those best that are of his own Opinion though there be nothing of the special Image of God upon his Soul Or if he love a true Christian it is not so much for his Holiness and Spirituality as because he is of his mind in those matters of Opinion Hence it is that he is usually a bitter censurer of those that are not of his Opinion how upright soever they may be His very esteeme of men and love to them is partial and factious to those that are of his Mind and Sect A Papist will esteem and love men of the Popish Sect and an Anabaptist will esteem and love men of that Sect most yea a Protestant if he be an Opinionist doth esteem of men and love them as a Sect Whereas the true Christian as he is truly Catholick and of the Catholick Church which is not confined to Papists no nor Protestants so he hath truly Catholik affections and loveth a Christian as a Christian a Godly man as Godly yea if he saw more serious Godliness in one that is not of his Opinion in lesser things yet would he love him more then one that is in such matters of his Opinion that is ungodly or of more doubtfull Piety For as it is God in Christ that he principally loveth so it is Christ that he admireth in his Members and so much of Christ as he sees in any so much are his special affections towards them 9. Ordinarily the meer Opinionist will Sacrifice the very Ends of the Gospel and the honour and success of the great fundamental Truths of God to the interest of those Opinions which he hath in a singular manner to his Own He will rather hinder the propagation of the common Truths and the Conversion of the ignorant then he will silence his Opinions or suffer them to lose any advantages with the world Hence it is that we cannot prevaile with the Papists to silence a while the differences between us and them till we have taught their ignorant in Ireland and other barbarous parts the knowledg of those Truths that all are agreed in Nor can we get many Anabaptists or any such Sect that is engaged in a division to forbear their Opinions till we have endeavoured â—o lay the necessary grounds on which all must build that will be saved But though it be apparent to the world that their disputes and contentions do exceedingly harden the ignorant and ungodly against all Religion and hinder their Conversion and Salvation yet will they go on in the unseasonable intemperate bruting of their conceits and will not be perswaded to agree on those terms for the managing of differences as most tend to secure the interest of Christ and his Gospel in the maine If an Opinionist be for the Truth he is usually without much zeale for it because that Nature doth not befriend the great Spirituall Truths of the Gospel so much as it doth errours and private conceits But if he be of Erroneous Opinions he is usually very zealous for them For Corrupted Nature and Self and Satan and the world oft-times do more befriend these and furnish him with a Zeale for them and blow the coale The counterfeit Angel of Light is very ordinarily also a spirit of heat and great activity not a reviving fire nor a refining fire but a consuming fire devouring Christian Love and meekness and patience and therewith the Church and Truth of God so far as it can prevail For lesser matters that minister Questions such men can say by that which tends to Godly Edifying in Faith 1 Tim. 1. 4. Yea that Charity which is the very End of the Commandement out of a pnre Heart a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned vers 5. From these they swerve and turn aside to vain jangling oft times desiring to be Teachers of such thigs in which they understand not what they say nor whereof they speak vers 6 7. Consenting not to the wholsome Words of Christ and the Doctrine which is according to Godliness they teach otherwise being proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strife of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evill surmisings perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the Truth 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. Yea they sometime take their Opinions or their worldly gain that they often ayme at to be instead of Godliness And think that to be Godly is to he of their mind and way They use to strive about words to no profit but to the subverting of the hearers and their vain bablings increase to more ungodliness 2 Tim. 2. 14 16. But the True Convert looks principally to the main He loves every known Truth of God but in their Order and accordingly to their worth and weight He will not for his own Opinions wilfully do that which shall hazard the main or hinder the Gospel and the saving of mens Souls Though he will not be false to any Truth yet he will avoid foolish and unlearned questions knowing that they do gender strife and the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men and meekly instruct opposers following Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart Tim. 2. 22 23 24 25. 