thing is known it is known that such a thing is contrary to God and I ought not to do it but yet by a sudden hurry of temptation when the violence of temptation surpriseth the Soul many times before ever it can recollect it self it is carried down with the temptation even against a cleer light yea carried against it as if a Cock-boat should be carried down a strong stream they have not so much time to cal themselves to an account to think whether these things become them or no And thus it was with Aaron that Saint of the Lord he could not but know that to make a Calf it was destructive to the Covenant of Grace that God had made with them it was a kind of implicite renouncing of God but a sudden temptation came all the people came saying make us a resemblance of God Moses is gone we wil have it he was surprised before ever he could recollect himself And so Moses that holy meek man when a sudden temptation came that the madness of the people had vexed him that he could not recollect himself he speaks so unadvisedly with his lips to Gods dishonor and this no man is free from but some in one part some in one kind and some in another all Gods people before they are aware are many times carried away and surprised before they can recollect themselves to know what their duty is But yet there is a third sort and that seems to go deeper and that is 3. When they do not only know it to be a sin but deliberatly commit it I mean that the heart is tempted to such a thing saith the soul it is abominable it is against God I will not do it but betakes it self to prayer prayes the Lord to assist and strengthen him the temptation comes again and gathers upon him that though he do resist it yet he hath not strength enough to overcome it the ground of it was because the holy Spirit who is a free agent communicates so much strength to him as to stir up his graces and to draw them out into the Field in Gods Cause and to oppose the Enemy and gives him some strength to resist it but not strength enough to overcome it but leaves him unfit and without sufficient strength against that temptation and of this I think the Apostle Paul mainly means in all his discourse in Rom. 7. where in the Person of a Regenerate man he saith The thing I would not do I do and when I would do good Evil overcomes me I would not do the Evil yet it is too strong for me then complains Wretched man that I am I am even sold under it Now I think under one of these three fal al the common infirmities of all that love Jesus Christ in sincerity they are either meer Ignorances that they know not Gods mind or they are else sudden surprises hurried away before they can cal their hearts and graces to act and have strength to assist them or else the Lord lets out a greater measure of the power of the Enemy to assault than he is pleased to communicate to the soul to resist and under one of these I say do all the infirmities of Gods people fal in their ordinary course Now the third thing which when I have briefly dispatched then I wil go to the next which is the great question is Thirdly How this may be known and I wil speak to it the rather because I find there is no man in the world that lives within the compasse of the Church I mean but is wonderous desirous to have all his lusts and corruptions to be adopted into the name of an infirmity and when they have brought them under that Burrow then they are wonderful safe in their own eyes the man that Keeps a harlot and nourisheth his wanton vain glory or whatsoever it be convince him of it I saith he God helpe me it is my infirmity no man lives without his infirmities and when they have once got them under that name of an infirmity then all that you say concerning Jesus Christ's relief against their daily sins it is all their own though God knows they are as far from it as the East is from the West And on the other side I find many a real Servant of God that if their corruption have any thing in it that carries horridness to the Conscience any strange distemper that is more than ordinary and assaults them and buffets them and treads them under foot Then they are ready to think that all the world cannot satisfie them that these are but infirmities these cannot be the spots of Gods people And so that neither the Lords own Servants may be discouraged nor wicked men get a Cloak I would a little discover how you may cleerly know what are the infirmities of the Saints and wherein they differ from the rebellions of those that are the Lords Enemies and for that I wil give you 1. One Rule that is Negative and 2. Another that is Positive 1. Negative You must take this That an infirmity must not be judged of by the matter of the sin not one whit judged of by the matter but only from the disposition and qualification of the Person that commits it my meaning plainly is this We are ready to think that those sins that are but petty and trivial they must all have the names of infirmities and those sins the matter whereof are odious those must not go for infirmities Now this is a most false Rule for a sin that is a very trifle if it be but an idle word vain thought petty oath any such thing as it may be committed may be a reigning sin and a path of the way that leads to eternal damnation according as the Person is that commits it and on the other side even a great sin for the matter of it should it be Murder and Adultery I instance in them because they both met in David possible it is that the things may so fal out that these may be but infirmities therefore remember that is a corrupt Rule and all you that please your selves with this that God keeps you from the great abhominations you are no Whoremasters you keep not a Harlot and you are no Cozeners nor Cheaters in your Trade though it may be your Oaths are Faith and Troth and prittle prattle and slighting of holy Duties you wil have these things pass for infirmities No you wil see this is no Rule That is one remember you must not judge of infirmities from the matter but only from another Rule which I wil give you and that is this 2. Whosoever can but rightly judge of an infirmity of the body hath a cleer Rule to direct him to an infirmity of the Soul Now all infirmities of the body they have all of them these three things constantly go with them The first is 1. They never are our choyce That that is our infirmity never
particulars then he walketh as becomes a Saint in holiness and righteousness but when at any time the Spirit of God for reasons best known to himself doth withold his immediate assistance from that Soul then their habitual inclination is never able to make them do any thing that is good If a temptation to a sin be propounded and a corruption of their nature be a little excited and Satan backing it and the Spirit of God not joyning down they tumble in every temptation and sin against God though never so fouly and if a holy Duty be to be performed pressed with all the moral Arguments in the world if the Lords spirit afford them not assistance and strength immediately they are not able they are unfit unable to do that which they are required and from hence ariseth all the infirmities of Gods people and herein you may see there is a corrupt nature in part remaining There are likwise external objects that would stir up this corrupt nature temptations from the Devil that would inflame it when these stir and Gods spirit doth not assist then are all the Lords people so weak and feeble that infallibly they sin against him and this is the nature of the sins of infirmity that is the first The second thing I would cleer is this Secondly What kinds there are of them because that will further acquaint you for indeed my aim is that all the Saints of God may see the frame of their own spirits as it were in a Glass that so afterwards you may learn how needful the Lord Jesus Christ is to us then the second question is What kinds of infirmities are the people of God subject to To that I answer They may all be brought to these two Heads they are either First Such as are not common to all the Saints No nor to any of Gods Children except upon special desertion or else Secondly They are such as all Gods people while they live in this world are dayly compassed about with For the first of them I. There are Infirmities I say which are not common to all Gods people No nor to any of them unless when very extraordinarily deserted of God and they are such as when the Servants of God do seem to pour their hearts out into wicked waies and commit those sins that are publickly to the dishonor of the Lords Gospel to the wasting of their own Consciences to the defiling of their own holy waies to the scandal of Gods people as suppose to live in Adultery in Uncleanness in wantonness Cursing Swearing Drunkenness false dealing and the like Now two things I would say about this 1. That somtimes Gods own Children for a season are left under such a condition David you know even when he was the Child of God took his neighbors Wife into his bosome and most wickedly plotted to take away her Husbands life and did take it away Peter Cursed and Banned and Swore and counterfeited himselâ— to be a prophane person that he might not be thought to be a follower of Christ So that such things many other instances I might give you that in the greatest the most flagitious way wherein a man may seem to be turned from Christ and betake himself into the Tents of his enemies to fight against him as if he would be a Ranter against him such a thing may befal a Child of God But then I adde 2. But this is not the Lot of all No nor of any but when extraordinarily deserted and that is cleer by this because throughout all the tennor of the Gospel it is sufficiently declared that these are not the spots of Gods Children these are not the waies of the Saints these are the waies in which whosoever walks cannot be saved and therefore what their condition is I shal tel you by and by God willing when I come to cleer it But that is one sort that it is possible the corruption may be so strong the assistance of Gods spirit so wholly withdrawn and the temptation so mighty as that a Child of God for want of strength may fall into the foulest mire and filth in the world That is one sort II. There are other sorts of Infirmities which all the Saints are compassed about with every day that they live and it is rare that any of them spend a day either without al of them or some of those infirmities and if you wil know what they are I answer There are three kinds of them and I think all the infirmities of the Saints wil fal under one of them and I purposely open them that you might have a Glass to see your faces in 1. Some and very many of the infirmities of the Saints of God they are meerly the infirmities of their understandings that is sins of ignorance that they do the things that are contray to God contrary to his will but do not know Gods mind about them and from this sort no man upon earth is free Who knows the errors of his life and I think verily under this head fals those sins of the Patriarchs of the holiest men that walked with God whose hearts were perfect with God they had their many Wives they had their Concubins too not knowing that this was against the Institution of God And so likwise in the sin of omission as you shal see there was from Joshuah's time to Nehemiah's time one of the great solemn Feasts that is the Feast of Tabernacles was never kept according to Gods institution for a thousand years together that they were by Gods institution to keep it not in their own houses but to go to live in Booths in the Fields for that time it is said expresly from Joshua to Nehemiah that that Feast had never been so kept that either they had forgotten it or the generations were unacquainted But now when Gods people do any of them in their speeches or actions do the things that are indeed contrary to Gods wil but especially not knowing it to be so and yet their hearts prepared that if the Lord would but discover his mind to them they would follow him in all things and yet this is one sort that all Gods people are liable to in the world But I tel you by the way that were but this one thing understood it would go a great way to make the Servants of God less harsh than they are one to another The Lord give them so much light to own it he sees such a thing as cleer as the Sun to be the institution of God or the mind of God or the way of God in this or that Duty of the first or second Table and then because he sees it he is ready to condemn all the world as rebelling against God for not being of his practice because the Lord it may be lets not them see it But that is one sort sins in the understanding when Gods wil is not known 2. Another sort of these infirmities when the
is our Choyce that I think I shal not need much to discourse of I have such an infirmity I want strength in me I strength in my Limbs in so much as if any body say Come pra'y will you walk If I walk I must halt every step I go But would you have it so Do you make choyce of it to be so Now there is a mans infirmity he never makes any choyce of it Though it is possible in spiritual things there may be something of the wil in temptations yet no man ever saith Lord give me leave to be a Deceiver or a proud man and the like No if it be an infirmity we never make choyce of it Secondly 2. If it be an Infirmity it is perpetually a burden and according to the nature of it so the burden is greater or lesser And so a man that hath an infirmity in his body if it be in a noble part his Eye Oh! it is a great burden to him if his infirmity be in a very useful part in his Foot every step he takes goes to the heart of him if it be an infirmity in his breast where the Lungs lie Oh! that is a wonderful burden According as the part or faculty is useful so a weakness there is accordingly a proportionable burden So now wheresoever any Child of God hath any passions any corruptions stirring in him to hinder him in his enjoyment of God or walking with him they are his greatest burdens in the world no affliction goes so neer to a man that hath given up himself to walk in the way to Heaven as that that keeps him from walking in the way to Heaven that interrupts his peace and disturbs him in that way So if it be thy infirmity the Soul chuseth it not Secondly It is a burden unto it And then the third is 3. That in an infirmity alwaies there is a desire of curing it that though beforehand I may know I can never cure it totally yet if I can but cure it so as to be less burdensome if I could cure it wholly whatsoever it cost I would yet if not cure it wholly yet to keep it under So here every Child of God whose end is God whose way is Gods word he finds his flesh that that hinders him he cannot walk in it doth he make nothing of it No it is his dayly practice to crucifie it to put off the Old man with all the lusts of it No Chyrurgion more desirous to mortifie a member that must needs be cut off than a Saint is to draw out the life blood of every corruption he bears about him And truly because I see the time hath so prevented me that I shal be hindred I would else have stopped here and made some Application of this but I wil only beg of you because I am in the next question to open a great deal of comfort to every Child of God I beg of you for the Lords sake deceive not your selves about it think not that all that shal be spoken of Christs being a relief against the corruptions of his people wil reach you you that sel your selves to unrighteousness you that would not be made clean and have no mind that the Lord should rend your Harlot from you but your credit and reputation you must have whether it wil stand with Gods or no Flatter not your selves to think that the Blood of Christ wil be your Propitiation and that he appears for you No you have nothing to do with him you choose your waies of sin and the Text hath told you a little before That if any man talk of Communion with God and with Christ and walk in darkness that man is a Lyar and hath no truth in him But if any of you your Consciences bear witness to what I have delivered that your heart is in Gods way Gods word is your way your aim is at it every day in every thing only you are surprised you want light and strength and ability to stand it out when you are put to it Now for that come we to the second Question and that is Secondly To shew you how the Lord Christs Intercession in Heaven is a sufficient relief to al his Children against all their corruptions they bear about them And I know before I enter about it I may say in so great an Assembly all those that are the Lords they wil much more desire to have a relief about their corruptions than about the greatest afflictions that betide them in all the world For I know no such evil that the people of God lie under as their sins in their own apprehensions Now then the Question is How doth the Lord Jesus Christ's being in Heaven serve as a relief to Gods people under their many infirmities And to that I shal bring my Answer to two Heads according as I laid down two sorts of infirmities I told you there is one sort of infirmities that is not common to all nor to any of Gods people unless when wofully deserted Now the Question to that is Quest. 1. What is the Intercession of Jesus Christ unto the Saints under such abhominable fals What Relief is the Intercession of Christ to David when he lies in Adultery To Peter when he denies his Master and to others when they fal into the like sins What is the interecession of Christ to them Answ. That I shal dispatch very briefly and I will lay you down what I have found to be the Lords mind in these two Conclusions First 1. That during the time that any of the Lords people do rant after that maner against him fal in that way against him the intercession of Christ is so far from affording comfort to them that it is the greatest aggravation of their sins and Christs being related to them and so their being related to him doth make their sin beyond al measure sinful that is the first Now a child of God turning rebell against his Father while he lies under this rebellion the intercession of Jesus Christ indeed our selves know upholds him and grace wil bring him home as I shal speak by and by but during that time he is interdicted al communion with God through Jesus Christ. Many are the evidences I could give you of it in the Scripture what was Ephraim God saith he is his dear Child but if he joyn himself to Idols let him alone saith he let him alone he is joyned to Idols let him alone I wil meet him as a Bear robbed of her whelps I will meet him as a Lion or as a Leopard I wil tear the very Caul of his heart And the Prodigal all the while he had run away from his Father and wasted his goods amongst his harlots his Father lets him alone let him starue and giue up the Ghost he never inquires at al after him and had I time I could shew you abundance of particulars to make this good that the Lords People when they fal
