nature be dissolved then God will violate his Covenant of Grace Jer. 33. 20 21. Thus saith the Lord If you can break my Covenant of the day and my Covenant of the night and that there should not be day and night in their season then may also my Covenant be broken c. Isa 54. 4. 5 c. Fear not for thou shalt not be ashamed c. For thy Maker is thy Husband the Lord of Hosts is his name and thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when when thou wast refused saith thy God For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer For this is as the waters of Noah unto me For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth So have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee And though yet we have our troublesom imperfections it belongeth to our God through the blood of the everlasting Covenant to make us perfect in every good work to do his will working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ that to him may be the glory for ever Heb. 13. 20 21. It is his work to comfort all that mourn to appoint to them that mourn in Zion and to give them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they mighâ— be called trees of righteousness the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified They shall be named The Priests of the Lord men shall call them The ministers of our God Everlasting joy shall be unto them For the Lord will direct their work in truth and make an everlasting Covenant with them All that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed whom the Lord hath blessed Therefore should we greatly rejoyce in the Lord and our souls should be joyful in our God For he hath cloathed us with the garments of salvation he hath covered us with the robes of righteousness as a Bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and as a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels Isa 61. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put into you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgements and do them and I will save you from all your uncleanness c. Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 29. And they shall be my people and I will be their God And I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever for the good of them and of their children after them and I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Yea I will rejoyce over them to do them good c. Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. Happy are the people that are in such a case yea happy is that people whose God is the Lord Psal 144. 15. Nature doth not give you such security that the Sun shall shine and that the streams shall run that the earth shall be fruitful as the covenant of the Lord doth give you of all that is necessary to you Happiness Study therefore the mercies and riches of the Covenant Dir. 2. Understand and remember that it is your Covenant consent that it is the condition of your title to all the following blessings of the Covenant I add this as supposing you will say What are all these benefits to me unless I were sure that I were indeed in the Covenant It is not your merit but your consent that is required God offereth himself to be your Reconciled Father and Christ to be your saviour and the Holy Spirit to be your sanctifier Do you consent to this or not All the question is whether you are willing and whether your sin be not so sweet to you that you will rather venture your souls on the wrath of God then you will be saved from it If you heartily consent assuredly you are in the Covenant and the benefits are yours and therefore the Joy and comfort should be yours If you do not consent instead of despairing presently consent and refuse not your happiness while you lament your misery Object But it is not only Covenant-making but Covenant-keeping that must save us and I have broak my Covenant and therefore have no title to the benefits Answ What Covenant have you broken This Covenant in question that engageth you to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost If you have broken this you have withdrawn your Consent For while you heartily consent you break it not in any essential part As it is not every breach of the Laws that makes a man a traytor or rebel nor every fault or falling out between husband and wife that dissolveth their relation so is it not every sin nor any that is consistent with true consent to the terms of the Covenant that is a Covenant-breaking forfeiture of the benefits If you would not have God to be your Portion your Father your Saviour and your Sanctifier you are then Covenant-breakers And if you be so Consent yet and return to your fideliâ—y and the comforts of the Covenant may yet be yours for all your former violation Dir. 3. Moreover if you would find the Pleasure of a Holy life see that the flesh be fool you not into an over high estimation of any worldly thing that so your appetites may not be corrupted with such contrary unwholsome Pleasures nor your hearts be overwhelmed with worldly cares or griefs or troubles If you will glut your selves with other kind of pleasures you cannot expect that Holiness should be your pleasure You cannot find your delight in God when you turn from him to seek it in the creature If you â—ought for less in friends and health and prosperity in the world you might have more in God How should you find content in God when you set so light by him that the promise of beholding him in endless glory will not please you unless you may also have your fleshly desires or selfish inclinations pleased here This is it that perverteth your judgements and affections and causeth you to injure God and your selves You first
