to God He hath respect to the humble contrite soul. Isa. 57.15 and 66.2 Psal. 51.17 The hungry he filleth with good but the rich he sendeth empty away Luk. 1.53 He giveth more grace to the humble when the proud are abhorred by him 1 Pet. 5.5 The Church of Laodicea that said I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing was miserable and poor and blinde and naked Rev. 3.17 As many that are proud of their honour and birth run out of all by living above their estates when meaner persons grow rich because they are still gathering and make much of every little So proud Professors of Religion are in a Consumption of the Grace they have while the humble increase by making much of every little help which is sleighted and neglected by the proud and by shunning all those spending courses which the proud are plunged in Be sure to keep mean thoughts of your selves of your knowledg and parts and grace and duties and be content to be mean in the esteem of others if you would not be worse than mean in the esteem of God DIRECT V. Exercise your selves daily in a life of Faith upon Jesus Christ as your Saviour your Teacher your Mediator and your King as your Example your Wisdom your Righteousness and your Hope ALL other studies and knowledg must be meerly subservient to the study and knowledg of Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 That vain kind of Philosophy which St. Paul so much cautioneth Christians against is so far yet from being accounted vain that by many called Christians it is preferred before Christianity it self and to shew that it is Vain while they overvalue it they can shew no solid worth or vertue which they have got by it but only a tumified mind and an idle tongue like a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13.1 and 12.31 and 2.4.14 15 16. and 1.18 19 20 21 23 24 27. Col. 2.8 9. We are compleat in Christ in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ver 10. No study in the World will so much lead you up to God and acquaint you with him especially in his Love and Goodness as the study of Christ his Person his Office his Doctrine his Example his Kingdom and his benefits As the Deity is your ultimate end to which all things else are but helps and means so Christ is that great and principal means by whom all other means are animated Remember that you are in continual need of him for direction intercession pardon sanctification for support and comfort and for peace with God Let no thoughts therefore be so sweet and frequent in your hearts nor any discourse so ready in your mouths next to the excellencies of the eternal Godhead as this of the design of mans Redemption Let Christ be to your Souls as the Air the Earth the Sun and your Food are to your bodies without which your life would presently fail As you had never come home to the Father but by him so without him you cannot a moment continue in the Fathers love nor be accepted in one duty nor be protected from one danger nor be supplyed in any want For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.18 19. And by him it is that being justified by Faith we have peace with God and have access by Faith unto this Grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God Rom. â— 1 2. And it is in him the Head that we must grow up in all things from whom the whole body doth receive it's increase Ephes. 4.15 16. You grow no more in Grace than you grow in the true knowledg and daily use of Jesus Christ. But of this I will say no more because I have said so much in my Directions for a sound Conversion DIRECT VI. Let the Knowledg and Love of God and your obedience to him be the Works of your Religion and the everlasting fruition of him in Heaven be the continual end and ruling Motive of your Hearts and Lives that your very Conversation may be with God in Heaven YOu are so far HOLY as you are DIVINE and HEAVENLY A Christian indeed in casting up his accounts being certain that this World doth make no man happy hath been led up by Christ to seek a Happiness with God above If you live not for this everlasting happiness if you trade not for this if this be not your treasure your hope and home the chief matter of your desires love and joy and if all things be not prest to serve it and despised when they stand against it you live not indeed a Christian life GOD and HEAVEN or GOD in HEAVEN is the Life and Soul the beginning and the end the Sum the All of true Religion And therefore it is that we are directed to lift up our Heads and Hearts and begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven and end them with ascribing to Him the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever It is not the Creatures but God the Creator that is the Father the Guide and the felicity of Souls and therefore the ultimate end and object of all Religious actions and affections Dwell still upon God and dwell in Heaven if you would understand the nature and design of Christianity Take God for all that is for God Study after the knowledg of him in all his Works Study him in his Word Study him in Christ And never study him barely to know him but to know him that you may love him Take your selves as dead when you live not in the Love of God Keep still upon your hearts a lively sense of the infinite difference between him and the Creature Look on all the World as a shadow and on God as the substance Take the very worst that man can do to be in comparison of the punishments of God but as a Flea-biting to the sorest death And take all the dreaming pleasures of the World to be less in comparison with the joyes of Heaven than one lick of honey is to a thousand years possession of all the felicities on earth Think not all the pleasures honours or riches of the world to be worthy to be named in comparison of Heaven nor the Greatest of Men to be worthy to be once thought on in comparison of God As one straw or feather won or lost would neither much rejoyce or trouble you if all the City or land were yours So live as men whose eyes are open and who discern a greater disproportion between the portion of a worldling and a Saint Let God be your King your Father your master your friend your wealth your joy your All. Let not a day go over your heads in which your hearts have no converse with God in Heaven when any trouble overtaketh you on Earth look up to Heaven and remember that it is there that Rest and Joy are prepared for believers When you are under any want or cross or
