adversity This is a great reason why worldly Prosperity and true Holiness do so seldom go together and so few of the great ones of the world are saved O how hard is it to have the world at will and not to be ensnared by it and over-love it How hard is it heartily and practically to contemn a prosperous condition How hard to have serious lively thoughts of the great things of eternity and serious preparations for death and judgement when we have health and wealth and all the accommodations which our flesh doth desire Satan knows this well enough and therefore he is willing that his servants shall have prosperity He knows that it is not the way to get him servants to beat them and use them hardly but to please them by flatteries and fulfill their lusts that they may be enticed to imagin his service to be the best It s the custom of harlots to set out themselves to the best and to adorn themselves for the tempting of their lovers and not to go in an homely dress which no one will be taken with No wonder then if Satan the Pandor of the world do adorn it with the best cloathes and present it to you in the most enticing garb he can If the lips of this harlot did not drop as an honey-comb and her mouth were not smoother then â—yl she could not lead such multitudes to her end which is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword her feet go down to death her steps take hold of hell lest men should ponder the path of life Prov. 5. 3 4 5 6. And it is no wonder that God to save his people from this delusion doth dress the world to them in a courser attire and when he seeth them in danger to be enamoured on it as well as others if he present it to them in the rags of poverty and in the scabs of its corruption confusion and deformity that they may see the difference between it and their home It s strange to see how highly prosperity is regarded by the most how earnestly they desire it pray for it or contrive it and how much they are troubled when they fall into adversity when yet they know or say they know that the love of the world is the bane of the soul and that it killeth men by deceiving them Can you keep your affections as loose from the world when you have houses and lands and all things at your will as you could if it were otherwise Remember I beseech you that the poyson of the world is covered by its sweetness and that it killeth none but those that love it Be suspitious therefore that there is danger where you find delight If your estate be such as is pleasing to your flesh believe it is not likely to be safe to your souls If therefore your health your wealth your honours be such as your flesh would have them if your houses your accomodations your friends be suited to your carnal desires believe it your souls are in no small hazzard and therefore look about you as you love your salvation and fear the snare The great enemy of your souls hath not baited his hook with so curious and costly a bait for nothing The cautelous fish that is afraid to swallow yea or to taste or to come neer till he knows what is under it doth save his life when that which boldly ventures and fearlessly devoureth the bait is destroyed It s not for nothing that Solomon chargeth the man that is given to his appetite to put his knife to his throat at a feast and not to be desirous of the dâ—inties which are deceitfull Prov. 23. 1 2 3. A prudent man foreseeth the evil even when it is covered with the pleasantest bait and so he hideth himself and escapeth when the simple passeth on and is punished Prov. 22. 3. It is part of the description of the sensual a postates in Iude 12. that in their feasts they fed themselves without fear And it is as dangerous a thing to cloath your selves without fear to seek after wealth and honours without fear to possess your houses and lands without fear to see any thing that 's carnally pleasing to you or hear your own prayses without fear when other men must needs have things to their will do you study your duty and let the will of God be your will and if he give you a plentiful estate without seeking it or give you reputation and the praise of men without your affecting it receive them not without fear Think with your selves What a snare is here now for my soul Though it be good in it self and as it comes from God yet what an advantage hath the Deceiver here against me How easily may such a carnal heart as mine be enticed to the inordinate love of these and to be more remiss about higher and greater things and to be forgetful or insensible about the matters of my endless state How many men of worldly wisdom yea how many that seemed Religious have been thus deceived and perished before me Yea this is the common road to hell And is it not time for me then to look about me The old Christians were so jealous of the world and afraid of being mortally poysoned by its delights that they sold what they had and gave to the poor and voluntarily thrust themselves into poverty as thinking it better to go poor to heaven then to say in Hell that once they had riches I commend not any extream to you for indeed I have ever thought that its greater self-denyal to devote and use our riches for God then at once to cast them away or shut our hands of them and that he is a better steward that improveth his Masters slock then he that rids his hands of it out of an injurious fear of his Masters austerity But yet I must say that the other extream is more common and more dangerous And they that out of excess of fear betook themselves to