some commands may be observed without so much as common grace as duties meerly moral but this must have a great measure of the spirit it speaks much acquaintance with God through experience of his wayes and much conformity to Christ in a well composed conversation in short it includes the highest perfection possibly attainable in this life yet let not this difficulty fright you for through Christ our sincere love though weak is accepted and our imperfect love because growing shall not be despised 8. This is the first and great command in respect of the End 8 Ratione finis All the commands of God are referr'd to this as their end and last scope which was first in the mind of the Law-giver 9. This is the first and great command in respect of the lastingness of it 9 Ratione perperuitatis Thou shalt love the Lord thy God it is not only spoken after the Hebrew (e) Futurum pro imperativo way of commanding but it notes singular perseverance Most of the other commands expire with the world as all or most of the commands of the second table but this remains and flourishes more than ever When Repentance and Mortification which now take up half our life when Faith which is now as it were Mother and Nurse to most of our Graces when Hope which now upholds weak faith in its languors when all these shall as it were dye in travail perfection of grace being then in the birth love to God shall then be more lively than ever That love which as it were passed between God and the Soul in letters and tokens shall then be perfected in a full enjoyment Our love was divided among several objects that cut the banks and weakned the stream henceforth it shall have but one current Our love is now mixt with fear fear of missing or losing what we love but that fear shall be banished There shall never be any distance never any thing to provoke jealousie never any thing to procure cloying never any thing more to be desired than is actually enjoyed Is not this then the first and great Commandment is it not our priviledge and happiness to be swallowed up in it this may suffice to evidence it to be our duty But then What abilities are requisite for the well performance of this duty and how we may obtain those abilities 3. What Abilities are requisite to the performance of this duty and how may we attain those Abilities This we must be experimentally acquainted with or all I can say will at best seem babling and therefore let me at first tell you plainly nothing on this side Regeneration can capacitate you to love God and it is God alone that giveth worketh infuseth impresseth the gracious habit of Divine Love in the Souls of his people Our love to God is nothing else but the eccho of Gods love to us Through the corruption of our Nature we hate God God implanted in our Nature an inclination to love God above all things amiable but by the fall we have an headlong inclination to depart from God and run away from him and there is in every one of us a natural impotency and inability of turning unto God The grace of love is no Flower of Nature's Garden but a Forreign p Non secundum bona naturalia sed secundum dona gratâ—ita Aquin. plant We may possibly do something for the meerly rational inflaming of our hearts with love to God e. g. God may be represented as most amiable we may be convinced of the unsatisfyingness of the Creature we may understand something of the worth of our Souls and what a folly it is to expect that any thing but God can fill them and yet this will be at the utmost but like a solid proof of the truth of the Christian Religion which may Non-plus our cavils but not make us Christians This may make love to God appear a rational duty but it will not of it self beget in us this spiritual Grace It is the immediate work of God to make us love him I do not mean immediate in opposition to the use of means but immediate in regard of the necessary efficacy of his Spirit beyond what all means in the world without his powerful influence can amount unto 'T is the Lord alone that can direct our hearts into the love of God q 2. Thes 3.5 Exoplat a Leo quod non ambigit posse praestari Ambros God is pleased in a wonderful and unexpressible manner to draw up the heart in love to him God makes use of Exhortations and Counsels and Reproofs but though he works by them and with them he works above them and beyond them r Deut. 30.6 19 20. The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou may'st live And again I call heaven and earth to record this day against thee that I have set before thee life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live that thou may'st love the Lord thy God and that thou may'st obey his voice and that thou may'st cleave unto him for he is thy life and the length of thy dayes He is thy life i. e. effectively and that by love saith Aquinas it is reported s Sales of the love of God p. 63. that it often happens among Partridges that one steals away anothers eggs but the young one that is hatcht under the wing of a stranger at her true Mothers first call who laid the egg whence she was hatch'd she renders her self to her true Mother and puts her self into her Covey 'T is thus with our hearts though we are born and bred up among terrene and base things under the wing of corrupted Nature yet at and not before God's first quickning call we receive an inclination to love him and upon his drawing t Cant. 1.4 we run after him God works a principle of love in us and we love God by that habit of love he hath implanted hence the Act of love is formally and properly attributed to man as the particular cause u Psal 18.1 116.1 Vâ—â—tius I will love thee O Lord my strength and I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice the Soul works together with God in his powerful working the Will being Acted of God Acteth It is a known saying of w Non ideo bene currit vt rotunda sit sed quia rotunda est Augustine The wheel doth not run that it may be round but because 't is round The Spirit of God enables us to love God but 't is we that love God with a created love 't is we that acquiesce in God in a gracious manner What God doth in the Soul doth not hurt the liberty of the will but strengthens it insweetly and powerfully drawing it into
c. Ye denied the Holy One c. And well it may for it is the holy day of the holy Son of God yea God the Father and God the Son have put off their own holiness upon it Not essentially for that is incommunicable Nor is it an Inherent holiness which they have Communicated to it 2 Pet. 1.4 as the Saints of God have who are made holy by a supernatural change of their natures But the Sabbath is holy by divine Institution by special dedication and consecration God having hallowed this day above all other days in the week by separating it from common and civil uses and consecrating it to holy and religious ends and purposes viz. to be a Sabbath of holy rest But now The Question Question is How may we thus call the Sabbath holy or When may we be said truly to make it holy 1. When we make Gods hallowing and sanctifying this day our Motive and Argument to sanctifie it by a holy Observation of it Answer when that which God hath called holy by his divine sanction we dare not call it common and profane by prostituting of it to unsuitable actions words or thoughts There is a real calling it unholy as well as vocall He or She that spends the day or any part of it in doing evil or in doing nothing or in doing nothing to the purpose he proclaimeth to the world what he calleth the day although he speak not a word he speaks his heart by interpretation and when all is done our works are more credible Interpreters of our hearts than our words or profession Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Then we believe it holy when we keep it holy 2. Then we call the Sabbath holy when we sanctifie our selves for the Sabbath and for the Ordinances of the Sabbath If we have no care what frame of spirit we bring with us into the day nor with what frame we drive thorough it we are far from calling the Sabbath the holy of the Lord. For their sakes saith our Lord I Sanctifie my self John 17.17 I Sanctifie my self i. e. I separate my self wholly for the work of a Redeemer If the Lord Jesus separated himself for our sakes should not we much more separate our selves for his Then we believe Christ to be our holy Redeemer when we labour to be an holy people Holy as he is holy and then we have high venerable thoughts of the holiness of the Sabbath when we labour to be holy as the day is holy an unsuitable spirit is a profanation of the Sabbath The Day holy but we unholy what a reproach is this Holiness becomes thy house for ever q. d. Psal 93.5 Ceremonies were to continue but for a time but holiness is the standing qualification of thy day and of thy worshippers for ever 3. When we make holiness in the beginning and increase of it our design in our sanctifying of the day and of our attendance upon the Ordinances When we make holiness our business It is the great end for which God hath ordained a Sabbath Exod. 31.13 Ezek. 20.12 Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it is a sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord that do sanctifie you Not a Ceremonial sign but a Moral sign a Covenant sign a kind of a Sacramental sign a Medium to effect what is promised in the Covenant 1 Cor. 11.23 25. as water in Baptism and bread and wine in the Lords Supper Oh when Gods design and mans design meets when God makes a Sabbath for a Medium to make his people holy and they keep a Sabbath that they may be holy this is excellent this is to call the Sabbath The Holy of the Lord. When we labour to bring as much holiness as we can into a Sabbath and to bring more holiness out of a Sabbath to come out of Gods day more holy than we came into it This is to sanctifie a Sabbath indeed 4. Then we call it holy when the more pure and holy the Sabbath is kept and the more purely and holily the Ordinances are dispensed the more our souls do love them the more beauty and glory we do see in them As David expresseth his affection to the word Thy word is very pure therefore doth thy servant love it It is very sad when the more purely and the more holily the word is dispensed the more people dislike it and pick quarrels with it as that vile people did who cried to their Prophets prophesie not Or if you will be prophesying prophesie smooth things Jer. 30 10 11. Sermons that will go down pleasantly discourses of peace that will not trouble our Consciences nor cross our corruptions but cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us It was the Holy one of Israel c. the title which the prophets used in their Sermons but their ears were so tender they could not bear it if the Prophets would prophesie of the Merciful One of Israel and of the Bountiful One The Omnipotent One c. let them go on but they cared not so much for holiness and strictness as they pressed upon them from day to day this did not please their palate So when it is with a people in reference to other Ordinances Prayer and the Sacraments the more corrupted they be with the mixtures of men and of humane inventions the more acceptance and applause they find this argues that men seek not Jesum propter Jesum Christ for Christ his sake nor Ordinances for their purity nor Sabbaths because they be Holy days of an Holy God When to get holiness and to grow in holiness is our design Sanctifying Sabbaths John 17.17 When we sanctifie Sabbaths that God may sanctifie us by his Sabbaths and by his truth as our Lord prayeth then we do call and account the Sabbath indeed Sanctum Domini The Holy of the Lord. 5. We do truly count the Sabbath the holy of the Lord when we come out of Sabbaths as Moses came down from the Mount With our faces shining When we bring with us the savour of Christ Psal 45.8 his sweet ointments upon our garments When they with whom we converse may take notice that we have been with Jesus Acts 4 13. It is sad when men come out of a Sabbath just such as they came in as vain and loose as proud worldly wanton lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God in a word as fit for sin as they were before They sanctifie the Sabbath indeed who can in truth say with the Apostle 2 Cor. 4.18 We all with open face beholding as in a Glass or mirrour the glory of the Lord are changed or Metamorphosed into the same image as by the spirit of the Lord. When the Sabbath leaves its Image and Impress upon us in some measure then we do count it and keep it holy Surely the Sabbath
the wicked When a man's heart is full of Hell it is not unreasonable to expect that his Tongue should be set on fire of Hell And it is no wonder to hear such Persons reproach good men yea even for their goodness But alas the Dâ—sease doth not rest here this Plague is not only among the Egyptians but Israelites too It is very doleful to consider how Professors sharpen their Tongues like Swords against Professors and one good man censures and reproaches another and one Minister traduceth another and who can say I am clean from this sin O that I could move your pity in this case For the Lord's sake pity your selves and do not pollute and wound your Consciences with this Crime Pity your Brethren let it suffice that godly Ministers and Christians are loaded with reproaches by wicked men there is no need that you should combine with them in this Diabolical work You should support and strengthen their hands against the reproaches of the ungodly World and not add affliction to the afflicted O pity the World and pity the Church which Christ hath purchased with his own Blood which methinks bespeaks you in those words Job 19.21 Have pity upon me have pity upon me O my Friends for the hand of the Lord hath touched me Pity the mad and miserable World and help it against this sin stop the bloody Issue restrain this wicked practice amongst men as much as possibly you can and lament it before God and for what you cannot do your selves give God no rest until he shall please to work a Cure Vse 2 Caution Take heed you be not found guilty of this sin Wherein any of us have been guilty let us be truly and throughly humbled for it and for the future let us make conscience of abstaining from it I will suppose what I have said may be sufficient for Arguments to convince and for Motives to perswade you And therefore I shall only give you some Directions in order to the practice of this Duty And to assist you against this sin Direct 1 Avoid the causes of this sin This is the most Natural and regular way to Cure a Disease by taking away the cause of it Particularly take heed of these things as the Causes of this sin 1. Take heed of uncharitableness in all its kinds and degrees Malice Envy Hatred where these Diseases are in the Heart they will break out at the Lips Out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speaketh 2. Take heed of Loquacity and multitude of words A Man need not seek far for perpetual motion he may find it in some Persons restless and incessant Tongues Now Persons of this temper will not want matter of Discourse and therefore pick up and spread abroad all sorts of censures and reproaches against others not so much out of Malice against them as for their own Diversion and ease that their Tongues may not want Exercise Take heed of this it is in it self a sin an abuse of the Tongue a wasting of time a reproach to thy self it makes thee cheap and mean and contemptible in the eyes of others and especially of wise and good men and it is also the cause of many other sins 3. Take heed of Pragmaticalness which is when Men are inquisitive and busie about other mens matters A sin often reproved in Scripture 2 Thes 3.11 For we hear that there are some walking among you disorderly working not at all 1 Pet. 4.15 Let none of you suffer as an evil doer or as a busie body in other mens matters You may observe how Christ reproveth this in his own dear Apostle Joh. 21.21 22. Peter seeing him saith to Jesus Lord and what shall this man do Jesus saith to him if I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee follow thou me As if he had said mind you your own business do not busie your head about other men 4. Take heed of man-pleasing There are many whose great imployment and business it is to spread evil reports concerning others who are therefore called Tale-bearers and this they do to please the humours of Persons with whom they converse unto whom they know such Discourse is most acceptable And thus many Persons make themselves guilty in hearing reproaches and not checking them because they will comply with the Company they will not displease nor offend their Friends Take heed of this and remember that severe Sentence of the Apostle Gal. 1.10 If I yet pleased men I should not be the Servant of Christ He that pleaseth other men so as to neglect any Duty or to commit any sin whatsoever he pretends he is not the Servant of Christ Direct 2 Learn the government of your Tongues Consider the necessity of it The Apostle James lays the stress of all Religion upon it Jam. 1.26 If any man among you seem to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue this man's Religion is in vain And if this be true I am sure there are many high Professors that must be blotted out of the Saints Kalendar Consider also the easiness of this government of the Tongue Men have more command of their Tongues and of their outward Members than they have of their inward motions concupiscences and passions If Tongues be unruly God and Nature hath given you a bridle to restrain them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fence of the Teeth as the Poet speaks Learn distrust of Reports it is a good Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 learn to disbelieve Direct 3 Fame hath lost its Reputation long since and I do not know any thing which it hath done in our Age to regain it and therefore it ought not to be credited How few Reports are there in any kind which when they come to be examined we do not find to be false For my part I reckon if I believe one Report in twenty I make a very liberal allowance And especially distrust reproaches and evil reports because these spread fastest as being grateful to most Persons who suppose their own Reputation never so well grounded as when it is built upon the ruins of other mens 4. Reproach no man for that which you do not throughly understand This I am sure is highly reasonable and he that doth otherwise is altogether inexcusable because he runs an infinite hazard lest while he opposeth a man he be found to fight against God And truly if this Rule were practised some kinds of reproaches would be rare in the World for Persons of true and clear understanding are not apt to reproach others for different Opinions in lesser matters they consider the weakness of humane Nature and the necessity of mutual forbearance It is the weaker sort that are here as in other things most querulous and generally where there is least light there is most heat Those Persons by whose censures and reproaches the Church of God among us is most miserably torn and wasted are generally the more ignorant part of
and grant that those things which the craft and subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us may be brought to nought and by the providence of his goodness may be dispersed that we his Servants being hindred by no persecution may give thanks to him in his holy Church and serve him in holiness and pureness of life to his Glory through Jesus Christ Vse 3 You may see hence how much those men are mistaken who talk of the Good Works or Lives of Christians as that which must have no honour lest it dishonour God As if all the honour were taken from Christ which is given to Good Works and the Patients health were the dishonour of the Physitian When we are Redeemed and Purified to be zealous of good works and created for them in Christ Jesus as Tit. 2.14 Eph. 2.10 Yea and shall be judged according to our Works This Informeth you that the Good Works or Lives of Christians is a Vse 4 Great means ordained by Christ for the Convincing of Sinners and the Glorifying of God in the World Preaching doth much but it is not appointed to do all The Lives of Preachers must also be a convincing Light And all true Christians Men and Women are called to Preach to the World by their Good Works And a Holy Righteous and Sober Life is the great Ordinance of God appointed for the saving of your selves and others O that the Lord would bring this close to all our hearts Christians if you abhor dumb Teachers because they starve and betray Souls take heed lest you condemn your selves you owe Men the convincing helps of a holy fruitful life as well as the Preacher owes them his Ministry Preach by well-doing shine out in good works or else you are no Lights of Christ but betrayers of Mens souls you rob all about you of a great Ordinance of God a great means appointed by him for mens Salvation The world will judge of the Scriptures by your Lives and of Religion by your Lives and of Christ himself by your Lives If your Lives are such as tend to perswade men that Christians are but like other Men yea that they are but self-conceited Sinners as Carnal Sensual Uncharitable Proud Self-seeking Worldly Envious as others and so that Christianity is but such This is a horrid blaspheming of Christ how highly soever your Tongues may speak of him and how low soever your Knees may bow to him O that you knew how much of God's great Work of Salvation in the world is to be done by Christians Lives Your Lives must teach men to believe that there is a Heaven to be won and a Hell to be escaped Your Lives must help Men to believe that Christ and his Word are true Your Lives must tell Men what Holiness is and convince them of the need of Regeneration and that the Spirit of Sanctification is no fancy but the witness of Jesus Christ in the world Your Lives must tell Men by Repentance and Obedience that sin is the greatest Evil and must shew them the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked Yea the Holiness of God must be Glorified by Your Lives Father Son and Holy Ghost the Scripture the Church and Heaven it self must be known much by our Lives And may not I say then with the Apostle 2 Pet. 3.11 What manner of Persons then ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness when the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us to deny ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2.11 12. Vse 5 But alas What suitable and plentiful matter doth this offer us for our Humiliation and Lamentation on such a day as this A floud of Tears is not too much to lament the scandals of the Christian world With what wounded Hearts should we think of the State of the Churches in Armenia Syria Egypt Abassia and all the oppressed Greeks and all the poor deceived and oppressed Papists and all the ignorant Carnal Protestants O how unlike are your Lives to your Christian Faith and to the Pattern left them by their Lord Doth a worldly proud and fleshly and contentious Clergy Glorifie God Doth an ignorant Ministry Glorifie him who understand not the Message which they should deliver Will the world turn Christians by seeing Christians seek the blood and ruine of each other And hearing even Preachers Reproach each other Or seeing them silence or persecute each other Or by seeing the People run into many Sects and separate from one another as unworthy of Christian Communion Will Proud Ignorant Censorious Fleshly Worldly Professors of Religion ever draw the World to love Religion Or will peevish self-willed impatient discontented Souls that are still wrangling crying and repining make men believe that their Religion rejoyceth blesseth and satisfieth the Soul and maketh men far happier than all others in the world Alas what wonder that so small a part of the world are Christians and so few converted to the love of Holiness when the Great Means is denied them by you which God hath appointed for their Conversion and the world hath not one Helper for a hundred or thousand that it should have You cry out of those that put out the Church-lights under pretence of snuffing them while your selves are Darkness or as a stinking Snuff O Brethren and Christians all I beseech you let us now and often closely ask our selves What do we more than an Antonine a Seneca or a Cicero or a Socrates did beyond opinions words and formalities What do you which is like to convert the world to convince an Infidel or glorifie God Nay do not some among us think that it is the height or part of their Religion to live so contrary to the world as to be singular from others even in lawful or indifferent things and to do little or nothing which the world thinks well of As if crossing and displeasing men needlesly were their winning conversation O when once we go as far beyond them in love humility meekness patience fruitfulness mortification self-denial and heavenliness as we do in opinions profession and self-esteem then we shall win Souls and glorifie God and he will also glorifie us And here we see the wonderful mercy of God to the World who Vse 6 hath appointed them so much means for their Conviction and Salvation So many Christians as there be in the World so many Practical Preachers and helps to mens Conversion are there appointed by God And let the blame and shame lye on us where it is due and not on God if yet the World remain in darkness It is God's Will that every Christian in the World should be as a Star to shine to sinners in their darkness and O then how gloriously would the World be bespangled and enlightned If you say Why then doth not God make Christians better That is a question which cannot be well answered without a