A SAINT OR A BRUTE The Certain Necessity and Excellency of Holiness c. So plainly proved and urgently applyed as by the blessing of God may convince and save the miserable impenitent ungodly Sensualists if they will not let the Devil hinder them from a sober and serious reading and considering To be Communicated by the Charitable that desire the Conversion and Salvation of souls while the Patience of God and the day of Grace and Hope continue By Richard Baxter The First Part Shewing the Necessity of Holiness LONDON Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton at the three daggers in Fleet-street and Nevil Simmons Bookseller at Kederminster Anno Dom. 1662. To my dearly beloved Friends the Inhabitants of Kederminster in Worcestershire and my late Auditors in the City of London Confirming Grace with Patience Love and Peace be multiplyed Dear Friends ONce more through the great mercy of God I have liberty to send you a Preacher for your private families which may speak to you truly and plainly though not elegantly when I cannot and when I lie silent in the dust I take it for no small mercy that I have been so much employed about the Great and Necessary things in despight of all the malice of Satan who would have entangled me and taken up my time in personal vindications and barren controversies As I never knew that I had one enemy in the world that ever was acquainted with me so those that know me disswading me from Apologies against the accusations of those that know me not have spared my time for better work Though there is about fifty writings in whole or part against me published by Infidels Seekers Familists Enthusiasts Quakers Papists Antinomians Levellers Covenant-breakers State-subverters Church-dividers besides impatient dissenting Brethren and Dependants that took it for the rising way I yet find no cause as to the present age and those that know me to be at any great care or pains for a defence while malicious lyes do but make men wonder that wrinkled Envy should be so mad as to come so naked on the Stage and shew her ugly deformities to the world and could not stay at least till Wit had helpt her to a Cloak I was also when I first intended Writing under another temptation being of their mind that thought that nothing should be made publike but what a man had first laid out his choicest art upon I thought to have acquainted the world with nothing but what was the work of Time and Diligence But my conscience soon told me that there was too much of Pride and Selfishness in this and that Humility and Self-denyal required me to lay by the affectation of that stile and spare that industrie which tended but to advance my name with men when it hindred the main work and crost my end And Providence drawing forth some popular unpolished Discourses and giving them success beyond my expectation did thereby rebuke my selfish thoughts and satisfie me that the Truths of God do perform their work more by their Divine Authority and proper Evidence and material Excellency than by any ornaments of fleshly wisdom and as Seneca saith though I will not despise an elegant Physicion yet will I not think my self much the happyer for his adding eloquence to his healing art Being encouraged then by Reason and Experience I venture these popular Sermons into the world and especially for the use of you my late Auditors that heard them I bless God that when more worthy Labourers are fain to weep over their obstinate unprofitable unthankful people and some are driven away by their injuries and put to shake off the dust of their feet against them I am rather forced to weep over my own unthankful heart that did not sufficiently value the mercy of a faithful flock who parted with me rather as the Ephesians with Paul Acts 20. and who have lived according to this Plain and Necessary doctrine which they have received Among whom Papists that perswade men that our doctrine tendeth to divisions can find no divisions or sects Who have constantly disowned both the Ambitious usurpations which have shaken the Kingdom and the Factions Censoriousness and cruel violence in the Church which Pride hath generated and nourished in this trying Age. Among whom I have enjoyed so very large a proportion of mercy in the liberty of so long an exercise of my Ministry with so unusual advantage and success that I must be disingenuously unthankfull if I should murmure and repine at the present restraining hand of God But I must say with David 2 Sam. 15. 25. If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me the Ark and habitation There or elswhere use me in his service But if he say I have no delight in thee behold here I am let him do to me as it seemeth good unto him And now with this Treatise let me leave you these few seasonable requests 1. Be faithful to your faithful Pastors Think not that you can live in order and safety without their Ministry When you can attend their publike Ministry Refuse not their more private help Read well my two sheets for the Ministry Where the lawful Pastor is there the Church is Be not either impiously indifferent in your worshipping of God or peevishly quarrelsom with what is commanded or practised by others nor disobedient to Authority in lawful things 2. Maintain still your antient Love and Unity and Peace among yourselves and improve your company and converse to the advantage of your souls Be daily interlocutory preachers to one another Speak as the Oracles of God and Preach by a holy patient harmless charitable and heavenly life This kind of Preaching none can silence but your own corruptions 3. Improve the profitable books which are among you 1. Read them frequently and reverently and seriously to your families when you have called them together and prayed for Gods blessing 2. Carry them abroad with you and when you fall into company where you cannot better spend your time read to them some seasonable passages of such writings 3. Give or Lend them to those that need and want either Purses or Hearts to provide them and get them to promise you to read them and enquire after the success By such improvement Books may become such Seconds or Substiâ—utes to publike preaching as that they may not be the least support of Religion and means to mens edification and salvation 4. Make special and diligent provision to satisfie your selves and others against Popery which is like to be none of the least of your temptations To this end I pray you read well the single sheet against Popery which I published and give of them abroad to others where there is need Read also my other books against it My Safe Religion and Key for Catholicks and Dispute with Mr. Johnson and Dr. Challoners Credo Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam And when their sophistry puzzleth you 1.
