other without imposing upon us any thing that is unbecoming or truly prejudicial The rules that God has given are certainly the fittest for us they enjoin nothing unnatural for they are adapted by Infinite Wisdom They are we may assure our selves as indulgent to us as they can be and be good they prohibit nothing but what is hurtful they cannot be supposed to confine the use of Gods gifts within too narrow and needless limits because they are enjoined by infinite Goodness 'T is inconsistent with that goodness which has bestowed these things on Mankind for use and delight to hinder him by any rules from using and delighting in them so far as is good and convenient for him Upon which accounts it becomes every man to endeavour first to know the rules by which God expects he should guide himself in the use of his enjoyments and after that to observe them This Verse that I have read is part of a sentence which begins at the 29 th Verse of the Chapter which is an exhortation to men to regard with great indifferency the things of this present Life It remains sayes the Apostle that they which have Wives be as thô they had none and they that weep as thô they wept not and they that rejoyce as thô they rejoyced not and they that buy as thô they possessed not and they that use this World as not abusing it Let not your Passions be much moved by any thing here that you may not abuse it while you enjoy nor be uneasie with discontent or grief for the loss or want of it And he begins and closes the sentence with a fit argument to enforce the Exhortation The time is short and the fashion of this World passes away as if he should say 'T is but a little while that we shall live in this world and all things here are lyable to change there is no Condition but is of uncertain continuance whether it be prosperous or adverse Therefore let all men keep themselves as indifferent to these things as they can and endeavour to use wisely and innocently whatever Portion God bestows on them while they enjoy it These words afford to our Meditation this instruction It ought to be the Care of all persons to make a regular and good use of those outward enjoyments which the Providence of God affords them The following Discourse on this I shall divide into these two parts 1. To show you how a man may use this World so as not to abuse it 2. To illustrate the motives to this that are included in the Apostles argument that the fashion of this World passes away To know in the first place wherein the right use of these things does consist let us observe that summary of every mans Duty which the Apostle layes down under Three Heads in 2 Tit. 12. where he directs men to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World Thus ought we to guide our selves in the use of what we enjoy to take care that we do not contradict in this that reverence and pious homage which is due to God nor that Justice and Good-will towards other men which we may desire to find in their carriage towards us nor that good and wise Government which best becomes and is most advantageous for our selves These three Heads include all the rules that are to be observed in this matter I shall therefore under these range them 1. He that would rightly use his Portion in this Life must not suffer himself to be transported thereby to the neglect or contradiction of those Duties of Piety which he owes to God Which includes these following Rules 1. Take heed that you do not love your present Enjoyments more than God This is actual abuse of them as well as it disposes us to further abuse for they were never made nor bestow'd to draw our chiefest Affection to them God is our chiefest good and does deserve the highest Interest in our Affections He has made the mind of man capable to Contemplate and admire himself to Love him and apprehend his Love to us and be delighted therewith to place then the chief affection of so noble a being upon any thing below the Supream good is to abuse both that and our selves 't is to content our selves with that low thing as our Happiness which was never intended to be so and is in its nature unfit for it Again whatever thing has the greatest share of our Affections 't is thereby in the place of a God to us that will have most influence and power in the whole government of us the homage of mind and body will be paid to it An ardent Love let the object be what it will prejudices the Judgment inclines the Will leads all the rest of the affections and so all the thoughts the words and the actions or the most of them shall be most readily employed with some relation to that If any Creature then is thus lov'd it becomes the Idol of a mans heart and we revive the absurd Idolatry of the Aegyptians who made every good thing a Deity But did the true God ever intend that his Creatures should be thus exalted into a competition with himself for the adoration of Mankind or can we imagine that he made these things Servants to us with a purpose that we should serve them and live negligent of our Duty to him Since all our enjoyments are the free gifts of a bountiful and gracious God 't is reasonable they should kindle in us the Love of Him The better and more delightful these are for kind and the larger Portion he bestowes we are the more bound thereby to love him Do not imagine that you can fix your affections in a great degree on your present enjoyments and yet highly Love God too these two dispositions are like heat and cold which cannot consist in an intense degree in the same Subject This is that the Apostle means in 1 Joh. 2. 