amicably defending the Truth against the unnecessary Oppositions of divers Learned and Reverend Brethren 4o. One sheet for the Ministry against the Malignants of all sorts A winding-sheet for Popery One sheet against the Quakers A second sheet for the Ministry Justifying our Calling against Quakers Seekers and Papists and all that deny us to be the Ministers of Christ. Directions to Iustices of Peace especially in Corporations to the discharge of their duty to God written at the request of a Magistrate and Published for the use of others that need it The Crucifying of the world BY The Cross of CHRIST GAL. 6. 14. But God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world SECT I. EVER since mankind had a being upon earth the malicious apostate spirits have been their enemies If it was the will of our Creator that we should be Militaries in our Innocency and keep our standing and attain our Confirmation and Glory by a Victory or else come short of it if we lost the day No wonder then that our lapsed condition must be militant and that by conquest we must obtain the Crown But there is a great deal of difference between these combats In our first state we were the sole Combatants against the Enemy our selves and we fought in that sufficient strength of our own which was then given us and by our wilfull yielding we were overcome But since our fall we fight under the banner of another who having first conquered for us will afterward conquer in us and by us All the great transactions and busâ—es of the world which our Fathers have reported to us which have filled all the Histories of ages and which our eyes have seen or our ears have heard of are nothing but the various actions and successes of this great war and all the persons in the world are the souldiers of these two Armies whereof the Lord of Life and the Prince of Darkness are the Generals The whole Inhabited world is the field The great on-set of the Enemy was made upon the person of our Lord himself And as oft as he was assaulted or did assault so oft did he overcome In the wilderness he had that first appointed conflâ—ct with Satan himself hand to hand Through his whole life after he was assaulted by the inferiour sort of enemies And a leader in his own Army even Peter himself is once seduced to become a Satan Mat. 16. 22. and a Traytor Iudas is the means of his apprehension and then the blinded Jews and Rulers of his Crucifixion and there had he the last and greatest Conflict in which when he seemed conquered he did overcome and so his personall war was finished When the Captain of our salvation was thus made perfect through sufferings Heb. 2. 10. that he might bring many sons to glory his next work was to form his Army which he did by giving first Commission to his Officers and appointing them to gather the common souldiers and to fill his bands No sooner did they set themselves upon the work but Satan sendeth forth his bands against them Persecutors assault them openly and Hereticks are Traytors in their own Societies and make mutinies among the souldiers of Christ and do them more mischief by perfidiousness then the rest could do by open hostility The first sort of them took advantage 1. By the reputation of Moses Law and the zeal of the blinded Jews for its defence And 2. from the dangers sufferings and fleshly tenderness of many professors of the Christian faith which made them too ready to listen to any Doctrine that promised them peace and safety in the world and as they were themselves a Carnall Generation that looked after worldly glory and felicity and could not bear persecution for Christ and so were enemies to his Cross while they profest themselves to be his Disciples so would they have perswaded the Churches to be of thâ—â—â—â—me mind and to take the same course as they that so they might not be noted for carnall and cowardly professors themselves while they brought others to believe the justness of their way but rather might have matter of glorying in their followers instead of being either sufferers with the true Christians or rejected by them whose profession they had undertaken These were the persons that Paul had here to deal with against whom having opposed many arguments through the Epistle in the words of my Text he opposeth his own Resolution God forbid that I should glory c. The words contain Pauls renouncing the carnal disposition and practise of the false Apostles and his professed Resolution of the contrary Where you have 1. The terms of Detestation and Renunciation God forbid or be it far from me 2. The thingâ— Detested and Renounced viz. To glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ. His own positive profession containeth 1. His Resolution to Glory in the Cross of Christ. 2. The effects of the Cross of Christ upon his soul which being contrary to the disposition and doctrine and endeavour of the false Teachers is added as a Reason of his abhorring their waies and as the ground and principle of his contrary course Hereby the world was crucified to him and he to the world The difficulties in the words being not great I shall take leave to be the briefer in their explication The verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth not only externall boâ—sting but first internall confidence and acquiescence By the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ we are to understand both his Cross as suffered by him and as considered by us and as imitated by us or the Cross we suffer in conformity to him For I see no reason to take it in a more restrained sense By the world is meant the whole inferiour Creation or all that is objected to our sense or is the bait or provision for the flesh or by the tempter is put in competition with God both the things and the men of the world To have the world crucified to him doth signifie 1. That it is killed and so disabled from doing him any deadly harm or from being able to steal away his affections as it doth they that are unsanctified 2. That he esteemeth it but as a dead and contemptible thing So that this phrase expresseth both its disabling and his positive contempt of it The other phrase that Paul was crucified to the world doth signifie on the other side 1. That his estimation and affections were as dead to it that is he had no more esteem of it or love to it nor did he further mind or regard it so far as he was sanctified then a dead man would do 2. It signifieth that he was also contemned by worldly men and lookt on as his Crucified Lord was whom he preached This is said to be done by Christ or by his Cross For the relative may relate to either antecedent
the lice or worms from eating him alive God useth to pour contempt upon Princes when they will not know and submit to the everlasting King He taketh himself as engaged to break down all that would usurp his honour and tumble down the Idols of the world therefore hath he alway so abhorred the two grand abominations Pride and Idolatry above other sins For he will not give his glory to another He will not with patience hear it spoken of an Idol These are thy Gods O Israel that brought thee out of Egypt The first Commandment is not meerly a precept for some particular act of obedience as are the rest but it is the fundamentall Law of God establishing the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject And as this is the first and great command and that which virtually containeth all Thou shalt have no other Gods before me or Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart So he that breaketh this is guilty of all When the Parent of the world would needs become as God he made himself the slave of the Devil You see then I hope sufficient reason why the world must be abhorred and crucified when it is made an Idol and would become our God and why this Crucifixion of it is of absolute indispensable necessity to salvation If it had kept its place and distance and would have been only a stream from the infinite power and wisdom and goodness and a Messenger to bring us the report of his excellencies and a book in which we might read his name and a glass in which we might see his face then might we have esteemed and magnified it But when the Devil and the flesh will make it their bait to draw away our hearts from God and to steal that love desire and care which is due to him and begin to tell us of Rest or Satisfaction or Felicity here its time to cry out Crucifie it crucifie it When it would insinuate it self into our bosom and get next our hearts and have our most delightfull and frequent thoughts and become so dear to us that we cannot be without it when it is the very thing that our minds are bent upon and that lifts us up when we have it and casts us down when we want it and thus disposeth of our affections and endeavours its time to lay such an Idol in the dust and to cast out such a Traytor with the greatest detestation As we our selves shall be exalted if we humble our selves and brought low if we exalt our selves so must we cast down the world when it would exalt it self in our esteem and the right exaltation of it is by the lowest subjecting of it unto God For whoever hath to deal with Infinite Power must think of no other way of exaltation 3. The world must be abhorred and crucified by us as it standeth at enmity to God and his holy waies It is become through mans corruption the great seducer and an impediment to our entertainment of heavenly Doctrine and a means of keeping the soul from God Yea it is become the Interest of the flesh and is set in fullest opposition to our spiritual Interest In what degree soever the world would turn your hearts from God or stop your ears against his word or take you off from the duty which he prescribeth you in that measure must you seek to crucifie it to your selves If Father or Mother would draw us away from Christ though as parents they must be honoured still yet as enemies to Christ they must be contemned When your honours would hinder you from honouring God and your credit doth contend against your conscience and your worldly business contradicteth your heavenly business and your gain is pleaded against your obedience it is time then to use the world as an enemy and to vilifie those honours and businesses and commodities A tender conscience that is acquainted with a course of universall obedience will take notice when these worldly interpositions and a vocations would interrupt his course and a soul acquainted with an holy dependance upon God and Communion can feel when these enticing and deluding things would interrupt his Communion and turn his eye from the face of God and therefore he can feel by the advantage of his holy experience when the world becomes his enemy and calleth him to the conflict 4. The world is to be crucified as it is the matter of our flesh-pleasing or the food of our carnal affections and the fuel of our concupiscence The grand Idol that is exalted against the Lord is Carnal Self This is the God of all the unregenerate This hath their hearts their care their labours The pleasing of this flesh is the end of the unsanctified and therefore the summary capital sin which virtually containeth all the rest Even as the Pleasing of God is the End of every Saint and therefore the summary capital duty which virtually containeth all other duties The world is an Idol subservient to the flesh as being the matter of its delight and the means by which its End is attained as in the contrary state the Mediator is subservient to the Father as being the matter of his delight in whom he is well-pleased and the means by whom he obtaineth his Ends in making his people also well-pleasing in his eyes The Devil also is an Idol of the ungodly but that is in a suberviency to the world and to the flesh as by the bait of worldly things he pleaseth the flesh as in the contrary state the Holy Ghost is in office subordinate to the Son and to the Father in that he bringeth us to Christ by whom we must have access to the Father In the Carnal Trinity then you may see that as the flesh is the Principall and Ultimate End and hath the first place so the world is the nearest means to that End and hath the second place and as there is no coming to the Father or Pleasing him but by the Son so is there no way of Pleasing the flesh but by the world So that by this you may perceive in what relation we stand to the sensual seducing world and on what grounds and how far it is necessary that we crucifie it The fixed determination of our Soveraign is that if we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live Rom. 8. 13. To live after the flesh is by loving the world and enjoying it as our felicity and to mortifie the deeds of it by the Spirit is by withdrawing this fuel and food that doth maintain them and by crucifying and killing the world as to such ends Our work is to put on the Lord Iesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 14. It is the world that is this provision for the fulfilling of our fleshly lusts So far therefore as the flesh must be mortified the
and their living without God in the world But when faith hath opened a mans eyes and shewed him God in every creature who was hid from him before then is the creature who was before his All annihilated to him in that separated sense and God becomes his All again and this annihilation of the creature is indeed its restauration objectively to its primitive nature and use and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now So that sensual men by making the creature an imaginary God or chiefest Good or All do make it indeed objectively to become Nothing and so their All their God their felicity is Nothing and so all their life is a Nothing When as the faithfull by Crucifying or Annihilating the creature as it would appear a felicity to us or any Good as separated from God do restore it to its true objective being and use by returning to God who is truly All and in whom the creature is a Derived Imperfect something and out of whom it is indeed a Nothing I will further illustrate it by one other similitude God gave the Ceremonial Law by Moses to the Israelites to be an obscure Gospell and to lead them unto Christ. The sacrifices and other typicall Ceremonies were the Letters of the Law and Christ was the sense The true Believers thus understood and used them but the Carnal Jews lookt only on the letter and lost the sense and thus separating the bare Letter from the sense that is the Legall works from Christ they thought to be justified by those works and by the Law in that separated sense But the Apostle Paul doth plead against thiâ— errour and tells them that Christ is the end of the Law to all Believers and that he is the fulfilling of it and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and that by the deeâ—s of the Law in this separated sense no flesh can be justified and that the Letter separated from the sense of it killeth but Christ by his Spirit who is the sense of it giveth life If these Jews had taken and used the Law as God intended it and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter and had understood that Christ was the very life and end and all of the Law Paul would never have cryed down the Law nor Justification by it in this sense for that had been to cry down Justification by Christ. But it was Justification by the Letter or the Law as separated from Christ who was the meaning of it So is it in our present case The creature is the letter and God the sense and Carnal men do understand only the Letter of the creature and fall in love with it and thus God cryeth down the world and vilifieth and speaketh contemptuously of the world When as if it had not been for the separation he would never have cryed it down nor spoken an hard word of it As the Law had never been so hardly spoken of if the mis-understanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called Vanity and a Lie and Nothing and a Dream and that which is not bread and that which profiteth not a Shadow a Deceiver with abundance of the like contemptuous terms if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God And thus I have shewed you in what Respects the World must be Crucified AND let me add in the Conclusion as most necessary for your observation that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the foresaid abuse and therefore when we have done all that we can in Crucifying and sublimating it we must never imagine that we can make it so wholsom or harmless a thing as that we may feed upon it without great caution and suspition or ever return to friendship with it again till fire have refined it and grace hath perfectly refined us And yet this is not long of the creature without us but of us and the tempter The world is in it self Good as being the work of God and it cannot be the proper efficient culpable cause of our sin For it hath no sin in it self I mean the world as distinct from the men of the world and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin But yet there is that in it which is apt to be the Matter of our temptation and so apt as that all that perish do perish by the world As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity Conjunct who have each person his several office for our recovery so there is no damnation but by the whole Infernal Trinity the flesh the world and the Devil Even to Innocent Adam the world must be the bait and Satan found somewhat in it that made it apt for such an office though nothing but what was very good But now that the flesh is become the Predominant part and power in us as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it the case is much worse and the world is incomparably a more dangerous enemy then to Adam it could be For though still the creature is good in it self yet we are so bad that the better the creature is the worse it becomes to us For we are naturally propense to it in its separated capacity and all men till regeneration are fond of it as their felicity and hug it as their dearest good and Sacrifice to it as their Idol So that an enemy it is and an enemy it will be when we have done our best as long as we are on earth For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased by that which God forbiddeth and there is a Devil to offer us the bait and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing the world which is the bait will still be the matter and occasion of our danger The consideration of this may cut the throat of licentious principles and hence we may answer the most of their vain pretended reasons who under the Cloak of Christian liberty would again indulge the flesh and be reconciled to the world But certainly it will never lay by its enmity till we lay by our flesh and therefore there is no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more but we must be killing it and dying to it to the last SECT IV. HAving thus shewed you in what Respect the world must be Crucified and so resolved the question as to the Object I am next to resolve it as to the Act and shew you wherein the Crucifying it doth consist The Apostle followeth on the Allegory which he took occasion of from the mention of the Cross of Christ. From thence therefore we must also fetch the proper sense As the world did use Christ or would have used him so we must use the world Not actually murder the sons of death as they did murder the Lord of Life but what Christ
