do They cause them to Blaspheme and reproach the godly for their sakes and say These are your Religious men You see now what their strictness is And they hinder the conversion and salvation of others They grieve the godly and wrong the Church and Cause of God much more than the sins of others do 20. Lastly They please the Devil more than the sins of other men How busie is he to have drawn a Iob to sin and how would he have boasted against God and his grace and his servants if he had prevailed when he boasted so much before in the false presumption of his success As if he could make the godly forsake God and be as bad as others if he have leave to tempt them § 19. II. I shall next give you some particular Directions besides those fore-going to help you to think of sin as it is that you may hate it For your cleansing and cure consisteth in this so far as you hate sin it is mortified and you are cured of it And therefore as I have anatomized it that you may see the hatefulness of it I shall direct you to improve this for your cure § 20. Direct 1. Labour to know God and to be affected with his Attributes and alwayes to live as Direct 1. How to hate sin in his sight No man can know sin perfectly because no man can know God perfectly You can no further know what sin is than you know what God is whom you sin against For the formal malignity of sin is Relative as it is against the Will and Attributes of God The godly have some knowledge of the malignity of sin because they have some knowledge of God that is wronged by it The wicked have no practical prevalent knowledge of the malignity of sin because they have no such knowledge of God They that fear God will fear sinning They that in their hearts are bold unreverently with God will in heart and life be bold with sin The Atheist that thinketh there is no God thinks there is no sin against him Nothing in the world will tell us so plainly and powerfully of the evil of sin as the knowledge of the Greatness Wisdom Goodness Holiness Authority Justice Truth c. of God The sense of his presence therefore will revive our sense of sins malignity § 21. Direct 2. Consider well of the office the bloodshed and the holy life of Christ His office is Direct 2. to expiate sin and to destroy it His blood was shed for it His Life condemned it Love Christ and thou wilt hate that which caused his death Love him and thou wilt love to be made like him and hate that which is so contrary to Christ. These two great Lights will shew the odiousness of darkness § 22. Direct 3. Think well both how Holy the office and work of the Holy Ghost is and how great Direct 3. a mercy it is to us Shall God himself the Heavenly light come down into a sinful heart to illuminate and 〈◊〉 it and yet shall I keep my darkness and defilement in opposition to such wonderful mercy Though all sin against the Holy Ghost be not the unpardonable blasphemy yet all is aggravated hereby § 23. Direct 4. Know and consider the wonderful Love and Mercy of God and think what he hath Direct 4. dâ—ne for you and you will hate sin and be ashamed of it It is an aggravation which makes sin odious even to common reason and ingenuity that we should offend a God of infinite Goodness who hath filled up our lives with Mercy It will grieve you if you have wronged an extraordinary friend His Love and kindness will come into your thoughts and make you angry with your own unkindness Here look over the Catalogue of Gods mercies to you for soul and body And here observe that Satan in hiding the Love of God from you and tempting you under pretence of humility to deny his greatest special mercy doth seek to destroy your repentance and humiliation also by hiding the greatest aggravation of your sin § 24. Direct 5. Think what the soul of man is made for and should be used to even to Love obey Direct 5. and glorifie our Maker and then you will see what sin is which disableth and perverteth it How excellent and high and holy a work are we created for and called to and should we defile the Temple â—â— God and serve the Devil in filthiness and folly where we should entertain and serve and magnifie our Creator § 25. Direct 6. Think well what pure and sweet delights a holy soul may enjoy from God in his Direct 6. holy service and then you will see what sin is which robbeth him of these delights and preferreth fleshly lusts before them O how happily might we perform every duty and how fruitfully might we serve our Lord and what delights should we find in his Love and acceptation and the foresight of everlasting blessedness if it were not for sin which bringeth down the soul from the doors of Heaven to wallow with Swine in a beloved Dunghill § 26. Direct 7. Bethink you what a life it is which you must live for ever if you live in Heaven Direct 7. and what a life the Holy ones there now live and then think whether sin which is so contrary to it be not a vile and hateful thing Either you would live in Heaven or not If not you are not those I speak to If you would you know that there 's no sinning No worldly mind no pride no passion no fleshly lust or pleasures there O did you but see and hear one hour how those blessed Spirits are taken up in loving and magnifying the glorious God in purity and holiness and how far they are from sin it would make you lothe sin ever after and look on sinners as on men in Bedlam wallowing naked in their dung Especially to think that you hope your selves to live for ever like those holy Spirits and therefore sin doth ill beseem you § 27. Direct 8. Look but to the state and torment of the damned and think well of the difference Direct 8. betwixt Angels and Devils and you may know what sin is Angels are pure Devils are polluted Holiness and sin do make the difference Sin dwells in Hell and holiness in Heaven Remember that every temptation is from the Devil to make you like himself as every holy motion is from Christ to make you like himself Remember when you sin that you are learning and imitating of the Devil and are so far like him John 8. 44. And the end of all is that you may feel his pains If Hell fire be not good then sin is not good § 28. Direct 9. Look alwayes on sin as one that is ready to dye and consider how all men judge of Direct 9. it at the last What do men in Heaven say of it And what do men in Hell say of
last place in teaching learning and most serious consideration § 3. Two sorts do most dangerously sin against or abuse the Holy Ghost The first is the Prophane who through custom and education can say I believe in the Holy Ghost and say that He sanctifieth them and all the Elect people of God but hate or resist all sanctifying works and motions Deus est principium eâ—â—ectivum in Creatione refectivum in redemptione perfectivum in sanctificatione Ioh. Con. bis comp Theol. l. 4. c. 1. of the Holy Ghost and hate all those that are sanctified by him and make them the objects of their scorn and deride the very name of sanctification or at least the thing The second sort is the Enthusiasts or true Fanaticks who advance extoll and plead for the Spirit Rejectis propheticis Apostolicis scriptis Manichaei novum Evangelium scripserunt ut antecellere communi hominum multitudini semi-d 〈…〉 rentur simularunt Enthusiaâ—mos seu afflatus subâ—â—o in â—urâ—a se in terram objâ—â—â—â—entes c vâ—lut 〈◊〉 dâ—â— tacentes deinde tanquam redeuntes ex specu Trophonio plorantes multa vaticinati sunt Prorsus ut Anabaptistae recens fâ—ceruâ— in seditione Monasteriensi Etsi autem in quibusdam manifesta simulatio fuit tamen aliquibus reipsa à Diabolis surâ—tes immisses esse certum est Carioâ— Chron. l. 3. p. 54. against the Spirit covering their greatest sins against the Holy Ghost by crying up and pretending to the Holy Ghost They plead the Spirit in themselves against the Spirit in their Brethren yea and in almost all the Church They plead the authority of the Spirit in them against the authority of the Spirit in the holy Scriptures and against particular truths of Scripture and against several great and needful Duties which the Spirit hath required in the Word and against the Spirit in their most judicious godly faithful Teachers But can it be the Spirit that speaks against the Spirit Is the Spirit of God against it self Are we not all baptized by One Spirit and not divers or contrary into one body 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. But it is no marvel for Satan to be transformed into an Angel of light or his Ministers into the Ministers of Christ and of Righteousness whose end shall be according to their works 2 Cor. 11. 13 14 15. The Spirit himself therefore hath commanded us that we believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world 1 John 4. 1. Yea the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1. Therefore take heed that you neither Mistake nor abuse the Holy Spirit § 4. 1. The Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost to be believed is briefly this 1. That the Holy Ghost as given since the Ascension of Christ is his Agent on earth or his Advocate with men called by him the Paraclete Instead of his bodily presence which for a little space he vouchsafed to a few being John 16. 7. â— ascended he sendeth the Holy Spirit as better for them to be his Agent continually to the end and John 15 2â— John 16. 13. Gal. 3. 1 2 3 4 Heb. 2. 3 4. unto all and in all that do believe 2. This Holy Spirit so sent infallibly inspired the holy Apostles and Evangelists first to preach and then to write the Doctrine of Christ contained as indited by him in the Holy Scriptures perfectly imprinting therein the Holy Image of God 3. The same Spirit in them sealed this holy Doctrine and the Testimony of these holy men by many Miracles and wonderful Gifts by which they did actually convince the unbelieving world and plant the Churches 4. The same Spirit having first by the Apostles given a Law or Canon to the Universal Church constituting its Offices and the duty of the Officers and the manner of their entrance Eph. 3 2 3 4 8 13. dâ—tâ— Qualifie and â—ispose men for the stated ordinary Ministerial work which is to Explain and Apâ—â—â—â— â—he â—oresaid Scriptures and directeth those that are to Ordain and Choose them they being not wanting on their part and so he appointeth Pastors to the Church 5. The same Spirit assisteth the Ministers thus sent in their faithful use of the means to Teach and Apply the holy Scriptures according to the necessities of the peoplâ— the weight of the matter and the Majesty of the Word of God 6. The same Spirit doth by this Word heard or read renew and sanctifie the souls of the Elect illuminating their minds opening and quickning their hearts prevailing with changing and Actâ— 26. 18. resolving their wills thus writing Gods Word and imprinting his Image by his Word upon their hearts making it powerful to conquer and cast out their strongest sweetest dearest sins and bringing John 14 16 26 them to the saving knowledge love and obedience of God in Jesus Christ. 7. The same holy Spirit assisteth the sanctified in the exercise of this grace to the increase of it by blessing and concurring with the means appointed by him to that end And helpeth them to use those means perform their duties conquer temptations oppositions and difficulties and so confirmeth and preserveth them to the end 8. The same Spirit helpeth believers in the exercise of grace to feel it and discern the sincerity of it in themselves in that measure as they are meet for and in these seasons when it is fittest for them 9. The same Spirit helpeth them hereupon to conclude that they are justified and reconciled to God and have right to all the benefits of his Covenant 10. Also he assisteth them actually to rejoyce in the discerning of this Conclusion For though Reason of it self may do something in these acts yet so averse is man to all that is holy and so many are the difficulties and hinderances in the way that to the effectual performance the help of the Spirit of God is necessary § 5. By this enumeration of the Spirits operations you may see the errors of many detected and many common Questions answered 1. You may see their blindness that pretend the Spirit within them against Scripture Ministry or the use of Gods appointed means when the same Spirit first indited the Scripture and maketh it the Instrument to illuminate and sanctifie our souls Gods Image is 1. Primarily in Jesus Christ his Son 2. Derivatively by his Spirit imprinted perfectly in the holy Scriptures 3. And by the Scripture or the holy Doctrine of it instrumentally impressed on the soul. So that the Image of God in Christ is the Cause of his Image in his holy Word or Doctrine and his Image in his Word is the Cause of his Image on the heart So a King may have his Image 1. Naturally on his Son who is like his Father 2. Expressively in his Laws which express
not be so converted though it be improbable § 23. Quest. 23. May we pray in hope with a proper prayer as a means to attain it that a whole Quest. 23. Kingdom may be all truly converted and saved Answ. Yes For God hath no way told us that it shall not be Though it be a thing improbable it is not impossible And therefore being greatly desirable may be prayed for Though Christ hath told us that his flock is little and few find the way of life yet that may stand with the salvation of a Kingdom § 24. Quest. 24. May we pray for the destruction of the enemies of Christ or of the Gospel or of the Quest 24. King Answ. Not with respect to that which is called Gods antecedent will for so we ought first to pray for their Conversion and restraint till then But with respect to that called his Consequent will we may that is we must first pray that they may be restrained and converted and secondly that if not they may be destroyed § 25. Quest. 25. What is to be thought of that which some call a particular faith in prayer If Quest. 25. I can firmly believe that a lawful prayer shall be granted in kind may I not be sure by a divine faith that it shall be so Answ. Belief hath relation to a Testimony or Revelation Prayer may be warranted as lawful if the thing be desirable and there be any possibility of obtaining it though there be no certainty or flat promise But faith or expectation must be warranted by the Promise If God have promised you the thing prayed for you may believe that you shall receive it Otherwise your particular faith is a fancy or a believing of your selves and not a believing God that never promised you the thing Obj. Matth. 21 22. And all things whatsoever you ask in prayer believing ye shall receive Mar 11. 23 24. Answ. There are two sorts of Faith the one a Belief that is ordinary having respect to ordinary promises and mercies The Text can be understood of this in no other sense than this All things which I have promised you you shall receive if you ask them believingly But this is nothing to that which is not promised The other faith was extraordinary in order to the working of Miracles And this faith was a potent inward confidence which was not in the power of the person when he pleased but was given like an Inspiration by the Spirit of God when a Miracle was to be wrought And this seemeth to be it that is spoken of in the Text. And this was built on this extraordinary promise which was made not to all men in all ages but to those times when the Gospel was to be sealed and delivered by Miracles and specially to the Apostles So that in these times there is neither such a promise of our working Miracles as they had to believe nor yet a power to exercise that sort of extraordinary faith Therefore a strong conceit though it come in a fervent prayer that any thing shall come to pass which we cannot prove by any promise or prophecy is not to be called any act of Divine faith at all nor to be trusted to § 26. Quest. 26. But must we not believe that every lawful prayer is accepted and heard of God Quest. 26. Answ. Yes but not that it shall be granted in the very thing unless so promised But you may believe that your prayer is not lost and that it shall be a means of that which tendeth to your good Rom. 8. 28. Isa. 45. 19. § 27. Quest. 27. With what faith must I pray for the souls or bodies of other men for their conversion Quest. 27. or their lives Answ. A godly man may pray for wicked Relations or others with more hope than they can pray for themselves while they remain ungodly But yet not with any certainty of prevailing for the thing he asketh for it is not peremptorily promised him Otherwise Samuel had prevailed for Saul and Isaac for Esau and David for Absolom and the good people for all the wicked And then no godly Parents would have their children lost no nor any in the world would perish For godly persons pray for them all But those prayers are not lost to him that puts them up § 28. Quest. 28. With what faith may we pray for the continuance of the Church and Gospel to Quest. 28. any Nation Answ. The former answer serveth to this Our hope may be according to the degrees of probability But we cannot believe it as a certainty by Divine faith because it is not promised by God § 29. Quest 29. How may we know when our prayers are heard of God and when not Quest. 29. Answ. Two wayes Sometimes by experience when the thing it self is actually given us and alwayes by the Promise When we ask for that which God commandeth us to ask or promiseth to grant For we are sure Gods promises are all fulfilled If we ask for the objects of sense as food oâ— rayment or health c. sense will tell us whether our prayers be granted in the same kind that we asked for But if the questions be of the objects of Faith it is Faith that must tell you that your prayers are granted But yet Faith and Reason make use of Evidences or Signs As if I pray for pardon of sin and salvation the promise assureth me that this prayer is granted if I be a penitent believing regenerate person Otherwise not Therefore faith only assureth me that such prayers are granted supposing that I discern the Evidence of my regeneration repentance and faith in Christ. So if the question be whether my prayer for others or for temporal mercies be answered in some other kind and conduce to my good some other way faith only must tell you this from the promise by the help of evidences There are millions of prayers that will all be found answered at death and judgement which we knew not to be answered any way but by believing it § 30. Quest. 30. What should a Christian of weak parts do that is dry and barren of matter Quest. 30. and can scarce tell what to say in prayer but is ready to rise off his knees almost as soon as he hath begun Answ. 1. He must not be a stranger to himself but study well his heart and life and then he will How to have constant supply of matter â—ind such a multitude of inward corruptions to lament and such a multitude of wants to be supplyed and weaknesses to be strengthened and disorders to be rectified and actual sins to be forgiven that may find him work enough for confessions complaints and petitions many dayes together if expression be but as ready as matter 2. Let him study God and get the knowledge of his Nature Attributes and Works and then he will find matter enough to aggravate his sin and to furnish him
