heed of running from one extream into another p. 50 Direct 11. Be not too confident in your first apprehensions or opinions but modestly suspicious of them p. 51 Direct 12. What to do when Controversies divide the Church Of silencing truth p. 52 Direct 13. What Godliness is The best life on earth How Satan would make it seem troublesome and ungrateful 1. By difficulties 2. By various Sects 3. By scrupulosity 4. By your over-doing in your own inventions 5. By perplexing fears and sorrows 6. By unmortified lusts 7. By actual siâ—s 8. By ignorance of the Covenant of grace p. 54 Direct 14. Mortifie the flesh and rule the senses and the appetite p. 57 Direct 15. Be wary in choosing not only your Teachers but your Company also Their Characters p. 58 Direct 16. What Books to prefer and read and what to reject P. 60 Direct 17. Take not a Doctrine of Libertinism for Free Grace p. 61 Direct 18. Take heed lâ—st Grace degenerate into Counterfeits formality c. p. 63 Direct 19. Reckon not on prosperity or long life but live as dying p. 65 Direct 20. See that your Religion be purely Divine That God be your First and Last and All Man nothing p. 66 CHAP. III. The General Grand Directions for walking with God in a life of faith and Holiness Containing the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity p. 69 Gr. Dir. 1. Understand well the Nature Grounds Reason and Order of Faith and Godliness Propositions opening somewhat of them The Reader must note that here I blotted out the Method and Helps of Faith having fullier opened them in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and another of the Unreasonableness of Infidelity Gr. Dir. 2. How to live by Faith on Christ. How to make Use of Christ in twenty necessities p. 72 Gr. Dir. 3. How to Believe in the Holy Ghost and live by his Grace His Witness Seal Earnest c. Q. When good effects are from Means from our Endeavour and when from the Spirit p. 77 78 Gr. Dir. 4. For a True Orderly and Practical Knowledge of God A Scheme of his Attributes p. 81 82 Gr. Dir. 5. Of self resignation to God as our Owner Motives Marks Means p. 83 Gr. Dir. 6. Of subjection to God as our Soveraign King What it is How to bring the soul into subjection to God How to keep up a Ready and Constant Obedience to him p. 85 Gr. Dir. 7. To Learn of Christ as our Teacher How The Imitation of Christ. p. 90 Gr. Dr. 8. To obey Christ our Physicion or Saviour in his Repairing healing work p. 95 How each faculty is diseased or depraved The Intellect its acts and maladies The Wiâ—â— Q. Whether the Locomotive and sense can move us to sin without the Consent of the Will â—r Reason upon its bare Omission The sin of the Memory Imagination affections sensitive appetite exterior parts which need a Cure Forty intrinsecal evils in sin which make up its Malignity The common Aggravations of sin Special aggravations of the sins of the Regenerate Directions to get a hatred of sin How to cure it p. 95 Gr. Dir. 9. Of the Christian Warfare under Christ Who are our Enemies Of the Devil The state of the Armies and of the War between Christ and Satan The ends grounds advantages auxiliaries instruments and methods of the Tempter p. 104 How Satan keepeth off the forces of Christ and frustrateth all means Christs contrary Methods p. 109 Tit. 2. Temptations to particular sins with Directions for preservation and Remedy 1. How Satan prepareth his baits of Temptation p. 111 2. How he applyeth them p. 114 Tit. 3. Temptations to draw us off from duty p. 124 Tit. 4. Temptations to frustrate holy duties p. 126 Gr. Dir. 10. How to work as servants to Christ our Lord. The true doctrine of Good Works p. 128 Directions for our serving Christ in well doing p. 130. Where are many Rules to know what are good works and how to do them acceptably and successfully Q. Is doing good or avoiding sin to be most looked at in the choice of a Calling or Employment of life p. 133 Q. May one change his Calling for advantages to do good Q. Who are excused from living in a Calling or from Work p. 124 Q. Must I do a thing as a Good work while I doubt whether it be good indifferent or sin p. 134 Q. Is it not every mans duty to obey his Conscience p. 135 Q. Is it not a sin to go against Conscience Q. Whether the formal cause alone do constitute obedience Q. How sin must be avoided by one that hath an erroneus conscience Q. How can a man lawfully resist or strive against an erring conscience when he striveth against a supposed truth Q Is not going against conscience sinning against Knowledge p. 136 Q. When the information of conscience requireth a long time is it not a duty to obey it at the present Q. May one do a Great Good when it cannot be done but by a Little sin as a Lye Q Must I not forbear all Good Works which I cannot do without sin Q Must I forbear a certain great duty as preaching the Gospel for fear of a small uncertain sin Q. What shall a man do that is in doubt after all the means that he can use p. 137 Sixteen Rules to guide a doubting conscience and to know among many seeming duties which is the greatest and to be preferred p. 137 Gr. Dir. 11. To LOVE GOD as our Father and Felicity and End The Nature of holy Love God must be Loved as the Universal Infinite Good Whether Passionately What of God must be loved p. 141 What must be the Motive of our first Love Whether Gods special Love to us The sorts of holy Love Why Love is the highest Grace p. 143 The Contraries of holy Love How God is Hated The Counterfeits of Love p. 144 Directions how to excite and exercise Divine Love ibid. How to see God Signs of true Love p 154 Gr. Dir. 12. Absolutely to Trust God with Soul Body and all with full acquiâ—scence The Nature of Trust of which see more in my Life of Faith and Disp. of Saving Faith p. 157. The Contraries The Counterfeits Q. Of a particular faith The Uses of Trust. p. 158. Fifteen Directions for a quieting and comforting Trust in God p. 158 Gr. Dir. 13. That the temperament of our Religion may be a DELIGHT in God and Holiness Twenty Directions to procure it with the Reasons of it 162 Gr. Dir. 14. Of THANKFULNESS to God our grand Benefactor The signs of it Eighteen Directions how to obtain and exercise it 167 c. Gr. Dir. 15. For GLORIFYING God Ten Directions how the Mind must Glorifie God Ten Directions for Praising God or Glorifying him with our Tongues Where are the Reasons for Praising God Twelve Directions for Glorifying God by our Lives p. 172 Gr. Dir. 16. For Heavenly mindedness and Gr. Dir. 17. For Self-denyal
what that Glory is are questions fittest for the beholders and possessors to resolve 46. But if it be no more than the Universal existent frame of Nature Containing all the Creatures of God beheld uno intuitu in the Nature order and use of all the parts it would be an unconceivable felicity to the beholders as being an unconceivable Glorious Demonstation of the Deity 47. It is lawful and a needful duty to labour by the means of such excellencies as we now know which Heaven is resembled to in Scripture to imprint upon our Imaginations themselves such an image of the GLORY of the Heavenly Society CHRIST ANGELS SAINTS and the HEAVENLY PLACE and STATE as shall help our Intellectual apprehensions of the Spiritual Excellencies which transcend imagination And the neglect of Loving God as foreseen in the Demonstration of the Heavenly GLORY doth greatly hinder our Love to him immediately as in himself considered 48. The LORD JESUS CHRIST in his Glorified Created Nature is Crowned with the highest excellency of any particular Creature that he might be the MEDIATOR OF OUR LOVE to God and in him seen by faith we might see the GLORY of the Deity And as in Heaven we shall have spiritual Glorified Bodies as well as Souls so the Glorified Created Nature of Christ will be an Objective Glory fit for our Bodies at least to behold in order to their Glory as the Divine Nature as it pleaseth God in Glory revealed will be to the soul. 49. The exercise of our Love upon God as now appearing to the glorified in the glorious created nature of CHRIST beheld by us by faith is a great part of our present exercise of Divine Love And we extinguish our Love to GOD by beholding so little by faith our glorified Mediator 50. We owe greater Love to ANGELS than to Men because they are Better nearer God and liker to him and more demonstrate his Glory and indeed also Love us better and do more for us than we can do for one another And the neglect of our due Love and Gratitude to Angels and forgetting our relation to them and receivings by them and communion with them and living as if we had little to do with them is a culpable overlooking God as he appeareth in his most noble creatures and is a neglect of our Love to God in them and a great hinderance to our higher more immediate Love Therefore by Faith and Love we should exercise a daily converse with Angels as part of our heavenly conversation Phil. 3. 20 21. Heb. 12. 22. and use our selves to Love God in them Though not to pray to them or give them Divine Worship 51. We must Love the glorified Saints more than the inhabitants of this lower world because they are far better and liker to God and nearer to him and more demonstrate his holiness and glory And our neglect of conversing with them by faith and of Loving them above our selves and things on earth is a neglect of our Love to God in them and a hinderance of our more immediate Love And a Loving Conversation with them by faith would greatly help our higher Love to God 52. Our neglect of Love to the Church on earth and to the Kingdoms and publick Societies of mankind is a sinful neglect of our Love to God in them and a hinderance of our higher Love to him And the true use of such a Publick Love would greatly further our higher Love 53. If those Heathens who laid down their Lives for their Countreys had neither done this for fame nor meerly as esteeming the temporal good of their Countrey above their own temporal good and lives but for the true excellency of Many above One and for Gods greater Interest in them they had done a most noble holy work 54. Our adherence to our carnal selves first and then to our carnal interests and friends and neglecting the Love of the highest excellencies in the servants of God and not Loving men according to the measure of the Image of God on them and their Relation to him is a great neglect of our Love of God in them and a hinderance of our higher immediate Love And to use our selves to Love men as God appeareth in them would much promote our higher Love And so we should Love the best of men above our selves 55. The Loving of our selves sensually preferring our present Life and earthly Pleasure before our higher spiritual felicity in Heaven and our neglecting to Love Holiness and seek it for our selves and then to Love God in our selves is a neglect and hinderance of the Love of God 56. Man hath not lost so much of the knowledge and Love of God as appearing in his Greatness and Wisdom and Natural Goodness in the frame of Nature as he is the Author of the creatures natural goodness as he hath of the knowledge and Love of his Holiness as he is the Holy Ruler Sanctifier and End of souls 57. The sensitive faculty and sensitive Interest are still predominant in a carnal or sensual man And his Reason is voluntarily enslaved to his sense so that even the Intellectual Appetite contrary to its primitive and sound nature Loveth chiefly the sensitive Life and Pleasure 58. It is therefore exceeding hard in this depraved state of nature to Love God or any thing better than our selves because we Love more by Sense than by Reason and Reason is weak and serveth the interest of Sense 59. Yet the same man who is prevalently sensual may know that he hath a rational immortal soul and that Knowledge and Rectitude are the Felicity of this soul and that it is the Knowledge and Love of and Delight in God the highest Good that can make him perpetually happy And therefore as these are apprehended as a means of his own Felicity he may have some kind of Love or Will unto them all 60. The thing therefore that every carnal man would have is an everlasting perfect sensual pleasure And he apprehendeth the state of his souls perfection mostly as consisting in this kind of felicity And even the Knowledge and Love of God which he taketh for part of his felicity is principally apprehended but as a speculative gratifying of the imagination as carnal men now desire knowledge Or if there be a righter notion of God and Holiness to be Loved for themselves even ultimately above our sensual pleasure and our selves yet this is but an uneffectual dreaming Knowledge producing but an answerable lazy wish And it will not here prevail against the stronger Love of sensuality and phantastical pleasure nor against inordinate self-love And it is a sensual Heaven under a spiritual Name which the carnal hope for 61. This carnal man may Love God as a Means to this Felicity so dreamed of as knowing that without him it cannot be had and tasting corporal comforts from him here And he may Love Holiness as it removeth his contrary calamities and as he thinks it is crowned with
in a state of salvation that are not inherently sanctified And whether any fall from this Infant state of salvation Answ. OF all these great difficulties I have said what I know in my Appendix to Infant Baptism to Mr. Bedford and Dr. Ward and of Bishop Davenants judgement And I confess that my judgement agreeth more in this with Davenants than any others saving that he doth not so much appropriate the benefits of baptism to the children of sincere believers as I do And though by a Letter in pleading Davenants cause I was the occasion of good Mr. Gatakers printing of his answer to him yet I am still most inclined to his judgement Not that all the baptized but that all the baptized seed of true Christians are pardoned justified adopted and have a title to the Spirit and salvation But the difficulties in this case are so great as driveth away most who do not equally perceive the greater inconveniencies which we must choose if this opinion be forsaken that is that all Infants must be taken to be out of the Covenant of God and to have no promise of salvation Whereas surely the Law of Grace as well as the Covenant of Works included all the seed in their capacity 1. To the first of these Questions I answer 1. As all true believers so all their Infants do receive initially by the promise and by way of obsignation and Sacramental Investiture in Baptism a Ius Relationis a right of peculiar Relation to all the three persons in the blessed Trinity As to God as Matth. 28. 19 20. their reconciled Adopting Father and to Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and actual Head and Justifier so also to the Holy Ghost as their Regenerater and Sanctifier This Right and Relation 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. adhereth to them and is given them in order to future actual operation and communion As a Marriage Covenant giveth the Relation and Right to one another in order to the subsequent Communion Eph. 4. 4 5. and duties of a married life And as he that sweareth allegiance to a King or is listed into an Army or is entred into a School receiveth the Right and Relation and is so correlated as obligeth to the mutual subsequent Offices of each and giveth right to many particular benefits By this Right and Relation God is his own God and Father Christ is his own Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is his own Sanctifier without asserting what operations are already wrought on his soul but only to what future ends and uses these Relations are Now as these Rights and Relations are given immediately so those Benefits which are Relative and the Infant immediately capable of them are presently given by way of communion He hath presently the pardon of Original sin by virtue of the Sacrifice Merit and Intercession of Christ. He hath a state of Adoption and Right to Divine Protection Provision and Church-communion according to his natural Capacity and Right to everlasting life 2. It must be carefully noted that the Relative Union between Christ the Mediator and the baptized persons is that which in Baptism is first given in order of nature and that the rest do flow from this The Covenant and Baptism deliver the Covenanter 1. From Divine Displicency by Reconciliation with the Father 2. From Legal Penalties by Justification by the Son 3. From sin it self by the operations of the Holy Ghost But it is Christ as our Mediator-Head that is first given us in Relative Union And then 1. The Father Loveth us with Complacency as in the Son and for the sake of his first beloved 2. And the Spirit which is given us in Relation is first the Spirit of Christ our The Spirit is not given radically or immediately to any Christian but to Christ our Head alone and from Him to us Head and not first inherent in us So that by Union with our Head that Spirit is next united to us both Relatively and as Radically Inherent in the Humane Nature of our Lord to whom we are united As the Nerves and Animal Spirits which are to operate in all the body are Radically only in the Head from whence they flow into and operate on the members as there is need though there may be obstructions So the Spirit dwelleth in the Humane Nature of our Head and there it can never be lost And it is not necessary that it dwell in us by way of Radication but by way of Influence and Operation These things are distinctly and clearly understood but by very few and we are all much in the dark about them But I think however doctrinally we may speak better that most Christians are habituated to this perilous misapprehension which is partly against Christianity it self that the Spirit floweth immediatly from the Divine Nature of the Father and the Son as to the Authoritative or Potestative conveyance unto our souls And we forget that it is first given to Christ in his Glorified Humanity as our Head and radicated in Him and that it is the Office of this Glorified Head to send or communicate to all his members from Himself that Spirit which must operate in them as they have need This is plain in many Texts of Scripture Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall be not also with him freely give us all things when he giveth him particularly to us 1 John 5. 11 12. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath the life and he that hath not the Son hath not the life Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Eph. 1. 22 23. And gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his body the fulness of him that filleth all in all John 15. 26. The Advocate or Comforter whom I will send unto you from the Father c. John 16. 7. If I depart I will send him unto you John 14. 26. The Comforter whom the Father will send in my Name Gal. 4. 6. And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts crying Abba Father Gal. 2. 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me I know that is true of his Living in us Objectively and Finally but that seemeth not to be all Col. 3. 3 4. For ye are dead and your life is bid with Christ in God when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glory I know that in verse 3. by Life is meant Felicity or Glory But not only as appeareth by verse 4. where Christ is called Our Life Matth. 28. 19. All power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth ver 20. I am with you allwayes Joh. 13. 3. The Father hath given all things into his hands Joh. 17. 2