Isa. 42. 8. 48. 11. All sin is hateful to God and none but the cleansed perfect soul shall stand before him in the presence of his glory nor any in whom iniquity hath dominion shall stand accepted in the presence of his Grace But yet no particular sin is so hatefull to him as Idolatry is For this is not only a trespassing against his Laws but a disclaiming or rejecting his very Soveraignty it self To give a Prince unreverent language and to break his Laws is punishable but to pull him out of his throne and set up a scullion in it and give him the honour and obedience of a King this is another kind of matter and much more intollerable The first Commandment is not like the rest which require only obedience to particular Laws in a particular action but it establisheth the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject and requires a constant acknowledgment of these relations and makes it high Treason against the God of heaven in any that shall violate that command Every Crime is not Treason It s one thing to miscarry in a particular case and another thing to have other Gods before and besides the Lord the only God Now this is the sin of every worldling He hath taken down God from the throne in his own soul and set up the flesh and the world in his stead These he valueth and magnifieth and delighteth in These have his very heart while God that made it and redeemed him is set light by And do you think that this is a sin to be endured It is a more horrid thing to wish that God were not God then to wish that Heaven and Earth were destroyed or turned again to Nothing He that would kill a man deserveth death What then deserveth he that would destroy all the world that would pull the Sun out of the firmament or set all the world on fire if it were in his power Yet is not all this so bad as to wish that God should lose his God-head And what less doth that man do that would have his prerogative given to the creature and so would have the creature to be God If God be not the chief Good he is not God And if he be not chiefly to be esteemed and loved he is not the chief Good What then doth that man do but deny God to be God that denyeth him his highest esteem and love And certainly he that giveth it to any creature denyeth it to God For there can be but one Chief and but one God They take him down therefore as much as in them lyeth that set up another So also if God be not the Soveraign Ruler of all he is not God And there can be but one Soveraign What less then do they do that deny him his soveraignty then deny him to be God And he that maketh the flesh or world his soveraign denyeth God to be his soveraign because there can be but one especially seeing also that their commands are contrary I beseech you therefore Sirs be not so unwise as to think that this Mortification or Crucifying of the world is only the perfection or higher pitch of some Believers and not the common state of all Do not imagine that your selves or any other can be true Christians without it You may as well think that that man should be saved that is a flat Atheist and denyeth God and renounceth him as that a worldling should be saved And he that is not dead to the world is a worldling If any one piece of Reformation be essential to a true Christian it is this It is as possible for a Turk or an Insidel to be saved as one that is not dead to the world Yea the case of these is more desperate if more can be for they have not the like means of information ordinarily as our worldly Professors have what can any Persecutor or Idolater do more then set against God and set up his enemies And so doth every worldling while he denyeth God his esteem and chiefest Love and giveth it to the pleasures and profits of this life I beseech you be not so weak as to dream that God is nothing but a bare name or title or that you deny not God if you refuse not to call him God or that none are Atheists that speak God fair and give him all his titles Or that none are impious that give him good words It is the thing and not the bare words the description of God such as we are capable of and not bare names that we must enquire of If you will call your Prince by all his Royal Titles but will set another in the throne and give him the rule over you and obey him alone which of these is it that you take indeed for your Prince If I be a Father saith God where is mine honour If I be a Master where is my fear Mal. 1. 6. Many profess that they know God that in works deny him being abominable and disobedient Tit. 1. 16. God is not taken indeed for your God if he be not taken for your chief Good and Happiness and have not the chief of your desire and Love and if he be not taken for your absolute Soveraign and have not the subjection and obedience of your souls You may easily see then that it is not meet it is not possible that an unmortified person or a worldling can be saved For if they shall be saved that would have God to be no God then no man should be damned for there cannot be a worser man then these Nay if he be not God how should he save them or how should he make them happy if he be not their chiefest Good If God should cease to be God the world and all things would cease to be For if the first cause cease the effects must all cease And if the ultimate end cease the means and all use of means must cease And as the cessation of God as the first efficient would destroy all Natural Being so the cessation of God as the ultimate end would destroy all Moral Good whatsoever Other sins destroy some part or branch of Moral Good but the sin of Idolatry the violation of the first Commandment the taking to our selves some other God this doth at once subvert all goodness and destroy the very being of morality it self Sirs I am afraid many yea most among us have not well considered the nature of worldly mindedness or the greatness of the sin of valuing and loving the Creature before God If they did it would not be a sin of so good repute among us but would have contracted more odium before this time then it hath done There are many sins far smaller then this that men are shamed for and that men are hanged for But we must not judge by outward appearances nor make the judgement of the sinner himself to be the rule by which to discern the greatness or smalness of the sin A
worldling a fleshly minded man an unmortified man that is not dead to the world all these are terms that are proper to men in a state of damnation under the curse and wrath of God and are equipollent terms with a Childe of the Devil Oh how the Devil hath deluded multitudes by making them think that this mortification is some higher pitch of grace then ordinary but not essential to the life of grace it self and therefore that a man may be saved without it when they may as well think to be saved if they defie the God of heaven if they despise the Lord that bought them and if they renounce salvation it self for indeed so they do It must needs be that God must look first and chiefly to his own interest in all his works even in the collation of his â—reest grace And therefore he will be glorified in all his Saints and no man shall have salvation dividedly from his honour He doth not bring men to heaven to hate and contemn him but to love and praise him and he will fit them for that work before they come thither and make them love and praise him initially on earth before they come to do it in heaven And therefore he will make them contemn all those things that stand in competition with him and hate all that stands against him SECT XI I Have shewed the necessity of crucifying the world as from Gods interest which the world doth contradict I shall next shew it you from your own interest And in these conjunct considerations it will appear 1. The world is not your happiness 2. The world is occasionally through the corruption of our nature a great enemy to your happiness 3. God only is your happiness 4. God is not fully to be enjoyed in this world 5. It is by knowing loving and delighting in him as God that he is to be enjoyed to make us happy 6. As therefore it is impossible to have two ultimate ends two chief goods and to enjoy them both so is it impossible that God and the world should both have our chiefest estimation and affection All this set together doth demonstrate the necessity of being crucified to the world unless we will renounce our own felicity 1. For the first Proposition that the world is not your Happiness I think all your tongues will readily confess it I would your hearts would do so too Do you think that God doth envy you your happiness or that he would take the world from you because he esteemeth it too good for you No it is because he pittieth your self-deceit when he seeth you take that for your happiness that is not and because he hath far better things to bestow If the world were as good for you as you take it to be and had that in it to satisfie you as you imagine it to have you might keep it and much good might it do you for God would not be about to take it from you He that made you to be Happy doth not grudge you that which should procure it Doubtless if he did not see that it is vanity and that you have made a wrong choice and do mistake your mark he would never trouble you in a worldly course nor call you off But it is because he seeth your folly and deceit and wisheth you much better Wo to you that ever you were born if you have no better Happiness then the world can afford you Is it not Necessary then that you discern your errour and be brought into your right way and spend not your time and pains for nothing If God should let you alone to catch at this shadow and play your selves with worldly toyes till the time of grace were past and then let you see that you were befooled when it is too late you would then be leâ—t to a fruitless repentance and to the sense of that unhappiness which you chose to your selves 2. And that the world is an enemy to your Happiness may appear two waies First in that it deceitfully pretendeth to be your Happiness when it is not and so would turn away your hearts from that which is Secondly in that by allurements or discouragements it is alwaies hindring you in the way to life and is a snare to you continually in all that you do And is it not Necessary to your salvation that you be delivered from the enemies of your salvation and freed from such perilous snares Can you conquer while you are conquered And if the world be not Crucified to you it doth conquer you For its victory is upon your will and affections And if it conquer you it will condemn you To be servants to the world is to be servants to sin And the servants of sin are free from righteousness Rom. 6. 20. and free from Christ and free from salvation A miserable freedom 3. The following Propositions I shall speak of together That God only is our happiness and Chief Good I need not prove to any that indeed believeth him to be God That salvation consilleth in the â—ruition of this Happiness is past doubt And as sure is it that God is not fully enjoyed in this world much less in the creature when it is loved for it self and not esteemed as a Means to him All that believe a life after this do sure believe that there is our felicity And lastly that the soul doth enjoy its own felicity by Knowing and Loving and Delighting in its object is also past doubt So that you may see that a worldly state of mind is in it self inconsistent with a state of salvation To be saved is to have the blessed vision of God and to Love him and Delight in him perfectly to everlasting And can you do this when you love and delight in the world above him or in opposition to him Would you have God to save you and yet not to take off your affections from the world to himself That were to save you and not to save you to feed you by that which is not food to comfort you by that which cannot comfort If a worldling would be saved and not be mortified either he speaks he knows not what but plain non-sense or contradiction or else he meaneth one of these two things Either that he would have an Heaven of worldly Riches or Honours or fleshly Pleasures there is no such to be had Or else that he would have the world as long as he can and have heaven when he can keep the world no longer and so would have the world Crucified to him when there is no such world or when he is taken from it But as 1. No man can truly desire future Grace and Holiness that doth not desire it at the present this being rather an unwilling submission to it as a tolerable Evil then a true desire of it as a certain Good So 2. God hath determined that this life only shall be the Way and that the End Here only must we
the world to come What do you daily labour and live for Is it for God or your carnal selves What interest is it that is predominant in you Know but that and know all AND now I shall apply my self to those of you that are guilty in whose souls the worldly Interest is predominant and in whom the world is not Crucified by the Cross of Christ but rather Christ again Crucified by the world I have no mind to dishonour you or exasperate you but if faithfulness to Christ and you will do both there 's no remedy I do here prefer an Indictment against you in the Court of your Consciences and before this Congregation the Articles I shall distinctly read And first I require you study not a defence excuse not extenuate not your crimes but confess your sin freely and condemn your selves impartially and return to God and forsake them speedily or you shall do worse Self-condemnation may be saving and preventive and the Death of sin thereupon may be the life of your souls But if this be neglected and you hold on a while till the great Assize you shall have another kind of charge then this even such an one as shall appale that face that now can merrily smile at the accusation and such an one as shall bring down the stoutest of your spirits and make the hardest heart to feel and the stubbornest of you all to stoop and tremble O how easie is it to hear your sin and danger from such a worm as I or to hear your state discovered and your selves condemned by a Minister of Christ in a Pulpit but how dreadful will it be to hear all this from the Lord of Glory and that when the case is past remedy which now might have been remedyed if you would and if your obstinate hearts had not resisted The General charge that I put in against you is That you are Carnall flesh-pleasers and have loved and lived to the world which you should have Crucified and have not lived as Devoted unto God nor hath he been your End or his Interest predominant in your hearts and lives I speak only to the guilty and for Evidence of the fact I need none but your Consciences seeing it is only to your Consciences that I accuse you which are acquainted or should be with the whole But lest Conscience it self should be bribed and corrupted I shall besides all that is before said produce a little Evidence more 1. If indeed the world be Crucified to you what meaneth your eager pursuit after it Are not your thoughts contriving for it and your wit and interest all improved for it Are not those taken for your chief friends that further your advancement or worldly Ends and those for your chief enemies that hinder it most Is it not in your mind in the night when you awake and in the day when you are alone Do you not rise earlyer for your worldly business then for prayer or any holy exercise Ask your family whether you do not ofter call them up to work then to pray and whether you drive them not on harder to your own service then to Gods and whether you examine them not strictlyer about your business then about the matters that their salvation doth depend upon and whether you be not more deeply offended with them for crossing your commodity then for sinning against God Ask your neighbours whether you talk not with them many hours of worldly vanities for one hours serious discourse about the life to come What a stir do poor men make to be rich or to live in some content to the flesh and what a stir do rich men make to be richer or to keep that they have and yet have they the face to pretend that they are Crucified to the world 2. If you are dead to the world how comes it to pass that it hath so powerful an influence upon your judgements and that you change your minds as your carnall Interest doth change and can set your sails to any wind that is like to drive you to the harbour as you call it but indeed upon the sands of your worldly ends What would you not give in troublesom times to know certainly which will be the prevalent side that you might resolve what side to take your selves and perhaps what Religion to be of or to seem so to be Among all the Books that are written if there were but one that taught the art of growing rich or a Directory for obtaining dignities and honours in the world how eagerly would you buy it and how diligently would you read it more diligently then you read the Bible or any Book of that nature If preachers did teach you the way of prosperity and advancement and could tell you how to be all great and honourable in this world O how early would you come to the Congregation how attentively would you hear how retentively would you remember and how faithfully would you practise Then how beautiful would the feet be of them that bring you the tidings of such good things What honourable persons should Ministers be and how well worthy of your Tythes and more Then you would not swell against their Doctrine or Application nor cavil at them instead of understanding them nor scorn them as men of a useless office nor take them for your enemies nor refuse to come to them and ask their advice Wretched Hypocrites It is our office to help them to the Everlasting Kingdom and the more diligent we are in this the more they hate us if we send for them to Instruct them personally or catechize them or help them in the matters of salvation they scoâ—n to come and ask us By what Authority we send for them But if we could teach them all to be Princes or Lords or Gentlemen yea or but to get a few shillings more then they have none would draw back None of them would ask us By what Authority do you send for us Had we but money enough to feed them all O what good men we should be and how many friends should we have and how easily might we perswade them If one man had all the money in the Land and could secure it and the disposal of it from violence what might not that man do and who is it that would not be on his side except those few that have Crucified the world The multitude would even follow the man that hath money as an horse will follow him that hath his provender and yet they will hypocritically pretend to be Crucified to the world But if indeed they are so how comes it to pass that Conscience is so often stretcht and wracked to make it own a gainful cause and that many that have seemed godly can break over all bounds of Law and Charity Friendship and Religion to attain the dignities or riches which they so desire and will tread down the nearest friend and Christ himself as much as in them lyeth if he
