Helpers to you in this great Work of working out of your Salvation And therefore they are called Helpers of your Faith and Joy 2 Cor. 1.24 They are said To watch for your Souls as those that must give an account Heb. 13.17 They are said to be Co-workers with Jesus Christ yea Jude 23. they are said To save your Souls Ministers are set in the Church to admonish with all Meekness to beseech with all Earnestness to rebuke with all Authority yea and we have done it Have we not called upon you Sinners Sinners why will you die The Way wherein you now walk leads down to the Chambers of Death and Destruction the Wages of that Work you are now doing is Shame Death and Hell Have we not thus often call'd upon you Yes so often have we thundred Terrors in Mens Ears that they now disregard them out of custom and when we speak of Sin and Death and Hell and Judgment to come Men think we are fallen into a common Peace and we must talk dreadfully to keep in our Road. These are the Apprehensions Men have of the great and fearful Denunciations that are daily discharged in their Ears by the Ministers of the Gospel And have we not also display'd Jesus Christ in all his Excellencies so far forth as his infinite Excellencies can be display'd with a few short-breath'd Words Have we not set forth Holiness in its Beauty and Lustre and done as much as we could do to reconcile you to the ways of Obedience and to remove the unjust Prejudices that Men have taken up against them What could we have done more than we have done to inform Mens Judgments to satisfie their Consciences to answer all their Doubts to allay their Fears to supply them with quickning Considerations to Duty and with deterring Considerations from Sin We appeal to your selves and yet we speak not this to ingratiate or to commend our selves we profess we care not much for the good Opinion of any Man in the World farther than it may be of some advantage to do your Souls good but do you think God expects not some great Thing from you Give me leave â—o deal truly and faithfully with you if your Works do not in some measure answer the Labours of God's Servants that have many Years follow'd you with Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept here a little and there a little still warning and intreating with all Bowels of Tenderness alluring you to pity your own Souls and to save your selves from that Wrath and Vengeance that shall shortly overcome the disobedient World They who have thus exhorted you believe it shall within a while be Witnesses against you Well then since you are daily called upon and warned to flee from Wrath to come since you have such clear Convictions of your Duty that a bribed Conscience can hardly evade since you have such abundance of Examples of others who have gone before you and have done what God requires of you why will not you be hereby persuaded and encouraged to work These Things you must acknowledge are great Helps to further your Salvation and believe it they will prove dreadful Aggravations of your Condemnations if they do not prevail with you But these are only outward Helps 2. Inward Helps Secondly There are other Helps and they are inward and of far greater Force and Efficacy of which I shall name Two 1. The Dictates of Conscience First The Dictates of your own Consciences they are still prompting and exciting of you to work Conscience it is God's Deputy and Vicegerent in the Soul that rules and governs in his Name and by his Authority Now of all the Faculties in Man this was the least corrupted by his Fall though the Will be wholly corrupted and perverse that it will not obey the Commands of Conscience yet Conscience still continues the performance of its Office still it informs and urgeth and threatens and tormenteth and thus may you see it busily working even in those that never had the Law of God to direct Conscience The Gentiles says the Apostle to the Romans that have not the Law Rom. 2.14 15. do by Nature that is by natural Conscience the things contained in the Law their Consciences bearing witness and their Thoughts in the mean while accusing and excusing one another And because they had not the Law therefore Conscience in them was like an Officer walking in the Dark apprehending the Innocent and letting the Guilty escape But yet this was from the beginning so deeply implanted in the Heart of Man that something must be done and avoided for to obtain Happiness which could never yet be obliterated Tho' our knowledge of what is Duty and what is Sin be in a great part defaced yet this knowledg the Scripture doth abundantly supply to us and gives Conscience a perfect Draught of all the Duties that God requires and bids it be Overseer and look that the Work be done How is it not a great Help when you have somewhat within you that stands for and takes part with what is Good and what is your Duty Conscience secretly bids you beware of such and such Sins that will bring Ruin Destruction and Vengeance upon you and perform such and such Duties Pray Hear Meditate and be more fervent and affectionate in all your Services this is the way that tends to Life and Happiness Thus Conscience daily and hourly is following of you with Counsels and Chidings and with Threatnings denouncing Wrath and Vengeance against you and though it speaketh these Things with so low a Voice that others though they lay their Ears to your Soul cannot hear it yet in your Ears it speaks as loud as Thunder and no less terrible it is in vain to wound it it is in vain to stop its Mouth for that will but make it break out with the more violence and out-rage nothing can appease it but Duty and Work Why should you not then since you have that within you that stands for and prompts you to work why should you not as well follow and obey the Dictates and Commands of your Consciences that prompt you to Work and Duty as obey the Propensions of your sensual part to the contrary Secondly 2. God himself helps a Christian to work God himself helps us by working all our Works in us and for us by working in us the will to work and by working for us the work when we have willed And therefore while there is no part of our Work too hard for God there should be no part of it too hard and difficult for us Christ tells us His burthen is not heavy yet were it heavy we might well undergo it since he himself helps us to bear it The frequent experience of every Child of God doth abundantly confirm this Did you never begin a Duty with your Hearts listless and dead with Affections cold and flat with Thoughts very wandring and distracting that
For answer unto this first it may be known when a Man's Conscience is troubled from the guilt of Sin remaining upon it by considering the effects of this Trouble Doth he find that when Conscience is disquieted he is apt to shift off the Trouble by diverting it and doing what he can to lull Conscience asleep Doth he neglect Prayer Reading of the Word and other Duties and Means that God hath appointed to bring him to a true Repentance for his Sin if it be so this Man hath great cause to fear that the trouble of his Conscience proceeds from the Impurity and Defilement of it Where God will save the Soul this trouble of Conscience works in another manner and stirs up a Man to Pray to Hear to Meditate upon God's Word where his condition will be stated to his Hand to follow God in all his Ways and Ordinances making him restless till he come to know that his Sins are pardoned and his Wounds healed and closed up by the Blood of Jesus Christ Now many there are in whom the troubles of Conscience never produce any good effects but all their care is low they may divert all troublesome and disquieting Thoughts from themselves and so they wear off Convictions Now this Trouble can never produce any saving effect and is it self produced meerly from that corroding and gnawing Guilt that lies upon Conscience which a true and genuine Trouble is a means by God appointed to remove Secondly How a Man may know when his Conscience is quiet whether it be because guilt of Sin is removed or not How may a Man know when Conscience is quiet whether it be quieted upon God's Grounds because the Guilt of Sin is removed from it To this I answer it must be considered whether quietness of Conscience comes after Trouble and if Conscience be quiet after Trouble then you must consider how it came to be quieted Did you wear it away with other Businesses Or did you seek to God by Prayer and applying of the Promises to your selves Did you in the way of God obtain Peace Why now if a Man's quietness that he hath be got after Trouble and if got in God's way that way that he hath appointed to still and to quiet the Conscience you may then satisfie your self in it But when as you never have been troubled or having been troubled have worn it off you may be assured such a Peace of Conscience is far worse and more dangerous than the most horrid Troubles and Disquietments of Conscience that can be I come now to the third general Head propounded and that was to shew you What great Importance and of what beneficial Consequence it is to keep our Consciences clear and inoffensive And in speaking unto this I shall at once both give you the Reasons of the Point The Excellency of a clear Conscience opened in six Particulars Why it should be our continual Endeavour to keep clear Consciences and also give you Motives to persuade you to the Duty I shall only name Six 1. It is a most comfortable Relief under false Reproaches First A clear Conscience is the most comfortable Relief under false Reproaches and Aspersions that are cast upon us A good Conscience is only in our own Power but a good Name is in the Power of every slanderous Tongue to blast and indeed it is a thing almost impossible to keep at once both a good Conscience and a good Name too The World is shattered and fractured into so many Parties and each of them of such different Relishes of good and bad that unless our Actions have as universal a Gust as according to the Rabbin's Tradition the Israelite's Manna had that it had the taste of that which they best fansied unless our Actions have such a universal Gust we must of necessity fall under Mis-constructions Censures and Defamations for indeed if you observe it usually our Similitude to others makes them think and speak well of us Whosoever commends another commends somewhat that he supposeth at least he hath in himself and this is the reason of that Woe of our Saviour Luke 6.26 Luke 6.26 Woe to you when all Men shall speak well of you When wicked Men speak well of us it is a Sign we are but too too like them Even a Heathen could say when he was highly applauded by the vulgar Rout What Evil have I done that these Men praise me The very reproaches of ungodly Men are the best Testimonials that can be given of an excellent and singular Christian In a strict and holy Conversation there is that contradiction to loose Prophaneness of the World as at once both convinceth and offends them reproves them and galls them and if we thus reproach them by our Lives we must again expect that they will reproach us by their Lyings and Slanders It is a sinful tenderness of our esteem among Men when we tack about with every popular Breath that blows such must needs prefer the Praise of Men before the Praise of God and let me tell you this is as fruitless as it is sinful since as the Wind always blows from contrary Points and Quarters so while some extol us others will as much vilify and scorn us It is miserable to live upon the Reports and Opinions of others let us not reckon what they say but what Reports our own Consciences make us it is far better to offend the whole World than God and Conscience And if any storm of Obloquy Reproach Railing or bitter Cursing at any time patters upon us how sweet then is it to retire inward to the calm Innocency of our own Hearts where are a thousand Witnesses within us that tell us we have not deserved them How comfortable is it to remit our Cause to God and leave our Vindication to him for whose sake we suffer Reproach Thus we find the Prophet Jeremy appealing unto God Jer. 20.10 12. Jer. 20.10 12. I heard the defaming of many report say they and we will report it that is let us raise a disgraceful and a reproachful Report of him But says he O Lord of Host thou that triest the Righteous thou that seest the Reins and the Heart unto thee have I opened my Cause Why thus if while wicked Men are maliciously conspiring how to blot sully and stain our Names if all this while we can keep our Consciences clear what need we much care how the Wind blows abroad since we are harboured under the retreat of a peaceful Conscience They may possibly persuade others to believe their Calumnies but God who searcheth the Heart and Conscience knows that we are injured and he is hastning forward a Day wherein he will clear up our Righteousness and then the Testimony of one good Conscience will put ten thousand Slanderers to silence 2. It gives a Man advantage to reprove others with Authority Secondly A clear Conscience as it will enable a Man to bear Reproaches from others
active and laborious in the ways of Holiness and Obedience Reason 2 Secondly Consider wherefore is it that Salvation is set forth to us under the notion of a Reward is it not to imply that we must work for it A Reward not indeed merited by our works but yet a Reward measured out to us and conferred upon us according to our works Rom. 2.6 7. God will render to every one according to his works to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Immortality he will render Eternal Life And indeed it were very strange if that God who will reward us with Eternal Life according to our works should yet lay a check upon the ingenuity of the new Creature thereby to account Eternal Life too low a Motive to excite unto Eternal Life Reason 3 Thirdly Consider is it not to this end that God hath implanted such an Active Principle of Grace in the Hearts of his Servants that thereby they might be inabled to work out their own Salvation If God would save you without working why then hath he given you such an operative Principle that you might work Nay I might affirm it he might as well save you without Grace as without works for that is not Grace that doth not put forth it self in working Grace if it be true it will be working it will rise in the Thoughts it will work in the Affections it will breath in Desires appear in good works and be very Active and Busie in the whole Life and Conversation Now not to work is that which puts a check and restraint upon this Active Principle it is to curb it in when it would freely break forth into Action upon every occasion given to it Reason 4 Fourthly Why hath God so often promised us Assistance if it be not that thereby we should be incouraged to work He stands by us to confirm our Hearts to strengthen our Hands to help our Weakness to quicken our Deadness to recruit our Graces by continual Supplies and wherefore is all this but that we might work God rather than we shall not work he himself will set us at work nay he will maintain us at our work and in our work upon his own cost He gives us Aid and promises Assistance only for this end that we might work out our own Salvation 2 Cor. 3.5 We are not sufficient of our selves says the Apostle as of our selves to think any thing What then must we therefore sit still because we are not sufficient No says he for God who finds us Imployment will also find us Strength our sufficiency is of God And therefore it is that God gives in Assistances and Supplies that we might work the Works of God And thus I have confirmed the Doctrin why we ought to work and that we ought to work But here before I can proceed any further there are some Objections that must be answered that seem to oppose the Truth of this Doctrin Object 1 First Some may cavil against this Command of working out of our Salvation as a thing impossible Object 2 Secondly As derogatory unto Christ and his Merits Object 3 Thirdly Others as prejudicial to the free Grace of God by which alone we are saved and not by our own Works Object 4 Fourthly Others look upon it as vain and needless since God will certainly bring to salvation all those whom he hath Elected and foreknown according to his purpose which purpose of his neither their not working