the soul to this full subjection and Obedience to God is so Difficult and yet so How to bring the soul into subjection to God reasonable so necessary and so excellently good that we should not think any diligence too great by which it is to be attained The Directions that I shall give you are some of them to Habituate the mind to an Obediential frame and some of them also practically to further the exercise of Obedience in particular acts § 4 Direct 1. Remember the unquestionable plenary Title that God hath to the Government of you Direct 1. and of all the world The sense of this will awe the soul and help to subject it to him and to silence all rebellious motions Should not God Rule the Creatures which he hath made Should not Christ Rule the souls which he hath purchased Should not the Holy Ghost Rule the souls which he hath 〈◊〉 and quiâ—kned § 5. Direct 2. Remember that God is perfectly fit for the Government of you and all the world You can desire nothing reasonably in a Governour which is not in him He hath perfect wisdom to know what is best He hath perfect Goodness and therefore will be most regardful of his subjects good and will put no Evil into his Laws He is Almighty to protect his Subjects and see to the execution of his Laws He is most Iust and therefore can do no wrong but all his Laws and Judgements are equal and impartial He is infinitely perfect and self-sufficient and never needed a Lye or a deceit or unrighteous means to Rule the world nor to oppress his subjects to attain his Ends. He is â—ur very End and Interest and felicity and therefore hath no Interest opposite to our good which should cause him to destroy the innocent He is our dearest friend and Father and loveth us better than we love our selves and therefore we have reason confidently to Trust him and chearfully and gladly to obey him as one that Ruleth us in order to our own felicity Direct 3. § 6. Direct 3. Remember how unable and unfit you are to be Governours of your selves So blind and ignorant so byassed by a corrupted will so turbulent are your passions so uncessant and powerfull is the temptation of your sense and appetite and so unable are you to protect or reward your selves that methinks you should fear nothing in this world more than to be given up to your own hearts lusts to walk in your own seducing counsels Psal. 81. 11 12. The brutish appetite and sense hath got such dâ—minion over the Reason of carnal unrenewed men that for such to be governed by themselves is for a man to be governed by a Swine or the Rider to be ruled by the Horse § 7. Direct 4. Remember how great a matter God maketh of his Kingly prerogatives and of mans Direct 4. obedience The whole tenour of the Scripture will tell you this his precepts his promises his threatnings his vehement exhortations his sharp reproofs the sending of his Son and Spirit the example of Christ and all the Saints the Reward prepared for the obedient and the punishment for the disobedient all tell you aloud that God is far from being indifferent whether you obey his Laws or not It will teach you to regard that which you find is so regarded of God § 8. Direct 5. Consider well of the excellency of full obedience and the present benefits which it bringeth Direct 5. tâ— your selves and others Our full subjection and obedience to God is to the world and the soul as Health is to the body When all the humours keep their due temperament proportions and place and every part of the body is placed and used according to the intent of nature then all is at eâ—se within us Our food is pleasant our sleep is sweet our labour is easie and our vivacity maketh Life a pleasure to us we are useful in our places and helpful to others that are sick and weak So is it with the soul that is fully obedient God giveth him a Reward before the full reward He findeth that obedience is a Reward to it self and that it is very pleasant to do good God owneth him and Conscience speaketh peace and comfort to him His mercies are sweet to him his burdens and his work are easie He hath easier access to God than others Yea the world shall find that there is no way to its right order unity peace and happiness but by a full subjection and obedience to God § 9. Direct 6. Remember the sad effects of disobedience even at present both in the soul and in Direct 6. the world When we rebell against God it is the confusion ruine and death of the soul and of the world When we disobey him it is the sickness or disordering of the soul and will make us groan Till our bones be set in joynt again we shall have no ease God will be displeased and hide his face Conscience will be unquiet The soul will lose its peace and joy It s former mercies will grow less sweet It s former rest will turn to weariness Its duty will be unpleasant Its burden heavy who would not fear such a state as this § 10. Direct 7. Consider that when God doth not Govern you you are Ruled by the flesh the world Direct 7. and the Devil And what right or fitness they have to govern you and what is their work and final reward methinks you should easily discern If ye live after the flesh ye shall die Rom. 8. 13. And if ye saw to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. It will strike you with horror if in the hour of temptation you would but think I am now going to disobey my God and to obey the flesh the world or the Devil and to prefer their Will before his Will § 11. Direct 8. Turn your eye upon the rebellious Nations of the earth and upon the state of the Direct 8. most malignant and ungodly men and consider that such madness and misery as you discern iâ— them every wilful disobedience to God doth tend to and partaketh of in its degree To see a swinish Drunkard in his Vomit to hear a raging Bedlam curse and swear or a malignant Wretch blaspheme and scorn at a holy life to hear how foolishly they talk against God and see how maliciously they hate his servants one would think should turn ones stomach against all sin for ever To think what Beaâ—s or incarnate Devils many of the ungodly are to think what confusion and inhumanity possesseth most of those Nations that know not God one would think should make the least degree of sin seem odious to us when the dominion and ripeness of it is so odious Direct 9. § 12. Direct 9. Mark what obedience is expected by men and what influence Government hath upon the state and affairs of the would and what the
moderation in the heart and cureth those bloodshotten eyes which are unable till cured to discern the truth It helpeth us to knowledge and to that which is more edifying and keepeth knowledge from puffing us up And experience will tell you at long running that among Antients and Moderns Greeks and Latines Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants Prelatists Presbyterians Independents c. commonly the Moderaters are not only the best and most charitable but the wisest most judicious men § 61. Direct 19. With all your Readings still joyn the reading of the Scriptures and of the most Direct 19. holy and practical Divines not fantastical Enthusiastick counterfeits Paracelsian Divines but those that lead you up by the solid doctrine of faith and Love to true Devotion and Heavenly mindedness and conversation § 62. This must be your bread and drink your daily and substantial food without this you may soon be filled with air that cannot nourish you and prove in the end as sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals These will breed strength and peace and joy and help you in your Communion with God and hopes of Heaven and so promote the End of all your Studies There is more life and sweetness in these than in the things that are more remote from God and Heaven § 63. Direct 20. Lastly Do all as dying men promise not your selves long life lest it tempt you Direct 20. to waste your time on things least necessary and to loiter it away or lest you lose the quickning benefit which the sight of death and eternity would yield you in all your studies § 64. The nearer you apprehend your selves to death and Heaven the greater help you have to be mortisied and Heavenly This will make you serious and keep up right intentions and keep out wrong ones and powerfully help you against temptations that when you have studied to save others you may not be cast-awayes nor be cheated by the Devil with the shell and leaves and flowers while you go without the saving fruit § 65. I have spoken the more on this subject of Governing the Thoughts because it is so great and excellent a part of the work of man and God doth so much regard the heart and the Spirit of Christ and Satan so much strive for it and grace is so much employed about it and our Happiness or misery Joy or sorrow is greatly promoted by our Thoughts And more I would have said but that in the third Chapter and in my Treatise of the Divine Life there is much said already And for a Method and Directions for particular Meditations I have given it at large in the fourth Part of the Saints Rest from whence it may easily be taken and applyed to other subjects as it is there to Heaven It is easie to write and read Directions but I fear lest slothfulness through the difficulty of Practice will frustrate my Directions to the most But if any profit by them my labour is not lost CHAP. VII Directions for the Government of the Passions § 1. THE Passions are to be considered 1. As in themselves and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only And so I am to speak of them here 2. As they are a wrong to others and a breach of the commandments which require Love and duty towards our Neighbour And so I shall speak of them after § 2. Passions are not sinful in themselves for God hath given them to us for his service And there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him But they are sinful 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects 2. When they darken reason and delude the mind and keep out truth and seduce to error 3. When they rebel against the Government of the will and trouble it and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good or urge it violently to follow their bruitish inclination 4. When they are unseasonable 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree 6. Or of too long continuance 7. And when they tend to evil effects as to unseemly speeches or actions or to wrong another § 3. Passions are Holy when they are devoted to God and exercised upon him or for him They are Good when 1. They have right objects 2. And are guided by Reason 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will 4. And quicken and awake the Reason and the will to do their duty 5. And tend to good effects exciting all the other powers to their office 6. And exceed not in degree so as to disturb the brain or body Tit. 1. Directions against all sinful Passions in general § 4. Direct 1. TRust not to any present actual resistance without any due Habitual mortification of Direct 1. Passions and fortification of the soul against them Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life and then sinful Passions will fall off like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified § 5. No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to Passion when the Body is inclined to it For such a one is under the power of selfishness carnality and worldliness and from under the Government of Christ and his spirit and wanteth that life of Grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature The way for such a one to master passion is not to strive by natural selfish principles and reasons which are partial poor and weak but to look first to the main and to seek with speed and earnestness for a New and sanctified heart and get Gods Image and his spirit and renewing quickning Grace This is the only effectual conqueror of Nature A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it the tryal of such persons being some other way But none conquereth Satan indeed but the spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion and not be free from an unholy carnal worldly heart you must perish at last if you seemed the â—almest persons upon earth Begin therefore at the foundation and see that the Body of sin be mortified and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil bitter fruits and that the Holy victorious new-new-nature be within you and then you will resist sin with Light and Life which others resist but as in their sleep § 6. Direct 2. More particularly let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God and live as in Direct 12. his family under his eye and Government that his authority may be more powerful than temptations and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures And then this Sun will put out the lesser lights and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient God would make the creature nothing and then it would do
continually in that case your selves If you should be still so what were you good for or what could you enjoy or what comfort would your lives be to you Why if a long pain be so bad a short one is not lovely Keep not wilfully so troublesome a malady in your mind § 6. Direct 4. Observe also what an enemy it is to the body it self It inflameth the blood and Direct 4. stirreth up diseases and breedeth such a bitter displeasedness in the mind as tends to consume the strength of nature and hath cast many into Acute and many into Chronical sicknesses which have proved their death And how uncomfortable a kind of death is this § 7. Direct 5. Observe how unlovely and unpleasing it rendereth you to beholders deforming the Direct 5. countenance and taking away the amiable sweetness of it which appeareth in a calm and loving temper If you should be alwayes so would any body love you or would they not go out of your way if not lay hands on you as they do anything that is wild or mad You would scarce desire to have your picture drawn in your fury till the frowning wrinkles and inflamed blood are returned to their places and have left your visage to its natural comeliness Love not that which maketh you so unlovely to all others § 8. Direct 6. You should love it the worse because it is a hurting passion and an enemy to Love and Direct 6. to anothers good You are never angry but it inclineth you to hurt those that angred you if not all others that stand in your way It putteth hurting thoughts into your mind and hurting words into your mouths and enclineth you to strike or do some mischief And no men love a hurtful creature Avoid therefore so mischievous a passion § 9. Direct 7. Nay mark the tendency of it and you will find that if it should not be stopt it would Direct 7. tend to the very ruine of your brother and end in his blood and your own damnation How many thousand hath anger murdered or undone It hath caused Wars and filled the world with blood and cruelty And should your hearts give such a fury entertainment § 10. Direct 8. Consider how much other sin immoderate anger doth incline men to It is the great Direct 8. crime of drunkenness that a man having not the government of himself is made lyable by it to any Proâ—rium est magnitudinis verae non sentire se esse percussum Qui non irâ—scitur inconcussus injuria persistit qui irascitur motus est Sexec de Ira. l. 3. c. 5. wickedness And so is it with immoderate anger How many Oaths and Curses doth it cause every day How many rash and sinful actions What villany hath not anger done It hath slandered railed reproached falsly accused and injured many a thousand It hath murdered and ruined Families Cities and States It hath made Parents kill their Children and Children dishonour their Parents It hath made Kings oppress and murder their Subjects and Subjects rebell and murder Kings What a world of sin is committed by sinful anger throughout all the world How endless would it be to give you instances David himself was once drawn by it to purpose the murdering of all the family of Nahal Its effects should make it odious to us § 11. Direct 9. And it is much the worse in that it suffereth not a man to sin alone but stirreth up Direct 9. others to do the like Wrath kindleth wrath as fire kindleth fire It s two to one but when you are angry you will make others angry or discontent or troubled by your words or deeds And you have not the power of moderating them in it when you have done You know not what sin it may draw them to It is the Devils bellows to kindle mens corruptions and sets hearts and families and Kingdoms in a flame § 12. Direct 10. Observe how unfit it maketh you for any holy duty for prayer or meditation or Direct 10. any communion with God And that should be very unwelcome to a gracious soul which maketh it unfit to speak to God or to be employed in his Worship If you should go to prayer or other Worship in your bedlam passion may not God say as the King of Gath did of David Have I need of mad men Yea it unfitteth all the family or Church or society where it cometh for the Worship of God Is the family fit for prayer when wrath hath muddied and disturbed their minds Yea it divideth Christians and Churches and causeth confusion and every evil â—am 3. 15 16. work § 13. Direct 11. It is a great dishonour to the grace of God that a servant of his should shew the Direct 11. world that grace is of no more force and efficacy that it cannot rule a raging passion nor so much as keep a Christian sober that it possesseth the soul with no more patience nor fear of God nor Government over it self O wrong not God thus by the dishonouring of his Grace and Spirit § 14. Direct 12. It is a sin against Conscience still repented of and disowned by almost all when Direct 12. they come to themselves again and a meer preparation for after sorrow That therefore which we fore-know we must repent of afterwards should be prevented and avoided by men that choose not shame and sorrow § 15. Object 1. But you 'll say I am of a hasty cholerick nature and cannot help it Object 1. Answ. That may strongly dispose you to anger but cannot Necessitate you to any thing that is sinful Answ. Reason and Will may yet command and master passion if they do their Office And when you know your disease and danger you must watch the more § 16. Object 2. But the provocation was so great it would have angered any one Who could choose Object 2. Answ. It is your weakness that makes you think that any thing can be great enough to discharge Answ. a mans reason and allow him to break the Laws of God That would have been small or nothing to a prepared mind which you call so great You should rather say Gods Majesty and dreadfulness is so great that I durst not offend him for any provocation Hath not God given you greater cause to obey than man can give you to sin § 17. Object 3. But it is so sudden that I have no time of deliberation to prevent it Object 3. Answ. Have you not Reason still about you And should it not be as ready to rule as passion to Answ. rebell Stop passion at first and take time of deliberation § 18. Object 4. But it is but short and I am sorry for it when I have done Object 4. Answ. But if it be evil the shortest is a sin and to be avoided And when you know before hand Answ. that you must be sorry after why will
would be more offended Therefore I shall only give you these general intimations 1. Nature is content with a little but Appetite is never content till it have drowned Nature 2. It is the perfection of concoction and 〈…〉 Senec. goodness of the nutriment that is more conducible to health than the quantity 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quantity of some light and passable nourishment than half so much of gross and heavy meats Therefore those that prescribe just twelve Ounces a day without differencing meats that so much differ do much mistake 4. A healthful strong body must have more than the weak and sickly 5. Middle aged persons must have more than old folks or children Juvenum viâ—tus est Nihil â—â—â—â—us Soâ—â—at 6. Hard Labourers must have more than easie Labourers and these more than the idle or Students or any that stir but little 7. A body of close Pores that evacuateth little by sweat or transpiration must have less especially of moisture than another 8. So must a cold and flegmatick constitution 9. So must a stomach that corrupteth its food and casteth it forth by periodical bilious evacuations 10. That which troubleth the stomach in the digestion is too much or too bad unless with very weak sickly persons 11. So is that too much or bad which maketh you more dull for study or more heavy and unfit for labour unless some disease be the principal cause 12. A body that by excess is already filled with crudities should take less than another that nature may have time to digest and waste them 13. Every one should labour to know the temperature of their own bodies and what diseases they are most enclined to and so have the judgement of their Physicion or some skilful person to give them such directions as are suitable to their own particular temperature and diseases 14. Hard Labourers err more in the quality than the quantity partly through poverty partly through ignorance and partly through appetite while they refuse that which is more wholsome as meer Bread and Beer if it be less pleasing to them 15. If I may presume to conjecture ordinarily very hard Labourers exceed in quantity about a fourth part Shop-keepers and persons of easier Trades do ordinarily exceed about a third part Voluptuous Gentlemen and their Servingmen and other servants of theirs that have no hard labour do usually exceed about half in half But still I except persons that are extraordinarily temperate through weakness or through wisdom And the same Gentlemen usually exceed in Variety Costliness Curiosity and Time much more than they do in quantity so that they are Gluttons of the first magnitude The Children of those that govern not their appetites but let them eat and drink as much and as often as they desire it do usually exceed above half in half and lay the foundation of the diseases and miseries of all their lives All this is about the truth though the Belly believe it not § 48. When you are once grown wise enough to know what in measure and time and quality is Venter praecepta non audit Senec. fittest for your health go not beyond that upon any importunity of Appetite or of friends For all that is beyond that is Gluttony and sensuality in its degree § 49. Direct 8. If you can lawfully avoid it make not your Table a snare of Temptation to your Direct 8. selves or others I know a greedy appetite will make any Table that hath but necessaries a snare to iâ— If you will not take this counsel at least use after meat to set before your guests a Bason and a â—eather oâ— a Provang to vomit it up again that you may shew some mercy to their bodies if you will shew none to their souls self But do not you unnecessarily become Devils or tempters to your selves or others 1. For Quality study not Deliciousness too much unless for some weak distempered stomachs the best meat is that which leaveth behind it in the mouth neither a troublesome loathing nor an eager appetite after more for the tastes sake But such as Bread is that leaveth the Palate in an indifferent moderation The curious inventions of new and dilicious dishes meerly to please the Appetite is Gluttony inviting to greater Gluttony Excess in Quality to invite to excess in Quantity § 50. Object But you 'll say I shall be thought niggardly or sordid and reproached behind my back if my Table be so fitted to the temperate and abstinent Answ. This is the pleading of Pride for Gluttony Rather than you will be talkt against by belly-gods A Sensualist craving to be admitted of Cato among his familiars Cato answered him I cannot live wiâ—h one whose Palate is wiser than his brain Erâ—s or ignorant fleshly people you will sin against God and prepare a Feast or Sacrifice for Bacchus or Venus The antient Christians were torn with Beasts because they would not cast a little Frankincense into the fire on the Altar of an Idol And will you feed so many Idol bellies so liberally to avoid their censure Did not I tell you that Gulosity is an irrational vice Good and temperate persons will speak well of you for it And do you more regard the judgement and esteem of belly-gods § 51. Object But it is not only riotous luxurious persons that I mean I have no such at my Table But it will be the matter of obloquy even to good people and those that are sober Answ. I told you some measure of Gluttony is become a common sin and many are tainted with it through custome that otherwise are good and sober But shall they therefore be left as uncurable or shall they make all others as bad as they And must we all commit that sin which some sober people are grown to favour You bear their censures about different opinions in Religion and other matters of difference and why not here The deluded Quakers may be witnesses against you that while they run into the contrary extream can bear the deepest censures of all the world about them And cannot you for honest Temperance and Sobriety bear the censures of some distempered or guilty persons that are of another mind Certainly in this they are no Temperate persons when they plead for excess and the baits of sensuality and intemperance § 52. 2. For variety also make not your Table unnecessarily a snare Have no greater variety than the weakness of stomachs or variety of Appetites doth require Unnecessary variety and pleasantness of meats are the Devils great instruments to draw men to Gluttony And I would wish no good people to be his Cooks or Caterers When the very brutish Appetite it self begins to say of one dish I have enough then comes another to tempt it unto more excess and â—â—other after that to more All this that I have said I have the concurrent judgement of Physicion 〈…〉 n who condemn fulness and variety as