is not wholly dispossessed of those objects which are against its work nor delivered from those Principles which have an Enmity against it The love of the world and flesh was in the heart before the love of God and holiness and ignorance was before knowledge and Pride before humility and selfishness before self-denyal And these are not wholly rooted out We have dealt so gently with them as the Israelites with the Canaanites Iebusites and other Inhabitants of the Land that they are left to try us and to be thorns in our sides And the Garrison is not free from danger that hath an enemy alwayes lodged within Our enemies are in the house with us They lye down and rise up with us and are as near us as our flesh and bones we can never be where they are not nor leave them behind us whithersoever we go or whatever we Mar. 13. 12. Matth. 10. 21. do No marvel if Brother be against Brother and the Father against the Son when we are so much against our selves And are we yet secure § 11. 8. And the number of the snares that are still before us and of the subtile malitious enemies of our souls may easily convince us that we are wholly free from danger How subtile and diligent is the Devil How much do his servants imitate him Every creature or person that we have to do with and every common mercy which we receive hath matter of danger in it which calleth us to fear and watch § 12. 9. Perseverance is nothing else but our continuance in the grace which we received And this grace consisteth in Act as well as in Habit And the Habit is for Action and the Act is it that increaseth and continueth the habit And the Fear of God and the belief of his threatnings and repentance and watchfulness and diligent obedience are a great part of this grace And the Acts are ours performed by our selves by the helps of God God doth not Believe and Repent and Obey in us but causeth us our selves to do it Therefore to grow cold and secure and sinful upon preâ—ence that we are sure to persevere this is to cease persevering and to fall away because we are sure to persevere and not to fall away which is a meer contradiction § 13. 10. Lastly Bethink you well what is the meaning of all these Texts of Scripture and the Reason that the Holy Ghost doth speak to us in this manner Col. 1. 21 22 23. And you hath he reconciled to present you holy if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel John 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you 6. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and withered 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in yâ—u ye shall ask what ye will Heb. 4. 1. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Cor. 10. 4 5 12. They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ But with many of them God was not well pleased Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall Rom. 11. 20 21. Be not high-minded but fear For if God spared not the natural branches take heed lest he spare not thee Gal. 5. 4. Ye are fallen from grace Matth. 10. 22. He that endureth to the end shall be saved Matth. 24. 13. Heb. 3. 6 14. Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoycing of hope firm unto the end For we are partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end Heb. 4. 11. Let us labour therefore to enter into that Rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief Rev. 2. 25. Hold fast till I come 26. And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations Rev. 3. 2 3. 2. 4. § 14. Take heed therefore of that Doctrine which telleth you that sins to come are all pardoned to you before they are committed and that you are Justified from them and that it is unlawful to be afraid of falling away because it is impossible c. For no sin is pardoned before it is committed though the Remedy be provided For it is then no sin And you are Justified from no sin any further than it is pardoned Suppose God either to decree or but to fore-know the freest most contingent act and there will be a Logical impossibility in order of Consequence that it should be otherwise than he so decreeth or foreseeth But that inferreth no natural impossibility in the thing it self For God doth not Decree or foresee that such a mans fall shall be Impossible but only non-futurum § 15. Direct 4. In a special manner take heed of the company and doctrine of deceivers yea though Direct 4. they seem most Religious men and are themselves first deceived and think they are in the right And take heed of falling into a dividing party which separateth from the generality of the truly wise and Ephes. 4. 14. 1 Thesâ— 5. 12 13. godly people For this hath been an ordinary introduction to backsliding False doctrine hath a mighty power on the heart And he that can separate one of the sheep from the rest of the flock hath a fair advantage to carry him away See Rom. 16. 16 17. § 16. Direct 5. Be very watchful against the sin of Pride especially pride of gifts or knowledge or Direct 5. holiness which some call spiritual Pride For God is engaged to cast down the proud Prov. 16. 18. Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall Satan assaulted our first Parents by that way that he fell himself and his success encourageth him to try the same way with their posterity And alas how greatly hath he succeeded through all ages of the world till now § 17. Direct 6. Take heed of a divided hypocritical heart which never was firmly resolved for Direct 6. God upon expectation of the worst and upon terms of self-denyal nor was ever well loosed from the Love of this present world nor firmly believed the life to come For it is no wonder that he falleth from grace who never had any grace but common which never renewed his soul. It is no wonder that false hearted friends forsake us when their interest requireth it Nor that the seed which never had depth of earth do bring forth no fruit but what will wither when persecution shall arise or that Luke 14. 26 29 33. which is sown among thorns be choaked Matth. 13. Sit down and count what it will cost you to be Christians and receive not Christ upon mistakes or with reserves § 18. Direct 7. Take heed lest the world or any
should be perfectly conformed to the will of God and that you might know him and love him and enjoy him more you are void of Godliness and true Christianity For this is the very Covenant which you make in Baptism which you call your Christening Matth. 28. 19 20. 2 Cor. 8. 5. 1 Cor. 6. 17. Iohn 1. 10 11 12. Gal. 4. 6. Rom. 8. 14 15. § 13. I Have now plainly shewed you and fully proved from the Word of God by what infallible Atque haud scio an Pieâ—aâ—e adversus Deos sublatâ fides etiam societas humani generis unâ— excellentissima virtus Justitia tollatur Cicero de Nat. Dâ—oâ— pag. 4. signs an ungodly man may know that he is Ungodly if he will May you not know whether it be thus with you if you are willing to know May you not know if you will whether your desire and design of life be more for this world or that to come and whether Heaven or Earth be preferred and sought first and whether your fleshly prosperity and pleasure or your souls be principally cared for and regarded May you not know if you will whether you love or loath the serious worshippers of God and whether you had rather be delivered from your sins or keep them and whether your wills be more against them or for them and whether you love a holy life or not and whether you had rather be perfect in Holiness and Obedience to God or be excused from it and please the flesh and whether you had rather be such a one as Paul or as Caesar a persecuted Saint in poverty and contempt or a persecuting Conquerour or King May you not know if you will whether you love a searching Ministry that telleth you of the worst and would not deceive you May you not know whether you are resolvedly devoted and given up to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as your Father and felicity your Saviour and your Sanctifier and whether the scope design and business of your lives is more for God or for the flesh for Heaven or Earth and which it is that bears the sway and which it is that comes behind and hath but the leavings of the other or only so much as it can spare Certainly these are things so near you and so remarkable in your hearts that you may come to the knowledge of them if you will But if you will not who can help it § 14. What a soâ—â—ish cavill is it then of those ignorant men that ask us when we tell them of these things whether ever we were in Heaven or ever saw the Book of Life and how we can tell who shall be saved and who shall be damned If it were about a May-game this jesting were more seasonable but to talk thus distractedly about the matters of salvation and damnation and to make such a jeast of the damning of souls is a kind of foolery that hath no excuse What though we never were in Heaven and never saw the Book of Life Dost thou think I never saw the Scriptures Why wretched sinner dost thou not know that Christ came down from Heaven to tell us who they be that shall come thither and who they be that shall be shut out And did he not know what he said Is God the Governour of the world and hath he not a Law by which he governeth them And can I not tell by the Law who they be that the Judge will condemn or save What else is the Law made for but to be the Rule of Life and the Rule of Iudgement Read Psal. 1. 15. Matth. 5. 7. 25. and all the Texts which I even now cited and see in them whether God hath not told you who they be that shall be saved and who they be that shall be condemned Nay see whether this be not the very business of the Word of God And do you think that he hath written it in vain But some men have loved ignorance and ungodliness so long till the Spirit of grace hath cast them off and left them to the sottishness of their carnal minds so that they have eyes and see not and ears and hear not and hearts and understand not But those that are Willing and Diligent to know their sin and duty in order to their recovery God will not let them search in vain nor hide the remedy from their eyes Direction 9. WHen you have found your selves in a state of sin and death Understand and Consider Direct 9. what a state that is § 1. It may be you will think it a tolerable condition and linger in it as if you were safe or delay your Repentance as if it were a matter of no great haste unless you open your eyes and look round about you and see in how slippery a place you stand Let me name some instances of the misery of an unregenerate graceless state and then judge of it as the Word of God directs you 1. As long as you are unconverted you must needs be loathsome and abominable to God His holy nature Mira Ciâ—eroâ—is fictio in li. de Universit p. 358. Aâ—que ille qui â—ecte honeste curriculum vivendi à natura datum confecerit ad illud astrum quo cum aptus fuerit reverteâ—ur Qui autem immoderate intemperate vixerit eum secundus ortus in figuram muliebrem transferet si ne tum quidem finem viâ—iorum faciet gravius etiam jactabitur in suis moribus simillâ—mas figuras recâ—dum ferarum transferâ—tur neque maloâ—um terminum prius alpiciet quam illam sequâ—â—xperit conversionem quam habebat in se c. cum ad prâ—â—nam optimam affectionem animi pervenerit is unreconcilable to sin and would be unreconcilable to sinners if it were not that he can cleanse and purifie them Did you know what sin is and know Gods holiness you would understand this much better Your own aversness to God and your dislike of the holiness of his Laws and servants might tell you what thoughts he hath of you He hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal. 5. 5. Indeed he taketh you for his enemies and as such he will handle you if you be not converted I know many persons that are most deeply guilty especially men of honour and esteem in the world would scorn to have this title given to themselves But verlly God is not fearful of offending them nor so tender of their deâ—â—led honour as they are of their own or as they expect the Preacher should be If those be the Kings enemies that refuse his Government and set up another then those are the enemies of God and of the Redeemer and of the Holy Ghost that set up the base concupiscence of their flesh and the honour and prosperity of this world and the will of man and refuse the Government of God their Creator and Redeemer and refuse the sanctifying teachings and operations of the
that greater measure is but his smallest measure and he himself is capable of increase to the last And so great a measure at first is as rare as his greater measure at last in his full growth is rare and scarce to be expected now § 4. And if God should give a great measure of Holiness at first to any now as possibly he may yet their measure of gifts is never great at first unless they had acquired or received them before conversion If Grace find a man of great parts and understanding which by study and other helps he had attained before no wonder if that man when his parts are sanctified be able in knowledge the first day For he had it before though he had not a heart to use it But if Grace find a man ignorant unlearned and of mean abilities he must not expect to be suddenly lifted up to great understanding and high degrees of knowledge by Grace For this knowledge is not given now by sudden infusion as Gifts were extraordinarily in the Primitive Church You need no other proof of this but experience to stop the mouth of any gain-sayer Look about you and observe whether those that are men of knowledge did obtain it by infusion in a moment Or whether they did not obtain it by diligent study by slow degrees Though I know God blesseth some mens studies more than others Name one man that ever was brought to great understanding but by Means and Labour and slow dâ—grees Or that knoweth any Truth in Nature or Divinity but what he read or heard or studied for 〈…〉 e result of what he read or heard The person that is proudest of his knowledge must confess that 〈…〉 me to it in this way himself § 5. But you 'l ask What then is the Illumination of the Spirit and enlightening the mind which the Scripture ascribeth to the Hâ—ly Ghost Hath not our understanding need of the Spirit for light as well as the Heart â—r Will fâ—r Liâ—e Answ. Yes no doubt and it is a great and wonderful mercy and I 'l tell you what it is 1. The Holy Spirit by immediate inspiration revealed to the Apostles the doctrine of Christ and caused them iâ—â—allibly to indite the Scriptures But this is not that way of ordinary illumination now 2. The Holy Spirit assisteth us in our hearing reading and studying the Scriptures that we may come by diligence to the true understanding of it but doth not give us that understanding without hearing reading or study Faith cometh by hearing Rom. 10. It blesseth the use of means to us but blesseth us not in the neglect of means 3. The Holy Spirit doth open the eyes and heart of a sinner who hath heard and notionally understood the substance of the Gospel that he may know that piercingly and effectually and practically which before he knew but notionally and uneffectually so that the knowledge of the same truth is now become powerfull and as it were of another kind And this is the Spirits sanctifying of the mind and principal work of saving illumination Not by causing us to know any thing of God or Christ or Heaven without means But by opening the heart that through the means it may take in that knowledge deeply which others have but notionally and in a dead opinion and by making our knowledge clear and quick and powerful to affect the heart and rule the life 4. The Holy Spirit sanctifieth all that notional knowledge which men had before their renovation All their learning and parts are now made subservient to Christ and to the right End and turned into their proper channell 5. And the Holy Ghost doth by sanctifying the heart possess it with such a Love to God and Heaven and Holiness and Truth as is a wonderful advantage to us in our studies for the attaining of further knowledge Experience telleth us how great a help it is to knowledge to have a constant love delight and desire to the thing which we would know All these wayes the Spirit is the â—nlightner of believers The not observing this Direction will have direful effects which I will name that you may see the necessity of avoiding them § 6. 1. If you imagine that you are presently men of great understanding and abilities and holiness T 〈…〉 r of 〈◊〉 â—â— â—â—ur young 〈◊〉 o◠〈◊〉 while you are young beginners and but new born babes you are entring into the sâ—are and condemnation of the Devil even into the odious sin of Pride yea a Pride of those spiritual gifts which are most câ—ntrâ—ry to Pride yea and a Pride of that which you have not which is most foolish Pride Mark the words of Paul when he forbids to choose a young beginner in Religion to the Ministry 1 Tim. 3. 6. Not a Nâ—vice that is a young raw Christian lest being lifted up or besotted with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil Why are young beginners more in danger of this than Qui dâ—sâ—ipulum â—udem clatum habet 〈◊〉 ventum adverâ—â—â—â—â—mine navigat Seâ—pentem nutrit acoâ—itum â—â—colit hostem doâ—â— Pâ—â— arch Dial. 41. li. 2. other Christians One would think their Infancy should be conscious of its own infirmity But Paul knew what he said It is 1. Partly because the suddenness of their change coming out of darkness into a light which they never saw before doth amaze them and transport them and make them think they are almost in Heaven and that there is not much more to be attained Like the Beggar that had an hundred pound given him having never seen the hundredth part before imagined that he had as much money as the King 2. And it is partly because they have not knowledge enough to know how many things there are that yet they are ignorant of They never heard of the Scripture-difficulties and the knots in School-divinity nor the hard cases of Conscience Whereas one seven years painful studies will tell them of many hundred difficulties which they never saw and forty or fifty years study more will clothe them with shame and humility in the sense of their lamentable darkness 3. And it is also because the Devil doth with greatest industry lay this Net to entrap young Converts it being the way in which he hath the greatest hope 2. Your hasty conceits of your own goodness or ability will make you presumptuous of your own strength and so to venture upon dangerous temptations which is the way to ruine You will think you are not so ignorant but you may venture into the company of Papists or any Hereticks or deceivers or read their Books or be present at their Worship And I confess you may scape but it may be otherwise and God may leave you to shew you all that was in your hearts as it is said of Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32. 31 25 26. 3. And your overvaluing your first grace will make you too secure when your souls have need of holy
Unthankfulness and neglect are the way to be denyed further help § 18. Quest. But how shall I know whether good effects be from the Means or from my Reason and Quest. Endeavour and when from the Spirit of God Answ. Answ. It is as if you should ask How shall I know whether my harvest be from the Earth or Sun or Rain or God or from my labour I will tell you how They are all con-causes If the effect be there they all concur If the effect be wanting some of them were wanting It 's foolish to ask which is the cause when the effect is not produced but by the concurrence of them all If you had asked which cause did fail when the effect faileth there were reason in that question But there is none in this The more to blame those foolish Atheists that think God or the Spirit is not the cause if they can but find that Reason and Means are in the effect Your Reason and Conscience and Means would fall short of the effect if the Spirit put not life into all § 19. Obj. But I am exceedingly troubled and confounded with continual doubts about every motion that Object is in my mind whether it be from the Spirit of God or not Answ. The more is your ignorance or the malice of Satan causing your disquiet In one word Answ. you have sufficient Direction to resolve those doubts and end those troubles Is it Good or Evil or Indifferent that you are moved to This question must be resolved from the Word of God which is the Rule of duty If it be good in matter and manner and circumstances it is from the Spirit of God either its common or special operation If it be evil or indifferent you cannot ascribe it to the Spirit Remember that the Spirit cometh not to you to make you new duty which the Scripture never made your duty and so to bring an additional Law but to move and help you in that which was your duty before Only it may give the Matter while Scripture giveth the Obligation by its general command If you know not what is your duty and what not it is your ignorance of Scripture that must be cured Interpret Scripture well and you may interpret the Spirits motions easily If any new duty be motioned to you which Scripture commandeth not take such motions as not from God Unless it were by extraordinary confirmed Revelation DIRECT IV. Gr. Dir. 4. Let it be your chiefest study to attain to a true orderly and practical knowledge of God For the true and orderly impression of Gods Attributes on the heart in his several Attributes and Relations and to find a due impression from each of them upon your hearts and a distinct effectual improvement of them in your lives § 1. BEcause I have written of this point more fully in another Treatise Of the Knowledge of God and Converse with him I shall but briefly touch upon it here as not willing to repeat Laert. in Zeno. saith Dicunt Stoici Deum esse animal immortale rationale perfectum ac beatum à malo omni remotissimum providentia sua mundum quae sunt in mundo administrans omnia Non tamen inesse illi humanae â—ormae lineamenta Caeterum esse opificem immensi hujus operis sicut patrem omnium Eumque multis appellari nominibus juxta proprietates suas Quosdam item esse daemones dicunt quibus insit hominum miseratio inspectores rerum humararum Heroas quoque so utas corporibus sapientum animas Bonos aiunt esse Divinoâ— quod in seipsis quasi habeant Deum Malum vero impium sine Deo esse quod duplici ratione accipitur sive quod Deo contrarius dicatur sive quod aspernetur Deum Id tamen malis omnibus non convenire Pios autem Religiosos esse sapientes peritos divini juris omnes Pâ—â—tatem esse seiâ—â—iam divini cultus Diis item eos sacr ficia sacturos castosque futuros Quippe ea quae in Deos admittuntur peccata detesâ—ari Diisque charos ac gratos fore quo sancti justique in rebus divinis sint that which there is delivered Only let me briefly mind you of these few things 1. That the true knowledge of God is the summ of Godliness and the end of all our other knowledge and of all that we have or do as Christians As Christ is a Teacher that came from God so he came to call and lead us unto God Or else he had not come as a Saviour It is from God that we fell by sin and to God that we must be restored by grace To save us is to restore us to our perfection and our happiness and that is to restore us unto God § 2. 2. That the true knowledge of God is powerful and effectual upon the heart and life And every Attribute and Relation of God is so to be known as to make its proper Impress on us And the measure of this saving knowledge is not to be judged of by Extensiveness or number of Truths concerning God which we know so much as by the Clearness and Intensiveness and the measure of its holy effects upon the heart § 3. 3 This is it that denominateth both our selves and all our Duties HOLY when Gods Image is thus imprinted on us and we are like him by the new birth as Children to their Father and by his knowledge both our Hearts and Lives are made Divine being disposed unto God devoted to him and employed for him he being our Life and Light and Love § 4. This is the summ of the Covenant of God with man I will be thy God and thou shalt be my people And the other parts of the Covenant that Christ be our Saviour and the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier are both subservient unto this there being now no coming unto God but as Reconciled in Christ our Mediator and by the teaching and drawing of the Holy Ghost To be our God is to be to us An Absolute Owner a most Righteous Governour and a most Bountiful Benefactor or Father as having Created us Redeemed and Regenerated us and this according to his most Blessed Nature properties and perfections § 5. 5. It is not only a loose and unconstant effect of your particular thoughts of God that is the necessary Impress of his Attributes as to Fear him when you remember his Greatness and Iustice But it must be an Habit or holy nature in you every Attribute having made it s stated Image upon you and that Habit or Image being in you a constant Principle of holy spiritual operations A Habit of Reverence Belief Trust Love c. should be as it were your Nature § 6. 6. Not that the knowledge of God in his perfections should provoke us to desire his properties and perfections For to have such an aspiring desire to be Gods were the greatest Pride and wickedness But only we must desire 1.