poverty and to wildernesses were in a far better case then many that seem now to be zealous professors and yet are looking after the pleasures and riches and glory of the world I have many a time wondered at some eminent professors that are as constant and seraphicall in the outside of duty even to admiration as almost any I know and yet as closely and busily grasping at the world and labouring to be rich as if they were the wretchedst worldlings on earth I have oft wondered how they can quiet their consciences and how they make shift so constantly to delude such knowing souls The Countrey sees them drowned in earth and the generality of their godly friends lament them as meer hypocriticall earth-worms and yet because they can carry it on smoothly and not be noted for any palpable oppression or deceit they wipe their lips they bless themselves and with gracious words would cloak their covetousness as if men did but uncharitably
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
THE Crucifying of the world BY THE Cross of Christ. With a Preface to the Nobles Gentlemen and all the Rich directing them how they may be Richer By Richard Baxter 1 JOHN 2. 15. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man Love the world the Love of the Father is not in him LONDON Printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-Yard Anno Dom. 1658. To my Worthy FRIEND THOMAS FOLEY Esquire SIR UPON a double account I have thought it meet to direct this Treatise first to you First because the first Embrio of it was an Assize Sermon preached at your desire when you were high Sheriff of this County which drew me to add more till it swell'd to this which some of my Brethren have perswaded to venture into the open world Secondly because God hath given you a heart to be exemplary in Practising the Doctrine here delivered And I think I shall teach men the more successfully when I can shew them a Living Lesson for their imitation I never knew that you refused a work of Charity that was motioned to you but oft have you offered me that for the Churches service which I was not ready to accept and improve I would not do you the displeasure as to mention this but that forward Charity is grown so rare in many places that some may grow shortly to think that we preach to them of a Chimaera a non-existent thing if we do not tell them where it is to be seen Especially now Infidelity is grown up to that strength that Seeing is taken by many for the only true informer of their Reason and Believing for an unreasonable thing And I take my self to owe much thankfulness to God when I see him choose a faithfull Steward for any of his Gifts It s a sign he meaneth Good by it to his Church Some Rich men sacrifice all they have to to their Bellies which are their Gods even to an â—picurian momentany delight and cast all into the filthy sink of their sensuality These are worse then Infidels defrauding their posterity and swine alive but worse then swine when they are dead Some Rich men are provident but its only for their posterity The ravenous bruits are greedy for their young Some will begin to be bountifull at death and give that to God which they can keep no longer as if he would be thus bribed to receive their souls and forgive their worldly hearts and lives Some will give in their life time but it is but part of their sinfull gains like the Thief that would pay Tythes of all that he had stolen Some give a part of their more lawfull increase but it is against their will it being forced from them by Law for Church and Poor and therefore properly it is no gift Some will give freely but it is on some corrupt design to strengthen a party or a carnall Interest or make their way to some preferment Some give but only to those of their own Opinion and not to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Some give in Contention as the troublers of the Church of Corinâ—h preacht to add affliction to our bonds As many of the Papists that think by their works of Charity they are warranted uncharitably to slander almost all besides themselves as if we were all enemies to Good works or solifidians that took them for indifferent things or made them not our business Yea the best work that the Jesuites ever did even the preaching of the Gospel to the Heathens they would not endure us to joyn with them in where they could hinder us unless we would do it in their Papal way Some will do Good to stop the cries of a guilty Conscience for some secret odious sin which they live in Some will be Liberall with the Hypocrite for applause And some will give with a Pharisaicall conceit of merit even ex condigno from the Proportion of their work to the Reward as the greatest Popish Doctors teach Some through meer fears of being damned will be liberall especially out of their superfluities choosing rather to forsake their money then their sin Some do pretend the highest ends and that it is Christ himself to whom they do devote it but they will part with no more then the flesh can spare And that they may yet seem to be true Christians they will not believe that any thing is a duty which requireth much self-denyal and standeth not with their prosperity in the world And some will give much out of a meer natural kindness of disposition or upon meer natural motives though not as to Christ nor from the Love of God nor from that Spirit of Christian special Love by which the members of Christ have their Communion What excellent Precepts of Clemencie and Beneficence hath Seneca Yea what