and to be than to be seen His Heavenly-mindedness was such as rendred him neither too sour nor too talkative and his Patience was always equally distant from Stupidity and Effeminacy For so when he endured that miserable Death of the Cross he suffered like a Man that was sensible of Pain and yet very well knew how to undergo it as became him For as on the one hand he did not breath out his Soul like an effeminate Epicure in whining Complaints and wretched Lamentations so neither on the other hand did he give up the Ghost like a flanting Stoick in a huffing Contempt of death or an affected Insensibility of Pain and Misery But from the beginning to the end he acted his Part in that bloody Tragedy as one that was neither insensible of Torment nor conquered by it For the last words which he breathed which were a hearty Prayer for his Murderers manifested his Soul to be calm and serene under all the Agonies of his Body Thus is his great Example intirely composed of those excellent Virtues that are the proper Graces and Ornaments of humane Nature Now though there be some Actions of our Saviours Life which were never intended for our Imitation viz. such wherein he either exercised or proved and asserted his divine Authority yet whatsoever he did of precise Morality and in pursuance to his own Laws he designed and intended for our Imitation So that in all such matters as his Law is to be our Map and Rule so his Practice is to be our Guide and President FOR this is the great End of our Religion to which God hath predestinated us namely to be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 29 and in this consists our putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ namely in imitating his Manners and following the Garb and Fashion of his Conversation and accordingly our Saviour tells his Disciples John xiii 15 I have given you an example that is of Humility and Charity that you should do as I have done to you and 't is one of his great Commands that we should learn of him who was meek and lowly of heart with a promise that in so doing we should find rest unto our Souls Mat. xi 29 WHEREFORE if we would lead a holy Life pursuant to our holy Resolution we must set holy Examples before our eyes and especially that most holy one of our blessed Saviour We must peruse the History of his sacred Life and diligently observe his Carriage and Demeanour in all those Capacities and Circumstances wherein he was placed and closely apply it all to our selves as a perfect Pattern of Action Thus and thus did my Saviour Sic ille manus sic ora so he demeaned himself when he was in my Circumstances after this manner he acted and thus he suffered and can I follow a more glorious Example nay would it not be a burning Shame for me not to imitate his Manners whilst I profess my self his Disciple Think O my Soul what would he have now done if he were in thy Condition and had thy Temptations before him Would he have pawned his Innocence for such a Trifle or prostituted himself to such a base infamous Action to avoid such an inconsiderable Inconvenience No doubtless he would not and art thou not ashamed to comply with such a Temptation knowing with what Indignation thy Saviour would have rejected it If we would but thus inure our selves to reflect upon our Saviours Example and apply it to and compare it with our own Actions we cannot imagine with what a divine Emulation 't would inspire us how it would animate our Weaknesses and shame our Irregularities and inamour our Souls with true Virtue and Goodness III. TO the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our spiritual Guides For it is to be considered that men of a secular Life and Conversation are generally so engaged in the Business and Affairs of this World that they very rarely acquire Skill enough in Religion to conduct themselves safely to Heaven through all those Difficulties and Temptations that lie in their way For before they can be capable to guide themselves safely they must in all points of great moment be able to distinguish between Truth and Falshood and to make a difference between good and evil which in many Instances do border so near upon one another that it requires much greater Skill and Knowledge than the Generality of men are Masters of to discern the Point and Boundary that parts them And supposing their Vnderstandings to be so well instructed as to be able to resolve them truly in all those doubtful Cases wherein they are or may be concerned yet still there is generally such a fault in their Wills as renders them incompetent Judges for themselves and that is that through an Excess of Self-love they are prone to be partial in their own Concerns and consequently unless the Case be very plain to vote that true that is most for their Interest and determine on that side they are most inclined to For when a mans Judgment is before in Suspence a very small weight of Interest on the wrong side of the Question usually turns the Scale against the greater probability on the right And whilst Interest fees mens Affections and their Affections bribe their Judgments it will be almost impossible for them to secure their Innocence whilst they determine all Cases of Right and Wrong at the Tribunal of their own Reason For when once they have determined falsly as many times to be sure they will besides the many single Miscarriages in Practice that will be consequent thereunto by practising on upon their false Determinations they will intangle themselves in such evil Customs and Habits as by that time they have discovered the Error of their Judgment will render it very difficult for them to correct the error of their Practice And therefore to secure our selves in our Innocence and Duty it is mighty necessary that in all doubtful Cases we should appeal from our selves to the Judgment of others who having no Interest to biass them one way or t'other will be much more impartial and therefore if they have but equal Understanding more competent Judges of our Case than our selves UPON both which accounts the Christian Religion hath wisely separated an Order of Men from the World to be the Guides and Conducts of Souls to oversee and direct the secular Flock who upon the above-mentioned accounts cannot be supposed to be in all Cases competent Guides of themselves For 't was to this purpose that our Saviour before his Ascension commissioned his Disciples Mat. xxviii 18 19 20. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
Happiness I shall in the next Place endeavour to give some brief Account of that Part of the Christian Life which is purely militant and which wholly consists of those instrumental Duties by the Use of which we are to conquer the difficulties of those heavenly Virtues and to acquire and perfect them Which Difficulties as I shewed before Chap. 2. are the inbred Corruptions of our own Nature together with those manifold Temptations from without by which they are continually provoked and excited and so to subdue and conquer these as that they may neither take us off from nor clog and indispose us in the Exercise of the heavenly Virtues is the great Design and Business of this warfaring Part of the Christian Life THAT I may therefore handle it distinctly I shall divide it into three Parts and endeavour with as much Brevity as I can First To explain the Duties of each Part and to shew how they all conduce to our conquering the Difficulties of the heavenly Virtues and to the acquiring and perfecting them and Secondly To press the Duties of each Part with proper and suitable Arguments IN this part of our Christian Life therefore there is 1. Our Beginning or Entrance into it which is in Scripture called Repentance from dead works 2. Our Course and Progress in it and this is nothing but a holy Life 3. Our Perfecting and Consummation of it and this is final Perseverance in well doing Each of which have their proper and peculiar Duties which I shall endeavour in this Chapter to explain and inforce SECT I. Concerning those Duties that are proper to our Beginning and Entrance into this warfaring Part of our Christian Life shewing how they all conduce to the subduing of Sin and acquiring the heavenly Virtues THIS first part of our militant Life being nothing but our Initial Repentance or the first turning of our Souls to God from a state of wilful Sin and Rebellion the Duties that are proper to it and by which this turn of our Souls is to be introduced and performed may be reduced to these six Heads 1. A hearty and firm Belief of the Truth of our Religion 2. A due Consideration of its Motives and a ballancing of them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo 3. A deep and through Conviction of our great need of a Mediator to render us acceptable to God 4. A hearty Sorrow Shame and Remorse for our Sins past 5. Earnest Prayer to God for Aid and Assistance to enable us effectually to renounce them 6. A serious and well weighed Resolution to forsake and abandon them for ever I. IT is necessary to our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare that we should heartily believe the Truth and Reality of our Religion For our hearty Belief of the Gospel is in Scripture represented as the main and principal Weapon by which we are to combat against the World and our own Lusts. And hence it is called the shield of faith and the breastplate of faith which are the two principal parts of Armour of Defence denoting that an hearty Belief of the Gospel is the principal Defence of a Christian against all the fiery darts of Temptation the Armour of Proof that guards our Innocence and renders us Invulnerable in all our spiritual Conflicts For above all things saith the Apostle take the shield of faith whereby ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one Eph. vi 16 And as it is the principal part of our defensive so it is also of our offensive Armour For so we find all the Victories and Triumphs of those glorious Heroes Heb. xi attributed to this irresistible Weapon of their Faith 'T was by Faith that they despised Crowns confronted the Anger of Kings and triumphed over the bitterest Torments and Afflictions by faith that they wrought righteousness obtained promises stopped the mouths of lyons quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword and out of weakness were made strong Nay so great a share hath Faith in the Successes of our Christian Warfare that it is called by the Apostle the good fight of faith 1 Tim. vi 12 and S. John assures us that this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith 1 John v. 4 FOR if we firmly believe the Gospel that will furnish us with undeniable Answers to return to all Temptations and enable our Faith infinitely to out-bid the World whatsoever it should proffer us for our Innocence For our Belief of the Gospel carries in the one hand infinitely greater Goods and in the other infinitely greater Evils to allure and bind us fast to our Duty than any the World can propose to entice or terrifie us from it For on the one hand it discovers to us those immortal Regions of the Blessed which are the proper Seat and pure Element of Happiness where the blessed Inhabitants live in a continued Fruition of their utmost Wishes being every moment entertained with fresh inravishing Scenes of Pleasure where all their Happiness is eternal and all their Eternity nothing else but one continued Act of Love and Praise and Joy and Triumph where there are no Sighs or Tears no Intermixtures of Sorrow or Misery but every Heart is full of Joy and every Joy is a Quintessence and every happy Moment is crowned with some fresh and new Enjoyment On the other hand it sets before our eyes a most frightful and amazing Prospect of those dismal Shades of Horror where mighty Numbers of condemned Ghosts perpetually wander to and fro tormented with endless Rage and Despair where they always burn without consuming always faint but never die being forced to languish out a long Eternity in unpitied Sighs and Groans And after such a Prospect as this what poor inconsiderable Trifles will all the Goods and Evils of this world appear to us But yet unless we believe the Reality of them how great soever they may be in themselves they will signifie no more to our Hope and Fear which are the Master Springs of our Action than if they were so many golden Dreams or liveless Scare-crows For all Proposals of good and evil do work upon the Minds of men proportionably as they are believed and assented to and as that which is not true is not so that which we do not believe is to us as if it were not How then is it possible we should be moved by that Good or Evil which we do not believe and in which by consequence we cannot apprehend our selves concerned WHEREFORE in our Entrance into the Christian Warfare it is highly necessary that we do not take up our Faith at a venture and believe winking without knowing why or wherefore but that we should so far as we are able impartially examine the Evidences of our Religion and search into the Grounds of its Credibility that so we may be able to give some Reason to our selves and others of the Hope that is in us For
