasts and to hedge up your forbidden way with thorns when you find the smart and bitterness you may thank your selves It is the remnant of our folly and our backsliding nature that is still looking back to the world which we have forsaken that is the cause of those successive afflictions which we undergo Did you Love the creature less it would vex you less but if you will needs set your minds upon them and be pleasing your worldly sensual desires God will turn loose those very creatures upon you and make them his scourges for the recovery of your wits the reducing of your mis-led revolting souls Are you taken up with the hopes of a more plentifull estate and think you are got into a thriving way How soon can God blast and break your expectations By the death of your cattle the decay of trading the false-dealing of those you trust the breaking and impoverishing of them by contentious neighbours vexing you with Law suits by corrupted witnesses or Lawyers that will sell you for a little gain by ill servants by unthrifty children by thieves or souldiers or the raging flames by restraining the dew of heaven and causing your land to deny its increase and make you complain that you have laboured in vain How many waies hath he in a day or an hour to scatter all the heap of wealth that you have been gathering and to shew you that by sad experience which you might have known before at easier rates At the least if he meddle not with any thing that you have yet how quickly can he lay his hand upon your selves and lay you in sickness to groan under your pain and sin together and then what comfort will you have in the world when head ake's and back ake's and nothing can ease you When pain and languishing make you weary of day and of night and weary of every place and weary of your best diet your finest cloathes your merriest companions Where then is the sweetness and beauty of the world Then if you look on house or goods or lands how little pleasure find you in any of them Especially when you know that your departure is at hand and you must stay here no longer but presently must away Oh then what a carkaise will all the glory of the world appear and how sensibly then will you read or hear or think of these things that now in your prosperity are very little moved by the hearing of them Is it your children that you set your hearts upon in inordinate Love or Care Why alas how quickly can God call them from you by death and then you will follow them to the Church-yard and lay them in the grave with so much the sadder heart by how much the more inordinately you loved them And perhaps God may leave them to be Graceless and unnatural and make that child by rebellion or unkindness to be the breaking of your heart whom you most excessively affected If it be a wife that you over-love you know not but they
world do set as light by such in inconsiderable vanities And if the dead in sin can bear so easily the greatest misery that man on earth is ordinarily capable of as the slavery of the Devil the guilt of sin the curse of the Law the danger of damnation c. what wonder then if they that are Crucified to the world can bear a little poverty or sickness or reproach which is to the other but as the prick of a pin or the scratch of a thorn to a deadly poyson or a stab at the very heart 3. But yet this is not all Your inordinate love of any thing in the world will not only embitter your lives but it will be the horrour of your souls at death and judgement And therefore as ever you would leave the world in peace and as ever you would appear before the Lord your Judge with comfort and as ever you desire that the creatures should not be your Tormentors take heed that you do not over-love them now but see that they be Crucified to â—ou You cannot possibly be sensible now what a pang of horrour it will cast you into at the last when you shall see the world leaving you and see what it was that you ventured your souls and their everlasting welfare for O with what grief and tearing of heart do earthly minded persons part with the world When you are dying that one thing that had your heart will more torment your hearts to remember it then all things else will do Nothing is such a terrour to the thoughts of a a dying covetous man as his money and lands and worldly wealth Nothing so vexeth the ambitious as to think on that shadow of honour which he did pursue Nothing doth so torment the filthy fornicator as the remembrance of that person with whom he committed the beastly sin All other persons or things in the world will not then be so bitter to you as those that stole your hearts from God but at judgement and in hell the remembrance of them will be a thousand fold more bitter And who would now prepare such misery for themselves and glut themselves with that which they can no better digest or bear What wise man would not rather be without the drunkards cups then be fain to spue it up again and part with it with so much sickness and disgrace And why should you desire to be drunk with the profits or pleasures of the world when you know before hand with how much shame and trouble of conscience you must cast it up again at last 4. But yet this is not the worst but if you will needs live to the world you must take it for your portion and look not for any more And therefore as ever you would not be deprived of your hopes of eternal life and be put off with the earthly portion of the wicked see that the world be Crucified to you and you to the world How poor a portion is it that worldlings do possess Even like Nebucadnezar that had his portion with the beasts Daâ— 4. 15. How soon will all their portion be spent and then they will feed with swine yea and be denyed these very husks For they are set in slâ—ppery places and are brought to desolation in a moment Psal. 73. 