abundance of self-denyal doth he seem to join with them And yet so strange was this highest naturalist to the truest Charity or self-denyal that it is self that is his principle end and all For a man to be sufficient for himself and happy in himself without troubling God by prayer or needing man was the summ of his Religion Pride was their master vertue which with us is the greatest vice And for all his seeming contempt of Riches and Pleasures yet Seneca keeps up in such a height of riches and greatness as that he was like to have been Emperour And sometime to be Drunken he commends to drive away cares and raise the mind pleading the example of Solon and Arcesilaus confessing that Drunkenness was objected even to Cato their highest pattern of vertue affirming that the objectors may sooner make the crime honest then Cato dishonest Among all this seeming Charity and Self-denyal that proveth not a sanctified heart how excellent but too rare is the true self-denyal and charity of the Christian who hath quit all pretence of Title to himself or any thing that he hath and hath consecrated himself and all to God resolving to imploy himself and it entirely for him studying only to be well informed which way it is that God would have him lay it out And among these Saints themselves how rare is that excellent man that is Covetous and Laborious for God and for the Church and for his Brethren And that doth as providently get and keep and as Painfully Labour how rich soever he be and as much pinch his flesh in prudent moderation that he may have the more to Give and to do good with and make the best of his Masters stock as other men do in making Provision for the flesh and laying up for their posterity Sir as far you have proceeded in this Christian art you are yet in the world among the snares and lime-twigs of the Devil in a station that makes salvation difficult and therefore have need of daily watchfulness
glory we must be raised hereby into the greater suspition of it and the more resolvedly set against it As Herod did put to death even the innocent children lest Christ should escape that so he might make sure work for his Crown So must we subdue our sensuall desires by denying them sometimes even in lawful things lest we should be carryed to that which is unlawful before we are aware and we must avoid the very occasions and appearances of evil and restrain our selves in the liberty that we might take and not go as near the brink of danger as we dare For it concerneth us to make sure work where the Reign of Christ and our own salvation is so much concerned as in our victory over the world it is 4. The whole life of Christ on earth was one continued conflict with the world They believed not on him even when they saw his Miracles They hated him even while he did them good They afforded him not a settled habitation So in the height of its Glory the world must not be trusted by us Though it afford us sustenance for our outward man yet must we hate it and we must allow it no settled entertainment in our hearts Christ was in the world and the world was made by him and yet it knew him not Iohn 1. 10. We converse in the world and our outward man must live by it as in it we received our life and yet we must not know it in its separated capacity The world could not hate them that were of the world but Christ it hated because he was not of it Iohn 7. 7. and 15. 18 19. and 17. 14. So must we hate the world because it is not of that nature nor for that Interest as the New creature is though worldlings that are of it cannot hate it The nearer Christ was to the end of his life the more cruelly and maliciously did the world use him And the nearer we are to our parting with the world the more must we contemn and hate it 5. The world did arraign and condemn Christ as a Malefactor they charged him to be a Deceiver and one that did his mighty works by the power of Beelzebub So must we justly charge the world to be a Deceiver and work its strange stupendious delusions by the power of Satan the great deceiver and as a Malefactor must we attach arraign and condemn it They came out against Christ as a thief with swords and staves Mat. 26. 55. we must come out against the world as that great thief that would rob God of his honour and interest Christ of his Kingdom and us of our salvation and by the sword of the Spirit must disarm and conquer it The world judged Christ to be a blasphemer and guilty of death because he said that he was the Son of God and should sit at his right hand We must condemn the world of Blasphemous usurpation that would needs become our God and usurp the Divine prerogatives and honours They spit upon Christ in token of hatred and contempt And we must as it were spit at the pleasures and profits and honours of the world and manifest our defiance and hatred and contempt of them They buffeted Christ in manifestation of their malicious enmity And the world and our flesh must not scape our hands though our war be but defensive yet must we offend that we may defend So fight I saith Paul 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. not at one that beateth the air that maketh a shew of enmity when there is none as children in sport or sencers that have not intent to kill but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first verb signifieth to buffet and beat black and blew as we say Et valid is ictibus subjicere reluctantem as Beza speaks and the second verb signifieth to bring into servitude or into the state of a servant