Consideration of things with that Shame and Sorrow and those earnest Cries to Heaven for Aid and Assistance which are necessary to the founding of a strong and lasting Resolution is no so easie a matter For in all those preparatory Exercises we have a roving Mind a hard Heart and a perverse Nature to contend with and we shall find it a very hard matter to call in our wandering Thoughts and unite them together into a fixt and steady Consideration of the Evidences of the Truth of Religion and of the Duties and Motives and Difficulties of it And whilst we are entertaining them with this unwonted Argument there are a thousand Objects with which they are better acquainted that will be calling them away so that without a great deal of Violence to our selves we shall never be able to keep them together so long as is necessary to the forming a firm Assent to the Truth and the passing a true and impartial Judgment upon the Proposals of Religion And when we have fixt our Thoughts into a serious Consideration of the Evidences of Religion we shall find that our Lusts will object much more against them than our Reason that they will be casting mists before our Eyes and bribing and biassing our Understanding the other way and that thereupon 't will be more difficult than we are aware to convince our selves throughly of the truth of a Religion that is so diametrically opposite to our vicious Inclinations But when this is done and we proceed to consider the Duties of Religion and to ballance the Motives with the Difficulties of them in order to the obtaining of our selves a full and free Consent to them here again we shall find our selves at a mighty Plunge For though the Motives to our Duty are at first View infinitely greater and more considerable than the Difficulties of it though it be unspeakably more intolerable to lose the Joys of Heaven and incur the Pains of Hell than to endure the sharpest Brunts of this spiritual Warfare yet these being present and sensible have a more Immediate Access to us and consequently are apter to move us than either of those Motives which are both of them future and invisible So that unless we do earnestly press and urge our selves with those Motives and imprint them upon our minds in the most lively and real Characters we shall find our selves over-ruled in despight of them by these present and sensible Difficulties that are before us But when we have effectually convinced our selves that those Difficulties of our Duty are much less considerable than the Motives to them we shall find it a hard Task to persuade our Wills into a free and explicit Consent to all the Particulars of it For now we shall find a strong Aversation in our Natures to sundry of those Duties that call for our Approbation and there will be a mighty Counterstriving between our Reason and Inclinations Our darling Lusts those bosom Orators within us will now employ all their Rhetorick to dissuade us from parting with them they will clasp about our Souls like departing Lovers and use all their Charms and Allurements to hold us fast and reconcile themselves to us and under these Circumstances though we have all the reason in the world on our side we shall find it will be no such easie matter effectually to dispose our Wills to close with so many offensive Duties and part with so many beloved Sins But when this is done which to be sure will cost us many a violent Struggle and Contention with our selves there are other Difficulties to be mastered For now we must reflect upon our past ill Life and expose it to our own Eyes in all its natural Horror Turpitude and Infamy and never leave reproaching our selves with the Foulness and Disingenuity the Madness and Folly of it till we find our hearts affected with Shame and Sorrow for and Indignation against it And for us that have been so long used to cokes and flatter our selves to paint and varnish our Deformities and crown our Brows with forced and undeserved Applauses for us to condemn and upbraid our selves to strip our Actions of all their artificial Beauty and set our selves before our own Eyes in all our naked undisguised Ugliness and not look off till we have lookt our selves into Shame and Horror and Hatred of our selves will be at first especially a very ungrateful Employment and yet it may be a good while perhaps before our hard and unmalleable Hearts will yield to the impressions of godly Sorrow and Remorse But when this Difficulty is conquered our Work is not yet totally finished For now we must come off from our selves and all our presumptious Dependances upon our own Ability and Power and in a deep sense of our own most wretched Weakness and Impotency throw our selves wholly upon God and with earnest and importunate Outcries implore his gracious Aid and Assistance And let me tell ye to men that have been all along inured to such glorious Conceits of themselves such mighty Confidences in their own Abilities that have promised themselves from time to time that at such and such a time they would repent and amend as if without Gods Help 't were in their Power to repent when they pleased for such men as these I say to come out of themselves and their own self-confidences and wholly cast themselves upon a foreign Help so sensibly to feel and ingenuously to own their own Inability as to fly to God and confess themselves lost and undone without him is a much harder matter than we can well imagine till we come to make the Experiment And yet this all this must be done bfore we can be well prepared to resolve upon the Christian Warfare THIS I have the longer insisted on because I would deal plainly with you and shew you the worst of things For whether you are told of it or no you will find it if ever you make the Experiment that all your good Resolutions without these Preparations will soon unravel in the Execution and that after you have resolved a thousand times over you will be just where you are and not one step farther in Religion But for your Encouragement know that when with these necessary Preparations you have solemnized your Resolution you have won the main and toughest Victory in all your spiritual Warfare a Victory by which you have pulled down your Sin from its Throne and broken and disarrayed its Power and Forces so that now you are upon the pursuit of a flying Enemy and if you do but diligently follow your Blow and pursue your brave Resolution through all Temptations to the contrary and do not suffer your vanquished Enemy to rally and reinforce himself against ye you will sensibly perceive his Strength decay and those Lusts which seemed at first invincible will languish away by degrees from weak to weaker till at last they expire into the Habits of their contrary Virtues and so proportionably
from Virtue to Vice or from Vice to Virtue he will still be ready to face about with it and be always veering like a Weathercock to a contrary Point upon every Change of Wind. Whereas when a mans Intention purely respects God 't will be immovably fixt among all the Changes and Alterations from without For there is no outward Change or Capricio of Fortune can hinder a man from pleasing God whose Love to us depends not upon our being poor or rich pleased or pained depressed or advanced but upon our being truly virtuous and religious And therefore if our Aim be purely to please him we shall be sure to continue so which side soever Fortune smiles upon WHEREFORE to our successful Progress in Religion it is highly necessary that so far as in us lies we should abstract and separate our religious Intentions from all these worldly respects and this must be done by looking frequently up to God and actually referring and dedicating our Actions to him by shutting our eyes when we are entring upon any Duty to all worldly Considerations and determining with our selves this I will do purely because 't is Godlike or because God hath commanded it whether I shall be commended or disgraced for it whether I shall get or lose by it I will not now regard it is sufficient that it is good and that God hath commanded it and therefore for this Reason only I will do it without any other Respect or Consideration By which means we shall by degrees so purifie our Intentions and refine them from worldly Aims that we shall be able to act vigorously in Religion without any other Respect but that of pleasing God and conforming our selves to his Will and Nature And when once we can do thus we are in a great forwardness in Religion For now the Will of God hath got such an Ascendant over ours that as we can cheerfully obey him without external Inducements so we can freely contemn all Inducements to the contrary and it being our great and chief Aim to please and be like him the things that are without us will have very little Power to move us one way or ' tother Because now our great Aim is above them and our eyes are so stedfastly fixt upon God that we are not at leisure to regard them And our Mind being thus indisposed to listen to the restless Importunities of external Goods and Evils our Innocence is safe and we may pass triumphantly through all their Temptations 'T is a noble Saying of Epictetus lib. 2. c. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. there is no other way for a man to eject sorrow and fear and lust from his soul but by looking up to God alone and resigning our selves to him only and devoting our lives to the Obedience of his Commandments And elsewhere he tells his Scholars that the main thing which he drove at was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to make them free and blessed by persuading them to look up to God in every thing whether it be small or great lib. 2. c. 19. For whilst in our religious Intentions we do too much respect the things that are without us we do in a great measure intrust them with our Virtue and Religion and so far as we make them Inducements to our Duty so far it is in their Power to secure or betray it As for Instance so much as I aim at Profit in any religious Action so much Power Profit hath over my Religion and if the same Profit should invite me to a wicked Action it will have as much Power to betray my Religion as it had to secure it for the same Gain will have the same Influence on me when it tempts me to sin as it hath when it tempts me to obey What a dangerous thing therefore is it for men to intrust such a treasure as their Innocence and Religion in such irresponsible hands and to give those outward things which are the Temptations of Vice a power to dispose of their Virtue What is this but to commit the keeping of our Sheep to a Wolf or of our Chastity to a Goat Wherefore as we would be safe in our religious Progress it highly concerns us to purifie our good Intentions so far as we are able from all worldly Respects and to level them directly and immediately at God And in order hereunto V. To render the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare successful it is also necessary that we possess our Minds with an awful Apprehension of Gods Presence with and Inspection over us Among the many excellent Rules which the Heathen Moralists have given for the Conduct of mens Lives this is one that in the whole Course of their Lives they should imagin some excellent person for whom they have a great Veneration to be present with 'um as a Witness and Spectator of all their Actions And it was wholesome Advice that one gave his lewd Friend that he should hang the Picture of his grave and serious Father in the Room where he was wont to celebrate his Debauches imagining that the severe eye of the good old Man though but in Effigie would give a mighty check to the wanton Sallies of the intemperate Youth And if the bare Fiction of a Mans being present with us or his being present only in a dead Picture may be rationally supposed to have so strong an Influence on our Actions of how much greater Force must our firm Belief and Sense of Gods Presence with us be to regulate our Lives and Actions And that he is thus present with us we have sufficient reason to conclude not only from the infinite Plenitude of his Essence which being Self-existent could not be bounded or limited by any Cause from without and therefore must necessarily be boundless and immense but also from express Assertions of Scripture which assures us that his eyes are in every place beholding the evil and the good Prov. xv 3 That he is a God at hand and not a God afar off and that no man can hide himself in secret places that he shall not see him and that he fills heaven and earth Jer. xxiii 23 24. and that we can go no whither from his presence Psal. cxxxix 7 8. and that all things are naked and open to his eyes Heb. iv 13 that is that the World is surrounded and filled with his Being which is both the Womb that contains and the Soul that pervades the Creation and that being thus present with us wherever we are he must needs be supposed to have a constant Inspection over us and a clear Sense and Perception of whatsoever we do AND he being thus present with us in Reality and not in Fiction or Picture it must doubtless be of mighty avail to the Well-government of our Lives to be continually inspired with an actual and vigorous Sense of it And therefore our Saviour commands us to do good from a
Delay as soon as we had strayed from our Duty we might have soon recovered the Ground we had lost by it and by a little more Diligence have gotten as far onward as if we had never interrupted our Progress at all by deferring our Repentance we set our selves farther and farther back and shall every day be more and more indisposed to return For in the Course of our Religion there is no standing still but either we are progressive or retrograde going backward or forward as long as we live so that when once we are out of our Way we are still going farther out till such time as we return again and consequently the longer we are out the harder 't will be to return and the farther we shall have to the end of our Way For when I first sin and the Wound of my Innocence is yet green fresh it may easily be cured by the timely Application of a sorrowful Confession and new Resolution of Amendment but if I neglect it 't will rot and putrifie my Sense of it will be hardned and my Inclination to it grow every day more inveterate and then if it be not lanc'd and corroded by a sharp a long and a painful Repentance it will turn into an incureable Gangrene Hence the Apostle bids us exhort one another daily while it is called to day that is to repent while it is called to day lest any of us be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. iii. 13 So that when we have wilfully sin'd we run a mighty Hazard of our final perseverance if we don't repent immediatly For all the while we delay our Conscience grows more sear'd and our Lust grows more confirm'd and God knows where it will end but 't is fearfully to be suspected that that neglected Bruise which we got by our Fall will grow worse and worse and determine at last in final Impenitency Wherefore as we intend to persevere in wel-doing it concerns us in the first place to take all possible Care not to give way to any wilful Sin nor suffer our selves by any Hopes or Fears to be tempted from our good Resolution but if at any time our wicked Inclinations should prevail against it to betake our selves immediately to a serious Repentance to make a sorrowful Confession of it to our offended God and solemnly renew our Resolution against it that so we may stop the growing evil betime before it 's capable of indangering our final Apostacy III. TO our final perseverance it 's necessary that to prevent the like Falls and Miscarriages for the future we should indeavour to withdraw our Affections from the Temptations of the World but more especially from those Temptations which were the Occasions of our Fall For thus we are strictly prohibited to set our affections upon things on the earth Col. iii. 21 to love the World and the things that are in the World Joh. i ii 15 to lay up for our selves treasures upon earth Mat. vi 19 and 't is the proper Character of a true Christian to be crucified to the World Gal. vi 14 and to converse as a Stranger and a Pilgrim in it Heb. xi 13 As on the contrary to mind earthly things and to be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God are made the proper Characters of Infidels and Apostates Phil. iii. 19 compared with Tim. ii 3.4 And so inconsistent is an inordinate Affection to the World with our perseverance in the Christian Warfare that St. James expresly tells us that the friendship of the World is enmity with God Jam. iv 4 and 't is to the Excess of our friendship to it that the Scripture frequently attributes our Apostacy Tim. ii 4.10 and the Apostle tells us that they that will be rich that is immoderately covet to be so fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition and destruction and that the love of money is the root of all evil 1 Tim. vi 9 10. From all which it 's apparent how necessary it is in the accounts of Christianity in order to our perseverance that we should indeavour to wean and abstract our selves from the World FOR this world is the Magazine of all those Temptations by which our Vertue and Innocence is importuned and assaulted and 't is either the Hope of some worldly Pleasure Profit or Honour that allures or the Fear of some of the contrary Evils which are incident to us in the Course of Religion that affrights us from our Duty Whilst therefore we immoderately love those Goods and Evils which are the Solicitours of Vice we are in very great danger of being conquered and led captive by it For 't is not for the sake of sinning that men sin but for the sake of those Goods or to avoid those Evils which are appendent to their sinning or not sinning and consequently the more a man loves those Goods which cling and adhere to a sinful Action the more propense he will be to the Commission of it and the more he dreads those Evils which he can most easily avoid by a sinful Action the more prone and inclinable he will be to it Wherefore to secure our perseverance in this Warfare against sin it is absolutely necessary that we rectifie our Opinion of the Goods and Evils of this World and moderate and abate our Affection towards them especially towards those that have been most prevalent with us For the Temptation that prevails upon us discovers the weak Side of our Nature and instructs the Devil what Good or Evil it is that is most apt to allure or affright us and to be sure that subtil Tempter who hath been so many thousand Years studying the Arts of seducing us will not fail to assault us again where he hath been already successful and therefore it concerns us to fortifie our selves there where we have so much reason to expect the Enemy will assault us and to rectifie our Opinions of and mortifie our Affections to those things which have already so much imposed upon our Virtue and Innocence For 't is our Imagination that gives Life and Efficacy to the Charms and Terrors of the World and renders them so successful against us we fancy that to be in them which is not and so are affected not so much with the things themselves as with the false Representations we make of them FOR it's plain the Goods of the World are beholden to our selves for the greatest part of those Beauties with which they tempt and allure us and 't is our Fancy that gives the Paint and Fucus with which they charm and inamour our Affections and so for the Evils of the World 't is our own Imagination that disguises them into such Bugs and Scare-crowes and puts those gastly Vizors on them with which they fright and amaze us If therefore we would but take care to rectifie our Opinions of them both and to strip them out of their imaginary
