what and why they believe then they are clearlier convinced and condemned by their own conscience for not persevering and increasing that faith by living sincerely according to it but contradicting their very faith as well as profession untill the custom of sin hath darkned if not extinguisht their former evidences is it not high time then for any that finde it thus with them to cast away all longer delays of self abhorrence and repentance to return to God and their own hearts with shame and grief for their former backslidings and for ever from henceforth to be the more humble for what is past watchful and zealous for the future in reviewing their faith and living by it in Holiness and Righteousness Purity and Peaceableness Obedience and Patience lest that faith which hath been deadned and contradicted so long and often turn to a total and final apostacy in the end There 's nothing more clear in Holy Scripture than that they whom God vouchsafes to call by his loudest voice and powerfullest means to Repentance and Faith and Obedience are rendred thereby so much the more hainously guilty of willful ingratitude unbelief and disobedience and therefore liable to so much the sorer Condemnation unless they repent believe and obey according to that light and grace which was afforded them You have I known of all Nations therefore you will I punish the sooner and more severely This is the condemnation that light is come into the World and ye have loved darkness rather than light Woe unto thee Corazin woe unto thee Bethsaida for if the mighty works c. they had repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes How shall we of all others escape if we neglect so great salvation It is indeed a great favour and mercy of God to send us his Gospel to prevent us with all the means of grace but favours and mercies abused and perverted increase the guilt of those that receive them but would not use them to God's glory and their own Salvation And yet what more common and general for Men and Women of all sorts to suppose themselves safe enough and entituled sufficiently to God's Rest because they are of the visible Church professing that Truth which should purify and sanctify them but doth not because it is not aright considered and laid to heart in its grounds and reasons terms and conditions as well as its promises The greatest part of the Jews you see though brought out of Egypt with many Miracles made the peculiar People of God the lively Oracles committed to them and what not that could be desired to make them holy or happy yet for want of considering and believing the word of God forfeited and lost their Title to Canaan And the greatest part I fear of Christians yea of the purest professors of Christianity will forfeit and lose their Title to Heaven unless they consider believe and obey the Gospel of Christ more sincerely impartially constantly than hitherto they seem to have done And if they miss of Gods Rest for want of considering and performing its conditions their anguish and pain will be so much the heavier to all eternity They that have the Oracles of God the word and Sacraments Pastors and Teachers granted to them and yet are never the better and holier are so much worse because they disgrace and bring a reproach on the greatest and weightiest Truth in the World as if it had no evidence or power in it The Israelites once were like Gideons Fleece full of heavenly Dew in a drought endued with those high and happy priviledges of which we read Rom. 2.3 and Rom. 9.4 But yet because they lived not answerably to their vocation but made their privileges occasions of Pride and vain presumption of Gods favour till at last they rejected their very Messias of whom they boasted as their peculiar they are at this day like the Mountains of Gilboa barren and dry while the Dew of Heaven hath fallen abundantly upon the Nations The favours shewn to the Christian Church are greater than theirs because the Truth is clearlier revealed the means of grace more powerfull and less burthensom But yet these favours if trusted to and yet neglected will prove aggravations of God's displeasure To be surrounded with such helps of God from above of Men below ready to further us towards Heaven of precepts to guide promises to encourage us and yet to fall short of Gods Rest is a double and treble shame and sorrow Wherefore if not in gratitude to God for all his mercies yet for fear lest these mercies prove by our own willful neglect and contempt of them the aggravations of our misery let us while it is called to day excite our selves and exhort one another to repentance and faith holiness and righteousness obedience and patience against whatever temptations arise We have a promise infallibly sure incomparably pretious of entring Gods Rest his word to quicken us his Sacraments to confirm us his Grace to prevent assist and follow us If we hearken to his word and resist not his grace neither Prophane nor Idolize his Sacraments but receive them with faith and reverence as they were instituted in love If we hear the Church and watch over our selves and one another Sin shall have no dominion over us we shall be built up from one degree of faith and holiness to another until we enter Gods Rest without any fear or possibility of falling from it But if we neglect the conditions of it and trust to the promise as if it were absolute to the means of grace as if they were even grace it self our sloth and confidence will end in despair and find for ever