doth lye upon you You that neglect this important work and talk to your Families of nothing but the world I tell you the bloud of souls lyes on you make as light of it as you will if you repent not and amend the Lord will shortly call you to an account for your guiltiness of your childrens everlasting undoing and then you that could finde in your hearts to neglect the souls of your own children will be judged more barbarous then the Irish or Turks that kill the children of others 8. Consider also what a world of sorrows do you prepare for your selves by the neglect of your children First You can expect no other but that they should be thorns in your very eyes and you may thank your selves if they prove so seeing they are thorns of your own planting Secondly If you should repent of this your negligence and be saved your selves yet is it nothing to you to think of the damnation of your children You know God hath said That except they be born again they shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Methinks then it should be a heart-breaking to all you that have unregenerate children Methinks you should weep over them every time you look them in the face to remember that they are in the way to eternal fire Some people would lament the fate of their children if but a Wizard should foretel them some ill fortune to befall them and do you not regard it when the Living God shall tell you That the wicked shall be turned into hell and all they that forget God Psal. 9.17 Thirdly Yet all this were not so doleful to you if it were a thing that you had no hand in or could do nothing to help but to think that all this is much long of you that ever your negligence should bring your childe to these everlasting torments which the very damned man Luke 16. would have had his brethren been warned to escape if this seem light to thee thou hast the heart of a hellish Fiend in thee and not of a man Fourthly But yet worse then all this will it prove to you if you die in this sin for then you shall be miserable as well as they and O what a greeting will there be then between ungodly Parents and children what a hearing will it be to your tormented souls to hear your children cry out against you All this that we suffer was long of you you should have taught us better and did not you should have restrained us from sin and corrected us but you did not what an addition will such out-cries be to your misery 9. On the other side do but think with your selves what a world of comfort you may have if you be faithful in this duty First If you should not succeed yet you have freed your own souls and though it be sad yet not so sad for you may have peace in your own consciences Secondly But if you do succeed the comfort is unexpressible For first Godly children will be truly loving to your selves that are their Parents when a little riches or matters of this world will oft make ungodly children to cast off their very natural affection secondly Godly children will be most obedient to you They dare not disobey and provoke you because of the command of God except you should command them that which is unlawful and then they must obey God rather then men thirdly And if you should fall into want they would be most faithful in relieving you as knowing they are tied by a double bond of Nature and of Grace fourthly And they will also be helpers to your souls and to your spiritual comforts they will be delighting you with the mention of heaven and with all holy conference and actions when wicked children will be grieving you with cursing and swearing or drunkenness or disobedience fifthly Yea when you are in trouble or sickness and at death your godly children will be at hand to advise and to support you they will strive with God in prayers for you O what a comfort is it to a Parent to have a childe that hath the Spirit of Prayer and interest in God how much good may they do you by their importunity with God And what a sadness is it to have children that when you lye sick can do no more but ask you how you do and look on you in your misery sixthly Yea all your Family may fare the better for one childe or servant that feareth God yea perhaps all the Town where he liveth As Josephs case proveth and Jacobs and many the like when one wicked childe may bring a Judgment oâ— your house seventhly And if God make you instruments of your childrens conversion you will have a share in all the good that they do through their lives all the good they do to their brethren or to the Church of God and all the honor they bring to God will redound to your happiness as having been instruments of it eighthly And what a comfort may it be to you all your lives to think that you shall live with them for ever with God ninthly But the greatest joy will be when you come to the possession of this and you shall say Here am I and the children thou hast given me And are not all these comforts enough to perswade you to this duty 10. Consider further That the very welfare of Church and State lyeth mainly on this duty of well educating children and without this all other means are like to be far less successful I seriously profess to you that I verily think all the sins and miseries of the Land may acknowledg this sin for their great Nurse and Propagator O what happy Churches might we have if Parents did their duties to their children then we need not exclude so many for ignorance or scandal nor have our Churches composed of members so rude then might we spare most of the quarrels about Discipline Reformation Toleration and Separation any reasonable government would do better with a well-taught people then the best will do with the ungodly It is not good Laws and Orders that will reform us if the men be not good and Reformation begin not at home when children go wicked from the hands of their Parents thence some come such to the Universities and so we come to have an ungodly Ministry and in every profession they bring this fruit of their Education with them when Gentlemen teach their children onely to Hunt and Hawk and game and deride the godly what Magistrates and what Parliaments and so what Government and what a Commonwealth are we like to have when all must be guided by such as these some perverse inconsiderate persons lay the blame of all this on the Ministers that people of all sorts are so ignorant and profane as if one man can do the work of many hundreds I beseech you that are Masters and Parents do your own duties and free Ministers from these
The delight which a pair of special faithful friends do finde in loving and enjoying one another is a most pleasing sweet delight It seemed to the Philosophers to be above the delights of Natural or Matrimonial friendship and I think it seemed so to David himself so he concludes his Lamentation for him I am distressed for thee my brother Jonathan very pleasant hast thou been unto me thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of women 2 Sam. 1.26 Yea the soul of Jonathan did cleave to David Even Christ himself as it seemeth had some of this kinde of love for he had one Disciple whom he especially loved and who was wont to lean on his brest why think then if the delights of close and cordial friendship be so great what delight shall we have in the friendship of the most High and in our mutual amity with Jesus Christ and in the dearest love and consort with the Saints Surely this will be a closer and stricter friendship then ever was betwixt any friends on earth and these will be more lovely and desirable friends than any that ever the Sun beheld and both our affections to our Father and our Saviour but especially his affection to us will be such as here we never knew as Spirits are so far more powerful then Flesh that one Angel can destroy an Host so also are their affections more strong and powerful we shall then love a thousand times more strongly and sweetly then now we can and as all the Attributes and Works of God are incomprehensible so is the attribute and work of Love He will love us many thousand times more then we even at the perfectest are able to love him what joy then will there be in this mutuall Love SECT VII 5. COmpare also the Excellencies of heaven with those glorious works of the Creation which our eyes do now behold What a deal of wisdom and power and goodness appeareth in and through them to a wise Observer What a deal of the Majesty of the great Creator doth shine in the face of this fabrick of the world surely his Works are great and admirable sought out of them that have pleasure therein This makes the study of natural Philosophy so pleasant because the Works of God are so excellent VVhat rare workmanship is in the body of a man yea in the body of every beast which makes the Anatomical studies so delightful what excellency in every Plant we see in the beauty of Flowers in the nature diversity and use of Herbs in Fruits in Roots in Minerals and what not But especially if we look to the greater works if we consider the whole body of this earth and its creatures and inhabitants the Ocean of waters with its motions and dimensions the variation of the Seasons and of the face of the earth the entercourse of Spring and Fall of Summer and Winter what wonderful excellency do these contain Why think then in thy Meditations if these things which are but servants to sinful man are yet so full of mysterious worth what then is that place where God himself doth dwell and is prepared for the just who are perfected with Christ VVhen thou walkest forth in the Evening look upon the Stars how they glissen and in what numbers they bespangle the Firmament If in the day time look up to the glorious Sun view the wide expanded encompassing heavens and say to thy self what glory is in the least of yonder Stars what a vast what a bright resplendent body hath yonder Moon and every Planet O what an unconceiveable glory hath the Sun Why all this is nothing to the glory of Heaven yonder Sun must there be laid aside as useless for it would not be seen for the brightness of God I shall live above all yonder glory yonder is but darkness to the lustre of my Fathers House I shall be as glorious as that Sun my self yonder is but as the wall of the Pallace-yard as the Poet â—aith If in Heavens outward Court such beauty be What is the glory which the Saints do see So think of the rest of the Creatures This whole earth is but my Fathers footstool this Thunder is nothing to his dreadful voice these winds are nothing to the breath of his mouth So much wisdom and power as appeareth in all these so much and far much more greatness and goodness and loving delights shall I enjoy in the actual fruition of God Surely if the Rain which rains and the Sun which shines on the just and unjust be so wonderful the Sun then which must shine on none but Saints and Angels must needs be wonderful and ravishing in glory SECT VIII 6. COmpare the things which thou shalt enjoy above with the excellency of those admirable works of Providence which God doth exercise in the Church and in the World What glorious things hath the Lord wrought and yet we shall see more glorious then these Would it not be an astonishing sight to see the Sea stand as a Wall on the right hand and on the left and the dry Land appear in the midst and the people of Israel pass safely through and Pharoah and his people swallowed up what if we should see but such a sight now If we had seen the ten Plagues of Egypt or had seen the Rock to gush forth streams or had seen Manna or Quails rained down from Heaven or had seen the Earth open and swallow up the wicked or had seen their Armies slain with Hailstones with an Angel or by one another Would not all these have been wondrous glorious sights But we shall see far greater things then these And as our sights shall be more wonderful so also they shall be more sweet There shall be no blood nor wrath intermingled we shall not then cry out as David Who can stand before this Holy Lord God Would it not have been an astonishing sight to have seen the Sun stand still in the Firmament or to have seen Ahaz Dyal go ten degrees backward Why we shall see when there shall be no Sun to shine at all we shall behold for ever a Sun of more incomparable brightness Were it not a brave life if we might still live among wonders and miracles and all for us and not against us if we could have drought or rain at our prayers as Elias or if we could call down fire from Heaven to destroy our enemies or raise the dead to life as Elisha or cure the diseased and speak strange languages as the Apostles Alas these are nothing to the wonders which we shall see and possess with God! and all those wonders of Goodness and Love We shall possess that Pearl and Power it self through whose vertue all these works were done we shall our selves be the subjects of more wonderful mercies then any of these Jonas was raised but from a three days burial from the belly of the Whale in the deep Ocean but
dare to contend in love with thee or set my borrowed languid spark against the Element and Sun of Love Can I love as high as deep as broad as long as Love it self as much as he that made me and that made me love that gave me all that little which I have both the heart the hearth where it is kindled the bellows the fire the fuel and all were his As I cannot match thee in the works of thy Power nor make nor preserve nor guide the worlds so why should I think any moreof matching thee in Love No Lord I yield I am unable I am overcome O blessed conquest Go on victoriously and still prevail and triumph in thy love The Captive of Love shall proclaim thy victory when thou leadest me in triumph from Earth to Heaven from Death to Life from the Tribunal to the Throne my self and all that see it shall acknowledg that thou hast prevailed and all shall say Behold how he loved him Yet let me love thee in subjection to thy Love as thy redeemed Captive though not thy Peer shall I not love at all because I cannot reach thy measure or at least let me heartily wish to love thee O that I were able O that I could feelingly say I love thee even as I feel I love my friend and my self Lord that I could do it but alas I cannot fain I would but alas I cannot Would I not love thee if I were but able Though I cannot say as thy Apostle Thou knowest that I Love thee yet can I say Lord thou knowest that I would love thee but I speak not this to excuse my fault it is a crime that admits of no excuse and it is my own it dwelleth as neer me as my very heart if my heart be my own this sin is my own yea and more my own then my heart is Lord what shall this sinner do the fault is my own and yet I cannot help it I am angry with my heart that it doth not love thee and yet I feel it love thee never the more I frown up on it and yet it cares not I threaten it but it doth not feel I chide it and yet it doth not mend I reason with it and would fain perswade it and yet I do not perceive it stir I rear it up as a carkass upon its legs but it neither goes nor stands I rub and chafe it in the use of thine Ordinances and yet I feel it not warm within me O miserable man that I am unworthy soul is not thine eye now upon the onely lovely object and art thou not beholding the ravishing glory of the Saints and yet dost thou not love and yet dost thou not feel the fire break forth why art thou not a soul a living spirit and is not thy love the choicest piece of thy life Art thou not a rational soul and shouldst not thou love according to Reasons conduct and doth it not tell thee that all is dirt and dung to Christ that earth is a dungeon to the celestial glory Art thou not a spirit thy self and shoulst thou not love spiritually even God who is a Spirit and the Father of Spirits Doth not every creature love their like why my soul art thou like to fleshâ— or gold or stately buildings art thou like to meat and drink or cloathes wilt thou love no higher then thy horse or swine hast thou nothing better to love then they what is the beauty that thou hast so admired canst thou not even wink or think it all into darkness or deformity when the night comes it is nothing to thee while thou hast gazed on it it hath withered away a Botch or Scab the wrinkles of consuming sickness or of age do make it as loathsom as it was before delightful suppose but that thou sawest that beautiful carcass lying on the Bier or rotting in the grave the skull dig'd up and the bones scattered where is now thy lovely object couldst thou sweetly embrace it when the soul is gone or take any pleasure in it when there is nothing left thats like thy self Ah why then dost thou love a skinful of dirt and canst love no more the heavenly Glory What thinkest thou shalt thou love when thou comest there when thou seest when thou dost enjoy when the Lord shall take thy carcass from the grave and make thee shine as the Sun in glory and when thou shalt everlastingly dwell in the blessed presence shalt thou then love or shalt thou not is not the place a meeting of lovers is not the life a state of love is it not the great marriage day of the Lamb when he will embrace and entertain his Spouse with love is not the imployment there the work of love where the souls with Christ do take their fill O then my soul begin it here be sick of love now that thou maist be well with love there keep thy self now in the love of God Jude 21. and let neither life nor death nor any thing separate thee from it and thou shalt be kept in the fulness of love for ever and nothing shalt imbitter or abate thy pleasure for the Lord hath prepared a city of love a place for the communicating of love to his chosen and those that love his Name shall dwell there Psal. 69.36 Awake then O my drowsie soul who but an Owl or Mole would love this worlds uncomfortable darkness when they are called forth to live in light to sleep under the light of Grace is unreasonable much more in the approach of the light of Glory The night of thy ignorance and misery is past the day of glorious Light is at hand this is the day-break betwixt them both Though thou see not yet the Sun it self appear methinks the twilight of a promise should revive thee Come forth then O my dull congealed spirits and leave these earthly Cels of dumpish sadness and hear thy Lord that bids thee Rejoyce and again Rejoyce thou hast lain here long enough in thy prison of flesh where Satan hath been thy Jaylor and the things of this world have been the Stocks for the feet of thy Affections where cares have been thy Trons and fears thy Scourge and the bread and water of Affliction thy food where sorrows have been thy lodging and thy sins and foes have made the bed and a carnal hard unbelieving heart have been the iron gates bars that have kept thee in that thou couldst scarce have leave to look through the Lattices and see one glimpse of the immortal light The Angel of the Covenant now calls thee and strikes thee and bids thee Arise and follow him up O my soul and cheerfully obey and thy bolts and bars shall all fly open do thou obey and all will obey follow the Lamb which way ever he leads thee Art thou afraid because thou knowst not whither Can the place be worse then where thou art Shouldst thou fear to follow
your souls to this blessed Work and that when death comes it may finde you so imployed that I may see your faces with joy at the Bar of Christ and we may enter together into the Everlasting Rest. Amen Your most affectionate though unworthy Teacher Rich. Baxter Kederminster Jan. 15. 1649. To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Rous Baronet with the Lady Jane Rous his VVife Right Worshipful THis First Part of this Treatise was written under your Roof and therefore I present it not to you as a gift but as your own Not for your Protection but for your Instruction and Direction for I never perceived you possessed with that evil spirit which maketh men hear their Teachers as their Servants to censure their Doctrine or be humored by them rather then to learn Nor do I intend this Epistle for the publishing of your Vertues You know to whose judgment you stand or fall It is a small thing to be judged by mans judgment If you be sentenced as Righteous at the Bar of Christ and called by him the Blessed of his Father it matters not much by what name or title you are here called All Saints are low in their own esteem and therefore thirst not to be highly esteemed by others He that knows what Pride hath done in the World and is now doing and how close that hainous sin doth cleave to all our Natures will scarce take him for a friend who will bring fewel to the fire nor that breath for amicable which will blow the coal Yet he that took so kindly a womans box of oyntment as to affix the History to his Gospel that where-ever it was read that good Work might be remembred hath warranted me by his example to annex the mention of your Favors to this Treatise which have many times far exceeded in cost that which Judas thought too good for his Lord. And common ingenuity commandeth me thankfully to acknowledg That when you heard I was suddenly cast into extream weakness you sent into several Counties to seek me in my quarters and missing of me sent again to fetch me to your house where for many moneths I found a Hospital a Physitian a Nurse and real Friends and which is more then all daily and importunate Prayers for my recovery and since I went from you your kindnesses still following me in aboundance And all this for a man that was a stranger to you whom you had never seen before but among Souldiers to burden you And for one that had no witty insinuations for the extracting of your favors nor impudency enough to return them in flatteries yea who had such obstructions betwixt his heart and his tongue that he could scarce handsomly express the least part of his thankfulness much less able to make you a requital The best return I can make of your love is in commending this Heavenly Duty to your Practice wherein I must intreat you to be the more diligent and unwearied because as you may take more time for it then the poor can do so have you far stronger temptations to divert you it being extreamly difficult for those that have fulness of all things here to place their happiness really in another life and to set their hearts there as the place of their Rest which yet must be done by all that will be saved Study Luke 12.16 to 22. and 16.19 25. Matth. 6.21 How little comfort do all things in this world afford to a departing soul My constant prayer for you to God shall be That all things below may be below him in your heart and that you may throughly master and mortifie the desires of the flesh and may daily live above in the Spirit with the Father of Spirits till you arrive among the perfected Spirits of the Just. Your much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter The Contents of the First Part. CHAP. I. THE Text explained pag. 1 2 3 Qu. Doth this Rest remain to a determinate number of persons Elect Or only to believers in generall p. 4 Qu. Is it theirs only in possibility or in certainty p. 5 Chap. 2. The definition of Rest And of this Rest. p. 6 Qu. Whether to make the obtaining of Rest and avoiding misery the end of our duties be not Legall or Mercenary Answered p 8 9 Chap. 3. Twelve things which are presupposed to this Rest. p. 12 c. Chap. 4. What this Rest containeth 1. Cessation from all that motion which is the means to attain the end p. 20 2. Perfect freedom from all evill p. 21 3. The highest-degree of personall Perfection p. 22 4. Our nearest fruition of God the chief Good p. 23 5. A sweet and constant action of all the powers in this fruition p 28 As 1. Of the Senses and Tongue and whole Body p. 29 2. Of the Soul And 1. Vnderstanding As 1. Knowledg p. 30 2. Memory p. 33 2. Affections As by Love p. 35 2. By Joy p. 39 This Love and Joy will be mutuall p. 41 Chap. 5. The four great antecedents and preparatives to this Rest. p. 44 1. The coming of Christ. p. 45 2. Our Resurrection p. 51 3. Our justification in the great Judgment p. 57 4. Our solemn Coronation and Inthroning p. 65 Chap. 6. This Rest tryed by nine Rules in Philosophy or Reason and found by all to be the most excellent state in generall p. 69 Chap. 7. The particular excellencies of this Rest. p. 76 1. It s the fruit of Christs blood and enjoyed with the purchaser ibid. 2. It is freely given us p. 78 3. It is the Saints peculiar p. 81 4. In association with Angels and perfect Saints p. 83 5. Yet its Joys immediate from God p. 87 6. It will be a seasonable Rest. p. 91 7. And a sutable Rest 1. To our Natures 2. Desires 3. Necessities p. 97 8. A perfect Rest 1. In the sincerity of it 2. And universality p. 101 1. Of good enjoyed 2. And of the evill we are freed from ibid. We shall Rest 1. From sin and that 1. Of the Vnderstanding p. 102 2. From sin of Will Affection and Conversation p. 105 2. From suffering Particularly 1. From all doubts of Gods love p. 106 2. From all sense of his displeasure p. 107 3. From all Satans Temptations p. 108 4. From temptations of the world and flesh p. 110 5. From Persecutions and abuses of the world p. 112 6. From our own divisions and dissentions p. 116 7. From participating in our brethrens sufferings p. 121 8. From all our own personall sufferings p. 125 9. From all the labour and trouble of duty p. 128 10 From the trouble of Gods absence p. 129 9. As it will be thus perfect so Everlasting p. 129 c. Chap. 8. The People of God described The severall parts of the description opened and therein many weighty controversies briefly touched And lastly the description applyed by way of examination p. 134. to 164 The Contents of the Second Part. CHAP. I. THE Certain truth