larger opening of the Methods of Grace than we can now have leasure for and therefore must be don◠its proper season Those that honour God he will honour and therefore let us also give Vse 7 them that honour which is their due The barren Professors who honour themselves by over-valuing their poor knowledge gifts and grace and affecting too great a distance from their Brethren and censuring others as unworthy of their Communion without proof are not the men that honour God and can lay claim to no great honour from men But God hath among us a prudent holy humble laborious patient Ministry that glorifie him by their works and patience and he hath among us a meek and humble a blameless and a loving and fruitful sort of Christians who imitate the Purity Charity and Simplicity yea and Concord of the Primitive Church These tell the World to their sight and experience that Religion is better than Ignorance and Carnality These tell the World that Christ and his Holy Word are true while he doth that in renewing and sanctifying Souls which none else in the World can do These shew the World that Faith and Holiness and Self-denial and the hopes of Immortality are no deceits These glorifie God and are the great Benefactors of the World I must solemnly profess that did I not know such a people in the world who notwithstanding their infirmities do manifest a holy and heavenly disposition in their lives I should want my self so great a help to my Faith in Christ and the promise of Life Eternal that I fear without it my Faith would fail And had I never known a holier Ministry and People than those that live but a common life and excel Heathens in nothing but their Belief or Opinions and Church orders and Formalities I should find my Faith assaulted with so great temptations as I doubt I should not well withstand No talk will perswade men that he is the best Physitian that healeth no more nor worse diseases than others do Nor would Christ be taken for the Saviour of the World if he did not save men And he saveth them not if he make them not holier and better than other men O then how much do we owe to Christ for sending his Spirit into his Saints and for exemplifying his holy Word on holy Souls and for giving us as many visible proofs of his Holiness Power and Truth as there are Holy Christians in the world we must not flatter them nor excuse their faults nor puff them up But because the Righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour we must accordingly love and honour them and Christ in them For Christ telleth us that he is glorified in them here Joh. 17.10 And that what is done to them his Brethren even the least is taken as done to him Mat. 25. And he will be glorified and admired in them when he cometh in his Glory at the last 2 Thes 1.8 9 10. And he will glorifie their very works before all the world with a Well done good and faithful Servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. What is it to do all we do in the Name of Christ and how may we do so Serm. XXIII Colos 3.17 And whatsoever ye do in word and deed do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him THERE have been and still are many great and famous Names in the World into which men have been Baptized according to which they have been call'd and also walked in the world Rev. 11.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of great Name or men of Renown Gen. 6.4 What a Renowned Name had the Beast in the Earth Rev. 13.3 4. that the world wondered after the Beast and worshipped the Dragon that gave power to the Beast and they worshipped the Beast saying Who is like to the Beast Pharaoh was a great Name amongst the Kings of Egypt which were so call'd from their famous Predecessors So the Kings of the Amalakites were called Agag and of Tyre Hyram and of Lycia Antiochus of Pontus Mithridates of the Emperours of Rome Caesars and in the Church Professors have affected to be call'd by the Name of some Eminent persons 1 Cor. 3.4 5. Some cryed up Paul others Peter and this was a growing evil in the Church 1 Cor. 1.12 13 14. They ambitiously affected to be denominated from some Eminent Persons among them As the Lutherans and Calvinists and many others at this day have been call'd and denominated from some great persons that have been famous in their Generation But here is a Name in my Text is above all Names in Heaven and Earth and all Christians are call'd by this Name and call on this Name Jer. 14.9 Amos 9.12 This Name you must trust in and boast in beyond and above all Names whatsoever Isa 45.24 25. Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength and in the Lord shall all the Seed of Israel be justified and shall glory See what a Name is given to Christ Isa 6.7 And bow to it his Name shall be call'd Wonderful Councellour and consider every Letter of his Name and adore it The Apostle according to his usual manner in this Epistle having spoken of the Doctrine of the Gospel and how they received it and the influence it had on them v. 12 13. And concerning Christ in whom they had Redemption v. 14 15 16 17 18 19. And of the Excellency of his Person and of the riches of the glory of his Grace revealed in it v. 27. Then Chap. 2. he stirs them up to live such lives as becometh the Gospel and to beware of Seducers v. 16. to the end Then Chap. 3. he puts them in mind of several duties throughout the Chap. He lays down some general Exhortations with reference to the Gospel and their living suitably to it from v. 1. to 17. Then he proceeds to particular duties in our place and Relations and in this v. 17. having laid down something he gathers up all into one sum how to carry themselves in the whole course of their lives in their thoughts words and works We may observe from the general Scope Doct. That the Doctrine of the Gospel carrieth the highest and strictest obligations upon all such to whom it reveal'd to duty and service in their places and relations to God and Man In the words we have 1. A Rule laid down 2. The things that are under the Rule words works and thoughts and secret motions of the heart which works also are well known to God and so they come under Rule 3. Here is the Universality of the Rule in its extent and full compass it fetcheth in all words and works without exception and all persons for this You takes in all persons of what rank or degree soever 4. Here is the manner how they must be done so as to answer the Mind of God in the Name of Christ 5. Here is a further
A SUPPLEMENT TO THE Morning-Exercise At CRIPPLE-GATE OR Several more Cases of Conscience Practically Resolved by sundry Ministers The Second Edition Our rejoycing is this the Testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and Godly sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God we have had our conversation in the World 2 Cor. 1.12 Conscientia est nescio quid divinum nunquam perit officium nostrum nobis semper ad memoriam revocat Doroth. Bibl. Pat. T. 4. p. 769. Quaerimus quomodo animus semper aequalis secundoque cursu eat propitius sibi sit sua laetus adspiciat hoc gaudium non interrumpat sed placido statu maneat nec attollens se unquam nec deprimens Seneca de Tranq anim p. 678. LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Sign of the Atlas in Cornhil near the Royal-Exchange MDCLXXVI To that part of Christ's Flock to which I am more specially related Grace Mercy and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour Beloved Christians AS I called in a Contribution of Help for the composing of a Legacy for others before my Civil Death so I now tender you A Supplement to that Exercise for your better liveliness of Spiritual Life I shall say nothing to commend these Sermons to you my Brethren are all herein unanimous to seek the Church's Profit not their own Applause only this I must say to prevent mistake viz. If any curious Reader shall find matter of Exception besides the Errors of Printing which I confess are too many the blame must be Personal because this joynt-joynt-work is no otherwise Social than as single Pearls strung together make one Neck-lace I easily grant here 's not yet a stating of all important Cases yet be this known to you whoever shall follow these Directions shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the work of the Lord nor miss of an abundant entrance into his Everlasting Kingdom Live up to what you have attained and you may be confident that what is further wanting God will as you want it supply it Be assur'd of this that you will get more skill and strength for all necessary Graces and Duties by an humble serious constant Course of Godliness than you possibly can do by captious Criticismes and wrangling Contentions about lesser things in which too many spend their Lives I herein appeal to your Consciences should not these Sermons answer expectation but according to your judgment either the Cases are ill chose or not well stated in that the Matter is either defective or redundant the Language too curious or too careless the Directions too common or too singular I appeal from your Passions to your Consciences and down-right charge you in the Name of my Master who must be your Judg that you read with other Spectacles These are not calculated to humour you but to better you These are not Duties to be cavil'd at but to be practised O that you may be effectually perswaded 1. That your Love to God Sermon 1 must be predominant and growing or you degrade your selves below the Beasts 2. That your Love to Man must be universal and spiritual Sermon 2 Sermon 3 or you can't evidence your Love to God 3. That your Love to the World must truckle under both be subservient to both and never be otherwise for if the World master you 't will â—â—in you Oh that your awakened Sermon 4 Consciences may now allarm you 4. To catch at Salvation while it is Sermon 5 offer'd lest you perish for ever Though 't is a vexed Problem 5. What Knowledg is necessary to Salvation yet can you satisfie your Consciences without diligent Endeavours to proportion your Knowledg to the Means you enjoy And to bring forth Fruits every day as those that in some Sermon 6 measure feel 6. What 't is to be in the Spirit on the Lord's Day and Sermon 7 8. that the Word 7. Preach'd and 8. Read may be so impress'd upon Heart and Life that it may be an infallible Evidence you are taught of God And when through weakness of the Flesh your Duties may prove Sermon 9 wearisom 9. Learn to refresh your selves with the Songs of Zion But would you have more particular Directions They are before you Sermon 10 Here you may learn true Christianity 10. In the daily Improvement of Sermon 11 your Baptism Here you may learn 11. How to propagate Religion to Posterity by riveting Truth upon your own Hearts and teaching it to Sermon 12 others but while you are giving Milk to Babes 12. Excuse not your selves upon any account whatsoever from frequent and hungry feeding upon stronger Meat Be you as willing to seal to the Conditions of the Covenant as you are desirous God should seal to the Promises of it But who is sufficient for these things Pour out your Hearts therefore and Sermon 13 list up your Souls to God in all manner of Prayer 13. Let extraordinary Sermon 14 Prayer answer that title 14. Your secret Prayer speak secret Communion Sermon 15 with God 15. Let your Family prayer bring down Blessings upon your Family that you be neither Holy nor Happy alone but that when your Family-relations shall cease they may bless God to Eternity that ever there were such Relations between you Now therefore Sermon 16 16. Let Husbands and Wives be the liveliest Emblems in the World of Sermon 17 Christ and his Church 17. Let Parents and Children be the Evidences and Pledges of God's special presence with this and the next Sermon 18 Generation 18. Let Masters and Servants adorn the Gospel by their exemplary Faithfulness to their Heavenly Master Thus doing Sermon 19 19. Your Thoughts will be cured and in them you 'l enjoy God Sermon 20 20. Your Tongues will in some sense be God's glory as well as yours But Sermon 21 then 21. You must cautiously avoid the catching Canker of Detraction Sermon 22 22. So you shaâ—l by your Conversations convince the World there 's an Excellency in Christianity And that all this may be as well acceptable Sermon 23 to God as approved of Men 23. Do all in the Name of Christ and Sermon 24 while you thus embarque with Christ 24. He 'l steer you safe between Presumption and Despair those Rocks upon one of which most perish Hereby also 25. You 'l make your Port with the chearing Joys of an Sermon 25 Heroick Faith 26. And keep above all Vexing Discontents with your Sermon 26 Worldly Condition 27. And what Afflictions God's wise Love shall Sermon 27 inflict you 'l be able to bear them with more than a Roman Courage 28. And though reproachful Reproofs may bear hard upon you you 'l not Sermon 28 fret but welcome them as a precious Balm But when you have done your best yet through the Remainders of Corruption Guilt will be contracted 29. You can't but be restless till it be removed 30. Then you Sermon 29 30. may rather hope for than
comprehends both the Vegetative and Sensitive part To love God with the soul is to subject all those works that pertain to an Animal life unto the love of God Plainly and in short it is not enough to love God in our Will but we must not admit any thing contrary to the Love of God in our sensual delights Whatsoever sensualists do for the gratifying of their lusts and desires let those things be drained from the dregs of sin and consecrate them all unto God Whatever use wicked men make of their souls in a way of hatred of God we must make the contrary use in a way of loving of God And then Thou must love God with all thy Soul What it is to love God with all the soul we must be ready to lay down our lives for God d Origen if any one should be ask'd what in all the world was most dear unto him he would answer his life for life-sake tender Mothers have cast off the sence of Nature and fed upon their own children It is Life that affords us being sense motion understanding riches dominions If a man had the Empire of the World he could enjoy it no longer than he hath his soul in his body when that is gone he presently becomes a horrid Carkass or rather a loathsom dunghil Now then if a man love his Life so much why should he not love God more by whom he lives and from whom he expects greater things than this Life God is the soul of our soul and the life of our life he is nearer to us than our very souls e Acts 17.28 in him we live and move and have our being He that doth but indifferently weigh these things will acknowledge that it is no rashness to call that man a Monster that loves not God how then can we think of it without grief that the whole world is full of these Monsters almost all men prefer their Money or Pleasures or their Honours or their lusts before God So oft as you willingly break any Law of God to raise your Credit or Estate you prefer the dirt and dust of the world before God Alas what use do's a wicked man make of his soul but to serve his body whereas both soul and body should be wholly taken up with not only the service but the love of God Then may you be said to love God with all your souls when your whole Life is filled with the love of God when your worldly business truckles under the love of God the love of the dearest Relations should be but hatred when compared with your love to God When you eat and drink to the glory of God sleep no more than may make you serviceable unto God when your solitary musings are about the engaging your souls to God when your social Conference is about the things of God when all acts of Worship endear God to you when all your Duties bring you nearer to God when the love of God is the sweetness of your Mercies and your Cordial under Afflictions when you can love God under amazing Providences as well as under refreshing Deliverances then you may be said to love God with all your Souls What it is to love God with the mind 3. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Mind though Anselm take this for the Memory that we should remember nothing whereby we are hinder'd in our thinking of God yet generally this is taken for the understanding and so the Evangelist Mark expresly interprets it when he renders this Command in these words f Mark 12 33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all thy understanding to love God with our Minds is to have the understanding moved and commanded by the love of God to assent unto those things that are to be believed and to admit nothing into the understanding which is contrary to the love of God g Cajetan h Origen nihil cogitantes vel proferentes nisi ea que Dei sunt The Mind should let nothing go in or out but what payes tribute of love to God there 's one interprets the word by the Etymology of the word Mind from Measuring i Mens dicitur a metiendo c. Avendan The Mind must be so full of love to God that love must measure all our works k 1 Cor. 10 31. When we eat we should think how hateful it is to God that we should indulge our Palat and thence shun Gluttony when we drink we should think how abominable Drunkenness is in the sight of God and thence drink temperately l Rom. 14.8 so that whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we dye we dye unto the Lord whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords our Life and our Death must be measur'd by our Love to God We must love God with all our Mind What it is to love God with all our mind we must alwayes converse with God in our Minds and thoughts our thoughts must kindle our affections of love Love to God makes the hardest Commands easie while our thoughts are immers'd in love to God love to Enemies wlll be an easie Command the keeping under of our Bodies by Mortification will be an easie work Persecution for Righteousness will be a welcome Trial love will change Death it self into Life There 's another word added by Mark which indeed is in Deut. 6.5 whence this is taken Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Strength now because this word doth not express any other species or power of the Soul but only notes the highest and most intense degree of Love that flows from all the Faculties of the Soul I will close this Enquiry with a Word of this We are to love God with all the Powers of our Soul with all the members of our Bodies Our understandings wills inward and outward Senses appetite speech whatever we have whatever we are must be all directed into the Love of God and into Obedience flowing from Love You commonly hear that of Bernard the cause of loving God is God himself and the only measure is to love him without measure We must love God strongly because with all our strength our love to God must get above Interruptions no threatnings calamities or discommodities whatsoever must pull us away from God but that all the Powers of Soul and Body must be taken up into his service that our Eyes beholding the wonderful works of God the Sun Moon and Stars the clear evidences of his Divinity we may be in love with him that our Ears piously hearkning to his Instructions may be in love with him that our Mouth may love to praise him our Hands to act for him that our Feet may be swift to run the way of his Commandments that our Affections may be withdrawn from Earthly things and deliver'd over to the love of God that whatever is within us it may be bound over to
I love nothing but for thy sake extensively when I compare thee Lord with all other great and good things and had rather they and my self also had no being than once to offend my good God But yet most loving Lord when I consider a proportion of love I am greatly troubled If love should be according to the worth of the Object by how much thou art better than I am and more profitable to me than I am to my self I should love thee more than thou lovest me but that I never can O Lord I beseech thee how much dost thou love me is it weakly and remisly according to my goodness that be far from thee Lord. Thou lovest thine incomparably more than thou art loved of them as thou art incomparably greater and better than they But O great and good God that fillest heaven and earth yea the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee Why dost thou not fill my poor little soul O my soul why dost thou not open all thy little doors why doest not thou extend thy utmost capacity that thou may'st be wholy possest wholy satiated wholy de-ebriated with the sweetness of so great love especially when though thou art so little yet thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any lesser good Many questions might be proposed to expostulate my soul into a flame of love But I see Lord 't is easie to speak and write these things but 't is hard to doe and perfect them in effect Thou therefore most good and Almighty Lord to whom nothing is difficult grant I pray thee that I may more easily doe these things with my heart than profess them with my mouth c. And thus having after my poor manner put you upon practice and pointed you the way from the lowest to the highest step of divine love I am sensible that both good and bad have their exceptions ready against what I have delivered The humble trembling Christian he fears that if the lowest degree of love to God hath such heights in it he shall never be able to reach it and he is grieved whom God would not have made sad On the other hand those that call themselves Christians though there 's no reason for their usurping that title without any consideration of either the duty or themselves will bear you down that they love God with all their hearts souls and minds and that they have always done so and they are unworthy to live that doe not love God and if you enquire into any particulars whatsoever about their love to God they 'l rather quarrel with you than give you any satisfying answer If I could therefore propose any thing that would apply it self i. e. by its own evidence work it self into the conscience I might hope to dissolve their self-flatteries I cannot at present think of a more compendious way of undeceiving both these and of further perswasively urging the love of God than by plainly naming the infallible Properties and constant Effects of this love hereby those that despondingly fear they want it will find they have it and those that groundlesly boast of it will find they want it and both be instructed what must be done to evidence and exert it I shall begin with the properties of our love to God Properties of love to God And here as in all the rest I must study contraction and therefore dare not particularly mention Gerson's fifty properties of Divine Love I shall rather follow Voetius's method who ranks the properties of Divine Love thus They are partly Negative and Privative partly Positive and Absolute partly Comparative and Transcendent I shall speak briefly of each of these your Consciences may manage it as if it were a Use of Examination Negative Properties or Adjuncts are such as these and these may prevent the mistakes of drooping Christians and alas a great part of Christ's Family are such upon one account or other 1. This Divine Love is not at all in the unregenerate unless onely in shew and imitation that Soul that is solicitous about loving of God that Soul loves him This is proper and peculiar to all those and onely those that are born of God that are the adopted Children of God Let it be considered whether the Devil can counterfeit Love to God as he can other Graces their Faith works by Fear not by Love (a) Jam. 2.19 The Devils believe and tremble 'T is true he doth not only suffer but (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promote an hypocritical Divine Love in some and he may appear in a Love-mask (c) Luva amoris to others as to Adam in Paradise (d) Gen. 3.5 God doth know that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods He pretends he hath more kindness for them than God himself and the like to Christ (e) Mat. 4.3 c. but did he himself ever pretend so much as to love God I grant wicked men pretend to love God but the ridiculousness of their Discourse plainly evidences they neither understand what they say nor whereof they affirm And whereas thou complainest that thou fearest thy Love is not sincere because 't is selfish be not discouraged while thou studyest to please God fearest to offend him prizest his presence mournest for his absence thy love to God is infallibly sincere though there be an ingredient of self in it nay let me say more it could not be sincere if thou didst not mind thy self as in the very quintessence of Conjugal Love 't is impossible to abstract it from self-love so the more we love God the more we cannot but love our selves yea even then when we most deny our selves out of love to God 2. This Divine Love is far from perfection 't is subject to more sensible languishments and infirmities than any other grace though it can never be totally and finally extinguisht What though sometimes to thy own Apprehension thou canst not tell whether thou lovest God at all and what though at all times thou complainest of fickleness and inconstancy what though the time of thy Fear be longer than the time of thy Love yet while thine heart can say 't is unquiet in this temper and it is thy restless desire to love God more perfectly These very complaints speak Love we never complain of want of Love to those persons whom we do not already love This as well as other graces is here but in part (f) 1 Cor. 13.10 while we are in this lower World our very Graces will have their Nepe as well as their Spring-Tides We cannot yet be so wise as to foresee all our hinderances nor so watchful as to avoid all Satan's Ambushes nor so perfect as to maintain a spiritual frame of heart Though this Grace is alwayes in motion yet it doth not alwayes nor equally go forward 3. Our love to God shall never be abolished g Non quoad formam nec
