as one respecteth another And our Relations to God and the several respective duties of those Relations are ordinarily much confounded The work of the Holy Ghost as we are baptized into the belief of him is poorly lamely and disorderly opened to the encouraging of the carnal on one hand or the Enthusiasts on the other Law and Gospel and Covenant and Covenant words and works the precepts of Christ and the operations of the Spirit are seldom thought on in their proper place and order and differences In a word Consectaries are confounded with principles Nature Medicine and Health the precepts and parts of Primitive Sanctity with the precepts and means of Mâ—dicinal Grace the End and the Means yea nothing more usually than words and things are confounded and disordered by the most that I say not by us all The circular motion of grace from God and by God and to God and in man the receiving duties as distinct from the improving duties and these as communicative and dispercing unto man from those ascendent unto God partly in the fruits and partly in the exaltation of the mind it self these are not to be found nor abundance more which I pass by in any just harmonious Scheme II. And O what confusion is in our Hearts or Wills and lameness defect as well as confusion which must needs be the consâ—quent of a lame and confused understanding It is so great that I am not willing to be so tedious as to open it at large III. And the confusion in our practices taking it in and expressing it will shew you your heart-confusion of it self But to open this also would be long and the regular order before laid down will shew you our disorders without any further enumerations or instances Only some of our lameness and partialities contrary to entire and compleat Religiousness I shall briefly mention because I think it to be of no small need to the most even of the more zealous part of Christians 1. In our Studies and Meditations we are partial and defective we search hard perhaps for some few Truths with the neglect of many hundred more 2. In our Zâ—al for Truth we are oft as partial greatly taken with some one or few which we think we have suddenly and happily found out and see more into than others do or in which we think we have some singular or special interest and in the mean time little affected with abundance of Truths of greater clearness and importance and of more daily usefulness because they are things that all men know and common unto you with the most of Christians 3. In your love to the godly and your charity in expressions and in your daily prayers what lameness and partiality is there Those that are neer you and conversant with you you remember and perhaps those in the Kingdom or Countrey where you dwell Or at least those of your own society opinions and party But when it cometh to praying for the world and all the Church abroad and when it cometh to the loving of those that differ from you what partiality do you shew 4. In the course of duties to God and man how rare is that person that doth not quite omit or slubber over some duty as if it were nothing while he doth with much earnestness prosecute another One that is much in receiving duties for themselves as hearing reading meditating praying can live all the week with quietness of conscience without almost any improving duties or doing any good to others as if they were made for themselves alone And some Ministers lay out themselves in Preaching as if they were all for the good of others but pray as little and do as little about their own heart as if they cared not for themselves at all or else were good enough already Some are constant in church-Church-duties perhaps with some superstitious strictness but in family duties how neglective are they They are for very strict discipline in the Church and cannot communicate with any that wear not the same badge of sanctity which they affect But in their families what prophaneness carelesness and confusion is there They can have family communion with the most ungodly servants that will but be profitable to them Dumb Ministers are their scorn but to be dumb Parents and Masters to their children and servants they can easily bear Formal preaching and praying in the Church they exclaim against but how formally do they pray at home and catechize and instruct their family If a Magistrate should forbid them to pray or catechize or instruct their families they would account him an impious odious persecutor but they can neglect it ordinarily when none forbiddeth them and never lay any such accusation on themselves Some are much for the duties of Worship in private but negligent of publick Worship and some are diligent in both that make little scruple of living idly without a Calling or doing the works of their Callings deceitfully and unprofitably They are censorious of one that is negligent in Gods Worship but censure not themselves nor love to be censured by others for being idle and negligent servants to their Masters and omitting many an hours work which was as truly their duty as the other Yea when they are told of such duties as they love not as obedience labour charity patience mortifying the flesh c. their consciences are just as senseless or as prejudiced or quarrelsom as the consciences of other men are against Religious exercises 5. And in our reformation and resisting sins of commission shell lameness and partiality is common with the most He that is most tender of a sin which is in common disgrace among the godly is little troubled at as great a one which hath got any reputation among them by the advantage of some errours In England through Gods mercy the prophanation of the Lords day is noted as a heinous sin But beyond Sea where it is not so reputed how ordinarily is it committed Many would condemn Joseph if they had heard him swear by the life of Pharaoh because through Gods mercy swearing is a disgraced sin But how ordinarily do the dividing sort of Christians rashly or falsly censure men behind their backs that differ from them upon unproved hearsay and gladly take up false reports and never shed a tear for many such slanders back bâ—â—ings and wrongs Many 〈◊〉 one that would take an oath or curse for a certain sign of an ungodly person yet make little of a less disgraceful way of evil speaking and of a piâ—vish unpleasable disposition and when they are in patient of a censure or a soul word are patient enough with their impatiency And it deserveth tears of blood to think how little the sins of selfishness and pride are mortified in most of the forwardest Christian even in them that go in mean attire How much they love and look to be esteemed to be taken notice of to be well thought of and well spoken of
to despise the Idol of the ungodly and to lay that under our feet which is nearest to their heart and to be able without impatiency to be scorned spit upon buffeted and abused to be poor and of no reputation among men and though not to enslave our selves to any but if we can be free to use it rather 1 Cor. 7.21 yet to be the loving and voluntary servants of as many as we can to do them good and not to desire to have a great retinue and to be such voluntary burdens to the world as to be served by many while we serve none as if we who are taught by Christ and Nature that it is more honourable to give than to receive and to be helpful unto many than to need the help of many would declare our impotency to be so great that when every poor man can serve himself and others we are and had rather be so indigent as not to live and help our selves without the help of many servants yea scarce to undress and dress our selves or to do any thing which another can do for us Only such persons are willing to eat and drink and sleep for themselves and to play and laugh and to sin for themselves but as to any thing that 's good and usefull without their present sensitive delight they are not only unserviceable to the world but would live like the lame or dead that must be moved and carryed about by others Among Christs servants he that is the chief must be the chief in service even as a servant unto all Luke 22.26 Matth. 23.11 And all by love must serve one another Gal. 5.13 4. His submission unto death and conquest of the natural love of life for a greater good even the pleasing of God and the Crown of Glory and the good of many in their salvation To teach us that not only the pleasures of life but life it self must be willingly laid down when any of these three ends require it Matth. 20.28 John 10 11. 15.13 1 John 3.16 Joh. 10.17 Acts 20.24 Matth. 10.39 16.25 Mark 14.26 Phil. 2.30 1 John 3.16 Rev. 12.11 Direct 16. Let Faith behold Christ in his relation to his universal Church and not unto your selves alone 1. Because else you overlook his most honourable relation It is more his glory to be the Churches Head and Saviour than yours Ephes 5.23 1.21 22. And 2. You else overlook his chief design and work which is for the perfecting and saving of his body Ephes 1.23 Col. 1.24.18 And 3. Else you overlook the chief part of your own duty and of your conformity to Christ which is in loving and edifying the body Ephes 4.12 16 Whereas if you see Christ as the undivided and impartial Head of all Saints you will see also all Saints as dear to him and as united in him and you will have communion by faith with them in him and you will love them all and pray for all and desire a part in the prayers of all instead of carping at their different indifferent manner and forms and words of prayer and running away from them to shew that you disown them And you will have a tender care of the unity and honour and prosperity of the Church and regard the welfare of particular Brethren as your own 1 Cor. 12. throughout John 13.14 34. 15.12 17. Rom. 13.8 stooping to the lowest service to one another if it were the washing of the feet and in honour preferring one another Rom. 12.10 Not judging nor despising nor persecuting but receiving and forbearing one another Rom. 14. throughout 15.1 2 3 4 7 8. Gal. 5.13 6.1 2 3. Ephes 4.2 32. Col. 3.13 Edifying exhorting and seeking the saving of one other 1 Thes 5.11 4.9 18. Heb. 3.13 10.24 Not speaking evil one of another James 4.11 Much less biting and devouring one another Gal. 5.15 But having compassion one of another as those that are members one of another 1 Pet. 3.8 Rom. 12.5 Direct 17. Make all your opposition to the temptations of Satan the world and the flesh by the exercise of Faith in Christ From him you must have your weapons skill and strength It is the great work of Faith to militate under him as the Captain of our salvation and by vertue of his precepts example and Spirit to overcome as he hath overcome Of which more anon Direct 18. Death also must be entertained and conquered by Faith in Christ We must see it as already conquered by him and entertain it as the passage to him This also will be after spoken to Direct 19. Faith must believe in Christ as our Judge to give us our final Justification and sentence us to endless life Rom. 14.9 10. John 5.22 24 25. Direct 20. Lastly Faith must see Christ as preparing us a place in Heaven and possessing it for us and ready to receive us to himself But all this I only name because it will fall in in the last Chapters CHAP. III. Directions to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost THis is not the least part of the life of Faith If the Spirit give us Faith it self then Faith hath certainly its proper work to do towards that Spirit which giveth it And if the Spirit be the worker of all other grace and Faith be the means on our part then Faith hath somewhat to do with the Holy Ghost herein The best way that I can take in helping you to believe aright in the Holy Ghost will be by opening the true sense of this great Article of our Faith to you that by understanding the matter aright you may know what you are here both to do and to expect Direct 1. The name of the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God is used in Scripture for the third person in the Trinity as constitutive and as the third perfective principle of operation and most usually as operating ad extra by communication And therefore many Fathers and ancient Divines and Schoolmen say That the Holy Ghost the third person and principle is THE LOVE OF GOD which as it is Gods Love of himself is a constitutive person or principle in the Trinity but as it is pregnant and productive it is the third principle of operation ad extra and so that it is taken usually for the pregnant operative Love of God And thus they suppose that the Divine POWER INTELLECT and WILL or Wisdom and Love are the three constitutive persons in themselves and the three principles of operation ad extra To this purpose writeth Origen Ambrose and Richardus the Schoolman but plainlier and fullier Damascene and Bernard and Edmundus Cantuariensis and Potho Prumensis cited by me in my Reasons of the Christian Religion page 372 373 374. Augustine only putteth Memory for Power by which yet Campanella thinketh he meant Power Metaphys par 2. l. 6. c. 12. art 4. pag. 88. what Caesarius and many other say de triplici lumine I pass by The Lux