15. where he sayes If any man loves the World the love of the Father is not in him As the one of these encreases the other does proportionably decrease if you much love the things of this World you love them too much and God too little Now this errour and abuse is practised in the following instances 1. To have the thoughts and affections wholly employed about the things of this Life and limited within the narrow bounds of this sublunary World to take delight only in considering and enjoying the Creatures here below to have no flights of mind no aspirings towards God to have him seldom in our thoughts and but very transiently when he is when the mind does never fix for a few moments upon him to think of God without any affection without any desire or delight this is evidently to love the things of this World more than him If the Judgment did esteem him the chief good and were convinced of his excellencies and were acquainted how suitable he is
to the Capacities of happiness in man if the Will did thereupon choose and fix upon him as the center of its desires as its ultimate end and beyond whom it neither needs nor inclines to seek further for a full content this were really to Love him and suitably to him and our selves and then the Meditations on him would be sweet as they were to holy David as he sayes in Psal 104. and then they would often return and abide with you they would be the gratefullest thoughts obtain the easiest admittance and entertain you longer than any without weariness Then would your concern to have an Interest in God be stronger than the delight in what you enjoy at present you would more ardently desire this 'till you could obtain the assurance of it and that when obtained would afford the greatest delight and satisfaction the disposition of your Soul would be the same with that of the Psalmist when he said Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I can desire besides thee Psal 73. 25. 2. Again They are certainly lovers of Pleasure more than lovers of God who allow themselves in unlawful delights who follow those Pleasures which he forbids and will rather break his commands than not gratifie their extravagant desires 'T is the inseparable property of Love to God to endeavour the observance of his Commands John 14. 21. This would make a man deny himself and resist and mortifie his irregular inclinations Those wild and lawless men that pursue their pleasures without any regard to what is lawful or what is sinful are under no influence or power either from the love or fear of God He that had so true apprehensions of God as to love him would understand that his Law allows all the Liberty that 't is fit for us to take in the enjoyment of these things He would give himself leave deliberately to consider upon how many accounts 't is unreasonable to go further and thus he would be fortified against Lust and Temptation 3. Moreover That man whose Estate is dearer to him than his Religion who is not ready to forsake all his most pleasant enjoyments rather than abandon his Duty he loves this World more than God The question in this case put to him is whether he will chuse and content himself with Earth or Heaven Whether he will retain the possession of present goods or the unfailing hopes of better whether he will have God or the Creature for his portion And he in deserting his Religion refuses the happiness it would bring him to He le ts go the hopes of an eternal happiness to retain for a few moments an uncertain and temporal one he preferrs the Creature before the Creator and the shallow Streams before the infinite Fountain of Bliss 'T is the enjoyment of God which constitutes the Felicity of Heaven and 't is no less thing than this is slighted when you desert the way that leads to Heaven Our Saviour has told us that he who does not forsake all present contentments to follow him if there be necessity for it is not worthy of him Without this you have no interest in his Blood in his Merits or Intercession If we are ashamed or afraid of the Cross of Christ we shall never wear the Crown of Glory The Glories and Honours which he has provided for the Saints will be possess'd only by those that continue such to the end of their lives The most advantageous use we can make of our present possessions is to lose them for righteousness sake this is to transferr our treasures from Earth to Heaven to change them from uncertain and perishing to durable and eternal Riches 2. Another rule of Piety to be observed is That you put your confidence only in God and acknowledge your dependance to be upon him Those to whom the Divine Bounty has bestow'd a plentiful portion of outward goods are apt to terminate all their hopes and expectations upon that for the support and comfort of their Lives to forget that they derive from him all their enjoyments that his Blessing and concourse gives them all their sufficiency and goodness Our Saviour gives us an exact Character of this folly in Luke 12. beginning at the 16. v. where in a Parable he introduces a man whose Wealth encreases to abundance and he takes care to dispose of it to the best advantage for security and use but we find no expression to signifie that he owns it to come from God he is not sensible of a Providence in the case that this happens to him by the disposal of Heaven accordingly he contents himself in it applauds and rejoices in his felicity upon the account of his Wealth but is still unsensible of his dependance upon God and thus the mistaken Fool flatters himself in the 19 th v. Soul take thine ease eat drink and be merry for thou hast goods laid up for many years Much pleasure and content