men to an heretical proud or perverse frame of spirit and then it must needs mislead their practises and cause them like deluded men to be zealous in doing mischief while they think they are doing good In common matters you can see that you must learn and do things in their due order or else you will but make fools of your selves Will you go to the top of the stairs or ladder without beginning at the lower steps Will you sow your ground before you manure or plow it or can you reap before you sow it Will you ride your colt before you break him Will your rear an house before you frame it Or will you teach your children Hebrew and Greek and Latine before they learn English or to read the hardest books before they learn the easiest or can they read before they learn to spell or know their letters No more can you learn the difficult controversies in divinity as about the exposition of obscure Prophesies or doctrinal doubts till you have taken up before you those many great and necessary truths that lye between It would make a wise man pity them and be ashamed to hear them when young raw self-conceited Professors will fall into confident expositions of Daniel the Revelations or the Canticles or such like or into disputes about free-will or predestination or about the many controversies of the times when alas they are ignorant of a hundred truths about the Covenants Justification and the like which must be known before they can reach the rest By this much that I have said already you may understand that though we should reach as far as we can in knowing all necessary revealed truths yet the principal part of your growth in knowledge when once you are converted consisteth not in knowing more than you knew before as to the number of truths but in knowing better the very same fundamental truths which you knew at first This is the principal thing that I would here teach you Abundance are deluded by not understanding this you see here you have seven several things in which you must daily grow in knowledge about the same truths which you first received 1. You must see better and sounder reasons and evidences for the fundamental truths than you saw at first or more such evidences than you did then perceive 2. You must grow to a clearer sight or apprehension of those same evidences 3. You must see truths more methodically all as it were at one view and all in their due proportion and place as the members of a well composed body and how they grow together and what strength one truth affords to another 4. You must see every truth more practically than before and know what use it is of for your hearts and lives and what you must do with it 5. You must learn more skill in the using of these truths when you know what they are good for and must be better able to manage them on your selves and others 6. You must know more experimentally than you did at first 7. You must grow into a higher esteem of truths All this you have to do besides your growing in the number of truths And I must tell you that as it was these Essentials of Christianity that were the instrumental causes of your first Conversion and were more needful and useful to you then than ten thousand others So it is the very same points that you must alwayes live upon and the Confirmation and growth of your Souls in these will be more useful to you than the adding of ten thousand more truths which yet you know not And therefore take this advice as you love your peace and growth Neglect not to know more but bestow many and many hours in labouring to know Better the great truths which you have received for one hour that you bestow in seeking to know more Truths which you know not Believe it this is the safe and thriving way You know already that God is All-sufficient and infinitely wise and good and powerful And you know not perhaps the nature of free Will or of Gods Decrees of Election and Reprobation or a hundred the like points True knowledg of any of the revealed things of God is very desirable But yet I must tell you that you are fourty times more defective here in your knowledg of that of God which you do know than of the other which you know not that is the want of more Degrees of this necessary knowledg is more dangerous to your Souls than the total want of the less necessary knowledg And the addition of more Degrees to the more needful parts of knowledg will strengthen and enrich you more than the knowing of less necessary things which you knew not before at all You know Christ Crucified already but perhaps you know not certain Controversies about Church-Government or the definitions and distinctions of many matters in Divinity It will be a greater growth now to your knowledg to know a little more of Christ Crucified whom you know already than to know these lesser matters which you know not yet at all If you had already a hundred pound in Gold and not a penny of Silver it will more enrich you to have another purse full of Gold than a purse full of Silver Trading in the richest Commodities is liker to raise men to great estates than trading for matters of a smaller rate They that go to the Indies for Gold and Pearl may be rich if they get but little in quantity When he may be poor that brings home Ships laded with the greatest store of poor Commodity That man that hath a double measure of the knowledg of God in Christ and the clearest and deepest and most effectual apprehensions of the Riches of Grace and the Glory to come and yet never heard of most of the Questions in Scotus or Ockam or Aquinas's sums is far richer in knowledg and a much wiser man than he that hath those Controversies at his fingers ends and yet hath but half his clearness and solidity of the knowledg of God and Christ of Grace and Glory There is enough in some One of the Articles of your Faith in One of Gods Attributes in One of Christs benefits in One of the Spirits Graces to hold you study all your lives and afford you still an increase of knowledg To know God the Father Son and Spirit and their relations to you and operations for you and your Duties to them and the way of Communion with them is that knowledg in which you must still be growing till it be perfected by the celestial beatifical Vision Those be not the wisest men that can answer most questions but those that have the fullest intellectual reception of the infinite Wisdom You will confess that he is a wiser man that hath Wisdom to get and Rule a Kingdom than he that hath wit enough to talk of a hundred trivial matters which the other is ignorant of That 's
his hand or the Fornicator to cure his lust than to put out his eyes it were a cheap remedy A cheap and easy superficial Repentance may skin over the sore and deceive an Hypocrite but he that would be sure of pardon and free from fear must go to the bottom DIRECT XX. Live as with Death continually in your eye and spend every day in serious preparation for it that when it cometh you may find your work dispatcht and may not then cry out in vain to God to try you once again PRomise not your selves long life Think not of death as at many years distance but as hard at hand Think what will then be needful to your peace and comfort and order all your life accordingly and prepare that now which will be needful then Live now while you have time as you will resolve and promise God to live when on your death-bed you are praying for a little time of tryal more It is a great work to die in a joyful assurance and hope of everlasting life and with a longing desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1.21 23. O then what a burden and terror it will be to have an unbelieving or a worldly heart or a guilty Conscience Now therefore use all possible diligence to strengthen Faith to increase love to be acquit from guilt to be above the World to have the mind set free from the Captivity of the flesh to walk with God and to obtain the deepest most delectable apprehensions of his love in Christ and of the heavenly