or which any Christian can speak against in any of this 7. Another part of your work is to search the Scripture as that which containeth your directions for eternal life Joh. 5. 39. To love the Word of God more then thousands of gold silver perfer it before your necessary food Psal 119. 72. Job 23. 12. and to meditate in it day night as that which is your pleasure and delight Psa 1. 2. as that which is able to make you wise unto Salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. and to build you up give you an inheritance among the sanctified Acts 20. 32. That you lay up the word of God in your hearts and teach them diligently to your children and talk of them when you sit in your houses and when you walk by the way when you lie down and when you rise up Deut. 6. 6 7. 11. 18 19. that so you your houshoulds may serve the Lord Josh 24. 15. This is the work that we call you to And is there any thing that a christian can make a controversie of in all this Is there any thing that Protestants are not agreed of 8. Another part of your work is that you guard your tongues and take not the name of God in vain and speak no reproaches or slanders against your brethren that no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouths but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Eph. 4. 29. and that fornication uncleanness and covetousness be not once named among you as becometh Saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks Eph. 5. 3 4. And is there any thing of doubt or controversie in this 9. Another part of the work which we perswade you to is to pray continually 1 Thes 5. 17. and not to wax faint Luke 18. 1. to be fervent and importunate with God as those that know the greatnesse of their necessity Luke 18. 6 7. Jam. 5. 16. That you pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit Eph. 6. 18. and in every thing by prayer and supplication to make known your requests to God Phil. 4. 6. that you pray for Kings and all in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honestie 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. And is there any thing in all this that any Christian can deny 10. Lastly the work we call you to is to love your neighbours as your selves and to do to others as you would have them arbitrio sano do to you To scorn deride molest imprison slander or hurt no man till you would be so used your selves on the like occasion To rejoyce in other mens profit and reputation as your own To envy none to hate no man to wrong none in their persons estates or names To preserve the chastity honour and estate of your neighbour as your own To love your enemies and forgive them that wrong you and pray for them that hate and hurt and persecute you This is your work And is there any thing of faction Schism or controversie in this No you shall shortly be convinced that the differences and controversies of believers and the many opinions about Religion were a wretched hypocrital pretence for your neglect and contempt of the substance of Religion about which there was no difference but all parties were agreed in the confession of the truth however hypocrites would not live according to their own professions But perhaps you 'l say that there is such difference in the Manner yet among them that agree in the Principles and the Matter that you know not which way God is to be worshipped In answer 1. Do you practise as aforesaid according to the Principles and matter agreed on or not If you do not it is but gross hypocrisie to pretend disagreements in the Manner as an excuse for your contempt or omission of the Matter which all agree in Forsooth your families shall be prayerless and you will make a jeast of serious prayer because some pray on a book and some without and some that are wisest think that either way is lawful Will God be deceived by such siilly reasonings as these 2. But this shall not hide the nakedness of your impiety Will you also in the Manner of your obedience but go so far as all Christians are agreed in I will breifly then give you some particular instances 1. The work of God must be done with reverence in his fear not like the common works of men with a common carelesse frame of mind God will be sanctified of all that draw near him Lev. 10. 3. He will be served as God and not as man He will not be prayed to with a regardlesse mind as those do that can divide their tongues from their hearts and say over some customary words while they think of something else Is a dreadful thing for dust to speak to God Almighty and a dangerous thing to speak to him as slightly and regardlesly as if we were talking to one of our companions It beseemeth a believer to have more of the fear of God upon his heart in his ordinary converse in the world then hypocrites and formalists have in their most solemn prayers Knowest thou the difference between God and man Put then such a difference between God and man in thy addresses as his Majesty requireth And see also that thy family compose themselves to a reverent behaviour when they joyn with thee in the worshipping of God What have you to say now against this reverent manner of behaviour Is there any thing controvertible in this 2. It also requisite that you be serious and sober in all the service you perform to God Do it not ludicruously and with half a heart Be as much more fervent and serious in seeking God and your salvation then you are in seeking worldly things as God and your Salvation is better then any thing in the world Or if that be beyond your reach though else there is reason for it at least let the greatest things have the greatest power upon your hearts You cannot pray more fervently for heaven then heaven deserveth O let but the excellency and greatnesse of your work appear in the serious manner of your performance I hope you cannot say that his is any point of controversie unlesse it be a controversie whether a man should be an hypocrite or be serious in the Religion which he doth profess 3. It is requisite that your service of God be performed understandingly Psal 47. 7. 1 Cor. 14 15. God delighteth not in the blind devotion of men that know not what they do Prayers not understood are indeed no prayers For no mans desire goeth further then his knowledge and he expresseth not his desires that knoweth not what he expresseth himself Nor can he expect the concurrence of another mans desires that speaketh what another understandeth