the nature of a corruption that can contribute to it No all that is in a corruption is deadly and poysonful and dishonorable to God but as one of the Fathers said of Adams fall Oh! happy fall that did obtain such a Redeemer So you will say happy are the People of God in the midst of their corruptions when the Lord Jesus doth them so much good by them Now if you will know what is the good he doth to them I acknowledg I want strength and time and you would want Patience if I should discourse of them at large I wil name but four Particulars and the naming of them wil confirm you in the truth of them if you compare them with the experiences of all Gods people The first is this 1. By the Corruptions that the Saints of God carry about them the Lord keeps them in a continual self-abhorrency which is the most excellent frame on this side Heaven I know what I speak that there is no frame of Spirit in this world so excellent as a self-abhorring Spirit taken but with the next branch that you shall hear of presently now nothing laies all Gods people so low as their corruptions I tell you if the Saints of God had all the afflictions in the world lay upon them were it not for their own corruptions they would rather be proud of their afflictions they are ready oft-times to murmur against God as David and Job were tempted to it I have walked with God in my integrity and simplicity and yet I must thus be made worse than others Oh! that would be grievous but now when the Soul is sensible of its own corruption dead heart unprofitable Spirit and the like then wretched man that I am who shal deliver me from it I say again nothing in the world keeps Gods people so low as their corruptions and that is a great gain Augustin had a Speech That God would rather allow Lust to keep his Grace humble than Grace to make his heart proud Oh! nothing so abasing as the relicks of corruption which exceedingly advantages Gods Children The Second Advantage is That as it makes us very low in our own eyes so 2· It wonderfully magnifies Christ Oh! it maketh Jesus Christ most precious nothing makes Christ so precious to the Saints of God as the Corruptions that they bear about them Nay I will add more that had Jesus Christ forty years ago done the work satisfied for sin and made me stand in Gods favor and now I had no more need of him I should quickly forget him As suppose a man had forfeited his estate and his Life forty years ago and some dear friend buys all and gives him all and sets him up again now forty years after he hath traded and grown Rich by his own Wit and strength surely he cannot but remember how he was beholding to that friend forty years ago I but he would never remember him so well as he would that friend that should do that every day for him I live upon his Table and Almes every day and yet he Loves me never a whit the less So when a Soul remembers I was a dead Man an enemy and Christ brought me and not only so but every day I forfeit all and grieve God and shall bring ruine upon my self mark how Paul concludes it in Rom. 7. when he said Oh wretched man Who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death I thank God through Jesus Christ Oh! Christ Jesus his appearing it was dear to Paul Now here is a wonderful gain beyond all the Righteousness of this world if the Saints of God had in their course as much Righteousness as the glorified Saints in Heaven and the Angels in Heaven have it were not so glorious to God in this administration as a spirit that magnifies Christ and abaseth it self and this is wonderfully advanced by the reliques of corruption that we bear about us Thirdly Another great benefit is 3. Hereby doth the Lord temper his People to make them submit quietly to every bitter Cup the Lord gives them to drink Nothing makes the Soul so Patient under affliction so quiet in the loss of all other things nothing doth it like to this Oh! had I my deserts should the Lord mark mine iniquities it would not be the loss of a Child would serve my turn it would not be the clipping off of a piece of my estate it is mercy I am not destroyed nothing makes the Soul lay its hand quietly upon its mouth and quietly submit to every dispensation of God though never so bitter as the sence of corruption we daily bear about us And in the last place 4. Hereby doth the Lord wonderfully make his People long to be dissolved and get to Heaven where they may leave sinning against him for whatsoever carnal People may think there is nothing so grievous to the people of God as sinning against him and when they shal come to die when they shall put off mortality and leave off dishonoring his name it is more welcome to them then to be rid of afflictions and that made Paul long to be in Heaven because I know while I am in this Body I shal never be with the Lord as I should be but I long til that day shal come Now here is gain when that corruption those reliques of it abase thee and magnifie Christ and fit thee for every dispensation and make thee long to be at home with the Lord and I might add in the mean time make thee attend conscionably upon all the means that may bring thee to him and is not here wonderful gain So that you may see of what use the intercession of Christ is to al the Saints in the middest of all their sinful infirmities that they bear about them I will now dismiss you presently with two short Uses of it First USE 1. This Lesson if truly understood for I know it wil be a hard thing to keep wicked men from laying hands upon it but I think Gods mind is that his own Servants should have their portion whosoever abuse it but here they may have a constant relief against that which is their greatest burden I am sure of it if thou beest the Lords no burden like thy corruptions and thy other afflictions would be easily born by thee if so be corruptions did not aggravate them in thy own apprehensions Now if the world were given thee it would not be such a succor as this to thee when thou canst say in all thy wandrings Oh! I have talked with many a Soul Oh! never such an unprofitable wretch as I saith one I think no one hath such a forgetful head as I saith another and none have such impetuous affections as I saith another Oh! but doest thou remember that he is at Gods right hand that gave himself for thee and in an acceptable day carries thee home and carries thee stil in his bosom how he appears for thee every day
in the midst of all thy corruptions if thou didst know it it would engage thee to joy and to every thing that is Holy and Good the Lord set it home to the hearts of his people and teach them to apply it to their own Souls in secret And then Secondly USE 2. 2. I say to you all from hence All of you learn what need there is of getting an interest in Jesus Christ for that is the end of my Sermon To perswade you to see the need that you have of getting an interest in Jesus Christ. Would you know why I wil tel you Al the sins that you commit as you wil commit sins every day you live but all the sins that you commit are all writ down in Gods Book he numbers your steps though you number them not your selves he hath your iniquities in a Bag and the day is coming when he wil cal every one of you to an account and now Friends what if you have not a Daies-man or a Mediator to appear for you I remember Ely said Oh my Sons if men sin against men men shal speak for them but who shall speak betwixt the Soul and God So you have committed innumerable sins and your own hearts and Consciences tel you more than any man can charge you with How wil you do to appear before God What if you have not a Mediator the Lord Jesus that is a Propitiation for our sins What a woful case are you in Take heed you do not imbrace a Cloud but study Christ and get found Faith in him and if Christ be yours you are secure but look to it or your case is dangerous I dare not stay you any longer The Lord give us understanding in all things FINIS THE HIGH PRIVILEDG Of all True BELIEVERS To be the SONS of GOD. Opened in a Sermon at Suttons Hospital Novemb. 12. 1654. John 1.12 13. But as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that beleeve in his Name Which were Born not of Blood Nor of the will of the Flesh Nor of the will of Man But of God THe dependance of the Words stands thus First You have in the beginning of the Chapter a most glorious Description of Jesus Christ both of his person and of his Natures and of his Office under the Name of the Light that inlighteneth every one that cometh into the World Then Secondly You have a description of his Entertainment in the World when this great Lord submitted to this work and manifested himself What was his entertainment First He came into the world and though the world were made by him Yet the world would not know him he came amongst his own that is his own nation and kinred who had been instructed about a Messiah that was to come and had long prayed for him Oh! that he would bow the Heavens and come down amongst us he came amongst them and they would none of him they would not receive him Truly this is the ordinary lot of Jesus Christ wheresoever he cometh but yet there were a remnant that did receive him and shal receive him even those that belong to the Covenant of Grace And what get they by it That Remnant that handful that do receive Christ make the best bargain that ever was made in the world As many as did receive him to them he gave this priviledg that they should become the Sons of God and so here you have the comprehension of all the happiness that Beleevers do receive by Jesus Christ they are made the Sons of God so that the Text hath two things in it First 1. Here is the Means whereby Souls are made partakers of Christ that is upon receiving of him that is the means and condition or instrument All that receive him which is interpreted in the next words even they who believed in him Believing in Christ and Receiving Christ is al one This though it be a Doctrine of wonderfull comfort I shall speak nothing of it but of the second That is 2. The benefit that they all receive who do partake of Christ what they get by him They all of them have this priviledg or Prerogative That they are made the Sons of God and so without any more preparation to the Text or explication for the Doctrine I will explain in the handling of it I say without any more preface I lay you down this Doctrine Doct. That al who believe in Jesus Christ are made the Sons of God the Children of God And that you may receive this with better attention I will to make you the better understand the Lord's scope answer a Question that is this Quest. You say it is very cleer in the Scriptures that al Beleevers are made the Children of God that is one of their Priviledges but what is the reason that no more is named but that one They are Justified they are Sanctified they have the Promises they are Reconciled they have a thousand excellencies in this world yet here is none named but only this they are made Sons Why is no other named but this Answ. I Answer plainly and it will be of great use to understand it namely that though somtimes in the holy Scriptures our Sonship is but one of our Priviledges yet very frequently in the Scripture all that Beleevers do obtain from Christ in this world and the world to come here and to eternity all is comprehended in this one That they are made the Children of God Really you wil see it as cleer as the Sun presently that God comprehends all other priviledges in this one that he that hath this one he that is made the Son of God he hath all other that can be imagined or that you can find any Speech of in al the Book of God so great is this And I wil give you a little light about it and then you wil receive the Doctrine I hope with the more attention and with the more desire to see your own Interest in it You shal see and observe it as a general that very frequently when the Lord describeth the Covenant of Grace the new Covenant what he wil be to his people in the new Covenant he is very frequent in the setting down of this I wil be their Father saith he and they shall be my Sons and Daughters I know not how often the whol Covenant of Grace is expressed in that word I wil be their Father they shal be my Children but very cleerly you shal see it if you turn to Ephes. 1.5 where the Apostle doth bless the Lord for all the abundant Grace that is manifested to us in Christ there he sets it down in this one expression having predestinated us to the adoption of Children What is al that Al the Graces al the Good that we enjoy from Christ you have it in this one Sentence God predestinated us to the adoption of Children he hath done all when he hath
know not how often in this one Chapter eating drinking is interpreted by Beleeving and Beleeving in a Metaphor is nothing but Eating Drinking therefore my work shal be God willing to explain this know then in general that this great Grace of Faith whereby Souls partake of Christ it is in the true nature of it nothing but an accepting or receiving of Jesus Christ to be that unto us which God sent him to be for poor sinners the Scripture is most cleer in 1 John 12. As many as received him he gave them power to become the Sons God even they that beleeved in him So that to receive Christ is to believe in him now the receiving of Christ being a spiritual act of the soul wherin the understanding and the wil must both have a share it hath pleased the Lord I beseech you mark it it hath pleased the Lord to set out this one act of Beleeving by abundance of Metaphors in the Scripture similitudes taken from the Body and every one of them being rightly interpreted wil cleerly set out the nature of Faith and what the Soul doth when it beleeveth in Christ as I wil give you but a tast because it is but one only that I mean to open and that is in my Text Somtimes 1. Beleeving it is very often set forth by Coming Come unto me He that cometh unto me I will not cast him out that is to Beleeveâ— Now Coming therein is a figure an expression taken from an act of our Body of our Feet wherein there are alwaies these three things 1. There is the place from which we go 2. There is the place to which we go 3. There is the way and means in which and by which we go Now these interpreted would cleerly shew you what the Soul doth in Beleeving So likewise 2. To look up to Christ that as Moses lift up the Serpent in the Wilderness that whosoever looked upon it was cured so Christ is lifted up that we may look upon him Now that very act of the eye to look to an Object for such an end being rightly interpreted would cleerly shew you what the Soul of man doth when it beleeveth in Christ. And so 3. To stay upon him or to lean upon him which is a Metaphor taken from the Body that reposeth it self upon somewhat to uphold it when it wants strength of its own now this being discovered would cleerly shew you what the Soul of man doth when it believeth in Christ. 