your selves or others what you are is to know what your pleasures are or at least what you choose and desire for your pleasure If the Body rule the Soul you are bruitish and shall be destroyed If the Soul rule the Body you live according to true humane nature and the ends of your creation If the Pleasures of the Body are the predominant pleasures which you are most addicted to then the Body ruleth the Soul and you shall perish as Traytors to God that debase his Image and turn man into Beast Rom. 8. 13. If the Pleasure of the Soul be your most predominant pleasure which you are most addicted to though you attain as yet but little of it then the Soul doth Rule the Body and you live like men And this cannot well be till Faith shew the Soul those higher Pleasures in God and everlasting Glory which may carry it above all fleshly pleasures By all this set together you may easily perceive that the way of the Devil to corrupt and damn men is to keep them from faith that they may have no Heavenly Spiritual pleasure and to strengthen sensuality and give them their fill of fleshly pleasures to imprison their minds that they may ascend no higher And that the way to sanctifie and save men is to help them by faith to Heavenly pleasure and to abate and keep under that fleshly pleasure that would draw down their minds And by this you may see how to understand the doctrine of mortification and taming the body and abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh And you may now understand what personal mischief Lust doth to the soul. § 12. 10. Your own experience and consciences will tell you that if it be not exceedingly moderated it unfitteth you for every holy duty You are unfit to meditate on God or to pray to him or to receive his word or sacrament And therefore nature teacheth those that meddle with holy things to be more continent than others which Scripture also secondeth 1 Sam. 21. 4 5. Such sensual Rev. 14. 4. things and sacred things do not well agree too near § 13. 11. And as by all this you see sufficient cause why God should make stricter Laws for the bridling of Lust than fleshly lustful persons like so when his Laws are broken by the unclean it is a sin that Conscience till it be quite debauched doth deeply accuse the guilty for and beareth a very clear testimony against O the unquietness the horror the despair that I have known many persons Saith Chrysostom The Adulterer even before damnation is most miserable still in fear trembling at a shadow fearing them that know and them that know not always in pain even in the dark in even for the sin of self-pollution that never proceeded to fornication And how many adulterers and fornicators have we known that have lived and died in despair and some of them hang'd themselves Conscience will condemn this sin with a heavy condemnation till custom or infidelity have utterly seared it § 14. 12. And it is also very observable that when men have once mastered conscience in this point and reconciled it to this sin of fornication it 's an hundred to one that they are utterly hardned 1 Tim. 6 9. Hâ—râ—sâ—d lusts whâ— hâ—d own men in destruction and perâ—â—tion in all abhomination and scarce make conscience of any other villany whatsoever If once fornication go for nothing or a small matter with them usually all other sin is with them of the same account If they have but an equal temptation to it lying and swearing and perjury and theft yea and murder and treason would seem small too I never knew any one of these but he was reconcileable and prepared for any villany that the Devil set him upon And if I know such a man I would no more trust him than I would trust a man that wants nothing but Interest and Opportunity to commit any heynous sin that you can name Though I confess I have known divers of the former sort that have committed this sin under horror and despair that have retained some good in other points and have When an Adulterer asked Thales whether he should make al Vow against his sin he answered him Adultery is as bad as pâ—rjury If thou dare be an adulterer thou darest forswear thy self Laert. Herod durst behead Iohâ— that durst be incestuous been recovered yea of this later sort that have reconciled their Consciences to fornication I never knew one that was recovered or that retained any thing of Conscience or honesty but so much of the shew of it as their Pride and worldly interest commanded them and they were malignant enemies of goodness in others and lived according to the unclean spirit which possessed them They are terrible words Prov. 2. 18 19. For her house inclineth unto death and her paths unto the dead None that go unto her return again neither take they hold on the paths of life Age keepeth them from actual filthiness and lust and so may Hell for there is no fornication but they retain their debauched seared Consciences § 15. 13. And it is the greater sin because it is not committed alone but the Devil taketh them by couples Lust enflameth lust And the fewel set together makes the greatest flame Thou art guilty of the sin of thy wretched companion as well as of thine own § 16. 14. Lastly the miserable effects of it and the punishments that in this life have attended it do Jud. 19. 20 The tribe of Benjamin was almost cut off upon the occasion of an Adultery or rape See Num. 25 8. Gen. 12. 17. 2 Sam 12. 10. Luk 3. 19. 1 Cor. 5. 1. Joh. 8. 2. Aid Aeliaâ— sol 47. tell us how God accounteth of the sin It hath ruined persons families and Kingdoms And God hath born his testimony against it by many signal judgements which all Histories almost acquaint you with As there is scarce any sin that the New-testament more frequently and bitterly condemneth as you may see in Pauls Epistles 2 Pet. 2. Iud c. so there are not many that Gods providence more frequently pursueth with shame and misery on earth And in the latter end of the world God hath added one concomitant plague not known before called commonly the Lues Venerea the Venereous Pox so that many of the most bruitish sort go about stigmatized with a mark of Gods vengeance the prognostick or warning of a heavier vengeance And there is none of them all that by great Repentance be not made new creatures but leave an infamous name and memory when they are dead if their sin was publickly known Let them be never so great and never so gallant victorious successful liberal and flattered or applauded while they lived God ordereth it so that Truth shall ordinarily prevail with the Historians that write of them when they are dead and with all sober men their names rot and stink as
Laert. in Aristip. a man is such are his speeches such his works and such his life Therefore by vain or sinful words you tell men the vanity and corruption of your minds § 4. 3. Mens works have a great dependance on their words Therefore if their deeds be regardable their words are regardable Deeds are stirred up or caused by words Daily experience telleth us the power of speech A speech hath saved a Kingdom and a speech hath lost a Kingdom Great actions depend on them and greater consequents § 5. 4. If the men that we speak to be regardable words are regardable For words are powerful instruments of their good or hurt God useth them by his Ministers for mens conversion and salvation And Satan useth them by his Ministers for mens subversion and damnation How many thousand souls are hurt every day by the words of others Some deceived some puffed up some hardned and some provoked to sinful passions And how many thousand are every day edified by words either instructed admonished quickned or comforted Paul saith The weapons of our warfare are 2 Cor. 10. 4. mighty through God And Pythagoras could say that Tongues cut deeper than swords because they reach even to the soul Tongue sins and duties therefore must needs be great § 6. 5. Our Tongues are the Instruments of our Creators praise purposely given us to speak good of Psal. 66. 2. â—â— 2 135. 3. 148. 13. â—9 2. 100. his Name and to declare his works with rejoycing It is no small part of that service which God expects from man which is performed by the Tongue nor a small part of the end of our Creation The use of all our highest faculties parts and graces are expressively by the Tongue Our Wisdom and Knowledge our Love and Holiness are much lost as to the Honour of God and the good of others if not expressed The tongue is the Lanthorn or Casement of the soul by which it looketh out and shineth unto others Therefore the sin or duty of so noble an instrument are not to be made light of by any that regard the honour of our Maker § 7. 6. Our words have a great reflection and operation upon our own hearts As they come from them so they recoil to them as in prayer and conference we daily observe Therefore for our own good or hurt our words are not to be made light of § 8. 7. Gods Law and Iudgement will best teach you what regard you should have to words Christ telleth you that by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned Matth. Matth. 12. 32. They who use but few words need not many Laws said Charyllus when he was asked why â—yâ—â—â—â—gus made so few Laws Pâ—â—t Apophâ—hâ—g p. 423. 12. 37. And it is words of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which are the unpardonable sin Jam. 3. 2. If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body v. 6. The tongue is a fire a world of iniquity so is the tongue amongst our members that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire of Hell Jam. 1. 26. If any man among you seem to be Religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart this mans Religion is vain 1 Pet. 3. 10. For he that will love life and see good dayes let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile Matth. 12. 36. But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement The third Commandment telleth us that God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And Psal. 15. 1 2 3. Speaking the truth in his heart and not backbiting with the tongue is the mark of him that shall abide in Gods Tabernacle and dwell in his holy Hill And the very work of Heaven is said to be the perpetual praising of God Rev. 14. 11. Judge now how God judgeth of your words § 9. 8. And some conjecture may be made by the judgement of all the world Do you not care your selves what men speak of you and to you Do you not care what language your children or servants or neighbours give you Are not words against the King treasonable and capital as well as deeds The wheel of affairs or course of nature is set on fire by words Jam. 3. 6. I may conclude then with Prov. 18. 21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and Prov. 21. 23. Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from trouble § 10. Direct 2. Understand well and remember the particular duties of the Tongue For the meer Direct 2. restraint of it from evil is not enough And they are these 1. To glorifie God by the magnifying of The Duties of the Tongue his Name To speak of the praises of his Attributes and Works 2. To sing Psalms of Praise to him and delight our souls in the sweet commemoration of his excellencies 3. To give him thanks for the mercies already received and declare to others what he hath done for our souls and bodies for Plato Rectâ— diceâ—e in quatuor scindit 1. Quid dicere oportet 2. Quam multa dicere 3. Ad quos 4. Quando sit dicendum Ea oportet dicere quae sint utilia dicenti auditori Nec nimis multa nec pauciora quam satis est Sâ—ad peccâ—ntes seniores dicendum sit verba illi aetati congrua loquamur sin vero ad juniores dicâ—ndum sit majore autoritate uâ—amur in dicendo Laâ—rt in Plat. his Church and for the world 4. To pray to him for what we want and for our brethren for the Church and for the conversion of his and our enemies 5. To appeal to him and swear by his Name when we are called to it lawfully 6. To make our necessary Covenants and Vows to him and to make open profession of our belief subjection and obedience to him before men 7. To preach his Word or declare it in discourse and to teach those that are committed to our care and edifie the ignorant and erroneous as we have opportunity 8. To defend the truth of God by conference or disputation and consute the false doctrine of deceivers 9. To exhort men to their particular duties and to reprove their particular sins and endeavour to do them good as we are able 10. To confess our own sins to God and man as we have occasion 11. To crave the advice and help of others for our souls and enquire after the will of God and the way to salvation 12. To praise that which is good in others and speak good of all men superiours equals and inferiors so far as there is just ground and cause 13. To bear witness to the truth when we are called
When that which you do is done with an ill will and with a constant weariness of mind and there is no alaâ—rity or pleasure in your work 6. When you do no more in much time than you might do in less if you had a willing ready mind 7. When the backward mind is shifting it off with excuses or finding something else to do or at least delaying it 8. When you choose a condition of greater ease and smaller labour before a laborious condition of life which in other respects is better for you As when a Servant had rather live in an ungodly family where thâ—re is more ease and fulness to be had than in a place of greatest advantage for the soul where there is more labour and want 9. When little impedimiments Pâ—ov 26 13. discourage or stop you The slâ—thful saith there is a Lyon in the way Prov. 22. 13. His way is an hedge of thorns Prov. 15. 19. He will not plow by reason of cold Prov. 20. 4. 10. When you make a great matter of a little business It cannot be done but with such preparation and so much a do that shews a slothful mind in the doer Even the putting his hand to his mouth and pulling it out of his bosome is a business with the sluggard that is he maketh a great matter of a little one Prov. 26. 15. 19 24. 11. Lastly The fruits of slothfulness use to detect Hâ—w lâ—ttle have some men yea Mâ—â—â—â—sters theâ—selve◠〈◊〉 shâ—wâ—â— aâ—l the good they might have done through all their lives The work they have done caâ—â— them idle it in soul and body and â—state For it corrupteth impoverisheth and ruineth all The weeds of his Field or Garden the vices of his soul the sins of his life the duties omitted or sleepily performed the disorders of his family or charge and usually or oft his poverty do detect him Prov. 24. 30. 12. 24 27. § 5. By this much it is easie to discern the impudent folly of the Quakers and some ignorant Ruâ—â—icks that rail against Magistrates and Ministers for living idly because they do not plow or thrâ—sh or use some mechanick Trade or Labour As if the labour of their highest Callings were no labour but meer idleness Thus proud men speak evil of that which they understand not Had they tryed it they would have found that the work of a faithful Minister is further distant from idleness than a Thrâ—sher is Doth not Christ and the Holy Ghost oft call them labourers fâ—llow-labourers with Christ and workmen and their work a labour Luke 10. 27. 1 Cor. 3. 9. 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. 2 Tim. 2. 15. Matth. 10. 10. 1 Cor. 3. 13 14 15. 9. 1. Ephes. 4. 12. Phil. 2. 30. § 6. Hence also you may see 1. That though all that can must labour yet there is great diversity of labours and all men are not to do the same work Magistrates and Pastors and Lawyers and Physicions must labour diligently but they are not all bound to plow and thresh and use the more â—â—rvile labours of their inferiors 2. That every man must labour in the works of his own Calling and do his own business as 1 Thess. 4. 11. 2 Thess. 3. 11. and take that for the employment for him which God doth call him to and not presume to step out of his best place and take the work of other mens Callings out of their hands 3. That a man that is paid for his labour by anâ—â—her as Lawyers Physicions Schoolmasters Servants do rob them by their idleness when they withhold from them any part of that which they are paid for § 7. Direct 1. The first help against sloth is to be well acquainted with the greatness of the sin Direct 1. For no wonder if it be committed by them that think it small First therefore I shall tell you what it is § 8. 1. God himself reckoneth it with heinous sins Ezek. 16. 49. Pride fulness of bread and 1 Thess. 5 12 13. Prâ—v 18. 9 21. 25. 2 Thess. 3. Prov. 12 24 19 15. Eâ—câ—es 10. 18. abundance of idleness the very character of the debauched part of the Gentry is said to have been Sodoms sin that was consumed with fire from Heaven And the Thessalonians were forbidden to keep company with such as lived disorderly and did not work § 9. 2. Idleness is a temporary destruction as to their use of all the faculties of mind and body which should be exercised It is contrary to Nature For Nature made our faculties for use You bury your selves alive If it be a sin to hide Gods lesser Talents what is it to bury our selves and all our powers If it be pity to see a dead man because he is unuseful to the world Is it not pity and shame to see one voluntarily dead that maketh himself useless by his sloth Should not the Church yard be the dwelling of the slothful that he may be nearest them in place that he is nearest to in quality § 10. 3. Idleness and sloth are consumers of all the mercies of God You are the barren ground where he soweth his seed and none comes up You return him but a crop of thorns and bryars and such ground is nigh to cursing the final curse whose end is to be burnt Doth God daily â—eb 6. 8. feed and clothe and keep you and protect and support you and teach and warn you and all for nothing Is idleness that for which he hired you Will you accuse your Maker of so great imprudence and your Redeemer of more as if he created and redeemed you to do nothing or that which is as bad or worse than nothing He calleth to you Why stand you idle Matth. 20. 3 6. And it is a terrible sentence that such shall receive Matth. 25. 26. Thou wicked and slothful servant Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness c. § 11. 4. Idleness is a robbing God who is the Lord of us and all our faculties and all our service is his due You rob him of the honour and service that you might have done him by your diligence § 12. 5. And it is a robbing your selves of all the good to soul or body which by your Prov. 10. 26. Prov. 18. 9. labour and industry you might have got The slothful man lyeth wishing till he perish Prov. 21. 25. § 13. 6. And it is a robbing of the Commonwealth and of all those to whom your labours or the fruit of them was due You are burdens to the Commonwealth like Drones in the Hive Col. 3. 22. § 14. 7. Slothfulness is a great consumer of Time as is shewed Chap. 5. You lose not only all the Time when duty is omitted but much of the time in which you perform it while you rid no work and do it as if you did it not He that goeth but a mile an hour loseth his Time though he be still going even as