with it no nor their working against it shall ever make void or frustrate Object 1 I begin with the First Say some with what Justice and Equity can God require this Duty of working out of our salvation when he knows we have no power to perform it Either say they it concerns those that are spiritually inclined and have their salvation already begun that they perfect it by working of it out and if so alas to what purpose is it when they themselves can act no further than they are acted They cannot so much as Will their own salvation unless God give them to Will much less then can they work out their salvation Or else it concerns all that live under the sound of the Gospel though Reprobates and cast-aways though dead in Trespasses and Sins And is it rational is it just and equal to bid dead Men work Or doth it become that God who would be thought by us to be infinitely merciful and compassionate to mock and deride humane Miseries in requiring of them things that are impossible Had he commanded us to bring Light out of Darkness Had he bid us pull the Stars out of their Orbs or with one of our Hands to stop the Sun in its course All these Impossibilities we might as well do as perform these divine Duties without divine Assistance we can as soon glorify our selves as sanctify our selves Exhort and command never so long with as great Authority and Vehemency as you please yet till God move on us and work in us you may as well expect Stocks and Stones should move at your speaking as we And if God doth but once begin to move and work in us we shall work and move without your Exhortations It is therefore say such as these altogether in vain to press Men to Duty till God works in them for all your Exhortations are not sufficient till he works and when he works all your Exhortations will be fruitless Answ To this I Answer and because it is the common Plea of Sinners why they do not work and it is that which questionless doth too often rise in the Hearts and Thoughts of most Men whereby they are greatly discouraged and their Hands weakned in their Obedience I shall therefore the more largely and particularly Answer this Objection And Answ 1 First This serious and pressing Exhortation to Obedience and Working doth not suppose in us nor is it necessary that it should suppose in us a Power to obey I mean it of a present and actual Power neither doth our want of Power take off our Obligation to obey It may and will be granted that there is no Command of God but doth suppose a Power once bestowed Whether or no his absolute uncontroulable Sovereignty might have required that from us that is above our Power ever to perform may rather modestly be doubted than peremptorily concluded Yet this is certain that those very Duties that now we complain we have no Strength and Power to perform were once as subject to our Power and the Freedom of our own Wills as now natural and moral Actions are Subject I say to our Power either to perform them or not to perform them not as though we came now into the World with this Power for we are all dead and still-born in respect of Grace but as having this Power in our first Parent who was our Representative for in him we must be consider'd as existent even when he existed and what he
raise them up to all those moral good things that they attain to short of true and saving Grace It is Wonderful truly to see how the raging Wickedness of the World is dared by a Command charged with a Threatning Herod heard John Baptist who doubtless laid the Law home to him so that he did many things Abimelech and Laban were warned in a Dream whereby God over-ruled and prevented that Wickedness that was intended by them Were they compelled to what they did No God loves to rule the World in a rational way so that though he acts and moves wicked Men to that good that they do yet he doth it by moral Considerations and such Inducements as do most comport and suit with the Liberty of their own Will Promises incourage Threatnings deter Counsels direct Commands inforce and all these concur instrumentally to awe the Consciences and to incline the Wills even of wicked Men themselves Whose Conscience can gainsay this Let the vilest Sinner freely speak when he hath been most mad and wild upon his Lusts hath not oftentimes some Command or Threatning suddenly shot it self in betwixt his Conscience and Sin Hath not two or three weak Words silently whispered to him whence or from whom he knows not stopt his way and given a Check to his Lust when it was swelling ready to break forth into Act And whence have they this Power It is not from themselves for why then doth it not always so work But it is from God's Inward and Physical tho' but common Work that when the Affections are most furious and Corruption most raging will effectually persuade to restrain and asswage Secondly Another End is hereby God leaves them without Excuse If they perish they shall have nothing to pretend against God Hath he not often warned and counselled and threatned them Hath he not told them with as much earnestness and vehemency as the words of his Ministers could deliver it That the wages of sin is death and the end of those ways wherein they walk will be Shame and eternal Destruction Have they not with all Seriousness and Entreaties been called upon again and again to repent and turn from the unfruitful Works of Darkness and to work the Works of God Can the Mouth of God or Man speak plainer when they have been calling and crying after any Turn ye turn ye why will you die This is that which from our Souls we do beseech and intreat at the Hands of Sinners even for the Blood and Bowels of Jesus Christ nay for the Blood and Bowels of their own precious Souls which they are wilfully spilling upon the Ground that they would turn and live Now there is not one that hears this serious Obtestation and is not obedient to it but his Blood even the Blood of his Soul will lie upon him for ever What is it that Men expect Must God drive Men to Heaven by force and violence whether they will or no He hath laid Promises and Threatnings before them he Exhorts and Commands And if these things will not prevail with Men whose Faculties are intire whose Reason is sound and whose Wills are free Think not foolishly to charge God for he is free from the Blood of all Men and Sinners will be found to be Self-murderers and Self-destroyers If I had not come and spoken unto them says our Saviour they had then had no sin but now they have no cloak for their sin So if God had not come and spoken unto Sinners they had neither had Sin nor Condemnation but now that he hath spoken to them so often and exhorted them so frequently and earnestly therefore now they have no cloak for their sin God hath spoken and his speaking will strike every impenitent Wretch dumb and silent at the great Day whatever they pretend to now And this is a second Particular in Answer to this Objection God doth not mock Mens Weakness when he commands them to work but hath great wise and weighty Ends why he doth it Answ 3 Thirdly To come somewhat nearer There is indeed no such Impotency and Weakness in Man but if he will he may work out his own Salvation I speak not this to assert the power of Man to work out Salvation without the Aid of special Grace to encline the Will but if the Will be once enclined and made willing there is nothing more required to make a Man able I say where there is special Grace given to make the Will willing to convert to believe and to repent there is nothing more required to make a Man able because Conversion Faith and Repentance chiefly consist in the Act of the Will it self now if the Will wills Repentance it doth repent if it wills Faith it doth believe and so of the rest And therefore there is nothing more required to make a Man able than what he hath in a state of un-regeneracy only to make him willing is required special Grace which they that favour the undue liberty of the Will do deny And therefore God expostulates with the stubborness of the Will Why will you perish Ezek. why will you die And Christ accuseth the Will You will not come unto me that you may have John 5.40 Life It is true there is an impotency in the Will but this is only its stubborness and obstinacy it will not hearken to God's Call it will not obey his Commands it will not strive against Sin nor perform Duties and therefore it cannot Our Cannot is not indeed an impotency that we lie under so much as stubborness of our Wills There is not the greatest Sinner who hath wrought Iniquity with both Hands greedily but may work out his own Salvation if he will if he be but once willing he hath that already that may make him able God puts no new Powers into the Soul when he converts it It is true the Will cannot incline it self to Obedience without Grace but yet it can intend it if it will it is its stubborness that makes it impotent It is in the things of Grace as in other free Actions of a Man's Life with a proportionable abatement A Man can Speak and Walk if he will but if he be resolutely set not to do these things he cannot do them so long as that Resolution remains though simply and absolutely he can do them doth this argue any impotency So is it here you may obey and work if you will but if you are resolutely bent against these if you are resolved not to do them while that Resolution continues you cannot do them but this argues not any natural impotency but a moral impotency only this is an impotency of Stubborness and Perversness Never therefore plead the inability of your Will no it is through your own stubborn Resolution if you perish you are resolved for Hell and Destruction and if you are plunged into them it is through your own Wilfulness and not through Weakness Answ 4 Fourthly To come yet a
to procure it not to implant Grace but to purchase it You cannot therefore sit down and say what need is there of my working Christ hath already done all my Work for me to my Hands No Christ hath done his own Work he hath done the Work of a Saviour and a Surety but he never did the Work of a Sinner If Christ by meriting Grace had bestowed it upon thee and wrought it in thee then indeed there was no more required of thee to become Holy but to cast back a lazy Look to the purchase of Jesus Christ then thy Sloth would have had some pretence why thou dost not labour But this will not do our Saviour commands all Men To seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof Mat. 6.33 Acts 8.22 And the Apostle exhorts Simon Magus himself though in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity yet pray says he if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee Do not therefore cheat your own Souls into Perdition by lazy Notions of Christ's Merits What though Christ hath merited yet God requires that you should work and labour to change your own Hearts and reform your own Lives but if you sit still expecting till the meriting Grace of Christ drop down into your Souls and of its own accord and change your Hearts truly it may be before that time you your selves may drop down into Hell with your old unchanged Hearts And this is the first thing Christ requires Secondly 2. Those that have Grace must Labour for Salvation Christ expects and requires that those that have Grace should put forth the utmost Strength and Power thereof in labouring after that Salvation that he hath purchased for them He hath merited Salvation for them but it is to be obtained by them through their own Labour and Industry Is not that which Christ hath already done sufficient for them Is it not enough that he hath reconciled them to God by the Blood of the Covenant that he hath made their Peace and procured their Pardon for them But must Christ Repent and Believe and Obey for them This is not to make him a Saviour but a Drudg He hath done what was meet and fit for a Mediatour to do He now requires of us what is meet for Sinners to do namely to Believe to Repent to be Converted and to Obey He now bids you Wash and be Clean and what would you have more Would you have the great Prophet come and strike off your Leprosy and you only mark the Cure and do nothing thereunto Or is it indeed enough that Salvation and Happiness is purchased that the way to Heaven is made passable that the Bolts and Bars of the new Jerusalem by Christ are broken off Alas what of all this thou mayest still be as far from Heaven and Glory as ever if thou dost not walk in the way that leads to it Still thou art as far from entring into Heaven as ever if thou dost not strive at the entrance into the strait Gate It is therefore in vain that Christ died it is in vain that thou art Justified it is in vain that thou art Adopted it is in vain that Heaven is prepared for thee Christ may keep Heaven and Glory and his Crowns and Robes for ever to himself unless as he hath purchased these great things for his People so also he hath purchased to himself a peculiar People Zealous of good Works A People who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Immortality and by that way obtain it Thus we see Christs doing all for us is no excuse for our doing nothing He hath indeed done all for us that belongs to him as a Mediatour meriting and procuring Grace and Salvation but he never intended to do all for us as to the conveying of them to us and making of them ours No that is still to be done by us And therefore tho Christ's Works alone were meritorious yet by the actings of Faith we must apply his Merit and by the acting of Obedience confirm them to our selves I might add also when Christ is said to obey the Law in our stead as well as to suffer in our stead Though his bearing the punishment of the Law by Death doth excuse and exempt us from suffering yet his obeying of the Law doth not excuse our Obedience unto the Law Christ obeyed the Law in a far different respect to the Obedience which is now required from us He obeyed as a Covenant of works we only as a Rule of Righteousness If he had failed in the least tittle he could not have purchased Life that was promised but we though we fall infinitely short in our Obedience may yet inherit that Life that Christ hath purchased Christ's Obedience was fully perfect yet ours is not derogatory thereunto because it proceeds from other grounds than Christ's did But I will not proceed further in this only conclude this Answer with two practical things in reference to this Question First So work with that Earnestness Constancy and Unweariedness in well doing as if thy Works alone were able to justifie and save thee Look with what Affection and Fervency you would pray if now God with a Voice from Heaven should tell you that for the next Prayer you make you should be either Saved or Damned Look with what Reverence and Attention you would Hear with what Spiritualness of Heart you would Meditate if your eternal State and Condition were to be determined and fixed by the next of those Duties that in this kind you were to perform with the same Fervency Affection and Spiritualness perform all the Obedience that you do Why should you not do so Are not Gods Commands as peremptory and as Authoritative for Obedience under the Covenant of Grace as they were under the Covenant of Works Is not Obedience of as absolute necessity now as ever though not to the same end and purpose And since the end of our Obedience is graciously changed doth not this chang lay a farther obligation of Gratitude upon us to obey God who requires it from us not as Merit but as Duty Still there is as great an obligation to obey now under the condition of the Covenant of Grace as ever there was while Mankind stood under the tenour of the Covenant of Works Certainly Christ's Merit was never given to slacken our Obedience and it is the most unworthy nay let me say it is the most accursed use that any Christian can make of them that from the Merit of Christ he shall take encouragement to grow more remiss and slack in Obedience Would you not therefore turn the Grace of God into Wantonness Would you not abuse the infinite Mercy of a Mediator Think with your selves how would I strive and struggle were I to stand or fall upon the account of my own Works and Duties use the same Diligence put forth the same Endeavours as indeed in that