4. Now among many of these Metaphors this Text of John's pitcheth upon this especially of eating Christ and drinking which is the action of our mouth and stomach wherby our life comes to be maintained by our Food and there is in this of eating and drinking so cleer a demonstration what the Soul of man doth when it beleeveth in Christ and how it may discover whether men do beleeve or no that you cannot desire a cleerer than this is if God do but vouchsafe the ful understanding of it That then which I have laid out for a part of this afternoon's work is to shew you wherin the eating drinking of our food doth shadow out Beleeving in Jesus Christ to eternal life though I have but now brought you to that which I would endeavor a little more fully to discover to you Would you know then wherein the Holy Ghost maketh the comparison to stand for I dare not go to ad the study of our own brains but wherein the Scripture makes these to answer one another eating and drinking food for bodily life and Beleeving in Christ for spiritual life wherein do they answer I answer in these six things some of them I shall not need to stay upon for if I should stay upon all I should not have time to cleer the rest but in six things do the eating and drinking of our food answer our laying hold upon Jesus Christ by Faith and I wil desire you to mark them because it is the foundation of a great tryal of your spiritual estate The first 1. That the Lord when he first created man with a living Soul with a life this life of man is not able to nourish it self to preserve it self in being nor to strengthen it self when it is any waies impaired but God hath appointed that which is food such creatures as have suitable spirits in them to the life of man that mans life under God lies in these and cannot be preserved without them but it is the meat and drink as the ordinary expression is it is the food and the nourishment the means wherby the life of man is preserved in a man and give him all other things in the world let Angels attend him Princes wait upon him let all that God hath given to the whole Creation be bestowed upon him keep food from him and the man dies he doth not live though it is true we live not by Bread only but God can preserve it otherwise but in the ordinary proceedings of God take away food and you take away life you need no other weapon mans life the nourishment of mans life is food that is one Now answerable to this for our spiritual life it is laid up and to be found wholly in the Lord Jesus Christ in his flesh and his blood but you must know it is his flesh and blood prepared that look as other meat Bread must be broken and ground and baked and so made fit for mans use before he partakes of it so the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ was ground was broken by the passion and sufferings he underwent for our sins and by vertue of his dying communicated it to us his flesh and blood hath merited life satisfied wrath and in Christ and Christ alone lies all the spiritual life of his people and can be had no where else Give him all the obedience that ever mortal man had give him the righteousness of the Holy Angels in Heaven give him all that a mans Tongue can speak of or his Pen write down he is a dead man if he have not the Lord Jesus Christ to be his life it self Our life is hid in Christ as the Apostle saith there is the treasury of it There is the first that as our humane life lies in Gods disposing I mean by his so ordering it in our food so our spiritual life lies only in Jesus Christ. That is one Secondly these three first I wil be very brief in The second branch is this 2. That look as God in nature hath planted in every man because his life is the most excellent thing skin for skin and all that a man hath he wil give for his life therfore God hath planted in man a more vehement appetite and desire after food then after any thing else in the world and if he be put to it that the choyce must be made it may be he would not part with any thing that he thinkes is sutable to him but if
wil is and he gave it me in commission when I came from him not to deny food to any one that cometh after me Nay saith he last of all 4. This is the Command I have from the Father That I should raise them up all at the last day Though it is true the bodily life ends and fails and they shal turn to dust as others do yet when I come to make good the life that my People must have in abundance when I come in the last day to make it good to them I must raise al up that ever did partake of me to life you see here is the benefit which is laid down in the Text I have only a little paraphrased upon it thus I have opened the Doctrinal part That whosoever would live happy Eating and Drinking of Jesus Christ is the Duty required of him and they that do it are happy abundantly Let me now a little apply this to you but three Uses I wil briefly make of it or rather the Lord makes them for it is out of mans power to do it three things I would observe First USE 1. If you be but willing you may cleerly discern whether you are partakers of Jesus Christ yea or no Oh! that the Lord that is the Father of spirits would work upon your spirits while I am speaking Friends Shall I speak a little freely and examin this great Assembly where doth your eternal happiness lie tel me in your own hearts what you would answer to it if God did examin it where doth your hope of happiness lie Would not this be your Answer Only in Jesus Christ the Son of God that became a Savior for poor sinners I disclaim all other things and I look for my happiness only in Christ Would not this be the Answer of you all It may be some Pharisaical self justifiers they can pitch presently upon their own honest and innocent life but I pitch upon that which I think every one of you would answer It is Christ you say but what Christ is it that you make account is your life What Christ is it Is it Christ the Son of Mary and the Son of God Christ that died upon the Cross that rose again and ascended into Heaven and sits at Gods right hand in the Glory of his Father and that shal come again in the end of the world to judg the quick and the dead Jesus Christ is preached to you in the several meetings in the ministry of the word Is it this Christ you look for I let me add this If there be no more for thee or me than this this Christ that sits at the right hand of God if thou canst not ad this Christ fed upon by me It is Christ in you the hope of Glory it is not Christ in Heaven the hope of Glory therefore I must needs beg of you that you would be true to your own souls for through mercy I have a little converse amongst men and a little experience of them but the want of the knowledg of this point undoeth many men they have heard so much of Christ that unless they be the arrantest sots and debauched persons they can tell you all the story of Christ but if you come to examin how I pra'y came this Christ into your hearts I know how he was prepared for Bread how the Father hath ground him and baked him pardon the expression I know how the Father hath prepared his flesh and blood to be meat and drink But how came he to be your food and how got you your interest in him if you did eat his flesh and drink his blood in a carnal way it would do you no good for though you go for Church members yet if the Lord have not done these things in thee which I have spoke of thou wilt be utterly lost when thou comest to seek for salvation Doth it not trouble thee to think how thou canst answer these four or five Questions I will but name them First 1. Hath the Lord convinced thy Soul really and cleerly that there is no salvation to such a wretch as thou art further than Christ Jesus wil vouchsafe it unto thee art thou set down under that that is wel for believe it til this work of Christ come upon our hearts we never see the necessity of that work Secondly 2. Hath he raised up in thee that amongst all the contents thou findest in other things though God maketh thy Wife comfortable or thy Husband comfortable and al things sutable yet stil thy heart is unsatisfied if I have not Christ I am undone What will my riches do me good if I have not Christ What wil all the talk of others do me good if I have not Christ Hath he raised up in thee such a desire after him What sayest thou Thirdly 3. If at any time the Lord smile upon thee though no body be by but he smiles upon thee in secret thou hast gotten some cleer Evidence that Christ is thine and he wil own thee before the Father Canst thou turn back and even laugh before the Lord and say Oh Lord is it so Is Christ mine Is this to thee 〈◊〉 the honey and the hony combe 4. Dost thou find likewise in a way that thou know'st not how it is brought about but thou findest somwhat settled upon thy heart that hath changed the frame of thy heart thou that art by nature proud lascivious and naught there is somwhat that is wrought in thee and there comes some strength that though thou canst not walk as thou should'st do yet the Lord is dear and his Children are dear and his waies are dear some strength God affords that thou art not pleased in the world but thy soul finds that God hath enabled thee to make him the end of thy life and his word the rule of thy life Hath he done this for thee then there is eating and drinking of Christs flesh and blood then in the name of God thou doest partake of Christ But good Friends be not deceived I tel you in many places not one of a hundred that hears such a Doctrine as this have any part in Christ or their feeding upon him or relying upon him therefore I pray try your selves That is the first Use I wil make of it Then in the second place USE 2. Oh! what a comfort may this be if the Lord would enable me to speak of it I could pour down even showers of Consolation upon those souls that have gone along with me in the tryal All you that the Lord hath shewed this mercy to you that you feed thus upon Christ I tel thee this Carry it home thou hast eat a meal's meat that will keep thee as a man while God lives he hath given thee one bit Oh! one mouthful of Christ to get into Christ I read of the Widows Oyl truly it was a delicate portion that God laid out for her that for a great while together shee
had a little Oyl in the bottom of a Cruse and a handful of meal in the bottom of a Barrel and she and her Son did live upon it for as many years as the Famine lasted I warrant you that poor Woman would not have taken a hundred pound for it So that poor soul that can say I bless God he hath raised me up from my low condition and I have abundance of the world about me but I know Christ is more dear to me than all the world I know my prayers are to him for life and I hang upon him as wel as I can for life and look for it no where else and I dayly apply my heart to him in that poor measure his Spirit enables me I tel thee poor soul he hath given thee Jehoiakims portion and the richest food for manna was Angels meat this the Angels nay pardon me God never created any creature in the world to tast of this but every poor soul how wretched soever that lives upon Christ feeds upon â—t I pray meditate upon this at home and the Lord help you to ruminate upon this in secret Is it so Lord that the poor soul that casts himself upon Christ is thus made one with him Surely I wil never take care how it is in the world with me God hath provided wel for me my Lot is fallen in a very good place And Lastly USE 3. For Exhortation I shal make but one Use and that shal be in the very words of our blessed Savior when he begins this Doctrine in this John 6. ver 27. when they came and flocked after him for the Loaves saith Christ to them Labor not for the meat that perisheth but for the meat that endures to eternal life This Counsel of Christ I would a little press to you though I borrow half a quarter of an hour forgive me for it is for your good First saith Christ 1. You seek me for the loaves labor not for that Friends we are all cumbred as our Saviour said to Martha in Luke 10. the latter end Martha Martha thou art carefull and cumbred about many things So we are cumbred all of us about many things some of us are cumbred how to get more wealth some of us cumbred how to dispose of the wealth we have got we are cumbred about our places offices and these worldly things hurry us up and down we can hardly come into any place but all the peoples talk is no body is at leisure but full of business and what is it for the meat that perisheth all that thou laborest for is perishing perishing money pershing wealth perishing honor perishing profit alas Freind in a very few daies all that thou laborest for wil not be worth one penny at least to thee and but over a little time to no body else perishing things not worth your seeking the Lord knows they are not they that the world comes in most upon and all that their hearts can wish comes in with ease it is not one hours content it is but meat that perisheth but now labour saith he for the meat that endures to eternall life here is meat worth your labouring for I appeal to all your consciences that have heard the Sermon whether this meat be not worth the labouring for whether to get an interest in Christ to hunger after him to long for him to rely upon him Is not this worth the seeking Oh! seek it and to encourage you 2. I wil tel you what our Savior adds in verse 27. Labor for that meat that endures to everlasting life saith he the Son of man he gives it you that is you have no promise if you labor for the things of this world How many are those that toyl and moyl and cark and care most for the world and it wil not come upon them many a man sits up late and riseth early and manages his business discreetly and yet it wil not come but God hath engaged himself by a Promise that he that seeks the bread of life shal have it that if thou canst but pour out thy soul Lord leave me not destitute of Christ he wil not deny the Son of man to thee But lest some-body should further add Give it me Why should he give it me What is there in me that the Son of man should be given me Why should I think the Lord Christ would give me this food If I ask that he ads For him hath God the Father Sealed that is I came into the world under a sealed Office to do the wil of my Father and the work that my Father hath sealed to me made my work to do is To give eternal life to those that seek it He can as wel deny himself and deny that he is sent from God and his Office as to deny the bread of life to a soul that unfainedly labors for it Wil not this do it The Lord bless it and give you to consider what I have said and win all our hearts to study that Jesus Christ may be more in our thoughts FINIS SELF-DENIAL Opened in a SERMON At St. Mary Spittal March 26. 1649. Matth. 16 14 and so forward Then said Jesus unto his Disciples if any Man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me For whosoever will save his Life shal lose it And whosever will lose his Life for my sake shall find it For what is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Or what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul THe occasion of this speech of our Savior was this he had a little before told his Disciples what great things he was shortly to suffer at Jerusalem whereupon Simon Peter begins to rebuke his Master for admitting of such a Melancholly thought Far be it from thee to imagine that God will ever suffer thee to undergo such sad things as these are Master pitty thy self if there be any danger take a course to avoid it Our Savior therefore replies to Peter get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me this is nothing but the savor of the things of the world that makes thee give me this wicked counsel having rebuked Peter he turns to al his Disciples and utters this speech that I have read wherein our Lord strikes at the Root of that which made Peter give him that carnal counsel for the Lord knew it was nothing but unmortified self in Peter and he wel saw that it would bring the like bitter fruits in all in whom it was not Crucified and therupon gives them that counsel that is contained in those three verses that I have read to you wherein there are these two things First 1. Here is a Lesson necessarily to be practised by all Christs Disciples in these words If any man wil be my Disciple Let him deny himself Take up his Cross And follow me that is the Lesson Secondly 2. Here is