proceeded 2. If once we totally relapse we shall thereby forfeit all the Fruit of our past Labour 3. We shall forfeit the Fruit of our Labour after we have undergone the greatest Difficulty of it 4. We shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but also render our Recovery more hazardous and difficult than ever 5. We shall not only render our future Recovery more difficult but also plunge our selves for the present into a far more Guilty and Criminal Condition than ever 6. We shall not only render our selves for the present more guilty but as a certain Consequence of that Expose our selves if we die in our Apostacy to a Deeper and more Dreadful Ruin I. CONSIDER when once we have wilfully relapsed unless we immediately recover we shall go much faster back than ever we went forward For in the Beginning of our religious Progress we are fain to sail for a great while against Wind and Tyde against a strong Gale of Temptation from without and a rapid Stream of Inclination from within and while we do thus we must be contented to get our Ground by Inches and move forward by slow and insensible Degrees but in all our wilful Apostacies we are carried on secundo flumine with a full Drift of Temptation and Inclination So that if when once we have wilfully sinn'd we do not immediately check our selves by Repentance in all Probability we shall be driven farther back in a Day than we shall be able to get forward in a Week For your Progress in Religion lying up Hill but your Apostacy down you must expect when once you are falling to descend much faster than ever you ascended and to get far sooner to the Bottom again than you can to the Top though you should happen to fall just in the mid-way and have no farther to the one than to the other For 't is hardly to be imagin'd what Strength a bad Inclination gets by a short Repast and Gratification how when it hath been almost pined away by a long Abstinence a Taste of sinful Pleasure will raise and revive it and render it as brisk and vigorous as ever insomuch that it usually requires a great many Acts of Mortification to re-extinguish that Life and Strength it acquires in one short Gratification For as the fierce Tyger after a long Confinement will lye down tamely in his Den and by Degrees loose all his Fierceness and grow manageable and obsequious but let him take but one warm Draught of Blood and his old savage Nature immediately revives and he grows as cruel and outragious as ever just so it is with our wicked Inclinations which being reduced from their Excesses and kept under the close Confinement of a holy Resolution will by Degrees grow tame and gentle and forget the alluring Relishes of Sin but if once we suffer them to break loose again and to come at those sinful Pleasures from which they have been a long while alienated they will soon recover their natural Wildness and become as head-strong and violent as ever Wherefore it mightily concerns us to have a great Care of all wilful Apostacies for to be sure your first Slip will vehemently incline you to a second and that more vehemently to a third and so like men that are running head-long down Hill the farther you go the more you will be prest forward by your own Weight and the harder 't will be for you to stop and recover your selves So that if you do not immediately stop you will by a few Days Sin lose back all the Ground you have got by many a Years Warfare you will pull down more of your Religion by one wilful Sin than you will be able to repair again by many a vertuous Action and like some prodigal Drudges spend more in one mad Frolick than you have earn'd by many a hard Days Labour And if you do thus 't is impossible you should ever improve for what you do in a Week you will undo again in a Day and so instead of pressing forward you will dance in a Circle and always end where you begun So that unless you go on and persevere in wel-doing all your Strife and Warfare against Sin will be but like rolling of a Sisyphus his Stone which after you have been a long while raising to the Top of the Hill will in a moment tumble down again upon you so that either you must undergo the same Pains to raise it again or lye down under it and tamely suffer your selves to be crush'd into eternal Ruine by it II. CONSIDER if after we have made some Progress in Religion we totally Relapse we thereby forfeit the Fruit of all our past Labour For so God himself by the Prophet pronounces in the Case Ezek. xviii 24 When the Righteous turns away from his Righteousness and commits iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all his Righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in the trespass that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die i. e. how good soever he may have been for the Time past if he doth not persevere to the End but wilfully relapse into Folly and Wickedness all the Vertue he hath exercised and all the Good he hath done shall be quite struck off from his Accounts and never so much as mentioned to his Benefit and Advantage but in that Wickedness wherein he is faln he shall as certainly perish as if all his Life had been a continued Act or uninterrupted Course of Iniquity So also Heb. x. 38 if any shall draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him And indeed this is a most necessary Effect of our Apostacy for by falling off from our Christian Courese we put our selves back into the same State and Condition wherein we were before we enter'd upon it and the Effect of all those good things which we did from the time we enter'd upon to the Time we deserted it will be so voided and abolish'd that there will not remain the least Trace or Footstep of it in our Natures but our Will will become as obstinate again our affections and Appetites as wild and extravagant as if we had all long permitted them to run on in an uninterrupted Course of Iniquity And having thus exinguisht all the good Effects of our past Warfare and rendered by our wilful Apostacy our Natures as corrupt and depraved as ever we shall thereby be exposed again to the Wrath and Displeasure of God For Gods Love and Hatred are unvariably determined to the same Grounds and Reasons and herein consists their Immutability not that he always loves or always hates the same persons out of a unreasonable Prejudice to the other but that he always loves and always hates them for the same Reasons and he hath expresly declared taht Goodness and Wickedness are the contrary Reasons of this his Contrary affection to his
first Charity p. 178.179 c. secondly Justice p. 190.191 c. thirdly Peaceableness p. 201.202 c. fourthly Modesty fifthly Courtesy p. 209.210 c. SECT IV. Containing some Motives and Considerations to persuade men to the Practice of these Vertues first the Suitableness of them to our present State and Relation p. 222.223 c. secondly the Dignity of them p. 226.227 c. thirdly the Freedom and Liberty of them p. 229.230 c. fourthly the Pleasure of them p. 234.235 c. fifthly the Ease and Repose of them p. 238.239 c. sixthly the absolute Necessity of them p. 242.243 c. CHAP. IV. Concerning the Instrumental Duties of the Christian Life which is the second sort of Means necessary to our obtaining of Heaven as they are necessary to our acquiring and Perfecting the Christian Vertues in order to the better Distribution of which Man is considered under a threefold Respect to the Christian Life first as entering into it secondly as actually ingaged in it thirdly as Growing on to Perfection by Perseverance in it to one of which three States these Instrumental Duties of Christianity belong p. 247.248 c. SECT I. Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us in our Entrance in the Christian life which are first Faith p. 250.251 secondly Consideration p. 254.255 c. thirdly a deep and through Conviction of our need of a Mediator p. 259.260 c. fourthly a deep Sorrow Shame and Remorse for our past Iniquities p. 268.269 c. fifthly earnest Prayer for divine Assistance p. 271 272 c. sixthly a serious and solemn Resolution of Amendment p. 275.276 c. SECT II. Containing certain Motives to ingage men to the Practice of these Duties first the vast Necessity of our entering into the Christian life one time or other p. 281.282 secondly the Great Security and Advantage of our entring upon it now p. 284.285 c. thirdly the necessary Dependence of the final Success upon the well-beginning of it p. 288.289 c. fourthly that when once 't is well begun the main Difficulty of it is over p. 291.292 c. SECT III. Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us when we are actually ingaged in the Christian life p. 298 c. in General it is necessary that we should frequently repeat the Duties of our Entrance p. 299.300 but more particularly first that we should arm our selves with Patience and Courage p. 304.305 c. secondly that we should propose to our selves the best Examples p. 308.309 thirdly that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our Spiritual Guides p. 216.317 c. fourthly that as often as we can we should actually intend and aim at God in the Course of our Lives and Actions p. 323.324 c. fifthly that we should possess our Minds with an awful Apprehension of Gods Presence with and Inspection over us p. 333.334 c. sixthly that we should frequenty examine and review our own Actions p. 343.344 c. seventhly that we should be very watchful and circumspect p. 348.349 c. eighthly that we should be diligent and industrious in our Particular Callings p. 353.354 c. ninthly that we should endeavour to keep up a constant Chearfulness of Spirit in Religion p. 365.366 c. tenthly that we should maintain in our minds a constant Sense and Expectation of Heaven p. 372.373 c. eleventhly that we should live in the frequent Vse of the publick Ordinances and Institutions of our Religion p. 377.378 SECT IV. Containing certain Motives to animate men against the Difficulties of these Duties first that whatsoever Difficulty there is in them we may thank our selves for it p. 388.389 c. secondly that in the Course of our Sin there is a great deal of Difficulty as well as in these Duties p. 391.392 c. Thirdly that how great soever the Difficulty be it must be undergon or that which is much more intolerable p. 394.395 fourthly that how difficult soever they may be the Grace of God will render them possible to us if we be not wanting to our selves p. 396.397 fifthly that though they are difficult yet they are fairly consistent with all our other necessary Occasions p. 400.401 sixthly that the Difficulty is such as will abate and wear off by degrees p. 404.405 seventhly that there is a world of present Peace and Satisfaction intermingled with the difficulties p. 407.408 eighthly that the difficulty is abundantly compensated by the Reward of them p. 411.412 SECT V Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us in order to our improving towards Perfection by Perseverance in the Christian life which are first that while we stand we should not be over-confident of our selves but keep a Jealous eye upon the Weakness and Inconstancy of our own natures p. 417.418 secondly that if at any time we wilfully fall we should immediatly arise again by Repentance p. 420.421 thirdly that for the future we should indeavor to withdraw our Affections from the Temptations of the world and especially from those which were the Occasion of our Fall p. 424.425 fourthly that we should curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our timely correcting and reforming them p. 429.430 c. fifthly that we should as far as lawfully we can live in the Communion of the Church whereof we are members p. 434.435 c. sixthly that we should not stint our Progress in Religion out of a fond Opinion that we are good enough already to any determinate Degrees or Measures of Goodness p. 458.459 c. seventhly that we should frequently entertain our selves with the Prospect of our Mortality 462.463 eighthly that to put our selves into a good Posture of Dying we should discharge our Consciences of all the Reliques and Remains of our past Guilts p. 467.468 c. ninthly that to Compensate so far as we are able for those Guilts we should take care to Redeem the Time we have formerly mispent in sinful Courses by being doubly diligent in the Exercise of all the contrary Vertues p. 471.472 c. tenthly that we should labour after a rational and well-grounded Assurance p. 476.477 c. SECT VI Containing certain Motives to persuade men to the Practice of these duties of Perseverance which are all deduc'd from the Consideration of the urgent Necessity of our final Perseverance as first unless we immediatly recover when we have wilfully relapsed we shall go much faster back than ever we went forward p. 487.488 c. secondly if after we have made some Progress in Religion we Totally Relapse we shall thereby forfeit the Fruit of all our past Labour p. 490.491 c. thirdly we shall forfeit the Fruit of it after we have undergone the greatest Difficulty of it p. 494.495 c. fourthly we shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but render our Recovery more hazardous p. 497.498 c.