he promises himself from his enjoyments without seeking to God for it What sayes such an one shall I want my yearly revenue will allow me to provide my self whatever I desire and it is enough to last all my dayes in the maintenance of a pleasant life I will live free from care and trouble I will banish Business banish sorrow from my thoughts and please my self 'till I dye The rich mans Wealth says Solomon is his strong City and as an high wall in his own Conceit he promises himself from hence a lasting and impregnable happiness but God is not in his thoughts The sensual minds of men are wont to take notice only of sensible things and because the concourse and power of God is excercised unseen towards their support they are apt to take no notice of it What they do immediately and to the apprehension of sense derive support and satisfaction from to that they ascribe it these men enjoy the gifts of God without making acknowledgments that they are his gifts without owning that they depend upon him for their virtue and sufficiency they cover themselves every day with rich and convenient Cloaths but without lifting one thankful thought to the kind donour for them they make the Provision of their Tables as nourishing and pleasant and plentiful as they please and then sit down to it as a Swine comes to his trough with as little acknowledgment of their dependance upon God they express no thankfulness to him for having afforded so excellent Provision nor implore his Blessing to make it wholsome and nourishing Consider Man does not live by Bread alone but by the vertue which Gods Blessing gives it Every thing in nature depends upon a perpetual concourse both in its being and operation you can derive nothing from any Creature but what the first cause enables it to afford the best Food cannot nourish the most delicate cannot delight no cloaths will give you warmth nor can you find ease on the softest Bed the largest
is the direful end of a wicked Life and thus will the Wretch be used at last who abuses his Portion here 3. By the abuse of your present enjoyments you encrease the mutability of them at least with respect to your selves You make your changeable Condition here more liable to change if you do not use it well a man must use a vessel of Glass with more care than he need to do one of Iron The loss of your enjoyments during Life or by Death may be caused or hastened by the abuse of them That Estate which might afford a man comfort and pleasure through a long life a few years of extravagant expences will make an end of the deepest Bag has a bottom and you may observe by other men that the greatest Estate if it be not wisely and moderately used may in a little time be thrown away The Glutton and the Drunkard shall come to Poverty and Drowzieness shall cloath a man with Raggs sayes the wise man Prov. 23. 21. Again By means of a whorish Woman a man is brought to a morsel of bread Prov. 6. 26. He shall be served just as the Prodigal in the Parable first gull'd and drawn dry of all his Wealth and to that purpose may be highly flatter'd and carefully pleas'd and humour'd and when he is poor shall be despised as much and kickt out of Doors and then like him he may have the honour to serve Swine or be preferr'd to dine with them These sins when a man becomes addicted to them do naturally bewitch him with a strange carelesness of all his Affairs and tend to make him most lavishly prodigal He cannot keep his expence upon them within any other bounds than necessity forces As long as his own Estate will administer to him or others will lend these wild sins can find occasion for expence The excessive and intemperate use of sensual pleasures weakens and gluts the Appetite and he that so uses them can never have so high a Relish and sense of them as he may that is moderate Foolish men through their greedy desire of Pleasure destroy the thing they love The Rich Glutton cannot take so much delight in his highest delicacies as the hungry Labourer does in his course fare By Excess too men destroy themselves they turn food into Poyson and bring themselves to misery by their pleasures It blasts the health of their body and fills them with uneasie distempers and hereby their lives are made miserable and their death is hastened After a few tedious and groaning years they drop betimes into their Graves Sobriety and moderation are the most effectual means to cherish the health and life But a man must begin and practise them from his youth that they may have this effect 'T is late to begin it when you have corrupted the blood and evaporated the spirits and contracted distempers the Jewel health is much more easily kept than recover'd when 't is once lost Poverty Sickness and Death the great Enemies of your Pleasures are the natural Consequents of the intemperate use of them But besides these evils may be expected to follow this from the just judgment of God As he is highly offended at every abuse of his gifts he may testifie that displeasure by taking them away from you or you from them Consider careless Sinner that you continually provoke the righteous God to put an end to all your Mirth and Pleasure every irregularity you are guilty of deserves this and perhaps does hasten intended Vengeance The more you abuse the Patience of God the more unlikely do you make the continuance of it Now consider these things but a little and the folly of a lawless intemperate Life will most plainly appear is it not an unparalel'd folly to purchase a little wild Mirth at the dear rate of a miserable remainder of Life and a hasty Death Alas how little of