an Argument to perswade to the learning of this lesson the Argument is taken from the necessity of it it is so necessary that that man that wil not deny himself even to the denying of his life for Christs sake wil undo himselff by his good husbandry by his providence if he think to save himself by following more wary Counsel he wil ruine himself but if he wil resign up himself to the counsel that Christ gives him Christs counsel shal save him and Salvation any other way he shal never find Now lest some-body might object against this and say But in probability the following of thee and taking up our Cross wil be so far from saving of us that it wil ruine us and the looking a little better to our selves may save our state save our credit save our liberty save our life Wel to that saith Christ do but cast up the gain that wil be got by this way I deny not but a man may by that providence that you speak of save his estate and save his credit he may possibly gain the world a great state in it but he wil lose his soul by it and that man that should purchase al the world that should be able to say this Kingdom is mine the other Kindom is mine all the Kingdomes of the earth are mine But what did they cost you nothing but my soul I gave my soul for them that man hath made a miserable bargain of it he will gain nothing that will venture the loss of his soul for the purchasing of the whol world The worth of a soul is invaluable and besides when a soul is once lost the loss of a soul is irrecoverable what shal a man ever give in exchange for his soul Therfore set this down for your Conclusion The man that wil not follow my counsel upon the best account that can be made is certainly an undone man This is the scope of Christ in these words Now I come to the Doctrinal part which I shal only insist upon at this time and in it there are these two things First 1. Here is the Lesson that Christ teacheth and imposeth on his Disciples in these words Let him that wil be my Disciple Deny himself Take up his Cross and follow me Those are the three things that Christ imposeth upon all his Disciples Deny themselves Take up their Cross Follow him Secondly 2. Here is the Condition upon which this Duty is imposed If any man wil be my Disciple Christ wil compel no body to be his Disciple and if they have not a mind to be his Disciples he wil not impose upon them denial of themselves and taking up of their Cross and following him if they like other waies better let them take them and see what will come of them in the end but if any man wil pretend to be a follower of Christ if he be resolved to be listed amongst Christs Souldiers or admitted into Christs School or into Christs Family then this is the ABC this is the first Lesson that he must learn He must deny himself Take up his Cross and follow him and that is all that I will say to the Condition of it that it may be as a watch word to all you that hear me this day I shal by and by by the Lords assistance handle a Doctrine that I know is very hard to flesh and blood that which possibly many of you never yet learned nor have any purpose to learn but only now remember this You shal not be compelled to learn it if you have not a mind to the Doctrine that shal be opened you are at freedome to take another way provided you wil not lay claim to be the followers of Christ Run your hazards and enjoy your good things in this world and see what wil come of it but if you have a purpose as I know you have and would be glad to be thought followers of Christ then be you high or low Lords or Ladies Gentle or Simple Learned or Ignorant know you that this is injoyned to every one whom Christ will own that they must deny themselves take up their Cross and follow him It is only the first of them that I purpose to treat upon at this time Deny himself and the Doctrine which by the Lords assistance I shall handle is this the very words of the Text. DOCT. That whosoever wil be a Disciple or Follower of Christ he must deny himself And for the explication of the words there is nothing hard but this The word He shal deny himself doth signifie a total abrenunciation he must wholly deny himself as I shal make good out of the Scripture it must be a total work Now for the proof of it that it must be so it were easie to turn you to a great many Scriptures where the very same words are used and upon the like occasion you shal find it in Mark 8. and also in Luke 9. but for fear I be prevented I wil content my self with a Text that I wil turn you to and that is in Luke 14. from verse 28. to the end of the Chapter it wil abundantly demonstrate the necessity of this Doctrine If Christ may be beleeved you shal find there that there were a great many came in to Christ to be his Disciples great multitudes they were taken with his Miracles his Sermons and the Conversation of the whol world began to run after him and gave in their names as fast as they could be admitted but mark what Christ saith to them about verse 26. saith he If any man come after me and do not hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Lands and his own Life he cannot be my Disciple mark what he saith he cannot he doth not say I wil not own him but positively because there is an impossibility of being Christ's Disciple unless that a man do so far deny himself as to renounce and and forsake whatsoever may be called himself And lest he should not be beleeved he doth prosecute this by three parables that follow there in order and they are to this purpose in the two first parables he doth plainly tel them 1. That if any man pretend to be Christ's Disciple and do not learn this lesson of self-denial that man if ever he be put to it wil prove an Apostate if ever times of tryall come that man that enters into Christs School not having learned the Lesson of self-denial wil prove an Apostate or Secondly 2. If he be never put to it in a way of persecution then he wil live all his daies but in a meer form of Godliness and an unsavory general profession he may make he wil never have any power in it and this I say the Lord shews in three Parables the two first of them you wil find they are taken one from a man that goes about a building to errect a House before he have throughly cast whether he have mony
and apostacy that is sound amongst Christians I observe and it is an observation that many have made that in the primitive times of the Church when death and ruine was visibly to be expected by any one that would imbrace Christ then it would be hard for any man to enter upon Christianity until he had resolved upon this lesson because they took it for granted I go to poverty I go to hanging I go to stoning I go to beggery if I go to Christ and therefore they had need see so much in Christ that they might be willing to part with all for him and yet even then our Savior Christ noted that a great many came in upon false grounds but now after the name of Christian Religion hath obtained in the world and men are made Christians from their mothers womb I mean in an outward form that assoon as we have a Child born we say it is born a Christian and then we go and Baptize it as a Christian and then when it cometh to Church it hears Sermons as a Christian and then as it grows up and gets a little more knowledg it comes to the Lords Table as a Christian and so men are made Christians by piece-meals and they know not how but the Lord knows mavelous few amongst them ever understood any thing at all of this Point of self-denial that if amongst such a great Assembly as here is if a man in Gods name should come but to enquire and say Are you a Christian Yes Do you follow Christ I And are you his Disciples in truth I hope so Pray have you denied your self Have you learned the Lesson of self-denial God he knows they know nothing of the meaning of it as they say it is heathen Greek to them they are unacquainted with it Wel Friends know you for certain that you may be bred Christians bear the name of Christ make a profession of Christ hear Sermons of Christ partake of the Sacraments of Christ and do a thousand things that may outwardly speak you to be the Servants of Christ and in the mid'st of all these you may be as far from being his Disciples in truth as they were that crucified him and if ever the Lord come but to dispose of you and come to cal for that same beloved Self of thine whatsoever it be that thou must turn it out of door the world shal quickly know that thou never didst receive Jesus Christ in sincerity I am perswaded that so many of you as have but ordinary understandings in the Book of God wil be able to Judg if you compare my Doctrine with the lives of most men You wil say Either this that you have preached is not Gospel or we are not Christians there are very few of us that ever learned this Lesson therefore I desire you before I go any further every one a little to try his own soul what evidence he hath of this Lesson wrought in him you cal your selves the servants of Christ I beseech you examin Have you ever denied your selves I do not ask now whether you have learned a particular Lesson to deny your Credit or your Wil at this time or the other time but this same putting off this old Self this renouncing of thy self hast thou ever learned that and among a great many trials I wil pray you at the present but to weigh these two Considerations First 1. In the presence of God tel me what doest thou weigh in the Ballance This is somwhat a blunt question but it is that that wil mightily determine the case Tel me in the sight of God what doest thou weigh in the ballance my meaning is this I know thou knowest what thou art and what thou hast thou knowest thy self it may be to be a Scholler a wel bred man it may be a great Magistrate it may be of a great estate it may be a great name it may be an honest man it may be an unblameable conversation it may be cried up as one of the eminentest men in the City where thou livest looked upon by all the City and neighborhood as a rare man and it may be al this is true But tel me what doest thou weigh in Gods sight That God that knows how thou esteemest thy self can determine this question Wel thus plainly Art thou one that carriest such thoughts as these there is such and such and such they are great Professors I thank God I am as good a man as any of them all I am sure I have a better estate than they I am sure I have more honesty and as good a wit as they and I can set out my foot by any man let any man detect me I thank God I am not as a great many others are and thus thou judgest of thy self Alas poor soul thou art very far from Christ Jesus But now if God wil bear witness with thy soul that in the mid'st of al these thou sayest I am indeed I am it may be a learned man or a great man or a rich man or a Schollar and the like and I have lived honestly and God hath kept me from many notorious wicked waies that others have walked in but alas what am I for al this a poor undone Creature a worthless Craature not only my lusts but my Prayers my Sermons that I preach or hear my duties that I perform God help me I am a base Creature if God look not upon me in Christ Jesus I have no one thing to commend me to God nothing that ever I had nothing that ever I did is of any worth I loath it all Oh! if God would give me Christ I am wel but for other things I have nothing there is the man the soul that weighs nothing in the ballance is nothing hath denied himself he hath sold himself he saith indeed I am worth nothing Why Is not this house yours It was but I have sold it and spent the mony too God help me so I had these things but alas they are not worth a Groat they are wotrh nothing my worth is this if I have hope in Christ I am wel if not I am lost Ask but thy soul that Secondly 2. Tel me for that fourth branch that I named because I know if thou hast but any face of Christianity thou darest not own those that are known Lusts known Corruptions thou endeavorest to mortifie them but I wil insist only upon that fourth branch Dost thou with all that thou hast look upon thy self as one that is Christs Baylif and Steward he hath laid up thy portion for thee he measures out thy wealth for thee and for him thou livest and for him thou givest that that thou hast and that that thou art and that that thou doest thy honor thy estate thy life thy wealth if Christ may have any service from them by them through them here they are thou tenderest them to him with all thy soul if the Lord have
goes down to tread upon the Devils shoulders to exalt it self to tread upon the world to exalt it self to tread upon Gods shoulders to exalt it self any thing that may exalt it self they are so opposite that it is impossible they should both close Thus far indeed a man that hath made Self and self-interest his portion that man may keep a marveilous fair quarter with Religion as a learned man handling this very Doctrine I am preaching of useth this comparison saith he Those men whose interest is to maintain their own greatness they will entertain those that are cal'd the wits of the time the pleasant Companions the Drols they wil entertain them bid them welcom be glad of them though it be some cost to them it is a part of their grandour it maintains their greatness to have such and they are as welcome to them as any body in the world but if any of these wits or pleasant Companions shal come to engage this man and say pray Sir be you bound with me for ten thousand pound Sir you are welcome to my house and your Horse is welcom but Sir you must pardon me he wil throw him off rather than do so So a man may entertain Christ while hearing of Sermons and discoursing of Religion is only an Ornament to a man a man that is of a selvish spirit may cordially entertain him so far but so as to hazzard their own undoing for Religions sake for Christ's sake to bring me to beggary it may be to hang me upon a Gallows to throw me out of my Office to overthrow my Trade wholly to throw these away no man living can entertain Christ so far It was a notable speech of the King of Navarre that afterwards was Henry the fourth of France The King of Navarre was a Protestant and owned the Protestant cause but his eye was upon the Crown of France to which he knew he was Heir and hoped to come to it and when Beza and the other Protestants did press the King of Navarre to appear cordially in the cause of God saith he I am yours I wil go with you but I promise you I will go no further to Sea than I may come to Land if a storm rises his meaning was he would never hazzard the loss of the Crown of France for the Protestant Religion and so he fared accordingly and truly so may it be now Thou maiest tel Christ after a complemental manner Lord thou art mine it is my honor to be thy servant I delight to hear thy word preached and worship thee in my Family I rejoyce in it all this fair quarter maiest thou keep but beleeve it if the Lord have not taught thee to renounce thy self when Christ shal come to try thee throughly thou wilt honor him just as you shal find in the Story and it is worth your observation in 1 Kings 20. you have such a Story as this is Benhadad the King of Syria sendeth to Ahab King of Israel such a Letter as this saith he Thus saith Benhadad All that thou hast is mine thy Wives and thy Children are mine thy Gold and thy Silver is mine and al is mine Ahab very loth to quarrel with him returns him a very fine complement My Lord saith he all that I have is at your service all is thine Well Benhadad sendeth next day Wel saith he whereas I sent to thee that all is mine that thou hast I wil send my Servant for to seize upon it while he only talked of it Ahab would own it my Lord all is thine But when to morrow I wil send my servants and they shal seize upon it then he cals his Counsellors See you how this man picks a quarrel with me what a fair answer I sent to him and now he would seize upon all So if Christ come to thee til thou hast learned self-denial and say here I wil lay thee down here thou shalt lose thy credit or thy Conscience peace with me or peace with men thou canst never close with Christ cordially till thou hast learned this lesson And then Thirdly and Lastly for my Motives 3. Know for certain If the Lord have but once taught thee this Lesson there is nothing in all Christianity wil be difficult to thee all the waies of Christ will be as plain as a Bowling-Alley whatsoever thou art called too I know I speak a great word but I bless God I speak not unpreparedly in it all the waies of Christ wil be as plain as a Bowling-Alley to thee if the Lord have but once taught thee to turn Self out of doors thy work wil be brought only to these two Heads 1. One part of it to learn to know what Gods wil is concerning thee what he would have thee do or what he would have thee suffer And 2. The other wil be but to seek strength of him that thou maiest not in thy own power go about it but be supported by him but otherwise all objections and difficulties are removed if Self be but once turned out of doors Why Because all the difficulties in the waies of Christ ariseth from Arguments taken from Self only either this will be against my honor or here I must part with such a pleasure or here my estate may hap to be crack't or here this may hazzard my life or this may deprive me of my Children or this may cut me off from my Friends or this may expose me to scorn some such thing or other comes in but otherwise when a man hath no such thing to take care for I have no honor nor credit nor wife nor Children nor friends I regard the Lord is my portion I live upon him I drink water out of that Cisterne and I care for no other when the soul hath but once learned that it is but with him as it was with Paul saith he I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem and I profess I know not what I shal meet withal saith one then I will tel you what you shal meet withal the Holy Ghost saith the Jews shall bind you and Scourge you and Whip you and send you to Rome and what then they all fal a Weeping for and about him saith he why break you my Heart What care I to die at Jerusalem when it is the work of the Lord he had no self to regard he had turned self out of doors and all the waies of Christ were easie to him and God knows this passage was one of the motives that made me choose this Theam before this grave Auditory Truly our times are extream Ticklish and dangerous and the wisest man under Heaven knows not what wil betide him whether it fals back or edge no man can tel what will become of him nor what to meet withal and a great many wise men are perplexed to know what to do now I tel you if the Lord do but teach you to deny your selves to lay aside all that may be called self