which is indeed the very work that we have to do with the flesh and the world They reproached Christ when they had smote him and tauntingly bid him Prophesie who smote him And the world and all the Idols of it deserve no better of us when they will usurp the place of God and we may well scorn such a God as Elias did Baal and as God useth to do by the Idols of the heathen Fine gods indeed that can neither save themselves nor us The world did strip Christ and put on him a robe and a Crown of thorns and a reed into his hand and again spit upon him and mocked him And this contempt in our apprehensions must we cast upon the arrogant world we must strip it of its vain shew and give it the honour of a reed for levity and of thorns for unprofitableness and vexation for as thorns it vexeth when it promiseth felicity and as thorns it choaketh that word of truth and as a reed it is shaken with every wind No backwardness of the Judge and no intercession of his wife could rescue Christ from the malice of the Jews but the more is said for him the more they cry Crucifie him And as resolvedly-must we persecute the world No intercession of our flesh or backwardness of carnal Reason must take us off but we must be content with nothing but its Crucifying When Pilate drew back they knockt all dead with this malicious voice Iohn 19. 12. If thou let this man go thou art not Caesars friend whosoever maketh himself a King speaketh against Caesar So must we quicken and provoke our Reason by arguments drawn from our fidelity to Christ and say If we favour this world we are not â—lse friend of Christ for whatsoever would make it self our King and our felicity and would steal away our hearts is not Christs friend When Pilate saith Shall I crucifie your King they cry out we have no King but Caesar. And when the flesh or carnal Reason saith Will you cast away your comforts your peace your happiness your lives We must say We have no comfort but Christ no peace but Christ no happiness no life but what 's in Christ. The world crucified Christ between two thieves And we must crucifie the world between two thieves viz. the flesh on the one hand and the Devil on the other which would both have robbed God and us Though through the power of a Crucified Christ the one of these even the flesh may be so refined as to be admitted into Paradise The world vvritt over the head of Christ as the cause of his death King of the Iews And vve must write this over the Crucified vvorld This is it that would have been our King and God and Happiness so let all thine enmies perish O Lord. We must pierce the very sides of it and let out its heart-blood We must nail its hands and feet the very instruments or means by vvhich
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
best condition to him that best accommodateth and advantageth him for Gods service He taketh the fleshes Interest to be none of his Interest and therefore that which only concerneth the flesh concerneth not him And therefore he looketh in this regard upon an high estate or a low as Nothing to him Let God dispose of him as he please that 's Gods work and not his He hath learned in whatever estate he is therewith to be content He knows how to be abased and he knows how to abound every where and in all things he is instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need Phil. 4. 11 12. If you applaud and honour him he takes it but as if you breathed on him at the best it is but a sweeter kind of breath And if you vilifie and reproach and unjustly condemn him he takes it for no great hurt For with him it is a very small thing to be judged of man and at mans barr for he that judgeth him is the Lord 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. Nay what if I said that if you imprison him threaten him torment him yea put him to death he doth not much regard it nor make any great matter of it so far as he is Crucified to the world How joyfully could Paul and Silas sing in the stocks when their bodies were sore with scourging Act. 16. What a rapture of joyful praises did the Apostles break forth into when they were threatned by the Priests and Elders Acts 4. 21 24. I will add but two more instances Dan. 3. The three Jews that were threatned with a furnace of fire are accused for not regarding the King vers 12. and their own answer is vers 16 17. We are not careful to answer thee in this matter If it be so the God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thy hand O King But if not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods And sure they that would not accept of deliverance when they were tortured Heb. 11. 35. did set little by it in comparison of that better Resurrection which they hoped for As Christ said of Satan The Prince of this world hath nothing in me Iohn 14. 