10. Lastly True Converts are stedfast but Opinionists are usually mutable and unconstant The sound Convert receiveth the greatest Truths and receives the Goodness as well as the Truth and takes it not only into the Head but into the Heart and giveth it deep rooting He closeth with God as his only felicity and with Christ as his only Refuge and Redeemer and with Heaven as the sure everlasting Glory to which the world is but a mole-hill or a dungeon No wonder then if this man be stedfast and unmovable alwaies abounding in the Work of the Lord that knows his Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. But the Opinionist either fasteneth on smaller matters or else holdeth these great matters but as bare Opinions and therefore they have no such interest in his heart as to stablish him against shaking tryals and temptations For two sortâ— there are of these Opinionists the onâ— sort have no Zeal for their own Opinions because they are but Opinions And these are time-servers and will change as the King or their Land-lords change and fit their Opinions to their worldly Ends. The other sort have a burning Zeale for their Opinions and these use to wander from one Opinion to another not able to resist the subtilty of seducers but are taken with fair and plausible reasonings not able to see into the heart of the cause These are as Children tâ—ssed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight and cunning craftiness of men whereby they lie in weight to deceive Eph. 4. 14. When with great confidence they have held one sort of Opinions a while and railed against those that were not of their mind ere long they
It layeth this Tower of Babel in the dust and maketh us abhorre our selves in dust and ashes It setteth the house on fire about our eares which we both Trusted and Delighted in And makes us not only see but feel that it's time for us to be gone Pride is the Master Vice in the unsanctified and it 's the part of Humiliation to cast it down Self-seeking is the busines of their Lives till Humiliation help to turn the streame And then if you did but see their thoughts you should see them think most vilely of themselves And if you do but over-heare their Prayers or Complaints you shall hear them still cry out upon themselves and beg help against themselves as their greatest Enemies 2. The next Use of Humiliation and implyed in this is to Mortifie those sinnes which Carnal self doth live upon and is maintained by and to stop all the avenues or passages of it's provision Sinne is sweet and dear to all that are unsanctified But Humiliation makes it bitter and base As the Indians cured the Spanish Captaine of his Thirst after Gold by pouring melted God down his throat or as Children are perswaded from playing with a Bee-hive when they are once or twice stung by them or from playing with snappish dogs when they are bitten by them So God will teach his Children to know what it is to play with sinne when they have smarted by it They will know a nettle from a harmless herbe when they feel the sting we are so apt to live by sense that God seeth it needfull that our Faith have something of sense to helpe it When the Conscience doth accuse and the heart is smarting and groaning in pain and we feel that no shifting or striving will deliver us then we begin to be wiser then before and to know what sinne is and what it will do for us When that which was our delight is become our burden and a burden too heavy for us to bear it cureth our delighting in it When David was watering his couch with his tears and made them his drink his sinne was not the same thing to him as it was in the committing Humiliation washeth away the painting of this harlot and sheweth her in her deformity It unmasketh sinne which had got the vizard of Virtue or of a small matter or harmless thing It unmasketh Satan who was transformed into a Friend or an Angel of light and sheweth him as we say with his cloven feet and horns How hard is it to cure a worldling of the love of money But when God hath laid such a load of it on his Conscience that makes him groan and cry for help he hath then enough of it When he feels those words in Jam. 5. 1 2 3 4. And he begins to weep and howl for the Miseries that are comming on him and he feels the stink of his corrupted Riches and the Canker of his Gold and Silver do begin to eat his flesh as fire and his Idol is but a witness against him then he is better able to judge of it then he was before The wanton thinks he hath a happy life when the harlots lips do drop as the honey-combe But when he perceiveth her end is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword and that her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on Hell and he lyeth in sorrow complaining of his folly Prov 5. 3 4 5 11 12. he is then of a more rectified judgment then he was Manasseh humbled in irons is not the same as he was upon the Throne Though Grace did more to it then his fetters yet were they some way serviceable to that end Humiliation openeth the doore of the heart and telleth you what sinne is to the quick and letteth in the words of life which passed no further then the care or braine It is a tireing work to talk to dead men that have lost their feeling especially when it is an affective and practicall doctrine which we must deliver to them which is lost if it be not felt and practised Till Humiliation comes we speak to dead men or at least to men that are fast asleep How many Sermons have I heard that one would think should have turned mens hearts within them and made them cry out against their sinnes with sorrow and shame in the face of the Congregation and never meddle with them more When yet the hearers have scarce been moved by them but gone away as they came as if they knew not