Dominion God hath over you and how absolutely and wholly you are His. 2. Let it exceedingly Please you to think that you are wholly his it being much better for you as to your Safety Honour and Happiness than to be your Own or any 's else 3. As God requireth it in his Covenant of Grace that he have his Right by your Consent and not by Constraint so you must thankfully accept the motion and with hearty and full Consent of Will Resign your selves to him as his Own even as his Creatures his Ransomed ones and his Regenerate Children by a Covenant never to be violated 4. You must carefully watch against the Claim and reserves of carnal selfishness lest while you confess you are Gods and not your Own you should secretly still keep possession of your selves against him or re-assume the possession which you surrendred 5. You must Use your selves ever after as Gods and not your Own § 3. II. In this Using your selves as wholly Gods consisteth both your further duty and your benefits 1. When Gods Propriety is discerned and consented to it will make you sensible how you are obliged to employ all your powers of soul and body to his service and to perceive that Nothing should be alienated from him no creature having any co-ordinate title to a thought of your hearts or a glance of your affection or a word of your mouths or a minute of your time The sense of Gods Propriety must cause you to keep constant accounts between God and you and to call your selves to a frequent reckoning whether God have his Own and you do not defraud him whether it be his work that you are doing and for him that you think and speak and live And all that you have will be Used as his as well as your selves For no man can have any good thing that is more his Own than he is his own himself § 4. 2. Propriety discerned doth endear us in affection to our Owner As we love our Own Children so they love their Own Fathers Our very Dogs love their Own Masters better than another When we can say with Thomas My Lord and my God it will certainly be the voice of Love Gods Common Propriety in us as his Created and Ransomed ones obligeth us to Love him with all our heart But the knowledge of his peculiar propriety by Regeneration will more effectually command our Love § 5. 3. Gods Propriety perceived will help to satisfie us of his Love and Care of us and will help Deorum providentia Mundus administratur â—demque consulunt rebus humanis neâ— soâ—um universâ—s verum eâ—aâ— singâ—â—â—â— â—icero 1. de Dâ—via us to Trust him in every danger and so take off our inordinate fear and anxieties and caring for our selves The Apostle proveth Christs Love to his Church from his Propriety Ephes. 5. 29. No man ever yet hated his Own flesh God is not regardless of his Own As we take care of our Cattel to preserve them and provide for them more than they do for themselves for they are more Ours than their own so God is more concerned in the welfare of his children than they are themselves they being more his than their own Why are we afraid of the wrath and cruelty of man Will God be mindless and negligent of his Own Why are we over-careful and distrustful of his providence Will he not take care of his Own and make provision for them God even our own God shall bless us Psal. 67 6. Gods interest in his Church and Cause and Servants is an argument which we may plead with him in prayer 1 Chron. 17. 21 22. and with which we may greatly encourage our confidence Isa. 48. 9 11. For my Names sake will I defer mine anger and for my praise will I refrain for thee that I cut thee not off For mine Own sake even for mine Own sake will I do it For how should my Name be polluted and I will not give my Glory to another Isa. 43. 1 2. But now thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and he that formed thee O Israel Fear not for I have Redeemed thee I have called thee by name thou art Mine When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee c. If God should neglect Our interest he will not neglect his Own § 6. 4. Gods propriety in us discerned doth so much aggravate our sin against him that it should greatly restrain us and further our humiliation and recovery when we are fallen Lev. 20. 26. Ye shall be Holy unto me for I the Lord am Holy and have severed you from other people that you should be mine Ezek. 16. 8. I sware unto thee and entered into a Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine saith the Lord when he is aggravating Ierusalems sin 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirits which are Gods Justice requireth that every one have his own § 7. 5. It should silence all murmurings and repinings against the Providence of God to consider that we are his Own Doth he afflict you and are you not his own Doth he kill you Are you not his own As a Ruler he will shew you reason enough for it in your sins But as your absolute Lord and Owner he need not give you any other Reason than that he may do with his own as he list It is not possible that he can do any wrong to that which is absolutely his Own If he deny you health or wealth or friends or take them from you he denyeth you or taketh from you nothing but his own Indeed as a Governour and a Father he hath secured the faithful of eternal life Otherwise as their Owner he could not have wronged them if he had made the most innocent as miserable as he is capable to be Do you labour and beat and kill your Cattel because they are your own by an imperfect propriety and dare you grudge at God for afflicting his Own when their Consciences tell them that they have deserved it and much more § 8. And that you may not think that you have Resigned your selves to God entirely when you do Sins against Gods Dominion but hypocritically profess it observe 1. That that man is not thus Resigned to God that thinketh any service too much for God that he can do 2. Nor he that thinketh any cost too great for God that he is called to undergo 3. Nor he that thinketh that all is won of his time or wealth or pleasure or any thing which he can save or steal from God For all is lost that God hath not 4. Nor he that must needs be the Disposer of himself and his condition and affairs and God must humour him and accommodate his Providence to his carnal interest and will or else he cannot bear it or think well of it 5. Remember that all
destroying the Kingdom of the Devil and next the purifying his peculiar people and calling home all that are ordained to eternal life § 60. But more particularly he looketh principally at the heart to plant there 1. Holy Knowledge 2. Faith 3. Godlyness or holy devotedness to God and Love to him above all 4. Thankfulness 5. Obedience 6. Humility 7. Heavenly-mindedness 8. Love to others 9. Self-denial and Mortification and contentment 10. Patience And in all these 1. sincerity 2. tenderness of heart 3. â—eal and holy strength and resolution And withal to make us actually serviceable and diligent in our masters work for our own and others salvation § 61. II. Christs order in working is direct and not backward as the Devils is He first revealeth saving truth to the understanding and affecteth the will â—â— shewing the Goodness of the things revealed And these employ the Thoughts and Passions and Senses and the whole body reducing the inferiour faculties to obedience and casting out by degrees those images which had deceived and prepossessed them § 62. The matter which Christ presenteth to the Soul is 1. Certain Truth from the Father of Lights set up against the Prince and Kingdom of darkness ignorance error and deceit 2. Spiritual and everlasting Good even God himself to be seen and Loved and Enjoyed for ever against the Tempters temporal corporal and seeming good Christs Kingdom and work are advanced by Light He is for the promoting of all useful knowledge and therefore for clear and convincing Preaching for reading the Scriptures in a known tongue and meditating in them day and night and for exhorting one another daily which Satan is against § 63. III. The Means by which he worketh against Satan are such as these 1. Sometime he maketh use of the very temper of the body as a preparative and being Lord of all he giveth such a temperature as will be most serviceable to the soul As a sober deliberate meek quiet and patient disposition But sometime he honoureth his Grace by the conquest of such sins as even bodily disposition doth entertain and cherish § 64. 2. Sometimes by his providence he withdraweth the matter of temptations that they shall not be too strong for feeble souls But sometimes his Grace doth make advantage of them all and leave them for the magnifying of its frequent victories § 65. 3. Sometimes he giveth his cause the major vote among the people so that it shall be a matter of dishonourable singularity not to be a professed Christian and somtime but exceeding rarely it is so with the life of Godliness and practice of Christianity also But ordinarily in the most places of the world Custom and the Multitude are against him and his grace is honoured by prevailing against these bands of Satan § 66. 4. He maketh his Ministers his principal Instruments qualifying disposing and calling them to his work and helping them in it and prospering it in their hands § 67. 5. He maketh it the duty of every Christian to do his part to carry on the work and furnisheth them with Love and Compassion and Knowledge and Zeal in their several measures § 68. 6. He giveth a very strict charge to Parents to devote their Children with themselves to God encouraging them with the promise of his accepting and blessing them and commandeth them to teach them the word of God with greatest diligence and to bring them up in the nurture and fear of God § 69. 7. He giveth Princes and Magistrates their power to promote his Kingdom and protect his servants and encourage the good and suppress iniquity and further the obedience of his Laws Though in most of the world they turn his enemies and he carrieth on his work without them and against their cruel persecuting opposition § 70. 8. His Light detecteth the nakedness of the Devils cause and among the Sons of Light it is odious and a common shame And as wisdom is justified of her children so the judgement of holy men condemning sin doth much to keep it under in the world § 71. 9. His providence usually casteth the sinner that he will do good to into the bosome and communion of his holy Church and the familiar company and acquaintance of the Godly who may help him by instruction affection and example § 72. 10. His providence fitteth all conditions to their good but especially helpeth them by seasonable quickning afflictions These are the means which ordinarily he useth But the powerful inward operations of his Spirit give efficacy to them all Tit. 2. Temptations to particular sins with Directions for preservation and Remedy IN Chapter 1. Part 2. I have opened the Temptations which hinder sinners from Conversion to God I shall now proceed to those which draw men to particular sins Here Satans Art is exercised 1. In fitting his baits to his particular use 2. In applying them thereto § 1. Tempt 1. The Devil fitteth his Temptations to the sinners age The same bait is not suitable Tempt 1. to all Children he tempteth to excess of playfullness lying disobedience unwillingness to learn the things that belong to their salvation and a senselesness of the great concernments of their souls He tempteth youth to wantonness rudeness gulosity unruliness and foolish inconsiderateness In the beginning of manhood he tempteth to lust voluptuousness and luxury or if these take not to designs of worldliness and ambition The aged he tempteth to covetousness and unmoveableness in their error and unteachableness and obstinacy in their ignorance and sin Thus every age hath its peculiar snare § 2. Direct 1. The Remedy against this is 1. To be distinctly acquainted with the Temptations of Direct 1. your own age and watch against them with a special heedfullness and fear 2. To know the special duties and advantages of your own age and turn your thoughts wholly unto those Scripture hath various precepts for the various ages study your own part The young have more time to learn their duty and less care and business to divert them Let them therefore be taken up in obedient learning The middle age hath most vigor of body and mind and therefore should do their masters work with the greatest vigor activity and zeal The Aged should have most judgement and experience and acquaintedness with Death and Heaven and therefore should teach the younger both by word and holy life § 3. Tempt 2. The Tempter also fitteth his Temptations to mens several bodily tempers as I Tempt â— shewed § 22. The hot and strong he tempteth to lust The sad and fearful to discouragement and continual self-vexations and to the Fear of Men and Devils Those that have strong appetites to Gluttony and Drunkenness Children and Women and weak-headed people to Pride of Apparel and trifling Complement And masculine wicked-unbelievers to Pride of Honour Parts and Grandeur and to an ambitious seeking of Rule and Greatness The meek and gentle he tempteth to a yieldingness unto the perswasions
against it at large before Chap. 3. Direct 6. 8. but shall add these â—ew § 2. Direct 1. Remember the Majesty and presence of that Most Holy God with whom we have to dâ— Direct 1. Heb. 4. 13. Nothing will more affect and awe the heart and over-rule it in the matters of Religion than the true knowledge of God We will not talk sleepily or contemptuously to a King How much less should we be stupid or contemptuous before the God of Heaven It is that God whom Angels worship that sustaineth the world that keepeth us in life that is alwayes present observing all that we think or say or do whose commands are upon us and with whom we have to do in all things and shall we be hardned against his fear Who hath hardned himself against him and hath prospered Job 9. 4. § 3. Direct 2. Think well of the unspeakable greatness and importance of those Truths and Things Direct 2. which should affect you and of those duties which are required of you Eternity of Iâ—y or Torment is such an amazing thing that one would think every thought and every mention either of it or of any thing that concerneth it should go to our very hearts and deeply affect us and should command the obedience and service of our souls It is true they are things unseen and therefore less apt in that respect to affect us than things visible But the Greatness of them should recompence that disadvantage a thousand fold If our lives laâ— upon every word we speak or upon every step we go how carefully should we speak and go But O how deeply should things affect us which our everlasting life is concerned in One would think a thing of so great moment as dying and passing into an endless life of pain or pleasure should so take up and transport the mind of mâ—n that we should have much ado to bring our selves to mind regard or talk of the inconsiderable interests of the flâ—sh How unexcusable a thing is a sensless careless negligent heart when God looketh on us and Heaven or Hell is a little before us Yea when we are so heavily laden with our sins and compassed about with so many enemies and in the midst of such great and manifold dangers to be yet sensless under all is so far to be dead Will not the wounds of sin and the threatnings of the Law and the accuâ—â—tions of conscience make you feel He that cannot feel the prick of a Pin will feel the stab of a Dagger if he be alive § 4. Direct 3. Remember how near the time is when stupidity and sensless neglect of God will be banished Direct 3. from all the world and what certain and powerful means are before you at death and judgement Lento gradu ad vindictaâ—â— suâ— Divina procâ—dit ira â—arditatemque supplâ—â—iâ— gravitare compensat Valerius Maâ— de Dioâ—ys l. 1. c. 2. to awaken and pierce the hardest heart There are but few that are quite insensible at Death There are none past feeling after death in Heaven or Hell No man will stand before the Lord in the day of Judgement with a sleepy or a sensless heart God will recover your feeling by misery if you will lose it by sin and not recover it by grace He can make you now a terror to your selves Ier. 20. 4. He can make conscience say such things in secret to you as you shall not be able to forget or slight But if conscience awake you not the approach of Death its likely will awake you when you see that God is now in earnest with you and that dye you must and there is no remedy will you not begin to think now whither must I go and what will become of me for ever Will you then harden your heart against God and his warnings If you do the first moment of your entrance upon Eternity will cure your stupidity for ever It would grieve a heart that is not stone to think what a feeling stony hearted sinners will shortly have When God will purposely make them feel with his wrathful streams of fire and brimstone When Satan that now hindereth your feeling will do his worst to make you feel and Conscience the never dying Worm will gnaw your hearts and make them feel without ease or hope of remedy Think what a wakening day is coming § 5. Direct 4. Think often of the Love of God in Christ and of the bloody sufferings of thy Redeemer Direct 4. for it hath a mighty power to melt the heart Iâ— Love and the Love of God and so great and wonderful a Love will not soften thy hardned heart what will § 6. Direct 5. Labour for a full apprehension of the evil and danger of a Hardned heart It is Direct 6. the Death of the soul so far as it prevaileth At the easiest it is like the stupidity of a paralytical member or a seared part Observe the names which Scripture giveth it The Hardning of the heart Prov 28. 14. The hardning of the neck Prov. 29. 10. which signifieth Inflexibility The hardning the face which signifieth impudency Prov. 21. 29. The seâ—redness of the Conscience 1 Tim. 4. 2. The Impenitency of the heart Rom. 2. 5. Sometime it is called sottishness or stupidity Ier. 4. 22. Sometime it is called a not caring or not laying things to heart and not regarding Isa. 42. 25. 5. 12. 32. 9 10 11. Sometime it is denominated metaphorically from inanimates A face harder than a rock Jer. 5. 3. Stony hearts Ezek. 11. 19. 36. 26. A neck with an Iron sinew Isa. 48. 4. and a brow of brass It is called sleep and a deep slumber and a Spirit of slumber Rom. 13. 11. 11. 8. Matth. 25. 5. and Death it self 1 Tim 5. 6. Ephes. 2. 1. 5. Col. 2. 13. Jude 12. § 7. Observe also how dreadful a case it is if it be predominant both symptomatically and effectively It is a fore-runner of mischief Prov. 28. 14. It is a dreadful sign of one that is far more unlikely than others to be converted when they are alienated from the life of God by their ignorance and are past feeling they are given up to work uncleanness with greediness Ephes. 4. 14. Usually God calleth those that he will save before they are past feeling Though such are not hopeless their hope lyeth in the recovering of the feeling which they want And a hardned heart and Iron neck and brazen forehead is a sadder sign of Gods displeasure than if he had made the Heavens as Brass and the Earth as Iron to you or let out the greatest distress upon your bodies When men have eyes and see not and ears and hear not and hearts but understand not it is a sad prognostick that they are very unlikely to be converted and forgiven Mark 4. 12. Acts 28. 27. A hardned heart prâ—dominantly is garrisoned and fortified by Satan against all the means