great a Work it requires that they should presently without delay set upon it 1. Working for Salvation is the undoing our former Works First It is a Work in which Sinners must undo all that they have wrought in their whole Lives before Oh Sinner think what hast thou been doing this twenty thirty forty Years or more Hast thou not instead of working out thine own Salvation with Fear and Trembling been working out thine own Condemnation without Fear or Trembling Hast thou not been working the Works of Darkness Hast thou not been working the Works of thy Father the Devil as our Saviour tells the Jews Truly this is not so much working as making of Work all this must be undone again or you your selves must be for ever undone you must unrip and unravel your whole Lives by a deep and bitter Repentance you are gone far in the way that leads to Death and Destruction and you must tread back every Step and at every Step shed many salt and briny Tears before ever you come into the Way that leads to Life and Happiness and is it not yet time to begin Can the Work of so many Years be undone think you in one moment No Sin and Satan make their Works more durable and lasting than to be so easily and speedily spoiled It were the Work of an Age yea of Eternity it self if possibly we could so spend it rather than of a few faint late Thoughts to get an Humiliation deep enough and a Sorrow sad enough to bear any the least proportion to any of the least Sins that we have committed Do not hope or think that your many great and sinful Actions shall ever be blown away with a slight and general Confession or that ever they shall be wash'd away with a slight and overly Repentance What says holy David Psal 56.8 Thou tellest my Wanderings put thou my Tears into thy Bottle Thou hast my Wandrings by Number but thou hast also my Tears by Measure There must be some proportion betwixt the Humiliation and the Sins great Sins call for great Sorrow and long continuance in Sin requires a continued and prolonged Repentance Is it not then yet high time to begin Have you not already made Work enough for your whole Lives should they be longer than they are like to be Nay and will not every Day of your Lives make Work enough for it self What says our Saviour Mat. 8.34 Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof Truly the Evils that we every Day commit is sufficient Work for the Sorrow and Repentance of that Day to undo Now then begin this undoing Work the longer you delay still the more will lie upon your Hands still the more Sins you have to repent of We already complain That the Work God hath set us is too hard and too grievous and yet such foolish Creatures are we that we make it more and more difficult by our Delays adding to the strictness of Gods Commands the necessity of a severe Repentance And therefore it is Prudence as well as Duty to begin this repenting this undoing Work betimes that so the greatness of the Work and the shortness of the time to do it in may not at last dismay and confound us 2. Variety of Duties to be perform'd in working out of Salvation Secondly Consider the great variety of Duties that must be gone through in the working out of Salvation and this will evince how great a Work it is A Christian's Work is a Life full of Actions and Imployments there should be no gap nor void space at all in it but all should be filled up with Duties ranked in their several Orders that as soon as he passeth through one he should enter upon another that where one leaves him another may find him Thus a Christian should go from one Duty to another from hearing the Word to Meditation from Meditation unto Prayer from Prayer to the acting of Grace and in all there should be much striving and strugling with the Heart and much carefulness and circumspection over the Way and Life Now there are Four great and usual Duties every Man hath to do Four Duties incumbent on all Christians which is enough to fill up all the time of his Life were it stretched and tenter'd out to the end of our time First 1. To get the Truth of Grace He is to get the Truth and Reality of Grace wrought in him this is his first and general Work And this will cost a Man much Sweat and Anguish for this he must suffer many Pangs and Throws of the New Birth and shall lye under many Fears and Jealousies lest Hypocrisy and Presumption should cause him to mistake in a Matter of such infinite Concernment Secondly He is to draw forth 2. To act Grace and to act this Grace when once it is wrought in him This is the next Work of a true Christian continually to act Faith Love Patience Humility and to let all have their perfect Work And there is no moment of a Man's Life so idle but all may administer some Occasion or Object for the exercise of Grace 3. To grow in Grace Thirdly A Christian's next Work is continually to grow and increase in Grace To go from Strength to Strength to be changed from Glory to Glory Still to be adding Cubits to his spiritual Stature till he is grown to such a height and tallness in Grace that his Head shall reach into Heaven and be Crowned there in absolute Perfection with a Crown of Glory and Immortality Here is that Work that will keep you in Imployment all your Days and if you can find one spare minute in your whole Lives wherein you have not some Duty to perform then give over and sit still But besides all this 4. Christians must labour for Assurance of Grace Fourthly Another Work of a Christian is earnestly to labour after the Evidence and Assurance of Grace in himself Give all diligence says the Apostle to make your Calling and Election sure Still a Christian must be ascending ascending from a probable Conjecture to a good Persuasion from a good Persuasion to a full Assurance from that to a Rejoycing with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory These now are the general Works that should take up the Lives of Christians and to these are subservient almost an infinite number of Particulars some whereof are means whereby these great Things are obtained others are Concomitants or the Effects and Fruits of them but I will not so much as mention any of them now For shame then O Christians since that your Work is so great why will you sit still as if you knew not how to imploy your selves Besides there is great variety in your Work and this usually breeds some kind of Delight You are not always to be toiling and drudging at the same thing But as Bees fly from one Flower to another and suck sweetness from each of them
so should a Christian pass from one Duty to another and draw forth the sweetness of Communion with God from every one of them 3. To work for Salvation a difficult Work Thirdly To evince the greatness of this Work consider it is a Work that must be carried on against many Encounters and strong Oppositions that a Christian will certainly meet with within are strong Corruptions without are strong Temptations you have a treacherous and deceitful Heart within and this Traitor holds Intelligence and League with your great Enemy the Devil without You are sure to meet with Difficulties Affronts and Discouragements from a peevish ill-condition'd World in which you live Never any yet could scape free to Heaven without meeting with these Things And doth not all this call upon you to work and strive for Salvation Is it a time to sit still when you have all this Opposition to break through so many Temptations to resist so many Corruptions to mortify Satan that old Serpent to repel and make him become a flying Serpent Doth not all this require a morose Constancy and a kind of sour Resolvedness to go thorough the ways of Obedience notwithstanding all Opposition These great Things are not to be atchieved without great Pains and Labour and therefore if you resolve to do no more than a few heartless Wishes no more than a few more heartless Duties will amount to never raise your Expectations so high as Salvation for let me tell you Salvation will not be obtained at such a rate as this no there must be great Struglings and Labour with earnest Contendings if ever you intend to be saved And thus much for the first Argument taken from the consideration of the greatness of the Work To work Salvation out is a great Work and requireth great Pains But lest the setting out the greatness of this Work should rather deter and fright Men from it than excite and quicken their Endeavours to it let me add a second Thing And that is to consider what an infinite 2. It is infinite Mercy that Sinners may work for Salvation incomparable Mercy it is that God will allow you to work for your Lives that he sets Life and Death before you and gives them into your Hands to take your Choice If you will indulge your Sloth then you choose Death but Life may be yours if you will It will indeed cost you much Pains and Labour but yet it may be yours And is it not infinite Mercy that Salvation and Happiness may be yours though upon any Terms Wicked Men are apt to say O how happy had we been if God had never commanded us to Work if he had never required from us such harsh and difficult Duties if we were but once free from this hard Task and heavy Burden of Obedience But alas foolish Sinners they know not what they say as happy as they count this to be yet if God required no working from them he should then shew them just so much Mercy as he doth to the Devils and damned Spirits and no more from whom God requires no Duty as well as from whom he receives no Duty and unto whom he intends no Mercy You think it a hard Restraint possibly to be kept under the strict Commands of the Law Oh! that God required no such Observances from you But what do you desire herein but only the unhappy Priviledge of the Damned to be without Law and without Commands But should God send to the Spirits now imprison'd and should he declare to them that if they would Work they should be saved oh how would they leap in their Chains at such glad Tidings as these are and count it part of Salvation that there was but a possibility of it No but God commands nothing from them because he intends nothing but Wrath upon them he will not vouchsafe so much Mercy to them as to require those Duties from them that you repine and murmur at as grievous And furthermore consider this if you do not now work but perish under your Sloth in Hell you will think it an infinite Mercy if God would command you more rigid and severe Obedience than ever he commanded from you on Earth It would be a great Mercy there if it might be your Duty to Repent and Pray and Believe nay you would count a Command then to be as comfortable as a Promise for indeed there is no Command but connotes a Promise No but these things shall not so much as be your Duty in Hell for there you shall be freed for ever from this rigorous and dreadful Law of God that now you so much complain of and murmur against Oh! therefore be persuaded while you are yet under the Mercy of the Law give me leave to call it so and while you have so many Promises couched in every Command before God hath left off his merciful Commanding before the time of Duty be expired be persuaded to Work Delay not you know not how long God will vouchsafe to require any thing from you and as soon as that ceaseth truly you are in Hell And this is the second Argument to press this Duty upon you Work and that speedily too while you may Work there is hope that upon your working you may be saved and therefore while God calls upon you and whilst he will accept of Obedience from you it is time for you to begin to work 3. Time to work for Salvation in is very short Thirdly Consider what a short scantling of Time is allowed you to do your great Work in And this I shall branch out into two Particulars First Consider how sad it will be for your Time to be run out before your great Work be done Alas what are threescore Years if we were all sure to live so long from the date of this present moment How short a space is it for us to do that which is of eternal Concernment in and yet how few of us shall live to that which we so improperly call old Age Our Candle is lighted and it is but small at the best and to how many of us is it already sunk in the Socket and brought to a Snuff and how soon the Breath of God may blow it out neither you nor I know Night is hastning upon us the Grave expects us and bids other Corpses make room for us Death is ready to grasp us in its cold Arms and to carry us before God's Tribunal and alas how little of our great Work is done What can any shew that they have done Where are the actings of Faith the labour of Love the perfect Works of Patience Where are those Graces that are either begotten or increased Where are the Corruptions that you have mortify'd These are Works that require Ages to perform them in and yet you neglect them that have but a few Days nay possibly but a few Minutes to do them in But what is God severe Is God unjust to require so
it and yet will you take pains for it yet will you grasp and ketch at it Who would doubt when we see Men so busy about Impertinencies and the trivial Concernments of this vain World who would doubt but that they were far more anxious and careful about the Things of Heaven and the Concernments of their Souls Who would not conclude but that they who are so diligent about petty Trifles had certainly made sure that their great Work was done But alas would it not astonish Men and Angels if we should tell them how foolish Sinners are Would it be believed that rational Creatures that have immortal Souls that must be for ever saved or damn'd should spend all their Time and Strength about nothing never taking any Care or Thought what will become of them for ever Would such Folly be believ'd to be in Men And yet this Madness are most Men guilty of We may all of us be ashamed to lift up our Heads to God when we confess the World to be so vain and slight a Thing that if we should get all of it nay should we get ten thousand of them yet were they not all worth one Soul that yet we should be so foolish to strive to get a vain World to the Neglect yea to the Contempt of our precious Souls It is such Folly as Men would scarce suspect that any Persons should be guilty of it if it were not seen daily in the Practices of almost all Men. 1. To work for Salvation makes Men honourable Seventhly Consider this Are you ambitious Do you affect true Honour and Dignity Yes I know this is the great Idol of the World that which every one falls down to and worships Well then Sinners here is a way to prefer you all To work for Salvation is the most honourable Imployment in the World an Honour that will pose and nonplus the most towring and raised Ambition when once it is spiritualized Alas what poor and contemptible Things are the Grandees and great Ones of the World though they take great State and Pomp upon them and will scarce own their Inferiours for their Fellow-Creatures nay will scarce own God himself for their Superiour are yet but like painted Flies that play and buz a while in the Sun-shine and then moulder away and come to nothing All worldly Honour and Pomp is but imaginary but would you have that which is solid and substantial Christ tells you how it is to be attained If any Man serve me John 12.26 him will my Father honour Whatever Honour we have we hold it by Service our Work is not only Duty but Preferment also If any Man serve me he shall be honoured Would you be inrolled for Right Honourable in Heavens Treasury Would you be Peers of that Kingdom with Saints and glorified Angels Then honour God And how shall you honour him but by obeying him And he who thus honours God God will honour him This is the only real Honour all other is but airy fictitious Titles like Cyphers which as they are placed stand for Hundreds and Thousands but are all of the same Value when hudled together So truly the great Ones of the World if not made honourable by Obedience to God have but imaginary Excellency and when Death once shuffles and huddles them together Nobles with Ignobles will the Dust and Ashes of the one stand at a Distance and make Obeysance to the other No all Honour here signifies no more than a King upon a Stage But here is a way to attain true Honour here is the way to it by becoming Servants Wherein the Honour of working for Salvation consists not to Command but to Obey not to be imperious over others but to work your selves this is true Honour Now I shall in three Things