less then they either something better or worse then they If less or worse how could it make them Greater or Better then it self Can any thing give that which it hath not If it must needs be Greater and Better then the Creatures then as it must be Wiser than they and more Holy Gracious and Just then they so must it be more comprehensive then all they Whoever made this earth is certainly greater then the earth or else he should give it more than he had to give And if he be Greater he must be present If thou shouldst be so vain as to account any other higher thing the Maker of this world that is not God thou must ascribe also a sufficiency to that maker to exercise a particular providence and moreover be put to consider who did make that Maker Nothing therefore is more certain even to Reason it self then the Maker of the world must be Greater then the world and therefore present with all the world and therefore must observe and regard all the world When thou canst find out a thought or word or deed that was not done in the presence of God or any creature that is not in his presence then believe and spare not that he seeth it not or regardeth it not yea and that it hath no being O blind Atheists you see the Sun before your eyes which enlightneth all the upper part of the earth at once even millions of millions see all by its light and yet do you doubt whether God beholds and regards and provides for all at once Tell me if God had never a Creature to look to in all the world but thee wouldst thou believe that he would regard thy heart and words and wayes or not If he would why not now as well as then Is he not as sufficient for thee and as really present with thee as if he had no other creature else If all men in the world were dead save one would the Sun any more illuminate that one then now it doth Maist thou not see as well by the light of it now as if it had never another to enlighten And dost thou see a Creature do so much and wilt thou not believe as much of the Creator If thou think us worms too low for God so exactly to observe thou maist as well think that we are too low for him to Create or preserve and then who made us and preserveth us Doth not the sun enlighten the smallest bird and crawling vermine as well as the greatest prince on earth Doth it withhold its light from any Creature that can see and say I will not shine on things so base And wilt thou more restrain the Infinite God that is the Maker Light and Life of all It is he that filleth all in all Eph. 1. 23. The Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him 1 King 8. 27. and is he absent from thee He doth beset thee before and behind and layeth his hand upon thee Whither wilt thou go from his spirit or whither wilt thou fly from his presence If thou ascend up into Heaven he is there If thou make thy bed in Hell thou wilt feel him there If thou take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea even there shalt thou find him to be to thee as thou art Psal. 139. 5 7 8 9 10. Thou maist think with sinful Adam and Eve Gen. 3. 8. to hide thy self from the presence of the Lord But thou wilt quickly find that he observeth thee and be sure thy sin will find thee out Numb 32. 23. Thou maist with Cain be turned out of the Gracious presence of God Gen. 4. 16. and cast out of his Church and Mercy and with the damned thou maist be turned out of the presence of his blessedness and glory but thou shalt never be out of his essential presence nor so escape the presence of his Justice Job 1. 12. 2. 7. It is the presence of his Grace where the upright are promised here to dwell Psal. 140. 13. and out of which they fear lest they be cast Psal. 51. 11. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit from me And it is the presence where is fulness of Joy which they aspire after Psal. 16. 11. But there is also a presence that the earth shall tremble at Psal. 114. 7. and that the wicked shall perish at Psal. 68. 2. so that a particular Providence must be remembred by them that believe and remember the Immensity of God CHAP. V. 4. THe Eternity of God is the next Attribute to be Known which also must have its work upon the soul. And 1. This also sheweth us that God is Incomprehensible For man cannot comprehend Eternity When we go about to think of that which hath no Beginning nor End it is to our mind as a place a thousand miles off is to our eye even beyond our reach we cannot say there is no such place yea we know there is but we cannot see it so we know there is an Eternal Being but our Knowledge of his Eternity is not intuitive or comprehensive Eternity therefore is the object of our faith and reverence and admiration but forbids our busie bold enquiries O the arrogancy of those ignorantly learned and foolishly-wise disputing men that have so long perplexed if not torn in pieces the Church about the priority and posteriority of the knowledge and decrees of God when they confess them all to be Eternal As if they knew not that terms of priority presentiality and posteriority have not that significancy in or about Eternity as they have with us 2. The Eternity of God must draw the soul from Transitory to Eternal things It is an Everlasting blessedness even the Eternal God that our souls are made for the Bruits are made for a mortal happiness The Immortal soul cannot be fully content with any thing that will have an end As a capacity of this endless blessedness doth difference man from the beasts that perish so the Disposition to it doth difference Saints from the ungodly and the Fruition of it doth difference the Glorified from the damned Alas what a silly thing were man if he were capable of nothing but these transitory things What were our Lives worth and what were our time worth and what were all our mercies worth or what were all the world worth to us or what were we worth our selves I would not undervalue the works of God but truly if man had no other life to live but this I should esteem him a very contemptible creature If you say that there 's some excellency in the Bruits I answer True but their usefulness is their chiefest excellency And what is their use but to be a glass in which we may see the Lord and to be serviceable to man in his passage to Eternity They are not capable of Knowing or Loving or enjoying God themselves but they are useful to man that
and makes them as no mercies at all Creation and our Being is a mercy but it is in order to our Eternal end Redemption by Christ is an unspeakable mercy but its denyed by the Infidel and rejected by the Ungodly what is Christ worth and all his mediation if there be no life for man but this Peace and Liberty health and life friends and neighbours food and rayment are all mercyes to us as a ship and sails are to the Mariner or a fair way or Horse or Inn to a Traveller But if by denying our Eternal end you make our voyage or our journey vain these mercies then are little worth no more then a ship on the land or a plow in the sea or a horse to him that hath no use for him And O what an ungrateful wretch is that who will deny all the mercies of God to himself and to all others For once deny the use and the Eternal end and you deny the mercy 3. He that believeth not or seeks not after an Eternal end destroyeth all the Doctrine Law and Government of God For all is but to lead us to this end All the holy Scriptures the precepts of Christ and his holy example the Covenant of Grace the gifts and miracles of the Holy Ghost the light and law of Nature it self are all to bring us to our Eternal end And therefore he that denyeth that end doth cancel them all and cast them by as useless things 4. And he denyeth all the Graces of the Spirit For what use is there for Faith if the object of it be a falshood what use for Hope if there be no life to be Hoped for what use for holy desires and love if God be not to be enjoyed Grace is but the delusion and deformity of the soul if the Infidel and ungodly be in the right 5. They destroy also All the means of our Salvation if they deny Salvation which is the End To what purpose should men study or read or hear or pray or use either Sacraments or any other means for an End that is not to be had To what end should men obey or suffer for any such end that 's not attainable 6. Yea they do let loose the soul to sin and take off all essectual restraint If there be no Eternal end and no Reward or Punishment but here what can effectually hinder the men of this opinion from stealing whoredome or any villany when it may be done with secrecy what should hinder the revengeful man from poisoning or secret murdering his enemy or setting his house on fire in the night If I know a man or woman that believes no life to come I take it for granted they are revengeful thieves deceivers fornicators or any thing that is bad if they have but temptation and secret opportunity For what hath he to seek but the pleasing of his flesh that thinks he hath no God to seek or please or no future reward or punishment to expect He that confesseth himself an Infidel to me doth confess himself to be in all things else as bad as ever he can or dare Honesty is renounced by that man or woman that profess themselves to be Atheists or Infidels Methinks in congruency with their profession they should take it for a wrong to be called or reputed honest If you tell me that Heathens had a kind of Honesty I must tell you again that most Heathens believed the Immortality of the soul and that kind of seeming Honesty which they had was only in those of them that thus expected a life to come But