the Pleasures of this Life do you enjoy who are so soon overtaken by Distempers what delight can a Man take in his dainties when his sick Stomach nauseates them what Pleasure is there in Musick when the Head akes or is affected with a Frenzy or a Lethargy what delight has the Sinner in his most pleasant Sins when he lies languishing in a Bed his feeble Limbs not able to support him and there he is rotting alive the remembrance of them is rather vexatious than pleasant wheâ— the pains he feels were contracted by them How little of the Pleasures of Life do they enjoy that soon dye are cut off in the midst of their dayes and carried out to be laid in the Dust Methinks if there were no other Argument for Temperance the Love of Pleasure should perswade to it Consider too how sad and uncomfortable that Death will be which you are conscious that your selves have hastened when you think how many years longer in a course of nature you might have lived and now are called hastily away from all that you have loved and delighted in Thus do careless Sinners pursue their own Misery and Vexation when they allow themselves a boundless gratification of their Lusts and seem to be only in the pursuit of Pleasure let it therefore be your resolution and care so to use this World as not abusing it Now I have finisht both the intended parts of this Discourse I have shown you how to behave your selves in the use of your present enjoyments towards God and towards your Neighbour and your selves and the motive which the Spirit of God thought worthy to perswade men thus to use these things I have illustrated what success this Discourse has upon the Reader I know not but doubtless the great God observes either it will reclaim or withhold thee from the Vices of a mad Age or make thee more guilty in following them after having received another Exhortation to the contrary Thou dost not in tend perhaps to run into the great extravagances mention'd but yet art unwilling to observe the strictness of Rule but consider that sin is very apt to encrease that the small degrees of transgression allow'd make way for greater and they make it just with God and provoke him to give thee up to such a high degree of sin as may severely punish its self Consider this general Rule which I have explain'd and urg'd is the Command of Almighty God thou canst not willingly break it without Offence to him 't is of no less consequence to observe or slight it than to enjoy his favour or incurr his displeasure Oh think how easily he can crush the bold offending Worm think what a danger he is in who stands exposed by his Crimes to the Divine Vengeance Dread the invincible thunder of his Wrath Think what Vengeance is due from God to him who makes his Advantages to do much good the means to do much evil who contradicts the end of God in the Gifts that he has bestowed on him and has been only the more wicked for the Bounty of God towards him who to gratifie his own wanton and unnecessary Appetites has often Offended what severe Punishments must such a Sinner deserve Consider that this general rule directs you to use your Portion with Credit and Comfort to make your Life as happy in what you have as that can make it to improve your Portion to the best advantage It directs to such a course as will render your passage out of Life easie and chearful attended with a quiet mind with the applauses of a good Conscience and all your good Actions will then afford you comfortable thoughts and reflections It directs you so to use your Portion as to make your Death as much lamented by others as welcome to your self so as to embalm your Name and make your Memory blest and praised to Posterity This rule directs you to such an use of your present enjoyments as will be matter of Consolation to you in the other World matter of eternal satisfaction and joy when the good deeds which you wrought here shall there be eternally rewarded I think then the Reader may easily conclude I have been pleading with him in his own behalf for himself and his own interest I have been urging nothing but what Self-love together with Wisdom would chuse Who would think it should be a Presumption in me to imagine that in such a case I shall prevail with many can it be a difficult thing to perswade Men to that which is their own Interest but alas it does too often prove so Blinded by Lust and Temptation men will not see their true Interest in the clearest discovery that can be made of it God alone can effectually open the eyes of men to understand that and incline their Wills to chuse and pursue it to him therefore I commit the Reader with this Prayer O Thou that art the Father of Lights and who workest in us both to will and to do according to thy good Pleasure grant I beseech thee that the mighty power of thy Spirit may attend these Instructions and effectually perswade every person that reads them to receive and practise them do thou teach them to deny all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Godly Righteously and Soberly in this present World Let these Rules be planted in many Hearts and from thence be abundantly fruitful in good works to their Happiness and thy Glory the great ends of my ambitious but weak endeavours Grant this Oh Lord for the sake of Jesus Christ our Saviour to whom with the Father and the Spirit be ascribed Kingdom Power and Glory for ever Amen FINIS Deut. 8. 3. Prov. 15. 1. Juv. Satyr 14. Davenane Gondib. Canto 6. Eph. 4. 28. 1 Tim. 5. 6. 1 Cor. 13. 6. Jer. 52. 16. Seneca Thyest Act. 2. Chor. Du Moulin of Contentment Eccles 1. 4 Psal 49. 17. Eccl. 12. 5. Prov. 1. 24. to the end