understand the true nature and use of Recreations Labour to be acquainted Direct 2. just how much and what sort of Recreation is needful to your selves in particular In which you must have respect 1. To your bodily strength 2. To your minds 3. To your labours And when you have resolved on 't what and how much is needful and fit to help you in your duty allow it its proper time and place as you do your meals and see that you suffer it not to encroach upon your duty § 51. Direct 3. Ordinarily joyn profit and pleasure together that you lose no time I know not one Direct 3. person of an hundred or of many hundred that needeth any Game at all there are such variety of better exercises at hand to recreate them And it is a sin to idle away any time which we can better improve I confess my own nature was as much addicted to playfullness as most and my judgement alloweth me so much recreation as is needful to my Health and Labour and no more But for all that I find no need of any game to recreate me When my mind needeth recreation I have variety of recreating Books and Friends and business to do that And when my body needeth it the hardest Labour that I can bear is my best recreation walking is instead of games and sports as profitable to my body and more to my mind If I am alone I may improve that time in meditation If with others I may improve it in profitable cheerful conference I condemn not all sports or games in others but I find none of them all to be best for my self And when I observe how far the temper and life of Christ and his best servants was from such recreations I avoid them with the more suspition And I see but few but distaste it in Ministers even Shooting Bowling and such more healthful games to say nothing of Chess and such other as fit not the end of a recreation Therefore there is somewhat in it that nature it self hath some suspition of That student that needeth Chess or Cards to please his Mind I doubt hath a carnal empty mind If God and all his books and all his friends c. cannot suffice for this there is some disease in it that should rather be cured than pleased And for the Body it is another kind of exercise that profits it § 52. Direct 4. Watch against inordinate sensual Delight even in the Lawfullest sport Excess Direct 4. of pleasure in any such vanity doth very much corrupt and befool the mind It puts it out of relish with spiritual things and turneth it from God and Heaven and duty § 53. Direct 5. To this end keep a watch upon your thoughts and fantasies that they run not after Direct 5. sports and pleasures Else you will be like children that are thinking of their sport and longing to be at it when they should be at their Books or business § 54. Direct 6. Avoid the company of revellers gamesters and such time-wasters Come not Direct 6. among them lest you be ensnared Accompany your selves with those that delight themselves in God 2 Tim. 2. 22. § 55. Direct 7. Remember death and judgement and the necessities of your souls Usually these Direct 7. Eccles. 2. 2. sports seem but foolishness to serious men And they say of this mirth as Solomon it is madness And it is great and serious subjects which maketh serious men Death and the world to come when they are soberly thought on do put the mind quite out of rellish with foolish pleasures § 56. Direct 8. Be painful in your honest Callings Laziness breedeth a love of sports when Direct 8. you must please your slothful flesh with ease then it must be further pleased with vanities § 57. Direct 9. Delight in your relations and family duties and mercies If you love the company Direct 9. and converse of your Parents or Children or Wives or Kindred as you ought you will find more pleasure in discoursing with them about holy things or honest business than in foolish sports But Adulterers that love not their Wives and unnatural Parents and Children that love not one another and ungodly Masters of Families that love not their duty are put to seek their sport abroad § 58. Direct 10. See to the sanctifying of all your Recreations when you have chosen such as are Direct 10. truly suited to your need and go not to them before you need nor use them not beyond your need See also that you lift up your hearts secretly to God for his blessing on them and mix them all along as far as you can with holy things as with holy Thoughts or holy Speeches As for Musick which is a lawful pleasure I have known some think it prophaness to use it privately or publickly with a Psalm that scrupled not using it in common mirth When as all our mirth should be as much sanctified as is possible All should be done to the Glory of God And we have much more in Scripture for the Holy Use of Musick publick and private than for any other use of it whatever And it is the excellency of Melody and Musick that they are recreations which may be more aptly and profitably sanctified by application to holy uses than any other And I should think them little worth at all if I might not use them for the holy exhilerating or elevating of my soul or affecting it towards God or exciting it to duty Direct 11. § 59. Direct 11. The sickly and the Melancholy who are usually least inclined to sport have much more need of Recreation than others and therefore may allow it a much larger time than those that are in health and strength Because they take it but as Physick to recover them to health being to abate again when they are recovered § 60. Direct 12. Be much more severe in regulating your selves in your recreations than in censuring Direct 12. others for using some sports which you mislike For you know not perhaps their case and reasons and temptations But an idle Time-wasting sensual sporter every one should look on with pity as a miserable wretch PART III. Directions about Apparel and against the Sin therein committed § 1. Direct 1. FItness is the first thing to be respected in your Apparel to make it a means to Direct 1. the end to which it is appointed The Ends of Apparel are 1. To keep the body warm 2. To keep it from being hurt 3. To adorn it soberly so far as beseemeth the common dignity of humane nature and the special dignity of your places 4. To hide those parts which nature hath made your shame and modesty commandeth you to cover § 2. The Fitness of Apparel consisteth in these things 1. That it be fitted to your Bodies as your Shoo to your foot your Hat to your head c. 2. That it be suited to your
knoweth what he is and what he hath done and what he hath deserved and in what a dangerous case his soul yet standeth must needs have his soul habituated to a humble frame Every penitent soul is vile in its own eyes and doth loath it self for its inward corruptions and actual sins And he that loatheth himself as vile will not be very desirous to have his sinful corruptible body seem fine nor by curious ornaments to attract And no wonder when the light of Nature reduced the serious sort of Philosophers to so plain a Garb no Socrates Zenocrates with almost all the Stâ—icks and Cyâ—â—ks and many of the Academicks and Pythagoreans the eyes of vain spectators How oft have I seen a proud vain Gallant suddenly cast off their bravery and gawdy gay attire and clothe themselves in plainness and sobriety as soon as God hath but opened their eyes and humbled their souls for sin and made them better know themselves and brought them home by true Repentance So that the next week they have not seemed the same persons And this was done by meer Humiliation without any arguments against their fashions or proud â—ttire As old Mr. Dod said when one desired him to preach against long hair Preach them once to Christ and true Repentance and they will cut their hair without our preaching against it As Pride would be seen in Proud apparel so humility will appear in a dress like it self though it desire not to be seen Maâ—k 1 Pet. 3. 3 4 5. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair or of wearing of Gold or of putting on of apparel that is curious dressing for adorning the body beyond plain simplicity of attire But let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even the ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit which in the sight of God is of great price For after this manner that is with inward Holiness and outward plainness in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves being in subjection to their own husbands O that God would print those words upon your hearts 1 Pet. 5. 5. Yea all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble Plainness among Christians is a greater honour than fine clothing Jam. 2. 2 3 4 5. 1 Tim. 2. 9 10. In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefasteness and sobriety not with broidered hair or Gold or Pearl or costly array but which becometh women professing godliness with good works I intreat those that are addicted to bravery or curiosity to read Isa. 3. from ver 16. to the end § 21. Direct 12. Make not too great a matter of your clothing but use it with such indifferency as a Direct 12. thing so indifferent should be used Set not your hearts upon it For that is a worse sign that the excess in it self Take no thought wherewith ye shall be cloathed but remember how God clotheth the Lillies of the field Matth 6. 28. If you have food and rayment be therewith content though it be never so plain 1 Tim. 6. 8. § 22. Direct 13. Be not too censorious of others for different fashions of apparel Be as plain and Direct 13. modest your selves as you can But lay no greater stress on the fashions of others than there is cause If they be grosly impudent disown such fashions and seek to reform them But to carp at every one that goeth â—â—â—â—â— than your selves or to censure them as proud because their fashions are not like yours may be of worse signification than the fashions you find fault with I have oft observed more pride in such censures than I could observe in the fashions which they censured When you have your eye upon every fashion that is not according to your breeding or the custom of your rank or place and are presently branding such as proud or vain it sheweth an arrogant mind that steppeth up in the judgement seat and sentenceth those that you have nothing to do with before they are heard or you know their reasons Perhaps their fashion was as common among the modest sort where they have lived as your fashion is among those that you have converst with Custom and common opinion do put much of the signification upon fashions of apparel I Should next have given you special Directions about the Using of your Estates about your Of the proportion of our Estates to be given see my Letter to Mr. Goâ—ge Dwellings about your Meat and Drink and about your Honour or good Name But being loth the Book should prove too tedious I shall refer you to what is said before against Covetousness Pride and Gluttony c. and what is said before and after of Works of Charity and Family-Government AS to Sacred Habits and the different Garbs Laws Orders of Life Dyet c. of those called Religious Orders among the Papists Regular and Secular whether and how far such are lawful or sinful they are handled so largely in the Controversies of Protestants and Papists that I shall pass them by Only remembring the words of the Clergy of Ravenna to Carolus Iunior King of France inter Epist. Hincmari Rhemensis Discernendi à plebe vel caeteris sumus doctrina non veste conversatione non habitu mentis puritate non cultu Docendi enim potius sunt populi quam ludendi nec imponendum est eorum oculis sed mentibus praecepta sunt infundenda The End of the first Tome A Christian Directory Or A SUMM of PRACTICAL DIVINITY THE SECOND PART VIZ. Christian Oeconomicks OR THE FAMILY DIRECTORY Containing Directions for the true Practice of all Duties belonging to Family Relations with the Appurtenances By RICHARD BAXTER Josh. 24. 15. And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord choose you this day whom you will serve But as for Me and my House we will serve the Lord. Deut. 6. 6 7 8. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy House and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up c. Dan. 6. 10. When Daniel knew that the Writing was signed he went into his House and his Window being open in his Chamber towards Jerusalem he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and Prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime Acts 10. 1. 2. Cornelius a devout man and One that feared God with all his House which gave much Alms to the people and Prayed to God alwayes Ephes. 6. 4. Ye Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath but bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. Psal. 101. 6 7. He that walketh in a perfect way
and temperature of your children which is a great advantage for the choosing and applying of the best remedy 8. You have opportunity of watching over them and discerning all their faults in time But if a Minister speak to them he can know no more what fault to reprehend than others tell him or the party will confess You may also discern what success your former exhortations had and whether they amend or still go on in sin and whether you should proceed to more severe remedies 9. You have opportunity of speaking to them in the most familiar manner which is better understood than the set speech of a Minister in the Pulpit which few of them mark or understand You can quicken their attention by questions which put them upon answering you and so awaken them to a serious regard of what you say 10. You are so frequently with them that you can repeat your instructions and drive them home that what is not done at one time may be done at another Whereas other men can seldom speak to them and what is so seldome spoken is easily neglected or forgotten 11. You have power to place them under the best means and to remove many impediments out of their way which usually frustrate other mens endeavours 12. Your example is near them and continually in their sight which is a continual and powerful Sermon By all these advantages God hath enabled you above all others to be instruments of your Childrens good and the first and greatest promoters of their salvation § 6. Motive 6. Consider how great a Comfort it would be to you to have your children such as you Motive 6. may confidently hope are the children of God being brought to know him and love and serve him through your own endeavours in a pious education of them 1. You may love your children upon an higher account than as they are yours even as they are Gods adorned with his Image and quickned with a divine celestial life And this is is to love them with a higher kind of Love than meer Natural affection is It would rejoyce you to see your children advanced to be Lords or Princes But O how much greater cause of joy is it to see them made the members of Christ and quickned by his Spirit and sealed up for life eternal 2. When once your children are made the children of God by the Regeneration of the Spirit you may be much more free from care and trouble for them than before Now you may boldly trust them on the care of their heavenly Father who is able to do more for them than you are able to desire He loveth them better than you can love them He is bound by promise to protect them and provide for them and to see that all things work together for their good He that clotheth the Lillies of the fields and suffereth not the young Lions or Ravens to be unprovided for will provide convenient food for his own children though he will have you also do your duty for them as they are your children While they are the children of Satan and the servants of sin you have cause to fear not only lest they be exposed to miseries in this world but much more lest they be snatched away in their sin to Hell Your children while they are ungodly are worse than among Wolves and Tygâ—rs But when once they are renewed by the Spirit of Christ they are the charge of all the blessed Trinity and under God the charge of Angels Living or dying they are safe For the Eternal God is their portion and defence 3. It may be a continual comfort to you to think what a deal of drudgery and calamity your child is freed from To think how many Oaths he would have sworn and how many lyes and curses he would have uttered and how bâ—aftly and fleshly a life he would have lived how much wrong he would have done to God and men and how much he would have pleased the Devil and what torments in Hâ—ll he must have endured as the reward of aâ—â—â—â— and then to think how mercifully God hath prevented all this and what service he may do God in the world and finally live with Christ in glory What a joy is this to a considering believing Parent that taketh the mercies of his children as his own 4. Religion will teach your children to be more dutiful to your selves than Nature can teach them It will teach them to Love you even when you have no more to give them as well as if you had the wealth of all the world It will teach them to honour you though you are poor and contemptible in the eyes of others It will teach them to obey you and if you â—all into want to relieve you according to their power It will â—it them to comfort you i st the time of your sickness and distress when ungodly children will be as thorns in your feet or eyes and cut your hearts and prove a greater grief than any enemies to you A gracious child will bear with your weaknesses when a Châ—m will not cover his Fathers nakedness A gracious Child can pray for you and pray with you and be a blessing to your house when an ungodly Child is fitter to curse and prove a curse to those he liveâ— with 5. And is it not an exceeding joy to think of the everlasting happiness of your Child and that you may live togâ—ther in Heaven for ever When the foresâ—en misâ—ry of a gracâ—lâ—ss Child may grieve you when ever you look him in the face 6. Lastly It will be a great addition to your joy to think that God blessed your diligent instructions and made you the instrument of all that good that is done upon your children and of all that good that is done by them and of all the happiness they have for ever To think that this was conveyed to them by your means will give you a larger share in the delights of it § 7. Motive 7. Remember that your Childrens Original sin and misery is by you and therefore in Motive 7. juâ—â—ice you that have undone them are bound to do your best to save them If you had but conveyed a leprosiâ— or some hereditary Disease to their bodies would you not have done your best to cure them O that you could do them but as much good as you do them hurt It is more than Adamâ— sin that runneth down into the natures of your Children yea and that bringeth judgements on them And even Adams sin cometh not to them but by you § 8. Motive 8. Lastly Consider what exceeding great need they have of the utmost help you can afford Motive 8. them It is not a corporal disease an easie enemy a tolerable that we call unto you for their helpâ—â— But it is against Sin and Satan and Hell fire It is against a body of sin not one but many â—oâ— small but pernicious having seized upon the heart
first care should be to know and perform the Duties of our Relations and please God in them and then look for his blessing by way of encourageing-reward Study and do your parts and God will certainly do his § 2. Direct 1. The first Duty of Husbands is to Love their Wives and Wives their Husbands Direct 1. with a true entire Conjugal Love Ephes. 5. 25 28 29 33. Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it So ought men to love their Wives as their own Gen 2. 24. Ephes. 5 25 28 29 33. bodies he that loveth his Wife loveth himself For no man ever yet â—ated his own flesh â—ut nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church Let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself It is a Relation of Love that you have entered God hath made it your Duty for your mutual help and comfort that you may be as willing and ready to succour one another as the hand is to help the eye or other fellow-member and that your converse may be sweet and your burdens easie and your lives may be comfortable If Love be removed but for an hour between Husband and Wife they are so long as a bone out of joint There is no ease no order no work well done till they are restored and set in joint again Therefore be sure that Conjugal Love be constantly maintained § 3. The Sub-directions for maintaining Conjugal Love are such as these Direct 1. Choose one at Sub-directions â—o maintain Conjugal love first that is truly amiable especially in the vertues of the mind 2. Marry not till you are sure that you can Love entirely Be not drawn for sordid ends to joyn with one that you have but ordinary affections â—or 3. Be not too hasty but know before hand all the imperfections which may tempt you afterwards to loathing But if these duties have been sinfully neglected yet 4. Remember that Justice commandeth you to Love one that hath as it were forsaken all the world for you and is contented to be the companion of your labours and sufferings and be an equal sharer in all conditions with you and that must be your companion until death It is worse than barbarous inhumanity to entice such a one into a bond of Love and society with you and then to say You cannot Love her This was by perfidiousness to draw her into a spare to her undoing What comfort can she have in her converse with you and care and labour and necessary sufferings if you deny her Conjugal Love Especially if she deny not Love to you the inhumanity is the greater 5. Remember that Women are ordinarily affectionate passionate creatures and as they love much themselves so they expect much love from you And when you joyned your self to such a Nature you obliged your self to answerable duty And if Love cause not Love it is ungrateful and unjust contempt 6. Remember that you are under Gods command And to deny conjugal Love to your Wives is to deny a duty which God hath urgently imposed on you Obedience therefore should command your Love 7. Remember that you are Relatively as it were one flesh You have drawn her to forsake Father and Mother to cleave to you You are conjoyned for procreation of such children as must bear the image and nature of you both your possessions and interests are in a manner the same And therefore such nearness should command affection They that are as your selves should be most easily loved as your selves 8. Take more notice of the good that is in your Wives than of the evil Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their vertues Love is kindled by the sight of Love or Goodness 9. Make not infirmities to seem odious faults but excuse them as far as lawfully you may by considering the frailty of the Sex and of their tempers and considering also your own infirmities and how much your Wives must bear with you 10. Stir up that most in them into exercise which is best and stir not up that which is evil And then the good will most appear and the evil will be as buried and you will easilier maintain your love There is some uncleanness in the best on earth And if you will be daily stirring in the filth no wonder if you have the annoyance And for that you may thank your selves Draw out the fragrancy of that which is good and delectable in them and do not by your own imprudence or pievishness stir up the worst and then you shall find that even your faulty Wives will appear more amiable to you 11. Overcome them with Love and then whatever they are in themselves they will be Loving to you and consequently Lovely Love will cause Love as fire kindleth fire A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving Wife Make them not froward by your froward carriage and then say We cannot love them 12. Give them examples of amiableness in your selves set them the pattern of a prudent lowly loving meek self denying patient harmless holy heavenly life Try this a while and see whether it will not shame them from their faults and make them walk more amiably themselves § 4. Direct 2. Another Duty of Husbands and Wives is Cohabitation and where age prohibiteth Direct 2. not a sober and modest conjunction for procreation Avoiding lâ—sciviousness unseasonableness and whatever tendeth to corrupt the mind and make it vain and filthy and hinder it from holy employment And therefore Lust must not be cherished in the married but the mind be brought to a moderate chaste and sober frame and the Remedy must not be turned into an increase of the disease but used to extinguish it For if the mind be left to the power of Lust and only marriage trusted to for the cure with many it will be found an insufficient cure and Lust will rage still as it did before and will be so much the more desperate and your case the more miserable as your sin prevaileth against the remedy Yet marriage being appointed for a remedy against lust for the avoiding all unlawful congress the Apostle hath plainly described your duty 1 Cor. 7. 2 3 4 5. It is good for a man not to touch a woman Nevertheless to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife unto the husband The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife Defraud you not one the other except it be with consent for a time that ye may give your selves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency Therefore those persons live contrary to the nature of