those that believe not another life where man is to have his punishment and reward have nothing like to Honesty in them but live like greedy ravenous beasts where they are from under the Laws and Government of them that look for another life The Cannibals that eat mens flesh and some such savages as they are the Nations that expect no life but this It is believed so commonly by all the civil Infidels and Turks as shews it to be a principle that nature doth reveal 7. Yea the whole Creation that is within the sight of man is destroyed opinionatively by the Infidels that look for no Immortal life For all things were made to further our Salvation the Heavens to declare the Glory of God and the sirmament to shew his handy work and all Creatures to be our Glass in which we must behold the Lord and our Book in which we must read and learn his nature and his will The sun is to light us and maintain our Life and the Life of other lower Creatures while we prepare for Immortality The earth is to bear us and to bear fruit for us and the Trees and Plants and every Creature to accommodate and serve us while we serve the Lord and pass on to Eternity And therefore the Atheist that denyeth us our Eternity denyeth the usefulness of all the world what were all the Creatures here good for if there were no men the earth would be a wilderness and the beasts would for the most part perish for want of sustenance and all would be like a forsaken Cottage that no man dwelleth in and doth no good And if man be not the Heir of Immortality they can do him no good All Creatures are but our provision in the way to this Eternity And therefore if there were no Eternity what should we do with them what should we do with wayes and pavements or with Inns for Travellers or with horses or other provision for our journey if there were no travelling that way And who will travel to a place that is not or a City that is nowhere but in his brains besides a mad man It s evident therefore that as all the tools in a workmans shop are made useless to him if he be forbidden to use his trade and all the books in my Library are useless if I may not read them to get knowledge so all Creatures under Heaven are made useless and destroyed doctrinally by the Atheist that thinks there is no Eternal life for which they should be used I must seriously profess if I believed this being in other things of the mind I am I knew not what to do with any thing What should I do with my Books but to learn the way to this Eternity what should I do with my money if there be no treasure to be laid up in Heaven nor friends to be made with the Mammon abused commonly to unrighteousness what should I do with my Tongue my Hands my Time my Life my Self or any thing if there were no Eternity I think I should dig my grave and lay me down in it and die and perish to scape the sorrows of a longer life that must be my companions Remember then Christians and still remember it that Eternity is the matter of your Faeith and Hope Eternity is your portion and felicity Eternity is the End of all your desires and labours and
Tertullian in the Churches Creed speaks misit vicariam vim spiritus sancti qui credentes agat O that men knew how much of their well-fare dependeth on a faithful obeying of the Holy Ghost CHAP. XIII 12. THe next part of our Knowledge of God is to know him in those great consequent Relations to which he is entitled by Creation and Redemption viz. as he is Our Absolute Lord or Owner our most Righteous Governour and ou most Bountiful or Gracious Father or Benefactor 1. God both as our Creator and Redeemer hath Jus Dominii an Absolute Dominion of the world that is He is our Owner or Proprietary and we are his Own For we take not the term Lordship or Dominion here in the looser sense as it signifieth a Ruler but in the stricter sense as it signifieth an Owner Of this Relation I have already spoken in a Sermon of Christs Dominion and therefore shall say the less in this place The Knowledge of Gods Dominion or Propriety must comprehend 1. The certain truth of this his right 2. The fulness of it 3. The effects that it must have on us I. And the Truth of it is beyond dispute even among Infidels that know there is a God He that made us of his own materials or of nothing must needs be the Owner of us And so must he that Bought us from destruction Ezek. 18. 4. Behold all souls are Mine Rom. 14. 9. To this end Christ both dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Joh. 16. 14 15. All things that the Father hath are Mine The Father then hath this Propriety by Creation and the son by Redemption and the Father also by communication with the Son in Redemption and the Son by communication with the Father in Creation II. And it must be the most Absolute Plenary Dominion because the very Being of all the Creatures is from God and therefore no one can be co-ordinate with him or his corrival nor any thing limit his Interest in us III. And the effects that this must have upon us are these following 1. Hence we must conclude and reverently and willingly consess that further then he voluntarily doth oblige himself to us it is impossible that God should be our Debtor and consequently that upon terms of commutative Justice we should Merit any thing of God For what can we render to him but his Own And how should he properly and Antecedently be indebted to and for his Own 2. And we must conclude that antecedently to his Laws and promise it is impossible that God can do us any wrong or any thing that he can do can be guilty of injustice For Justice giveth to all their Own and therefore it giveth Nothing to us from God but what he voluntarily giveth us himself which therefore is first a gift of Bounty and but secondarily a Due in Justice 3. And therefore we must hence learn that God may do with his own as he list And therefore we must take heed that we repine not at any of his Decrees or Providences or any passages concerning them in his word Much may be above us because our blindness cannot reach the reasons of his wayes but nothing is unreasonable or evil For all proceedeth from Infinite Wisdom and Goodness as well as from Omnipotency As no man must feign any thing of God and say This is his Decree or Word or Providence and therefore it is good when there is no such thing revealed to us so when we find that it is indeed Revealed our Reason must presently submit and undoubtedly conclude it reasonable and good Yet is there no cause from hence to fear lest God should condemn the innocent or break his promises and deny us the reward nor is there any hope to wicked men that he should violate his peremptory threatnings or as they call it in their selfish language be better then his word Because though God have an Absolute Propriety and therefore in regard of his interest or Power may do what he Will yet he is essentially also most Wise and Good and accordingly hath fitted all things to their use and taken upon him the Relation of our Governour and as it were obliged himself by his Laws and Covenants and declared himself to be most Just and shewed us hereby that he Will do nothing contrary to these As there is no contradiction but most perfect Unity in Gods Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness his Dominion or Propriety his Kingdom and Paternity so shall there be no contradiction but a perfect Concord of all these in the exercise He therefore that as our King or Governour hath undertaken to advance the Godly and destroy the wicked will not by the exercise of his Absolute Dominion deny himself nor be unfaithful to his people or to his rules of Government If you ask me in what cases then this Dominion is exercised I answer 1. In laying the Foundations of laws and Right 2. In the Disposal of the unreasonable Creatures 3. In abundance of things about his Rational Creatures wherein as Rector he is not engaged nor hath in his Laws declared his will As about the various constitutions and complexions of men their ranks and dignities in the world their riches or poverty their health or sickness their gifts and parts both natural and acquired the first giving of the Gospel and of special Grace to such as had forfeited them and had no promise of them the degrees of outward means and mercies the degrees of inward grace more then what is promised c. From hence also we must learn not to repine at the providences of God about his Church which are strange to us and past our reach and seem to make against it wellfare Remember that as he may do with his own as he list so we have no reason to think that he will be lavish or disregardful of his own The Church is not ours but Gods and therefore he is fitter then we to be trusted with it And so in our own distresses by affliction when flesh repineth let us remember that we are his Own and he may do with us as he please If we be poor despised sick and miserable in the world let us remember that as it is no injury to the beasts that they are not men or to the worms that they are not beasts or to the plants that they have not sense or to the stars that they are not suns so it is no wrong to the subjects that they are not Princes or to the poor that they are not rich or to the sick that they are not healthful May not God do with his own as he list shall a Beggar grudge that you give not all that he desireth when you are not bound to give him any thing 4. Yea hence we must learn to be the more Thankful for all our mercies because they proceed from the Absolute Lord that was not obliged to us He might have made