18 19 20. O how much better a portion might you have had if you had not refused or neglected it when you had your choice Me thinks in your greatest pleasures and abundance it should astonish your souls to think This is my portion I shall have no more When you are past this life and entring into Eternity then where is your â—ortion Alas saith Conscience I have had it already I cannot spend it and have it too You know what you have now but what shall you have hereafter to all eternity Your Portion is almost spent already and what will you do then Oh then to think that the Eternal glory of the Saints might have been yours it was offered as freely to you as to them but you have lost it by preferring the world before it and that after a thousand convictions of your folly O what a cutting thought will this be Luke 16. 25. To remember that you chose your good things in this life will be a sad Remembrance when all is gone The Lord is the protion of his Saints inheritance Psalm 16. 5. even their portion for ever Psalm 73. 26. their portion in the Land of the living Psal. 142. 5. and this was it that encouraged them to labour patience and hope Psalm 119. 52. Lam. 3. 24 25 26. But for the worldling The heaven shall reveal his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him the increase of his house shall depart and his goods shall slow away in the day of wrath This is the portion of a wicked man from God and the heritage appointed to him by God Iob 20. 37 38 39. If you can be content with such a Portion make much of the world and take your fleshly pleasures while you may But if you hope for the everlasting portion of Believers away with the world and Crucifie it without any more ado and set your hearts on the portion which you hope for SECT XX. HAving said as much as is suitable to the other parts of this discourse to perswade you to be willing to Crucifie the world I shall next give some Directions to those that are perswaded and tell you by what means the work may be done And I beseech you mark them and resolve to practise them Direct 1. OBserve and Practise the Direction intimated in the Text. It is the Cross of Christ that must Crucifie the world to you It s thither therefore that you must repair for help An Infidel may fetch such weapons from reason and experience as shall wound the world and diminish his esteem of it and make it less delightful to him But it is only the Cross of Christ that can furnish us with those weapons that must pierce it to the very heart Or if the Unbeliever were deprived of all earthly delight and brought into despair of ever receiving more comfort from the world as it is with many of them in some extremity and with all at death yet he himself is not Crucified to the world Though his delight in it be gone yet his love to it is not gone Though he be out of Hope of ever having content in it yet his desires after it are the same If he call it vanity and vexation as the Believer doth it is because it denyeth him his desires Not because he takes it heartily for an Enemy but for an unkind Lover that dealeth hardly with him that hath given it his heart If he look upon it as Dead and unable to help him yet doth he behold it as the carkaise of a friend with grief and lamentation It is his greatest trouble that the world cannot give him that which he would have And therefore he
adversity This is a great reason why worldly Prosperity and true Holiness do so seldom go together and so few of the great ones of the world are saved O how hard is it to have the world at will and not to be ensnared by it and over-love it How hard is it heartily and practically to contemn a prosperous condition How hard to have serious lively thoughts of the great things of eternity and serious preparations for death and judgement when we have health and wealth and all the accommodations which our flesh doth desire Satan knows this well enough and therefore he is willing that his servants shall have prosperity He knows that it is not the way to get him servants to beat them and use them hardly but to please them by flatteries and fulfill their lusts that they may be enticed to imagin his service to be the best It s the custom of harlots to set out themselves to the best and to adorn themselves for the tempting of their lovers and not to go in an homely dress which no one will be taken with No wonder then if Satan the Pandor of the world do adorn it with the best cloathes and present it to you in the most enticing garb he can If the lips of this harlot did not drop as an honey-comb and her mouth were not smoother then â—yl she could not lead such multitudes to her end which is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword her feet go down to death her steps take hold of hell lest men should ponder the path of life Prov. 5. 3 4 5 6. And it is no wonder that God to save his people from this delusion doth dress the world to them in a courser attire and when he seeth them in danger to be enamoured on it as well as others if he present it to them in the rags of poverty and in the scabs of its corruption confusion and deformity that they may see the difference between it and their home It s strange to see how highly prosperity is regarded by the most how earnestly they desire it pray for it or contrive it and how much they are troubled when they fall into adversity when yet they know or say they know that the love of the world is the bane of the soul and that it killeth men by deceiving them Can you keep your affections as loose from the world when you have houses and lands and all things at your will as you could if it were otherwise Remember I beseech you that the poyson of the world is covered by its sweetness and that it killeth none but those that love it Be suspitious therefore that there is danger where you find delight If your estate be such as is pleasing to your flesh believe it is not likely to be safe to your souls If therefore your health your wealth your honours be such as your flesh would have them if your houses your accomodations your friends be suited to your carnal desires believe it your souls are in no small hazzard and therefore look about you as you love your salvation and fear the snare The great enemy of your souls hath not baited his hook with so curious and costly a bait for nothing The cautelous fish that is afraid to swallow yea or to taste or to come neer till he knows what is under it doth save his life when that which boldly ventures and fearlessly devoureth the bait is destroyed It s not for nothing that Solomon chargeth the man that is given to his appetite to put his knife to his throat at a feast and not to be desirous of the dâ—inties which are deceitfull Prov. 23. 