so much the greater trouble and anguish for having missed of God's Rest offered unto us on such conditions Let us awake then and excite our selves and one another by all the arguments of hope and fear love and gratitude that so God may have the honour of all his favours bestowed upon us and we the everlasting comfort of being thankful and hearing that beatifical voice Well done good and faithful Servant enter thy Masters Joy and Rest Now this Rest of Gods is not the Rest of the Sabboth or Canaan in this life but that eternal Rest with God in Heaven implied indeed and preparation made for it by the Sabboth Typified by Canaan begun here by believers to be injoy'd in its first fruits through faith and hope but not to be had in its full harvest its perfect peace and joy in God 'till we come to Heaven We which have believed saith Saint Paul do enter into Rest that is shall if we persevere in faith and holiness enter into it perfectly without possibility of forfeiting or losing it do enter into it now by faith and hope in God's promises by love and obedience of his precepts which gives us a real Title to it yea a true though initial imperfect defeasible admission into it by that Rest from the guilt of Sin which
faith and the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus receives and imbraces with peace and joy by that Rest from the power disorder and tyranny of Sin which faith procuring Gods Spirit and looking upon the certainty and weight of his promises and threats the beauty and excellency of his precepts together with the great obligation of God's mercy in sending his Son to die for our sins and rise again for our justification effects and enjoys Thus believers if such believers as rely on the promises of God's Rest with faithful resolutions and endeavours to perform its conditions do enter into it initially and shall enter into it eternally But how proves the Apostle this the proof of it is in these words He said I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter my Rest who shew themselves obstinately unbelieving and disobedient The Argument is taken à contrario from the nature of contrary things If infidelity and disobedience be that alone which excludes from the promise of God's Rest then faith and obedience or such a faith as produceth obedience is that which entitles us to enter into it for God's promise cannot be satisfied nor wholly norutterly disappointed or made to become of none effect And therefore though they who would not believe it nor keep its conditions fell short of it yet they who believe and perform its conconditions must enter into it Yea his very wrath and oath against the one for their unbelief and disobedience implies and inferrs his complacency and love towards the other his undefeasible decree and oath that they persevering in faith and obedience shall enter and fully enjoy his Rest And this Rest was not the Rest of Canaan For if Joshua or Jesus the Son of Nun had given them Rest then would not David afterwards have spoken of another Rest from whence the Apostle inferrs what he began with there Remains therefore a Rest to the People of God another manner of Rest than that of Canaan eternal and perfect with God in Heaven to which the true Joshua or Jesus the Son of God must give us entrance by faith in him of whom Joshua the Son of Nun was but an imperfect transitory Type as that Rest of Canaan and of the Sabboth was of the perfect eternal Rest which still remains for Gods People the whole Church of true persevering obedient believers From what the Apostle hath said we may make this observation That Man hath no true and perfect Rest in ought but God His Rest is Mans Rest because he is the Rest and happiness of Man the ultimate compleate satisfactory object of reasonable creatures To Rest in any thing but in him as our happiness without dependance on him as the Author and reference to him as the end thereof is sinful vanity and vexation sure to end in eternal trouble without repentance Canaan it self was not to be the final Rest and happiness of the Israelites nor must any thing in this World any thing less than God be ours What God hath said to the Jews of old he much more clearly hath said and proved to us Christians Arise and depart for this is not your Resting place The Heavenly Rest and eternal life of seeing God as he is was but obscurely and imperfectly revealed to them who lived before or under the law till Christ came in whom the promise of it was made when man had lost all hope of it It was till then wrapt up as it were in the seed and bloome of Types and Prophesies implied and intimated in the Sabboth and Canaan and Temporal blessings attending Piety in this life rather than manifested and brought to light in its clearest evidences and strongest assurances as now our Lord Jesus hath done who hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel and therefore if they were obliged only in God through Christ Jesus to place their happiness in nothing below but to look on him through the vaile of Types and Temporal blessings how much more are we obliged as well as enabled to do so to whom Christ hath been exhibited with all the fulness of Truth and grace revealing the whole counsel of God our Rest in him and the way to attain it without obscurity and beyond dispute If David foresaw and foretold this Rest to be remaining when he not only enjoy'd Canaan and its blessings as the other Israelites did but the very height thereof as a prosperous King If he could