30. So in our measure so far as we are dead with Christ the world hath nothing in us no interest no carnal life to work upon and therefore is unable to do any thing with us Our undue estimation of the world is Crucified This is the first part 2. If we are Crucified to the world our inordinate cogitations of the world are Crucified We must not give it that room in our fancies or power over them as they have with other men We should not indeed allow the creature one thought either for it self and terminated finally in it self nor as separated from God Much less should we have so frequent and so pleasant or passionate thoughts of it as most have But of this more in the Application 3. To be Crucified to the world is to have Affections dead about worldly things That which is vile in our estimation will be uneffectual in our Affections I shall briefly instance in some particulars 1. Our Love to the world is Crucified if we be Crucified to the world As this is the great Affection which God claimeth for himself and which he maketh the seat of his most excellent grace so is it that which he is most jealous of and will least allow the creature to partake of and the mis-imployment of it is the greatest sin as the right imployment of it is the greatest duty 1 Iohn 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world This is a plain and flat command If the world be not apprehended by the understanding to be our Good it will not be embraced by the will nor be Loved Perhaps you will say Though it be not our chief Good yet it is Good and therefore may be loved though not châ—â—sâ—â— loved To which I answer that in the senses before disclaimed it is none of our Good at all It hath no Goodness to us in it but the Good of a Means which is respective to the End and therefore we must have no Love to it but that which is due to the Means God therefore being our End we must Love the world only for his sake as it cometh from him and leadeth to him The least love to the world for it self is Idolatrous As you may not allow another woman the least Conjugal affection though you allow your wife more without some guilt of unchastity so you may not in the least measure love the creature for it self without some guilt of spiritual unchastity If God must be loved with All the heart and soul and strength then there is none lest for any co-partner whatsoever When we love any thing but as a Means it is more properly the End that we love in that very act And therefore some Philosophical Divines affirm that Nothing but the ultimate End is properly loved so that the Love which we give the world in a due subordination to God is not so properly a Love to the world as to God and therefore it taketh not from God the least part of that which is due to him But if we love it in the least measure for it self or with any co-ordinate Love so much as we allow it is robbed from God 2. Hence it followeth when our love to the world is crucified that our Desires after it is crucified also Before we thirsted after Pleasures or Honours or Riches but now this thirst is abated for when we obey the Call of Christ Isa. 55. 1. and have freely drunk of the living waters we thirst our former thirst no more according to the measure in which we partake of him but his Spirit will be a well of water in us springing up to everlasting life Iohn 4. 13 14. The distempered appetite of a Carnal man is so eager after worldly things that his heart is set upon them which Rom. 8. 5. is called his minding the things of the flesh But the mortified Christian as such hath no mind of them His appetite to them is dead and gone He cares not for them Now he perceiveth that they are not Good for him his heart is turned against them 3. When we are Crucified to the world our expectations of Good from the world are Crucified Before we looked for much from it we thought if we had this Pleasure or that Honour if we had such lands buildings friends or provision then we were well or at least much better then now we are O how Good did we think that these were for us And therefore we still lived in Hope of more But when we are Crucified to the world we give up these Hopes We see then that we were deceived we did but hope for nourishment from a stone 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
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
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
heaven with God The worldling is rich for himself and all that he parteth with for Gods service or the poor is but the leavings of the flesh and that which it can spare when it s own desires are satisfied for so much an Epicure may part with to good uses But the sanctified doth employ his riches for God as being Rich to him and not to his Carnal self You see by this time who they be that are the fools in Gods account And that though the children of this world are wiser in their Generation then the children of light Luke 16. 8. yet the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and the foolishness of God is wiser then men 1 Cor. 3. 19. 1. 20 25. And you know that it is Christ that requireth you to forsake all that you have for him and dare you say that Christ commandeth you to be fools Is not that the wisest way which he requireth Obj. But Christ would not have us cast away that which he giveth us but only rather to forsake it then to forsake him and that I would do Answ. But if you forsake it not first in Affection and Resolution you will never forsake it actually when he calls you to it though you may be confident you should while you look not to be put to it In your hearts all must be now forsaken though you may keep some in your hands till God require it 2. And even in prosperity you must devote your wealth to God and use it more for him then for your selves if you will prove your selves to be his servants Quest. 