you will have no great difficulty not in these difficult times but only to know what God would have you do that you may not go out of the right way for want of light that you may not ingage in sinful actions for want of councel you wil pray to God to make your way plain but as for other difficulties whether you shal stand or fal Live or Die it would be no great trouble to you if God had but once taught you to deny your selves Nay you will not only be prepared for the worst times to come but for all services you shal be called to It is a good observation of a learned man That all the men that ever have been eminently serviceable either in matters of the Gospel I mean in Duties of Religion or eminent if it have been in a Christian way in matters of Charity or Justice or in being faithful Patriots they have been men that have little regarded themselves that have not greatly regarded what they were talked of how they were valued or esteemed or what was like to betide them but only men that were willing to be publick sacrifices if need were and those men have done the best service if any other So in the greatest Services you may be possibly called to suffer turn but Sarah aside now when Abraham must go to Sacrifice his Son Sarah shal not know of it and then Abraham can do it well enough for he had learned to follow Gods will but Sarah would have Rung him another Peal So turn but self out of the way and you will be fit for any thing God shal cal you to But you will say Quest. How shall a man attain this Lesson What Arguments or what Rethorick can you use that you can expect ever to prevail with men to turn them off thus from themselves I wil tell you Answ. Not by any Humane Oratory in the world is this to be effected but it is the Lord it is the spirit of the Lord that doth it no man can come to me saith Christ except my Father draw him now in every coming there is a Terminus a quo and a Terminus ad quem the term that you must go from that is Self the term that you must come to that is Christ Now no man cometh from himself or cometh unto Christ til God Almighty draw him But what think you is Gods drawing It is nothing but the spirits perswading Gods spirit perswades them And what do you think the Spirit of God perswades them too that I now come to and afford me but one quarter of an hour for that and then God willing I shal have done The Spirit of God when it doth enable a soul thus to deny it self it doth perswade them of these two things which two things I would commend to you as your study The one is 1. The Spirit of God maketh him see what Self is and no man under Heaven longer cleaves to himself than he is deceived in himself for let him but once have but a true information of himself and he abominates himself presently That is one And then the second is 2. To make him see the excellency that is to be found in Christ the All-sufficiency that the soul may find in Christ and when they see their present portion worth nothing and that that is offered to them to be every way satisfrctory then doth the soul readily renounce the one and close with the other so that then if you would get out of your self and renounce your self 1. Study to know thy self study but to know who thou art in any of all these things that I have spoke of know but thy self I confess it wil not be a short study but I commend it to you and the Lord help you that you may study it I say know who thou art First 1. What thy Lusts are for I tel you while a man is in his natural estate his Lusts are very excellent Ornaments to him it is a brave thing to many a man to think what a proud spirit he hath how he can rant it and tread all his Neighbors under foot and that he can go from one filthy pleasure to another that pleases him Study to know what thy sins are and who thou art that art a sinner 2. Study to know what the World is thy Wife Honor Estate Friends Liberties Study to know them 3. Study to know thy Righteousness thy Honesty thy Prayers thy Duties that thou art so prone to magnifie thy self for and to make a bottom to stand upon labor to know them and thou wilt have enough of them as I beseech you conceive me thus Suppose a deluded young man were in love with some beautiful Woman as he takes her to be he takes her to be the paragon of beauty of all the Country and of good behavior and therefore he sacrificeth his State his Life his Parts his Wit and all to be her Servant imagine now that this Woman were some ugly deformed abominable strumpet that hath only painted her self and take her paint off she hath the horridest visage that a man can look upon and is all eaten up with loathsom Diseases shew this Man but this Woman in her own colors let him see her deformity he hath quickly enough then he loatheth himself for loving her Would the Lord therefore teach you but to take any of al these things and but to weigh them and study them and see what shadows what baubles what dreans what fancies the best of them all are I speak not now of your Swearing and Drunkenness and Whoring but I speak of your Pomp your Honor your Wealth your great Estates your Revenues your good Cloaths Nay I wil go higher your Prayers your Mercies your hearing of Sermons your Righteousness your Honesty if God would shew you what guilt what filth cleaves to them what venom is in them how little they wil stand your soul in stead in the day of tryal if God would teach you but to study these things aright certainly you would say Lord draw me from my self deliver me from my self that am the veriest monster that lives But especially 4. Study to know Christ Christ saith Let him forsake himself and follow me said his Disciples to him Lord we wil follow thee but what shal we have I wil tel you saith he you shal have a hundred fold more in this world besides in the world to come you shal have life everlasting that is in a word Thou shalt find in Christ all that that wil abundantly satisfie thy soul there is righteousness enough there is wisdom enough there is mercy enough there is goodness enough there is counsel enough there is honor enough thou canst not need so much as thou shalt find in Christ Rivers Seas Oceans of happiness in Christ study to know Christ and thou wilt follow him These things I thought good to press and purposed indeed to have pressed them larger but I know not
you shal find this That when all their infirmities as many of them had many gross ones and grievous ones when they were all reckoned up if this were but added but his heart was with God his heart was upright with God that was a Salvo for all the other he never broke with any of them or cast them off if so be their hearts were but with him in the midst of al other weaknesses and infirmities if they could but say as Hezekiah Lord remember that amongst all my weaknesses my heart hath been with thee there was Gods content And on the other side Let the performances be never so glorious or in things never so much commended or never so much delighted by the Lord the duties of his Worship and Ordinances if God did but say of them This they did but their hearts were not with God Nevertheless his heart was not upright with God that signified the Lord threw it all away as rubbish stuf that he took no pleasure in the wnrld in So then because that it is the Lord that looks at the heart and if he have that he hath all he hath so much as contents him and never breaks for the want of any thing else as you shal see further anon because where the heart is the best they have wil be brought out therefore above all we should keep that That is a third ground The Lord looks at that above all others therefore we should keep it above all others Then Fourthly which I need but name 4. The Devil who is our Adversary and the Lords Adversary and goes about like a roaring Lyon seeking how he may devour all his assaults and batteries are at the heart and he counts all his labor lost if he do not get into the heart if he gets that he gets the Cittadel that wil command all the rest and if he be kept out or cast out there he himself counts he hath nothing therfore he saith he wil enter into Judas's heart he wil fil Annanias's heart he labors to set up his Throne and his Dominion in the heart of the Children of disobedience that is his great endeavor Now then when we are called home to the Lord we give our selves up to him to fight his battels and where we know the Enemy wil most assault certainly our care should be most to watch If the good man of the house knew at what hour the thief would come he would watch if he knew what part of the house he would assault he would watch that most of all Now Satans whol endeavor though I confess that by his good wil he would not let the Lord have a good word out of the mouth of any of his People nor of any People in the world nor the bending of a knee if it lay in his power but he wil afford that so he may have but the heart and if he can but any waies batter the heart or discompose the heart or bring it out of frame he wil not greatly be troubled at all other formalities they give to God Now because Satan doth so extreamly lay his battery there surely the servants of God should above all keepings with all diligence keep that That is a Fourth ground Fiftly Another that is of equal force is this 5. The Heart even the heart of a Godly man it must be kept above Keepings with all diligence because in truth it is not to be trusted No not the heart of the best man living in the world it is deceitful it is false it is cozenig it is treacherous not that the new heart is so but our heart is renewed but in part and though it be made a Garison for Jesus Christ where our Treasures are kept yet that Garison hath a great many false enemies that lodg within it It were endless for me to explain this sufficiently in so short a time as is fit for me now to speak you know where the Scripture saith that the heart of man of an unconverted man in Jerem. 17.9 It is deceitful above all things it is desperately wicked so desperately wicked and deceitful that none but the God of Heaven can search into the bottome of it the deceitfulness of a mans heart goes as deep as Hel that no plum-line wil go to the bottom of it Now when the Lord plants Grace in any of his Children and brings in some integrity some sincerity yet there remains a woful tang of their former falshood and treachery that was in it before any Grace was brought in and if it be not wel kept and wel looked too the old deceits wil quickly so get up again that all wil be put most wofully out of temper upon a sudden Should I but give you the instances that the Scripture hath left upon record of some of the choycest Servants of God how they have been lamentably befoyled when they have but a little trusted their own hearts and not had a sâ—ickt watch and ward going along with it you would hardly beleeve it That holy Apostle Peter how did he trust his heart when our Lord and Savior asked him whether he would stick to him when he was in danger Lord saith he I wil die with thee and hang with thee if thou beest in danger and he beleeved it and little knew what danger lay in the bottom and David he would not countenance any one that was wicked but when he trusted his heart it led him to Murther and Adultery and Dissembling And abundance of others that when they have but a little beleeved their own hearts the best of Gods Children have found so much that I may say of all the Saints living what Solomon saith in Prov. 28. He is a Fool that trusteth his heart he that trusteth his heart that wil beleeve it No if it be not throughly searched and throughly looked too as Solomon saith of an enemy Beleeve him not though he give the fair words there are seven abominations in his heart So I may say to a Child of God that hath set Christ and Grace and Gods Glory the highest in his heart Beleeve not thy heart there are seven abominations lie in it that if it be not very wel looked to it wil lay thee in the ditch it will bring thee into woful inconveniences Now then as you know in a Garison if so be that we would keep a Garison if there be impetuous enemies without if the Rampires and Wals be strong the Guard may be a little secure but when they know there are a hundred false enemies within their wals that watch for any opportunity to open some postern Gate or other to set fire upon the City to make way for the enemy to come in they are mad that think that it wil be kept without al diligence So that because of the deceitfulness and treachery of our hearts we must therefore keep them with all diligence in the world Lastly to give one more and that is that which my
are of the Lords own teaching ever study that Lesson for as for others they love and like their hearts wel that when they are convinced of every thing else in the world they will boast of their heart that that is right but when a man can say as Hezekiah said to God Oh Lord remember I pray thee that I have with an upright heart sought thee as if he should have said If I could have done thee more service I would I would have prayed better and beleeved better and been more active but thou hast had my heart the Soul that can say so the Lord would answer it even as David said to the Lord in 1 Chron. 29. Oh! Lord saith he I know that thou lovest the heart when he had offered up an Oblation he and his People Oh Lord saith he I know thou regardest the heart and hast pleasuere in uprightness as for me in the uprightness of my heart I have sought thee So when thou shalt say Father my memory is weak my utterance bad my temptations strong and my corruptions great I can deny none of these but the Lord knows he hath my heart could I get it in a better frame I had rather see it in a better frame than have the estate of an Emperor Where there is a willing mind it is an excellent Speech of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 8. in the point of Alms and I wil give you an instance in that that you may make of it in a hundred other things when he would stir them up to contribute he saith where there is a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not as if he should have said The Lord hath given me a heart I like this cause so wel I would willingly give twenty shillings to this cause but I am not able to give above a penny Hast thou a willing mind to give more thou art accepted according to what thou hast The liberal gift is but the work of Gods Providence the willing mind is the work of Gods Grace The same wil run throughout all duties go to prayer one man hath such an utterance conception working fancy can speak admirably to the affecting of all but these are but gifts and parts and if he hath an humble broken heart goes with it there is Spirit too but it may be another poor Soul that joyneth in the Duty that can hardly speak a few words of sense together but God knows if they could pray if they could pour out their souls if they could wrastle with God they had rather do it than any thing else in the world that is the work of prayer the other is but the work of common gifts that is for the edification of others therefore know this all of you we poor creatures deal with men and it is almost impossible but we value men according to their parts a man whom God enableth with parts and gifts to edifie others especially if there be Grace in his Heart too he is measured by the value of his parts by all men God goes not by that value No that Soul that takes most care about his Heart give me a Woman a handmaid that wrestles more in secret that she may bring her wil to Gods wil and may love and hate nothing but what God loves and hates find such an one out they are Gods choice ones and his Jewels therfore be not discouraged for the want of any thing while you can say The great God that knows al knows my great study is about my Heart I will conclude this use with a speech I have often heard of one Mr. Banes a man that was indeed an excellent emminent Man for any thing that was good and not long before he died some friends were with him in his Library it was an excellent one and they fel a commending of it I saith he There they stand but the Lord knows that for many years last past I have studied my Heart more then my Books Oh! There was a study give me a Scholler that can say I study my Heart more then my Book I study my Heart more then my Shop-book I study my Heart more then my Counting-House I study my Heart more then a Bargain that it may be pure and Holy this Man is a blessed Man and Woman that hath but attained this and then Lastly the last Use that I would make and I wil but even name it is this USE 3. I beseech you therefore for the time to come will you all make this your study You have heard it is a dangerous Heart you bear about you whatsoever you are that think you may be most secure of your heart you are but Fools to trust it and your Conversation wil be as your heart is remember all the Arguments I gave you and let it prevail with you for the time to come to enter into this serious study how you may keep it in a good frame continually and this now would have been an Introduction to the second Question for this is sufficient to prove that it ought to be so But now the next is Quest. Wherein stands the keeping of the heart in a good frame It is true I confess it is comfortable to hear of the general endeavor of it but what are the rules and directions the Servants of God should attend to when they would keep their hearts in so good a frame that it may be such a Temple of the Holy Ghost for the Lord to delight in Answ. That is too great a Question in truth to handle in a little time only these two or three things I would say in general before I dismiss you As First 1. There is no talking it is not for any man living ever to talk of keeping his heart in a good frame until first the Lord have broken it to pieces and new molded it that is for certain while the heart is as we come into the world as we are in a state of nature the wildest Beast under Heaven will be easilier tamed than the heart of a man wil ever be ordered It is just as a Bel that hath a crack throughout al the Bel-founders in the Town Country they may hew it and chip it and scurfe it and I know not what they wil never make it sound right til it be choped a pieces and new cast So I say the heart of man is by nature so forlorn so ful of wickedness so utterly destitute of all good that if all the Teachers and Tutors under Heaven had it to work to bring a man up and make him right til God take away the heart of stone and regenerate him and give him a new heart there is no talking of ever keeping it in a good frame Therefore if you be not throughly grounded in it get your heart knocked in pieces the first thing you do pray God Almighty to break it through break it down break it up