demonstrate the Honour of working for Salvation that if Men be not very lowly spirited they may be excited unto this honourable Work 1. It is a spiritual and pure Work First It is pure spiritual refined Work In Services among Men the less of Filth and Drudgery there is in them the more creditable they are accounted It is an Honour to be imploy'd in higher and more cleanly Work when others are busied about baser Imployments Now Christians your Work is the highest and most noble Service imaginable you are not at all to set your Hands to any foul Office you have nothing to do with that Mire and Sink in which wicked Men are raking yea and it is their Work to do it no but your Work is all spiritual consisting of the same pure Imployment that the Angels in Heaven spend their Eternity about Holy Thoughts divine Affections heavenly Meditations spiritual Duties in these lies your Work which because of its Purity is therefore very honourable Secondly 2. It is the Service of an honourable Master Your Work is honourable because it is the Service of a most honourable Master We account it a great Credit to tend immediately upon the Person of some Prince or Potentate but what is this to their Honour who are called always to attend upon the Person of God himself who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords to be continual Waiters about his Throne God hath but two Thrones his Throne of Glory in the highest Heavens about which Angels and glorified Saints are the Attendants and his Throne of Grace to which you are called Angels and Saints are but your Fellow-Attendants and if they see his Glory in the highest Exaltation you are admitted to see it in the next degree yea and herein is your Honour so great that you are capable but of one Preferment more and that is of being removed from one Throne to the other from attending upon the Throne of Grace to attend upon the Throne of Glory so great is your Honour 3. The Service of God makes us his Friends Thirdly Your Work is such as makes you not so much Servants as Friends unto God It is an Honour to be Servant unto a King but much more of a Servant to become a Favourite Why thus it is in the service of God you are not only Servants but Friends and Favourites You are my Friends if you do whatsoever I command you A strange Speech one would think the doing of what is commanded is the Office of a Servant rather than of a Friend No says Christ Henceforth I call you not Servants but Friends you are my Friends if you do whatsoever I command you And certainly no Title so truly glorious as that which God put upon Abraham To be the Friend of God Well then let wicked Men go on scoffing and mocking at Obedience in the People of God let them look on them as poor and low spirited Persons yet can there be no Honour like unto theirs to be Attendants upon yea the Friends of the great God of Heaven and there can be no Discredit so base as theirs who are Slaves to the Devil who is Gods
Slave to be a Slave unto the Devil whom the People of God have in part subdued and overcome and over whom they shall shortly at once perfectly triumph And now having thus by several Arguments prest this great Duty of working out of our own Salvation I should now proceed to some other Things that are necessary to be spoken unto from this Doctrin But because this is a Duty of so vast Importance and of so universal Concernment unto all and the Slothfulness and Backwardness of many so great and if persisted in will be so ruinous and destructive I shall further urge the practice of this Duty upon the Consciences of Sinners by these following Considerations 1. Working for Salvation is delightful Work First This working for Salvation is the most delightful Work and Imployment that a Christian can be engaged in What is it that makes the whole World so busy in the Service of Sin and Satan but only Pleasure which they either find or imagine The Devil baits all his Temptations with this enticing Witchcraft which the World calls Pleasure and this is that makes them so successful But hath the Devil ingrossed all Pleasure unto his Service Can the Ways of God promise no Delight Are they only ruff and rugged Ways David certainly thought otherwise when speaking of the Commandments of God Psalm 19.10 he tell us They were sweeter than the Hony and the Hony-comb He could squeeze Hony out of them it is an Expression that sets forth the exceeding Pleasantness and Delight that is to be found in the ways of Obedience And truly the whole Book of Psalms is abundantly copious in setting forth that Delight that is to be found in the ways of God Ask therefore the Children of God who are the only sufficient Judges in this Matter and they will tell you with one Consent that they know no Delight on Earth comparable to that Delight that is to be found in Obedience Indeed if you are only taken with a soft luxurious washy Pleasure this is not to be found in the ways of Holiness but if a severe Delight can affect you a Delight that shall not effeminate but innoble you if you desire a masculine rational vigorous Pleasure and Delight you need not seek any further for it than in the ways of Obedience Now there are two Things that make this working for Salvation to be so pleasant Two Things make working for Salvation pleasant the suitableness of this Work to the Agent or Worker and the visible Success and Progress of the Work it self And both these make the working out of Salvation exceeding pleasant and delightful to the People of God First 1. Suitableness of the Work to the Agent It is a Work suited to their Natures and that makes it pleasant As Jesus Christ had in a phisical Sense so every true Christian hath in a moral Sense two Natures in one Person There is the divine Nature or the Nature of God and there is the humane corrupt Nature the Nature of sinful Man and each of these have Inclinations suited unto them there is the carnal part and that is too apt to be seduced and drawn away with the Pleasures of Sin that are Objects proportioned to the carnal part But then there is also a divine and if I may so call it a supernatural Nature imprinted by Regeneration that only doth relish heavenly and spiritual Things So that it is not more natural to a godly Man by reason of the Propensions of the old Nature to sin against God than it is natural to him by reason of the Propensions of the new Nature to obey and serve God Now when Nature acts suitably to its own sway and pondus this must needs cause two Things First Facility and Easiness Secondly Delight and Complacency Streams flow from the Fountain with ease because they take but their natural Course So the Works of Obedience flow easily from that Fountain Principle of Grace that is broken up in the Hearts of the Children of God because they flow naturally from them and therefore because Nature makes things easie that easiness will make them pleasant and delightful It is true indeed when they work there is an opposition and reluctancy from their other contrary Nature for as they act suitably to the one so they act quite contrary to the other Nature But doth not the gracious and new Nature as strongly wrestle against and oppose the Workings and Eruptions of the old Nature as the old doth the Workings of the new Yes it doth and therefore you that are truly Regenerate never sin because of the easiness of it because of its suitableness because else you must offer violence to your Nature if you resist a Temptation Do you not offer violence to your Nature if you close with that Temptation You are not all of one piece if I may so speak if you are Regenerate And what must the corrupt part only be indulged and gratified and must the renewed part be always opposed Why should not Grace since it is as much nay more your self than Sin is why should not that have the same scope and liberty to act freely as Sin doth Truly these Things are Riddles to wicked Men and they are unfit Judges in this Case they wonder what we mean when we speak of Easiness and Delight in ways of Obedience which they never found to be otherwise than the most burthensome Thing in the World And truly it is no wonder for they have no Principle suited to these Things they are made up only of the old Nature that is as contrary and repugnant to them as Darkness is to Light But if once God renew and sanctifie them then they will confess as we do that the Works of God have more easiness in them than the generality of the World do imagine and therefore St. Paul tells That he delighted in the Law of God after the inward Man Rom. 7.22 But why after the inward Man But because though his corrupt part was contrary thereunto yet his renewed part which he calls his inward Man was suited to the Duties of the Law of God and carried him out as naturally to Obedience as the Spark flies upward And hence it is that the Children of God delight in the ways of Obedience because they suit with their new Nature that is implanted in them Secondly 2. Progress in working for Salvation makes it pleasant Another Thing that makes working for Salvation so delightful is That visible Success that the Children of God gain and that visible progress that they make in this Work Nothing doth usually cause greater Delight in Work than to see some riddance in it and that we are like at length to bring it to some issue So truly this is that which mightily delights the Children of God to see that their Work goes forward that their Graces thrive that their Corruptions pine and consume away that they are much nearer Salvation
shall in Heaven become the Measure of our Reward and Happiness but in the very keeping of them while we are observing and obeying there is so great a Reward that we should have no cause to complain should God bestow no more upon us than to suffer us to obey his Law For 1. By working for Salvation we enjoy Communion with God First Herein we uphold Communion with God and Christ through the holy Spirit What is Communion but only a mutual Intercourse of Grace and Duty when Grace received reflects back again in the returns of Duty Then is Communion maintained between God and the Soul when we return Duty for Grace Now is this nothing to enjoy Fellowship and Communion with the great God of Heaven and Earth to be admitted to him to walk and converse familiarly with him and to enjoy him to see him who is invisible to lean upon him who is Almighty to enjoy him who is infinite Is all this nothing Will not the Souls of those who have by Experience tasted the sweetness of these Things cry out They are so excellent and transcendent that there is but one Thing more desirable and that is immediate Enjoyment What is Heaven it self but Communion with God at a nearer Hand Here it is by Faith there by Vision here by Ordinances there by immediate Influences here it is by Duty there by Union And therefore if the Consideration of a future Heaven be not cogent and prevailing with you behold here is a Heaven at present here is Happiness for your Work as well as for your Reward It was nobly spoken of Galleacius Carriciolus Cursed says he be that Man who preferreth the whole World before one hours Communion with Jesus Christ And certainly they who have once tasted the sweetness of this Communion will subscribe to that Anathema Secondly 2. Peace of Conscience an effect of working for Salvation There is usually great Peace and Tranquility of Conscience attends and accompanies this working for Salvation that fills the Soul with as great a Calm as the World had the first Morning of its Creation when there was no Wind or Tempest to discompose it Never is the Soul more at rest than when it is most at work I dare appeal to the Experience of the People of God in this Case Doth not your most solemn Feasts come in by your Obedience Doth ever Conscience look so friendly and pleasantly upon you as when it finds you active in the Ways of God It then wears not a Wrinckle or Frown upon its Face as Sin ruffles it so Duty smooths it out again and this causeth such Peace and Quietness in the inward Man as yields more satisfaction than all the noise and ruffling Gallantry and Jollity in the World can This is our rejoycing the Testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity and godly Sincerity we have had our Conversation in the World So that if Men care not for the Enjoyment of God yet if they love the Enjoyment of themselves if they would avoid Discords and Civil Wars in their own Breasts this were enough to excite them to this pacifying Work that attones and reconciles Conscience unto themselves 3. In working for Salvation God gives in many Testimonies of his Favor Thirdly In this working for Salvation God gives in many evident Testimonies of his special favour and acceptation unto the Souls of his Servants Thou meetest him says the Prophet that rejoyceth and worketh Righteousness Thou meetest him how not to contend with him as with Jacob not to slay him as thou didst Balaam but to embrace him to reveal and manifest thy self unto him If you have any comfortable Evidences that God is yours in a strict Bond of an everlasting and unalterable Covenant and that you are accepted of him in the well-beloved Examine how you attained to this Evidence Was it not through Obedience and Working This is the way whereby God manifests himself unto the Souls of his and should your comfortable Persuasions not come in thus by Obedience and Working They are but Enthusiastical and groundless Presumptions and not true and divine Assurance The Apostle in Pet. 2. exhorts us To make our Calling and Election sure But how is that to be done Why it is by giving diligence What is it Men desire and wish for next to Heaven Is it not Assurance of it Would you not have the Terrors and Torments of Conscience apprehending and pre-occupating your own Condemnation eased and removed Would you not have the unquiet tossings and fluctuations of your Minds because of the uncertainty of your future State and Condition setled and confirmed Why then be persuaded to Work believe it this Evidence is never received in any other way than in a way of Duty God will not hold his Light of Assurance to them who will not work the Works of Obedience 4. Obedience accompanied with Joy Fourthly Those that are diligent in working for Salvation many times have high Spring-tides of Joy Joy that is unspeakable and glorious that rusheth in upon the Soul and ravisheth it with a sweet and potent Delight while it is in ways of Obedience Now this tho' it be not ordinary with every Christian yet God sometimes vouchsafes it especially to the most laborious working Christians as a Cordial to revive and quicken them that they should not faint and grow weary in their Work He gives them many times such prelibations of future Glory such bright Glimpses of himself passing before them that they scarce know wherein their state differs from the state of the Glorified unless it be that it is shorter in the duration lasting not so long as theirs Well then should you be asked as they were in the Parable Why stand you here idle all the day long You could not return the same Answer as they did because no Man hath hired us for God hath hired you and that at no less a rate than all these great and glorious Things that have been propounded to you do amount unto A glorious Heaven a blessed Work that is accompanied with Communion with God Peace of Conscience Assurance of divine Favour and Joy in the Holy Ghost and if all this will not persuade you certainly you set a mighty price upon your own Sloth only let me say this beware that these Souls of yours that you will not part with to God for Salvation beware you do not sell them to the Devil for nothing Thirdly 3. There is an eternal Rest after working Consider your Incouragements after your Work is done there is an eternal Rest that waits you I have already consider'd Heaven as a Reward for working let us now consider it as a Rest after working And so the Apostle tells us there remains a Rest for the People of God And in Rev. 14. Heb. 4.9 we read Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit for they rest from their Labours and their Works do