all that he hath to do with If there were Laws or Canons to be made he would have the making of them He would have all men take his counsel as an Oracle He would have all the world of his opinion and sets more by those that thus esteem him and are of his opinion and yield to all that he saith and doth than by those that most earnestly desire to conform their minds to the Word of God and differ from him in the understanding of any part of it He loveth them better that enquire of him and take his word than them that enquire of the Word of God Though he cannot deny but it is Gods Prerogative to be infallible and the Rule of the world § 27. Sign 17. A proud man affecteth the reputation of Gods Immutability as well as his Infallibility Sign 17. He will stand to an error when once he hath vented it and resist the Truth when once he hath appeared against it to avoid the dishonour of being accounted Mutable or one that formerly was deceived His pride keepeth him from Repenting of any fault or error that he can but find a cloak for If he have done wrong to God and mischief to the Church he will do as much more to make it good and justifie it by any cruelty or violence If he have once done you wrong he will do more for fear of seeming to have wronged you If he have slandered you he will stab or hang you if he can to justifie his slander rather than seem so mutable as to retract it § 28. Sign 18. A proud man affecteth a participation of Gods Omniscience and is eager to know Sign 18. more than God revealeth if he be an enquiring man whose pride runneth this way Thus our first Parents sinned by desiring to be as God in knowledge This hath filled the world with proud contentions and the Church with divisions while proud Wits heretically make things unrevealed the matter of their ostentation imposition censures or furious disputes while humble souls are taken up in studying and practising things revealed and keep themselves within Gods bounds as knowing that God best knoweth the measure fittest for them and that knowledge is to be desired and sought but so far as it is useful to our serving or enjoying God and the Good which Truth revealeth to us and that knowledge may else become our sorrow Eccles. 1. 1 8. and Truth the instrument to torment us as it doth the miserable souls in Hell § 29. Sign 19. A proud man is discontented with his Degree especially if it be low He would be Sign 19. higher in power and honour and wealth yea he is never so high but he would fain be one step higher If he had a Kingdom he would have another and if he had the Dominions of the Turkish or Tartarian Emperour he would desire to enlarge them and to have more and would not be satisfied till he had all the world Men feel not this in their low condition They think If I had but so much or so much I would be content But this is their ignorance of the insatiable Pride that dwelleth in them Do you not see the greatest Emperours on Earth still seeking to be greater Every man naturally would be a Pope the Universal Monarch of the world And every such Pope would have both Swords and have Princes and people wholly at their will And when they have no mind to hurt they would have power to hurt that all the world might hold their Estates and Liberties and Lives as by their clemency and gift and they might be as God to other men And if they had attained this Pride would not stop till it had caused them to aspire to all the prerogatives of God and to depose him and dethrone him of his Godhead and Majesty that they might have his place § 30. Sign 20. A proud man would fain have Gods Independency Though need make him stoop Sign 20. yet he would willingly be beholden to none Not only because in prudence he would keep his liberty and not be unnecessarily the servant of men nor under obligations to serve them in any evil way For so the humblest would fain be Independant But because he would be so great and high as to scorn to lean on any other Thus you see how Pride is that great Idolatry that sets up man as in the place of God Signs of the next Degrees of Pride as against God § 31. Sign 1. A Proud heart is very hardly brought to see the greatness of its sins or to know its Sign 1. emptiness of Grace or to be convinced of its unpardoned miserable state or of the Justice of God Men sick in mind as witless fools and loose persons and unjust and injurious think noâ— that that they do amâ—ss and sin c. Plutarâ—h Tract thaâ— Maladies oâ— the mind are worse than those of the body if he should damn it to everlasting torments Concerning others it may confess all this but hardly of it self It s own unbelief and aversness from God and holiness seemeth to it a small and tollerable fault It s own pride and lust and worldliness and sensuality seem not to be so bad as to deserve damnation Much less the smallest sin which it committeth Though customarily they may say that God were just if he did condemn them yet they believe it not at the heart The most convincing Preacher shall have much ado to bring a proud man heartily to confess that he is an enemy to God a child of wrath and under the guilt of all his sins and sure to be condemned unless he be converted He will confess that he is a sinner or any thing else which the most godly must confess or which doth not conclude him to be in a damnable unrenewed state But to make an ungodly man know that he is ungodly and an impenitent person know that he is impenitent and and unsanctified person know that he is unsanctified is wonderful hard because that Pride hath dominion in them Are we blind also Say the proud incorrigible Pharisees to Christ Ioh. 9. 40. § 32. Sign 2. A proud heart doth so much overvalue all that is in it self that every common Sign 2. grace or duty doth seem to it to be a state of godliness Their common knowledge seemeth to them to be saving illumination Every little sorrow for their sin or wish that they had done better when they have had all the sweetness of it doth go with them for true Repentance Their heartless lip-labour goes for acceptable prayer Their Image of Religion seemeth to them to be the life of godliness They take their own presumption for true faith and their false expectation for Christian Hope and their carnal security and blockish stupidity for spiritual peace of conscience and their desperate venturing their souls upon deceit they take for a Trusting them with God If they forbear but such
distress that if he would but spare them and try them once again they would amend their lives and live more holily and spend their time more carefully and diligently for their souls and shew all about them the truth of their Repentance by the greatness of their change and an exemplary life O it is a most dangerous terrible thing to return to security sloth and sin and break such promises to God! such are often given over to woful hard-heartedness or despair for God will not be mocked with delusory words § 70. Thus I have opened this great duty of Redeeming Time the more largely because it is of unspeakable importance and my soul is frequently amazed with admiration that the sluggish world can so insensibly and impenitently go on in wasting precious time so near Eternity and in so needy and dangerous a case Though I bless my God that I have not wholly lost my Time but have long lived in a sense of the odiousness of that sin yet I wonder at my self that such over-powring motives compell me not to make continual haste and to be still at work with all my might in a case of everlasting consequence CHAP. VI. Directions for the Government of the Thoughts I Have shewed you in my Treatise of walking with God how much mans Thoughts are regarded by God and should be regarded by himself and what agents and instruments they are of very much Good or Evil This therefore I shall suppose and not repeat but only Direct you in the Governing of them The work having three parts they must have several Directions 1. For the avoiding of evil thoughts 2. For the exercise of good thoughts 3. For the improvement of good thoughts that they may be effectual Tit. 1. Directions against evil and idle Thoughts § 2. Direct 1. KNow which are evil Thoughts and retein such an odious Character of them continually Direct 1. on your minds as may provoke you still to meet them with abhorrence Evil thoughts are such as these 1. All thoughts against the Being or Attributes or Relations or honour or works of God Atheistical and Blasphemous Idolatrous and unbelieving thoughts All thoughts that tend to disobedience or opposition to the will or word of God And all that savour of unthankfullness or want of Love to God or of discontent and distrust or want of the fear of God or that tend to any of these Also sinful selfish covetous proud studies to make a meer trade of the Ministry for gain To be able to overtalk others Searching into unrevealed forbidden things Inordinate curiosity and hasty conceitedness of your own opinions about Gods Decrees or obscure Prophecies Prodigies Providence mentioned before about Pride of our understandings All thoughts against any particular word or truth or precept of God or against any particular duty against any part of the worship and ordinances of God that tend to unreverent neglects of the name or Holy Day of God All impious thoughts against publick duty or family duty or secret duty and all that would hinder or marr any one duty All thoughts of dishonour contempt neglect or disobedience to the authority or higher powers set over us by God either Magistrates Pastors Parents Masters or any other Superiors All thoughts of Pride self-exalting ambition self-seeking Covetousness Voluptuous sensual Thoughts proceeding from or tending to the corrupt inordinate pleasures of the flesh Thoughts which are unjust and tend to the hurt and wrong of others Envyous malicious reproachful injurious contemptuous wrathful revengeful thoughts Lustful wanton filthy thoughts Drunken gluttonous fleshly thoughts Inordinate careful fearful anxious vexatious discomposing thoughts Presumptuous and secure despairing and dejecting thoughts Slothful delaying negligent and discouraging thoughts Uncharitable cruel false censorious unmerciful thoughts And idle unprofitable thoughts Hate all these as the Devils spawn § 3. Direct 2. Be not insensible what a great deal of Duty or sin is in the Thoughts and of how Direct 2. dangerous a signification and consequence a course of evil thoughts is to your souls They shew what a Man is as much as his words or actions do For as be thinketh in his heart so is he Prov. 23. 7. A good man or evil is denominated by the good or evil treasure of the heart though known to men but by the fruits O the vile and numerous sins that are committed in mens thoughts and proceed from mens thoughts O the pretious Time that is lost in idle and other sinful thoughts O the good that is hindered hereby both in heart and life But of this having spoken in the Treatise aforementioned I proceed § 4. Direct 3. Above all be sure that you cleanse the Fountain and destroy those sinful inclinations Direct 3. of the heart from which your evil thoughts proceed In vain else will you strive to stop the streams Or if you should stop them that very Heart it self will be lothsom in the eyes of God Are your Thoughts all upon the world either coveting or caring or grieving for what you want or pleasing your selves with what you have or hope for Get down your deceived estimation of the world cast it under your feet and out of your heart and count all with Paul but as loss and dung for the excellent knowledge of God in Christ For till the world be dead in you your worldly thoughts will not be dead But all will stand still when once this poise is taken off Crucifie it and this breath and pulse will cease So if your thoughts do run upon matter of preferment or honour disgrace or contempt or if you are pleased with your own preheminence or applause Mortifie your Pride and beg of God a humble self-denying contrite heart For till Pride be dead you will never be quiet for it but it will stir up swarms of self-exalting and yet self-vexing thoughts which make you hateful in the eyes of God So if your thoughts be running out upon your back and belly what you shall eat or drink or how to please your appetite or sense Mortifie the flesh and subdue its desires and master your appetite and bring them into full obedience unto reason and get a habit of temperance or else your thoughats will be still upon your guts and throats For they will obey the ruling power And a violent passion and desire doth so powerfully move them that it is hard for the reason and will to rule them So if your thoughts are wanton and filthy you must cleanse that unclean and lustful heart and get Christ to cast out the unclean spirit and become chast within before you will keep out your unchast cogitations So if you have confusion and vanity in your thoughts you must get a well-furnished and well-composed mind and heart before you will well cure the maladie of your thoughts § 5. Direct 4. Keep at a sufficient distance from those tempting objects which are the fuel and incentives Direct 4. of your evil
thoughts a world of work If God be not in all the thoughts of the ungodly Psal. 10. 4. it is because he is not in his heart He may be nigh their mouths but is far from their reins Jer. 12. 2. Do those men believe themselves or would they be believed by any one that is wise who say they Love God above all and yet neither think of him nor love to think of him but are unwearied in thinking of their wealth and honours and the pleasures of their flesh Consider this ye that forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you Psal. 50. 22. § 5. Direct 5. Soundly understand the wonderful mysterie of mans Redemption and know Iesus Direct 5. Christ and you need not want employment for your thoughts For in him are hid all the Treasures of 5. Jesus Christ and all the work of Redemption wisdom and knowledge Col. 2. 3. He is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 24. If the study of Aristotle Plato Plotinus and their numerous followers and Commentators can find work for the thoughts of men that would know the works of God or would be accounted good Philosophers even for many years together or a great part of their lives what work then may a Christian find for his thoughts in Jesus Christ who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanâ—â—â—â—fication and redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1. 19. And therefore in him there is fulness of matter for our meditations As Paul determined to know nothing or make ostentation of no other knowledge but Christ crucified 1 Cor. 2. 2. So if your thoughts had nothing to work upon many years together but Christ crucified they need not stand still a moment for want of most suitable and delightful matter The mysterie of the Incarnation alone may find you work to search and admire many ages But if thence you proceed to that world of wonderful matter which you may find in his Doctrine Miracles example sufferings temptations victories resurrection ascension and in his Kingly Prophetical and Priestly Offices and in all the benefits which he hath purchased for his stock O what full and pleasant work is here for the daily thoughts of a believer The soul may dwell here with continual delight till it say with Paul Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Therefore daily bow your knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ of whâ—m the whole family in Heaven and earth is named that he will grant you according to the Riches of his Glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that being rooted and grounded in Love you may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes. 3. 14. to 20. § 6. Direct 6. Search the holy Scriptures and acquaint your selves well with the Oracles of God Direct 6. which are able to make you wise unto salvation and you will find abundant matter for your thoughts If you cannot find work enough for your minds among all those heights and depths those excellencies and difficulties it is because you never understood them or never set your hearts to search them What mysterious Doctrines how sublime and heavenly are there for you to meditate on as long as you live What a perfect Law a system of precepts most spiritual and pure What terrible threatnings against offenders are there to be matter of your meditations What wonderful histories of Love and Mercy What holy examples What a treasury of precious promises on which lyeth our hope of life eternal What full and free expressions of grace What a joyful act of pardon and oblivion to penitent believing sinners In a word the character of our inheritance and the Law which we must be governed and judged by is there before us for our daily Meditation David that had much less of it than we saith O how I love thy Law it is my meditation all the day Psal. 119. 97. And God said to Ioshua 1. 8. This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou maist observe to do according to all that is written therein And Moses commanded the Israelites that these words should be in their hearts and that they teach them diligently to their children and talk of them when they sate in their houses and when they walked by the way and when they lay down and when they rose up and to write them on the posts of their houses and on their gates c. that they might be sure to remember them Deut. 6. 7. § 7. Direct 7. Know thy self well as thou art the work of God and in thy self thou wilt find Direct 7. abundant matter for thy meditations There thou hast the natural Image of God to mediate on and 7. Our 〈…〉 as we are Gods wâ—â—k admire even the noble faculties of thy understanding and free will and executive power And thou hâ—st his Moral or Spiritual Image to meditate on if thou be not unregenerate even thy holy Wisdom Will and Power or thy holy Light and Love and Power with promptitude for holy practice and all in the Unity of holy Life And there thou hast his Relative Image to meditate See my Book of the 〈…〉 on even thy being 1. The Lord or Owner 2. The Ruler 3. The Benefactor to the inferiour creatures and their End O the world of mysteries which thou carriest continually about thee in that little room What abundance of wonders are in thy body which is fearfully and wonderfully made And the greater wonders in thy soul Thou art thy self the clearest glass that God is to be seen in under Heaven as thou art a man and a Saint And therefore the worthiest matter for thy own Meditations except that holy Word which is thy Rule and the Holy Church which is but a coalition of many such What a shame is it that almost all men do Live and dye such strangers to themselves as to be utterly unacquainted with the innumerable excellencies and mysteries which God hath laid up in them and yet to let their thoughts run out upon vanities and toyes and complain of their barrenness and want of matter to feed their better Meditations § 8. Direct 8. Be not a stranger to the many sins and wants and weaknesses of thy soul and thou Direct 8. never needest to be empty of matter for