so he must minister the same to the souls and bodies of others 1 Pet. 4.10 Jam. 2.15.16 1 Joh. â— 13 If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them Go in peace he you warmed and filled notwithstanding you give them not the things that are needful to the body what doth it profit A man would find little profit in it himself if he should feed himself only with good words and wishes True love is not in Word and Tongue only but in Deed and in Truth Contrary to this endeavouring others good is to stand up in the way and stop the passage wherein good should flow in upon them and to be (a) Invidentia est aeg iâ—udo iuscepta p opter alterius res secundas quae nihil nocent invidenti Cic. Tuâ—t qu. l. 4. envious at the prosperity of others if they be able without our help to attain it Many men think themselves not well unless it be ill with others (b) Novum ac inaestimabile nunc in plutimis malum est parum alicui est si ipse sit felix nisi alter sec in infelix Salvianus de Gub. Dei it is not enough for them to be happy unless they see their brethren miserable 2. We have seen now in what things we do and may shew love to our selves we come now to speak of the manner of loving our selves and to shew that after the same manner we ought to love others also 1. We do or should love our selves holily i. e. in and for God we may not have a divided interest from God though God allows us to love our selves it must be in order to him and to his Glory Our love to our selves as it must be regulated by the will of God and extended or restrained according to that So God must be our utmost end in it whether it be exercised about the obtaining things temporal or spiritual for body or soul Salvation it self although it be our end must not be our last or utmost end but that God by it as by all things else may be glorified Therefore in this manner we must love others as God hath an interest in them and is or may be glorified by them and there is no man in the world but God is or may be glorified by him Every man is a creature upon whose Soul there is in a sort the Image of God and doth him some service in the place wherein he stands Isa 44.28 and 45.1 God calleth Cyrus a heathen his Shepherd and his Anointed and he did him eminent service in his generation The same may be said of every other man in some degree and proportion God hath given him some gifts whereby he is and may be serviceable to him at least in the affairs of his providential kingdom Besides all men having immortal souls within them are capable of blessedness with God for ever in the kingdom of Glory they who are at present enemies to God may be reconciled and made friends what was the most glorious Saint now in heaven but an enemy to God once when here on earth We our selves saith the Apostle were sometime foolish disobedient deceived Tit. 33.4 serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another but after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Obj. How could David then say do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am I not grieved with these that rise up against thee Psal 139.21.22 I hate them with a perfect hatred He says that he hated them perfectly and approves himself to God in the thing Do not I hate them O Lord Ans There is a twofold hatred Odium simplex Odium redundans in personam as the Schooles speak a simple hatred and a hatred redounding to the person A simple hatred which is of the Sin of any man is our duty Psal 97.10 ye that love the Lord hate evil but to hate the Person of the sinner would be our sin as we are to abhor that which is evil Rom. 12.9 so we must cleave to that which is good David who was a man after Gods own heart knew how to distinguish between the sin and the person See how he expresseth himself elsewhere I hate the work of them that turn aside not them but the work of them Psal 101.3 he hated their sin saying it shall not cleave to me Hear him again I hate every false way this shews us plainly Psal 119.104 that he hated sin perfectly he hated sin so as that it should not cleave to him he hated it where ever he found it Every false way For what is perfect hatred Austin describes it very well He est perfecto odio odisse ut nec homines propter vitia oderis nec vitia propter homines diligas This is to hate with perfect hatred not to hate men for their Sins sake nor to love the sin for the mens sake This is one manner how we ought to love our Neighbour as our selves it must be holily 2. Our love to our selves is or should be orderly we must first and chiefly love our souls and then our bodies The Soul is of far greater worth than the body A world of things for the body will stand a man in no stead if his soul be lost and where the soul goes either to a place of bliss or torment the body must follow after and therefore when we are charged to take heed to our selves we are charged to keep our souls diligently only take heed to thy self Deut. 4 9. and keep thy soul diligently if the soul be safe all is safe if the soul be lost all is lost In like manner we ought to love our Neighbour we must desire and endeavour that it may be well with him in every respect both as to his body and outward estate but chiefly that his Soul may prosper and his outward concerns as they may be consistent with that third Epistle John ver 2. I wish above all things that thou mayst prosper and be in health as thy soul prospereth 1. We must seek the conversion of those that are unconverted lest their souls be lost for ever If we can be instrumental in this we shew the greatest love imaginable to give a man bread when he is hungry or cloathing when he is naked is somthing but to convert a soul to God is a greater kindness by much Brethren Jam. 5 19.20 if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death He speaks of it as a great thing when he says Let him know that he
For it is a People of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour IN this and the precedent verse we have a dreadful denunciation of judgment upon either the oppressors and Enemies of God's People or upon obstinate and incorrigible sinners among God's People together with the reason of that denunciation or cause of that judgment threatned 1. The judgment denounced is 1. Great desolation as to their outward state verse 10. and former part of the 11. v. 2. Utter destruction final ruine v. 11. He that made them will not have mercy on them James 2.13 It is the highest severity where no Saviour is to be found where judgment is executed without mercy And this is amplified by the consideration 1. Partly of the Inflicter of the judgment it is God himself He that made them They were not to fall into the hands merely of men like themselves their fellow Creatures but into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.13 2. Partly of kindness formerly received from him He that made them He that formed them i. e. He that created them gave them their being if we understand it of the Enemies of God's People or he that not only made them as his Creatures but formed them to be his Servants formed them into a state and into a Church if we understand the words as spoken of God's People themselves and so had given them their being not only a natural one but a civil and Ecclesiastical one he that had formerly done so much for them vouchsafed them such choice mercies yet now would renounce all kindness to them have no mercy on them shew them no favour II. The cause of the judgment to be inflicted it is a People of no understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not a People of Vnderstanding as much as to say It is not a people of any understanding or as we read it It is a people of no understanding It is a sottish ignorant people such as take no notice of any thing know not God observe not his works understand not their duty Other sins no doubt they were chargeable with but the Lord takes notice especially of their ignorance and it is for that they are here threatned Hence we take notice that Obs 1. Ignorance of God his truths or ways is no security against his judgments Jer. 10.25 Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee not c. Obs 2. The knowledge of the will and ways of God is necessary for them that expect to find favour with God They that desire God would save them must labour to know him That some knowledge of the will of God is needful to all those that expect to be saved for we set aside the case of Infants I suppose is clear in it self But when you hear this Doctrine you may be ready to ask What is that knowledge which they who would be saved should seek after And when that is answered you may again enquire What means you are to use for the obtaining of it And so the case to be spoken to is this What Spiritual knowledge or knowledge of the things of God for other knowledge at present we take no notice of however commendable in it self or secondarily useful to higher ends they ought to seek for who desire to be saved and how such knowledge may be attained Of this Case Case there be two parts I shall speak distinctly to each and so first shew what is that knowledge we are to seek after and then give directions for the attaining of it I. What knowledge they are to labour after who expect to be saved In answer to which I must promise something by way of distinction something by way of Concession and then add other things by way of proposition for the fuller determining the case in hand Distinct 1. We must distinguish between that knowledge which is simply and absolutely necessary to the Salvation of all men so that no man can be saved without it but whosoever falls short of it must certainly perish for lack of it such knowledge the want of which is always actually damning and that even in them that have not the means of obtaining it as Heathens who have no revealed light for in them it is the occasion of their perishing as a man 's not knowing the only Medicine in the World that could cure him when sick would be the occasion of his death and so would be his undoing though not his fault 2. And that knowledge which though it be not simply necessary to Salvation necessitate medii yet is Secondarily necessary to be in those that would be Saved or necessary in some respects and upon some suppositions as 1. On the account of the circumstances wherein men are and the capacity they are in for the gaining of knowledge whereby they are brought under the obligation of a command to labour after it and so they have the necessity of Duty to seek that knowledge though that knowledge it self have not the necessity of a Mean 2. Necessary though not absolutely to the very Esse or Being of a Christian and his Salvation yet to his bene esse his well being as a Christian his better and more comfortable management of the affairs of his Salvation The want of this knowledge if it be not alwaies actually damning as when God giveth men repentance yet proceeding in those that are in condition to obtain it not from want of means or capacity but from gross negligence or contempt of the truth it must needs be in it self damnable 2. By way of Concession It is a difficult thing to determine just how much knowledge is absolutely necessary to Salvation to define the Minimum quod sic so to speak of Divine knowledge so as to say that whoever falls one degree short of it cannot be saved That there be certain prime fundamental Doctrines of Religion which are so necessary to Salvation that men cannot in an ordinary way be saved without the knowledge of them is I think confessed by the generality of those that pretend to Christian Religion or to any hopes of Salvation But which in particular those fundamentals are and how many is not alike clear A controversie it is which I shall not need to touch upon not only as being a tender point but as not being concerned in my present design as will further appear in the following Propositions It will little avail us in our present circumstances amidst such plentiful means of knowledge and so much truth as is revealed to us to know just how much knowledge is absolutely needful to Salvation as suppose how much would have been sufficient for the Salvation of a believing Jew before our Saviour's coming in the flesh or what knowledge might be sufficient for the Salvation of and consistent with truth of Grace in some poor Christian in the darker corners of the
Obedience he requires of them by the work of the Spirit upon their hearts changing them regenerating them and causing old things to pass away and all things in them to become new 2 Cor. 5.17 and further to increase that fitness for and readiness to Spiritual things by his guiding assisting and quickning them in those holy wayes into which he hath brought them and by those ordinary means the Word and Ordinances which he hath appointed for the working and improving of their Graces 9. With the reward God promiseth to their Faith and Obedience in the blessedness of their Souls at the end of this life and of their whole man after the Resurrection in their being for ever with the Lord 1 Thes 4.17 when the unbelief and disobedience of others will be punished with everlasting torments inflicted by him In a word whoever comes to God Heb. 11.6 must believe not only that he is but that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him Men ought in the beginning of Religion to look to the end of it have some sight of the goal when they enter upon their race know their wages when they set about their work The Doctrine of rewards furnisheth men with the greatest incentives to holiness ignorance or unbelief of future recompence must needs make men negligent of present service take away the knowledge of Heaven and Hell and ye take away all â—are and thoughts of Religion These things I lay not down as an enumeration oâ— Fundamentals or compleat scheme of Religion it is sufficient for 〈…〉 that they are some of the most necessary and substantial truths wherein the generality of Christians are concerned which they are therefore especially and in the first place to acquaint themselves with and before those things which are less necessary to Salvation as being further from the Foundation And indeed this is the very method of Nature Men usually seek those things first which are most necessary and other things afterward they first lay their Foundation and then set up their Superstructures Principles must be known before Conclusions can be drawn from them Those Doctrines of Religion must be first known from whence others are to be deduced and without the knowledge of which others can be but confusedly and darkly known This seems to have been the Apostle's Method Heb. 6.1 where he speaks of some Truths which they are in paticular I stand not to dispute which were Principles and first learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost others as conducing to the perfection of the Saints unto the knowledge of which he would therefore have them go on He that knows not those things which must be known knows nothing yet to any purpose Prop. 3. Men should Labour after such a knowledge of the Truth as that they may be able to give a Reason of the hope that is in them 1 Pet. 3.15 To shew on what Ground they stand what is the Foundation of their Faith and Hope that the Religion they profess is indeed the true Religion and that the Doctrines they own are really Founded upon the Scripture of Truth Dan. 16.2 and in a word they should be able to give a Reason why they believe rather thus than otherwise and hold such Doctrines rather than the contrary They should Labour after such a Grounded knowledge of the Truths of the Gospel as that they may be able to say of them as well as of the Duties of it that they are fully perswaded in their own Minds and do not take up things upon trust Rom. 14.15 or believe the Truth upon the Credit of others It is a shame for Professors to be merely Believers upon Tradition to see with other Mens Eyes or be like the Heathen Idols that have Eyes and see not They are Men and have reasonable Powers and ought to make use of them even in the things of God so far as they are Revealed and Subjected to their Judgment The Spiritual Man Judgeth all things even the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10.15 Though they are to submit their understandings to God yet they are not to resign them to Men. They that will judge for themselves in the things of this life should no less do in the things of the other That Man that will not trust another with his Estate or Purse should much less do it with his Conscience and Salvation Prop. 4. Men should especially give themselves to the study and labour after the knowledge of the present truths 2 Pet. 1.12 I mean those truths which are the special truths of the Times and Ages and Places in which Men live We shall find if we observe it that God who delivers hls Mind and Will to Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by several parts and degrees doth in some Ages make more clear discoveries of some truths in others of other truths and though the whole will of God and all those truths which we are any way concerned to know in order to our Salvation be sufficiently laid down in the Scripture yet there is sometimes more knowledge of one truth stirring in the World sometimes of some other Sometimes God calls his Servants more especially to Preach up and bear Witness to such or such a particular Truth which either was less known and understood before or is more opposed at present Immediately after Christ's resurrection the great truth of that time the then present truth was that Jesus was the Christ that very Messiah whom God had promised to the Fathers and the Jews themselves did expect This the Apostles did first of all Preach confirming it especially by his Resurrection from the dead Thus Act. 2.36 God hath made the same Jesus both Lord and Christ Act. 5.31 Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour So Philip to the Eunuch Act. 8.35 And Paul so soon as he was converted and sent to Preach presently declares that Jesus was the Christ Acts 9.22 And Peter to Cornelius Acts 10.42.43 And Apollos in Achaia ch 18.28 And afterwards we find that the Jews and Judaizing Christians pertinaciously adhering to the Law of Moses gave occasion to the more full Preaching of the Doctrine of free Grace and Justification by Christ alone and the abolishing of the legal Ceremonies as we may see in the Epistle to the Romans Galatians Colossians and Hebrews And after towards the end of the Apostles times the Heresie of Cerinthus gave occasion to the more full vindicating the Doctrines of Christ's Godhead Hieronym in Catal. Script Ecclesiast as we see in the Gospel of John And some hundreds of years after that the Pelagian Heresie gave occasion for the renewed publication of the Doctrine of free Grace by Austin Prosper and others And in the beginning of the reformation of Religion in the last age the first truths God called those Worthies that then lived to the Preaching of were those especially which concern the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prophetical and Priestly offices
Cant. 3. This is to call the day Honourable Thirdly Then we call it Honourable when we have a precious esteem of every moment of Sabbath-time and jealous lest any drop of it should run waste even the filings of Gold and the dust of Diamonds are pretious No man can call the Sabbath Glorious that sets light by an hour or minute or moment of so Divine a creation Time is a ring of Gold but the Sabbath is the rich sparkling Diamond in it Davids heart smote him for cutting off but a lap of Sauls Royal coat So should ours for profaning or unprofitably wasting any part of Christ's day It is like his seamless coat and cannot be divided without sacriledge Fourthly The day is honourable when we have a singular esteem of all the Institutions and Ordinances of the day When Prayer is precious and the word Read Preached is precious when singing of Psalms is precious the Sacraments precious when every one in its time and order is observed with such due regard that none do justle out or exclude the other but one doth catch in the other as the links in a chain of Gold Fifthly When it is the grief of our souls that we can keep Sabbaths no better and strive cordially and conscientiously to keep the next better than we did the last Sixthly and lastly when we are careful that all ours as well as our selves keep Sabbaths this is a main clause in our obedience to the 4th commandment Thou thy Son and thy Daughter thy man-servant and thy maid-servant c. Every one in their several capacities must keep the Sabbath To be strict our selves in the duties of a Sabbath and careless what the rest of our Families do whether our children or servants steep or be idle dance or play at cards sing idle songs or take Gods name in vain c. This is not to call the Sabbath Honourable Deut. 5.14 Gen. 8.19 I know Abraham that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord. And shalt honour him or glorifie him From Cabad honorare The verb in the Hebrew Vecibbactto may be rendred It or Him but the sence seems to incline to the latter Him rather than It the day having had its title of veneration put upon it before honourable this may more properperly belong to God even to the whole blessed and glorious Trinity requiring at the hands of every one that enjoyeth this blessed priviledge of a Sabbath that they ascribe the honour and glory of it unto God and that is done 1. When we make divine Authority the sole ground of our separating and sanctifying the whole day to his peculiar Service and Worship without alienating any part or parcel of that holy time to our own carnal uses and purposes Keep the Sabbath day to sanctifie it there 's the duty as the Lord thy God commanded thee there 's the Authority 2. When as we make Gods command our ground so we make Gods glory our end When we make it our design to set up God Father Son and Holy Ghost in all his glorious and infinite perfections in our Adorations and Admirations upon that his holy day And that is done in a special manner when we make it the great business of a Sabbath To ascribe to each glorious Person in the Trinity the glory of his proper work and operation whereby he challengeth a title to and interest in the Sabbath ex gra 1. When we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the stupendious work of Creation and that is done by a due contemplation of all his glorious Attributes shining forth in this beautiful structure of heaven and earth celebrated by the Royal Psalmist in Psal 19. v. 1. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord and the firmament sheweth his handy work the transcendent excellencies of the glorious Jehovah are conspicuous and illustrious in this admirable Theatre of the world that is to say 1. His Power 1. In creating all things out of nothing 2. And that by a word of his mouth 2. His Wisdom In making all things in such a beautiful and exact manner and order Galen l. de usu partium As the great Physitian said of the body of man no man can come after God and say this might have been better so in the Fabrick of Heaven and Earth neither man nor Angels can say here is a Defect and there is a redundancy it had been better there had been more Suns and fewer stars more land and less Sea c. No when the divine prophet had stood and in his most serious contemplation looked through the Creation he could spye out nothing that could have been otherwise but breaks out in admiration O Lord how manifold are thy works In wisdom hast thou made them all he could see nothing from one end of the Universe to the other but what speaks infinite perfection In wisdom hast thou made them all and as the Omnipotency and wisdom of God is magnified in the Creation so also 3. His bounty in bestowing all this visible creation upon man for his use and benefit as one saith God made man last that he might bring him as a father brings his son into an house ready furnished This is one branch of our honouring God when we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the work of Creation Secondly When we ascribe to God the Son the glory of his most glorious work of Redemption wherein these particulars are wonderful 1. His inessable incarnation 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God manifest in the flesh i. e. The invisible God made visible in a bâ—dy of flesh This was a Mystery indeed A Son in Heaven without a Mother Gal 4.4 And a Son on Earth without a Father Secondly Christ his stupendious being made under the Law Behold he that made the Law was made under the Law under the Ceremonial Law that he might abolish it under the Moral Law The preceptive power of it that he might fulfill it that so every believer might have a Righteousness which he may call his own Rom. 10.4 The maledictive power of it that he might take it away Gal. 3.13 3. Christ his work of Redemption was principally transacted by his death and passion for therein he laid down pretium Redemptionis Acts 20.28 the price of Redemption which was his own precious blood 1 Pet. 1.18 19 20. 4. This great work and mystery of our Redemption was perfectly consummated in Christ his glorious Resurrection Col. 2.15 wherein he spoiled principalities and powers and made a shew of them openly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some render it in it and would refer it to his Cross but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be understood here in the masculine gender not in the neuter and so to be translanted in himself Christ rising from the dead like a conqueror lead
death and the grave and Hell and the Devil in chains after him as conquerors in war were wont to lead their vanquished enemies whom they had taken prisoners in chains of Captivity after them exposing them to the publick scorn of all spectators Thus we are to ascribe the glory of the work of Redemption to Jesus Christ the Son of God and thereby do honour God in our sanctifying of his holy Sabbath Thirdly We likewise glorifie the Holy Ghost when we ascribe to Him the honour of the work of Sanctification Whether we look upon it in that first miraculous effusion of the spirit which our Lord Jesus as the King and Head of his Church did first purchase by the blood of his cross and afterward ascended into heaven and obtained of his Father when he took possession of his Kingdom and lastly did abundantly pour down upon the Apostles and other officers and members of his Evangelical Church in the day of Pentecost Acts 2.1 Which was as it were the Sanctification of the whole Gospel-Church at once in the first-fruits Or whether we understand that work of sanctification which successively is wrought by the Holy Ghost in every individual elect Child of God happily begun in their first conversion and mightily upheld and carried on in the sâ—ul to the dying day This is a glorious work consisting in these two glorious branches of it mortification of corruption which before the Holy Ghost hath done shall end in the total annihilation of the body of sin that blessed priviledge groan'd for so much by the blessed Apostle Rom. 7.24 and the erecting of a beautiful fabrick of grace holiness in the soul which is the very Image of God Heb. 1 3â— an erection of more transcendent wonder and glory than the six days workmanship which the Holy Ghost doth uphold and will perfect unto the day of Christ And this is the great end and design of the Sabbath and of the Ordinances of the Gospel according to the word which the great maker and appointer of Sabbaths speaketh I give them my sabbath to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth them Here then is the third branch of our sanctifying the Sabbath namely the ascribing to God the Holy Ghost the glory of the work of sanctification And this is proper work for Christians in the intervals and void spaces between the publick Ordinances to sit down and first seriously and impartially to examine the work of grace in our souls 1. For the truth of it 2. For the growth of it And then if we can give God and our own Consciences some Scriptural account concerning this matter humbly to fall down and to put the Crown of praise upon the head of Free-grace which hath made a difference where it found none And so much for this Text at this time How we may hear the Word with profit Serm. VII Jam. 1.21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the ingrafted word which is able to save your souls THese Jews to whom the Apostle writes were guilty of many foul and scandalous sins but their master sin was the love of this world c. 4. ver 4. (a) Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God and from this sin arose many other Evils wherewith they are charged in this Epistle as 1. Their tickling joy in hopes to get gain ch 4.13 (b) Go to now ye that say To day or to morrow we will go into such a City and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain 2. Their Hoarding up of riches ch 5.3 (c) Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last daies 3. With-holding the pay of the labouring man chap. 5.4 (d) Behold the hire of the labourers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud cryeth and the cries of them which have reaped are entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath 4. Their fightings and Contentions one with the other yea their killing one the other to get their Estates ch 4.1 2. (e) From whence come wars and fightings among you come they not even from your lusts that war in your members ye lust and have not ye kill and desire to have cannot obtain their desiring to have made them kill one the other as Ahab did Naboth 5. Their Admiring the rich and villifying the poor ch 2.3 (f) If there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring in goodly apparel and there come in also a poor man in vile rayment And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing and lastly to name no more Hence arose their unprofitable hearing of the word ch 1.22 (g) But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves They heard they had the best places at meetings but they were hearers only they did nothing for Riches as Christ tells us Choak the word Luke 8.14 (h) And that which fell among thorns are they which when they have heard go forth and are choaked with cares and riches And as they were guilty of these moral vices so erroneous in the Doctrine of faith especially in that main Article of Justification Holding an empty and inefficatious faith sufficient to interest a man in Christ ch 2.14 (i) What doth it profit my brethren though a man say he hath faith have not works can faith save him can such a faith save him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can that faith save him can such a faith save him that Faith that saves is alwaies fruitful and that faith which is not fruitful is no true Faith the Apostle doth not deny that we are justified by Faith by Faith only but he denies that faith without works is a true faith it s only an empty and aiery notion and such a faith cannot justifie nor save a man Well then this being the case and condition of the people it was impossible they should be quiet and patient hearers of the word but must needs fret and fume against it as that which contradicts their Lusts Errors and Delusions The Apostle therefore to take them off from this bitter and untoward spirit in Hearing the word gives them this wholsome counsel and advice from God Wherefore laying apart all filthiness c. All filthiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'le not restrain it to covetousness nor to scurrilous and reproachful speeches but take it in its utmost Latitude as denoting sin in the General 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifies the filth of the flesh 1 Pet. 3.21