against it and made wide Breaches in it they have heretofore entred and taken possession and still the passage is as open for you and the Conquest as easie as for them and you may see them beckoning out of Heaven to you and hear them calling to you Fellow Soldiers bend your Force hither there is your Labour here is your Rest there are your Enemies here is your Crown and Victory believe it there are no more Dangers for you to pass through no more Difficulties for you to meet with than what we have passed through yea and passed with so much safety as not so much as one Soul of us miscarried not a Soul left dead on the place we strugled against the same Corruptions that you do and overcame them against the same Temptations and baffled them against the same Devils and routed them against the same Flatteries and Oppositions of a base World and despised them Believe it upon our Experience all these Things are but Scare-Crows set in the ways of Obedience on purpose to affright you but there is no danger at all in them unless you fear them this they tell you with one consent And therefore if Examples are any Incouragement as indeed they are almost the greatest if Imitation hath any force to Obedience as too often we find it hath great force to sin why should we not hereby quicken our selves Why do you not arise and press upon the Footsteps of them who have gone before you and shew'd you that the way is both certain and passable Are you called to exercise Self-denial Abraham looks down from Heaven upon you and tells you that he was ready to sacrifice his beloved Isaac Are you afraid of the Scoffs and Jears of a flearing World Why Noah builded an Ark Moses relinquish'd the Honours of Pharoah's Court and met with as many Persecutions and Afflictions and underwent as many Taunts and Flouts as you are like to do Are you called to lay down your Lives for the Testimony of Jesus and a good Conscience Why Stephen tells you a Storm of Stones fell upon him and brake open the Prison and set the Prisoner free his Soul escaped that broke out of the Cage and as a Bird took Wing and flew to Heaven Are you assaulted with Temptaons St. Paul looks down and tells you that he had much stronger Temptations than you have and yet he got safe to Heaven Yea our great Master and Pattern Jesus Christ wrought out all Obedience and what were the Motives that put him upon this mighty Undertaking It was not for his own Salvation and Happiness but it was for ours Nay the Scripture goes yet lower it was 1 Pet. 2.21 To lead us an Example that we should follow his Steps Now shall Christ do all this not for himself but for us and shall we sit still and do nothing for our selves Shall Christ take so much Pains to set us an Example and shall not we follow that Example We who have so great a Happiness to work for and so a great a Pattern to work by Shall we be slothful in procuring our own Good since Christ was so laborious and expensive not in procuring Good to himself but in procuring Good for others Methinks these Things should add some Spurs to our Endeavours and excite us to follow the Examples of those that are gone before us yea and to leave an Example unto them that are to come after us and though we do come after the Examples of others who are gone before us yet the consideration of their Examples who have gone through this Work may excite us not to come behind them in any good Work Secondly God holds out to us the Light of his Gospel-Truth and Ordinances whereby to help us in our Work What Christ saith of himself is applicable unto all John 9.4 We must work the Works of God while it is Day the Night cometh wherein no Man can work You are not shut up in Darkness you are not muffled up in the Clouds of Error and Ignorance or if you are it is not because you have not Light shining about you but because you shut it out when it is breaking in upon you It is not a double Labour that is put upon you first to find out your Duty and then to perform it no the Light shines about you and unless you will seal up your Eyes against it it is impossible but that it will sometime flash in upon you and discover both what you have mis-done and what you ought to do The Mahometans have a Tradition among them That Moses Law and Christs Gospel were written at first with Ink made of pure Light This Conceit of theirs though it be fond and ridiculous yet it carries a mystick Truth in it the Scripture is as plain for matter of Duty as if it had been written with a Sun-beam Ordinances are dispensed freely and powerfully so great a throng of Teachers and such variety of Gospel-Administrations that Men must take almost as much Pains to keep themselves ignorant of their Duty as would suffice to perform their Duty And wherefore think you is all this glorious Light given you Is it not that you might work by it Doth a Master light up a Torch or Candle only that his Servants might play about it And wherefore doth God light up the Sun of Truth in the Firmament of his Church Is it only that you should dally and trifle with it No it shines that you may work by it and truly work by it you do but alas how many do work the Works of Darkness by the glorious Light of Truth How many have Light enough to see that they are notoriously wicked and prophane Swearers Drunkards Despisers of Ordinances Revilers at Religion and the Professors of it Enemies to what is sober and sacred in Christianity This Light they have flashing in their Faces from the clear Evidence of the word of God and yet still they continue to work the Works of Darkness What shall I say to such as these are Truly I can say nothing worse to them than what their own Consciences already thunder against them for they are self-condemned Persons But truly this Complaint may too too justly be taken up against all that do not walk worthy of the Light vouchsafed to them their Sins are revealed clearly and Duties are revealed as clearly as the Scripture can possibly express them and yet they live in a gross neglect of them Well believe it this Light will not always shine to be gazed at only the Day is drawing to an end the Night is hastning upon us the darkness of the Night of Death and the darker Night of Judgment and oh that then it may not be any of our Condemnations That Light is come into the World but we loved Darkness and the Works of Darkness better than Light because our Deeds were evil Thirdly God hath to this end set apart his Ministers that they might be
inoffensively that neither the World nor his own Conscience may have much to accuse him of besides common Infirmities Mark the Reason of this because wicked Men commonly make choice of Sin this Sin they will live in and that Sin they will not live in The Drunkard is not Covetous and the Covetous Man is not a Drunkard and so I may say of other Sins Now it is from the Power of Nature that wicked Men refrain from the commission of any one Sin and not from the Power of Grace And therefore if one Sinner hath Power to keep from this Sin and another Sinner hath Power to keep from the commission of another and a third from a third Sin then every Sinner may by the Power of Nature keep from all those Sins that any of those Sinners do keep themselves from because there is the same Power in each Sinner to lay the same restraint upon this or that Sin that others keep from 4. Sinners may continue constantly in the performance of Duty Fourthly There is no Man how great a Sinner soever but if he will he may with constancy yea to the end and period of his Life continue thus in the performance of Duties and in the avoiding of Sins by the Power of Nature only For if it be possible that Men should do it at any time then it is possible for them to do it continually No more Power is required to inable them this Day than was required the Day past nor no more Power is required for the Day to come than was for this Day now present therefore having Strength to avoid them one time they might also avoid them another time yea and continually persevere in so doing if they would keep a daily constant Watch against them Fifthly 5. Through Perseverance Sinners may attain to habitualness and facility in Duty There is no Man but through this perseverance and continuance may attain to Habitualness and thereby to a facility and easiness in performance of Duties and in avoiding of Sins When Men are accustomed to a road and round of Duties it is a trouble to them to omit them So if Men did but set themselves to their utmost to perform Duties in a more hearty and cordial manner those Duties would become easy to them and if Men would but ingage themselves perseveringly to oppose their Corruptions this would bring them to that pass that it would be their Delight to keep from Sin and to perform Duty and all this the Power of Nature would bring them to Now Sinners you see what a large Tenor you have you are not staked down fast that you can do nothing no it is much yea very much that you may do in order to your Salvation But here some may possibly say We hope that these Words are not true for they would not be able to do so much as all this comes to because they are willing to do nothing at all But let such know that that which will condemn them at the last Day will be that they have not done what they might have done in performing of Duties and in opposing of Sins and therefore they wilfully fall short of Happiness and Salvation Object But may some say If we should put forth to our utmost the Power of Nature what would that avail us We cannot thereby work Grace in our selves and without Grace no Salvation is to be had Answ To this I Answer Consider you do not know but whilst you are thus doing what you can God may come in and by his Grace inable you to do what you cannot do God is not wont to be wanting in this particular unto any He is found of those that seek him not and much more will he be found of those that seek him and enquire after him though it be but by the weak Endeavours of Nature Object But may some say Hath God obliged himself to convert and save those that do to the utmost what Nature inables them to do in desiring Salvation and in seeking to obtain it Answ To this I Answer God hath not bound himself but usually he doth so God is neither bound to give Grace upon the Endeavours of Nature neither is he wont to deny it Can you say that ever you knew or heard of any careful conscientious industrious Soul that diligently and conscientiously exercised it self in performing of Duties and in avoiding of Sins that was not at last truly converted and eternally saved and why then should you doubt or think that you shall be the first Cast your self therefore upon God trusting to his rich and free Grace doing the utmost of your Endeavours However suppose the worst that thou art never converted nor saved which Supposition is very dreadful and terrible and if thou art careful and conscientious to improve thy Abilities to the utmost it is altogether improbable but suppose the worst First Thou livest here then more according to the Rule of Nature and Reason than others do for when others wallow in Sin thou shewest thy self to be more like a rational Man thou art sensible thou hast a Soul of more Worth than to be lost for want of Care and Diligence And then Secondly Thy Pains and Punishments hereafter shall be greatly mitigated Possibly thou mayest slight this because at best it is Damnation yea but consider there are several degrees of Torments in Hell Now thy Workings and Endeavours may free thee from many degrees of Torment and therefore they free thee from many Hells and is not this worth thy Labour Nay and not only so but it is very probable you may altogether escape those Torments if you be conscientious in doing your utmost Endeavours And now methinks every one that hath but Reason to judge and a Soul to save must needs see so much strength and force in the Arguments that have been propounded that the next Question should be John 6.26 What must we do to work the Works of God In every Trade and Profession there is some kind of Mystery that gives to them that have attained to it a quicker dispatch in their Business than other Men have And so is it in the Work and Profession of a Christian there is an Art and Mystery that he that is Master of shall make good dispatch in his great Work and possibly we may have some insight into it by these following Directions First Direct 1. If you would work out your own Salvation then digest and dispose your Work into a right Order and Method Immethodicalness breeds Confusion and makes that a Tumult and a heap of Business that would otherwise become a Trade in Christianity one attainment makes way for and opens into another and to attempt any thing in Christianity by Leaps and Jumps as it were is fruitless unprofitable and vain No wise Man will try to mount up the highest Round of a Ladder at the first step But yet many such preposterous Endeavours there are found among Men in
the working out of their Salvation In respect of Doctrinals St. Paul tells us some built Hay and Stubble upon a Foundation of Gold 1 Cor. 8. But in respect of Practicals it is frequent that many Men endeavour to build Gold upon a Foundation of Hay and Stubble These Mens Buildings will soon totter fall and come to nothing but Ruin Shame and Disappointment Now the right disposing of your great Work lies thus First You are to work from Nature for Grace and then from Grace unto the holy and spiritual performance of Duty by which Grace is much confirmed and strengthned and so continuing in Duty to arrive at Assurance and from this the next step is Salvation From Nature to Grace and from Grace to Duty See this Method laid down by the Apostle Let us Heb. 12.28 says he have Grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with Reverence and godly fear This is the Ladder of Heaven whose bottom Step is below Grace in Nature and whose utmost Step is above it in absolute Perfection and Glory First there must be Grace before any Duty can be performed acceptably unto God But now most Men pervert and disturb this Method and the ordinary way of Disturbance is this they are frequent in Duties but they perform them not either for Grace or from Grace neither that they may attain Grace by them nor that they may exercise Grace in them And yet notwithstanding these Men think and hope to work out Salvation by such Duties as these are making a Leap from Duties to Salvation neglecting to obtain that Grace that can make their Duties acceptable and saving and hence it is that they make no quicker dispatch and riddance in their great Work Now such Attempts as these are First Discouraging and disheartning And Secondly They are vain and fruitless First They are very discouraging Duties never flow freely from the Soul where Grace is not like a continual Fountain to supply it Job speaking of the Hypocrite Job 27.10 asks this Question Will he delight himself in God will he always call upon him No he will not It is not possible that he should do so tho' for a time he may drive at a high rate praying both with Fervency and Affection yet will he soon decay and faint because he hath no Life of Grace to carry him through Duties but he finds them to flow stubbornly from him and therefore through Weariness and Discontent at last he gives them over The good Works of graceless Persons may be as flourishing as if indeed they were true Saints but they have not a Root to supply them the Root of the Matter as Job speaks is not in them and therefore they are soon nipt and fade away It is simply impossible that a Person without the Life and Power of Grace should persevere in a cordial affectionate performance of good Works Interest Credit Respect and natural Conscience are too weak Wheels for so great a Burthen it is Grace only that can over-ballance all outward Discouragements yea and which is more that alone can remove all inward also This can make Obedience sweet to a Child of God which to a wicked Man must needs be irksome and that because he hath no relish in them Mat. 16.23 St. Matth. 