1 2 3. A prudent man foreseeth the evil even when it is covered with the pleasantest bait and so he hideth himself and escapeth when the simple passeth on and is punished Prov. 22. 3. It is part of the description of the sensual a postates in Iude 12. that in their feasts they fed themselves without fear And it is as dangerous a thing to cloath your selves without fear to seek after wealth and honours without fear to possess your houses and lands without fear to see any thing that 's carnally pleasing to you or hear your own prayses without fear when other men must needs have things to their will do you study your duty and let the will of God be your will and if he give you a plentiful estate without seeking it or give you reputation and the praise of men without your affecting it receive them not without fear Think with your selves What a snare is here now for my soul Though it be good in it self and as it comes from God yet what an advantage hath the Deceiver here against me How easily may such a carnal heart as mine be enticed to the inordinate love of these and to be more remiss about higher and greater things and to be forgetful or insensible about the matters of my endless state How many men of worldly wisdom yea how many that seemed Religious have been thus deceived and perished before me Yea this is the common road to hell And is it not time for me then to look about me The old Christians were so jealous of the world and afraid of being mortally poysoned by its delights that they sold what they had and gave to the poor and voluntarily thrust themselves into poverty as thinking it better to go poor to heaven then to say in Hell that once they had riches I commend not any extream to you for indeed I have ever thought that its greater self-denyal to devote and use our riches for God then at once to cast them away or shut our hands of them and that he is a better steward that improveth his Masters slock then he that rids his hands of it out of an injurious fear of his Masters austerity But yet I must say that the other extream is more common and more dangerous And they that out of excess of fear betook themselves to poverty and to wildernesses were in a far better case then many that seem now to be zealous professors and yet are looking after the pleasures and riches and glory of the world I have many a time wondered at some eminent professors that are as constant and seraphicall in the outside of duty even to admiration as almost any I know and yet as closely and busily grasping at the world and labouring to be rich as if they were the wretchedst worldlings on earth I have oft wondered how they can quiet their consciences and how they make shift so constantly to delude such knowing souls The Countrey sees them drowned in earth and the generality of their godly friends lament them as meer hypocriticall earth-worms and yet because they can carry it on smoothly and not be noted for any palpable oppression or deceit they wipe their lips they bless themselves and with gracious words would cloak their covetousness as if men did but uncharitably
wonder if the house be robbed where the doors stand alwaies open and all is common to every passenger Be sure therefore to keep a constant guard upon your eyes your appetites and every sense or else the world will not be Crucified Let not your eye move but by the conduct of your reason at least let it not fix upon any object till reason give it leave Taste not a bit of meat or a cup of drink till you have advised with right informed Reason and be able to justifie what you do Take an account of all that entereth at the door of any of your senses For he that must give an account to the living God had need to keep account himself 2. Keep also a constant guard upon your Thoughts as well as upon your senses As the Thoughts will tell you what is in your hearts so they will let in whatsoever bribeth them to consent The fancies of men are the garden of the Devil where he soweth and watereth the plants of impiety Yea they are a principall room in which he doth inhabite It s certain that the Devil hath readyer access to the fantasie then to the heart and that it is his shop in which he forgeth most vices and doth a very great part of his work An unclean spirit possesseth the fantasies of the unclean so that their thoughts are running upon lustful objects and they are guilty of the filthyest cogitations within when they seem to be of the chastest behaviour without and do frequently commit fornication in the heart when fear or shame doth restrain the outward practise and cover their iniquity The malicious person is possessed by a spirit of maliciousness that dwelleth in his fantasie and sets him on contrivances of cruelty and revenge and filleth his mind with thoughts of hatred and disdain The same spirit reigneth in the fancies of the Proud and setteth them upon contrivances for the advancing of their names and causeth them to thirst after the reputation of