is the very spring upon which the holy conversation of the whole week is turned and moved And therefore it is observable that the Sabbath stands as it were betwixt the two Tables the last precept of the first Table and the Preface to the Second To shew us that it is the Bond of union between both Tables that without a severe sanctification of the Sabbath the Duties of both Tables will fall to the ground Whence in the Primitive times of Christianity the strict observation of the Sabbath was accounted the principall character of a true Saint And so it is even at this day there are such Christians for exemplary holiness as those which are taken notice of to make most conscience of sanctifying the Sabbath But so much for the second duty I come now to the Third Branch or Duty of Duties wherein sabbath-sanctification consists Sc. Honourable If thou call it or make it or keep it as an Honourable day Heb. Mecubbar which signifieth honourable or glorious The Duty implied is we must keep the Sabbath as the Honourable Glorious Day of Jehovah Truly glorious things are spoken of this Honourable Day The Jews were wont to call it the Queen of Days the week-days they called prophane days but the Sabbath after Gods example here they called Holy My Holy Day saith God it 's Gods peculiar One of ours now translated into his glorious rest honours it thus calling it The Map of heaven the golden spot of the week Vide Mr. Gee Swinnock in his good wish to the Lords day the market-day of the soul the day-break of eternal brightness the Queen of days the blessed amongst days the cream of time the Epitome of eternity Heaven in a glass the first-fruits of an everlasting and blessed Harvest and much more to that purpose The week-days are as it were the back-parts of the week made to carry burdens a meer Servant or Slave made to do the drudgery of the humane life The Sabbath is the face the seat of Majesty which God hath made to look upward and to contemplate the glory of the Heavens and of the maker thereof The week-days are like the Terrestrial Globe wherein are painted to us the Earth with the inferiour and more ignoble creatures The Sabbath is the Celestial Globe Heb. 12.22 23 24. wherein we have the prospect of Mount Sion the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and of an innumerable company of Angels of the general assembly and Church of the first-born and of God the Judge of all and of the spirits of just men made perfect and of Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant c. The beholding of these glorious visions truly beatifical are the work of a Sabbath Moreover to discover to you the glory of a Sabbath consider we another excellent passage in our quoted Author ut sup speaking of the Sabbath All the graces triumph in Thee All the Ordinances conspire to enrich Thee The Father ruleth Thee The Son rose upon Thee The Spirit hath overshadowed Thee Thus it is done to the Day which the Lord delighteth to honour on Thee light was created the Holy Ghost descended Life hath been restored Satan subdued the Grave Death and Hell conquered c. Much more might be added but rather The Question Question is When do we make the Sabbath or how may we make it to us an Honourable Glorious day Answer 1 Then we call the Sabbath Honourable when we make Honourable preparation for it To which purpose it is useful to mind seriously that word which stands as a watch-man at the door of the fourth Commandment Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy Remember It is like the Baptist the voice of one crying prepare ye the way of the Lord or that Eccl. 5.1 keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God c. It calls for solemn preparation for a Sabbath and the ordinances of a Sabbath a duty wofully neglected amongst Christians some little preparation people make for a Sacrament and it is to be feared there is more of superstition in it than Evangelical affection to the day consisting rather in a Ceremonial abstinence from meat and drinks than a serious separation of the heart and affections for communion with God But as to the Sabbath there is rarely any thing to separate between the drudgery of the week and the solemnities of the sabbath but a little sleep and that usually less than any other night is allowed people loading the Saturday-night with so many worldly affairs that the Lords-day-morning is too little to satisfie their sluggish indulgences of the flesh and there is not time either for closet or domestick devotion they cannot force themselves out of their bed time enough to join with the Congregation until half the publick worship be finished The Jews shall rise up against this generation and shall condemn them of whom it is reported they were so severe in their parascueves or preparations for the Sabbath which were precisely to begin at three of the clock in the afternoon Buxtorf that if the servants in the Family were cast behind in dispatching the servile labour of the Family the Master of the house though he were a Nobleman would not refuse to set his hand to the lowest drudgery that they might observe the punctual time of preparation this argued an honourable estimation of the Sabbath 2. Then we call it honourable when we give it honourable entertainment When we awaken our selves in such good time yet so as we may not indispose nature for the service of the day as David did Psal 108.2 awake my Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake right early I say to get up early in the morning Maâ—h 28.1 to meet our blessed Lord and Bridegroom coming from his Sepulchre to visit us That which is but fancied of the natural Sun its dancing upon Easter-day in the morning for joy of the Lords Resurrection I have known reallized by some excellent Christians whose hearts have not only leaped in them but themselves have hasted out of their beds and have leaped and skipped up and down in their chamber when the morning light of the Sabbath hath shined on them in remembrance of the Sun of Righteousness arising from the grave with healing under his wings Such extraordinary impulses and ravishments are not every Christians attainment and must not be imitated to the prejudice of the Body the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak but certainly every Christian that hath the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart will be careful to abate himself somewhat of his wonted indulgences on that morning which was his redeemers Birth-day that he may have time to get on his wedding Garment by meditation Psal 2.7 reading and prayer that he may go forth to meet him whom his soul loveth in the publick solemnities of the Sabbath and bring him home with him into the chamber of her that conceived him
an insinuation into their affections to engage children to love and delight in their duties by the sweetness of the lips to encrease their learning (c) 21. and encourage their honest endeavours with suitable rewards And on the other hand seasonable admonitions and remembrances in case of failures a frowning on their laziness and neglects of those offices wherein they should be employ'd which will keep them in awe though this must be done with great skil and vvariness lest it produce a slavish fear which slothful disingenuous and low spirits are apt to fall into and then absurdly to plead (d) Mat. 25.24 25 26. yet of the two it is better to fail on this hand than for a Christian Parent to omit warning of their children because both Law and Gospel require as vvas partly hinted before vve should not let sin either of omission or commission rest on our neighbour (e) Lev. 19.17 but should warn a brother (f) Gal. 6.1 much more a child and set him in joynt with a spirit of meekness I grant this duty of dayly inspection is very difficult but it is amiable and excellent it is of great latitude for Parents are evermore concernÌ„d to be eying of their children to see they do that which is necessary and comly both in religious and moral practice according to what is really best esteem'd in civil behaviour They must continually be watching them as to their praying reading hearing eating drinking playing visiting studying working sleeping c. to see they be not vain or idle because commonly there is but a little distance in time betwixt doing of nothing and doing of ill Children should be exercised with variety taught to sing Psalms (g) Deut. 31.19 21. Psal 148 12 13. as those good children vvere who made that short prayer to our Saviour Hosanna in Greek out of the Psalm (h) 118.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Save O Lord I beseech thee viz. blessed Messiah to pray in secret sometimes by and for themselves to be constant timely and revered at Family duties to be charitable respectful to the Embassadors of Christ to be attentive to the reading of Chapters and hearing of Sermons and thereupon to put Questions and give some account of their understanding of things and be not as Parrats that chatter vvithout knowledg to be observant of the Lord's days not left to themselves to play and do what they list for as Solomon observeth (i) Prov. 29.15 A child left to himself bringeth his Mother to shame she being either more indulgent in suffering him to get head or more affected with it when she seeth the evil of his idleness especiallly on the Lord's days But on other days at fit seasons such honest sports and recreations agreeing with the childrens temper are to be allow'd as do not alienate their minds from duty but promote health and chearfulness admit they be not with ungodly play-fellows from vvhom ribaldry and profaneness are easily learn'd but nothing that is good The Philosopher †Arist de Rep. l. 8. c. 17. did advise the educators of children to take heed they did not permit them to accompany vvith such of whom they would learn bad words hear smutty fables or be brought to look upon indecent and deformed pictures and that they did converse as little as may be with Servants And in eating and drinking Parents should with discretion lay restraints upon childrens appetites both as to the quantity and quality of food consonant to the rules of right reason that they transgress not the wholsom Laws of Temperance for the preservation of strength and activity of body and mind So for their studying and working c. a continued inspection is requisite that they do not neglect their time or mispend their talents vvhich that they may not do will usually need the Parents best skill and utmost diligence because of inbred pravity and untractableness Yet as one ‖ P. Du. Moul. hath well observ'd there be certain handles to take hold of these little souls in their tender years sith most of them are apt to be Shamefac'd Fearful Curious and Credulous which dispositions are to be attended by vigilant Parents with discretion and laid hold on to lead to vertue As on the other hand those hindrâ—ncâ—â— to good things which soon bewray themselves in little ones are to be watch'd over and curb'd such as Pride Wilfulness Lying and Intemperance that these evil inclinations may not be predominant Shame is to be manag'd to disswade from things dishonest Fear to keep in awe from consideration of punishment or loss of reward Curiosity to form in the mind right notions of things and Credulity to gain the consent to things honest and good and to make a right tincture which may abide Then on the other side vicious inclinations are to be timely curb'd As Pride arising from corrupt self-love to plant in young minds humility Wilfulness to engage unto teachableness Lying to make way for justice and fidelity and Imtemperance for the love of truth and sobriety that the understanding may rule the appetite Upon which account the same person suggests we should not promise children Junkets as the reward of their obedience but honour and praise which they should be made to love which is the great thing they of Japan †Gloriae studium cupiditatem teneris animis implantare consucverunt c. Varen de Regn. Jap p. 102. use to implant in the tender minds of their little ones proposing glory as the strong motive to perswade them unto obedience and good carriage I should not have insisted so long upon this but that I dare be bold to say it is through default of this part of Education I mean for want of watchfulness that the Children of many Parents amongst us fall so much short of the instructions received Their passions grow strong and the things that gratifie sense luscious their Parents heed not and so the hopeful fruit is blasted and spoiled for want of fence or as in some gardens where there be fine buds and fruits coming on that have been raised with great pains and charges they suffer Snails and Caterpillers to increase which in a short time devour that the Master's and Gardiner's eye and hand might easily at first have prevented by taking away the Caterpillers egs and killing of the Snails So you may see in some Families where there were great hopes of children as of the pleasant fruits on a fair tree ripening all lost for want of Parents and Governours narrow inspection or through a tender Mother's unlimited indulgence where she should keep a strict watch and through the connivance ‖ Imberbis juvenis tandem custode remoto Gaudet equis caniâ—usque aprici gramine campi Horat. or misplac'd kindnesses of some affectionate servants who to ingratiate with their young Masters or Mistresses take upon them to be wiser than those that love them best and secretly