goodness of Gods Laws Whether the Promise and â—â—eward be the end of Obedience or Obedience the end of the 〈…〉 Reward Of Scripture examples 232 Chap. 5. How to live by faith on Gods Promises What will of God it is according to which they must ask who will receive Of a particular faith in prayer Is the same degree of grace conditionally promised to all Directions for understanding the Promises The true nature of faith or trust in Gods Promises opened at large Affiance is in the understanding will and vital power Whether Faith be Obedience or how related to it Ten acts of the understanding essential to the Christian Faith in the Promises Several acts of the will essential to Faith And in the vital power whether all true Faith have a subjective certainty of the truth of the Word Choice and venturing or forsaking all is the sign of real trust Promises collected for the help of Faith 1. Of Pardon 2. Of Salvation 3. Of Reconciliation and Adoption 4. Of pardon of new sins after conversion 5. Of Sanctification 6. Promises to them that desire and seek 7. To Prayer 8. To groans that want expression 9. Promises of all that we want and that is good for us 10. To the use of Gods Word and Sacraments 11. To the humble meek and lowly 12. To the peaceable 13. To the diligent 14. To the patient 15. To Obedience 16. To the Love of God 17. To them that love the godly and are merciful in good works 18. To the poor 19. To the oppressed 20. To the persecuted 21. In dangers 22. Against temptations 23. To them that overcome and persevere 24. In sickness and at death 25. Of Resurrection final Justification and Glory 26. For children of the godly 27. To the Church 241 Chap. 6. How to exercise faith on Godâ— Threatnings and Judgements How far belief of the threatnings in good necessary and a saving faith How saving faith is a personal application How to perceive true faith 297 Chap. 7. How to live by faith for Pardon and Justification In how many respects and waies Christ justifieth us Of the imputation of Christs Righteousness Twelve reasons to help our belief of pardon How far sin should make us doubt of our Justification 308 Chap. 8. 58 Dangerous Errours detected which hinder the 〈…〉 faith about 〈…〉 and the contrary truthâ—â—ssertedâ— 321 Chap. 9. How to live by faith in the exercise of other graces and duties And 1. Of the doctrinal Directions What Sanctification is How God loveth the unsanctified How 〈◊〉 loveth 〈◊〉 in Christ Of Preaching meer Morality â—61 Chap. 10. The practical Directions to promote Love to God and Holiness 367 Chap. 11. Of the order and harmony of graces and duties which must be taken all together Of the parts that make up the new Creature 1. The intellectual order or a method or scheme of the heads of Divinity 2. The order of Intention and Affection 3. The order of practice Of the various degrees of means to mans ultimate end Of the grace necessary to concur with these various means The circular motion by divine communication to our Receiving Graces and so by our Returning Graces unto God again The frame of the present means of grace and of our returning duties Rules about the order of Christian practice which shew that and how the best is to be preferred and which is best in fifty three Propositions How mans Laws bind conscience and many other cases resolved A lamentation for the great want of order and method and harmony in the understandings wills and lives of Christians Many instances of mens partiality as to truths graces duties sins c. Twenty Reasons why few Christians are compleat and entire but â—ame and partial in their Religion Ten Consectaries Whether all graces be equal in habit Religion not so perfect in us as in the Scriptures which therefore are the Rule to us c. 373 Chap. 12. How to use faith against particular sins 417 Chap. 13. What sins the best are most in danger of and should most carefully avoid And wherein the infirmities of the upright differ from mortal sins 421 Chap. 14. How to live by faith in prosperity The way by which faith doth save us from the world General Directions against the danger of prosperity Twenty marks of worldliness The pretences of worldly minds The greatness of the sin The ill effects 428 Chap. 15. How to be poor in spirit And 1. How to escape the Pride of prosperous men The cleaks of Pride The signs of Pride and 〈…〉 446 Chap. 16. How to escape the 〈…〉 by faith The mischiefe of serving the appetite 〈…〉 465 Chap. 17. How faith must conquer sloth and idleness Who are guilty of this sin Cases resolved The evil of idleness The remedies 474 Chap. 18. Vnmercifulness to the poor to be conquered by faith The remedies 491 Chap. 19. How to live by faith in adversity 493 Chap. 20. How to live by faith in trouble of conscience and doubts of our salvation The difference between true and false repentance How to apply the universal grace to our comfort The danger of casting our part on Christ and of ascribing all melancholy disturbances and thoughts to the spirit Of the trying the spiriâ— and of the witness of the Spirit 503 Chap. 21. How to live by faith in the publick Woshipping of God Overvalue not your own manner of Worship and overvilifie not other mens Of communion with others 519 Chap. 22. How to pray in faith 527 Chap. 23. How to live by faith towards children and other Relations 530 Chap. 24. How by faith to order our affections to publick Societies and to the unconverted world 535 Chap. 25. How to live by faith in the love of one another and to mortifie self-love It is our own interest and gain to love our neighbours as our selves Objections wherein it consisteth What is the sincerity of it Consectaries Loving others as your selves is a duty even as to the degree 539 Chap. 26. How by faith to be followers of the Saints and to look with profit to their examples and their end and to hold communion with the heavenly Society Reasons of the duty The nature of it Negatively what it is not and Affirmatively what it is Wherein they must be imitated 556 Chap. 27. How to receive the sentence of death and how to die by Faith 589 Chap. 28. How by faith to look aright to the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory 594 Reader The first and great Errour of the Printer iâ— that he hath not distinguished the three distinct Parts of the Treatise Therefore you must write Page 1. PART 1. and Pag. 81. PART 2. Chap. 1. and Pag. 168. PART 3. Chap. 1. IN the Preface Page 3. l. 16. put If you would have p. 8. l. 8. put out have p. 31. l. 31. put out out p. 40. l. 22. for that r. the p. 51. l. 37. for yoâ—r r. their p. 54. l. 13. for believe r.
it being his work to make us thus both Believers and Saints and his perfective work of our real Sanctification being as necessary to us as our Redemption or Creation Matth. 28.19 2â— Heb. 6.1 2 4 5 6. Direct 18. Therefore as every Christian must look upon himself as being in special Covenant with the Holy Ghost so be must understand distinctly what are the benefits and what are the conditions and what are the duties of that part of his Covenant The special Benefits are the Life Light and Love before mentioned by the quickening illumination and sanctification of the Spirit not as in the first Act or Seed for so they are presupposed in that Faith and Repentance which is the Condition But as in the following acts and habits and increase of both unto perfection Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call See Acts 26.18 Ephes 1.18 19. Titus 3.5 6 7. The special condition on our parts is our consent to the whole Covenant of Grace viz. To give up our selves to God as our Reconciled God and Father in Christ and to Jesus Christ as our Saviour and to the holy Spirit as to his Agent and our Sanctifier There needeth no other proof of this than actual Baptism as celebrated in the Church from Christs daies till now And the institution of it Mat. 28.19 with 1 John 5.7 8 9. 1 Pet. 3.21 with John 3.5 The special Duties afterward to be performed have their rewards as aforesaid and the neglect of them their penalties and therefore have the nature of a Condition as of those particular rewards or benefits Direct 19. The Duties which our Covenant with the Holy Ghost doth bind us to are 1. Faithfully to endeavour by the power and help which he giveth us to continue our consent to all the foresaid Covenant And 2. To obey his further motions for the work of Obedience and Love 3. And to use Christs appointed means with which his Spirit worketh And 4. To forbear those wilful sins which grieve the Spirit John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you v. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you v. 9. Continue in my love Col. 1.23 If ye continue in the Faith c. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God Heb. 10.25 26. Not forsaking the assembling of your selves together c. For if we sin wilfully c. of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath done despight to the Spiâ—it of grace v. 29. Heb. 6.4 5 6. Ephes 4 3â— Grieve not the holy Spirit of God 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit Direct 20. By this it is plain that the Spirit worketh not on man as a dead thing which hath no principle of activity in it self nor as on a naturally necessitated Agent which hath no self-determining faculty of will but as on a living free self-determining Agent which hath duty of its own to perform for the attaining of the end desired Those therefore that upon the pretence of the Spirits doing all and our doing nothing without him will lye idle and not do their parts with him and say that they wait for the motions of the Spirit and that our endeavours will not further the end do abuse the Spirit and contradict themselves seeing the Spirits work is to stir us up to endeavour which when we refuse to do we disobey and strive against the Spirit Direct 21. Though sometimes the Spirit work so efficaciously as certainly to cause the volition or other effect which it moveth to yet sometimes it so moveth as procureth not the effect when yet it gave man all the power and help which was necessary to the effect because that man failed of that endeavour of his own which should have concurred to the effect and which he was able without more help to have performed That there is such effectual grace Acts 9. and many Scriptures with our great experience tell us That there is such meer necessary uneffectual grace possible and sometime in being which some call sufficient grace is undeniable in the case of Adam who sinned not for want of necessary grace without which he could not do otherwise And to deny this blotteth out all Christianity and Religion at one dash By all which it appeareth that the work of the Spirit is such on mans will as that sometimes the effect is suspended on our concurrence so that though the Spirit be the total cause of its own proper effect and of the act of man in its own place and kind of action yet not simply a total cause of mans act or volition but mans concurrence may be further required to it and may fail Direct 22. Satan transformeth himself oft into an Angel of Light to deceive men by pretending to be the Spirit of God Therefore the spirits must be tryed and not every spirit trusted 2 Cor. 11.14 15. Mat. 24.4 5 11 24. 1 John 3.7 Ephes 4.14 Revel 10.3 8. 2 Thes 3.2 1 John 4.1 3 6. Direct 23. The way of trying the spirits is to try all their uncertain suggestions by the Rule of the certain Truths already revealed in Nature and in the holy Scriptures And to try them by the Scriptures is but to try the spirits by the Spirit the doubtfull spirit by the undoubted Spirit which indited and sealed the Scriptures more fully than can be expected in any after revelation 1 Thes 1.21 Isa 8.16 20. 2 Pet. 1.19 John 5.39 Acts 17.11 The Spirit of God is never contrary to it self Therefore nothing can be from that Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures which the Spirit indited Direct 24. When you would have an increase of the Spirit go to Christ for it by renewed acts of that same Faith by which at first you obtained the Spirit Gal. 3.3 4. Gal. 4.6 Faith in Christ doth two waies help us to the Spirit 1. As it is that Condition upon which he hath promised it to whom it belongeth to give us the Spirit 2. As it is that act of the soul which is fitted in the nature of it to the work of the Spirit That is as it is the serious contemplation of the infinite Goodness and Love of God most brightly shining to us in the face of the Redeemer and as it is a serious contemplation of that heavenly glory procured by Christ which is the fullest expression of the Love of God and so is fittest to kindle that Love to God in the soul which is the work of the Spirit These are joyned Rom. 5.1 2 5 6. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ By whom also we