for a Camel to go throw a needles eye Which though it be possible doth plainly shew some extraordinary difficulty Mat. 19. 23 24. such use to go away sorrowful when they hear of forsaking all because they are rich Luke 18. 23. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith to be heirs of the Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Iam. 2. 5. And the Holy Ghost saith not without cause that Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called 1 Cor. 1. 26. But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised hath God chosen and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his prâ—sence v. 27 28 29. It is the common case of prospering worldlings to play the fool after all Gods warnings and in their hearts to say Soul take thy rest when they know not but that night their souls may be called for Luke 12. 20. O that you would be pleased but considerately to read those two parables or histories Luke 12. 16. and Luke 16. 19. which you have so often read or heard inconsiderately I beseech you think not that we wrong such men if we rank them with the most notorious sinners The Apostle reckoneth them with the most hainous sinners that should arise in the last daies 2 Tim. 3. 2 4. Covetous and lovers of their own selves and lovers of pleasures more then God and bids us turn away from such And he reckoneth them among such as the Church must excommunicate and with whom a Christian may not eat 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. And with the notorious wicked men that shall not enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 10. Eph. 5. 5. It is a sin not to be once named among the Saints Eph. 5. 3. In a word if you are worldly or coveâ—ous you are certainly wicked and abhorred by God how highly soever you may be esteemed of men Psalm 10. 3. The wicked boasteth of his hearts desireâ— and blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth If yet you think I use you unmannerly in speaking so hardly of you hear the Holy Ghost a little further Iam. 5. 1. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your garments motheaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flâ—sh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last dates And mentioning their oppression he addeth Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter In a word If Christ called Peter himself a Satan when he would have had him favour himself and avoid suffering because he savoured not the things of God but of men Mat. 16. 22. You may see that we call you not so bad as you are I Shall now take the freedom to come a little nearer you and close with you upon the main of my business Poor worldlings I come not hither to beat the air nor to waste an hour in empty words but it is Work that I come upon An unpleasing Work to flesh and blood even to take away your profits and pleasures and honours from you to take away the world from you and all that you have therein Not out of your Hands but out of your Hearts Not against your wills for that is impossible nor by unresistible force I would I could do that but by procuring your own consent and perswading you to cast them away your selves I cannot expect the consent of your flesh and therefore I will not treate with it but if yet you have any free use of your reason in matters of this nature look back upon the Reasons that I have before laid down and tell me whether you see not sufficient cause to forsake this world and betake your selves to another course of life and look another way for your felicity This then is the upshot of all that I have been saying to you and this is the Message that I have to you from God to require you presently to renounce this world and unfeigâ—edly to despise it and proclaim war against it and to come over to him that is your rightful Lord and will be your true and durable Rest. What say you Will you be divorced from the world and the flesh this day and take up with a naked Christ alone and the Hopes of an heavenly felicity which he hath promised Will you bring forth that Traytor that hath had your hearts and lives so long and let him die the death Shall the world this day be Crucified to you and you to it I am to let you know that this is the thing that God expecteth and nothing less will serve the turn nor will any worldly kind of Religiousness bring you to salvation This world and flesh are enemies to God and you have been guilty of High Treason against his Majesty by harbouring them and serving them so long And I am moreover to let you know that God will have them down one time or other Either by his Grace or by his Judgement Had you rather that Death and Hell should make the separation then that saving grace should do it Will you still hide it as sugar under your tongue Will you obstinately cleave to it when you know its vanity and the mischief that such contempt of God will bring If you do so God will embitter it to you in the end and he will make it gall in your mouthes and torment to your hearts and you shall spit it out and be forced to confess that it is no better then you were told I do charge you therefore in the name of the Lord that you renounce this world without delay and presently and effectually Crucifie it to your selves You once did it by your parents in Baptism and you have proved false to that profession Now do it by your selves and stand to what you do If it had not been a part of Christianity you had not been called to do it then And therefore you may understand that it is but to be Christians indeed that I perswade you A Christian worldling is as meer a fiction as a Christian Infidel Enter now into your own hearts with a Reforming zeal It should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost down then with every Idol that is there erected Whip out the buyers and sellers and overthrow the money Tables and suffer it not to be made a den of thieves Down with your Diana's Though the world worship her God and his sanctified ones despise her What the ungodly say of our Zion we say of your Babel Down with it rase it even to the foundation it is a thing to be destroyed happy is
to give up your selves to pleasures and recreations and you think that you may do with your own as you list as if it had been given you to gratifie the flesh The words that converted Austin never suâ—k yet into your hearts Rom. 13. 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof You never felt the meaning of those words Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live But to turn my Complaint into an Admonition I beseech you consider what you are and what you do 1. How unlike are you to Iesus Christ your pattern that denyed himself all the Honours and Riches and Carnal delights of the world Read over his Life and Read your own and judge whether any man on earth be more unlike to Christ then a voluptuous worldly Gentleman Especially if Malignity be added to his sensuality 2. How unlike are you to the holy Laws of Christ. Are his precepts of Mortification and Self-denyal imprinted in your hearts and predominant in your lives Is a beast any more unlike a man then your hearts and lives are unlike Christs Laws 3. How unlike are you to the Antient Christians that forsook all and followed Christ and lived in a Community of Charity And how unlike to every gracious soul that is dead to the world and hath mortified his members upon earth and hath his conversation in another world Are you not such as Paul wept over Phil. 3. 18. Whose God is their belly who glory in their shame and who mind earthly things and that are enemies to the Cross of Christ. though perhaps you are no enemies to his Name Believe it Gentlemen whatever your thoughts of your selves may be you will find that no Religion will save you that stoopeth to the world and is but an underling to your fleshly interest 4. How unlike are you to your Profession and your Covenant with God and to your Confessions and Prayers to him Did you not renounce the flesh the world and the Devil in your Baptism Do you not still Profess that heaven is best and God is to be preferred and yet will you not do it but let your own Professions condemn you Do you not ordinarily confess that the world is vain and yet will you shew your selves such Dissemblers as to love and seek it more then God As if there were no more Power in the Spirit of Christianity then in the Opinion of Zeno the Philosopher who having oft said that Poverty and Riches were neitheâ— good nor bad but things indifferent was yet dismaye when he heard that his farms were seized on by the enemies the Prince having sent one with the report to try him telling him when he had done that Now Riches and Poverty were not things indifferent How oft have you prayed to be saved from Temptation and yet will you still date upon your snares and fetters and shew your selves such hypocrites as to love the temptations which you pray against 5. You are guilty of a double injury to God in that you are obliged to him as his Created subjects and yet more obliged by your Riches and Honours which he hath given you for your Masters use To whom men give much from them will they expect the more Luke 12. 48. For a servant that hath double wages to abuse you for a friend that hath received double kindness to prove false to you for a Commander in the Army to betray his General is sure an aggravation of the crime Must God advance you highest and will you thrust him lowest in your heart Must he feed you with the best and cloath you with the best and will you put him off with the worst Have you ten times or an hundred times more wealth from him then many an honest heavenly Believer and yet will you Love and Serve him less 6. Is it not pitty and shame that you should thus turn Mercies themselves into sin and draw your bane from that which might have been a blessing Will you be the worse because God is so good to you Must he give you health and time for his service and give you such plentiful provision and assistance and will you be worse in health then others are in sickness and worse in Plenty then others are in want Is not this the way to dry up the streams of Mercy when the more you have the worse you are 7. You exceedingly wrong the Church and Common-wealth For it is for the publick good that you are advanced and you should be a blessing to the Land And will you cast away that time and wealth upon the flesh which you have received for such noble ends Rob not the Church and Common wealth of what you owe it by engrossing it to your selves or consuming it on your lusts 8. Great men have a great account to make You shall shortly hear Give account of thy Steward-ship for thou shalt be no longer Stewarâ— If God have entrusted you you with a thousand pound a year it is not the same reckoning that must serve your turn as would serve his turn that had but an hundred Your improvement must be somewhat answerable to your receivings Do you need to be told how sad a reckoning it will then be to say Lord I imployed most of it in maintaining the Pomp and Pleasure of my self and family even that Pomp of the world and those sinful lusts of the flesh which in my Baptism I forswore and the rest I left to my children to maintain them in the same pomp and pleasure except a few scraps of my Revenews which I gave to the Church or poor 9. Your wealth and greatness do afford you great opportunities to do good and to further the salvation of your selves and others and worldliness and sensuality will rob you of these opportunities O how many good works might you have done to the honour of your Lord and the benefit of others and your selves if you had made the best of your Interest and Estates The loss of the Reward will shortly appear to you a greater loss then that which you now account the loss of your estates 10. Your worldliness and sensuality is a sin against your own experience and the experience of all the world You have long tryed the world and what hath it done for you that you should so over-value it You know that it is the common vote of all that ever tryed it sooner or later that it is vanity and vexation And have you not the wit or grace to learn from so plain a teacher as Experience yea your own experience yea and all the worlds experience 11. You sin also against your very Reason it self and against your certain knowledge You
he was very Rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful he said How hardly shall they that have Riches enter into the Kingdom of God Luke 18. 21 22 23 24. Read and consider Luke 12. 15. to 49. And Luke 16. 19 to the end Luke 14. 33 26 27 28. So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my Disciple Eph. 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to Good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Jam. 2. 14. What profiteth it my brethren if a man say he hath faith and have not works Can faith save him Tit. 2. 14 Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of Good Works 1 Tim. 6 17 18 19. Charge them that are Rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertainty of Riches but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy that they do Good that they be rich in Good Works ready to distribute willing to communicate Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life Heb. 13. 16. But to do Good and to Communicate forget not for with such sacrifice God is well pleased Luke 16. 9 13. I say unto you Make you friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon who will commit to your trust the true Riches ye cannot serve God and Mammon Psal. 41. 1 2 c. Blessed is he that considereth the poor the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble c. Read Deut. 15. 7 8 9 c. 2 Cor. 9. 8 9 c. Dan. 4. 27. Lev. 23. 22. Prov. 22. 9. Prov. 28. 27. He that giveth to the poor shall not lack but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse Read Isa. 58. throughout Jam. 1. 27. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world Jam. 5. 1 2 3 5. Go to now ye Rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you your Riches are corrupted and your Garments moath-eaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire Ye have heaped treasure together for the last daies Ye have lived in pleasure on earth and been wanton you have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter 1 Joh. 3. 16 17 18. We ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren but whoso hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and in truth Gal. 6. 6 7 9 10. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all his goods or good things Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap Let us not be weâ—…y in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not As we have therefore Opportunity let us do Good unto all men especially to them who are of the houshold of faith Eph. 4. 28. Let him Labour working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Mat. 10. 41 42. He that Receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward And whoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward Read 1 Cor. 9. 4 5. to 16. Mat. 25. 40 45. Verily I say unto you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of those my Brethren ye have done it unto me Verily I say unto you in as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me Mat. 6. 3 4. But when thou dost alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth That thy alms may be in secret And thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly But this I say Brethren the time is short it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. THE CONTENTS THe Text opened Doctrines deduced and Method propounded pag. 1. to 5 What is not this Crucifying of the world by way of Caution to avoid extreams Sect. 2. p. 5 In what respects the world must be Crucified to us 1. As the creature would be mans felicity or any part of it Sect. 3. p. 10 2. As it is set in competition with God or in the least degree of co-ordination with him p. 11. 3. As it standeth at enmity to God and his waies 4. As it is the matter of our flesh pleasing and fuel of conscupiscence 5. As an Independant or separated good without its due Relations to God p. 14. 15 Eph. 2. 12. Psal. 39. 6. 73. 20. considered p. 18 19 The different successes of sanctified and unsanctified studies and knowledge p. 17 21 The creatures Aptitude to tempt us is inseparable p. 22 Wherein the world's Crucifixion consisteth as to our acts We must use the world as it 〈◊〉 Christ Sect. 4. p. 24 More particularly 1. To esteem the world as an enemy to God and us Sect. 5. p. 31 How this enmity may be apprehended p. 32 2. A deep habituate apprehension of its worthlesness and insufficiency p. 33 3. A kind of Annihilation of it to our selves p. 35 How we must be Crucified to it The difference between this and Natural Death Sect. 6. p. 36 1. Our undue Estimation of the world must be Crucified p. 37 2. And our inordinate cogitations 3. And affections p. 39 1. Our Love 2. Desire 3. Expectations 4. Our Delight p. 43. So in the Irascible 1. Displacency and hatred c. p. 43 4. Our inordinate Seeking and Labour p. 47 Divers Objections and Questions answered Sect. 7. p. 48 How the Cross of Christ doth Crucifie the world And 1. How it is done by the Cross as suffered by Christ Sect. 8. p. 50 2. How by the same Cross believed in and considered p. 54 3. How by the Cross which we suffer in Obedience and Conformity to Christ p. 57 The point proved by experience Sect. 9.