will sing Praise to the Name of the Lord most High And sometimes he calls upon others 1 Chron. 16.9 Sing unto him sing Psalms unto him and tell of his wondrous Works Nay sometimes he summons the whole Earth to join in this duty 1 Chron. 16.23 Psalm 68.32 Sing unto the Lord all the Earth shew forth from day to day his Salvation And holy Hezekiah he propagated this service 2 Chron. 29.30 Nay in their times when the Royal Majesty was lodg'd in Judah Singers were a peculiar Office enjoined constantly to sing the Praises of the Lord 1 Kings 10.12 And Jehosaphat appointed Singers 2 Chron. 20.21 Nay and Asaph Heman Jeduthun and Ethan men eminent and holy were employed in this holy service 2 Chron. 5.12 But why should I light a Candle at Noon-day Thus this harmonious service was most usual and most acceptable in the times of the Law And I need not straggle from my Text to bring in Gospel-Precept for this sweet Ordinance And the Apostle takes care to acquaint other Churches with the same injunction So Colos 3.16 Col. 3.16 Teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And so firmly the Apostle states this Musical Service this exhilarating Ordinance that he himself act his own injunction though fettered in a Prison and makes Barnabas a Companion of his Song as well as of his Sorrows Acts 16.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They Hymned God i.e. they celebrated his Praises with a Hymn and as Bede saith Lorinus Bede with singing 2. From Scripture-Argument And I shall only take out one shaft out of the whole Quiver I shall use one Argument among many which is this viz. We always find this duty of singing Psalms linked to and joyned with other Moral Duties Thus the Psalmist joyns Singing and Prayer together Psal 95.1 6. O come let us sing unto the Lord Psal 95.1.6 in the first Verse O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker in the sixth Verse There is Prayer and Singing connexed Singing being supposed to be of equal necessity and authority with other Ordinances And so the Apostle James Jam. 5.3 joins these two together Is any among you afflicted let him pray Is any merry let him sing Psalms So you may observe both these Services are equally calculated for man's necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Mart. 119. Quad Orthodox Thus Paul and Silas join them in their practice Acts 16.25 And so Justin Martyr in his 117. Question ad Orthodoxos tells us that in his time They Sang and sent up Prayers to God the Primitive Church confirming David's Injunction and the Apostolical Command So that by these instances we may observe That the duty of Praying and Singing have walk'd in the same equipage and lay claim to an equal Authority from Divine Writ the Scripture jointly favouring both 3. From Scripture-Pattern Moses both pens a Psalm viz. the Ninetieth and sings a Holy Song and the 15th of Exodus Is the record of it So David tripudiates in the practice of this delightful service Psal 104.33 Psal 104.33 Nay David composeth Psalms and Hezekiah appoints them to be Sung 2 Chron. 29.30 So David and Asaph Hezekiah and the Levites all join to Sing forth the praises of the Lord. Nay our dearest Jesus the King of Saints and the Redeemer of Mankind practiseth this sweet duty and calls in his blessed Apostles to make up the Quire Mat. 26.30 Rev. 15.3 Mat. 26.30 And when they had Sung an Hymn they went up into the Mount of Olives Our blessed Saviour honours this Ordinance with his own practice and this he did a little before his death so to seal this Ordinance with his blood as well as to consecrate it with his lips Thus this Celestial Quire of Christ and his Apostles six this sweet Ordinance in the Church for future successions 4. From Scripture-Prophesie And here I may speak of Singing as Paul speaks of Timothy's Ordination 1 Tim. 4.14 It was given by Prophesie There are divers Prophesies in the Old Testament concerning this Ordinance in the New So in Psal 108.2 Upon which Mollerus Mollerus observes That in that Text David pours forth ardent Prayers and wishes for the Kingdom of Christ And so Divines observe that the Psalm 100.1 2. are Prophetical Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye Lands serve the Lord with gladness come before his presence with Singing To which may be added that pregnant prophesie recorded in Isa 52.8 Isa 52 8. Speculatores simul jubilabunt opinare quantum sit gaudium futurum ob Redemptionem ad eptamper Christum Musc My watchmen shall lift up their voice with their voice together shall they sing which clearly prognosticates this Musical Ordinance in Gospel times And Musculus much favours this Interpretation when he saith These watchmen shall Jubilee when they shall consider the great joy approaching for the Redemption obtained by Christ And there are two things which not only establish but sweeten and honour an Ordinance 1. Promises 2. Prophesies Christ himself was the fruit and issue of both Secondly we may take notice of the sweetness of this Duty Singing is the Soul's Jubilee Our Spiritual recreation The shout of the heart Our tuning of our Hallelujahs The sweetest solace of a Sanctified Soul David was in a kind of rapture when he cries out I will Sing praise to the Lord while I have my being Psal 104.33 Psal 104.33 One well observes of Singing There is a dilating of the sound and a drawing out of the voice which gives more tïme for the fixing of the heart upon that which is Sung and so puts the Soul upon a sweeter Meditation Psal 10.4 34. Psal 104.34 And we may animadvert it That when we Sing Psalms there is more than ordinary raising and lifting up of the Soul there is an elevation to a higher degree of Communion with God It is the Soul 's high Mount towards Heaven the Saint flies higher towards the Element and Sphere of joy Then we are fledged for sublime things One asserts There is not a greater resemblance of Heaven upon Earth than a company of God's people Singing a Psalm together Then the Soul rejoyceth in Divine goodness and exults in Divine excellencies meditates on Divine promises And whatever we make the matter of our Singing it will much affect the heart 1. If we Sing of God Of his goodness It inflames our heart to love Of his Wisdom It raiseth our heart to admiration Rom. 11.33 Of his Power It engageth the heart to Faith and Confidence Nay of his Judgments It over-awes the heart to a due and reverential Fear 2. If we Sing of any thing concerning our selves If for the diversion of a trouble It fills the heart with humility If for the obtaining of a mercy It boils up the heart in Desire 3. If we Sing of
doing of greater good in humane Society for the time to come but more especially in Religious Nurture instruction in Righteousness 2 Tim. 3.16 and as it follows in the admonition of the Lord In the best and highest kind of Nurture that which is drawn and fetcht from the Word of the Lord and so will be most accepted of him and most profitable to Children Not only in Arts and Sciences to make them Worldly wise and Learned nor only in the Mysteries of Trading and Worldly employment to make them Rich nor only in matters of Morality and Civil honesty to make them Sober and vertuous but in the mysteries of true Religion in the nurture and admonition of the Lord 1 Tim. 4.6 in the words of Faith and good Doctrine to make them truly happy 2. Presidents It was the constant practice of the Saints of old carefully to instruct their children in the things of God And that 1. In the Truths and Worship of the true God Thus Divines conclude that Adam instructed his Sons Gen. 4.3 4. Cain and Abel to bring their Offerings to the Lord And from Adam down along to Moses for the space of two thousand years how was the true Religion communicated but by Oral Tradition from Parents to their Children Gen. 18.19 I know Abraham that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do Justice and Judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him In this Text we have Abraham's Testimonial subscribed by God himself Wherein God 1. Asserts what Abraham was for the present a man of integrity a man greatly beloved of God I know Abraham I know his judgment I know his heart I am well acquainted with the frame of his spirit the inclination of his Will the bent of his Affections and I know him so well that I cannot but highly approve and dearly love him and will trust him with an Arcanum make him as it were of my Privy Councel in imparting to him my great design concerning wicked Sodom 2. Foretells for the future 1. What Abraham would do for God viz. That he would endeavour to bring all that were under his Command to be at God's Command Abraham will not leave his children and servants to their own Genius counsels lusts ignorance idleness superstition idolatry but command them to keep the way of Jehovah Abraham will endeavour to set up God in his Family to instruct it in that way of Faith Worship and Obedience which God requireth 2. What God will do for Abraham viz. fulfil his Promise keep his Word Holy Job that Non pareil of the World none like him in the Earth Job 1.8 that perfect that upright man Job sends and sanctifies his children i. e. says that late burning and shining Light sent a Message to them to command them to prepare and fit themselves for the holy duty of Sacrificing This preparation to holy Duties is often call'd Sanctifying Exod. 19.20 1 Sam. 6.5 Job 11.55 Job 1.5 Josâ—ph Caryl on Job 1.5 Job's main and special care was for the Souls of his children Job's Message to his children was not to ask them how they did after their Feasting whether they had surfeited how the reckoning was inflamed No his eye and heart mostly fixt on this that they might be sanctified His holy Soul struck a perfect light to Paul's desire before Agrippa Acts 26.29 I would to God that not only thou but all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am And to John's joy John Ep. 3.4 I have no greater joy than to hear that thy children walk in the truth Thus David that man after God's own heart Psal 34.11 Come ye children hearken unto me I will teach you the fear of the Lord. But more especially I would commend to your most accurate view that lovely Prospect presented to us in Prov. 4.3 4. Behold there a great and glorious King descending from his Imperial Throne laying aside his Golden Crown and Royal Scepter and sitting down on a lower seat with a Child a Solomon at his knee So that the King is now humbled into a Tutor the Prince into a Pupil A brief account of the Lecture the Text gives us I was my Father's Son i. e. I was so my Father's Son as that I was also his Jedidiah so beloved as if I had been his only Son He taught me also and said unto me Let thine heart retain my words keep my Commandments and live Thus we have seen the practice of godly Fathers but what have godly Mothers done have they been so cruelly forgetful of their children as not to have compassion on the Sons of their Womb What! worse than Sea-Monsters who draw out their breasts and give suck to their young ones No Lam. 4.3 no those true Daughters of Sarah have been more spiritually kind and benign 1. In the Front of these stands our Mother the Spouse of Christ Can. 8.2 Ass Annot in Cant. 8.2 I would lead thee and bring thee into my Mothers House i. e. into mine own House or Mansion as is usual with us to call our own Houses the Houses of our Fathers The Church in her Universal Latitude is the Mother of all her Members who would or doth instruct me The Church John 6.45 who is the Pillar and ground of truth in this respect that she presenteth and holdeth forth that truth outwardly which only Christ bringeth to the heart and makes effectual 2. Upon her right hand stands David's Royal Consort Queen Bathsheba whom we find laying the Law before King Lemuel i. e. her Son Solomon called Lemuel i. e. of God because God had ordained him to be King over Israel rather than any of his Elder Brethren 1 Kings 2.15 22. The words of King Lemuel the Prophesie Doctrine or Instruction that his Mother taught him 2. What my Son and what the Son of my Womb Prov. 31.1 2. and what the Son of my Vows 3. Upon her left hand let the hoary-headed holy Grand mother Lois and the tender discreet pious Mother Eunice be placed who even from the Dug as it were instructed their hopeful Timothy in the knowledg of the Holy Scriptures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1.5 3.15 16 11. which were able to make him wise unto Salvation 2. In the ways and works of God's Providence Thus Gideon gives testimony to his Forefathers that they had told their Children of all the Miracles which the Lord had done saying did not the Lord bring us from Egypt Jud. 6.13 Thus the Psalmist Psal 44.1 2. We have heard with our ears O God Psal 44.1 c. our Fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days in the times of old And again Psal 78.3 4 5 6 7. Sayings of old which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us 4. We will not hide
them from their Children shewing to the Generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful work that he hath done Deut. 4 9. 6.7 5. For he established a Testimony in Jacob and appointed a Law in Israel which he commanded our Fathers that they should make them known to their children 6. That the Generation to come might know them even the children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their children 7. That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God Thus Hezekiah upon his recovery from death Isa 38.19 The living the living he shall praise thee as I do this day the Father to the Children shall make known thy truth They that survive they alone can and each of them should praise the Lord this being the principal end to which men should live and for which they should desire life Psal 80.18 The Father to the Children shall make known thy truth i. e. they shall transmit the memory of thy faithfulness in the performance of thy promises to Posterity Psal 145.4 3. Arguments 1. The Souls of Children as well as their Bodies are committed to the care and trust of Parents by the Lord to whom they must give a strict account 'T is a grand mistake to think that the care of Souls belongs only to Ministers True indeed it eminently belongs to our Spiritual Pastors Ezek. 3.18 19. If they warn not the wicked from his wicked way to save his life the same wicked man shall dye in his iniquity but his blood will God require at the negligent Pastor's hand Omnia quae deliquerint filii à parentibus requirentur qui non erudierint filios suos Orig. And no less doth God bespeak Parents in the same language that we find 1 Kings 20.39 Keep this man this child if by any means he be missing then shall thy life be for his life If he be lost and miscarry through thy neglect thy life thy Soul shall go for his As therefore Parents dread the guilt of Soul murther of their children they ought to be careful of their pious Education Psal 51.5 2. The state of poor childrens Souls calls aloud on Parents for the discharge of this duty Alas poor Creatures conceiv'd in sin brought forth in iniquity those whom we fondly miscall Innocent Babes come into the World with an Indictment on their Foreheads with ropes about their necks full of guilt full of filth bloody loathsom Creatures Gen. 8.21 Job 14.4 Prov. 22.15 Eph. 2.3 Children of wrath nothing in them by nature that is good Rom. 7.18 An averseness from all good Psal 58.3 Eph. 4.18 A proneness to all evil These young Lyons prone to cruelty they are Serpents in the very Egg and Cockatrices in the very shell Isa 59.5 And whence comes all this guilt and filth but from the hole of the Pit out of which they are digid from that unhappy Rock out of which they are hewn their unhappy Parents Job 14.1 4. 15.14 Isa 51.5 sinful Parents having utterly lost God's Image like Adam beget children in their own Gen. 5.3 Nay Abraham himself though a circumcised Saint as a Natural Father begets an uncircumcised Isaac The Vine they spring from is a Vine of Sodom and therefore the Children are the Grapes of Gomorrah Bloody Parents are we to our Children Exod. 21.19 how much then doth it concern Parents even in common Justice to endeavour to cure those wounds that they themselves have given and to preserve their Little Ones from perishing by that Leprosie infection poyson which they by Nature conveigh into them And here what Topicks do not offer themselves to convince the judgments of Rational Parents 1. There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a natural love and affection in Parents to their Children Nature gives bowels of pity to them that are in misery specially to children Isa 49.15 Psal 103.13 Will Parents then prove unnatural nay worse than beasts for even the Sea-monsters draw out their breasts and give suck to their young ones Lam. 4.3 Charity edifies saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 8.1 1 Cor. 8.1 David's and Bathsheba's tender love to their Solomon put them upon careful instructing of him wherein they shewed their love to his Soul as well as his Body 2. Parents either do or should principally aim at the Spiritual and Eternal good of their poor Children And what more profitable and effectual way to promote this than pious instruction and education The Earth often proves according to the seeds cast into it The Vessel usually retains a smack and tincture of that with which it was first season'd What Blessings might Parents prove to their Children What excellent things might be effected by them if they did but take the advantage of their tender years and then resolvedly set themselves to bring them in to God 3. Parentt cannot but love themselves their own peace their own comforts their own delights and what more probable means to advance these than the pious education of their children which fully appears by this Dilemma either their conscientious endeavours prove successful or not 1. If not If after all care pains prayer faithfulness the Crop should not answer the Seed why this may relieve and support Liberavit animam suam that it is not through the Parents default The Child dyes but not by the Father's hand He hath discharg'd his duty and thereby in the sight of God deliver'd his own Soul from guilt though he could not deliver his Child's Soul from ruine Where God sees such a willing mind backt with sincere utmost constant endeavours 2 Cor. 8.12 God accepts the faithful Parent according to that he hath and not according to that he hath not But 2. If the Lord please to smile on endeavours into what a transport and extasie of joy will it raise the serious Parent to see the corruption of his Child's Nature heal'd to see saving grace wrought in his heart If such a sight be so pleasing to Spiritual Fathers to Paul 1 Thess 2.10 to John John 3. Ep. v 4. how ravishing must it needs be to Natural Parents Prov. 10.1 and 23 24 25. But especially when this is wrought by their own means 4. When this grace is wrought in the hearts of children and that especially by their Parents this cannot but inflame the hearts of children with dearest love of and ingage them to the highest duty to their Parents they must of necessity be far more loving and dutiful than otherwise they could or would be A wise Son maketh a glad Father But how Prov. 15.20 viz. by a dutiful and respectful carriage 5. By this means Parents shall do unspeakable good to their Families and Posterity Hereby even many Ages after they are dead like Abel Deut. 4.9 they shall yet speak and Posterity hearing the voice of their Ancestors coming as it were from the dead they will be more
Philip to the Noble Eunuch q. d. To what purpose readest thou if thou be not careful to understand what thou readest The Word Preached either by Pastor or Teacher the Truth deliver'd in a way of Catechizing will do us no good unless we hear with understanding Hearken unto me every one of you and understand Mark 7.14 saith the greatest Preacher and have ye understood all these things Matth. 13.51 Dear Brethren as I know you desire not to sow your seed on the high-way Mat. 13 19. so as that the Fowls of that Prince of the Air should come and pick it up so be careful to make poor Creatures to understand what they are taught Now for the opening of the Truths laid down in the Assemblies Catechism I cannot but commend those four Books which I have found so exceeding useful for the younger ones among our people viz. Dr. Wallis Mr. Jos Alleyn Mr. Tho. Vincent and Mr. Tho. Dolittle their excellent Explanations 3. You will be sure to act very wisely very discreetly You know in Catechizing you have to do with different Sexes Ages Tempers Capacities some are less capable and more bashful these must not be expos'd to the scorn and contempt of those that have it may be more glib tougues and brazen foreheads but worse hearts You know when and how to incourage the willing to praise the forward to check the presumptuous to admonish the unruly patiently to bear with all You know what it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Soul Nurses 1 Thess 2.7 8. how to impart with all dearness those Fundamental Truths which make for their spiritual and eternal good and growth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And shall I take leave in your names to assure younger ones that you will have a tender eye to the slowness of apprehension in some of them to the slipperiness of memory in others to the bashfulness of most to the reputation of them all That you will opportunely prevent their grosser mistakes and candidly palliate their lesser ones that you will give the best sense to the worst of their Answers and put some necessary words into their mouths the better to facilitate the expression of their thoughts that you will so wisely manage the whole business as that it may make for their reputation as well as instruction and that they may find favour both with God and men 4. What you do do it resolvedly and that in God's strength not in your own Expect opposition from within from without From within a proud heart apt to mutter 't is a low mean piece of drudgery No but rather the most Doctor-like part of our work and such as cannot accurately be perform'd without a clear insight into the greatest depths of Religion and a proportionable gift of ready Exposition The lowest Principles of Religion are the highest Mysteries Again the tender shoulder that shrugs and enters its Plea against the burthen as being too troublesom a weight to be added to the Load of our other Lords-day-labours Neither will this prevail with you Brethren we are confident you are not only able 2 Tim. 2.14 2 Cor. 12.15 but apt to teach 'T is your joy to spend your selves and be spent in the utmost service of your God and his Church You will not be much concern'd in the consuming of your Oyl so you may lend your Light To such gracious Souls as yours there is there can be no greater burthen than the sense you have of the heaviness of your people in hearing But from without the general averseness of young ones is pleaded as a grand obstruction As to that you are so well seen in spiritual Logick as to fetch meat out of this Eater and will easily conclude that this averseness in young ones from this exercise of Catechizing is not the least Argument of its singular usefulness The more unwilling the Patient is to have his Wound open'd searcht plaister'd and bound the more eager the compassionate Chirurgion is to give relief The more unwilling they are to present themselves to be Catechiz'd the more reason have we to press them to it by the greatest violence of perswasion .. Lastly let not want of success discourage Your Heavenly Master you know hath assured you that your labour is not 1 Cor. 15. last shall not be in vain in the Lord. God takes the measures of his servants not from their success which is his sole work but from their sedulous and faithful endeavors which is their duty Go you on to plant and water let the great Lord of the Vineyard alone to give the increase And know 2 Cor. 8.12 1 Cor. 3.6 7. 2 Cor. 2.15 you are a sweet savour unto God and though Israel be not gather'd but you seem to have spent your strength in vain yet surely your judgment is with the Lord and your work and wages with your God Isa 49.4 I have now done with the particular directions there remain yet some more general ones which being observed may with God's Blessing much promote the success of this whole work And so 1. To spiritual instruction add holy admonition exhortation good advice and counsel Do not only let them know by instruction what their duty is but press urge inforce this duty upon them by admonition and good counsel O my Child you see your Duty you know what you ought to do O do according to what you know What a strong powerful prevailing influence hath good counsel when duly applied Only see 1. That you back your counsel with the clearest Scripture and most convincing Arguments you can possibly Good advice without these is but a Bullet without Powder and Arrow without a Feather Argue with them about the Excellency of God Christ the Spirit Grace the vanity of the Creature the folly and sinfulness of sin See how Job handles the matter with his Wife about murmuring and impatience against God Job 2.10 What shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil Hear what Bathsheba saith to Solomon Prov. 31.2 3 4. What my Son and what the Son of my Womb c. It is not for Kings O Lemuel it is not for Kings c. Shew them the beauty of Christ draw aside the Curtain let them behold the Image of that blessed Saviour pourtrayed in Scripture Do to them as the Spouse did to the Daughters of Jerusalem run over all the Excellencies of Christ to them and then conclude He is altogether lovely This is my Beloved and this is my Friend Can. 5.16 O Daughters of Jerusalem 2. Labour as much as possible to insinuate your selves into their affections Having clear'd your way into their heads labour to wind and scrue your selves into their hearts Let them know that you have no design upon them but to make them happy no private end only their everlasting good This done thou hast done all thy work when all jealousies of any sinister ends are blown away then Exhortations and