his blood and resurrection is unto them When it hath cost Christ so dear to procure them certainly God will not break them A Promise ratified in the blood of the Son of God called the blood of the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13.20 and by his rising from the dead can never be broken If the Law given by Moses was firm and a jot or tittle should not pass away till all were fulfilled much more the word and testament of the Mediatour of a better Covenant 2 Cor. 1.20 All the Promises in him are Yea and Amen that is they are asserted or made in him and they are ratified and shall be fulfilled in him Heb. 8.6 He hath obtained a more excellent Ministry by how much also he is the Mediatour of a better Covenant which was established on better Promises And those that are better cannot be less sure It is the sure mercies of David that are given us by a Promise which is sure to all the sâ—ed Acts 13.34 Isa 55.3 Rom. 4.16 Direct 4. Consider well that it is Gods own interest to fulfil his Promises for he attaineth not that glory of his Love and Grace in the perfection of his people till it be done which he designed in the making of them And certainly God will not fail himself and his own interest The happiness will be ours but it will be his everlasting pleasure to see his creatures in their perfection If he was so pleased after the Creation to see them all good that he appointed a Sabbath of Rest to celebrate the commemoration of it how much more will it please him to see all restored by Jesus Christ and brought up to that perfection which Adam was but in the way to when he sinned and fell short of the Glory of God He will not miss of his own design nor lose the everlasting complacency of his love Direct 5. Consider how great stress God hath laid upon the belief of his Promises and of how great use he hath made them in the world If the intimation of another world and reward which we find in Nature and the Promise of it in Scriptures were out of the world or were not believed and so men had nothing but temporal motives to rule their hearts and lives by O what an odious thing would man be and what a Hell would the world be I have elsewhere shewed that the Government of the world is mainly steered by the hopes and fears of another life and could not be otherwise unless man be turned into far worse than a beast And certainly those Promises cannot be false which God hath laid so great a stress on and the belief of which is of so great moment For the wise and holy and powerful God neither needeth a lye nor can use it to so great a work Direct 6. Take notice how agreeable Gods Promises are to the Nature both of God and man It is not only Gods Precepts that have a congruence to natural Reason but his Promises also It is agreeable to the Nature of Infinite Goodness to do good And yet we see that he doth not do to all alike He maketh not every creature an Angel nor a man How then shall we discern what he intendeth to do by his creatures but by their several natures The nature of every thing is fitted to its use Seeing therefore God hath given man a nature capable of knowing loving and enjoying him we have reason to think he gave it not in vain And we have reason to think that nature may be brought up to its own perfection and that he never intended to imploy man all his daies on earth in seeking an end which cannot be attained And yet we see that some do unfit themselves for this end by turning from it and following vanity and that God requireth every man as a free Agent to use his guidance and help aright for his own preparation to felicity Therefore reason may tell us that those who are so prepared by the nearest capacity and have a love to God and a heavenly mind shall enjoy the Glory which they are fitted for And it helpeth much our belief of Gods Promise to find that Reason thus discerneth the equity of it Yea to find that a Cicero a Seneca a Socrates a Plato c. expected much the like felicity to the just which the Scripture promiseth Direct 7. Be sure to understand Gods Promises aright that you expect not that which he never promised and take not presumption to be Faith Many do make promises to themselves by misunderstanding and look that God should fulfil them and if any of them be not fulfilled they are ready to suspect the truth of God And thus men become false Prophets to themselves and others and speak words in the Name of the Lord which he hath never spoken and incur much of the guilt which God oft chargeth on false Prophets and such as add to the Word of God It is no small fault to father an untruth on God and to call that his Promise which he never made Direct 8. Think not that God promiseth you all that you desire or think you want in bodily things It is not our own desires which he hath made the measure of his outward gifts no nor of our own Opinion of our Necessity neither else most men would have nothing but riches and health and love and respect from men and few would have any want or pain or suffering But it is so much as is good 1. To the common ends of Government and the Societies with which we live 2. And to our souls which God doth promise to his own And his Wisdom and not their partial conceits shall be the Judge Our Father knoweth what we need and therefore we must cast our care on him and take not too particular nor anxious thoughts for our selves Mat. 6.24 to the end 1 Pet. 5 7. Direct 9. Think not that God promiseth you all that you will ask no not that which he commandeth you to ask unless it agree with his promising will as well as with his commanding will That promise of Christ Ask and ye shall receive c. And whatsoever you ask the Father in my Name according to his will he will give it you are often misunderstood and there is some dâ—fficulty in understanding what Will of God is here meant If it be his Decreeing Will that is secret and the promise giveth us no sure consolation If it be meant of his Promising Will what use is this general promise for if we must have a particular promise also for all that we can expect If it be meant of his Commanding Will the event notoriously gainsayeth it For it is most certain that since the Church hath long prayed for the conversion of the Infidel world and the reforming of the corrupted Churches c. it is not yet done And it is all Christians duty to pray for Kings and all in Authority and to ask that wisdom
For it is no unbelief to doubt of that will which never was revealed But if they had doubted of his revealed will concerning the event they had then charged him with falshood and had sinned against him as ill as those who deny his power And the large experience of this our age confuteth this foresaid errour of a particular belief For we have abundance of instances of good people who were thus mistaken and have ventured thereupon to conclude with confidence that such a sick person shall be healed and such a thing shall come to pass when over and over the event hath proved contrary and brought such confidence into contempt upon the failing of it Direct 11. Think not that because some strong imagination bringeth some promisâ— to your minds that therefore it belongeth unto you unless upon tryal the true meaning of it do extend to you Many and many an honest ignorant melancholy woman hath told me what abundance of sudden comfort they have had because such a text was brought to their minds and such a promise was suddenly set upon their hearts when as they mistook the very sense of the promise and upon true enquiry â—t was nothing to their purpose Yet it is best not rather to contradict those mistaken and ungrounded comforts of such persons Because when they are godly and have true right to â—ounder comforts but cannot see it it is better that they support themselves a while with such mistakes than that they sink into despair For though we may not offer them such mistakes nor comfort them by a lie yet we may permit that which we may not do as God himself doth It is not at all times that we are bound to rectifie other mens mistakes viz. not when it will do them more harm than good Many an occasion may bring a text to our remembrance which concerneth us not without the Spirit of God Our own imaginations may do much that way of themselves Try therefore what is the true sense of the text before you build your conclusions on it But yet if indeed God bring to your minds any pertinent promise I would not have you to neglect the comfort of it Dâ—rect 12. Think not that God hath promised to all Christians the same degrees of grace and therefore that you may expect as much as any others have Object But shall not all at last be perfect and what can there be added to perfection Answ The perfection of a creature is to be advanced to the highest degree which his own specifical and individual nature are capable of A beast may be perfect and yet not be a man and a man may be perfect and yet not be an Angel And Lazarus may be perfect and yet not reach the degree of Abraham For there is no doubt a gradual difference between the capacities of several individual souls of the same species As there is of several vessels of the same metal though not by such difference of corporal extension And there is no great probability that all the difference in the degrees of wit from the Ideot to Achitophel is founded only in the bodily organs and not at all in the souls And it is certain that there are various degrees of glory in Heaven and yet that every one there is perfect But if this were not so yet it is in this life only that we are now telling you that all Christians have not a promise of the same degrees Object But is not additional grace given by way of reward And then have not all a promise of the same degree which the best attain conditionally if they do as much as they for it Answ O yes objective but not subjective bâ—cause all have not the same natural capacity nor are bound to the same degree of duty as to the condition it self As perfection in Hâ—â—ven is given by way of reward and yet all shall not have the same degree of perfection so is it as to the degrees of grace on earth 2. All have not the same degrees of the first preventing grace given them and therefore it is most certain that all will not use the same degree of industry for more Some have but one talent and some two when some have five and therefore gain ten talents in the improvement Mat. 25. All must strive for the highest measure and all the sincere may at last expect their own perfection But God breaketh no promise if he give them not all as much as some have Direct 13. Much less hath God promised the same degree of common gifts to all If you never attain to the same measure of acuteness learning memory utterance do not think that God breaketh promise with you Nor do not call your presumption by the name of Faith if you have such expectations See 1 Cor. 12. throughout Direct 14. God often promiseth the thing it self when he promiseth the time of giving it Therefore do not take it to be an act of Faith to believe a set time where God hath set no time at all Many are the troubles of the righteous but God will deliver them out of all Psal 37. But he hath not set them just the time Christ hath promised to come again and take us to himself Joh. 14.1 2.3 But of that day and hour knoweth no man God will give necessary comfort to his servants but he best knoweth when it is necessary and therefore they must not set him a time and say Let it be now or thou breakest thy word Patient waâ—ting Gods own time is as needful as believing Yea he that believeth will not make haste Isa 28.16 Rom. 2 7. 2 Thes 3.5 James 5.7 8. Heb. 6.12 10.36 12.1 James 5.7 Revel 13.10 14.12 1 Thes 1.3 11. Direct 15. God often promiseth the thing when he promiseth not either in what manner or by what instrument he will do it He may deliver his Church and may deliver particular persons out of trouble and yet do it in a way and by such means as they never dreamed of Sometimes he foretelleth us his means when it is we that in duty are to use them And sometimes he keepeth them unknown to us when they are only to be used by himself In the Mount will the Lord be seen but yet Abraham thought not of the Ram in the Thickeâ— The Israelites knew not that God would deliver them by the hand of Moses Acts 7.25 Direct 16. Take not the promises proper to one time or age of the Church as if they were common to all or unto us There were many promises to the Israelites which belong not to us as well as many precepts The increase of their seed and the notable prosperity in the world which was promised them was partly because that the motive should be suited to the ceremonial duties and partly because the eternal things being not then so fully brought to light as now they were the more to be moved with the present outward tokens of