the world and filleth them with the troubled malicious thoughts of Haman when they miss of their expectations The earthly spirit possesseth the fantasies of the covetous and setteth them on contrivances for the increase of their estates Do you not feel by sad experience how many of Satans assaults are made upon your cogitations and how much of his interest lyeth there and how much of his work is there done As ever you would be Crucified to the world then set a watch upon your thoughts and keep a daily and hourly account of them and see that they be alway under the Government of faith and reason Your thoughts should be kept chast as the entrance into your hearts and not be as common harlots entertaining every comer If you feel your thoughts stepping out upon Lust or Malice look after them betime and call them in and check them sharply and lay a charge on them hereafter to be more pure If you find that they are running with Geheza after the prize and are making out after the provisions for the flesh recall them and correct them and bewail this evil before the Lord and let your watch be stricter for the time to come Believe it your hearts will be such as are your thoughts The flies that lye upon sores or dung or carrion and the worms that are bred in them will be of the nature of that corruption themselves If you would have your hearts clean and humble and heavenly let your Thoughts be clean and humble and heavenly If you will let your Thoughts run on the objects of Lust you will be Lustful And if you will Think on the enticements of Pride you will be Proud And if you will let out your thoughts on the Profits of the world no wonder if it steal away your hearts saith the Lord to the covetous and unmerciful Deut. 15. 7 8 9. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy Brethren within any of thy gates thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor Brother but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart saying The seventh year the year of release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor Brother and thou givest him nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be sin unto thee Thou shalt surely give him and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto For the poor shall never cease out of the Land therefore I command thee saying Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother to thy poor and to thy needy in the Land Besides the main drift of the Text mark how we are commanded to beware that a Thought of unmercifulness enter not into our hearts And when Christ doth so vehemently disswade his followers from this damning sin he doth it by setting a Law upon their Thoughts Why take ye Thought c. Take no thought c. Mat. 6. 25 27 28 31 34. Luke 12. 22 26. If the unrighteous man forsake not his thoughts he will not forsake the evil of his way Isa. 55. 7. As you love your souls then look to your Thoughts and keep them under the Government of the Lord. Would you be free from a vain and sensual mind How long then shall your vain thoughts lodge within you Ier 4. 14. 3. And see also that you make not worldly minded men your companions While they savour nothing but earth and flesh they will have no savoury discourse of any thing else And their discourse is like to be infectious to your minds As a Stews is not the best place to preserve you from uncleanness nor an Alehouse the best place to preserve you from drunkenness so the company of worldlings is not the best place to preserve you from worldliness Where you shall see or hear little but earthly things and heavenly matters can find no room It s not the safest place to fight against the Devil in the midst of his own Army but in the Army of Christ. On the contrary side be sure that you keep under mortifying means Attend to the lively preaching of the word which will disgrace the world to you and be still drawing your hearts another way Be much with God in secret prayer and be much above in Heavenly Meditation and dwell upon those Thoughts which lay the world naked to you and shew it you in its own complexion If death and judgement be seriously in your minds it will waken you from these fleshly dreams and prick the bladder of your aery minds and let out that wind which puft you up and kept out the things of God and Glory Converse also as much as you can with the most Heavenly people
whose discourse and prayers and daily examples will help to draw up your minds to God and to affect them with things that nearlyer concern you then all the profits or pleasures of the world I Have now told you how you should Crucifie the world and be Crucified to it but which of you will be so happy as to practise these Directions I cannot tell I have brought you the armour and weapons by which this mortal enemy must be conquered but it is not in my power to give you couragious hearts to use them I can certainly tell you what a safe and comfortable life you might live if you had but this enemy under your feet and what an easie and happy death you might die if you were first dead to the world But to make you so happy is not in my power I can foresee the certain damnation of all unconverted sensualists and worldlings and how sad a farewell they must shortly take of all their felicity But to prevent it is not in my power For I cannot make you willing to prevent it It s a greater work then bare information that is here to be done If it were but to give the world a few contemptuous words and to call it vanity and a worthless thing I should make no doubt of prevailing with the most But to kill it in your hearts is an harder work And with some kind of men it prospers most when it is hardlyest spoken of It s easie to tell a man why and how he should lay down his life for Christ if he be called to it But there 's more to be done before it will be practised Till