the world and sin no longer and is put off with the leavings of the flesh and hath no more of their hearts their tongues their time their wealth then it can spare They ask their flesh how far they shall be Religious and will go no further then will stand with their prosperity in the world With the first and best they serve the flesh and with the cheapest and the refuse they serve the Lord When they go highest in their out-side carnal Religiousness they go not beyond this hypocritical reserved state and usually as Cain they hate Abel for offering a more acceptable sacrifice God must take up with this from them or â—â— without They alway serve him with this reserve though it 〈…〉 not alwayes explicite and discerned by them Provided that â—â— may go well with me in the world and I may have some competent proportion of honour profit or pleasure and Religion may not â—â—ose me to be undone If God will not take them on these 〈…〉 as most certainly he never will he must go look him â—â—â—er servants and so he will and make them know at last 〈…〉 their sorrow that he needed not their service but it was 〈…〉 that needed him and the benefits of his service I thought meet though I have done it oft before to give â—â—â— this difference between the Hypocrite and the sincere And â—â—w it is my earnest request unto you all that you will presently â—â— your souls to an account and know which of these two â—â—rses you have taken and which of these two is your own â—â—ondition If nature had made you such strangers to your selves as that 〈…〉 were unable to answer such a question I would never trouble 〈…〉 with it but I suppose by faithful enquiry you may know 〈…〉 much of your selves if you are but willing You know where it is that you have dwelt and what it is that you have been â—â—â—ng in the world and you can review the actions of your lives though they have been of smaller consequence Why then may 〈…〉 not quickly know if you will so great a thing as What hath â—â— the very End and Business for which you have lived in the â—â—rld till now Have you been running so long and know not â—â— what is the prize that you have run for Have you forgot the â—â— and that you have been so long going on Have you been â—â—sie all your daies till now and know not about what or why â—ertainly this is a thing that may be known if you are willing and â—igent to know it It is for one of these two that you have â—â—ed for the world or for God To please your flesh or to â—ease God and be saved Either to make provision for Earth or â—raven Which of these is it Deal plainly with your selves â—or your salvation is deeply concerned in the account Perhaps you will say that It was for both for as you have a soul and a body so you must look to both Yea but so as one â—â—at knoweth that One thing is Needful As your body is but â—â—e prison the case the servant of your souls so it must be proâ—â—ded for and used but as a servant and maintained only in a fitâ—ess for its work But the question is Which of them hath had the preheminence Which hath had the life of your affections and endeavours Which of them was your end and about which hath been the chief business that you have most carefully and diligently carryed on This is the great question You cannot have two masters though you may have many instruments and fellow-servants You cannot acceptably serve God if you serve Mammon Every wicked man may do somthing in Religion and every good man may do something that is contrary to Religion A carnal man may do something for God and for his soul and a spiritual man ought to do something subordinately for his body and too often alas doth something for it inordinately But which bears the sway and which is first sought and which comes behind and hath but the leavings of the other Be not deceived God is not mocked Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap If you sow to the flesh of the flesh you shall reap corruption but if you sow to the spirit of the spirit you shall reap everlasting life Gal. 6. 7 8. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world for themselves for if any man love the world with his chiefest Love the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2. 15. Is it not a wonder that any reasonable man can be such a stranger to himself as not to know what he lives for and what hath had his heart and what hath been the principal business of his life Some by-matters you may easily forget or over-look but can you do so by your end which hath been your chiefest care and business If indeed you no more know your own minds nor what you have all this while been doing in the world ask those that you have conversed with and judge by the effects and signs Others can tell what you have most seriously talked of They may conjecture by their observation what you have most carefully sought and resolutely adhered to Whether it be God or the flesh this world or Heaven The One thing Needful or the many troubling trifles in your way It is like that wise and godly observers can help you to discern it though sensualists will but deceive you A mans Love at least his chiefest Love cannot be hid but will appear in his behaviour If you Love God above the world you will seek him and his Glory before the world and if you do so it may partly be discerned if you have conversed with discerning men Heaven and earth are not so like nor the way to each of them so like but it may partly be discerned which way men are going and what they drive at in their daily course But I will urge you no further to the tryal I will take it for granted that your Consciences are telling many of you that you have been troubled about many things while the One thing Needful hath been neglected And if indeed this be your case suffer me to tell the guilty plainly what it is that they have done 1. Whatever you have been doing in the world you have lost your Time if you have not been seeking the One thing necessary If you have been gathering riches or growing up in honour as the rush groweth in the mire Job 8. 11. or filling your purses or your barnes or pleasing your fantasies and flesh you have but fooled away your time and done just nothing and much worse Nothing is done if the One thing Necessary be undone Believe it Time is a precious thing and ought not to have been thus cast away When you come to the end of it the worst and proudest of you shall confess it is precious Then O for one year more