Gods Love And so the gift of the Spirit of Miracles and Infallibility for writing and confirming Scriptures was promised to the first age which is not promised to us Direct 17. Take not any good mans observation in those times for an universal promise of God For instance David saith Psal 73. I have been young and now am old yet did I never see the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread But if he had lived in Gospel times where God giveth greater heavenly blessings and comforts and calleth men to higher degrees of patience and mortification and contempt of the world he might have seen many both of the righteous and their seed begging their bread though not forsaken yea Christ himself asking for water of a woman John 4. Direct 18. Take heed of making promises to seem instead of precepts as if you were to do that your selves which God hath promised that he will do If God promise to deliver his Church or to free any of his servants from trouble or persecution you must have a precept to tell you what is your own duty and what means you must use before you mâ—st attempt your own deliverance What God will do is one thing and what you must do is another This hath been the strange delusion of the people that call themselves the Fifth-Monarchy men in our times who believing that Christ will set up righteousness and pull down Tyrants in the earth have thought that therefore they must do it by arms and so have been drawn into many rebellions to the scandal of others and their own ruine Direct 19. Take heed of mistaking Prophecies for Promises especially dark Prophecies not understood Many things are foretold by God in Prophecies which are mens sins Herod and Pontius Pilate and the people of the Jews fulfilled Prophecies in the crucifying of Christ and all the persecutors and muderers of the Saints fulfil Christs Prophecies and so do all that hate us And say all manner of evil falsly against us for his sake Mat. 5.11 12. But the sin is never the less for that It is prophesied that the ten Kings shall give up their Kingdoms to the beast that in the last daies shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts and in the last daies shall be perilous times c. These are not Promises nor Precepts It hath lamentably disturbed the Church of Christ when ignorant self-conceited Christians who see not the difficulty grow confident that they understand many Prophecies in Daniel the Revelations c. and thereupon found their presumption miscalled faith upon their own mistakes and then form their prayers their communion their practice into such schism and sedition and uncharitable waies as the interest of their opinions do require as the Millenaries before mentioned have done in this generation Direct 20. Think not that all Gods Promises are made to meer sincerity and that every true Christian must be freed from all penal hurt however they behave themselves For there are further helps of the Spirit which are promised only to our diligence in attending the Spirit and to the degrees of industry and fervour and fidelity in watching praying striving and other use of means And there are heavy chastisements which God threatneth to the godly when they misbehave themselves Especially the hiding of his face and with-holding any measure of his Spirit The Scripture is full of such threatnings and instances Direct 21. Much less may you imagine that God hath made any Promise that all the sins of true Believers shall work together for their good They misexpound Rom. 8.28 who so expound it as I have elsewhere shewed For 1. The context confirmeth it to sufferings 2. The qualification added to them that love God doth shew that the abatement of love to God is none of the things meant that shall work our good 3. And it sheweth that it is Love as Love and therefore not the least that is consistent with neglect and sin which is our full condition 4. Experience telleth us that too many true Christians may fall from some degrees of grace and the Love of God and die in a less degree than they once had and that less of holiness doth not work for their good 5. And it is not a thing suitable to all the rest of Gods method in the Scriptures that he should assure all beforehand that all their sins shall work for their good That he should command obedience so strictly and promise rewards so liberally and threaten punishment so terribly and give such frightful examples as Solomons Davids and others are and at the same time say Whatever sin thou committest inwardly or outwardly by neglecting my Love and Grace and Spirit by loving the world by pleasing the flesh as David did c. it shall all be turned to do thee more good than hurt This is not a suitable means to men in our case to keep them from sin nor to cause their perseverance Direct 22. Vnderstand well what Promises are universal to all Bâ—lievers and what are but particular and proper to some few There are many particular Promises in Scripture made by name to Noah to Abraham to Moses to Aaron to David to Solomon to Hezekiah to Christ to Peter to Paul c. which we cannot say are made to us Therefore the Covenant of Grace which is the Vniversal Promise 〈◊〉 especially be made the ground of our faith and all other as they are branches and appurtenances of that and have in the Scripture some true signification that they indeed extend to us For if we should believe that every Promise made to any Saint of God as Hannah Sarah Rebecca Elizabeth Mary c. do belong to us we should abuse our selves and God And yet to us they have their use Direct 23. It is of very great importance to understand what Promises are absolute and which are suspended upon any condition to be performed by us and what each of those conditions it As the Promise to the Fathers that the Messiah should come was absolute God gâ—ve not a Saviour to the world so as to suspend his coming on any thing to be done by man The not drowning of the world was an absolute Promise made to Noah so was the calling of the Gentiles promised But the Covenant of Promises sealed in Baptism is conditional and therefore both parties God and man are the Covenanters therein And in the Gospel the Promises of our first Justification and Adoption and of our after pardon and of our Justification at Judgement and of our additional degrees of grace and of our freedom from chastisements have some difference in the conditions though true Christianity be the main substance of them all Meer Christianity or true consent to the Covenant is the condition of our first Justification And the continuance of this with actual sincere obedience is the condition of non-omission or of continuance of this state of Jâ—stification And the use of prayer and other
the consideration of final despisers of his Antecedent Love But of that Antecedent Love it self which he hath shewed to lost mankind in Christ And note also that I do not deny but that Love of God in some men may be true where their own presumption that God hath elected them and loved them above others before they had any proof of it was an additional motive But this is mans way and not Gods Errour 43. That trusting to any thing save God and Jesus Christ for our salvation is sin and damnable Contr. Confusion cheateth and choaketh mens understanding In a word to trust to any thing but God and Christ and the holy Spirit for any of that which is the proper part of God of Christ of the Spirit is sin and damnable But to trust to any thing or person for that which is but his own part is but our duty And he that prayeth and readeth and heareth and endeavoureth and looketh to be never the better by them nor trusteth them for their proper part will be both heartless and formal in his work And I have shewed before that the Scripture the Promise the Apostles the Minister and every Christian and honest man hath a certain trust due to them for that which is their part even in order to our salvation I may trust only to the skill of the Physician and yet trust his Apothecary and the Boy that carryeth the Medicine for their part Errour 44. That it is sinful and contrary to free grace to look at any thing in our selves or our own inherent righteousness as the evidence of our Justification Contr. Then no man can know his Justification at all The Spirit of Holiness and Adoption in our selves is our earnest of salvation and the witness that we are Gods children and the pledge of Gods love as is proved before This is Gods seal as God knoweth who are his so he that will know it himself must depart from iniquity when he nameth Christ If God sanctifie none but those whom he justifieth then may the sanctified know that they are justified Hath God delivered in Scripture so many signs or characters of the justified in vain Object The witness of the Spirit only can assure us Ans You know not what the witness of the Spirit is or else you would know that it is the Spirit making us holy and possessing us with a filial love of God and with a desire to please him and a dependance on him c. which is the witness even by way of an inherent evidence and helping us to perceive that evidence and take comfort in it As a childlike love and a pleasing obedience and dependance with a likeness to the Fâ—ther is a witness that is an evidence which is your child Errour 45. That it is sinful to perswade wicked men to pray for Justification or any grace or to do any thing for it seeing their prayers and doings are abominable to God and cannot please him Contr. Then it is sinful to perswade a wicked man from his wickedness Praying and obeying is departing from wickedness He that prayeth to be sanctified indeed is repenting and turning from his sin to God We never exhort wicked men to pray with the tongue without the desire of the heart Desire is the soul of prayer and words are but the body We perswade them not to dissemble But as Peter did Simon Acts 8. Repent and pray for forgiveness And if we may not exhort them to good desires and to excite and express the best desires they have we may not exhort them to conversion Isa 55.6 10. Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer Let the wicked forsake his way c. You see there that praying is a repenting act and when we exhort them to pray we exhort them to repent and seek God Object But they have no ability to do it Ans Thus the Devil would excuse sinners and accuse God Thus you may put by all Gods commands and say God should not have commanded them to repent believe love him obey him nor love one another nor forbear their sins for they have no ability to do it But they have their natural faculties or powers and they have common grace and Gods way of giving them special grace is by meeting them in the use of his appointed means and not by meeting them in an Ale-house or in sinful courses However a soul may be met with in his persecuting and God may be found of them that sought him not yet that is not his usual nor his appointed way Can any man of reason dream that it is not the duty of a wicked man to use any means for the obtaining of grace or to be better nor to do any thing towards his own recovery and salvation Nature and Scripture teach men as soon as they see their sin and misery to say What must I do to be saved As the reâ—â—nting Jews and Paul and the Jaylor 〈◊〉 Acts 2.37 Acts 8. 16. The prayers of a wicked man as wicked are abominable that 〈◊〉 â—oth his wicked prayers and his praying to quiet and sâ—rengthen himself in his wickedness or praying with the tongue without the heart The prayers which come from a common faith and common good desires are better than none but have no promise of Justification But the wicked must be exhorted both to this and more even to repent desire and pray sincerely Errour 46. It is sinful and against free grace to think that any works or actions of our own are rewardable or to say that they are meritorious though it be nothing but rewardableness that is meant by it Contr. The Papists have so much abused the word merit by many dangerous opâ—nions about it that it is now become more unmeet to be used by us than it was in ancient times when the Doctors and Churches even Austin himself did commonly use it But if nothing be meant by it but rewardableness or the relation of a duty to the reward as freely promised by God as many Papists themselves understand it and the ancient Fathers generally did he that will charge a man with errour in doctrine for the use of an inconvenient word is uncharitable and perverse especially when it is other mens abuse which hath done most to make it inconvenient The merit of the cause is a common phrase among all Lawyers when there is commutative meriting intended I have fully shewed in my Confession that the Scripture frequently useth the word worthy which is the same or full as much And a subject may be said to merit protection of his Prince and a scholar to merit praise of his Master and a child to deserve love and respect from his Parents and all this in no respect to commutative Justice wherein the Rewarder is supposed to be a gainer at all but only in governing distributive Justice which giveth every one that which by gift or any way is