say Deliver me O Lord from the Men of this World whose portion is in this life I am a stranger and sojourner here as all my Fathers were How much more are we obliged to think and say so who have not such Types and Temporal blessings to vaile the Object of our Rest and interrupt our sight of it to whom the Son and Lord of David hath been exhibited exemplifying and teaching us our only Rest to be in God the Father through him the Son by his holy Spirit dying to purchase an entrance to it rising and ascending and sitting down in a Glorious Rest at Gods Right Hand to assure us of it It is no less than the sin of Idolatry to place our Rest confidence or happiness in pleasures or honours possessions or riches or any thing else that this World can gratifie us with it is the bitter spring or Root of all sins It contradicts the design of God in giving us any Temporal blessings he gave them to help us unto him that reflecting upon him as their Author and end we might be perswaded to love him incomparably above all if we fall in love with them instead of raising our love to him we quite pervert the intent of his favours and turn them into hinderances to his dishonour and our own ruine He gave them to comfort us in our journy and shall we so mistake his meaning as to set up our dwelling in the Inn and Travaile no farther towards our Country but forget the giver because of that gift which was sent us on purpose to mind us of him This were to bring that curse on our selves which the Prophet foretold rather than prayed might fall on Gods enemies Let their Table be made a snare and that which should have been for their wealth be an occasion of falling to them This were indeed to provoke God either to withdraw those favours which thus he sees rested in instead of him or else to embitter and curse them from yeilding any content and if he should suffer us still to rest in them to his dishonour 't would prove the greatest surest curse of all others to live and die in this false deceitful transitory Rest which leads to and ends in eternal trouble and sorrow of body and soul That which is Mans true Rest must be able to give him full and perpetual satisfaction But all things below do neither satisfie us while we have them nor can continue with us longer to yield us that Rest or Pleasure which we fancy We
ornament of a quiet Spirit very pretious in Gods sight and therefore ought to be so in ours I appeal to the reason and experience of any Man whether it be not rest and ease to forgive an injury rather than be provoked to revenge and to lay aside the consideration of other Mens malice envy and peevishness rather than imitate it and suffer the vexing remembrance of it to boil and ferment in our watchful minds until it hath conquered and transform'd us into the same troublesom evil Is it not Peace and a blessed Rest to sit still and lift up no hands but those of Charity and Charitable prayer rather than labour in fighting and wounding one another To hold ones peace than to rail and revile Which hath more Rest in it to study to be quiet and do ones own business or to be prying and intermedling with other Mens office faults or secrets To speak evil of no Man or to be always finding fault and speaking the worst we can of any who differ from us in any respect Which is the greatest trouble and burthen meekly to obey our Lawfull Governours in Church and State where God hath not commanded the contrary or be allways disputing against a few harmless indifferent ceremonies untill we have quarre'ld our selves and others into a causeless scandalous pernitious separation Then for humble contented patience that precept of the Old Testament but wisdom and mystery of the New Thou shalt not covet but be content patiently with thy own portion what is it but a Rest rather than burthen a purchase or priviledge rather than duty when once learnt Let the Carnal or Worldly Man with his bored tub of insatiable desires cry as the Horseleach give give and seek after wealth as he should after God without bounds Yet the Heathen Philosopher could resolve it the only way to true Rest not to seek to raise our fortunes to our desires but to bring down our desires to our fortunes and present condition The one is not onely uncertain because not in any Mans power but impossible because his desires increase with his purchases as fire with fewel whereas the other is possible and certain Contentment and patience glorifies God by placing its wealth in his favours who having promised him necessaries here and a Kingdom hereafter hath taught and obliged him to be contented with any fare upon the way because he sees his being so confirms and increaseth his future happiness Nullo egere Dei est quà m paucissimis Deo proximum As for sobriety temperance chastity reason secondded by experience assures any Man that to drink to the quenching of ones thirst or at most to the moderate cheering one Spirits to eat to the satisfying ones hunger or at most to the gratifying of festival joy hospitality friendship and thankful delight in what God hath bountifully given is all the good that is to be had from Meat and Drink that 't is a trouble as well as a sin to swill as if one were in a Feaver or till one brings himself to a Feaver or Dropsy to Eat and Drink till reason is drowned smothered and buried under the load and till the Phantastick forced pleasure of two or three mispent hours end in the pain of head and stomach for whole days after if not in some villainous lust or passion