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A50468
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The life & death of Edmund Staunton D.D. To which is added, I. His treatise of Christian conference. II. His dialogue betwixt a minister and a stranger. Published by Richard Mayo of Kingston, Minister of the Gospel.
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Mayo, Richard, 1631?-1695.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing M1528; ESTC R221740
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138,938
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373
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of the things of God and of the great concernments of your Soul and of Eternity Let me give you some good counsel before we part it may be you and I shall never meet again and as we never saw the faces one of another for ought we know before this day so possibly we never may see each other again till the day of Judgments that great and terrible day of the Lord. Let me advise you and the Lord persuade your heart 1. To make Conscience of secret Prayer begging of God for Christ his sake that he would make you sensible of the ignorance of the blindness of the mind of the hardness and impenitency of the heart of the carelesness and mindlesness of the spirit in the great things of grace and salvation be earnest with God to give you knowledge and consider that the soul be without knowledge is not good Prov. 19.2 As also for repentance from dead Works and a true saving faith in Jesus Christ Beg of God an heart to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and that you may be of those who strive to enter in at the strait gate and of those violent ones who take the Kingdome of Heaven by force c. 2. Be careful to hear good Ministers preach remembring what most concerneth you in what you hear 3. Be much in searching the Scriptures and reading of good Books Catechisms and such like 4. Make choice of good Company of such as fear God and walk precisely holily righteously and soberly in this present evil world and improve such acquaintance by good conference with them putting such questions to them as may make for your edification and they let me tell you will be as glad of your society as you of theirs 5. Be sure if you have a Family to set up the worship of God in your Family reading the Scriptures and praying morning and evening with the houshold Catechizing and instructing your Children and Servants if you have aâ—y 6. And lastly be strict in sanctifying the Sabbath spend that day well though the rest of the Neighbours be loose and careless therein and though men ungodly men hate you mock and persecute you it matters not so long as God loveth you Remember that 2 Tim. 3.12 All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution And that of Christ Matth. 5.10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of God And ver 11 12. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you c. And now Friend fare you well and the Lord bless you Stranger And you also good Sir I hope I shall remember you and some of your words to me as long as I live onely let me desire one favour of you that I may know your name and where you live Minister That you shall Friend my name is so and so and I live at such a place and if your occasions call you thither I shall be glad to see you and let me know your name and where you live and possibly if I come that way I may see you Once more Farewell FINIS TREATISE OF Christian Conference MY design being to bear up the honour the necessity and usefulness of Christian Conference too much neglected even by the best of men it will not be wholly impertinent to bear down some of that unruliness and irregularity The Tongues Vnruliness which the Tongues of too many are too much guitly of The Apostle James as it were bores the black tongues of men with a red hot Iron of sharp but just rebuke vers 6. The Tongue is a Fire a world of iniquitie setteth on fire the course of Nature and it is set on fire of Hell For every kind of beasts and of birds and of Serpents and things in the Sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind But the Tongue can no man Tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poyson It s untamedness and unruliness appears in its great miscarriage and that both in reference to God and man 1 In reference to God in speaking In reference to God we are too tongue tied in speaking both to God in Prayer Praises and Confessions and of God with others To God He was a great man 1 To God and you will say as good as great who being a man of few words and of much prayer was thought to speak more to God than men Possibly that man after Gods own heart was such a one who saith very truly though of himself Ps 119.164 109.4 Seven times a day do I praise thee and again I give my self unto prayer Possibly some Popish Votaries in a superstitious way possibly also a man may be found in our dayes who is very slow to speak but of a musing medirabundous spirit in holy ejaculations Colloquies and Soliloquies betwixt God and himself much also in prayer by himself and with others but such a man where-ever he dwells I believe he dwells alone by himself is a very great rarity one of many thousands who speaks more to God than to men Again 2 Of God and for God We are all born and live too much tongue-tied as to our Speech of God to and with others 1 Omission though we have a large and spacious field very pleasant Fragrant flowery and Odoriferous for our Discourse to walke up and down and expatiate it self in to wit God in his essence and subsistencies the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost God in his Decrees in his works of Creation and Providence God in his Covenants made with man that of Works and that of Grace God in his Word Law and Gospel in his commands promises and threatnings Againe touching Christ his person natures and offices his humiliation and Exaltation As also touching the Holy Ghost his beginning and carrying on the work of God in the Elect from the first to the last Adde hereunto the many and great priviledges and benefits which the effectually called ones are and shall be made partakers of by Christ in life at death at the Resurrection and to Eternity I might inlarge but one would think in what is said there were room enough and enough for all the nimble â—â—ngued in the world to busy tire and weary themselves in O how sad then is it to have so little of God in our Mouths to observe how people who have their faces Zion-ward can spend hour after hour together it may be day after day and yet scarce have a word concerning God Christ the Spirit or the great affairs of their soules and of Eternity from one end of the prattle to the other This fruit indeed is bad and bitter but yet the root is worse The true and onely reason The reason God is little in our hearts Mat. 12.34 35. I know of is this God is not much in our hearts and therefore but little in our Mouths for out of the