blessedness which you expect Do you feel any doubts of the state of immortality or staggering at the Promise of God through unbelief Presently do all you can to conquer them and get a clear resolution to your souls and leave it not all to do at the time of sickness Are the thoughts or God and Heaven unpleasant or terrible to you Presently search out the cause of all and labour in the cure of it as for your lives Is there any former or present sin which is a burden or terror to your Consciences Presently seek out to Christ for a Cure by Faith and true Repentance and do that to disburden your Consciences now which you would do on a sick-bed and leave not so great and necessary a 〈◊〉 to so uncertain and short and unfit a time Is there any thing in this World that is swâ—â—tâ—r tâ— your thoughts than God and Heaven 〈◊〉 which you cannot willingly let go Mâ—rtiâ—iâ— it without delay consider of its vanity compare it with Heaven Crucifie it by the Cross of Christ cease not till you account it loss and â—â—ung for the excellent knowledg of Christ and life eternal Phil. 3.7 8 9. Let not death surprize you as a thing that you never seriously expected Can you do no more in preparation for it than you do If no why do you wish a death to be tryed once again and why are you troubled that you lived no better But if you can when think you should it be done Is the time of uncertain painful sickness better than this O how doth sensuality besot the World and inconsiderateness deprive them of the benefit of their reason O Sirs if you know indeed that you must shortly die live then as dying men should live Choose your condition in the World and manage it as men that must shortly dye Use your Power and Command and Honour and use all your Neighbours and especially use the Cause and Servants of Christ as men should do that must shortly die Build and plant and buy and sell and use your Riches as those that must die remembring that the fashion of all these things is passing away 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Yea pray and read and hear and meditate as those that must die Seeing you are as sure of it as if it were this hour in the name of God delay not your preparations It is a terrible thing for an immortal Soul to pass out of the body in a carnal unregenerate unprepared state and to leave a World which they loved and were familiar with and go to a World which they neither know nor love and where they have neither heart nor treasure Matth. 6.19 20 31. The measure of Faith which may help you to bear an easie cross is not sufficient to fortifie and encourage your souls to enter upon so great a change So also bear all your wants and crosses as men that must shortly die Fear the cruelties of men but as beseemeth those that are ready to die He that can die well can do any thing or suffer any thing And he that is unready to die is unfit for a fruitful and comfortable life What can rationally rejoyce that man who is sure to die and unready to dye and is yet unfurnished of dying comforts Let nothing be now sweet to you which will be bitter to your dying thoughts Let nothing be much desired now which will be unprofitable and uncomfortable then Let nothing seem very heavy or grievous now which will be light and easy then Let nothing now seem honourable which will then seem despicable and vile Consider of every thing as it will look at death that when the day shall come which endeth all the joyes of the ungodly you may look up with joy and say Welcome Heaven This is tho day which I so long expected which all my dayes were spent in preparation for which shall end my fears and begin my felicity and put me into possession of all that I desired and prayed and laboured for when my Soul shall see its glorified Lord For he hath said John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If any man serve me him will my Father honour Even so Lord Jesus remember me now thou art in thy Kingdom and let me be with thee in Paradise Luke 23.42 43. O thou that spakest those words so full of unexpressible comfort to a sinful woman in the first speech after thy blessed Resurrection Joh. 20.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN AND SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER AND TO MY GOD AND YOVR GOD. Take up now this Soul that is thine own that it may see the Glory given thee with the Father Joh. 17.24 and instead of this life of temptation trouble darkness distance and sinful imperfection I may delightfully Behold and Love and Praise thy Father and my Father and thy God and my God Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Luke 2.29 Acts 7.59 And now I have given you all these Directions I shall only request you in the close that you will set your very hearts to the daily serious practise of them For there is no other way for a ripe confirmed state of Grace And as ever you regard the glory of God the honour of your Religion the welfare of the Church and those
conflict and very uneasie to himself because the less the flesh is mortified the more able it is to raise perturbations and to put faith and reason to a continual fight And most of the scandals and blemishes of his life arise from hence even the successes of the flesh against the spirit so that though he live not in any gross or wilful sins yet in lesser measures of excess he is too frequently overtaken How few be there that in meat and sleep do not usually exceed their measure And they are easily tempted to libertine opinions which indulge the flesh having a weaker preservative against them than stronger Christians have Mat. 16.22 23. Gal. 5.13 1.16 2.12 13 14. Col. 2.11 3. But the seeming Christian is really carnal The flesh is the predominant part with him and the interest of the flesh is the ruling interest He washeth away the outward filth and in hope of salvation will be as religious as the flesh will give him leave and will deny it in some smaller matters and will serve it in a religious way and not in so gross and impudent a manner as the Atheists and openly profane But for all that he never conquered the flesh indeed but seeketh its prosperity more than the pleasing of God and his salvation And among prayers and sermons and holy conference and books yea and formal fastings too he is serving the flesh with so much the more dangerous impenitencie by how much the more his cloak of formality hindereth him from the discerning of his sin many a one that is of unblemished reputation in Religion doth constantly serve his appetite in meat and drink though without any notable excess and his fleshly mind in the pleasure of his dwelling wealth and accommodations as much as some profane ones do if not much more And whenever it cometh to a parting trial they will shew that the flesh was the ruling part and will venture their souls to secure its interest Luke 18.23 14.33 Rom. 8.5 6 7 9 13. Mat. 13.21 22. Jud. 19. XVII 1. Hence it followeth that a Christian indeed preferreth the means of his spiritual benefit and salvation incomparably before all corporal commodities and pleasures He had rather dwell under the teaching and guidance of an able experienced Pastor though it be cross to his prosperity and wordly gain than to live under