and bloudy quarrel in sickness and death both of Soul and Body The conscience finds all trouble in it and the Body it self for gratifying of which God and Conscience was despised find no Rest within some hours And what comparison between the rest safety health and honour of either virginal or conjugal chastity which keeps the desires of the flesh under the power of reason and faith lives in the hope of seeing God preserves the bond of love in Families inviolated and the unclean shameful excesses of wandring lust which are conceived with fear and anxiety brought forth and finisht with shame and sorrow begin in disorder of Soul and Body end in loathing begin in trouble end in worse burn at first and consume at last the peace of the mind if not the health of the Body also besides the confusions tumults quarrels it breeds in Families and all for the sneaking brutish delight of a few minutes There is indeed one grace which seems to have little Rest in it The suffering persecutions to death rather than disown the Truth or violate duty But God hath made so many promises to mitigate and temper all temptations to the strength which we either now have or shall receive upon our prayers of his turning to good whatsoever seems most evil And of his rewarding our courage and patience with so much the greater weight of glory that these promises being believed we are enabled as well as obliged not only to be contented but joyful also in tribulations for truth and righteousness sake and therefore no wonder if suffering miseries for the honour of God and our Lord Jesus for the furtherance of our own salvation and other Mens hath more rest than trouble in it without this Rest a flow of all other good things which this world can give will leave a Man but a miserable wearied Traveller under a heavy load and burthen of discontents and sorrows and with this Rest all labour and sorrow is inconsistent and though we may not expect to have this promised eternal Rest endless felicity as our deserved wages yet we may and ought to hope for it as our promised reward Angels and Saints departed this life they have it allready the Devils and damned are past all Hope Great pains and labour do the Men of this World take but not in order to this Rest and therefore a Multitude of mistaken sinners lay out the chief of their days and time in pursuance of pleasures and honours and profits of this World as if Heaven and Salvation were easy atchievments as if they might with a wish only at the last come to die the death of the righteous who had so notoriously lived the life of the wicked 'T is not only the doing of evil but the not doing of good which shall be punished at the last day the judge shall then condemn for not feedings for not clothing Go ye cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry and ye fed me not for I was naked and ye clothed me not Not doing of good is none of the least evils He that sits still and moves not one step towards this Rest by wearing Christs Yoak and bearing his burthen shall lose Heaven as infallibly as he that runs from it who so hides his Talent shall receive no other wages save that of the slothful Servant The way to Heaven is narrow the Gate straight it must be striving that gives us entrance not only the hopes of Heaven but the escaping of Hell makes it our duty to be doing of good and by so doing we express our fear lest a promise of Rest being left any of us should seem
ought appears for though he thought himself better than the Publican yet he acknowledged both his abstinence from sinful works and his perseverance in good ones to be from God God I thank thee for this and for that he saith not as they God I thank thee thou hast given me the first grace only to restrain me from such sins as the Publican walks in whereas my proficiency in doing of good is from my own meritorious choice but I thank thee for one and the other Yet because he so glories in Gods graces as if they had not been received from free mercy because he is not truly humbled by that grace which in words he confesseth to have received from God alone therefore is he less justified than the Publican for the use of all the graces which God bestows in this life is to teach us true humility not to glory in our selves but in him to whom all grace and glory belongs And if we make not this use of it if we say not with Jacob Lord I am less than the least of thy mercies towards me If when we have done justice and loved mercy we walk not humbly with our God and say not as our Lord hath taught us forgive us our trespasses we have been but unprofitable servants in respect of what we might and should have been we turn his grace into pride and vain glory and are worthy to lose the acceptance and reward which was promised for Christs merits not ours though not without sincere performance of those conditions to which his mercy and grace enableth us Our good works are acceptable to God a sweet Sacrifice but still it is through Jesus Christ Better is it for us to hear one Saint from Heaven one of those Spirits made perfect than thousands of daring sinful Disputants here below For what are all the Chairs and Schools of Men on Earth to the suffrage of Heaven where not only one but all the Saints and perfected Spirits cast down their Crowns before him that sits on the Throne at the feet of the Lamb. Rev. 7.5 Saying aloud To him that hath loved us and washt us from our sins in his blood and made us Kings and Priests to God and his Father be glory and power