belongs only to him yet to confess to his Minister is in some sort a fuller satisfaction to his justice It declares our greater detestation of that offence for which we are content to commit this violence upon our selves It gives us this comfort too that thereby we get the opinion of our Spiritual Guide concerning the state of our Repentance and his direction and assistance for the perfecting of it and if we desire his particular absolution we must then make our confession to him before we can obtain it What force these motives may have upon you I cannot tell but for the present you are passing into a place where you will have little opportunity to practise it and should therefore resolve to supply it by a more due and careful performance of it to God Almighty THE last thing preparatory to a true Repentance is A firm resolution and vow of a new life 8. THAT you will immediately quit all your Sins and all the occasions that are wont to lead you into those sins That you will wholly resign your self up to the guidance of Christ and perform whatsoever you know to be his will and this do truly and sincerely all the days of your life 9. AND here Madam behold in short the duties that are required of you This is what you must do to inherit eternal Life And if you have as I make no doubt already come up thus far you are then firmly to persevere in it unto the end If you fulfil this Resolution though you * fall sometimes by infirmity * are betrayed by Ignorance * or surprized by some sudden and dayly incurring temptations * Nay though you should be so unhappy as to fall into some greater Act even of deliberate sin which you might have avoided and which you presently retract by confession and amendment you are nevertheless in a regenerate estate you live the Life of a Christian here and shall inherit the reward that is promised to him in a glorious Immortality hereafter 10. I SHALL close this with my earnest desires which not any doubts of your goodness but my real concern for your welfare extort from me that you will seriously consider your own state as to this affair Flatter not your self * neither a transient sorrow that you have sinned * nor a wish that you had not * neither a faint and general God be merciful to me a sinner * nor an imperfect resolution not to be so any longer * not an observing for the rest the whole Law if you indulge your self but in any one habit of sin * not praying to God to give you his grace without your own sincere endeavours of using it nothing but a steady resolution brought to practice God's grace used his commandments obey'd as far as your infirmities will permit and his pardon begg'd where you have not This is that which alone must save your Soul and carry you on to that glorious Immortality which I beseech him to give you for his Son Jesus Christ's sake CHAP. IV. A consideration of some particular duties which I would more especially recommend to you I THOUGHT Madam here to have ended your trouble and referr'd my self 〈◊〉 what may concern your farther practice to those excellent and useful Treatises you have so wisely provided for that purpose But they speak in general and though I know the care you take to apply them to your self yet I cannot but beg leave to add two or three considerations that may more immediately be accommodated to your particular circumstances First That you duely implore the blessings of Heaven by your constant Prayers to God Almighty I NEED not tell you that you have * many wants to be supplied * many blessings to receive * many sins to be forgiven and that there is nothing can obtain all these for you but your prayers or were you so all-sufficient as not to need the influences of Providence to support you yet would sure every day bring to your remembrance slips and infirmities to be confess'd to him to be sure blessings and mercies to be gratefully acknowledged in a perpetual return of praises and thanksgivings to the great Donor Upon all which accounts there can never be any pretence for your neglect of that duty which so many continual engagements oblige you to 2. LET me to this add the great assistance it will afford you in the performance of all the rest of your duty whilst thus you have your conversation in Heaven all the little goods here below will seem poor and inconsiderable in your sight this will strengthen your patience in bearing your calamities whilst with faith you contemplate the glorious end to which they lead It will raise in your Soul the greatest care of fulfilling the divine will lest you lose so excellent a reward in a word this exercise will call down the favour of Heaven upon you either to remove those afflictions you now labour under from you or you from them will bring you peace and comfort and satisfaction in this life and an everlasting peace and repose in the next 3. IT has been the great discouragement of some Christians in the exercise of this duty that they do not find these great Benefits of their devotion That they are told indeed of the mighty influences of prayer and have read how that by it Joshua changed the order of nature and made the Sun stand still in the midst of the Firmament Elias tied up the Windows of Heaven that it rained not for