2. MY second Question to you is this You that are so loath to part with the world and be Crucified to it tell me What hath it done for you that you should be so fond of it and that it should seem worthy of such estimation and affection Hath it not put you to more care and sorrow then it is worth It never gave you solid Peace it never made you acceptable to God! You are not a jot better when you are rich then when you are poor unless grace do that for you that riches cannot nay and grace must do it not only without but against your riches All that the world can do for you is but to satisfie your sensual appetite and by the superfluity to please a Covetous mind And is this a matter of so great worth A beast may have his sensual delight as well as you And if man be better then a beast do you think he is not capable of a better and higher delight then beasts Will you call your selves Men and Christians and yet take up with the pleasures of a bruit and there place your happiness If the drunkâ—rd have an hundred barrels of Ale or Wine more then he can drink this doth not so much as please his appetite but only his faâ—â—â— So if you have never so much riches more then your flesh â—â— self hath use for this only pleaseth a covetous fancy All that you enjoy is but so much as may satisfie the luâ—â—s of your flesh And I pray you tell me Whether you do not your selves believe that a sober temperate heavenly Christian doth live as comfortable a life as you And Whether they have not more peace in their minds without your sinful sensual delights then you have with them Indeed it is but the distemper of your minds that makes that so pleasant to you which another that is well in his wits would be weary of As the swine takes pleasure to tumble in the mire which a wise man would not do Do you not sin against your own experience Have you not found that the world is an unsatisfactory thing and cannot help you in a day of trouble And yet will you stick to it Quest. 3. MY next Question is What hath the world done for any other that should perswade you to set so much by it as you do Did it ever save a soul or heal a soul or make a man truly happy at the last Look back in any credible Records to the beginning of the world and down to this day and tell me where is the man that is made happy by the world And Consider what it hath done for them all He that had most of it and made the best of it for the pleasing of his flesh had but a short taste of sonsual pleasures which quickly left him worse then he was before like cold drink to a man in the fit of an Ague And will you so far lay by your reason as to go against the Experience of all the world Do they all cry out against it as Vanity and yet will you take no warning Can you think to find that by it that no man ever found before you What art have you to extract such comforts from the creature that never man could do till now It is the shame of them that spend so much cost and time and labour in seeking that seed of Gold which they call the Philosophers stone because never any that sought it could find it but have all lost their labour So is it your far greater shame to run an hazard so much greater for that which never man from the beginning of the world could find till now â—olomon went as far as any in the pleasing of his flesh with the fulness of the world and in the Conclusion he passeth this sentence on it that All is vanity and vexation of spirit Quest. 4. MY next Question to you is this What is it that you do seriously expect from the world for the time to come that should perswade you to stick so close to it as you do Some great matter sure you think it will do for you or else you would never so esteem it I pray you tell me what it is Do you think verily that it will make you truly happy Do you expect that it should bring you to heaven I suppose you do not What then will it do for you It will neither prevent a sickness nor remove it It cannot take away a tooth-ake nor a fit of the gout or stone It will not save you from the jaws of death nor keep your bodies from rotting in the grave nor bribe the worms or corruption from devouring them When your Physitian tells you that your disease is uncurable and you see that there is no way but one with you and you must be gone there 's no remedy if then you cry for help to the world it cannot help you Friends cannot save you Riches and Honours Houses and Lands cannot preserve you Death will obey his will that sendeth it and you must away O who would love that and love it at so dear a rate which cannot help you in the time of your necessity Who would serve such a Master such an Idol God as cannot relieve you in the day of your distressâ—â— When conscience is awakened and begins to stir and gripe you and the wrath
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
perswade you to part with it to supply his wants At least you will never be perswaded to part with all and follow Christ till the Belief of a Treasure in Heaven do perswade you to it Luke 18. 21 22. Can you say from your hearts Let all go rather then the Love of God And in a case of tryal do you certainly find that There is nothing so dear to you which you cannot part with for God and the hopes of everlasting life This is a sign of an effectual Faith For neither nature nor common grace did ever bring a soul so high 3. It is also a certain evidence of unfeigned Love For wherein is Love so clearly manifested as in the highest adventures for the person whom we Love and in the costlyest expressions of our Love when we are called to it Then it will appear that you Love God indeed when there is nothing else that you prefer before him and nothing but what you lay down at his feet When the greatest professors that love the world do shew that the love of the Father is not in them 1 Iohn 2. 