prevent the sinner with his Judgement but with his Grace he often doth He never punisheth before we are sinners nor never Decreed so to do as all will grant He punisheth none where his foregoing commands and warnings have had their due effect for the prevention And therefore because the Precept is the first part of his Law and the Threatning is but subservient to that and the first intent of a Governour is to procure Obedience and Punishing is but upon supposition that he misseth of the first therefore is God said not to afflict willingly because he doth it not ex voluntate antecedente but ex voluntate consequente that is for so the distinction is sound not as a Law-giver and Ruler by those Laws considered before the violation but only as a Judge of the Law-breakers But yet Gods Mercy is no security to the abusers of his Mercy Bot rather will sink them into deeper misery as the aggravation of their sin As God Afflicts not willingly and yet we feel that he afflicteth so if he do not condemn you willingly you shall finde iâ— you are impenitent that yet he will condemn you If you say God can be forced to do nothing against his will I answer you that it is not simply against his will for then it should never come to pass But it is against the Principal act of his will which floweth from him as a Law-giver or Ruler by Laws in which respect it may be said that he had rather that the wicked turn and live but yet if they will not turn they shall not live A merciful Judge had rather the Thief had saved his life by forbearing to steal but yet he had not rather that Thieves go unpunished than he should condemn them But you 'l say If God had rather men did not sin why doth he not hinder it I answer 1. He had not absolutely and simply rather that is so far as to do all that he can to prevent it nor all that without which he foreknoweth it will not be prevented But he doth much against sin as a Law-giver and nothing for it he causeth us not but perswades us from it and therefore as a Ruler he may be said to have rather that men did not sin or rather that they would turn and live 1. The Mercy of God therefore should lead sinners to Repentance and shame them from their sin and lead them up to God in Love 2. Mercy should encourage sinners to Repent as well as engage them to it For we have to do with a Merciful God that hath not shut up any among us in despair nor forbid them to come in but continueth to invite when we have oft refused and will undoubtedly pardon and welcome all that do return 3. Mercy being specially the portion of the Saints must keep them in Thankfulness Love and Comfort and all Mercies must be improved for their proper ends When a Merciful God is pleased to fill up his servants lives with such Great and Various Mercies as he doth it should breed a continual sweetness upon their hearts and cause them to study the most grateful retribution He should breath forth nothing but Thankfulness Obedience and Praise who breaths nothing but Mercies from God As the food that men live upon will be seen in their temperature 〈…〉 and strength so they that live continually upon Mâ—rcâ—â—s â—â—ould be wholly turned into Love and Thankfulness 〈…〉 ould become as it were their nature temperature 〈…〉 O how unspeakable is the Love of God that 〈…〉 eet a life for his servants even in their warfare 〈…〉 ge in this world that Mercy must be as it were 〈…〉 Air that they breath in the food which they must live upon and the remembrance improvement and thankful mention of it must be the business and imployment of their lives O with what sweet affections meditations and expressions should we live if we lived but according to the rate of those Mercies upon which we live Love and Joy and Thanks and Praise would be our very lives What sweet thoughts would Mercy breed and feed in our minds when we are alone what sweet apprehensions of the Love of God and Life Eternal should we have in Prayer Reading Saoraments and other holy ordinances Sickness and Health Poverty and Wealth Death as well as Life would be comfortable to us for all is full of Mercy to the Vessels of Mercy O Christians what a shame is it that God is so much wronged and our selves so much defrauded of our peace and joy by passing over such abundance of great unvaluable mercies without tasting their sweetness or well considering what we do receive Had we Davids heart what songs of Praise would Mercy teach us to indite How affectionately should we recount the mercies of our youth and riper age of every place and state that we have lived in to the honour of our Gracious Lord and the encouragement of those that know not how Good and Merciful he is But withall see that you contemn not or abuse not Mercy Use it well for it is Mercy that you must trust to in the hour of your distresses O do not trample upon Mercy now lest you be confounded when you should cry for Mercy in your extremity 4. The Mercifulness of God must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy Be merciful for your heavenly Father is merciful Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures Be merciful in your retributions You are none of Gods Children if you Love not your Enemies and pray not for them that curse you and do not good to them that hate and persecute you according to your power Matth. 5. 44 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses but take your Brother by the throat neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses Matth. 6. 14 15. Mark that even while he is called your heavenly Father yet he will not forgive if you forgive not Unmerciful men are too unlike to God to claim any interest in his saving mercy in the hour of their extremest misery Men of cruelty blood and violence he abhorreth And usually they do not live out half their daies But they that bite and devour one another are devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy to the members of Christ Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgement James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted in the world James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods seeth his Brother in need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him But above all cruelty there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls And
and therefore it is here that we have the loudest call and best assistance to make a large return of Love And where there is the most of this Love between God and man there is most Communion and most of Heaven that can be had on Earth But it much concerneth the members of Christ that they deprive not themselves of this Communion with God in this Holy Sacrament through their miscarriage which is too frequently done by one of these extreams Either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ and discerned not his body or else by an excess of fear drawing back and questioning the good will of God and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy By this means Satan depriveth many of the comfortable part of their communion with God both in this Sacrament and in other waies of grace and maketh them avoid him as an enemy and be loth to come into his special presence and even to be afraid to think of him to pray to him or to have any holy converse with him When the just belief and observation of his Love would stablish them and revive their souls with joy and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the Gospel and which believers finde in the Love of God and the foretast of the everlasting pleasures 4. In holy faithful servent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God For Prayer is our approach to God and calling to mind his presence and his attributes and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him attend him reverently to worship him It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world a beâ—ging of the greatest mercies and a deprecating his most grievous judgments and all this with the nearest familiarity that man in flesh can have with God In prayer the Spirit of God is working up our hearts unto him with desires exprest in sighs and groans It is a work of God as well as of man He bloweth the fire though it be our hearts that burn and boil In Prayer we lay hold on Jesus Christ and plead his merits and intercession with the Father He taketh us as it wereby the hand and leadeth us unto God and hideth our sins and procureth our acceptance and presenteth us amiable to his Father having justified and sanctified us and cleansed us from those pollutions which rendered us loathsome and abominable To speak to God in serious prayer is a work so high and of so great moment that it calleth off our minds from all things else and giveth no creature room or leave to look into the soul or once to be observed The mind is so taken up with God and employed with him that creatures are forgotten and we take no notice of them unless when through the diversions of the flesh our prayers are interrupted and corrupted and so far degenerate and are no prayer so far I say as we thus turn away from God So that the soul that is most and best at Prayer is most and best at walking with God and hath most communion with him in the Spirit And to withdraw from Prayer is to withdraw from God And to be unwilling to pray is to be unwilling to draw near to God Meditation or Contemplation is a duty in which God is much enjoyed But Prayer hath Meditation in it and much more All that is upon the mind in Meditation is upon the mind in Prayer and that with great advantage as being presented before God and pleaded with him and so animated by the apprehensions of his observing presence and actuated by the desires and pleadings of the soul. When we are commanded to Pray it includeth a command to Repent and Believe and Fear the Lord and Desire his Grace For Faith and Repentance and Fear and Desire are altogether in action in a serious prayer And as it were naturally each one takes his place and there is a holy order in the acting of these graces in a Christians prayers and a harmony which he doth seldome himself observe He that in Meditation knoweth not how to be regular and methodical when he is studiously contriving and endeavouring it yet in Prayer before he is aware hath Repentance and Faith and Fear and Desire and every grace fall in its proper place and order and contribute its part to the performance of the work The new nature of a Christian is more immediately and vigorously operative in Prayer than in many other duties And therefore every Infant in the family of God can pray with groaning desires and ordered graces if not with well-ordered words When Paul began to live to Christ he began aright to pray Behold he prayeth saith God to Ananias Act. 9. 