conformity with the will of God which is the highest liberty where the x 2 Cor. 3.17 spirit of the Lord is there is liberty It is a poor liberty that consists in an indifferency Do not the Saints in heaven love God freely yet they cannot but love him As the only Efficient cause of our loving God is God himself so the only procuring cause of our loving God is Jesus Christ that Son of the Father's love who by his Spirit implants and actuates this grace of love which he hath merited for us Christ hath a Col. 1.20 made peace through the blood of his Cross Christ hath as well merited this grace of love for us as he hath merited the reward of glory for us Plead therefore Dear Christians the merit of Christ for the inflaming your hearts with the love of God that when I shall direct to rules and means how you may come to love God you may as well address your selves to Christ for the grace of love as for the pardon of your want of love hitherto Bespeak Christ in some such but far more pressing language Lord thou hast purchased the grace of love for those that want and crave it my love to God is chill do thou warm it my love is divided Lord do thou unite it I cannot love God as he deserves O that thou would'st help me to love him more than I can desire Lord make me sick of love and then cure me Lord make me in this as comfortable to thy self as 't is possible for an adopted Son to be like the Natural that I may be a Son of God's love both actively and passively and both as near as it is possible infinitely Let 's therefore address our selves to the use of all those means and helps whereby love to God is b Fovetur augetur excitatur exeritur nourished encreased excited and exerted I will begin with removing the impediments we must clear away the rubbish e're we can so much as lay the Foundation Impediment 1. Self-love Impediments of our love to God this the Apostle names as Captain general of the Devil's Army whereby titular Christians manage their enmity against God in the dregs of the last dayes this will make the times dangerous Men shall be lovers of their own c 2 Tim. 3.1 2. selves When men over-esteem themselves their own endowments of either body or mind when they have a secret reserve for self in all they do self-applause or self-profit this is like an errour in the first concoction get your hearts discharg'd of it or you can never be spiritually healthful the best of you are too prone to this I would therefore commend it to you to be jealous of your selves in this particular for as conjugal-jealousie is the bane of conjugal love so self-jealousie will be the bane of self-love Be suspicious of every thing that may steal away or divert your love from God Imped 2. Love of the world this is so great an obstruction that the most loving and best beloved Disciple that Christ had said (d) 1 Joh. 2.15 love not the world nor the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him and the Apostle James makes use of a Metaphor (e) Jam. 4.4 calling them Adulterers and Adulteresses that keep not their conjugal love to God tight from leaking out toward the world he chargeth them as if they knew nothing in Religion if they knew not this that the friendship with the world is enmity with God and 't is an universal truth without so much as one exception that whosoever will be a friend of the world must needs upon that very account be God's enemy the Apostle Paul adds more weight to those that are e'en press'd to Hell already (f) 1 Tim. 6.9 10 11. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves thorow with many sorrows but thou O man of God flee these things c. when men will be some-body in the world they will have Estates and they will have honours and they will have pleasures what variety of vexatious distractions do unavoidably hinder our love to God when our hearts are hurried with hopes and fears about worldly things and the world hath not wherewithall to satisfie us how doth the heart fret under its disappointments and how can it do otherwise we would have happiness here Sirs I 'le offer you fair name me but one man that ever found a compleat happiness in the world and I dare promise you shall be the second but if you will flatter your self with dreams of impossibilities this your way will be your folly though 't is like your posterity will approve your sayings (g) Psal 49.13 and try experiments while they live as you have done but where 's your love to God all this while 't is excluded by what Law by the Law of Sin and Death by the love of the world and destruction for Christ tells us all that hate him love death (h) Prov. 8.36 Imped 3. Spiritual sloath and carelessness of Spirit when men do not trouble themselves about Religion nor any thing that is serious Love is a busie passion a busie grace love among the passions is like Fire among the Elements Love among the Graces is like the Heart among the Members now that which is most contrary to the nature of love must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it the truth is a careless frame of Spirit is fit for nothing a sluggish lazy slothful careless person never attains to any excellency in any kind what is it you would intrust a lazy person about let me say this and pray think on 't twice e're you censure it once Spiritual sloath doth Christians more mischief than scandalous relapses I grant their grosser falls may be worse as to others the grieving of the Godly and the hardning of the wicked and the Reproach to Religion must needs be so great as may make a gracious heart tremble at the thought of falling but yet as to themselves a sloathful temper is far more prejudicial e. g. those gracious persons that fall into any open sin 't is but once or seldom in their whole life and their repentance is ordinarily as notorious as their sin and they walk more humbly and more watchfully ever after whereas Spiritual sloath runs through the whole course of our life to the marring of every duty to the strengthning of every sin and to the weakning of every grace Sloath I may rather call it unspiritual sloath is a soft moth in our spiritual wardrobe a corroding rust in our spiritual Armory an enfeebling consumption in the very vitals of Religion Sloath and
which will one day be made good upon them and if they will not know what else they should yet let them know this that Because they are a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour Of Sabbath Sanctification Serm. VI. Isaiah 58.13 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the LORD honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own wayes nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thine own words Then shalt thou delight thy self in the LORD and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy Father for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it THese two verses contain a modell of Sabbath Sanctification The 13. v. contains the Duties enjoyned The 14. v. contains the priviledges annexed The Duties are set forth unto us 1. Negatively 2. Affirmatively The Negatively Duties are express't 1. Generally and Comprehensively 2. More particularly and distinctly The Generall in these words If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day Wherein there are three things 1. The thing forbidden i. e. The doing of our pleasures on the Sabbath God never appointed a Sabbath for the satisfaction of corrupt nature 2. The manner of doing or forbearing it and that is by turning away our foot from the Sabbath The meaning of which phrase may be 1. Either a turning away of our mind and affections from each objects to which corrupt will do strongly incline us The Affections are the feet of our souls Secondly Or an awful fear of trespassing upon the Sabbath for the satisfying of our carnal desires As men that are afraid of trespassing upon some great mans free-hold withdraw their foot and turn another way c. The Sabbath is Gods Free-hold of which God saith as once to Moses put thy shooes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground When we are tempted to any thing unworthy of the Sabbath we should make a stop and turn away that we may not transgress 3. The third thing in the General is the reason why we should be so afraid of incroaching upon Sabbath-time implied in this clause upon my holy day Wherein are two considerations 1. It is holy time 2. It is Gods time To take holy time and bestow it upon our own lusts it is profaneness To take Gods time and bestow it upon the uses of the flesh it is sacriledge It is not fit to make sacred time to serve any but sacred uses This is the general inhibition Secondly The more particular and distinct inhibition followeth in the end of the verse Wherein Three things forbidden in the particular 1. We are forbidden the doing of our own ways It is an Hebraism as much as in our English going our own ways i. e. following our carnal and sinful courses pursuing our own corrupt and sensual inclination 2. We are forbidden the finding of our own pleasure which is the same forbidden in the General ut supra only with this difference that there as I conceive pleasure is taken more largely so whatsoever is pleasing to unregenerate nature and inclinations whether they be bodily labour or Carnal recreations profit or pleasures sports or the works of our Callings we must not find them that is we must be so far from making provision for the satisfying of the sensual Appetite that we must not so much as own them when we meet them we must not suffer our selves to be tempted or insnared by them we must be to them when we meet them as if we had neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor feet we must not desire them or have any thing to do with them 3. We are forbidden the speaking of our own words that is our own impertinent discourses worldly contrivances or in the Apostles language All filthiness Eph. 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and foolish talking and jesting or any thing that is not convenient Christians should not only consult what is lawful but what is decent and ornamental to the Sabbath None of these things must be so much as named on our days much less on Gods days Christians look to it you may profane the Sabbath by your Words as well as your Works and by vain words as well as by vile words But there is one thing further observable that is the note of appropriation viz. thine own thine own ways thine own pleasure thine own words thine own what is that Answ In opposition to Gods ways Gods pleasures Gods words thereby utterly excluding not only wicked ways and sinful pleasures and profane words whatsoever which are unlawful at all times but even all such ways pleasures words and thoughts also which are the words of the mind which relate to our own private concernments whether personal or domestical of a worldly and secular nature which though they may be lawful upon other days duly circumstantiated yet by no means to be allowed of on Gods day unless they fall under the general exception of Gods own indulgence namely Necessity and Charity of which I shall speak more largely hereafter In a word Nothing may be done or spoken but what is of a divine or Sabbath nature and tendency upon pain of forfeiting our part in the blessed priviledges following verse 14. and so much for the negative part of Sabbath Sanctification I come to the Affirmative And shalt call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord Honourable and shalt honour him In these words also there be four branches or duties 1. We must call the Sabbath a delight 2. We must call it holy or the holy of the Lord. 3. We must call it honourable or glorious 4. We must not only call it honourable but must actually and really honour It or Him by a suitable deportment 1. If we would sanctifie the Sabbath acceptably we must call the Sabbath a delight Call i. e. account it so calling it is an act of the judgment or appreciative faculty a Delight or as some render it thy delights we must reckon the Sabbath inter Delicias as is said of Jerusalem Lam. 1.7 she remembred all her pleasant things surely her Sabbaths were some of those pleasant things it is said Her enemies did mock at her Sabbaths I but she did mourn They were her delightful things whereupon her heart was And so they must be to us But we must also remember to take in with the Day all the Ordinances and religious services and Duties of the day They must not only be done spiritualy holily and Vniversally but they must be done with delight and complacency we must prefer them to our chiefest joy yea the very approach of the Sabbath should be our delight so have all the Saints and servants of God in all ages