being by the Laws of the Invisible State always assigned to that Society of Spirits whereunto they are most connaturalized in their Temper we must expect if we go into Eternity with turbulent and contentious Minds to be thrust into the Society of Devils and damned Ghosts with whom we are already joined in a strict Communion of Natures And O! what a dreadful thing must it be to be forced to spend an Eternity in such wretched Company Verily methinks the most horrid and frightful Idea I can form in my own Mind is that of a company of snarling and quarrelsome Spirits crouded like so many Scorpions and Adders into a Den together and there forced by the Venomousness of their Temper to live in continual Mutiny and be perpetually hissing and spitting Poison at one another For though those words of our Saviour Mat. xii 25 26. imply that Satans Kingdom is not divided yet they are not to be so understood as if there were any such thing as Peace or Concord among those rancorous Spirits for that is impossible to be imagined no doubtless they would be divided eterdally if they could being such continual plagues as they are to one another and think it a mighty Happiness to be shut up all alone in separate Dens where they might never see nor hear of one another more but being chained together as they are by an adamantine Fate which they cannot withstand they consent in this and in this only to oppose all good Designs and do the utmost Mischief they are able But as to all their other Intercourses they are continually embroiled and do live in an eternal Variance with one another So that their Society is like that Monster Scylla whom the Poets talk of whose inferiour parts were a company of Dogs that were perpetually snarling and quarrelling among themselves and yet were inseparable from one another as being all of them parts of the same substance WHEREFORE since to be united by indissoluble Ligaments to this wretched Society will be the certain Fate of all factious and contentious Souls our blessed Religion whose great Design is to advance our happiness hath taken abundant care to educate our Minds in Quietness and Peace For hither tend all those Precepts of it which require us to follow peace with all men Heb. xii 14 to be at peace among our selves 1 Thess. v. 13 to follow after the things that make for peace Rom. xiv 19 to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Eph. iv 3 to be of one mind and to live in peace 2. Cor. xiii 11 and if it be possible and as much as in us lies to live peaceably with all men Rom. xii 18 in a word to mark them that cause divisions among us and avoid them Rom. xvi 17 and to do our part that there be no divisions among us but that we be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement 1 Cor. i. 10 The Design of all which is to bind us over to the Study and Practice of Vnity and Concord and restrain us by the strictest Obligations from all schismatical factious and turbulent Behaviour in those sacred or civil Societies whereof we are Members And unless we do sincerely endeavour to fulfil these Obligations however we may monopolize Godliness to our own Party and claw and canonize one another we are Saints of a quite different strain from those blessed ones above and are acted by the factious Spirit of the Devil whose Business it is to foment Divisions and kindle Disturbances and Commotions wherever he comes This therefore must be our great Care if we design for Heaven to root out of our Tempers all Inclination to Contention and Discord and to compose our selves into a sedate and peaceable calm and gentle frame of Spirit and not only to avoid all unnecessary Quarrels and Contentions our selves but so far as in us lies be Peace-makers between others and preserve a friendly Union with and among our fellow members And if through humane Frailty and Infirmity through our own Ignorance or the plausible Pretences of Seducers through the too great Prevalence of our worldly Interest or the Principles of a bad Education it should be our Misfortune to be insensibly misled into unwarrantable Dissents and Divisions yet still to keep our Minds in a teachable Temper and our Ears open to Truth and Conviction to be desirous of Accommodation and willing to hear the Reasons on both sides and as soon as we are convinced of our Error to repent of our Division and immediately return to Vnity and Peace WHICH if it be our constant Practice and Endeavour we shall by Degrees form our Minds into such a peaceable and amicable Temper that when we go into the other World where we shall be perfectly disengaged from all temporal Interests and throughly convinced of all our erroneous Prejudice our Souls will be effectually contempered to the quiet and peaceable Society of the Blessed who having no private Interests to pursue no particular Affections to gratifie no Ends or Aims but what are common to them all which is to adore and imitate and love that never-failing Spring whence all their Felicity flows it is impossible there should be any Occasion administred by any of them of any Schism or rupture of Communion And so those happy People live in the most perfect Unity and Concord as being all united in their Ends and tied together by their heart-strings For they having no counter Opinions or cross Interests to divide them nothing but Truth shining in their Minds nothing but Goodness reigning in their Wills it is impossible there should be any dissenting Brother among them any Non-conformist to the blessed Laws of their Communion but conspiring together as they do in the same Mind and Interest and in the same peaceable Intentions and Affections they must needs walk hand in hand together in a most perfect Vniformity So that if we would live for ever with these blessed Folk we must now endeavour to calm and compose our selves into their Temper to discharge our Minds as much as we are able of every froward and contentious Humour and reduce our Wills to a perfect loathing of them that so being qualified for their Society we may be admitted to it when we go away from this wrangling World And then how unspeakably happy shall we be when with Minds perfectly refined from all Contention and Bitterness we shall be received into the Company of those calm and sedate Spirits and bear our part in their sweet and placid Conversation wherein they freely communicate their minds to one another without the least Fierceness or Insolence Captiousness or Misconstruction Clamour or Contention for Victory and do eternally discourse over the wise things of Heaven and still perfectly concenter both in their Vnderstandings and Wills wherein like so many Stars in Conjunction they mingle Light with one another and do peaceably communicate the treasures of their Knowledge
which End it will be needful that we should read and impartially consider some of the Apologies for the Christian Religion of which we have sundry excellent ones in our own Language and if we will but take the pains to instruct our selves in the plain and easie Evidences of Christianity we shall quickly see abundant cause to assent to it and then our Faith being founded on a firm Basis of Reason will be able to bid defiance to the World and to out-stand the most furious Storms of Temptation II. TO our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should duly consider the Motives of our Religion and ballance them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo For thus our Saviour makes Consideration a necessary Introduction to our Christian Warfare Luke xiv 28 where he compares mens rushing headlong into the Difficulties of the Christian Life without Consideration to a mans resolving to build a Tower without computing the Charge of it or a Kings going to War without ever considering before-hand whether with his Army of ten Thousand he be able to encounter his Enemy with Twenty By both which Comparisons he intimates to us the unprosperous Issue of mens listing themselves under his Banner to combat the Devil the World and their own Lusts without ever considering before-hand either their own Strength or their Enemies the Arguments with which they must fight or the Difficulties that will trash and oppose them So that when they come to execute their rash Resolutions there start up so many Difficulties in their way which they never thought of and against which they took no care to fore-arm themselves that they have not the Heart and Courage to stand before them but after a few faint Attempts are presently sounding a cowardly Retreat FOR indeed Consideration is the Life and Soul of Faith that animates and actuates its Principles and elicits and draws forth all their natural Power and Energy And let the Truths we believe be never so weighty and momentous in themselves never so apt to spirit and invigorate us yet unless we seriously consider and apply them to our Wills and Affections and take the pains to extract out of them their native Vigour and Efficacy and to infuse it into our Faculties and Powers they will lie like so many dead Notions in our Minds and never impart to us the least Degree of spiritual Courage and Activity And accordingly our Saviour attributes the ill Success of Gods Word in the Hearts of men which he compares to the high-way the stony and thorny Ground either to their not considering it at all or to their not considering it deeply enough or to their not considering it long enough Either the divine Truths which they heard went no farther than their Ears and so lay openly exposed like so many loose corns upon the high-way to be picked up by the Fowls of the Air or if it entred into their Mind and Consideration it was so slightly and superficially that like corn sown in a rocky ground it had not Depth enough to take root to fasten and grow into their minds and digest into Principles of Action or if they at present received it into their deeper and more serious Consideration it was but for a little while for by and by they permit their worldly Cares and Pleasures like Thorns to spring up in their Thoughts and Choak it before it was arrived to any Maturity But that which rendred it so prosperous and fruitful in good and honest Hearts was that having heard the word they kept it i. e. retained it in their Thoughts and Consideration and so brought forth fruit with patience Luk. viii 12 13 14 15. So that to the making of a good Beginning in Religion it is not only necessary that we should ponder the Motives and Arguments of Religion and ballance them with the Difficulties of it but that we should revolve and repeat them on our minds till we have represented to our selves with the utmost Life and Reality whatsoever makes for and against our Entrance into the Christian Warfare and upon our having weighed them over and over in the Scales of an even and impartial Judgment we have brought the Debate to this Result and Conclusion that there is infinitely more Weight in the Arguments of Religion to persuade us to it than in all the Difficulties of it to dishearten us from it For unless we enter into Religion fore-armed with the Motives and forewarned of the difficulties of it we shall never be able to stand our Ground but finding more Opposition than we expected and having not a sufficient Strength of Argument to bear up against it we shall quickly repent of our rash Undertaking and be forced to retreat from it with Shame and Dishonour For this is usually the Issue of those rash and unsetled Purposes which men make in the heats of their Passion when they have been warmed by some pathetick Discourse or startled by some great Danger or chafed into a Displeasure against their Sins by the sense of some very dolorous Accident whereinto they have been betrayed by them in these or such like Cases its usual with men to make hasty Resolutions of Amendment without considering either the Matters which they resolve upon or the Motives which should support their Resolution and so finding when they come to Practice more Difficulty in the Matter than they were aware of and having not sufficient Motives to carry them through it their Resolution flags in the Execution and very often yields to the next Temptation which encounters them NOW though I do not deny but that those Heats of Passion are good Opportunities to begin our Religion in and if wisely improved will very much contribute to our Voyage heavenwards and like a brisk Gale of Wind render it much more expedite and easie yet if in these Heats we resolve too soon without a due Consideration of all Particulars and of the Difficulties on the one side and the Arguments on the other it is hardly possible that our Resolution should ever prove a lasting Principle of Goodness For when we resolve inconsiderately we resolve to do we know not what and our Resolution includes a thousand Particulars that we are not aware of most of which being repugnant to our vicious Inclinations will when we come to practise them be attended with such Difficulties as will easily startle our weak Resolution which having not a sufficient Foundation of Reason to support it will never be able to outstand those boisterous Storms of Temptation whereunto it will be continually exposed If therefore we mean our Resolution should hold out and commence a living Principle of Goodness we must found it in a through Consideration both of the Duties and Difficulties of Religion and of the Motives which should ingage us to embrace it we must set before our Minds all the Sins we must part with and all the Duties we must submit
to and fairly represent to our selves all the Difficulties and Temptations wherewith we must ingage and as much as in us lies render them actual and present to us by supposing our selves already ingaged in our Spiritual Warfare and surrounded with all the Temptations both from within and without that we can reasonably expect will oppose themselves against us and having thus placed our selves in the midst of the Difficulties of Religion we must never cease urging our selves with the great Arguments and Motives of it till we have throughly persuaded our stubborn Wills and obtained of them an explicit Consent to every Duty that calls for our Consent and Resolution III. TO our good Beginning of the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we be deeply and throughly convinced of our great need of a Mediator to make a Propitiation for our Sins and render us acceptable to God For 't is to convince us of this necessary Truth that the Scripture doth so expresly declare that as there is one God so there is one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5 that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and that he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world and that 't is for his name sake that our sins are forgiven 1 John ii 1 2 12. that we have redemption through his blood Eph. i. 7 and that without the shedding his blood there is no remission and that 't was by the sacrifice of himself that Christ put away sin Heb. ix 22 26. that we are accepted of God through his beloved Son Eph. i. 6 that Christ is entred into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us Heb. ix 24 and that there he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. vii 25 that 't is through him that we have access unto the Father Eph. ii 18 and by him that we have admittance to his grace and favour Rom. v. 2 The design of all which is throughly to convince us of this great truth that by our Apostacy from God and Rebellion against him we have all rendred our selves so very obnoxious to his Vengeance that he would not pardon us upon any less Atonement than the precious Blood nor admit us into favour upon any less Motive than the powerful Intercession of his own Son that by the heinousness of our Guilt we have so highly incensed the Father of Mercies against us that no less consideration than the Death and Advocation of the greatest and dearest Person in the whole world will move him to admit of our Repentance and listen to our Supplications And certainly next to exacting the Punishment due to our sins at our own hands the most dreadful Severity he could have expressed was to resolve not to remit it upon any other consideration than that of his own Sons undergoing it in our stead by which he hath given us the