an ignorant or dead hearted Preacher when it furthereth his trading or more accommodateth his flesh Though yet he must not remove when God layeth any restraint upon him by his duty to his family or others He had rather if he be a servant dwell in a family where he may do or receive most spiritual good than in a carnal family where he may have more ease and better fare and greater wages If he be to marry he had rather have one that hath wisdom and piety without wealth than one that hath riches without wisdom and piety He is gladder of an opportunity in publick or private for the profit of his soul than of a feast or a good bargain or an opportunity for some gain in wordly things Mat. 6.20.33 2. And the weak Christian is of the same mind in the main He valueth mercies and helps for his soul above those for his body But it is with less zeal and more indifferency and therefore is more easily and ofter drawn to the omitting of spiritual duties and neglect of spiritual helps and mercies and goeth to them with more averness and as driven by necessity and is much less sensible of his loss when he misseth of any such spiritual helps Luk. 10.41 42. Heb. 10.25 Act. 2.42 4.32 3. But the seeming Christian being a real worldling doth serve God and Mammon and Mammon with the first and best He had rather miss a Sermon than a good bargain or commodity he had rather dwell where he may thrive best or have most ease and pleasure than where he may find the greatest helps for heaven he will be Religious but it must be with an easie and a pleasant and merry Religion which may not be too nigardly with his flesh nor use it too strictly unless when one days austerity may procure him an indulgence for his liberty all the week following He will make his bargain with Christ so as to be sure that he may not lose by him And he will not believe that God is pleased with that which is much dipleasing to his flesh Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 13. Mat. 13.21 22. XVIII 1. The Christian indeed is one that is crucified to the world and the world is as a crucified thing to him Gal. 6.14 He hath overcome the world by faith and followeth Christ in the pursuit of it to a perfect conquest 1 Joh. 5.4 5. Joh. 16.33 He hath seen through all its glosing vanity and foreseen what it will prove at last He hath found that it cannot quiet conscience nor reconcile the guilty soul to God nor save it from his consuming wrath nor serve instead of God or Heaven of Christ or grace but will cast off its servants in their last extremity naked and desolate into remediless despair And therefore he is resolvedly at a point with all things under the Sun Let them take the world for their portion and felicity that will For his part he accounteth all things in it dung and dross in comparison of Christ and things eternal Phil. 3.7 8 19 20. All the preferments and honours and command and wealth and greatness of the world do not seem to him a bate considerable to make a wise man once question whether he should persevere in faithfulness to God or to tempt him to commit one wilful sin He would not speak or own a lie or approve the sin of any other for all that worldlings enjoy in their greatest prosperity while they live He accounteth his peace with God and conscience and his communion with Christ in the greatest povertie to be incomparably better than all the pleasures and commodities of sin yea the very reproach of Christ is better to him than all the treasures of Court or Country Heb. 11.25 26. Grace hath mortified and annihilated the world to him And that which is dead and nothing can do nothing with him against God and his soul. He looketh on it as a carrion which dogs may love and fight for but is unfit to be the food of man He is going to the land of promise and therefore will not contend for an inheritance in this howling wilderness Whether he be high or low rich or poor are so small a part of his concernments that he is almost indifferent to them farther than as the interest of God and souls may accidentally be concerned in them The world set against God and Heaven and holiness doth weigh no more in his estimation than a feather that is put in the ballance against a mountain or all the world He feeleth no great force in such temptations as would draw him to
things present do carry away his heart and have the greatest power and interest with him and are most regarded and sought after in this life For he is purblind not seeing a farr off as it is said 2 Pet. 1.9 He wanteth that faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen Heb. 11.1 Things promised in another world seem to him too uncertain or too farr off to be preferred before all the happiness of this world he is resolved to make his best of that which he hath in hand and to prefer possession before such hopes Little doth his heart perceive what a change is neer and how the face of all things will be altered How sin will look and how the minds of sinners will be changed and what all the riches and pleasures and honours of the world will appear at the latter end He foreseeth not the day when the slothful and the worldly and the fleshly and the proud and the enemies of godliness shall all wish in vain O that we had laid up our treasure in heaven and laboured for the food that perisheth not and had set less by all the vanities of the world and had imitated the holiest and most mortified believers Though the hypocrite can himself foretell all this and talk of it to others yet his belief of it is so dead and his sensuality so strong that he liveth by sense and not by that belief and present things are practically preferred by him and bear the sway so that he needeth those warnings of God as well as the profane Deut. 32. O that they were wise that they understood this and that they would consider their latter end And he is one of the foolish ones Mat. 25.8 11. who are seeking oyl for their lamps when it is too late and are crying out Lord Lord open to us when the door is shut and will not know the time of their visitation nor know effectually in this their day the things which belong to their everlasting peace XX. 1. The Christian indeed is one that liveth upon God alone His faith is Divine his love and obedience and confidence are Divine his chiefest converse is Divine his hopes and comforts are Divine As it is God that he dependeth on and trusteth to and studieth to please above all the world so it is Gods approbation that he taketh up with for his justification and reward He took him for his absolute Governour and judge and full felicity in the day when he took him for his God He can live in peace without mans approbation If men are never acquainted with his sincerity or vertues or good deeds it doth not discourage him nor hinder him from his holy course he is therefore the same in secret as in publick because no place is secret from God If men turn his greatest vertues or duties to his reproach and slander him and make him odious to men and represent him as they did Paul a pestilent fellow a mover of sedition and the ringleader of a sect and make him as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things this changeth him not for it changeth not his felicity nor doth he miss of his reward 1 Cor. 4.9 10 11 12 13 14. Read the words in the text Though he hath so much suspition of his own understanding and reverence for wiser mens that he will be glad to learn and will hear reason from any one yet praise and dispraise are matters of very small regard with him and as to himself he accounteth it but a small thing to be judged of men whether they justifie or condemn him because they are fallible and have not the power of determining any thing to his great commodity or detriment nor is it their judgement to which he stands or falls 1 Cor. 4.3.4 He hath a more dreadful or comfortable judgement to prepare for man is of small account with him in comparison of God Rom. 8.33 34 35 36. 