pleasant than easie what is more pleasant than a feast and this of all feasts is the sweetest if the perishing Manna in the wilderness were so delicious as that the tast of it was like wafers made with honey Exod. 16.31 how much more delicious must this celestial Manna this bread of eternal life be which is spread before you in this Supper it is a feast of love of the love of the Father and of the Son there is a voice in every morsel of bread you there eat and in every draught of wine you there drink saying behold O sinners how you are beloved of the Father and Son had not the Father loved you he would never have parted with his Son and if the Son had not loved you he would never have parted with his life for you Oh therefore come ye to this Supper come eat and drink ye beloved of the Lord and remembes his love more than wine let all the redeemed of the Lord come hither and praise him Nor is it a duty less honourable than pleasant it is a pleasant thing to feast but it is honorable to feast with a King most honorable with the King of Kings and Lord of the whole earth How did Haman glory that he was invited to the banquet with the King he reckoned not of it as his task but his priviledg not as his work but his reward And shall a feast with an earthly mortal King be more valued than a feast with the heavenly and immortal God this Supper is the Lord's Supper it is the great God hath made the provision and it is his eternal Son that hath made the invitation Oh take heed of excuses for though you make them God will not take them make therefore your selves ready put on your wedding-garments and come away let not a Table so well furnished want its guests least Christ lose the honour and you the comfort of the entertainment But if you will still draw back know this that you do not only sin but that your sin is great because against a command that is so easie sweet and honourable as I have shewn you this is 5. There is one circumstance more in the command which should quicken you to the observance and that is the time when this command was given It was the very night in which he was betrayed the very last night he lived on the earth the night before that day in which he offered up himself a sacrifice to justice for us Then it was he said do this in remembrance of me As if he had said my friends I am now to leave you and to be taken out of your sight but oh let me not be out of your mind to morrow you shall see how I love you when you see me scorned of men deserted of God praying groaning bleeding dying for you oh let not that love of mine be forgotten and least it should I therefore institute this supper charging you with my whole Church till I come again that so often as they eat this bread and drink this cup they remember me This is the charge of our dying Lord and surely if we have any love for him we should not dare but observe it When Jacob was dying he gave in charge as some of his last words that Joseph should forgive the unkindness of his brethren and when he was dead the brethren thought it a good argument to move Joseph to take pitty on them they therefore sent messengers to Joseph saying thy Father did command before he died Gen 50.16 17 18. saying forgive I pray thee the trespass of thy brethren this argument broke Josephs heart it is said he wept when they spake unto him and said fear not oh how did the words of his dying Father move and melt him methinks I hear him say was this the desire of my dying Father I cannot then but yield would my Father have me forgive I freely do it Now my brethren why should you not do as much for your dying Jesus as Joseph for his dying Jacob was Jacob his Father Jesus is our Saviour did Jacob love Joseph but he did not dye for him as Jesus did for us and shall we find a heart to deny our Lord in his dying request when Joseph could not find one to deny his Father oh then as Joseph forgave so let us This do in remembrance of him which will be an instance of that great love and honour we do keep for his memory 6. In the next place I desire you would think of the contempt you throw upon this Ordinance by your neglect What is it but that you have slight thoughts of the Authority of the Institutor and very mean thoughts of the institution it self and is not this to proclaim to the world that there is in your judgment a command of the Lord Christ and a duty in the Christian Religion that is frivolous and childish not worth the observance believe it the World will judg of it by your practice and not by your profession The Rechabites would drink no wine because Jonadab the son of Rechab did forbid them nor will the Turks drink wine because that Impostor Mahomet forbad them thus the one honoured their Father and the other their false Prophet and will you that are Christians let these men rise up in judgment against you shall error be more prevalent with them than truth with you and will you let the Turks outdo you in honouring a false prophet more than you do the true is Mahomet dearer and his institutions more sacred to his followers then Jesus Christ and his institution are to you Christ bids you drink of this cup in remembrance of him and you will not but Mahomet forbids them wine and they obey him judg you now who gives the greatest honor they to Mahomet or you to Christ methinks you should blush to think of it Oh Christians for shame amend and give no more occasion to Christ's Ministers to reprove you for so gross a sin 7. I have not yet done Think once more with what hypocrisie this neglect is accompanied What is hypocrisie but to endeavour to seem better than indeed we are to seem zealous for Christ and his Ordinances when in truth we are luke-warm and indifferent Ye are Protestants by profession your Fathers were so before you and ye seem ready to plead their Cause Oh that ye would look back and consider the Age past With what zeal was this Ordinance pleaded for in King Henry the 8th and Queen Mary's days The Papists would give you the bread only but you would have the Cup also they would have you adore the bread as a God ye would not commit so great Idolatry for which cause how many were exiled how many imprisoned racked hanged burned and after all these heats Oh gross Hypocrisie you will neither have bread nor wine nor will you take it in the Gospel-way without the incumbrances of Superstition and Idolatry Ye talk
night and then with her spirit seeks him early Desires blown by meditation are the sparks that set prayer in a light flame The work of preparation may be cast under five heads when we apply to solemn and set prayer 1. The consideration of some attributes in God that are proper to the intended petitions 2. A digestion of some peculiar and special promises that concern the affair 3. Meditation on suitable arguments 4. Ejaculations for assistance 5. An engagement of the heart to a holy frame of reverence and keeping to the point in hand Cypr. de Orat. p. 106. 6. edit Nec quicquam tunc animus quam solum cogitet quod precatur was serious advice from Cyprian let the soul think upon nothing but what it is to pray for and adds that therefore the ministers of old prepared the minds of the people with sursum corda let your hearts be above For how can we expect to be heard of God when we do not hear our selves when the heart does not watch while the tongue utters The tongue must be like the pen of a ready writer Psal 45.1 to set down the good matter which the heart indites take heed of ramblings to preach or tell pious stories while praying to the great and holy God is a branch of irreverence and a careless frame of spirit Heb. 12.28 2. Humble confession of such sins as concern and refer principally to the work in hand Our filthy garments must be taken away when we appear before the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem Look upon my afflictions Zech. 3.4 Psal 25.18 Psal 39.8.12 Psal 103.3 cries David and forgive all my sins There are certain sins that often relate to afflictions First deliver me from my transgressions then hear my prayer O Lord for this is the heavenly method he first forgiveth all our iniquities and then healeth all our diseases A forgiven soul is a healed soul while a man is sick at heart with the qualms of sin unpardoned it keeps the soul under deliquiums and swooning fits that it cannot cry strongly unto God and therefore in holy groans must discharge himself of particular sins and pour out his soul before God Thus did David in that great penitential Psalm Psal 51.4 Isa 59.2 Ezra 9.6 For sin like a thick cloud hides the face of God that our prayers cannot enter We must blush with Ezra and our faces look red with the flushings of conscience if we expect any smiles of mercy Our crimson sins must dye our confessions and the blood of our sacrifices must sprinkle the horns of the golden altar before we receive an answer of peace from the golden mercy seat When our persons are pardoned our suits are accepted and our petitions crowned with the Olive-branch of peace 3. An arguing and pleading Spirit in prayer This is properly wrestling with God humble yet earnest expostulations about his mind towards us Psal 74.1 Isa 64.9 Why hast thou cast us off for ever why doth thine anger smoke Be not wroth very sore O Lord remember not iniquity for ever see we beseech thee we are thy people If so why is it thus as frighted Rebekah flies out into prayer An arguing frame in prayer cures and appease◠(f) Psal 34.4 Gen. 25.22 Psal 27.4 Psal 22.1 21. Psal 80 4. Jer. 14 8 9. the frights of spirit and then inquires of God The Temple of prayer is call'd the souls inquiring place Why is God so far from the voice of my roaring Thou hast heard me from the horns of the Vnicorns Art thou angry with the prayers of thy people and how long turn us again and cause thy face to shine upon us O hope of Israel why like a wayfaring man like a man astonied O Lord thou art in the midst of us and we are called by thy name leave us not I must refer to Abraham Jacob and Moses Joshuah David and Daniel how they urged arguments with God Sometimes from (a) Ps 5 7. 6 4 31 16. the multitudes of God's mercies from (b) Psal 4.1 6.9 22.4 21. 31. 2 3 7. 140.7 the experience of former answers from the Name of God from (c) Psal 9.10 16.1 their trust and reliance upon him (d) Psal 17.1 from the equity of God (e) Psal 31.17 34.1 from the shame and confusion of face that God will put his people to if not answered and that others will be driven away from God and lastly from (f) Psal 20.5 35 18. the promise of peace These and many like pleadings we find in Scripture for patterns in prayer which being suggested by the spirit kindled from the altar and perfumed with Christ's incense rise up like memorial pillars before the oracle Let 's observe one or two particular prayers what instant arguments holy men have used and pressed in their perplexities 2 Chron. 20.10 c. Jehoshaphat what a working prayer did he make taking pleas from God's Covenant dominion and powerful strength from his gift of the Land of Canaan and driving out the old inhabitants ancient mercies from his Sanctuary and his promise to Solomon from the ingratitude and ill requital of the enemies with an appeal to God's equity in the case and a humble confession of their own impotency and yet that in their anxiety their eyes are sixt upon God You know how gloriously it prevailed when he had set ambushments round about the Court of Heaven v. 8. and the Lord turn'd his arguments into ambushments against the children of Edom c. Yea this is set as an instance (g) Joel 3.2 how God will deal against the Enemies of his Church in the latter days Another is that admirable prayer of the Angel of the Covenant to God for the restauration of Jerusalem Zech. 1.12 wherein he pleads from the length of time and the duration of his indignation for threescore and ten years from promised mercies and the expiration of Prophesies and behold an answer of good and comfortable words from the Lord and pray observe that when arguments in prayer are very cogent upon a sanctified heart such being drawn from the divine attributes from precious promises and sweet experiments of God's former love it 's a rare sign of a prevailing prayer 'T was an ingenious passage of Chrysostom concerning the woman of Canaan Chrys in Mat. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the poor distressed creature was turned an acute Philosopher with Christ and disputed the mercy from him O 't is a blessed thing to attain to this heavenly Philosophy of prayer to argue blessings out of the hand of God Here 's a spacious field I have given but a small prospect where the soul like Jacob does in arenam descendere enter the lists with omnipotency and by holy force obtain the blessing 4. Ardent affections in prayer betokening a heart deeply sensible are greatly prevalent Exod. 14 15. A crying prayer pierces the
depths of heaven We read not a word that Moses spake but God was moved by his cry I mean not an obstreperous noise but melting moans of heart Yet sometimes the sore and pinching necessities and distresses of spirit extort even vocal cries not displeasant to the inclined ears of God I cried to the Lord with my voice says David Psal 3.4 Psal 5.2 Psal 39.12 Psal 142.1.5 6 7. and he heard me out of his holy hill and this encourages to a fresh onset hearken to the voice of my cry my King and my God Give ear to my cry hold not thy peace at my tears another time he makes the Cave Eccho with his cries I cried I cried attend to my cry for I am brought very low and what 's the issue Fath gets courage by crying his tears watered his faith that it grew into confidence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coronabunt and so concludes thou shalt deal bountifully with me and the righteous shall crown me for conquerour Plentiful tears bring bountiful mercies and a crying suitor proves a triumphant praiser Holy Jacob was just such another at the fords of Jabbok he prevailed with the Angel for he wept Hos 12.4 1 Kings 20.5 Jer. 31.18 and made supplications to him Hezekiah may bring up the rear for the Lord told him he had heard his prayer for he had seen his tears Such presidents may well encourage backsliding Ephraim to return and bemoan himself and then the bowels of God are troubled for him Nay we have a holy woman likewise weeping sore before the Lord in Shiloh 1 Sam. 1.10 2.1 and then rejoicing in his salvation The cries of Saints are like vocal musick joined with the instrumental of prayer they make heavenly melody in the ears of God The bridegroom calls to his mourning dove let me hear thy voice for that 's pleasant Cant. 2.14 Gers Tom. 2. Fol. 77. â— What Gerson says of the sores of Lazarus Quot vulnera tot linguas habuit as many wounds so many tongues we may say of sighs cries and groans in prayer so many eloquent orators at the throne of God 5. Importunity and assiduity in prayer is highly prevalent Ambrose de Cain Abel l. 1. c. 9. Mat. 5.7 Epiphan haeres 30. Luke 18.1 1 Thess 5.17 Num. 28.4 6. 2 Sam 9.7 Non ut fastidiosa continuetur oratio sed ut assidua frequenter effundatur not that we should lengthen out prayer with tedious and vain repetitions as the Heathen did of old or as the Euchitae in Constantius his time that did little else but pray but that we should be frequent and continue instant in prayer Whereas our Lord bids us to pray always and the Apostle Paul to pray without ceasing we are to understand it of Constancy at times every day As the morning and evening Sacrifice at the Temple is call'd the Continual burnt-offering As Mephibosheth is said to eat bread Continually at David's table and Solomon's Servants to stand Continually before him i. e. at the set and appointed times So 't is required of us to be constant and assiduous at prayer and to follow our lawful requests with perseverance Thus Hannah is said to multiply prayer 1 Sam. 1.12 and received multiplied answers expresly indeed she prayed but for one Son but she had six children returned in upon prayer When the soul perseveres in prayer 't is a sign of a persevering faith and such may have (b) John 16.23 1 Kings 18.43 what they will at the hand of God when praying according to prescript Nay urgent prayer is the token of a mercy at hand When Elijah prayed seven times one after another for rain Isa 45.11 the clouds presently march up out of the sea at the command of prayer Ask of me things to come saith the Lord and concerning the works of my hands command ye me When we put forth our utmost strength in prayer and will as it were receive no nay from heaven our prayers must be like the Continual blowing of the silver Trumpets over the sacrifices for a memorial before the Lord Num 10.10 Like the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem which never hold their peace day nor night Isaiah 62.6 7 64 7 are commanded not to keep silence nor to give him rest Nay God seems offended at another time that they did not lay hands upon him that they might not be consumed in their iniquities Such prayers are as it were a holy molestation to the throne of grace It 's said of the man that rose at midnight to give out three loaves to his friend he did it not for friendships sake but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 11.8 because he was impudent so importunately to trouble him at such a season as 12 a clock at night Our Lord applies the parable to instant prayers The like we find of the success of the widow with the unjust judg because she did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 18 5 vex and molest him with her sollicitations But of all the pattern of the woman of Canaan is most admirable Mat. 15 23 when the Disciples desired her to be dismist because she troubled them by crying after them and yet she persists May I say it reverently Christ delights in such a troublesom person Though as an Ancient observes by comparing both Evangelists that first (a) Mat. 15.22 she cried after Christ in the streets but our Lord taking (b) Mark 7.23 house she follows him thither and falls down at his feet but as yet (c) Mat. 15.23 Augustin de consensu Evangelist l. 2. p 447. Tom. 4 edit Bâ—â— 1569. Jam. 5. Rhet. Divin p. 353. he answered her not a word In eo silentio egressum fuisse Jesum de domo illa then our Lord going out of the house again she follows vvith stronger importunity and argues the mercy into her bosom and Christ ascribes it to the greatness of her faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as another terms it a laudable and praise-worthy immodesty as in the former case to knock so rudely at midnight is deemed no incivility at the gate of heaven This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Parisiensis reads it deprecatio justi assidua An assiduous prayer is the vvay to become an efficacious prayer It 's ill taken if not importunate Cold petitioners must have cool answers If the matter of prayer be right and the promise of God fervently urged thou art like to prevail like princely Israel that held the Angel by the Collar to speak with reverence and vvould not let him go untill he had blest him Gen. 32.26 v. 24. But 't was hot work most of the night even to break of day to shew that in some cases of extremity vve must hold out in prayers For our Lord in the next verse to the Text does not forbid the length of prayer for he himself upon occasion continues a vvhole night in prayer
may require frequent accesses to the throne of grace in a day But I humbly think at the least once a day which seems to be imported by that passage in our Lord's prayer give us this day our daily bread Since after our Lord's appointment of secret prayer in the text he gives us this prayer as a pattern to his Disciples Qu. 3. When persons are under temptations or disturbance by passions is it expedient then to pray 1 Tim. 2.8 Ans Since we are enjoin'd to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting I judg it not so proper to run immediately to prayer but with some foregoing ejaculations for pardon and strength against such exorbitances and when in some measure cooled and composed then speed to prayer and take heed that the Sun go not down upon your wrath without holy purgation by prayer Eph 4.26 though I must confess a Christian should always endeavour to keep his course and heart in such a frame as not to be unfit for prayer upon small warnings The very consideration of our frequent communion with God should be a great bar to immoderate and exuberant passions Qu. 4. Whether may we pray in secret when others must needs take notice of our retirement Ans I must confess in a strait house and when a person can many times find no seasons but such as will fall under observation I think he ought not to neglect secret duty if his heart be right before God for fear of others notice we must prevent it as much as may be and especially watch our hearts against spiritual pride and God may graciously turn it to a testimony and for example to others Qu. 5. Whether we may be vocal in secret prayer if we can't so well raise or keep up affection or preserve the heart from wandering without it Ans No doubt but yet there must be used a great deal of wise caution about extending the voice De Orat. That of Tertullian counselling persons at prayer ne ipsis quidem manibus sublimius elatis c. Ne vultu quidem in audaciam erecto Sonos etiam vocis subjecios esse oportet aut quantis arteriis opus est si pro sono audiamur c. qui clarius adorant proximis obstrepunt imò prodendo orationes suas quid minùs faciunt quam si in publico orent Advises that both hands and countenance and voice should be ordered with great reverence and humility What arteries need we if we think to be heard for noise and what else do we by discovering our prayers than if we pray'd in publick yet surely if we can obtain some very private place or when others are from home and the extension of the voice be found to some persons by long experience to be of use such may lawfully improve it to their private benefit Q. 6. How to keep the heart from wandring thoughts in prayer Ans Although it be exceeding difficult to attain so excellent a frame yet by frequent reflecting upon and remembring the eye of God in secret by endeavouring to fix the heart with all possible watchfulness upon the main scope of prayer in hand by being very sensible of our wants and indigencies by not studying of impertinent length but rather being more frequent and short considering God is in heaven and we upon earth and by exercise of holy communion as we may through the implored assistance of the spirit attain some sweetness and freedom Eccl. 5.22 so likewise some more fixedness of spirit in our addresses before the Lord. Qu. 7. What if present answers seem not to correspond to our Petitions Ans We must not conclude it by and by to be a token of displeasure and say with Job Job 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me but acknowledg the soveraignty of divine wisdom and love in things that seem contrary to us in petitions for temporal mercies and submit to the counsel of Elihu 33.13 since he giveth no account of any of his matters neither can we find out the unsearchable methods of his holy ways to any perfection 11.7 There be other cases and scruples that might be treated of as about prescript words in secret prayers to which I need say but little since such as are truly converted (d) Gal. 4 6. Rom. 8.26 Zech. 1◠10 Acts 9.11 have the promise of the spirit of God to assist and enable them and they need not drink of another's bucket that have the fountain nor use stilts and crutches that have spiritual strength neither are words and phrases but faith and holy groans the nerves of prayer Yet for some help to young beginners doubtless it 's of use to observe the style of the spirit as well as the heavenly matter of several prayers in the holy Scriptures Psal 23.6 139.17.18 Neither need I to press frequency to a holy heart that is saln in love with spiritual communion for he delights to be continually with him the thoughts of God are so precious to him his soul is even sick of affection and prayes to be stayed with more of the flagous and comforted with the apples in greater abundance Cant. 2.5 To some though I fear how few how far it is lawful and expedient to withdraw for the necessity of the frail body in this vale of tears It may be replyed (g) Jam. 5.11 Hos 6.6 that the Lord is very pitiful and gracious to our frailties that he had rather have mercy than sacrifice in some cases Though I doubt these Phaenixes are but rare that are in danger of expiring in prayer as martyrs of divine love as Gerson expresses Gers T. 2. kk 5. Having now finisht with what brevity I could the foregoing queries I should treat about short sudden occasional prayers commonly call'd ejaculations but indeed that requires a set and just discourse yet because of a promise above recited I shall give a few tasts of it and then conclude with some application Ejaculatory Prayer Is a sudden short breathing of the soul towards Heaven upon instant and surprizing emergencies In holy persons it 's quick and lively rising from a vehement ardour of spirit swifter than the flight of eagles and keeps pace with a flash of lightning It flies upon the wings of a holy thought into the third Heavens in the twinkling of an eye and fetches auxiliary forces in times of straits There are many presidents recorded in sacred page upon great and notable occasions with strange success When good magistrates are busie in the work of reformation Neh. 13.14.22 let them imitate Nehemiah when redressing the profanation of the Sabbath Remember me O my God concerning this c. When Generals and Captains go forth to war Josh 1.17 observe Israel's apprecation to God rather than acclamations to men The Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses In time of battels or pursuit of the enemy valiant Joshuah darts up