it executed its deceits We must give it the Gall and Vinegar of penitent tears and threatned judgements The vvorld thus despised and rejected Christ making him a man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs they hid their faces and esteemed him not Isa. 53. 3. He had no form or comeliness in their eyes and when they saw-him there was no beauty that they should desire him Vers. 2. So must we despise and reject the world and hide our faces from it and not esteem it disdaining even to look upon its pomp and vanity and to observe its gawdy alluring dress or once to regard its enticing charms We must think it all into a loathsom vanity till there appear to us no form or comeliness in it nor any beauty for which we should desire it and wonder what they can see in it that so far dote upon it as to part with Christ and salvation to enjoy it The world did even triumph over a crucified Christ and shake their heads at him and say He saved others but himself he cannot save And we must triumph through Christ over the crucified world and say This is it that promised such great matters to its deceived followers that men esteemed before God and glory and now as it cannot save them from the dust or the wrath of God so neither can it save it self from this contempt that Christ doth cast upon it Cast down this Idol out of your hearts and say If he be a God let him help himself Lastly the world when they had crucified Christ did bury him and rowl a stone on his Sepulcbre and seal it up and watch it with souldiers to secure him from rising again if they could And we must even bury the crucified world and be buried to the world and lay upon it those weighty considerations and resolutions and seal thereto with Sacramentall obligations and follow all this with persevering watchfulness that may never permit it to revive and rise again And thus must we learn from the Cross of Christ how the world is to be crucified as it used Christ we must use it For it is the whole course of Christs humiliation that is meant here by his Cross the rest being denominated from the most eminent part and therefore from the whole must we fetch our pattern and instructions by the direction of the Allegory in my Text. SECT V. BUT it will not be unprofitable if we more particularly and orderly acquaint you with those Acts which the crucifying of the world to our selves doth comprehend over-passing those by which Christ did it for us on the Cross till anon in the due place 1. The first act is To esteem the world as an enemy to God and us and so as a Malefactor that deserveth to be crucified And this must not be only by a speculative-conception but by a true confirmed practical judgement which will set all the powers of the soul on work It is the want of this that makes the world to Live and Reign in the hearts of so many yea even of thousands that think they have mortified it A speculative Book-knowledge that will only make a man talk is taken instead of a practical knowledge Almost every man will say The world is a great enemy to God and us but did they soundly and heartily esteem it to be such they would use it as such Never tell me that that man takes the world for his deadly enemy who useth it as his dearest friend Enmity and deadly enmity will be seen Here is no room to plead the command of loving our enemies at least no man can think that he must love it with a Love of friendship and therefore with no love but what is consistent with the hatred of a deadly enemy This serious deep apprehension of Enmity is the very spring and poise of all our opposition We cannot heartily fight with our friend or seek his death There must be some anger and falling out before we will make the first assault and a settled enmity before we will make a deadly war of it This apprehension of enmity consisteth in an apprehension of the hurtfulness of the world to us and of the opposition it maketh against God and our salvation and of the danger that we are in continually by reason of this opposition So far as men conceive of the world as Good for them so far they take it for their friend and love it For no man can choose but love that which he seriously conceiveth to be Good for him This complacency is clean contrary to the Christian hostility But when we conceive of it as that which we stand in continual danger of being everlastingly undone by this will turn our hearts against it It undoes men that they have not these apprehensions of the world and that deeply fixed and habituated in their minds For it is the Apprehension or Iudgement of things that carryeth about the whole man and setteth awork all the other faculties Quest. But what should we do to be so habitually apprehensive that the world is our enemy Answ. 1. You must be sure that you lay up your treasure in heaven That you are so convinced by Faith of the Glory to come and of the true felicity that consisteth in the fruition of God as that you take it for your Portion and make it your very End And when once you have laid up your Hopes in heaven and see that there or no where you must be happy this will presently teach you to judge of all things else as they either help or hinder the attainment of that end For it is the Nature of the End to put a due estimate upon all things else And it is the property of the chief Good to denominate all other things either Good or Evil and that in a greater or lesser measure according as they respect that chiefest Good For there can be no Goodness in any thing else but the Goodness of a Means And the means is so far Good as it is apt and useful for the attainment of the End If once therefore you unfeignedly take God and Glory for your end and felicity you will presently fall upon enquiry and observation what it is that the world will do to help or hâ—nder that felicity 2. And then you need but one thing more to the discovery of the Enmity and that is the Constant experience of your souls A real living Christian doth live for God and is upon the motion to his eternal home There is his heart and that way his affections daily work When he findeth his soul down he windeth it up again and straineth the spring of faith and love And therefore his life and business being for heaven he cannot but be sensible of the rubs that are in his way and take notice of those things that would stop him in this course Whereupon he must needs find by constant experience that the world is that great Impediment and so must
be apprehensive of the enmity of the world For as he that Loveth God and waiteth for the sight of his face in Glory must needs take all that to be against him and naught for him that would keep him from God and deprive him of that beatificall vision so he that knoweth what it is to love God must needs know by constant sad experience that the world is the great with-drawer or hinderer of that love When he sets himself in any holy imployment to mount his soul into a more heavenly frame and to get a little nearer God he feeleth himself too much entangled with inferiour objects these are the weight that presseth down and the water that quencheth the sacred â—lames and were it not for these O how much higher might our souls attain and how much freer might we be for God For it is a thing most certain to us by our constant experience that the more of the world is upon our hearts the less is there of God and the more of God the less of the world So that these two means alone The sincere Intending of God and Glory as our End and daily observation of our own hearts will easily convince us that the world is our great enemy And when we throughly apprehend it to be our enemy we have begun to crucifie it 2. The next act by which the world is crucified is A deep habituated apprehension of its worthlesness and insufficiency As the opposing world must be taken for an enemy so the Promising alluring world must be taken as it is for an empty thing The Life and Reign of the world in the unsanctified lieth first in their too high estimation of it They think of it as Good and Good to them and as a matter of some considerable worth and though they will say with their tongues that heaven is better yet all things considered they take the world to be more suitable to them and therefore they desire it more For Heaven is out of sight and beyond their apprehension and affection and as they imagine it is not so certain as the things which they see and feel and possess And therefore they resolve to grasp as much of the creature as they can and take that which they can get in hand and then if there be an heaven they hope they may have their part in it as well as others But saving Illumination doth put men into another mind It makes them see that the Invisible things are of greater Certainty then the visible and that a promise without possession is better security then possession without a promise and that for the Worth and Goodness between Eternal things and Temporal there can be no comparison If the world would have been content to have kept its place and to have borrowed all its honour and esteem from God and Glory as the end for which it must be used and regarded it might then have had the honour of being serviceable to our salvation and to our Masters work But seeing it will needs be a competitor with heaven it thereby disâ—obeth it self of its glory and becometh a vile contemptible thing And so must it be esteemed by all the friends of God A sound Believer looks on the world as the world lookt on Christ when he hanged on the Cross not only as a Malefactor but as a contemptible thing And as the world esteemeth the Saints themselves to be hypocrites deceivers fools weak despised a spectacle to the world yea as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things So must the Believer esteem of the world as seeming to be what it is not as a weak and insufficient thing as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 4. 11 12 13. the very filth of the streets that is swept away or cast upon the dung-hill or as a thing devoted to death for the averting of an imminent judgement Pauls judgement is in a prevalent degree the judgement of every gracious soul Phil. 3. 7 8. What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. Were the world but thus conceived of by a practical judgement it were half crucified already If men did verily think that the world is their Loss they would love it less and less greedily seek after it then now most do Gehezi would not have run after Naaman for his money if he had thought that it had been his loss Achan would not have hid the forbidden gold as a treasure if he had thought it had been his loss Who would be at so much care and pains for their loss as worldlings and sensualists are for their delights And if the judgement did once esteem the world as dung they would not be so greedy for it nor put it into their bosoms Who would fall in love with dung or dote upon filth or dogs-meat As the judgement doth esteem it the affections will be towards it And they that know not of a better condition will value this as the best though common reason will call it vanity But they that by faith have found out the true felicity have low and contemptuous thoughts of the world O what a carkaise what a shadow is it in their eyes What a poor low thing is it which the sons of men do tire themselves in seeking after What a dung-hill do they wallow in as if it were a bed of Roses What deformities do they dote upon as if they were the most real beauties A toad abhorreth not the company of a toad but shall not a man abhor it But we shall have occasion of saying more to this in the Application 3. The third act by which we Crucifie the world is a kind of Annihilation of it to our selves in our conceptions taking it as a very Nothing so far as it would be something separated from God or co-ordinate with him How oft doth the Scripture call it vanity a dream a vain shew a shadow yea nothing yea and less then nothing before God and lighter then vanity it self Isa. 40. 17. Psal. 62. 9. Iob 6. 21. The Princes of the earth who are something in the eyes of themselves and others appear as Nothing when God lets out his wrath upon them Isa. 34. 12. Even as the straw when the fire hath consumed it or the fairest buildings when it hath turned them to ashes For though the world be really something yet 1. In regard of the effects which it promiseth to seduced worldlings it may be called Nothing For that which can do Nothing for us in our extremity which hath no Power to relieve or satisfie us which leaveth the soul empty and deceiveth them that trust it may well be called Nothing in effect In genere boni that which can do us no
good is Nothing to us Let a needy soul betake himself to the world for comfort under the burden of sin for quiet and true peace to a wounded conscience and you will find it can do Nothing Seek to it for grace or strength against corruptions and temptations and you will find it can do Nothing Cry to it for succour in the depth of your affliction and at the hour of death and try whether it will present you acceptable unto God and bring your departed souls with boldness to his presence and you will find that it can do Nothing Whatever it promiseth and what ever it seemeth to deluded sinners when you look for any real good from it you will find it can do Nothing And therefore you may well take it as a meer Nothing to you 2. And in esse objectivo we may make Nothing of it by excluding it from any room in our souls as to those acts that do not belong to it 3. And as a separated being independant as to God so it is indeed Nothing for there is no such thing Much less as it is a separated Good or felicity to man Annihilate then the world to your selves When it would appear to you to be what it is not and would promise you to be what it cannot let it be as Nothing to you Conceive of it as of a shadow or a thing that seemeth to Be and is not Could you once make Nothing of it it would have no power over you nor any unhappy effects upon you You would not dote upon a known Nothing nor change your God and Glory for Nothing As Iob saith of the wicked Iob 27. 19. he openeth his eyes and he is not so we may say of the world when we open our eyes we shall see that it is not that which before seemed Nothing to us will appear to be All things and the world that seemed all things will be Nothing The summe of all that hath been said is this The opposing world must be apprehended as an enemy to God and us and so far Hated The glozing world appearing as our felicity or a competitor with God must be conceived of as Worthless and Contemned And the world as it would appear as a separated Good being any thing to us or having any thing for us out of God must be annihilated in our conceptions and taken as Nothing SECT VI. VVE are next briefly to shew you how it is that we are Crucified to the world having shewed you how the world is Crucified to us And in general the meaning is that we are as Dead or Crucified men to it in regard of those forementioned unjust respects in which the tempter would present it to us So that Crucified here is put for the absence of that Action and worldly Disposition which carnal men are guilty of So that it is a Moral and not a Natural death that is here mentioned and observably differeth from a Natural in these respects 1. A Natural death destroyeth the very Powers or Faculties of Acting But a Moral Death only destroyeth the Disposition and Action it self but not any Natural Power 2. A Natural death is Involuntary and in it self is neither a vertue nor a vice neither Morally Good or Evil. But a Moral death is principally in the Will it self and nothing is more voluntary and so it is the principal virtue or vice To be dead in sin and to God is the summe of all Evil And to be dead to sin and the world in Christ is the summe of Moral Good 3. Natural death hath no degree of life remaining saving of the separated soul. But Moral death may consist with much of the contrary life For it is denominated from the predominant habits of the soul which may stand with much of the contrary habit though subdued We cannot therefore gather that Paul was absolutely free from all sin because he was dead to it or crucified to the world For this is a Moral death consisting in a conquest of the enemy who may be said to be dead because he is overcome and consisting in the prevalent Habits of the soul which yet may have too much of the remnants of their contraries More particularly 1. If we are Crucified to the world our undue estimation of the world is Crucified We have no Idolizing over valuing regard to it in that measure as we are dead to it As the world do not Regard the works of the Lord Psal. 28. 5. Isa. 5. 12. So the Saints do not Regard the things of the world The life of faith doth so elevate their spirits that they are mounted up above the creature and look not upon the world or look upon it as a despicable thing They are above that which is the delight and imployment of others and that which the sensual call Felicity they still call Vanity And as a mans stomack abhorreth that which a dog or a swine will greedily devour so the soul of a Believer doth despise and abhor the delights of the ungodly As Pride makes the Rich look contemptuously and disregardfully upon the poor So the holy elevation of Believing souls doth make them look contemptuously and disregardfully upon all the glory of the world As faith doth bring them up to God and make him their Object and their All So doth it make them somewhat like him and minded as he is minded And as God regardeth not persons Deut. 10. 17. nor accepteth the persons of Princes nor regardeth the rich more then the poor Iob 34. 19. but is pleased more in the least of his image on the humble faithful soul then with all the glittering glory of the world so is it in their measure with his people Where they see nothing of God they feel no substance but so far as God appeareth to them in any creature or action or any means or benefit which they possess so far they perceive some substance in it As the natural man Receiveth not the things of the Spirit nor can know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. So the Spiritual man hath shut up his senses to the world and lost his perception of them because they are carnally so discerned The carnal man hath his senses quick in discerning and savouring the things of the flesh but to the things of the Spirit he is dead and sensless And contrarily the Spiritual man is dead and sensless to the things of the flesh and hath no savour in those things that are other mens delights Rom. 8. 10 5 6. He tasteth no more sweetness in their pleasures then in a chip He wonders what they can see or taste in the things of the world that they so run after it To be Rich or Poor do but little differ in his eyes To be high or low is all one to him considering these things as accomodations of the flesh though still he valueth any condition according to the respect it hath to God and so that is the