that they themselves dislike and so possess them with the same dislike from generation to generation Woe to them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Isa. 5. 20. § 8. Direct 8. Let it be the principal part of your care and labour in all their education to make Direct 8. Holiness appear to them the most Necessary Honourable gainful pleasant delightful amiable state of life and to keep them from apprehending it either as needless dishonourable hurtful or uncomfortable Especially draw them to the Love of it by representing it as lovely And therefore begin with that which is easiest and most grateful to them as the History of the Scripture and the lives of the Martyrs and other good men and some short familiar lessons For though in restraining them from sin you must go to the highest step at first and not think to draw them from it by allowing them the least degree for every degree disposeth to more and none is to be allowed and a general reformation is the easiest as well as absolutely necessary Yet in putting them upon the Practice of Religious duties you must carry them on by degrees and put them at first upon no more than they can bear either upon the learning of doctrines too high and spiritual for them or upon such duty for quality or quantity as is over-burdensome to them For if you once turn their hearts against Religion and make it seem a slavery and a tedious life to them you take the course to harden them against it And therefore all Children must not be used alike as all stomachs must not be forced to â—at alike If you force some to take so much as to become a surfet they will loath that sort of meat as long as they live I know that nature it self as corrupt hath already an enmity to Holiness and I know that this enmity is not to be indulged in Children at all But withall I know that mis-representations of Religion and imprudent Education is the way to increase it and that the enmity being in the Heart it is the change of the Mind and Love that is the overcoming of it and not any such constraint as tendeth not to reconcile the Mind by Love The whole skill of Parents for the Holy education of their Children doth consist in this to make them conceive of Holiness as the most amiable and desirable life which is by representing it to them in words and practice not only as most Necessary but also as most Profitable Honourable and Delightful Prov. 3. 17. Her wayes are wayes of pleasantness and all her paths are peace c. § 9. Direct 9. Speak often to them of the bruitish baseness and sinfulness of flesh-pleasing sensuality Direct 9. and of the greater excellency of the Pleasures of the mind which consist in wisdom and in doing good For your chiefest care must be to save them from Flesh-pleasing which is not only in general the sum of all iniquity whatsoever but that which in special Children are most prone to For their flesh and sense is as quick as others and they want not only faith but clear Reason to resist it And so besides their natural pravity the custome of obeying sense which is in strength without Reason which is in infancy and almost useless doth much increase this pernicious sin And therefore still labour to imprint in their minds an odious conceit of a fleshpleasing life speak bitterly to them against Gluttony and drunkenness and excess of sport and let them often hear or read the parable of the Glutton and Lazarus in the 16 of Luke And let them learn without book Rom. 8. 1 5 6 7 8 9 13. Rom. 13. 13 14. and oft repeat them Direct 10. § 10. Direct 10. To this end and also for the health of their bodies keep a strict guard upon their appetites which they are not able to guard themselves Keep them as exactly as you can to the rules of reason both in the quantity and quality of their food Yet tell them the Reason of your restraint or else they will secretly strive the more to break their bounds Most Parents that ever I knew or had any good account of in that point are guilty of the great hurt and danger of their Childrens health and souls by pleasing and glutting them with meat and drink If I should call them Devils and Murderers to their own Children they would think I spake too harshly But I would not have them give so great occasion for it as by destroying as far as lyeth in them the souls and bodies of their Children They destroy their souls by accustoming them to gluttony and to be ruled by their appetites which all the teaching in the world will hardly ever after overcome without the special grace of God What is all the vice and villany in the world but the pleasing of the desires of the flesh And when they are habituated to this they are rooted in their sin and misery And they destroy their Bodies by suffering them to please their appetites with raw fruits and other hurtful things but especially by drowning and overwhelming nature by excess And all this is through that beastly ignorance joyned with self conceitedness which maketh them also overthrow themselves They think that their appetite is the measure of their eating and drinking and that if they drink but when they are thirsty as some Drunkards are continually and eat but when they are hungry it is no excess And because they are not presently sick or vomit it not up again the Beasts think it doth them no harm but good You shall hear them like mad people say I warrant them it will do them no harm to eat and drink when they have list it will make them strong and healthful I see not that those that are dyeted so strictly are any healthfuller than others When as all this while they are burdening nature and destroying digestion and vitiating all the humours of the body and turning them into a dunghill of flegm and filth which is the fewel that breedeth and feedeth almost all the diseases that after seize upon them while they live and usually bringeth them to an untimely end as I have fullyer opened before Tom. 1. in the Directions against Gluttony If therefore you love either the souls or Bodies of your Children use them to temperance from their infancy and let not their appetites or craving wills but your own reason be the chooser and the measure of their dyet Use them to eat sparingly and so it moderately please their appetite or be not such as nature loatheth let it be rather of the courser than the finer sort of dyet see it measured to them your selves and suffer no servant to give them more nor to let them eat or drink between meals and out of season And so you will
God is ordinarily seen in the execution of it The despisers and dishonourers of their Parents seldom prosper in the world There are five sorts of sinners that God useth to overtake with vengeance even in this life 1. Perjured persons and false witnesses 2. Murderers 3. Persecutors 4. Sacrilegious persons and 5. The abusers and dishonourers of their ☜ Parents Remember the curse on Cham Gen. 9. 22 25. It is a fearful thing to see and hear how some ill-bred ungodly children will talk contemptuously and rudely to their Parents and wrangle and contend with them and contradict them and speak to them as if they were their equals And it s commonly long of the Parents themselves that breed them to it And at last they will grow even to abuse and vilifie them Read Prov. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out and the young Eagles shall eat it § 3. Direct 3. Obey your Parents in all things which God forbiddeth not Remember that as Nature Direct 3. hath made you unfit to govern your selves so God in Nature hath mercifully provided Governours for you Here I shall first tell you what obedience is and then tell you why you must be thus obedient I. To obey your Parents is to do that which they command you and forbear that which they forbid you because it is their Will you should do so You must 1. Have in your minds a desire to please them and be glad when you can please them and sorry when you offend them and then 2. You must not set your wit or your will against theirs but readily obey their commands without unwillingness murmuring or disputing Though you think your own way is best and your own desires are but reasonable yet your own wit and will must be subjected unto theirs or else how do you obey them II. And for the Reasons of your obedience 1. Consider it is the will of God that it should be so and he hath made them as his Officers to govern you and in disobeying them you disobey him Read Ephes. 6. 1 2 3. Children obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right Honour thy Father and Mother which is the first Commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and thou maist live long on the earth Col. 3. 20. Children obey your Parents in all things for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Prov. 23. 22. Hearken to thy Father that begat thee and despise not thy Mother when she is old Prov. 13. 1. A wise Son heareth his Fathers instruction Prov. 1. 8 9. My Son hear the instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck 2. Consider also that your Parents Government is necessary to your own good and it is a Government of Love As your bodies would have perished if your Parents or some others had not taken care for you when you could not help your selves so your minds would be untaught and ignorant even like to Bruits if you had not others to teach and govern you Nature teacheth the Chickens to follow the Hen and all things when they are young to be led and guided by their Dams or else what would become of them 3. Consider also that they must be accountable to God for you and if they leave you to your selves it may be their destruction as well as yours as the sad example of Eli telleth you Rebell not therefore against those that God by Nature and Scripture hath set over you Though the fifth Commandment require obedience to Princâ—s and Masters and Pastors and other Superiours yet it nameth your Father and Mother only because they are the first of all your Governours to whom by Nature you are most obliged But perhaps you will say that though little Children must be ruled by their Parents yet you are grown up to a riper age and are wise enough to rule your selves I answer God doth not think so or else he would not have set Governours over you And are you wiser than he It is but few in the world that are wise enough to rule themselves Else God would not have set Princes and Magistrates and Pastors and Teachers over them as he hath done The Servants of the family are as old as you and yet are unfit to be the Rulers of themselves God loveth you better than to leave you Masterless as knowing that youth is rash and unexperienced Quest. But how long are Children under the Command and Government of their Parents Answ. There are several acts and degrees of Parents Government according to the several ends and uses of it Some acts of their Government are but to teach you to go and speak and some to teach you your labour and Calling and some to teach you good manners and the fear of God or the knowledge of the Scriptures and some are to settle you in such a course of living in which you shall need their nearer over-sight no more When any one of these ends are fully attained and you have all that your Parents Government can help you to than you are past that part of their Government But still you owe them not only Love and honour and reverence but obedience also in all things in which they are still appointed for your help and guidance Even when you are married from them though you have a propriety in your own estates and they have not so strict a charge of you as before yet if they command you your duty to God or them you are still obliged to obey them § 4. Direct 4. Be contented with your Parents provision for you and disposal of you Do not rebelliously Direct 4. murmur against them and complain of their usage of you much less take any thing against their wills It is the part of a fleshly Rebel and not of an obedient child to be discontent and murmur because they fare not better or because they are kept from sports and play or because they have not better cloaths or because they have not money allowed them to spend or use at their own discretion Are not you under Government and the Government of Parents and not of enemies Are your lusts and pleasures fitter to govern you than your Parents discretion Be thankful for what you have and remember that you deserve it not but have it freely It is your Pride or your fleshly sensuality that maketh you thus to murmur and not any wisdom or vertue that is in you Get down that Pride and fleshly mind and then you will not be so eager to have your wills What if your Parents did deal too hardly with you in your food or raiment or expences What harm doth it do you Nothing but a selfish sensual mind would make so great a matter of it It s a hundred times more dangerous
Repent of your sinful life and yet set your Heart upon the life to come and Love God and Holiness better than the world and fleshly pleasure and trust your soul on Christ as your Redeemer and he will certainly forgive you and reconcile you unto God and present you justified and spotless in his sight Think of your sin till you abhor your self and think of your sin and misery till you feel that you are undone if you have not a Saviour and then think what Love God hath shewed you in Christ in giving him to be incarnate and die for sinners and offering you freely to pardon all that ever you have done and to justifie and save you and bring you to endless Glory with himself if yet as last you will but give up your self to Christ and accept his mercy and return to God What joyful tidings is here now for a sinful miserable soul Yet this is the certain truth of God This is his very Covenant of grace which is founded in the blood of Christ and which he is now ready to make with you and seal to you by his spirit within and his Sacrament without if you do but Heartily and unfeignedly Consent Believe in Christ and Turn to God from the world and the flesh and resolve upon a Holy life if you should recover and then I can assure you from the word of God that he will freely pardon you and take you for his Child and save your soul in endless Glory As late as it is he will certainly receive you if you return to him by Christ with all your heart And doth not your heart now rejoice in this unspeakable mercy which is willing to save you after all the sin that you have committed and after all the time that you have lost Do you not Love that God that is so abundant in Goodness and in Love and that Saviour who hath purchased you this pardon and salvation Is it not better think you to Love and praise and serve him than to live in fleshly lusts and pleasures And is it not better to dwell in Heaven with him in endless Ioys than to live awhile in the vain delights of sinners and thence to pasâ— to endless misery O beg of God now to give you a New Heart to Believe in Christ and Repent of sin and Love him that is most Holy Good and gracious And take heed that you sleight his grace no longer and that you do not now take on you in a fear to be that which you are not or to do that which you would not hold to if you should recover And to make all sure will you now sincerely enter into a Covenant with Christ I mean but the same Covenant which you made in Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lords supper and which would have saved you if you had sincerely made and kept it Let me therefore help you both to understand it and to do it by these questions which I intreat you to answer sincerely as one that is going to the presence of God Quest. 1. Do you truly Believe that you are a Rational creature differing from bruits being made to Love and serve your Maker and have an immortal soul which must live in Heaven or Hell for ever And that there is indeed a Heaven of Ioyes and a Hell of punishments when this life is ended Quest. 2. Do you believe that in Heaven the souls of the Iustified at death and the Body also at the Resurrection shall be joined with the Angels and shall dwell with Christ and see the Glory of God and be perfected in Holiness and filled with the sense of the Love of God and with the greatest Ioyes that our nature can receive and shall live in the most delightful Love and Praise of God for ever Quest. 3. Seeing you are certain that all the pleasures of this life are short and will end in death and leave the flesh which desired them in corruption do you not firmly believe that the Ioyes of Heaven are infinitely better and more to be desired and sought than all the pleasures and profits of this life And that it is most reasonable that we should Love God above all Creatures even with all our heart and soul and might Quest. 4. Seeing then that the Love of God is both our Duty and our Happiness is it not reason that we should be kept from the Love of any thing in the world which would steal away our hearts from God and hinder us from Loving him and desiring and seeking him and that we should mortifie the love of worldly riches honours and delights so far as they are against the Love of God Quest. 5. Seeing God is the absolute Lord and Ruler of the world is it not reason that we obey him whatsoever he commandeth us though we did not see the Reason why he doth command it And yet is it not plainly Reasonable that he command us to Love and honour and worship him and to Love one another and to deal Iustly with all and do as we would be done by and toâ—â—e careful of our souls and temperate for our bodies and not to neglect or dishonour our maker nor to neglect our own salvation nor abuse our bodies by beastly filthiness or excess nor to wrong our neighbours nor deny to do them any good that is in our power This is the sum of all Gods laws and this is the nature of Holiness and obedience And do you not from your heart believe that all this is very reasonable and good Quest. 6. When the sinful world was faln from Happiness into misery by turning away from God and Holiness to sensuality and God sent his Son to be their Redeemer and Saviour to be a Sacrifice for sin and a Teacher and Pattern of a Holy and Obedient life and to make a new Covenant with them in which he giveth them the pardon of all sin and everlasting happiness if they will but give up themselves to him as their Saviour and Sanctifier and by true Repentance turn to God do you not verily Believe that miserable sinners should gladly and thankfully accept of such an offer and abundantly Love that God and Saviour that hath so tenderly loved them and so freely Redeemed them from the flames of Hell and so freely offered them everlasting life And do you not Believe that he who after all this shall slight all this mercy and refuse to be renewed by sanctifying grace and shall neglect his God and soul and this salvation and rather choose to keep his sins doth not deserve to be utterly forsaken and to be punished more than if a Saviour and Salvation had never been offered to him Quest. 7. Hath not this been your own case Have you not lived a fleshly worldly life neglecting God and your salvation and minding more these lower things and have you not refused the word and spirit of Christ which would have brought you to Repentance and a holy