or rather God and his Christ our shield and buckler In the fourth and last place 4. Arg. Honour and Credit Christian Conference is not onely beneficiall in point of peace and safety but in point of honour also many a carnall man having heard or overheard spiritual discourse among the Saints and Servants of God though this language of Canaan he neither understandeth nor relisheth much yet it leaves an honourable conviction upon his spirit and he is half perswaded that these men have something of God in them more then he hath But surely all who are really good themselves cannot but put an high value and estimation upon the persons and practices of those who are much in holy and heavenly Communication Yet if all men should disregard to be sure the holy and gracious Lord our God will have regard and to have honour of him and with him is the highest honour desireable or imaginable was of a communicative spirit very ready and resolute in the imparting good to others in any way of counsel and Conference and maketh this expresly the ground why he honoureth Abraham in the revealing of Secrets unto him Gen. 10.17 19. And the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do for I know him that he will command his Children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord. It is an high honour to be a Privy Councellor to Kings and Princes O then what an honour is it to be admitted and advanced as it were to be of Councel to the King of Kings whose Supremacy and Soveraignty is over Heaven and Earth Before I go off let me hint this by way of Caution that when we speak or rather Scripture it self speaketh of Councel in reference to God or of Gods acting upon Counsel it is not to be understood properly for to act upon Counsel that implies Consultation and Consultation a defect in knowledg which to fancy concerning God would be high and horrid Blasphemy but to be understood of God after the manner of men the wisest of men act upon Counsel now because all that God doth is infinitely well and wisely done therefore he is said to act by Counsel as men do But I have done with this great Argument to press Christian Conference drawn from its profitableness and usefulness it 's beneficial to the heads of our selves and others in the augmentation of gifts and parts to the hearts of our selves and others in the communication of and receiving of spiritual good several ways beneficial in regard of inward peace at home in our own Consciences and outward peace abroad with men amongst whom we live which crowns all it hath a marke of honour set upon it by the hand of God himself he whom God honours is honourable indeed Hitherto the Arguments exciting to Christian Conference have been deduced from the duty we owe to God and man our selves and others and so from the ten Commandements some other arguments may fairly be drawn from the Creed or the Articles of our Christian Faith As first 1. Arg. The Communion of Saints We profess we believe the Communion of Saints Now Christian Conference rightly managed is a considerable part of that Communion so that to deny or neglect Holy Conference is to deny or neglect one of the Articles of our Faith and so farr to Unchristian our selves Christian Conference is a Gospel duty as it hath been proved by express testimonies out of the word of God and it 's a Gospel priviledge none indeed but such as receive the Gospel are savingly wrought upon by the Gospel Mat. 11.6 can carryon discourse or Conference which for matter and manner is truly Christian and in truth society is scarce desireable without mutual Colloquy and speaking one to another to have a company of people meet together and be as mutes and dumb all in deep silence methinks is a very uncomfortable meeting and irrational Solitariness and being alone fits best for meditation and musing Society and being in Company calls for speech and language What humane Society can be among men as men without Conference or what Christian society among Saints as Saints without Christian Conference to what end hath God and nature given us Tongues speech and language but to glorifie him therewith and to edifie one another and that 's mainly done in the way of Christian Conference Yet farther it 's one of the branches of the Communion of Saints to keep others in the right ways of truth and holiness and a likely means conducing thereunto is to be much in good discourse with others It 's hard to keep the way when one's alone for man by nature is apt to wander Many Travellers together may help to guide one the other to keep from falling or to raise up if fallen Two are betten then one saith the Preacher Eccl. 4.9 10. for if they fall the one will lift up his fellow but wo to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up Great is the benefit of Society from that natural helpfulness which thereby one man affordeth to another When the Lord imployed his servants in high works he usually sent them Two by Two Moses and Aaron Joshua and Zerubbabel in reference to whom we read of Two witnesses and our Lord Jesus Christ when he sent forth his Disciples they went Two and Two and why this Not onely that they might be joynt witnesses of the truth of the Doctrine and messages delivered but withall that they might with more ease and success carry on the Ministery and work wherein they were imployed and help mutually to strengthen to encourage and comfort one the other The instance given is pertinent to our purpose for if they fall the one will lift up his fellow What fall why society is helpful in all kinds of falls as corporal in a journey on foot or horse-back or falls into diseases dangers temptations sins errours the society of friends is useful to pitty to support to restore to convince to comfort and every way to Minister subtable supplies and relief To close up and strengthen this argument in that Christian Conference as it is a part of the Communion of Saints by special promise Psal 133.1 Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity Cohabitation or dwelling together is insignificant without Communication and Conversation becoming the Gospel and why so good so pleasant vers 3. For there the Lord commanded the blessing even life for evermore The illustration whereof the Psalmists gives in two lively and emphaticall similitudes vers 2. It is like precious ointment upon the head of Aaron It was not the ointment in the box or vial stopped but poured out that gave the fragrant savour and was so odoriferous it is not grace in the heart though that is saving but grace in the lips and life which makes a Christian indeed so sweet