11. And because they are Sons God sends the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his Elect even the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. as children naturally cry to their Parents for relief And Nature is more regular in its works than Art or humane contrivance is Necessity teacheth many a beggar to pray better for relief to men than many learned men that feel not their necessities can pray to God The Spirit of God is a better Methodist than we are And though I know that we are bound to use our utmost care and skill for the orderly actuating of each holy affection in our Prayers and not pretend the sufficiency of the Spirit for the patronage of our negligence or sloth for the Spirit makes use of our understandings for the actuating of our wills and affections yet withall it cannot be denied but that it was upon a special reason that the Spirit that is promised to Believers is called a Spirit of Grace and Supplication Zech. 12. 10. And that it is given us to help our infirmities even the infirmities of our understanding when we know not what to pray for as we ought Rom. 8. 26. And that the Spirit it self is said to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered It is not the Spirit without that is here meant such intercession is nowhere ascribed to that How then is the Prayer of the Spirit within us distinguished from our Prayer Not as different effects of different causes as different prayers by these different parties But as the same prayer proceeding from different causes having a special force for quality and degree as from one cause the Spirit which it hath not from the other cause from our selves except as received from the Spirit The Spirit is as a New Nature or fixed inclination in the Saints For their very self-love and will to good is sanctified in them which works so readily though voluntarily as that it is in a sort by the way of Nature though not excluding Reason and
spent your time in youth and in your riper age and how many sinful thoughts and words and deeds you have been guilty of how oft you have sinfully pleased your appetites and gratified your flesh and yeilded to temptations and abused mercy and lost your time how oft you have neglected your duty and betrayed your souls how long you have lived in forgetfulness of God and your salvation minding only the things of the flesh and of the world how oft you have sinned ignorantly and against knowledge through carelesness and through rashness through negligence and through presumption in passion and upon deliberation against convictions purposes and promises how oft you have sinned against the precepts of piety to God and of justice and charity to men Think how your sins are multiplied and aggravated more in number then the hours of your lives Aggravated by a world of mercies by the clearest teachings and the lowdest calls and sharpest reproofs and seasonable warnings and by the long and urgent importunities of grace Think of all these and then consider whether you have nothing now to do with God whether it be not a business to be followed with all possible speed and diligence to procure the pardon of all these sins you have no such businesses as these to transact with men you may have business with them which your estates depend upon or which touch your credit commodity or lives but you have no business with men unless in subordination to God which your salvation doth depend upon your eternal happiness is not in their hands They may kill your bodies if God permit them but not your souls You need not sollicite them to pardon your sins against God It is a small matter how you are judged of by man you have one that judgeth you even the Lord 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. No man can forgive sin but God only O then how early how earnestly should you cry to him for mercy Pardon must be obtained now or never There is no Justification for that man at the day of Judgement that is not forgiven and iustified now Blessed then is the man whose iniquity is forgiven whose sin is covered and to whom it is not imputed by the Lord Rom. 4. 7 8. And wo to that man that ever he was born that is then found without the pardon of his sins Think of this as the case deserves and then think if you can that your daily business with God is small 5. Moreover you have Peace of Conscience to obtain and that dependeth upon your Peace with God Conscience will be your accuser condemner and tormenter if you make it not your friend by making God your friend Consider what Conscience hath to say against you and how certainly it will speak home when you would be loth to hear it and bethink you how to answer all its accusations and what will be necessary to make it a messenger of Peace and then think your business with God to be but small if you are able It is no easie matter to get assurance that God is reconciled to you and that he hath forgiven all your sins 6. In order to all this you must be united to Jesus Christ and be made his members that you may have part in him and that he may wash you by his blood and that he may answer for you to his Father woe to you if he be not your righteousness and if you have not him to plead your cause and take upon him your final justification None else can save you from the wrath of God And he is the Saviour only of his body Eph. 5. 23. He hath dyed for you without your own consent and he hath made an universal conditional grant of pardon and salvation before you consented to it But he will not be united to you nor actually forgive and justifie and save you without your own consent And therefore that the Father may draw you to the Son and may give you Christ and Life in him 1 Joh. 5. 9 10 11. when all your hope dependeth on it you may see that you have more to do with God then your senseless hearts have hitherto understood 7. And that you may have a saving interest in Jesus Christ you must have sound Repentance for all your former life of wickedness and a lively effectual faith in Christ Neither sin nor Christ must be made light of Repentance must tell you to the very heart that you have done foolishly in sining and that it is an evil and a bitter thing that you forsook the Lord and that his fear was not in you and thus your wickedness shall correct you and reprove you Jer. 2. 19. And Faith must tell you that Christ is more necessary to you then food or life and that there is no other name given under heaven by which you can be saved Act. 4. 12. And it is not so easie nor so common a thing to Repent and Believe as ignorant presumptuous sinners do imagine It is a greater matter to have a truly humbled contrite heart and to loath your selves for all your sins and to loath those sins and resolvedly give up your selves to Christ and to his Spirit for a holy life then heartlesly and hypocritically to say I am sorry or I Repent without any true Contrition or Renovation And it is a greater matter to betake your selves to Jesus Christ as your only hope to save you both from sin and from damnation then barely through custom and the benefit of education to say I do believe in Christ. I tell you it is so great a work to bring you to sound Repentance and Faith that it must be done by the power of God himself Act. 5. 31. 2 Tim. 2. 25. They are the Gift of God Eph. 2. 8. you must have his spirit to illuminate you Eph. 1. 18. and shew you the odiousness of fin the intolerableness of the wrath of God the necessity and sufficiency the power and willingness of Christ and to overcome all your prejudice and save you from your false opinions and deceits and to repulse the temptations of Satan the world and the flesh which will all rise up against you All this must be done to bring you home to Jesus Christ or else you will have no part in him his righteousness and grace And can you think that you have not most important business with God who must do all this upon you or else you are undone for ever 8. Moreover you must have all the corruptions of your natures healed and your sins subdued and your hearts made new by sanctifying grace and the Image of God implanted in you and your lives made holy and sincerely conformable to the will of God All this must be done or you cannot be acceptable to God nor ever will be saved Though your carnal interest rise against it though your old corrupted natures be against it though your custome and pleasure and worldly gain and honour be against it