all your life-time that should make a wise man judge you Reasonable Is that your Reason to be penny wise and pound foolish to be wise to do evil and to have no knowledge to do good Jerem. 4. 22. To run up and down for I know not what and to leave that undone that you were created and redeemed for Can you think that it is Reasonable to make such ado for the air of dying mens applause and to be well thought of or to live like Gentlemen or to the contentment of a fleshly mind when you know that you are just ready to pass out of this world into an endless life of Joy or Torment yea certainly of torment if you thus hold on Where all these things will afford you no relief or benefit but the memory of your course will be the fuell of your misery Can that man be wise that damns his soul Can he deserve the name of a sober man that will sell his salvation for so short so small so filthy a pleasure as sin affordeth Is he worthy the name or reputation of a wise man that hath not wit enough to scape eternal fire nor wit enough to forbear laying hands upon himself and doing all this against his own soul What think you is not the case here plain enough Be not offended if I speak yet plainlyer to you for in a case so lamentable how can we be too plain or serious Suppose you knew a Prince or Lord that had an itch upon him which the Physicion offereth speedily and easily to cure but he hath so much pleasure in scratching that he doth not only refuse the cure lest it deprive him of his delight but he will give his Kingdom or Lordship to one that will scratch him but a little while though he be sure to live a beggar after it all his dayes I put it to your selves What name you would give this man or what esteem you would have of him Do you think that any ungodly worldly person is wiser than this man Alas their case is so much worse that there is no comparison They are more foolish then your hearts can now conceive or then I am able fully to express You have now the itch of Pride and Lust and your throats must be pleased in your meats and drinks and you itch after riches and honour and recreations and Christ telleth you by his Word that these are but your sick desires and that the pleasing of them tends to kill you and he offereth you for nothing a safe and certain and speedy cure But you refuse it and will not hearken to him You must be scratcht whatever it cost you You must have your riches and honour and fleshly pleasure as the felicity which you cannot part with though it cost you your salvation Though God be neglected and his favour lost and your souls be lost and the One thing needful cast aside you must have your carnal imaginations gratified And is this your wisdom The Lord bless us from such a kind of wisdom Yet this is not the worst I will shew you one strain more of the distraction of the ungodly world If these men do but see one person of an hundred that are more diligent for Heaven then carth to fall into Melancholy or distress of soul or suppose it were into some loss of reason they presently cry out against Religion and strictness and preciseness and making so much ado to be saved and say it is the way to make men mad Hence comes the proverb of the Papists Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus and of the prophane among our selves that A Puritane is a Protestant frightned out of his wits They dare not study the Scripture so much nor meddle with such high matters as their salvation nor be so godly nor meditate on the world to come lest it should drive them out of their wits O miserable men As if it were possible for you to be more dangerously mad then you are already Unless by growing unto greater wickedness Do you lay out your wit and strength and time in feeding a corruptible body for the grave and spend your lives in running after your own shaddows while your everlasting life is forgotten or neglected Do you sell your Saviour with Judas for a little money and change your part in God and Glory for the brutish pleasures of sin for a season And are you afraid of altering this course of life and turning to God lest it should make you mad Lord what a besotting thing is sin What a cunning cheater is the Devil What a deluded distracted sort of people are the ungodly Will you run from God from Christ from Grace from mercy from Scripture from the godly and from Heaven it self for fear of being mad Why what greater madness can you fear then this What worse is humane nature capable of Unless it be the addition of a further measure of the same and unless it be to hold on in that way and persecute the contrary with such like aggravations of your madness I know not of any worse that you should fear Will you run to Hell to prove your selves to be in your wits Again I say the Lord bless us from such a kind of wit Nay Hell it self hath no such distractedness as yours The difference between the One thing needful and your many things is there better though too late understood Is Loving God the way to be mad and loving the world and fleshly pleasures the way to be wise Is conversing with God in humble prayer and believing his love and loving him and delighting in him and speaking of his name and word and works unto his praise and hoping to live with him for ever I say is this which is the work of a Believer a liker course to make men mad then serving the Devil and drudging in the world and living under the curse of God and in continual danger of damnation What men are they that dare entertain such horrid and unreasonable suggestions I confess we are not unacquainted with the sadness and melancholy that some persons have contracted by Religious employments and perhaps one of a thousand may lose their wits But I must tell you all these folowing points that will shew you that Religion is not to be blamed for it nor avoided 1. It is ordinarily persons of the weaker sex or of very weak brains and very strong passions that are naturally inclined to it and are not able to bear any long and serious thoughts about matters of that moment which are apt to make the deepest impressions But persons that naturally are of sound and calme dispositions are seldom troubled with any such affects 2. It is usually the case of persons that mistake the nature of Religion though not in the main yet in some particulars of great concernment That study not sufficiently the Love of God declared to us in our Redeemer but feed their griefs and troubles only by