holy of the Lord twice in this 13. verse and this not in reference only to the seventh day but in reference to the first day of the week which this Evangelical Prophet had then by divine revelation in his eye How much more doth it concern us who are reserved to this glorious Administration under the Gospel to own the Divine right of the Evangelical Sabbath Surely it is the voice of the glorious Trinity that calls it my holy day God the Father by Creation God the Son by Redemption and God the Holy Ghost by Sanctification sending down a rich and plentiful effusion of Gifts and Graces upon the Apostles for the enabling them to go forth and convert the Gentiles by the preaching of the Gospel To deny God his own right is Sacriledge and Atheism We learn from hence that we must give God the whole Entire day my day saith God a few hours or the forenoon vvill not serve Gods turn but he challengeth the whole time as his own peculiar There is a great dispute amongst Divines when the Sabbath begins and when it ends the text determineth the controversie saith God all is mine The vvhole 24 hours is Sabbath look how many hours vve reckon to our days so many hours vve must reckon to Gods days also if vve vvill be ingenuous Obj. But vvho is able to spend the vvhole 24 hours in religious duties without any intermission Answ None neither is it required for neither do we our selves on our days spend the whole 24 hours in the imployments of our particular places and callings but vve allow our selves a sleeping time and a time for preparing our food and a time for eating and drinking and other refreshments of nature both for our selves and our relations and so doth God also provided always 1. That vve be not overlavish and prodigal in our indulgences to the flesh and the concernments of the outward man that vve exceed not our limits of Christian sobriety and moderation 2. Provided that we do not those things with common spirits we must eat and drink and sleep as part of the Sabbath-work with heavenly minds and Sabbath affections The occasional Sabbaths amongst the Jews gave them a greater latitude no more time of those days being counted holy than was spent in the publique service of the day which continued but from nine of the clock in the morning when the morning sacrifice was to be offered and ended at three of the clock in the afternoon at evening sacrifice But the weekly Sabbath was holy in the whole extent of it not indeed by constitution but by institution and consecration God blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it i. e. set it apart for divine and holy uses of which more infra In our sanctifying of the Sabbath Rule or Note we must have an equal respect to the negative prohibition as to the affirmative injunction i. e. to what is forbidden as well as what is commanded è contra And this is a rule which holds in the exposition of all the Commandments of the Law and of the Gospel Cease to do evil and learn to do good The negative and affirmative precept have such a mutual relation one to another that one doth infer the other and take away one and you destroy the other It is impossible to do what is commanded without due care of avoiding what is prohibited neither can that man rationally pretend to keep the Sabbath that lieth a bed all day because he doth not work not he that followeth his servile labour because possibly he may perform some religious duties What God hath joined together let no man put asunder Carnal sports and pleasures are as great a profanation of the Sabbath as the most servile labour and drudgery in the world Dicing and carding do as much violate the Law of the Sabbath as digging and carting playing as much as ploughing dancing and morrice-games as much as working in the smiths-forge Bowling and shooting as well as hewing of wood and drawing of water The reasons are clear for 1. Sports and pleasures are as expresly forbidden as bodily labour in our ordinary vocation for he that said thou shalt do no manner of work said also thou shalt not find thine own pleasures c. 2. Sports and pleasures are as inconsistent with a Sabbath frame of spirit as the grossest labour in our calling yea I 'le undertake that a man in his particular calling may more easily get good thoughts of God and of eternal life c. than a person that is drench't and immers't in vain delights and sports In such cases men are usually so intent upon their sports and pastimes that it is not easie to edge in a good serious thought in the midst of sensual delights Tota in toto tota in quâliâ—et parte A man in his carnal pleasures is like the soul in the body All in all and all in every part of their pleasing vanities pleasures do fox and intoxicate the brain when as labour is apt to make them serious and considerate 3. Reason Pleasures are as great diversions from the duty of a Sabbath as labours It is conceived Adam should have had a Sabbath in Paradise had he persisted in innocence why not because his dressing of the garden would have wearied him for weariness is the fruit of sin but his dressing of the garden would have been a diversion from attending his Creator in the Ordinances of a Sabbath 4. Carnal pleasures leave a defilement on the spirits and so do totally unfit the soul for communion with God That Character lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God how fully doth it agree to such kind of profaners of the Sabbath Pleasures draw off the mind from God and justly cause God to withdraw from the soul how totally doth this indispose to Sabbath work In heaven they cease not day and night saying holy holy holy c. Oh Christians never think of reconciling carnal pleasure and Communion with God together it is impossible 7th Obs Not speaking thine own words The Sabbath is polluted by words as well as by works Christ will judge men in the great day for their words and by them will he either justifie thee for sanctifying the Sabbath or condemn thee for profaning of it I am afraid it is the great controversie God hath with this nation not only profane but even professors are all guilty of not sanctifying the name and Day of God in their talk and discourses upon the Sabbath Day If Jesus Christ should join himself to our Tables Luke 24.15 16 17. or lesser companies as he did with the two Disciples going to Emaus and ask us what manner of communications are these which ye have one with another how might the question fill our faces with paleness and strike us speechless Alass who can tell what day it is by mens discourses and conferences one with another how vain foolish unprofitable and unsavory is most
mens speech all the day no jest so idle no story so common and fruitless but will pass at our tables and in our private conference Many spend the best of their time no better than the Idolatrous Athenians did their worst in nothing else but either telling or hearing some new thing What news is the most innocent question wherewith I would I could not say most men fill up the vacancies of a Sabbath And is that sinful will you say was it not in Nehemiah's question Nehem. 1.2 Hanani one of my brethren came he and certain men of Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped which were of the Captivity and concerning Jerusalem c. presently what news And why may not Christians ask the same question yes they may when they ask it with Nehemiah's spirit to Nehemiah's end sc that we may get our hearts sutably affected with the miseries or prosperity of the Church of God abroad or at home see what a gracious use he makes of his news in that and in the following chapter at your leisure go ye and do likewise and it shall be your honour But to tell news and to inquire after news meerly for novelty sake and to fill up time for want of better discourse is a miserable idling out of precious time which might be spent to mutual edification whereas by ordinary and unsavoury discourses which are usually heard amongst us people do edifie one another indeed but it is Ad Gehennam they edifie one another to hell You that pretend to be the Lords people be more jealous for the Lords day and honour The Lord takes pleasure in his people Oh let the Saints be joyful in glory Psal 149.4 5. Let your speech be always seasoned with salt especially on Gods day that you may season your children and servants which otherwise will be corrupted by such rotten communication O let your prayer be all times but especially on the Sabbath day that o holy David set a watch O Lord before my mouth and keep the door of my lips the sabbath is Gods glory let your tongues be so too The like caution we ought to use about our thoughts by the rule of proportion they being the language of our hearts 8th Rule and as audible in the ears of God as our words are to mens yea whereas men understand our hearts by our words God understand our words by our hearts Moses did set bounds about the mount that neither man nor beast might break in whatsoever touch't the mountain must dye Exod. 19 12. 19. so must we set bounds about our heart that neither humane nor brutish distractions may break in There is death or life in it and therefore of all keepings keep thy heart Prov. 4 23. for out of it are the issues of life The heart indeed is not so fenceable as the mountain but the more open it lieth the stronger-guard had we need to set upon it and to pray for a guard from heaven as David Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart Psal 19 ult be acceptable in thy sight O Lord my strength and my redeemer If vain or vile thoughts break in upon thee do as the ravished virgin was to do in the Law cry out to God and thou shalt not be held guilty Deut. 22.27 Christians this caution is of a special concern to you O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayst be saved Jerem. 4.14 how long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee Resolve the Text into its integrals and it will afford you some such observables 1. Thoughts will defile the heart as well as deeds Wash thy heart 2. This defilement will damn the soul wash that thou mayst be saved 3. The reason is implied they are wickedness wash thine heart from wickedness 4. All this evil is even in vain thoughts as well as in vile thoughts how long shall thy vain thoughts c. 5. Therefore we must wash our hearts from vain thoughts as well as from wicked and blasphemous thoughts Hence I infer 6. If this should be the work of a Christian every day how much more on Gods day the purer the paper the fouler the stain and blot Christians look to your hearts Further take notice of the appropriation Thy own ways Thy own pleasureâ— thy own words Object And are not holy ways and holy pleasures and holy words our own as well as such as are carnal and sensual yes they are but God speaks here according to our sense and apprehension from whence Note how brutish and sensual laps't man is in his notions and apprehensions of things that he can call nothing his own but what relateth to the flesh Hâ—seâ— 8.13 I have written to him saith God the great things of my law but they were accounted a strange thing Alienum forreign and of no concernment to himself at all And let this also serve for a tenth rule In our sanctifying of the Sabbath we must be specially careful to distinguish what is Gods and what is our own Indeed we must distinguish between what is Satans Our own and Gods There be sinful wicked pleasures ways words thoughts I say wicked and sinful in themselves and these are properly the Devils pleasures the Devils ways the Devils words and thoughts and these are lawful at no time much less on Gods time Gods day and the Devils imployment do not well agree And there are our own pleasures ways words and thoughts such as concern the present life relating to the body and outward man These may be lawful on our days six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work but are not lawful on the Sabbath day In it thou shalt do no manner of work c. save what is of necessity or Charity And then there are Gods pleasures ways words and thoughts i. e. of Gods command and such as lye in a direct tendency to the worship and service of God in publique private or secret and these only we may and must do and mind upon the Sabbath if we mix any of the Devils or our own pleasures and profits with Gods we pollute the holy things of God and profane his Sabbath This is the sum of what time will give me leave to say upon the Negative part of this Model only before I dismiss it let me add this short note of observation that if what hath been spoken even on this negative part be the mind and will of God concerning the sanctifying of the Sabbath then may the generality of Christians lye down in the dust and smiting upon their thigh with brinish tears upon their cheeks confess with a Pious Honourable Lady upon her dying Bed O I never kept a Sabbath in all my life The Lord teach us so to lay this sin to heart that God may never lay it to our charge Having thus briefly dispatcht the Negative part of Sabbath-Sanctification contained in this model I
of it 1. It seems partly to be dictated by the light of nature for the heathen observed it especially when any fore calamity was either felt or feared by them As in the case of Nineveh when Jonah denounced destruction to the City they presently betook themselves to fasting both King Nobles and People yea the very Beasts must be concerned in it Jonah 3.7 8. So when they would make their prayers more prevalent in such cases they would join fasting with their prayers As Baals Priests when they cried to their God Baal to hear them The Text saith they cried all day until the evening sacrifice 1 Kings 18.19 So that they did not only pray but fast also As they used lustrations sacrifices festivals in their religious rites and worship of their Gods so sometimes they had their Jejunia and religious fasts As we have some account of this in Tertullian in his Book adversus Phychicos By which they thought to make some satisfaction for their sin and to reconcile to themselves the Deity they had offended or to obtain some special favour they had need of 2. It is a duty by Institution and that both in the Old and New Testament the fast of the seventh month was by direct institution in the Old Testament And at other times God call'd them to it Sanctifie a fast call an Assembly said the Prophet Joel chap. 1.14 And God is said to choose it Isa 58. Is not this the fast that I have chosen And God's declaring there in that Chapter the right way of observing it doth prove the duty it self to be of his own appointment And the New Testament requires it also for the duty is of a Moral nature and therefore the obligation of it remains only with this difference 1. We are not to use those rites and outward expressions of sorrow that were practiced in those times which belonged to the rigour of that legal ministration As Rending the garment Joel 2.13 putting on of sackcloth Neh. 9.1 covering with Ashes Dan. 9.3 bowing down the head Isa 58.5 Putting earth upon their head Neh. 9.1 and sometimes putting off their sandal or shoes and plucking off the hair Ezra 9.3 and making themselves bald Isa 22.12 And the Pharisees used disfiguring of their faces Mat. 6. But saith Christ to his Disciples when thou fastest anoint thy head wash thy face which in their fasting the Jews should forbear though used at other times as appears by Daniels fasting chap. 10.3 I ate no pleasant bread neither did I anoint my self at all But saith Christ do not ye do so but anoint thy