the Christian faith and in taking better Rooting than you had at your first believing and in growing upward into a greater knowledge of God and into greater Love of him and heavenly mindedness and then in growing up to greater skill and ability and readiness to do him service in the world Know as much as you can know of the works of God and of the languages and customs of the world but still remember that to know God in Christ better is the growth which you must daily study And when you know them most you have still much more need to know better these great things which you know already than to know more things which you never knew The Roots of faith may still increase and the branches and fruits of Love may be still greater and sweeter As long as you live you may still know better the Reasons of your Religion though not better Reasons and you may know better how to use your knowledge And whatever you know let it be that you may be led up to Know God more or Love him more or serve him better § 11. Direct 5. With fear and detestation watch and resolve against all carnal worldly ends and see that your hearts be not captivated by your fleshly interest nor grow not to a high esteem of the pleasures or profits or honours of this world nor to relish any fleshly accommodations as very pleasant and desirable but that you take up with God and the hopes of Glory as your satisfying portion and follow Christ as Cross-bearers denying your selves and dead to the world and resolved and prepared to forsake all for his sake § 12. These are words that you can easily say your selves but these are things that are so hardly Direct 5. learnt that many of the most Learned and Reverend perish for want of being better acquainted with them And I shall never take that man to be wisely learned that hath not learnt to scape damnation Christs Cross is to be learned before your Alphabet To impose the Cross is quickly learnt but to learn to bear it is the difficulty To lay the Cross on others is to be the followers of Pilate but to bear it when it is laid on us is to be the followers of Christ. If you grow corrupted with a love of honour and riches and preferment and come to the study of Divinity with a fleshly worldly mind and End you will but serve Satan while you seem to be seeking after God and damn your souls among the doctrines and means of salvation and go to God for materials to chain you faster to the Devil and steal a nail from Divinity to fasten your ears unto his door And you little know how Iudas's gain will gripe and torment the awakened Conscience and how the rust will witness against you and how it will eat your flesh as fire Iam. 5. 3. § 13. Direct 6. Digest all that you know and turn it into holy Habits and expect that success Direct 6. first on your selves which if you were to Preach you would expect in others Remembring that knowing Primum contemplativae sapientiae rudimentum est meditati condisceâ—e loquitari dediscere Paul Scalig. Thes. p. 730. is not the end of knowing but it is as eating to the body where health and strength and service is the end § 14. Every Truth of God is his candle which he sets up for you to work by It is as food that is for Life and action You lose all the knowledge which ends in knowing To fill your head and common-place-book is not all that you have to do But to fortifie and quicken and enflame your hearts Good habits are the best provision for a Preacher The habits of the Mind are better than the best library But if the Habits of Heavenly love and life in the heart do not concur the Heart and life of a Preacher and a Scholar is wanting still for all your knowledge Study Pauls words 1 Cor. 8. 1. Knowledge pusseth up but charity edifieth If he had said that knowledge edifieth others and charity saveth our selves he would have said nothing that is strange But even as to edification charity hath the precedency § 15. Direct 7. Yea see that you excell the unlearned as much in Holiness as you do in knowledge Direct 7. unless you will perswade them that your knowledge is a useless worthless thing and unless you would be judged as unprofitable servants § 16. Every degree of Knowledge is for a further degree of Holiness Ten Talents must be improved to ten more They that know and do not are beaten with many stripes The Devils Schoars look on the godly that are unlearned with hatred and disdain and preach to their discouragement and disgrace and strive to set and keep true Godliness in the stocks But Christs Ministers love Holiness where ever they see it and are ashamed to think that the unlearned should be more holy and heavenly than they and strive to go beyond them as much in the use and ends of knowledge as in knowledge it self And with Austin lament that while the unlearned take Heaven by violence the learned are thrust out into Hell as thinking it is their part to know and teach and other mens to practise § 17. Direct 8. Cast not away a moment of your pretious time in idleness or impertinencies but Direct 8. follow your work diligently and with all your might § 18. I mean not that you should over-do and overthrow your brains and bodies nor forbear such sober exercise as is most necessary to your health For a sick body is an ill companion for a Student and much more a crazed brain But time-wasters are Lovers of pleasure or idleness more than of knowledge and holiness And wisdom falleth not into idle sluggish dreaming souls If you think it not worth your painfullest and closest studies you must take up with idle ignorance and go abroad with swelling Titles and empty brains as the deceivers and the scourges of the Church § 19. Direct 9. Keep up a Delight in all your studies and carry them not on in an unwilling weariness Direct 9. And if it be not by notable error in matter or method gratifie your delight with such things as you are best pleased with though they bring some smaller inconvenience because else your weariness may bring much more § 20. I know that a delight in sin and vanity is not to be gratified and force must be used with a backward mind in cases of necessity and weight But if it be but in the variety of subjects and the choice of pleasing studies which are profitable though simply some other might be fitter something is to be yielded to delight But especially the heart must be got to a delight in holy things And then time will be improved the memory will be helped much will be done and you will persevere And it will preserve the mind from temptations
moderation in the heart and cureth those bloodshotten eyes which are unable till cured to discern the truth It helpeth us to knowledge and to that which is more edifying and keepeth knowledge from puffing us up And experience will tell you at long running that among Antients and Moderns Greeks and Latines Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants Prelatists Presbyterians Independents c. commonly the Moderaters are not only the best and most charitable but the wisest most judicious men § 61. Direct 19. With all your Readings still joyn the reading of the Scriptures and of the most Direct 19. holy and practical Divines not fantastical Enthusiastick counterfeits Paracelsian Divines but those that lead you up by the solid doctrine of faith and Love to true Devotion and Heavenly mindedness and conversation § 62. This must be your bread and drink your daily and substantial food without this you may soon be filled with air that cannot nourish you and prove in the end as sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals These will breed strength and peace and joy and help you in your Communion with God and hopes of Heaven and so promote the End of all your Studies There is more life and sweetness in these than in the things that are more remote from God and Heaven § 63. Direct 20. Lastly Do all as dying men promise not your selves long life lest it tempt you Direct 20. to waste your time on things least necessary and to loiter it away or lest you lose the quickning benefit which the sight of death and eternity would yield you in all your studies § 64. The nearer you apprehend your selves to death and Heaven the greater help you have to be mortisied and Heavenly This will make you serious and keep up right intentions and keep out wrong ones and powerfully help you against temptations that when you have studied to save others you may not be cast-awayes nor be cheated by the Devil with the shell and leaves and flowers while you go without the saving fruit § 65. I have spoken the more on this subject of Governing the Thoughts because it is so great and excellent a part of the work of man and God doth so much regard the heart and the Spirit of Christ and Satan so much strive for it and grace is so much employed about it and our Happiness or misery Joy or sorrow is greatly promoted by our Thoughts And more I would have said but that in the third Chapter and in my Treatise of the Divine Life there is much said already And for a Method and Directions for particular Meditations I have given it at large in the fourth Part of the Saints Rest from whence it may easily be taken and applyed to other subjects as it is there to Heaven It is easie to write and read Directions but I fear lest slothfulness through the difficulty of Practice will frustrate my Directions to the most But if any profit by them my labour is not lost CHAP. VII Directions for the Government of the Passions § 1. THE Passions are to be considered 1. As in themselves and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only And so I am to speak of them here 2. As they are a wrong to others and a breach of the commandments which require Love and duty towards our Neighbour And so I shall speak of them after § 2. Passions are not sinful in themselves for God hath given them to us for his service And there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him But they are sinful 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects 2. When they darken reason and delude the mind and keep out truth and seduce to error 3. When they rebel against the Government of the will and trouble it and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good or urge it violently to follow their bruitish inclination 4. When they are unseasonable 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree 6. Or of too long continuance 7. And when they tend to evil effects as to unseemly speeches or actions or to wrong another § 3. Passions are Holy when they are devoted to God and exercised upon him or for him They are Good when 1. They have right objects 2. And are guided by Reason 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will 4. And quicken and awake the Reason and the will to do their duty 5. And tend to good effects exciting all the other powers to their office 6. And exceed not in degree so as to disturb the brain or body Tit. 1. Directions against all sinful Passions in general § 4. Direct 1. TRust not to any present actual resistance without any due Habitual mortification of Direct 1. Passions and fortification of the soul against them Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life and then sinful Passions will fall off like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified § 5. No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to Passion when the Body is inclined to it For such a one is under the power of selfishness carnality and worldliness and from under the Government of Christ and his spirit and wanteth that life of Grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature The way for such a one to master passion is not to strive by natural selfish principles and reasons which are partial poor and weak but to look first to the main and to seek with speed and earnestness for a New and sanctified heart and get Gods Image and his spirit and renewing quickning Grace This is the only effectual conqueror of Nature A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it the tryal of such persons being some other way But none conquereth Satan indeed but the spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion and not be free from an unholy carnal worldly heart you must perish at last if you seemed the â—almest persons upon earth Begin therefore at the foundation and see that the Body of sin be mortified and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil bitter fruits and that the Holy victorious new-nature be within you and then you will resist sin with Light and Life which others resist but as in their sleep § 6. Direct 2. More particularly let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God and live as in Direct 12. his family under his eye and Government that his authority may be more powerful than temptations and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures And then this Sun will put out the lesser lights and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient God would make the creature nothing and then it would do
for your Lord and King and Father and yielded up your selves as his own as his Subject and as his Child to be disposed of Ruled and provided for by him And this Covenant is essential not only to your Christianity but to your taking him for your God And do you repent of it or will you break it and forfeit all the benefits of the Covenant If you will needs have the disposal of your selves you discharge God of his Covenant and Fatherly care for you and then what will become of you if he so forsake you § 10. Direct 8. Bethink you how unmeet you are to be the choosers of your own condition You Direct 8. foresee not what that person or thing or place will prove to you which you so eagerly desire For ought you know it may be your undoing or the greatest misery that ever befell you Many a one hath cryed with Rachel Give me Children or else I dye that hath dyed by the wickedness and unkindness Gen. 30. 1. of their Children Many a one hath been violent in their desires of a Husband or a Wife that afterwards have broken their hearts or proved a greater affliction to them than any enemy they had in the world many a one hath been eager for riches and prosperity and preferment that hath been ensnared by them to the damnation of his soul. Many a one hath been earnest for some office dignity or place of trust which hath made it a great increaser of his sin and misery And it is flesh and self that is the eager desirer of things that are against the will of God and nothing is so blind and partial as self and flesh You think not your Child a competent judge of what is best for him and make not his desires but your own understanding the guide and rule of your dealings with him or disposals of him And are you fitter choosers for your selves in comparison of God than your Child is in comparison of you Either you take God for your Father or you do not If you do not call him not Father and hope not for Mercy and Salvation from him If you do is he not wise and good enough to dispose of you and to determine what is best for you and to choose for you § 11. Direct 9. Remember that it is one of the greatest plagues on this side Hell to be given up to Direct 9. our own Desires and that by your eagerness and discontents you provoke God thus to give you up Psal. 81. 12 so I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own Counsels O that my people had hearkened to me c. Rom. 1. 24 26. wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts c. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections vers 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. God may give you that which you so eagerly desire as he gave Israel a King even in his anger Hos. 13. 10 11. or as he gave the Israelites their own desire even flesh which he rainâ—d upon them as dust and feathered fowles as the Sand of the Sea they were not â—â—â—â—ranged from their lust But while their meat was yet in their mouths the wâ—ath of Gâ—d came upon them and slew the fattest of them Psal 78. 27 29 30 31. They lusted exceedingly in the Wilderness and tempted God in the desert and he gave them their request but sent leanness into their souls Pâ—al 1â—6 14 15. God may say Follow your own lust and if you are so eager take that which you desire take that person that thing that dignity which you are so earnest for but take my curse and vengeance with it Never let it do you good but be a snare and torment to you Let a fire câ—me out of the bramble and devour you Judg. 9. 15. § 12. Direct 10. Take heed lest concupiscence and partiality entise you to justifie your sinful desires Direct 10. and â—â—â—â— them to bâ— lâ—wful For if you do so you will not repent of them you will not confess them to God â—or beg pardon of them nor beg help against them nor use the means to extinguish them but will cherish them and be angry with all that are against them and love those tempâ—ers best that encourage them And how dangerous a case is this And yet nothing is more ordinary among sinners than to be blinded by their own affections and think that they have sufficient reason to desire that which they do desire And affection maketh them very witty and resolute to deceive themselves It setteth them on studying all that can be said to defend their enemy and put a deceitful gloss upon their cause Try your Desires well as I before directed you Q. 1. Is the thing that you desire a thing that God hath bid you desire or promised in his word to give you as grace Christ and Heaven If it be so then Desire it and spare not But if not so Q. 2. Why then are you so eager for it when you should at most have but a submissive conditional desire after it Q. 3. Nay is it not something which you are forbidden to desire If so dare you excuse it § 13. Direct 11. Remember that Concupiscence or sinful desire is the beginning of all sin of commission Direct 11. and leadeth directly to the act Theft Adultery Murder Fraud Contention and all such mischiefs begin in inordinate desires For every one is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entiâ—ed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 14 15. By lust is meant any fleshly desire or will Therefore when the Apostle forbiddeth gluttâ—ny and drunkenness chambering and wantonness strife and envying he Rom. 13. 13 14 strikes at the root of all in this one word Make no privision for the flesh to satisfie its lusts or wills § 14. Direct 12. Pull off the deceiving vizor and see that which you so eagerly desire as it is Direct 12. What will it be to you at the last It is now in its Spring or Summer but see in it its fall and winter It is now in its youth but see it withered to skin and bone in its decrepit age It is now in its clean and curious ornaments but see it in its uncleanness and in its homely dress Cure your deceit and your Desire is cured § 15. Direct 13. Promise not your selves long life but live as dying men with your grave and Direct 13. winding sheet alwayes in your eye and it will cure your thiâ—st after the creature when you are sensible hâ—w short a time you must enjoy it and especially how near you are unto