sons though you have lived as his enemies Though you have lived like Swine and Serpents he will put you into his bosom if you will but be washed and changed by his grace Though you have set more by your worldly riches then by his glory and have set more by the favour of mortal man then by his favour and though you have set more by your bellies and your brutish pleasures and little toyes then you have done by everlasting life he will yet be merciful to you and put up all these indignities at your hands and take you into his dearest love if you will but Now become new creatures and give your hearts to him that made them and seek that first that is worth the finding and lose not the rest of your lives and labour upon unprofitable things What can you say against this offer Is it not unconceivable and unspeakable mercy O what would the damned give for such an offer O what would you your selves give another day for such an offer if you now neglect it What say you then will you accept of this offer of mercy while it may be had and close with Grace while Grace would save you or will you not As ever you look for mercy in the hour of your distress when nothing but mercy can stand your souls in any stead take mercy now while it may be had Refuse it not when it is offered you as you would not be refused by it when Hell and Desparation would devour you If you slight it because it is free you slight it because it is great and therefore greatly to be valued Think not hereafter to have it at your beck if you neglect it now when it seeks for your acceptance Do not say I will a little longer keep my sins and a little longer enjoy my pleasures for I can have Christs offer at any time before I die O little dost thou know what a stab such a trifling purpose may give to the very heart of all thy hopes and happiness and how terribly God may make thee know how ill he taketh thy unthankfulness and contempt and how dear one other week of sinful pleasure may cost thy soul In the name of God I warn you do not so despise everlasting happiness Do not so trample on the blood of Christ if you would be saved by it Do not abuse the Spirit of Grace if you would be sanctified by it Play not any longer with the consuming fire the wrath of a jealous and Almighty God Jest not with damnation Though Grace be now offered you it will not be at your command Despise this motion and you may be out of hearing before the next What can you expect if you will slight such mercy but either that Death should shortly bring you to your reckoning or that God should leave you to your selves and give you up to the hardness of your hearts And if you will needs choose the world and fleshly pleasure and God and Glory shall be thus contemptuously past by you may take your choice and see what you will get by it But remember what an offer you had this day and that heaven was once within your reach and that it might have been yours for ever if you would But because I am loth to leave you so I will try by some such Arguments as the Reason of man must needs approve Whether yet you may not be brought to your selves and yield to grace that you may be saved And they shall be the Arguments that lie before you here in the Text. 1. REmember it is Necessity that is pleaded with you in my Text. One thing is Necessary Necessity and your own Necessity is such an Argument as one would think of it self should turn the scales and fully resolve you and put you past any further deliberation or delay If Necessity your own Necessity and so great Necessity to so great an End will not prevail with you What will Necessity is that ingens telum that natural reason taketh to be unresistible Men think they may do almost any thing if they can say Necessity commandeth it Omnem legem frangit magnum illud humanae imbecillitatis patroeinium saith Seneca What is it that Necessity seemeth not sufficient to justifie with the most And we will grant the Argument to be undenyable if it be from absolute Necessity indeed and if men will not dream that it is more Necessary to be Rich or Honourable or to Live then to be Holy and to be Blessed with God and to please him that created them Ubi necessitas incumbit non ultra disputandum est sed celerrimè fortiter agendum Words signifie nothing against Necessity Reason is but hindering troublesom folly when it pleadeth against Necessity Omni arte omne ratione officacior necessitas Curt. In worldly matters how quick-sighted how resolute how active is Necessity What conquerable difficulties will it not overcome What labour will it not endure if it have but the encouragement of hope And yet this Necessity is indeed no true Necessity at all For that which is Necessary but to my credit or estate or health or life can be no more Necessary then is my credit and estate and health and life it self When men do but fancy a Necessity where there is none yet that will carry them through thick and thin But O Sirs you have a real undenyable Necessity to be Holy and to set your selves to the work of your salvation such a Necessity as is founded in your Nature and laid on you by your Maker and as all the true Reason in the world will confess to be indispensable Necessity Faxis ut libeat quod est necesse Make no more words then but Resolve and stirre when it is a matter that must be done It is pitty and shame that the Amiableness of God and Holiness will not prevail with you of themselves But if you cannot yet perceive them to be Delectable acknowledge them to be Necessary Be ashamed that pretended Necessity for the Body should be more powerful with others then real Necessity for salvation is with you Look upon almost all the travel and labour that is under the Sun and all the diligence that is used here in the world and consider Whether it be not a thousand fold smaller Necessity then I am now pleading with you that setteth almost all on work The Rich will not toil and labour but will take their ease because they think they are under no Necessity but the poor will labour because they must Though the command of God to Rich and poor should make them equally diligent in their several callings in obedience to their Creator yet many thousands that labour all the year in obedience to their own Necessities would soon give it over and take their ease if they could but be well maintained without it notwithsanding the commands of God And the poor that reproach the rich for idlendss would be idle themselves