my mouth Mal. 3. 18. Psal. 1. 15. 4. Affect not a dead and heartless way of worship which tendeth not to convince and waken the ungodly nor to make men serious as those that have to do with God § 9. Direct 8. Let the manner of your worshipping God be suited to the matter that you have in hand Direct 8. Remember that you are speaking either to or of the Eternal God that you are employed about the everlasting salvation of your own or others souls that all is high and holy that you have to do See then that the Manner be answerable hereunto § 10. Direct 9. Offer God nothing as a part of Worship which is a lye much less so gross a lye as Direct 9. to be disproved by the common senses and Reason of all the world God needeth not our Lye unto his glory What worship then do Papists offer him in their Mass who take it for an article of their faith Rom. 3. 7. that there is no Bread or Wine left after the Consecration it being all Transubstantiate into the very Body and Blood of Christ. And when the Certainty of all mens senses is renounced then all certainty of faith and all Religion is renounced for all presuppose the certainty of sense § 11. Direct 10. Worship not God in a manner that is contrary to the true nature and order and Direct 10. operations of a rational soul. I mean not to the corrupted nature of man but to Nature as Rational in it self considered As 1. Let not your meer Will and inclination over-rule your understandings Read Plutarch of Superstition and say not as blind Lovers do I love this but I know not why or as Children that eat unwholsome meat because they love it 2. Let not passion overtop your Reason Worship God with such a zeal as is according to knowledge 3. Let not your Tongues lead your hearts much less over-go them Words may indeed reflect upon the Heart and warm it more but that is but the secondary use the first is to be the expressions of the Heart You must not speak without or against your hearts that is falsly that by so speaking you may better your hearts and make the words true that at first were not true unless it be when your words are but reading-recitations or narratives and not spoken of your selves The Heart was made to lead the tongue and the tongue to express it and not to lead it Therefore speak not to God either the words of a Parrot which you do not understand or the words of a lyar or Hypocrite which express not the meaning or desires or feeling of your hearts but first understand and feel what you should speak and then speak that which you understand and feel § 12. Quest. How then can a prayer be lawful that is read or heard from a Book Answ. There is in Reading the Eye and in Hearing the Ear that is first to affect the Heart and then the Tongue is to perform its office And though it be sudden yet the passage to the Heart is first and the passage from the heart is last and the soul is quick and can quickly thus both Receive and be Affected and express it self And the case is the same in this whether it be from a Book or from the words of another without book For the soul must do the same as quickly in joyning with another that speaketh before us without a book as with it § 13. Direct 11. Understand well how far Christ hath given a Law and Rule for worship to his Direct 11. Church in the holy Scriptures and so far see that you take it as a perfect Rule and swerve not from How far the Scriptureis the Law or Rule of Worship and Discipline and how far not it by adding or diminishing This is a matter of great importance by reason of the danger of erring on either side 1. If you think that the Scripture containeth not any Law or Rule of Worship at all or not so much as indeed it doth you will deny a principal part of the Office of Christ as the King and Teacher of the Church and will accuse his Laws of insufficiency and be tempted to worship him with a humane kind of worship and to think your selves at liberty to worship him according to your own imaginations or change his worship according to the fashion of the Age or the Countrey where you are And on the other side if you think that the Scripture is a Law and Rule of Worship more particular than Christ intended it you will involve your selves and others in endless scruples and controversies and find fault with that which is lawful and a duty because you find it not particularly in the Scriptures And therefore it is exceeding needful to understand how far it is intended to be herein our Law and Rule and how far not To handle this fully would be a Dâ—gression but I shall briefly answer it § 14. 1. No doubt but Christ is the only Universal Head and Law-giver to his Church and that Legislation Isa. 2. 3 1. 10. 42. 4. Mic. 4. 2. Heb. 3. â— 3 5. Heb. 10. 28. Acts 7. 37 38. Acts 3. 23. Psal. 19. 7. Isa. 5. 24. is the first and principal part of Government And therefore if he had made no Laws for his Church he were not the full Governour of it And therefore he that arrogateth this power to himself to be Law-giver to the Church universal as such doth usurp the Kingly Office of Christ and committeth Treason against his Government unless he can prove that Christ hath delegated to him this chief part of his Government which none can do There being no Universal Law-giver to the Church but Christ whether Pope or Council no Law that is made by any meer man can be universally obligatory Therefore seeing the making of all Universal Laws doth belong only to ☜ Christ we may be sure that he hath perfectly done it and hath left nothing out of his Laws that was fit to be there nor nothing at liberty that was fit to be determined and commanded Therefore whatsoever is of equal Use or Consideration to the Universal Church as it is to any one part of iâ— and to all times as it is to any time of the Church should not be made a Law by man to any part of the Church if Christ have not made it a Law to the whole because else they accuse him of being defective in his Laws and because all his subjects are equally dependant on him as their King and Iudge And no man must step into his Throne pretending to amend his work which he hath done amiss or to make up any wants which the chief Law giver should have made up § 15. 2. These Laws of Christ for the Government of his Church are fully contained in the holy Scriptures For so much as is in Nature is there also
members of the visible Church The Integral and accidental Union I pass by now 2. Besides this Union of the Universal Church with Christ the Universal Head there is in all Particular organized Churches a subordinate Union 1. Between 1 Thes. 5. 12 13. the Pastor and the flock and 2. Between the People one towards another which consisteth in these their special Relations to each other 3. And there is an Accidental Union of many particular Churches As when they are United under one Civil Government or Consociated by their Pastors in one Synod or Council These are the several sorts of Church-Union Direct 2. § 4. Direct 2. Understand also wherein the Communion of Christians and Churches doth consist that you may know what it is that you must hold to In the Universal Church your Internal Communion with Christ consisteth in his communication of his spirit and grace his word and mercies unto you and in your returnes of Love and Thanks and Obedience unto him and in your seeking to him depending on him and receivings from him Your Internal Communion with the Church or Saints consisteth in mutual Love and other consequent affections and in praying for and doing good to one another as your selves according to your abilities and opportunities Your external communion with Christ and with most of the Church in Heaven and Earth is not mutually visible and local For it is but a small number comparatively that we ever see But it consisteth in Christs visible communication of his word his officers and his ordinances and mercies unto you and in your visible learning and reception of them and obedience to him and expressions of your Love and Gratitude towards him Your external communion with the Universal Church consisteth in the Prayers of the Church for you and your prayers for the Church In your holding the same faith and professing to Love and Worship the same God and Saviour and Sanctifier in the same holy ordinances in order to the same eternal end § 5. Your external Communion in the same particular Congregations consisteth in your assembling together to hear the Preaching of Gods word and to receive the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ and pray and praise God and to help each other in knowledge and holiness and walk together in the fear of the Lord. § 6. Your Communion with other neighbour Churches lyeth in praying for and counselling each other and keeping such correspondencies as shall be found necessary to maintain that Love and Peace and Holiness which all are bound to seek according to your abilities and opportunities § 7. Note here that Communion is one thing and subjection is another It is not your subjection to other Churches that is required to your communion with them The Churches that Paul wrote to at Rome Corinth Galatia Ephesus Philippi c. had Communion together according to their capacities in that distance but they were not subject one to another any otherwise than as all are commanded to be subject to each other in humility 1 Pet. 5. 5. The Church of Rome now accuseth all the Christians in the World of separating from their Communion unless they will take them for their Rulers and obey them as the Mistres Church But Paul speaketh not one syllable to any of the Churches of any such thing as their obedience to the Church of Rome To your own Pastors you owe subjection statedly as well as communion and to other Pastors of the Churches of Christ fixed or unfixed you owe a temporary subjection so far as you are called to make use of them as sick persons do to another Physicion when the Physicion of the Hospital is out of the way But one Church is not the Ruler of another or any one oâ— all the rest by any appointment of the King of the Church § 8. Direct 3. By the help of what is already said you are next distinctly to understand how far Direct 3. you are bound to Union or Communion with any other Church or person and what distance separation or division is a sin and what is not that so you may neither causlesly trouble your selves with scruples What Unity is among all Christians Gal. 3. 20. 4. 5 6. Ephes. 4. 5. 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. nor trouble the Church by sinful Schism § 9. I. There must be a Union among all Churches and Christians in these following particulars 1. They have all but One God 2. And One Head and Saviour Jesus Christ. 3. And One Sanctifier the Holy Ghost 4. And One Ultimate End and Hope even the fruiâ—â—on of God in Heaven 5. And one Gospel to teach them the Knowledge of Christ and contain the promise of their salvation 6. And one kind of faith that is wrought hereby 7. And one and the same Covenant 1 Pet. 1. 16 Eph. 4. 11 12 13. of which Baptism is the seal in which they are engaged to God 8. And the same Instrumental founders of our faith under Jesus Christ even the Prophets and Apostles 9. And all members of the Eph. 2. 20 21 19. same Universal Body 10. And all have the same new nature and Holy disposition and the same Holy Affections in Loving God and Holiness and Hating sin 11. They all own as to the essential 1 Joh. 3. 11 14 23 parts the same Law of God as the Rule of their faith and life even the sacred Canonical Scriptures Psal. 122. 2. 1 Pet. 2. 1 2. Joh 3. 6. Heb. 10. 25. 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. 12. Every member hath a Love to the whole and to each other especially to the more excellent and useful members and an inclination to holy Communion with each other 13. They have all a propensity to the same holy means and employment as Prayer learning the word of God and doing good to others All these things the True living members of the Church have in sincerity and the rest have in Profession Râ—m 12. 1. Eph 2. 10 11. What 〈…〉 sity â—â—l be in the Church 1 Joh. 2. 12 13 14 § 10. II. There will be still a diversity among the Churches and particular Christians in these following points without any dissolution of the fore-described Unity 1. They will not be of the same Age or standing in Christ but some babes some young men and some fathers 2. They will not have the same degrees of strength of Knowledge and of Holiness some will have need to be fed with milk and be unskilful in the word of Righteousness 3. They will differ in the kind and Heb. 5. 11 12 13. measure of their gifts some will excell in one kind and some in another and some in none at all Mat. 17. 2. 13. 3â— Rom. 14. 1 2 21. 4. They will differ in their natural temper which will make some to be more hot and some more mild some more quick and some more dull some of more regulated wits and some more scattered and
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell even together in unity It is like the pretious oyntment upon the head that ran down upon the heard even Aarons beard that went down to the skirts of his garment As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion for there the Lord commanded the blessing even life for evermore The Translators well put this as the Contents of this Psalm The benefit of the communion of Saints § 53. 5. The concord of Believers doth greatly conduce to the successes of the Ministery and propagation of the Gospel and the conviction of unbelievers and the conversion and salvation of ungodly souls When Christ prayeth for the Unity of his Disciples he redoubleth this argument from the effect or end that the world may believe that thou hast sent me and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them c. Joh. 17. 21 23. Would this make the world believe that Christ was sent of God Yes undoubtedly if all Christians were reduced to a Holy Concord it would do more to win the Heathen world than all other means can do without it It is the Divisions and the wickedness of professed Christians that maketh Christianity so contemned by the Mahometanes and other Infidels of the world And it is the Holy Concord of Christians that would convince and draw them home to Christ. Love and Peace and concord are such vertues as all the world is forced to applaud notwithstanding natures enmity to good When the first Christian Church were all with one accord in one place and continued daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house partook of food with gladness and singleness of heart and when the multitude of believers were of one heart and of one soul c. Act. 2. 1 46. 4. 32. then did God send upon them Act. 2. 41. Act. 4. 33. the Holy Ghost and then were three thousand converted at a Sermon And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Iesus and great grace was upon them all How our Concord would promote the Conversion of Infidels Our Concord in Religion hath all these advantages for the converting of unbelievers and ungodly men 1. It is a sign that there is a constraining evidence of truth in that Gospel which doth convince so many A concurrent satisfaction and yielding to the truth is a powerful testimony for it 2. They see then that Religion is not a matter of worldly Policy and design when so many men of contrary interests do embrace it 3. And they see it is not the fruit of a Melancholy constitutions when so many men of various temperatures entertain it 4. They may see that the Gospel hath Power to conquer that self-love and self interest which is the most potent thing in vitiated nature Otherwise it could never make so many unite in God as their common interest and end 5. They may see that the Gospel and spirit of Christ is stronger than the devil and all the allurements of the flesh and world when it can make so many agree in the renouncing of all earthly vanities for the hopes of everlasting life 6. They will see that the Design and doctrine of Christianity is Good and excellent beseeming God and desirable to man when they see that it doth produce so good effects as the Love and Unity and Concord of manking 7. And it is an exceeding great and powerful help to the Conversion of the World in this respect because it is a thing so conspicuous in their sight and so intelligible to them and so approved by them They are little wrought on by the doctrine of Christ alone because it is visible or audible but to few and understood by fewer and containeth many things which nature doth distaste But the holy Concord of Believers is a thing that they are more able to discern and judge of and do more generally approve The HOLY CONCORD of Christians must be the CONVERSION of the unbelieving world if God have so great a mercy for the world which is a consideration that should not only deter us from ☜ Divisions but make us zealously study and labour with all our interest and might for the healing of the lamentable Divisions among Christians if we have the hearts of Christians and any sense of the interest of Christ. § 54. 6. The Concord of Christians doth greatly conduce to the ease and peace of particular Believers The very exercise of Love to one another doth sweeten all our lives and duties We sail towards Heaven in a pleasant Calm with wind and tide when we live in Love and peace together How easie doth it make the work of Godliness How light a burden doth Religion seem when we are all as of one heart and soul § 55. 7. Lastly Consider whether this be not the likest state to Heaven and therefore have not in it the most of Christian excellency and perfection In Heaven there is no discord but a perfect consort of glorified spirits harmoniously loving and praising their Creator And if Heaven be desirable holy Concord on earth is next desirable § 56. III. On the contrary consider well of the Mischiefs of Divisions 1. It is the killing of The Mischiefs of Division the Church as much as lyeth in the dividers or the wounding it at least Christs Body is One and it is sensible and therefore Dividing it tendeth directly to the destroying it and at least will cause its smart and pain To Reform the Church by Dividing it is no wiser than to cut out the Liver or Spleen or Gall to cleanse them from the filth that doth obstruct them and hinder them in their office you may indeed thus cleanse them but it will be a mortal cure As he that should Divide the Kingdom into two Kingdoms dissolveth the old Kingdom or part of it at least to erect two new ones so he that would divide the Catholick Church into two must thereby destroy it if he could succeed or destroy that part which divideth it self from the rest Can a member live that is cut off from the Body or a branch that is separated from the tree § 57. Quest. O but say the Romanists why then do you cut off your selves from us The Division Quest. is made by you and we are the Church and you are dead till you return to us How will you know which part is the Church when a Division is once made Answ. Are you the Church Are you the Answ. Whether Papists or Protestants are Schismaticks only Christians in the World The Church is all Christians united in Christ their Head You traiterously set up a new usurping Head and proclaim your selves to be the whole Church and condemn all that are not subjects to your new Head We keep our station and disclaim his Usurpation and deny subjection to