not of the world and therefore the world hates them who have forsaken all for Christ and having taken up the Cross do follow him with patient waiting till they inherit the promised Glory SECT V. 4. I Add That this Happiness consists in obtaining the End where I mean the ultimate and principal end not any end secundum quid so called subordinate or less principal Not the end of conclusion in regard of time for so every man hath his end But the end of Intention which sets the Soul a work and is its prime motive in all its actions That the chief Happiness is in the enjoyment of this End I shall fully shew through the whole Discourse and therefore here omit SECT VI. BUt it is a great doubt with many whether the obtainment of this glory may be our end nay concluded that its mercenary yea that to make Salvation the end of Duty is to be a Legalist and act under a Covenant of Works whose Tenor is Do this and Live And many that think it may be our end yet think it may not be our ultimate end for that should be onely the glory of God I shall answer these particularly and briefly SECT VII 1. IT 's properly called mercenary when we expect it as wages for work done and so we may not make it our end Otherwise it is only such a mercenariness as Christ commandeth For consider what this end is It 's the fruition of God in Christ and if seeking Christ be mercenary I desire to be so mercenary 2. It 's not a note of a Legalist neither It hath been the ground of a multitude of Late mistakes in Divinity to think that Do this and Live is onely the language of the Covenant of Works It 's true in some sence it is but in other not The Law of Works onely saith Do this that is perfectly fulfil the whole Law and Live that is for so doing But the Law of Grace saith Do this and Live too that is Beleeve in Christ seek him obey him sincerely as thy Lord and King forsake all suffer all things and overcome and by so doing or in so doing as the Conditions which the Gospel propounds for Salvation you shall live If you set up the abrogated duties of the Law again you are a Legalist if you set up the duties of the Gospel in Christs stead in whole or in part you err still Christ hath his place and work Duty hath its place and work too Set it but in its own place and expect from it but it s own part and you go right Yea more how unsavory soever the phrase may seem you may so far as this comes to trust to your Duty and Works that is for your own part and many miscarry in expecting no more from them as to pray and to expect nothing the more that is from Christ in a way of Duty For if duty have no share why may we not trust Christ as well in a way of disobedience as duty In a word you must both use and trust duty in Subordination to Christ but neither use them nor trust them in Co-ordination with him So that this derogates nothing from Christ for he hath done and will do all his work perfectly and enableth his people to Theirs Yet he is not properly said to do it himself he beleeves not repents not c. but worketh these in them that is enableth and exciteth them to do it SECT VIII IF I should quote all the Scriptures that plainly prove this I should transcribe a great part of the Bible I will bring none out of the Old Testament for I know not whether their Authority will here be acknowledged But I desire the contrary minded whose consciences are tender of abusing Scripture and wresting it from the plain sence to study what tolerable interpretation can be given of these following places which will not prove that Life and Salvation may be yea must be the end of Duty Joh 5.39 40. Ye will not come to me that ye might have life Mat. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Mat. 7.13 Luk. 13.24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate Phil. 2.12 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Rom. 2.7 10. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life Glory honor and peace to every man that worketh good c. 1 Cor. 9.24 So run that you may obtain 2 Tim. 2.5 A man is not crowned except he strive lawfully 2 Tim. 2.12 If we suffer with him we shall reign with him 1 Tim. 6.12 Fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life 1 Tim. 6.18 19. That they do good works laying up a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life Phil. 3.14 If by any means I might attain to the Resurrection of the Dead I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling c. Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in by the gates into the City Mat. 25. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit c. for I was hungry and ye c. Mat. 9. Blessed are the pure in heart c. they that hunger and thirst c. Be glad and rejoyce for great is your reward in Heaven Luk. 11.28 Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it Yea the escaping of Hell is a right end of Duty to a Beleever Hebr. 4.1 Let us fear least a promise being left us of entering into his Rest any of you should seem to come short of it Luk. 12.5 Fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell yea whatsoever others say I say unto you Fear him 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it in subjection lest when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away Multitudes of Scriptures and Scripture Arguments might be brought but these may suffice to any that beleeve Scripture SECT IX 3. FOr those that think this Rest may be our end but not our ultimate end that must be Gods glory onely let them consider What God hath joyned man must not separate The glorifying himself and the saving his people as I judg are not two Decrees with God but one Decree to glorifie his mercy in their salvation So I think they should be with us one Intention We should aim at the glory of God not alone considered without our salvation but in our salvation Therefore I know no warrant for putting such a Question to our selves as some do Whether we could be content to be damned so God were glorified Sure I am Christ himself is offered to faith in terms for the most part respecting the welfare of the sinner more then his own abstracted glory he would be
received as a Saviour Mediator Redeemer Reconciler Intercessor c. And all the precepts of Scripture being backed with so many promises and threatenings every one intended of God as a motive to us do imply as much If any think they should be distinguished as two several ends and Gods glory preferred so they separate them not asunder I contend not SECT X. 5. IN the Definition I call a Christians Happiness the end of his Course thereby meaning as Paul 2 Tim. 4.7 the whole scope of his life For as Salvation may and must be our end so not onely the end of our faith though that principally but of all our actions for as whatsoever we do must be done to the glory of God whether eating drinking c. so must they all be done to our Salvation That we may beleeve for Salvation some will grant who yet deny that we may do or obey for it I would it were well understood for the clearing of many controversies what the Scripture usually means by Faith Doubtless the Gospel takes it not so strictly as Philosophers do but in a larger sence for our obedience to all Gospel precepts To beleeve in his name and to receive him are all one but we must receive him as King as well as Saviour therefore beleeving doth not produce subjection as a fruit but contain it as an essential part except we say that Faith receives Christ as a Saviour first and so justifies before it take him for King as some think which is a maimed unsound and no Scripture faith I doubt not but the Soul more sensibly looks at Salvation from Christ then Government by him in the first work yet whatever precedaneous act there may be it never conceives of Christ to Justification nor knows him with the knowledg which is eternal life till it conceive of him and know him for Lord and King Therefore there is not such a difference between Faith and Gospel-obedience or Works as some judg Obedience to the Gospel is put for Faith and Disobedience put for Unbelief usually in the New Testament 6. Lastly I make Happiness to consist in this end obtained for it is not the meer promise of it that immediately makes perfectly happy nor Christs meer purchase nor our meer seeking but the Apprehending and obtaining which sets the Crown on the Saints head when we can say of our work as Christ of the price payd It is finished and as Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course henceforth is layd up for me a crown of Salvation 2 Tim. 4.7 8. CHAP. III. What this Rest presupposeth SECT I. FOr the clearer understanding yet of the nature of this Rest you must know 1. There are some things necessarily presupposed to it 2. Some things really conteined in it 1. All these things are presupposed to this Rest. 1. A person in motion seeking Rest. SECT II. 2. AN End toward which he moveth for Rest Which End must be sufficient for his Rest else when 't is obtained it deceiveth him This can be onely God the chief good SECT III. 3. A Distance is presupposed from this End else there can be no motion towards it This sad distance is the woful case of all mankinde since the fall It was our God that we principally lost and were shut out of his gracious presence Though some talk of losing onely a temporal earthly felicity sure I am it was God we fell from and him we lost and since said to be without him in the world and there would have been no death but for sin and to enjoy God without death is neither an earthly nor temporal enjoyment Nay in all men at Age here is supposed not onely a distance from God but also a contrary motion For sin hath not overthrown our Being nor taken away our Motion but our well-being and the Rectitude of our motion When Christ comes with Regenerating Saving Grace he findes no man sitting still but all posting to eternal Ruine and making hast towards hell till by conviction he first bring them to a stand and by conversion turn first their hearts and then their lives sincerely to himself SECT IV. 4. HEre is presupposed a knowledg of the true ultimate End and its excellency for so the motion of the Rational Creature proceedeth An unknown end is no end it is a contradiction We cannot make that our end which we know not nor that our chief End which we know not or judg not to be the chief Good An unknown Good moves not to desire or endeavor Therefore where it is not truly known That God is this End and containeth all good in him there is no obtaining Rest. SECT V. 5. HEre is presupposed not onely a distance from this Rest but also the true knowledg of this distance If a man have lost his way and know it not he seeks not to return If he lose his gold and know it not he seeks it not Therefore they that never knew they were without God never yet enjoyed him and they that never knew they were naturally and actually in the way to Hell did never yet know the way to Heaven Nay there will not onely be a knowledg of this distance and lost estate but also affections answerable Can a man be brought to finde himself hard by the brink of hell and not tremble or to finde he hath lost his God and his Soul and not cry out I am undone Or can such a stupid Soul be so recovered This is the sad case of many thousands and the reason why so few obtain this Rest They will not be convinced or made sensible that they are in point of title distant from it and in point of practice contrary to it They have lost their God their Souls their Rest and do not know it nor will beleeve him that tells them so Who ever travelled towards a place which he thought he was at already or sought for that which he knew not he had lost The whole need not the Physician but they that are sick Mat. 9.12 SECT VI. 6. HEre is also supposed A superiour moving Cause and an influence there-from else should we all stand still and not move a step forward toward our Rest no more then the inferiour wheels in the Watch would stir if you take away the spring or the first mover This primum movens is God What hand God hath in evil Actions or whether he afford the like influence to their production I will not here trouble this Discourse and the Reader to dispute The case is clear in Good Actions If God move us not we cannot move Therefore is it a most necessary part of our Christian Wisdom to keep our subordination to God and dependance on him To be still in the path where he walks and in that way where his Spirit doth most usually move Take heed of being estranged or separated from God or of slacking your
these frail noisom diseased Lumps of flesh or dirt that now we carry about us so far shall our sense of Seeing and Hearing exceed these we now possess For the change of the senses must be conceived proportionable to the change of the body And doubtless as God advanceth our sense and enlargeth our capacity so will he advance the happiness of those senses and fill up with himself all that capacity And certainly the body should not be raised up and continued if it should not share of the Glory For as it hath shared in the obedience and sufferings so shall it also do in the blessedness And as Christ bought the whole man so shall the whole partake of the everlasting benefits of the purchase The same difference is to be allowed for the Tongue For though perhaps that which we now call the tongue the voyce or language shal not then be Yet with the forementioned unconceiveable change it may continue Certain it is it shall be the everlasting work of those Blessed Saints to stand before the Throne of God and the Lamb and to praise him for ever and ever As their Eyes and Hearts shall be filled with his Knowledg with his Glory and with his Love so shall their mouthes be filled with his praises Go on therefore Oh ye Saints while you are on Earth in that Divine Duty Learn Oh learn that Saint-beseeming work for in the mouthes of his Saints his praise is comely Pray but still praise Hear and Read but still praise Praise him in the presence of his people for it shall be your Eternal work Praise him while his Enemies deride and abuse you You shall praise him while they shall bewail it and admire you Oh Blessed Employment to sound forth for ever Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Honor Glory and Power Revel 4.11 And worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honor and Glory and Blessing for he hath Redeemed us to God by his blood out of every kinred and tongue and people and Nation and hath made us unto our God Kings and Priests Revel 5.12 9 10. Alleluja Salvation and Honor and Glory and Power unto the Lord our God Praise our God all ye his servants and ye that fear him small and great Alleluja for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth Revel 19.1 5 6. Oh Christians this is the Blessed Rest A Rest without Rest For they Rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Revel 4.8 Sing forth his praises now ye Saints It is a work our Master Christ hath taught us And you shall for ever sing before him the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Revel 15.3 SECT VI. ANd if the Body shall be thus employed Oh how shall the Soul be taken up As its powers and capacities are greatest so its action strongest and its enjoyment sweetest As the bodily senses have their proper aptitude and action whereby they receive and enjoy their objects so doth the Soul in its own action enjoy its own object By knowing by thinking and Remembering by Loving and by delightful joying this is the Souls enjoying By these Eyes it sees and by these Arms it embraceth If it might be said of the Disciples with Christ on Earth much more that behold him in his Glory Blessed are the Eyes that see the things that you see and the Ears that hear the things that you hear for many Princes and great ones have desired and hoped to see the things that you see and have not seen them c. Mat. 13.16 17. Knowledg of it self is very desireable even the knowledg of some evil though not the Evil it self As far as the Rational Soul exceeds the Sensitive so far the Delights of a Philosopher in discovering the secrets of Nature and knowing the mystery of Sciences exceeds the Delights of the Glutton the Drunkard the unclean and of all voluptuous sensualists whatsoever so excellent is all Truth What then is their Delight who know the God of Truth What would I not give so that all the uncertain questionable Principles in Logick Natural Philosophy Metaphysicks and Medicine were but certain in themselves and to me And that my dull obscure notions of them were but quick and clear Oh what then should I not either perform or part with to enjoy a clear and true Apprehension of the most True God How noble a faculty of the Soul is this Understanding It can compass the Earth It can measure the Sun Moon Stars and Heaven It can fore-know each Eclipse to a minute many years before Yea but this is the top of all its excellency It can know God who is infinite who made all these a little here and more much more hereafter Oh the wisdom and goodness of our Blessed Lord He hath created the Understanding with a Natural Byas and inclination to Truth as its object and to the Prime Truth as its Prime Object and lest we should turn aside to any Creature he hath kept this as his own Divine Prerogative not communicable to any Creature viz. to be the Prime Truth And though I think not as some do that there is so neer a close between the Understanding and Truth as may produce a proper Union or Identity Yet doubtless it 's no such cold touch or disdainful embrace as is between these gross earthly Heterogeneals The true studious contemplative man knows this to be true who feels as sweet embraces between his Intellect and Truth and far more then ever the quickest sense did in possessing its desired object But the true studious contemplative Christian knows it much more who sometime hath felt more sweet embraces between his Soul and Jesus Christ then all inferior Truth can afford I know some Christians are kept short this way especially the careless in their watch and walking and those that are ignorant or negligent in the dayly actings of Faith who look when God casts in Joys while they lie idle and labor not to fetch them in by beleeving But for others I appeal to the most of them Christian dost thou not sometime when after long gazing heaven-ward thou hast got a glimpse of Christ dost thou not seem to have been with Paul in the third Heaven whether in the body or out and to have seen what is unutterable Art thou not with Peter almost beyond thy self ready to say Master it 's good to be here Oh that I might dwell in this Mount Oh that I might ever see what I now see Didst thou never look so long upon the Sun of God till thine Eyes were dazled with his astonishing glory and did not the splendor of it make all things below seem black and dark to thee when thou lookest down again Especially in thy day
not be like Joseph and his Brethren who lay upon one anothers necks weeping It will break forth into a pure Joy and not such a mixture of joy and sorrow as their weeping argued It will be Loving and rejoycing not loving and sorrowing Yet will it make Pharoahs Satans court to ring with the News that Josephs Brethren are come that the Saints are arrived safe at the bosom of Christ out of the reach of hell for ever Neither is there any such love as Davids and Jonathans shutting up in sorrows and breathing out its last into sad lamentations for a forced separation No Christ is the powerful attractive the effectual Loadstone who draws to it all like it self All that the Father hath given him shall come unto him even the Lover as well as the Love doth he draw and they that come unto him he will in no wise cast out John chap. 6. vers 37 39. For know this Beleever to thy everlasting comfort that if these Arms have once embraced thee neither sin nor hell can get thee thence for ever The Sanctuary is inviolable and the Rock impregnable whither thou art fled and thou art safe lockt up to all Eternity Thou hast not now to deal with an unconstant creature but with him with whom is no varying nor shadow of change even the Immutable God If thy happiness were in thine own hand as Adams there were yet fear But it 's in the keeping of a faithful Creator Christ hath not bought thee so dear to trust thee with thy self any more His Love to thee will not be as thine was on earth to him seldom and cold up and down mixed as Aguish bodies with burning and quaking with a Good day and a bad No Christian he that would not be discouraged by thine enmity by thy loathsom hateful nature by all thy unwillingness unkinde Neglects and churlish resistances he that would neither cease nor abate his Love for all these Can he cease to love thee when he hath made thee truly Lovely He that keepeth thee so constant in thy love to him that thou canst challenge tribulation distress persecution famine nakedness peril or sword to separate thy Love from Christ if they can Rom. 8.35 How much more will himself be constant Indeed he that produced these mutual embracing Affections will also produce such a mutual constancy in both that thou mayst confidently be perswaded as Paul was before thee That neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Vers. 38 39. And now are we not left in the Apostles admiration What shall we say to these things Infinite Love must needs be a mystery to a finite capacity No wonder if Angels desire to pry into this mystery And if it be the study of the Saints here to know the heighth and bredth and length and depth of this Love though it passeth knowledg This is the Saints Rest in the Fruition of God by Love SECT IX LAstly The Affection of Joy hath not the least share in this Fruition It 's that which all the rest lead to and conclude in even the unconceiveable Complacency which the Blessed feel in their seeing knowing loving and being beloved of God The delight of the Senses Here cannot be known by expressions as they are felt How much less this Joy This is the white stone which none knoweth but he that receiveth And if there be any Joy which the stranger medleth not with then surely this above all is it All Christs ways of mercy tend to and end in the Saints Joys He wept sorrowed suffered that they might rejoyce He sendeth the Spirit to be their Comforter He multiplieth promises he discovers their future happiness that their Joy may be full He aboundeth to them in mercies of all sorts he maketh them lie down in green pastures and leadeth them by the still waters yea openeth to them the fountain of Living Waters That their Joy may be full That they may thirst no more and that it may spring up in them to everlasting life Yea he causeth them to suffer that he may cause them to rejoyce and chasteneth them that he may give them Rest and maketh them as he did himself to drink of the brook in the way that they may lift up the head Psal. 110.7 And lest after all this they should neglect their own comforts he maketh it their duty and presseth it on them commanding them to rejoyce in him alway and again to rejoyce And he never brings them into so low a condition wherein he leaves them not more cause of Joy then of Sorrow And hath the Lord such a care of our comfort Here where the Bridegroom being from us we must mourn Oh what will that Joy be where the Soul being perfectly prepared for Joy and Joy prepared by Christ for the Soul it shall be our work our business eternally to rejoyce And it seems the Saints Joy shall be greater then the Damneds torment for their Torment is the torment of creatures prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our Joy is the Joy of our Lord even our Lords own Joy shall we enter And the same Glory which the Father giveth him doth the Son give to them Joh. 17.22 And to sit with him in his Throne even as he is sit down in his Fathers Throne Revel 3.21 What sayst thou to all this Oh thou sad and drooping Soul Thou that now spendest thy days in sorrow and thy breath in sighings and turnest all thy voyce into groanings who knowest no garments but sackcloth no food but the bread and water of Affliction who minglest thy bread with tears and drinkest the tears which thou weepest what sayest thou to this great change From All Sorrow to more then All Joy Thou poor Soul who prayest for Joy waitest for Joy complainest for want of Joy longest for Joy why then thou shalt have full Joy as much as thou canst hold and more then ever thou thoughtest on or thy heart desired And in the mean time walk carefully watch constantly and then let God measure out thy times and degrees of Joy It may be he keeps them till thou have more need Thou mayst better lose thy comfort then thy safety If thou shouldst dye full of fears and sorrows it will be but a moment and they are all gone and concluded in Joy unconceiveable As the Joy of the Hypocrite so the fears of the upright are but for a moment And as their hopes are but golden dreams which when death awakes them do all perish and their hopes dye with them so the Saints doubts and fears are but terrible dreams which when they dye do all vanish and they awake in Joyful Glory For Gods Anger endureth but a moment but in his favor is Life
weeping may endure for a night darkness and sadness go together but Joy cometh in the morning Psal. 30.5 Oh blessed morning thrice blessed morning Poor humble drooping Soul how would it fill thee with Joy now if a voyce from Heaven should tell thee of the Love of God of the pardon of thy sins and should assure thee of thy part in these Joys Oh what then will thy Joy be when thy actual Possession shall convince thee of thy Title and thou shalt be in Heaven before thou art well aware When the Angels shall bring thee to Christ and when Christ shall as it were take thee by the hand and lead thee into the purchased possession and bid thee welcom to his Rest and present thee unspotted before his Father and give thee thy place about his Throne Poor Sinner what sayest thou to such a day as this Wilt thou not be almost ready to draw back and to say What I Lord I the unworthy Neglecter of thy Grace I the unworthy dis-esteemer of thy blood and slighter of thy Love must I have this Glory Make me a hired servant I am no more worthy to be called a son But Love will have it so therefore must thou enter into his Joy SECT X. ANd it is not Thy Joy onely it is a Mutual Joy as well as a Mutual Love Is there such Joy in Heaven at thy Conversion and will there be none at thy Glorification Will not the Angels welcom thee thither and congratulate thy safe Arrival Yea it is the Joy of Jesus Christ For now he hath the end of his undertaking labor suffering dying when we have our Joys When he is Glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that beleeve We are his seed and the fruit of his Souls travel which when he seeth he will be satisfied Isa. 53.10 11. This is Christs Harvest when he shall reap the fruit of his labors and when he seeth it was not in vain it will not repent him concerning his sufferings but he will rejoyce over his purchased inheritance and his people shall rejoyce in him Yea the Father himself puts on Joy too in our Joy As we grieve his Spirit and weary him with our iniquities so is he rejoyced in our Good Oh how quickly Here doth he spy a Returning Prodigal even afar off how doth he run and meet him and with what compassion falls he on his neck and kisseth him and puts on him the best robe and ring on his hands and shoes on his feet and spares not to kill the fatted Calf that they may eat and be merry This is indeed a happy meeting But nothing to the Embracements and the Joy of that last and great Meeting Yea more yet as God doth mutually Love and Joy so he makes this His Rest as it is our Rest. Did he appoint a Sabbath because he rested from six days work and saw all Good and very Good What an eternal Sabbatism then when the work of Redemption Sanctification Preservation Glorification are all finished and his work more perfect then ever and very Good indeed Oh Christians write these words in letters of Gold Zeph. 3.17 The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty He will Save He will Rejoyce over thee with Joy He will Rest in his Love He will Joy over thee with Singing Oh well may we then Rejoyce in our God with Joy and Rest in our Love and Joy in him with Singing See Isai. 65.18 19. And now look back upon all this I say to thee as the Angel to John What hast thou seen Or if yet thou perceive not draw neerer Come up hither Come and see Dost thou fear thou hast been all this while in a Dream Why these are the true sayings of God Dost thou fear as the Disciples that thou hast seen but a Ghost in stead of Christ a Shadow in stead of Rest Why come neer and feel a Shadow contains not those Substantial Blessings nor rests upon the Basis of such Foundation-Truth and sure word of Promise as you have seen these do Go thy way now and tell the Disciples and tell the humble drooping Souls thou meetest with That thou hast in this glass seen Heaven That the Lord indeed is risen and hath here appeared to thee and behold he is gone before us into Rest and that he is now preparing a place for them and will come again and take them to himself that where he is there they may be also Joh. 14.3 Yea go thy ways and tell the unbeleeving world and tell thy unbeleeving heart if they ask What is the hope thou boastest of and what will be thy Rest Why this is my Beloved and my Friend and this is my Hope and my Rest. Call them forth and say Behold what Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.1 and that we should enter into our Lords own Rest. SECT XI BUt alass my fearful heart dare scarce proceed Methinks I hear the Almighties voyce saying to me as Elihu Job 38.2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledg But pardon O Lord thy Servants sin I have not pryed into unrevealed things nor with audacious wits curiously searched into thy counsels but indeed I have dishonored thy Holiness wronged thine Excellency disgraced thy Saints Glory by my own exceeding disproportionable pourtraying I bewail from heart that my conceivings fall so short my Apprehensions are so dull my thoughts so mean my Affections so stupid and my expressions so low and unbeseeming such a Glory But I have onely heard by the hearing of the Ear Oh let thy Servant see thee and possess these Joys and then I shall have more suitable conceivings and shall give thee fuller Glory and abhor my present self and disclaim and renounce all these Imperfections I have now uttered that I understood not things too wonderful for me which I knew not Yet I beleeved and therefore spake Remember with whom thou hast to do what canst thou expect from dust but Levity or from corruption but defilement Our foul hands will leave where they touch the marks of their uncleanness and most on those things that are most pure I know thou wilt be sanctified in them that come nigh thee and before all the people thou wilt be glorified And if thy Jealousie excluded from that Land of Rest thy servants Moses and Aaron because they sanctified thee not in the midst of Israel what then may I expect But though the weakness and unreverence be the fruit of mine own corruption yet the fire is from thine Altar and the work of thy commanding I looked not into thine Ark nor put forth my hand unto it without thee Oh therefore wash away these stains also in the blood of the Lamb and let not Jealousie burn us up lest thou affright thy people away from thee and make them in their discouragement to cry out How