this Trinity also of Relations towards Man 1. Their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their Benefactor The Father also as the first principle of Redemption acquiring a second title besides the first by Creation to all these and towards God Christ continueth the Relation of a heavenly Priest 30. In order to the works of these Relations for the future we must consider of Christs exaltation 1. Of his Justification and Resurrection 2. Of his Ascension and Glorification And 3. Of the delivering of All Power and All Things into his hands 31. The work of Redemption thus fundamentally wrought doth not of it self renew mans nature and therefore putteth no Law of Nature into us of it self as the Creation did And therefore we must next proceed to Christs Administration of this office according to these Relations which is 1. By Legislation or Donation enacting the New Covenant where this last and perfect edition of it is to be explained the Preceptive the Promisory and the Penal parts with its effects and its differences from the former Edition and from the Law of Nature and of Works 32. And 2. By the promulgation or publication of this Covenant or Gospel to the world by calling special Officers for that work and giving them their commission and promising them his Spirit his Protection and their Reward 33. And here we come to the special work of the Holy Ghost who is 1. To be known in his Essence and Person as the third in Trinity and the eternal Love of God 2. And as he is the grand Advocate or Agent of Christ in the world where his works are to be considered 1. Preparatory on and by Christ himself 2. Administratory 1. Extraordinary on the Apostles and their helpers 1. Being in them a spirit of extraordinary Power by gifts and miracles 2. Of extraordinary Wisdom and Infallibility as far as their commission-work required 3. And of extraordinary Love and Holiness 2. By the Apostles 1. Extraordinarily convincing and bringing in the world 2. Settling all Church-Doctrines Officers and Orders which Christ had left unsettled bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had taught and commanded them and guiding them in the rest 3. Recording all this for posterity in the holy Scriptures 2. His Ordinary Agency 1. On Ministers 2. By sanctification on all true Believers is after to be opened 34. And here is to be considered the Nature of Christianity in fieri Faith and Repentance in our three great Relations to our Redeemer as we are his Own his Disciples and Subjects and his Beneficiaries with all the special benefits of these Relations as antecedent to our duty and then all our duty in them as commanded And then the benefits after to be expected as in promise only 35. Next must distinctly be considered the preaching and converting and baptizing part of the ministerial Office 1. As in the Apostles 2. And in their successors to the end with the nature of Baptism and the part of Christ and of the Minister and of the baptized in that Covenant 36. And then the description of the universal Church which the baptized constitute 37. Next is to be described the state of Christians after Baptism 1. Relative 1. In Pardon Reconciliation Justification 2. Adoption 2. Physical in the Spirit of Sanctification 38. Where is to be opened 1. The first sanctifying work of the Spirit 2. It s after-helps and their conditions 3. All the duties of Holiness primitive and medicinal towards God our selves and others 39. Our special duties in secret reading meditation prayer c. 40. Our duties in Family Relations and Callings 41. Our duties in Church Relations where is to be described the nature of particular Churches their work and worship their ministry and their members with the duties of each 42. Our duties in our Civil Relations 43. What temptations are against us as be to be overcome 44. Next is to be considered the state of Christians and Societies in the world How far all these duties are performed and what are their weaknesses and sins 45. And what are the punishments which God useth in this life 46. And what Christians must do for pardon and reparation after falls and to be delivered from those punishments 47. Of Death and the change which it maketh and of our special preparation for it 48. Of the coming of Christ and the Judgement of the great day 49. Of the punishment of the wicked impenitent in Hell 50. And of the blessedness of the Saints in Heaven and the everlasting Kingdom These are the Heads and this is the Method of true Divinity and the order in which it should lye in the understanding of him that will be compleat in knowledge II. And as this is the Intellectual Order of knowledge so the order which all things must lye in at our hearts and wills is much more necessary to be observed 1. That nothing but GOD be loved as the infinite simple good totally with all the heart and finally for himself And that nothing at all be loved with any Love which is not purely subordinate to the Love of God or which causeth us to love him ever the less 2. That the blessed person of our Mediatour as in the Humane Nature glorified be loved above all creatures next to God Because there is most of the Divines Perfections appearing in him 3. That the heavenly Church or Society of Angels and Saints be loved next to Jesus Christ as being next in excellence 4. That the Vniversal Church on earth be loved next to the perfect Church in Heaven 5. That particular Churches and Kingdoms be next loved and where ever there is more of Gods Interest and Image than in our selves that our Love be more there than on our selves 6. That we next love our selves with that peculiar kind of love which God hath made necessary to our duty and our happiness and end with a self-preserving watchful diligent love preferring our souls before our bodies and spiritual mercies before temporal and greater before less 7. That we love our Christian Relations with that double Love which is due to them as Christians and Relations and love all Relations according to their places with that kind of Love which is proper for them as fitting us to all the duties which we must perform to them 8. That we love all good Christians as the sanctified members of Christ with a special Love according to the measure of Gods Image appearing on them 9. That we love every visible Christian that we cannot prove hath unchristened himself by apostacy or ungodliness with the special Love also belonging to true Christians because he appeareth such to us But yet according to the measure of that appearance as being more confident of some and more doubtful of others 10. That we love our intimate suitable friends that are godly with a double Love as godly and as friends 11. That we love Neighbours and civil Relations with a Love which is suitable to
which they do not perform and against many sins which they do not forbear as to forbear an oath or a lye or a cup of drink to go to Church when they go to an Ale-house c. Such a thing therefore there is and such a power mans will hath to do or not do when such a degree only of help is given Therefore we have reason enough to suppose 1. That such a degree of the Spirits help is given under the bare Teachings of the Creature or to them that have no outward light but natural revelation as is necessary to the foresaid ends and uses of that Light or Means that is to convince man that there is a God and what he is as aforesaid and that we are his subjects and benâ—ficiaries and owe him our chiâ—fest love and service and to convince them of the need of some further supernatural revelation Not that every one hath this measure of spiritual help for some by abusing the help which they have to learn the Alphabet of Nature or to practise it do forfeit that help which should bring them into Natures higher forms But so much as I have mentioned of the help of the Spirit is given to those that do not grosly forfeit it by abuse among the Pagans of the world And so much multitudes have attained 2. And so much of the Spirit was given ordinarily to the Jews as was sufficient to have enabled them to believe in the Messiah to come as aforesaid if they did not wilfully reject this help 3. And so much seemeth to be given to many that hear the Gospel and never believe it or that believe it not with a justifying Faith is as sufficient to have made them true Believers as Adams was to have kept him from his fall For seeing it is certain that such a sufficient uneffectual grace there is we have no reason to conceit that God doth any more desert his own means now than he did then or that he maketh Believing a more impossible condition of Justification under the Gospel to them that are in the neerest capacity of it before effectual grace than he made perfect obedience to be to Adam The objections against this are to be answered in due place and are already answered by the Dominicans at large 4. The outward means of grace under Christ are all one frame and must be used in harmony as followeth 1. The Witness and Preaching of Christ and his Apostles was the first and chief part together with their settling the Churches and recording so much as is to be our standing Rule in the holy Scriptures which are now to us the chief part of this means 2. Next to the Scriptures the Pastoral Office and Gifts to preserve them and teach them to us is the next principal part of this frame of means In which I comprehend all their office Preaching for conversion baptizing preaching for confirmation and edification of the faithful praying and praising God before the Church administring the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of communion and watching over all the flock by personal instruction admonition reproofs censures and absolutions 3. The next part conjunct with this is the communion of the faithful in the Churches 4. The next is our holy society in Christian families and family-instructions worship and just discipline 5. The next is our secret duties between God and us alone As. 1. Reading 2. Meditation and self examination 3. Prayer and thanksgiving and praise to God 6. The next part is our improvement of godly mens intimate friendship who may instruct and warn and reprove and comfort us 7. The next is the daily course of prospering Providences and Mercies which express Gods Love and call up ours as provisions protections preservations deliverances c. 8. The next is Gods castigations by what hand or means soever which are to make us partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.9 10. 9. The next is the examples of others 1. Their graces and duties 2. Their faults and falls 3. Their mercies And 4. Their sufferings and corrections 1 Cor. 10.1 10 11. 10. And lastly Our own constant watchfulness against temptations and stirring up Gods graces in our selves These are the frame of the means of Grace and of our receiving duties 2. The next in order to be considered is the whole frame of our returning duties in which we lay out the talents which we receive which lye in the order following 1. That we do what good we can to our own souls that we first pluck the beam out of our own eyes and set that motion on work at home which must go further Therefore all the foregoing means were primarily for this effect though not chiefly and ultimately for this end 2. Next we must do good according to our power to our neer Relations 3. And next to our whole Families and more remote Relations 4. And next them to our Neighbours 5. And next to Strangers 6. And lastly To Enemies of our selves and Christ 7. But our greatest duties must be for publick Societies viz. 1. For the Common-wealth both Governours and People 2. And for the Church 8. And the next part in intention and dignity must be for the whole world whose good by prayer and all just means we must endeavour 9. And the next for the honour of Jesus Christ our Mediatour 10. And the highest ultimate temination of our returning duties is the pure Deity alone For the further opening to you the Order of Christian Practice take these following Notes or Rules 1. Though receiving duties such as hearing reading praying faith c. go first in order of nature and time before expending or returning duties so that the motion is truly circular yet we must not stay till we have received more before we make returns to God of that which we have already But every degree of received grace must presently work towards God our end and as there is no intermission between my moving of my hand and pen and its writing upon this paper so must there be no intermission between Gods beams of Love and Mercy to us and our reflexions of Love and Duty unto him Even as ths veins and arteries in the body lye much together and one doth often empty it self into the other for circulation and not stay till the whole mass hath run through all the vessels of one sort veins or arteries before any pass into the other 2. The internal returns of Love are much quicker than the return of outward fruits The Love of God shed or streamed forth upon the soul doth presently warm it to a return of Love But it may be some time before that Love appear in any notable useful benefits to the world or in any thing that much glorifieth God and our Profession Even as the heat of the Sun upon the earth or trees is suddenly reflected but doth not so suddenly bring forth herbs and buds and blossoms and ripe fruits 3. All truly good works