though all your carnal friends and superiors be against it though the devil will do all that he can against it yet all this must be done or you are lost for ever And all this must be done by the Spirit of God for it is his work to make you New and Holy And can you think then that the business is not great which you have with God when you have tryed how hard every part of this work is to be begun and carryed on you will finde you have more to do with God than with all the world 9. Moreover in order to this it is necessary that you read and hear and understand the Gospel which must be the means of bringing you to God by Christ This must be the instrument of God by which he will bring you to Repent and Believe and by which he will renew your Natures and imprint his Image on you and bring you to Love him and obey his will The Word of God must be your Counsellor and your delight and you must set your heart to it and meditate in it day and night Knowledge must be the means to reclaim your perverse misguided Wills and to reform your careless crooked Lives and to bring you out of the Kingdom of darkness into the State of Light and Life And such Knowledge cannot be expected without a diligent attending unto Christ the Teacher of your souls and a due consideration of the truth By that time you have learnt what is needful to be learnt for a true Conversion a sound Repentance a saving Faith and a holy Life you will finde that you have far greater business with God than with all the world 10. Moreover for the attaining of all this Mercy you have many a prayer to put up to God You must daily pray for the forgiveness of your sins and deliverance from temptations and even for your daily bread or necessary provisions for the work which you have to do You must daily pray for all the supplies of Grace which you want and for the gradual mortification of the flesh and for help in all the duties which you must perform and for strength against all the spiritual enemies which will assault you and preservation from the manifest evils which attend you And these prayers must be put up with unwearied constancy fervency and Faith Keep up this course of fervent prayer and beg for Christ and Grace and Pardon and Salvation in any measure as they deserve and according to thy own necessity and then tell mee whether thy business with God be small and to be put off as lightly as it is by the ungodly 11. Moreover you are made for the Glory of your Creator and must apply your selves wholly to glorifie him in the world You must make his service the trade and business of your lives and not put him off with something on the by You are good for nothing else but to serve him as a knife is made to cut and as your cloaths are made to cover you and your meat to seed you and your horse to labour for you so you are made and redeemed and maintained for this to Love and Please your great Creator And can you think that it is but little business that you have with him when he is the End and Master of your lives and all you are or have is for him 12. And for the due performance of his service you have all his Talents to employ To this end it is that he hath entrusted you with reason and health and strength with time and parts and interest and wealth and all his mercies and all his ordinances and means of Grace and to this end must you use them or you lose them And you must give him an account of all at last whether you have improved them all to your Masters use And can you look within you without you about you and see how much you are trusted with and must be accountable to him for and yet not see how great your business is with God 13. Moreover you have all the graces which you shall receive to exercise and every grace doth carry you to God and is exercised upon him or for him It is God that you must study and know and love and desire and trust and hope in and obey It is God that you must seek after and delight in so far as you enjoy him It is his absence or displeasure that must be your fear and sorrow Therefore the soul is said to be sanctified when it is renewed because it is both disposed and devoted unto God And therefore Grace is called Holiness because it all disposeth and carryeth the soul to God and useth it upon and for him And can you think your business with God is small when you must live upon him and all the powers of your soul must be addicted to him and be in serious motion towards him and when he must be much more to you than the Air which you breath in or the Earth you live upon or than the Sun that gives you light and heat yea than the soul is to your bodies 14. Lastly you have abundance of temptations and impediments to watch and strive against which would hinder you in the doing of all this work and a corrupt and treacherous heart to watch and keep in order which will be looking back and shrinking from the service Lay all this together and then consider whether you have not more and greater business with God than with all the creatures in the world And if this be so as undeniably it is so is there any cloak for that mans sin who is all day taken up with creatures and thinks of God as seldome and as carelesly as if he had no business with him And yet alas if you take a survey of high and low of Court and City and Country you shall find that this is the case of no small number yea of many that observe it not to be their case it is the case of the prophane that pray in jeast and swear and curse and rail in earnest It is the case of the malignant enemies of holiness that hate them at the heart that are most acquainted with this converse with God and count it but hypocrisie pride or fancy and would not suffer them to live upon the Earth who are most sincerely conversant in Heaven It is the case of Phariseâ—s and Hypocrites who take up with ceremonious observances as touch not taste not handle not and such like traditions of their forefathers instead of a spiritual rational service and a holy serious walking with the Lord. It is the case of all ambitious men and covetous worldlings who make more ado to climb up a little higher than their brethren and to hold the reins and have their wills and be admired and adored in the world or to get a large estate for themselves and their posterity than to please their Maker or to save their souls It is
right his kindness and sollicitations of you and you have so little to say for any pretence of right or merit in the creature Why are not men ashamed of the greatest dishonesty against God when all that have any humanity left them do take adultery theft and other dishonesty against creatures for a shame The time will come when God and his interest shall be better understood that this dishonesty against Him will be the matter of the most confounding shame that ever did or could befall men Prevent this by the juster exercise of your thoughts and keeping them pure and chast to God 10. If God be not in your thoughts and the chiefest in them there will be no matter in them of solid comfort or content Trouble and deceit will be all their work when they have fled about the earth and taken a tast of every flower they will come loaden home with nothing better then Vanity and Vexation Such thoughts may excite the laughter of a fool and cause that mirth that is called madness Eccles. 7. 4 6. and 2. 2. But they will never conduce to setled Peace and durable content And therefore they are alwaies repented of themselves and are troublesome to our review as being the shame of the sinner which he would fain be cleared of or disown Though you may approach the creature with passionate fondness and the most delightful promises and hopes be sure of it you will come off at last with grief and disappointment if not with the loathing of that which you chose for your delight Your thoughts are in a wilderness among thorns and bryars when God is not in them as their guide and end They are lost and torn among the creatures but rest and satisfaction they will find none It may be at the present it is pleasanter to you to think of recreation or business or worldly wealth then to think of God But the pleasure of these thoughts is as delusory and short-lived as are the things themselves on which you think How long will you think with pleasure on such fading transitory things And the pleasure cannot be great at the present which reacheth but the flesh and fantasie and which the possessed knoweth will be but short Nay you will shortly find by sad experience that of all the creatures under heaven there will none be so bitter to your thoughts as those which you now find greatest carnal sweetness in O how bitter will the thought of idolized honour and abused wealth and greatness be to a dying or a damned Dives The thoughts of that Alehouse or Playhouse where thou hadst thy greatest pleasure will trouble thee more then the thoughts of all the houses in the town besides The thoughts of that one woman with whom thou didst commit thy pleasant sin will wound and vex thee more then the thoughts of all the women in the town besides The thoughts of that beloved sport which thou couldst not be weaned from will be more troublesome to thee then the thoughts of a thousand other things in which thou hadst no inordinate delight For the end of sinful mirth is sorrow when Solomon had tryed to please himself to the full in mirth in buildings vineyards woods waters in servants and possessions silver and gold and cattel and singers and instruments of musick of all sorts in greatness and all that the eye or appetite or heart desired he findeth when he awaked from this pleasant dream that he had all this while been taken up with Vanity and Vexation in so much that he saith on the review Therefore I hated life because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous to me for all is vanity and vexation of spirit Yea I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun Eccles. 