head and wash thy face c. and so use not such visible signs of sorrow that thou may'st not appear to men to fast 2. We ought not to fast with that legal frame of spirit which was upon the Jews in those days for every duty in the days of the New Testament is to be managed with a spirit suiting the Gospel ministration 3. As to its sanction there may be also the addition of humane authority in the appointing of fasts especially publick fasts when the publick state of affairs may require it the duty in general being of God's institution and the voice of Providence calling people to it the Magistrate in this case may determine the time if it be general to a Nation Or the Pastors and guides of the Church with respect to the several Churches over which they preside For where a duty is required of God and the circumstance of time not determin'd there Christian prudence in Magistrates or Churches is to be the rule for determination As the particular times for Baptism and the Lord's Supper are left to Christian prudence to determine 2. The manner how a religious fast is to be observed And that both with respect to the outward and inward man And if some cannot hear a total abstinence some courser food may be used as in Tertullian's time they had their Xerophagiae so called from a dry kind of food used by them Tertullian de jejun adv Psithicos 1. With respect to the outward man 1. Abstinence from food is requisite and necessary so far as may consist with mercy to the body For the very name of a fast implies this abstinence and not only the Jews but the very Heathen in their fasts did injoin this abstinence upon themselves and others as appears by that of Nineveh Jonah 2.7 2. As also meaner apparel than what may be used at other times though not to put on Sackcloth yet to lay aside ornaments and richer dresses upon such a day When the Israelites would express their sorrow for the sad tidings of God's refusing to go before them It is said they laid aside their Ornaments Exodus 33.4 Though they had a command for it yet nature it self did teach it them As it did the King of Nineveh who laid aside his robe when he fasted and mourned Purple and scarlet and shining apparel are not suitable to such a duty nature it self being judg Non est conveniens luctibus ille color And verily those gay and gaudy dresses which multitudes garb themselves with at this day are no whit suitable to the sad times upon which God hath cast us 3. Yea and humble gestures also which may best express a solemn serious mind Though no particular gesture is absolutely commanded yet nothing ought to be discovered either in the countenance or any actions and gestures of the body that may be unsuitable to the nature of the day and the solemn duties thereof wherein partly the light of nature and the custom of the place may direct and regulate us The Jews had three sorts of gestures that were used in worship The one was bowing the head call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other was bending the knee call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The third was prostration of the body call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But where there is no particular gesture determined there Christians are left to their liberty only it is to be guided by a due respect to the greatest advantage of the duty and with caution against any just offence 4. Abstinence from secular affairs is requisite for a fast is a solemn devoting a certain part of time to God and to an extraordinary attendance upon him And if meats and drinks are to be forborn for to give advantage to the duties of the day so also bodily labours and secular business upon the same account The Jewish fasts were reckoned among their Sabbaths and so they were days of rest from bodily labours And there was a severe punishment to be inflicted upon the men that did any work upon their solemn fasts of the tenth day of the seventh month as we read Levit. 23.30 The same soul will I destroy from among his people Though the rigour of that legal ministration is abated under the Gospel yet it holds still in the moral and equitable part of it that whatever may hinder the managing of
delightful and hath its sweetness in it Q. 21 Have I not sinned indeed hath not my heart been in my sins are not my sins really sins And shall I not now pray indeed shall not my heart be in duty and my Prayers be really Prayers What! real sinning and counterfeit praying and is not counterfeit praying real sinning Awake o my Soul unto thy work Q. 22 Are not my wants real wants Do I not want grace indeed or at least really want more of it And should not my Prayers be as real as my wants Q. 23 Would I have God to put me off with seeming mercy Should I then put God off with seeming duty Q. 24 Are not my temptations real temptations and strong and powerful And should not then my Prayers be so too Q. 25 Am I not real and lively in my worldly business am I not in good earnest in my Shop in the Market and at the Exchange And should I not be so in the matters of another world in the business of my Soul Thus take some of these Questions lay them warm unto your hearts and propose them to your selves in the fear of God and they will heat you when you are cold and quicken you when you are dull if God set them home upon your hearts that you shall manage your Family Prayers to your spiritual benefit which was the third part of my work to direct you in The fourth follows Question 4. With what considerations may Masters of Families be urged to the constant performance of Family Prayer Notwithstanding it be a certain duty to pray in your Families yet I doubt when death shall come to drag you out of your houses it will find some of you guilty of neglecting of it to your dying day but yet I hope some may be Prevailed with What! have you neglected it and will you all do so still God forbid When you sin you act like men but when you go on in sin you act like Devils * Humanum est errare perseverare diabolicum I shall propound a few considerations to urge you to it and I intreat you in the name of the great eternal God before whom you and I must shortly stand and be judged to weigh them seriously and if you find there is no reason in them throw them by and look for and enquire after better but if there be resolve in the fear of God to buckle to your duty It is time †fecimus nos Haec juvenes esto desisti nempe nec ulira Fovisti errorem breve sit quod turpiter cudâ—s Quaedam cum prima resecen ur crimina barba Juven Sat. 8. it is high time to reform Did you sin when you were young and will you go on in riper years What do you come to Sermons for to hear what Ministers can say upon such a Question to discern their parts or to mend your own hearts and lives Do you come to hear that you may hear So you may and go to Hell when you have done or do you come to hear that you may practise and obey so you must if you are men for Heaven I charge you therefore here before the Lord and by Jesus Christ that shall shortly judge both you and me that your Families be no longer prayerless Families If I put you upon work that God doth not require from you then tell me so when you and I shall meet and stand at God's Judgment Bar But if it be no more than what you owe to God neglect it at your peril Sirs the day is coming and it hastens when you will you must be serious If thou diest within a week or two within a day or two or whenever thou shalt leave this world if the next hour after thou art not of this mind * Res ipsa fidem dictis dabit Serò sapiunt â—hâ—yges that thou shouldst have prayed in thy Family then say I did needlesly call thee to it but if thou shalt then see it was thy duty thou shalt also see when it is too late that thou didst befool thy self and make thy self guilty before God in thy neglecting of it Be wise therefore before it be too late and mind this work while thou hast time and opportunity To this purpose press your backward hearts with these things following MOTIVE I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Consider The Souls that live in your Families are precious and immortal Souls The Soul of the meanest Servant in your house is more precious than all the silks and wares in your Shop than all the Gold in your bags yea than all the riches in the world Mat. 16.26 And as they be of great worth so they be immortal too that must be damned or saved for ever And are these the Souls that you do not pray with that you thus neglect and slight must they live for ever and will not you call them to pray with you that they may live happily for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phocylid MOTIVE II. Quomodo ed nos pertinet in Ecclesia loqui vobis sâ—c ad vos pertinet in dâ—mibus vâ—stris agere ut bonam rationem reddatis de his qui vebis sunt subditi Aug. in Psal 50. Cum diserta mentio fiat librorum servorum ex eo câ—lligitur à parentibus patribus-familias exigi ut non ipsi solùm sabbatum sanctificent sed etiam à filiis servis curae ac fides su e commissis illud sanctificari curent Gerhar loc com de decalog Damnati seipsos omnésque sceleris socios assiduis execrationibus devovebunt parentem filius matrem filia execrabitur 2. These precious and immortal Souls in your Families are committed to your charge and care You Masters of Families have a charge of Souls as well as Ministers When you have a child born and continued to you there is one immortal Soul that God intrusts you with to bring up for him and Heaven When you take a Servant into your Family there is another Soul committed to your care Do you question this Study well the meaning of the fourth Commandment and you shall see that this is true And is it so And shall not the blood of those that go to Hell out of your Families through your neglect be required at your hands Have you done your duty when a Servant that hath served you seven years and you make him free can truly say My Master taught me my trade but he taught me not to serve God he often called me up unto my work but he never called me to Prayer Are you not afraid that your very Children and Servants will rise up in judgment against you and accuse you at the Bar of God Lord my Father saith the Son no nor my Master saith the Servant never prayed with us and we both Children and Servants being so brought up and having such Examples before us did not mind thy service neither Lord we are jastly condemned but
oppressors and murmurings in the oppressed do arise 4. Curious thoughts about things too high for us 'T is the frequent business of mens minds to flutter about things without the bounds of God's revelation Not to be content with what God hath published is to accuse Him Gen. 3.5 God knows that your eyes shall be opened in the same manner as the Serpent did to our first parents of envying us an intellectual happiness Yet how do all Adam's posterity long after this forbidden fruit II. In regard of our selves Our thoughts are proud self-confident self-applauding foolish covetous anxious unclean And what not 1. Ambitious The aspiring thought of the first man runs in the veins of his posterity God took notice of such Strains in the King of Babylon when he said in his heart I will exalt my throne above the Stars of God I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds I will be like the most High * Isa 14.13 14. No less a charge will they stand under that settle themselves upon their own bottom establish their own righteousness and will not submit to the righteousness of God's appointment †Rom. 10.3 The most forlorn beggar hath sometimes thoughts vast enough to grasp an Empire 2. Self-confident Edom's thoughts swell'd him into a vain confidence of a perpetual prosperity Obad. 3. That saith in his heart who shall bring me down to the ground And David sometimes said in the like state that he should never be moved 3. Self-applauding Either in the vain remembrances of our former prosperity or ascribing our present happiness to the dexterity of our own wit Such flaunting thoughts had Nebuchadnezzar at the consideration of his setling Babylon the head and Metropolis of so great an Empire Nothing more ordinary among men Dan. 4.30 Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the Kingdom c. than overweening reflexions upon their own parts and * Rom. 12.3 thinking of themselves above what they ought to think 4. Vngrounded Imaginations of the events of things either present or future Such wild conceits like Meteors bred of a few vapors do often frisk in our minds 1. Of things present 'T is likely Eve foolishly imagin'd she had brought forth the Messiah when she brought forth a murderer Gen. 4.1 I have gotten a man the Lord as in the Hebrew believing as some interpret that she had brought forth the promised seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And such a brisk conceit Lamech seems to have had of Noah †Gen. 5.29 2. Of things to come either in bespeaking false hopes or antedating improbable griefs Such are the jolly thoughts we have of a happy Estate in reversion which yet we may fall short of Haman's heart leap'd at the King's question Est 6.6 What shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour phancying himself the mark of his Princes favour without thinking that a halter should soon choak his ambition Or perplexing thoughts at the fear of some trouble which is not yet fallen upon us and perhaps never may How did David torture his Soul by his unbelieving fears 1 Sam. 27.1 And David said in his heart c. that he should one day perish by the hand of Saul These forestalling thoughts do really affect us we often feel caprings in our Spirits upon imaginary hopes and shiverings upon conceited fears These pleasing impostures and self-afflicting suppositions are signs either of an idle or indigent mind that hath no will to work or only rotten materials to work upon 5. Immoderate thoughts about lawful