an heavenly light possess your minds and shew you the better things to come and assure you of more to be had in Christ then the world can afford you I cannot look you should lose your hold nor that an hundred Sermons should make you willing to seek the death of that which hath your heart Sense is tenacious and unreasonable When you have knockâ— it off an hundred times yet still it will be sense and will be eager after its delights again Some will be still thinking that Mortification and heavenly mindedness is so rare a thing that God will be more merciful then to condemn all that are without them And some will be inconsiderate and sensless when the clearest reason is set before them and will venture their salvation rather then become dead to all their worldly lusts and hopes So that with sorrow I must say that now I have said all and delivered my Message I fear the most will still be the same and reject the counsel of God to their perdition For this is a grace that accompanieth salvation and therefore will be the portion only of the heirs of salvation Though our hearts dâ—e â—ire and prayer and endeavour must be that the professed Is ' raelites may be saved yet we must take up our comfort shorter that the Elect shall obtain it though the rest are hardened For its Gods will and not ours that must be done If Christ be satisfied in the salvation of his little flock as seeing in them the travail of his soul even so must we and though as Samuel did over Saul so we may mourn over the rest that God hath forsaken yet that sorrow must know its season and its measure For my part I must needs say to you that though it may seem an high extraordinary thing to some of you for a man to be thus Crucified to the world I have no more hope of the salvation of any of you except it shall be thus with you then I have of the salvation of Cain or Iudas And as great and wonderful a work as this is if ever God mean to save your souls it will be done on you I shall therefore according to my duty beseech you to review and practise the Directions which are given you and to use the world as the heirs of Heaven that have laid up their hope and treasure there But if you will not hear and take warning it is because the Lord will destroy you and because you are not the sheep of Christ 2. Chron. 25. 16. 1 Sam. 2. 25. Iohn 10. 26 27. SECT XXI Use last I Have been all this while Perswading and Directing you to be Crucified to the world and the world to you I doubt not but God hath done this work already upon the souls of many of you even upon all that truly believe in a Crucified Christ. To such therefore I shall next address my speech and in general this is my earnest request to you That you would use the world as a Crucified thing and as men that are Crucified to it should do I will not lengthen this discourse in using many motives to you One would think that which way ever you look you should have forcible motives before your eyes If you look downward on earth you may see enough to wean you from it and if seeing will not serve your most wise and gracious Father will make you feel and put the case beyond dispute If you look upwards you may perceive a better and more enduring substance and an inheritance so much more glorious and enduring as should suffice to take your minds from earth If you look within you what foot-steps of the Spirit may you there trace what graces in act and habit may you find which are all at mortal enmity with the world You may read there a Law engraven upon your hearts which condemneth the world to subjection and contempt And many an obligation you may there find wherein you are deeply bound against it For I hope you have not cancelled them all and forgot all the promises which you made to God All your Professions and all your blessed Priviledges and Hopes do engage you to another world and to the hearty renouncing and forsaking of this You say you are Crucified and Risen with Christ If you be then seek the things that are above set your affections on the things that are above and not on the things that are on earth For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is your life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are on earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience Col. 3. 1. to 7. It doth not beseem the members of a Crucified Christ to be earthly minded nor the members of a Glorified Christ to set their minds oâ— things so low It ill bâ—seems the Heirs of an incorruptible rown of Glory to make too great a matter of these trifles It is the Enemies of the Cross of Christ and not those that are Crucified with him whose God is their belly and who glory in their shame and who mind earthly things but the Saints conversation must
world I cannot live contentedly in poverty food and rayment will not serve turn unless I fare deliciously and be cloathed neatly and be set by in the world and unless I may leave prosperity to my children when I am dead and gone If you dare not say thus do not dare to desire or think thus Mr. Robert Bolton that holy learned Divine doth use among the hainous damning sins to reckon this A desire to be râ—ch And if we hearken to the Scripture we shall find that it is not without good cause Prov. 23. 4. the command is Labour not to be rich And Prov. 28. 20. He that maâ—gth haste to be rich shall not be innocent The Syriack rendeâ—s the word 〈◊〉 and the Arabick the wicked which we here translate â—e that â—asteth to be rich And they must needs be the sâ—me men when the Apostle saith that the love of money is the râ—ot of all evil 1 Tim. 6. 