for evermore Thus have we seen that 't is not merit that will bring us to this promised eternal Rest and yet they that will attain to it must imploy their Talent well they must come unto Christ as Christ came unto us by charity and by humility To obtain this Rest will cost some care and pains and therefore we must expect it but this care and pains will be highly rewarded and therefore 't will be our wisdom to undergo it The Men of this world are apt to think Christianity and coming to Christ a joyless thing because it speaks so much of holy living of presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice of mortifying and Sacrificing its lusts and affections as if they were no longer to enjoy themselves who voluntarily deny themselves in all these but they are but false hearted Spies that would bring this bad report upon a good land for the mortifying the lusts of the flesh the presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice is not the destruction of our joys but the increase of them and gives assurances of this eternal Rest For let the body be never so backward to be presented unto God and offer'd up in Sacrifice to him though it shrinke at the sight of the Altar and tremble to see the Sacrificing Knife yet are we not to hearken to its foolish tenderness no cruelty like such indulgence the life and safety and Rest of the Soul depends upon this disciplining this mortifying the body For he that mortifies and kills and slayes his lusts doth but Sacrifice that which would hurt destroy and ruine himself 't is but a carnal worldly Man that is killed at most nay 't is but a beast 't is but the unreasonable appetite that is slain reasonable Man is saved alive and made more reasonable by so doing and exalted thereby to a Spiritual life He that leaves this beast alive and is led by his unruly passions is hurried even in this life to more sorrows cares and vexations than any Saint or Martyr endures in his passage to Heaven when he offers himself up unto God by an holy life and patient death Therefore who so desires in good earnest not to fail of this promised eternal Rest must crucify the whole body of sin must subdue and bring into subjecton every vnruly member thereof The lustful covetous disdainful evil Eye which hath made thee blind or ill sighted to all that is good must be closed up and put out and the charitable peaceable contented good Eye set open and then God will one day ravish that Eye with Objects of eternal joy and Rest and delight in Heaven Our Ears must be closed up and deaf to all ungodly prophane discourses and unsavoury communication but open to all that is harmless and good sober and wise rational or Christian If the ungodly wanton cruel Ear that itches after falseshood and wrong be cut off and the religious believing chast merciful Ear remain then thou hast made thine Ears the gates of Heaven and Life and Rest for the Spirit of truth to enter in being thus opened thou shalt hear the joys of Heaven sounding in thy Ears such joys as God hath prepared for them that love him The Lips also must be closed and the Tongue tied up from Oaths and Curses prophane allusions to holy Scripture bitter revilings strife and clamour open slanders and secret detractions but they must be opened and the Tongue loosed to all holy duties of Prayers and Prayses towards God wholsom counsel admonition and instruction towards Men. If the prophane seducing contentious provoking bitter Tongue be tied up and silenced and the wise pure and peaceable and faithful Tongue be loosened and set on work thou art no loser by this change because thou hast exchanged folly for wisdom shame for honour strife for peace the discord of infernal Spirits for the musick of Angels thou hast exchanged the Tongue of an Atheist for the Tongue of a Prophet or a Saint Next the hand must be withheld from violence and oppression from theft and sacriledge fraud and deceit but open to all the works of Piety and Charity If the injurious griping bloody hand be cut off and the innocent holy pure hand be lifted up to God in Prayer and stretcht out to Man in Charity what hast thou lost but the hand of a Murtherer a Thief an Usurer or Adulterer and hast for it the holy hand of a Priest the Royal hand of a Benefactor Holy and acceptable unto God pleasing and beneficial unto Men The feet also must be restrained from wandering into the ways of wickedness where we meet with temptations and vanity snares and dangers they are to carry us from the seducing assemblies of Schismaticks the bloody Conspiraces
their disordered appetites Ask if they find not themselves uneasy when they consider how short and low their pleasure is compared with the irksom diseased shamefulness of their sin See how heavily the Ambitious proud person walks between his eager desires and doubtful expectations under his false hopes and true fears and then judge whether his wearisom days and restless nights can bring him any true content Should I instance in the idle Gallant whose time like a burthen lies upon his hands or in the contentious wrangler or unpeaceable brawler the secret whisperer or the open detractor I should tire your patience sooner than want a proof that sin is a wearisom uneasy heavy restless burthen and that it is necessary by the way of virtue to come unto Christ for ease and Rest The Angel in Tobit bids Tobias take out the gall of the fish to cure his blindness if we rip the bowels of worldly sinful lusts and pleasures and take out the gall of them