15. So far as it is loved 4. To be Crucified to the world and alive to God is the very Honesty and Chastity and Iustice of the soul. This is your Fidelity to God in keeping the holy Covenant that you have made with him in Christ. This is your keeping your selves unspotted from the world and undefiled by it When the friends of it live in its Adulterous embracements Iam. 4. 4. Thus do you give the Lord his own even both the creature and your hearts when worldlings do unjustly rob him of both This is the great command and request of God Prov. 23. 26. My Son give me thy heart Give him but this and he will take it as if you gave him all For indeed the rest will follow this But if you give the world your hearts God will take all the rest as Nothing Benefit 2. THE second Benefit is this If you are truly Crucified to the world Your minds will be free for God and his service When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters or to run a race with a burden on his back But knock off his fetters and how easily will he go and take off his burden and how lightly will he run Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls and that this is it that hindereth you from duty and hindereth you in duty and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly conversation When you should chearfully go to God in secret or in your families the world is ready to pull you back Either it calleth you away by putting some other business into your hands or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections so that you have no heart to duty or no life in it or else it creepeth into your Thoughts in duty and taketh them off from the work in hand and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing And if you shake off these thoughts and drive them out of your way they are presently again before you and meet you at the next Turn But in that measure as you have Crucified the world you are freed from these disturbances The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in and after is taken in the same again Having escaped the pollution of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are again entangled therein as a beast in a snare that cannot escape or help himself So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So that you see that the world is a snare that entangleth mens souls and holdeth them as in captivity The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them and so do all the bodily mercies which they possess But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dangers and say Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers the snare is broken and we are escaped Psal. 124. 6 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances when you are once disâ—entangled from this snare Now that which formerly drew off your hearts and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead that enemy that kept your souls from God and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead As the Apostle saith of sin Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin So I may say of the world He that is dead to the world in that measure as he is dead to it is freed from the world Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and then we may run with Patience the race that is set before us Heb. 12. 1. This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity then he did before in the midst of his prosperity because though his flesh hath lost his soul hath gain'd though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had yet the world is now more Dead to him then before and so his mind is freer for God and consequently more with him How blessed a life is it to converse with God with little disturbances and interruptions A runner in a race is willing to be rid of his very cloathes that should cover him and keep him warm because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript Take away prosperity from an unmortified man and you take away the comfort of his life When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer he loseth but his burden How readily will that man obey that is dead to the world when he is commanded to do good to relieve the poor according to his power to suffer wrongs to let go his right to forgive and requite evil with good to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher as perswade an unmortified worldling to these things They think when they hear them These are hard sayings who can bear them Or at least they are duties for a Peter or a Paul and not for such as we There is a very great part of Christian obedience that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world which no man else is able to endure nor will be perswaded to submit to Benefit 3. ANother Benefit of this Crucifixion is this The
the way to that Mat. 5. 3. Blessed are the poor in Spirit It is not Blessed are the worldly rich Nor Blessed are the Glorified only But the reason is For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven that is in title but not in possession ver 2. Blessed are they that mourn And why are mourners blessed For they shall be comforted Luk. 6. 24 25. Wo unto you that are Rich for ye have received your consolation Wo unto you that are full for you shall hunger Wo unto you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep Wo unto you when all men speak well of you c. that is Wo to you that place your comfort and felicity in Riches and Fulness and Mirth and the Applause of men Yea though you possess the things you desire yet wo to you because you shall miss of the true and durable felicity Thus also run all the rest of the blessings in Matth. 