art making mention of his great and dreadful name O do it with Reverence and awe and admiration And take not the name of God in vain When thou art Reading his Word let the Majesty of the Author and the greatness of the matter and the Gravity of the stile possess thee with an obediential fear Love it and let it be sweeter to thee then the honey-comb and preciouser then thousands of Gold and Silver Resolve to do what there thou findest to be the will of God When thou art praying in secret or in thy family Do it with thy might Cry mightily to God as a soul under sin and wants and danger that is stepping into an endless life should do Let the reverence and the fervour of thy prayers shew that its God himself that thou art speaking to that its Heaven it self that thou art praying for Hell it self that thou art praying to be saved from Wilt thou be dull and sensless on such an errand to the Living God Remember what lieth upon thy failing or prevailing and that it must be Now or Never Art thou a Preacher of the Gospel and takest charge of the souls of men Take heed to thy self and to the whole flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made thee an Overseer to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood Let not the blood of souls and the blood that purchased them be required at thy hands Acts 20. 28. Ezek. 3. 18 20. Thou art charged before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom that thou preach the Word be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Teach every man and exhort every man Col. 1. 28. Even night and day with tears Acts 20. 31. Save men with fear pulling them out of the fire Jud. Cry aloud lift vp thy voice like a trumpet tell them of their transgressions Isa 58. 1. Yet thou art alive and they alive yet thou hast a tongue and they have ears The final sentence hath not yet cut off their hopes Preach therefore and Preach with all thy Might Exhort them privately and personally with all the seriousness thou canst Quickly or it will be too late Prudently or Satan will over-reach thee Fervently or thy words are like to be disregarded Remember when thou lookest them in the faces when thou beholdest the Assemblies that They must be Converted or Condemned sanctified on Earth or tormented in Hell and that this is the Day It must be Now or Never In a word Apply this quickening precept to all the duties of thy Christian course Be Religious and Just and Charitable in good sadness if you would be taken for such when you look for the reward Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. 12. Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many shall seek to enter and shall not be able Mat. 7. 13. Luk. 12. 24. Many run but few receive the prize so run that you may obtain 1 Cor. 9. 24. If the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear 1 Pet. 4. 18. Let the doting world deride your diligence and set themselves to hinder and afflict you It will be but a little while before experience change their minds and make them sing another song Follow Christ fully Ply your work and lose no time The Judge is coming Let not words nor any thing that man can do prevail with you to sit down or stop you in a journey of such importance Please God though flesh and friends and all the world should be displeased Whatever come of your reputation or Estates or Liberties or Lives be sure you look to Life Eternal and cast not that on any hazard for a withering flower or a pleasant dream or a picture of commodity or any vanity that the Deceiver can present For what shall it profit you to win the world and lose your soul Mat. 16. 26. Or to have been honoured and obeyed on earth when you are under the wrath of God in Hell Or that your flesh was once provided with variety of delights when it s turned to rottenness and must be raised to torments Hold on therefore in Faith and Holiness and Hope though Earth and Hell should rage against you though all the world by force or flattery should do the worst they can to hinder you This is your trial your warfare is the resisting of deceit and of all that would tempt you to consent to the means of your own destruction consent not and you conquer conquer and you are crowned The combat is all about your Wills Yield and you have lost the day If the prating of ungodly fools or the contemptuous jears of hardned sinners or the frowns of unsanctified Superiours could prevail against the Spirit of Christ and the workings of an enlightened mind then what man would be saved You deserve damnation if you will run into it to avoid a mock or the loss of any thing that man can take from you You are unmeet for Heaven if you can part with it to save your purses Fear not them that can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but fear him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell Mat. 10. 28. Luk. 12. 4 5. Obey God though all the world forbid you No power can save you from his Justice And none of them can deprive you of his Reward Though you lose your Heads you shall save your Crowns You no way save your lives so certainly as by such losing them Mat. 10. 39. One thing is necessary Do that with speed and care and diligence which Must be done or you are lost for ever They that are now against your much and earnest praying will shortly cry as loud themselves in vain When it is too late how fervently will they beg for mercy that now deride you for valuing seeking it in time But then they shall call upon God but he will not answer they shall seek him early but shall not find him For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord They would none of his counsel but dispised all his reproof Prov. 1. 24. to the end Up therefore work with all thy might Let unbelievers trifle that know not that the righteous God stands over them and know not that they are now to work for everlasting and know not that Heaven or Hell is at the end Let them delay laugh play dream away their Time that are drunk with prosperity and mad with fleshly lusts and pleasures and have lost their reason in the cares and delusions and vain glory of the world But shall it be so with thee whose eyes are opened who seest the God the Heaven the Hell which they do but hear of as unlikely things Wilt thou live awake