again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Can the Head live and the body or members remain Dead Oh write those sweet words upon thy heart Christian Because I Live Ye shall Live also As sure as Christ lives we shall live And as sure as he is risen we shall rise Else the Dead perish Else what is our Hope what advantageth all our duty or suffering Else the sensual Epicure were one of the wisest men and what better are we then our beasts Surely our knowledg more then theirs would but encrease our sorrows and our dominion over them is no great felicity The Servant hath oft-times a better life then his Master because he hath few of his Masters Cares And our dead Carcasses are no more comely nor yeeld a sweeter savour then theirs But we have a sure ground of Hope And besides this Life we have a Life that 's hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Oh let not us be as the purblinde world that cannot see afar off Let us never look at the Grave but let us see the Resurrection beyond it Faith is quick-sighted and can see as far as that is yea as far as Eternity Therefore let our hearts be glad and our Glory rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope for he will not leave us in the Grave nor suffer us still to see Corruption Yea therefore let us be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know our Labor is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 It 's a Question much debated Whether a Resurrection be onely an effect of Christs Death and Resurrection And whether there should have been any Resurrection if Christ had not come Some that maintain the Negative of the last Question do also maintain That the Sin under the Covenant of Nature or Works did deserve onely the separation of Soul and Body and not Eternal Torments Whence also follows that the Soul is or at least then was Mortal or that it hath no Being or no Sense when it 's separated from the Body As also that Christ dyed to Redeem us onely from the Grave and not from Hell And so their Doctrine of Universal Redemption in this sence asserted doth neither so much honor the merits of Christ nor advance his mercy as they pretend For it maketh him to raise us onely from the Grave and bring all the world into a Capacity of Eternal Torment He fore-knowing the same time that most would certainly reject him and so perish But as I confess these of weight and difficulty so having professed in this Discourse to handle matters less controverted I pretermit them This sufficeth to the Saints Comfort That Resurrection to Glory is onely the fruit of Christs Death and this fruit they shall certainly partake of The Promise is sure All that are in the Graves shall hear his voyce and come forth Joh. 5.28 And this is the Fathers will which hath sent Christ that of all which he hath given him he should lose nothing but should Raise it up at the last Day Joh. 6.39 And that every one that beleeveth on the Son may have Everlasting Life and he will raise him up at the last Day Vers. 40. If the prayers of the Prophet could raise the Shunamites Dead Childe and if the dead Souldier revive at the touch of the Prophets bones How certainly shall the will of Christ and the power of his death raise us That voyce that said to Jairus Daughter Arise and to Lazarus Arise and come forth can do the like for us If his death immediately raised the dead bodies of many Saints in Jerusalem If he gave power to his Apostles to raise the Dead Then what doubt of our Resurrection And thus Christian thou seest that Christ having sanctified the Grave by his burial and conquered Death and broke the Ice for us a dead Body and a Grave is not now so horrid a spectacle to a beleeving Eye But as our Lord was neerest his Resurrection and Glory when he was in the Grave even so are we And he that hath promised to make our bed in sickness will make the dust as a bed of Roses Death shall not dissolve the Union betwixt him and us nor turn away his affections from us But in the morning of Eternity he will send his Angels yea come himself and roll away the stone and unseal our Graves and reach us his hand and deliver us alive to our Father Why then doth the approach of Death so cast thee down O my Soul and why art thou thus disquieted within me The Grave is not Hell if it were yet there is thy Lord present and thence should his Merit and Mercy fetch thee out Thy sickness is not unto death though I dye but for the Glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified thereby Say not then He lifteth me up to cast me down and hath raised me high that my fall may be the Lower But he casts me down that he may lift me up and layeth me low that I may rise the higher An hundred experiences have sealed this Truth unto thee That the greatest dejections are intended but for advantages to thy greatest dignity and thy Redeemers Glory SECT III. THe third part of this Prologue to the Saints Rest is the publick and solemn process at their Judgment where they shall first themselves be acquit and justified and then with Christ judg the World Publick I may well call it for all the world must there appear Young and old of all estates and Nations that ever were from the Creation to that day must here come and receive their doom The judgment shal be set and the books opened the book of Life produced and the Dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and whosoever is not found written in the book of Life is cast into the lake of fire O Terrible O Joyful Day Terrible to those that have let their Lamps go out and have not watched but forgot the coming of their Lord Joyful to the Saints whose waiting and hope was to see this day Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of the Lord on them who perish severity but to his chosen goodness When every one must give account of his stewardship And every Talent of Time Health Wit Mercies Afflictions Means Warnings must be reckoned for When the sins of youth and those which they had forgotten and their secret sins shall all be layd open before Angels and men When they shall see all their Friends wealth old delights all their confidence and false hopes of Heaven to forsake them When they shall see the Lord Jesus whom they neglected whose Word
they disobeyed whose Ministers they abused whose Servants they hated now sitting to judg them When their own Consciences shall cry out against them and call to their Remembrance all their misdoings Remember at such a time such or such a sin at such a time Christ sued hard for thy Conversion the Minister pressed it home to thy heart thou wast touched to the quick with the Word thou didst purpose and promise returning and yet thou casts off all When an hundred Sermons Sabbaths Mercies shall each step up and say I am witness against the Prisoner Lord I was abused and I was neglected Oh which way will the wretched sinner look Oh who can conceive the terrible thoughts of his heart Now the world cannot help him his old companions cannot help him the Saints neither can nor will onely the Lord Jesus can but Oh there 's the Soul-killing misery he will not Nay without violating the truth of his Word he cannot though otherwise in regard of his Absolute power he might The time was Sinner when Christ would and you would not and now Oh how fain would you and he will not Then he followed thee in vain with entreaties Oh poor Sinner what dost thou Wilt thou sell thy Soul and Saviour for a lust Look to me and be saved Return why wilt thou dye But thy Ear and heart was shut up against all Why now thou shalt cry Lord Lord open to us and he shall say Depart I know you not ye workers of iniquity Now Mercy Mercy Lord Oh but it was Mercy you so long set light by and now your day of Mercy is over What then remains but to cry out to the mountains fall upon us and to the hills O cover us from the presence of him that sits upon the Throne But all in vain For thou hast the Lord of Mountains and hils for thine enemy whose voyce they will obey and not thine Sinner make not light of this for as true as thou livest except a through change and coming in to Christ prevent it which God grant thou shalt shortly to thy unconceiveable horror see that day Oh Wretch Will thy cups then be wine or gall Will they be sweet or bitter Will it comfort thee to think of all thy merry days and how pleasantly thy time slipt away Will it do thee good to think how rich thou wast and how honorable thou wast or will it not rather wound thy very Soul to remember thy folly and make thee with anguish of heart and rage against thy self to cry out Oh Wretch where was thine understanding Didst thou make so light of that sin that now makes thee tremble How couldst thou hear so lightly of the Redeeming Blood of the Son of God How couldst thou quench so many motions of his Spirit and stifle so many quickening thoughts as were cast into thy Soul What took up all that Life's time which thou hadst given thee to make sure work against this day What took up all thy heart thy love and delight which should have been layd out on the Lord Jesus Hadst thou room in thy heart for the worâ—d thy friend thy flesh thy lusts and none for Christ Oh Wretch whom hadst thou to love but him What hadst thou to do but to seek to him and cleave to him and enjoy him Oh wast thou not told of this dreadful day a thousand times till the Commonness of that doctrine made thee weary How couldst thou slight such warnings and rage against the Minister and say he preacheth Damnation Had it not been better to have heard and prevented it then now to endure it Oh now for one offer of Christ for one Sermon for one day of Grace more But too late alass too late Poor careless Sinner I did not think here to have said so much to thee for my business is to refresh the Saints But if these lines do fall into thy hands and thou vouchsafe the reading of them I here charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom that thou make hast and get alone and set thy self sadly to ponder on these things Ask thy heart Is this true or is it not Is there such a day and must I see it Oh what do I then Why trifle I Is it not time full time that I had made sure of Christ and comfort long ago should I sit still another day who have lost so many Had I not at that day rather be found one of the Holy faithful watchful Christians then a worldling a good-fellow or a man of honor Why should I not then choose it now Will it be best then and is it not best now Oh think of these things A few sad hours spent in serious fore-thoughts is a cheap prevention It 's worth this or It 's worth nothing Friend I profess to thee from the Word of the Lord That of all thy sweet sins there will then be nothing left but the sting in thy Conscience which will never out through all eternity except the blood of Christ beleeved in and valued above all the world do now in this day of grace get it out Thy sin is like a Beautiful Harlot while she is young and fresh she hath many followers but when old and withered every one would shut their hands of her she is onely their shame none would know her So will it be with thee now thou wilt venture on it what ever it cost thee but then when mens rebellious ways are charged on their Souls to death O that thou couldst rid thy hands of it O that thou couldst say Lord it was not I Then Lord when saw we thee hungry naked imprisoned How fain would they put it off Then sin will be sin indeed and Grace will be Grace indeed Then say the foolish Virgins Give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are ouâ— Oh for some of your faith holiness which we were wont to mock at But what 's the answer Go buy for your selves we have little enough would we had rather much more Then they will be glad of any thing like Grace and if they can but produce any external familiarity with Christ or Common gifts how glad are they Lord we have eat and drunk in thy presence prophecyed in thy name cast out devils done many wonderful works we have been baptized heard Sermons professed Christianity But alas this will not serve the turn He will profess to them I never knew you Depart from me ye workers of iniquity Oh dead hearted sinner is all this nothing to thee As sure as Christ is true this is true Take it in his own words Math. 25.31 When the Son of man shall come in his Glory and before him shall be gathered all Nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and he shall set the sheep on the right hand and
review of which intire work there is no doubt but his soul may take comfort And it is not to be made so light of as most do nor put by with a wet finger That Scripture doth so ordinarily put Repentance before Faith and make them joyntly conditions of the Gospel Which Repentance contains those acts of the Wills aversion from sin and Creatures before exprest It is true if we take Faith in the largest sense of all then it contains Repentance in it but if we take it strictly no doubt there is some acts of it go before Repentance and some follow after Yet is it not of much moment which of the acts before mentioned we shall judg to precede Whether our aversion from sin and renouncing our Idols or our right receiving Christ seeing it all composeth but one work which God doth ever perfect where he beginneth but one step and layeth but one stone in sincerity And the moments of time can be but few that interpose between the several acts Yet though the disposition to all gracious acts be given at once I conceive in our Actual turning the term from which in order of nature is considerable before the term to which we turn If any object That every Grace is received from Christ and therefore must follow our receiving him by Faith I answer There be receivings from Christ before believing and before our receiving of Christ himself Such is all that work of the Spirit that brings the soul to Christ There is a passive receiving before the active Both power and act of Faith are in order of Nature before Christ actually received and the power of all other gracious acts is as soon as that of Faith Though Christ give pardon and Salvation upon condition of believing yet he gives not a new heart a soft heart Faith it self nor the first true Repentance on that condition No more then he gives the Preaching of the Gospel the Spirits motions to believe c. upon a pre-requisite condition of believing SECT V. 4. ANd as the Will is thus averted from the fore-mentioned objects so at the same time doth it cleave to God the Father and to Christ. Its first acting in order of Nature is toward the whole Divine Essence and it consists especially in electing and desiring God for his portion and chief Good Having before been convinced That nothing else can be his happiness he now findes it is in God and there looks toward it But it is yet rather with desire then hope For alas the sinner hath already found himself to be a stranger and enemy to God under the guilt of sin and curse of his Law and knows there is no coming to him in peace till his case be altered And therefore having before been convinced also That onely Christ is able and willing to do this and having heard this mercy in the Gospel freely offered his next act is Secondly to accept most affectionately of Christ for Saviour and Lord. I put the former before this because the ultimate end is necessarily the first intended and the Divine Essence is principally that ultimate end yet not excluding the humane nature in the second person But Christ as Mediator is the way to that end and throughout the Gospel is offered to us in such terms as import his Being the means of making us happy in God And though that former act of the soul toward the Godhead do not justifie as this last doth yet is it I think as proper to the people of God as this nor can any man unregenerate truly chuse God for his Lord his portion and chief good Therefore do they both mistake They who onely mention our turning to Christ and they who onely mention our turning to God in this work of Conversion as is touched before Pauls preaching was Repentance toward God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And life eternal consists first in knowing the onely true God and then Jesus Christ whom he hath sent John 17.3 Though Repentance Assent Good works c. are required to our full Justification as subservient to or concurrent with Faith yet is the true nature of this justifying Faith it self contained in this most affectionate accepting of Christ for Saviour and Lord. And I think it necessarily contains all this in it Some plead it is the Assenting act some a Fiducial adherence or recumbency I call it Accepting it being principally an act of the Will but yet also of the whole soul. This Accepting being that which the Gospel presseth to and calleth the receiving of Christ I call it an Affectionate accepting though Love seem another act quite distinct from Faith and if you take Faith for any one single act so it is yet I take it as essential to that Faith which justifies To accept Christ without Love is not justifying Faith Nor doth Love follow as a Fruit but immediately concur nor concur as a meer concomitant but essential to a true accepting For this Faith is the receiving of Christ either with the whole soul or with part â—â—t with part onely for that is but a partial receiving And 〈◊〉 clear Divines of late conclude That justifying Faith resides â—â—rn in the Understanding and the Will therefore in the whole soul and so cannot be one single act All those Affections that are for the receiving and entertainment of Good called the concupiscible must receive and entertain Christ. I adde it is the most affectionate accepting of Christ because he that loves Father Mother or any thing more then him is not worthy of him nor can be his Disciple and consequently not justified by him And the truth of this Affection is not to be judged so much by feeling the pulse of it as by comparing it with our affection to other things He that loveth nothing so much as Christ doth love him truly though he finde cause still to bewail the coldness of his Affections I make Christ himself the Object of this Accepting it being not any Theological Axiom concerning himself but himself in person I call it an Accepting him for Saviour and Lord. For in both relations will he be received or not at all It is not onely to acknowledg his sufferings and accept of pardon and glory but to acknowledg his soveraignty and submit to his Government and way of saving and I take all this to be contained in justifying Faith The work which Christ thus accepted of is to perform is to bring the sinners to God that they may be happy in him and this both really by his Spirit and relatively in reconciling them and making them sons and to present them perfect before him at last and to possess them of the Kingdom This will Christ perform and the obtaining of these are the sinners lawful ends in receiving Christ And to these uses doth he offer himself unto us 5. To this end doth
contrary with thee or if no such work be found within thee but thy soul be a stranger to all this and thy conscience tell thee it is none of thy case The Lord have mercy on thy soul and open thine eyes and do this great work upon thee and by his mighty power overcome thy resistance For in the case thou art in there is no hope What ever thy deceived heart may think or how strong soever thy false hopes be or though now a little while thou flatter thy soul in confidence and security Yet wilt thou shortly finde to thy cost except thy through conversion do prevent it that thou art none of these people of God and the Rest of the Saints belongs not to thee Thy dying hour draws neer apace and so doth that great day of separation when God will make an everlasting difference between his people and his enemies Then wo and for ever wo to thee if thou be found in the state that thou art now in Thy own tongue will then proclaim thy wo with a thousand times more dolor and vehemence then mine can possibly do it now O that thou wert wise to consider this and that thou wouldst remember thy latter end That yet while thy soul is in thy body and a price in thy hand and day light and opportunity and hope before thee thine ears might be open to instruction and thy heart might yield to the perswasions of God and thou mightest bend all the powers of thy soul about this great work that so thou mightest Rest among his People and enjoy the inheritance of the Saints in Light And thus I have shewed you who these People of God are SECT VII ANd why they are called the People of God you may easily from what is said discern the Reasons 1. They are the People whom he hath chosen to himself from eternity 2. And whom Christ hath redeemed with an absolute intent of saving them which cannot be said of any other 3. Whom he hath also renewed by the power of his grace and made them in some sort like to himself stamping his own Image on them and making them holy as he is holy 4. They are those whom he embraceth with a peculiar Love and do again love him above all 5. They are entered into a strict and mutual Covenant wherein it is agreed for the Lord to be their God and they to be his People 6. They are brought into neer relation to him even to be his Servants his Sons and the Members and Spouse of his Son 7. And lastly They must live with him for ever and be perfectly blessed in enjoying his Love and beholding his Glory And I think these are Reasons sufficient why they particularly should be called his People The Conclusion ANd thus I have explained to you the subject of my Text and shewed you darkly and in part what this Rest is and briefly who are this People of God O that the Lord would now open your eyes and your hearts to discern and be affected with the Glory Revealed That he would take off your hearts from these dunghil delights and ravish them with the views of these Everlasting Pleasures That he would bring you into the state of this Holy and Heavenly People for whom alone this Rest remaineth That you would exactly try your selves by the foregoing Description That no Soul of you might be so damnably deluded as to take your natural or acquired parts for the Characters of a Saint O happy and thrice happy you if these Sermons might have such success with your Souls That so you might die the death of the Righteous and your last End might be like his For this Blessed Issue as I here gladly wait upon you in Preaching so will I also wait upon the Lord in Praying FINIS THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. The Second Part. Containing the Proofes of the Truth and Certain futurity of our REST. And that the Scripture promising that Rest to us is The perfect infallible Word and Law of God For the Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 Verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Mat. 5.18 They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Luk. 16.29 31. Ego solis iis Scripturarum libris qui jam Canonici appellantur didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre ut nullum eorum authorum scribendo aliquid errasse firmissimè credam Aug. Ep. 9. ad Hieron Major est hujus Scripturae Authoritas quam omnis humani ingenii perspicacitas August li. 15. super Genes ad liter London Printed by Rob. White for T. Vnderhill and F. Tyton and are to be sold at the sign of the Bible in great Woodstreet and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1649. To my dearly beloved Friends The Inhabitants of BRIDGNORTH Both Magistrates and People Richard Baxter Devoteth this Part of this TREATISE In Testimony of his unfeigned love to them who were the first to whom he was sent as fixed to publish the Gospel And in thankfulness to the Divine Majesty who there priviledged and protected him HUmbly beseeching the God of Mercy both to save them from that spirit of Pride Separation and Levity which hath long been working among them and also to awake them throughly from their negligence and security by his late heavy judgments on them And that as the flames of War have consumed their houses so the Spirit of God may consume the sin that was the cause And by those flames they may be effectually warned to prevent the everlasting flames And that their new-built houses may have new-born Inhabitants And that the next time God shall search and try them he may not finde one house among them where his Word is not daily studied and obeyed and where they do not fervently call upon his Name TO THE READER IT was far from my thoughts when I first begun it to have so enlarged this as to be a Part entire Most of it dropt from my Pen besides my first purpose Had I intended to say so much of the Authority of Scripture I should have stayed till I had the benefit of a Library that I might have furnished it better with Humane Testimony which I here insist on as so necessary Though our History of the first and second Century be lamentably imperfect yet much for the ends here mentioned may be produced I would not have young Students begin with the large Volumns of later Fathers but I could wish they would read betime the Writers of the three first Centuries especially those that argue for the Christian Faith or mix matters of Fact with their
strength of Faith but ordinarily to the very beeing of Faith and Churches 20. Not that the present Possession of Scripture is of absolute necessity to the present beeing of a Church not that it is so absolute necessary to every mans salvation that he read or knew this Scripture himself But that it either be at present or have been formerly in the Church that some knowing it may teach it to others is of absolute necessity to most persons and Churches and necessary to the well-beeing of all 21. Though negative unbelief of the authority of Scripture may stand with salvation yet positive and universal I think cannot Or though Tradition may save where Scripture is not known yet he that reads or hears the Scripture and will not believe it to be the Testimony of God I think cannot be saved because this is now the clearest and surest Revelation And he that will not believe it will muchless believe a Revelation more uncertain and obscure 22. Though all Scripture be of Divine Authority yet he that believeth but some one Book which containeth the substance of the Doctrine of salvation may be saved much more they that have doubted but of some particular Books 23. They that take the Scripture to be but the Writings of godly honest men and so to be only a means of making known Christ having a gradual precedency to the Writings of other godly men and do believe in Christ upon those strong grounds which are drawn from his Doctrine Miracles c. rather then upon the Testimony of the Writing as being purely infallible and Divine may yet have a Divine and saving faith 24. Much more those that believe the whole Writing to be of Divine inspiration where it handleth the substance but doubt whether God infallibly guided them in every circumstance 25. And yet more those that believe that the Spirit did guide the Writers to Truth both in Substance and Circumstance but doubt whether he guided them in Orthography or whether their Pens were as perfectly guided as their minds 26. And yet more may those have saving Faith who onely doubt whether Providence infallibly guided any Transcribers or Printers as to retain any Copy that perfectly agreeth with the Autograph 27. Yet do all these in my judgment cast away a singular prop to their faith and lay it open to dangerous assaults and doubt of that which is a certain truth 28. As the Translations are no further Scripture then they agree with the Copies in the Original Tongues so neither are those Copies further then they agree with the Autographs or Original Copies or with some Copies perused and approved by the Apostles 29. Yet is there not the like necessity of having the Autographs to try the Transcripts by as there is of having the Original Transcripts to try the Translations by For there is an impossibility that any Translation should perfectly express the sense of the Original But there is a possibility probability and facility of true Transcribing and grounds to prove it true de facto as we shall touch anon 30. That part which was written by the Finger of God as also the substance of Doctrine through the whole Scriptures are so purely Divine that they have not in them any thing humane 31. The next to these are the words that were spoken by the mouth of Christ and then those that were spoken by Angels 32. The Circumstantials are many of them so Divine as yet they have in them something Humane as the bringing of Pauls Cloak and Parchments and as it seems his counsel about Marriage c. 33. Much more is there something Humane in the Method and Phrase which is not so immediatly Divine as the Doctrine 34. Yet is there nothing sinfully Humane and therefore nothing false in all 35. But an innocent imperfection there is in the Method and Phrase which if we deny we must renounce most of our Logick and Rhetorick 36. Yet was this imperfect way at that time all things considered the fittest way to divulge the Gospel That is the best Language which is best suited to the Hearers and not that which is best simply in it self and supposeth that understanding in the Hearers which they have not Therefore it was Wisdom and Mercy to fit the Scripture to the capacity of all Yet will it not therefore follow that all Preachers at all times should as much neglect Definition Distinction Syllogisme c. as Scripture doth 37. Some Doctrinal passages in Scripture are onely Historically related and therefore the relating them is no asserting them for truth and therefore those sentences may be false and yet not the Scripture false yea some falshoods are written by way of reproving them as Gehezies Lye Sauls Excuse c. 38. Every Doctrine that is thus related onely Historically is therefore of doubtful credit because it is not a Divine assertion except Christ himself were the Speaker and therefore it is to be tried by the rest of the Scripture 39. Where ordinary men were the Speakers the credit of such Doctrines is the more doubtful and yet much more when the Speakers were wicked of the former sort are the Speeches of Jobs friends and divers others of the later sort are the Speeches of the Pharisees c. and perhaps Gamaliels counsel Act. 5.34 40. Yet where God doth testifie his Inspiration or Approbation the Doctrine is of Divine Authority though the Speaker be wicked As in Balaams Prophesie 41. The like may be said of matter of Fact for it is not either necessary or lawful to speak such words or do such actions meerly because men in Scripture did so speak or do no not though they were the best Saints for their own speeches or actions are to be judged by the Law and therefore are no part of the Law themselves And as they are evil where they cross the Law as Josephs swearing the Ancients Polygamy c. so are they doubtful where their congruence with the Law is doubtful 42. But here is one most observable exception conducing much to resolve the great doubt whether Examples binde Where men are designed by God to such an Office and act by Commission and with a promise of Direction their Doctrines are of Divine Authority though we finde not where God did dictate and their Actions done by that Commission are currant and Exemplary so far as they are intended or performed for Example and so Example may be equivalent to a Law and the Argument a facto ad jus may hold So Moses being appointed to the forming of the old Church and Commonwealth of the Jews to the building of the Tabernacle c. his Precepts and Examples in these works though we could not finde his particular direction are to be taken as Divine So also the Apostles having Commission to Form and Order the Gospel Churches their Doctrine and Examples therein are by their general Commission warranted and their practice in stablishing the Lords Day in setling the