16.23 Thou savourest not the things that are of God this may be much more said of graceless Persons because they have not Salt in them Col. 4.6 for so Grace is called that should make holy and heavenly Things to be favoury to them What a Torment is it to be still chewing an unsavory Prayer and an unsavory Meditation to hear and speak those Words that their Ears cannot relish Must I always says the Sinner offer this force to my self Must I still strain and pump for Tears and Sighs Were Holiness as easie to me as it is to some no Life would I chuse sooner than that but I am straitned and pinched up and all good Things come out of me like the evil Spirit which rends and tares me and is a torture and anguish to my Heart and Bowels And it is so because in the performance of them there is a neglect of that Grace that should make Duties become easy and therefore such a one will shortly give over Duties themselves which he finds to be so troublesome yea and also give over all hopes of attaining any good at all by them Secondly Such Works are also as to the obtaining of the last and main End vain and fruitless and that upon two Accounts First Because the acting of Grace is the Life and Spirit of all our Works without which they are all but Carkasses and dead Things and only equivocally called good Works even as the Picture of a Man may be called a Man We are says the Apostle his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good Works As after the first Creation God took a survey of all the Works of his Hands and pronounced them all very good so there is no Work of ours that God will pronounce to be a good Work but what is the effect of his creating Power that is the product of his second Creation Eph. 2.10 Created says the Apostle to good Works Good Works are no otherwise necessary to Salvation but as they are the exercises of Grace by which we express the life and likeness of God so only are they necessary unto Salvation How should Grace be seen and known but by Works First God imprinted his own Image upon our Souls in Regeneration and stamps us Feature for Feature Grace for Grace and Glory for Glory But now because this is hid and concealed therefore are we to copy forth this Image in a holy Conversation and to express every Grace in some Duty or Work of Obedience or other As those that we call falling Stars dart from Heaven and draw after them long Trains of Light so God would have us to shoot up to Heaven but yet to leave a Train of Light behind us our Graces must shine always we must go on in good Works and these good Works are of no value or account with God of which Grace is not the End or Principle What says the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.3 Though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing Can a Man bestow all his Goods upon the Poor and not be charitable Indeed the Word that we translate Charity might for the avoiding of some Mistakes better have been translated Love but however we must take Charity for a disposition to relieve the Wants and Necessities of others with respect of Love to God and his Image if this good Work be not from Grace through a Principle of Love to God and Obedience to his Command it is but the empty Shell and Husk of a good Work and it avails a Man nothing Yea further if after this I give my Body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing If
my Soul burn not as clear and bright in Love as my Body in the Flames it availeth me nothing I burn only what was dead before and offer a Carkass instead of a Sacrifice There is no Work or Duty how specious soever that is of any profit to the Soul if that Work or Duty hath not the Life and Power of some Grace or other expressed in it Well then this is the first Ground why Works without Grace are fruitless because they are empty and liveless Grace is the Life and Spirit of good Works Secondly All Works and Duties whatever without Grace leave the Heart in the same estate of Sin and therefore the Person in the same estate of Wrath and Condemnation as before For First All of them are not a sufficient expiation for the guilt of any one Sin Should such Men pray and sigh till their Breath were turned into a Cloud and covered the Face of the whole Sky Should they weep till they drown'd themselves in their own Tears yet if all this could be supposed to be only the remorse of Nature and not true and godly Sorrow they would still be under the same state of Condemnation as the most feared Sinner in the World The Prophet Micah tells of some that bid very high for Pardon and Forgiveness as if they were resolved to carry it at any rate whatever Wherewith say they Micah 6.6 7. shall we come before the Lord and bow our selves before the most-high God Shall we come before him with burnt Offerings and with Calves of a Year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams and with ten thousands of Rivers of Oil Shall we give our First-born for our Transgressions the Fruit of our Bodies for the Sin of our Souls What high Rates are here bidden and yet all this falls short There is but one Grace and that is Faith that can give us a Right and Title to that Righteousness that shall be a sufficient Expiation and Attonement for all our Sins Secondly All Attainments and Attempts all Endeavours and Duties without Grace can never mortifie and subdue the Power and Dominion of any one Lust or Corruption Men may divert and chain and restrain their Corruptions and impale in their Lusts so that they shall not break forth into any outragious Wickedness but yet without Grace they can never subdue them because it is Grace alone that can lay the Ax to the Root of this evil Tree Well then notwithstanding all that hath been said concerning the Power of Nature what Men may do thereby and how far they may go yet here you see what Impotency there is in Nature without Grace and what it cannot reach to perform But now this is not spoken that hereby any should be discouraged from Working and because some doubt of the Truth of their Graces that therefore they should desist from a course of Holiness and Obedience this were plainly to thwart the whole design of this Subject No all that hath been said is to persuade Men not to rest satisfied in any Work of Obedience or Religion in which some Grace is not breathed or exercised nor to look upon them at all as inductive to Salvation as in themselves but as in reference to true Grace How many poor Souls are there who because they run on in a round of Duties because they do something that they call good Works think that Salvation is as sure their own as if all the Promises in the Scripture were sealed and delivered to them by God himself And yet poor Creatures never examine or regard from what Principle this their Obedience flows whether from a Principle of Grace or from the old corrupt Principle of Nature new-vampt from some new Operations of the common Spirit Believe it this is not that Obedience that God requires nor that he will accept an inward Groan if breathed by Grace is of more account with God and will be more available to the Soul than the most pompous and specious Services of unregenerate Men. What is it to God when you offer not only the Blind and the Lame but the Dead also Is it not rather an Abomination than Obedience The Apostle tells us Without Works Jam. 3.20 Faith is dead And it is as true on the other side also that Works without Faith and other Graces of the Spirit are not only dead but rotten and noisome Every Duty Men perform in a graceless State and Condition God must needs loath it and them for it The Prayer of the Wicked is an Abomination unto the Lord. Prov. 28.9 It is as hateful unto God as Vapors that ascend up out of Tombs from putrified Bodies are unto us What then must such Persons give up themselves to Sin therefore God forbid No rather let such think thus if our Duties and our Righteousness be so loathsome what are our Sins and Iniquities Though every Sinner be dead in Sins and Trespasses yet is it less offensive to have a dead Carkass embalmed than to have it lie open Still therefore continue working but in your working First aim at the obtaining of Grace before you aim at the obtaining of Heaven and Salvation let it at no time content you that such and such Duties you have performed but look what Grace have you acted in them what is there of God breathing in this Prayer that I now put up How am I in Hearing in Meditation in Discoursing of the Things of God Is my Heart holy and spiritual Are my Affections pure and fervent Are my Graces active and vigorous And are they vigorous in this Work of Obedience Else to perform Duties and to neglect Grace that alone can inable us to perform Duties acceptably is only to go to Hell a little more cleanly Secondly Direct 2. If you would work out your own Salvation as you must look to the actings of Grace as well as to the performance of Duties so you must labour to grow and increase in those Graces that are most active and working and they are Two the Grace of Faith and the Grace of Love To grow strong in these Graces is the most compendious way for a Christian to dispatch his great Work I may call them the two Hands of a Christian and he that is most active in these works out his Salvation with both Hands earnestly First The actings of Faith is of mighty advantage to the working out of our Salvation Two Senses there are in which Salvation may be said to be wrought out First In Title And Secondly In actual Possession and Enjoyment Now Faith is a working out of the one and a compendious furtherance towards the working out of the other First Upon our believing Salvation is already wrought out for us in Right and Title He that believeth shall be saved here is the Title The great Work is then done and finished when once Faith is wrought And therefore when the Jews came to enquire of our Saviour John
Self-love truly regular when Men love their own Souls as God loves them Now Gods love to the Souls of Men is such that though He wills all Men to be saved yet he wills that none shall be saved but through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth And whilst we love our selves if we observe the same method and order this Self-love is always commendable and necessary Desires after eternal Happiness and Salvation are natural to that Soul that is truly conscious of its own Immortality and eternal unalterable State and Condition and when these Desires are directed to future Happiness through present Holiness then are they regular and become gracious We are not so straitly limited by Gods Sovereignty over us but while we fix one Eye upon our Work we may fix the other on our Reward God is not so strict in his Prerogative over us as to require Service from us from what we have already received from him He is not as a cruel Lord and Master to say Obey me though afterwards you perish see to it that you love and glorifie me though I eternally punish you though considering that infinite distance we stand at from God we could object nothing against the Equity of his Proceedings No but God hath so graciously twisted his Glory and our Duty together that while we promote the one we do also promote the other and while we work for God we do but work for our selves Now are there any that need to be persuaded to love themselves Is it not the great and general Sin that all Men love and seek themselves And do not Men by becoming Self-lovers become Self-destroyers Yes they do so but it is because they seek themselves out of Gods way that therefore they lose themselves for ever Religion and Holiness are not such severe things as to exclude Self-love nay right Self-love is that which is no where to be found separate from true Grace Ministers call upon Men to exercise Self-denial and Self-abhorrence and this the foolish World mistakes as if so be they exhorted them to divorce themselves from themselves to lay aside all respect and consideration of Self and to offer violence to the most common Principles of Self-preservation No would to God we all sought our selves more earnestly and constantly than we do and that we all knew wherein our greatest Interest and Concernment did lie then should we not leave our great Work undone nor gratifie the Sloth of our corrupt Humors and the sinful propensions of our carnal part nor should we think what we do for Sin and Satan we do for our selves no all this is to hate our selves And wicked Men at the last Day shall know they have been their own most bitter and most implacable Enemies that they would not be content with any thing less than their own eternal Ruin A true Christian is the only selfish Man in the World all others they are not Self-lovers but Self-destroyers What shall I say more than this The Apostle asks Did ever any Man hate his own Flesh Did ever any Man delight to gash and burn to wrack and torture himself Truly I may ask the quite contrary Do almost any love their own Spirits their spiritual part their Souls This they wound and gash by many a bloody Sin this they burn and fear by hardness and impenitency this they go about to torture and torment in Hell for ever Oh therefore be persuaded at length to take pity on your selves considering you are but destroying while you think you are embracing of your selves and that will be found but Self-murder at last which you now call Self-love Thirdly A complacential Love to 3. Love to our Work makes it easie and Delight in your Work is a great furtherance of it A wicked Man serves God grudgingly he murmurs at Duties and looks upon them only as Tasks and Burthens thinking every thing he doth for God too much too heavy and weighty The Commands of God are all of them hard Sayings and grievous Impositions that he cannot bear he could believe Christ sooner in any thing than when he tells him Mat. 11.28 My Yoke is easy and my Burthen is light Here he cannot believe Christ Thus much time saith the slothful Sinner must I spend in Prayer and there must I humble my self to God whom I hate and confess before him those Sins that I love and beg that Grace that I have slighted so much time must I spend in reading the Law that I never mean to observe perusing over only the Sentence of my Condemnation and so often must I fix and dwell upon holy and spiritual Thoughts which never at any time darted into or passed intransiently but they did discompose me and leave me a damp and sadness upon my Spirit behind them and therefore because there is not a holy complacency and delight in the Service of God all such Mens Endeavours are both faint inconstant and languish while they are about them and seldom do they re-assume them again But a true Christian works with abundance of Delight and Chearfulness in the Service of God in every Duty his Soul is filled full of holy Affections by which it soars up to Heaven Duties are Meat and Drink to him spiritual Manna in which he takes more satisfaction and contentment than wicked Men do in their Sins and therefore he performs these Duties so earnestly because he doth it with complacency All that he repines at is that natural Necessity sinful Weakness and Infirmities and worldly Employments that do purloin so much of his time from this great Work Now when once the Heart is brought to such a frame and temper as this thus to delight in Obedience and in the Work and Service of God then will this working for Salvation go on with Power Thirdly 3. Working for Salvation must be with Fear and Trembling Another Direction is that in the Text Work for Salvation with Fear and Trembling A trembling Hand best performs a Christians Work Now this Fear is not a Fear of distrust or dispondency for that is so contrary to this Duty of working for Salvation as that it stupifies and benums all Endeavours and is a great Enemy to the performance of this Duty But First It is a Fear of Solicitude and Carefulness as it stands opposed to carnal security and that presumption that is the common and ordinary Destruction of most Men. This holy Fear is the best preservative of true Grace The Apostle therefore tells us Thou standest by Faith Rom. 11.20 be not high-minded but fear implying they would not stand long though they stood by Faith unless they were upheld with godly Fear And the Reason is because it is the property of Fear to foresee and forecast Dangers and to put the Soul in a posture of defence and security before they approach For as the wise Man tells us The prudent Man foreseeth the Evil and hideth himself Prov. 20.3