that is to say seriously look upon the bitterness they bring with them and the gall and wormwood they leave behind them it may prove a remedy of our Spiritual blindness yet such is our short-sightedness that we think we are at ease under our load and at Rest in our sore Travel Sin turns all things up side down it sets Earth above and Heaven below Reason at the footstool and brutish appetite on the Throne and having thus lookt downward for our Rest and happiness we are ashamed to look Heaven in the face and having lost Heaven for Earth by sin we look downward still as fearing that Hell which we have so well deserved and this is it which makes Men suffer all sorts of diseases the Gout the Stone Tooth-aches and all kind of Tortures rather than die because ill led lives leave Men under anxious fears and sad doubtings what shall be their future state When Tamberlin commanded all Leprous persons to be put to death lest they should lead a miserable life the poor Lepers thought his mercy cruel and would have endured more willingly two Leprosies than one death not because of any great comfort they took in their lives but because they knew not what might follow after death To lose this life without assurance or hopeful probability of a better is doleful and bitter but to lose it with assurance from Gods own Mouth of a far worse of incurring an eternal death anguish and pain without mitigation this makes death deadly indeed when the sinner must die again for the sin he dies in when the first death leads to a second and when all the terrors and sorrows and pains of the first death are but the evidences of more or worse to follow when the fire that 's now begun to be kindled will burn down to the lowest hell Deut. 32.22 If we believe this in good earnest why do we not hate sin worse than death Because sin is the cause of all this the cause of death and all that is deadly It makes us liable to a dreadful account at the day of Judgment and makes our whole life restless and uneasy This being so how dare we trifle away one day or hour more of that term or time of Trial upon which though so short and so uncertain depends such a life and such a death such joys and such sorrows such rest and such disquiet to all eternity Methinks if Heaven cannot allure us with all the joys and blessed eternal Rest there to be had Hell might affright us with its dreadful sufferings into our duty and compel us to make God at least our last refuge if not our first choice No loss so great as the loss of God and the Kingdom of Heaven and that Rest we are there invited to No Prison so loathsom as the bottomless pit of horror and darkness No sight so ghastly as that of frightful fiends No shriekings so terrible as those of damned Ghosts No stench so noisom as that of the lake of fire and brimston No fire so hot as of the wrath of God which puts the sinner into chains never to be loosed into darkness never to be enlightened and gives him gnashing of teeth never to be remedied gnawing vipers never to be pulled off and this makes up such a mass of woes such a deadly death as exceeds all humane eloquence to express much more all patience to endure Now to avoid all this St. Paul tells us Heb. 12.1 what we must do we must lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us running the way of Gods Commandements which St. Paul calls here a race is the way to this everlasting Rest therefore let us so run that we may obtain it and then our recompence is a Crown of life if we slothfully neglect it our punishment is Tribulation and anguish endless and intolerable the worm of conscience that never dies the fire of hell that never goes out Were we left to the glimmering suspicious light of natural reason as most Nations were of old and many are still to guess at the way that leads to this everlasting Rest or to find it out by a painful enquiry through many difficulties and impediments of a contrary erroneous Education we were by far the more excusable but when by the mercy of God we have the Gospel sounding in our Ears and the way to this Rest chalkt out before our Eyes in holy Scripture and lively Oracles with all the powerful perswasive motives of hope and love inviting us to it on the one hand and all the cogent constraining motives of threats and fear to drive us to it hearten'd on with promises assistances and instructions on the other hand what pretence of excuse can we have that we should fall short of this Rest But some are often enquiring what is the lowest degree of holiness faith and obedience that is consistent with the escaping of hell or hope of Heaven They would know what is the lowest rate that Heaven and eternal Rest will come at The greatest part of those that would be resolved in this enquiry are of a most disingenuous unworthy disposition for when God hath obliged us by so many mercies assistances encouragements and rewards thus to beat down as low as they can the price of all his kindness and bounty 't is a dangerous sign that he that seeks heaven and happiness so faintly will not seek it long for we Sail against Tide in our Voyage to Heaven and earnest diligence is required in the passage thither but if we begin to lay aside our Sails and Oares we shall by the very stream of our nature the world and the flesh be carried backward to perdition The way to Heaven is upward but the ground is falling that we tread on and the heaviness of our nature doth perpetually expose us to relapses 'T is very probable that he that is so jealous and wary