is eternall said to be in us Luk 17.21 Rom. 14.17 Mat. 13. Surely if there be as great an interruption of our life as till the Resurrection which with some will be many thousand yeers this is no eternall life nor everlasting Kingdom Lushingtons evasion is That because there is no time with dead men but they so sleep that when they awake it is all one to them as if it had been at first Therefore the Scripture speaks of them as if they were there already It is true indeed if there were no joy till the Resurrection then that consideration would be comfortable But when God hath thus plainly told us of it before then this evasion contradicteth the Text. Doubtless there is time also to the dead though in respect of their bodies they perceive it not He will not sure think it a happiness to be petrified or stupified whiles others are enjoying the comforts of life If he do it were the best course to sleep out our lives 13. In Jude 7. The Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha are spoken of as suffering the vengeance of eternall fire And if the wicked do already suffer eternall fire then no doubt but the godly do enjoy eternall blessedness I know some understand the place of that fire which consumed their bodies as being a Type of the fire of Hell I will not be very confident against this exposition but the text seemeth plainly to speak more 14. It is also observable that when John saw his Glorious Revelations he is said to be in the spirit Revel 1.10 4.2 and to be carried away in the spirit Rev. 17.3 21.10 And when Paul had his Revelations and saw things unutterable he knew not whether it were in the body or out of the body All implying that spirits are capable of these Glorious things without the help of their bodies 15. And though it be a Propheticall obscure book yet it seemes to me that those words in the Revelations do imply this where John saw the souls under the Altar Rev. 6.9 c. 16. We are commanded by Christ Not to fear them that can kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Luk. 12.4 Doth not this plainly imply That when wicked men have killed our bodies that is separated the souls from them yet the souls are still alive 17. The soul of Christ was alive when his body was dead And therefore so shall ours too For his created nature was like ours except in sin That Christs human soul was alive is a necessary consequent of its hypostaticall union with the Divine nature as I judg And by his words to the thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise so also by his voice on the Cross Luk. 23.46 Father into thy hands I commend my spirit And whether that in 1 Pet. 3.18 19. that he went and preached to the spirits in prison c. will prove it I leave to others to judg Read Illyricus his Arguments in his Clavis Scripturae on this Text. Many think that the opposition is not so irregular as to put the Dative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the subject recipent and the Dative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the efficient cause But that it is plainly to be understood as a regular opposition that Christ was mortified in the flesh but vivified in the spirit that is in the spirit which is usually put in opposition to this flesh which is the soul by which spirit c. But I leave this as doubtfull There 's enough besides 18. Why is there mention of Gods breathing into man the breath of life and calling his soul a living soul There is no mention of any such thing in the creating of other creatures sure therefore this makes some difference between the life of our souls and theirs 19. It appears in Sauls calling for Samuel to the Witch and in the Jews expectation of the coming of Elias that they took it for currant then that Elias and Samuels soul were living 20. Lastly if the spirits of those that were disobedient in the dayes of Noah were in prison 1 Pet. 3.19 Then certainly the separated spirits of the Just are in an opposite condition of Happiness If any think that the word Prison signifieth not their full misery but a reservation thereto I grant it yet it importeth a reservation in a living and suffering state For were they nothing they could not be in prison THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. The Third Part. Containing Severall Vses of the former Doctrine of REST. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God New Jerusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God and my New Name Rev. 3.12 Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 If Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also Glorified together For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8.17 18. London Printed by Rob. White for T. Vnderhill and F. Tyton and are to be sold at the sign of the Bible in great Woodstreet and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1649. To my dearly beloved Friends The Inhabitants of the City of COVENTRY Both Magistrates and People ESPECIALLY Col. John Barker and Col. Tho. Willoughby late Governors with all the Officers and Souldiers of their Garison Rich. Baxter Devoteth this Part of this Treatise in thankful acknowledgment of their great Affection toward him and ready acceptance of his labors among them which is the highest recompence if joyned with obedience that a faithful Minister can expect HUmbly beseeching the Lord on their behalf that he will save them from that spirit of Pride Hypocrisie Dissention and Giddiness which is of late yeers gone forth and is now destroying and making havock of the Churches of Christ And that he will teach them highly to esteem those faithful Teachers whom the Lord hath made Rulers over them 1 Thes. 5.12 13. Heb. 13.7 17. and to know them so to be and to obey them And that he will keep them unspotted of the guilt of those sins which in these days have been the shame of our Religion and have made us a scandal or scorn to the World THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART III. CHAP. I. SECT I. WHatsoever the Soul of man doth entertain must
speak sense or reason But in a word our want of seriousness about the things of Heaven doth charme the souls of men into formality and hath brought them to this customary careless hearing which undoes them The Lord pardon the great sin of the Ministery in this thing and in particular my own And are the people any more serious then Magistrates and Ministers How can it be expected Reader look but to thy self and resolve the question Ask conscience and suffer it to tell thee truely Hast thou set thine Eternal Rest before thine eyes as the great business which thou hast to do in this world Hast thou studied and cared and watcht and labored and laid about thee with all thy might lest any should take thy Crown from thee Hast thou made hast lest thou shouldest come too late and dye before the work be done Hath thy very heart been set upon it and thy desires and thoughts run out this way Hast thou pressed on through crowdes of opposition towards the Mark for this price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus still reaching forth unto those things which are before When you have set your hand to the work of God have you done it with all your might Can conscience witness your secret cries and groans or teares Can your families witness that you have taught them the fear of the Lord and warned them all with earnestness and unweariedness to remember God and their souls and to provide for Everlasting Or that you have done but as much for them as that damned Glutton would have had Lazarus do for his brethren on earth to warn them that they come not to that place of Torment Can your Ministers witness that they have heard you cry out What shall we do to be saved and that you have followed them with complaints against your corruptions and with earnest enquiries after the Lord Can your neighbors about you witness that you are still learning of them that are able to instruct you and that you plainly and roundly reprove the ungodly and take pains for the saving of your brethrens souls Let all these witnesses Judg this day between God and you Whether you are in good sadness about the affaires of Eternall Rest. But if yet you cannot discern your neglects Look but to your selves within you without you to the work you have done you can tell by his work whether your servant have loytered though you did not see him so you may by your selves Is your love to Christ your faith your zeal and other graces strong or weak What are your joyes what is your Assurance Is all right and strong and in order within you Are you ready to dye if this should be the day Do the souls among whom you have conversed bless you Why Judg by this and it will quickly appear whether you have been Labourers or Loyterers O Blessed Rest how unworthily art thou neglected O glorious Kingdom how art thou undervalued Little know the careless sons of men what a state they set so light by If they once knew it they would sure be of another minde CHAP. VI. An Exhortation to Seriousness in seeking Rest. SECT I. I Hope Reader by this time thou art somewhat sensible what a desperate thing it is to trifle about our Eternal Rest and how deeply thou hast been guilty of this thy self And I hope also that thou darest not now suffer this Conviction to dye but art resolved to be another man for the time to come What sayst thou Is this thy Resolution If thou were sick of some desperate disease and the Physitian should tell thee If you will observe but one thing I doubt not to cure you wouldst thou not observe it Why if thou wilt observe but this one thing for thy Soul I make no doubt of thy Salvation If thou wilt now but shake off thy sloath and put to all thy strength and ply the work of God unweariedly and be a down-right Christian in good sadness I know not what can hinder thy Happiness As far as thou art gone from God if thou wouldst but now return and seek him with all thy heart no doubt but thou shalt find him As unkindly as thou hast dealt with Jesus Christ if thou didst but feel thy self sick and dead and seek him heartily and apply thy self in good earnest to the obedience of his Laws thy Salvation were as sure as if thou hadst it already But as full as the Satisfaction of Christ is as free as the Promise is as large as the Mercy of God is yet if thou do but look on these and talk of them when thou shouldst greedily entertain them thou wilt be never the better for them and if thou loiter when thou shouldst labour thou wilt lose the Crown Oh fall to work then speedily and seriously and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it and though that which is past cannot be recalled yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence And because thou shalt see I urge thee not without cause I will here adjoyn a multitude of Considerations to Move thee yet do I not desire thee to take them by number but by waight Their intent and use is to drive thee from Delaying and from Loytering in seeking Rest And to all men do I propound them both Godly and ungodly Whoever thou art therefore I entreat thee to rouze up thy spirit and read them deliberately and give me a little while thy attention as to a message from God and as Moses said to the people Deut. 32.46 Set thy heart to all the words that I testifie to thee this day for it is not a vain thing but it is for thy Life Weigh what I here wright with the Judgment of a man and if I speak not Reason throw it back in my face but if I do see thou entertain and obey it accordingly and the Lord open thy heart and fasten his counsel effectually upon thee SECT II. 1. COnsider Our Affections and Actions should be somewhat answerable to the Greatness of the Ends to which they are intended Now the Ends of a Christians Desires and Endeavors are so Great that no humane understanding on earth can comprehend them whether you respect their proper Excellency their exceeding Importance or their absolute Necessity These Ends are The Glorifying of God The Salvation of our own and other mens Souls in our escaping the Torments of Hell and Possessing the Glory of Heaven And can a man be too much affected with things of such Moment Can he Desire them too Earnestly or Love them too Violently or Labour for them too Diligently When we know that if our prayers prevail not and our labour succeed not we are undone for ever I think it concerns us to seek and labour to the purpose When it is put to the Question Whether we shall live for ever in Heaven or in Hell and the Question must be resolved upon our Obeying
and Earth where we now are yea or Heaven which is offered us then certainly we have received Mercy Yea if the Blood of the Son of God be Mercy then are we engaged to God by Mercy for so much did it cost him to recover us to himself And should a people of such deep engagements be lazy in their returns Shall God think nothing too much nor too Good for us and shall we think all too much that we do for him Thou that art an observing sensible man who knowest how much thou art beholden to God I appeal to thee Is not a loytering performance of a few heartless duties an unworthy requital of such admirable kindness For my own part when I compare my slow and unprofitable life with the frequent and wonderful mercies received it shames me it silenceth me and leaves me unexcusable SECT VIII 7. A Gain consider All the Relations which we stand in toward God whether common or special do call upon us for our utmost diligence Should not the pot be wholly at the service of the Potter and the creature at the service of his great Creator Are we his Children and do we not owe him our most tender affections and dutiful obedience Are we the Spouse of Christ and do we not owe him our observance and our Love If he be our Father where is his honour and if he be our Master where is his fear Mal. 1.6 We call him Lord and Master and we do well but if our industry be not answerable to our assumed relations we condemn our selves in saying we are his children or his servants How will the hard labour and dayly toyl that servants undergo to please their Masters judg and condemn those men who will not labour so hard for their Great Master Surely there 's none have a better or more honourable Master then we nor can any expect such fruit of their labours 1 Cor. 15. ult SECT IX 8. COnsider What haste should they make who have such Rods at their backs as be at ours And how painfully should they work who are still driven on by such sharp Afflictions If either we wander out of the way or loyter in it how surely do we prepare for our own smart Every creature is ready to be Gods Rod to reduce us or to put us on Our sweetest mercies will become our sorrows Or rather then he will want a Rod the Lord will make us a scourge to our selves Our diseased bodies shall make us groan our perplexed minds shall make us restless our conscience shall be as a Scorpion in our bosom And is it not easier to endure the labour then the spur Had we rather be still thus afflicted then to be up and going Alas how like are we to tired horses that will lie down and groan or stand still and let you lay on them as long as you will rather then they will freely travel on their journey And thus we make our own lives miserable and necessitate God if he love us to chastiâ—e us It is true those that do most do meet with Afflictions also but surely according to the measure of their peace of Conscience and faithfulness to Christ so is the bitterness of their Cup for the most part abated SECT X. 9. HOw close should they ply their work who have such great preparations attending them as we have All the world are our servants that we may be the Servants of God The Sun and Moon and Stars attend us with their light and influence The Earth with all its furniture is at our service How many thousand plants and flowers and fruits and birds and beasts do all attend us The Sea with its inhabitants the Air the wind the frost and snow the heat and fire the clouds and rain all wait upon us while we do our work Yea the Angels are ministring Spirits for the Service of the Elect. And is it not an intolerable crime for us to trifle while all these are employed to assist us Nay more The Patience and Goodness of God doth wait upon us The Lord Jesus waiteth in the offers of his blood The Holy Ghost waiteth in striving with our backward hearts Besides all his Servants the Ministers of his Gospel who study and wait and preach and wait and pray and wait upon careless sinners And shall Angels and Men yea the Lord himself stand by and look on and as it were hold thee the Candle while thou dost nothing Oh Christians I beseech you when ever you are upon your knees in prayer or reproving the transgressors or exhorting the obstinate or upon any duty do but remember what attendance you have for this work and then Judg how it behoves you to perform it SECT XI 10. SHould not our Affections and Endeavors be answerable to the acknowledged Principles of our Christian Profession Sure if we are Christians indeed and mean as we speak when we profess the Faith of Christ we shall shew it in Affections and Actions as well as Expressions Why the very fundamental Doctrines of our Religion are That God is the chief Good and all our Happiness consists in his Love and therefore it should be valued and sought above all things That he is our only Lord and therefore chiefly to be served That we must Love him with all our heart and soul and strength That the very business that men have in the world and the only errand that God sent them about is to Glorifie God and to obtain Salvation c. And do mens duties and conversations second this profession Are these Doctrines seen in the painfulness of mens practise Or rather do not their works deny what their words do confess One would think by mens Actions that they did not believe a word of the Gospel to be true Oh sad day when mens own tongues and professions shall be brought in against them and condemn them SECT XII 11. HOw forward and painful should we be in that work where we are sure we can never do enough If there were any danger of over-doing then it might well cause men to moderate their endeavors But we know that if we could do all we were but unprofitable servants much more when we are sure to fail in all It is true a man may possibly pray too much or preach too much or hear or reprove too much though I have known few that ever did so but yet no man can obey or serve God too much For one duty may be said to be too long when it shuts out another and then it ceaseth indeed to be a duty So that though all Superstition or service of our devising may be called a Righteousness-over-much yet as long as you keep your service to the rule of the Word that so it may have the true nature of obedience you never need to fear being Righteous too much For else we should reproach the Lord and Law-giver of the Church as if he had commanded us
prayer how unexcuseably they have herein offended Should they thus confess their sin and yet commit it as if they told God what they would do as well as what they have done 4 Quest. What manner of persons should those be in painful Godliness who have bound themselves to God by so many Covenants as we have done and in special have covenanted so oft to be more painful and faithful in his service At every Sacrament on many days of Humiliation and Thanksgiving in most of our deep distresses and dangerous sicknesses we are still ready to 〈◊〉 our neglects and to engage our selves if God will but try 〈◊〉 trust us once again how diligent and laborious we will be and how we will improve our time and reprove offenders and watch over our selves and ply our work and do him more service in a day then we did in a moneth The Lord pardon our perfidious Covenant-breaking and grant that our own Engagements may not condemn us 5 Quest. What manner of persons should they be who are so near to God as we who are his Children in his Family still under his Eye the Objects of his greatest Jealousie as well as Love Nadab and Abihu can tell you that the flames of Jealousie are hottest about his Altar And Vzza and the 50070 Bethshemites 1 Sam. 6.19 though dead do yet tell you that Justice as well as Mercy is most active about the Ark. And Ananias and his wife can tell you that profession is no cover for transgression Judgment beginneth at the house of God 1 Pet. 4.17 And the destroying Angel doth begin at the Sanctuary Ezek. 9.5 6. 6 Quest. What manner of men should they be in Duty who have received so much encouragement as we have done by our successes Who have tasted such sweetness in diligent obedience as doth much more then countervail all the pains Who have so oft had experience of the wide difference between lazy and laborious Duty by their different Issues Who have found all our lazy Duties unfruitful and all our strivings and wrestlings with God successful so that we were never importunate with God in vain We who have had so many admirable National and Personal Deliverances upon urgent seeking And have received almost all our solid Comforts in a way of close and constant Duty How should we above all men ply our work 7 Quest. What manner of men should they be who are yet at such great uncertainties whether we are Sanctified or Justified or whether we are the Children of God or no or what shall Everlastingly become of their Souls as most of the godly that I meet with are They that have discovered the excellency of the Kingdom and yet have not discovered their interest in it but discern a danger of perishing and losing all and have need of that advice Heb. 4.1 And have so many doubts to wrestle with dayly as we have How should such men bestir themselves in time 8 Quest. What manner of persons should they be in Holiness who have so much of the great work yet undone as we have So many sins in so great strength Graces weak Sanctification imperfect Corruption still working our ruine and taking advantage of all our omissions When we are as a Boat-man on the water let him row never so hard a moneth together yet if he do but slack his hand and think to ease himself his boat goes faster down the stream then before it went up So do our Souls when we think to ease our selves by abating our pains in Duty Our time is short Our enemies mighty Our hinderances many God seems yet at a great distance from many of us Our thoughts of him are dull and strange and unbeleeving Our acquaintance and communion with Christ is small and our desires to be with him are as small And should men in our case stand still 9 Quest. What manner of men should they be in their diligence whose lives and duties are of so great concernment to the saving or destroying of a multitude of Souls When if we slip so many are ready to stumble and if we stumble so many are ready to fall If we pray hard for them and admonish them dayly and faithfully and plainly and exhort them with bowels of pity and love and go before them in a holy inoffensive Conversation it is twenty to one but we may be instruments of saving many of them from everlasting perdition and bringing them to the possession of the Inheritance with us On the contrary if we silently neglect them or sinfully offend them we may be occasions of their perpetual torment And what a sad thought is that to an honest and merciful heart That we may not destroy the Souls for whom Christ dyed That we may not rob them of their everlasting Happiness and God of the Praises that in Heaven they would give him What manner of persons should we be in our Duties and Examples 10 Quest. Lastly What manner of persons should they be on whom the Glory of the great God doth so much depend Men will Judg of the Father by the Children and of the Master by the Servants We bear his Image and therefore men will measure him by his representation He is no where in the world so lively represented as in his Saints And shall they set him forth as a Patron of Viciousness or Idleness All the world is not capable of honoring or dishonoring God so much as we And the least of his honor is of more worth then all our lives I have harped all this while upon the Apostles string 2 Pet. 3.11 And now let me give it the last touch Seeing then that all these things fore-mentioned are so I charge thee that art a Christian in thy Masters name to consider and resolve the Question What manner of persons ought we to be in All Holy Conversation and Godliness And let thy Life Answer the Question as well as thy Tongue SECT XXVII I Have been larger upon this Use then at first I intended Partly because of the general neglect of Heaven that all sorts are guilty of Partly because mens Salvation depends upon their present Striving and Seeking Partly because the Doctrine of Free Grace mis-understood is lately so abused to the cherishing of sloath and security Partly because many eminent men of late do Judg That To work or labor for Life and Salvation is Mercenary Legal and Dangerous Which Doctrine as I have said before were it by the owners reduced into practice would undoubtedly damn them because they that seek not shall not finde and they that strive not to enter shall be shut out and they that labor not shall not be crowned And partly because it is grown the custom of this distracted age in stead of striving for the Kingdom and contending for the Faith to strive with each other about uncertain Controversies and to contend about the circumstantials of the Faith wherein the Kingdom of God doth no