men are never unprovided for wise speech But the mouth of fools bewrayeth their folly Prov. 15. 2. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness Prov. 14. 3. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride but the lips of the wise shall preseve them Prov. 18. 6 7. A fools lips enter into contention and his mouth calleth for strokes A fools mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul. But you 'll say To tell us that we should get wisdom is a word soon spoken but not a thing that 's easily or quickly done It 's very true And therefore it 's as true that the tongue is not easily well used and governed for men cannot express the wisdom which they have not unless it be by rote Therefore you must take Solomons counsel Prov. 2. 1 2 3 4 5. My son if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee so that thou encline thine ear to wisdom and apply thy heart to understanding yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for unstanding If thou seâ—kest her as silver and searchest for her as for hidden treasures Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God For the Lord giveth wisdom c. § 44. Direct 6. In the mean time learn to be silent till you have learnt to speak Let not your Direct 6. tongues run before your wits speak not of that which you do not well understand unless as Learners to â—â—m 1 19. Slow to speak slow to wâ—ath Prov. 17. 28. receive instruction Rather of the two speak too little than too much Those that will needs talk of things which they understand not do use either to speak evil of them as Iud. 10. when they are good or to speak evilly of them be they good or bad He that cannot hold his tongue well cannot speak well There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak Eccles. 3. 9. Amos 5. 13. There is a time so evil that the prudent should keep silence At such a time Nihil aequè proderit quam quiescere minimum cum aliis loqui plurimum secum saith Seneca It 's then the best way to be quiet and to say little to others and much to your selves You have two ears and one tongue Hear twice and speak once we oftner repent of speaking then of being silent Few words are quickly answered for To be wary and sparing of your speech doth not only avoid abundance of contention danger and repentance but also procureth you a reputation of wisdom Plutark saith well that Pauca loquentibus paucis legibus opus est There needs but few Laws for them that speak but few words When one said to the Cynick when he was much silent If thou art a wise man thou dost foolishly If thou be a fool thou dost wisely He answered Nemo stultus tacere potest A fool cannot hold his tongue And he that cannot hold his tongue cannot hold his peace Pythagoras his counsel in this agreeth with Christs Aut sile aut affer silentio meliora either be silent or say something that is better than silence It was a wise answer of him that being asked whom covetous Landlords and whom covetous Lawyers hated most did answer to the first Those that eat little and sweat much For they usually live long and so their Leases are not soon expired and to the second Those that speak little and love much For such ☜ seldom make any work for Lawyers Two things are requisite in the matter of your speech that it be somewhat needful to be spoken and that it be a thing which you understand Till then be silent § 45. Direct 7. Take heed of hasty rashness in your speech and use deliberation especially in great Direct 7. or in doubtful things Think before you speak It 's better to try your words before you speak them Noli cito loqui est enim insaniae indicium Bias iâ— Laert. than after A preventing tryal is better than a repenting tryal But if both be omitted God will try them to your greater cost I know in matters that are throughly understood a wise man can speak without any further premeditation than the immediate actuating of the knowledge which he doth express But when there is any fear of mis-understanding or a disability to speak fiâ—ly and safely without fore-thoughts there hasty speaking without deliberation especially in weighty things must be avoided Prov. 29. 20. seest thou a man that is hasty in his words there is more hope of a fool than of him especially take heed in speaking either to God in prayer or in the name of God or as from God in preaching or exhortation or about the holy matters of God in any of thy discourse Eccles. 5. 1 2. Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they do evil that is watch thy self in publick worship and be forwarder to learn of God and to obey him as sensible of thy ignorance and subject to his will than to offer him thy sacrifice as if he stood in need of thee while thou neglectest or rejectest his commands Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few For a dream cometh through multitude of business and a fools voice is known by multitude of words that is Come to God as an obedient learner and a receiver and not as a giver and therefore be readier to hear what he hath to command thee than to pour out many words before him as if he would accept and hear thee for thy babling If loquacity and forwardness to talk many undigested words be a sign of folly among men how much more when thou speakest to God that is in Heaven § 46. Direct 8. Keep a holy government over all your passions as aforesaid and especially try all Direct 8. those words with suspicion which any passion urgeth you to vent For Passion is so apt to blind the judgement that even holy passions themselves must be warily managed and feared as you carry fire among straw or other combustible matter As grievous words stir up anger Prov. 15. 1. so anger causeth grievous words Be not hasty in thy spirit to he angry for anger resteth in the bosom of fools Eccles. 7. 9. To govern the tongue when you are in any Passion either Love or fear or grief or anger is like the governing of a Ship in storms and Tempests or the managing of a Horse that is fierce and heated Prov. 14. 16 17. The fool rageth and is confident He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly Prov. 21. 19. It is better to dwell in the
necessity disoblige them CHAP. II. Directions for the right choice of Servants and Masters PART I. Directions for the right choice of Servants SErvants being integral parts of the Family who contribute much to the holiness or unholiness of it and to the happiness or misery of it it much concerneth Masters to be careful in their choice And the harder it is to find such as are indeed desirable the more careful and diligent in it should you be § 1. Direct 1. To bid you choose such as are fittest for your service is a direction which nature Direct 1. and interest will give you without any perswasions of mine And indeed it is not meer honesty or piâ—ty that will make a good servant nor do your work Three things are necessary to make a servant fit for you 1. Strength 2. Skill 3. Willingness And no two of these will serve without the third Strength and Skill without Willingness will do nothing Skill and Willingness without Strength can do nothing Strength and Willingness without Skill will do as bad or worse than nothing No less than all will make you a good servant Therefore choose one 1. That is healthful 2. That hath been used to such work as you must imploy him in and 3. One that is not of a flesh-pleasing or lazy sâ—uggish disposition For to exact labour from one that is sickly will seem cruelty And to expect labour from one that is unskillful and unexercised will seem folly And heavy fleshly slothful persons will do all with so much unwillingness and pain and weariness that they will think all too much and their service will be a continual toyl and displeasure to them and they will think you wrong them or deal hardly with them if you will not allow them in their fleshliness and idleness Yea though they should have grace a flegmatick sluggish heavy body will never be fit for diligent service no more than a tired horse for travel § 2. Direct 2. If it be possible choose such as have the fear of God or at least such as are tractable and Direct 2. willing to be taught and not such as are ungodly sensual and profane For 1. God hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal. 5. 5. And it tendeth not to the blessing or safety of your family to have in it such as are enemies to God and hated by him You cannot expect an equal blessing on their labours as you may on the service of those that fear him The wicked may bring a curse on the families where they are if you willfully entertain them When a Ioseph may be a blessing even to the house of an unbeliever A wicked man will be renewing those crimes which will be the shame of your family and a grief to your hearts if you have any love to God your selves when a godly servant will pray for a blessing from God upon his labours and is himself under a promise that whatever he doth shall prosper Psal. 1. 3. 2. Ungodly Servants for the most part will be meer eye-servants They will do little more than they find necessary to escape reproof and blame Some few of them indeed out of Love to their Masters or out of a desire of praise or to make their places the better to themselves will be diligent and trusty But ordinarily they are deceitful and study more to seem good servants than to be such and to hide their faults than to avoid them For they make no great matter of Conscience of it nor do they regard the eye of God whereas a truly Godly servant will do all your service in obedience to God as if God himself had bid him do it and as one that is allways in the presence of that Master whose favour he preferreth before all the world He is more careful to please God who commandeth him to be faithful than to please you by seeming better than he is He is moved more to his duty by the reward which God hath promised him than by the wages which he expecteth from you He hath a tender purified Conscience which will hold him to his duty as well when you know it not as when you stand by 3. Ordinarily ungodly servants will be false if they have but opportunity to enrich themselves by deceiving you Especially those that are intrusted in laying out money in buying and selling As long as I name no particular persons I think it no untrustiness but my duty to warn Masters whom they trust by my experience from the confessions of those that have been guilty Many servants whom God hath converted to his Love and fear have told me how constantly they deceived their Masters in buying and selling before their conversion even of so great summâ— of money that some of them were not able to restore it when I made them know it was their duty so far as they were able And some of them had so much unquietness of Conscience till it was restored that I have been fain to give them money to restore when I have convinced them of it So that I know by such confessions that such deceit and robbing of their Masters is a very ordinary thing among ungodly servants that have opportunity that yet pass for very trusty servants and are never discovered 4. Also an ungodly servant will be a tempter to the rest and will be drawing them to sin Especially to secret wantonness and uncivil carriage if not to actual fornication And to revellings and merriments and flâ—shly courses By swearing and taking Gods name in vain and cursing and lying they will teach your children and other servants to do the liâ—e and so be an infectious pestilence in your families 5. And they will hinder any good which you would do on others If there be any in your family under convictions and in a hopeful way to a better condition they will quench all and discourage them and hinder their conversion Partly by their contradicting cavils and partly by their scorns and partly by their diverting idle talk and partly by their ill examples and alluring them to accompany them in their sin Whereas on the contrary a godly servant will be drawing the rest of your family to godliness and hindring them from sin and perswading them to be faithful in their duty both to God and you § 3. Direct 3. Yet measure not the Godliness of a servant by his bare knowledge or words but by his Direct 3. LOVE and CONSCIENCE A great deal of self-conceited talkativeness about Religion may stand with an unsanctified heart and life and much weakness in knowledge and utterance may stand with sincerity But you may safely judge those to be truly Godly 1. Who LOVE Godliness and Love the word and servants of God and hate all wickedness 2. And those that make Conscience to do their duty and to avoid known sin both openly and in secret § 4. Direct 4. If necessity constrain you to take those that are unfit
beyond our Callings nor into confusion Argument 5. It is a Duty to receive all the mercies that God offereth us But for a family to have access to God in joynt prayers and praises is a mercy that God offereth them Therefore it is their duty to accept it The major is clear in nature and Scripture Because I have offered and ye refused is Gods great aggravation of the sin of the rebellious How oft would I have gathered you together and ye would not All the day long have I stretched out my hand c. To refuse an offered kindness is contempt and ingratitude The minor is undeniable by any Christian that ever knew what family prayers and prayses were Who dare say that it is no mercy to have such a joynt access to God Who feels not conjunction somewhat help his own affections who makes conscience of watching his heart Argument 6. Part of the Duties of families are such that they apparently loose their chiefest life and excellency if they be not performed joyntly Therefore they are so to be performed I mean singing of Psalms which I before proved an ordinary Duty of conjunct Christians Therefore of families The Melody and Harmony is lost by our separation and consequently the alacrity and quickning which our affections should get by it And if part of Gods praises must be performed together it is easie to see that the rest must be so too Not to speak of teaching which cannot be done alone Argument 7. Family prayer and praises are a Duty owned by the teaching and sanctifying work of the spirit Therefore they are of God I would not argue backward from the spirits teaching to the words commanding but on these two suppositions 1. That the experiment is very general and undeniable 2. That many texts of Scripture are brought already for family prayer and that this argument is but to second them and prove them truly interpreted The Spirit and the word do alway agree If therefore I can prove that the spirit of God doth commonly work mens hearts to a love and savour of these Duties doubtless they are of God Sanctification is a transcript of the precepts of the word on the heart written out by the spirit of God So much for the consequence The Antecedent consisteth of two parts 1. That the sanctified have in them inclinations to these Duties 2. That these Inclinations are from the spirit of God The first needs no proof being a matter of experience I appeal to the heart of every sound and stable Christian whether he feel not a conviction of this Duty and an inclination to the performance of it I never met with one such to my knowledge that was otherwise minded Object Many in our times are quite against family prayer who are good Christians Answ. I know none of them I confess I once thought some very good Christians that now are against them but now they appear otherwise not only by this but by other things I know none that cast off these Duties but they took up vile sins in their stead and cast off other Duties as well as these Let others observe and judge as they find 2. The power of delusion may for a time make a Christian forbear as unlawful that which his very new nature is inclined too As some think it unlawful to pray in our Assemblies and some to joyn in Sacraments And yet they have a spirit within them that inclineth their hearts to it still and therefore they love iâ— and wish it were lawful even when they forbear it upon a conceit that it is unlawful And so it 's possible for a time some may do by family Duties But as I expect that these ere long recover so for my part I take all the rest to be graceless Prejudice and error as a temptation may prohibit the exercise of a Duty when yet the spirit of God doth work in the heart an inclination to that Duty in sanctifying it 2. And that these inclinations are indeed from the spirit is evident 1. In that they come in with all other grace 2. And by the same means 3. And are preserved by the same means standing or falling increasing or decreasing with the rest 4. And are to the same end 5. And are so generally in all the sâ—iâ—ts 6. And so resisted by flesh and blood 7. And so agreeable to the Word that a Christian sins against his new nature when he neglects family Dutys And God doth by his spirit create a desire after them and an estimation of them in every gracious soul. Argument 8. Family prayer and praises is a Duty ordinarily crowned with admirable divine and special blessings Therefore it is of God The consequence is evident For though common outward prosperity may be given to the wicked who have their portion in this life yet so is not prosperity of soul. For the Antecedent I willingly appeal to the experience of all the holy families in the world Who ever used these Duties seriously and found not the benefits What Families be they in which grace and Heavenly mindedness prospereth but those that use these Duties Compare in all your Towns Cities and Villages the families that read Scriptures pray and praise God with those that do not and see the difference Which of them abound more with impiety with Oaths and cursings and railings and Drunkenness and Whoredoms and Worldliness c. And which abound most with Faith and Patience and Temperance and Charity and Repentance and Hope c. The controversie is not hard to decide Look to the Nobility and Gentry of England See you no difference between those that have been bred in praying families and the rest I mean taking them as we say one with another proportionably Look to the Ministers of England Is it praying families or prayerless families that have done most to the well furnishing of the Universities Argument 9. All Churches ought solemnly to pray to God and praise him A Christian family is a Church Therefore The major is past doubt the minor I prove from the nature of a Church in general which is a society of Christians combined for the better worshipping and serving of God I say not that a family formally as a family is a Church But every family of Christians ought moreover by such a combination to be a Church Yea as Christians they are so combined seeing Christianity tieth them to serve God conjunctly together in their Relations 2. Scripture expresseth it 2 Cor. 16. 19. Aquila and Priscilla salute much in the Lord with the Church that is in they house He saith not which meeteth in their house but which is in it So Philemon 2. And to the Church in this house Rom. 16. 5. Likewise greet the Church that is in their house Col. 4. 15. Salute the brethren that are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house Though some Learned men take these to be meant of part of the Churches assembling in