delightful and hath its sweetness in it Q. 21 Have I not sinned indeed hath not my heart been in my sins are not my sins really sins And shall I not now pray indeed shall not my heart be in duty and my Prayers be really Prayers What! real sinning and counterfeit praying and is not counterfeit praying real sinning Awake o my Soul unto thy work Q. 22 Are not my wants real wants Do I not want grace indeed or at least really want more of it And should not my Prayers be as real as my wants Q. 23 Would I have God to put me off with seeming mercy Should I then put God off with seeming duty Q. 24 Are not my temptations real temptations and strong and powerful And should not then my Prayers be so too Q. 25 Am I not real and lively in my worldly business am I not in good earnest in my Shop in the Market and at the Exchange And should I not be so in the matters of another world in the business of my Soul Thus take some of these Questions lay them warm unto your hearts and propose them to your selves in the fear of God and they will heat you when you are cold and quicken you when you are dull if God set them home upon your hearts that you shall manage your Family Prayers to your spiritual benefit which was the third part of my work to direct you in The fourth follows Question 4. With what considerations may Masters of Families be urged to the constant performance of Family Prayer Notwithstanding it be a certain duty to pray in your Families yet I doubt when death shall come to drag you out of your houses it will find some of you guilty of neglecting of it to your dying day but yet I hope some may be Prevailed with What! have you neglected it and will you all do so still God forbid When you sin you act like men but when you go on in sin you act like Devils * Humanum est errare perseverare diabolicum I shall propound a few considerations to urge you to it and I intreat you in the name of the great eternal God before whom you and I must shortly stand and be judged to weigh them seriously and if you find there is no reason in them throw them by and look for and enquire after better but if there be resolve in the fear of God to buckle to your duty It is time †fecimus nos Haec juvenes esto desisti nempe nec ulira Fovisti errorem breve sit quod turpiter cudâ—s Quaedam cum prima resecen ur crimina barba Juven Sat. 8. it is high time to reform Did you sin when you were young and will you go on in riper years What do you come to Sermons for to hear what Ministers can say upon such a Question to discern their parts or to mend your own hearts and lives Do you come to hear that you may hear So you may and go to Hell when you have done or do you come to hear that you may practise and obey so you must if you are men for Heaven I charge you therefore here before the Lord and by Jesus Christ that shall shortly judge both you and me that your Families be no longer prayerless Families If I put you upon work that God doth not require from you then tell me so when you and I shall meet and stand at God's Judgment Bar But if it be no more than what you owe to God neglect it at your peril Sirs the day is coming and it hastens when you will you must be serious If thou diest within a week or two within a day or two or whenever thou shalt leave this world if the next hour after thou art not of this mind * Res ipsa fidem dictis dabit Serò sapiunt â—hâ—yges that thou shouldst have prayed in thy Family then say I did needlesly call thee to it but if thou shalt then see it was thy duty thou shalt also see when it is too late that thou didst befool thy self and make thy self guilty before God in thy neglecting of it Be wise therefore before it be too late and mind this work while thou hast time and opportunity To this purpose press your backward hearts with these things following MOTIVE I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Consider The Souls that live in your Families are precious and immortal Souls The Soul of the meanest Servant in your house is more precious than all the silks and wares in your Shop than all the Gold in your bags yea than all the riches in the world Mat. 16.26 And as they be of great worth so they be immortal too that must be damned or saved for ever And are these the Souls that you do not pray with that you thus neglect and slight must they live for ever and will not you call them to pray with you that they may live happily for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phocylid MOTIVE II. Quomodo ed nos pertinet in Ecclesia loqui vobis sâ—c ad vos pertinet in dâ—mibus vâ—stris agere ut bonam rationem reddatis de his qui vebis sunt subditi Aug. in Psal 50. Cum diserta mentio fiat librorum servorum ex eo câ—lligitur à parentibus patribus-familias exigi ut non ipsi solùm sabbatum sanctificent sed etiam à filiis servis curae ac fides su e commissis illud sanctificari curent Gerhar loc com de decalog Damnati seipsos omnésque sceleris socios assiduis execrationibus devovebunt parentem filius matrem filia execrabitur 2. These precious and immortal Souls in your Families are committed to your charge and care You Masters of Families have a charge of Souls as well as Ministers When you have a child born and continued to you there is one immortal Soul that God intrusts you with to bring up for him and Heaven When you take a Servant into your Family there is another Soul committed to your care Do you question this Study well the meaning of the fourth Commandment and you shall see that this is true And is it so And shall not the blood of those that go to Hell out of your Families through your neglect be required at your hands Have you done your duty when a Servant that hath served you seven years and you make him free can truly say My Master taught me my trade but he taught me not to serve God he often called me up unto my work but he never called me to Prayer Are you not afraid that your very Children and Servants will rise up in judgment against you and accuse you at the Bar of God Lord my Father saith the Son no nor my Master saith the Servant never prayed with us and we both Children and Servants being so brought up and having such Examples before us did not mind thy service neither Lord we are jastly condemned but
ordines Alsted Qualis est enjús quo domus talis est universa civitas 5. Consider that Family Reformation is a necessary means to publick Reformation and to hand down Religion from one generation to another Reformation begins with Persons thence is carried on to Families thence to Parishes thence to Towns and so to Cities and to Kingdoms but when these consist of Families how can there be a reformation of Cities and Kingdoms without a Reformation of Persons and Families You complain of the badness of the times and age in which you live and that no more care is taken to mend what is amiss why do you not reform your own houses Why do you not amend what is amiss in your own Families If you have not power to reform a Parish City or Kingdom yet you have a power to reform your own houses If Religion die in Families will it not die in Cities too and in Kingdoms too Will not you do your utmost to keep Religion alive to recover it when decaying or shall it be extinguished with this Generation God forbid Or do you see nothing amiss in your houses to be reformed what no praying there and yet nothing amiss there Certainly there is Let yours then have a pattern and example of Family-Prayer from you to do the same in their houses and their Children from them and so let it pass from one age to another An effectual way to keep the City clean will be for every house to sweep before their own door MOTIVE VI. 6. If Religious Duties are not set up in your Families Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris Horat. Sermo lib. 1. Satyr 3. there will be the more sinning there and wickedness abounding in them How much cursing is there in many Families where there is no praying The field that is not dressed and manured is full of weeds and thorns Where God is not served the Devil is If in your houses God hath not a Church the Devil will have a Chappel What hopes will the Devil have Da mihi quaeso animas caetera sume tibi that he shall have Souls out of those Families where there is much sinning and no praying And if he might have their Souls he will be content that you may have all the rest If your houses be not nurseries for Heaven they will be breeding places for Hell If Souls under your roof are not prepared for Salvation they will there be fitted for Damnation and is this nothing to you Awake arise you drousie Governers of Families to your work and duty MOTIVE VII 7. It would be an effectual way and means to make those in your Families more obedient and better towards you if you would call on them to serve the Lord and you were more in Prayer with them You cry out of stubborn ann disobedient Children They grieve and break my heart saith one I have a Child that is my daily wound and sorrow saith another and Servants never worse is your often complaint Who is all this long of do not you read your sin in your punishment If you had taught them better their duty towards God they would have made more Conscience of their duty towards you if you had prayed with them God might have bowed their hearts as a return to your Prayers to have walked more suitable to their relative duties I have read of a young man going to the Gallows desired to speak with his Mother in her ear who bit off her ear with his teeth crying out against her as the cause of his death by your negligence saith he I am come to this woful end If you are alike careless of your Families if you do not lose your ears by your own Children yet you might lose something that is better MOTIVE VIII 8. If you make profession of Religion Aliud in titulo aliud in ptxide Pelliculam veterem retines fronte politus Astutam rapido servas sub pectore vulpem Pers Sat. 5. and yet do not pray in your Families it is base and cursed hypocrisie When you hear with God's people and pray with them and receive with them and seem to be devout abroad and do not pray with your Families at home is not this to make others believe you are what you are not Do you not profess by your joynt duties with God's people in all Ordinances that you are devoted unto God and doth not he that sincerely devotes himself to God devote also all he hath to him but is your Family devoted to God when there is no worship there It would be well if you were found out that you were denyed the Supper of the Lord for want of a sufficient credibility of a sound Profession But is it your way to be zealous abroad and negligent at home Let your house speak for you Sed videt hunc omnis domus Introsum turpem speciosum pelle decorâ MOTIVE IX Plus valet humanis viribus ira Dei Ovid. Trist Anno 1584 terra motu mons quidam in ditione Bernatum ultra alios montes violenter latus pagum quâ—ndam nonaginta familias habentem contexit totum dimidia domo excepta in qua pater-familias cum uxore liberis in genua provolutus Deum invocabat Polan Syntagm de terrae mot 9. The neglect of calling upon God in your Families will bring the curse of God upon them Jer. 10.25 Pour out thy fury upon the Families that call not upon thy Name 1. The persons threatned are Families which if in this Text comprehendeth many housholds or yet more largely taken yet there is the same parity of reason to a proper Family 2. Their crime is not calling upon the name of God 3. The thing threatned the fury of the Lord fury is fervent anger anger in it's height and rage 4. The abundance of it it shall not fall drop by drop upon prayerless Families but pour down in great showrs upon them Whereas the way to have God's blessing and protection over you and your houshold is to set up the worship of God therein There is a passage in a worthy Divine of a remarkable Providence of God to this purpose concerning a Town consisting of ninety houses that was in the year 1584. destroyed by an Earthquake except the half of one house where the Master of the Family was earnestly praying with his Wife and Children upon their bended knees to God Obj. But we see no such thing we perceive not but those Families prosper that have no Prayer in them as much as those that do Answ God is often angry when he doth not strike and punish presently the Offender but his wrath hangs over your house and you are never safe in your greatest prosperity N n est quare cuiquam quem dignum poena putaveris optes ut infestos habeat Deos habet inquam etiamsi videtur eorum favore produci Senec. Epist An Heathen could say If a wicked man prosper you need not
shouldest sometime sustain some loss in thy outward estate if it be made up with the favour of God and true peace of Conscience in the way of duty and with the real advantage of thy own Soul and the Souls of all thy Family Canst thou be willing to lose nothing for the gaining of Heaven or hadst thou rather that thou and they should lose God and Christ and Glory and Souls and all Surely when you come to cast up your accounts what you have got and what you have lost your gains will prove your loss 10. If God should bring back some from the Grave and Hell and set them in this world again dost thou think that they would so follow the World and run up and down after money that they would say they could find no time to pray that they might escape that dreadful place of Torment they had been in If some of those that have been in Hell but a Moneth or two were now in thy circumstances dost thou think they would not let their work stand still or rise the sooner and sit up the later or would deny themselves much of their eating time and sleeping time that they might have time to pray Lord let us not go down to Hell again O let us not return to the place which we have found to be so restless and so dreadful And shouldst not thou be as much and often and as earnest with thy Family that neither thou nor any of thine be cast into it I durst not let this pass though I am sensible I have taken up too much room without endeavouring to remove this hindrance that lyes in the way to keep many Families from their knees in Holy Prayer I beg for the Lord's sake and for your Soul's sake that you would watch against it and resolve against it and that your worldly Interest shall no longer keep you from Family Prayer In the close then of all that hath been said Let me in the Name of God exhort you all to the practice of Family Prayer You have heard it proved to be your duty you have been directed how you might manage it for the good of all in your houses you have had motives to press you to the performance of it your pretences and excuses brought against it have been manifested to be frivolous and vain What say you Sirs Will you resolve upon it here in the presence of the Lord or will you still neglect it Shall I lose all my labour or shall it be in vain that I have preached and you have heard this Doctrine I tell you to your faces it shall not be in vain the word of the blessed God shall convince you and reform you or condemn you What come we hither for but faithfully to shew you your duty and earnestly to perswade you to obey Do Ministers study for you when you are sleeping in your beds and declare the mind and will of God in the Congregation and will you cast all our counsel behind your back I hope you will be wiser for your own everlasting happiness Say then Are you convinced in this point that it is your duty If not view over again what hath been said and seriously consider it and let me beg this at your hands that you would think of all Now as you would do if you were with an awakened Conscience upon your dying bed or if you were standing at God's Judgment barr and when this question is put to you whether you ought to pray in your Families Let Conscience say Yes or No according as its verdict and dictate shall be at Death and Judgment and then I am perswaded you will say you are convinced you ought to do it And are you indeed What! and yet go on in the omission of it Will you so sin against your Consciences will you dare so to do You Parents for God's sake consider in what a condition you have brought your Children into the world are they not by nature enemies to God dead in sin children of wrath unfit for Heaven Such Parents are like the Ostrich You negligent Parents read Job 39.13 to 19. and Lam 4.3 Look your faces in that Glass Do you not blush Look that you are so like to such a foolish bird Struthio-camelus derâ—linquit ova sua in terra crudelis in prolem nihil praestupiditate oblivione crudelitate filiis suis timet Vales. Phil. Sac. Sicut haec avis non curat sua ova ita insipientes non curant instrui liberos in pietate Franzius The Ostrich if it thrust her neck or head into any shrub or bush and get that hidden thinks her self safe and that no man seeth her Plin. Nat. Hist Such fools are these ungodly Parents that if they get their heads under their roofs remember not that God seeth their great neglect there and in danger of damnation and will you not so much as pray daily with them that they may be delivered out of this condition and be saved from damnation is it nothing to you whether your Children are damned or saved is it nothing to you whether they live with the blessed glorious God or with cursed Devils and damned Souls have you no pity nor compassion for them that are flesh of your flesh where are the earnings of your hearts where are the workings of your bowels if their bodies were a dying would you not pray by their bed sides that they may be preserved from â—he grave and will you not that their Souls might be saved from Helâ— Dare you not be guilty of the murder of their bodies and dare you of their Souls do not the Laws of men justly hang those that do the one and will not the Laws of God righteously damn them that do the other You Fathers and you Mothers can you look upon your Graceless Christless Children and not pity them and weep over them and call them to you to come and pray with you have you not a word to say to God for them in their hearing will you not call them to this duty and let them be eye-witnesses of the tears that you should shed in lamenting their sinful state and misery thereby and ear-witnesses of the requests you put up to God for their conversion and how might this work upon their hearts if they were But what shall I say to you Fathers and to you Mothers that do neglect your duty which God requireth for the good of your Children the Father doth not pray the Mother doth not perswade him nor intreat him so to do and by the negligence of both the Children are ungodly Are they more wicked or you more cruel They are full of Impiety and you are full of cruelty both Father and Mother because it is so much long of you that they are so bad Crudelis Mater magis an puer Improbus ille Improbus ille puer crudelis tu quoque mater Virg. Eclog. 8. Appendatur hoc Crudelis pater es per te
4 6. Mat. 17.12 He shall turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the hearts of the Children to their Fathers lest I come and strike the earth with a curse Of so great advantage is the right and hearty discharge of these relative duties I have been treating on for the saving of Nations and particular Churches from ruin and desolation Yea and so greatly instrumental are the Ministers of Christ for helping them in their duties that it concerns honest Parents as to consult those who are holy and able in the Ministry for their Childrens good so to commend such faithful Ministers to them as are worthy of their respect and to warn their Children to avoid such persons as are likely to draw them off from goodness yea and particularly in disposing of their Children especially into a Calling of publique consequence 't will be very requisite to consult those who are most able to judge in their own profession as in Divinity Physick or Law that they may be tryed by the faithful and skilful of that profession whether qualified for that they are designed lest you attempt that which cannot be effected as Quintilian †Nè tentes quod effici non potest nâ—c ab eo quod quis eâ—timè facit in aliud cui nimis est idoneus cum transferas observes by putting them upon what they are unapt for or hinder them from that they have a genius to and wherein they would be most serviceable And it will be good to take advice in choosing sit Educators and Tutors according to your abilities David had such learned ones as Tutors with his Sons 1 Chron. 27.32 to see them instructed as became the Princes of Israel a But here Parents should be very careful unto whose conduct they commit their Children or whom they take in to assist them that they be religious orthodox discreet humble courteous skilful and not covetous nor careless but diligent 'T was the great concern of reverend Claviger to have those that feared God about him to do what he could his Wife and Children might be such and then he thought them well provided for Luther kept one within his house to teach his Children that he might see them well-principled and ordered as well as learned And the abovenamed Quintilian * Si quis in eligendo filii praeceptore manifesta flagitia non vitet jam hinc sciat caetera quoque quae ad utilitatem juventutis componere conamur esse sibi hac parte omissa supervacua l. 2. Inst c. 2. from Nature's light could say If any one in choosing a Tutor for his Son did not shun manifest wickedness hence let him know that other things also which we endeavour to compose for the profit of youth prove useless and ineffectual this being neglected This Constantius †Socrat. III. 1. Sozom. II. 2. was well aware of when he was solicitous his Cousin Julian should not have or hear Ethnic Tutors lest considering his temper he should decline to the abomination of Gentilism But notwithstanding his care Julian privately got the writings of Libanius an Heathen Philosopher and after that of Maximus who under-hand laboured to pervert him in hopes he would come to the Empire and to hide this instill'd poyson from Constantius Julian counterfeited for a time a monastick life then openly in pretence read the Bible but secretly studied in earnest the Ethnic Doctrines which made him a most bitter enemy to the Christians when advanc'd to the Empire as the ancient Church experienc'd 'T is dangerous to commit a Lamb to to the conduct of a Wolf On the other hand Theodosius junior ‖ Soz. l. IX 1. was from his Cradle by his dying Father entrusted with his excellent and pious Sister Pulcheria then but 15 years old and having two younger Sisters Arcadia and Marina who got him instructed by such Tutors especially in the true Religion accustoming him to prayer and diligently to frequent the Assemblies that he had in great esteem the faithful Ministers and other Godly men who were lovers of Religion and so prov'd very instrumental for the Orthodox Faith and the advancement of Piety In our own Land and nearer our times we have a notable instance of Sir John Cheek who being Tutor to King Edward the Sixth Dr. L. in Sir John Cheek 's Life was a special instrument of raising up and promoting the Reformed Religion amongst us for he was not only instrumental to sow the seeds of that Doctrine in the Prince's heart which afterwards grew up to a general Reformation when he came to be King but by his means the same saving truth was gently instill'd into the Lady Elizabeth by those who by his procurement were admitted to be the Guides of her younger studies It is of great concern therefore to get good advice and assistance in the education of Children and for their encouragement to reward those well who are profitably employ'd in this work according to the Parents abilities and their deserts and for my own part I should account it better to spare in other matters than in this for good assistance to train up Children Thus I have as I could in my circumstances dispatch'd what I propos'd and now I dare upon the whole matter affirm That I have laid down nothing in all this discourse but what I hope is at least for the main agreeable to the mind of God and what by his assistance I my self should desire and really endeavour to practise either in the relation of Parent or Child which is all the Apologie I shall make for my plain dealing But shall conclude with those precatory expressions in the Psalms a very little varied with respect to those Parents who heartily embrace the word of exhortation (b) Psal 90.16 17. Let thy work O Lord appear unto thy servants and thy glory unto their children And the beauty of the Lord our God be upon them (c) 144.2 that their sons may be as plants grown up in their youth that their daughters may be as corner-stones polish'd after the similitude of a Palace Considering what the Lord hath promis'd for the encouragement of his faithful servants (d) 102.28 viz. Their children shall continue and their seed shall be established before him Duties of Masters and Servants Serm. XVIII Ephes VI. 5 6 7 8 9. Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ Not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the Servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart With good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free And ye Masters do the same things unto them forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in heaven neither is there respect of persons with him THE