to pass and he worshipped Daniel and offered oblations to him because he foretold them When Christ had told his Disciples that one of them should betray him how desirous are they to know who it was though it were a matter of sorrow How busily do they enquire when Christs Predictions should come to pass and what were the Signs of his coming With what gladness doth the Samaritan woman run into the City saying Come and see a man that hath told me all that ever I did though he told her of her faults When Ahaziah lay sick how desirous was he to know whether he should live or dye Daniel is called a man greatly beloved therefore God would reveal to him things that long after must come to pass And is it so desireable a thing to hear Prophecies and to know what shall befall us hereafter and is it not then most especially desireable to know what shall befall our Souls and what place and state we must be in for ever Why this you may know if you will but faithfully Try. 2. But the Comforts of that Certainty of Salvation which this Tryal doth conduce toward are yet far greater If ever God bestow this blessing of Assurance on thee thou wilt account thy self the happiest man on earth and feel that it is not a Notional or empty mercy For 1. What sweet thoughts wilt thou have of God All that Greatness and Jealousie and Justice which is the terror of others will be matter of encouragement and Joy to thee As the son of a King doth rejoyce in his fathers Magnificence and Power which is the awe of Subjects and terror of Rebels When the thunder doth roar and the lightening flash and the earth quake and the signs of dreadful omnipotency do appear thou canst say All this is the effect of my Fathers power 2. How sweet may every thought of Christ and the blood that he hath shed and the benefits he hath procured be unto thee who hast got this Assurance Then will the Name of a Saviour be a sweet Name and the thoughts of his gentle and loving nature and of the gracious design which he hath carried on for our Salvation will be pleasing thoughts Then will it do thee good to view his wounds by the eye of faith and to put thy finger as it were into his side when thou canst call him as Thomas did My Lord and my God! 3. Every passage also in the Word will then afford thee Comfort How sweet will be the Promises when thou art sure they are thine own The Gospel will then be Glad Tydings indeed The very threatnings will occasion thy Comfort to remember that thou hast escaped them Then thou wilt cry out with David Oh how I love thy Law It is sweeter then honey More precious then gold c. And as Luther That thou wilt not take all the world for one leaf of the Bible When thou wast in thy sin this Book was to thee as Micaiah to Ahab It never spoke Good of thee but Evil and therefore no wonder if then thou didst hate it But now it is the charter of thy Everlasting Rest how welcom will it be to thee and how beautiful the very feet of those that bring it 4. What boldness and comfort then mayst thou have in prayer When thou canst say Our Father in full Assurance and knowest that thou art welcom and accepted through Christ and that thou hast a promise to be heard when ever thou askest and knowest that God is readier to grant thy requests then thou to move them With what comfortable boldness mayst thou then approach the Throne of Grace Especially when the case is weighty and thy necessity great this Assurance in prayer will be a sweet priviledg indeed A despairing Soul that feeleth the weight of Sin and Wrath especially at a dying hour would give a large price to be partaker of this Priviledg and to be sure that he might have Pardon and Life for the asking for 5. This Assurance will give the Sacrament a sweet relish to thy Soul and make it a refreshing feast indeed 6. It will multiply the sweetness of every mercy thou receivest when thou art sure that all proceeds from Love and are the beginnings and earnest of Everlasting Mercies Thou wilt then have more comfort in a morsel of bread then the world hath in the greatest abundance of all things 7. How comfortably then mayst thou undergo all Afflictions When thou knowest that he meaneth thee no hurt in it but hath promised that All shall work together for thy Good when thou art sure that he chasteneth thee because he loveth thee and scourgeth thee because thou art a Son whom he will receive and that out of very faithfulness he doth afflict thee What a support must this be to thy heart and how will it abate the bitterness of the Cup Even the Son of God himself doth seem to take comfort from this Assurance when he was in a manner forsaken for our sins and therefore he cries out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And even the Prodigal under his guilt and misery doth take some Comfort in remembring that he hath a Father 8. This Assurance will sweeten to thee the fore-thoughts of death and make thy heart glad to fore-think of that entrance into Joy when a man that is uncertain whither he is going must needs dye with horror 9. It will sweeten also thy fore-thoughts of Judgment when thou art sure that it will be the day of thy absolution and Coronation 10. Yea the very thoughts of the flames of Hell will administer matter of Consolation to thee when thou canst certainly conclude thou art saved from them 11. The fore-thoughts of Heaven also will be more incomparably delightful when thou art certain that it is the place of thine Everlasting abode 12. It will make thee exceeding lively and strong in the Work of the Lord With what courage wilt thou run when thou knowest thou shalt have the prize and fight when thou knowest thou shalt conquer It will make thee always abound in the work of the Lord when thou knowest that thy labour is not in vain 13. It will also make thee more profitable to others Thou wilt be a most chearful encourager of them from thine own experience Thou wilt be able to refresh the weary and to strengthen the weak and speak a word of Comfort in season to the troubled Soul Whereas now without Assurance in stead of comforting others thou wilt rather have need of support thy self So that others are losers by thy Uncertainty as well as thy self 14. Assurance will put life into all thy Affections or Graces 1. It will help thee to Repent and melt over thy sins when thou knowest how dearly God did Love thee whom thou hast abused 2. It will enflame thy Soul with Love to God when thou once knowest thy near Relation to him
and how tenderly he is affected toward thee 3. It will quicken thy desires after him when thou art once sure of thy Interest in him 4. It is the most excellent Fountain of Continual Rejoycing Hab. â— 17 18 19. 5. It will confirm thy Trust and Confidence in God in the greatest straits Psal. 89.26 and 46.1 2 3 c. 6. It will fill thy heart with Thankfulness 7. It will raise thee in the high delightful work of Praise 8. It will be the most excellent help to a Heavenly Mind 9. It will exceedingly tend to thy Perseverance in all this He that is sure of the Crown will hold on to the End when others will be tired and give up through discouragement All these sweet effects of Assurance would make thy Life a kind of Heaven on Earth Seeing then that Examination of our states is the way to this Assurance and the Means without which God doth not usually bestow it doth it not Concern us to fall close to this Searching Work SECT IX I Would not have bestowed this time and labour in urging you with all these fore-going Considerations but that I know how backward man is to this duty And though I am certain that these Motives have weight of Reason in them yet experience of mens unreasonableness in things of this Nature doth make me Jealous lest you should lay by the Book when you have read all this as if you had done and never set your selves to the practise of the duty Reader Thou seest the Case in hand is of greatest moment It is to know Whether thou shalt Everlastingly live in Heaven or Hell If thou hast lived hitherto in dark uncertainty it is a pitiful case but if thou wilfully continue so thy Madness is unexpressible And is it not wilfully when a through Tryal might help thee to be Resolved and thou wilt not be perswaded to be at so much pains What sayst thou now Art thou fully resolved to fall upon the Work Shall all this labour that I have bestowed in perswading thee be lost or no If thou wilt not obey I would thou hadst never read these lines that they might not have aggravated thy guilt and silenced thee in Judgment I here put this special Request to thee in behalf of thy Soul nay I lay this charge upon thee in the Name of the Lord That thou defer no longer but take the next opportunity that thou canst have and take thy Heart to task in good earnest and think with thy self Is it so Easie so Common and so Dangerous to be Mistaken Are there so many wrong ways Is the heart so guilâ—ful Why then do I not search into every corner and ply this work till I know my state Must I so shortly undergo the Tryal at the Bar of Christ And do I not presently fall on Trying my self Why what a case were I in if I should then miscarry May I know by a little diligent Enquiry now and do I stick at the labour And here set thy self to the duty Object But it may be thou wilt say I know not how to do it Ans. That is the next Work that I come to to give thee Directions herein but alas it will be in Vain if thou be not resolved to practise them Wilt thou therefore before thou goest any further here promise before the Lord to set thy self to thy power upon the speedy performing of the duty according to these Directions which I shall lay down from the Word I demand nothing unreasonable or impossible of thee It is but That thou wouldst presently bestow a few hours time to know what shall become of thee for ever If a neighbor or common friend desire but an hours time of thee in conference or in labour or any thing that thou mayst help them in thou wouldst not sure deny it How much less shouldst thou deny this to thy self in so great a Case I pray thee take this request from me as if upon my knees in the Name of Christ I did prefer it to thee And I will betake me upon my knees to Christ again to beg that he will perswade thy heart to the Duty And in hope that thou wilt practise them I will here give thee some Directions CHAP. IX Containing Directions for Examination and some Marks for Tryal SECT I. I Will not stand here to lay down the Directions necessary for preparation to this Duty because you may gather them from what is said concerning the Hinderances For the Contraries of those Hinderances will be most necessary Helps Only before you set upon it I advise you moreover to the Observation of these Rules 1. Come not with too peremptory Conclusions of your selves before-hand Do not Judg too confidently before you Try Many Godly dejected Souls come with this Pre-judging to the work concluding certainly that their state is Miserable before they have Tryed it And most wicked men on the contrary side do conclude most confidently that their state is good or tolerable at the least No wonder if these both miscarry in Judging when they pass the Sentence before the Tryal 2. Be sure to be so well acquainted with the Scripture as to know what is the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace and what are the Conditions of Justification and Glorification and consequently what are sound Marks to Try thy self by and wherein the Truth of Grace and Essence of Christianity doth consist 3. And it will not be unuseful to write out some of the chief and those Scriptures withall which hold them forth and so to bring this Paper with you when you come to Examination 4. Be a constant observer of the temper and motions of thy heart Almost all the difficulty of the work doth lie in the true and clear discerning of it Be watchful in observing the Actings both of Grace and Corruption and the circumstances of their Actings as how frequent how violent how strong or weak were the outward incitements how great or small the impediments what delight or loathing or fear or reluctancy did go with those Acts by these and the like observations you may come to a more infallible knowledg of your selves 5. Be sure you set upon the work with a serious rouzed wakened Soul apprehensive of how great concernment it is 6. And lastly Resolve to judg thy self impartially neither better nor worse then thou art but as the Evidence shall prove thee SECT II. BEing thus provided then set to the business and therein observe these Directions following which I will mention briefly that lying close together you may be able to view and observe them the more easily 1. Empty thy minde of all thy other cares and thoughts that they do not distract or divide thy mind This work will be enough at once of it self without joyning others with it 2. Then fall down before God and in hearty prayer desire the assistance of his Spirit to discover to thee the plain truth of thy
they are wanting This is Gods ordinary means of converting and saving How shall they hear without a Preacher Not onely for your own sakes therfore but for the poor miserable ones about you do all you can to bring this to pass If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost Where vision faileth the people perish Improve therefore all your Interest and Diligence to this end Ride and go and seek and make friends till you do prevail If means be wanting to maintain a Minister extend your purses to the utmost rather then the means of mens Salvation should be wanting Who knoweth how many Souls may bless you who have been converted and saved by the Ministry which you have procured It is a higher and nobler work of charity then if you gave all that you have to relieve their Bodies Though both must be regarded yet the Soul in the first place What abundance of good might great men do in this if they were faithful improvers of their interests and estates as men that beleeve God hath the chief interest and will shortly call them to an account for their Stewardships What unhappy Reformers hath the Church still met withall that in stead of taking away the corruptions in the Church do diminish that maintenance which should further the work If our Ignorant Forefathers gave it for the service of the Church and their more knowing posterity do take it away without the least pretence of right to it I doubt not but the pious intent of Progenitors will more extenuate the fault of their Ignorance then the Knowledg of their Posterity will excuse their Sacriledg Alass that the sad example of King Henry the eighth's Reformation and the almost miraculous consumption of the estates of Impropriators and the many hundred Congregations that live in woful darkness for want of maintenance for a Ministry should yet be no more effectual a warning to this Age. If they take away most and give back a little we are beholden to their bounty If a corrupt Officer lose his Interest the Church doth not lose hers Here is great talk of reducing the Church to the Primitive pattern If so I dare affirm that every Church must have many Ministers And they that know wherein the work of the Ministry doth consist will no more wonder at that then that a Regiment of Soldiers should have many Officers And how will that be when they will scarce afford maintenance for one They are likelier to bring the Church to the Primitive Poverty then to the Primitive Pattern If I were not known to be quite beyond their exceptions my self I might not say so much lest I were thought to plead my own interest Especially a dying man should be out of the reach of such accusations But the Lord knoweth that it is not a desire that Ministers should be rich that maketh me speak this but an earnest desire of the Happiness of the Church Nor do I mean the Ministry only by the word Church It is the people that are robbed and bear the loss more then the Ministers Ministers must and will have maintenance or else men will set their Children to other studies When there is no other the people must allow it themselves or be without What Minister can well over-see and watch over more then a thousand Souls nor I think so many Many Congregations have four thousand ten thousand twenty thousand some fifty thousand yea seventy thousand How many Officers will the State maintain in an Army of thirty thousand I had almost said the work of governing the Church is greater and hath need of as many I would all Scripture and primitive patterns were well viewed in this Oh happy Reformation if Popish superstitious Clergy men had been only taken down and able godly men put in their places or in right offices without such diminution of the number or the maintenance Or if a supply at present could not be had yet should they not have overthrown the hopes of posterity But to leave this Digression I hope those that God hath called to his work will labour never the less for the shortness of their maintenance And those of the people that can do no more can yet pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labourers And he that hath put that petition into our mouths I hope will put the answer into our hands SECT XV. 2. YEt is it not enough that you seek after Teachers but especially you must seek after such as are fittest for the work An ignorant Emperick that killeth more then he cureth doth not so much differ from an able Physician as an unskilful Minister from one that is able Alas this is the great defect among us Men that are fitted for the work indeed are almost wonders One or two or three or four in a County is much How few that have dived into the Mysteries of Divinity or have throughly studied the most needful controversies or are able to explain or maintain the Truth But only they store their Memories with the Opinions and Phrases of those Teachers that are in most credit in common cases and then they think they are Divines And every man that steps out of their common rode they can say he is Erroneous or Heretical but how to confute him they cannot tell Alas whence cometh this misery to the Church The late Prelates discountenancing the godly learned is one main cause and their filling the Ministry with the vilest that did best fit their ends And so great a Corruption of the Ministry cannot suddenly be cured And another great cause is this There is not a choice made of the most excellentest wits and those youths that are ripest in learning and Religion but some of them are so rich that the Ministry is too mean for them and some so poor that they have no maintenance to subsist on at the Universities And so every one that is best furnished to make a trade of the Ministry or whose parents have best affection to it how unfit soever the Child is must be a Minister and those few very few choice wits that would be fittest are diverted How small a matter were it and yet how excellent a work for every Knight or Gentleman of means in England to cull out some one or two or more poor boys in the Country Schools who are of the choicest wits and most pious dispositions who are poor and unable to proceed in learning and to maintain them a few years in the Universities till they were fit for the Ministry It were but keeping a few superfluous attendants the less or a few horses or dogs the less If they had hearts to it it were easily spared out of their sports or rich apparel or superfluous dyet or what if it were out of more useful costs or out of their childrens larger portions I dare say they would not be sorry for it when
let us be as well learned in the Art of Suffering as Zenophon as they are in the Art of Reproaching I had rather hear from the mouth of Balack God hath kept thee from honor or from Ahab Feed him with the bread and water of affliction or from Amaziah Art thou made of the Kings Counsel forbear why shouldest thou be smitten then to hear Conscience say Thou hast betraied souls to damnation by thy cowardize and Silence or to hear God say Their blood will I require at thy hands or to hear from Christ the Judg Cast the unprofitable Servant into utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Yea or to hear these Sinners cry out against me in eternal fire and with implacable rage to charge me with their undoing And as you must be plain and serious so labor to be skilful and discreet that the maner may somewhat answer the excellency of the matter How ought have I heard a stammering tongue with rediculous expressions vain repetitions tedious circumlocations and unseemly pronunciation to spoil most pretious spiritual Doctrine and make the Hearers either loath it or laugh at it How common are these extreams in the Ministers of England That while one spoils the food of Life by Affectation and new-fashioned mincing and pedantick toys either setting forth a little and mean matter with a great deal of froth and gaudy dressing so that ther 's more of the shell or paring then of the meat or like childrens Babies that when you have taken away the dressing you have taken away all or else hiding excellent Truths in a heap of vain Rhetorick and deforming its naked beauty with their paintings so that no more seriousness can be perceived in their Sermons then in a School-Boys Declamations and our people are brought to hear Sermons as they do Stageplays because Ministers behave themselves but as the Actors On the other side how many by their slovenly dressing and the uncleanness of the dish that it is served up in do make men loath and nauseate the food of Life and even despise and cast up that which should nourish them Such Novices are admitted into the Sacred Function to the hardning of the wicked the sadning of the godly and the disgrace and wrong of the Work of the Lord and those that are not able to speak Sense or Reason are made the Ambassadors of the most High God I know our stile must not be the same with different Auditories Our language must not only be suited to our matter but also to our hearers or else the best Sermon may be worst we must not read the highest Books to the lowest Form Therefore was Luther wont to say That Quipuerilitèr popularitèr trivialitèr simplicissimè docent optimi ad vulgus sunt concionatores but yet it is a poor Sermon that hath nothing but words and noise Every Reasonable soul hath both Judgment and Affection and every Rational Spiritual Sermon must have both A Discourse that hath Judgment without Affection is dead and uneffectual and that which hath Affection without Judgment is mad and transporting Remember the Proverb Non omnes qui habent citharam sunt citharaedi Every man is not a Musitian that hath an Instrument or that can jangle it and make an noise on it And that other Proverb Multi sunt qui Boves stimulant pauci aratores Many can prick the Oxen but few can Plow so many Preachers can talk loud and earnestly but few can guide their Flock aright or open to them solidly the mysteries of the Gospel and shew the true mean betwixt the extreams of contrary errors I know both must be done Holding the Plow without driving the Oxen doth nothing and driving without holding maketh mad work and is worse then nothing But yet remember that every Plow-boy can drive but to guide is more difficult and therefore belongeth to the Master Workman The violence of the Natural motion of the Windes can drive on the Ship but there is necessary a Rational motion to guide and govern it or else it will quickly be on the Rocks or Shelves either broke or sunk and had better lye still in the Harbor or at Anchor The horses that have no Reason can set the Coach or Cart a going but if there be not some that have reason to guide them it were better stand still O therefore let me bespeak you my brethren in the Name of the Lord especially those that are more young and weak that you tremble at the greatness of this holy Imployment and run not up into a Pulpit as boldly as into the Market place Study and Pray and Pray and Study till you are become Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of Truth that your people may not be ashamed or aweary to hear you But that besides your clear unfolding of the Doctrine of the Gospel you may also be Masters of your peoples Affections and may be as potent in your divine Rhetorick as Cicero in his Humane who as it is is said while he pleaded for Ligarius Arma de imperatoris quantumvis irati manu excusserit misero supplici veniam impetrarit Or as it said of excellent Bucholcer that he never went up into the Pulpit but he raised in men almost what affections he pleased so raising the dejected and comforting the afflicted and strengthening the tempted that though it were two hours before he had done yet not any even of the common people were weary of hearing him Set before your eyes such patterns as these and labor with unwearied diligence to be like them To this end take Demosthenes counsel plus olei quam vini absumere It is a work that requireth your most serious searching thoughts Running hasty easie studies bring forth blinde births VVhen you are the most renowned Doctors in the Church of God alas how little is it that you know in comparison of all that which you are ignorant of Content not your selves to know what is the Judgment of others as if that were to know the truth in its evidence Give not over your studies when you know what the Orthodox hold and what is the opinion of the most esteemed Divines Though I think while you are Novices and learners your selves you may do well to take much upon trust from the more judicious yet stop not there but know that such faith is more borrowed then your own An implicit faith in matters not fundamental and of great difficulty is oâ—t times commendable yea necessary in your people who are but Scholars but in you that are Masters and Teachers it is a reproach SECT IX 4. BE sure that your conversation be teaching as well as your doctrine Do not contradict and confute your own doctrine by your practice Be as forward in a Holy and Heavenly life as you are in pressing on others to it Let your discourse be as edifying and spiritual as you teach
one with another and Calvins Exposition which is the summ of all I have said q. d. Danda est vobis opera non tantum ut salsi intus sitis sed etiam ut saliatis alios Quia tamen sal acrimoniâ suâ mordet ideo statim admonet sic temperandam esse condituram ut pax interim salva maneat SECT XI 6. THe last whom I would perswade to this great Work of helping others to the Heavenly Rest is Parents and Masters of Families All you that God hath intrusted with Children or Servants O consider what Duty lyeth on you for the furthering of their Salvation That this Exhortation may be the more effectual with you I will lay down these several Considerations for you seriously to think on 1. What plain and pressing commands of God are there that require this great Duty at your hands Deut. 6.6 7 8. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up So Deut. 11. And how well is God pleased with this in Abraham Gen. 18.19 Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him that they shall keep the way of the Lord c. And it is Joshuaes Resolution That he and his Houshold will serve the Lord. Prov. 22.6 Train up a childe in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it Ephes 6.4 Bring up your children in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. Many the like Precepts especially in the Book of Proverbs you may finde So that you see it is a Work that the Lord of heaven and earth hath laid upon you and how then dare you neglect it and cast it off 2. It is a duty that you ow your children in point of Justice from you they received the defilement and misery of their natures and therefore you ow them all possible help for their recovery If you had but hurt a stranger yea though against your will you would think it duty to help to cure him 3. Consider how neer your children are to you and then you will perceive that from this Natural Relation also they have interest in your utmost help your children are as it were parts of your selves If they prosper when you are dead you take it almost as if you lived and prospered in them If you labor never so much you think it not ill bestowed nor your buildings or purchases too dear so that they may enjoy them when you are dead and should you not be of the same minde for their everlasting Rest 4. You will else be witnesses against your own souls your great care and pains and cost for their bodies will condemn you for your neglect of their pretious souls you can spend your selves in toyling and caring for their bodies and even neglect your own souls and venture them sometimes upon unwarrantable courses and all to provide for your Posterity and have you not as much reason to provide for their souls Do you not believe that your children must be everlastingly happy or miserable when this life is ended and should not that be fore-thought of in the first place 5. Yea All the very bruit creatures may condemn you Which of them is not tender of their young How long will the Hen sit to hatch her Chickens and how busily scrape for them and how carefully shelter and defend them and so will even the most vile and venemous Serpent and will you be more unnatural and hard-hearted then all these will you suffer your children to be ungodly and profane and run on in the undoubted way to damnation and let them alone to destroy themselves without controll 6. Consider God hath made your children to be your charge yea and your servants too Every one will confess they are the Ministers charge and what a dreadful thing it is for them to neglect them when God hath told them That if they tell not the wicked of their sin and danger their blood shall be required at that Ministers hands and is not your charge as great and as dreadful as theirs Have not you a greater charge of your own Families then any Minister hath Yea doubtless and your duty it is to reach and admonish and reprove them and watch over them and at your hands else will God require the bloud of their souls The greatest charge it is that ever you were entrusted with and we to you if you prove unfaithful and betray your trust and suffer them to be ignorant for want of your teaching or wicked for want of your admonition or correction O â—ad account that many parents will make 7. Look into the dispositions and lives of your children and see what a work there is for you to do First It is not one sin that you must help them against but thousands their name is Legion for they are many It is not one weed that must be pulled up but the field is overspread with them Secondly And how hard is it to prevail against any one of them They are Hereditary diseases bred in their Natures Naturam expellâ—s furea c. They are aâ— neer them as the very heart and how tenacious are all things of that which is natural how hard to teach a Hare not to be fearful or a Lyon or Tiger not to be fierce Besides the things you must teach them are quite above them yea clean contrary to the interest and desires of their Flesh how hard is it to teach a man to be willing to be poor and despised and destroyed here for Christ to deny themselves and displease the flesh to forgive an Enemy to love those that hate us to watch against temptations to avoid occasions and appearance of evil to believe in a crucified Saviour to rejoyce in tribulation to trust upon a bare word of Promise and let go all in hand if call'd to it for something in hope that they never saw nor ever spake with man that did see to make God their chief delight and love and to have their hearts in heaven while they live on earth I think none of this is easie they think otherwise let them try and Judg yet all this must be learned or they are undone for ever If you help them not to some Trade they cannot live in the world but if they be destitute of these things they shall not live in heaven If the Marriner be not skilful he may be drowned and if the Souldier be not skilful he may be slain but they that cannot do the things above mentioned will perish for ever For without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12.14 O that the Lord would make all you that are Parents sensible what a work and charge