10. Therefore saith Paul They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. By this word they that will or are willing to be rich is meant they whose wills are set upon it and are in love with it and fain would be rich Is it fitter for God or you to determine how many talents you shall be entrusted with Do you long to have more duty and danger and a double account It s true you may desire the success of your Labours but not for the Love of Riches nor with an unmannerly peremptory desire It s true also that you must be thankful for prosperity if God give it you But as it must be with an holy jealousie so it is as true that you must be thankful also for adversity when God sends it though not for it self yet for the good that it may conduce to And therefore saith Iames 1. 9 10. Let the brother of low degree rejoyce in that he is exalted but the rich in that he is made low And Iob could say The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord Iob 1. 21. 3. IF you are Crucified to the world then let it not have power to Crucifie you by putting you upon inordinate cares or sorrows Will you vex your brains with contrivings for the world and weary your mind with tearing cares and walk in sorrow because you have not your desires and yet say that you are Crucified to the world Are the dead so solicitous or is a Carkaise to be so much valued Your Passions and Endeavours will proclaim your excessive estimation of the world when you have never so long in words professed your contempt of it Alas how many that seem to know better do almost distract their minds with cares and entangle themselves in a life of so much misery as a wise man would not like for all the world If they want any thing what trouble are their minds iâ— till their wants be supplyed If they be afflicted with losses or wrongs or contempt they are troubled as if they had loâ—â— some great oâ— necessary thing A Crucified world could not make such a â—â—â—â— in your minds but doubtless it is so far alive as it thus aâ—â—â—cteâ—h you The Lord Jesus hath himself made so full and moving a Sermon to his Disciples against the cares of the world Mat. 6. and Luke 12. that its a double sin to Christians to be still so careful and earthly minded and I know not what to hope for from that man that will not be moved with such words as those from the Lord himself And yet how many professors have I known that have tormented themselves with cares and sorrows yea and cast their bodies into diseases by it and many of them have dyed of it and some it hath brought besides their wits So observable is that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 7. 10. The sorrow of the world worketh death even temporal and eternal unless we be delivered by undeserved Grace Bear all conditions then with an equal mind and let your passions shew that you are Crucified to the world 4. IF you are Crucified to the world then Let it not thrust out the service of God and be made an excuse for a negligence in Religion How rare are holy Meditations in the minds of many that think themselves Religious And it is worldly Thoughts that thrust them out and worldly businesses that are the common excuse How formal are many in the Instructing of their families how seldom and how coldly do they exhort their children or servants to make ready for death and make sure of their salvation How coldly and cursorily are family prayers and other duties slubbered over And all is because they have other things to mind the world will give them leave to do no more The decay of zeal and diligence in family-duties is the common symptom and cause too of the destruction of knowledge and godliness in the Land And all is because the world is Master and must be served before God The business of the world doth seem to them the principal business and must first be done and all thoughts and talk of Heaven must stand by till the world will give them leave to enter Men cannot have while to call upon God and instruct their families because they have their worldly works to do Go into the families of most Noblemen Knights or Gentlemen in England and see there whether God or the world be most regarded and lookt after Perhaps they may civilly yield an â—â—r while a Chaplain makes a short prayer among them but if you look after heavenly mindedness and seriousness in Religion and zeal against sin and diligence to help to save the souls that are under their charge how little shall you find Do they earnestly perswade their servants to study holy things and do they examine them about their everlasting state and call them to account of what they learn from the publick Ministry Do they shew a vehement hatred of sin and go before their families in an heavenly conversation Alas how thin are such families as these No no they are so taken up with entertaining their friends and pampering their flesh and in complements and in worldly affairs that they have little time for heavenly work And if they do for fashion sake get a godly young man to be their Chaplain he is so wearied with the sensual courses of some and the scorns of others and the vanity and worldliness and negligence of the rest that his life is a burden to him and he can no more enjoy himself in such families then in a fair or popular tumult On the other side poor men are in so much want that they think themselves sufficiently excused for the neglecting of almost all the means of their salvation They think Necessity lyeth upon them and therefore that God will not require it of them to understand the Scriptures