I note to prevent a discouragement if any soul should not be able to go along with a man in every thing nor understand every thing it may be an argument to humble thee but not to discourage thee only I shal ad this in the last place They that live this Life the poorest weakest simplest of al that are numbred amongst the Lords people though others may be able to dispute of it better than they and to speak of it to the edification of others better than they yet they that live this life know more of it than al the world besides I only give you these little things beforehand Now I come to the Two things that I promised to treat of The one is I will first prove it cleerly to you out of the Scripture that there is such a Life a spiritual Life a Life of Christ which al who receive Christ live while they are in this world demonstrate the truth of it that there is such a Life Secondly I wil then a little more fully endeavor to discover to you what this Life is and wherein it stands and I do not doubt but if the Lord help me in it the things I shal deliver wil be not only useful in some kind but very comfortable to the Lords people First then The thing that I promised to endeavor the demonstration of it is That there is such a Life besides the Life of eating and drinking and putting on of Apparel and buying and selling and enjoyment of these corporal things there is a Life that is a higher degree of living wherein men are taken up above the life that other people live that there is such a Life and I wil tel you why I undertake to prove this Because as natural men do not understand it so out of the pride of their hearts disdaining that there should be any happiness that the poor creatures enjoy which they themselves cannot understand thereupon they beleeve that there is no such thing and I am confident that most people that live when they hear men talk of the Life of God and the Life of Christ and a new Life a supernatural Life a spiritual Life they look upon it as a meer juggle partly in the Ministers to make the world beleeve that they know more than others do and the simple people that follow them that they may have somwhat to cloke their fantasticalness they give it out but for the thing there is no such matter this men beleeve and the rather because it is a hidden life and hidden both under the poverty and weakness of those that have it and many times hidden under their Infirmities and corruptions that break out which maketh them look like other men and so men force upon themselves and nourish in themselves a conceit that though some it may be may be honester men than others and stricter and devouter and the like yet this is but a little chipping and he wing of the life that other men live and can live as they do if they had a mind to it but as for a life by another principle and Rule and to have other manner of operations than the Life of the rest of the world they abominate the admitting of it into their understandings and I am perswaded this is that that hardens abundance of people that they never look after nor suspect their own condition therefore I say I would now prove to you that there is such a life which the Saints do live and instead of turning you to many particular Scriptures to prove it I wil give you these Four Arguments out of the Scripture which you shal in reading the Scripture find frequently proved to your observation Four Arguments to prove that there is such a Life that is a higher degree of living and another kind of Life than the rest of the world live The one is The comparison between the two Adams Jesus Christ is to al those to whom he is a Root as Adam was to al to whom he was a Root For it is worth your observing that the Scripture speaks but of two Adams from the beginning of the world to the end of it two Men the First Man and the Second Man because they two only were Roots that others do partake of either which they spring from or are grafted into Now the first Man Adam God made him a living soul and of a living soul is he the Root of all us that is that natural rational life that all men in the world have the first Adam he was the Root of it which communicates it Now Jesus Christ is to al us the Second Adam and the Lord made him not only the Lord from Heaven to rule all that should be under him but to be a quickning spirit that as the natural men follow their stock so al that partake of Jesus Christ must follow their Stock and consequently must partake of his Life as the branches of the first Adam do of his Life That is one Argument and pray weigh it for if it please God anon I shal come to examine whether you have that Life or no. Secondly The second Argument I give is this The Scripture holds it out as the proper end of Jesus Christs undertaking his work to give life to al that come to him that upon their coming to him he should give them life I am come that my sheep might have life that they might have it in abundance and herein appeared the love of God that he gave his only begotten Son that we might live by him He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Son hath not life Now were there no other life than what all natural men live this were an absurd argument and a poor I may speak it with reverence undertaking Suppose I should go visit and ride a Journey of many hundred miles and lay down my life and part with my estate For what end That the party for whom I do it might have have a house that hath a house already why should I do this if there were not another house than that which he dwels in Or why should I go that he might have health that is well without my undertaking if there were not another health besides that So were there not another life to what end should Jesus Christ make that the undertaking of his life and death and burial and communicate life if there were not another Life than the rest of the world live Thirdly Cleerly you wil find this and very frequent in the Scripture that all the world are said to be dead til they come to Jesus Christ all the world are said to be dead rich or poor sickly or healthful yong or old they are al dead Now it is apparent that they are not dead as to their natural life that needeth no confutation to say of this Assembly that they are dead men when they live and move and breath and talk and do all the actions
found in any but those that have the Life of Christ there is no man else in this world but if Christ be Twelve to him there is somthing else that is Thirteen therefore ask your souls that find you that by some operations it may be you know not whence they come nor how they come in you but there is this fixed upon you there is no good to your souls but Christ let you enjoy God in Christ for your portion and that is that good your souls aims after you may tel others and I tel you that I do this and my heart may deceive me but if I examine my soul I can never say I do this truly unless the Life of Christ be in me Secondly Another Pulse wherein this Life constantly puts out is this That the things of Holiness they are connatural to him Holiness Righteousness to be gracious to be freed from sin to be filled with love and kindness and mercy and pity and these things there is a kind of natural making out of the heart towards these because look as it is in our outward man you know that the actions of eating and drinking and of a man no man shall need to learn them he may have arts that shall make him do them mannerly but to do the things they are natural they were born with him So now to be holy with God to be righteous in our conversation with men freed from sin to walk as the Lords redeemed ones to practice these things this is your life and therefore the Apostle Peter useth this very expression That we were redeemed by Christ that we should live to righteousness live to righteousness Now as a worldly man lives to his money another man to his wrath another man to his lusts these are the things his heart runs its circle in A gracious man the things of holiness and righteousness are the things that suit his spirit And then thirdly and lastly I wil name no more but bring it a little closer to you a third thing is That the Lord having made his Will to be the Rule of our Life and revealed this Will in his Word thereupon the soul that is alive unto Christ eyes the Word looks at the Word is guided by the Word the Will of God revealed in his Word that is his Card that is his Compass that is his Square that is his Meet-wand his eye looking to the Word as his only guide No man I dare affirm it though other things may come neer it but I dare affirm it that whosoever will study it shall find in this world doth any of these three things but he that hath the Life of Christ upon a serious debate to make Christ the good of his life to make the acts of holiness the things that his soul naturally makes after and for the directing of him in all to live as the Apostle saith not to the will of man or the will of the flesh but to the will of God that is to the Word of God to make Gods Word the Rule of all our actions in our bent and purpose here is the discovery of the Life of Christ and this is now to have Christ in you Now I beseech you Brethren tell me for I shall by and by dismiss you when I have made but one Use more I will leave the third what say your souls to these things Really leave al self conceitedness and apprehensions that you may have out of the Pride of your hearts of your own conditions what say your souls to these things I have opened have you now the Life of Christ I wil tel you Brethren if I had time to press it I had here a large Field to enter in and to shew you what worlds of people that go for Christians are yet utter strangers to the Life of Christ. I will name you a few that you may enlarge your thoughts of them when you are alone All they that know not Christ it is impossible that there should be a making of Christ their chief good where there is no knowledg of him There is no valuing of an unknown thing All ignorant persons are strangers to this life as the Apostle saith the Gentiles were strangers to the Life of God because of the ignorance that was in them If you know not Christ and his Excellencies you can never live in him Then al those that live to their lusts whose life is to be wanton unclean drunken prophane these live to the Devil the Devil lives in them they may say I live not I but the Devil lives in me And so thirdly All they that live to the world whose work that the genious of their heart carries them to from morning to night his wealth purchases buying trading c. there their soul fixes on them there they rest to the world they live And again All that live to their pleasures whose vivâ—re is bibere and the rest they eat and drink and sport and play and give them these and these are the things that make a happy life to them All these and abundance of others which I fear I should presume upon your patience if I should stand to innumerate but al these are cleerly proved to be destitute of this Life of Christ think of it Brethren think of it It is an easie thing let me tel you to be Christians as we cal it they are cheap things to hear Sermons cheap things to profess Religion in our daies wherein I think a long time there have not been fewer that mind it heartily yet abundance now pretend to it but to be alive to Christ to be able to say in this Life I have other business than what I have here below I have a Trade a Wife a Husband and Children but the Lord knows my Conversation is in Heaven my life is in Heaven it is Christ that lives in me they are few can say it and the Lord help you that you are not deceived about it And then the other Use that I will make of it is That this Lesson is a most comfortable Lesson for I do not doubt but the clearer any man speaks about these things of Gods Kingdom the more will the hearts of Gods people be able to joyn with him I fear not but many of you can say it is thus with you the Lord witnesseth that with you doth he not That there is nothing you have such an appetite after as the means of Grace and Salvation that you might live and that your hearts dread at the waies of sin and that if God put you to it you beg of God to be stripped of all rather than God should not be set up and that al your prayer is let God give me Christ God in Christ for my portion and that reverently not in a ranting way as if a lewd life could honor God as some rude people pretend to now but that I might be holy in this perverse generation especially in my
it self unto the Word the Word of Promise for matters of Comfort the Word of Precept for matters of Duty the Word of Direction in matters of means and Ordinances the applying of the soul to the Word in all these things the Lord according to his goodness making these things good to the soul that thus applies it self to the Word this is to live by faith So that now to come a little neerer to the business for I have not yet explained it so far as I hope by and by I shall but I say now to live by faith First It is not only for a soul to beleeve in Jesus Christ for salvation or to beleeve all our life time that we shal be saved by Jesus Christ when we go out of the world it is not only that that is but a piece of it But To live by Faith it is in our course to enjoy the whol revealed will of Christ to us as our life thereby fetching all our consolations that are fit for our life from promises thereby fetching all our practices from the declaration of what he makes our duty and applying our selves in the use of those means which the Lord hath appointed us to attend upon for the accomplishment of these this conversation of the soul is the living by faith To live by faith it is this I am not only made partaker of the Righteousness of Christ which is imputed for my justification and is inherent for my new quickening I have not only these principles in me but by the grace of faith al the comfort of my life is fetched from a promise al the rule of my conversation is from the Precepts and all the means I use for the accomplishment of one or other they are those that are prescribed there so that be it to undergo affliction to conflict with a temptation to go through my Calling be it to comfort my heart against temptations when the soul looks to the Word of Christ and there takes the Word for its guide both for comfort and duty until the Lord of his meer grace have accomplished in us all the good that he intendeth to us which wil never be til he takes us out of this world when faith ceaseth but in the mean time this and this only is that which the Scripture cals living by faith But now because I would yet make it a little plainer to you be pleased to know That although there are acts of faith applicable to every particular condition we are in which would require a Volumn to mention yet for the present purpose you must know that there are five things faith doth in this general living by faith that every one that is said to live by faith his faith doth five things in his ordinary course which are applicable to every thing that you can think upon which I shall not need to stand to prove though I will give a touch as I go along because I would