enemies If we could believe these mountains would be cast into the Sea and all things are possible to us if we could believe Mark 9. 23. 2. The believing Meditation of the Cross of Christ doth make us apprehensive of the Vanity and Enmity of the world and so doth kill our esteem of it and affection to it For when we consider how little Christ did set by it and how he made it his work professedly to contemn it this will tell us how to think of it our selves For doubtless the judgement of Christ was true He was able to discern between good and evil If it had been valuable he would have valued it He would not have contemned it if it had not been contemptible He could have had better usage in the world if he had desired it and thought it meet But he would shew us by his Example as well as by his Doctrine how to judge of it and what to expect from it If you saw the wisest man in the world tread a thing under feet in the dirt or throw it away you would think it were a thing of no great worth When you are tempted to set too much by your credit and to sin against God for the esteem of men remember that Christ Made himself of no reputation Phil. 2. 7. And can your reputation be less then none How did he value his honour with men that gave his cheeks to be smitten his face to be spit upon his head to be Crowned with thornâ— and his body to â—e arrayed contemptuously like a fool and at last to be hanged as a contemned thing among malefactors on the Cross to be reviled by those that passed by and by him that suffered with him Learn here of him that all of us must learn of how far to set by your honour in the world Are you tempted to set by the riches and full provision or possessions of the world Remember how Christ set by them When he might have had all things and refused to have a place to lay his head When he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich 2 Cor. 8. 9. And the best of his servants have followed him in this course to whom he would have given more of the world if he had seen it best for them For when they had dishonour they had honour with it and by it when they had evil report they had also good when they were poor they made many rich and having nothing possessed all things â— 2 Cor. 6. 8 10. When your flesh would have its pleasure remember him that pleased nor his flesh but submitted it to hunger and thirst and weariness to fasting and watching and praying whole nights and at last to scourgings and buffeting and crucifying When your appetites must needs be pleased in meats and drinks remember him that had Gall and Vinegar given him to drink When your bodies would be set out with such apparell as may make you seem comelyest in the eyes of others remember him that wore a seamless coat and was hanged naked on the Cross for your sakes When you are tender of every little hurt or suffering of your flesh though in a way of duty remember him that gave his hands and feet to be nailed and his side to be pierced to death for you When you are ashamed to be reviled for well-doing remember him that despised the shame Heb. 12. 2. And thus as the sight of the Brazen Serpent did cure them that were stung in the Wilderness so the Believing views of a Crucified Christ may get out the poison of worldly delusions from your souls 3. The Believing thoughts of the Cross of Christ will make us apprehensive also of our duty in contemning the world in conformity to Christ. For though we are not bound to be Crucified as Christ was unless God specially put us upon it nor bound to live without house or home in voluntary chosen poverty as Christ did because there were some special Reasons for his sufferings that are not for ours yet are we all bound to mortifie the flesh and contemn the world in imitation of him and to submit to what suffering God shall impose on us And in the example of Christs Cross this Duty must be observed 3. THE next thing to be declared is How the Cross which we our selves do suffer in obedience and conformity to Christ and for his sake doth crucifie the world to us and us to the world That the bearing of this Cross is necessary to all that will be Christs Disciples yea the daily bearing of it is plain Luke 9. 23. 14. 27. Mat. 10. 38. Two waies doth this tend to the crucifying of us to the world 1. It doth more sensibly convince us of the Vanity and Enmity of the world then any meer doctrine or distant examples and observations could have done I confess we see so much of the worlds deceit of others that might satisfie a reasonable man that it is vain But the flesh doth draw us into a participation of its bruitishness and reason will not see the light But the Cross doth convince even the flesh it self the grand deceiver When the malice of wicked men le ts flie at us and the world do spit in our faces as they did in Christs when we are made a common by-word and derision and become as the filth of the world to them and the off-scouring of all things when we have fears within and troubles without and the sorrows of death lay hold upon us and enemies compass us round about O how effectually will this convince us that the world is vain and worse then vain Who will look for Happiness from a known Enemy and Tormentor When we have Iobs Messengers of sad tidings and troubles are multiplyed When pain and anguish seiseth upon our bodies and grief hath taken up its dwelling in our very flesh and bones who then will admire or dote upon the world Who will not then cry out against it as Vanity and Vexation When friends abuse one another they will fall out for the time though they turn not enemies And even the wicked when they suffer in the world will speak hardly of it though the friendship of it still dwell in their sensual dispositions How much more will the Enmity be encreased in the Saints when the world doth use them as its enemies and spit out the bitterest of their malice against them If we have any thoughts of reconciliation with the world God useth to suffer it to buffet and abuse us that stroaks and smart may maintain the Enmity if nothing else will serve to do it Believe it Christians God doth not permit your sufferings in vain He seeth how apt you are to dote upon the world and how dangerous it will prove to you if you be not delivered from the snares of this deceiver and therefore he had rather that the world should make you smart awhile
by it is evident that this is a damning errour for any man to feign a Christianity to himself that excludeth Mortification or is separable from it in a capable subject When men look at a predominant fleshly interest or worldly mind as they do at some particular sin consistent with true faith I say this is an errour about the very Essence of Christianity and which hazards their salvation 2. And that it is the end of the Cross of Christ and his Doctrine to Crucifie the world to us and sanctifie us to God I have already manifested in part and shall now further manifest 1. It is the end of Christ and his Cross and Doctrine to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men But it is by mortification as a part of true sanctification that Gods Interest in mens souls is recovered Therefore c. As God could have no lower ultimate end then himself in our Creation so neither in our Redemption Christ himself as Mediator is but a Means to God who is our End he is the way to the Father and no man cometh to the Father but by him Joh. 14. 6. He is the Truth that revealeth the Father and the Sun of the world which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world Joh 1. 9. revealing to us both the End and Means That as there is no light in the earth but what is communicated by the Sun which enlighteneth some by the Moon at midnight and some by its direct approaching light at the break of day before they see the Sun it self and others by its glorious rays when it is risen and visible to them and hath also in it self an objective sufficiency to enlighten those that shut their eyes or want eye-sight by which they should receive it Even so is Christ the Sun of the Redeemed World which actually affordeth all that Light to all which they do possess even some to all that have the use of Reason which hath a tendency to recovery and he hath an Objective sufficiency to the saving illumination of those that through their own fault are never so illuminated The pure Godhead is the Beatifical Light to be enjoyed for felicity The Mediator is the Mediate Light to shew uâ— the way to God And in these two consisteth Life Eternal to Know God the Beginning and End who himself hath no Beginning or End and to know Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to â— call us to himself Ioh. 17. 3. Whether he that is now to us Mediâ—tor acquisitionis will also hereafter be Mediator fruitioâ—is and whether the glorified do only see the Godhead in the glass of the glorified body of Christ and of the most glorious effects which then they shall partake of or also shall immediatly beheld it in it self and see Gods essence face to face I shall not presume to determine while Scripâ—â—â—â— seems so silent and learned conjectures are so much at odds But as he is the Redeeming restoring Mediator it is that we speak all this while of Christ And â—o his Office is to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men Now his Interest lyeth in our Estimation and our Love And these the world hath dispossest him of It is therefore the work of Christ to pull down this Idol and set up God in the throne of the soul. And therefore though faith be the principal Mediant using Grace yet Love is the most principal finall enjoying grace and more excellent then faith as the end or that act which is next the end is more excellent then the means 2. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to Heal us and to save us to Heal us of our sin and to save us from it and its destroying fruits But by sanctification and so by mortification doth Christ thus Heal and Save us If health be worth nothing the Physician and all his Physick is worth nothing The Health of the soul objectively is God and formally is its Holiness or perfect Disposedness and Devotedness to God of which anon These therefore doth Christ come to restore And therefore he comes to call us off the Creature and bring our affections back to God 3. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to conquer Satan and destroy his works and with him the rest of the enemies of God and of our salvation But the world is one of these enemies and the Means by which the Devil doth prevail therefore it is Christs End to overcome the World and cast it out of the hearts of men Luk. 11. 22. Ioh. 16. 33. 1 Ioh. 3. 5 8. He was manifested to this end to take away our sins and destroy the works of the Devil And therefore he causeth his followers to overcome him 1 Ioh. 2. 13 14. And herewithal observe that it is essential to the Relation to respect the End to the Physiâ—ian that he be for the health of the Patient and to Christ the Redeemer that he be the Saviour of his People from their sins and the Restorer of their souls to the Love of God So that Christ is denyed and made no Christ where Mortification and Sanctification are denied He is not believed in as Christ where he is not believed in for these Ends. And therefore he that cometh not with this intent to Christ that he may restore the Image of God upon him and bring him off from the Creature unto God that he may live to him doth not come to Christ as Christ and is not indeed a true Christian. The Doctrine of Christ doth lead us from the world in these several parts of it and by these steps How the Cross doth it I shewed before 1. It declareth to us what God is and what man is and so that God is our absolute Owner and Governour and that he is the only Primitive simply necessary being and that man was made by him and therefore for him and disposed to him 2. It declareth to us that the state of our integrity consisted in this closure of the soul with God 3. It sheweth us that our selicity consisteth in his Love and in the fruition of him by a mutual complacency 4. It sheweth us that our first sin was by turning from him to Carnal self and to the world 5. And that this is our lost estate wherein both sin and misery are conjunct to Adhere to self and Creatures and to depart from God 6. It sheweth us what Christ hath done and suffered to Reconcile God to us and open us a way of admission into his presence and how far God is Reconciled to us and thus Revealeth him in the face of a Mediater as Amiable to our souls that so we might be capable of loving him and closing with him again For if he had remained in his wrath he would have been the object of our hatred or meer terrour at least and not of our Love And no man can Love him that is not presented to him and apprehended by him
Sanctity and to true Christianity it self They confess they should be all contemners of the world but God forbid say they that none but such should be saved But I tell you God hath forbidden already by his Laws and God will forbid hereafter by his sentence and execution that any other but such should be saved Do you think in good sadness that any man can be saved that is not truly dead to the world and doth not despise it in comparison of God and the great things of Everlasting Life Let me satisfie you of the contrary here once for all and I pray you see that your flesh provoke you not to mutter forth such unreasonable self-delusions any more 1 Ioh. 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him what can be spoken more plainly or to a worldly minded man more terribly 1 Ioh. 5. 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Jam. 4. 4. Know ye not that the Friendship of the world is enmity with God Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God Will not all this serve to convince you of this truth Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. For they that are after the flesh do minde the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death but to be spirituall â—â—nded is life and peace Because the carnal minde is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Gal. 5. 16 17. 6. 8. Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Col. 3. 1 2 3. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Matth. 6. 19 20 21 24. Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the ore and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Matth. 10. 38 39. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it Mat. 16. 24. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Luk. 14. 26 27. If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple Verse 33. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple Heb. 11. 13 14 15. and to the end But I will cite no more Here is enough to convince you or condemn you If any thing at all be plain in Scripture this is plain that every true Christian is dead to the world and looks on the world as a crucified thing and that God and the life of glory which he hath promised have the Ruling and chiefest interest in their souls Believe it Sirs this is not a work of supererrogation nor such as only tendeth to the perfecting of a Christian but such as is of the essence of Christianity and without which there is not the least hope of salvation SECT XIV Use 2. BY all that hath been said you may perceive what it is to be a Christian indeed and that true Christianity doth set men at a further distance from the world then carnal self-deceiving Professors do imagine You see that God and the world are enemies not God and the world as his Creature but as his Competitor for your hearts and as the seducer of your understandings and the opposer of his interest and the fuel and food of a fleshly minde and that which would pretend to a Being or Goodness separated from God or to be desirable for it self having laid by the relation of a means to God To be a Friend to the world in any of these respects is to be an enemy to God And God will not save his enemies while enemies An enmity to God is an enmity to our salvation for our salvation is in him alone If then you have but awakened consciences if the true love of your selves be stirring in you and if you have but the free use of common reason I dare say you do by this time perceive that it closely concerneth you presently to look about you and to try whether you are crucified to the world or not Seeing my present business is for the securing of your Everlasting Peace and the healing of your souls of that which would deprive you of it let me intreate you all in the fear of God to give me your assistance and to go along with me in the work for what can a Preacher do for you if you will do nothing for your selves How can we convert or heal or save you without you I do foresee your appearance before the Lord a jealous God that will not endure that any Creature should be sweeter and more amiable to you then himself I do foresee the condemnation that all such must undergo and the remediless certain misery that they are 〈◊〉 know there is no way that the wit of man or Angels can devise to prevent the damnation of such a soul but by Crucifying the flesh and world by the Cross of Christ and dethroning these Idols and submitting sincerely to God their Happiness This cannot be done while you are strangers to your selves and will not look into your own hearts and see what abominable work is there that you may
thy self from danger without him Canst thou relieve or shift for thy self at death without him Darest thou tell him so to his face and stand to it But if thou must have a God what God wouldst thou have Wouldst not thou have a God that can preserve and help and save thee The world cannot do it man I shall tell thee more of this anon that the world cannot do it If thou trust to it it will deceive thee But if thou say then the Lord shall be thy God Away then with all thy Idols God will have no partner much less a superiour that is exalted above himself in thy soul. As Ioshua said to the Israelites Iosh. 24. 