greatest misery It is because they would not Choose that Good and refuse the way and cause of Misery But how cometh it to pass that men will make no wiser a choice Is the case so doubtful that they cannot be resolved in it every man would have that which he thinks is Best for him Why do men follow after wealth or pleasure or credit in the world but because they take it to be Best for them Why do they set so light by Holiness and Christ and Heaven bâ—… cause they apprehend them not to be Best for them Wâ—… men refuse and obstinately against all perswasions refuse a Holy life if they took it practically to be Best for them what will they contrive their own destruction do they long to do themselves a Mischief and the greatest Mischief in the world No that 's not the case But the matter is this Their senses draw them another way Their eye their ear their taste their feeling every sense hath a Pleasure of its Own and this sense or flesh is violent and unreasonable and would fain be satisfied and Reason that was given us to Rule it is bribed and blinded and perverted by it and so is ready as a servant to obey it and to take its part and the fleshly mind discerneth not the things of God for they are spiritually discerned the Will also and the Affections are by the byas of a fleshly inclination corrupted and habitually lean to the fleshly part And that which men Love they will easily think well of and are glad of any thing like Reason to defend it and that which is against the Inclination of the Will will hardly be thought well of and any thing like Reason will serve against it This depravation of the mind and will of man enslaved and ruled by the Flesh or sensuality is the very cause that most men will not choose the Better part and so the cause of their perpetual misery And till the Holy Ghost send in a heavenly light of Wisdom into the mind to shew them the true difference between the Good and the Evil and a new Inclination into the Will that shall turn their hearts from the Evil to the Good they will still go on and the matters of God will seem foolishness to them and they will take those men for the veryest fools that follow the Wisdom of the Lord and provide most carefully for eternal life and they will take those for the wisest men that are most contrary to the God of Wisdom and that dare leap most fearlesly into Hell Or if this be not their Opinion but conviction force them to a wiser kind of language yet will it be their Practical estimation and their Hearts as their Choice and Lives will easily declare For that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3. 6. The fleshly man will have a fleshly mind and will and openly or secretly will Live after the flesh and such are the heirs of death Rom. 8. 5 7 13. Fleshly generation cannot make a spiritual mind or heart in any but it must be by spiritual Regeneration and therefore except a man be born again of the spirit as well as of water he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. 3. 3 5. This inward difference of Inclinations is the true cause of the difference of the judgements and the courses of men about the matters of God and their salvation This is it that makes so many to think none wise but those that are more dangerously mad then men in Bedlam and that makes so many others stand in doubt as men unresolved what to choose and what course to follow As if it were really a difficult point for a man to be resolved in Whether it be best and wisest to follow the teachings of God or of the flesh and to seek first the Kingdom and Righteousness of God or to make a pudder for nothing in the world and to claw this itching flesh a while though they must smart for it for ever or to master the flesh and live to God! In a word the world are half unresolved whether it be better to be Holy with Gods promise of Eternal Glory or to take the Pleasures of sin for a season and neglect this Holiness though this course be threatned by the Living God with Everlasting torments This is the true state of the Question which I say one part of the world doth seem to be unresolved in and another part are resolved on the worser side against their souls and a Holy life and only those that the illuminating sanctifying spirit hath resolved do choose the needful better part The reason of this distracted judgement of the most is within themselves It is not because that there is any such difficulty in the case as should put a wise man to a stand Nor it is not because they have not sufficient evidence in the word or that God denyed them Teachers Books or any Necessary Means for their information The Light is among them but they Love it not because their hearts and deeds are evil and their darkness doth not comprehend it and this is their delusion and their condemnation Joh. 1. 6 7 8. 3. 19. When I am preaching to a congregation of many hundred or thousand souls if the salvation of all that people did lie upon any other question no harder then this that we have in hand so it were such as fleshly interest and corrupted minds and wills had no quarrel against how easily how surely should I save the souls of all that heard me Reader let me have thy judgement If the Question were Whether Light or Darkness be the Better Whether a dead corps be better then a Living man Whether a cottage for a day or a Rich habitation for term of life be better Whether as much drink as will make thee drunk or a nights lodging with a whâ—re be better then Lands and Lordships for thy life time or for a thousand years Whether one sweet cup with shame and beggery all thy life after or one bitter draught with perpetual prosperity should be rather chosen Whether a sick man were better take an unpleasing medicine that would cure him or a pleasant poyson that would kill him Whether he were better pay a little to the Physicion or dye to save his money Whether that Prince be wise that will sell his Kingdom for a cup of wine or for childrens rackets Or whether that child â—e vertuous that cannot abide his Fathers sight or house or commands but loveth better to do that which he knows displeaseth him or to tumble in the dirt with swine I say if any of these were the Question to be Resolved and the salvation of all that heard me lay upon the true Resolution I leave it to your own judgements Whether I were not like to save the souls of all that heard me And yet in a case as