for Heaven all tenderness of Conscience and fear of sinning all heavenly discourse and serious preaching reading or praying are also made odious for their sakes For hearing so ill of the persons and seeing that these are the things wherein they differ from others they reduce their judgement of their practices to their foresetled judgement of the persons When their diligence in their Families in prayer and instructions in reading and fruitful improvement of the Lords day or any other actions of strictness and holy industry are mentioned these ungodly Ministers are ready to blot them with some open calumnies or secret reproaches or words of suspicion to vindicate their own unholy lives make people believe that serious piety is faction hypocrise The black tincture of their minds and the design and drift of their preaching may be perceived in the jeers and girds and slanderous intimations against the most diligent servants of the Lord. The controverted truths that such maintain they represent as errours Their unavoidable errours they represent as heresie Their duties they represent as faults and their humane frailties as enormous crimes They feign them to be guilty of the things that never entred into their thoughts And if some that have professed godliness be guilty of greater crimes they would make men believe that the rest are such and that the family of Christ is to be judged of by a Judas and the scope is to intimate that either their Profession is culpable or needless and less commendable Regeneration they would make to be but the entrance into the Church by Baptism and any further conversion then the leaving off some gross sins and taking up some heartless forms of duty to be but a fancy or unnecessary thing And they would draw poor people to believe that if they be born again Sacramentally of water they may be saved though they be not born again by the renewing of the Holy Spirit Being strangers themselves to the mystery of Regeneration and to the life of Faith and a heavenly Conversation and to the loving and serving God with all their Soul and Might They first endeavour to quiet themselves with a belief that these are but fancies or unnecessary and then to deceive the people with that by which they have first deceived them elves And it is worthy your observation what it is in Religion that these formal Hypocrites are against There are scarce any words so sound or holy but they can bear them if they be but deprived of their Life Nor scarce any duty if it be but mortified but they can endure But it is the Spirit and Life of all Religion which they cannot bear As a Body differeth from a Carkass not by the parts but by the life so there is a certain life in preaching and prayer and all other acts of worship which is perceived by several sorts of hearers The Godly perceive it to their edification and delight For here it is that they are quickned and encouraged Life begetteth life as fire kindleth fire The ungodly often perceive it to their vexation if not to their conviction and conversion This life in preaching praying discipline reproof and conference is it which biteth and galleth and disquieteth their consciences And this they kick and rail against This is the thing that will not let them sleep quietly in their sin and misery but is calling and jogging them to awake and will not let them sin in peace but will either convert them or torment them before the time It is the Life of Religion that the hypocrite wants and the life that he is most against A painted fire burneth not A dead Lion biteth not The Carkass of an Enemy is not formidable Let the words of that Sermon that most offendeth them be separated from the life and put into a Homily and said or read in a formal drowsie or a School-boys tone and they can bear it and commend it Let the same words of prayer which now they like not be said over as a lifeless customary form and they can like it well I speak not against the use of forms but the abuse of them Not against the Body but the Carkass Let forms themselves be used by a spiritual serious man in a spiritual serious manner with the inter position of any quickening exhortations or occasional passages that tend to keep them waken and attentive and make them feel what you mean and are about and you shall see they love not such animated forms It is the living Christian and lively worship and serious spiritual Religion which they hate kill it and they can bear it Let the picture of my enemy be nearer and comelier then his person was and I can endure it in my bed-chamber better then himself in the meanest dress It is the living Christians that in all parts of the world are chiefly persecuted Let them be once dead and dead-hearted hypocrites themselves will honour them especially at a sufficient distance They will destroy the living Saints and keep Holy dayes for the dead ones Wo to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because ye build the Tombs of the Prophets and garnish the Sepulchers of the Righteous and say if we had been in the days of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Wherefore be ye witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets Fill ye up the measure of your Fathers ye serpents ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of Hell Matth. 23. 29 30 31 32 33. The dog that will not meddle with the dead creature will pursue the living and when he sees it stir no more will leave it Christianity without seriousness is not Christianity and therefore not lyable to the hatred of its enemies as such Say any thing and do any thing how strict so ever if you will but act it as a player on the stage or do it coldly slightly as if you were but in jeast you may have their approbation But it is this life and seriousness and worshipping God in Spirit and Truth that convinceth them that they themselves are lifeless and therefore troubleth their deceitful peace and therefore must not have their friendship If it were the meer bulk of duty that they are weary of how comes it to pass that a Papist at his Psalter Beads and Mass-books can spend more hours without much weariness or opposition then we can do in serious worship Turn all but into words and beads and canonical hours and dayes and shews and ceremony and you may be as religious as you will and be Righteous overmuch and few will hate or reproach or persecute you among them as too precise or strict But living Christians and worship come among them like fire that burneth them and makes them smart with a word that is quick powerful sharper then any two edged sword piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit
not The word that is not understood cannot sink into the heart and sanctifie it or if it be not well and soundlie understood it s easily stoln away by the tempter Mat. 13. 19 23. If understanding be necessarie in our common conversations much more in our holy addresses to the Almighty Prov. 17. 27. A man of understanding is of an excellent Spirit but God hath no pleasure in fools or in their Sacrifices Eceles 5. 1 4. nor is pleased with a Parrot-like lip-service which is not understood He saith in detestation of the Hypocrites This people draweth near unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me Mat. 15. 8 9. I hope then when we call you to serve God in judgment with understanding we call you to nothing that a Christian should make question of 4. God is a Spirit and they that serve him must serve him in Spirit and in truth Joh. 4. 24. The Father seeketh such to worship him ver 23. He calleth for the heart he looketh for the inward desires of the soul He converseth with minds that are abstracted from vanity and are seriously taken up in attending him and are intent upon the work they do The carkass of a Prayer separated from the Life of it stinketh before the holy God As he will be loved so will he be served with all the heart and soul and might And do we call you then to any thing that is doubtful when we call you to the Spiritual worshipping of God 5. Yet we maintain that the body hath its part in the service of God as well as the soul and the body must expresse the inward reverence and devotion of the soul though not in a way of hypocritical ostentation yet in a way of serious adoration The bowing of the knee the uncovering of the head and reverent deportment and whatsoever nature or common use and holy institution hath made an expression of holy affections and a decent and grave behaviour of our selves should be carefully observed in the presence of the most High and the holy things of God more reverently to be respected then the presence of any mortal man And the rather because that a grave and reverent and holy manner of deportment in Gods worship reflecteth upon the heart and helpeth us in our inward and spiritual devotion it helpeth the beholders and awakeneth them to reverent thoughts of God and holy things which a regardless and common manner of deportment would extinguish And it s no dishonour to reverent behaviour that it is the use of Hypocrites but rather an honour to it For it is something that is good that the Hypocrite useth for the cloak of his secret emptiness or evil If there were nothing good in reverent behaviour before God it would not serve the Hypocrites turn As it is a commendation to long-prayer that the Pharisees made it their pretence for the devouring of widdows houses And those that call them hypocrites that are much in holy exercises and speeches should consider that if holy exercises and speeches were not good they were not fit for the hypocrites design evil will not be a fit cloak for evil that which the hypocrite thinks necessary to the covering of his sin we must think more necessary to the cure of our sin and the saving of our souls The way to avoid hypocrisie is not by running into impiety and prophaness we must do more then the hypocrite and not less else he will rise up in judgement against you and condemn you if he would do more to seem good then you will do to be good and to please your Maker if a Pharisee will pray longer to colour his oppression then you will do to attain salvation The mischief of hypocrisie is that the soul of Religion is wanting while the corps is present And will you cast away both soul and body both inside and outside in opposition to hypocrisie If others do seem to love God when they do not will you therefore not so much as seem to do it So here about reverence in the service of God The hypocrite should not exceed the sincere in any thing that is truly good This is the manner of Gods service that I perswade you to and to no other And is there any thing of controversie in this Prefer but the spiritual part and know but what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice that so you may not condemn the innocent and you shall never say that we will be more backward then you to decency and reverent behaviour in Gods service 6. God will be served in Purity and Holiness with cleansed hearts and hands and not with such as remain defiled with the guilt of any wilful sin He abhorreth the sacrifice of the wicked and disobedient He that turneth away his ear from hearing the Law his prayers are abominable Prov. 28. 9. and 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa 1. 13. Eccles 5. 1 2 3 4. To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices unto me saith the Lord to oppressing wicked men Isa 1. 11. When you come to appear before me who hath required this at your hand to tread my Courts Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me the new Moons and Sabbaths the calling of Assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting c. ver 12 13. And when you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widdow Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord. To play the glutton or drunkard or filthy fornicator in the day time then to come to God at night as if it were to make him amends by an hypocritical prayer to blaspheme Gods Name and oppose his Kingdom and Government in your selves and others and to do your own will and hate and scorn them that do his will and study his will that they may do it and then to pray that Gods Name may be hallowed his Kingdom come and his Will be done is an abusing God and not a serving or pleasing him Live according to your prayers and let your lives shew as well as your words what it is that you desire This is the service of God that we call you to And can you say that there is any thing controvertible in all this Are there any men of any party among Christians or sober Infidels that dare contradict it 7. God will be served entirely and universally in all his Commands and with all your faculties in works of Piety Justice and Charity which must never be separated You must not pretend your Charity against duties of Piety for God is to