14. so say I to you Now therefore fear the Lord and serve hâ—m in sincerity and in truth and put away the world which hath been your God and serve ye the Lord And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord choose you this day whom ye will serve but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. And if you say as they God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods I answer you as he Away then with the world and all other Idols or else Ye cannot serve the Lord for he is an holy and a jealous God and will not forgive such transgressions and sins but if ye forsake the Lord and serve the world he will turn against you and consume you Vers. 19 20. God will not stoop to be an underling in your hearts He should have all anâ— will at last have all or none But in the mean time he will have the Best or none I do witness here to every soul of you in his name that if he have not the Soveraignty and be not nearer and dearer to your hearts then all the honours and riches and pleasures of the world he is not he will not be he cannot be your God And if he be not thy God thou wilt be Godless as thou art ungodly thou wilt be without his help as he was without thy heart Well this is the first Article of my charge against every one of you that hath not Crucified the world you are Idolators and Traytors against the God of Heaven And he that would have no God deserves to be no man and worse and shall either by Repentance wish with groans that he had never been a worldling and a neglecter of God or else in Hell with groans shall wish that he had never been a man As the first Commandment is the fundamental Law and informeth all the obligations of the particular precepts following so Idolatry which is against that Commandment is the fundamental crime and is the life of all the rest He that would overthrow the God-head would overthrow all the world 2. The next Article of my charge is this You are guilty of most perfidious Covenant-breaking with God Did you not in your Baptism solemnly by your parents Renounce the world the flesh and the Devil and promise to fight against them to the end of your life under the Banner of Christ And have you performed that vow No you have turned treacherously to the enemy that you renounced and fought for the world and the flesh against the Word and the Spirit of Christ. And if you renounce your Baptismal Covenant you renounce in effect the benefits of that Covenant And if God deal with you as with Perfidious Covenant-breakers thank your selves 3. Moreover you are guilty of debasing your humane nature and so of wronging God that made it and is the owner of it God made you not as bruits that are capable of no higher things then to eat and drink and play and die and there 's an end of them But he made you capable of an Everlasting life of Glory with himself And as he suiteth all his works to their uses and ends so did he suit the nature of man to his immortal state As we were made by God we were sitted and disposed to everlasting things And you â—â—ave turned your hearts to the vanities of this world and set your mind on them as your happiness as if you had no greater things to mind Objects do either ennoble or debase the faculties according as they are That is the vilest creature which is made for the vilest uses and ends or imployes himself in such And that is the most excellent creature which is exercised about the most excellent Objects God made you for no less then his everlasting praises before his face among his Angels and you have so far debased your own nature as to root like swine in earth and dung and to live like bruits that have not an immortal state to mind How will you answer this dishonour done to the workmanship of God That you should blot out his image and imploy your souls against his Laws and live as moles and worms in the earth He put you on earth but as travellers towards Heaven and you have taken up your home in the way and forgotten your End and Resting-place 4. The next part of your Guilt is that you have perverted the use of all the creatures and turned the Works and Mercies of God against himself He gave them all to you to lead you to himself and to furnish you for his service He made this world to be a Glass in which you might see the Maker and a Book in which you might read his Name and will And will you overlook him and forget the end and use of all What shame and pitty is it that men should live in the world and not know the use of it That they should see such a beauteous frame and not understand its principal signification That they should daily converse with so many creatures which all proclaim the name of God and with one accord declare his praise and yet that this language should be so little understood Like an illiterate man in a Library that seeth many thousand Books and knows not a word that is in any of them Or like an ignorant man in an Apothecaries shop that seeth the drugs but knoweth not what they are good for nor how to use any of them if he had the greatest need The poorest cottage and smallest pittance of these earthly things might be a greater Blessing to you if you could understand their use and meaning then all the world would be to him that understands it not Your possessions in themselves if you have not God in them are but the very corpse or carkaise of a blessing The Life of them is wanting And without the Life they will but trouble you For you have the burden without the use Your horse will carry you while he hath life and health but take away his life once and you must carry him if you will have him any further Verily it is no wiser a trick to make a stir in the world and seek the profits and pleasures of it without God or any otherwise then as
they are animated by God then it is to ride a dead horse where you may spur long enough before you are one mile further on your way While your friend is living you may delightfully converse with him but when he is dead you will have little pleasure in his company the corpse of the most learned man will actively teach you no more then a block Were it the wiâ—e of your bosom who through prudence and beauty were never so lovely to you when her carkaise is left without a soul you will hasten to bury it out of your sight and would be loath so much as to keep it in your house much less in your bed and bosom as heretosore He that knoweth not that God is the Life and Soul of all our Blessings doth neither know what God is nor what a Blessing is They are but the empty casks and shells and not the Blessings themselves without him You have the Burden and not the Benefit You must carry them but they can do nothing to the supporting of you It s the absence of God that denominateth them Vanity and Vexation and it is he only that can make them strengthening and consolatory That must have some life in it that must be pabulum vitae and must sustain our lives Souls cannot feed upon meer terrene corporeal things any more then the body upon meer spirituals As we have both a soul and a body to be sustained so have we a sustenance suitable to them both even the creature animated by God or God in and by the creature How great then is your sin that destroy your blessings by depriving them of their Life and that in a sort destroy the world to your selves by separating it from its soul and so most â—ainously injure God and rob your selves of the comfort of all and turn your blessings into burdens and your helps into hinderances and snares to your souls Have you lived so long in the School of the world yea and of the Church too where you have not only the Library of Nature but supernatural Revelations to teach you to understand it and yet do you not know a word or letter You do but lose and abuse the creatures of God if you see him not in them and if you be not in the use of them led up to himself The heavens declare the Glory of God and the â—irmament sheweth his handy work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world Psal. 19. 1 2 3. and yet poor carnal wretches will not understand them All the works of God do praise him for he is righteous in all his waies and holy in all his works Psal. 145. 10 17. and yet the wicked will not understand O how many talents must the ungodly be accountable for as having neglected them and perverted them from the prescribed use Every creature that you see is a Teacher of Divine things to you and you shall answer for your not learning by them Every creature is an Herald sent from heaven to proclaim the will of your Maker and your Duty and you gaze upon the Messenger and note his garb and hear his voice and never understand or regard his Message I would you did but consider what you lose by this your folly and what life and sweetness there is in creatures which the heavenly believer draweth forth and you have no taste of And till the Spirit of Sanctification have fitted you to such a work you are never like effectually to taste it For it is not every flie that can suck honey from the sweetest flower though the Bee can do it from that which we call a stinking weed An ignorant Country-man hath a Meadow that aboundeth with variety of herbs he can make no other use of them then to feed his cattle with them Or if he walk into his garden he can only smell the sweetness of a flower but a skilful Physitian that knows their use can thence fetch a medicine that may be a means to save his life But the Believing soul can yet go further and there find that which may further his salvation If you have a Lease of your Lands or a pardon for your life that 's written in an excellent character There 's a great deal of difference between another mans delight in viewing the character and yours in considering of the security you have by it for estate or life But the difference is much greater in our present case between those that have only the superficial sweetness and beauty of the creature to the pleasing of the flesh and those that have God in it to the spiritual refreshing of their souls Believe it Sirs it is not a small sin to pervert the whole creature that 's within our reach to a use so contrary to that which it was appointed to as foolish worldlings do not only to lose that use and benefit of the creatures which we might have but to turn all into poison and death to our selves Not only to rob God of that Love and Honour and Service which they should procure him but also to turn all this upon themselves I tell you this will prove no venial sin 5. And your Guilt herein is further aggravated in that you do hereby as much as in you lyeth frustrate the works of Creation and Redemption For God made all things for himself and you use nothing for him The Redeemer hath reprieved and restored the creature for its primitive use that God might yet have the Glory of his works and yet you will not give it him but when you pretend to know God you Glorifie him not as God but become vain in your imagination your foolish hearts being darkned as Paul tells them Rom. 1. 21. And what doth that man deserve that would as to the use destroy all the world and frustrate all Gods works both of Creation and Redempion 6. Herein also you are guilty of Enmity against God For this is the greatest wrong that an enemy can do him to rob him of the glory of his Goodness and Power and to preser his creatures as if they were more amiable then himself You cannot dethrone him from his glory but you may possibly deny him the preheminence in your hearts You may deny him the Kingdom within you but you cannot dispossess him of his Eternal Power or Kingdom without you The worst enemy that God hath can do him no harm but this is no thanks to you he will not be beholden to you for it You may as truly shew your Enmity by wronging as by hurting And what greater injury can you offer to the Almighty then to set up the silly creature in his stead and give it that Love and Service which is his due 7. Moreover you are guilty of wilfull self murder you choak your selves
insist on that which you dare not stand to And be of that mind which then you must condemn your selves Do you think that this is a reasonable course to be ventured on in so great a matter Quest. 9. MY next Question is this Do you ever mean to Repent of your fleshly and worldly-mindedness or not If you do not it seems you are far from a Recovery Many an one perisheth with bare uneffectuall purposes of Repenting but those that have not so much as such a purpose are graceless indeed But if you do purpose to Repent I would further ask you Do you think that is a right mind or a wise course which must be Repented of If it be right and wise what need you to Repent of it If it be not wise and right why will you now retain it yea and wilfully maintain it against the perswasions of God and man Doth not this proclaim that you are wilful sinners and that you know you sin and yet will do it even against your own knowledge and conscience that you know the world to be a deceitfull vanity and yet for all that you will stick to it as long as you can with the neglect of God and the true felicity And can you expect mercy and salvation that wilfully and knowingly do set your selves against it and reject it Quest. 10. MY next Question which I desire you to answer is this Do you in good sadness take the world for your enemy or for a hindrance to you in the way to heaven If you do not why did you in your Baptism renounce it and promise to fight against it And why have you professed since to stand to that Covenant And how then can you believe the word of God which so often telleth you what a hinderance Riches and Honours are to mens salvation But if indeed you believe that the world is your enemy and hinderance why then will you love it and be impatient if you want it and take such pleasure in it and desire to have more of it Do you love to have your salvation hindered or hazarded and will you love and long for that which is an enemy to it I think the way to heaven is hard enough to the best They need not make it harder then it is and be at so much labour all their lives to make themselves more enemies and more work and to block up the way while they pretend to walk in it O the hypocrisie of a carnall heart How notoriously do mens lives contradict their tongues When they will call the world their enemy and vow to fight against it to the death and at the same time will labour for it and greedily desire it as if they could never have enough That they will make so much of it as to neglect God himself and their salvation for it and make it the greatest care and business of their lives to get and keep it and all the while profess that they take it for their enemy This is dissembling beyond all bounds of shame Remember this when you are impatient of your low estate or contriving further accommodations to your flesh or hunting after a full estate Are these the signs of enmity to the world Do you hate your salvation that you so love the hinderers of it Either live as you profess or profess as you live Quest. 11. YET further I demand Whether indeed you do intend to Renounce your Christianity and all your hopes of heaven or not If you do you know whom to blame when you are deprived of it And I could wish you would first find out some better way or something that may be of valuable consideration to repair your loss But if you say you have no such intent I further ask Why then do you do it and do it after so much warning Do you disclaim your Christianity in the open light and yet say that you intend no such thing You cannot do it against your will And that it is in effect a Renouncing or Denying your Christianity yea and your salvation is plain For your Christianity containeth a Renouncing of the world and therefore it is part of our Baptismal Covenant If then you return to the world which you renounced you forsake your Christianity Had you rather forsake the world or Christ One of them you must forsake For he hath told you that Except you forsake all that you have you cannot be his Disciples Luke 14. and that you cannot serve God and Mammon Had you rather renounce the world or your salvation One of them you must let go For God hath said that the love of the world is enmity against God â—nd that if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him If therefore you will still say You hope you may keep both What do you less then give God the lye If you will still adhere to the world and yet say that you do not renounce your Christianity or Salvation you may as well say that though you joyn in Arms with open Rebels yet do you not forsake your Loyalty to your Prince Or though you live in Adultery yet you do not forsake your conjugal fidelity and chastity and that you do not cast away your life though you take poyson when you know it to be such or though you commit those crimes which must be punished with death I beseech you consider well Why you forsake Christ and why you will destroy your selves before you do it past remedy Quest. 12. MY last Question which I desire your answer to is this Do you indeed think that God is not better then the world and that Heaven is not more desiarble then earth and an endless glory then a transitory shadow Or is there any comparison to be made between them Have you considered what a sad exchange you make O unthankful souls Hath not God done more for you then ever the world did He made you and so did not the world He Redeemed you when none else could do it He preserveth you and provideth for you and all that you have is from his bounty He can give health to your bodies peace to your consciences salvation to your souls when the world cannot do it If the world be better then God in prosperity what makes you call upon God in adversity When any torment seizeth on your bodies or death draws near and looks you in the face then you do not cry O Riches help us O Pleasures or Honours have mercy upon us But O God have mercy upon us and help us Can none else help you in your distress and yet will you prefer the creature in your prosperity Ah poor deluded souls that follow the world which will cast you off in your greatest need and neglect him that would be faithful to you for ever The time is coming when you shall cry out The world hath deceived me I have laboured for nought but if you had been as true to God
as you were to it he would never have deceived you He would havâ— received your departed souls and made you like Angels and raised your bodies to glory at the last and perpetuated that Glory Will your Riches or Pleasures or Honours do this He would have rescued you from the devouring flames which your inordinate love of the world will bring you to O miserable change to change God for the world it is to change a Crown of Glory for a Crown of thorns the love of our only friend for the smiles of deceitful enemies Life for death and Heaven for Hell O what thoughts will arise in your hearts when you are past the deceit and under the sad effects of it and shall review your folly in another world It will fill your consciences with everlasting horrour and make you your own accusers and tormentors to think what you lost and what you had for it To think that you sold God and your souls and everlasting hopes for a thing of nought More foolishly then Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottagâ— If the Sun and Moon and Stars were yours would you exchange them for a lump of clay Well sinners if God and Glory seem no more worth to you then to be slighted for a little fleshly pleasures you cannot marvail if you have no part in them SECT XIX IF Reason and Scripture-Evidence would serve turn I dare say you would by this time be convinced of the necessity of being Crucified to the world and the world to you But sensuality is unreasonable and no saying will serve with it like a child that will not let go his apple for a piece of gold But yet I shall not cease my Exhortation till I have tryed you a little further and if you will not yield to forsake the world you shall keep it to your greater cost as you keep it against the clearer light that would convince you of your duty 1. As you love God or would be thought to love him love not the world For so far as you Love it you Love not him 1 Ioh. 2. 15. As ever you would be found the friends of God see that you be enemies and not friends to the world For the friendship of the world is enmity to him Iam. 4. 4. You are used to boast that you Love God above all If you do so you will not Love the world above him And then you will not labour and care more for it then for him Your love will be seen in the bent of your lives That which you Love best you will â—eek most and be most careful and diligent to obtain As they that love money are most careful to get it so they that Love heaven will be more careful to make sure of that As they that love their drink and lust will be much in the Ale-house and among those that are the baits and fewel of their lust So they that Love the fruition of God will be much in seeking him and enquiring after him and much among those that are acquainted with such Love and can further them any way in the accomplishment of their desires If you Love God then let it be seen in the Holy Endeavours of your lives and set your affections on things above and not on the things that are on earth For that which you most look after we must think that you most Love Can you for shame commit Adultery with the world and live with it in your bosoms and yet say that you love God 2. As you Love your present peace and comfort see that you love not but Câ—ucifie the world It doth but delude you first and disquiet you afterward Like wind in your bowels which can tear and torment you but cannot nourish you And if God do love you with a special Love he will be sure to wean you from the world though to your sorrow If you do provoke him to lay wormwood on the breasts and to hedge up your forbidden way with thorns when you find the smart and bitterness you may thank your selves It is the remnant of our folly and our backsliding nature that is still looking back to the world which we have forsaken that is the cause of those successive afflictions which we undergo Did you Love the creature less it would vex you less but if you will needs set your minds upon them and be pleasing your worldly sensual desires God will turn loose those very creatures upon you and make them his scourges for the recovery of your wits the reducing of your mis-led revolting souls Are you taken up with the hopes of a more plentifull estate and think you are got into a thriving way How soon can God blast and break your expectations By the death of your cattle the decay of trading the false-dealing of those you trust the breaking and impoverishing of them by contentious neighbours vexing you with Law suits by corrupted witnesses or Lawyers that will sell you for a little gain by ill servants by unthrifty children by thieves or souldiers or the raging flames by restraining the dew of heaven and causing your land to deny its increase and make you complain that you have laboured in vain How many waies hath he in a day or an hour to scatter all the heap of wealth that you have been gathering and to shew you that by sad experience which you might have known before at easier rates At the least if he meddle not with any thing that you have yet how quickly can he lay his hand upon your selves and lay you in sickness to groan under your pain and sin together and then what comfort will you have in the world when head ake's and back ake's and nothing can ease you When pain and languishing make you weary of day and of night and weary of every place and weary of your best diet your finest cloathes your merriest companions Where then is the sweetness and beauty of the world Then if you look on house or goods or lands how little pleasure find you in any of them Especially when you know that your departure is at hand and you must stay here no longer but presently must away Oh then what a carkaise will all the glory of the world appear and how sensibly then will you read or hear or think of these things that now in your prosperity are very little moved by the hearing of them Is it your children that you set your hearts upon in inordinate Love or Care Why alas how quickly can God call them from you by death and then you will follow them to the Church-yard and lay them in the grave with so much the sadder heart by how much the more inordinately you loved them And perhaps God may leave them to be Graceless and unnatural and make that child by rebellion or unkindness to be the breaking of your heart whom you most excessively affected If it be a wife that you over-love you know not but they