seduced to think all proper Communion of Churches lyeth in that Sacrament and to be more prophanely bold in abusing many other parts of worship 5. There are better means by Teaching and Discipline to keep the Sacrament from contempt than the omitting or displacing of it 6. Every Lords Day is no ofter then Christians need it 7. The frequency will teach them to Live prepared and not only to make much ado once a Moneth or Quarter when the same work is neglected all the year beside Even as one that liveth in continual expectation of death will live in continual preparation when he that expecteth it but in some grievous sickness will then be frightned into some seeming preparations which are not the habit of his soul but laid by again when the disease is over 2. But yet I must add that in some undisciplin'd Churches and upon some occasions it may be longer omitted or seldomer used No duty is a duty at all times And therefore extraordinary cases may raise such impediments as may hinder us a long time from this and many other priviledges But the ordinary faultiness of our imperfect hearts that are apt to grow customary and dull is no good reason why it should be seldome Any more than why other special duties of Worship and Church-communion should be seldome Read well the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians and you will find that they were then as bad as the true Christians â—â—e now and that even in this Sacrament they were very culpable and yet Paul seeketh not to cure them by their seldomer communicating § 21. Quest. 3. Are all the members of the visible Church to be admitted to this Sacrament or Quest. 3. communicate Answ. All are not to seek it or to take it because many may know their own unfitness when the Church or Pastors know it not But all that come and seek it are to be admitted by the Pastors except such Children Ideots ignorant persons or Hereticks as know not what they are to receive and do and such as are notoriously wicked or scandalous and have not manifested their repentance But then it is presupposed that none should be numbered with the adult members of the Church but those that have personally owned their Baptismal Covenant by a Credible Profession of true Christianity § 22. Quest. 4. May a man that hath knowledge and civility and common gifts come and Quest. 4. take this Sacrament if he know that he is yet void of true Repentance and other saving Grace Answ. No For he then knoweth himself to be one that is uncapable of it in his present state § 23. Quest. 5. May an ungodly man receive this Sacrament who knoweth not himself to be Quest. 5. ungodly Answ. No For he ought to know it and his sinful ignorance of his own condition will not make his sin to be his duty nor excuse his other faults before God § 24. Quest. 6. Must a sincere Christian receive that is uncertain of his sincerity and in continual Quest. 6. doubting Answ. Two preparations are necessary to this Sacrament The general preparation which is a state of grace and this the doubting Christian hath And the particular preparation which consisteth in his present actual fitness And all the question is of this And to know this you must further distinguish between Immediate duty and more Remote and between the degrees of doubtfulness in Christians 1. The nearest immediate duty of the doubting Christian is to use the means to have his doubts resolved till he know his case and then his next duty is to receive the Sacrament And both these still remain his duty to be performed in this order And if he say I cannot be resolved when I have done my best yet certainly it is some sin of his own that keepeth him in the dark and hindereth his assurance and therefore Duty ceaseth not to be duty the Law of Christ still obligeth him both to get assurance and to receive and the want both of the knowledge of his state and of Receiving the Sacrament are his continual sin if he lye in it never so long through these scruples though it be an infirmity that God will not condemn him for For he is supposed to be in a state of grace But you will say What is still he cannot be resolved whether he have true faith and Repentance or not What should he do while he is in doubt I answer It is one thing to ask what is his duty in this case and another thing to ask Which is the smaller or less dangerous sin Still his duty is both to get the knowledge of his heart and to communicate But while he sinneth through infirmity in failing of the first were he better also omit the other or not To be well resolved of that you must discern 1. Whether his judgement of himself do rather incline to think and hope that he is sincere in his repentance and faith or that he is not 2. And whether the consequents are like to be good or bad to him If his hopes that he is sincere be as great or greater than his fears of the contrary then there is no such ill consequent to be feared as may hinder his communicating but it is his best way to do it and wait on God in the use of his Ordinance But if the perswasion of his gracelesness be greater than the hopes of his sincerity then he must observe how he is like to be affected if he do communicate If he find that it is like to clear up his mind and increase his hopes by the actuating of his grace he is yet best to go But if he find that his heart is like to be overwhelmed with horror and sunk into despair by running into the supposed guilt of unworthy Receiving then it will be worse to do it than to omit it Many such fearful Christians I have known that are fain many years to absent themselves from the Sacrament because if they should receive it while they are perswaded of their utter unworthiness they would be swallowed up of desperation and think that they had taken their own damnation As the twenty fifth Article of the Church of England saith the unworthy receivers do So that the chief sin of such a Doubting Receiver is not that he receiveth though he doubt for doubting will not excuse us for the sinful omission of a duty no more of this than of Prayer or Thanksgiving But only Prudence requireth such a one to forbear that which through his own distemper would be a means of his despair and ruine As that Physick or food how good soever is not to be taken which would kill the taker Gods Ordinances are not appointed for our destruction but for our edification and so must be used as tendeth thereunto Yet to those Christians who are in this case and dare not communicate I must put this Question How dare you so long refuse it He that
whether you find it or not for any good its like to do you Every Truth of God is appointed to be his Instrument to do some holy work upon your heart Let the Love of Holiness be it that maketh you search after Truth and then you may expect that God should be your teacher § 4. Direct 3. Seek after Truth without too great or too small regard to the judgement of others neither contemn them nor be captivated to them Use the help of the wise but give not up your Direct 3. Reason absolutely to any Engage not your selves in a Party so as to espouse their errors or Non tam autoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quaerenda sunt Cic. Nat. Deo p. 6. Obest plerumque iis qui discere volunt autoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur Desinunt enim suum judicium adhibere Id habent ratum quod ab eo quem probant judicatum vident Cic. de Nat. Deo p. 7. implicitely to believe whatever they say For this breedeth in you a secret desire to please your party and interesseth you in their dividing interest and maketh you betray the Truth to be accounted Orthodox by those you value § 5. Direct 4. Take heed of Pride which will make you dote upon your own conceits and cause Direct 4. you to slight the weightiest reasons that are brought by others for your conviction And if once you have espoused an error it will engage all your wit and zeal and diligence to maintain it It will make you uncharitable and furious against all that cross you in your way and so make you either Persecutors if you stand on the higher ground or Sect-leaders or Church-dividers and turbulent and censorious if you are on the lower ground There is very great reason in Pauls advice for the choice of a Bishop 1 Tim. 3. 6. Not a Novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil It is no more wonder to see a Proud man erroneous and in the confidence of his own understanding to rage against all that tell him he is mistaken than to hear a drunken man boasting of his wit to the increase of his shame § 6. Direct 5. Take heed of slothfulness and impatience in searching after Truth and think not Direct 5. to find it in difficult cases without both hard and patient studies and ripeness of understanding to enable you therein And suspect all opinions which are the off-spring of idleness and ease what ever Divine illumination they may pretend except as you take them from others upon trust in a slothful way who attained them by diligent studies For God that hath called men to labour doth use to give his blessing to the laborious And he that hath said by his Spirit 1 Tim. 4. 15. Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all doth accordingly cause those men to profit who seek it in this laborious way of his appointment And he that hath said The desire of the slothful killeth him doth not use to bless the slothful with his teachings He that Prov. 24. 30. Prov. 21. 25. Matth. 25. 26. will say to him in judgement Thou wicked and slothful servant will not encourage the slothfulness which he condemneth My Son if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee so that thou incline thine ear to wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding Yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding If thou seekest her as Silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God For the Lord giveth Wisdom Prov. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Mark here to whom God giveth wisdom All the godly are taught of God But mark here how it is that he teacheth them Not while they scorn at Studies and Universities and look that their knowledge should cost them nothing or that the Spirit should be instead of serious studies or that their understandings should discern what 's true or false at the first appearance But while they think no pains or patience too great to learn the truth in the School of Christ. § 7. Direct 6. Keep out Passion from your Disputes and in the management of all your controversies Direct 6. in Religion For though Passion be useful both antecedently to the the Resolution of the Will and consequently Quae duae virtutes in Disputatore primae sunt eas ambas in Hubero deprehendi Patientiam adversarium prolixe sua explicantem audiendi lenitatem etiam aspere dicta perserendi inq Scultetus post disâ— Cuâ—â—ic p. 33. to the effectual execution of its Resolutions yet it is commonly a very great seducer of the understanding and strangely blindeth and perverteth judgement so that a Passionate man is seldome so far from the truth as when he is most confident he is defending it When Passion hath done boyling and the heart is cooled and leaveth the judgement to do its work without any clamour and disturbance its strange to see how things will appear to you to be quite of another tendency and reason than in your Passion you esteemed them § 8. Direct 7. Keep up a sense of the evil and danger of both extreams and be not so wholly intent Direct 7. upon the avoiding of one extream as to be fearless of the other The narrow minds of unexperienced men are hardly brought to look on both sides them and to be duly sensible of the danger of both extreams But while they are taken up only with the hating and opposing one sort of errors they forget those on the other side And usually the sin or error which we observe not is more dangerous to us than that which we do observe if the wind of temptation sit that way Direct 8. § 9. Direct 8. When you detect any antient error or corruption enquire into its original and see whether Reformation consist not rather in a restitution of the primitive state than in an extirpation of the whole Even in Popery it self there are many errors and ill customs which are but the corruption of some weighty truth and the degenerating of some duty of Gods appointment And to reduce all in such cases to the primitive verity is the way of wise and true reformation and not to throw away that which is Gods because it is fallen into the dirt of humane depravation But in cases where all is bad there all must be rejected § 10. Direct 9. Pretend not Truth and Orthodoxness against Christian Love and Peace and so follow Direct 9. Rom. 12. 13. 1 Cor. 13. Truth as that you lose not Love and Peace by it As much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Charity is the End of Truth And it is a mad use of Means to use them against the End
Deut. 29. 22. Eâ—â—d 12. 26. Jos. 4. 6. 22. 22. 24 25. and not only to the Countrey where he liveth Many things seem necessary for some present strait or work that we would do which in the next age may be of mischievous effects Especially in Ecclesiastical and Political professions Covenants and impositions we must look further than our present needs And many things seem necessary for a local narrow interest which those at a distance will otherwise esteem 17. He that will walk uprightly must be able to bear the displeasure of all the world when the interest of truth requireth it yea to be rejected of learned and good men themselves and account 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. John 5. 44. Luke 14. 26. Gal. 2. 13. 14. Acts 11. 2 3. mans favour no better than it is Not to despise it as it is a means to any good but to be quite above it as to his own interest Not that uprightness doth use to make a man despised by the upright but that it may bring him under their censure in some particulars which are not commonly received or understood to be of God 18. He must make it a great part of the work of his life to kill all those carnal desires which the Col. 3. 4 5. Rom. 6 1 c. 13. 12 13. 8. 13. sensual make it their work and felicity to please That Appetite sense and lust and self-will may not be the constant pervertâ—rs of his life As a fool in a Dropsie studyeth to please his Thirst and a wise man to cure it 19. He must live a life of constant and skilful watchfulness apprehending himself in continual Matth. 24. 42. â—5 1â— Mat. 13. 37. 1 Tâ—ess 5. 6. 1 Pet. 4. 7. 1 Cor. 1â— 13. Matth. 6. 13. 26. 41. danger and knowing his particular Corruptions Temptations and Remedies He must have a tender conscience and keep as far as possible from temptation and take heed of unnecessary approaches or delightful thoughts of sin O what strong Resolutions what sound knowledge have the near-baits of seâ—suality meat drink lust and pleasures overcome Never think your selves safe among neartemptations and opportunities of sinning 20. Live as those that are going to the grave Dye daily and look on this world as if you did look on it out of the world to which you go Let Faith as constantly behold the world unseen as Eccles. 7. 2 3 4 5 6. 2 Cor. 4. 16. 5. 1 7 8. Luke 12. 17 18 19 20. 16. 20 c. Matth. 25. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Acts 7. 56 60. your eye seeth this Death and Eternity make men wise We easily Confess and Repent of many things when we come to dye which no Counsels or Sermons could make us penitently confess before Death will answer a thousand objections and temptations and prove many vanities to be sin which you thought the Preacher did not prove Dying men are not drawn to drunkenness filthiness or time-wasting sports nor flattered into folly by sensual baits Nor do they then fear the face or threats of persecuters As it is from another world that we must fetch the Motives so also the Defâ—nsative of an Upright life And O happy are they that faithfully practise these Rules of Uprightness THough it be my judgement that much more of the Doctrine of Politicks or Civil Government Among the Jews it was all one to be a Lawyer and a Divine but not to be a Lawyer and a Pâ—iest belongeth to Theology than those men understand who make Kings and Laws to be meer humane Creatures yet to deliver my Reader from the fear lest I should meddle with matters that belong not to my Calling and my Book from that reproach I shall over-pass all these points which else I should have treated of as useful to Practice in Governing and Obeying 1. Of Man as sociable and of Communities and Societies and the Reason of them of their Original and the Obligation on the members 2. Of a City and of Civility 3. Of a Republick in general 1. Of its Institution 2. Of its Constitution and of its parts 3. Of its Species 4. Of the difference between it 1. And a Community in general 2. A Family 3. A Village 4. A City 5. A Church 6. An accidental Meeting 5. Of its Administration 6. Of the Relation between Gods Government and Mans and Gods Laws and Mans and of their difference and between Mans Judging and Gods Judging Nay I will not only gratifie you by passing over this and much more in the Theory but also as to the Practical part I shall pass over 1. The Directions for Supream Governours 2. And for inferiour Magistrates towards God and their Superiours and the people 3. And the Determination of the Question How far Magistrates have to do in matters of Religion Whether they be Christian or Heathen 4. How far they should grant or not grant Liberty of Conscience as it is called viz. of Judging Professing and Practising in matters of Religion with other such matters belonging to Government And all the Controversies about Titles and Supremacy Conservations Forfeitures Decayes Dangers Remedies and Restorations which belong either to Politicians Lawyers or Divines All these I pretermit save only that I shall venture to leave a few brief Memorandums with Civil Governours instead of Directions for securing the Interest of Christ and the Church and mens salvation Yet assuring the Reader that I omit none of this out of any contempt of the matter or of Magistracy or as if I thought them not worthy of all our Prayers and Assistance or thought their office of small concernment to the welfare of the world and of the Church but for those Reasons which all may know that know me and the Government under which we live and which I must not tell to others CHAP. II. Memorandum's to Civil Rulers for the interest of Christ the Church and mens Salvation § 1. Memor 1. REmember that your power is from God and therefore for God and not against Memor 1. God Rom. 13. 2 3 4. You are his Ministers and can have no power except it be Finis ad quem Rex principaliter intendere debet in sâ—ipso in subditis est aeâ—erna beatitudo quae in visione Dei consistit Et quia ista visio est perfectissimum bonum maxime movere debet Regem quemcunque Dominum ut hunc finem subditi consequantur Lib. de Regim Principum Thomae adscript Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 9. Even Aristotle could say Polit. 7. c. 1 2. Eudem fine that each mans active and contemplative life is the end of Government and not only the publick peace and that that is the best life which conduceth most to our consideration of God and that is the worst which calleth us off from considering and worshiping him Vide Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 10. Quam multa injuste fieri possunt