things When we exercise our minds too thick and with a fierceness of affection above their merit not in subserviency to God or mixing our cares with dependencies on Him Worldly concerns may quarter in our thoughts but they must not possess all the room and thrust Christ into a manger Neither must they be of that value with us as the law was with David sweeter than the honey or the honey comb III. In regard of others All thoughts of our neighbour against the rule of charity Such that imagine evil in their hearts God hates * Zach. 8.17 These principally are 1. Envious when we torment our selves with others fortunes Such a thought in Cain upon God's acceptance of his brother's sacrifice Gen. 4.5 1 Tim. 6.4 2 Cor. 13.5 was the Prologue to and foundation of that cursed murder 2. Censorious stigmatizing every freckle in our brother's conversation 3. Jealous and evil surmises contrary to charity which thinks no evil 4. Revengeful Est 5.13 Such made Haman take little content in his preferments as long as Mordecai refused to court him And Esau thought of the daies of mourning for his father Gen. 27 41. Esau said in his heart c. that he might be revenged for his brother's deceits There is no sin committed in the world but is hatched in one or other of these thoughts But beside these there are a multitude of other volatile conceits like swarms of gnats buzzing about us and preying upon us and as frequent in their successions as the curlings of the water upon a small breath of wind one following another close at the heels The mind is no more satisfied with thoughts than the first matter is with forms continually shifting one for another and many times the nobler for the baser as when upon the putrefaction of a human body part of the Matter is endued with the form of Vermin Such changeable things are our minds in leaving that which is good for that which is worse when they are enveigled by an active phancy and Bedlam affections This madness is in the hearts of men while they live Eccles 9.3 and starts a thousand frenzies in a day At the best our phancy is like a Carrier's bag stuffed with a world of Letters having no dependence upon one another some containing business and others nothing but froth In all these thoughts there is a further guilt in three respects viz. 1. Delight 2. Contrivance 3. Reacting 1. Delight in them The very tickling of our phancy by a sinful motion though without a formal consent is a sin because it is a degree of complacency in an unlawful object When the mind is pleased with the subject of the thought as it hath a tendency to some sensual pleasure and not simply in the thought it self as it may enrich the understanding with some degree of knowledg The thought indeed of an evil thing may be without any delight in the evil of it as Philosophers delight in making experiments of poisonous Creatures without delighting in the poison as it is a noxious quality We may delightfully think of sin without guilt not delighting in it as sin but as God by his wise providential ordering extracts Glory to himself and good to his Creature In this case though a sinful act be the material object of this pleasure yet 't is not the
mean while i. e. in this life while conscience bears witness accusing or excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men i. e. and also at the day of judgment when conscience shall give in it's final Testimony upon God's examination of the secret counsels This place is properly meant of those reasonings concerning good and evil in men's Consciences agreeable to the Law of nature imprinted on them which shall excuse them if they practice accordingly or accuse them if they behave themselves contrary thereunto But it will hold in this Case for if those inward approbations of the the notions of good and evil will accuse us for our contrary practices they will also accuse us for our contrary thoughts Non solum opus sed mali operis cogitatio paenas luet Hieron in 1 Hos 7. Acts 8.22 Our good thoughts will be our accusers for not observing them and our bad thoughts will be indictments against us for complying with them 'T is probable the Soul may be bound over to answer chiefly for these at the last day for the Apostle chargeth Simon 's guilt upon his thought not his word and tells him pardon must be principally granted for that The tongue was only an Instrument to express what his heart did think and would have been wholly innocent had not his thoughts been first criminal What therefore is the principal subject of pardon would be so of punishment as the first incendiaries in a rebellion are most severely dealt with And if as some think the fallen Angels were stript of their primitive Glory only for a conceiv'd thought how heinous must that be which hath inrolled them in a remediless misery Having proved that there is a sinfulness in our thoughts let us now see what provocation there is in them Which in some respects is greater than that of our actions But we must take actions here in sensu diviso as distinguished from the inward preparations to them In the one there is more of scandal in the other more of odiousness to God God indeed doth not punish thoughts so visibly because as He is Governour of the world His Judgments are shot against those sins that disturb humane society but He hath secret and spiritual Judgments for these suitable to the nature of the sins Now thoughts are greater in respect 1. Of fruitfulness The wickedness that God saw great in the earth was the fruit of imaginations They are the immediate causes of all sin No Cockatrice but was first an egg It was a thought to be as God * Gen. 3.5 2 Cor. 11.3 that was the first breeder of all that sin under which the world groans at this day For Eve's mind was first beguiled in the alteration of her thought Since that the lake of inward malignity acts all it's evil by these smoaking steams Evil thoughts lead the van in our Saviour's Catalogue Matth. 15.19 as that which spirits all the black regiment which march behind As good motions cherish'd will spring up in good actions so loose thoughts favoured will break out in visible plague-sores and put fire unto all that wickedness which lyes habitually in the heart 2 Tim. 2.16 as a spark may to a whole stock of Gun-powder The vain babblings of the soul as well as those of the Tongue will encrease to more ungodliness Being thus the cause they include virtually in them all that is in the effect as a seed contains in its little body the leaves fruit colour scent which afterward appear in the plant The seed includes all but the colour doth not virtually include the scent or the scent the colour or the leaves the fruit So 't is here One act doth not include the formal obliquity of another but the thought which caused it doth seminally include both the formal and final obliquity of every action both that which is in the nature of it and in the end to which it tends As when a Trades-man cherisheth immoderate thoughts of gain and in the attaining it runs into many foolish and hurtful Lusts 1 Tim. 6 9. there is cheating lying swearing to put off the commodity all these several acts have a particular sinfulness in the nature of the acts themselves besides the tendency they have to the satisfying an inordinate affection all which are the spawn of those first immoderate thoughts stirring up greedy desires 2. In respect of Quantity Imaginations are said to be continually evil There is an infinite variety of conceptions as the Psalmist speaks of the Sea wherein are all things creeping innumerable both small and great and a constant generation of whole shoals of them that you may as well number the Fish in the Sea or the Atomes in the Sun-beams as recount them There is a greater number in regard of the acts and in regard of the objects 1. In regard of the acts of the mind 1. Antecedent acts How many preparatory motions of the mind are there to one wicked external act Yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plutarch Moral p. mihi 500. how many sinful thoughts are twisted together to produce one deliberate sinful word All which have a distinct guilt and if weigh'd together would outweigh the guilt of the action abstractedly considered How many repeated complacencies in the first motion degrees of consent resolved broodings secret plottings proposals of various methods smothering contrary checks vehement longings delightful hopes and forestalled pleasures in the design All which are but thoughts assenting or dissenting in order to the act intended Upon a dissection of all these secret motions by the critical power of the word we should find a more monstrous guilt than would be apparent in the single action for whose sake all these spirits were raised There may be no sin in a material act considered in it self when there is a provoking guilt in the mental motion A hypocrite's religious services are materially good but poysoned by the Imagination skulking in the heart that gave birth unto them Prov. 21.27 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a wicked thought Ezek. 23.3.19 Yet she multiplied he◠whoredoms in calling to remembrance the days of her youth c. v. 21. the lewdness of her youth 'T is the wicked mind or thought makes the sacrifice a commanded duty much more an abomination to the Lord. 2. Consequent acts When a man's phancy is pregnant with the delightful remembrance of the sin that is past he draws down a fresh guilt upon himself as they did in the Prophet in reviving the concurrence of the will to the act committed making the sensual pleasure to commence spiritual and if ever there were an aking heart for it revoking his former grief by a renewed approbation of his darling lust Thus the sin of thoughts is greater in regard of duration A man hath neither strength nor opportunity always to act but he may always think and imagination can supply the place of action Or if the
entertainment to such loose companions as evil thoughts are Well then if we had this heavenly affection strong in us it would not suffer unwholesom weeds to grow up so near it either our Love would consume those weeds or those weeds will choak our Love 5. Exercise faith As the habit of faith is attended with habitual sanctification so the acts of faith are accompanied with a progress in the degrees of it That faith which brings Christ to dwell in our souls will make us often think of our inmate Faith doth realize divine things and make absent objects as present and so furnisheth fancy with richer streams to bath it self in than any other principle in the world As there is a necessity of the use of fancy while the soul is linked to the body so there is also a necessity of a corrective for it Reason doth in part regulate it but 't is too weak to do it perfectly because fancy in most men is stronger than reason Mirand de Imaginat cap. 11 12. man being the highest of imaginative beings and the lowest of intelligent fancy is in its exaltation more than in creatures beneath him and reason in its detriment more than in creatures above him and therefore the imagination needs a more skilful guide than reason Fancy is like fire a good Servant but a bad Master if it march under the conduct of faith it may be highly serviceable and by putting lively colours upon divine truth may steal away our affections to it Faith is the evidence of things not seen viz. not by a corporeal but intellectual eye and so it will supply the office of sense 'T is the substance of things hoped for and if hope be an attendant on faith Psal 42.5 Why art thou cast down Oh my soul and why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God our thoughts will surely follow our expectations The remedy David used when he was almost stifled with disquieting thoughts was to excite his soul to a hope and confidence in God Psal 42.5 and when they return'd upon him he useth the same diversion v. 11. The peace of God i. e. the reconciliation made by a Mediator between God and us believingly apprehended will keep or garrison our hearts and minds or thoughts against all anxious assaults both from within and without †Phil 4.6 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When any vain conceit creeps up in you act faith on the intercession of Christ and consider Is Christ thinking of me now in Heaven and pleading for me and shall I squander away my thoughts on trifles which will cost me both tears and blushes Believingly meditate on the promises they are a means to cleanse us from the filthiness of the spirit as well as that of the flesh * 2 Cor 7.1 Having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves c. If the having them be a motive the using them will be a means to attain this end Looking at the things that are not seen preserves us from fainting and renews the inward man day by day †2 Cor. 4.16 18. These invisible things could not well keep our hearts from fainting if faith did not first keep the thoughts from wandring from them 6. Accustom your self to a serious meditation every morning Fresh airing our souls in Heaven will engender in us purer spirits and nobler thoughts A morning seasoning would secure us for all the day Intus existens prohibet alienum Though other necessary thoughts about our callings will and must come in yet when we have dispatch'd them let us attend our morning Theme as our chief companion As a man that is going with another about some considerable business suppose to Westminster though he meets with several friends in the way and salutes some and others with whom he hath some affairs he spends a little time yet he quickly returns to his companion and both together go their intended stage Do thus in the present case Our minds are active and will be doing something though to little purpose and if they be not fixed upon some noble object they will like mad men and fools be mightily pleased in playing with straws The