three whole years in Israel Hezekias added fifteen years to his life The Apostles gave feet to the Lame Eyes to the Blind and even life to the Dead But themselves are so far from working such miracles that they cannot so much as obtain the supply of those ordinary wants they very often labour under 4. BUT Madam we must not for all this think either that the Arm of the Lord is shortned that he cannot or his will alter'd that he should not hear us as well as he did them indeed for such miraculous effects we have now no longer need of them and it would therefore be a fond presumption in us to expect them But for the rest there are two considerations which Men would do well to reflect on before they charge God foolishly 1. WHETHER we do not very often receive the benefit of our prayers when yet ungratefully we charge Heaven with denying our Petitions 2. IF our Requests are really deny'd whether the fault do's not ly at our own doors that they are so 5. FOR the former of these we may very easily be mistaken and I doubt very often are so Did we indeed perfectly know the state of our own condition and what was most proper and convenient for us we might then have some reason to conclude our Prayers were not heard if our desires were not answered But now that such is our ignorance that though we are sensible enough of the
Life that 't is the time of tryal that God has thrown us into this World as into A Circle to exercise our selves in it and receive the Crown if we come off with Victory who so shamefully decline the Combat and are so far from obtaining the victory that we are scarcely to be brought but even to do any thing towards it 6. IN a word were it possible that the thoughts of Eternity but especially the near approaches of it by a mature age a crasy constitution or a violent sickness should amaze so many as we find it does make them so unwilling to go to Christ and receive the Reward of their Labours had they ever truly considered all these things and not rather with old Simeon sing their Nunc dimittis with comfort and assurance and cry out with S. Paul Phil. 1. 21. To me to live is Christ and to dye is gain and again v. 23. I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ. 7. WERE I now Madam to deal with any other than your self these and the like considerations would engage me before I entred on the following prescriptions to dispose your mind to a reception of them by shewing you the great interest we have in Eternity That our Lives are uncertain to be sure cannot be long here and that therefore we ought to hasten all we can before it be too late to examine our Souls and provide for futurity That all the little Objects we now pursue for which our ease our conscience nay our very Religion it self is sacrificed by us are but vanities and trifles neither worthy in themselves nor satisfying in their enjoyment But Madam your vertue and your prudence make all such preparations unnecessary formalities and instead of opening the way to the following Address by such insinuations I ought rather to apologize for my indiscretion in the whole undertaking which your piety prevents and which your dayly practice shews you already to understand beyond any thing I am able to offer for your assistance 8. NEVERTHELESS since it has pleased God to an excellent natural disposition to add yet other Obligations and by the troubles of this Life to draw you to himself to shew you worthy of his favour and I trust more highly to reward you in the next be pleased to give me leave this way to congratulate with you those Evils which so many are wont to lament and which no one more sincerely wishes if it please God to see you free from than my self and as you have done me the honour to command my attendance whilst you were with us here pardon me if I intrude upon your meditations a few of my most serious Reflections to supply my absence and be a testimony of that real respect wherewith I honour you now in your retirement CHAP. I. Of Contentedness under your Condition THO' I am infinitely distant from that excellent perfection which made the Primitive Christians glory in their tribulations and St. Paul rejoice in that sting in the flesh which God had given him as a peculiar Blessing from above yet is it really some satisfaction to me that I am not now wholly liable to that Censure which is so usually made on these occasions that 't is easie for any Man when he is well to give advice to them that are not It hath pleased God for the rashness perhaps of my usual discourse to make it at present very uneasy for me to speak at all I cannot but acknowledge his Mercy in the Admonition and if it please him altogether to silence me so That I shall not only as now speak with difficulty but wholly be disabled to open my mouth to any articulate utterance yet I hope he will give me grace even in my thoughts to praise him To consider the justice of his proceeding with me and to implore his pardon of what my sins have justly deserved 2. IT cannot be deny'd but that this is an exercise of the most difficult Nature and the Apostle himself confesses even where he most exhorts us to an acquiescence in it That no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous Yet considerations there are that are able to alleviate our greatest miseries and make us if not come up to the character of those who rejoyce in Tribulations yet at least satisfy the duty I am now recommending of being patient and contented under our sufferings 3. AND the first of these both in our practice and this Discourse ought to be To look up to that Hand that inflicts them IT is our great unhappiness when any calamities fall upon us that we are uneasie and dissatisfied and our whole business and project is how to remove them not to consider from whence they come Sometimes indeed if the cause be visible we discourse of it as of a chance or a misfortune but we stop at the instrument and never pass on to him that directed it the second cause we know but trouble our selves no further to recur to the first whereas would we seriously consider * that the Providence of God orders all the affairs of the World * that without his assistance we can no more get quit of our Affliction than but by his permission we first fell into it * that this unquietness therefore is a murmuring against his justice a rebellion against his Providence upon whom alone we ought to rely and whose mercy we should by all imaginable submission implore We should then acquiesce in his dispensation till it pleased his goodness to remove our evils cry out with old Eli It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good and as we dayly pray that his will may be done in Earth so by our submission shew that we truly desire it 4. LET us to this add Secondly That God delights not to afflict nor ever willingly grieves the Children of Men. * IT may be we suffer in our calamity the punishment of our sins and then let us not murmur at that which is the just reward of our deservings * Perhaps God proves us in this life that he may the more plenteously reward us in the next and how then shall we repine against his mercy which makes these light afflictions that are but for a moment work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory To be sure if we make that use of them which he intends if we repent seriously submit contentedly and serve him faithfully they shall turn to our advantage tho' the passage be troublesome yet is it secure and shall in a little time bring us ease and quiet and peace at the last 5. FOR let us not mistake the goodness of God nor imagine that because he smites us therefore we are forsaken by him but let us consider rather Thirdly That 't is the very Condition of all his promises through much Tribulation to bring us to his Kingdom That blessed place where all evils shall be
next minute is our own and that he therefore who neglects his salvation to day may without danger put it off to to morrows consideration God has told us that his Spirit shall not alway strive with Man but as he offers to every one a space to repent so there is a time too if we omit that opportunity when there shall be no longer any space for it AND how can any of us tell that this hour is not the last wherein God will give us his grace for so great a work so that though we should live to see the next yet that then our sentence shall not be found already pronounced and we shall not be able to repent though we never so much desire it 3. SUCH obligations therefore have we all immediately to consider our ways and turn our feet to God's testimonies But Madam it has pleased his great goodness to lay more than ordinary ties upon you to do this He has taken you off by a peculiar instance of his Mercy from the vanities and tempations of the World He has disabled you from falling into many sins and calls upon you to watch against the rest He has brought you to an early knowledge of your self and of him at an age when most others are the servants of sin and creatures of vanity He has given you opportunity from the writings and conversation of the best Men to understand your duty your danger and your interest And Madam what you ought above all things to bless him for he has given you a heart too to receive instruction and that is desirous of his glory and though after so many better means as you have had of informing your self how to proceed in this important business after the knowledge you have attain'd and the progress you have made there is little need for me to add any thing on this subject yet I know I cannot better satisfie your piety or discharge my own duty than by laying before you in a short view a prospect of your labours through which you have so long been travelling and are now so nearly come to everlasting life 4. AT the first Creation when God created Man upon the Earth he planted in him a Law teaching him his whole Duty he gave him besides a positive Law not to eat of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge and to perform this he added a perfect strength and ability whereby he might for ever have lived without the least sin had Adam done this his perfection the Knowledge and Ability God created in him had still continued and after a certain period of years which God should have determined he had been rewarded with an assumption to eternal felicity 5. THIS is that which is usually called THE FIRST COVENANT which Adam fatally breaking by his