lest they should be thought proud As if a Schoolmaster should let his Scholars do what their list or a Pilot let the Seamen run the Ship whither they will for fear of being thought proud in exercising their authoritie Secondly But a far greater clog then this yet doth lie upon the Ministers which â—ew take notice of and that is The fewness of Ministers and the greatness of Congregations In the Apostles times every Church had a multitude of Ministers and so it must be again or we shall never come neer that Primitive patern and then they could preach publikely and from house to house But now when there is but one or two Ministers to many thousand souls we cannot so much as know them much less teach them one by one It is as much as we can do to discharge the publike Work So that you see you have little reason to cast your Work on the Ministers but should the more help them by your diligence in your several families because they are already so over burdened SECT XIV 3. BUt some will say We are poor men and must labor for our living and so must our children and cannot have while to teach them the Scriptures we have somewhat else for them to do Answ. And are not poor men subject to God as well as rich and are they not Christians and must they not give account of their ways and have not your children souls to save or lose as well as the rich cannot you have while to speak to them as they are at their work have you not time to instruct them on the Lords day you can finde time to talk idlely as poor as you are and you can finde no time to talk of the way to Life you can finde time on the Lords day for your children to play or walk or talk in the streets but no time to minde the life to come Me thinks you should rather say to your children I have no Lands or Lordships to leave you nothing but hard labor and povertie in the world you have no hope of great matters here be sure therefore to make the Lord your portion and to get interest in Christ that you may be happy hereafter if you could get riches they would shortly leave you but the riches of Grace and Glory will be everlasting Me thinks you should say as Peter Silver and gold I have none but such as I have I give you The Kingdoms of the world cannot be had by beggers but the Kingdom of Heaven may O what a terrible reckoning will many poor men have when Christ shall plead his cause and judg them May not he say I made the way to worldly honors unaccessible to you that you might not look after it for your selves or your children but Heaven I set open that you might have nothing to discourage you I confined riches and honors to a few but my Blood and Salvation I offered to all that none might say I was not invited I tendered Heaven to the poor as well as the rich I made no exception against the meanest begger that did not wilfully shut out themselves Why then did you not come your selves and bring your children and teach them the way to the eternal Inheritance Do you say you were poor Why I did not set Heaven to sale for money but I called those that had nothing to take it freely onely on condition they would take me for their Saviour and Lord and give up themselves unfeignedly to me in obedience and love What can you answer Christ when he shall thus convince you Is it not enough that your children are poor and miserable here but you would have them be worse for everlasting too If your children were beggers yet if they were such beggers as Lazarus they may be conveyed by Angels into the presence of God But beleeve it as God will save no man because he is a Gentleman so will be save no man because he is a begger God hath so ordered it in his providence that riches are exceeding occasions of mens damnation and will you think poverty a sufficient excuse The hardest point in all our work is to be weaned from the world and in love with heaven and if you will not be weaned from it that have nothing in it but labor and sorrow you have no excuse The poor cannot have while and the rich will not have while or they are ashamed to be so forward the young think it too soon and the old too late and thus most men in stead of being saved have somewhat to say against their salvation and when Christ sendeth to invite them they say I pray thee have me excused O unworthy guests of such a blessed feast and most worthy to be turned into the everlasting burnings SECT XV. 4. BUt some will object We have been brought up in ignorance our selves and therefore we are unable to teach your children Answer Indeed this is the very sore of the Land But is it not pitty that men should so receive their destruction by tradition would you have this course to go on thus still 〈◊〉 parents did not teach you and therefore you cannot teach your children and therefore they cannot teach theirs By this course the knowledge of God should be banished out of the world and never be recovered But if your parents did not teach you why did not you learn when you came to age The truth is you had no hearts to it for he that hath not knowledge cannot value it or love it But yet though you have greatly sinned it is not too late if you will but follow my faithful advice in these 4. points 1. Get your hearts deeply sensible of your own sin and misery because of this long time which you have spent in ignorance and neglect Bethink your selves sometime when you are alone Did not God make you and sustain you for his service should not he have had the youth and strength of your spirits Did you live all this while at the door of Eternity What if you had dyed in ignorance Where had you been then What a deale of time have you spent to little purpose Your life is near done and your work all undone You are ready to dye before you have learned to live Should not God have had a better share of your lives and your souls been more sadly regarded and provided for In the midst of these thoughts cast down your selves in sorrow as at the feet of Christ bewaâ—â— your folly beg pardon recovering grace 2. Then think as sadly how you have wronged your children If an unthrift that hath sold all his lands will lament it for his childrens sake as well as his own much more should you 3. Next set presently to work and learn your selves If you can read do if you cannot get some that can and be much among those that will instruct and help you be not ashamed to be seen among learners though it
them to God and the Redeemer 17. That the means by which Christ worketh and preserveth this Grace is the Word Read and Preached together with frequent â—ervent Prayer Meditation Sacraments gracious Conference and it is much furthered also by special Providences keeping us from temptations fitting Occurrences to our advantage drawing us by Mercies and driving us by Afflictions and therefore it must be the great and daily care of every Christian to use faithfully all the said Ordinaces and improve the said providences 18. That though the new Law or Covenant be an easie yoak and there is nothing to be grievous in Christs Commands yet so bad are our hearts and so strong our temptations and so diligent our enemies that whosoever will be saved he must strive and watch and bestow his utmost care and pains and deny his flesh and forsake all that would draw him from Christ and herein continue to the end and overcome And because this cannot be done without continual supplies of Grace whereof Christ is the onely Fountain therefore we must live in continual dependance on him by Faith and know That our life is hid with God in him 19. That Christ will thus by his Word and Spirit gather him a Church of all the elect out of the world which is his body and spouse and he their head and husband and will be tender of theâ— as the apple of his eye and preserve them from dangers and continue among them his presence and ordinances And that the members of this Church must live together in most entire Love and Peace delighting themselves in God and his worship and the fore-thoughts and mention of their everlasting happiness forbearing and forgiving one another and â—â—â—ieving each other in need as if that which they have were their brothers And all men ought to strive to be of this society Yet will the visible Churches be still mixt of good and bad 20. That when the fall number of these elect are called home Christ will come down from heaven again and raise all the dead and set them before him to be judged And all that have loved God above all and believed in Christ and been willing that he should reign over them and have improved their mercies in the day of grace them he will Justifie and sentence them to inherit the Everlasting Kingdom of Glory and those that were not such he will condemn to Everlasting fire Both which sentences shall be then executed accordingly This is the Creed or brief sum of the doctrine which you 〈◊〉 teach your children SECT XVIII THen for matter of practice teach them the meaning of the Commandments especially of the great Commands of the Gospel shew them what is commanded and forbidden in the first table and in the second toward God and men in regard of the inward and the outward man And here shew them 1. The Authority commanding that is the Almighty God by Christ the Redeemer They are not now to look at command as coming from God immediatly meerly as God or the Creator but as coming from God by Christ the Mediator who is now the Lord of all and only Lawgiver seeing the father now Judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son John 5.22 23 24. 2. Shew them the tearms on which duty is required and the ends of it 3. And the nature and duties and the way to perform them aright 4. And the right order that they first love God above all and then their neighbor first seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness 5. Shew them the excellencies and delights of Gods service 6. And the flat necessity 7. Especially labor to get all their hearts and teach them not only to speak the words And for sin shew them its evil and danger and watch over them against it Especially 1. The sins that youth is commonly addicted to 2. And which their nature and constitution most leads them to 3. And which the time and place do most strongly tempt to 4. But specially be sure to kill their killing sins those that all are prone to and are of all most deadly as Pride Worldliness Ignorance Profaneness and Flesh-pleasing And for the manner you must do all this 1. Betime before sin get rooting 2. Frequently 3. Seasonably 4. Seriously and diligently 5. Affectionatly and tenderly 6. And with authority compelling where commanding will not serve and adding correction where instruction is frustrate And thus I have done with this Use of exhortation to do our â—tmost for the Salvation of others The Lord give men compassionate hearts that it may be practiced and then I doubt not but he will succeed it to the increase of his Church FINIS THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. The Fourth Part. Containing a Directory for the getting and keeping of the Heart in Heaven By the diligent practice of that Excellent unknown Duty of Heavenly Meditation Being the main thing intended by the Author in the writing of this Book and to which all the rest is but subservient And Isaac went out to meditate in the Field at the Eventide Gen. 24 63. In the multitude of my Thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my soul Psal. 94.19 When I wake I am still with thee Psal. 139 18. For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.20 21. For where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also Matth. 6.21 Master it is good for us to be here Mark 9.5 London Printed by Rob. White for T. Vnderhill and F. Tyton and are to be sold at the sign of the Bible in great Woodstreet and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1649. TO MY Dearly beloved friends in the Lord The Inhabitants of the Town of SHREWSBVRY Both Magistrates Ministers and People As also Of the Neighbouring Parts Rich. Baxter Devoteth this Practicall Part of this Treatise As a Testimony of his Love to his Native Soyl And to his many Godly and Faithfull Friends there living HEartily praying the Lord and Head of the Church to keep them in Unity Peace Humility Vigilancy and Stedfastness in the Truth and to cause them to contribute their utmost endeavours for the setting up of able faithfull Teachers and building up the House of God which hath so long been neglected and which hath now so many hands imployed to divide and demolish it And that the Lord would save them in this hour of Temptation that they may be approved in this tryall and not be found Light when God shall weigh them And that he would acquaint them with the daily serious exercise of this most precious spirituall soul-exalting work of HEAVENLY MEDITATION and that when the Lord shall come he may finde them so doing The Introduction IN the former Part I have
of knowing right evidences to try by so much as for want of skil and diligence in using them so have I seldom known a Christian that wants the joyes of this heavenly Life for want of being told the means to get it but for want of a heart to set upon the work and painfully to use the means they are directed to It is the field of the slothful that is overgrown with weeds Pro. 24.30 31 32 33 34. And the desires of the slothful killeth his Joyes because his hands refuse to labor Prov. 21.25 whiles he lyes wishing his soul lyes starving He saith There is a Lyon there 's difficulty in the way and turneth himself on the bed of his ease as a nor turneth on the hinges he bideth his hand in his bosome and it grâ—â—veth him to bring it to his 〈◊〉 though it be â—o feed himself with the food of life Prov. 26â— 13 14 15 16. what 's this bâ—â— espising the feast prepared and setting light by the dearâ—bough pleasures and consequently by the pretious blood that bough them and throwing away our own consolations For the Sâ—rit hath told us That he also that is slothful in his work is broâ—â—â—r to him that is a great waster Prov. 18.9 Apply this to thâ— spiritual Work and study well the meaning of it SECT VII 7. IT s alo a dangerous and secret hinderance to content our selâ—es with the meer preparatives to this heavenly Life while we are â—tter strangers to the life it self when we take up with the meer studies of heavenly things and the notions and thoughts of theâ— in our brain or the talking of them with one another as if this were all that makes us heavenly people Ther 's none in more danger of this snare then those that are much in publike duty especially Preachers of the Gospel O how easily may they be deceived here while they do nothing more then read of heaven and study of heaven and preach of heaven and pray and talk of heaven what is not this the heavenly Life O that God would reveal to our hearts the danger of this snare Alas all this is but meer preparation This is not the life we speak of but it s indeed a necessary help thereto I intreat every one of my Brethren in the Ministry that they search and watch against this Temptation Alas this is but gathering the materials and not the erecting of the building it self this is but gathering our Manna for others and not eating and digesting our selves as he that sits at home may study Geography and draw most exact descriptions of Countreys and yet never see them nor travel toward them so may you describe to others the joyes of heaven and yet never come neer it in your own hearts as a man may tell others of the sweetness of meat which he never tasted or as a blinde man by learning may dispute of light and of colours so may you study and preach most heavenly matter which yâ—â— never sweetned your own spirits and set forth to others that heavenly Light wherewith your own souls were never illightened and bring that fire for the hearts of your people that never once warmed your own hearts If you should study of nothing but heaven while you lived and preach of nothing but heaven to your people yet might your own hearts be strangers to it What heavenly passages had Balaam in his Prophesies yet little of it its like in his spirit Nay we are under a more subtil temptation then any other men to draw us from this heavenly life If our imployments did lye at a greater distant from heaven and did take up our thoughts upon worldly things we should not be so apt to be so contented and deluded but when we finde our selves imployed upon nothing else we are easier drawn to take up here Studying and preaching of heaven is likes to an heavenly Life then thinking and talking of the world is and the likeness is it that is like to deceive us This is to dye the most miserable death even to famish our selves because we have bread on our tables which is worse then to famish when we cannot get it and to die for thirst while we draw water for others thinking it enough that we have daily to do with it though we never drink it to our souls refreshing All that I will say to you more of this shall be in the words of my godly and â—udicious friend Mr. George Aâ—â—ot which I will transcribe lest you have not the Book at hand in his Vindiciae Sabathi pag. 147 148 149. And here let me in a holy Jealousâ—e annex an Exhortation to some of the Ministers of this Land for blessed be God it needs not to all that they would carefully provide and look that they do not build the Tabernacle on the Lords Day I mean that they rest not in the Opus operatum of their holy imployments and busying themselves about the carnall part of holy things in putting off the studying of their Sermons or getting them by heart except it be to work them upon the heart and not barely commit them to memory till that day and so though they take care to build the Tabernacle of Gods Church yet they in the mean time neglect the Temple of their own hearts in serving God in the Spirit and not in the Letter or outward performance onely But it were well if they would gather and prepare their Manna seeth it and bake it the day before that when the Sabbath came they might have nothing to do but to chew and concoct it into their own spirits and so spiritually in the experience of their own hearts not heads dish it out to their hearers which would be a happy means to make them see better fruit of their labors for commonly that which is not â—oâ—ally delivered is notionally received and that which is spiritually and powerfully delivered in the evidence of the Spirit is spiritually and savingly received for spirit begets spirit as fire begets fire c. It is an easie thing to take great pains in the outward part or performance of holy things which oft proves a snare causing the neglect of the spirit of the inner man for many are great laborers in the Work of the Lord that are starvelings in the Spirit of the Lord satisfying themselves in a Popish peace of conscience in the deed doing in stead of Joy in the Holy Ghost bringing indeed meat to their Guests but through haste or laziness eating none themselves or like Taylors make cloathes for other men to weare so they never assaying their own points how they 〈…〉 may suit with their own spirits but think it is their duty to â—each and other mens duty to do So far the Author CHAP. V. Some general helps to a Heavenly Life SECT I. HAving thus shewed thee the blocks in thy way and told thee what hinderances will resist thee in the Work I
This is the right Daedalian flight and thus we may take from each bird a feather and make us wings and fly to Christ. SECT VII 7. ANother singular help is this Be much in that Angelical work of Praise As the most heavenly Spirits will have the most heavenly imployment so the more heavenly the imployment the more will it make the Spirit heavenly Though the heart be the Fountain of all our actions and the actions will be usually of the quality of the heart yet do those actions by a kinde of reflexion work much on the heart from whence they spring The like also may be said of our speeches So that the work of praising God being the most heavenly work is likely to raise us to the most heavenly temper This is the work of those Saints and Angels and this will be our own everlasting work if we were more taken up in this imployment now we should be liker to what we shall be then When Aristotle was asked what he thought of Musick he answers Jovem neque canere neque citharam pulsare That Jupiter did neither sing nor play on the Harp thinking it an unprofitable art to men which was no more delightful to God But Christians may better argue from the like ground that singing of praise is a most profitable duty because it is so delightful as it were to God himself that he hath made it his peoples Eternal work for they shall sing the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. As Desire and Faith and Hope are of shorter continuance then Love and Joy so also Preaching and Prayer and Sacraments and all means for confirmation and expression of Faith and Hope shall cease when our Thanks and Praise and triumphant expressions of Love and Joy shall abide for ever The liveliest embleme of Heaven that I know upon Earth is When the people of God in the deep sense of his excellency and bounty from hearts abounding with Love and Joy do joyn together both in heart and voice in the cheerful and melodious singing of his praises Those that deny the lawful use of singing the Scripture Psalms in our times do disclose their unheavenly unexperienced hearts I think as well as their ignorant understandings Had they felt the heavenly delights that many of their Brethren in such duties have felt I think they would have been of another minde And whereas they are wont to question whether such delights be genuine or any better then carnal or delusive Surely the very rellish of Christ and Heaven that is in them the example of the Saints in Scripture whose spirits have been raised by the same duty and the command of Scripture for the use of this means one would think should quickly decide the controversie And a man may as truly say of these delights as they use to say of the testimony of the Spirit That they witness-themselves to be of God and bring the evidence of their heavenly parentage along with them And whereas they allow onely extemporate Psalms immediately dictated to them by the Spirit When I am convinced that the gift of extemporate singing is so common to the Church that any man who is spiritually merry can use it Jam. 5.13 And when I am convinced that the use of Scripture Psalms is abolished or prohibited then I shall more regard their judgment Certainly as large as mine acquaintance hath been with men of this Spirit I never yet heard any one of them sing a Psalm ex tempore that was better then Davids yea or that was tolerable to a judicious hearer and not rather a shame to himself and his opinion But sweet experience will be a powerful Argument and will teach the sincere Christian to hold fast his exercise of this soul-raising duty Little do we know how we wrong our selves by shutting out of our prayers the praises of God or allowing them so narrow a room as we usually do while we are copious enough in our Confessions and Petitions Reader I entreat thee remember this Let praises have a larger room in thy duties Keep ready at hand matter to feed thy praise as well as matter for Confession and Petition To this end study the excellencies and goodness of the Lord as frequently as thy own necessities and vileness study the mercies which thou hast received and which are promised both their own proper worth and their aggravating circumstances as often as thou studiest the sins thou hast committed O let Gods praise be much in your mouths for in the mouths of the upright his praise is comely Psal. 33.1 Seven times a day did David praise him Psal. 119.164 Yea his praise was continually of him Psal. 71.6 As he that offereth praise glorifieth God Psal. 50.23 So doth he most rejoyce and glad his own soul. Psal. 98.4 Offer therefore the sacrifice of praise continually Heb. 13.15 In the midst of the Church let us sing his praise Heb. 2.12 Praise our God for he is good sing praises unto his Name for it is pleasant Psal. 135.3 and 147.1 Yea let us rejoyce and triumph in his praise Psal. 106.47 Do you think that David had not a most heavenly Spirit who was so much imployed in this heavenly work Doth it not sometime very much raise your hearts when you do but seriously read that divine Song of Moses Deut. 32. And those heavenly iterated praises of David having almost nothing sometime but praise in his mouth How much more would it raise and refresh us to be skilled and accustomed in the work our selves I confess to a man of a languishing body where the heart doth faint and the spirits are feeble the cheerful praising of God is more difficult because the body is the souls instrument and when it lies unstringed or untuned the musick is likely to be accordingly but dull Yet a spiritual cheerfulness there may be within and the heart may praise if not the voice But where the body is strong the spirits lively the heart cheerful and the voice at command what advantage have such for this heavenly work with what alacrity and vivacity may they sing forth praises O the madness of healthful youth that lay out this vigor of body and minde upon vain delights and fleshly lusts which is so fit for the noblest work of man And O the sinful folly of many of the Saints who drench their spirits in continual sadness and wast their days in complaints and groans and fill their bodies with wasting diseases and so make themselves both in body and minde unfit for this sweet and heavenly work That when they should joyn with the people of God in his praises and delight their souls in singing to his Name they are questioning their worthiness and studying their miseries or raising scruples about the lawfulness of the duty and so rob God of his praise and themselves of their solace But the greatest destroyer of our comfort in this duty is our sticking in the carnal