greatest reason that Heaven and Earth could afford to tremble at his Justice even whilst we are inclosed in the Arms of his Mercy THIS therefore we ought to be deeply and throughly convinced of that our Sins have set us at such a distance from God that 't is nothing but the bloud of Christ will reconcile him to us and that though without our Repentance he will never be reconciled to us yet 't is not for the sake of that or any thing else we can do that he will be induced to receive us into favour but only for the sake of that precious Sacrifice which his eternal Son hath offered up for us The firm Persuasion and Consideration of which will mightily over-awe our minds and imprint upon them such gastly and horrible Apprehensions of sin as will scare us from all thoughts of Compliance with it the dreadful demonstration which God hath given us of his righteous severity against it in the very Reason of his pardoning it will effectually antidote us against all our sinful Securities and Confidences For this way of Gods pardoning us upon the Sacrifice of his Son guards his Mercy with such an awful Terror as is sufficient to dishearten the most desperate sinner from presuming upon it For he that dares presume to sin on upon a Mercy that cost the bloud of the Son of God hath courage enough to out-face the Flames of Hell and is not capable of any Mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his own Authority For what Mercy can be safe from that mans Abuse and Presumption that dares abuse a Mercy so guarded and secured as this is by being founded upon such a dreadful Consideration AND as a through Persuasion of the Necessity of Christs Sacrifice to the Forgiveness of our Sins will fill us with awful Apprehensions of the divine Severity and set before us a most dismal Prospect of the vast demerit of our Sin both which are necessary to ingage us to a through Reformation so a through conviction of the Necessity of his Intercession to render our Duties our Prayers and Persons acceptable to God will effectually humble and abase us in our own eyes which as I shall shew you by and by is highly conducive to a good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare For next to banishing us from his Presence for ever the most effectual course God could take to abase us was to exclude us from all immediate Intercourse with him and not to admit of any more Addresses or Supplications from us but only through the hands of a Mediator which is a plain Demonstration how infinitely pure he is and how base and vile our Sins have rendred us insomuch that he will not suffer a sinful Creature to come near him otherwise than by a Proxy that he will not accept of a Service from a guilty Hand nor listen to a Prayer from a sinful Mouth till 't is first hallowed and presented to him by a pure and holy Mediator So that unless we are strangely inconsiderate we cannot but be touched with a deep sense of our own Vileness when we think at what a distance the pure and holy God keeps us how he stands off at the Stench of our Abominations and notwithstanding all his Benignity towards us will neither hear us nor have any thing to do with us without the powerful Intercession of his own Son AND as our Conviction of the Necessity we have of Christs Sacrifice and Intercession is very apt to affect us with holy Sorrow and Fear both which are very powerful Instruments of our Reformation so our persuasion of the Reality and Excellency of his Mediation is no less apt to inspire us with a mighty Hope and Assurance of Acceptance with God if we reform and amend For it seems that upon propitiatory Sacrifices and interceding Spirits guilty Minds have been always inclined to place their Confidence of Acceptance with God Hence it was a Principle generally
you and lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world And that he did not intend this meerly for a temporary Commission which was to expire with the first Bishops and Propagators of the Gospel but designed to have it derived from their hands to all the succeeding Ages of Christianity is evident not only from the Promise annexed to it that he would be with them to the end of the world which plainly shews that 't was to continue in force till then but also from hence that they to whom this Commission was immediately given did actually derive it to others 2 Tim. i. 6 with a strict Charge that these also should successively derive it to others Tit. i. 5 AND as by this perpetual Commission Christ hath Established a Succession of men to be the Guides of Souls to the end of the World so he hath obliged all Christian People to attend to and respect them as such For he that heareth you saith he heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Luk. x. 16 and 1 Cor. iv 1 the Apostle injoins all Christians to account of these spiritual Guides as of the Ministers of Christ and stewards of the Mysteries of God so also 1 Thess. v. 12 13. he earnestly beseeches them as a matter of vast importance that they would know them which labour among them and are over them in the Lord and were to admonish them and esteem them very highly in love for their works sake and Heb. xiii 17 he gives this Injunction obey them which have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you THERE being therefore an Order of men that are thus sanctified and set apart from the World by the Commission of our Saviour to consult the various Necessities of Souls and administer to them in all their religious Concerns it would doubtless mightily contribute to their successful Progress in the Christian Warfare if in all their streights and difficulties men would apply themselves to them for Counsel and Direction with such Modesty and Sincerity as they ought to do For besides that they might reasonably expect a greater Blessing upon their Counsels than other mens they being commissioned Guides under the great Shepherd of Souls who we must needs suppose will more especially cooperate with the Means of his own Ordination besides this I say they being persons that are wholly devoted to the Study and Ministries of Religion must needs be supposed caeteris paribus to have a farther Insight into the Cases of Souls into their Dangers and Refuges Diseases and Remedies and consequently to be better able to counsel and direct them than men of a secular Life and Conversation If therefore men would be but so kind to themselves as to apply themselves in all their spiritual Exigencies to a holy wise and well-instructed Guide to uncover their Sores lay open their Cases and reveal the Secrets of their Souls to him so far as is necessary to enable him to make proper Applications it is not to be expressed what a vast Advantage they might make of him He would be instead of a good Genius or Tutelar Angel to their Souls to suggest many a good Thought to them and feed their Meditations with many an useful Notion to enable them to extract from the Articles of their Belief their just and proper Inferences and reduce them to practical Principles to rectifie their Wanderings and extricate them from their Doubts to comfort them in their Sorrows and quicken them in their Indispositions to warm their Indifferencies and moderate their Zeal so as that they may neither be becalmed by the one nor over-born by the too violent Gusts of the other and in a word to direct them to the proper Methods of mortifying their bad Inclinations and conducting their Religion so as to render it more easie and delightful to them These and a great many other good Offices a wise and well-experienced Guide would be able to do men if they would but take him along with them in their Journey to Heaven and modestly submit themselves to his Conduct and Direction And in thus doing they would act not only with greater Security to their Innocence but with greater satisfaction to their Consciences because then their Actions would be warranted not only by their own private Sentiments which in many Cases they will have just cause to suspect but also by the better and more impartial Judgment of an authorised Guide For if under his Conduct they should happen in any doubtful Instance to err from the way of Truth or Righteousness they will have this Satisfaction that they have used the best Means to prevent it the Means to which God himself hath remitted them to whom alone they are accountable for their Actions and who as they may well imagine will very much compassionate such Miscarriages as may follow upon their Submission to his own Appointments But if notwithstanding the great Care that he hath taken of their Souls in appointing them Pilots to steer them safely to Heaven they will embark without them and presume so far upon their own Skill as to venture to their eternal Port through all those Rocks and Quicksands that lie in their way they must needs be in great Danger of miscarrying which if they do they may thank themselves for it and can expect no Pity from God whose careful provision for their eternal Safety they have so ungratefully contemned and neglected IV. TO our prosperous Course and Progress in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that as often as we can we should actually intend and aim at God in the Course of our Lives and Actions For it is of mighty Advantage to the Conduct of a mans Life to have his Intentions united and continually to act with one steady Drift and Aim Because while he intends but one thing he unites the whole Vigour of his Nature in the pursuit of it and is continually driving at it with all the Force and Activity of his Faculties 'T is an Italian Proverb From the man of one Business good Lord deliver me because minding that only he must needs be supposed to be the more expert and sagacious in it and consequently the more able to exceed and over-reach another man who hath only minded it by the by but when a man acts with a multifarious Intention he must needs be distracted in his Operations and the force of his Faculties being divided by the multiplicity of his Aims must needs be so weakned that 't will be impossible for him to pursue any one of them with Vigour and Activity 'T is one of Pythagoras his Maxims 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man ought to be one i. e. so far as he is able to fix all his Aims upon one End
and unite them in one Center and not to suffer himself to be tossed hither and thither by independent Designs and Intentions because this will unavoidably distract him in his prosecutions and so divide and weaken his Principles of Action that he will be able to do nothing to any Purpose God therefore being the great Object of Religion it is necessary in order to our progress therein that we should as much as in us lies respect and aim at him in the whole Course of our Actions that we should continually look up to him as to the directing Star by which we are to steer our Motions and conduct our whole Lives under a fixt Intention to obey his Will and imitate his Nature AND indeed unless we do this we are not good Men in the Sense and Judgment of Religion For Religion as such is a Rule of divine Worship and under this Notion the Christian Religion in particular enjoins all its Duties viz. of Homage and Worship to God For it requires us to do all as unto God Col. iii. 23 and to do all to the glory of God 1 Cor. x. 31 that is to do all in Obedience to him and Imitation of him from a sincere Acknowledgment of the Perfections of his Nature of his sovereign Authority over us and immutable Right to rule and command us Not that an actual explicite Intention of obeying or imitating God is necessary to every good Action for our Occasions of doing good being so infinite and so often occurring in our secular Affairs and our Minds being so incapable as they are of attending many things at once it is impossible for us actually to intend Obedience to God in every good thing we perform but that in the general we should heartily intend it is indispensibly necessary to the consecrating our best Actions and adopting them into the Family of Religion For that we must obey God is the fundamental Law of Religion from whence all the particular Commands and Prohibitions of it do receive their Force and Obligation So that unless we do what he commands with a general Intention of Mind to obey him we do not act upon a religious Obligation and consequently though our Actions should be materially good yet are they not formally religious NOW to the fixing and setling such a general Intention in our Minds it is necessary that in the particular Exercises of our Religion we should so far as we are able actually intend and aim at God that we should throw by all other Ends so far as we are able and refer our Actions directly and immediately to him in a word that we should formally devote and dedicate them to his blessed Will and Pleasure so as to be able to say this and this I do purely to please God with a single Intention of Soul to resemble and please him to transcribe his Nature and comply with his Will For which end we must take care as oft as we can to perform our religious Actions in such a manner as that no secular Ends may interpose between God and our Intentions to be as private and as modest as we can in our Religion and not expose it any more than needs must to the eye of the World lest Applause and Reputation should intrude themselves upon us and carry away our Intention from God For thus our Saviour advises in the Case of Charity and Prayer Mat. vi 1 7. that we should not do our alms before men to be seen of them nor sound a trumpet before them to make the Streets ring of our Charity nay if possible that we should not let our left hand know what our right hand doth but that our Alms should be secret and known only to God and our selves and that when we pray we should not affect to make a pompous shew of it in the Synagogues and corners of the streets but that we should enter into our closets and shut our door and in the most private manner unbosom our Souls to God the sense of all which is that should we endeavour so far as in us lies so to circumstantiate our Charity and Devotion as not to give any Opportunity to secular Ends and Aims to obtrude themselves upon us to mingle with our pious Intentions and deflower the Purity of them NOT that I think it unlawful for a man to intend any thing but God in the discharge of his Duty or that our Intention is bad when it immediately respects any worldly End such as Pleasure or Profit or Honour which are proposed by God himself as Arguments to persuade men to their Duty and what hurt can it be for men to aim at that in the discharge of their Duty which God hath proposed to them as an Encouragement to it 'T is true if worldly Advantage be the only or chief End we aim at our Intention is naught and so are all the Actions thence proceeding but if together with that we do so heartily intend and aim to please God and conform our selves to his blessed Will and Nature as to continue on in the path of our Duty to him not only when we have no prospect of outward Advantage to induce us to it but when outward Evils and Inconveniences lie in our way we need not doubt but our Intention is truly good and sincere notwithstanding those immediate Respects which it many times hath to secular Ends and Inducements But yet it is certain that the more it respects these the more imperfect it is and the more liable to be vanquished by outward Temptations For it 's a plain sign that 't is conscious of its own Weakness when it dares not stand alone but is fain to call in to it the Assistance of these worldly Ends to support and defend it and the less of worldly Aim there is in our religious Intention to be sure the more pure and simple it is and the more of substantial Piety there is in it and though it may be truly sincere notwithstanding its being compounded with secular Aims and Respects yet the more of these there is in it the weaker and more instable it must necessarily be For our Mind being finite cannot possibly intend many things with equal Strength and Vigour as it can do one and when its Intention is dispersed among various Objects it must necessarily be more languid than when 't is collected united and fixt upon one and consequently the more a mans Intention respects the World the less in proportion it must respect God and so on the contrary And then the less a man respects God in his Duty and the more he respects the World the more liable he will be to the Temptations of worldly Loss or Advantage For when those Advantages which he so much respects lie on the opposite side to his Duty to be sure he will be so much the more inclined to desert it and as often as Fortune shifts sides and carries with it the Advantages of Pleasure Profit or Honour