must have one constant Order of intention which is before opened God must be first intended then Christ then the universal Church in Heaven and Earth c. But in the order of operation and execution there may be a great difference among our duties As God appointeth us to lay out some one way and some another Yet ordinarily as the emitted beams begin from God and dart themselves on the soul of man so the reflected beams begin upon or from our hearts and pass toward God though first beloved and intended by several receptacles before they bring us to the perfect fruition of him 4. Therefore the order of Loving or complacency and the order of doing good or Benevolence is not the same We must Love the universal Church better than our selves But we cannot do them sincere service before we do good to our selves And our neerest Relations must be preferred in acts of Beneficence before many whom we must love more 5. When two goods come together either to be Received or to be Done the greater is ever to be preferred and the chusing or using of the lesser at that time is to be taken for a sin I lately read a denyal of this in a superficial satyre but the thing it self if rightly understood is past all doubt with a rational man For 1. Else good is not to be chosen and done as good if the best be not to be preferred 2. Else almost all wicked omissions might be excused I may be excused for not giving a poor man a shâ—lling whatever his necessity be because I give him a farthing No doubt but Dives Luke 16. did good at such a rate as this at least and else a man might be excused from saving a drowning man if he save his horse that while c. A quatenus ad summum valet consequentia in the case of desiring and doing good But then mark the following explications 6. That is not alwaies to be accounted the greatest good which is so only in regard of the matter simply considered But that is the greatest good which is so consideratis considerandis all things considered and set together 7. When God doth peremptorily tye me to one certain duty without any dispensation or liberty of choice that duty at that time is a greater good and duty than many others which may be greater in their time and place A duty materially lesser is formally and by accident materially greater in its proper season Reaping and baking and eating are better than plowing and weeding the Corn as they are neerer to the end But plowing and weeding are better in their season To make pins or points is not materially so good a work as to pray But in its season as then done it is better And he that is of this trade may not be praying when he should be about his trade Not that he is to prefer the matter of it before praying But praying is to keep its time and may be a sin when it is out of time He that would come at midnight to disturb his rest to present his service to his Lord or King would have little thanks for such unseasonable service 8. He that is restrained by a lower calling or any true restraining reasons from doing a good which is materially greater yet doth that which is greatest unto him Ruling and Preaching are materially a greater good than threshing or digging and yet to a man whose gifts and calling restrain him from the former to the latter the latter is the greatest good 9. Good is not to be measured principally by the Will or Benefit of our selves or any creature but by 1. The Will of God in his Laws And 2. By the interest of his pleasedness and glory But secondarily humane interest is the measure of it 10. It followeth not that because the greatest good is ever to be preferred that therefore we must perplex and distract our selves in cases of difficulty when the ballance seemeth equal For either there is a difference or there is none And if any it is discernable or not If there be no difference there is room for taking one but not for chusing one If there be no discernable difference it is all one to us as if there were none at all If it be discernable by a due proportion of enquiry we must labour to know it and chuse accordingly If it be not discernable in such time and by such measure of enquiry as is our duty we must still take it as undiscernable to us If after just search the weakness of our own understandings leave us doubting we must go according to the best understanding which we have and chearfully go on in our duty as well as we can know it remembring that we have a gracious God and Covenant which taketh not advantage of involuntary weaknesses but accepteth their endeavours who sincerely do their best 11. Meer spiritual or mental duties require most labour of the mind but corporal duties such as the labours of our calling must have more labour of the body 12. All corporal duties must be also spiritual by doing them from a spiritual principle to a spiritual end in a spiritual manner But it is not necessary that every spiritual duty be also corporal 13. The duties immediately about God our end are greater than those about any of the means caeteris paribus And yet those that are about lower objects may be greater by accident and in their season As to be saving a mans life is then greater than to be exciting the mind to the acting of Divine Love or Fear But yet it is God the greatest object then which puteth the greatness upon the latter duty both by commanding it and so making it an act more pleasing to him and because that the Love of God is supposed to be the concurring spring of that Love to man which we shew in seeking their preservation 14. Our great duty about God our ultimate end can never be done too much considered in it self and in respect to the soul only we cannot so love God too much And this Love so considered hath no extream Matth. 22.37 15. But yet even this may by accident and in the circumstances be too much As 1. In respect to the bodies weaknesses if a man should so fear God or so love him as that the intenseness of the act did stir the passions so much as to bring him to distraction or to disorder his mind and make it unfit for that or any other duty 2. Or if he should be exciting the Love of God when he should be quenching a fire in the Town or relieving the poor that are ready to perish But neither of these is properly called A loving God too much 16. The duties of the heart are in themselves greater and nobler than the actions of the outward man of themselves abstractedly considered Because the soul is more noble than the body 17. Yet outward duties are frequently yea most frequently
greater than heart duties only because in the outward duty it is to be supposed that both parts concur both soul and body And the operations of both is more than of one alone and also because the nobler ends are attained by both together more than by one only For God is loved and man is benefited by them As when the Sun shineth upon a tree or on the earth it is a more noble effect to have a return of its influences in ripe and pleasant fruits than in a meer sudden reflexion of the heat alone 18. All outward duties must begin at the heart and it must animate them all and they are valued in the sight of God no further than they come from a rectified will even from the Love of God and Goodness However without this they are good works materially in respect to the Receiver He may do good to the Church or Common-wealth or Poor who doth none to himself thereby 19. As the motion is circular from God to man and from man to God again Mercies received and Duties and Love returned so is the motion circular between the heart and the outward man The heart moving the tongue and hand c. and these moving the heart again partly of their own nature and partly by divine reward The Love of God and Goodness produceth holy thoughts and words and actions and these again increase the Love which did produce them Gal. 5.6.13 Heb. 6.10 Heb. 10.24 2 John 6. Jude 21. 20. The Judgment must be well informed before the Will resolve 21. Yet when God hath given us plain instruction it is a sin to cherish causless doubts and scruples 22. And when we see our duty before us it is not every scruple that will excuse us from doing it But when we have more conviction that it is a duty then that it is none or that it is a sin we must do it notwithstanding those mistaking doubts As if in Prayer or Alms-deeds you should scruple the lawfulness of them you ought not to forbear till your scruples be resolved because you so long neglect a duty Else folly might justifie men in ungodliness and disobedience 23. But in things meerly indifferent it is a sin to do them doubtingly because you may be sure it is no sin to forbear them Rom. 14.23 1 Cor. 8.13 14. 24. An erring Judgment intangleth a man in a necessity of sinning till it be reformed whether he act or not according to it Therefore if an erring person ask What am I bound to the true answer is to lay by your errour or reform your Judgment first and then to do accordingly and if he ask an hundred times over But what must I do in case I cannot change my Judgment the same answer must be given him God still bindeth you to change your Judgment and hath given you the necessary means of information and therefore he will not take up with your supposition that you cannot His Law is a fixed Rule which telleth you what you must believe and chuse and do And this Rule will not change though you be blind and say I cannot change my mind Your mind must come to the Rule for the Rule will not come to your perverted mind Say what you will the Law of God will be still the same and will still bind you to believe according to its meaning 25. Yet supposing that a mans errour so entangleth him in a necessity of sinning it is a double sin to prefer a greater sin before a lesser For though no sin is an object of our choice yet the greater sin is the object of our greater hatred and refusal and must be with the greater fear and care avoided 26. An erring Conscience then is never the voice or messenger of God nor are we ever bound to follow it because it is neither our God nor his Law but only our own Judgment which should discern his Law And mis-reading or misunderstanding the Law will not make a bad cause good though it may excuse it from a greater degree of evil 27. The judicious fixing of the Wills Resolutions and especially the increasing of its Love or complacency and delight in good is the chief thing to be done in all our duties as being the heart and life of all Prov. 23.26.12 4.23 7.3 22.17 3.1 2 3. 4.4 21. Deut. 30.6 Psal 37.4 40.8 119.16 35 70 47. 1.2 Isa 58.14 28. The grand motives to duty must ever be before our eyes and set upon our hearts as the poise of all our motions and endeavours As the travelers home and business is deepest in his mind as the cause of every step which he goeth 29. No price imaginable must seem great enough to hire us to commit the least known sin Luke 12.4 14.26 28 33. Mat. 10.39 16.26 30. The second great means next to the right forming of the heart for the avoiding of sin is to get away from the temptations baits and occasions of it And he that hath most grace must take himself to be still in great danger while he is under strong temptations and allurements and when sin is brought to his hands and alluring objects are close to the appetite and senses 31. The keeping clean our Imaginations and commanding our Thoughts is the next great means for the avoiding sin and a polluted fantasie and ungoverned thoughts are the nest where all iniquity is hatched and the instruments that bring it forth into act 32. The governing of the senses is the first means to keep clean the Imagination When Achaâ— seeth the wedge of gold he desireth it and then he taketh it When men wilfully fill their eyes with the objects which entice them to lust to covetousness to wrath the impression is presently made upon the fantasie and then the Devil hath abundance more power to renew such imaginations a thousand times than if such impressions had been never made And it is a very hard thing to cleanse the fantasie which is once polluted 33. And the next notable means of keeping out all evil Imaginations and curing lust and vanity of mind is constant laborious diligence in a lawful calling which shall allow the mind no leisure for vain and sinful thoughts as the great nourisher of all foul and wicked thoughts is Idleness and Vacancy which inviteth the tempter and giveth him time and opportunity 34. Watchfulness over our selves and thankful accepting the watchfulness fault-findings and reproofs of others is a great part of the safety of our souls Mat. 26.41 25 13. Mark 13.37 Luke 21.36 1 Cor. 16.13 1 Thes 5.6.2 Tim. 4.5 Heb. 12.17 1 Pet. 4.7 35. Affirmative Precepts bind not to all times that is no positive duty is a duty at all times As to preach to pray to speak of God to think of holy things c. it is not alwaies a sin to intermit them 36. All that God commandeth us to do is both a Duty and a Means it