pretend to the greatest austerities do grow up to such a measure of sowre pride and uncharitable contempt of others and especially of all superiours and hellish railing against the holiest Ministers and people as we have scarce known or ever read of § 63. 7. These Divisions fill the Church with sin even with sins of a most odious nature They introduce a swarm of errors while it becomes the Mode for every one to have a doctrine of his own and to have something to say in Religion which may make him notable Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them They cherish pride and malice and belying others the three great sins of the Devil as naturally as dead flesh breedeth Worms They destroy impartial Christian Love as naturally as bleeding doth consume our vital heat and moisture What wickedness is it that they will not cherish In a word the Scripture telleth us The Greek word is Zeal that where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work And is not this a lamentable way of Reformation of some imaginary or lesser evils § 64. 8. These Divisions are the grief of honest spectators and cause the sorrows of those that are guilty of them They make all their duties uneasie to them and turn their Religion into a bitter unpleasant wrangling toil Like Oxâ—n in the yoke that strive against each other when they should draw in order and equality What a grievous life is it to Husband and Wife or any in the family if they live in discord So is it to the members of the Church When once men take the Kingdom of God to consist of meats or drinks or ceremonies which consisteth in Righteousness and Peace and Rom. 14. 17. 1 Tim. 1. 4. Joy in the Holy Ghost and turn to strive about unedifying questions they turn from all the sweetness of Religion § 65. 9. Sects and Divisions lead directly to Apostacy from the faith Nothing is more in the design of Satan than to confound men so with variety of Religions that they may think there is no certainty in any that so both the ignorant spectators may think all Religion is but fancy and deceit and the contenders themselves wheel about from Sect to Sect till they come to the point where they first set out and to be at last deliberately of no Religion who at first were of none for want of deliberation And it is no small success that Satan hath had by this temptatation § 66. 10. The Divisions of Christians do oft proceed to shake States and Kingdoms having a â—amentable influence upon the Civil peace And this stirreth up Princes jealousies against them and to the use of those severities which the suffering party takes for persecution yea and Turks and all Princes that are enemies to Reformation and Holiness do justifie themselves in their cruellest persecutions when they see the Divisions of Christians and the troubles of States that have followed thereupon If Christians and Protestants in special did live in that Unity Peace and Order as their Lord and Ruler requireth them to do the consciences of persecuters would even worry and torment them and make their lives a Hell on earth for their cruelty against so excellent a sort of men But now when they see them all in confusions and see the troubles that follow hereupon and hear them reviling one another they think they may destroy them as the troublers of the earth and their consciences scarce accuse them for it § 67. IV. It is necessary also for your true understanding the malignity of this sin that you The Aggravations of Schism take notice of the Aggravations of it especially as to us 1. It is a sin against so many and clear and vehement words of the Holy Ghost which I have partly before recited that it is therefore utterly without excuse Whoredoms and Treasons and Perjury are not oftner forbidden in the Gospel than this § 68. 2. It is contrary to the very design of Christ in our Redemption which was to Reconcile us all to God and unite and center us all in him To gather together in one the Children of God that are scattered abroad John 11. 52. To gather together in one all things in Christ Ephes. 1. 10. To make in himself of twain one new man so making peace Ephes. 2. 15. And shall we joyn with Satan the divider and destroyer against Christ the Reconciler in the very design of his Redemption § 69. 3. It is contrary to the design of the Spirit of Grace and contrary to the very nature of Christianity it self By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body and have all been made to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12 13. As there is one Body and one Spirit so it is our charge to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Ephes. 4. 3 4. The new nature of Christians doth consist in Love and desireth the Communion of Saints as such And therefore the command of this special Love is called the New Commandment John 17. 21. 13. 34. 15. 12 17. And they are said to be taught of God to love one another 1 Thess. 4 9. As self-preservation is the chief principle in the Natural body which causeth it to abhorr the wounding or amputation of its members and to avoid division as destruction except when a gangrened member must be cut off for the saving of the body so it is also with the mystical body of Christ. He is senseless and graceless that abhorreth not Church-wounds § 70. 4. These Divisions are sins against the nearest bonds of our high Relations to each other We are Brethren and should there be any strife among us Gen. 13. 8. We are all the children of Rom. 8. 16. 9. 26. God by faith in Christ Iesus Gal. 3. 26. We are the fellow-members of the body of Christ and 1 John 5. 2. should we tear his body and separate his members and cut his flesh and break his bones Eph. 5. 23. 30. For as the Body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ 1 Cor. 12. 12. As we have many members in one body so we being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another Rom. 12. 4 5. He that woundeth or dismembreth your own bodies shall scarce be taken for your friend And are you Christs friends when you dismember or wound his body Is it lovely to see the children or servants Quicquid ad multitudinem vergit antipatâ—â—am continet quanto magis multitudo augetur tanto â—â—â—â—pathia quicquid vero ad unitatem tendit sympathiam habet quanto magis ad unitatem accedit tanto puâ—â—ori sympathia augetur Paul Scaliâ—er Epist. Cath. l. 3. p. 176. in your family together by the ears Is Civil Wars for
Church it is done by a double consent to the double relation By baptism he professeth his consent to be a member of Christ and his universal Church and additionally he consenteth to be guided by that particular Pastor in that particular Church which is another Covenant or Consent Quest. 33. Whether Infants should be Baptized I have answered long agoe in a Treatise on that Subject Also What Infants should be Baptized And who have Right to Sacraments And whether Hypocrites are univocally or equivocally Christians and Church-members I have resolved in my Disput. of Right to Sacraments Quest. 34. Whether an unbaptized person who yet maketh a publick profession of Christianity be a member of the Visible Church And so of the Infants of Believers unbaptized Answ. 1. SUch persons have a certain Imperfect irregular kind of profession and so of Membership Their Visibility or Visible Christianity is not such as Christ hath appointed As those that are Marryed but not by Legal Celebration and as those that in cases of necessity are Ministers without Ordination so are such Christians as Constantine and many of old without Baptism 2. Such persons ordinarily are not to be admitted to the Rights and Communion of the Visible Church because we must know Christs sheep by his own mark But yet they are so far visible Christians as that we may be perswaded nevertheless of their salvation As to visible Communion they have but a remote and incompleat jus â—d rem and no jus in re or legal investiture and possession 3. The same is the case of unbaptized Infants of believers because they are not of the Church meerly as they are their natural seed but because it is supposed that a person himself devoted to God ☞ doth also devote his Children to God Therefore not nature only but this supposition arising from the true nature of his own dedication to God is the reason why believers Children have their right to Baptism Therefore till he hath Actually devoted them to God in Baptism they are not legally members of the Visible Church but only in fieri and imperfectly as is said Of which more anon Quest. 35. Is it certain by the Word of God that all Infants Baptized and dying before actual sin are undoubtedly saved Or what Infants may we say so of Answ. I. 1. WE must distinguish between certainty objective and subjective or plainlyer the Since the writing of this there is come forth an excellent Book for Infant Baptism by Mr. Ioseph Whistoâ— in which the Grounds of my present Solutions are notaâ—â—y cleared Reality or Truth of the Thing and the certain apprehension of it 2. And this certainty of apprehension sometime signifieth only the Truth of that apprehension when a man indeed is not deceived or more usually that clearness of apprehension joyned with Truth which fully quieteth the mind and excludeth doubting 3. We must distinguish of Infants as Baptised Lawfully upon just title or unlawfully without title 4. And also of Title before God which maketh a Lawful claim and Reception at his bar and Title before the Church which maketh only the Administration lawful before God and the Reception lawful only in foro ecclesiae or externo 5. The word Baptism signifieth either the external part only consisting in the words and outward action or the Internal Covenanting of the heart also 6. And that internal Covenant is either sincere which giveth right to the benefits of Gods Covenant or only partial reserved and unsound such as is common to hypocrites Conclus 1. God hath been pleased to speak so little in Scripture of the case of Infants that modest men will use the words Certainly and Undoubtedly about their case with very great Caution And many great Divines have maintained that their very Baptism it self cannot be Certainly and undoubtedly proved by the Word of God but by Tradition Though I have endeavoured to prove the contrary in a special Treatise on that point 2. No man can tell what is objectively certain or revealed in Gods Word who hath not subjective certainty or knowledge of it 3. A mans apprehension may be True when it is but a wavering opinion with the greatest doubtfulness Therefore we do not usually by a Certain apprehension mean only a True apprehension but a clear and quieting one 4. It is possible to baptize Infants unlawfully or without any Right so that their Reception and baptizing shall be a great sin as is the misapplying of other Ordinances For instance one in America where there is neither Church to receive them nor Christian Parents nor Sponsors may take up the Indians Children and Baptize them against the Parents wills Or if the Parents consent to have their Children outwardly Baptized and not themselves as not knowing what Baptizing meaneth or desire it only for outward advantages to their Children Or if they offer them to be Baptized only in open derision and scorn of Christ such Children have no Right to be received And many other instances neerer may be given 5. It 's possible the person may have no Authority at all from Christ who doth Baptize them And Christs part in Reception of the person and Collation and Investiture in his benefits must be done by his Commission or else how can we say that Christ doth it But open Infidels Women Children madmen scorners may do it that have none of his Commission 6. That all Infants baptized without title or right by mis-application and so dying are not undoubtedly saved nor any word of God doth certainly say so we have reason to believe on these following grounds 1. Because we can find no such Text nor could ever prevail with them that say so to shew us such an ascertaining Word of God 2. Because else gross sin would certainly be the way to salvation For such mis-application of Baptism by the demanders at least would certainly be gross sin as well as mis-applying the Lords Supper 3. Because it is clean contrary to the tenour of the new Covenant which promiseth salvation to none but penitent Believers and their seed What God may do for others unknown to us we have nothing to do with But his Covenant hath made no other promise that I can find 〈…〉 d we are â—ertain of no mans salvation by Baptism to whom God never made a promise of it If by the Children of the faithful be meant not only their Natural seed but the Adopted or bought also of which they are true Proprietors yet that is nothing to all others 4. To add to Gods words Especially to his very Promise or Covenant is so terrible a presumption as we dare not be guilty of 5. Because this tyeth Grace or salvation so to the outward washing of the body or opus operatum as is contrary to the nature of Gods Ordinances and to the tenour of Scripture and the judgement of the Protestant Divines 6. Because this would make a strange disparity between the two Sacraments of the same
to a holy life or fit for Glory immediately without an inward Holiness of his own yet by what is said it seemeth plain that meerly on the account of the Condition performed by the Parent and of his Union Relatively with Christ thereupon and his title to Gods promise on these Grounds he may be said to be in a state of salvation that is to have the pardon of his Original sin deliverance from hell in right adoption and a right to the needful operations of the Holy Ghost as given to him in Christ who is the first receiver of the spirit 15. But when and in what sort and degree Christ giveth the actual operations of the spirit to all Covenanted Infants it is wonderful hard for us to know But this much seemeth clear 1. That Christ may when he please work on the soul of an Infant to change its disposition before he come to the use of Reason 2. That Christ and his spirit as in Covenant with Infants are ready to give all necessary assistance to Infants for their inherent sanctification in the use of those means and on those Mr. Whiston p. 60. sheweâ—h That even the promises of a new Heart c. Ezek 36 37 c. Though they may run in the external tenour of them absolutely yet are not absolutely absolute but have a subordinate condition and that is That the parties concerned in them do faithfully use the means appointed of God in a subserviency to his working in or bestowing on them the Good promised further conditions on which we must wait for it and expect it For the Holy Ghost is not so engaged to us in our Covenant or Baptism as to be obliged presently to give us all the grace that we want But only to give it us on certain further conditions and in the use of certain means But because this leadeth me up to another question I will suspend the rest of the answer to this till that be handled Only I must answer this objection Obj. It is contrary to the Holy nature of God complacenically to Love an unsanctified Infant that is yet in his Original Corruption unchanged and he justifieth none relatively from the guilt of sin whom he doth not at once inherently sanctifie Answ. 1. Gods complacencial Love respecteth every one as he is For it is Goodness only that he so Loveth Therefore he so Loveth not those that either Actually or Habitually Love not Him under any false supposition that they do Love him when they do not His Love therefore to the Adult and Infants differeth as the objects differ But there is this Lovely in such Infants 1. That they are the Children of believing sanctified Parents 2. That they are by his Covenant Relatively United to Christ and so are Lovely as his members 3. That they are pardoned all their original sin 4. That they are set in the way to Actual Love and holiness being thus dedicated to God 2. All imperfect Saints are sinners And all sinners are as such abhorred of God whose pure eyes cannot behold iniquity As then it will stand with his purity to accept and love the Adult upon their first believing before their further sanctification and notwithstanding the remnant of their sins so may it do also to accept their Infants through Christ upon their Dedication 3. As the actual sin imputed to Infants was Adams and their Parents only by Act and not their own it is no wonder if upon their Parents faith and repentance Christ wash and justifie them from that guilt which arose only from anothers act 4. And then the inherent pravity was the effect of that Act of their Ancestors which is forgiven them And this pravity or inherent Original sin may two wayes be said to be mortified radically or Virtually or inceptively before any inherent change in them 1. In that it is mortified in their Parents from whom they derived it who have the power of choosing for them and 2. In that they are by Covenant engraffed into Christ and so related to the cause of their future sanctification yea 3. In that also they are by Covenant and their Parents promise engaged to use those means which Gods being a God to any individual person doth râ—quire and presuppose that they do for the present supposing them capable or for the future as soon as capable take God in Christ as their God Ibid. p. 61. Christ hath appointed for sanctification 5. And it must be remembred that as this is but an inceptive preparatory change so the very pardon of the Inherent vitiosity is not perfect as I have elsewhere largely proved however some Papists and Protestants deny it While sin remaineth sin and corruption is still indwelling besides all the unremoved penalties of it the very being of it proveth it to be so far unpardoned in that it is not yet abolished and the continuance of it being not its smallest punishment as permitted and the spirit not given so far as to cure it Imperfect pardon may consist with a present right both to further sanctification by the Spirit and so to Heaven Obj. Christs body hath no unholy members Answ. 1. 1 Cor. 7. 14. Now are your Children holy They are not wholly unholy who have all the fore-described holiness 2. As Infants in Nature want memory and actual reason and yet initially are men so as Christs members they may want actual and habitual faith and Love and yet initially be sanctified by their Union with him and his spirit and their Parents Dedication and be in the way for more as they grow fit And be Christians and Saints in fieri or initially only as they are men Quest. 43. Is the right of the Baptized Infants or adult to the sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost now Absolute or suspended on further Conditions And are the Parents further duty for their Children such conditions of their Childrens reception of the Actual assistances of the Spirit Or are Childrens own actions such Conditions And may Apostate Parents forfeit the Covenant benefits to their Baptized Infants or not Answ. THE question is great and difficult and few dare meddle with it And almost all Infant-cases are to us obscure I. 1. It is certain that it is the Parents great duty to bring up their Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 2. It is certain that God hath appointed this to be the means of their actual knowledge faith Eph. 6 4 5. Col 3. 21. Gen. 18 19. Deut. 6. 6 7 8. 11. 18 19 20. and holiness 3. And God doth not appoint such means unnecessarily or in vain nor may we ordinarily expect his grace but in the use of the means of Grace which he hath appointed us to use 4. It is certain that Gods receiving the Children of the faithful is an act of Gods Love to the Parents as well as the Children and promised as a part of his blessing on themselves 5. It is certain that these Parents
serve the Devil and the Flesh. God must be our First and Last and All. § 4. Not that any exact or full Body or Method of Divinity is to be Learnt so early But 1. The Baptismal Covenant must be well opened betime and frequently urged upon their hearts 2. Therefore the Creed the Lords Prayer and Decalogue must be opened to such betime that is They must be wisely Catechised 3. They must be taught the Scripture History especially Genesis and the Gospel of Christ. 4. They must with the other Scriptures read the most plain and suitable Books of practical Divinâ—s after named 5. They must be kept in the company of suitable wise and exemplary Christians whose whole conversation will help them to the sense and Love of Holiness And must be kept strictly from perverting wicked company 6. They must be frequently lovingly familiarly yet seriously treated with about the state of their own souls and made to know their need of Christ and of his holy spirit of Justification and Renovation 7. They must be trained up in the Practice of Godliness in Prayer pious speeches and obedience to God and man 8. They must be kept under the most powerful and profitable Ministers of Christ that can be had 9. They must be much urged to the study of their own hearts To know themselves what it is to be a Man to have Reason Free-will and an Immortal soul what it is to be a Child of Lapsed Adam and an unregenerate unpardoned sinner what it is to be a Redeemed and a sanctified Justified person and an adopted heir of life eternal And by close examination to know which of these conditions is their own To know what is their daily duty and what their danger and what their Temptations and impediments and how to escape § 5. For if once the soul be truly sanctified then 1. Their salvation is much secured and the main work of their lives is happily begun and they are ready to Die safely when ever God shall call them hence 2. It will possess them with a right end in all the studies and labours of their lives which is an unspeakable advantage both for their pleasing of God and profiting themselves and others without which they will but prophane Gods name and word and turn the Ministry into a worldly fleshly life and study and Preach for Riches Preferment or applause and live as he Luk. 12. 18 19. Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry and they will make Theology the way to hell and study and preach their own condemnation 3. A Holy heart will be alwayes under the Greatest Motives and therefore will be constantly and powerfully impelled as well in secret as before others to diligence in studies and all good endeavours 4. And it will make all sweet and easie to them as being a noble work and relishing of Gods Love and the endless Glory to which it tendeth A holy soul will all the year long be employed in sacred studies and works as a good stomach at a feast with constant pleasure And then O how happily will all go on When a carnal person with a dull unwilling weary mind taketh now and then a little when his carnal interest it self doth prevail against his more slothful sensual inclinations but he never followeth it with hearty affections and therefore seldom with good success 4. And a holy soul will be a continual Treasury and fountain of holy matter to pour out to others when they come to the Sacred Ministry so that such a one can say more from the feeling and experience of his soul than another can in a long time gather from his Books 5. And that which he saith will come warm to the hearers in a more lively experimental manner than usual carnal Preachers speak 6. And it is liker to be attended by a greater blessing from God 7. And there are many Controversies in the Church which an experienced holy person caeteris paribus hath great advantage in above all others to know the right and be preserved from errours § 6. Direct 2. Let young mens time till about 18 19 or 20 be spent in the improvement of their Memories rather than in studies that require much judgement Therefore let them take that time to get Organical knowledge such as are the Latine and Greek tongues first and chiefly and then the Hebrew Chaldee Syriack and Arabick with the exactest acquaintance with the true Precepts of Logick And let them learn some Epiâ—ome of Logick without Book In this time also let them be much conversant in History both Civil Scholastical of Philosophers Orators Poets c. and Ecclesiastical And then take in as much of the Mathematicks as their more necessary studies will allow them time for still valuing Knowledge according to the various degrees of usefulness § 7. Direct 3. When you come to seek after more abstruse and real wisdom joyn together the study of Physicks and Theologie and take not your Physicks as separated from or independant on Theologie But as the study of God in his works and of his works as leading to himself Otherwise you will be but like a Scrivener and Printer who maketh his Letters well but knoweth not what they signifie § 8. Direct 4. Unite all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or knowledge of Real eâ—tities into one science both spirits and Bodies God being taken in as the First and last the Original Director and End of all And study not the doctrine of Bodies alone as separated from spirits For it is but an imaginary separation and a delusion to mens minds Or if you will call them by the name of several sciences be sure you so link those severals together that the due dependance of bodies on spirits and of the Passive natures on the Active may still be kept discemable And then they will be one while you call them divers § 9. Direct 5. When you study only to know what is True you must begin at the Primum câ—gnoscibile and so rise in ordine cognoscendi But when you would come to see things in their proper Order by a more perfect satisfying knowledge you must draw up a synthetical sebeme juxta ordinem â—ssendi where God must be the First and Last the first Efficient Governour and End of all § 10. Direct 6. Your first study of Philosophy therefore should be of your selves To know a man And the Knowledge of mans soul is a part so necessary so neer so useful that it should take up both the first and largest room in all your Physicks or knowledge of Gods works Labour therefore to be accurate in this § 11. Direct 7. With the knowledge of your selves joyn the Knowledge of the rest of the works of God but according to the usefulness of each part to your moral duty and as all are Related to God and You. § 12. Direct 8. Be sure in all your progress that you keep a distinct knowledge of things certain and things