2. 1 2 3 c. 17. 18. You may toil out and tire your selves among these bryars in this barren wilderness but if ever you would feel any solid ground of quietness and rest it must be by coming off from vanity and seeking your felicity in God and living sincerely for Him and upon Him as the worldling doth upon the world His pardoning mercy must begin your Peace forgiving you your former thoughts and â—is healing quickening mercy must increase it by teaching you better to employ your thoughts and drawing up your hearts â—nto himself and his glorifying mercy must perfect it by giving you the full intuition and fruition of himself in heaven and employing you in his perfect Love and Praise not leaving any room for creatures nor suffering a thought to be employed on vanity for ever CHAP. IV. BY this time I hope you may see reason to call your selves to a strict account what converse you have been taken up with in the world and upon what you have exercised your thoughts surely you must needs be conscious that the thoughts which have been denyed God have brought you home but little satisfaction and have not answered the ends of your creation redemption or preservation and that they are now much fitter matter for your penitential tears then for your comfort in the review I do not think you dare own and stand to those thoughts which have been spent for fleshly pleasures or in unnecessary worldly cares or that were wasted in impertinent vagaries upon any thing or nothing when you should have been seeking God! I do not think you have now any great pleasure in the review of those thoughts which once were taken up with pleasure when your most pleasant thoughts should have been of God Dare you approve of your rejecting your Creatour and the great concernments of your soul out of your thoughts and wasting them upon things unprofitable and vain Did not God and Heaven deserve more of your serious thoughts then any thing else that ever they were employed on Have you laid them out on any thing that more concerned you or on any thing more excellent more honourable more durable or that could claim precedency upon any just account Did you not shut heaven it self out of your thoughts when you shut out God And is it not just that God and Heaven should shut out you If Heaven be not the principal matter of your thoughts its plain that you do not principally love it And if so judge you whether those that Love it not are fit to be made possessors of it O poor distracted senseless world Is not God Great enough to command and take up your chiefest cogitations Is not Heaven enough to find them work and afford them satisfaction and delight And yet is the dung and dotage of the world enough Is your honour and wealth and fleshly delights aed sports enough God will shortly make you know whether this were wise and equal dealing Is God so low so little so undeserving to be so oft and easily forgotten and so hardly and so sleightly remembred I tell you ere long he will make you think of him to your sorrow whether you will or
Being of a Holy state as that God be so much in our thoughts as to be preferred before all things else and principally beloved and obeyed and to be the end of our lives and the byas of our wills And there are some thoughts of God that are necessary only to acting and increase of grace 7. So great is the weakness of our Habits so many and great are the temptations to be overcome so many difficulties are in our way and the occasions so various for the exercise of each grace that it behoveth a Christian to exercise as much thoughtfulness about his end and work as hath any tendency to promote his work and to attain his end But such a thoughtfulness as hindereth us in our work by stopping or distracting or diverting us is no way pleasing unto God So excellent is our end that we can never encourage and delight the mind too much in the forethoughts of it So sluggish are our hearts and so loose and unconstant are our apprehensions and resolutions that we have need to be most frequently quickening them and lifting at them and renewing our desires and suppressing the contrary desires by the serious thoughts of God and Immortality Our Thoughts are the bellows that must kindle the flames of Love desire hope and zeal Our thoughts are the spur that must put on a sluggish tired heart And so far as they conduce to any such works and ends as these they are desireable and good But what Master loveth to see his servant sit down and Think when he should be at work Or to use his Thoughts only to grieve and vex himself for his faults but not to mend them to sit down lamenting that he is so bad and unprofitable a servant when he should be up and doing his Masters business as well as he is able Such Thoughts are sins as hinder us from duty or discourage or unfit us for it however they may go under a better name 8. The Godly themselves are very much wanting in the holiness of their thoughts and the liveliness of their affections Sense leadeth away the thoughts too easily after these present sensible things while faith being infirm the Thoughts of God and heaven are much disadvantaged by their invisibility Many a gracious soul cryeth out O that I could think as easily and as affectionately and as unweariedly about the Lord and the life to come as I can do about my friends my health my habitation my business and other concernments of this life But alas such thoughts of God and Heaven have far more enemies and resistance then the thoughts of earthly matters have 9. It is not distracting vexatious thoughts of God that the holy Scriptures call us to but it is to such thoughts as tend to the healing and peace and felicity of the soul and therefore it is not to a melancholy but a joyful life If God be better then the world it must needs be better to think of him If he be more beloved then any friend the thoughts of him should be sweeter to us If he be the everlasting hope and happiness of the soul it should be a foretast of happiness to find him nearest to our hearts The nature and use of holy thoughts and of all Religion is but to exalt and sanctifie and delight the soul and bring it up to everlasting Rest And is this the way to melancholy or madness Or is it not liker to make men melancholy to think of nothing but a vain deceitful and vexatious world that hath much to disquiet us but nothing to satisfie us and can give the soul no hopes of any durable delight 10. Yet as God is not equally related unto all so is he not the same to all mens thoughts If a wicked enemy of God and godliness be forced and frightened into some thoughts of God you cannot expect that they should be as sweet and comfortable thoughts as those of his most obedient children are While a man is under the guilt and power of his reigning sin and under the wrath and curse of God unpardoned unjustified a child of the devil it is not this mans duty to think of God as if he were fully reconciled to him and took pleasure in him as in his own Nor is it any wonder if such a man think of God with fear and think of his sin with grief and shame Nor is it any wonder if the justified themselves do think of God with fear and grief when they have provoked him by some sinful and unkind behaviour or are cast into doubts of their sincerity and interest in Christ and when he hides his face or assaulteth them with his terrors To doubt whether a man shall live for ever in Heaven or Hell may rationally trouble the thoughts of the wisest man in the world and it were but sottishness not to be troubled at it David himself could say In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak Will the Lord cast off for ever Psal. 77. 2 3 4 5 7. Yet all the sorrowful thoughts of God which are the duty of either the godly or the wicked are but the necessary preparatives of their joy It is not to melancholy distraction or despair that God calleth any even the worst But it is that the wicked would Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near that he would forsake his way and the unrighteous man his Thoughts and return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55. 6 7. Despair is sin and the thoughts that tend to it are sinful thoughts even in the wicked If worldly crosses or the sense of danger to the soul had cast any into melancholy or overwhelmed them with fears you can name nothing in the world that in reason should be so powerful a remedy to recover them as the Thoughts of God his Goodness and Mercy and readiness to receive and pardon those that turn unto him his Covenant and Promises and Grace through Christ and the everlasting happiness which all may have that will accept and seek it in the time of grace and prefer it before the deceitful transitory pleasures of the world If the Thoughts of God and of the Heavenly everlasting joyes will not comfort the soul and cure a sad despairing mind I know not what can rationally do it Though yet its true that a presumptuous sinner must needs be in a trembling state till he find himself at peace with God And mistaken Christians that are cast into causeless doubts and fears by the malice of Satan are unlikely to walk comfortably with God till they are resolved and recovered from their mistakes and fears CHAP. V. Obj.