is trying what it will do for him as long as he hath any hope As the poor Infants in Ireland lay sucking at the breasts of the corpse of their mothers when the Irish Papists had slain them so will these poor worldlings still hang upon the world even when they find that it cannot help them and when it will scarce afford them a miserable life but with much labour and suffering they hardly get a little food and cloathing So that their affections are still alive to the world even when to their sorrow they look on the world as dead or almost dead to them But the Cross of Christ will teach you to Crucifie the world in another manner As Christ did voluntari'y contemn it and shew that he set so little by it that he could be content to be the most despicable Object upon earth in the eyes of men so will he teach you also voluntarily to contemn it and set up your selves as the Butt which all the arrows of malice and despight shall be shot at So that though you have naturally a desire of the preservation of your lives and from that may say Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me Yet shall you have a far greater desire of Pleasing Enjoying and Glorifying God which shall cause you from a comparative Judgement to say Yet not as I will but as thou wilt Much more shall you be enabled to despise the unnecessary matters of the world and to mortifie your inordinate and distempered affections The Cross of Christ will shew you Reason though such as the worldly wise call foolishness even such Reason as none but a Teacher come from God could have revealed for the leading up your affections from the world and it will point you to the higher things that do deserve them This Cross is the truest Ladder by which you may ascend from earth to heaven When in this wilderness and as without the gate you are lifted up with Christ on the Cross of worldly desertion and reproach you are then in the highest road to Glory and if you faint not shall be lifted up with him into the throne For if you suffer with him ye shall also reign with him Rom. 8. 17. And to him that overcometh he will grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne Rev. 3. 21. And as the Cross of Christ is Teaching so also is it Strengthning As the touch of his garment stayed the poor womans issue of blood so will a touch of the Cross by faith even dry up the stream of your inordinate affections that have run out after the world so long When a worldling mourneth over the Dead world as having lost his chiefest friend the Cross of Christ will cause you to rejoyce over it as a conquered enemy and to insult over the carkaise of its vain glory and delights For its one thing to have an angry God by providence to kill the world to them and another thing to have a gracious Father by his Spirit to Crucifie us to the world and the world to us by the changing of our â—â—â—imation and affections Set therefore a Crucified Christ continually before the eye of your souls See what he suffered for your adhering to the creature and what it cost him to loose you from it and bring up your souls again to God Can you still dote upon the world intangle your affections in its painted allurements when you consider that this is the very sin that killed your Saviour and which the blood of his heart was shed to cure Look up to that Cross and see the fruits of worldly love If you see a man that hath surfeited on unwholsom fruits lie groaning and gasping and trembling in pain and at last must die for it you will take heed of such a surfeit your selves It was we that took a surfeit of the creature and the Lord that saw there was no other remedy to save our lives did by a Miracle of mercy and wisdom derive upon himself the pain and trouble and groaned and sweat and bled and dyed for our Recovery And will you feed and surfeit again upon the creature Look up to that Cross of Christ and see the enmity of the world unto your Head And will you take it for your friend See how it used him and will you expect that it should deal contrarily with you Did it hang him up among Malefactors and will it set you on a throne or dandle you in its lap Did it pierce his side and will it heal your wounds Did it reach him Gall and Vinegar and will it reach you milk and honey If it do yet trust it not For the milk is but to prepare you for that sleep in which it may destroy you without resistance for you must next expect the hammer and the nail as Iael used Sisera Iudg. 4. 19 21. There is not so clear a glass in all the world in which you may see the world in its just complexion and proportion as the Cross of Christ. There you may see what its worth and how to be esteemed by the estimate of one that never was deceived by it but had a perfect knowledge of its use and value When you have so long beheld that Cross by faith as that you can be contented to be hanged between heaven and earth and become the most forlorn and despicable creature in the eyes of men and to be stript of all the comforts of life and life it self for the sake of Christ and for the Invisible Kingdom which by his Cross was purchased for you then are you throughly Crucified to the world and the world to you by the Cross of Christ. Direct 2. BE sure that you receive nâ—t a false picture of the world into your minds or if you have received such an one see that you blot it out and think of the creature truly as it is The most are deceived and undone by mis-apprehensions As if a man should dote on an ugly harlot because of a painted face or because he seeth a beautiful picture which is falsly pretended to be hers The world in it self is vanity and insufficiency As opposite to God it is poyson and enmity to us But most men conceive of it as if it were the very seat of their felicity and so are enamoured of they know not what If men did not entertain false apprehensions of God and his holy waies as being against them or hurtful to them or needless and uncomfortable they could not be so much against them as they are And so if they did not entertain false apprehensions of the creature and the waies of sin they could not be so much for them nor embrace them with so much delight For they draw in their fancies some odious picture of the blessed God and his waies and therefore they are averse to them And so they draw in
callings and about all the creatures Think with your selves Here is now a lesson in my hands if I can but learn it Here is somewhat that may shew me both God himself and my duty if I could but skilfully open it and understand it And so bethink your selves What it is that God would teach you or command you by that creature and especially to what use he requireth you to put it And remember that if you should think of God all the day long and yet not intend him and refer your labours and your riches to his service and give them up to his use this is not sanctifying God in the creature but hypocriticall abusing of him For it is not all thinking of God that will serve the turn 6. As you use to take account of your servants how they do your work so I would advise you every night or as often as you can to take an account of your selves as you are the servants of the God of heaven and ask your Consciences What have I done this day for God and how have I observed and sanctified him in his works So much for the fifth Direction Direct 6. REmember alwaies that the world is the enemy of your salvation and that if you be damned it is like to be through its enticements and therefore labour to be alwaies sensible that you go in continual danger of it And this will make you use it as an enemy and walk in a constant fear least it should over-reach you And see also that you endeavour as clearly as you can to find out wherein its enmity doth consist and then you will perceive that it is especially in seeming more Lovely then it is as it is the fewel of concupiscence and the provision of the flesh And when you understand this you will perceive that your danger lyeth in over-loving it and that it killeth by its embracements And this will direct you which way to bend the course of your opposition and what you must do to be saved from its snares To call the world an enemy is easie and common but so far as your very hearts apprehend it as an enemy so far you are out of danger of it An easie enemy that is conquered by understanding that it is an enemy And the way of its conquest is by enticing men to take it for a friend And also remember how great a part of your Christian life consisteth in keeping up the comâ—ate with this enemy and how certainly and miserably you will perish if you be overcome Direct 7. TO â—e much in the house of mourning and see the end of all the living will help us towards the Crucifying of the world Go among the sick and hear what they say of the world Stand by the dying and see what it will do for them and think now whether God or the world be better Look on the corpses of your deceased friends and think now Whether the soul be ever the better for all the riches and pleasures of the world Take notice of the graves and bones of the dead and think what a worthless thing is the world and all the glory and delights that it affords which will so turn us off and leave our bodies in such a plight as that Take notice of the frailties and diseases of your own flesh that tell you how shortly it must lie down in the dust And then compare this world and that to come where your abode will be everlasting It s a shame for a wise man to live as a stranger to so great a change and to look so much after a world that he is leaving and so little after the world that he shall abide in Direct 8. IT will much avail to the Crucifying of the world to you that you study the improvement of all your Afflictions Do not repine at them and think them a greater evil then they are but believe that they are a special advantage to your souls for the mortifying of your inordinate affections to the world and if you have but the wisdom and hearts to make use of them they may do you more good then all the prosperity of your lives hath done If you fall into poverty or fall under slanders or reproach from men if your friends prove false to you if those that you have done good to prove unthankful if the wickedness and frowardness of men do make you even weary of the world remember now what an advantage you have for Mortification When you have experience it self to disgrace the creature to you and your very flesh doth seem to be convinced Now see that you observe the teachings of this providence and come off from the world when you see it is so little worth and set as light by it as it doth by you Bethink you now that God doth this to lead you to himself and thankfully accept his call and close with him as your portion and be content with him alone and let them take the world that can get no better You see that adversity will make even a worldling speak hardly of the world as men will do of their friends when they fall out with them How much more should it help the gracious soul to a fuller sense of its vanity and nothingness and of the necessity and excellency of more certain things It s a great sin and folly in us that we strive more to have afflictions removed then sanctified and so we lose the gain that we might have got Though affliction alone will do little good yet grace doth make such use of affliction that thousands in heaven will have cause to bless God for them that before they were afflicted went astray and were deceived by the flatteries of the world as well as others Abundance that have been convinced of the vanity of the world have lingered long before they would forsake it till affliction hath rowsed their sleepy souls and by a lowder voice hath called them away Direct 9. BE very suspicious of a prosperous state and be more afraid of the world when it smiles then when it frowns Some are much perplexed for fear left they should not stand in adversity that too little fear being ensnared by prosperity They are afraid what they should do in a time of tryal and do not consider that prosperity is the great tryal Adversity doth but shew that love of the world which was in mens hearts in time of prosperity When men forsake Christ for fear of suffering and because they will not forsake the world they do but shew the effects of that disease which they had catcht long before When the world pleased them they fell so deep in love with it that now they will venture their souls to keep it It is prosperity that breeds the disease though adversity shew it Love not the world and you will easily part with it and so will easily suffer for Christ And prosperity is liker to tice your Love to it then
whose discourse and prayers and daily examples will help to draw up your minds to God and to affect them with things that nearlyer concern you then all the profits or pleasures of the world I Have now told you how you should Crucifie the world and be Crucified to it but which of you will be so happy as to practise these Directions I cannot tell I have brought you the armour and weapons by which this mortal enemy must be conquered but it is not in my power to give you couragious hearts to use them I can certainly tell you what a safe and comfortable life you might live if you had but this enemy under your feet and what an easie and happy death you might die if you were first dead to the world But to make you so happy is not in my power I can foresee the certain damnation of all unconverted sensualists and worldlings and how sad a farewell they must shortly take of all their felicity But to prevent it is not in my power For I cannot make you willing to prevent it It s a greater work then bare information that is here to be done If it were but to give the world a few contemptuous words and to call it vanity and a worthless thing I should make no doubt of prevailing with the most But to kill it in your hearts is an harder work And with some kind of men it prospers most when it is hardlyest spoken of It s easie to tell a man why and how he should lay down his life for Christ if he be called to it But there 's more to be done before it will be practised Till an heavenly light possess your minds and shew you the better things to come and assure you of more to be had in Christ then the world can afford you I cannot look you should lose your hold nor that an hundred Sermons should make you willing to seek the death of that which hath your heart Sense is tenacious and unreasonable When you have knockâ— it off an hundred times yet still it will be sense and will be eager after its delights again Some will be still thinking that Mortification and heavenly mindedness is so rare a thing that God will be more merciful then to condemn all that are without them And some will be inconsiderate and sensless when the clearest reason is set before them and will venture their salvation rather then become dead to all their worldly lusts and hopes So that with sorrow I must say that now I have said all and delivered my Message I fear the most will still be the same and reject the counsel of God to their perdition For this is a grace that accompanieth salvation and therefore will be the portion only of the heirs of salvation Though our hearts dâ—e â—ire and prayer and endeavour must be that the professed Is ' raelites may be saved yet we must take up our comfort shorter that the Elect shall obtain it though the rest are hardened For its Gods will and not ours that must be done If Christ be satisfied in the salvation of his little flock as seeing in them the travail of his soul even so must we and though as Samuel did over Saul so we may mourn over the rest that God hath forsaken yet that sorrow must know its season and its measure For my part I must needs say to you that though it may seem an high extraordinary thing to some of you for a man to be thus Crucified to the world I have no more hope of the salvation of any of you except it shall be thus with you then I have of the salvation of Cain or Iudas And as great and wonderful a work as this is if ever God mean to save your souls it will be done on you I shall therefore according to my duty beseech you to review and practise the Directions which are given you and to use the world as the heirs of Heaven that have laid up their hope and treasure there But if you will not hear and take warning it is because the Lord will destroy you and because you are not the sheep of Christ 2. Chron. 25. 16. 1 Sam. 2. 25. Iohn 10. 26 27. SECT XXI Use last I Have been all this while Perswading and Directing you to be Crucified to the world and the world to you I doubt not but God hath done this work already upon the souls of many of you even upon all that truly believe in a Crucified Christ. To such therefore I shall next address my speech and in general this is my earnest request to you That you would use the world as a Crucified thing and as men that are Crucified to it should do I will not lengthen this discourse in using many motives to you One would think that which way ever you look you should have forcible motives before your eyes If you look downward on earth you may see enough to wean you from it and if seeing will not serve your most wise and gracious Father will make you feel and put the case beyond dispute If you look upwards you may perceive a better and more enduring substance and an inheritance so much more glorious and enduring as should suffice to take your minds from earth If you look within you what foot-steps of the Spirit may you there trace what graces in act and habit may you find which are all at mortal enmity with the world You may read there a Law engraven upon your hearts which condemneth the world to subjection and contempt And many an obligation you may there find wherein you are deeply bound against it For I hope you have not cancelled them all and forgot all the promises which you made to God All your Professions and all your blessed Priviledges and Hopes do engage you to another world and to the hearty renouncing and forsaking of this You say you are Crucified and Risen with Christ If you be then seek the things that are above set your affections on the things that are above and not on the things that are on earth For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is your life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are on earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience Col. 3. 1. to 7. It doth not beseem the members of a Crucified Christ to be earthly minded nor the members of a Glorified Christ to set their minds oâ— things so low It ill bâ—seems the Heirs of an incorruptible rown of Glory to make too great a matter of these trifles It is the Enemies of the Cross of Christ and not those that are Crucified with him whose God is their belly and who glory in their shame and who mind earthly things but the Saints conversation must