the Inspection of their own Estates or to overlook and govern their Families and such to examine the Complaints of their Tenants or the Necessities of their Neighbours or to reconcile Differences or conciliate Love and good Neighbourhood among those that are near or under them in these and such like Employments they may innocently exercise their active Minds and thereby not only divert themselves from sinful Courses but also render themselves very useful to the World BUT whatsoever our Condition in the World may be it must doubtless be of very dangerous Consequence to our Religion not to be innocently and usefully imployd For as the wise Cato hath observed nihil agendo male agere disces i. e by accustoming your self to do nothing you will most certainly learn to do ill For your busie Mind like Nature will admit of no Vacuum but must be always full of one thing or other and it can no sooner dismiss its pious or honest thoughts but vicious and unlawful ones will be swarming about it For religious lawful and sinful Objects are the only Companions our Minds have to converse with and therefore since they must and will be conversing with one thing or other we ought to take great care that as soon as ever they have done entertaining religious Objects they be presently supplyed and presented with lawful ones with some honest Business or innocent Diversion that so we may not be at leisure to attend to those sinful Objects which in the others Absence will be perpetually crouding and thrusting themselves upon us For when we are neither honestly nor religiously imployed we shall be perfectly at leisure to attend to any Invitation to Sin and since we must still be doing one thing or other our having nothing else to do will be a strong inducement to do that which is evil and to spend our restless Activity in some irregular Course or other accordingly as we are tempted and inclined If we are of a busie and pragmatical Temper our leisure will presently invite us to be intermedling with other Folks Business to be tampering with State Affairs and casting new Models of Government and censuring the Wisdom of those publick Administrations of which we do not understand the Reasons If we are of a froward peevish and untractable Temper we shall be apt when we have nothing else to do to be venting our Activity in factious and turbulent Zeal in seditious Pratings and Conspiracies in backbiting our Adversaries and fetching and carrying scandalous Reports to create Jealousies and Animosities between Neighbour and Neighbour In a word if we are of sanguin and jovial Dispositions our idle hours will be so many tempting Opportunities to Intemperance and Wantonness Profaness and Scurrility and all the other Wickednesses of a lewd and dissolute Conversation If therefore we mean to be secured from sinful Actions we must allow our selves no leisure from religious or honest ones which for the above named Reason we shall find utterly unpracticable if we be not diligent and industrious in some honest Calling BUT whilst mens Minds are honestly imployed they will not be at leisure to listen to Temptation and 't will be difficult for any of those Inducements to Sin which the Devil and outward Objects do perpetually suggest to us to obtain Admittance to speak with our Thoughts whilst they are thus taken up with wiser and better Company But as soon as we dismiss these we do in effect beckon Temptations to our selves and invite the Devil and the World to invite us to be wicked For as we say Opportunity makes the Thief i. e. it tempts him to steal and so when we give the Devil the Opportunity of an idle Hour we do thereby tempt him to tempt us and importunately invite him to steal away the Treasure of our Innocence by putting the Key of it into his hand and giving him a free Access to it And though we should be firmly resolved not to sin yet t is impossible we should be safe so long as we are at leisure to be tempted because while we are at leisure we shall be very often disputing and holding Argument with the Tempter who by his Quirks and Sophistries will many times circumvent such Novices as we before we are aware But when we are not only resolved against him but are also so imployed as that we are not at leisure to attend to him it is past his skill to fasten any Temptation upon us Wherefore if we would be secure in the Course of our Christian Warfare we must follow St. Jeroms Counsel to his Friend Rusticus Semper boni aliquid operis facito ut Diabolus te semper inveniat occupatum be always doing one good Work or other that so the Devil may always find thee busie IX TO our Course and Progress in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should indeavour so far as in us lyes to keep up a constant Chearfulness of Spirit in our Religion It is doubtless a great Disgrace to our Religion to imagin as too many superstitious Christians do that it is an Enemy to Mirth and Chearfulness and a severe Exactor of Pensive looks and solemn Faces that men are never serious enough till they are mope'd into Statues and cloisterd from all Society but that of their own melancholy Thoughts that 't is a Gospel-Duty to whine or to be silent and retire themselves from the most innocent Pleasures and Festivities of Conversation and in a word that all kind of Mirth and facetious Humour is to be rankt among those Idle Words which our Saviour tells us shall be brought to Judgment As if Religion were a Caput mortuum a heavy stark insipid thing that had neither Heat nor Life nor Motion in it or were intended for a Medusa's Head to transform men into monuments of Stone By which false Conceptions of it they render it much more burthensome than it is in its own Nature For to make Religion forbid us any thing that is humane and natural is to render it a real grievance unto humane nature 't is to make our Duty run a tilt at the Principles of our Being and set our Conscience and our Nature at Variance with one another And therefore since to be risible and sociable is as natural to us as to be reasonable to make our Religion an Enemy to our Mirth and Conversation is to represent it as a tyrannical Invader of the essential Liberties and Properties of humane Nature 'T is true indeed though it denies us not the freedom of an innocent Humour nor disallows those little Plaisances and inoffensive Raileries of Fancy which are somtimes requisite to sauce our Conservation and give it a quicker Relish yet hath it taken care to bound our Merriments with the necessary Precepts of Sobriety and Gravity that so by too much whifling up and down in the little levities of Fancy our Minds may not grow vain and light and trifling and be thereby indisposed to serious
most nauseous to its Disease and those Duties which in its Health 't would have imbraced with the greatest Pleasure will in its Sickness be the greatest Burthen and Oppression to it And when we have spoiled the Purity of our Constitution and are degenerated from the humane Nature into the brutal or diabolical one it is no great wonder that the Religion of a Man should be a Burthen to the Nature of a Beast or a Devil So that whatsoever Difficulties there are in Religion they arise not out of the Nature of the things it requires but out of the perverse Indispositions of our Natures to them and these were for the most part contracted by our selves so that instead of complaining of the Difficulty we ought to strive and contend the more earnestly against it because we may thank our selves for it When a man hath plaid the Fool and set his House on Fire the Sense of his own Folly ought to make him more industrious to extinguish it but if instead of so doing he should sit with his Hands in his Bosom and complain of the Mischief and the Difficulty of stopping it what would Folks say of him Mischievous doth it become thee to sit here idely complaining of the Effect of thy own Villany whilst 't is yet in thy Power wouldst thou but bestir thy self to quench the Flame and prevent the spreading of it For shame get up and do thy utmost Endeavour to repair thy own Act and to extinguish this spreading Mischief of which thou art the Author Since therefore we have been so obstinately foolish as to set fire to our own Souls and kindle in them by our vicious Courses such destructive Flames of unnatural Lust how monstrously ridiculous is it whilst 't is yet in our Power to extinguish them to sit whining and complaining of the Difficulty of it and in the mean time permit them to rage and burn on without Interruption O miserable men if they are so hard to be quench'd who may ye thank for it Was it not you that kindled them and do you now sit idly complaining of your own Act when you should be the more industrious to repair the Mischief of it because it is your own For shame arise and bestir your selves and since you are conscious that the Difficulties of your Religion are of your own creating and that those Lusts which indispose ye to it are the products of your own Actions let this excite ye to a more vigorous Endeavour to subdue and conquer them II. CONSIDER that in the Course of your Sins there is a great deal of Difficulty as well as in your Warfare against them For I dare appeal to your own Experience whether you have not found a great deal of Hardship in Wickedness especially while you were educating and training up your Natures to it Did not your Nature oftentimes recoil and start and boggle at your vicious Actions and were you not fain sometimes to curb and sometimes to spur it to commit many Outrages and Violences upon it whilst you were backing and managing it before you could reduce it to a Through-pace in Iniquity How often have you put your modest Nature to the Blush at the sense of a filthy and uncomly Action whilst your wicked Will hath been dragging it along like a timorous Virgin to an Adulterers Bed and what terrible Shreiks have your Consciences many times given in the midst of your sinful Commissions when you were acting the first Rapes upon your Innocence How many a pensive Mood hath the Review of your sinful Pleasures cost ye and what Swarms of Horror and dreadful Expectation hath the Reflection on your past Guilts raised in your Minds And then with what excessive Difficulty have you been fain to practise some Vices only to get an Habit of practising them more easily How often have you been forced to swallow Sickness to drink dead Palsies and foaming Epilepsies to render your Intemperances familiar to you and in what Qualms and fainting sweats and sottish Confusions have you many times awaked before ever you could Connaturalize your midnight Revels to your Temper And when with so much Labour and Violence you have pretty well trained and exercised your selves in this hellish Warfare and thereby rendered it natural and habitual to you to how many Inconveniences hath it daily exposed you what base and unmanly Shifts hath it put you upon to extricate your selves out of those Difficulties wherein it hath involved you What violent Passions and Perturbations doth it raise in your Minds and into what wild Tumults of Action doth it frequently hurry you In a word how doth it perplex and intrigue the whole Course of your Lives and intangle ye in a labyrinth of Knavish Tricks and Collusions so that many times you are at your Wits end and know not which way to turn your selves All these Difficulties and a great many more which I cannot presently think of you must have contended with in a sinful Course of Action if you have made any considerable Experiment of it AND do you complain of the Difficulty of persevering in Religion you that have so couragiously persevered in a worse Way against Difficulties that are as great all things considered if not greater you that have hitherto sin'd on so industriously that have broke through so many strong Barricadoes to come at and injoy your Lusts are you not ashamed to start and boggle as you do at the Difficulties of Virtue and Religion Look but how the industrious Sinner upbraids you His way leads directly to Ruine and he knows it and yet he presses on couragiously as if he were ambitious to be a Heroe in Iniquity and charges through all the modesty of Humane Nature through all his native sense of a God and a divine Vengeance he marches forward through Infamy and Diseases Dangers and a world of Inconveniences and offers a kind of Violence to Hell as if he meant to force open its brazen Portal and enter headlong into it before 't is ready to receive him whilst you in the mean time like a company of Crest-faln Creatures stand shivering at a few trifling Difficulties in your Way though you have Heaven for your End and a Crown of Glory for your Reward IN short therefore this is the true State of your Case choose which side you please whether to march under Christs or the Devils Banner you must expect before-hand to encounter some Difficulties yea and perhaps as great on the one side as on the other and if so then you have little else to do but to compare their Ends and to consider which of the two is most eligible a Crown of Glory or eternal Torment III. CONSIDER that how Difficult soever this your spiritual Warfare may be it must be indured or that which is much more intollerable I confess were it not absolutely necessary we might with some colour of Reason urge the Difficulty of it to excuse our selves from undertaking and
prosecuting it but when our Case is such as that we must either conquer or perish swim through or sink under the Difficulties we complain of the matter will admit of no further Debate but we must e'en resolve of the two Evils to choose that which is the least When the Ship hath sprung a Leak 't is a Madness for the Mariners to sit still and complain of the Pains and Labour of pumping for in the Extremity they are in there is no more to be said they must pump or perish and it is not to be debated where there is so vast an Inequality between the Objects of their Choice which of the two they were best to fix upon whether to take pains for the present to secure the Ship or to sit still and suffer themselves to be swallowed up in the Ocean And thus it is in the Case before us our Soul hath sprung a Leak and let into its Holds those Stygian Waters of sensual and Diabolical Lust which will sink us down to Hell if they be not pump'd out again and this is not to be done without a great deal of Labour and Difficulty But what then were we not better labour for a while then perish for ever do we talk of Labour when our Souls are at stake and our immortal Life is upon the Brink of an everlasting well or ill-being In other Cases we never think much to indure a present Inconvenience for the Prevention of a future Mischief we are content to fast when we perceive it 's necessary to obviat an approaching Feaver to be cupp'd and scarrified with all the Artifice of Pain to prevent or remove a dangerous Disease and in all other Cases are generally willing to prolong our Torment that we may be the longer a dying except where the Prescription is Virtue and the Death prescribed against is eternal though this be the most formidable Mischief of all as being the utmost Consummation of humane Misery and compared with which all the Labours and Difficulties of Religion have not the Proportion of a gentle Flea-biting to the acutest Torments of the Rack or Stone For I beseech you to consider will it not be easier for you to indure the short Agonies of a bitter Repentance than the horrid Despair of a damned Ghost for ever to thwart a foolish and unreasonable Lust than to lye roaring to Eternity upon the Rack of a guilty Conscience Is there any Proportion between your abstaining from the Pleasures of Sin that are but for a moment and your being excluded from Heaven and all Hope of Happiness for ever Alass if it be so difficult to you to contend with an