unresistibly procureth our Love to them And when we Love them it is wonderful to observe how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do and highly to value their judgements graces parts and works when greater excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed or regarded but as a common thing And therefrre the destruction or want of Love is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches that most men have of one another and in the low esteem of the judgements and performances and lives of other men much more in their contempt reproaches and cruel persecutions Now though God will have us encrease in our Love of Christ in his members and in our pure Love of Christians as such and in our common charity to all yea and in our just fidelity to our friend yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love and inordinate partial esteem of one above another when it is but for our selves and on our own account And therefore as he will make us know that we our selves are no such excellent persons as that it should make another so laudable or advance his worth because he Loveth us so he will make us know that our friends whom we overvalue are but like other men If we exalt them too highly in our esteem it is a sign that God must cast them down And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection God is very jealous of our hearts as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures what we give inordinately and excessively to them is some way or other taken from him and given them to his injury and therefore to his offence Though I know that to be void of natural friendly or social affections is an odious extream on the other side yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess And it 's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature because our Love to God is so cold and hardly kindled and kept alive He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves at the same time when all his wondrous kindness and attractive goodness do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him which we our selves can scarcely feel If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are and how little they deserve such excessive Love when God hath so little it is no more wonder than it is that he is tender of his glory and merciful to his servants souls 5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured as it is shewed both to them and us When they forsake us in our distress especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ it is God that they injure more than us And therefore if he bear with them and forgive their weakness upon repentance why should not we do so that are much less injured The worlds persidiousness should make us think How great and wonderful is the patience of God that beareth with and beareth up so vile ungrateful treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged And it should make us consider when men deal treacherously with us How great is that mercy that hath born with and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God than these can be which men have done to me It was the remembranâ—e of David's sin that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him of whom he had been too fond which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei It will make us bear abuse from others to remember how ill we have dealt with God and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves 6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of Gods permitting the failing of our friends in the season and success It is that the Love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or dye When we over-love them it teareth our very hearts to leave them And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ lest we should be taken from our too-dear friends or lest our suffering cause their too-much grief It is so hard a thing to dye with willingness and peace that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward And the excessive Love of friends and relations is not the least of these impediments O how loth is many a one to dye when they think of parting with wife or husband or children or dear and faithful friends Now I have oft observed that a little before their death or sickness it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too-dear friends to arise by which he moderated and abated their affections and made them a great deal the willinger to dye Then we are ready to say It is time for me to leave the world when not only the rest of the world but my dearest friends have first forsaken me This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting friend and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him who would not have forsaken us in our extremity And sometime it maketh us even aweary of the world and to say as Elias Lord take away my life c. 1 King 19. 4 10 14. when we must say I thought I had one friend left and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress As the Love of friends intangleth our affections to this world so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our friends is a great help to loosen us from the world and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart And as the friends that Love us most and have most interest in our esteem and Love may do more than others in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord to entertain any errour to commit any sin or to flinch in suffering so when God hath permitted them to forsake us and to lose their too great interest in us we are fortified against all such temptations from them I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange and broken former friendship and quickly after turned to such dangerous wayes and errours as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion who might else have drawn him along with him into sin And I have often observed that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity Familism or some dangerous heresie that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanely as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin When as some other women with
is capable of this and so they have an everlasting end and this is their Excellency And therefore the Atheist that denyeth an everlasting life to man doth bring himself into a far baser state then the bruits are in For the bruits have an everlasting end in promoting the happiness of man But if man have no everlasting end himself there is no other whose everlasting happiness he can promote The unbeliever therefore doth debase his own soul and the whole creation And faith and holiness advance the soul and all things with it that are useful to our advancement The true Believer honoureth his horse his dog his food and rayment and the earth he treadeth on and every creature incomparably more than the Infidel doth honour his own or any others soul or then he honoureth the greatest prince on earth For the Believer useth all things even the vilest in reference to Eternity but the Infidel useth his life and soul but to a transitory end and takes the greatest Prince on earth to be but for a transitory use And as Eternity is unvalualbe in comparison of time so the use and excellency that a Believer doth ascribe to a bit of bread or the basest creature in the sanctified improvement of it is ten thousand times even unspeakably above the use and excellency that an Unbeliever ascribeth to his soul or to his Prince He that stampeth the Image of a Dog or a Toad upon gold instead of the Image of the Prince and would have ten thousand pounds-worth goe but for a farthing doth not by a thousand degrees so much debase the gold as the Infidel doth debase his soul and all things Infidelity is guilty of the destruction of all souls and the destruction of all mercies and the destruction of all Divine Revelations of all graces of all ordinances and means and of the destruction of the whole creation that was made for man For he that destroyeth the End destroyeth all the means But the Infidel destroyeth and denyeth the end of every one of these and Holiness only doth give them up and use them to their ends 1. He is guilty of the destruction of all souls For as much as in him lies they are destroyed while they are all made useless to the End for which they were created If there be no other life and happiness Everlasting what are souls good for what is the Reasonable creature good for Is it to be Happy here In what Here is no happiness Is it in eating and drinking and sleeping why these are to strengthen us for our service which tendeth to our end and therefore cannot be themselves our end Is it not better be without either meat or drink or sleep in point of Happiness so be it we also were without the need of them then to need them and have them for our need especially with the care and trouble which they cost us I had an hundred times rather for my part if it were lawful to desire it never have meat or drink or sleep and be without the need of them as I had rather be without a sore then to have a plaister that will ease it and be every day at the pains to dress it Brutes have some advantage in these above men in that they have not the care and fear and sorrow of mind as we have in the getting or keeping what they have or need If you go downward and say that men are made to