5. Blessed are the meek Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the peace-makers Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake that is When you are so firm in the faith and so far in love with me and the heavenly reward that you can bear all these revilings and slanders and persecutions you are Blessed even when the troubles are upon you So that you see here that our present Blessedness consisteth in Mortification to present things and Hope of future And from the future the Reason of our present blessedness is fetcht They which hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled The merciful shall obtain mercy The pure in heart shall see God The peace makers shall be called the children of God The persecuted shall have the Kingdom of heaven Indeed to the meek it is promised in present that they shall inherit the earth as Psal. 37. 11. had before said that is It shall afford them accommodations for a travailer which is all that is desirable in it or can be expected from it For godliness hath the promise of this life and of that to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. Yea moreover there is a special promise to the meek above those godly persons that are most wanting herein For their passage through this world to heaven shall ordinarily be more peaceable and quiet to them then other mens They do not so molest their own minds and vex themselves nor make themselves troubles nor provoke others against them as the passionate do and commonly they are either loved or pittyed or easilyer dealt with by all So that you may see throughout the Gospel that our present blessedness is in Mortification and Hope as the way to our future blessedness which consisteth in fruition And therefore it is a a very great errour in Believers when they overlook the blessedness of a Mortified state and can see little in any thing but sensible fruition and rejoycings When you are low in afflictions and grieved for your corruptions and fill the ears of God and men with your complaints though you have not then the joyful sense of the Love of God yet me thinks you might easily perceive your Mortification And will that afford you no refreshing Do you not feel that you are Crucified to the world and your desires after it are languid and life-less Can you not truly say that the world is Crucified to you and that you look on it but as a Carkass as an empty lifeless and unsatisfactory thing Would you not gladly part with it for more of Christ Could you not let go credit and wealth and friends so that the Kingdom of God might be more advanced within you and you might live more in the Spirit by a life of faith Could you not be content to be poor in the world so that you might but be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him Why do you not then consider what a blessed condition you are in and that your Mortification is a Mercy that leadeth to salvation and as sure a token of the Love of God as your most sensible joyes Did you ever mark and conscionably practise that command of Christ Mat. 5. 12. to the persecuted reviled slandered Believers Rejoyce and be exceeding glad mark what a frame your Saviour would have you live in for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you So when you are poor and afflicted and have hearts that set light by earthly things in comparison of God and Glory you have cause to Rejoyce and be exceeding glad though you live under sufferings for thus it hath been with the true Believers that have gone before you SECT XXVI I Come now to the second Branch of the Observation which is that When Believers Glory in their own Mortification it must be as it is the fruit of the Cross of Christ that so all their Glorying may be principally and ultimately in Christ and not in themselves They must take heed of ascribing the honour to themselves or of resting in themselves but all their observation of the graces that are in them must be in pure respect to him that is the fountain and the end that we may thankfully acknowledge our receivings and admire the eternall Love which did bestow them and the compassions and merits of our Crucified Redeemer and the powerfull operations of his Spirit in our souls and so may be carried out to Love and Duty in the sense of our receivings and may live to the praises of him that hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light And that you may see how great reason there is for this and so may be kept from glorying in your selves I shall open the cause to you as it lyeth both on Christs part and on ours What he is to us and what we are to our selves Consider 1. It was Christ and not we that wrought our deliverance by the wonderfull work of our Redemption Long enough might we have layen in prison before we could have paid the utmost farthing and long might we have born the wrath which we deserved before we could have done any thing to merit or any way procure our deliverance Had we wept out our eyes and prayed our hearts out and never committed sin again this would not have made satisfaction to God for the sin that was past Long enough might we have lain in our blood if this compassionate Redeemer had not taken us up and undertaken the cure Had he turned us off to any creature we had been left helpless Had we looked on the right hand for some to deliver us or on the left we should have found none Besides him there is no Saviour Isaiah 43. 11. Acts 4. 12. And moreover the way he hath
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