evil Habit to struggle with a stiff and obstinate Inclination how difficult will it be to dwell with everlasting burnings and suffer the dire Effects of an unappeasable Vengeance to Eternity Wherefore since we are under an absolute Necessity of induring the one or th' other in the name of God let us act like Men and of the two evils choose that which is most tollerable IV. CONSIDER that though it be difficult yet there is nothing in it but what the Grace of God will render possible to us if we be not wanting to our selves I confess the Necessity of it would be no Argument to ingage us to undertake it were it not a possible Undertaking yea and readily acknowledge that it very far exceeds our poor Possibility singly and nakedly considered So that if we were left to struggle with the Difficulty of it in our own single Strength we might justly despair of Success and so tamely lye down and yield our selves foil'd and defeated But God be praised this is not our Case for though when we cast our eyes upon the many violent Inclinations to evil that are within us and upon the numberless Temptations to evil that are about us when we seriously reflect upon the Weakness of our Reason and the Strength of our Lust and the Number and Nearness and Prevalency of those Objects from without that are continually pressing upon and assaulting our good Resolutions though I say when we reflect upon all this we are ready to cry out as Elisha's Servant did when he beheld the City compassed with Horses and with Chariots Alas Master how shall we do how shall we be able to withstand all this mighty Army of Enemies yet if we turn our Eyes from our own Weakness and our Enemies Strength to those gracious Promises of Assistance which the Father of Mercies hath made to us we shall quickly be able to answer our selves as Elisha did him fear not O my Soul for they that are with us are more and more powerful than they that are against us For we have with us not only the outward Arguments of Religion which are of infinitely more Force than any outward Inducement to Vice whatsoever we have with us not only the holy Angels of God who are as willing and more able to direct and strengthen us than all the infernal Furies to insnare and captivate us but we have with us also the Almighty Spirit of God who by the Oeconomy of Heaven and the Promise of our Lord is obliged to minister to us in all our Necessities and to aid and assist us against all those Difficulties which would be otherwise too hard for us if we were left to our selves So that if we do but hold true to our own Interest and take care that we do not drive him away from us by siding wilfully with our Enemies against him we shall not no we cannot miscarry unless which is impossible some such Temptation should befal us as neither we nor he can resist and cope with For till by our wilful Sin we have forfeited our Title to the promise of his Assistance we are as sure of his Help in all things that are necessary as we can be of our own Endeavour and 't is not more in our power to do what we can by the Strength of our own Faculties than 't is to ingage him to inable us to do what we cannot with his Aid and Assistance For by faithfully indeavouring to persevere in wel-doing we intitle our selves to all the necessary Assistances of his Grace and so long as this Title continues we are Masters not only of our own Strength but of his too and can do not only whatsoever is within our own Power without him but also whatsoever is in his Power concurring with ours SO that though our Warfare be difficult it cannot be impossible unless we will have it so For to be sure there is nothing in it that can be too hard for Gods Grace co-operating with the Powers of our Nature and therefore there can be nothing in it too hard for us whilst 't is in our Power to secure our selves of that his gracious Co-operation WHEREFORE let us stand boggling no longer at the Difficulty of our Progress in Religion since God be praised there is nothing required of us beyond what we
of Vnion and an open Rebellion against Christs Authority in his Church And being so it is no Wonder that in the purest Ages of Christianity 't was branded with such an infamous Character For thus in the 31 Canon of the Apostles 't is called Ambition and Tyranny and condemned by Ignatius the Disciple of St. John as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Original of Evils Ep. ad smyrn as a Sin that shuts men out of the Kingdom of Heaven Ep. ad Philad and by the African Code 't is stiled a destructive sacrilegious Sin Con. Carth c. Can. 100. and St. Cyprian makes it to be more Heinous than the Sin of the Lapsi that offered Sacrifice to Idols to avoid persecution and to be such a Sin as martyrdom it self would not expiate de Vnit. Eccles. and Dionysius Alexandrinus affirms that to suffer martyrdom rather than make a Schism in the Church is as Glorious an Act as to die refusing to offer Sacrifice to Idols Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 6. And as they thus decry Schism so on the contrary they extol Union as the Nurse of Piety the Fence of Religion the Quintessence and Extract of all Christian Vertue AND indeed 't is to the Vnity of the members of the Church among themselves that the Scripture attributes their Growth and Emprovement in Piety and Vertue For thus the Apostle tells us not only that Charity or a mutual Agreement among Church-Members edifies 1 Cor. viii 1 but also assures us that the whole Church or Collection of Members becomes an holy Temple and an Habitation of God by being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compacted and closely united together in all its Parts Eph. ii 21 22. and Eph. iv 16 he tells us that the Church increases or improves unto the edifying it self in love by being closely compacted and united in all its parts and members and Col. ii 19 he tells us that 't is not only from its Vnion with Christ and those nourishing Influences that are thereby conveyed from him that the Church increases with the increase of God but also from its being knit together or firmly united in all its Parts And if Vnion be so necessary to the Growth and Perfection of the Church it can be no less necessary to the Improvement of each particular Member of it For 1. Schisms and unnecessary Breaches of Church Communion do naturally sour the Tempers of men and render them peevish and uncharitable towards one another For the separating Party must in their own Vindication be forced to accuse those they separate from of something that may be foul enough to justifie their Separation and what they want in Reality they must make up in Pretence otherwise they will be lookt upon as peevish and obstinate Schismaticks and then the Party they separate from will be sure to deem itself injured and in its own Defence be forced to recriminate and this will alarm the Separatists into greater Heats and Animosities and so like two Flints dash'd together they will be continually sparkling and spitting fire at one another till they have kindled the quarrel into an inquenchable Flame Whereas had the Dividers but continued their Communion all this might have been prevented and they might have easily continued their Charity though they had retain'd the Opinions upon which they separated For had they but exercised that Modesty and Goodness as not to prefer their own private Sentiments before the Reason and Peace of the whole Church they would either have kept their Opinions to themselves or at least not have advanced them into Principles of Separation and so by continuing in Communion with that Party of the Church from whom they dissented in Opinion they would have declared that they judged their Errors to be tolerable For by not separating from them they would have plainly manifested that they saw Reason enough to unite upon the score of those Points in which they were agreed but none to disunite upon the score of these in which they differed and consequently that they had a great deal of Reason to love but none to hate and persecute one another and whilst they mutually retain'd this good Opinion of one another 't is very unlikely that their little Differences should cause any great Breaches in their Charity Schism therefore being so destructive to our Charity which is one of the leading Vertues of our Religion must needs have a very malevolent Aspect upon our Perseverance For he that from a charitable Temper relapses into a spiteful and rancorous one is apostatised from one half of the Religion of a Christian and hath exchanged one of the fairest Graces of a Saint for one of the blackest Characters of a Devil But then 2. Schisms or unnecessary Breaches of Church Communion do naturally lead to the foulest Hypocrisies For he that separates from a Church is a very bad man if he hath not a great Opinion of and Zeal for those things upon which he separates which Zeal of his when once he is actually separated will be much more inflamed and that both by the Opposition of the Church he is separated from and the Instigation of the Sect he is separated to and so by Degrees that holy Fervour which should animate him in the plain and unquestionable Duties of Religion will blaze into a fierce Contention for those little Opinions that constitute the Sect he is ingaged in For our Nature being finite and limited in all its Operations it is impossible we should operate diverse ways at once with equal Force and Vigour but whatsoever Time and Attention we bestow upon one thing we must necessarily substract from another Now whilst we continue in a peaceable Communion with the Church we have no other use for our Zeal but to inspire our Devotions to quicken our Vertues and to fight against our Sins with it and this all men agree is the best Use it can be put to but when once we are entred into a schismatical Separation we shall find other Employment for it namely to quarrel at Ecclesiastical Constitutions to wrangle about Modes and Circumstances of Worship and contend for our trifling Speculations and Opinions Which must necessarily weaken it in its nobler Operations and render it more remiss and indifferent in the great and indispensible Duties of Religion and whilst 't is thus impertinently busied in picking Straws and contending about Mint and Cummin to be sure it must more or less neglect the great and weighty things of the Law and so proportionably as it grows warmer and warmer about little Opinions and Circumstances of Religion it will be continually waxing cooler and cooler in the necessary and essential Duties of it till at last 't is wholly degenerated into Peevishness and Faction and dwindled away into a fierce Contention about Trifles That this is the natural Effect of Schism appears by too many woful Experiments For how many Instances of men are there among our selves who had once an honest Zeal for the
Life and Substance of Religion and made great Conscience of living soberly righteously and godly in this present world but afterwards becoming Bigots to such a Sect or Party have diverted the Stream of their Zeal into another Channel where its irregular Current hath only made a Noise and fill'd the world with a loud and turbulent Clamour about little things but as to those great and important Duties upon which their Happiness depends hath been profoundly mute and indifferent and so their Religion like an Hectick Body hath by degrees been consumed by its own Heats whilst that Zeal and Fervour which should move and animate it hath been converted into its Disease and wholly evaporated into Faction and Turbulency and whilst their Zeal is thus misimployed about the little Trifles of their Sect and they are ready to start at an innocent Ceremony and to swoon at the sight of an indifferent Mode and Appendage of Religion as if they were afraid lest it should infect them at a distance they can swallow Camels though they strain at these Gnats and glibly digest the grossest Immoralities 3. And lastly Schisms and unnecessary Breaches of Church Communion do naturally lead to downright Irreligion For when once a man is departed from an established Church without a just Warrant there is nothing can confine or set Shores to him he hath no Principles that can stay him any where or set any Measures of changing to him For when upon a meer Humour or Fancy he hath run from the Church to such a Sect what should hinder him from running from that Sect to another and so on from Sect to Sect till he hath run himself out of all Religion He is rolling down a steep Hill and hath no Principles to stay him so that 't is impossible to determine whither he will go or where he will stop he may perhaps stay at such an Opinion but if he doth it is by chance and if he doth not he will be endlesly rolling from one Opinion to another and shifting his Church as oft as his Almanack For Schism is a large Labyrinth that naturally divides and subdivides into infinite Paths and Allies wherein a man may wander to Eternity and the farther he goes the more he may lose himself and then when he hath wandred a while out of one wild Opinion into another and still perceives that the farther he goes the more he is dissatisfied 't is a thousand to one if he doth not at last suspect and question all Religion as if the whole were an intricate maze of absurd or doubtful Opinions contriv'd on purpose to amuse mens Minds and intangle them in endless Perplexities For the Schismatick as I shewed before doth commonly place a great Part of his Religion in that Opinion upon which he divides and separates so that if once he be dissatisfied with this as in all probability he will quickly be having begun already to ring Changes he will be under a great Temptation to mistrust the whole Religion to be as great an Imposture as he finds this darling Opinion is especially after he hath run through several Sets of Opinions and finds them at last to be all Delusions For as weak Heads when they perceive the Battlements shake are apt to suspect that the Foundations are infirm so weak Understandings will be ready to suspect even the fundamental Principles of Religion when once they perceive those darling Notions totter which they have confidently presum'd to superstruct upon it Upon this Account therefore I make no doubt but that the Atheism of this present Age is very much owing to its Sects and Divisions For how many woful Examples have we of persons who had once a great deal of Zeal for and Satisfaction in Religion that upon their causless Defection from the Churches Communion have run from Sect to Sect and from one extravagant Opinion to another till being at last convinced of the Cheats and Impostures of them all they have discarded Religion it self and made their last Resort into Atheism and Infidelity Since therefore Schism hath so many Mischiefs attending it and such as do manifestly endanger our Perseverance in Religion it highly concerns us as we would hold out to the End in the Course of our Christian Warfare to keep close to the Communion of the Church VI. TO our final Perseverance in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should not stint our Progress in Religion out of a fond Opinion that we are good enough already to any determinate Degrees or Measures of Goodness For thus we are injoyned not only to have Grace but still to be growing in it 2 Pet. iii. 18 and not only to do the work of the Lord but to abound in the doing it 1 Cor. xv 58 and not only to walk in all wel-pleasing to God but to abound in so doing more and more 1 Thes. iv 1 to forget what is behind i. e. the Degrees of Vertue and Goodness we have already attained and to be still pressing forward to the mark of our high calling Phil. iii. 13 14. The sense of all which is that we should not limit our selves to any present Attainments out of a slothful Opinion that we are good enough already but that we should still be proceeding on to farther and farther Degrees of Perfection For Holiness is every where injoyned in the Gospel in unlimited and indefinite Measures and our Progress in it hath no other Boundary than the farthermost Degree of possible Perfection An Injunction which will keep us for ever sufficiently imployed and oblige us to Eternity to be still aspiring beyond our present Attainments and the Neglect of this is doubtless the Occasion of many a Mans final Miscarriage They aim at no more than what is absolutely necessary to remove them from the Brink of eternal Perdition and if they can but so far prevail against their Sin as to arrive at the lowermost Degree of Sincere Obedience and but just pass the Line which separates between a bad and good State that so if they die as they are they may hope to escape Hell and arrive at some Degree of Happiness they think they have very fairly acquitted themselves But now besides that that Line which parts those two States of Sin and Grace is not so easily discernable but that you may very probably be deceived and imagine that you are got over it into the State of Grace whilst you are yet upon the Frontiers of the Dominion of Sin and so may perish at last at the very Mouth of your Harbour besides that 't is a fearful Sign that you are yet in your Sins that you design no farther but just to escape that everlasting Ruine that attends them which plainly shews that the Fear of Hell is the Soul of your Religion and that there is not the least Degree of true Love to God intermingled with it without which your Religion will be altogether insignificant besides all this I say