thou shouldest not deal by another as thou wouldest not be dealt by thy self The Law then is good and the punishment is as great Thy Soul may go for an ill word consider of it has an evil word sufficient pleasure to compensate for eternal pain Sure it is wisdom to forbear such words if we may pay so dear for them 4. By considering the odiousness of it in others and in them we may see it in its true colours things are too near us to be aright discerned by us when they are observed in our selves A Lyar a False-witness a Back-bitâ—â—r a Tale-bearer how do you like such men Would you have your Child trained up in such things Why then will you allow them in your selves How came they to be more tolerable in you than other men Is it that it is no matter what becomes of you How comes it that you have cast off all care of and love to self that you would have every body better than your self 5. By reflecting upon the reproaches we have had from our own hearts for it and the inconveniencies we have suffered and the dammages others have reaped by it beyond our possible reparation is it not time then to take up 6. By remembring that God observes it and will Judg thee for it A Reverend man would awe thee if there was danger especially of the Pillory and how canst thou cast off the fear of God to talk before him so loosely How wilt thou like to have all thy vain and vile words read and aggravated at the last day It will be one part of that dayes work Jude 15 16. 2. There is matter that it is our Duty to Discourse of the general Nature of which I shall lay before you as 1. Such as though of a common and inferior Nature as referring to things of this Life yet is of consequence to our selves or Neighbours to be debated for the right understanding or better managing of our joynt or several concerns this as tending to Justice Charity Peace or the like by the good use it may be of is Sanctified and becomes our duty and we may not without sin decline it when duly provoked to it for as mean as these matters seem God hath concerned himself to make severe Laws that we worst not one another in them by which we are obliged to improve and imbetter each other as we can and surely most of all when by a word it may be done How does Job's Conscience approve him in his having been a faithful Counsellor Job 19.15 I was eyes to the Blind And what a Character does Christ give to the Peace-makers Mat. 5.9 They shall be called the Children of God And yet further the command to Worldly business six dayes in seven does more than allow Worldly Discourse especially when it hath a moral use So that as it is a vain Superstition of some not to touch these things so is it of others to decline necessary profitable talk of them as if it were a piece of Service to God to be useless unto men while by his providence we are among them Know then where by weakness your Brother needs advice and by a greater stock of wisdom you are able to give it it is his duty in order to the prudent management even of his Worldly affairs to ask it and yours as freely to give it for you therefore have it and cannot otherwise give a good account of it Caution Let me only caution that on this pretence you Lanch not out into Discourse of this Nature Unseasonably as on the Lord's Day unnecessarily for mere talk's sake immoderately to the burying of all other Discourse or hindering more important business of your own or Brother's it would also be carefully avoided that we intrude not our selves as busie-bodies into the Discourse of others matters while we are unconcerned and to Persons unconcerned for which we are like to go unthanked whereby our Brother may be wronged and no body is edified 2. It may be our duty to Discourse of what is done in the World wherein God's Justice Power Wisdom Faithfulness or Goodness is advanced One design of God's marvellous working is to furnish us with fit matter for talking His Signs in Egypt are particularly noted to have had this reference That they might tell in the Ears of their Sons and Sons Sons what things he had wrought in Egypt that they might know that he was the Lord Exod. 10.2 God's works are one of his Books that we should much confer about David pleases himself to see the whole World as set about a round Table conferring their Notes of what they had seen and observed of God in his works from Generation to Generation Psal 145.5 6. I will speak of the glorious Honour of thy Majesty and of thy wondrous works and men shall speak of the might of thy terrible Acts and I will declare thy greatness they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness This seems to be talk for the Generality of men there is something in it peculiarly pleasing to all palats and an Example often affects when a Precept would be over-looked and I am confident if we could prudently Discourse of the works of God we might more advantage the profaner sort of men than by talking to them out of the Word for they are prejudiced against that and shut upon it streight as perceiving whereto that would but they are pleased with story and lye more open to it that there is greater hope e're they be aware of their being caught with it Psal 107.42 That this Discourse may be profitable take the following advice 1. Make wise Observation look with both Eyes on what happens look into it look after God in it and spy what Attribute is eminently glorified by it Psal 107.43 Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. 2. Make faithful representations lye not for God The Romish Legends by their multitude of Fables have greatly minished the veneration of all Miracles One fly spoils a whole pot of Oyntment the same does one lye in a most useful History 3. Make Charitable Interpretations as to persons or parties be not too severe in censuring them that God makes Examples It was the fault and folly of the Jews Christ tells us they were out and we as well as they may be out let us be warned by them Luke 13.1 2 3. 4. And make pious applications and still put in your self as concerned where you note any thing to be learned 1 Cor. 10.5 11. Psal 90.11 12. Many profane the Providences of God by their slight Discourses of them without regard to God or his Glory in them but you on the other hand by observing Rules may hallow his Name and spread his fame 3. It is yet more especially our duty to be Discoursing to one another of what God hath said to the World for our mutual Direction Caution and
Rule or rather a part of the general Rule that we should give thanks c. 1. Here 's the duty it self Thanksgiving 2. The Object of it God c. 3. How it must be managed by Christ or through Christ 1. Obs All our actions thoughts words and works must be done in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ 2. Obs All Praises and Thanksgivings as they are only due to God so they must be performed by us to him by Jesus Christ that they may be accepted of him All thanks are due to God the Father who is the Father of Christ and in him our God and Father and therefore this work is to be done only in by and through Jesus Christ Ephes 5.20 giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ All glory be given by the Church to Christ Heb. 10.12 15. and Rom. 16.27 How this great Duty is to be performed to God through Christ Jesus 3. Praises and Thanksgivings are the great duty of our lives for if we do all things in the Name of Jesus Christ then whatever we do in his Name is special matter of Thanksgiving In every thing give thanks if we think a good thought or do a good work it is of God and therefore be thankful and it is a Sacrifice to be tendered to God every day Heb. 13.15 As to the first Doctrine consider 1. What it is to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ 2. Why we must do all in that Name 3. How shall we come to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ 4. Some Uses 1. What is it to do all in the Name of Christ 1. It is to go to him as a Mediator or to go to God by him For we must upon all occasions go to God in a way of prayer by Christ if we will be accepted Psal 65.2 God's Spirit tells us that he is a God hearing prayer therefore unto him shall all flesh come and appear Not come to God in prayer but by Christ as Mediator Beza sets it out Invocato Christi Nomine we must go to God quod autem addit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diligenter notandum est ut sciamus Deum frustra coli nisi Christus Mediator interveniat We must go to God by him we must take special notice of that word for we do in vain make our Addresses to God but by the intercession of our Mediator All our Supplications are to be put in the Name of Christ as he bids us John 15.3 16. and John 16.23 26. he tells them whatsoever they should ask the Father in his Name at that day i. e. after his Ascension and giving the Spirit you shall ask in my Name and I say not unto you c. He speaks this by way of encouragement unto them that they should go in his Name and then they should certainly speed He gives as loving Friends sometimes do when they certainly intend to do some special good for a Friend they say I will not tell you what I 'l do for you intimating thereby they will do what they can for them 2. It is to do all by his Authority Power and Command Mat. 18.18 19 20. Christ tells them that whatever they did bind or loose on Earth in his Name i. e. by his Authority and Command should be bound in Heaven For when two or three are gathered together in his Name i. e. by vertue of his Command he would be in the midst of them All Power and Authority is given of the Father to Christ Mat. 28.18 19 20. and therefore go in the Name of the Father c. Laws and Proclamations which go forth in the Name of the King they go forth in his Authority All our actions come under his Command he is our King and our Law-giver Isa 33.22 Though other Lords besides Christ have had Dominion over us but by him only will we make mention of his Name Isa 26.13 By vertue of his Command and Authority we 'll make mention of thy Name we will admire and praise thee He is a Soveraign Lord who Commands and doth impose Laws on the Consciences of men his Laws reach the inward as well as the outward man else all that we do cannot be done in his Name and by vertue of some Authority from him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 19.16 and the only Potentate 1 Tim. 6.11 3. It is to do all in his strength and power this is to do all in his Name Thus Acts 4.6 7. Annas and Caiaphas c. asked Peter and John by what Power or by what Name they had done this v. 10. Peter told them that in the Name of Jesus Christ did that Man stand whole before them thus did they come in the Power of Christ To go about a work in the Name of Christ is to go about it and do it in his strength and Power 1 Sam. 17.45 David went against Goliah in the Name of the Lord of Hosts so David said Psal 108.10 11. that in the Name of the Lord he would destroy them i. e. in the strength and Power of the Lord. Paul can do all things through Christ who strengthens him Phil. 4.13 His Grace was sufficient for him 2 Cor. 12.9 No man in the strength of his own parts or gifts can do any thing so as to be accepted John 15.5 without me ye can do nothing he doth not say that you may do something or that you can do but little but you can do nothing without me He worketh all our works for us Isa 26.12 even the will and the deed Phil. 2.13 Paul laboured more abundantly than they all 1 Cor. 15.10 but he presently corrected himself Yet not I but the Grace of God which was with me 4. For his Glory 1 Cor. 10.31 So that as he is the Author so he is the end of all we do Rom. 11.36 All people must honour the Son as they honour the Father Joh. 5.23 Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all Rev. 1.8 All Glory and Honour is due to Christ as is due to the Father Rev. 4.9 11. they give glory to him that sits on the Throne and Rev. 5.12 13. there is all honour given to him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb they which do all for the glory of God do all their actions to the honour of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit so that when God doth any thing for us he doth it for his Name 's sake and therefore when David begged of God that for his Name 's sake he would lead him Psal 31.3 he means for his Glory we should have an eye at the Glory of Christ 5. To do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus is to live a life of Faith for a supply of all things for Life and Godliness as the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 1.2 3. he tells us we have all things that is we
the fruit of it which was great joy v. 3. And then 6. here is their perseverance and how that is effected they were kept by the power of God to Salvation v. 5. No doubt but holiness is loseable the Angels lost theirs and we lost ours and the Saints at this day would quickly lose theirs totally and finally if they were left to a stock of grace received to trade for another world to grace received there must be grace supplyed the grounds of perseverance are without us viz. the promise of the Father the purchase and intercession of the Lord Jesus the power and supply of the blessed Spirit a Doctrine full of comfort but for certain as full of grace and humility too indeed if the comfort were not sanctifying it were not found So that here we may see the Doctrine of the glorious Trinity and every person in his work according to the most wise and divine Oeconomy and propriety in working towards fallen men quite dead in sin and dead in law and that irrecoverably as to themselves or any created power in heaven on their behalf here is I say the Father electing to life and glory here is Jesus Christ dying and rising here is the blessed Spirit sanctifying here the three Graces Faith Hope and Love inseparably accompanyed with obedience cherished with joy and comforts and crowned with perseverance by the power of God all arising from the Soveraignty of God's will and his rich abundant mercy to the praise of the riches of his glorious grace that they that glory should glory in the Lord. Pelagius was the first that set up nature for which the Church of God abhorred him saith Austin and the Fathers call it virus illud Pelagianum the most learned Vsher called it detestandam illam haeresin that pestered the Church of Christ olim bodie saith that holy man in his Hist Pel. But to proceed these strangers notwithstanding their holiness were undeâ— manifold temptations v. 6 7. persecutions in a tumultuary way were raised against them by the unbelieving Jews who were egged thereto by the Priests Priests who did stir up the people against them there was no Imperial Edict at this time against the Christians Nero was the first he was dedicator damnationis nostrae I need not quote Tertullian every Lad of the upper form may know this out of Suetonius and Tacitus God kept the Gospel in the first publishing of it free from any disturbance by the civil powers about 34 years that Claudius banished John into Patmos and that then he had the revelation is a mere figment of the learned Grotius and his Annotations built upon it have neither sap nor sense Under these persecutions their Faith did not only continue but shine and their love was evident and their comforts were so far from abating that they did rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious But you will say what is this to the question I answer here are two directions how a Christian may get that Faith whereby he may live comfortably as well as die safely 1. Be clothed with humility 1 Pet. 5.5 ascribe all thy gifts and graces thy profiting under afflictions ordinances thy peace and comfort wholly to the grace of God by Jesus Christ through the Spirit of holiness If there be any way in the world to get special Faith and to live comfortably it is this to live humbly the evangelically humble soul is the serene chearful soul heart-pride doth not only deprive believers of comfort but brings vexations disappointments and disgusts which are a torment to pride where ever it is 't is a sin that is very incident very pleasing to us very displeasing to God and very disquieting 't is an easie thing to preach and hear and discourse humility but believe it it is not so easie to live it a man's soul is never so fit to receive the shines of Gods love as when he is nothing in himself be sure to crush the sprawlings and motions of this cursed pride see God in all bless him for all see the Lord Jesus the purchaser of all and the blessed Spirit the Sanctifier of all study this well and live that Text in Rom. 11. last God is Principium efficiens finis of him through him and for him are all things give him the glory reduce this to practice this is every day practicable and were it practised would make every day comfortable envyings and provokings arise from vain-glory Gal. 5. last Inde nata sunt schismata quippe Hierome cum dicunt homines nos justificamus impius nos sanctificamus immundos we would be some-bodies away with these thoughts let God have the glory and thou wilt have the comfort in this way God will give Faith special and that is the Faith that brings comfort 2. The way to comfort is to do as these believers in my Text did they did choose rather to forego their earthly comforts than their consciences made choice of affliction rather than iniquity esteemed the reproaches of Christ rather than their safety prisons are not so terrible as they are imagined the best men have rejoyced in the honour of suffering they suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness Col. 1.11 Scripture-History primitive and modern abound with instances of all Sexes Ages Conditions in this particular The noble Galeacius had that joy in Christ at Geneva beyond all the Marquisates in Italy or the whole world In suffering comes assurance and that is comfort You will say we are not called to suffering and I say the God of peace give us truth and peace always but then if you would live comfortably live in religious honesty chuse poverty before knavery an honest meanness before secretly sinning gains Conscience is the best friend next to Jesus Christ Our rejoycing is this not that we are Preachers so was Demas nor an Apostle so was Judas but the testimony of our conscience that not in fleshly wisdom but in godly sincerity through the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1.12 Light i. e. comfort is sown for the righteous and joyful gladness for the upright Psal 97.11 Now I come to my Text. The words contain the essence of Christianity or godliness The constituent parts of it are Faith and Love the necessary consequences are obedience evangelical and joy unspeakable Faith in Jesus is the great command of the Gospel Joh. 1.5 last 'T is the work of God Joh. 6.29 this is that work Love is the great command of the Law Matth. 22.36 Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy soul Faith acts upon Jesus and sets Love on work Love desires after him and delights in him and sets obedience on work divine comfort flows in proportionably In this is the formal nature of Christianity and what ever is not this in truth is but nature The revelation left in nature tells us that there is a God that he is
to be worshipped that the soul is immortal that there is a state of bliss in another world that righteousness is the way to that bliss Now as there are but two righteousnesses the righteousness of Christ of which the whole Creation is silent and nature altogether ignorant and Angels knew it not until it was revealed to them and a mans own righteousness So there are but two Religions in the world sc Christianity and nature Call Religions by what names you list Judaism Turcism Paganism Popery common Protestantism 't is still but nature The Sea hath many names from the Countries and shores but still it is the same Sea These two righteousnesses cannot be mixt in the business of justification in the sight of God If it be of Christ as the Scripture faith it is no more of works if it be of works as nature saith it is no more of Christ we cannot be justified in his sight partly by the righteousness of Christ's obedience and partly by our own The Law is not of Faith Gal. 3.13 as many as are of the works are under the curse v. 10. the just shall live by faith ergo not by law This is Paul's Logick v. 11. A man cannot be Son of two mothers Gal. 4. lat end Cast out the bond-woman and her Son for the Son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the Son of the free-woman And a woman cannot be wife to two husbands together Rom. 7.4 There is but one strait gate Matth. 7.13 one door Joh. 10.9 one way Joh. 14.5 one name Acts 4.12 Paul is the most lively instance in this great case while he was alive to the Law he was dead to Christ and when he was alive to Christ he was dead to the Law Gal. 2.19 dead to the Law as a rule of righteousness and alive to the Law as a rule of obedience dead to the Law in point of dependance and alive to the Law in point of love and practice his Christianity did ennoble and heighten his morality he was just and sober and temperate blameless while he was a Pharisee but when he was a believer he did the same things from a noble principle in a spiritual manner for the right ends before he did act from himself for himself now from Christ and for Christ The deduction from hence is this If we would live in true comfort we must be true Christians A man may be a Protestant yet not a Christian indeed a man may be blameless and Christless and by consequence Godless Remember the parable of the foolish Virgins they were not harlots profane but Virgins they were not persecutors or blasphemers or malicious but foolish i. e. supine careless negligent they had lamps in their hands but no oyl in their hearts the parable of the builders the sandy believers of the Kings supper the man that had not on a wedding garment Indeed most of the preaching of the Lord Jesus tends this way and these parables live to this day and as much at this day Let us look to our selves the oyl of Faith and comfort go together the oyl of holiness and the oyl of gladness true Christians are anointed with both Consider the man that wanted the wedding robe was not discerned by any at the table the Lord espied him quickly who would have thought such a professor should go to hell bind him hand and foot he did pretend to Christ and it was but a pretence I may dispute for preach up Christ's righteousness active and passive and the imputation thereof according to the Scripture and the judgement of the best learned that ever the Churches have had and yet I may go about to establish mine own I may lift up Christ to you and pull him down in mine own heart The sum is this Nullum bonum sine summo bono Austin I will expound it thus No good work without God no God without Christ no Christ without heart-Faith no Faith without love no love without obedience no such obedience without comfort Doct. more or less This brings me to the Doctrine It is the property and practice of believers to love the Lord Jesus and to rejoyce in him and in the hope of eternal life by him 1. First It is their property they and all they and always and none but they there is no man in the world that loves God and the Redeemer Jesus but a believer the Philosophers were haters of God Rom. 1.30 the Gentiles and their wise men for it is plain that the Apostle speaks of them not of the Gnosticks that is an idle conceit and I am bound to believe Paul's Characters of the Gentiles and their Philosophers before Diogenes Laertius Plutarch or any man else the Jews hated Jesus Christ John 15.24 the world hated him John 7.7 Luke 19.14 All Gospel-Atheism said that incomparable Dr. Twisse is against Jesus Christ So for joy there 's never a joyful man alive but a believer Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins why that is the Devil's joy or that they rejoyce in full barns and bags that is the Fool 's joy or that they rejoyce in wine i. e. all dainties that gratifie the palate that is a Bedlam joy I have said of mirth thou art mad Read and believe Eccles 2.3 indeed from the first v. to the 11. The whole book but especially that Chapter is the divinest Philosophy that ever was or will be 2. 'T is their practice they love the Lord Jesus in incorruption or sincerity Eph. 6. last The Church i. e. Believers joyntly and singly say of Jesus that he it is whom their soul loves Cant. 1.7 in the 3. chap. the 4 first ver we have it four times and none but that I sought him whom my soul loveth v. 1. I will arise and seek him whom my soul loveth v. 2. I said to the watchmen saw ye him whom my soul loveth v. 3. after a little while I found him whom my soul loveth v. 4. here is no supernumerary repetition every believer's soul bears a part in this divine song so for joy that is their practice too we have no confidence in the flesh but rejoyce in Christ Jesus which joy in him did plainly flow out of their confidence of an interest in him Phil. 3.3 as sorrowful yet always rejoycing 2 Cor. 6.9 we rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 and we rejoyce in God by Jesus Christ v. 11. with many more Texts to the same purpose there need no more only observe 't is we rejoyce 't is not only Paul or the Apostles but the Philippians Romans and so all believers we rejoyce I shall speak something 1. For the explication of the Doctrine 2. For the vindication of the truth 3. For the resolution of the case 1. For explication these two affections Love and Joy will be best described by their properties objects causes Love is the return of an holy affection to Jesus Christ with desires after