disobedience soon forfeited and came short of that Glory which God had prepared for him yet it pleased the Lord to enter into a SECOND with him the tenour of which was That the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's head i. e. That Christ taking our nature upon him and so becoming the seed of the Woman should perform that Covenant of unsinning obedience which Adam broke and yet being faultless undergo a shameful and ignominious death for him and his Posterity and so bruise the Serpent's head i. e. deliver us from the power of the Devil who by this transgression had got the dominion over us 6. AND this is that Covenant we now live under the Promises of which are * pardon of sins through the blood of Christ * strength and grace to perform the conditions * and eternal glory to reward our labours This is what God on his part has declared to us for the requisites on ours what we must do to obtain these blessings that is the great business of us all to know and the peculiar design of this place briefly to consider 7. WHERE first I must lay down this for your encouragement that we are no longer now tied to the heavy yoke of a perfect unsinning Obedience not to have committed any deliberate sin nay or even to have persisted in a habit and course of it but it is * a sincere endeavour to perform whatsoever God enables us * an unfeigned Obedience to the whole Gospel of Christ and * a hearty bewailing of our own infirmities as often as we come short of it with * a real desire and * true endeavour of doing better for the future 8. To enter on a minute consideration of this would engage me to lay before you a Summary of the whole Gospel of Christ But Madam this were to exceed the limits of my design you have abundant assistances for this Knowledge in those excellent books which you have chosen for the companions of your Travels Only because certain it is that the very best of us come short of our duty and stand in need of God's pardon and forgiveness I will briefly lay before you the method you are to take to obtain this in the particular consideration of those two great duties of Faith and Repentance Sect. I. Of Faith. TTHERE is scarce any duty which ha's been so obscured in the writings of learned Men as this I will not enter here into any of their disputes but briefly say what I think fit for your practice and performance of it 2. FAITH then is an assenting to or believing * the whole word of God but especially of his Gospel and of the * Commands * Threats and * Promises therein contained This is the nature of that Faith which is required of us and it is then perfect when it affords to every one of these that assent which is proportioned to it viz. 1. A firm assent to whatever the Gospel has revealed 2. an obediential submission to the Commands 3. An humble fear and awe of the Threats and 4. a fiducial relyance on the promises of it 3. To have the first of these you must in general firmly believe that whatever God hath said is infallibly true and though in particular there be many revelations which you cannot it may be understand the possibility of as that God became Man was born of a Mother still remaining a Virgin that he suffered and died and yet lives for ever yet must you undoubtedly conclude that since he has plainly told you these things are so you ought firmly to believe him seem they never so repugnant otherwise to your apprehension 4. To have the second you must in general assent to God's commands that they are most fitting just and righteous and that all men therefore ought diligently to fulfill them and in particular you must resolve that by the assistance of Heaven you your self will. 5. FOR the third you must believe stedfastly that these threats shall certainly as most justly they ought be executed upon all those impenitent Sinners against whom they are denounced and that except you take care to work out your Reconciliation
evils that lie upon us yet we cannot say either whether they are fit to be removed at all or when or by what means or for what state we ought to be very wary in our thoughts of God's Providence and not rashly pronounce what we can never be sure of 6. SHOULD you now for instance your self Madam pray to God for a recovery from this sickness how rash would it be to accuse God of not hearing your Prayers because you found your Disease to continue still * It may be he sees it has not yet perfectly wrought in you all those good effects he intends That if you should at this time recover your health it might occasion your return to the sins and follies of your age * It may be he intends yet longer to prove your vertue that so he may afterwards more plenteously reward it * Perhaps he punishes your sins by it in this Life that he may spare you in the next Now if these or the like are the causes of your affliction certainly you could not have a greater injury done you than the removing of your distemper and those Prayers you make for a recovery are to be lookt upon as best heard by God and best answer'd for you if they move him to a longer continuance of your sickness Again * Though God does not answer your requests in the very removal of your distemper it may be yet he shews their efficacy in