govern brutes then what are brutes made for unless to dung the earth and so the basest shall be the end of the noblest and God may be as wisely said to be for man because he is to govern him Truely if there were no Everlasting life but man were a meer terrestrial animal I had rather never have been born or should wish I had never been a man I knew not what to do with my self nor how to imploy the faculties of my soul or body but they would all seem to me as useless things What should I do with my Reason if I had no higher an end then beasts what should I do with a mind that knoweth that there is a God and another world and that is capable of desiring him seeking and enjoying him if it must be frustrated of all what should I do with a heart that 's capable of the Love of God and delighting in his Love if I have no God to Love and delight in when this life is ended why have I a heart that so desireth him in fuller vision and fruition if I be capable of no such thing what then should I do with my time and life verily I know not if I were fully of this sad opinion whether I should turn brute in my life agreeably to my judgement or whether I should make an end of my life to be eased of a useless burden but confident I am I should not know what to do with my self I should be like a poor cashiered Souldier or like one turned out of his Service that knew not where to have work and wages And if you found me standing all day idle I must give you the reason because no man hath hired me What do those wretches do with their lives that think they have no God to serve and seek or future happiness to attain As men use to say of naughty Ministers so may I say of all mankind according to the Doctrine of the Infidels A sorry Taylor may make a Botcher or a bad Shoomaker may make a Cobler and a broken Mercer may be a Pedler but a naughty Priest is good for nothing And its true of him as such and as Christ himself saith Matth. 5. 13 14. Yee are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be salted It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men yee are the light of the world men do not light a candle to put it under a bushel So I say of the Reasonable Creature The grass is useful for the beasts The beasts are serviceable unto man A swine that cannot serve you living is useful being dead But if there were no God to seek and serve and no life but this for us to hope for for ought I know man were good for nothing What were Light good for if there were no eyes or eyes if there were no light to see by what is a Watch good for but to tell the hour of the day All the curious parts and workmanship of it is worth no more then the mettal is worth if it be not useful to its proper end And what Reason and will and affections in man are good for I know not if not to seek to please and to enjoy the Lord Take off this poise and all the wheels of my soul must stand still or else do worse 2. The Infidel and ungodly man that looks not after an Etern lend destroyeth all the mercies of God
against Him and his interest But to make such a Nothing of the most Glorious God by our contemptuous forgetfulness or neglect as that our apprehensions of Him cannot prevail against the sordid pleasures of the flesh and against the richest baits of sin and against all the wrath or allurements of man this is but to make a God of dust and dung and nothing and in heart and practice to make God worse than dust and dung And it is a wonder that mans understanding can become so sottish as thus to wink the Sun it self into a constant darkness and to take God as Nothing or aâ— no God who is so abundantly revealed to them in astonishing transcendent Greatness and Excellency by all the Creatures in the world and with whom we have continually so much to do O sinful man into how great a depth of ignorance stupidity and misery art thou faln But because we may see by the lives of the ungodly that they little think that they have so much to do with God though I have spoke of this to the Godly in the other Part of this Treatese I shall somewhat more particularly acquaint those that have most need to be informed of it what business it is that they have with Ged 1. It is not a business that may be done or left undone like your business with men but it is such as must be done or you are undone for ever Nothing is absolutely Necessary but this Nothing in all the world doth so much concern you You may at far cheaper rates forbear to eat or drink or cloath your selves or live than forbear the dispatch of this necessary work 2. Your business with God and for God in the world is that which you have all your powers and endowments for it is that which you were born into the world for and that which you have understanding and free will for and that which you have your thoughts and memories and affections for and that which you have eyes and ears and tongues and all your corporeal parts and abilities for It is that which you have your food and rayment for and that which you have your time for and your preservation protection and provisions It is that which you have all your teaching for which Christ himself came for into the world which the Scriptures are written for which Ministers are sent for which all Order and Government in Church and State is principally appointed for In a word it is that for which you have your lives and all things and without which all were as nothing and will be to you worse than nothing if they do not further your work with God You will wish you had never seen them if they befriend you ot in this 3. Your business with God and for him is such as you must be continually doing as is incumbent on you every hour for you have every hour given you for this end You may dispatch this man to day and another to morrow and have no more to do with them again of a long time but you have alwaies incessantly important works to do with God For your common work should be all his work and all should be done with principal respect to him But I shall yet more particularly tell the ungodly what business it is that they have with God which it seems by their careless negligent lives they are not aware of 1. You must be either saved or damned by him either Glorified with Him or punished by Him to everlasting And it is Now that the matter must be determined which of the two conditions you must be in You must Now obtain your title to Heaven if ever you will come thither You must Now procure your deliverance from Hell fire if ever you will escape it Now it is that all that must be done upon which the scales must turn for your salvation or damnation And you know this work is principally to be done between you and God who alone can save you or destroy you and yet do you forget him and live as if you had no business with him when you have your salvation to â—btain from him and your damnation to prevent Have you such business as this with any other 2. You have a strict and righteous Judgement to undergo in order to this salvation or damnation You must stand before the Holy Majesty and be judged by the Governour of the World you must be there accused and found guilty or not guilty and judged as fulfillers or as breakers of the holy Covenant of Grace you must be set on the right hand or on the left you must answer for all the time that you here spent and for all the means and mercies which you here received and for that you have done whether it were good or evil And it is now in this life that all your preparation must be made and all that must be done upon which your justification or condemnation will then depend Anh it is between God and you that all this business must be done And yet can you live as negligently towards him as if you had no business with him 3. You have a Death to dye a change to make which must be made but once which will be the entrance upon endless joy or pain And do you think this needeth not your most timely and diligent preparation You must struggle with pains and faint with weakness and feel death taking down your earthen tabernacle you must then have a life that is ending to review and all that you have done said open to your more impartial judgement You must then see Time as at an end and the last sand running and your candle ready to go out and leave the snuff You must then look back upon all that you have had from the world as ending and upon all that you have done as that which cannot be undone again that you may do it better and you must have a more serious look into Eternity when you are stepping thither then you can now conceive of And doth all this need no preparation It is with God that all that business must be Now transacted that must make your death to be comfortable or safe If Now you will only converse with men and know no business that you have with God you shall find at last to your exceeding terrour that you are in his hands and passing to his bar and that it is God that then you have to do with when your business with all the world is at an end He will then have something to do with you if you will now find nothing to do with him 4. In order to all this you have now your Peace to be made with God and the pardon of all your sins to be obtained For woe to you if then you are found under the guilt of any sin Look back upon your lives and remember how you have lived in the world and what you have been doing how you have