but the Simple pass on and are punished They are rash and confident in their Undertakings and so they pass on and are punished Fear makes a Christian circumspect and considerative with himself how he may keep from Miscarriages in the performance of his great Work If God call me to such a Duty how shall I perform it If to bear such a Cross and Affliction how shall I glorifie him under it If to conflict with such Temptations how shall I resist and overcome them Yea how shall I do to break through all Difficulties Duties and Oppositions that I who am but a weak and feeble Christian may meet withal and how shall I do to bear up And thus pondring what may be his Duty and forecasting what Duties God may call him unto he is inabled to do what is his Duty at present and what also may by Providence hereafter become his Duty Nothing overtakes such a Man unexpected nor doth any thing surprize him unprovided for it And thus a careful Fear enables him in the performance of his great Work Secondly A Fear of Humility and holy Reverence of God induceth much to the working out of our Salvation and that in three Particulars First It much helps us in our great Work to fear God as our Lord and Master that sees and overlooks all our Works observing both what we do and how we do it also That Servant must be desperately bold that will dare to be idle or slight and perfunctory in his Work while his Masters Eye is upon him Why Christians should consider Gods Eye is always upon them in Praying in Hearing and in every Duty that they perform yea in every Action of their whole Lives And if the Eye of a Master that is but a Fellow Creature nay but a Fellow Servant can have such awe and influence upon his Servant as to make him careful how he works and what he works and to make him diligent in his Work Should not much more the consideration of Gods Eye being upon us who stands at an infinitee distance from us cause a holy Fear and Diligence in us in doing what our Lord and Master commands us Secondly Fear God also as him from whom you have all your Power and Ability to work Fear him lest at any time through any neglect or miscarriage of yours he should be provoked to suspend his Influence and withdraw his Grace from you and to leave you to your own Weakness and Impotency upon whose influence all your Obedience doth depend This is the Apostles Argument in the Text Work with Fear for God works in you both to Will and to Do. Holy diligence in Obedience cannot be more strongly enforced on an ingenious Spirit than by considering all that Strength and Ability that we have to work is received from God and therefore should be improved for God lest for our Sloth he deprives us of that we make no use of Thirdly In working fear God also as he that will be the Judge and Rewarder of your Works for ever You perform them unto him who is to pass Sentence upon them and upon you for them and will you then dare to do them slothfully and negligently God will try every Mans Work with Fire and will call every Action to a severe and strict account every Mans Work shall be seen through and through and then it shall be known who hath wrought the Works of God and who hath fulfilled the Will of Satan and the final Doom and irreversible Sentence shall then be pronounced according to Mens Works God will Rom. 2.7 8 9. says the Apostle render unto every Man according to his Works to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Immortality to them he will render Eternal Life but to them that are contentious and obey not the Truth but obey Vnrighteousness he will render unto them Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul that doth Evil. Now would you but thus fear God as an upright and impartial Judge that will render unto every one according to his Works How would this prevail with you so to work that at last you might be found of God in well doing and receive the blessed Reward and Sentence of the diligent and faithful Servant To enter into your Master's joy Fourthly and Lastly If you would work for Salvation successfully then work speedily without delay and constantly without cessation First Work speedily without delay Delays in all Affairs are dangerous but in Soul Affairs usually they are damnable For First The longer you procrastinate and delay the greater and more difficult will your Work be at last Corruption will be grown more tuff ill Humours will be grown more stubborn your Heart will be more hardned your Affections being more habituated will be more firmly engag'd to Sin the Devil will plead right to you by Prescription and it is hard keeping an Enemy out that hath had long Possession Secondly Consider what a desperate Folly it is to put off your Work till to Morrow you are not sure that you shall live to see another Day And oh what Hazards do those Men run whose hopes of Heaven depend upon no better a bottom than their hopes of Life and whose eternal Salvation is subject to as many Casualties and Accidents as their present Beings in this World are subject to Mans Breath is in his Nostrils and yet how do Men suffer their Souls and their everlasting Happiness to depend upon nothing surer than their Breath that Breath that every moment goes forth from them and they know not whether ever it shall return to them again But suppose your Life and Days should continue and you should reach unto that time whereof you have boasted and promised to mind the concernments of your Souls eternal Happiness in yet consider Thirdly The Grace of God is not at your disposal for then either First The outward Call may cease or it may grow more faint and low you may not be so daily importun'd and solicited for Heaven as now you are Ordinances and Opportunities may cease or you for your contempt may be given over to a contempt and neglect of them Secondly The inward Dictates of your own Consciences and the motions of the holy Spirit may cease Conscience may be brib'd to a silence and the holy Ghost may be commissionated to depart after this present opportunity and never more may you have its Breathings and Movings upon your Hearts if you do not now listen to them Thirdly If inward Motions do continue are you sure after this moments refusal that you shall obtain that Grace from God that may make you willing to close with those Motions Leave not therefore the eternal Salvation of your precious and immortal Souls at such Hazards and Delays Now is the acceptable time now is the day of Salvation to day therefore if you will hear his voice even while it is called to day harden not your Hearts for this
us of all those Mercies and Comforts that now he heaps upon us So much for this Time and Text. A DISCOURSE OF THE NATURE Corruption and Renewing OF THE CONSCIENCE WITH Accounts of the Moment of having a Conscience void of Offence to God and Men. FROM ACTS xxiv 16. By EZEKIEL HOPKINS Late Lord Bishop of London-derry LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson A. and J. Churchill John Taylor and John Wyat. 1696. A DISCOURSE OF THE NATURE Corruption and Renewing OF THE CONSCIENCE ACTS xxiv 16. Herein do I exercise my self to have always a Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards Man IN this Chapter St. Paul gives an account to Felix of the general Course and Demeanor of his former Life being accused by Tertullian a flattering Orator as one who was Prophane and Seditious After that he had purged himself in sundry Particulars he comes to the Text to shew that he was far from those Crimes that were laid to his Charge having made it his constant Exercise all his Life-time to keep a good Conscience The Words have little or no Difficulty in them and therefore instead of giving you an elaborate Exposition I shall only run them over with a brief Paraphrase The Explication of the Words Herein do I exercise my self that is I make it my constant Care and Imployment to have a Conscience void of Offence that is to keep my Conscience clear that it may not justly accuse me of any Offence done either against God or against Men that is I labour conscientiously to practise as well the Duties of the second as the Duties of the first Table to be Just towards Men as well as to be Religious towards God knowing that the one without the other to be without Offence towards Men only is but meer Morality and to be without Offence only towards God is but vain Hypocrisie Without farther Explication the Words do of their own accord deliver to us this Doctrin Doctrin That it should be our continual Care and Employment in all Things whether relating to God or Man to keep clear and inoffensive Consciences Conscience is nothing but a practical Syllogism or Argumentation What Conscience is and always infers a personal Conclusion either excusing or accusing and it hath three Offices First The Offices of Conscience It discovers to us what is Sin and what is Duty and the Reward that is entailed upon both 1. It informs what is Sin and what is Duty and thus it gives in its Verdict according to that Light that shines into it If it hath only the twilight of Nature to illustrate it as the Heathens had no other then it can pass Judgment only upon natural Duties and unnatural Sins Thus the Consciences of Heathens through some remainders of original Knowledge informed them that Worship was due to God and Justice to Men and that all Impieties against God and all Injuries against Men should in the end be severely punished But if Conscience enjoys the superadded Light of Scripture it judges then of those Duties and those Sins that could only be known by Divine Revelation Hence it is that Conscience is enabled to form such a Proposition as this He that believes shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned This Proposition it forms not from natural Light but from the super-induced Light of Scripture This is the first direct Act of Conscience whereby it pronounceth of Men's Works whither they be sinful or not and what the Reward or Punishment is that shall follow them according as it finds it written in the dark and imperfect Law of Nature or in the superadded Law of God 2. It witnesseth and deposeth Secondly When Conscience hath thus pronounced whether the Action be good or bad and what Reward or Punishment belong to it it 's next Office is to witness and depose we have done such or such Actions this is a reflex Act whereby when Conscience hath discovered what is Sin and what is Duty it testifies that either we have performed the one or that we have committed the other The Scripture reveals that Faith shall be rewarded with eternal Life and Unbelief punished with Death eternal hereupon Conscience makes reflection upon it self and applies the Proposition but I believe or I do not believe and that is its witnessing or deposing Office Thirdly It hath besides this 3. It acquits or condemns the Office of a Judge to acquit or condemn and this it doth by inferring a comfortable or a terrifying Conclusion from the former Premises applying the Reward or Punishment to our selves according as those Actions have been ours to which they belong If it hath proved us Unbelievers strait it pronounceth us condemned Persons or if it evidences our Faith to us presently it justifies and acquits us Hence it is that wicked Men are haunted with pale Fears and ghastly Reflections because they are always Malefactors arraigned at a Bar a Bar that they carry about with them in their own Breasts where they hear a thousand Witnesses sworn and examined where they hear their Judge ten thousand times a Day pronouncing them Cursed and Damned And hence it is also that there is sometimes diffused into the Hearts of God's Children such sweet Joy such solid Peace such calm Stayedness and some Prelibations of heavenly Bliss because they carry in their Breasts a Court of Judicature where their earthly Judge Conscience acquits them and assures them that their heavenly Judge will do so also This is Conscience that faithful Register in every Man's Bosom that writes down the Actions Discourses and Cogitations of every Hour and Minute Now this being premised concerning the Nature and Offices of Conscience I shall come in the next place to enquire into these following Particulars into which I shall digest the method of this Subject First What it is that doth corrupt and vitiate Conscience Secondly What it is to have a clear Conscience Thirdly Of what Importance and Consequence it is that our Consciences be kept clear and void of Offence under which I shall give you the Reasons of the Point Fourthly I shall lay down some Rules and Means whereby we may attain unto and keep a pure and clean Conscience First 1. What vitiates and corrupts Conscience What is it that doth corrupt and vitiate Conscience in executing of its Offices Now this I shall couch under Two Particulars and they are Ignorance and wilful Sinning 1. Ignorance corrupts the Conscience 1. Ignorance Conscience is the Guide of Life and Knowledge is the Eye of Conscience which if it be darkned the Blind leads the Blind till both fall into the Ditch Conscience is a Guide that leads apace and therefore had need see its Way before it which some not being well able to discern have wound themselves into inextricable Wandrings pursuing every glaring Delusion and running after every skipping Light that danceth before it till at last they have lost both themselves and their
with Patience so it gives him advantage to reprove others with Authority It is a very true Rule that he that reproves another ought himself to be free from the Fault he reproves for otherwise his Reproofs neither come with freedom from the Reprover nor with efficacy to the Reproved First A Reproof that comes from a guilty Conscience is but a stammering and a timerous Reproof Such a Man 's own Conscience must needs rise up in his Throat and choak his Reproofs Consciousness of the same Miscarriages will retort whatever we can say against others more strongly upon our selves and will suggest to us that it is but Hypocrisie for us to blame that which we our selves practise With what Face canst thou press others to Repent and Reform What Arguments canst thou use to them who by continuing in the same Sins dost thy self judge those Arguments are of no force at all Thus Conscience will suggest and hereby Tongue-ties Reproofs Secondly This also makes Reproofs ineffectual It were indeed a Temper to be wished and pray'd for that we could only respect how righteous the Reproof is and not how righteous the Person is that gives it and if we could be content to have the Motes pluck'd out of our own Eyes though it be by such as have Beams in their own Eyes for indeed there is no more reason to reject sound Admonitions because they come from an unsound Heart than there is to stop our Ears against good Counsel because delivered it may be with an unsavoury Breath But yet so it is when Men of polluted Consciences and defiled Conversations come to reprove others Men are apt to think of them What is such a one in earnest Doth he not personate his Reproof Doth he not do as bad or worse himself Or doth he envy me my Sins and would engross them all to himself and so the Reproof takes no place at all upon him But now when a Man of a clear and unspotted Conscience reproves wicked Men his Reproofs break in upon them with Conviction Authority and Power if not to reform them yet at least to daunt and silence them Here is one that reproves Sin who doubtless believes it to be Evil by his own avoiding of it Here is one that denounceth Wrath if I repent not who doubtless believes it to be as terrible as he represents it to be by his own carefulness to escape it And thus a clear Conscience hath great advantage to reprove Sinners successfully at least to work Conviction upon them if not to work Reformation in them 3. It gives boldness of access unto God Thirdly A clear Conscience gives boldness of access unto God Guilt is the only thing that abashes the Soul and makes it both ashamed and afraid to appear in the Presence of God and therefore we find that as soon as Adam had sinned against his Maker he hides himself from him We may observe it in our selves What slavish deadness and dejectedness of Heart seizeth upon us when we come to God in Duty after that we have wronged him by any known Sin We come with such a misgiving kind of Fear as if we would not have God take notice that we are before him and we are still in pain till the Duty be over But when our Consciences are clear O with what delight do we hast to God and with what content do we stay with him How doth the Soul dilate and spread it self under the Smiles of God beating full upon it Loe O Lord here 's a Heart that I labour to make and keep void of Offence