to hunger and thirst or cold or weariness or shame or pain nor any of the frailties that now adhere unto them but be made like the glorified body of Christ 7. The Souls of the Saints united to these Bodies shall also be Perfected having far larger capacity to know God and enjoy him then now we have being freed from all ignorance errour unbelief pride hard-heartedness and whatsoever sin doth now accompany us and perfected in every part of the Image of God upon us 8. The eyes of the Glorified Body shall in Heaven have a Glory to behold that is suitable to their Bodily capacity Heaven being not a place where the Essence of God is confined but where a prepared glory will be manifested to make Happy the Angels and Saints with Christ And whatever other senses the Glorified Bodies shall then have whether formally or eminently we cannot now conceive what they will be they will all be satisfied with suitable Delights from God 9. The Blessed person of our Redeemer in our Nature Glorified will there be the Everlasting object of our delightful iâ—â—uition and fruition An object suitable to the eye of the Glorified Body it self We shall for ever live in the sight of his face and in the sense of his unspeakable Love 10. The Glorified Soul whether mediately or immediately shall behold the Infinite most Blessed God and by knowing him be perfected in knowledge As we shall see the person of Jesus Christ and the glory of God with open face and not as in a glass as now we do so we shall know so much of the Essence of the Deity as we are capable of to our felicity 11. With the Knowledge of God and the Beatifical Vision will be joyned a perfect Love unto him and closure with his blessed will So that to Love him will be the everlasting employment of the soul 12. This Love will be drawn forth into everlasting praise and it will be our work before the Throne of his Glory to magnifie the Lord for ever 13. In all this Love and Praise and Glory and in the full fruition of the Eternal God we shall Rejoyce with full and perfect Joy and we shall have full content delight and rest 14. In all this Blessedness and Glory of the Saints the Glory of God himself will shine and Angels shall admire it and the condemned spirits with anguish shall discern it that God may be Glorified in our Glory 15. In all this Happiness of Believers and his own Glory the Lord will be well pleased and that Blessed Will which is the Beginning and the End of all will be accomplished and will have an Eternal complacency as the Saints shall have an endless complacency in God This is the Glory promised to the Saints This is that Good part which they choose I cite not the Texts of Scripture that prove all this because the things are all so plainly and frequently expressed in the premises And I shall have occasion to do somewhat of this anon And so in brief I have told you what the Good part is 2. We are next to enquire What it is that is put by worldly carnal men into the other end of the scales and is set up in comparison with all this Everlasting Glory Yea what it is that is preferred by ungodly men before it What is it that fin and the world will do for men What do they find that lose the Lord What do they get that miss of Heaven What do they choose tâ—â—â— refuse the Needful Better part And here I am even amazed at that which I must give you an account of O wonderful astonishing thing that ever such base unworthy trifles should by Reasonable men be put into any comparison with God! Wonderful that so much madness and wickedness can enter into the mind and heart of man as to let go all this Glory for a toy And yet more wonderful that this should be the case of the greatest part of men on earth And yet more wonderful that so mâ—â—y make so mad a choice even when the case is opened to them and plainly opened and frequently opened and when they are earnestly entreated to be wiser and importuned to make a better choice In a word All that is set against the Lord and All that is preferred before this Everlasting Life and All the Portion of ungodly men is no more then this The Pleasure of sin for a season The satisfying of the flesh A little ease and pelf and fair words from men as miserable as themselves and all this but for a little a very little time when Temperance is as sweet at least a little that is excessive or forbidden in wealth or meat or drink or cloathes or lust or other fleshly pleasures is the Joy and the Heaven and the God of the ungodly The fleshly pleasures which are common to the beasts and a little vain-glory among men and this for a short uncertain time and then to paâ—â— to everlasting punishment this is the chosen portion of the wicked This is All for which they refuse the Lord and for which â—â—â—y refuse a Holy life This is All 〈◊〉 which they part with 〈◊〉 and part with their Everlasting Peace This is All that they have for Heaven and their salvation and All for which they seâ—â— their souls To the everlasting shame of sin and sinners it shall be known that this was All To the abasing of our own soulâ— that sometime were guilty of this madness I shall tell you again that this is All To the humbling of the best to the conâ—ounding of the wicked and the amazement of us all I must say â—â—â—â— this is All This dirt this dream this cheat i◠〈…〉 wicked have for God and Glory This Nothing â—◠〈…〉 obstinately preferr and choose before him that 〈…〉 O wonderful madness stupidity and deceitâ— so 〈…〉 wilful and so uncureable till tender 〈…〉 cure it in them that shall be saved Well the ballance is now set before yoâ—… in the One end and in the other You see the 〈…〉 choose and the part that is chosen by the rest of the world And are you not yet resolved which is Best and which to choose TWo sorts I look to meet with here to whom I shall apply my self distinctly before I come to the comparative work First some will tell me that all these are needless words and that there is no man so senseless as to think that Temporal things are better then Eternal or the world then God or sin then Holiness Answ O that this were true how happy then were all the world I grant that many are superficially convinced that are not converted and that many have a slight opinion that Heaven and Holiness is best that yet have no Love to it and will not seek it above All. But their practical judgement doth not go along with their Opinions Thy relish the world as sweetest unto them In the prevailing deepest thoughts of their