thoughts of God were the first Visiters David had in the morning Psal 139 17 18 God and his heart met together as soon as he was awake and kept company all the day after In this meditation look both to the matter and manner 1. Look to the matter of your meditation Let it be some truth which will assist you in reviving some languishing grace or fortifie you against some triumphing corruption for 't is our darling sin which doth most envenom our thoughts †Prov. 23.7 As a man thinks in his heart so is he As if you have a thirst for honour let your fancy represent the honour of being a child of God and heir of Heaven If you are inclined to covetousness think of the riches stored up in a Saviour and dispensed by him If to voluptuousness fancy the pleasures in the ways of wisdom here and at God's right hand hereafter This is to deal with our hearts as Paul with his hearers to catch them with guile Stake your soul down to some serious and profitable mystery of Religion as the Majesty of God some particular Attribute The heads of the Catechism might be taken in order which would both encrease and actuate our knowledg Psal 40.5 his condescension in Christ the love of our Redeemer the value of his sufferings the vertue of his bloud the end of his ascension the work of the Spirit the excellency of the soul beauty of holiness certainty of death terror of judgment torments of Hell and joys of Heaven Why may not that which was the subject of God's innumerable thoughts be the subject of ours God's thoughts and counsels were concerning Christ the end of his coming his death his precepts of holiness and promises of life and that not only speculatively but with an infinite pleasure in his own glory and the creatures good to be accomplished by him Would it not be work enough for our thoughts all the day to travel over the length breadth heighth and depth of the love of Christ Would the greatness of the journey give us leisure to make any starts out of the way Having settled the Theme for all the day we shall find occasional assistances even from worldly businesses as Scholars who have some Exercise to make find helps in their own course of reading though the Book hath no design'd respect to their proper Theme Thus by imploying our minds about one thing chiefly we shall not only hinder them from vain excursions but make even common objects to be oyl to our good thoughts which otherwise would have been fuel for our bad Such generous liquor would scent our minds and conversations all the day that whatsoever motion came into our hearts would be tinctured with this spirit and savour of our morning
thoughts as vessels having been filled with a rich wine communicate a relish of it to the liquors afterward put into them We might also more steadily go about our worldly business if we carry God in our minds as one foot of the Compass will more regularly move about the Circumference when the other remains firm in the Center 2. Look to the manner of it 1. Let it be intent Transitory thoughts are like the glances of the eye soon on and soon off they make no clear discovery and consequently raise no spritely affections Let it be one principal subject and without flitting from it for if our thoughts be unsteady we shall find but little warmth a burning glass often shifted fires nothing We must look at the things that are not seen as wistly as men do at a mark they shoot at 2 Cor. 4.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.18 Such an intent meditation would change us into the image and cast us into the mould of those truths we think of it would make our minds more busie about them all the day as a glaring upon the Sun fills our eyes for some time after with the image of it To this purpose look upon your selves as deeply concern'd in the things you think of Our minds dwell upon that whereof we apprehend an absolute necessity A condemned person would scarce think of any thing but procuring a reprieve and his earnestness for this would bar the door against other intruders 2. Let it be affectionate and practical Meditation should excite a spiritual delight in God as it did in the Psalmist †Psal 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet I will be glad in the Lord. and a divine delight would keep up good thoughts and keep out impertinencies A bare speculation will tire the soul and without application and pressing upon the will and affections will rather chill than warm devotion 'T is only by this means that we shall have the efficacy of truth in our wills and the sweetness in our affections as well as the notion of it in our understandings The more operative any truth is in this manner upon us the less power will other thoughts have to interrupt and the more disdainfully will the heart look upon them if they dare be impudent Never therefore leave thinking of a spiritual subject till your heart be affected with it If you think of the evil of sin leave not till your heart loath it if of God cease not till it mount up in admirations of him If you think of his mercy melt for abusing it if of his soveraignty awe your heart into obedient resolutions if of his presence double your watch over your self If you meditate on Christ make no end till your hearts love him if of his death plead the value of it for the justification of your persons and apply the vertue of it for the sanctification of your natures Without this practical stamp upon our affections we shall have light spirits while we have opportunity to converse with the most serious objects We often hear foolish thoughts breathing out themselves in a house of mourning in the midst of Coffins and trophies of death as if men were confident they should never die whereas none are so ridiculous as to assert they shall live for ever By this instance in a truth so certainly assented to we may judg of the necessity of this direction in truths more doubtfully believed 7. Draw spiritual Inferences from occasional objects David did but wistly consider the Heavens and he breaks out in self-abasement Psal 8.3 4. and humble admirations of God Glean matter of instruction to your selves and praise to your Maker from every thing you see It will be a degree of restoration to a state of innocency since this was Adam's task in Paradise Dwell not upon any created object only as a Virtuoso to gratifie your rational curiosity but as a Christian call Religion to the feast and make a spiritual improvement No creature can meet our eyes but affords us lessons worthy our thoughts besides the general notices of the power and wisdom of the Creator Thus may the Sheep read us a Lecture of patience the Dove of innocence the Ant and Bee raise blushes in us for our sluggishness and the stupid Oxe and dull Ass correct and shame our ungrateful ignorance Isa 1.3 And since our Saviour did set forth his own excellency in a sensible dress the consideration of those Metaphors by an acute fancy would garnish out divine truths more deliciously and conduct us into a more inward knowledg of the mysteries of the Gospel He whose eyes are open cannot want an instructer unless he wants a heart Thus may a Tradesman spiritualize the matter he works upon and make his commodities serve in wholesom meditations to his mind and at once enrich both his soul and his coffers yea and in part restore the creatures to the happiness of answering a great end of their Creation which man depriv'd them of when he subjected them to vanity Such a view of spiritual truths in sensible pictures would clear our knowledg purifie our fancies animate our affections encourage our graces disgrace our vices and both argue and shame us into duty and thus take away all the causes of our wild wandring thoughts at once And a frequent exercise of this method would beget and support a habit of thinking well and weaken if not expel a habit of thinking ill 2. The second sort of directions are for the preventing bad thoughts And to this purpose 1. Exercise frequent humiliations Pride exposeth us to impatient and disquieting thoughts whereas humility clears up a calm and serenity in the soul Prov. 30.32 'T is Agur's advice to be humbled particularly for evil thoughts Frequent humiliations will dead the fire within and make the sparks the fewer The deeper the plough sinks the more the weeds are killed and the ground fitted for good grain Men do not easily fall into those sins for which they have been deeply humbled Vain conceits love to reside most in jolly hearts but by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better Eccles 7.3 4. There is more of wisdom or wise consideration in a composed and graciously mournful spirit whereas carnal mirth and sports cause the heart to evaporate into lightness and folly The more we are humbled for them the more our hatred of them will be fomented and consequently the more prepared shall we be to give them a repulse upon any bold intrusion 2. Avoid entangling your selves with the world This clay will clog our minds Lutea faelicitas Aug. de Civ Dei l. 10. and a dirty happiness will engender but dirty thoughts Who were so foolish to have inward thoughts that their houses should continue for ever but those that trusted in their riches †Psal 49 6 11. If the world possess our souls it will breed carking thoughts much business meets
the neglect of them as proceeding from licentiousness what saith the Apostle Who art thou that judgest another man's Servant verse 4. And But why dost thou judg or set at naught thy Brother For we must all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ verse 10. As if he had said thou dost set thy self in the Throne of God and thou dost take God's work out of his hands 2. This is a manifest breach of the Laws of God and of Christ The things as I said before which thou dost censure and reproach another for are often-times doubtful and liable to dispute but the Command of God against this sinful practice is evident and without controversie He whom thou censurest possibly may sin but thou that dost reproach him certainly dost sin and that against clear Light and so thou dost put thy self into the Number of those that rebel against the Light which is mentioned as a great aggravation of sin Job 24.13 The Law of God hath so evidently forbidden this sin that if thy Conscience doth not smite thee for it if thou canst go on quietly in this sin it is a sign thou art in a deep sleep if not dead in Trespasses and sins That this practice is so great a breach of the Laws of God and of Christ will appear by these particulars 1. It is against particular and express Scriptures forbidding this practice The Text is evident it is not like some places of Scripture which are hard to be understood and soon wrested but it is so plain that he that runs may read it none shall dwell in God's holy Hill that allow themselves in this practice Again Exod. 23.1 Thou shalt not raise a false Report against thy Brother A false Report either that which thou knowest to be false then thou art guilty of Forgery or that which in the Issue shall be found to be false in which case thou art guilty of rashness and uncharitableness In the Hebrew it is a vain Report a report that wants the solidity of a through information and of real use to thy Neighbour Jam. 4.11 Speak not evil of another for he that speaketh evil of his Brother and judgeth his Brother speaketh evil of the Law and judgeth the Law and so in the grossest sense is an Antinomian Tit. 3.2 Ministers must put people in mind to speak evil of no man 2. This is against the fundamental Law of Love and Charity which is the chief of the Laws of God so great a Law that the rest of the Laws of God must give place to it Sacrifice Sabbaths The Worship and Service of God must frequently give place unto this duty of Mercy and Charity to men by which you may see as how great a duty this is so how great a sin the violation of this command is God accepts no man's person he regards no Service where this is wanting Though men pretend or express never so much love to God though they do or suffer never so much for him yet if they have not Charity it prositeth nothing 1 Cor. 13.3 and 1 Joh. 3.10 In this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his Brother 1 Joh. 4.20 If a man say I love God and hateth his Brother he is a Lyar for he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen But possibly some may ask who then is my Brother to the love of whom I am thus obliged Possibly he is one of my own party and Religion and such I do love No every man is thy Brother in this sense and the object of thy Love 'T is true good men are the principal objects of thy Love but not the only objects of it the commands of the Gospel in this matter are general 1 Pet. 2.17 Honour all men love the Brother-hood that is Love them in a more eminent degree Gal. 6.10 As we have opportunity let us do good to all men especially to the Houshold of Faith But now all Persons yea even those that censure and reproach others will pretend they love them but be not deceived if thou dost sincerely love thy Neighbour thou wilt be ready to do all good Offices for him to seek his Good to maintain his Credit to Interpret all things in the best sense to cover his failings 1 Pet. 4.8 Charity will cover a multitude of sins Didst thou love thy Neighbour thou wouldst not be so apt to censure him so greedy to hear nor so ready to believe evil reports concerning him When God shall come at the last day to try men's Love to their Brethren by the Rules and Characters of it which he did prescribe in the first Epistle to the Corinthians 13th Chapter I doubt multitudes of Persons will be found deeply guilty that thought themselves in a manner wholly Innocent You should do well to study that Chapter and to labour throughly to understand it and that I commend to you as an excellent Antidote against this wicked practice 2. This is a sin against that great and Royal Law of Christ which even the Heathens have admired and the Emperour Severus did so highly applaud Mat. 7.12 Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets Now let your own Consciences answer the Question would you be thus dealt with by others Would you have all your Infirmities sharply censured Your secret miscarriages published to the World The whole course of your Lives ript up and all your actions severely examined No no they that are so forward to censure the real or supposed miscarriages of others would have their own more tenderly dealt with And generally those that are most severe Judges of others are most partial to themselves they that will most freely defame other men will not endure to be reproved and admonished themselves They that will turn the edge of the Sword to others would have the back only turned to themselves 3. It is sin against the great Law of maintaining Peace amongst men This is prescribed as a remedy against this very sin Rom. 14.9 Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace and things wherewith we may Edifie one another Heb. 12.4 Follow Peace with all men Rom. 12.18 If it be possible as much as lyeth in you live peaceably with all men He saith indeed if it be possible because in some cases it is impossible to have peace with wicked men without the neglect of our Duty and without the loss of Truth and Holiness but as far as it is possible we are obliged to promote it But what Peace can there be in the midst of Censures and Reproaches The Natural Off-spring of such Parents are Contentions Divisions Animosities while Peace lyes bleeding and languishing 4. It is against that great Command laid upon all Christians of excelling other men Christ