Tempter is hereby disarmed and he is disabled from doing that against you which with others he can do The Living world is the Life of Temptations As a Bear for all his strength and fierceness may be led up and down by the nose when by a ring the cord is fastened to his flesh So the Tempter leadeth men captive at his will by fastening together the world and their flesh He finds it no hard matter to entice a sensuall worldly mind to almost any thing that is evil Bid him lye or steal and if it be not for shame or fear of men he will do it Bid him neglect God and his worship and he will do it Bid him hate those that hinder his commodity or speak evil of them that cross his desires or seek revenge of those that he thinks do wrong him herein and how quickly will he do it The Devil may do almost what he list with those that are not Crucified to the world They will follow him up and down the world from sin to sin if he have but a golden bait to tice them But when the world is Crucified to you what hath he to entice you with The cord is broken by which he was wont to bind and lead you Can you tice a wise man by pins and counters as you may do a child If he would draw you from God he hath nothing to do it with for the world by which he should do it is now dead If he would tice you to pride or ambition or covetousness or to sinful means for worldly ends he hath nothing to do it with because the world is dead The Devil hath nothing but a little money or sensual pleasure or honours to hire you with to betray and cast away your souls And what cares a mortified man for these Will he part with Christ and heaven for money who looks on money as other men do on chips or stones It is the frame of mens hearts that is the strength of a temptation To a man that is in love with money O what a strong temptation is it to see an opportunity of getting it by sin But what will this move him that looketh on it as on the dirt in the streets To a proud man that is tender of his reputation in the world what a troublesom temptation is it to be reproached or slighted or slandered and what a dangerous temptation is it to him to be applauded But what are these to him that takes the approbation and applauses of the world but as a blast of wind As Christ saith of himself Iohn 14. 30. The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me that is He cometh to make his last and strongest assault but he shall find no carnall sinfull matter in me to work upon and he cometh by his instruments to perscute me to the death but he shall find no guilt in me which might make it a glory to him or a dishonour to me So in their measure the mortified members of Christ may say When Satan cometh by temptations the world is dead by which he would tempt them and he shall find little of that earthly matter in them to work upon and to entertain his seed and therefore when he afterward cometh by persecution he will find the less of that guilt which would be the oyl to enlarge and seed these flames Your innocency and safety lyeth much in this Mortification Benefit 4. ANother Benefit that followeth our Crucifixion of the world is this It will prevent abundance of needless unprofitable cost and labour that other men are at You will not be drawn to run and toyl for a thing of nought When other men are riding and going and caring and labouring for a little smoak or a flying shadow you will sit as it were over them and discern and pitty and lament their folly To see one man rejoyce that hath got his prize and another lament because he cannot get it and a third in the eager pursuit of it as if it were for their lives While they live as if they had forgotten the eternal Life which is at hand will cause you to lift up your soul to his praises that hath saved you from this dotage The world worketh on the sensual part first and thereby corrupteth and as it were brutifieth our very reason and the whole course of worldly designs and affairs even from the glorious actions of Kings and Commanders to the daily business of the plow-man and the beggar are all but the actions of frantick men or mad men I say so far as the affairs of the world are managed by this sensuall unmortified principle a sanctified Believer can look upon them all as on the runnings or tumults of children or ideots or on a game at Chests where wit is laid out to little purpose Mortification will help you to turn your thoughts and cares and labours into a more profitable course So that when the end comes you will have somewhat to shew that you have gained when others must complain that they have lost all their labour and worse then lost it What abundance of precious time do other men lose in dreaming pursuits of an empty deceiving transitory world When God hath taken off the poise from you of such unprofitable motion and taught you better to employ your time Many an hundred hours which others cast away upon worldly thoughts or discourse or practises are redeemed by the wise for their everlasting benefit Benefit 5. MOreover this Mortification Will help you to prevent a great deal of sharp Repentance which must tell unmortified worldlings of their folly When they have run themselves out of breath and abused Christ and neglected grace and either lost or hazarded their souls they must sit down in the end and befool themselves for losing their time and lives for nothing When God hath given a man but a short life and laid his everlasting life upon it and put such works into his hand as call for his utmost wisdom and diligence What a sad perplexing thought must it be to consider that all or most of this time hath been cast away upon worldly vanities If a man shall run away from his own Father and serve a Master that at last will turn him off with nothing but shame and blows will he not wish that he had never seen his face Such a Master all worldlings and sensualists do serve And he that got most by the world among them shall wish at last that he had never served it When the mortified Christian that slighted the world and laid out his care and labour for a better may so far escape the bitterness of such Repentings and be glad that he hath chosen the better part That is not the best meat that is sweetest in the eating when afterward it must be vomited up with pain because it cannot be digested The sparer dyet of Mortified men will prevent such after pains and troubles Benefit 6.