spare a little time for the Application before I break off But there are five things applicable First The grace of faith looks at the Word as that which is most sure that is it yields a firm assent to the truth of all that Jesus Christ hath revealed concerning him in his Word The Promises that are made faith assures the soul they are al true they are not whimsies nor fancies The Duties and Directions there prescribed faith assures the soul they are things the Lord looks for so that the Apostle saith in Acts 20. when he lived as a Christian he did exercise himself to beleeve al that was spoken by the Lord in his Law and David saith Thy Word Lord is from everlasting It makes not any scruple or doubt but gives a firm assent to what the Lord hath set down in his Word That is one and that indeed is the Basis and Foundation of the rest The Second It not only assents that all these are true but faith acquiesses that these are the magazine the store house the comprehension of al excellencies that the soul shall ever be made partaker of he desires to be satisfied in the goodness of them he desires no other course of Life to order him but what is set down in the Word he thinks not there are any Councels nor Directions to be regarded nor compared to those set down in the Word he rests in them there his Treasure lies in that great iron Chest and the Word is not only true but his livelihood he knows God hath declared this in his Word and there his soul is satisfied That is the Second And then the third is this The Lord laies al our happiness up in his Word the happiness of our comfort the happiness of our holy conversation therefore faith directs the soul to attend to the Word as to its only guide and comfort that look as a man that is satisfied I am to travel in a dark night and to go through a dangerous place but I am sure I have a mighty guide not a Will of the Wisp as they cal it and an Ignis fatuus to miss-lead me and therefore as I love my life and happiness I will look to the Word by the Word I am guided by the Word I am directed as the Apostle expresseth it It is a thing you do wel to take heed to as to a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn until the day of Heaven come and you be brought to glory The soul looks to the Word as its only card and compass as the Marriner at Sea looks at his Card and Compass they are his guide so the Beleever he only looks at the Word as his guide There is the third And then the fourth thing that faith doth in al that live the life of faith is this That they make the things revealed in the Word the matters of their prayers they dare not beg a thing of God until they know it is Gods wil that they find a warrant to beg it either absolutely or conditionally they make the Word the matter of their prayers and endeavors and if they go about any thing or be under distress and affliction they labor to get rid of it by making the word their direction in that And Fiftly and lastly Doing al these things as well as it can it staies it self upon the truth and faithfulness and power and wisdom and goodness of God and the Lord Jesus who hath revealed these things to him he staies himself upon him for the accomplishment of these things in his own time and in his own way And he now that doth these five things he truly lives by faith The Lord hath turned the bent of his heart to it and he is assured his Word is true and that there lies his happiness he looks at it as his only guide he makes this the matter of his prayer and endeavors and when he hath done knows all his poor endeavors are nothing but waits upon the Lord to
damnation but for our selves of al the evils we lie under in this world there is none to be lamented so much as our unbelief Take my meaning thus Suppose a poor child under the care of loving and careful Parents that would neglect nothing that may do the child good but the child cannot eat his meat it hath no appetite or the meat is cast up alass if he have no stomach the child wil languish and for this and other distempers let the Parents weep over it never so much or dandle it never so much the child hath an inward root that wil destroy it I tel you what is true from the Lord there is nothing can undo you but unbelief there is no cross under Heaven can betide you but faith will carry you through it no duty can be preached but faith will carry you through it no Promise so hard in the Word of God but faith wil fetch out the sweetness of it Oh! this unbelief of ours undoeth us But you wil say Do you think the people of God are so much guilty of it I wil give you a little tast and by that you shall judg First All our not studying the Word that we are no more acquainted with the Word for were a servant of God assured that his livelihood in comfort in duty and every thing were to be fetched from the word there is no Merchant that would endeavor to be skilful in the mystery of his Calling more than every Christian would be in the understanding of the word And When the word is held out to us that we do no more value it and that we no more rely and venture our souls upon it it is nothing but our unbelief As if so be a man that I dare put my trust in if he make me a promise to furnish me with so much money at such a time I dare rely upon it But that I do not thus rely upon God in all my temptations and fully perswade my self that the Lord will deliver me it is nothing but my unbelief If a mortal man tel me if I walk thus and thus I will fall into many a danger and thus it wil fall upon me by Law this makes me careful That we deal not so with our gracious God is through our unbelief Nay in a word All our unevenness in our whol course that we somtimes rely so much upon the Creature that when things flow in according to our minds then my Line is cast in a fair ground then God hath made my Mountain stand strong while the things of the world are with me at another time if I see a visibility of ruine then I cannot say that the great God wil stand by me in these difficulties this is nothing in the world but unbelief Nay All your deviations If you find David using unlawful means going over to the King of Gath to gain relief it is nothing but unbelief If you find a man venturing out to take any unlawful comfort in the Creatures it is nothing but unbelief it is a thrid runs through the whol course of Gods people to make them live low lives and hinders them from the obtaining of that that would be consolation to their own souls therefore I beseech you you that have made Christ your portion and make account that faith must be your livelihood lay it to heart mourn under it pray the Lord to root out this bitter weed and make you masters over it for certainly it is a great evil we stand by faith we fal by unbelief it is that that occasions all the disquiets of our lives The Lord set it to our hearts and deliver us from it SERMON III. Gal. 2. part of verse 20. I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me now follows that which I shal more insist upon and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me NOW I proceed and there is but one great Use that I intend though I would a little mention another and speak a little of it in the first place Good Christian Friends weigh what I have said and regard it not because I say it but because of the evidence I hope goes along with it But the thing I collect is That you may all hence learn what kind of Christians they must needs be who can live in the flesh above the Word and Ordinances having no use of them and as they think nothing to do with them but live in an immediate Communion with God and enjoyment of him This is one of the wildnesses and infatuations that the Lord hath let out amongst us in this sinful Nation that many that have gone for sober humble gracious men and women they look upon al those that have to do with Ordinances that study Scriptures and tend upon Sermons they look upon them but in the A B C Form they are of a low pitch and rank themselves are above these things they have attained to a higher Form But this Doctrine that I have opened will cleerly direct al Gods people what to judg of them for if they live the Life of Christ for that they pretend to it is either the life of spiritual sence immediate enjoyment or the life of Faith if they pretend to an immediate enjoyment of God without the intervention of faith beleeve it they are beyond the Apostle Paul that professed in his own name and in the name of al the Saints that then lived That the life that they lived in this life it was by faith and not by sence yet these have learned that they are beyond his Form I will not say much good may do their hearts with it but poor Creatures their delusion will one day afflict them But if they say No we grant you it is the life of faith we live in this world Then say I Unquestionably and without all dispute it will appear faith hath its subordinate work it is the declaration of the Lords mind in his Word that faith meddles with and all the Ordinances and all tending upon the Word and Sacraments c. are the administrations of Christs will that is carried on in Ordinances and no other way I know sure I am the Scripture is silent in it Therfore Friends for such as are concerned in it they wil not be here to hear it nor any where else they count it a folly but to your sober Christians that desire to go to Heaven and to walk with the Lord in his own way give me leave to say this Therefore I confess our divisions and subdivisions in other matters of Religion are very sad the cutting of the people of God a pieces in the several molds and forms of Government and therby alienating their spirits one from another it is very sad and the Lord in his mercy remove those things But
yet this I must say That while these lower conditions are and as long as each form carries people to the Word holds out Christ in his Word Christ in preaching Christ in the Sacrament there is food for souls and if we could look aright it may be we would not be so angry with one another about it as we are for there is but one Truth and we pray the Lord to reveal it but stil here is carrying on the life of Comfort Duty Direction and all that faith meddles with that the Lords people may enjoy but for Gods sake and as you love the life of your souls watch against temptations that would take you off from the Word that the Scripture should be nothing this takes you off from that that your faith wholly meddles with for if you can say I beleeve God for such a thing and Christ for such a thing unless you find it promised in the Word it is presumption Therefore Pity such poor souls your own experience may tel you do but mark them generally they that live above Ordinances see whether the Spirit of God do not withdraw see whether the Lord hath any other way to convey himself to them than what he hath held out in his Word their loosness folly pride and joyning in any thing else that is naught almost plainly shews that the Lord hath withdrawn from them And secondly You wil find that such of them as have grace in them for I am far from thinking any that have grace cannot be under such a temptation but I fear not but the Lord will awaken them again though they be asleep because faith must be the navel and the string that must maintain them here But this I did not intend to be large in The great Use that I intend is To all the Lords people whose Life is Christ and in whom Christ doth live I would endeavor in the rest of this hour to give them some help out of the Word that this living by faith might be better known to the Lords People and more exactly practised than it hath been hitherto and if the Lord help me to divide it and you to receive it I will not fear but your life will be more honorable to the Lord and sweeter to your selves than it hath been and there are but two things that I intend to treat upon The one is Some serious Considerations or Motives to provoke all who have any thing of Christ in them that they would study this art of living by faith more than in time past And secondly and principally To lay out of the Word the true Directoins the easiest and the readiest way that a willing soul may take to be built up in it For encouragement to provoke you to it I pray think of these things First If you will be Christians it is our Trade and the way of our livelihood we have no other mystery for the maintainance of our lives but faith that is cleer Schollers may live by their Wits Trades-men upon their Mysteries and Gentlemen upon their Wealth But as a Christian we have no other living or way of living to God but only our faith Now because it is our Life and our Trade and our Profession it would be a horrible shame to be found Bunglers in that that is properly our own Mystery If a man should come and examine me a Minister of the Gospel and put into my hands a Merchants Book and bid me cast up such an Account and I could not this were no shame to me but if he should come and give me a Bible and bid me open a Text if I could not do it it were a shame to me So friend have you the right skil of living by faith No It is thy Trade As thou art a Member of the Common-wealth or one of the Army thou mayest have a Calling but as thou art a Christian which is thy best Life thou hast no Trade but to live by faith no other way to honor the Lord nor to manifest the Life of Christ nor to turn all things for thy good and the Lords glory it is thy living by faith must do it what a horrible disgrace will it be for thee to be found ignorant of it Secondly I tell you there is no other way of Life that any man pitches upon but it will very shortly appear to be but a poor thing If you should think that the living upon God this holy life it is a thing that is a mystery that you do not study but for the present life that you mind and you mean to follow the things that will help you to live in the world I tell you all those after a little while will prove meer delusions If any of you have the way as some of you have found it to raise up your selves to great estates of a poor servant in few yeers to become a great man in the place where you live and now you are wealthy Before our eyes God hath overturned all these things hath not God let us see how he hath pulled down great Princes and Kings hath he not let us see a thousand ten thousand a yeer a man may have and yet live to see them al buried and himself come to beggery doth not God tell us they are not al worth our study The Lord my meaning is dayly before our eyes stains the glory of all other waies of living never to the worlds end did he or wil he stain the glory of living by faith because you can no where else close with him Thirdly that which I most aim at in my Considerations is to acquaint you with this That this same Art this excellent Christian Mystery of living our life by faith it is absolutely the best life the most desirable life that any man or woman can live til they come to enjoy God immediately This I wil demonstrate and I hope I shal make it plain that if a man had the comfort of al other waies of living in any kind never would the learning or wit of man find out any life to be compared with the life of faith for the excellency of it and the excellency of the life of faith I would open to you in four or five Particulars the Lord perswade you but to study them when you are alone One is more general It is the Life which the Lord hath chosen out to be the life of those that he loved from all eternity The Lord you grant him al of you to be infinite in wisdom and therefore before his eyes al waies of living happy were apparent and out of them all he chose this same life of faith to be the life of those he loved from al eternity It is the Prophet Malachi's argument it is the best Conjugal condition for a man to have one wife and a woman to have one husband because else God could have made ten women if he would but he made but one that is Gods choyce