inordinate desires after more wealth do proceed 2. By a deep conviction of the greatness of the sin of Covetousness as also of the greatness of the folly that accompanieth that sin 3. By frequent and serious meditation upon death and the eternity which follows upon it 4. By the getting true notions of the vanity of riches and all things here be low 5. By the turning the desires into the right channel and the placing of them upon their proper Objects God and Christ and Spiritual things 6. By Considering how well others do who have but a slender proportion of these things and how thankful they are for that little which God measures out to them I do not at all enlarge on these things both because this is not that notion of Contentment which I most design as also because I shall have cccasion to speak more to them in what will follow How as it lies in the quietness of the mind c. 3. Therefore we are to consider Contentment as it imports a calmness and composedness of mind in every condition stilness and sedateness of spirit under all occurrences of Providence When a man likes whatsoever God doth to him or with him doth quietly submit unto and acquiesce in God's dispose of him this is contentment And so there is a great affinity though not a perfect identity 'twixt it and Patience so 't is opposed to all vexing fretting and murmuring to all undue perturbations of mind under God's dispensations towards us though they be never so cross to our natural desires Unquestionably this was one thing if not the main intended by our Apostle when he saith I have learned in every state to be content 'T is as if he had said I am brought to this alwaies to think well of God and of every state into which he is pleased to bring me whatever pleases him pleaseth me be it imprisonment poverty sickness reproach death it self let but God's will be done and I am content I am taught to bear all things with great * A. Christo omnia aequanimiter ferre Sum edoctus Hieron equanimity or eavenness of Spirit The Question then will come to this How may we and Others get this excellent frame to have the heart in every state calm and quiet without being disturbed and discontented under any thing that doth befall us the resolving of this Question will be my present work Three Helps to Contentment For answer to it I will reduce all to these three Helps or Means Consideration Grace or Godliness Prayer He that would learn and live Contentment must be a Considering man a godly man a praying man Consideration will do much Godliness will do more Prayer will do most of all In the former we have what Reason and Judgment can do In the second we have what a Divine Principle can do in the third we have what God himself can do In consideration we have the strength of the Man In grace the strength of the Christian In prayer the strength of God all of which being united they must needs do the work effectually Now as to these three Directions it is with me as it sometimes is at the head of a spring where the stream at first is so narrow that with ease any may stride over it but afterwards it doth very much widen and dilate it self in so much that the little stream is turned into a vast river So here take these three Heads in the General and at the first naming of them so my work seems to lie in a very small compass but when I come to make a further and more distinct inquiry into them truly there is a vast sea before me where 't is hard to find any bounds or limits I shall go over them with as much brevity as the Subject will admit of and as may best conduce to the great end the furtherance of Contentment The first means is Consideration By which I understand Of the past help viz. Consideration not only that which is rational and proper to a Man as a Man but that which is religious and divine both together but especially the latter have a great influence upon contentment Few do live Contentation because few do act consideration we are passionate because we are inconsiderate Were there but more considering doubtless there would be less murmuring David said in his haste All Men are liers Men are hasty and sudden and indeliberate Psal 116.11 they do not duly weigh and ponder things and thereupon passion and discontent prevail over them 'T Is good advice that in Eccles 7.14 In the Day of adversity consider when we meet with any thing which runs cross to our desires which makes it a day of adversity did we but sit down and consider about the matter this vvould much tend to the quieting of our spirits Consideration is an excellent help to Contentation He who is not thoughtful vvill never learn the lesson of the Text. Discomposures of mind are not to be kept off by any Spells or Charms but by solid and judicious consideration But vve must leave the General and come to Particulars and novv I am going out of the Straits and lanching out into the main Ocean The enquiry is How is a Christian to manage consideration in order to his attaining of contentment For your direction in this I vvill 1. Set before you that special Matter Directions how to manage Consideration in order to Contentment which you are to consider upon for this end 2. Instance in some of those common Cases wherein Contentment or Discontent are usually acted and shew what those considerations are which are proper to each for the promoting of the one and the preventing of the other 3. Speak a little to the Manner wherein Consideraion is to be managed For the first Of the special matter of it Would you knovv vvhat is that special and proper Matter which your Consideration is to work upon to further contentment in every state then bring it to to these three Heads Consider 1. Who it is that orders the State 2. What there is in the State it self 3. The excellency of a contented frame Who orders the state and how 't is ordered 1. Who it is that orders the estate surely the Supreme Sovereign all disposing God My times are in thy hands Psal 31.15 'T is so with every man in the world and with every thing about every man all is in God's hands There is an hand above which directs all Events here below He that numbers our hairs orders our state Good and Evil do not come by chance or happen in a casual and fortuitous way but both are disposed by God's Providence and according to his Will This we seem to give a full assent unto and yet in practice we do either wholly forget it or flatly deny it My advice therefore is this when at any time your hearts begin to storm and fret at your condition pray
The ground that lies lowest usually is most fruitful the earth that hath the richest mines in it commonly is most barren Who serves God less than they who are most wealthy to their shame be it spoken You would have more of this world and fret that God keeps you so much under alas you know not what you desire had you more it would be hurtful if the estate was better the heart would be worse Again Eccl. 5.13 as 't is not best for Duty so neither for Safety who are exposed to so many dangers as they who swim in earthly treasures Saepius ventis agitatur iâ—gens Pinus c. Horat. The higher is the building the more 't is endangered by fierce winds great Vessels strike where lesser go with safety the Ship that Sails with a full wind and all its fails up is apt to overset such who feed high are in most danger of Feavers and Surfeits Every condition hath its snares but the high condition is exceeding full of them And once more 't is not the best for Comfort the poor envy the rich when in truth they have more cause to pitty them Oh the cares distractions hurries that they live under In all their great enjoyments how little do they enjoy either God or themselves Pauperes ditiâ—ribus eo plerumque laetâ—ores quò animus eorum in paucioribus distringitur Sen. ad Helvid c. 12 and can any state be comfortable without these Luk. 12.15 Take heed of Covetousness for a man's life i. e. the comfort of his life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Tantis parta malis cuâ—á majore metúque Servantur misera est magni custodia census Juven Sat 14. The easiness of the garment or shoe doth not lie in its bigness but in its fitness And so 't is not the greatness of the Estate that gives comfort but the suiting of the mind and of the elate be it what it will There often is that serenity of mind in a poor cottage which is not enjoyed in the stately palace The mean man sleeps better on a hard bed than he who lies upon his bed of down and there is a more chearful spirit where the fare is course than where there are the greatest dainties You fondly imagine could you but skrew up your estates to such an height then you should and would live with comfort but I pray you why may you not do so now under what you have already as that Commander answered Pyrrhus designing so and so to enlarge his conquests which when he had done then he would fit down and be quiet and live merrily should you arrive at what you aspire after you would find your selves then to be as far from what you promise to your selves as now you are It appearing then that the great Estate is not the best why should any vex and be disturbed because that is denied to them Cui cum paupertate bene convenit dives est Sen. Non qui paruÌ„ habet sed qui plâ—s cupit pauper est Idem Ep. 2. Nihil interest utrum non desideres an habes Ep. 119. Desunt inopiae multa avaritiae omnia Ep 108 Nunquam parum est quod satis est nunquam multum est quod satis non est Ep. 119. Semper inops quicunque cupit Claud. Multa petentibus desunt multa bene est cui Deus obtulit parcâ quod satis est manu Horat. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato 6. The contented man is never poor let him have never so little the discontented man is never rich let him have never so much He is not rich who possesseth much but he who desires no more than what God gives him The way to be rich indeed is not to encrease the wealth but to lessen the covetings of the heart after more He that is ever desiring is ever wanting and he that is ever wanting is ever poor 7. What are these earthly riches that any should be thus insatiably greedy of them Surely there 's but little in them fancy mistakes ignorance being laid aside they are no better than unsatisfying perishing uncertain things Eccles 5.10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase Men may fill their bags and chests with silver nnd gold but they cannot with them fill their Souls no the Soul is a thing too great to be fill'd with such little things as these are Had you all that you desire you would be but where you are dissatisfied still for your * Auri naque fames parto fit major ab auro Prudent Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam Majorumque fames Horat. Inflammatur lucro avaritia non restinguitur Ambros desires would still grow as fast as your riches should grow yet more must be had and that is the banc of satisfaction †Est uat insoelix augusto limite mundi Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis Alexander could conquer the World but the world could not satisfie him he wept because there was no more worlds to conquer Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation I say too they are perishing and uncertain things that 's the Epithete of the Apostle trust not in uncertain riches 1 Tim. 6.17 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not for riches certainly make themselves wings they fly away as an Eagle towards heaven This we see verified every day and if so doth it become a man much more a Christian to be discontented because he hath but little of such vain things as these are Methinks such should scorn to have their generous minds discomposed for such trifles 8. As they are dying things so we are dying Persons What though we be straitned in them 't is not necessary our Estates should be very large when our Lives are not like to be very long A little money serves the Traveller that hath but a short journey to go Parum viae quid multum viatici Might we either alwayes live or when we die carry with us into another world what we have laid up in this then our greediness of these things would be more excusable but neither of these are to be expected Job 1.21 Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither 1 Tim. 6.7 For we brought nothing into the world and it is certain we can carry nothing out Grace will accompany us into the other World but other things must be all left behind And which I would further add Is it not stupendious folly for dying men who yet have never-dying souls to trouble themselves so much about dying things have not they other things to mind and should not all their sollicitudes be employed about those things such as the things above Col. 3.1 Math 6.33 Math. 6.20 the Kingdom of God and his righteousness treasures in Heaven c. If eternal things and the eternal state was