I fear he will not know my soul But especially when we come to die and must immediately appear before this God and expect to enter into this Eternal Rest then the difference will plainly appear Then what a joy will it be to think I am going to the place that I daily conversed in to the place from whence I tasted so frequent delights to that God whom I have met in my Meditations so oft My heart hath been at Heaven before now and tasted the sweetness that hath oft revived it and as Jonathan by his honey if mine eyes were so illightened and my minde refreshed when I tasted but a little of that sweetness what will it be when I shall feed on it freely On the other side what a terror must it be to think I must die and go I know not whither from a place where I am acquainted to a place where I have no familiarity or knowledg O Sirs it is an unexpressible horror to a dying man to have strange thoughts of God and Heaven I am perswaded there is no cause so common that makes death even to godly men unwelcome and uncomfortable Therefore I perswade thee to frequency in this duty That seldomness breed not estrangedness from God 2. And besides that seldomness will make thee unskilful in the work and strange to the duty as well as to God How unhandsomly and clumsily do men set their hands to a work that they are seldom imployed in Whereas frequency will habituate thy heart to the work and thou wilt better know the way which thou daily walkest yea and it will be more easie and delightful also The Hill which made thee pant and blow at the first going up thou maist run up easily when thou art once accustomed to it The heart which of it self is naturally backward will contract a greater unwillingness through disuse And as an untamed Colt not used to the hand it will hardly come to hand when thou shouldst use it 3. And lastly Thou wilt lose that heat and life by long intermissions which with much ado thou didst obtain in duty If thou eat but a meal in two or three days thou wilt lose thy strength as fast as thou gettest it if in holy Meditation thou get neer to Christ and warm thy heart with the fire of Love if thou then turn away and come but seldom thou wilt soon return to thy former coldness If thou walk or labor till thou hast got thee heat and then sit idle all day after wilt thou not surely lose thy heat again especially it being so spiritual a work and so against the bent of nature we shall be still inclining to our natural temper If water that is heated be long from the fire it will return to its coldness because that is its natural temper I advise thee therefore that thou be as oft as may be in this soul-raising duty least when thou hast long rowed hard against the stream or tide and winde the boat should go further down by thy intermission then it was got up by all thy labor And least when thou hast been long rolling thy stony heart towards the top of the hill it should go faster down when thou dost slack thy diligence It s true the intermixed use of other duties may do much to the keeping thy heart above especially secret prayer but Meditation is the life of most other duties and the veiws of heaven is the Life of Meditation SECT III. 3. COncerning the Time of this duty I advise thee that thou chuse the most seasonable Time All things are beautiful and excellent in their season Unseasonableness may lose thee the fruit of thy labor It may rise up disturbances and difficulties in the work Yea it may turn a duty to a sin when the seasonableness of a duty doth make it easie doth remove impediments doth embolden us to the undertaking and doth ripen its fruit The seasons of this duty are either first extraordinary or secondly ordinary 1. The ordinary season for your daily performance cannot be particularly determined by man Otherwise God would have determined it in his word But mens conditions of imployment and freedom and bodily temper are so various that the same may be a seasonable hour to one which may be unseasonable to another If thou be a servant or a hard laborer that thou hast not thy self nor thy time at command thou must take that season which thy business will best afford thee Either as thou sittest in the shop at thy work or as thou travellest on the way or as thou lyest waking in the night Every man best knows his own time even when he hath least to hinder him of his business in the world But for those whose necessities tye them not so close but that they may well lay aside their earthly affaires and chuse what time of the day they will My advice to such is that they carefully observe the temper of their body and minde and mark when they finde their spirits most active and fit for contemplation and pitch upon that as the stated time Some men are freest for all duties when they are fasting and some are then unfittest of all Some are fit for duties of humiliation at one season and for duties of exaltation at another Every man is the meetest judg for himself Only give me leave to tender you my observation which time I have alway found fittest for my self and that is The evening from Sun setting to the twilight and sometime in the night when it is warm and clear Whether it be any thing from the temperature of my body I know not But I conjecture that the same time would be seasonable to most tempers for several natural reasons which I will not now stand to mention Neither would I have mentioned my own experience in this but that I was encouraged hereunto by finding it suit with the experience of a better and wiser man then my self and that is Isaac for it is said in Gen. 24.63 That he went to Meditate in the field at the eventide and his experience I dare more boldly recommend unto you then my own And as I remember Doctor Hall in his excellent Treatise of Meditation gives you the like account of his own experience SECT IIII. 2. THe Lords day is a time exceeding seasonable for this exercise When should we more seasonably contemplate on Rest then on that day of Rest which doth typâ—fie it to us Neither do I think that typifying use is ceased because the Antitype is not fully yet come However it being a day appropriated to Worship and spiritual duties me thinks we should never exclude this duty which is so eminently spiritual I think verily this is the chiefest work of a Christian Sabbath and most agreeable to the intent of its positive institution What fitter time to converse with our Lord then on that day which he hath appropriated to such imployment and therefore called
while thou gavest up thy state thy friends thy life yea thy soul for lost and he opened to thee a Well of Consolation and opened thine eyes also that thou mightest see it How oft hath he found thee in the posture of Elias sitting down under the tree forlorn and solitary and desiring rather to dye then to live and he hath spread thee a Table of relief from Heaven and sent thee away refreshed and encouraged to his VVork How oft hath he found thee in the trouble of the Servant of Elisha crying out Alas what shall we do for an Host doth compass the City and he hath opened thine eyes to see more for thee then against thee both in regard of the enemies of thy soul and thy body How oft hath he found thee in such a passion as Jonas in thy peevish frenzy aweary of thy life and he hath not answered passion with passion though he might indeed have done well to be angry but hath mildely reasoned thee out of thy madness and said Dost thou well to be angry or to repine against me How oft hath he set thee on watching and praying on repenting and beleeving and when he hath returned hath found thee fast asleep and yet he hath not taken thee at the worst but in stead of an angry aggravation of thy fault he hath covered it over with the mantle of Love and prevented thy over-much sorrow with a gentle excuse The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak He might have done by thee as Epaminondas by his Souldier who finding him asleep upon the VVatch run him through with his Sword and said Dead I found thee and dead I leave thee but he rather chose to awake thee more gently that his tenderness might admonish thee and keep thee watching How oft hath he been traduced in his Cause or Name and thou hast like Peter denied him at lest by thy silence whilst he hath stood in sight yet all the revenge he hath taken hath been a heart-melting look and a silent remembring thee of thy fault by his countenance How oft hath Law and Conscience haled thee before him as the Pharisees did the adulterous woman and laid thy most hainous crimes to thy charge And when thou hast expected to hear the sentence of death he hath shamed away thy Accusers and put them to silence and taken on him he did not hear thy Inditement and said to thee Neither do I accuse thee Go thy way and sin no more And art thou not yet transported and ravished with Love Can thy heart be cold when thou think'st of this or can it hold when thou remembrest those boundless compassions Remembrest thou not the time when he met thee in thy duties when he smiled upon thee and spake comfortably to thee when thou didst sit down under his shadow with great delight and when his fruit was sweet to thy taste when he brought thee to his Banqueting House and his Banner over thee was Love when his left hand was under thy head and with his right hand he did embrace thee And dost thou not yet cry ouâ— Stay me comfort me for I am sick of Love Thus Reader I would have thee deal with thy heart Thus hold forth the goodness of Christ to thy Affections plead thus the case with thy frozen soul till thou say as David in another case My heart was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned Psal. 39.3 If these forementioned Arguments will not rouse up thy love thou hast more enough of this nature at hand Thou hast all Christs personal excellencies to study thou hast all his particular mercies to thy self both special and common thou hast all his sweet and neer relations to thee and thou hast the happiness of thy perpetual abode with him hereafter all these do offer themselves to thy Meditation with all their several branches and adjuncts Only follow them close to thy heart ply the work and let it not cool Deal with thy heart as Christ did with Peter when he asked him thrice over Lovest thou me till he was grieved and answers Lord thou knowest that I love thee So say to thy Heart Lovest thou thy Lord and ask it the second time and urge it the third time Lovest thou thy Lord till thou grieve it and shame it out of its stupidity and it can truly say Thou knowest that I love him And thus I have shewed you how to excite the affection of Love SECT VI. 2. THe next Grace or Affection to be excited is Desire The Object of it is Goodness considered as absent or not yet attained This being so necessary an attendant of Love and being excited much by the same forementioned objective considerations I suppose you need the less direction to be here added and therefore I shall touch but briefly on this If love be hot I warrant you desire will not be cold When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the Lord and considered of the pleasures that are at his right hand then proceed on with thy Meditation thus Think with thy self Where have I been what have I seen O the incomprehensible astonishing Glory O the rare transcendent beauty O blessed souls that now enjoy it that see a thousand times more clearly what I have seen but darkly at this distance and scarce discerned through the interposing clouds What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs I am sighing and they are singing I am sinning and they are pleasing God I have an ulcerated cancrous soul like the lothsome bodyes of Job or Lazarus a spectacle of pitty to those that behold me But they are perfect and without blemish I am here intangled in the love of the world when they are taken up with the love of God I live indeed amongst the means of grace and I possess the fellowship of my fellow-believers But I have none of their immediate views of God nor none of that fellowship which they possess They have none of my cares and fears They weep not in secret They languish not in sorrows These tears are wiped away from their eyes O happy a thousand times happy souls Alas that I must dwell in dirty flesh when my Brethren and companions do dwell with God! Alas that I am lapt in earth and tyed as a mountain down to this inferior world when they are got above the Sun and have laid aside their lumpish bodyes Alas that I must lye and pray and wait and pray and wait as if my heart were in my knees when they do nothing but Love and Praise and Joy and Enjoy as if their hearts were got into the very breast of Christ and were closely conjoyned to his own heart How far out of sight and reach and hearing of their high enjoyments do I here live when they feel them and feed and live upon them What strange thoughts have I of God What strange conceivings What strange affections I am fain
the drawn sword of his displeasure or at least overtake me to my grief at last But is he against the obeying of his own commands is perfect good against any thing but evil doth he bid me seek and will he not assist me in it doth he set me awork and urge me to it and will he after all be against me in it It cannot be And if he be for me who can be against me In the work of sin all things almost are ready to help us and God onely and his Servants are against us and how ill doth that work prosper in our hands But in my course to Heaven almost all things are against me but God is for me and how happily still doth the work succeed Do I set upon this work in my own strength or rather in the strength of Christ my Lord And cannot I do all things through him that strengthneth me was he ever foiled or subdued by an enemy He hath been assaulted indeed but was he ever conquered Can they take the sheep till they have overcome the Shepherd why then doth my flesh lay open to me the difficulties and urge me so much with the greatness and troubles of the work It is Christ that must answer all these Objections and what are the difficulties that can stay his power Is any thing too hard for the Omnipotent God May not Peter boldly walk on the Sea if Christ do but give the word of command and if he begin to sink is it from the weakness of Christ or the smalness of his Faith The water indeed is but a sinking ground to tread on but if Christ be by and countenance us in it if he be ready to reach us his hand who would draw back for fear of danger Is not Sea and Land alike to him shall I be driven from my God and from my Everlasting Rest as the silly Birds are feared from their food with a man of clouts or a loud noise when I know before there is no danger in it How do I see men daily in these wars adventure upon Armies and Forts and Cannons and cast themselves upon the instruments of death and have not I as fair a prize before me and as much encouragement to adventure as they What do I venture my life is the most and in these prosperous times there is not one of many that ventures that VVhat do I venture on are they not unarmed foes A great hazzard indeed to venture on the hard thoughts of the world or on the scorns and slanders of a wicked tongue Sure these Serpents teeth are out these Vipers are easily shaken into the fire these Adders have no stings these Thorns have lost their prickles As all things below are silly comforters so are they silly toothless enemies Bugbears to frighten fools and children rather then powerful dreadful foes Do I not well deserve to be turned into Hell if the scorns and threats of blinded men if the fear of silly rotten Earth can drive me thither do I not well deserve to be shut out of Heaven if I will be frighted from it with the tongues of sinners Surely my own voice must needs condemn me and my own hand subscribe the sentence and common Reason would say that my damnation were just VVhat if it were Father or Mother or Husband or VVife or the neerest Friend that I have in the world if they may be called Friends that would draw me to damnation should I not run over all that would keep me from Christ VVill their friendship countervail the enmity of God or be any comfort to my condemned soul shall I be yielding and pliable to the desires of men and onely harden my self against the Lord Let men let Angels beseech me upon their knees I will slight their tears I will scorn to stop my course to behold them I will shut mine ears against their cryes Let them flatter or let them frown let them draw forth tongues and swords against me I am resolved to break through in the might of Christ and to look upon them all as naked dust If they would entice me with preferment with the Kingdoms of the world I will no more regard them then the dung of the Earth O Blessed Rest O most unvaluable Glorious State who would sell thee for dreams and shadows who would be enticed or affrighted from thee who would not strive and fight and watch and run and that with violence even to the last breath so he might but have hope at last to obtain thee Surely none but those that know thee not and beleeve not thy glory Thus you see with what kinde of Meditations you may excite your Courage and raise your Resolutions SECT IX 5. THe last Affection to be acted is Joy This is the end of all the Rest Love Desire Hope and Courage do all tend to the raising of our Joy This is so desirable to every man by nature and is so essentially necessary to the constituting of his happiness that I hope I need not say much to perswade you to any thing that would make your life delightful Supposing you therefore already convinced That the pleasures of the flesh are brutish and perishing and that your solid and lasting joy must be from Heaven in stead of perswading I shall proceed in directing Well then by this time if thou hast managed well the former work thou art got within the ken of thy Rest thou believest the Truth of it thou art convinced of the excellency of it thou art faln in Love with it thou longest after it thou hopest for it and thou art resolved couragiously to venture for the obtaining it But is here any work for joy in this we delight in the good which we do possess It s present good that is the object of joy but thou wilt say alas I am yet without it Well but yet think a little further with thy self Though the Real presence do afford the choicest joy yet the presence of its imperfect Idea or image in my understanding may afford me a great deal of true delight Is it nothing to have a deed of gift from God Are his infallible promises no ground of joy Is it nothing to live in daily expectation of entring into the Kingdom Is not my assurance of being glorified one of these dayes a sufficient ground for unexpressible joy Is it no delight to the Heir of a Kingdom to think of what he must hereafter possess though at present he little differ from a servant Am I not commanded to rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 12.12 Here then Reader take thy heart once again as it were by the hand Bring it to the top of the highest Mount if it be possible to some Atlas above the clouds shew it the Kingdom of Christ and the glory of it say to it All this will thy Lord bestow upon thee who hast believed in him and been a worshipper of him It
it you in respect of the time of performance Our chief work will here be to discover to you the danger and that will direct you to the fittest remedy Let me therefore here acquaint you beforehand That when ever you set upon this Heavenly employment you shall finde your own hearts your greatest hinderer and they will prove false to you in one or all of these four degrees First They will hold off that you will hardly get them to the work secondly or else they will betray you by their idleness in the work pretending to do it when they do it not or thirdly they will interrupt the work by their frequent excursions and turning aside to every object or fourthly they will spoil the work by cutting it short and be gone before you have done any good on it Therefore I here forewarn you as you value the unvaluable comfort of this work that you faithfully resist these four dangerous evils or else all that I have said hitherto is in vain 1. Thou shalt finde thy heart as backward to this I think as to any work in the world O what excuses it will make what evasions it will finde out and what delays and demurs when it is never so much convinced Either it will question whether it be a duty or not or if it be so to others yet whether it be so to thee It will rake up any thing like reason to plead against it it will tell thee That this is a work for Ministers that have nothing else to study on or for Cloysterers or persons that have more leisure then thou hast If thou be a Minister it will tell thee This is the duty of the people it is enough for thee to meditate for the instructing of them and let them meditate on what they have heard as if it were thy duty onely to cook their meat and serve it up and perhaps a little to taste the sweetness by licking thy fingers while thou art dressing it for others but it is they onely that must eat it digest it and live upon it Indeed the smell may a little refresh thee but it must be digesting it that must maintain thy strength and life If all this will not serve thy heart will tell thee of other business thou hast this company stayes for thee or that business must be done It may be it will set thee upon some other duty and so make one duty shut out another for it had rather go to any duty then to this Perhaps it will tell thee that other duties are greater and therefore this must give place to them because thou hast not time for both Publike business is of more concernment to study to preach for the saving of souls must be preferred before these private contemplations As if thou hadst not time to see to the saving of thy own soul for looking after others or thy charity to others were so great that it draws thee to neglect thy comfort and salvation or as if there were any better way to fit us to be useful to others then to make this experience of our doctrine our selves Certainly Heaven where is the Father of Lights is the best fire to light our candle at and the best book for a Preacher to study and if they would be perswaded to study that more the Church would be provided of more heavenly lights And when their Studies are Divine and their Spirits Divine their preaching will then be also Divine and they may be fitly called Divines indeed Or if thy heart have nothing to say against the work then it will trifle away the time in delayes and promise this day and the next but still keep off from the doing of the business Or lastly If thou wilt not be so baffled with excuses or delayes thy heart will give thee a flat denial and oppose its own unwillingness to thy Reason Thou shalt finde it come to the work as a Bear to the stake and draw back with all the strength it hath I speak all this of the heart so far as it is carnal which in too great a measure is in the best for I know so far as the heart is Spiritual it will judg this work the sweetest in the world Well then what is to be done in the forementioned case wilt thou do it if I tell thee Why what wouldst thou do with a servant that were thus backward to his work or to thy beast that should draw back when thou wouldst have him go forward Wouldst thou not first perswade and then chide and then spur him and force him on and take no denial nor let him alone till thou hadst got him closely to fall to his work Wouldst thou not say Why what should I do with a servant that will not work or with an Ox or Horse that will not travel or labor Shall I keep them to look on Wilt thou then faithfully deal thus with thy heart If thou be not a lazie self deluding Hypocrite say I will by the help of God I will Set upon thy heart roundly perswade it to the work take no denial chide it for its backwardness use violence with it bring it to the service willing or not willing Art thou master of thy flesh or art thou a servant to it hast thou no command of thy own thoughts cannot thy will chuse the subject of thy Meditations especially when thy judgment thus directeth thy will I am sure God once gave thee mastery over thy flesh and some power to govern thy own thoughts Hast thou lost thy authority art thou become a slave to thy depraved nature Take up the authority again which God hath given thee command thy heart if it rebel use violence with it if thou be too weak call in the Spirit of Christ to thine assistance He is never backward to so good a work nor will deny his help in so just a cause God will be ready to help thee if thou be not unwilling to help thy self Say to him Why Lord thou gavest my Reason the command of my Thoughts and Affections the authority I have received over them is from thee and now behold they refuse to obey thine authority Thou commandest me to set them to the work of Heavenly Meditation but they rebel and stubbornly refuse the duty Wilt thou not assist me to execute that authority which thou hast given me O send me down thy Spirit and Power that I may enforce thy commands and effectually compel them to obey thy Will And thus doing thou shalt see thy heart will submit its resistance will be brought under and its backwardness will be turned to a yielding compliance SECT II. 2. WHen thou hast got thy heart to the work beware least it delude thee by a loitering formality Least it say I go and go not least it trifle out the time while it should be effectually meditating Certainly the heart is as likely to betray thee in this as in any one particular about