2. And though with the weakest true Christian it is so also as to the predominancie of Gods esteem and interest in him yet is his weakness daily visible in the culpable effects Though God have the chiefest place in his esteem yet man hath much more than his due The thoughts and words of men seem to such of far greater importance than they should Praise and dispraise favours and injuries are things which affect their hearts too much they bear not the contempts and wrongs of men with so quiet and satisfied a mind as beseemeth those that live upon God They have so small experience of the comforts of God in Christ that they are tasting the deeper of other delights and spare them not so easily as they ought to do God without friends or house or land or maintenance or esteem in the world doth not fully quiet them but there is a deal of pievish impatience left in their minds though it doth not drive them away from God 3. But the seeming Christian can better take up with the world alone than with God alone God is not so much missed by him as the world He alwayes breaks with Christ when it cometh to forsaking all He is godly notionally and professedly and therefore may easily say that God is his portion and enough for those that put their trust in him But his heart never consented truly to reduce these words to practise When it comes to the trial the praise or dispraise of man and the prosperity or matters of the world do signifie more with him than the favour or displeasure of God and can do more with him Christ and riches and esteem he could be content with but he cannot away with a naked Christ alone Therefore he is indeed a practical Atheist even when he seemeth most religious For if he had ever taken God for his God indeed he had certainly taken him as his portion felicity and all and therefore as enough for him without the creature Luk. 18.23 XXI 1. For all this it followeth that A Christian indeed hath with himself devoted all that he hath to God and so all that he hath is sanctified he is only in doubt oft times in particular cases what God would have him do with himself and his estate but never in doubt whether they are to be wholly employed for God in obedience to his will so far as he can know it and therefore doth estimate every creature and condition purely as it relateth unto God and life eternal HOLINES TO THE LORD is written upon all that he hath and doth he taketh it as sent from God and useth it as his Masters goods and talents not chiefly for himself but for his Masters ends and will God appeareth to him in the creature and is the life and sweetness and glory of the creature to him his first question in every business he undertaketh or every place or condition that he chooseth is how it conduceth to the Pleasing of God and
eternal deity and foresee the Joyes which he shall have for ever He sticketh not in superficial formalitie but breaking the shell doth feed upon the kernell It is not bare external duty which he is taken up with nor any meer creature that is his content but it is God in creatures and ordinances that he seeketh and liveth upon and therefore it is that Religion is so pleasant to him He would not change his Heavenly delights which he findeth in the exercise of faith and hope and love to God for all the carnal pleasures of this world he had rather be a door keeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents or palaces of wickedness A day in Gods court is better to him than a thousand in the court of the greatest Prince on earth He is not a stranger to the joy in the Holy Ghost in which the Kingdom of God doth in part consist Rom. 14.17 Psal. 84.10.2 65.4 In the multitude of his thoughts within him the comforts of God do delight his soul. Psal. 94.19 His meditation of God is sweet and he is glad in the Lord. Psal. 104.34 The freest and sweetest of his thoughts and words run out upon God and the matters of salvation The word of God is sweeter to him than hony and better than thousands of Gold and Silver Psal. 119.72 119.103 19.10 Prov. 16.24 And because his delight is in the law of the Lord therefore doth he meditate in it day and night Psal. 1.2 He seeth great reason for all those commands Rejoyce ever more 1 Thes. 5.16 Let the righteous be glad let them rejoyce before God yea let them exceedingly rejoyce Psal. 68.3.4 64.10 31.1 32.11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all that are upright in heart He is sorry for the poor unhappy world that have no better things than meat and drink and cloaths and house and land and mony and lust and play and domineering over others to rejoyce in And heartily he wisheth that they had but a taste of the Saints delights that it might make them spit out their luscious unclean unwholesome pleasures One look to Christ one promise of the Gospel one serious thought of the life which he must live with God for ever doth afford his soul more solid comfort than all the kingdoms on earth can afford And though he live not continually in these high delights yet peace with God and peace of conscience and some delight in God and godliness is the ordinary temperature of his soul and higher degrees are given him in season for his cordials and his feasts 2. But the weak Christian hath little of these spiritual delights his ordinary temper is to apprehend that God and his wayes are indeed most delectable his very heart acknowledgeth that they are worthiest and fittest to be the matter of his delights And if he could attain assurance of his special interest in the love of God and his part in Christ and life eternal he would then rejoyce in them indeed and would be gladder than if he were Lord of all the world But in the mean time either his fears and doubts are damping his delights or else which is much worse his appetite is dull and God and holiness relish not with him half so sweetly as they do with the confirmed Christian and he is too busie in tasting of fleshly and forbidden pleasures which yet more deprave his appetite and dull his desires to the things of God so that though in his Estimation choice resolution and endeavour he much preferreth God before the world yet as to any delightful sweetness in him it is but little that he tasteth He loveth God with a Desiring Love and with a Seeking Love but with very little of a Delighting Love The remnant of corrupt and alien affections do weaken his affections to the things above and his infant measure of spiritual life conjunct with many troublesome diseases