what the Preacher said because their hearts were all the while asleep within them But a Humbled Soul is an awakened Soul It will regard what is said to it especially when they perceive that it cometh from the Lord and concerneth their Salvation It is a great encouragment to us to speak to a man that hath eares and life and feeling that will meet the word with an appetite and take it with some relish and let down the food that is put into their mouths The will is the chiefest fort of sinne If we can there get in upon it we may do something But if it keep the heart and we can get no neerer it then the eare or braine there will no good be done Now Humiliation openeth us a passage to the heart that we may assault sâ—nne in it's strength When I tell you of the abominable nature of sinne that caused the death of Christ and causeth Hell and tell you that it is better to runne into the fire then to commit the least sinne wilfully though it be such as the world makes nothing of another man may hear all this and superficially believe it and say it is true but it is the humbled Soul that feeleth what I say What a stir have we with a drunkard or worldling or any other sensuall sinner in perswading him to cast away his sinnes with detestation and all to little purpose sometime he will and sometime he must needs be tasting them again and thus he stands dallying because the word hath not mastered his heart But when God comes in upon the Soul as with a â—empest and throweth open the doores and as it were thundereth and lighteneth in the Conscience and layeth hold upon the sinner and shaketh him all in pieces by his terrours and asketh him Is sinning good for thee Is a fleshly careless life so good Thou wretched worm Thou foolish piece of clay Darest thou thus abuse me to my face Dost thou not know that I look on Is this the work that I made thee for and that I feed and preserve thee and continue thee alive for Away with thy sinne without any more adoe or I 'le have thy Soul away and deliver thee to the tormentors This wakeneth him out of his dalliance and delaies and makes him see that God is in good earnest with him and therefore he must be so with God If a Physician have a patient that is addicted to his appetite who hath
sinne and Judgments are most eminent sorrow must be thâ—n predominant as being a necessary means to solid Joy And therefore ordinarily a sinner that is but in the work of Conversion and newly coming to God from a rebellious state must entertain more sorrow and let out himself more to groanes and tears then afterward when he is brought to Reconciliation with God and walketh in integrity Quest. But when is it that my sorrow is too short and I should labour to increase it Answ. 1. When there is no apparent danger of the last-mentioned evils that is Of destroying your bodies distracting your brains discomomposing your minds and drowning other Graces and duties and the rest then you have little cause to be afraid of an excess 2. When you have not smart enough to cause you to value the Love of Christ and highly prise his blood and the effects of it and hunger and thirst after him and his righteousness and earnestly beg for the pardon of your sinne you have cause to desire the more sorrow If you feel no great need of Christ but pass by him as lightly as the full stomack by his food as if you could do well enough without him you may be sure then you have need to be broken more If you set not so much by the Love of God that you would part with any thing in the world to enjoy it and would think no terms too dear for Heaven You have need to lie under the sence of your sinne and misery a little longer and to beseech the Lord to save you from that heart of stone When you can hear of the Love and sufferings of your Redeemer without any warmth of Love to him again and can read or hear the promises of Grace and offers of Christ and Eternall life without any considerable Joy or Thankfullness it 's time for you then to beg of God a tender heart 3. When you make many pawses in the work of your Conversion and are sometime in a good mind and then again at a stand as if you were yet unresolved whether to turn or no When you stick at Christ terms of denying your selves and crucifying the flesh and forsaking all for the hopes of Glory and think these sayings somewhat hard and are considering of the matter whether you should yield to them or not or are secretly Reserving somewhat to your selves this certainly shews that you are not yet sufficiently humbled or else you would never stand trifling thus with God He must yet set your sinnes in order before you and hold you a while over the fire of Hell and ring your Consciences such a peal as shall make you yield and resolve your doubts and â—each you not to dally with your maker If Pharaoh himself be off and on with God and sometime he will let Israel goe and then again he will not God will follow him with plague after plague till he make him yield and glad to drive or hasten them away And even where he deals in waies of Grace he maketh so much use of sorrows as to make men yield the sooner to his terms and glad to have Mercy on such terms if they were harder 4. When you are heartless and dull under the Ordinances of God and Scripture hath little life or sweetness to you and you are almost indifferent whether you call upon God in secret or no