devour widows houses after all their preaching and praying there is none that are more cruel and close handed or ready to over-reach or deceive then they nor any that are more greedy for the things of the world In answer to this Objection I shall first say somewhat to the Professors of Religion and then shall speak to the objecters themselves First you that profess the fear of God take notice I beseech you of this accusation and though it may shew you cause to pitty malicious slanderers yet let it provoke you to search your hearts and lives and see that you give not cause for this reproach As for those worldly time-serving hypocrites which in all places creep in among the Saints and do but serve themselves of Christ let them know that God will one day require an account at their hands of all these scandals which they have caused in the Church and the ruine of poor ungodly souls that are dasht in pieces and cast themselves into hell by stumbling at this stone which their worldly practises have laid before them If you would needs be worldlings you were better have kept in the world among worldlings then to have crept into the Church of Christ and brought thither your scandalous worldly lives to the dishonour of that Religion which condemneth your practises and you Did not Christ warn you to count your costs and never to dream of being his Disciples unless you could forsake all and follow him under the Cross in expectation of a promised treasure in Heaven â—s there any thing that Christ did more peremptorily require of you then to Renounce the world and deny your selves if you would be his Disciples And yet will you come without this wedding garment and bring your base and earthly minds among his servants and cause his truth and his house and followers to bear the reproach of your worldly baseness I tell you it is like to cost you dear that you have cast this dishonour on the name of God and caused the damnation of the impious reproachers The wrong you have done to God and men you shall certainly pay for in everlasting misery unless a through repentance do prevent it And I fear it is but few of these worldly Hypocrites that ever truly do repent But woâ— to them by whom offence cometh It were good for that man that he had never been born 2. And as for you that truly fear God I beseech you let the slanders of wicked men awake you to an holy jealousie of your selves You see what their eye is upon Take heed then how you walk you hear what it is that offendeth them As far as is possible avoid all occasions of such offence Take heed in your bargaining buying or selling how you carry your selves toward them and what you say If all the actions of your lives were right save one they will reproach you for that one If you speak but one rash or unhandsom word they will forget all the rest and remember that one and traduce you as if all were like that one See therefore that you walk and speak by line and rule And remember that it is not an ordinary measure of charity and good works that is expected from you according to your abilities by God and man If you love those that love you what Reward have you do not even the Publicans the same And if ye saluâ—e your brethren only what do you more then others do not even the Publicans so But saith Christ I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despightfully use you and persecute you That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Mat. 5. 44 45 46 47. Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Mat. 6. 15. Your actions and words are observed and scanned more then any other mens For malice is quick-sighted and of a strong memory And you are the Light of the world A City that is set on an hill cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Take heed therefore that you be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life This will not only stop the mouthes of the enemies but it will also rejoyce your Teachers in the day of Christ that they have not run or laboured in vain Yea if they were offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith they would rejoyce with you all Phil. 2. 15 16 17. And for your selves also it is necessary that you excell others in good works For except your righteousness exceed the righteousness even of Scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. 5. 20. Remember that you live among the blind and if you stumble and fall you know not how many will fall upon you and if you break but your shins they that fall upon you may break their necks and if you rise again you are not sure that they will rise Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims in this world abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul having your conversation honest among the Gentiles the unbelievers and prophane that whereas they speak against you as evil doers they may by your good works which they behold glorifie God in the day of visitation 1 Pet. 2. 11 12. For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 15. Finally brethren be ye all of one mind having compassion one of another love as brethren be pittiful be curteous not rendring evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing knowing that ye are thereunto called that ye should inherit a blessing 1 Pet. 3. 8 9. And so walk that if any obey not the word they may yet be won by your exemplary conversation 1 Pet. 3. 1. As you hear more then others so do more then others that it may appear you build upon a rock Mat. 7. 24 25. And as the book of God is much in your hands and mouth so remember that whoso looketh into the perfect Law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetfull hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed For Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep your selves unspotted from the world Iam. 1. 25 27. 2. Having said this much to the godly by way of caution I shall now make answer to the Objecters themselves You that say There are none so cruel and so covetous as these that
of heaven in it The stones and earth are useful for you to tread upon though they are unfit for you to feed on or too hard to rest upon So though the world be unfit to Rest or feed your souls it may be made a convenient way for you to travail in It is unmeet to be Loved but it is meet to be Used when you have learned so to use it as not abusing it When self is throughly down and denyed and God is exalted and your souls brought over so clearly to him that you are nothing but in him and would have nothing but in and with him and do nothing but for him then you shall be able to see that glory and amiableness in the creature that now you cannot see I or you shall see the Creator himself in the creature Benefit 10. WHEN once you are truly Crucified to the world You will have the honour and the comfort of an heavenly life Your thoughts will be daily steeped in the Coelestial delights when other mens are steept in Gall and Vinegar You will be above with God when your carnal neighbours converse only with the world Your thoughts will be higher then their thoughts and your waies then their waies as the heaven where you converse is higher then the earth When you take flight from earth in holy Devotions they may look at you and wonder at you but cannot follow you for whither you go they cannot come till they are such as you You leave them groveling here on earth and feeding on the dust and striving like children or rather like swine or dogs about their meat When you are above in the Spirit on the speedy wings of Faith and Love beholding that face that perfecteth all that perfectly behold it and tasting that Joy which fully reconcileth all that fully do enjoy it which we must here contend for but none do there contend about it What a noble employment have you in comparison of the highest servants of the world How sweet are your delights in comparison of the Epicures O happy souls that can see so much of your eternal happiness and reach so near it Were I but more in your condition I would not envy Princes their glory nor any sensualists and worldlings their contents nor desire to be their partner I could spare them their troublesom dignities and their burdensom Riches and the unwholsom pleasures which they so often surfet on and the wind of popular applause which so swelleth them Yea what could I not spare them if I might be more with you O happy poverty sickness or imprisonment or whatever is called misery by the world if it be nearer Heaven then a sensual life and if it will but advantage my soul for those contemplations which are the imployment of mortified heavenly men Yea if it do but remove the impediments of so sweet a life I know by some little too little experience I know that one hours time of that blessed life will easily pay for all the cost and one believing view of God will easily blast the beauty of the world and shame all those thoughts as the issues of my dotage that ever gave it a lovely name or turned mine eye upon it with desire or caused me once with complacency to behold it or ever brought it near my heart O Sirs what a noble life may you live and how much more excellent work might you be employed in if the world were but dead to you and the stream of your souls were turned upon God Had you but one draught of the Heavenly consolations you would thirst no more for the pleasures of the world Yea did you but taste of it as Ionathan of the honey from the end of his rod 1 Sam. 14. 27. your eyes would be enlightened and your hearts revived and your hands would be so strengthened in your spiritual warfare that your enemies would quickly perceive it in your more resolute prevailing opposition of their assaults And experience will tell you that you will no further reach this heavenly life then you are Crucified to earth and flesh God useth to shew himself to the Coelestial inhabitants and not to the Terrestrial And therefore you will see no more of God then you get above and converse in Heaven And if faith had not this elevating power and could not see further then sense can do we might talk long enough of God before we had any saving knowledge of him or relish of his Goodness And doubtless if we must get by faith into Heaven if we will have the reviving sight of God then we must needs away from earth For our hearts cannot at once converse in both Believe it Sirs God useth to give his heavenly Cordials upon an empty stomack and not to drown them in the mud and dirt of sensuality When you are emptyest of creature-delights and love you are most capable of God And fasting from the world doth best prepare you for this heavenly Feast Let Abstinence and Temperance be imposed upon your senses but command a totall Fast to your Affections And try then whether your souls be not fitter to ascend and whether God will not reveal himself more clearly then before It may seem a paradox that the vallies should be nearer Heaven then the Hills But doubtless Stephen saw more of it then the high Priests And Lazarus had a fairer prospect thither from among the dogs at the Rich mans gate then the Master of the house had at his plentiful table And who would not rather have Lazarus's sores with a fore-sight of Heaven then the Rich mans fulness without it yea with the fears of after misery A Heavenly life is proper to the mortified Benefit 11. MOreover those that are Crucified to the world are most fruitfull unto others and blessings to all within their reach They can part with any thing to do good with They are rich to God and their Brethren if they be rich and not to themselves If a mortified man have hundreds or thousands by the year he hath no more of it for himself then if he had a meaner estate He takes but necessary food and rayment he shunneth intemperance and excess Nay he often pincheth his body if needfull that he may tame it and bring it into subjection to the Spirit and the rest he layes out for the service of God so far as he is acquainted with his will Yea his necessary food and rayment which he receiveth himself is ultimately not for himself but for God Even that he may be sustained by his daily bread for his daily duty and fitted to please his Master that maintaineth him If they have much they give plenteously If they have but little they are faithfull in that little And if they have not silver and gold they will give such as they have where God requireth it But the unmortified worldling is like some spreading trees that by drawing all the nutriment to themselves and by dropping on the rest
of it no more then what is true In the later sense we may look at it and glory in it but not in the former 4. And we must distinguish betwixt a Glorying that is terminated ultimately in our selves or is accompanyed with any undue ascribing to our selves This is no doubt unlawful And a Glorying which tendeth to God and is terminated in him and giveth no honour to any creature but what God giveth them and what is in a due appointed order to Gods honour And this Glorying is a duty and by all Christians to be carefully performed If any that peruse these lines be tainted with this weak mistake let them consider besides what is said before 1. Is it just or pious that Christ should lose the honour of his mercies meerly because he hath bestowed them on us Doth that make them no mercies Or rather make them the greater mercies Shall his grace be villified because he makes thy soul the subject of it Why then it seems you would have thanked him more to have kept his mercy to himself 2. Is Christ ever the less Christ because he dwels in the hearts of Believers Eph. 3. 17. And will you pretend to honour Christ without you and deny him his honour within you even because he is within you Yea and will pretend that it is for the honour of Christ thus to dishonour him and tell men that they deny or overlook it because they admire him within them as well as without them If Paul say I have laboured more abundantly then they all and add when he hath done Yet not I but the Grace of God which was with me and by the grace of God I am what I am and his Grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain 1 Cor. 15. 10. will you tell him that he exalteth himself against Grace No but he exalteth Grace in himself Paul travailed in birth of the Galathians till Christ-were formed in them Gal. 4. 19. And must not he and they observe and honour Christ â—n them after all this travail If we glory that we are Crucified with Christ and that we live we alwaies add or understand yet not we but Christ liveth in us and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2. 20. And is it a dishonour to Christ to acknowledge him in us and to say that we Live by him 3. Was it not the very end of Christs death to save his people from their sins Mat. 1. 21. and to bring them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God Acts 26. 18. and did he not give himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tiâ— 2. 14. Did he not therefore die for all that they which Live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 15. When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men To what end â— For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the Father and the knowledge of the â—on of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that henceforth we be no more children c. â—â— Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie it and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such tâ—ing but that it should be holy and without blemish â— Abundance of such passages in Scripture do assure us that the Holiness of the Saints was the End that Christ intended in his deaâ—h If therefore you teach men that they must not look at the Enâ— in effect you â—each them that they must not look at the Means â—f they must not reâ—oyce in the fruits of Christs death they must not rejoyce in his death it self For in it self considered his death was not matter of Ioy but of Sorrow but it is for the sake of the effects that we must rejoyce in it It is a dishonour to the sufferings and merits of Christ to obscure or make light of the ends and effects of them And they that will Glorifie the blood of Christ must Glorifie its effects on the souls of men Who is it that more honoureth the Physitian he that magnifieth the cure or he that villifieth it or makes nothing of it as was aforesaid 4. Doubtless we must observe and Glory in that which all the world must observe and glorifie God for and that which will be the matter of our Redeemers honour at the last day yea the magnifying of himself therein is the end of his coming But such is the holiness of the Saints They that see their good works must glorifie our Father which is in heaven Mat. 5. 16. And Christ shall come to be Glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believed even because they believed the Gospel 2 Thes. 1. 10. Read also ver 11 12. 5. The Holiness of the Saints is called their participation of the Divine nature as 2 Pet. 1. 4. is commonly expounded and it seems more agreeable to that which followeth then to expound it of a Relative participation of the Divine nature in Christ without us This is given to them that escape the corruption that is in the world through lust 2 Pet. 1. 4. And will you overlook the Divine Nature and refuse to honour it and this on pretence that it is a wrong to Christ Take heed lest by your doctrine you make Christ an enemy to God and holiness who came into the world to do his Farhers will and to recover sinners by sanctification from the world to God 6. It is the great sin of the Devil and wicked men to wrong and dishonour Christ in his Saints and when he himself is out of their reach they persecute him in his members and those that love not and relieve not these shall be judged as not loving and relieving Christ. It is certainly our duty then to do contrary to them and to love and admire Gods graces in the Saints and to observe and honour Christ within them 7. What comfortable use can we make of the promises if we must not look at those Evidences in our selves that prove our interest in them God hath promised that If we confess with the mouth the Lord Iesus and believe in the heart that God raised him from the dead we shall be saved Rom. 10. and that he that believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life Iohn 3. 16. If you say with the Papists that no man can tell whether he be a true Believer or not then you make the promise vain For what good