is called a Duty in relation to God the efficient Law-giver first and it is a Means next in relation to God the end whose work is done and whose will is pleased by it And we must alwaies respect it in both these notions inseparably No Duty is not a Means and no true Means is not a Duty but many seem to man to have the aptitude of a Means which are no duty but a sin because we see not all things and therefore are apt to think that fit which is pernicious 37. Therefore nothing must be thought a true Means to any good end which God forbiddeth For God knoweth better than we 38. But we must see that the negative or prohibition be universal or indeed extendeth to our particular case and then and not else you may say that negatives bind to all times 39. Nothing which is certainly destructive to the end and contrary to the nature of a Means is to be taken for a Duty For it is certain that Gods Commands are for edification and not for destruction for good and not for evil 40. Yet that may tend to present inferiour hurt which ultimately tendeth to the greatest good Therefore it is not some present or inferiour incommodity that must cause us to reject such a means of greater future good 41. Whatsoever we are certain God commandeth we may be certain is a proper Means though we see not the aptitude or may think it to be destructive because God knoweth better than we But then we must indeed be sure that it is commanded hic nunc in this case and place and time and circumstances 42. It is one of the most needful things to our innocency to have Christian wisdom to compare the various accidents of those duties and sins which are such by accident and to judge which accidents do preponderate For indeed the actions are very few which are absolutely and simply duties or sins in themselves considered without those accidents which qualifie them to be such Accidental duties and sins are the most numerous by far And in many cases the difficulty of comparing the various accidents and contrary motives is not small 43. Therefore it is that as in Physick and Law Cases c. the common people have greatest need of the advice of skilful Artists to help them to judge of particular Cases taking in all the circumstances which their narrow understandings cannot comprehend which is more of the use of Physicians and Lawyers than to read a publick Lecture of Physick or of Law so the Office of the Church-Guides or Bishops is of so great necessity to the people in every particular Church And that not only for publick Preaching but also to be at hand to help the people who have recourse unto them in all such cases to know in particular what is duty and what is sin 44. And therefore it is besides other reasons that the Office of the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches must in all the proper parts of it be done only by themselves or men in that Office and not per alios by men of another Office And therefore it is that bare titles or authority will not serve the turn without proportionable or necessary abilities or gifts because the work is done by personal fitness and cases and difficulties can no more be resolved nor safe counsel given for the soul in matters of Morality by men unable than for the body or estate in points of Physick or of Law As the Lord Verulam in his Considerations of Ecclesiastical Government hath well observed 45. In such cases where duty or sin must be judged of by compared accidents the nature of a Means or the interest of the End is the principal thing to be considered And that which will evidently do more harm than good is not to be judged a duty in those circumstances but a sin as if the question were whether Preaching be at this time in this place to this number to these individuals a duty If it appear to true Christian prudence that it would be like to do more hurt than good it is a sin at that time and not a duty and yet Preaching in due season as great a duty still So if the question were whether secret prayer be at this hour or day a duty If true reason tell you that it is like to hinder either family-prayer or any other greater good it is not at that time a duty Or if the question be whether reproof or personal exhortation of a sinner be now a duty If true reason tell me that it is like to do more harm than good it is not a duty then but accidentally a sin For we must not cast pearls before Swine nor give that which is holy unto Dogs lest they tread it under foot or turn again and all to rend us And there is a time when Preachers that are persecuted in one City must fly to another and when they must shake off the dust of their feet for a witness against the disobedient and turn away from them The imprudent people can easily discern this when it is their own case but not when it is the Preachers case so powerful is self-love and partiality Mat. 7.6 7. Mat. 10.14 23.34 10.23 The reason of all this is 1. Because God appointeth all Means for the End 2. And because the Law by which in such cases we must be ruled is only general as Let all things be done to edification as if he should say Fit all your actions which I have not given you a particular peremptory Law for to that good which is their proper end 1 Cor. 14.5 12.3 26.17 2 Cor. 10.8 12.19 13.10 1 Cor. 10.23 Ephes 4.12 16 29. 1 Tim. 1.4 Rom. 15.2 1 Cor. 12.7 46. Publick Duties ordinarily must be preferred before private And that which is for the good of many before that which is for the good of one only 47. Yet when the private necessity is more pressing and the publick may be omitted at that time with less detriment the case doth alter As also when that one that we do good to is more worth than the many in order to the honour of God or the more publick good of the whole society or when it is one that by special precept we are obliged to prefer in our beneficence 48. Civil Power is to be obeyed before Ecclesiastical in things belonging to the Office of the Magistrate and Ecclesiastical before the Civil in things proper to the Ecclesiastical Gvoernours only And Family Power before both in things proper to their cognizance only But what it is that is proper to each power I shall tell them when I think they are willing to know and it will do more good than harm to tell it them 49. The supreme Magistrate is ever to be obeyed before his Inferiours because they have no power but from him and therefore have none against him unless he so give it them 50. No Humane Authority
Stand in awe and sin not Offer the sacrifices of righteousness Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit Matth. 9.13 12.7 Learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they know not that they do evil All this telleth us that fools and hypocrites while they disobey Gods Law do think to make up all with sacrifice or to appease God with offering him something that is excellent But the acceptable Worshipper cometh to God as a penitent a learner resolving to obey as a Receiver of mercy and not a meriter Direct 2. Over-value not therefore the manner of your own Worship and over-vilifie not other mens of a different mode And make not men believe that God is of your childish humour and valueth or vilifieth words and orders and forms and ceremonies as much as self-conceited people do If one man hear another pray only from the habits of his mind and present desires he reproacheth him as a rash presumptuous speaker that talketh that to God which he never fore-considered As if a beggar did rashly ask an alms or a corrected child or a malefactor did inconsiderately beg for pardon unless they learn first the words by rote or as if all mens converse and the words of Judges on the Bench were all rash or the counsel of a Physician to his Patient because they use not books and forms or set not down their words long before And if another man hear a form of prayer especially if it be read out of a Book and especially if it have any disorder or defect he sticketh not to revise it and call it false Worship and mans Inventions and perhaps Idolatry and to fly from it and make the world believe that it is an odious thing which God abhorreth And why so Are your words so much more excellent than the words of others Or doth the Book or Press or Pen make them odious to God Or are all words baâ— which are resolved on before-hand Is the Lords Prayer and the Psalms all odious because they are book-forms Or doth the command of other men make God hate them Let Parents take heed then of commanding their children prescribed words Nay rather let them take heed lest they omit such prescripts Or is it the disorder or defects that makes them odious Such are not to be justified indeed where-ever we find them But woe to us all if God will not pardon disorders and defects and accept the prayers that are guilty of them Many a time I have heard such forms of prayers whose disorders and defects I have much lamented and done my part to have cured and yet I durst not so reproach them as to say God will not accept and hear them Or that it is unlawful to joyn in communion with them And many a time I have heard as sad disorder in extemporate prayers sometimes by wrong methods or no method at all sometimes by vain repetitions sometimes by omitting the chiefest parts of prayer and sometimes in the whole strein by turning a prayer into a Sermon to the hearers or a meer talk or narrative to God that had little of a prayer in it save very good matter and honest zeal And though this prayer was more disorderly than the forms which perhaps in that prayer were accused of disorder yet durst I not run away from this neither nor say it is so bad that God will not hear it nor good men should have no comunion in it It is easie but abominable to fall in love with our own and to vilifie that which is against our opinion and to think that God is of our mind and is as fond of our mode and way as we are and as exceptious against the way or words of other men as childish pievish Christians are Look on your Book and read or learn your prayer in words saith one or else God will not hear you Look off your Book and read not or learn not the words saith another or God will not hear you But oh lamentable that both of them tremble not thus to abuse God and add unto his Word and to prophesie or speak falsly against their brethren in his Name nor to reproach the prayers which Christ presenteth from his servants to the Father and which notwithstanding their defects are his delight Direct 3. Offer God nothing as worship which is contrary to the perfection of his Nature as far as you can avoid it And yet feign not that to be contrary to his nature which he commandeth For then it is certain that you misunderstand either his nature or command Direct 4. Never come to the Father but by the Son and dream not of any immediate access of a sinner unto God but wholly trust in Christs mediation Receive the Fathers will from Christ your Teacher and his commands from Christ your King and all his mercies from Christ your Head and the Treasury of the Church and your continual Intercessor with God in Heaven And put all your prayers praises duties alms into his hand that through him alone they may be accepted of God Direct 5. Understand well how far the Scripture is a particular Rule as to the substance of Gods Worship and how far it is only a general Rule as to the circumstances that so you may neither offer God a Worship which he will not accept nor yet reject or oppose all those circumstances as unlawful which are warranted by his general commands Of which I have said enough elsewhere Direct 6. Look first and most to the exercise of inward grace and to the spiritual part of Worship for God will be worshiped in spirit and in truth and hateth the Hypocrite who offereth him a carkass or empty shell and ceremony and pomp or length of words instead of substance and draweth neer him with the lips without the heart And yet in the second place look carefully also to your words and order and outward behaviour of the body For God must be honoured with soul and body And order and reverend solemnity is both a help to the affections of the soul and a fit expression of them Never forget that hypocritical dead formality and ignorant self-conceited fanatical extravagancies are the two extreams by which the Devil hath laboured in all ages to turn Christs Worship against him and to destroy the Church and Religion by such false Religiousness The poor Popish Formalists on one side mortifie Religion and turn it into a carkass and a comely Image that hath any thing save life And the Fanaticks on the other side do call all the enormities of their proud and blustering fancies by the name of spiritual devotion and do their worst to make Christianity to seem a ridiculous fancy to the world Escape both these extreams as ever you will escape the dishonouring of God the dividing and