that we are so apt to surfet on Do you not see what lamentable work prosperity victories honour and worldly wealth and power have made in the world and shall we grudge at that necessary moderate affliction that saveth us from the like overthrows O how few are able to withstand the temptations of great or long prosperity Experience of the frequent woful falls of prospering men that seemed once as firm as any hath made me fear when I hear of the exaltation of my friends and the less to grieve for their adversity or my own Holiness therefore is the most pleasant way notwithstanding the afflictions that do attend it And if God will give me an increase of Holiness of Faith and Love and a Heavenly mind though it be with an increase of my Afflictions I hope I shall take it as an incerease of my pleasure and give him the praise of so merciful a dispensation And thus I have proved to you from the Nature of Holiness that it is the most Pleasant way II. I Should next shew you the Delights of Holiness from the Helps and Concomitants that promote our pleasure But because I am afraid of lengthening my discourse too much I shall only name a few things of many 1. God being our God in Covenant his Love is to the holy soul as the Sun is to our bodies to illuminate warm revive and comfort them and did not sin cause some ecclipses or raise some clouds or shut the windows we should rejoyce continually and find how sweet a thing it is being justified by faith to have peace with God 2. We are in Covenant with Jesus Christ who intercedeth for our peace with God And the Father alwayes heareth his intercession John 11. 42. And therefore that measure of comfort which he seeth suitable to our present state we shall be sure of Who shall condemn us when it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Rom. 8. 34. We have a great high-Priest that is passed into the heavens even Jesus the Son of God one that is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and was in all points tempted like as we are but without sin and therefore through him we may come boldly to the throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Heb. 4. 14 15 16. What comforting words hath he spoken to us in the Gospel and what comfortable relations hath he put us into He calleth us his friends if we do his Commandments as if servanes were too low a title John 15. 14 15. Peace he leaveth with us his Peace he giveth to us not as the world giveth commanding us that we let not our hearts be troubled or afraid Joh. 14. 27. To those that Love him he hath promised his Fathers Love and that they will come to him and make their abode with him John 14. 23. If any man serve him let him follow him and where Christ is there shall his servant be if any man serve Christ him will the Father honour John 12. 26. 3. That we might have sure Consolation the Spirit of Christ is given to be our Comforter and we are in Covenant with him also who surely will perform his Covenants 4. The servants of Christ have his holy image the mark of his children which is the in-dwelling Evidence of his Love to assure them of their happiness 5. They have manifold experience of the kindness of their Father in hearing their prayers and helping them in their straits and delivering them in their distresses 6. They have also the help of the Experience of others even of all the godly with whom they do converse who can comfort them with their comforts and tell them how good they have found the Lord. 7. They have the Ministers of Christ appointed by office to be the helpers of their Faith and Jey to be the messengers of glad tidings to them and to tell them from God of the pardon of their sins and of his favour to them in Christ and to heal the broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised c. Luke 4. 18. To have a deputed Officer of Christ to absolve the penitent and deliver them pardon in the name of Christ and to pray for them and direct them and resolve their doubts and shew them the promises that may support them and help to profligate their temptations must needs be much to the comfort of believers As the care of a father is the comfort of the child and the care of the Physicion is a comfort to the sick 8. They have all the Ordinances suited to their comfort the Word read preached and meditated on the Sacraments and the publike praises of God and Communion of the Saints of which before 9. They have multitudes of Mercies still about them and every day renewed on them to feed their comforts 10. They have a promise that all things shall work together for their good and so that all their afflictions themselves shall be their commodities and death it self shall be their gain Rom. 8. 28. Phil. 1. 21. and all their enemies shall be subdued by Christ the Prince of their salvation So that from this much you may see that for Joy and Pleasure there is no life that hath the advantages that a holy life hath As for the ungodly they are not so but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away Psalm 1. 4. These pleasures grow not in their wicked way nor do such strangers know Believers joyes III. LAstly I should also have shewed you the Pleasure of Holiness by the Effects But here also to avoid prolixity I will but name a few 1. Holiness is Pleasing to God himself and therefore it must needs be pleasant to the Saints that have it For it is their end and chiefest Pleasure to please God They know that this is the end for which they were Created Redeemed and renewed and therefore that is the most Pleasant life to them in which they find that God is best Pleased And therefore they labour that whether present or absent they may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5. 9. They are an holy Priest-hood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2. 5. 2. Holiness must needs be Pleasant to the soul because it is the spiritual health of the soul and the means and certain evidence of its safety And Health is a constant sensible delight And to know that our souls have scapt the danger of the wrath of God and everlasting misery must needs be a greater Pleasure then any the matters of this world can afford One serious thought of the salvation which Holiness is the earnest of may give that true contentment to the soul that all the wealth and glory of the world can never