supporting you with strength and patience to bear it Infinite are the methods of his Providence and impossible it is for us to trace them all and though we are not able to point out the very mercy which our devotion has obtained yet this God has promised and we must therefore firmly believe and rely upon it That if we ask we shall we do receive 7. BUT here my other consideration must come in St. James speaking of the ineffectualness of some mens Devotion tells them Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss and that I fear is too often our condition And therefore that you may be able both to know and avoid this I will beg leave Madam to give you only a short Catalogue of what qualifications seem to me more immediately requisite to render your Devotion prevalent 1. TAKE heed that the things you desire be such as are fit for God to give and you to receive Let not any instances of sin defile your requests and even in the most innocent matters rather beg in general the blessings of God which he knows requisite whether for your Soul or Body than descend too much to the particulars your self and prescribe to him who so little understand your own wants Secondly BEFORE you pray clear your Soul from all those sins which you know displeasing to God Almighty for till that be done he regards you as his Enemy and you cannot therefore expect that he should reward you as his servant Thirdly PREPARE your Soul with all those necessary Graces that are more immediately requisite to this performance with Humility and Resignation with Faith in his power and Hope of his mercy with Love and Charity towards God and towards your Neighbour All which will infinitely dispose him to give and prepare you to receive Fourthly WHEN you pray let it be with attention with fervency with perseverance To which end I should think it better that your prayers were short and frequent than over long which only make them tedious and uneasie to you in your present state but never the more acceptable to God who delights not in mens words but requires their hearts and hears the shortest ejaculation as certainly as the longest prayer Fifthly IN a word Having pray'd leave the issue contentedly in his hands Let it satisfy you that you have his promise for your security and that if thus you make your requests to him you shall sooner or later most certainly find that your labour has not been in vain in the Lord. A SECOND duty that I must more particularly recommend to you is Charity A GRACE That has more promises annext to it than any other moral or theological vertue St. Paul prefers it even to Faith it self 1 Cor. 13. And could we have every other vertue which the Gospel enjoyns in the highest perfection yet he plainly assures us that without this they would all avail us nothing 2. CHARITY taken in its largest extent is nothing else but The sincere Love of God and our Neighbour The former of these requires not only your highest esteem of him your desires of going to him and filling your self with his goodness but also a sincere endeavour to please and obey him to fulfill his commands and hate all those things that he dislikes and may any way set you at enmity with him 3. THE latter engages you to a universal love of all Men even your very Enemies to retain no malice nor hatred against any to be ready to do them all the kindness you are able by reproving the Vicious instructing the ignorant relieving the poor for all which you have the peculiar promise of God for your engagement and shall receive the pardon of your sins and everlasting glory for your Reward I MUST now hasten to a conclusion and therefore will presume to add only this one caution more I THIRDLY that you would take an especial care how you employ your time IT is not Madam for me to divine what opportunities you may have for this nor can I therefore advise you any thing in particular Only let me beg you to lose no occasion of doing all the good you can which whatever the issue of your present sickness be is to be sure your duty and shall prove your blessing either in this World or another 2. I NEED not desire you to spend the hours you may have for your friends and your diversion innocently but if I may presume to speak my thoughts in a matter of no great importance I should perswade you not only to do this but even to deny your self somewhat of that full liberty which others do usually allow themselves the Wise man has told us that Mirth is not proper in the time of sorrow since it has pleased God to lay his inflictions upon you You ought so far I had almost said in civility to him to comply with your circumstances as to be a little more reserved than otherwise were needful and though not to fly to the other extreme which I rather ought to disswade you from yet to keep in such a temper as may both speak you sensible as you ought of your condition and yet not discontented at God's dispensations 3. BUT Madam whatever your employs be let no day pass without some time to retire into your self and either by reading meditating or some other pious exercise to feed your zeal and confirm your devotion 4. LASTLY in your most busy occupations when you are never so much taken up with other affairs yet steal now and