such a guide Can the Sun lead thee to a state of darkness or can he mislead thee that is the light of every man that cometh into the world will he lead thee to death who died to save thee from it or can he do thee any hurt who for thy sake did suffer so much follow him and he will shew thee the Paradise of God he will give thee a sight of the New Jerusalem he will give thee a taste of the Tree of Life Sit no longer then by the fire of earthly common comforts whether the cold of carnal fears and sorrows did drive thee thy Winter is past and wilt thou house thy self still in earthly thoughts and confine thy self to drooping and dulness even the silly Flies will leave their holes when the Winter is over and the Sun draws neer them the Ants will stir the Fishes rise the Birds will sing the earth look green and all with joyful note will tell thee the Spring is come Come forth then O my drooping soul and lay aside thy Winter mourning Robes let it be seen in thy believing Joyes and Praise that the day is appearing and the Spring is come and as now thou seest thy comforts green thou shalt shortly see them white and ripe for Harvest and then thou who art now called forth to see and taste shalt be called forth to reap and gather and take possession Shall I suspend and delay my joyes till then should not the joyes of the Spring go before the joyes of Harvest Is Title nothing before possession Is the heir in no better a state then the slave My Lord hath taught me to rejoyce in hope of his glory and to see it thorow the bars of a Prison and even when I am persecuted for righteousness sake when I am reviled and all manner of evil sayings are said against me falsly for his sake then hath he commanded me to rejoyce and be exceeding glad because of this my great reward in Heaven How justly is an unbelieving heart possessed by sorrow and made a prey to cares and fears when it self doth create them and thrust away its offered peace and joy I know it is the pleasure of my bounteous Lord that none of his family should want for Comfort nor live such a poor and miserable life nor look with such a famished dejected face I know he would have my joyes exceed my sorrowes And as much as he delighteth in the humble and contrite yet doth he more delight in the soul as it delighteth in him I know he taketh no pleasure in my self-procured sadness nor would he call on me to weep or mourn but that it is the only way to these delights Would I spread the Table before my guest and bring him forth my best provision and bid him sit down and eat and welcome if I did not unfeignedly desire he should do so Hath my Lord spread me a table in this Wilderness and furnished it with the promises of Everlasting Glory and set before me Angels food and broched for me the side of his beloved Son that I might have a better wine then the blood of the Grape Doth he so frequently and importunately invite me to sit down and draw forth my faith and feed and spare not Nay hath he furnished me to that end with reason and faith and a rejoycing disposition And yet is it possible that he should be unwilling of my joyes Never think it O my unbelieving soul nor dare to charge him with thy uncomfortable heaviness who offereth thee the foretaste of the highest delights that heaven doth afford and God bestow Doth he not bid thee delight thy self in the Lord and promise to give thee then the desires of thy heart Hath he not charged thee to rejoyce evermore Yea to sing aloud and shout for joy Psal. 47.1 Why should I then draw back discouraged My God is willing if I were but willing He is delighted in my delights He would faine have it my constant frame and daily business to be neer to him in my believing Meditations and to live in the sweetest thoughts of his goodness and to be always delighting my soul in himself O blessed work Employment fit for the sons of God! But ah my Lord thy feast is nothing to me without an appetite Thou must give me a stomack as well as meat Thou hast set the dainties of heaven before me but alas I am blinde and cannot see them I am sick and cannot relish them I am so benummed that I cannot put forth a hand to take them What is the glory of Sun and Moon to a clod of earth Thou knowest I need thy subjective grace as well as thine objective and that thy works upon mine own distempered soul is not the smallest part of my salvation I therefore humbly beg this grace that as thou hast opened heaven unto me in thy blessed word so thou wouldest open mine eyes to see it and my heart to affect it else heaven will be no heaven to me Awake therefore O thou Spirit of Life and breath upon thy Graces in me blow upon the garden of my heart that the spices thereof may flow out Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits Cant. 4.16 And take me by the hand and lift me up from earth to thy self 〈◊〉 I may fetch one walk in the garden of glory and see by Faith what thou hast laid up for them that love thee and wait for thee Away then you soul-tormenting cares and fears Away you importune heart-vexing sorrows At least forbear me a little while stand by and trouble not my aspiring soul stay here below whilest I go up and see my Rest. The way is strange to me but not to Christ. There was the eternal dwelling of his glorious deitie And thither hath he also brought his assumed glorified flesh It was his work to purchase it it is his work to prepare it and to prepare me for it and to bring me to it The Eternal God of truth hath given me his promise his seal and his oath to assure me that believing in Christ I shall not perish but have everlasting life Thither shall my soul be speedily removed and my body very shortly follow It is not so far but he that is every where can bring me thither nor so difficult and unlikely but Omnipotencie can effect it And though this unbelief may diminish my delights and much abate my joyes in the way Yet shall it not abate the love of my Redeemer nor make the promise of none effect And can my tongue say that I shall shortly and surely live with God and yet my heart not leap within me Can I say it believingly and not rejoycingly Ah faith how sensibly now do I perceive thy weakness Ah unbelief if I had never heard or known it before yet how sensibly now do I perceive thy malicious tyranny But though thou darken my light and dull my life
mercies which I here received then shall behold the glory enjoyed there which was the End of all this O what a blessed view will that be O glorious prospect which I shall have on the celestial mount Zion Is it possible that there should be any defect of joy or my heart not raised when I am so raised If one drop of lively faith were mixed with these considerations O what work they would make in my brest and what a Heaven-ravished heart should I carry within me Faine would I believe Lord help my unbelief Yet further consider O my soul How sweet have the very ordinances been unto thee What raptures hast thou had in prayer and under heavenly Sermons What gladness in dayes of thanksgiving after eminent deliverances to the Church or to thy self What delight do I finde in the sweet society of the Saints To be among my humble faithful neighbors and friends To joyne with them in the frequent worship of God To see their growth and stability and soundness of understanding To see those daily added to the Church which shall be saved O then what delight shall I have to see the perfected Church in Heaven and to joyne with these and all the Saints in another kinde of worship then we can here conceive of How sweet is it to joyne in the high praises of God in the solemn assemblies How glad have I been to go up to the house of God Especially after long restraint by sickness when I have been as Hezekiah released and readmitted to joyne with the people of God and to set forth the praises of my great deliverer How sweet is my work in Preaching the Gospel and inviting sinners to the marriage feast of the Lamb and opening to them the treasures of free Grace Especially when God blesseth my endeavors with plenteous success and giveth me to see the fruit of my labors even this alone hath been a greater joy to my heart that if I had been made the Lord of all the riches on earth O how can my heart then conceive that joy which I shall have in my admittance into the Celestial Temple and into the Heavenly Host that shall do nothing but praise the Lord for ever When we shall say to Christ Here am I and the children thou hast given me and when Christ shall present us all to his Father and all are gathered and the Body compleated If the very Word of God were sweeter to Job then his necessary food and to Jeremy was the very joy and rejoycing of his heart and to David was sweeter then the Hony and Honicomb so that he cryeth out O how I love thy Law it is my meditation continually and if thy Law had not been my delight I had perished in my troubles O then how blessed a day will that be when we fully enjoy the Lord of this Word and shall need these written precepts and promises no more but shall in stead of these love-letters enjoy our beloved and in stead of these promises have the happiness in possession and read no book but the face of the glorious God! How far would I go to see one of those blessed Angels which appeared to Abraham to Lot to John c. Or to speak with Henoch or Elias or any Saint who had lived with God especially if he would resolve all my doubts and describe to me the celestial habitacions How much more desirable must it needs be to live with those blessed Saints and Angels and to see and possesse as well as they It is written of Erastus that he was so desirous to learn that it would be sweet to him even to dye so he might but be resolved of those doubtful questions wherein he could not satisfie himself How sweet then should it be to me to dye that I may not only be resolved of all my doubts but also know what I never before did think of and enjoy what before I never knew It was a happy dwelling that the twelve Apostles had with Christ to be always in his company and see his face and hear him open to them the mysteries of the Kingdom But it will be another kinde of happiness to dwell with him in Glory It was a rare priviledg of Thomas to put his fingers into his wounds to confirme his faith and of John to be called the Disciple whom Jesus loved on whose brest at supper he was wont to lean But it will be another kinde of priviledg which I shall enjoy when I shall see him in his glory and not in his wounds and shall enjoy a fuller sense of his Love then John then did and shall have the most hearty entertainment that Heaven affordeth â—f they that heard Christ speak on earth were astonished at his Wisdome and answers and wondered at the gratious Words which proceeded from his mouth How shall I be affected then to behold him in his Majesty Rowse up thy self yet O my soul and consider Can the foresight of this glory make others embrace the stake and kiss the fagot and welcome the cross and refuse deliverance And can it not make thee cheerful under lesser sufferings Can it sweeten the flames to them and can it not sweeten thy life or thy sickness or naturall death If a glympse could make Moses his face to shine and Peter on the mount so transported and Paul so exalted and John so rapt up in the spirit Why should it not somewhat revive me with delight Doubtless it would if my thoughts were more believing Is it not the same Heaven which they and I must live in Is not their God their Christ their Crown and mine the same Nay how many a weak woman or poor despised Christian have I seen mean in parts but rich in faith who could rejoyce and triumph in hope of this inheritance And shall I look upon it with so dim an eye So dull a heart So dejected a countenance some small foretastes also I have had my self though indeed small and seldome thorow mine own belief and how much more delightful have they been then ever was any of these earthly things The full enjoyment then will sure be sweet Remember then this bunch of Grapes which thou hast tasted of and by them conjecture the fruitfulness of the Land of Promise A Grape in a wilderness cannot be like the plentiful Vintage Consider also O my soul What a beauty is there in the imperfect Graces of the spirit here so great that they are called the Image of God and can any created exceellencie have a more honorable title Alas how small a part are these of what we shall enjoy in our perfect state O how pretious a mercy should I esteem it if God would but take off my bodily infirmities and restore me to any comfortable measure of health and strength that I might be able with cheerfulness to go through his work How pretious a mercy then will it be to have all
my corruptions quite removed and my soul perfected and my body also raised to so high a state as I now can neither desire nor conceive Surely as health of body so health of soul doth carry an unexpressible sweetness along with it VVere there no reward besides yet every gracious act is a reward and comfort Never had I the least stirring of Love to God but I felt a heavenly sweetness accompanying it even the very act of loving was unexpressibly sweet VVhat a happy life should I here live could I but love as much as I would and as oft and as long as I would Could I be all love and always loving O my soul what wouldst thou give for such a life O had I such true and clear apprehensions of God and such a true understanding of his words as I desire Could I but trust him as fully in all my streights Could I have that life which I would have in every duty Could I make God my constant desire and delight I would not then envy the world their honors or pleasures nor change my happiness with a Caesar or Alexander O my soul what a blessed state wilt thou shortly be in when thou shalt have far more of these then thou canst now desire and shalt exercise all thy perfected graces upon God in presence and open sight and not in the dark and at a distance as now And as there is so much worth in one gracious soul so much more in a gracious society and most of all in the whole body of Christ on earth If there be any true beauty on earth where should it be so likely as in the Spouse of Christ It is her that he adorneth with his Jewels and feasteth at his table and keepeth for her always an open house and heart he revealeth to her his secrets and maintaineth constant converse with her he is her constant guardian and in every deluge incloseth her in his Ark He saith to her Thou art all beautiful my beloved And is his Spouse while black so comely Is the afflicted sinning weeping lamenting persecuted Church so excellent O what then will be the Church when it is fully gathered and glorified VVhen it is ascended from the valley of tears to Mount Sion VVhen it shall sin no more nor weep nor groan nor suffer any more The Stars or the smalest candle are not darkened so much by the brightness of the Sun as the excellencies of the first Temple will be by the celestial Temple The glory of the old Jerusalem will be darkness and deformity to the glory of the New It is said in Ezr. 3.12 that when the foundations of the second Temple were laid many of the ancient men who had seen the first house did weep i.e. because the second did come so far short of it what cause then shall we have to shout for joy when we shall see how glorious the heavenly Temple is and remember the meaness of the Church on earth But alas what a loss am I at in the midst of my contemplations I thought my heart had all this while followed after but I see it doth not And shall I let my Understanding go on alone or my tongue run on without Affections what life is in empty thoughts and words Neither God nor I finde pleasure in them Rather let me turn back again and look and finde and chide this lazy loytering heart that turneth off from such a pleasant work as this Where hast thou been unworthy heart while I was opening to thee the everlasting Treasures Didst thou sleep or wast thou minding something else or dost thou think that all this is but a Dream or Fable or as uncertain as the predictions of a presumptuâ—ous Astrologer Or hast thou lost thy life and rejoycing power Art thou not ashamed to complain so much of an uncomfortable life and to murmur at God for filling thee with sorrows when he offereth thee in vain the delights of Angels and when thou treadest under foot these transcendent pleasures Thou wilfully pinest away in grief and art ready to charge thy Father with unkindness for making thee onely a vessel of displeasure a sink of sadness a skinful of groans a snow ball of tears a channel for the waters of affliction to run in the fuell of fears and the carcass which cares do consume and prey upon when in the mean time thou mightest live a life of Joy Hadst thou now but followed me close and believingly applyed thy self to that which I have spoken and drunk in but half the comfort that those words hold forth it would have made thee revive and leap for joy and forget thy sorrows and diseases and pains of the flesh but seeing thou judgest thy self unworthy of comfort it is just that comfort should be taken from thee Lord what 's the matter that this work doth go on so heavily Did I think my heart had been so backward to rejoyce If it had been to mourn and fear and despair it were no wonder I have been lifting at this stone and it will not stir I have been pouring Aqua Vitae into the mouth of the dead I hope Lord by that time it comes to heaven this heart by thy Spirit will be quickned and mended or else even those Joyes will scarce rejoyce me But besides my darkness deadness and unbelief I perceive there is something else that forbids my full desired Joyes This is not the time and place where so much is given The time is our Winter and not our Harvest The place is called the Valley of tears there must be great difference betwit the Way and the End the Work and Wages the small foretastes and full fruition But Lord Though thou hast reserved our Joyes for Heaven yet hast thou not so suspended our Desires They are most suitable and seasonable in this present life therefore O help me to desire till I may possess and let me long when I cannot as I would rejoyce There is love in Desire as well as in Delight and if I be not empty of Love I know I shall not long be empty of Delight Rowse up thy self once more then O my soul and try and exercise thy spiritual Appetite though thou art ignorant and unbelieving yet art thou reasonable and therefore must needs desire a Happiness and Rest Nor canst thou sure be so unreasonable as to dream of attaining it here on earth Thou knowest to thy sorrow that thou art not yet at thy Rest and thy own feeling doth convince thee of thy present Unhappiness and dost thou know that thou art restless and yet art willing to continue so Art thou neither happy in deed nor in Desire Art thou neither well nor wouldest be well when my flesh is pained and languisheth under consuming sickness how heartily and frequenly do I cry out O when shall I be eased of this pain when shall my decaying strength be recovered Ther 's no dissembling nor formality in these Desires
oculis mentibus hominum objicitur destitutum est icta vi Spiritus quae sola potest homines abducere a peccato ad vitae spem efficaciter revocare Amyrald Defens Calvin p. 154. Whether the Spirit without means do call In what sense the Spirit enlighteneth Quomodo causa illa supernaturalis intellectum liberet a nativis quibus occupatur tenebris mens humana non comprehendit Effectum summo Dei beneficio persentiscimus rationem operationis non tenemus Amyrald defens Doctr. Calvin pag. 200. Some confidently do with Grotius appeal to Antiquity in the points of universal sufficient Grace and Free-will and natures integrity Concerning which see Chamier Bogermans Annotations on Grotij Piet. and Vshers Eccles. Brittan Primord What the ancient Church thought and did against Pelagius So Johan Latius de Pelag. Comment Nichol. Bodicher in Socin Remonstr Videlius c. What is the meanes of this call Whether nature and Creatures be sufficient Object from Rom. 2 16. Answered John 15.22.24 expounded 2 They are but part of the externally called Rom. 8.30 3 They are Regenerate by the spirit of Christ This Regeneration effectual Vocation the first Conversion and first Sanctification are all one thing proved See Bishop Downams appendix to the Covenant of Grace in Confutation of Mr. Pemble where this division is asserted See Ames medul cap. 26. § 8. Doctor Ames against Grevincho hath fully confuted himself pag. 260.261 c. The whole tenth Chap. is exceeding well worth the reading to prove the vitall seed or habit to go before the Act of Faith See Pemble vind Grat. pag. 10 11 12 13 14. c. The first Sanctification is before Justification and threfore mentioned first in the Description See Mr. Rich. Hooker in his Discourse of Justification asserting this same order And Pet. Martyr on Rom. c. 3. p. 157. sheweth fully how the spirit goeth before faith and yet in the increase followeth after it Act. 26.18 explained 2 Thes. 2 13. opened * Which controversie I pretend not here to determine acknowledging its difficulty requires a better judgment for its explication then mine yet I hitherto judge it an error In ascribing Regeneration to the spirit I include the word But not as the proper instrumental cause of Regeneration Different way of working of the Spirit and Word If any had rather say that the Word is Causa efficiens minus principalis procatarctica I contend not See Dr. Twisse Vind. Grat. p. 231. l. 1. part 2. l. 2. part 1. p. 160. Whether Word and Sacraments work in genere causae efficientis vel finalis The Word how it sanctifieth Vide Paâ—keri Theses de Traductione peccat de hoc dubio * And that onely by a way of swasion which is properly by the Word or by the first work of Nature giving him Reason Necessity of this Regeneration John 3.3 * I mean that this is not a sufficient way to their salvation but yet it may conduce to the good of others to restrain their vicious actions and somewhat more b Mens conceit that they are all Regenerate by their Baptism confuted Baptism can be no means of an Infants Regeneration Nam signa corporea in animas incorporeas agere signum imprimere ex vulgatissima regula Physicà non possunt Lamb. Danaeus Cont. Bellar. ad Tom. 2. Cont. 4. p. 238. Regeneration not the end why Christ would have men baptized * Dr. Burgâ—s and Mr. Tho. Bedford of Baptismal Regeneration * The Institution being supposed Though some Question whether Christs Baptism was a legal Ceremony or a Gospel Ordinance Aaron and his sons were to be washed at the entering upon the Priesthood And Christ saith Iâ— becomes us to fulfil all Righteousness and it was the Righteousness of the Law that he came to fulfil and not the Righteousness or Condition of the Gospel And we finde not that he himself received the Sacrament of his Supper But these are doubtful Vid. Grotti votum ad Artic. 9. § 3. 1 The Soul is convinced â— e. 1 Knoweth 2 Assenteth to the Truth of Scripture-threats And knows its own sin and guilt and misery Therefore not any other but this Knowledg is the first Grace in regard of the order of their acting though in the viâ—al Seed they are together 2 The Soul is sensible of what it is convinced Necessity of sensibility What the Soul is convinced and sensible of 1 Of the evil of sin Nallâ— offensa Dâ—i est venialis de se nisi 〈◊〉 per respâ—ctum ad divinam miserecordiam quae non vult de facto quamlibet offensam imputare ad mortem cum illud posset justissime Et ita concluditur quod peccatum mortale veniale in esse tasi non distinguuntur intrinsecè essentialiter sed solum per respectum ad divinam gratiam c. Gerson de vita Spirit Corol. 1. So Papists then confess the damning merit of every sin 2 Of its own misery by reason of sin Quisquis desolationem non novit nec consolationem agnoscere potest Et quisquis consolationem ignorat esse necessariam superesâ— ut non habeat gratiam Dei Inde est quod homines seculi negotiis flagitiis implicati dum miseriam non sentiunt non attendunt misericordiam Bernard Serm. XXXI de temp Whether this be the work of the Law or Gospel Necessity of this sense of sin and misery ☜ Why some gracious souls can scarce perceive and others scarce remember this work of Humiliation 3 Of the Creatures vanity and insufficiency Every natural man is an Idolater and doth not indeed take the Lord for his God ☜ Pride is the great sin against the first and great Commandment Man naturally is his own Idol Regeneration works back the heart to God again It convinceth fiâ—st That the Creature cannot be our God secondly Nor our Jesus Providences and especially Affliction do â—sually much further this Conviction 4 Of the need of Christ and his sufficiency and worth Quest. Are not all the forementioned works common till this last Answ. No. 1 Of the necessity of Christ. Phil. 3 7 8 9. Revel 5.3 4 5 6. Heb. 9.22 13.12 Acts 4 1â— 2 Of Christs sufficiency John 11.42 Heb. 7.25 3 And of his excellency § 4. Now of the change of the Wiâ—â— and Affection 1 It turneth from sin with abhorrency 2 Abhorreth and lamenteth its miserable state 3 Renounceth all his former Idols and Vanities Sin is first Directly against God as God Secondly Directly onely against his Laws Of the first sort is onely gross idolatry In what sense we turn from the Creature A twofold Error in the descriptions of Conversion Our turning from sin is as essential to true Conversion as our believing in Christ. Heb. 11.6 * Besides though the person please not God nor his actions so as for God to justifie them or to take delight in them as gracious yet some actions of wicked men tending to Reformation
quia anima sequitur corporis passiones seu complexiones ideo timent c Galenus in fine quartae partic de Morbo * Timor et pusillanimitas si multum tempus habuerint Melancholicum faciunt Hippocrat §. 1. §. 2. Motive 1. Mat. 7.22.26.27 c. Prov. 14.12 Luk. 13.25 26 Luk. 18.21 11 Rev. 3.17 So Ananias and Saphira The rich man in Luk. 16. c. Ahitophel Gehezi Ananias and Saphira Pharisees Jesuites c. Rom. 1.22 Judas and the Jews that heard Christ. Mat 7.22 Rom. 2.21 1 Cor. 9.27 §. 3. Motive 2. Gal. 6.3 4 7. Mat. 7.21 Ephes. 4 18. Hosea 4.6 Isai. 27.11 2 Cor. 4.3 Rev. 2.6 20. Titus 2 19. 1 Cor. 6.9 15.50 Eph. 5.4 5 6. Psal. 66.18 Jam 4 4 5. Heb. 12.14 John 3.3 2 Tim. 3.5 James 1.22 Mark 13.5 6. Matth. 10.37 John 12 25. §. 4. Acts 7.54 Acts 22.22 Phil. 3.17 18. Luke 19. Turpe est in re Militari dicere Non putarem §. 5. §. 6. Pro. 26.18 19. §. 7. 1 Cor. 11.30 31. Acts 22.14 Quâ—d profuerit 〈◊〉 si sociis câ—cumstantibus sâ—â—am innocentiam prohaverit câ—m cum Judâ—x crâ—minis convicâ—uâ— tâ—neat 〈◊〉 nos sâ—mper ad Christi 〈…〉 siâ—â—amus ei nos probimuâ— op ram demus ut nos ipsos pertentemuâ— penetume ut aliis sic nobis impunamuâ— Cartrit Harmon vol. 2 pag. 231. §. 8. Dan. 2.29 46 4â— Mat. 26. Mat. 24. John 4.29 2 Kings 1 2 Dan. 9.23 10.11 19. Rom 10.15 Heb. 10.22 19 Rom. 8.28 Heb 12.6 7. Psal. 75.76 Num 23.10 1 Cor. 15.58 Psal. 116.1 18.1 2. 1 Thes 4.17 18 Psal. 118.28 Isai 25.1 §. 9. §. 1. §. 2. Job 10.6 §. 3. Mark 1. Psal. 119.57 142.5 Lam. 3 24. §. 4. Mark 3. §. 1. §. 2. * As Bildad said to Job Chap. 18.4 Shall the Earth be forsaken for Thee or the Rock be removed out of his place So must God pervert his stablished Order for Thee §. 3. Psa. 30.6 7. §. 4. Itaque statuamus eos in media vegeta valetudine aegrotare qui valetudine abutuntur contra eos aegrotos bene habere qui ad Deum ex animo convertuntur ab ipsis morbis petunt adversus peccata medicinam Sadeel in Psal. 32. pag. 27. Most Christians can unfold Mr Herberts Riddle by experience A poor mans Rod when thou dost ride Is both a weapon and a guide Psa. 119.71 75 §. 5. §. 6. 1 Kings 22. 8. 1 Cor. 9.26 27. Acts 16. Rom. 8.12 Heb. â—2 23 Vers. 3 4. Mat. 16.23 Rom. 8 6 7 8. 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12 13 14. Heb. 12.11 Psal. 116.11 Psal. 73.13 14 15. §. 7. Joâ— 14. 15 16. 17. John 20. §. 8. Gal. 5 19 20 21. * If we could use our Friends as Friends God would make them our helps and comforts But when once we make them our gods by excessive love delight and trust then he suffers them to prove Satans to us and to be our accusers and tormentors It is more safe to me to have any creature a Satan then a God to be tormented by them then to Idolize them Joh. 14 27. 13 34.35 15.12 17. Mat. 22.37 39 1 Joh. 3.11 14 17 18 23 4.7 11 12 20 21 c. Act. 15 38 39 2 Chron. 16.10 15.17 Psa. 41.8 9. Read Psa. 55.12 13 14. §. 1. §. 2. Siquiâ— dicat quia infi mihi sunt 〈…〉 Resp. Cum Augustino 〈…〉 â—sse Christum pâ—opter 〈◊〉 cum â—â—fiâ—mus â—â—ligendu sit praeter Christum Danda potius est opera ut proficiant fiâ—miores evadant in domino muniendi sunt ne seducantur monendi nequis pretextu infirmitatis superbo carnis indulgeat Denique Ecclesiae interest ut infirmi bene sentiant de suis doctoribus pastoribus Boger in Epist. ante Annot. in Grotii Pier. * Beatus qui venas susurrii divini percipis in silentio quam bonum utique est homini dominum expectare Uaum cave ne abundari incipias in sersu tuo velis plus sapere quam oporteâ— sapere ne forte dum lucem Sectaris impingas in tenebras illudâ—nte tibi demonio meriâ—â—ano Bernard Serm. 90. Gen. 31.1 Psalm 41 7. 1 Sam 22.9 Dan. 6 3. Rom 1.29 30. John 7.51 Prov. 25.23 §. 3. §. 4. §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. Heb. 12.14 Joh. 3 3. Luk. 19 27. §. 8. 1 Sam. 23. 1 Kings 22.8 §. 9. §. 10. ut drachmam auri fine imagine principis sic verba hortantis sine authoritate Dei contemnunt homines c. Lypsius §. 11. Luk. 18.1 Heb. 3.13 2 Tim. 4.3 ut ignis â— silice non uno ictu c. §. 12. §. 13. Nec sic inflectâ—re sensus Humanos edicta valent quam vita râ—gentis Primus jussa subi tunc observantior aequi fit Populus Loripedem rectus derideat Aeâ—biopem al bus Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes Si fur displiceat Verri homicida Miloni c. Siquis opprobriis dignum latraverit integer ipse c. §. 14. Rom. 10.14 2 Cor. 4.3 Prov. 29.18 By sleight or by force they so muzzle the poor laboring Ox that they make an Asâ— of him Tho. Scot in his Projector pag. 31. Sacril gio poena est neque ei soli quâ—â—e sacro abstulerit sed etiam ci qui sacro commendatum Cicero li. 1. de Legib. Cum diis pugnant sacrilegi Qu. Curtius lib. 7. * Hath not England already been as the Eagles nest that was set on fire with a coal that sticked to the flesh which was stoln from the Altar De Ecclesia qui aliquid suratur Judae proditori comparatur Aug. in Johan The Arguments used of late to excuse this hainous sin are much of the nature of those which Dionisius senior was wont to use in the like case ut vid. in Valerii Maximi lib. 1. ca. 2. Et Justin. l. 21. * To make up that number of Ministers that the church should have now the maintenance is taken away I would rich men would study enter into the Ministry who can maintain themselves so do the work freely Let them know to their faces that it is a work that the greatest Lord in the land is not too good for See what Hieron saith ad Damasum Clericos illo convenit ecclesiae stipendiis sustentari quibus parentum amicorum nulla suffra gantur stipendia Quiautem bonis parentum opibus sustentari possâ—â—t si quod pauperum est accipiunt sacriligium profecto incurrant committunt And besides it would bear up the credit of the office and take oft much prejudice from the people §. 15. * And almost as few that are well skilled in managing known truths upon the Conscience ☞ For Gods sake and the sake of poor Souls Gentlemen put this in practise presently See Capels Epistle Dedis before Mr Pemble on the Sacrament §. 16. §. 17. * To them that think I speak too harshly I