MOreovor where the world is Crucified A great deal of self-tormenting care and trouble of mind will be prevented You will not live such a perplexed miserable life as worldlings do Even in your outward troubles you will have less inward trouble of soul then they have in their abundance They are like a man that is hanged up in chains alive that gnaws upon his own flesh a while and then must famish What else do worldlings but tear and devour themselves with cares and sorrows and scourge themselves with vexatious thoughts and troubles If others did but the hundredth part as much to them against their wills as they wilfully do against themselves they would account them the cruellest persons in the world Paul saith of men that are in love with money that while they covet after it they do not only err from the faith but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they pierced themselves through and through and stab'd their own hearts with many sorrows A worldly mind and a melancholly are some kin The daily work of both is self-vexation and they are wilfully set upon the stabbing and destroying of themselves But it is not thus with the Believer so far as he is mortified Will he vex himself for nothing Will he be troubled for the loss of that which he disregardeth The dead world hath not power thus to disquiet his mind and to toss it up and down in trouble When it hath power on his body it cannot reach his soul. As the soul of a dead man feeleth no pain when the corpse is cut in pieces or rotteth in the grave So in a lower measure the soul of a Believer being in a sort as it were separated from the body by faith and gone before to the heavenly inheritance is freed from the sense of the calamities of the flesh So far as we are Dead we are insensible of sufferings Benefit 7. ANother Benefit that followeth upon the former is this We shall be far better able to suffer for Christ because that sufferings will be much more easie to us when once we are truly Crucified to the world What is it that makes men so tender of suffering and startle at the noise of it and therefore conform themselves to the times they live in and venture their souls to save their flesh but only their over-valuing fleshly things and not knowing the worth and weight of things everlasting They have no soul within them but what is become carnal by a base subjection to the flesh and therefore they savour nothing but the things of the flesh All Life desireth a suitable food for its sustentation A Carnal Life within hath a Carnal appetite and is most sensible of the miss of Carnal commodities But a Spiritual Life hath a Spiritual appetite And as Carnal minds can easily let go Spiritual things so a spiritual mind so far as it is such can easily let go carnal things when God requireth it When you are Dead to the world you will easily part with it For all things below will seem but small matters to you in comparison of the things which they are put in competition with If you are scorned or accounted the off scouring of the Town you can bear it because with you it is a very small matter to be judged of man 1 Cor. 4. 3. If you must endure abuses or persecutions for Christ you can do it because you reckon that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. You can let go your gain and account it loss for Christ yea and account all things loss for the knowledge of him and suffer the loss of all things for him accounting them but as dung that you may win him Phil 3. 7 8. If you knew that bonds and afflictions did abide you yet none of these things would move you neither would you account your life it self dear to you so that you may finish your course with joy Acts 20 23 24. So far as you are dead to the world and alive to God it will be thus with you When they that are alive to the world are so far from being able to dye for God that every cross doth seem a death to them I have many a time heard such lamentable complaints from people that are â—aln into poverty or disgrace or some other worldly suffering that hath given me more cause to lament the misery of their souls then of their bodies When they take on as if they were quite undone and had lost their God and hope of heaven doth it not too plainly shew that they made the world their God and their heaven Benefit 8. MOreover if indeed you are Crucified to the world your hearts will be still open to the motions of the Spirit and the motions of further Grace And so you will have abundant advantage both for the exercise and encrease of the graces which you have received The earthly minded have their hearts locked up against all that can be said to them Never can the Spirit or his Ministers make a motion to them for their good but some worldly interest or other doth contradict it and rise up against it But what have you to stop your ears when the world is dead The word then will have free access to your hearts When the Spirit comes your thoughts are ready your affections are at hand and all are in a posture to entertain him and attend him and so the work goes on and prospers But when he comes to the worldly mind the thoughts are all from home the affections are abroad and out of the way and there is nothing for his entertainment but all in a posture to resist him and gainsay him O what work would the preaching of the Gospel make in the world if there were not a worldly principle within to strive against it But we speak against mens Idols against their Jewels and their Treasure and therefore against their hearts and natures And then no wonder if we leave them in the jaws of Satan where we found them till irresistible merciful violence shall rescue them But so far as you are mortified the enemy is dead contradictions are all silenced opposition is ceased the Spirit findeth that within that will befriend its motions and own its cause the soul lyeth down before the word and gladly heares the voice of Christ And thus the work goes smoothly on Benefit 9. MOreover when once you are Crucified to the world you are capable of the true spiritual use of it which it was made for Then you may see God in it and then you may savour the blood of Christ in it Then you may perceive a great deal of Love in it And that which before was venemous and did endanger your souls will now become a help to you and may be safely handled when the sting is thus taken out Before it was the road to Hell and now there is some taste