you lay foundations right and deep How can it be imagined much less expected that unprepared and estranged Souls from God and Christ should face the challenges and terrors or escape the dangers of a dying day vvhat can support the confidence of that man vvho is dispirited by the deserved rebuke buffettings of an exasperated because a guilty conscience for conscience is the mouth of God and speaks his mind and vvhat speaks othervvise in point of charge or censure is rather ignorance than conscience and by his order and commission and in his name and Majesty vvhips the careless soul It is impossible to still the cryes of guilt and vvrath It is far more easie for us to charm and stupifie the man than truely cure him He that is negligent of the main affair is like to bear the smartings of his ovvn voluntary vvounds and the more voluntary our negligence appears to be to our awakened consciences when startled by gripes and fears of death the less cause will there be for help and pity All fears arising from an unconverted state have God to back and sharpen them because they are truly grounded on God's professed resolution and legal comminations to bring those fears on them by vvhom they are deserved So that our only vvay to cure and quell these fears is to remove their Cause by giving up our selves to God the Father to knovv him love him and live to him and to delight our selves in God's Image Presence and Favour in his Son Jesus Christ more than in all the treasures and delights of lovver things to knovv the Lord that bought us and to serve him in righteousness peace and joy in the holy Ghost vvith confidence to commit our selves to his tendred conduct government and protection and entertain him vvith all sutableness of apprehension affection and conversation to all his excellencies offices and appearances to ansvver all his kindnesses cost and care with all such faithful fruitful chearful conversations as God Christ determined and designed in man's Redemption Eph. 1.4 Yea to be ruled assisted and refreshed by vvhat the Spirit of Grace and Holiness and Wisdom hath done for us and is sent from the Father and the Son to perfect and compleat in us to live the Life of Faith and Holiness and endeavour to spend our daies in the delightful hopes and fore-tasts of and ripenings for and hasting to or hastning as the vvord imports * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 3.12 your everlasting state of Joys and Glory to make the unseen vvorld the exercise poise and spring of your most vehement desires most vigorous pursuit and most inviolable satisfaction and in a vvord to vvalk in all due conscience of your trust and charge to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit to others and your selves in all things to think and speak and do as in the sight of God relation to him and special interest and delight in him and not through ignorance enmity and sloth to let the Devil Flesh or World mortifie your delight in God your motions tovvards affections to and resolutions for God And hearken not to those discouraging thoughts and jealousies of God and Christ vvhich your grand enemy the Prince of lies and darkness is ready to abuse you vvith Where hath God told you that the vvilling thoughtful painful Soul though much distemper'd and imperfect shall be rejected by him For vvhen the Son protests so solemnly against rejecting such as come he speaks his Father's heart Jo. 6.37 40. And I profess vvhen I most seriously consider the terms tenour of the covenant of Grace I am much confirmed in this that all grounded jealousies suspitions discouragements as to our hopes of everlasting happiness can only fix upon our voluntary rejecting of God and Christ and holiness and Heaven And though many things may humble us and ought to do it yet nothing can implead our Title to the purchased possession nor our comfortable hopes at death vvhen once our vvills are sixt on Christ and vvell resolved for him and prevail upon our lives for vvalking vvorthy of our great Vocation We have no impossible conditions imposed on us especially if vve consider Gospel-assistances indulgence and encouragements for vvhen vve knovv our vvay as God hath shevved it us in Christ and have our hearts inclined and fixt for God vve are but to exert vvhat strength and povver vve have to serve and please our God and proportionably to our abilities and advantages to vvait upon God for more according to his instituted vvays and methods Improvements are but required to be proportionable to our Talents and he that brought ten Talents to his Lord had more than one or tvvo at first to make improvement of I do indeed believe the Lavv * By the Law of the Nature I â— ean God's revealed will as Ruler objectively signified in the nature of things within us and without us concerning our Duty and Rewards or Punishments and this Law is written upon and discovered by our own capacity constitution our relations to God and others and our fâ—rniture and advantages from what we are encompâ—ssed and intrusted with in the whole firme of Nature of Nature yet in force though novv incorporated into the Lavv of Christ and that the Decalogue is yet in force to bind and rule us and never look to see its abrogation proved till they that hold this abrogation can demonstrate that the Father lost his Right Throne of Government by the appearance of his Son and that Christ acted not as his Fathers Delegate and for his Glory and that Grace vvas not designed and directed to the reparation of declined Religion in the vvorld but that God was so prodigal of his Pardon and Indulgence as to grow regardless of his Government But yet that Law is one thing and this Covenant another thing For the Covenant of Grace respected those distempers perplexities disadvantages and supposed them and was suited to them in its Tenders and Provisions for which it did design Relief And now our terms of Life are not so strict as those on vvhich God dealt vvith healthful sound and innocent Adam for novv sincere and prevalent Faith and Love and Holiness shall reach those Consolations after Death vvhich once viz. antecedently to Christ's undertaking and compleating satisfaction they could not do and therefore if your insincerity and fundamental unpreparedness for your change be that which starts and feeds your fears labour to be sincere and faithful in Covenant-making and Covenant-keeping and you may be sure of this that Death will lose its sting and victory and thereupon its fearful looks when Sin hath lost its Throne and when God and Christ have got your hearts and life-to come concernments influence and rule your purposes projects and pursuits It is with relation to our manifold temptations wants and weaknesses and all despondencies and discouragements consequent thereupon that Christ hath undertaken to be our great High
and therefore the Blessing is null and moreover what the meaning of this Providence is that my Brother should come forth against me in this hostile manner I knovv not Wherefore I humbly beg thy Blessing and the confirmation of that Title vvhich hath so great an error in it Thus God brought an old reckoning to his remembrance in an evil day and set it on his conscience and put him to repent and mourn for he wept and made supplication to the Angel Hos 12.4 He came not off so easily but was fain to vvrestle hard all night to lose his rest and to struggle and sweat and pray and vveep and shed many a tear and to go halting aftervvard upon his Thigh unto his dying day Take heed therefore of old Reckonings undischarged look back and consider hovv it hath been and omit not a day vvithout revievving your Actions and Repentings I say as duly as the day determineth let not the Sun go dovvn upon any guilt contracted that so your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and exercise your self to have always a Conscience void of offence towards God and men and this vvill the better prepare you for the coming of Jesus Christ both by Death and Judgment Fifthly Be much in the exercise of Goodness Mercy and works of Liberality towards Christ in his needy Members according to your opportunity and power For though you shall be saved by your Faith yet you shall be judged according to your Works And it greatly concerneth us to be laborious in that Service upon vvhich the judgment shall pass at Christ's appearance Mat. 25.35 36. Call your self therefore to an account what you have done in this way for Christ as how you have fed cloathed visited relieved him in his Members here on earth And if this were more considered such as profess to Christ would be more active for him in ought wherein they might be more serviceable to him but when we see but little activity in the exercise of this Grace we may well fear there is but little Oil in the Vessel for rich anointings will make men agile and ready for every good work inasmuch as the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and they that hope for eternal Life when Christ shall come by Death and Judgment must seek for Glory Honour and Immortality not only in well-doing but in continuance in it Beware of Omissions and among others of this great duty The Judgment will reach unto all sins In the Narrative of his Life and Death and to omissions in a special manner Mat. 25.37 38. For which that learned and holy Vsher was humbled upon his death-bed The Nobleman hath put a Pound into your hand saying Occupy till I come yea he hath given you many Pounds in a literal sense with which you must trade as well as with the Talents of your Parts and Gifts of Grace And I know you would be glad to find Mercy with Onesiphorus in the day of Christ Remember therefore Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Mat. 5.7 But He shall have judgment without mercy who hath shewed no mercy whereas mercy rejoyceth against judgment A merciful man is so far from fearing judgment at Christ's coming that he rather rejoyceth at the thoughts of it Sixthly Exercise diligence and faithfulness in your particular Calling For when Christ speaketh of his Coming saith he Be ye ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh What followeth Who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his houshold to give them meat in due season Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Mat. 24.44 45 46. When Christ was speaking to this Point saith Peter Lord speakest thou this Parable to us or even unto all Luke 12.41 Truly Christ spake it unto all though in a special manner to such as Peter for Christ will have an account how every one of us have managed our particular Callings But they that are Stewards in the House of God which is his Church have a very great account to give and it is required of them in a special manner that a man be found faithful and of all Christ's servants his Stewards have most to answer for that if a dispensation of the Gospel and the care of souls were not committed to them he that understandeth the weight of Stewardship would dread to undertake it but a necessity is laid upon them and wo unto them if they Preach not the Gospel It is said of Calvin that when Nature began to decline in him Melch. Adam in vit Calv. and the symptoms of a dying man appeared on him he would be diligent at his Studies from which his friends disswading him saith he Nunquid me Dominus inveniet otiosum Shall my Master find me idle Let such therefore and all be diligent and faithful in their respective place and employments And indeed every man is a Steward more or less You know what the Master saith of the slothful Servant Take him and cast him into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Such slothful servants shall be under the tribute of eternal pains Prov. 12.24 when the good and faithful Servant shall be made ruler over many things and enter into the joy of his Lord Mat. 25.23 Would you stand before Christ at his coming Oh dread Idleness and unfaithfulness in your Callings as you desire to be sound of him in peace at his appearance Fill up your days with Duty and give your time to him who gave it to you Paul was a great lover of Christ and his Appearance and who more abundant in his Labours for him For he had the Conscience of his indefatigable industry and fidelity in his work for his Master Saith he I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith 2 Tim 4.7 8. He meaneth especially his military faith and oath in fighting a good fight for Christ And wherefore do we hear him groaning so earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with his house which is from Heaven It was because he laboured ambitiously that whether present or absent he might be accepted of him For saith he We must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ that every one might receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5 2. with 9.10 Lastly That I might not multiply particulars let me add what Christ hath joined together Sobriety Watchfulness and Prayer Luk. 21 34.36 And therefore take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this Life and that Day come upon you unawares Gird up therefore the loins of your minds be sober and hope to the end for the Grace that is to be brought