do thou fill it with thy promised Grace and Spirit it is not indeed a Mansion pure enough for the pure and holy God yet is it such as thou wilt accept of and dwell in there are still many hidden Corruptions in it but do thou search them out and thou who hast kept thy Servant from presumptuous Sins do thou also cleanse me from secret Faults Thus a clear Conscience with a holy and reverend Boldness addresses it self to God and sweetly closeth up every Duty and every Prayer with full assurance of being heard and accepted and that it shall obtain Mercy from God So the Apostle tells us Heb. 10.22 Heb. 10.22 Let us says he draw near in full assurance of Faith How may we gain this full assurance when we draw near to God How says he Why by having our Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience get but a pure and clear Conscience and that will enable you to draw near to God in full assurance of Faith And so in the like parallel place 1 John 3.21 1 John 3.21 Beloved if our Hearts condemn us not then have we confidence towards God If Conscience be not evil to accuse us then have we confidence towards God When the Face of a Man's Conscience looks chearful and hath no Frowns and Wrinkles upon it this makes us joyfully to apprehend that God's Face to us is calm and serene too and that we shall be welcom at all times into our Father's presence this Conscience suggests to us and makes us come with a holy yet with an awful boldness unto God 4. It is the sweetest Bosom Friend with which we may at all times freely and intimately converse Fourthly A clear Conscience is the sweetest bosom Friend with which we may at all times freely and intimately converse Wicked Men indeed of all Company in the World do most hate themselves for Companions they have a lowring and a rumbling Conscience at home that always threatens and disquiets them and therefore they love to keep abroad Soliloquies and Heart-discoveries are a very Torment to them and they wonder that the Psalmist should ever bid them Commune with their own Hearts and be still Psal 4.4 as it is in Psal 4.4 Why alas they are never less still than when they discourse with their own Hearts and Consciences which are grown so peevish and quarrelsom that they thunder out nothing but Woes and Curses against them hurling about them Swords and Fire-brands and Death that they dare not so much as once look within Doors But now a Christian whose Conscience is calm and clear he finds it the best Companion of the World In his solitary Retirements from the crowd and noise of the World with what Delight doth he call his Heart aside and there are they sweetly and peaceably conferring together And God usually comes in as a third Friend and joins himself in Society with them and here pass mutual Endearments between them the Soul embraces and clasps about God with the Arms of Faith and Dependence and God embraceth the Soul in the Arms of his everlasting Love Here are mutual unbosomings of Secrets the Soul unlocks its Secrets before God and God again reveals the Secrets of his Love unto the Soul Here are mutual Rejoycings the Soul rejoyceth in God its Saviour and God rejoyceth over the Soul to do it good and under these Intercourses
that are branded for infamous both by God and Man as Murder Adultery Blasphemy and the like at which even natural Conscience recoils such carnal Sins as affright Conscience and make it look pale and ghastly A Crime I also call any sin that is consubstantiated by an access of Guilt by the dreadful Aggravations of being committed knowingly and wilfully By Faults I mean Sins of daily Infirmity and Surreption such as do frequently surprize the best and the holiest Christians from which no Man's Piety nor Watchfulness can secure him Why now though we be over-taken with Faults and every Day and Hour contract new and fresh Guilt upon our Consciences yet we may have clear and good Consciences while we are careful to keep our selves from Crimes from all Sins that are so in their own Nature by the horridness of the Fact and from all Sins that are made so by greatning Circumstances of being deliberate and wilful while we keep our selves from these we have good Consciences notwithstanding Sins of ordinary Weakness That Man hath a good Conscience who preserves himself from all infamous and gross Sins and from all other wilful and deliberate Sins Now this clearness of Conscience is a thing possible to be attained Men may with care and caution keep themselves free from all self-condemning Crimes and live so evenly that when their Consciences are most peevish and toutchy yet they shall have nothing to accuse them of but what is common to all Men of such Men as these this we may affirm that they have been able with Joy to reflect back upon their past Lives in a dying hour that possibly never knew any Guilt by themselves than what the Sins of common and daily Infirmity hath exposed them unto This now is to keep good Consciences We live well says St. Austin if we live without Crimes to live without Fault is impossible and he that thinks he doth it keeps himself not from Sin but from Pardon Secondly Another way to keep our Consciences clear is by cleansing them when they are defiled He keeps his Garments clean that keeps himself from falling and next degree he who being fallen hastes to cleanse himself from his contracted Filth And thus at least we may keep our Consciences clear both from Crimes and from Faults also while we labour to cleanse them from their Defilements and to rub out and wash away those Spots with which at any time we are occasionally bespatter'd There is a twofold Blot Sin leaves behind it there is a Blot of Discredit and a Blot of Defilement the former is indelible As the Scar remains when the Wound is healed so this Blot remains upon the Soul when the Guilt of Sin is removed It is a Discredit to a Malefactor though pardoned that ever he should do that which deserv'd Death And so it is a kind of Blot upon a Christian's Name for ever to have committed those Sins that have deserved eternal Death though through the free Mercy and unspeakable Grace of God he hath obtained the Pardon of them But then there is another Blot a Blot of Defilement that renders Men loathsom and deformed in the Eyes of God and thus every Sin we commit leaves a Blot and a Stain upon the Soul a Stain that defaceth God's Image and that defiles our own Consciences and when this Stain and Blot is cleansed then are we said to have clear Consciences when we have taken off that Blot and Defilement that Sin hath left whereby we are rendred deformed in the sight of God and whereby the Image of God is defaced upon the Soul Thus you see in general there are two ways to keep a clear Conscience Directions for the getting and keeping of a clear Conscience the one by preventing its Defilement and the other by cleansing of it when it is defiled Now to help you in both these Cases I shall lay down several Particulars First 1. Get Conscience rightly informed If you would have your Consciences clear get them rightly informed How can Conscience be clear so long as the Fogs and thick Mists of Ignorance and Error possess it Labour therefore to let in spiritual Light into it that you may see how to cleanse it It is as much Vanity to go about to cleanse an ignorant Conscience as it is in vain to sweep a dark Room An ignorant conscientious Man that knows not the Limits of Sin and Duty may after a great deal of pudder with his Conscience leave it much worse than he found it and cast out Jewels instead of Rubbish Indeed it is impossible for an ignorant Man to have a good Conscience whether we respect Duty or Comfort in point of Duty I have shewed you formerly that Ignorance will make Conscience unnecessarily scrupulous or daringly presumptuous Now neither can an ignorant Conscience be good in respect of Comfort because through Ignorance Conscience oftentimes quarrels at that which is a true Ground of Rejoycing Conscience is that Glass whereby we may both view our selves and also our Actions Now as a Glass when falsly framed represents a beautiful Face monstrous and frightful so Conscience when falsly informed makes even lovely Actions appear mishapen and terrifying by distorted Representations of those Things that are lawful and perhaps our Duty also Therefore in the first place get an enlightned Conscience if you would get a good Conscience for what says the wise Man Prov. 19.2 Prov. 19.2 That the Soul be without knowledge it is not good or as some Translations have it a Soul without knowledge is not good it is indeed good for nothing unless it be to make Men sin conscientiously and to embolden them to commit the greatest Wickedness in the World with Peace and Comfort Thus says our Saviour John 16.2 John 16.2 Whosoever killeth you shall think that he doth God good Service through the Error and Mistake of their Conscience So in 1 Cor. 2.8 Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Knowledg betters the Conscience two ways Knowledge betters the Conscience two ways First 1. By instructing of it to discern betwixt Good and Evil. It gives its direction what to choose and what to avoid it instructs it to discern betwixt Good and Evil. Ignorant Persons often mistake the one for the other and eschew what they should follow or if they chance to do that which is good as it is not of great worth to do good only by chance and hazard so they sin also in doing good while the Judgment is in suspence the Conscience must needs be under Guilt If I know not whether I ought to do an Action or to forbear which way soever I take I am entangled in Sin for whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin That is whatsoever is done with a wavering Conscience that I know not whether it be sinful or not that thereby becomes Sin and whatever a Man doth doubtingly he is damned if he doth it
that require not much time to perform their Errands in for there is a holy Mystery in pointing our earthly Employments with these heavenly Ejaculations as Men point their Writings sometimes with Stops ever now and then shooting up a short mental Prayer unto Heaven such Pauses as these are you will find to be no Impediments to your worldly Affairs This is the way for a Christian to be retired and private in the midst of a Multitude to turn his Shop or his Field into a Closet to trade for Earth and yet to get Heaven also into the Bargain So we read of Nehemiah 2.4 Nehem. 2.4 That whilst the King was discoursing to him of the State of Judea it is said that Nehemiah prayed unto God that is he sent up secret Prayers to God which tho' they escaped the King's notice and observation yet were they so prevalent as to bow and encline his Heart 4. It is always to keep our Hearts in a praying Frame Fourthly and Lastly There is yet something more in this Praying without ceasing and that is this We may then be said to pray without ceasing when we keep our Hearts in such a frame as that we are fit at all times to vent our selves before God in Prayer When we keep alive and cherish a praying Spirit and can upon all Opportunities draw near to God with full Souls and with quick and vigorous Affections This is to pray without ceasing and this I take to be the most genuine natural Sense of the Words and the true Scope of the Apostle here to have the Habit of Prayer enclining them always freely and sweetly to breath out their Requests unto God They that would maintain a praying Temper must be careful of Two Things and to take all Occasions to prostrate themselves before his Throne of Grace Now those that would maintain this praying Temper must be especially careful of Two Things 1. That they immerse not themselves in the World First That they do not too much ingulf themselves in the Businesses and Pleasures of this Life for this will exceedingly damp and deaden the Heart to this holy Duty as Earth cast upon the Fire puts it out so the World when it is spread over the Affections must needs stifle and extinguish that holy Flame that should ascend up to Heaven How hard is it for a Man that oppresseth himself with a heap of Businesses to raise his Heart unto God under all that Load How hard is it for those that let out their Hearts thus too and fro a thousand ways to summon them in the next moment to attend upon God with that awful and serious Frame that becomes all those that appear before him When we come to Prayer reaking hot out of the Affairs of this World we find our Hearts subject to manifold Distractions and Discomposures and our Thoughts scattered like Bees still flying from one Flower to another still bringing some Intelligence from worldly Objects even then when we are about divine Employments Secondly 2. That they fall into no known and presumptous Sin If you would maintain a praying Temper of Soul be careful not to fall into the commission of any known presumptuous Sin The Guilt of Sin lying upon the Conscience will exceedingly deaden the Heart to Prayer Alas how can we go to God with any freedom of Spirit How can we call him Father with any Boldness and Confidence while we are conscious to our selves that we have daringly provoked him by some wilful Offence I may appeal to your own Experience in this Do not your Consciences fly in your Faces Do they not take you by the Throat and even choak your Speech while you are praying with some such Suggestions as these What can I pray for the Pardon of Sin that frequently commit that which I know to be Sin Shall I dare to lift up unclean Hands before his pure and holy Eyes or to speak to him in Prayer when as those Sins that rancor and fester in my Conscience must needs make my Breath unsavory and noisome to him Will the Lord hear such Prayers Or if he doth hear them will he not account them an Abomination You now whose Consciences thus accuse you do you not find such Reflections as these to be great Deadnings to your Hearts such Damps to Duty such Clippings of the Wings of the Spirit of God and takings off of the Wheels of the Soul so that it drives on but slowly and heavily in the performance of that Duty Certainly Guilt is the greatest Impediment to Duty in the World for it takes off from the Freeness and Filialness of our Spirits and fills us with Distrust Diffidence and a slavish Fear of coming before God rather as our Judge than as our Father And therefore we find that as soon as Adam had sinned against his Maker he hides himself from him Yea and we may observe it in our selves what a slavish dejectedness and deadness seizeth upon us when we come to God in Duty after we have wronged him by any known Sin how doth this make us come with such misgiving Fears as if we would not have God to take notice that we were in his Presence making us to be continually in Pain until the Duty be done And thus you see what it is to Pray without ceasing It is to pray constantly at set Times and Seasons it is to pray importunately and vehemently it is upon all Occasions to be sending up holy Ejaculations unto God and especially to keep alive and cherish a praying Frame of Heart Which whosoever would do he must beware of emerging himself in the World and of committing any known and presumptuous Sin And so much for the doctrinal part An Exhortation unto Prayer The Application shall be to stir us up and excite us to the performance of this Holy Duty wherein indeed the Vitals of Religion and Holiness do consist And to press this upon you consider with me these following Particulars 1. Prayer is a Sign of the new Birth First Prayer is one of the greatest Signs of a Man's new Birth As in the natural Birth we know the Child is living by its Crying when it comes into the World so also in this spiritual Birth it is an evidence that we are born living Souls to God when we cry mightily unto God in Prayer And therefore in Acts 9.11 Acts 9.11 when God sent Ananias unto Paul that he might take off that Fear from him that might otherwise seize upon him in going to such an enraged Persecutor as he was he tells him St. Paul was changed for behold he prays This is an infallible Sign that we are Children of God when we can with a Holy Reverence and Boldness cry Abba Father 2. Prayer is an inestimable Priviledge Secondly Consider it is a great and inestimable Priviledge that God will permit us to approach so near to himself that he will permit such vile Dust and Ashes