are guilty of more disorders tautologies unmeet expressions and manifold defects than any that I ever yet heard from those Ministers that pray either by habit or book Direct 9. Take heed both of carelesness and curiosity in the worshipping of God Avoid carelesness because it is prophaneness and contempt Therefore watch against idleness of mind and wandering thoughts and remember how great a work it is to speak to God or to hear from him about your everlasting state And yet curiosity is a heinous sin When men are so nice that unless there be quaint phrases and fine cadencies and jingles or at least a very laudable style they nauseate all and are weary of hearing a homely style or common things when every unmeet expression or tautology of the speaker doth turn their stomachs against the wholesomest food This curiosity cometh from a weak and an unhealthful state of soul Direct 10. Lastly Let your eye of Faith be all the while upon the heavenly Host or Church triumphant I remember how they worship God with what wisdom and purity and fervour of Love and sacred pleasure and with what unity and peace and concord And let your Worship be as much composed to the imitation of them as is agreeable to the likeness of our condition unto theirs There is no hypocrisie dulness darkness errours self-conceitedness pride division section or uncharitable contention Oh how they burn in Love to God and how sweet that Love is to themselves and how those souls work up in heavenly Joyes to the face of God in all his praises Labour as it were to joyn your selves by faith with them and as far as standeth with your different case to imitate them They are more imitable and amiable than the purest Churches upon earth Their love and blessed concord is more lovely than our uncharitable animosities and odious factions and divisions are And remember also the time when you must meet all those upright souls in Heaven whose manner of Worship you vilified and spake reproachfully of on earth and from whose communion you turned away And only consider how far they should be disowned who must be dear to Christ and you for ever The open disowning and avoiding the ungodly and scandalous is a great duty in due season when it is regularly done and is necessary to cast shame on sin and sinners and to vindicate the honour of Christianity before the world But otherwise it is but made an instrument of pernicious pride and of divisions in the Church and of hindering the successes of the Gospel of Christ CHAP. XXII How to pray in Faith PAssing by all the other particular parts of Worship as handled elsewhere in my Christian Directory I shall only briefly touch the duty of prayer especially as in private Direct 1. Let your heart lead your tongue and be the fountain of your words and suffer not your tongues in a customary volubility to over-run your hearts Desire first and pray next and remember that desire is the soul of prayer and that the heart-searching God doth hate hypocrisie and will not be mocked Matth. 6.1 3 4. Direct 2. Yet do not forbear prayer because your desires are not so earnest as you would have them For 1. Even good desires are to be begged of God 2. And such desires as you have towards God must be exercised and expressed 3. And this is the way of their usual increase 4. And a prophane turning away from God will kill those weak desires which you have when drawing near him in prayer may revive and cherish them Direct 3. Remember still that you pray to a heavenly Father who is readier to give than you are to receive or ask If you knew his Fulness and Goodness how joyfully would you run to him and cry Abba Father John 20.17 Luke 12.30 32. Mark 11.25 Matth. 6.8 32. Direct 4. Go boldly to him in the Name of Christ alone Remember that he is the only Way and Mediatour When guilt and conscience would drive you back believe the sufficiency of his sacrifice and attonement When your weakness and unworthiness would discourage you remember that no one is so worthy as to be accepted by God on any other terms than Christs Mediation Come boldly then to the Throne of Grace by the new and living way and put your prayers into his hand and remember that he still liveth to make intercession for you and that he appeareth before God in the highest in your cause Heb. 10.19 Ephes 3.12 Rom. 5.2 Heb. 9.24 7.25 26. Direct 5. Desire nothing in your hearts which you dare not pray for or which is unmeet for prayer Let the Rule of Prayer be the Rule of your Desires And undertake no business in the world which you may not lawfully pray for a blessing on Direct 6. Desire and pray to God first for God himself and nothing lower and next for all those spiritual blessings in Christ which may fit you for communion with him And lastly for corporal mercies as the means to these Matth. 6.33 Psal 42.1 2 3 c. Psal 73.25 26. Direct 7. Pray only for what is promised you or you are commanded to pray for And make not promises to your selves and then look that God should fulfil them because you confidently believe that he will do it and do not so reproach God as to call such self-conceits and expectations by the name of a particular Faith For where there is no word there is no faith Direct 8. What God hath promised confidently expect though you feel no answer at the present For most of our prayers are to be granted or the things desired to be given at the harvest time when we shall have all at once Whether you find your selves the better at present for prayer or not believe that a word is not in vain but you shall reap the fruit of all in season Luke 18.1 7 8. James 5.7 8. Direct 9. Let the Lords Prayer be the Rule for the matter and method of your desires and prayers But with this difference It must alwaies be the Rule which your desires must be formed to both in matter and method You must alwaies first and most desire the hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will on Earth as it is in Heaven before your own being or well-being But this is only a Rule for your General Prayers which take in all the parts For when you either intend to pray only or chiefly for some one particular thing you may begin with that or be most upon it Therefore all Christians should specially labour to understand the true sense and method of the Lords Prayer which God willing I hope elsewhere to open Direct 10. Be more careful in secret of your affections than of the order of your words yet chusing such as are aptest to the matter and fittest to excite your hearts But in your families or with others be very careful to speak to God in
by a Redeemer as we must do They had their too great selfishness Phil. 2.21 They had their pusillanimity and fears of men as Peter and the Apostles They had their sinful controversies as Paul and Barnabas and sinful separations in complyance with the censorious as Peter and Barnabas had Gal. 2.16 17. They had their carnal sidings factions and divisions in the Church 1 Cor. 1. 3. Many a time have they been put to groan O wretched man who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7 c. 11. They had as difficult duties to go through as any of us They were put upon as many tears and troubles watchings and travels fastings and self-denyal as the most laborious and suffering Christians now 12. They had as long delayes of the accomplishment of their desires as any of us 13. And lastly they past through death it self as we must do They lay gasping on their beds of languâ—shing and death broke in upon every part and they underwent that separation of soul and body as we must do Their flesh was turned to rottenness and dust and laid out of the sight of man in darkness and remaineth to this day as common earth All this the Saints in Heaven have undergone This was their case a while ago who are now in glory And this was not only the case of some few but of thousands and millions and that in the most of these particulars even of all that are gone before us unto blessedness It is not we that are tempted first that are persecuted or afflicted first that have sinned first that must die first but all this host hath broke the Ice and are safely past through this Red Sea and are now triumphing in felicity with their Saviour Direct 3. Let Faith next look back and see by what way these Saints have come to this felicity I mean by what means they did overcome and win the Crown And briefly you will find 1. That they all came to Heaven by the Mediation the Sacrifice the meritorious Righteousness of a Redeemer Jesus Christ either as promised or as incarnate none of them were justified by the works of the Law or the Covenant of Innocency 2. That their common way was by Faith Repentance Love and Obedience Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed oâ— us abundently through Christ Titus 3.5 Even by the triple Image of the Divine perfections Power Love and Wisdom 2 Tim. 1.7 They lived soberly righteously and godly in the world and were zealous of good works looking for the blessed hope which they have attained Titus 2.14 15. Knowing that Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ are the summ of saving doctrine and duty Acts 20.21 And that to fear God and keep his Commandments is the whole duty of man Eccles 12.13 And that the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and of faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 and that Love is the fulfilling of the Law 3. They studied the Word of God or such means of knowing him as God afforded them in order to the attaining and maintaining of these graces Psal 1.2 and sought the Lord with all their hearts while he might be found and called upon him while he was near Isa 55.6 10. And did not presumptuously neglect Gods helps and despise his Word while they trusted for his mercy 4. They lived in a continual conflict against the temptations of the Devil the world and the flesh and in the main did conquer as well as strive They made it their work to mortifie those fleshly lusts which others make it their interest and work to please Gal. 5.17.21 22. 6.14 5. They suffered afflictions and persecutions patiently and being reviled they did not revile They loved their enemies and blest those that curse them and prayed for those that despitefully used and persecuted them Matth. 5.44 45. 1 Cor. 4.11 12 13. 2 Cor. 1.6 7. Heb. 11. They would not accept of deliverance from imprisonment torments and death upon sinning terms 6. They endured to the end and did not fall off and forsake the Covenant of their God Rev. 2. 3. 7. Lastly They did all this by the motive of their hopes of Heaven and by a confidence in the promises of it and in a heavenly mind and conversation as knowing that they did not labour or suffer in vain 1 Cor. 15.58 2 Cor. 4.17 1 Tim. 4.10 Rom. 8.18 Matth. 5.11 2 Thes 1.6 7. Heb. 12.2 This was the way by which the Saints have gone to Heaven the only true successful way Direct 4. Consider next what helps and means God gave them for this work and compare our own with them and see whether ours be not as great 1. We have the same natural capacity as they we are intellectual free agents made for another world and capable of all that they attained There is no difference in our natural faculties 2. We have the same God to shew us mercy 1 Cor. 12.5 There are divers operations but the same God Ephes 4.4 5. There is one God one Lord c. even the Lord over all good to all that call upon him Rom. 10.12 The same mercy which called them and waited on them calleth us even a God who hath no respect of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Acts 10.37 Though he be a free benefactor he is a righteous Judge and he is good to all and the Father of every member of his Son 3. They had the same Saviour as we have the same sacrifice for their sins the same Teacher and the same example the same intercessor with the Father For though there be divers administrations there is the same Lord 1 Cor. 12.5 Ephes 4.4 For other foundation can no man lay than him who is the chief corner stone 1 Cor. 3.11 They all did eat of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same rock as we do which is Christ 1 Cor. 10.3 4. It was the reproach of Christ which Moses in Egypt esteemed better than their treasures Heb. 11.26 The same Physician of souls who hath us in cure did cure all them The same Captain who is conducting us to salvation is he that saved them The same Prince of the Covenant and Lord of life who conquered death and all their enemies hath conquered them for us and is preparing us for life with them They had no greater or better High Priest and Mediator with God than we have 4. They had the same Rule to walk by and the same way to go as all we have Gal. 1.7 8. 6.16 Phil. 3.14 15. The same Gospel and Word of God in the main though under various promulgations and administrations Those before the flood were under the Covenant of the promised seed