therfore that is the best matrimonial life Therefore the Lord say I who knew what learning what wisdom what friends what Phylosophy what Policy what any thing might advance men to he out of them al shews the living by faith to be the way how they should live in this world who are as dear to him as the apple of his own eye and to a sober heart more needs not be said to make him think it an excellent thing Secondly as it is excellent because of Gods choyce so It is the honorablest life that can be there is no life in this world so honorable as the life of faith First It is wonderfully honorable to God when his redeemed ones have their whol livelihood from him without hanging upon every hedg but to acknowledg the Lord I to tel every body where they come I have not one comfort in a child nor in a wife nor in a penny nor in a garment nor in a dish of meat but I receive it from the hand of God by vertue of my faith here God is lifted up in al his administrations And as it is honorable to God so It is most honorable to us for in truth if we were independent that is if we needed no dependance upon any we must be Gods our selves and no man would put his foot under another mans table as we use to say that hath one of his own To live dependantly upon another man that can live independantly of himself takes off from his nobleness but if we must live dependantly then surely it is more honorable and noble to depend upon the head than the foot He that hath not learned to live by faith upon God he lives in part upon skins of beasts upon the world upon the excrements of the world he lives I mean upon poor ragged beggerly creatures one man saith to Gold thou art my hope another man loads himself with thick clay wel this is a poor low thing in comparison of depending upon him more immediately that hath incomprehensible glory it is ignoble Thirdly In this world it is the easiest life I will speak it I humbly bless the Lord that I have any experience of it in my own soul but I dare speak it as Divine Truth to live by faith is the easiest life under Heaven Do not mistake me I mean not it is easiest learned that a man may learn it with a wet finger Oh! it is a hard trade to learn and this may be one motive it is not easily gotten but my meaning is that when once the soul hath learned it that it be but a Master of this Trade that it can say I have learned to live by faith no man under Heaven lives or can live so easie a life as a Beleever may Why Because the life of faith wil never leave any thing upon my care but to walk humbly and thankfully with my God it leaves the providing for my body and soul and posterity and for the disposing of them al and for al my affairs it leaves it at Gods doors laies it to him and to me leaves nothing but to take the Book find my duty bend the knee and for all the successes faith leaves it quietly to the Lord and is not this a sweet life We that are Parents know by reason of our carnality what a hard thing it is when we have a company of poor children to provide for in a confused World when all we have may be swept away and others to have great trading and yet our Ships miscarry how we shal pay all our engagements we know not but if once the soul have faith it directs him to leave al to the wise and gracious God and my self to acquiess in his will I repeat it again and I pray if you be not satisfied in it now study it and I wil be bound to recant it as the saying is at Pauls Cross whensoever you wil if ever man can come out and say the life of faith is an uncomfortable life no it is the sweetest life of all Oh! that God would perswade you to study it it is the easiest life Come into a family and tell me who lives the easiest life the Father or the Child the Child hath food the Father provides it the Maid cooks it he hath cloaths his Father buys him them the Taylor makes them and the child goes to school and never thinks what will become of him when his cloaths are worn out and his linnen spent he leaves all to his Father And then again I tel you It is the best life because in truth it is the surest life for that man or woman that will trust God and wil study to live according to the rule of faith I speak it with reverence they have a statute upon al that God is worth that they shal be provided for they have a statute upon his All-sufficiency I am a God all-sufficient walk before me I will be a horn of strength I will never leave thee nor forsake thee a statute upon his Wisdom Power Goodness Faithfulness what God is and hath he hath engaged to the soul that wil trust in him It is an old saying of a Poet That it is an uncertain Estate though it may be great if it cannot be built upon It is an uncertain estate to depend upon Cables and Anchors if it come home it is well but it cannot be built upon and somtimes they stand in need of an Insuring Office but how justly I dispute not But lastly This Art when once the soul hath learned it it will deliver a man from all base and unworthy means it wil deliver the soul from all base and unworthy means in any kind whatsoever because if he have God in his Word what need he shirk and shift or do any thing that is base when he hath such a rock such a livelihood for his soul as faith As now I wil give you but an instance The Apostle Paul when he was in prison at Rome he conceived he might have gone out by giving the Captain of the Guard some money but Paul scorned to give a penny when he was at Philippi put in prison in the stocks the Magistrates came and bid him come out he scorned to go out some might have said you may provoke them I care not he had God on his side Never did any one so much study to get an Office or Lordship or an encrease of his Estate that they may say there is that boy or girl provided for let them go where they wil their portion lies by me this is not so comfortable as to study this Doctrine That that life that you live in the flesh you live by the Son of God that this life of faith may be on your part your principal delight Now then the Last part of my Sermon which I come to is But how should we do this Attainable it is and in some degree all Gods people have it but what course
but what they signifie what doth a Promise signifie that God in his Gospel maketh to souls for a man may have Promises and truly from a great many able and great men good Promises signifie very little from many great men and mighty men but to know what Gods Promises are and what they signifie it would be a great comfort and I wil tel you briefly what they signifie and it may be a key to unlock all the Locks in the House that is al the Promises in the Bible First of all The Promises of God they do for the present at the instant of their making signifie That God loves us for all the Promises come from his heart his Providences come from his hands the Promises come from his heart and when the Lord makes a Gospel Promise to a soul he doth as if he should say to that soul I love thee dearly at the present before the thing be accomplished thou mayest say it signifies thus to me If the Lord make such a Promise to me he loves me And Secondly A Promise signifies thus much at present That God wil never hurt me God gives in a way of Providence those things to many men whom he wil hurt and destroy nay he will destroy them even by the things that he gives them but to the souls to whom his Promises belong they signifie not only Gods good will but nothing in the world that can betide them shal ever hurt them because they are all Branches of that Covenant of grace in which Covenant of grace there is no evil shal light upon the soul that is under it therefore God wil one day make thee to know that he intendeth thy good in it this is signified for the present And For the future A Promise is a certain infallible pledg of a seasonable performance His Covenant he wil never break he will not alter the thing that is gone out of his mouth All the Promises of the new Covenant are all backed with an Oath of him that is unchangeable Here is a Promise for my poverty for my temptation it comes from the God that first loves me and will do me no hurt and wil accomplish it Brethren Do you beleeve this As Jesus Christ said to Martha He that beleeveth in me though he were dead he shall live and if he live he shall never die Doest thou beleeve this I Lord I beleeve it So say I Do you beleeve this Do you not think you shall live comfortably And Secondly when I said in this third Direction about being acquainted with the Word I mean Be acquainted with the Duties held out in the Word as wel as the Promises for it cals to holiness as well as to comfortableness therefore in the Word learn your Duty and I the rather tell it you because many a poor soul takes a great deal of care and pains in some things that God never required and they afflict themselves and make their lives uncomfortable in things that God hath not appointed as not to tel you of many poor creatures in Popery that would thrust themselves into Monasteries God never required it but my meaning is study the Word you can never study any thing that so much concerns you therefore there learn your Duties the Duties that belong to your relations and particular places where God hath set you for to know the will of God concerning me argues an honest heart more than to know the will of God concerning others but study to know the Word in the Promises and in the Duties That is the Third Fourthly which must not be neglected When you have done all this faithfully and conscienciously serve the Lord in the use of means serve the Promises and Commandements serve them faithfully in the use of the means without distraction but out of conscience resigning up your selves For for me to go to labor for an enlarged faith and to know the all sufficiency of God and to have the Promises as familiarly as my Pater noster as they use to say for me when I have done this to neglect the means the Lord hath appointed this is not good But look as an Husband-man What rational Husband-man is there especially if he know God but he knows that the Corn upon the ground cannot yield him a Crop unless rain from Heaven water it and it cannot fall from Heaven unless God send it and notwithstanding all this unless God give the Corn a new body but because he hath likewise learned that ploughing sowing and harrowing and dungcarting c. are all duties belonging to Husbandry he serveth the Providence of God and God blesseth him accordingly Do thus with your souls God hath given you Promises for some things Commandements for other things serve him diligently in the use of the means but remember what I taught you before that by the use of the means I mean means only of his own appointment for faith dare not go out of his own line Lawful means that are agreeable to a particular calling to reason c. I have often thought and I speak it to you from the Lord that when a people walk with a Word in one hand and the use of the means in the other hand we fairly leave the business at Gods feet whatsoever the success shall be we will be his Servants when such a thing hath betided me I find this is my duty by the best Counsel I can get and so we leave it at his door and whatsoever will come fall back fall edg we may have peace and comfort These are the great Directions only with these I must put in two Cautions and when I have done them I think I may have said that which may be helpful to them that would walk by Faith The one is When I say we must use means and thus live by faith my meaning is First That when you have done you must never limit God God limits you and limits me but for himself Faith must not limit him My meaning is Do not limit him to the way how he shal make it good for he often works by contraries do not limit him for time when he shal make it good for it is good to wait patiently the Lords leisure though it be al the daies of our appointed season and we injure God and our faith doth not work up to its true height when we will come and say do it to day Lord or else I will question it to morrow no limit him not chalk him not out his way I may Lawfully expect from God that such a thing shall do me good but I may not Lawfully tell God which way it shall do me good I may Lawfully say from such a temptation God wil deliver me but I may not Lawfully say he wil deliver me from it within this week or fortnight but quietly wait upon the Lord as one that infallibly wil do what he hath spoken and is not here enough It may be some will add now
by way of Objection But what if my difficulty be such an one that I can find nothing in the Word about it What can my Faith do then Where is your circumscribing Faith within the compass of the Word It may be my difficulty is such as I find no Promise for it in all the Word I dare confidently then say it is a matter of no great consequence it may be in thy fancy some great thing as the fancy of man can blow up a Molehil to a Mountain but beleeve it if it be such a trouble as hath not a Promise it is not worth the taking notice of for all things that concern the Lords Glory and good of his People there are Promises in abundance That is my first Caution And the other Caution is When I direct you in all this to endeavor thus to live the life of Faith you must take heed of some other principles which will put the wisest of you all to the utmost of your graces and that is your own reason and your sence I mean not sanctified reason nor your holy experience but I mean carnal reason and carnal sence which in spight of our teethes will have an Oar in every Boat it will be putting in in all things that concern our whol Conversation If a Duty be propounded of a sudden I am called out to it it may be my Reason puts in twenty things against it You wil lose your Credit in it and your Labor and it will come to nothing it may be our Sence will oppose it You do but water a dead Plant a dead Stock nothing will come of it and I will tell you all the experiences that the People of God hitherto have found of our carnal Sence and Reason in all things that belong to the Waies of God they are but like a Sophister in the Schools a Sophister that hath a wrangling head will blur and blind and slur the clearest Positions in any Art in Logick Grammer Rhetorick Phylosophy or what you will when a Conclusion is made and proved a Sophister riseth up and he shal slur it all especially with weak people So it is with carnal men whereas a Promise and a Direction of the Word looked upon by Faith appears like the Sun in its strength look upon the very same with carnal Reason and carnal Sence and it looks like the Moon in Ecclipse a dark Body it hath no light at all in it Oh therefore watch against it and the rather because we are men and from our Mothers Womb we are corrupt men and therefore these things are bred in the bone and will not easily out but while we carry flesh about us they will never be subdued And therefore one handsomly expresseth it as Abraham did when God called him to that Duty it was cleer that God made it his Duty when he had called to it he never goes to call his Wife for she would have said Husband it is impossible this is but a delusion it is not possible the Child that must be the Heir of all Nations and in him they must all be blessed What! for you to kill him it is not from God never talk of it Friends I the rather desire to open these things because in truth to a great many the Life of Christ is not known and many holy souls do want plain Directions how they should order their Conversation as becometh Christians and in our uncertain daies wherein we are every day looking what new Confusions shall break out Oh! it were a sweet thing for a man to be stablished that he might possess his soul in quietness in the midst of all the Changes in the World and really it many times grieves my heart to think First How the common People of the World live amongst us they are totally ignorant of these things but they set their hearts upon Wealth and Honor and Pleasure and these perishing things these men are carried after when God knows these things are not worth the while I wil briefly shew you one instance in Dan. 8. you shal reade of a Goat that came with one Horn and he ran and killed all other Beasts that were in his way and that Goat was Alexander and this same Alexander in ten years space did conquer one of the greatest Empires I mean he brought into his own hands one of the greatest Empires that ever were in the World in all the four Quarters of the World except America had he a great part within ten years there was an end of him and not one of his posterity had one foot of it and yet he left a Son and Heir but al was carried away to others And so will al Earthly things we may struggle and strive and weary our selves in a vain shadow and when we have done no man knows for whom he have labored it may be we expose our Posterity to the greater malice envy and hatred and they wil be the sooner ruined What a pity is it that such beggerly things as these should be so looked after and Faith so little thought of I in the Second place It grieves me to think how many souls that are Godly and study the Scripture and attend upon the Word yet they rather study nice controversies and things that gender strife and help it may be to maintain a Party on this side or the other side and this great comprehensive Duty of living to Christ and living by Faith preached by many studied by few little regarded these are common Dunstable Truths that the old Puritans did preach a long time ago but we have a more Seraphick vein and Spirit and so God suffers us to be gulled of our Religion which is the sweetest Portion that can be enjoyed in the world we make it a matter of brangling and little comes of it either to the Honor of God or Comfort of our souls And upon such thoughts as these while the Lord shews me that mercy that I may preach any thing unto you I would fain acquaint Gods People with these things that they may know wherein their life lies and how they may lead it to the glory of God and comfort of their own souls I presumed upon your Patience if God please to lay these things to your hearts it wil not offend I hope FINIS Doct. 1. Doct. 2. Doct. 1. Quest. Answ. Vse 1. Quest. Answ. Vse 2. Vse 3. At Mary Magdalens Milkstreet Octob. 30. 1653. Doct. 2. Quest. Answ. Vse 1. Vse 2. Quest. Answ. At Mary le Bow Octob. 30. 1653. afternoon Vse 3. Object Answ. Vse 4. Object Answ.