Son and Holy Ghost when they have in Baptism vowed themselves unto his service Of all men on earth these men will have least to say for their sin or against their condemnation § 22. 12. Lastly Remember that Christ taketh all that is done by persecutors against his servants for his cause to be done as to himself and will accordingly in judgement charge it on them So speaketh he to Saul Acts 9. 5 6. Saul Saul why persecutest thou me I am Iesus whom thou persecutest And Matth. 25. 41. to 46. Even to them that did not â—eed and clothe and visit and relieve them he saith Verily I say unto you in as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me What then will he say to them that impoverished and imprisoned them Remember that it is Christ reputatively whom thou dost hate deride and persecute § 23. Direct 3. If you world escape the guilt of persecution the cause and interest of Christ in the Direct 3. world must be truly understood He that knoweth not that Holiness is Christs end and Scripture is his Word and Law and that the Preachers of the Gospel are his messengers and that preaching is his appointed means and that sanctified believers are his members and the whole number of them are his mystical body and all that profess to be such are his visible body or Kingdom in the world and that sin is the thing which he came to destroy and the Devil the world and the flesh are the enemies which he causeth us to conquer I say He that knoweth not this doth not know what Christianity or Godliness is and therefore may easily persecute it in his ignorance If you know not or believe not that serious Godliness in heart and life and serious preaching and discipline to promote it are Christs great cause and interest in the world you may fight against him in the dark whilst ignorantly you call your selves his followers If the Devil can but make you think that Ignorance is as good as Knowledge and Pharisaical formality and hypocritical shews are as good as spiritual worship and rational service of God and that seeming and lip-service is as good as seriousness in Religion and that the strict and serious obeying of God and living as we profess according to the principles of our Religion is but hypocrisie pride or faction that is that all are hypocrites who will not be hypocrites but seriously Religious I say if Satan can bring you once to such erroneous malignant thoughts as these no wonder if he make you persecutors O value the great blessing of a sound understanding For if Error blind you either impious error or factious error there is no wickedness so great but you may promote it and nothing so good and holy but you may persecute it and think all the while that you are doing well John 16. 2. They shall put you out of the Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service What Prophet so great or Saint so holy that did not suffer by such hands Yea Christ himself was persecuted as a sinner that never sinned § 24. Direct 4. And if you would escape the guilt of persecution the cause and interest of Christ Direct 4. must be highest in your esteem and preferred before all worldly carnal interests of your own Otherwise the Devil will be still perswading you that your own interest requireth you to suppress the interest of Christ For the truth is the Gospel of Christ is quite against the interest of carnality and concupiscence It doth condemn ambition covetousness and lust It forbiddeth those sins on pain of damnation which the proud and covetous and sensual love and will not part with And therefore it is no more wonder to have a proud man or a covetous man or a lustful voluptuous man to be a persecutor than for a Dog to fly in his face who takes his bone from him If you love your pride and lust and pleasures better than the Gospel and a holy life no marvel if you be persecutors For these will not well agree together And though sometimes the providence of God may so contrive things that an ambitious hypocrite may think that his worldly interest requireth him to seem religious and promote the preaching and practice of godliness this is but seldome and usually not long For he cannot choose but quickly find that Christ is no Patron of his sin and that Holiness is contrary to his worldly lusts Therefore if you cannot value the Cause of Godliness above your lusts and carnal interests I cannot tell you how to avoid the guilt of persecution nor the wrath and vengeance of Almighty God § 25. Direct 5. Yea though you do prefer Christs interest in the main You must carefully take Direct 5. beed of stepping into any forbidden way and espousing any interest of your own or others which is contrary to the Laws or interest of Christ. Otherwise in the defence or prosecution of your cause you will be carryed into a seeming Necessity of persecuting before you are aware This hath been the ruine of multitudes of great ones in the world When Ahab had set himself in a way of sin the Prophet 1 Kings 22. 8 27. 1 King 13. 2 4. must reprove him and then he hateth and persecuteth the Prophet because he prophesied not good of him but evil When Ieroboam thought that his interest required him to set up Calves at Dan and Bethel and to make Priests for them of the baâ—est of the people the Prophet must speak against his sin and then he stretcheth out his hand against him and saith Lay hold on him If Asa sin and 2 Chron. 16. 10. the Prophet tell him of it his rage may proceed to imprison his reprover If Amaziah sin with the Idolaters the Prophet must reprove him and he will silence him or smite him And silenced he is 2 Chron. 15. 16. and what must follow 2 Chron. 15 16. The King said to him Art thou made of the Kings counsel forbear why shouldst thou be smitten This seemeth to be gentle dealing Then the Prophet forbore and said I know that God hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not hearkned to my counsel It Pilate do but hear If thou let this man go thou art not Caesars friend he thinketh John 19. 12. it his interest to crucifie Christ As Herod thought it his interest to kill him and therefore to kill so many other Infâ—nts when he heard of the birth of a King of the Jews Because of an Herodias Matth. 2. 16 17 18. Matth. 14. 6 7 8 9. Mar. 6. 19. 21 22. Acts 12. 2 3 4. and the honour of his word Herod will not stick to behead Iohn Baptist And another Herod will kill Iames with the Sword and imprison Peter because he seeth that it pleaseth
created for § 2. Mot. 2. There is no subject so sublime and honourable for the Tongue of man to be imployed about as the matters of God and life eternal Children will talk of childish toyes and Countreymen talk of their Corn and Cattel and Princes and Statesmen look down on these with contemptuous smiles as much below them But Crowns and Kingdoms are incomparably more below the business of a holy soul The higher subjects Philosophers treat of the more honourable if well done are their discourses But none is so high as God and glory § 3. Mot. 3. It is the most profitable subject to the hearers A discourse of Riches at the most can but direct them how to grow rich A discourse of Honours usually puffeth up the minds of the ambitious And if it could advance the auditors to Honour the fruit would be a vanity little to be desired But a discourse of God and Heaven and Holiness doth tend to change the hearers minds into the nature of the things discourst of It hath been the means of converting and sanctifying many a thousand souls As learned discourses tend to make men learned in the things discourst off so holy discourses tend to make men holy For as natural Generation begetteth not Gold or Kingdoms but a Man so speech is not made to communicate to others directly the wealth or health or honours or any extrinsecal things which the speaker hath but to communicate those Mental Excellencies which he is possest of Prov. 16. 21 22. The sweetness of the lips increaseth learning Understanding is a well-spring of life to him that hath it Prov. 10. 13 21. In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found The lips of the righteous feed many Prov. 15. 7. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge but the heart of the foolish doth not so Prov. 20. 15. There is Gold and a multitude of Rubies but the lips of knowledge are a precious Iewel Prov. 10. 20. The tongue of the just is as choice Silver the heart of the wicked is little worth § 4. Mot. 4. Holy discourse is also most profitable to the speaker himself Grace increaseth by the exercise Even in instructing others and opening truth we are oft times more powerfully led up to further truth our selves than by solitary studies For Speech doth awaken the intellectual faculty and keepeth on the thoughts in order and one truth oft inferreth others to a thus excited and prepared mind And the tongue hath a power of moving own our hearts When we blow the fire to warm another both the exercise and the fire warm our selves It kindleth the flames of holy love in us to declare the praise of God to others It increaseth a hatred of sin in us to open its odiousness to others We starve our selves when we starve the souls which we should cherish § 5. Mot. 5. Holy and Heavenly discourse is the most delectable I mean in its own aptitude and to a mind that is not diseased by corruption That which is most Great and Good and Necessary is most delectable What should best please us but that which is best for us And best for others And best in it self The excellency of the subject maketh it delightful And so doth the exercise of our Graces upon it And serious conference doth help down the truth into our hearts where it is most sweet Besides that Nature and Charity make it pleasant to do good to others It can be nothing better than a subversion of the appetite by carnality and wickedness that maketh any one think idle jeasts or tales or plays to be more pleasant than spiritual Heavenly conference and the talking of Riches or Sports or Lusts to be sweeter than to talk of God and Christ and grace and glory A holy mind hath a continual feast in it self in meditating on these things and the communicating of such thoughts to others is a more Common and so a more pleasant feast § 6. Mot. 6. Our faithfulness to God obligeth us to speak his praise and to promote his truth â—â—d plead his cause against iniquity Hath he given us tongues to magnifie his name and set before us the admirable frame of all the World to declare his Glory in And shall we be backward to so sweet and great a work How precious and useful is all his holy word What light and life and comfort may it cause And shall we bury it in silence What company can we come into almost where either the bare-faced committing of sin or the defending it or the opposition of truth or Godliness or the frigidity of mens hearts towards God and supine neglect of holy things do not call to us if we are the servants of God to take his part and if we are the Children of light to bear our testimony against the darkness of the World and if we love God and truth and the souls of men to shâ—w it by our prudent seasonable speech Is he true to God and to his cause that will not open his mouth to speak for him § 7. Mot. 7. And how precious a thing is an immortal soul and therefore not to be neglected Did Christ think souls to be worth his Mediation by such strange condescension even to a shameful death Did he think them worth his coming into flesh to be their teacher And will you not think them worth the speaking to § 8. Mot. 8. See also the greatness of your sin in the negligence of unfaithful Ministers It is easie to see the odiousness of their sin who preach not the Gospel or do no more than by an hours dry and dead discourse shift off the serious work which they should do and think they may be excused from all personal oversight and helping of the peoples souls all the Week after And why should you not perceive that a dumb private Christian is also to be condemned as well as a dumb Minister Is not profitable conference your duty as well as profitable preaching is his How many persons condemn themselves while they speak against unfaithful Pastors being themselves as unfaithful to Families and Neighbours as the other are to the flock § 9. Mot. 9. And consider how the cheapness of the means doth aggravate the sin of your neglect and shew much unmercifulness to souls Words cost you little Indeed alone without the company of good works they are too cheap for God to accept of But if an Hypocrite may bring so cheap a sacrifice who is rejected what doth he deserve that thinketh it too dear What will that man do for God or for his Neighbours soul who will not open his mouth to speak for them He seemeth to have less love than that man in Hell Luk. 16. who would so fain have had a messenger sent from another World to have warned his brethren and saved them from that place of torment § 10. Mot. 10. Your fruitful conference is a needful help to the ministerial work When
been truly taught that to deny our foundations is the horrid crime of Infidelity And therefore because it is so horrid a crime to deny or question them we thought we need not study to prove them And so most have taken their Foundation upon trust and indeed are scarce able to bear the tryal of it and have spent their dayes about the superstructure and in learning to prove the controverted less necessary points Insomuch that I fear there are more that are able to prove the points which an Antinomian or an Anabaptist do deny than to prove the immortality of the soul or the truth of Scripture or Christianity and to dispute about a Ceremony or form of prayer or Church-government than to dispute for Christ against an Infidel So that their work is prepared to their hands and it is no great victory to overcome such â—aw unsetled souls § 2. Direct 2. Get every sacred Truth which you believe into your very hearts and lives and Direct 2. see that all be digested into Holy Love and Practice When your food is turned into vital nuâ—â—iment into flesh and blood it is not cast up by every thing that maketh you sick and turneth your stomachs as it may be before it is concocted distributed and incorporated Truth that is but barely known is but like meat that is undigested in the stomach But Truth which is turned into the Lâ—ve of God and of a holy life is turned into a new nature and will not so easily be let go § 3. Direct 3. Take heed of Doctrines of presumption and security and take heed lest you fall Direct 3. away by thinking it so impossible to fall away that you are past all danger The Covenant of Vâ—â—tu â—â—â—â— Chrysippus â—â—â—â—â—â—â—ossâ— â—leaâ— hâ—â—â—â—â—â— nâ—n â—â—â—â—se aâ—â—â—â—e posse aâ—â—â—â—â— pâ—r 〈◊〉 aâ—ram bâ—â—em 〈…〉 posse o 〈…〉 aâ— stabâ—es comprehension â—â— c.. Lâ—â—t in Zâ—â—oâ—â— Grace doth sufficiently encourage you to obey and hope against temptations to despair and casting off the means But it encourageth no man to presume or sin or to cast off means as needlesâ— things Remember that if ever you will stand the fear of falling must help you to stand and if ever you will persevere it must be by seeing the danger of backsliding so far as to make you afraid and quicken you in the means which are necessary to prevent it It is no more certain that you shall persevere than it is certain that you shall use the means of persevering And one means is by seeing your danger to be stirred up to fear and caution to escape it Because it is my meaning in this Direction to save men from perishing by security upon the abuse of the Doctrine of Perseverance I hope none will be offended that I lay down these Antidotes § 4. 1. Consider That the Doctrine of Perseverance hath nothing in it to encourage security The very Controversies about it may cause you to conclude that a certain sin is not to be built upon a Controverted Doctrine Till Augustines time it is hard to find any antient Writers that clearly asserted the certain perseverance of any at all Augustine and Prosper maintain the certain perseverance of all the Elect but deny the certain perseverance of all that are Regenerated Justified or Sanctified For they thought that more were Regenerate and Justified than were Elect of whom some stood even all the Elect and the rest fell away So that I confess I never read one antient Father or Christian Writer that ever maintained the certainty of the perseverance of all the Justified of many hundred if not a thousand years after Christ And a Doctrine that to the Church was so long unknown hath not that certainty or that necessity as to encourage you to any presumption or security The Churches were saved many hundred years without believing it § 5. 2. The Doctrine of Perseverance is against security because it uniteth together the End and the Means For they that teach that the Justified shall never totally fall from Grace do also teach that they shall never totally fall into security or into any reigning sin For this is to fall away from Grace And they teach that they shall never totally fall from the use of the necessary means of their preservation nor from the cautelous avoiding of the danger of their souls God doth not simply Decree that you shall persevere but that you shall be kept in perseverance by the fear of your danger and the careful use of means and that you shall persevere in these as well as in other graces Therefore if you fall to security and sin you fall away from grace and shew that God never decreed or promised that you should never fall away § 6. 3. Consider how far many have gone that have fallen away The instances of our times are much higher than any I can name to you out of History Men that have seemed to walk humbly and holily fearing all sin blameless in their lives zealous in Religion twenty or thirty years together have fallen to deny the truth or certainty of the Scriptures the Godhead of Christ if not Christianity it self And many that have not quite fallen away have yet fallen into such grievous sins as make them a terrible warning to us all to take heed of presumption and carnal security § 7. 4. Grace is not in the nature of it a thing that cannot perish or be lost For 1. It is a separable quality 2. Adam did lose it 3. We lose a great degree of it too oft And the remaining degrees are of the same nature It is not only possible in it self to lose it but too easie and not possible without co-operating grace to keep it § 8. 5. Grace is not Natural to us To love our ease and honour and friends is natural but to love Christ and his holy wayes and servants is not Natural to us Indeed when we do it it is Nature as not lapsed and Nature as restored incline the soul to the Love of God but not Nature as corrupâ— nor is it an act performed per 〈…〉 â— â— nâ—â—â—â—ssario our Natural powers that do it But not as Naturally disposed to it but as inclined by the Cure of supernatural Grace Eating and drinking and sleeping we forget not because Nature it self remembreth us of them but Learning and acquired habits may be lost if not very deeply radicated And it s commonly concluded as to the Nature of them that Habitus infusi habent se ad modum acquisitorum Infused Habits are like to acquired ones § 9. 6. Grace is as it were a stranger or new-comer in us It hath been there but a little while And therefore we are but raw and too unacquainted with the right usage and improvement of it and are the apter to â—orget our duty or to neglect it or ignorantly to do that which tendeth to its destruction § 10. 7. Grace dwelleth in a heart which