and whether you go to the Congregation and heare the Word and joyn in Gods Praises and the Communion of the Saints and you have no great relish in holy Conference or any Ordinance but do them almost meerly for custom or to please your Consciences and not for any great need you feel of them or good you find by them this shews for certain you want some more of the rod and spurre your hearts be not wakened and broken sufficiently but God must take you in hand again 5. When you can be mindless of God and of the life to come and forget both your sinne and Saviours Blood and let out your thoughts almost continually upon worldly vanities or common things as if you were over-grown the need of Christ this shews that the stone is yet in your hearts and that God must keep you to a harder dyet to mend your appetites and make you feel you sinne and misery till it call off your thoughts from things that less concern you and teach you to mind your Everlasting state If you begin to forget your selves and him â—t's time for you to have a remembrancer 6. When you begin to tast more sweetness in the creature and be more tickled with applause and honour and pleased more with a full estate and more impatient with poverty or wants or wrongs from men and crosses in the world and when you are set upon a thriving course and are eager to grow rich and fall in love with money when you drown your selves in worldly cares and busines and are combred about many things through your own choice this shews indeed that you are dangerously unhumbled and if God have Mercy for you he will bring you low and make your riches gall and wormwood to you and abate your appetite and teach you to know that one thing is needfull and so be more eager after the food that perisheth not and hereafter to choose the better part Luke 10. 41 42. Joh. 6. 27. 7. When you can return to play with the occasions of sinne or look upon it with a reconcileable mind as if you had yet some mind on it and could almost find in your heart to be doing with it again when you begin to have a mind of your old company and courses or begin to draw as neare it as you dare and are gazing upon the bair and tasting of the forbidden thing and can scarce tell how to deny your fancies your appetites your senses their desires this shews that you want some wakening work God must yet read you another lecture in the black book and set you to spell those lines of blood which it seems you have forgotten and kindle a little of that fire in your Consciences which else you would runne into till you feel and understand whether it be good playing with sinne and the Wrath of God and the Everlasting fire 8. When you begin to be indifferent as to your Communion with God and think not much whether he accept you and manifest his love to you or not but can huddle up your prayers and look no more after them or what becomes of them and use Ordinances and seldom enquire of the success When you can spare the Spiritual Consolations of the Saints and fetch little of your comfort from Christ or Heaven but from your friends and health and prosperity and accomodations and perhaps can be as merry in carnal company when you say and do as they as if you were considering of the Love of Christ this shews that the threatnings went not deep enough Sorrow hath yet another part to
Saints you have far more to do then other men You have a multitude of head-strong passions to subdue and abundance of deadly sinnes to kill and rooted vices to root upâ—â— You have many a false opinion of God and his waies to be plucked up and the customes of many years standing to be broken You have blind minds that must be enlightned with heavenly kowledg and abundance of Spiritual Truths that are above the reach of flesh and blood that you must needs learn and understand You have much to know that is hard to be known You have a dead Soul to be made alive and a hard heart to be melted and a scared Conscience to be softned and made tender and the guilt of many thousand sinnes to be pardoned You have a new heart to get and a new End to ayme at and seek after and a new life to live abundance of Enemies you have to sight with and overcome abundance of temptations to resist and conquer Many Graces to get and preserve and exercise and increase and abundance of holy works to do for the Service of God and the good of your selves and others O what a deal of work doth every one of these words conteine and yet what abundance more might I name And have you all this to do and yet will you delay And they are not indifferent matters that are before you It is no less then the saving of your Souls and the obtaining the blessed Glory of the Saints Necessity is upon you These are things that Must be done or else wo to you that ever you were born And yet have you another day to lose Why Sirs if you had a hundred mile to go in a day or two upon paine of death would you delay O think of the work that you have to do and then judg whether it be not time to stirre 20. And me thinks it should exceedingly terrifie you to consider what abundance by such Delayes do perish and how few that wilfully delay are ever converted and saved Many a Soul that once had purposes hereafter to repent is now in the misery where there is no Repentance that will do them any good For my part though I have known some very few Converted when they were old