heart Psal 4.5 Out of these premisses we conclude that Christianity is a glorious thing which is the second particular 2. Particular or vindication which I call a Vindication of the Truth Religion is not a little formality in duties joyned with some morality in life but it consists in the new creature or Faith working by love Gal. 5.6 6.16 It consists in the exercise of Repentance self-loathing hatred of Sin as such for these are necessarily implied Faith actual in Jesus love to him obedience before him communion with God by him peace and comfort from him and well grounded hope of eternal life through him the smell of his garments Psal 45.8 the savour of his oyntment Cant. 1.3 the taste of his preciousness makes a Believer think he can never do enough for Jesus If his Holiness were as an Angel and his days as the days of Heaven yet all were too short too little for such a Saviour the love of Christ constrains him He is a debtor to the Spirit to live after the Spirit and what ever is not this in truth there is a difference in degrees is as you heard before but nature raised and varnished and modified with distinctions still it is but nature Wash and dress a Swine as you please 't is a Swine still The Fathers when the breaking out of Pelagianism made them more studious in the point of grace and more wary in their expressions have left us their judgment in this case you bring in a kind of doctrine saith Austin to the Pelagians that men do righteousness and please God without Faith in Christ by the Law of nature this is that for which the Church doth most of all detest you Hoc est undè vos maximè Christiana detestatur Ecclesia Lib. 4. Cap. 3. contr Again saith he far be it from us to think that true vertue should be in any man unless he were righteous and far be it from us to think that any man should be truly righteous unless he did live by Faith for the just shall live by Faith absit autem sit justus vere nisi vivat ex fide and again who would say that a man Diabolo mancipatus a slave to the Devil were a righteous man though he were Fabricius or Scipio To cloath the naked saith he is not sin as the fact is considered in it self but of such a work to glory and not in the Lord none but a wicked man but will grant this to be sin thus far Austin with more to the same purpose in the same place and upon this account he did correct some expressions Lib. 1. Cap. 3. Retract The whole Chapter is seasonable the sum this Austin had called the Muses Goddesses had highly advanced the liberal sciences now corrects it upon this reason viz. that many Godly men knew them not and many that did know them were ungodly the same he doth about Pythagoras his books in which saith he are Plures many errors iidemque capitales Especially this he recants that he formerly said the Philosophers who were not pious were yet shining in vertue no Faith in Christ no vertue 't is spectrum 't is but simulacrum but imago virtutis it is not vertue painted fire is not fire Hierom to the same purpose in Cap. 3. Galat. Paul saith he blameless did not live he was dead while blameless Paul the Christian was indeed alive Men speak of temperance and justice without Faith that cannot be none live without Christ sine quo omnis virtus est in vitio without Christ all vertue is accounted vice thus he 'T is most evident there dwelleth no vertue in the minds of ungodly men their wisdom is not heavenly but earthly not from the Father of lights but from the prince of darkness ac sic vitium quod putatur virtus and so that is a vice which is accounted vertue Non Deo serviunt sed diabolo they serve the devil not God Prosp Con. Coll. Cap. 28. tota vita infidelium est peccatum the whole life of unbelievers is sin idem sent 106. to the same purpose saith Fulgentius with others The Scripture is full and clear an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit The carnal mind cannot please God Rom. 8.7 1 Cor. 1.2.3 the Apostle doth raise his discourse to the highest strain Though I speak with the tongue of Angels which no man doth if I had all knowledge which no man hath if I could move mountains which no man can if I give all my goods to feed the poor the highest beneficence and my body to be burnt the greatest suffering yet if I have not love I am nothing he doth not say these things are nothing he doth not say knowledge is nothing or giving to the poor is nothing but I am nothing I have no profit I am a hollow tub an empty vessel I make a noise amongst men while I live and go to hell when I die And according to Scripture and Fathers the doctrine of our Church hath determinated in her thirteenth Article thus Works done before the grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasing to God forasmuch as they spring not from Faith in Jesus Christ yea rather for that they are not done as God hath commanded them to be done we doubt not but they have the nature of sin and this is the judgment of the reformed Churches also Sirs be sure you get and exercise this Faith unfeigned in Jesus Christ and love sincere to him A fair deportment with great gifts and splendid performances without Christ is but a more gentile way to perdition everlasting 3. Resolution of the case I come now to the resolution of the practical case How a Christian may get that Faith by which he may live comfortably as well as die safely Where this I think fit to premise first he must not only get such a Faith but he must keep it in exercise for without this there is no living comfortably then this also I premise that to get and keep comfort or that a Christian may have comfort two things are necessary viz. proportion and propriety ex parte objecti it must be a good proportionable and then ex parte subjecti it must be mine it must be commensurate and adaequate to the soul and it must be the souls own tolle meum and tolle gaudium The comfort and sweetness of the Gospel lyes in pronouns as the common saying is as for instance suppose the conquests of Alexander and triumphs of Pompey nay all the world were thine there is propriety 't is thine but herein would be no comfort at all to thee because here is no proportion no sutableness to an immaterial vast and immortal soul on the other side Christ is proposed to thee and in him there is proportion for in him dwelleth all fulness he is an infinite spiritual and eternal good but what comfort is this without propriety unless he be thine
unbelief that is within and so it prevents or puts a stop to inordinate sorrow for what is externally afflictive as bleeding at the arm stops bleeding at the nose Where 't is repenting there 't is not repining 4. Heavenly mindedness The more a man doth mind things above the less he is concerned about things below he who hath his heart and conversation in heaven will not be sollicitous or querulous about what befalls him here on earth Math. 6.21 Phil. 3.20 Nihil sentit crus in nervo cum animus est in coelo Tertul. 5. Self-denyal A grace that hath a great tendency to Contentment because it takes men off from their own wisdom will and affections and causeth them wholly to resign up themselves to the wise and gracious dispose of God Oh saith the self-denying Christian I am not fit to be my own chooser God shall choose for me I would not have my condition brought to my mind but my mind brought to my condition I would not have God give me what I desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iambl in V. Pythag. L. 1. C. 28. but I would desire nothing but what God sees good to give me As that Philosopher when one wished for him that he might have from the gods whatever he would nay rather saith he wish for me that I may will nothing but what the gods will give me Surely when 't is once come to this it must needs be Contentment These are some of the wayes others there are but I must pass them over by which Godliness doth promote and work Contentment So that as you desire to learn it you must look to this that you be gracious and godly persons without Grace in the habit and exercise thereof it cannot be composedness and tranquillity of spirit in every state I do not affirm that he who hath grace is so constant and universal in this frame as that he is never under discontent for even such a one hath his infirmities and surprisals and pro hic nunc corruption may be too hard for grace but this I say he as to the general course and when he is himself is contented and that he is the person who is fitted and qualified to live contentment The Third and last Means is Prayer The third Help to contentment viz. Prayer without this the two former will be ineffectual Let a man be never so considerative yea never so Godly yet Prayer is necessary to his being contented Humility Faith Repentance Heavenly-mindedness self-denial are the heart-quieting Graces and Prayer is the heart-quieting Duty He that hath not learnt to pray will not learn to be content When God is seldom spoke to he will be often hardly thought of There must be good striving with God in prayer or else there will be bad striving with him in the way of Discontent O Sirs are you afflicted pray Jam. 5.13 do you meet with crosses pray doth the Estate decay the Relations die the Body consume by pain and sickness pray The best way to be content in every state is to pray in every state We study this hard lesson best upon our knees Prayer furthers contentment 1. As it gives a vent to the mind under trouble Vessels that are full if they have not some vent are apt to burst and so when the heart is full of grief if it hath not a vent it breaks Sorrow kept in overwhelms the spirit Strangulat inclusus dolor let it be vented a little and the spirit is much at ease Now prayer is the best vent the poor Christian goes to God tells him his case pours out his heart before him upon this his heart that was ready to break before is now greatly relieved When Hannah had prayed under her trouble she went away and did eat and her countenance was no moâ—e sad 1 Sam. 1.18 What sad work doth the wind make where 't is pent up whence come the dreadful shakings of the earth but from its being shut up in the cavities thereof And so here when we keep in our troubles do not open them first to the Lord in prayer and then to some experienced Christian what commotions and perturbations of mind is that the occasion of 2. As it obtains Grace and strength from God to enable the creature to be contented For 't is he and he only that can work up the heart to this excellent frame he that stills the sea when it rages doth also still the soul in all its passions and discontents When Paul had spoken thus high of his Contentment lest any should think he ascribed this * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophyl Quia de maximis â—eâ—us gloriatus f erâ—t â—e superbiae id tribueretur vel nè aliis jactantiaâ— occasionem daret suâ—jicit hâ◠fortitudine se à Christo instrui Calvin in loc to himself or had it from himself immediately he subjoyns I can do all things through Christ strengthning of me to note that the quietness of his mind was divine and supernatural We read of our Saviour how he being at sea and a great tempest arising he rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm And the men marvelled saying what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him Matth. 8.24 c. Truly the calming of the heart in its inward storms is a thing every way as marvellous as what Christ here did and that which requires as great a power to effect it If therefore you desire to arrive at this even temper of mind in every condition often go to God and beg it of him Say Lord I have a Peevish froward discontented heart that is ready upon every cross to vex and fret against thee this I hope is my burden I would fain have it otherwise but I cannot get victory over my passion I cannot bring my self to a calm and submissive frame wherefore I seek to thee to inable me thereunto Blessed God do thou help me through the power of thy grace let there be evermore a contented mind in me such and such crosses I meet with but Lord under all let me be patient here 's an hard lesson for me to learn but through the teachings of thy spirit let me learn it Oh do but thus pray and in due time God will give you what you pray for Thus I have answered this weighty Question What Christians are to do that they may learn in every state to be content Now to close all I leave it with your selves to enquire what your attainments are as to this Contentment 'T is a sad thing that even amongst Christians there is so little of it that many mere Heathens who had nothing but reason and the dim light of Nature seem herein to outstrip those who have far greater helps to it Nemo facile cum fortunae suae conditione concordat Boeth de Coâ—sol Phil. l. 2. prosâ 4. Quis est tam compositae foelicitatis ut non
or other make them ashamed and so will the hopes of the Hypocrite too but the hopes of pardoned persons which they have of future blessedness have an excellency in them beyond the hopes of all others and they shall never be ashamed of them The happiness they hope for they shall certainly have none can deprive them of it men cannot deprive them they may take away their earthly Inheritance but they cannot touch their Heavenly Inheritance Devils cannot deprive them they may attempt it but they cannot effect it Death cannot deprive them death will bereave of whatever riches of the world any of them have but it will put them into the possession of their Treasures in Heaven none can deprive them but God and God will not do it as hath been already proved and therefore their hopes are of a certain thing which they shall not fail of and withal they know that the happiness of Heaven will exceed all their expectations even the highest which ever they have had of satisfaction and contentment there that they shall find more sweetness and joy there than ever hath entred into their hearts to conceive and therefore their hopes shall not make them ashamed yea in their very hopes of Heaven especially at some times they find more real satisfaction than ever was found by any in the fullest and sweetest enjoyment which they have had of the good things of this life 3. Pardoned persons have the beginnings of future blessedness here in this life in the Work of Grace and sometimes foretasts and first fruits of it through the witness seal and earnest of the Spirit and this renders them blessed in this life 1. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the work of Grace upon their hearts Grace is the beginning of Glory Grace is Glory in the bud Glory is Grace in the flower and when the work of Grace is carried on the Scripture saith that they proceed from Glory to Glory 2 Cor. 3.18 But we all with open face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord They are happy here as they have some degrees of that Holiness and likeness unto God in the perfection of which hereafter in Heaven their perfect happiness doth consist 2. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the first fruits and foretasts of it through the witness seal and earnest of the Spirit God sometimes gives them first fruits of the Heavenly Canaan he sends in a few bunches of those sweet Grapes that are there and lets them have some foretasts of those Soul-ravishing Heavenly joys which hereafter will be full and for ever abiding he sometimes takes them up into the Mount and gives them a Pisgah-sight of the Land of promise through the prospective-Glass of his Ordinances he brings some even to the Gate of the New Jerusalem in their Heavenly Contemplations and le ts out such beams of that Glorious Heavenly light and drops into their hearts such taste of future joys through the sudden elapses of the Spirit of Glory upon them that they are rapt up into an extasie and such a sweetness they feel in their Spirits as is ineffable such as words cannot utter nor the minds of any conceive but those that have had the like when God giveth them the witness of his Spirit that they shall assuredly attain eternal life and sealeth them up by his Spirit to the day of Redemption he doth commonly give the earnest also of the Spirit in some Soul-ravishing joys in comparison of which the softest pleasures of the flesh and the sweetest delights that can arise from any objects of sense are most vain thin empty and not worthy to be named with them And thus the Eternal blessedness which pardoned persons shall have doth render them blessed here in this life beyond all others whatever confluence of good things they be surrounded withal The fore-sight first fruits hopes and sweet fore-tastes of this future blessedness do sweeten their life but especially they do sweeten their death they knowing that death will be their friend and prove an out-let to all earthly misery and an in-let to their heavenly glory that death will open the prison doors of this world unto them and usher them into the palace of the great King they know their death will be like a Ship to convey them over Sea as it were from the far strange and Enemies Countrey unto the heavenly Countrey where their glorious Jehovah their heavenly Father where the Lord Jesus Christ their elder Brother and dear Saviour and where the departed Saints their chief kinred are together and where their inheritance doth lye and where they shall take up their Eternal abode Where pardoned persons have a clear fore-sight and strong hope of this death is no more to them than a sleep they can as willingly put off their flesh and go into their graves as they can put off their clothes at night to go into their beds they can as willingly compose themselves to die as they can compose themselves to sleep after a weary day Thus much for the proof of the blessedness of forgiveness or of all those persons whose sins are pardoned Quest 2. The second Question wherein I must be more short is How this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained That this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained there are some things must be known and believed and there are some things must be done and practised 1. Some things must be believed I shall instance in one or two chief Doctrines of the Gospel which all sinners must know and believe if they would attain forgiveness of sin The First is The Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto God's Justice for the sins of men The Second is The Doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ 1. Sinners must know and believe the Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto the Justice of God for the sins of Men. To discourse fully of this great Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction would require a Treatise which might fill a great volume but I must comprize it within a little room who am to speak of it only in the direction of a Sermon Briefly 1. That there is absolute need of satisfaction to God's justice for the sins of men without which forgiveness of sins would be impossible and utterly unattainable is evident both from the nature of God's justice which doth oblige him to punish all sinners Eternally without it and from the truth of God's threatnings wherein he hath revealed that he will thus punish them without it 2. That there is need of the satisfaction of Christ is evident because sinners themselves being finite cannot give that satisfaction unto God which shall bear any proportion to the demands of his infinite justice and if any be in a capacity to give it it must be such a one as is both innocent and so cannot suffer for his own faults and
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ for we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we appear in Glory with him Mortifie therefore your earthly Members Fornication Vncleanness inordinate Affections evil Concupiscence and Covetousness which is Idolatry You must not only deny all visible gross ungodliness which even the very Sons of Morality will decline and decay but also all worldly lusts and their secret operations living soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Take heed of slumbring in these secret lusts for ye are children of the light and of the day and therefore take heed that you sleep not as others do but watch and be sober for they that sleep sleep in the night and they that are drunk are drunk in the night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the Breast plate of Faith and Love and for an Helmet the hope of salvation watching and praying always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape those things which shall befall the foolish Virgins and that ye may stand before the Son of man who is coming with ten thousand of his Saints to execute Judgment upon all and therefore be sober and watch unto Prayer seeing the end of all things is at hand and look well to your Lamps which are your Watch-lights that they burn brightly in this World's Midnight and pray particularly for daily supplies of Oil and sincerity in all your Actions and Duties both to God and man never omitting to beg for Death-bed-Grace that so you may live and die to the honour of your Bridegroom And as for this present World use it as if you used it not and have no more to do with it than bare need requireth And set your Hearts and Houses and all your civil secular Affairs in order having your conversations in Heaven whence you look for Christ the Saviour And thus walking with God in the exercise of these gifts of Grace when we come to dye we shall change our places only but not our company And let none of you behold Death at a distance nor have it seldom in your thoughts but daily in your eye that you may not fear it when it cometh A Lion is not terrible to his Keeper that seeth him every day You must frequently converse with God Christ Death and Judgment For when Christ speaketh of his coming to Judgment he so expresseth it as if he were to come in their time to whom he spake it Matth. 24 42. Mark 13.33.35 36 37. Luke 21.34 35 36. And so indeed he did for he comes to every man at the hour of his Dissolution And we are his Agents or Factors in a foreign Land and how soon he may remind us home and call us to an Account we know not Say not therefore My Lord delayeth his coming lest we are thereby rocked into a midnight sleep and scared with a midnight-cry of Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him I shall not detain you much longer You have heard what those Graces are which are chiefly to be exercised in order to an actual preparation for the coming of Christ by Death and Judgment I now commend them to your daily exercise and for your encouragement therein shall leave a few Considerations with you and conclude First That the Door of eternal Rest and Glory shall stand open for you at Christ's coming to you by Death Why 1. Because you are ready and they that are ready go in with the Bridegroom God hath made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the Saints in light Col. 1.12 and hath wrought you for the self same thing 2 Cor. 5.5 You are a Vessel of Mercy prepared for Glory Rom. 9.23 2. You admitted Christ into the door of your hearts when there he stood and knocked Rev. 3.20 3. You had your conversation in Heaven whilst you lived here on earth It was your Father's house where you used daily to converse the doors whereof shall open to you at your Death Secondly Consider the place into which you shall be admitted for the wise Virgins shall enter into the King's Palace Psal 45.14 15. into Paradise the third Heavens your Father's House a City that hath foundations whose Builder and Maker is God Heb. 11.10 A magnificent Structure surely that hath such a Builder and Maker 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that hath built the City most artificially and curiously and for publick shew as the original words do import Such a City it is yea a Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Mat. 25 34. The first hansel of God's workmanship Gen. 1.1 This is the place whither you shall enter Thirdly You shall enter thither with the Bridegroom even our Lord Jesus Christ and this is heaven enough viz. to be where Christ is Luke 23.42 43. John 14.3 17.24 Phil. 1.23 1 Thess 4.17 Heaven is described by being with Christ And when Christ shall descend from heaven with a shout to judge the world if all the Saints suppose should not descend with him but any of them be left behind what an alteration would they find in heaven whereas all of them going with Christ it is all one as if they were still in heaven with him You know Paul was caught up into the third heavens and yet when he comes to describe heaven and the Saints everlasting happiness there he calls it being for ever with Christ for this is a comprehensive expression How so 1. If the Saints shall be with Christ then shall they be exempt from all troubles and trials these fall off from them like Elijah's Mantle when he went to heaven There is now a glorious door of partition between these and them they are all excluded viz. Sin Sorrow Afflictions Reproaches Necessities Persecutions Poverty Sickness Pain Death Curse wicked men and Devils you shall never be troubled with these any more 2. If they enter in with Christ they shall enjoy the Father in him John 20.17 and be filled with the Holy Ghost from them both and thereby with unspeakable consolations and the fulness of God and they shall live for ever in the immediate contemplation and vision and fruition of one God in three persons and be replenished to the brim with eternal love from them and to them 3. You shall enjoy the fellowship of an innumerable company of Angels and shall then know who they are and love them entirely and be as intimately beloved of them though now in your present state you cannot bear the presence of one of them 4. You shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven and enjoy communion with the Spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 All this followeth from your entrance into Heaven with Christ Fourthly Consider that you shall enter into Heaven with Christ the Bridegroom and therefore to be married to him And hence again it will follow 1. That there will be the nearest relation possible between Christ and you for you shall be one conjugally for ever with him You are one with him mystically and matrimonially who is one with the Father essentially 2. You shall be invested with unutterable Glory seeing it is a Marriage-time wherein the Bridegroom and Bride shall shine in the richest Attire and Embroidery that is in all the Wardrobe of Heaven Christ and the Saints shall wear the very same Glory John 17.22 3. There shall be unconceivable Love Joy Delight and Complacency between the Bridegrom and the Bride and as the Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride so shall the Lord Jesus rejoyce over his Spouse O there will be a most glorious delightful loving sweet familiarity and conjugal rejoycing between Christ Jesus and the Saints Marriage-joy upon earth is usually great what then will that be in heaven when shall be fulfilled thâ—â— which Christ spake at his last Supper I will not drink of the fruit of the Vine until the day that I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom Mat. 26.29 Where by fruit of the Vine we understand Wine which maketh glad the heart of man Psal 104 15. and causeth it to rejoyce and shadoweth out the Love of Christ and Joys of Heaven to us Cant. 1.2 4. And by New we understand other Mark 16.17 with Acts 2.4 in the Original So that in this Marriage there shall be new i. e. other yea othergess wine viz. Love Joy and Rejoycing than there is in the Lord's Supper For Christ who kept the best wine to the last at the Marriage in Cana in Galilee will surely do so at his own Marriage at the last day 4. This Marriage is not on Earth but in Heaven and therefore it shall never dissolve as Marriages on Earth do but continue unto Eternity O how will the Holy Angels rejoice and sing at this Marriage For they that sang at the Birth of Christ when he lay in the Manger will sing to the purpose at his Marriage when he sitteth upon his Throne in the highest Glory Now the consideration of these things is greatly inducing to be very studious in actual preparations for the coming of Christ Be ye therefore much in the exercise of Faith Hope Love Repentance Goodness Mercy and works of Bounty Diligence and Faithfulness in your Callings Sobriety Watchfulness and Prayer that so at last you may have an entrance ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ And now Brethren Abide in him that when he shall appear you may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming but lift up your heads with joy unspeakable and full of Glory Hear wisdom therefore and receive instruction that you may be wise in the latter end And God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ make you to encrease in all these Preparatory Graces to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in Holiness before God even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints And now Grace be with all them that love him in sincerity Amen FINIS