allow him very little of the joy of the Holy Ghost Nay perhaps he hath more grief and fear and doubts and trouble and perplexity of mind than ever he had before he turned unto God and perhaps he hath yet less pleasure in God than he had before in sin and sensuality Because he had his sin in a state of fruition but he hath God only in a seeking hoping state he had the best of sin and all that ever it will afford him but he hath yet none of the full felicity which he expecteth in God The fruition of him is yet but in the prospect of hope His sensual sinfull life was in its maturity and the object present in its most alluring state but his spiritual life of faith and love is but yet in its weak beginnings and the object absent from our sight He is so busie at first in blowing up his little spark not knowing whether the fire will kindle or go out that he hath little of the use or pleasure either of its light or warmth Infants come crying into the world and afterwards oftner cry than laugh Their senses and reason are not yet perfected or exercised to partake of the pleasures of life And when they do come to know what a laughter is they will laugh and cry almost in a breath And those weak Christians that do come to taste of joy and pleasure in their religious state it is commonly but as a flash of lightning which leaveth them as dark as they were before Sometimes in the beginning upon their first apprehensions of the love of God in Christ and of the pardon of their sins and the priviledges of their new condition and the hopes of everlasting joy their hearts are transported with unspeakable delight which is partly from the newness of the thing and partly because God will let them have some encouraging tast to draw them further and to convince them of the difference between the pleasures of sin and the comforts of believing But these first rejoycings soon abate and turn into a life of doubts and fears and griefs and care till they are grown to greater understanding experience and setledness in the things of God The root must grow greater and deeper before it will bear a greater top Those Christians that in the weakness of grace have frequent joys are usually persons whose weak and passionate nature doth occasion it some women especially that have strong phantasies and passions are alwaies passionately affected with whatsoever they apprehend And these are like a ship that is tossed in a tempest that is one while lifted up as to the clouds and presently cast down as into an infernal gulf There one day in great joy and quickly after in as great perplexity and sorrow Because their comforts or sorrows do follow their present feeling or mutable apprehensions But when they come to be confirmed Christians they will keep a more constant judgement of themselves and their own condition and constantly see their
grounds of comfort and when they cannot raise their souls to any high and passionate joys they yet walk in a settled peace of soul and in such competent comforts as make their lives to be easie and delightful being well pleased and contented with the happy condition that Christ hath brought them to and thankful that he left them not in those foolish vain pernicious pleasures which were the way to endless sorrows 3. But the seeming Christian seeketh and taketh up his chief contentment in some carnal thing If he be so poor and miserable as to have nothing in possession that can much delight him he will hope for better dayes hereafter and that hope shall be his chief delight or if he have no such hope he will be without delight and shew his love to the world and flesh by mourning for that which he cannot have as others do in rejoycing in what they do possess and he will in such a desperate case of misery be such to the world as the weak Christian is to God who hath a mourning and desiring love when he cannot reach to an enjoying and delighting Love His carnal mind most savoureth the things of the flesh and therefore in them he findeth or seeketh his chief delights Though yet he may have also a delight in his superficiall kind of Religion his hearing and reading praying in his ill-grounded hopes of life eternal But all this is but subordinate to his chiefest earthly pleasure Isai. 58.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my waies as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God they ask of me the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching unto God And yet all this was subjected to a covetous oppressing mind Mat. 13.20 He that received the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended Whereby it appeareth that his love to the word was subjected to his love to the world Obj. But there are two sorts of people that seem to have no fleshly delights at all and yet are not in the way to salvation viz. the Quakers and Behmenists that live in great austerity and some of the Religious orders of the Papists who afflict their flesh Answ. Some of them undergo their fastings and pennance for a day that they may sin the more quietly all the week after And some of them proudly comfort themselves with the fancies and conceit of being and appearing more excellent in austerity than others And all these take up with a carnal sort of pleasure As proud persons are pleased with their own or others conceits of their beauty or witt or worldly greatness so prouder persons are pleased with their own and others conceits of their holiness And verily they have their reward Mat. 6.2 But those of them that place their chiefest happiness in the love of God and the eternal fruition of him in heaven and seek this sincerely according to their helps and power though they are mislead into some superstitious errors I hope I may number with those that are sincere for all their errors and the ill effects of them XXIV 1. A confirmed Christian doth ordinarily discern the sincerity of his own heart and consequently hath some well grounded assurance of the pardon of his sins and of the favour of God and of his everlasting happiness And therefore no wonder if he live a peaceable and joyfull life For his grace is not so small as to be undiscernable nor is it as a sleepy buried seed or principle but it is almost in continual act And they that have a great degree of grace and also keep it in lively exercise do seldom doubt of it Besides that they blot not their Evidence by so many infirmities and falls They are more in the light and have more acquaintance with themselves and more sense of the abundant love of God and of his exceeding mercies than weak Christians have and therefore must needs have more assurance They have boldness of access to the throne of grace without unreverent contempt Eph. 3.12 2.18 They have more of the spirit of Adoption and therefore more child-like confidence in God and can call him Father with greater freedom and comfort than any others can Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 Eph. 1.6 1 Joh. 5.19 20. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lyeth in wickedness c. 2. But the weak Christian hath so small a degree of grace and so much corruption and his grace is so little in act and his sin so much that he seldom if ever attaineth to any well-grounded assurance till he attain to a greater measure of grace He differeth so little from the seeming Christian that neither himself nor others do certainly discern the difference When he searcheth after the truth of his faith and love and heavenly mindedness he findeth so much unbelief and aversness from God and earthly mindedness that he cannot be certain which of them is predominant and whether the interest of this world or that to come do bear the sway So that he is often in perplexities and fears and more often in a dull uncertainty And if he seem at any time to have assurance it is usually but an ill-grounded perswasion of the truth though it be true which he apprehendeth when he taketh himself to be the child of God yet it is upon unfound reasons that he judgeth so or else upon sound reasons weakly and uncertainly discerned so that there is commonly much of security presumption fancie or mistake in his greatest comforts He is not yet in a condition fit for full assurance till his love and obedience be more full 3. But the seeming Christian cannot possibly in that estate have either certainty or good probability that he is a child of God because it is not true His seeming certainty is meerly self-deceit and his greatest confidence is but presumption because the spirit of Christ is not within him and therefore he is certainly none of his Rom. 8.9 XXV 1. The Assurance of a confirmed Christian doth increase his alacrity and diligence in duty and is alwayes seen in his more obedient holy fruitful life The sense of the love and mercy of God is as the rain upon the tender grass He is never so fruitful so thankful so heavenly as when he hath the greatest certainty that he shall be saved The Love of God is then shed abroad upon his heart by the Holy Ghost which maketh him abound in love to God Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. He is the more stedfast unmoveable and alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord when he is most certain that his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 2. But the weak Christian is unfit
abatement of his love And weak Christians are usually the most censorious because they have the smallest degree of Love which covereth faults and thinketh no evil and is not suspicious but ever apt to judge the best till the worst be evident 1 Cor. 13.4 5. It beareth all things believeth all things that are credible hopeth all things endureth all things v. 7. But it is no wonder to see children fall out even about their childish toyes and trifles And what the dissentions of the children of the Church have done against themselves in these Kingdoms I need not I delight not to record See 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3 4. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able For ye are yet carnall for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are you not carnall and walk as men 3. The seeming Christian may have some love to reall Christian even for their goodness sake But it is a Love subservient to his carnal self-love And therefore it shall not cost him much As he hath some Love to Christ so he may have some Love to Christians but he hath more to the world and fleshly pleasures And therefore all his Love to Christ or Christians will not make him leave his worldly happiness for them And therefore Christ at the day of Judgement will not enquire after empty barren love but after that love which visited and relieved suffering Saints An hypocrite can allow both Christ and Christians such a cheap superficial kind of love as will cost him little He will bid them lovingly Depart in peace be you warmed and filled Jam. 2.15 16 17. But still the World is most beloved XLIV 1. A Christian indeed doth love his enemies and forgive those that injure him and this out of a thankfull sense of that grace which forgave him a farr greater debt Not that he thinketh it unlawfull to make use of the Justice of the Government which he is under for his necessary protection or for the restraint of mens abuse and violence Nor is he bound to love the malice or injury though he must love the man Nor can he forgive a crime as it is against God or the common good or against another though he can forgive an injury or debt that is his own Nor is he bound to forgive every debt though he is bound so farre to forgive every wrong as heartily to desire the good of him that did it Even Gods Enemies he so farre loveth as to desire God to convert and pardon them while he hateth their sin and hateth them as Gods enemies and desireth their restraint Psal. 139.21 22. 101.3 119.4 68.1 21.8 But those that hate and curse and persecute himself he can unfeignedly love and bless and pray for Matth. 5.43 44 45 46 47 48. For he knoweth that else he cannot be a child of God v. 45. And that to love those that love him is not much praise-worthy being no more than Heathens and wicked men can do v. 46 47. He is so deeply sensible of that wondrous love which so dearly redeemed him and saved him from Hell and forgave him a thousandfold worse than the worst that ever was done against himself that Thankfulness and Imitation or Conformity to Christ in his great compassions do overcome his desires of revenge and make him willing to do good to his most cruel enemies and pray for them as Christ and Stephen did at their deaths Luk. 23.34 Acts 7.60 And he knoweth that he is so inconsiderable a worm that a wrong done to him as such is the less considerable And he knoweth that he daily wrongeth God more than any man can wrong him and that he can hope for pardon but on condition that he himself forgive Matth. 6.12 14 15. 18.34 35. And that he is far more hurtfull to himself than any other can be to him 2. And the weakest Christian can truely love an enemy and forgive a wrong but he doth it not so easily and so fully as the other But it is with much striving and some unwillingness and aversness and there remaineth some grudge or strangeness upon the minde He doth not sufficiently forget the wrong which he doth forgive Indeed his forgiving is very imperfect like himself Matth. 18.21 Luk. 9.54 55. not with that freeness and readiness required Eph. 4.2 With all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Col. 3.12 13. Put on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of minde meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as Christ forgave you so also do ye Rom. 12.14 19. Avenge not your selves c. 3. As for the seeming Christian he can seem to forgive wrongs for the sake of Christ but if he do it indeed it is for his own sake As because it is for his honour or because the person hath humbled himself to him or his commodity requireth it or he can make use of his love and service for his advantage or some one hath interposed for reconciliation who must not be denyed or the like But to love an enemy indeed and to love that man be he never so good who standeth in the way of his preferment honour or commodity in the world he never doth it from his heart whatever he may seem to doe Matth. 6.14 15. 18.27 30 32. The Love of Christ doth not constrain him XLV 1. A Christian indeed is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God For he knoweth that God requireth this as strictly at his hands 1 Thess. 4.6 That no man go beyond or defraud his Brother in any matter for the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned and testified He is one that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour If he swear to his own hurt he changeth not He putteth not out his money to unjust or unmercifull Vsury nor taketh reward against the innocent Psal. 15. He obeyeth that Lev. 19.13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning He can say as Samuel 1 Sam. 12. Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blinde mine eyes therewith and I will restore it And they said Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us neither hast thou taken ought of any mans hand And if heretofore he was ever guilty of defrauding any he is willing to his