yet I must needs say both that they were very few indeed and that I had reason to believe that they were such that had sinned before in ignorance and did not wilfully put off Repentance when they were convinced that they must turn Though I doubt not but God may convert even these if he please yet I cannot say that I have ever known many if any such to be converted Sure I am that Gods usual time is in Child-hood or youth before they have long abused grace and wilfully delaid to turn when they were convinced Some considerable time I confess many have before their first convictions and purposes be brought to any great ripeness of performance but O how dangerous is it to delay 21. Consider also Either Conversion is Good or Bad for you Either it is needfull or unnecessary If it be bad and a needless thing then let it alone for altogether But if you are convinced that it is Good and necessary is it not better now then to stay any longer Is it not the sooner the better Are you afraid of being safe or happy too soon If you are sick you care not how soon you are well If you have a bone out you care not how soon it is set If you fall into the water you care not how soon you get out If your house be on fire you care not how soon it be quenched If you are but in fears by any doubts or ill tidings you care not how soon your fears be over And yet are you afraid of being to soon out of the power of the Devil and the danger of Hell and of being too soon the Sons of God and the holy justified heirs of Heaven 22. Consider also Either you can turn now or not If you can and yet will not you are utterly without excuse If you cannot to day how much less will you be able hereafter when strength is less and difficulties greater and burdens more Is it not time therefore to make out to Christ for strength and should not the very sense of your disability disswade you from delay 23. Consider how long you have staid already and put Gods Patience to it by your folly Hath not the Devil the world and the flesh had many years time of your life already Have you not long enough been swallowing the poison of sinne and long enough been abusing the Lord that made you and the blood of the Sonne of God that was shed for you and the Spirit of Grace that hath moved and perswaded with you Are you not yet gone far enough from God and have you not yet done enough to the damning of your selves and casting away Everlasting Life O wretched sinners it is rather time for you to fall down on your faces before the Lord and with tears and groans to lament it day and night that ever you have gone so far in sinne and delayed so long to turn to him as you have done Sure if after so many years rebellion you are yet so far from lamenting it that you had rather have more of it and had rather hold on a little longer no wonder if God forsake you and let you alone 24. Have you any hopes of Gods acceptance and your Salvation or not If you have such hopes that when you turn God will pardon all your sinnes and give you Everlasting Life is it think you an ingenious thing to desire to offend him yet a little longer from whom you expect such exceeding Mercy and Glory as you do Have you the faces to speak out what is in your hearts and practice and to go to God with such words as these Lord I know I cannot have the pardon of one sinne without the Blood of Christ and the riches of thy Mercy Nor can I be saved from Hell without it But yet I hope for all this from thy Grace I beseech thee let me live a little longer in my sinnes a little longer let me trample on the Blood of Christ and despise thy commands and abuse thy Mercies a little longer let me spit in the face of thy Goodness and prefer the flesh and the world before thee and then pardon me all that ever I did and take me into Glory Could you for shame put up such a request to God as this If you could you are past shame If not then do not practise and desire that which you cannot for shame speak out and request 25. Moreover it is an exceeding advantage to you to come in to God betimes and an exceeding loss that you will suffer by delay if you were sure to be converted at the last If you speedily come in you may have time to learn and get more understanding in the matters of
be moved to it by right and weighty Considerations and go upon reasons that will hold up your Resolution For should you Resolve on the most necessary work as this is upon mistakes and wrong or insufficient Reasons as the will of man the custom of the country the reputation of Christianity or only such like there is no likelyhood that your Resolution should endure and it is not sincere while it doth endure 5. Your Resolution must be accompanied with a sense of your own insufficiency to stand to it immutably and execute it faithfully by your own strength as knowing the corruption and deceitfullness of our own heart And it must be strengthned and supported by a confidence or dependance on the sufficiency of Christ. on whose Grace and Spirit you must rely both for the continuing and the performing of your Resolutions as knowing that without him you can do nothing but that you can do all things necessary through Christ strengthning you 6. Lastly Your Resolution is not Savingly sincere unless it be habitually It is a very hard question how far some moving exhortation or the approach of death in sicknes may prevaile with