him Heb. 13. 7. 17. And if the governing power of one Pastor be not suspended for want of the consent of any or all the people then much less the Governing Power of King and Parliament § 20. Object 9. Lib. 8. p. 220. It is a thing even undoubtedly natural that all free and independent Object 9. societies should themselves make their own Laws and that this power should belong to the whole not to any certain part of a politick body Answ. This is oft affirmed but no proof at all of it In many Nations the Representatives of the whole Body have the Legislative power or part of it But that is from the special constitution of that particular Common-wealth and not from Nature nor common to all Nations All that naturally belongeth to the people as such was but to choose their Law-makers and secure their liberties and not to make Laws themselves by themselves or meer representers § 21. Object 10. Lib. 8. p. 221. For of this thing no man doubteth namely that in all societies Object 10. Companies and Corporations what severally each shall be bound unto it must be with all their assents ratified Against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment at the hands of men for not observing that which he never did either by himself or by others mediately or immediately agree to Answ. I am one that more than doubt of that which you say no man doubteth of Do you not Answ. so much as except Gods Laws and all those that only do enforce them or drive men to obey them As men are obliged to obey God whether they consent or not so are they to obey the Laws of their Soveraigns though they never consented to them no nor to their Soveraignty as long as they are members of that Common-wealth to the Government whereof the Soveraign is lawfully called Millions of dissenters may be bound to obey till they quit the Society § 22. Object 11. Lib. 8. p. 205. If Magistrates be Heads of the Church they are of Necessity Object 11. Christians Answ. That can never be proved A Constitutive Head indeed must be a Christian and more even Answ. a Pastor to a particular Church and Christ to the universal This Headship our Kings disclaim But a Head of the Church that is Over the Church or a Coercive Governour of it the King would be if he were no Christian. As one that is no Physicion may be Head over all the Physicions in his Kingdom or though he be no Philosopher or Artist he may be Head over all the Philosophers and Artists and in all their Causes have the Supream Coercive power so would the King over all Protestants if he were no Protestant and over all Christians if he were no Christian But you think that he that is no member of the Church cannot be the Head of it I answer Not a Constitutive Essential Head as the Pastor is But he may be the Head over it and have all the coercive power over it What if the King be not a member of many Corporations in his Kingdom Yet as he is Head of the Kingdom he is Head of or over them as they are parts of it § 23 Object 12. Lib. 8. p. 218 223 224. What power the King hath he hath it by Law Object 12. the bounds and limits of it are known the entire community giveth order c. p. 223. As for them that exercise power altogether against order although the kind of power which they have may be of God yet is their exercise thereof against God and therefore not of God otherwise than by permission as all injustice is Pag. 224. Usurpers of Power whereby we do not mean them that by violence have aspired unto places of highest authority but them that use more authority than they did ever receive in form and manner before mentioned Such Usurpers thereof as in the exercise of their power do more than they have been authorized to do cannot in conscience bind any man to obedience Answ. It is true that no man can exercise more power than he hath The power that we speak Answ. of being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ius regendi it is impossible to use more Authority than they have though they may command beyond and without authority And it is true that where a man hath no authority or right to command he cannot directly bind to obedience But yet a Ruler may exercise more power than Man ever gave him and oblige men to obedience thereby God giveth them Power to Govern for his Glory according to his Laws and to promote Obedience to those Laws of God in Nature and Scripture by subordinate Laws of their own And all this the Soveraign may do if the people at the choice of him or his family should only say We take you for our Soveraign Ruler For then he may do all that true Reason or Scripture make the work of a Soveraign Ruler even Govern the people by all such just means as tend to the publick good and their everlasting happiness And yet that people that should do no more but choose persons or families to Govern them and set them no bounds doth Give no Power to those they choose but determine of the persons that shall have power from God Yet it is granted you that if the person or family chosen contract with them to Govern only with such and such limitations they have bound themselves by their own contract and thus both specifications of Government and Degrees of power come in by men But alwayes distinguish 1. Between the peoples Giving away their Propriety in their Goods Labours c. which they may do and giving Authority or Governing power which they have not Potestas Maritalis est à Deo applicatio ejus potestatis ad certam personam ex consensu venit quo tamen ipsum jus non datur Nam si ex consensâ—â— daretur posset consensu etiam dissolvi matrimonium aut conveniri ne maritus foeminae imperaret Quid minime verum est Imperatoria potestas non est penes Electores ergo nec ab ipsis datur sed ab ipsis tamen certae personae applicatur Jus vitae necis non est peneâ— cives antequam in rempublicam coeant Privatus enim jus vindictae non habet ab iisâ—â—em tamen applicatur ad coetum ant personam aliquam Grotius de Imperiâ— p. 270. to give 2. Between their Naming the persons that shall receive it from the Universal King and Giving it themselves 3. Between bounding and limiting Power and Giving Power 4. And between a Soveraigns binding himself by contract and being bound by the Authority of others If they be limited by contracts which are commonly called the Constitutive or fundamental Laws it is their own consent and contract that effectively obligeth and limiteth them of which indeed the Peoples will may be the Occasion when they resolve that they
g. The Law against relieving a beggar bindeth not when he is like to dye if he be not relieved or in such a case as after the burning of London when there was no Parish to bring him to A Law that is but for the ordering of mens charity to soul or body by preaching or alms will not disoblige me from the Duties of Charity themselves in cases where Scripture or Nature proveeth them to be imposed by God A Law for fasting will not bind me when it would be destructive to my body even on Gods Sabbaths duties of mercy were to be preferred to Rest and Sacrifices 14. If Gods own Laws must be thus expounded that When two duties come together and both cannot be done the lesser ceaseth at that time to be a duty and the greater is to be preferred mans Laws must also be necessarily so expounded And the rather because mans Laws may be contradictory when Gods never are so rightly understood 15. Where the subject is to obey so far he must discern which of the Laws inconsistent is to be preferred But in the Magistratical execution the Magistrate or Judge must determine E. g. One Law commandeth that all the needy poor be kept on the Parish where they were born or last lived Another Law saith that Non-conformable Ministers of the Gospel who take not the Oxford Oath shall not come within five miles of City or Corporation though they were born there or any place where they have been Preachers In case of necessity what shall they do Answ. Whither they shall go for relief they must discern as well as they can But whither they shall be carried or sent the Magistrate or Constable must discern and judge Also Whether he shall go with a Constable that by one Law bringeth him to a place which by the other Law he is forbid on pain of six months imprisonment in the Common Gaol to come to Answ. If he be not voluntary in it it is not his fault And if one bring him thither by force and and another imprison him for being there he must patiently suffer it 16. But out of such excepted Cases the Laws of our Rulers as the commands of Parents do bind us as is afore explained And it is a sin against God to violate them 17. Yea When the reason of the Law reacheth not our particular case and person yet when we have reason to judge that it is the Rulers will that all be bound for the sake of some and the common order and good will be hindered by our exemption we must obey to our corporal detriment to avoid the publick detriment and to promote the publick good CHAP. IV. Directions to Lawyers about their Duty to God GEntlemen you need not meet these Directions with the usual censures or suspicions that Divines are busying themselves with the matters of your Calling which belong not to them and which they do not understand You shall see that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire If your Calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it and regulating it by his Law it is then neither honourable nor desirable But if it be permit me very Legum mihi placet autoritas sed earum usus hominum nequitia depravatur Itaque piguit perdiscere quo inhoneste uti nollem honeste vix possem etsi vellem Petrarch i◠vita sua briefly so far to Direct you § 1. Direct 1. Take the whole frame of Polity together and study each part in its proper place and Direct 1. know it in its due relation to the rest that is Understand first the Doctrine of Polity and Laws in genere and next the Universal Polity and Laws of God in specie and then study Humane Polity and Laws as they stand in their due subordination to the Polity and Laws of God as the by-Laws of Corporations do to the General Laws of the Land § 2. He that understandeth not what Polity and Law is in genere is unlike to understand what Divine or Humane Polity or Law is in specie He that knoweth not what Government is and what a community and what a politick society is will hardly know what a Common-wealth or Church is And he that knoweth not what a Common-wealth is in genere what is its End and what its constitutive parts and what the efficient causes and what a Law and Judgement and Execution is will study but unhappily the Constitution or Laws of the Kingdom which he liveth in § 3. 2. And he that understandeth not the Divine Dominium Imperium as founded in Creation and refounded in Redemption and mans subjection to his Absolute Lord and the Universal Laws which he hath given in Nature and Scripture to the world can never have any true understanding of the Polity or Laws of any Kingdom in particular No more than he can well understand the true state of a Corporation or the power of a Mayor or Justice or Constable who knoweth nothing of the state of the Kingdom or of the King or of his Laws What ridiculous discourses would such a man make of his Local Polity or Laws He knoweth nothing worth the knowing who knoweth not that all Kings and States have no power but what is derived from God and subservient to him and are all his Officers much more below him than their Justices and Officers are to them and that their Laws are of no force against the Laws of God whether of Natural or Supernatural Revelation And therefore it is most easie to see that he that will be a good Lawyer must first be a Divine And that the Atheists that deride or slight Divinity do but play the fools in all their independent broken studies A man may be a good Divine that is no Lawyer but he can be no good Lawyer that understandeth not Theology Therefore let the Government and Laws of God have the first and chiefest place in your studies and in all your observation and regard 1. Because it is the Ground of Humane Government and the Fountain of mans Power and Laws 2. Because the Divine Polity is also the End of Humane Policy Mans Laws being ultimately to promote our Obedience to the Laws of God and the honour of his Government 3. Because Gods Laws are the measure and bounds of Humane Laws against which no man can have power Male se rectum putat qui regulam summae rectitudinis ignorat Ambros. de Offic. 4. Because Gods Rewards and Punishments are incomparably more regardable than mans Eternal joy or misery being so much more considerable than temporal peace or suffering Therefore though it be a dishonour to Lawyers to be ignorant of Languages History and other needful parts of Learning yet it is much more their dishonour to be ignorant of the Universal Government and Laws of God § 4. Direct 2. Be sure that you make not the getting of money to be your principal end in the
or others from a possible hurt Direct 3. Be not desirous or inquisitive to know what men think or say of you unless in some special Direct 3. case where your duty or safety requireth it For if they say well of you it is a temptation to pride and if they say ill of you it may abate your love and tend to enmity Eccles. 7. 21. Also take no heed to all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee For oft-times also thy own heart knoweth that thou thy self likewise hast cursed or spoken evil of others It is strange to see how the folly of men is pleased with their own temptations Direct 4. Frown away those flatterers and whisperers who would aggravate other mens enmity to Direct 4. you or injuries against you and think to please you by telling you needlesly of other mens wrongs While they seem to shew themselves enemies to your enemies indeed they shew themselves enemies consequently to your selves For it is your destruction that they endeavour in the destruction of your Love Prov. 16. 28. If a whisperer separate chief friends much more may he abate your love to 2 Cor. 12. 20. enemies Let him therefore be entertained as he deserveth Direct 5. Study and search and hearken after all the good which is in your enemies For nothing will Direct 5. be the object of your Love but some discerned good Hearken not to them that would extenuate and hide the good that is in them Direct 6. Consider much how capable your enemy and Gods Enemy is of being better And for Direct 6. ought you know God may make him much better than your selves Remember Pauls case And when such a one is converted forethink how penitent and humble how thankful and holy how useful and serviceable he may be And love him as he is capable of becoming so lovely to God and man Direct 7. Hide not your love to your enemies and let not your minds be satisfied that you are Direct 7. Conscious that you love them But manifest it to them by all just and prudent means For else you are so uncharitable as to leave them in their enmity and not to do your part to cure it If you could help them against hunger and nakedness and will not how can you truly say you love them And if you could help them against malice and uncharitableness and will not how can you think but this is worse If they knew that you love them unfeignedly as you 'l say you do it 's two to one but they would abate their enmity Direct 8. Be not unnecessarily strange to your enemies but be as familiar with them as well you can Direct 8. For distance and strangeness cherish suspicious and false reports and enmity And converse in kind familiarity hath a wonderful power to reconcile Direct 9. Abhor above all enemies that pride of heart which scorneth to stoop to others for love and Direct 9. peace It is a Devilish language to say Shall I stoop or crowch to such a fellow I scorn to be so base Humility must teach you to give place to the pride and wrath of others and to confess it when you have wronged them and ask them forgiveness And if they have done the wrong to you yet must you not refuse to be the first movers and seekers for reconcilation Though I know that this rule hath some exceptions as when the enemies of Religion or us are so malicious and implacable that they will but make a scorn of our submission and in other cases when it is like to do more harm than good it is then lawful to retire our selves from malice Direct 10. However let the Enmity be in them alone Watch your own hearts with a double carefulness Direct 10. as knowing what your temptation is and see that you Love them whether they will love you or not Direct 11. Do all the good for them that lawfully you can For benefits melt and reconcile And Direct 11. hold on though ingratitude discourage you Direct 12. Do them good first in those things that they are most capable of valuing and relishing That Direct 12. is ordinarily in corporal commodities or if it be not in your power to do it your selves provoke others to do it if there be need And then they will be prepared for greater benefits Direct 13. But stop not in your enemies corporal good and in his reconciliation to your self For then Direct 13. it will appear to be all but a selfish design which you are about But labour to reconcile him to God and save his soul and then it will appear to be the Love of God and him that moved you Direct 14. But still remember that you are not bound to Love an enemy as a friend but as a man Direct 14. so qualified as he is nor to Love a wicked man who is an Enemy to Godliness as if he were a Godly man but only as one that is capable of being Godly This precept of Loving enemies was never intended for the levelling all men in our Love CHAP. XXX Cases and Directions about works of Charity Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Works of Charity Quest. 1. WHat are the grounds and reasons and motives to charitable works Quest. Answ. 1. That doing good doth make us likest to God He is the universal Father Motives and benefactor to the world All good is in him or from him and he that is best and doth most good is likest to him 2. It is an honourable employment therefore It is more honourable to be the Best man in the Land than to be the greatest Greatness is therefore honourable because it is an ability to do good And Wisdom is honourable because it is the skill of doing good so that Goodness is that end which maketh them honourable and without respect to which they were as nothing A power or skill to do mischief is no commendations 3. Doing good maketh us pleasing and amiable to God because it maketh us like him and because it is the fulfilling of his will God can love nothing but Himself and his own excellencies or image appearing in his works or his works so far as his attributes appear and are glorified in them 4. Good works are profitable to men Tit. 3. 8. Our brethren are the better for them The bodies of the poor are relieved and mens souls are saved by them 5. In doing good to others we do good to our selves because we are living members of Christs body and by Love and Communion feel their joys as well as pains As the hand doth maintain it self by maintaining and comforting the stomach so doth a Loving Christian by good works 6. There is in every good nature a singular delight in doing good It is the pleasantest life in all the World A Magistrate a Preacher a Schoolmaster a Tutor a Physicion a Judge a Lawyer hath so much