and the evil one Mark him in his prayers and you shall find that he is above other men taken up in earnest petitions for the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world and the undeceiving of Mahometans Jews and Hereticks and the clearing of the Church from those Papal tyrannies and sopperies and corruptions which make Christianity hateful or contemptible in the eyes of the Heathen and Mahometan world and hinder their Conversion No man so much lamenteth the Pride and Covetousness and Laziness and Unfaithfulness of the Pastors of the Church because of the doleful consequents to the Gospel and the souls of men and yet with all possible honor to the sacred office which they thus prophane No man so heartily lamenteth the contentions and divisions among Christians and the doleful destruction of charity thereby It grieveth him to see how much selfishness pride and malice prevaileth with them that should shine as lights in a benighted world and how obstinate and uncurable they seem to be against the plainest means and humblest motions for the Churches edification and peace Psal. 120.6 7. 122.6 Phil. 2.1 2 3 4. Psal. 119.136 Zeph. 3.18 Ezek. 9.4 Psal. 69.9 Joh. 2.17 He envieth not Kings and Great men their dominions wealth or pleasure nor is he at all ambitious to participate in their tremendous exaltation But the thing that his heart is set upon is that the Kingdoms of the World may all become the Kingdoms of the Lord Rev. 11.15 and that the Gospel may every where have free course and be glorified and the Preachers of it be encouraged or at least delivered from unreasonable wicked men 2 Thes. 3.1 2. Little careth he who is uppermost or conquereth in the world or who goeth away with the preferments or riches of the earth supposing that he fail not of his duty to his Rulers so that it may go well with the affairs of the Gospel and souls be but helped in the way to Heaven Let God be honoured and souls converted and edified and he is satisfied This is it that maketh the Times good in his account He thinketh not as the proud and carnal Church of Rome that the Times are best when the Clergy is richest and greatest in the world and overtop Princes and claim the secular power and live in worldly pomp and pleasures But when holiness most aboundeth and the members of Christ are likest to their Head and when multitudes of sincere believers are daily added to the Church and when the Mercy and Holiness of God shine forth in the Numbers and Purity of his Saints It is no Riches or Honour that can be heaped upon himself or any others that make the Times seem good to him if Knowledge and Godliness are discountenanced and hindered and the way to Heaven is made more difficult if Atheism infidelity ungodliness pride and malignity do prevail and truth and sincerity are driven into the dark and when he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey Isa. 59.15 When the godly man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men when every man speaketh vanity to his neighbour and the poor are oppressed and the needy sigh and the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted Psal. 12.1 2 5 8. The Times are Good when the Men are good and Evil when the Men are evil be they never so great or prosperous As Nehemiah when he was Cup bearer to the King himself yet wept and mourned for the desolations of Jerusalem Neh. 1.3 4. 2.2 3. Whoever prospereth the Times are ill when there is a famine of the Word of the Lord and when the chief of the Priests and people do transgress and mock Gods messengers and despise his words and misuse his Prophets 2 Chron. 36.14 16. Amos 8.11 12. When the Apostles are charged to speak no more in the name of Christ Act. 4.18 5.40 It is a text enough to make one tremble to think into what a desperate condition the Jews were carryed by a partial selfish zeal 1 Thes. 2.15 16. who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost When the interest of themselves and their own Nation and Priesthood did so far blind and pervert them that they durst persecute the Preachers of the Gospel and forbid them to speak to the people that they may be saved it was a sign that wrath was come upon them to the uttermost A Christian indeed had rather be without Jereboams Kingdom than make Israel to sin make the basest of the people Priests and stretch out his hand against the Prophet of the Lord 1 King 12.30 31. 13.4 He had rather labour with his hands as Paul and live in poverty and rags so that the Gospel may be powerfully and plentifully preached and holiness abound than to live in all the prosperity of the world with the hinderance of mens salvation He had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God than be a Lord in the Kingdom of Satan He cannot rise by the ruines of the Church nor feed upon those morsels that are the price of the blood of souls 2. And the weakest Christian is in all this of the same mind saving that private and selfish interest is not so fully overcome nor so easily and resolutely denyed Luk. 14.26 33. 3. But here the Hypocrite sheweth the falseness of his heart His own interest is it that chooseth his Religion and that he may not torment himself by being wicked in the open light he maketh himself believe that whatsoever is most for his own interest is most pleasing unto God and most for the good of souls and the interest of the Gospel so that the carnal Romish Clergie can perswade their Consciences that all the darkness and superstitions of their Kingdom and all their Opposition of the light of the Gospel of Christ do make for the honour of God and the good of souls because they uphold their tyrannie wealth and pomp and pleasure Or if they cannot perswade their Consciences to believe so gross a lye let Church and Souls speed how they will they will favour nothing that favoureth not their interest and ends And the interest of the flesh and spirit of the world and Christ are so repugnant that commonly such worldlings take the serious practice of Godliness for the most hateful thing and the serious practicers of it for the most unsufferable persons Act. 7.57 21.36 22.22 24.5 6. Joh. 19.15 The enmity of interests with the enmity of nature between the Womans and the Serpent seed will maintain that warfare to the end of the world in which the Prince of the powers of darkness shall seem to prevail as he did against our Crucified Lord but he