the unsanctified for an Actual Resolution Undoubtedly very farre But that 's a mans mind and will which is Habitually his mind and will When the very Inclination and bent of your will is Right then only is your heart right A bowle may by a rub or banck be turned contrary to the byas but when it is over the rub it will follow the byas againe in its ordinary course The flame may be hindred from assending a little while but when it is got over the stop it will be mounting upward A stone will move upwards against its Nature while it is followed by the strength of the hand that cast it but when the strength is spent it will quickly fall again It is not an extraordinary act that you can try your selves by but such a free course and tenor of your lives as will prove that you have a new Nature or a heart Inclined and Habituated to God The main business therefore is to prove that you are Habituallly Resolved Set all these together now and you may see what Resolution it is that must prove you to be Converted 1. It must be a Resolution for all the Essence of Christianity and not only some part 2. It must be a Resolution for present Obedience and not only for some distant time to come 3. It must be an Absolute peremptory Resolution without and against Reserves for the flesh both Total and final without and against any Revocation 4. It must be soundly grounded and moved by right Principles 5. It must be joyned with a humble sence of your insufficiency and a dependance on Christ for continuing and performing it And 6. It must be Habitual and such as sets right the bent and drift of heart and life All this is of Necessity Well Sirs you see now what you must do the next question then is what you will do A great many of motions God hath made to you to let go your worldliness and wickedness and become New Creatures and live to God and never could you be got to Resolve and obey them Many thoughts you have had of it I suppose and long you have been purposing that Turn you would but all have come to little or nothing because you were never fully Resolved I am once more sent to you on this message from God to see whether yet you will Resolve Whether after all you trifling delaies and after all your wilfull sinning and abuse of Gods Patience against your own knowledg and Consciences you will yet Resolve What say you Shall God be your Master indeed and shall Christ be your Saviour Lord Shall Heaven be your happiness and have your hearts indeed Shall Holiness be your business indeed and shall sinne be your hatred and the flesh and the world be your enemies indeed and used accordingly from this day forward without any more ado I beseech you Sirs Resolve and fully Resolve And because I know if we prevaile not with you in this you are undone for ever and therefore I am loath to let you go before we have brought you if it may be to Resolve I will give you here some Considerations to turn the scales and if you will but read them and soberly consider of them I shall have great hope to prevail with you yet after all One would think that the fifty Considerations under the last Direction might suffice But lest all should be too little I will add these following 1. Consider I beseech you what leisure you have had to think of the matter You have lived many years in the world already and you have had nothing to do in it but to seek after true Happiness Even your worldly labours ought to have been all but in order to this And yet are you unresolved Alas Sirs have you lived some twenty some thirty years and more in the world and yet are you not Resolved what you came hither for or what you have to do here Is it twenty or thirty or fourty years since you set out and should by this time have been farre on your journey and are you yet unresolved whither to go or which way to go As if you were newly entering the world or as if you had never heard of your business I think so many years are a faire time of Consideration and it's time to be Resolved if you will Resolve at all 2. And I pray you consider what Helps you have had to have Resolved you before this If you did not know what you had to look after and which way to take you should have enquired You had the Word of God to advise with and you had your Teachers to advise with and many experienced Christians to advise with You wanted not for the wisest faithfulest Counsailers if you had been but willing and diligent certainly you might have been Resolved long ago 3 And consider I beseech you what a case it is that you are unresolved in Is it so hard a question that all this time and all these helps cannot Resolve you What whether God or the flesh should be first obeyed and loved Whether Heaven or Earth Eternal Glory or the transitory pleasures of sinne should be preferred Whether you should care and labour more to be saved from sinne and Hell or from poverty and worldly crosses and reproaches These and such like are the questions to be Resolved And are these so hard that all your wit and all the advise you can have from Scripture and Ministers would not serve turn to help you to a Resolution no not in twenty or thirty years time O wonderful that ever the Devil should be able so to befool men That Reasonable Creatures should be so phrenetâ—ck that they cannot be resolved whether it be better be saved or be damned or whether sinne with Hell after it be better than