to him our sincere willingness to do not only what we should have been obliged to if we had not been injurious but also what we are obliged to since we have been injurious Now as actual Reparation so far as we are able is necessary to evidence this when we remember the Injuries we have done so an extraordinary Charity is no less necessary to evidence this when we have forgotten them And this I suppose is the meaning of that Parallel Passage of St. James c. v. v. 20. he that converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins i. e. by such an illustrious Act of Charity to the Soul of his Brother he shall obtain Pardon of God for many of those forgotten Injuries which he hath formerly done and is now no otherwise able to repair So that if we would make sure Work of our Christian Warfare and ascertain its being finally Crowned with Success as in general we must indeavour to redeem the past Time we have spent in vicious Courses by abounding in the Practice of the contrary Vertues so in particular if for the time past we have lived in any of those injurious Courses which do naturally fix a more lasting Guilt upon the Mind we must take care not only to repair so far as we are able those Injuries we remember but also to wipe off the Guilt of those we have forgotten by an extraordinary Charity and Beneficence by laying hold of all Opportunities to do Good and indeavouring in our several Stations according as God hath inabled us to reduce the Souls relieve the Bodies and vindicate the Reputation of our Brethren X. AND lastly To our final Perseverance in wel-doing it is also necessary that we should labour after a Rational and wel-grounded Assurance of Heaven I put this in the last Place because 't is usually the last attain'd and is not to be presently expected and catch'd at as soon as we are entered into a religious State For there are a great many Stages of Religion to be past before we can modestly expect to arrive at Assurance In the Beginning of our Religion when we are just recovered out of a vicious State we cannot but be sensible if we do at all understand our selves that we are as yet in a great deal of Danger and do border so very near upon that bad State we are escap'd from that 't is almost impossible to distinguish whether we are in or out of it For though we are fully purposed and resolved against it yet we cannot well divine what will be the Issue of it Our Resolution is yet so young so raw and unexperienced and besieg'd with so many powerful counter-striving Inclinations that we cannot confide in it without great Folly and Presumption For till sufficient Trial hath been made of it for all that we know it may prove to be only a Godly Mood or a short Lucid Interval between the raving Fits of our Lust and extravagant Affections which in a few days perhaps may return again and utterly alienate and distract us from all our sober Counsels and Purposes And if it should so happen that which we now look upon as our Cure and Recovery will prove but an Intermission of our Disease And when for sometime we have tryed our Resolution and found that hath bravely resisted those Temptations that have hitherto assaulted it yet we cannot presently be reasonably assured of it considering the fickleness and Inconstancy of our Nature For it may be it hath not been yet assaulted on the weak Side or it hath not been nick'd with a seasonable Temptation or it may be we may be more remiss and careless another time or more vehemently inclined to a vicious Complyance and then those Temptations which we have hitherto conquered may captivate and subdue us And if it thus happen that which we now look upon as an everlasting Breach between us and our Lusts may prove only a Pet or short Distast and like the Fallings out of Lovers end in the renewing of Love And till we have made some considerable Progress in the mortification of our sinful Inclinations and the Acquisition of their contrary Habits our Religion will have so many Flaws Defects and Imperfections in it as will give us great Reason if we have any modesty in us to be very fearful and jealous of it But since without Sincerity in Religion we can have no Title to Heaven it hence follows that without a clear Sense of our Sincerity we can have no Assurance of our Title to it and such a clear Sense as is necessary to found such an Assurance on is not to be acquired you see without a thorough Tryal of our Resolution in a long and vigorous Course of Religion So that for men to be immediatly snatching at Assurance as soon as ever they are entred into a good Life argues them not to be so sensible as they should be of their own Imperfection and Frailty they ought in Modesty to expect a while and not conclude too soon for themselves till they have made a through Tryal of their Resolution and in the mean time to strive on in Hope that by the Blessing of God concurring with their Endeavours they shall at last attain such a certain Sense and Feeling of their own Sincerity as will be sufficient to infer a firm and rational Assurance For Assurance being the Top of Christian Attainment we must ascend to it gradually by the intermediate Staves and Rounds of a tryed and lasting Obedience and not leap up in an Instant before we have taken all the Steps and Degrees that lead thither BUT though we ought not to be too forward in our Assurance yet we are bound to labour after it in a due and regular Way that is to persist in our Obedience till we have reduced our inward and outward Motions to such a Degree of Conformity to the Standard of the Gospel as that upon comparing our selves with it we may be able without Flattery or Presumption to conclude our own Sincerity and Vprightness I know there is a much shorter Passage to Assurance which some of late have pretended to and that is by certain unaccountable Incomes and Manifestations of Gods Spirit who as they pretend doth immediatly whisper and reveal to them their Title and Interest in Heaven But this alas is too much like the North-east Passage to the Indies which is shorter indeed if it could be found but so very dangerous that I doubt there are but few that attempt it but miscarry and 't is well if they do not finally perish in the Discovery Not that I do in the least doubt but God doth many times suggest and whisper unspeakable Comforts and Assurances to the Minds of good men but then it is to be considered that this is an arbitrarious Gift which he seldom if ever bestows but in extraordinary Cases when 't is necessary to encourage
us to some great Work or to support us under some extraordinary Suffering For he is a wise and careful Father of his Children and knows 't is much more necessary for us to be good than to be ravished and transported and that such high Cordials are neither proper nor safe for us but in great Extremities and therefore for us to expect that he should make them our ordinary Food and Entertainment is an Argument of our Childish Ignorance and Presumption But though such immediate Whispers and Revelations may serve to good Purposes in a Pinch of Extremity yet are they by no means to be built upon as the Foundations of our ordinary standing Assurance For so long as there is an evil Spirit without and a disordered Fancy within us that can imitate these Whispers we shall be continually liable so long as we put Confidence in them to all the Cheats and Impostures of natural and Diabolical Enthusiasm and unavoidably mistake many an Injection of the Devil and many a warm Flush of Fancy or brisk Fermentation of melancholy Humour for a Whisper and Testimony of the spirit of God and by this means be often lull'd into false Confidences and Assurances which like Golden Dreams will vanish when we awake and leave us miserably disappointed That Assurance therefore which we are to aim at must be founded in the Testimony of a good Conscience and infer'd from the Sense of our own Integrity and Uprightness AND this we are commanded to indeavour after so Heb. x. 22 we are bid to draw near unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Confidence or full assurance of faith that is in a firm Persuasion of Gods Love to us and our Interest in his Promises which Persuasion is to be founded upon an inward Sense of our having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies wash'd with pure water and accordingly Heb. vi 11 to be diligent in good works to the full assurance of hope unto the end i. e. to be so diligent in our Duty as that we may thereby acquire such a full Assurance of our Reward as may inable us to continue and hold out to the End For so St. John tells us that 't is by the Integrity of our Vertue and particularly of our love to one another that we are to assure our hearts before God 1 Joh. iii. 14 19. for saith he v. 21 if our hearts condemn us not then have we confidence towards God and for this purpose among others the same Apostle tells us he wrote this Catholick Epistle that true Christians might know and be assured that they had eternal life 1 Joh. v. 13 FROM all which 't is evident that 't is our Duty to labour after such an Assurance of Heaven as naturally ariseth from the clear and certain Sense of our Sincerity towards God and the firm Belief of the Promise of eternal Life to which our Sincerity intitles us For when we are so far improved in Religion as that upon an impartial Surveigh of our selves we can feel our own Integrity and sensibly perceive that our Intention is pure our Resolution fixt and our Heart intirely devoted to God we may from thence most certainly infer our Title and Interest to the Promise of Heaven So that to the obtaining this Assurance all that we have to do is so far to purifie our Intentions from sinister Aims and subdue our bad Inclination to our Resolution of Obedience as that when ever we reflect upon and compare our selves with the Rule our Conscience may be able without any Diffidence to pronounce us sincere and then we may as certainly conclude our Interest in Heaven as we can that Gods Promises are true and if after we are thus far improved in Religion we still remain unassured it proceeds not from the Want of sufficient Evidence but either from a melancholy Temper or a weak Faith or a misinformed Conscience and whichsoever of these is the Cause of it when that is once removed we shall as plainly feel our own Sincerity and therein our Interest in Heaven as we do now our bodily Passions And having once attained this Assurance 't will animate our Hearts with an Heroick Courage against all Temptations and carry us on with unspeakable Alacrity through all the remaining Stages of our Duty it will invigorate our Endeavours and wing our Activity and make us all Life and Spirit in the Exercises of our holy Religion And as when the Christian Army after a tedious march towards the Land of Canaan came within view of the holy City and beheld afar off the Towers and Turrets of Hierusalem they were so Ecstacied with Joy that they made the Heavens ring with triumphant Shouts and Acclamations and as if that Sight had given new Souls to them ran on upon their Enemies with a Courage that forced Victory where-ever they came so when a good Man after a long Progress from one Degree of Vertue to another is got so far as that from a certain Sense and Feeling of his own Sincerity he can discern the new Hierusalem above and his own Interest in it that blessed Sight will fill him with so much Joy Courage and Alacrity that no Temptation for the future will be able to withstand or interrupt him So that his Conscience will be always ringing with Acclamations of Victory and the remainder of his March will be all a Triumphal Progress to him and when he comes to the Conclusion of it to die and pass the Gate of this blessed City the firm Assurance which he hath of Admittance will dispel the Fears sweeten the Troubles and asswage the Pangs and Agonies of the dolorous Passage So that he will die not only with Peace but with Joy and go away into Eternity with Hallelujahs in his Mouth If therefore we mean to bring this our spiritual Warfare to a happy Conclusion it concerns us now while we have Opportunity to labour after a wise and well-grounded Assurance of Heaven SECT VI. Containing certain Motives to Press men to the Practice of these Duties of Perseverance in the Christian Warfare HAVING in the foregoing Section described all those Duties which appertain to the last Part of our Christian Warfare to wit final Perseverance and shewn how effectually they all contribute thereunto I shall now according to my former Method conclude with some Motives to press and persuade men to the Practice of them all which I shall deduce from the Consideration of the great and urgent Necessity of our final Perseverance to which those Duties are such necessary Helps and Means For unless we take in the Assistance of these Duties in all Probability we shall never be able to hold out to the End and unless we persevere to the End we are guilty of the most fatal and mischievous piece of Folly in the World For Consider 1. If after we have made some Progress in Religion we wilfully relapse we shall go back much faster than ever we have
Creatures which if it be 't will hence necessarilly follow that as his Hatred must convert into Love to us when from wicked we become good so his Love must convert into Hatred of us when from good we degenerate into wicked Which Alteration of his Affection towards us proceeds not from any change in his Nature but from a change in ours he always proceeds upon steady and unchangeable Priniciples and is for ever fixt and constant to the Reasons of his Love and Hatred which he could not be if he did not alter his Affection to us when the Reason of it is altered if he did not abominate us when he sees us fallen and degenerated from that State of Goodness for teh sake of which he loved us and took pleasure in us So that by wilfully retreating from our religious Progress we do not only Extinguish all those good Effects which it had produced in our Natures not only revive those inveterate Lusts we had almost mortified and blast those tender Graces which we had therein acquired and improved but as a Consequence of this we run out of Gods Arms and Embraces and throw our selves head-long from those glorious Hopes to which we have been all this while advancing with so much Labour and Difficulty What a Madness therefore is it for men to think of retreating that have once actually ingaged in the Christian Warfare to surrender themselves back into Captivity to their Lusts after they have fought so many Combats against and obtained so many Victories over them O consider but the great Pains you have been at the many Prayers and Tears Abstinencies and Self-denials Struggles and Convertion with your selves that it hath cost you to retrieve your selves from the Dominion of Sin and the just Vengeance of God and is it not a thousand Pities that all this should prove lost Labour in the End and be rebder'd as fruitless and insignificant to us as if it had never been that after you have taken so much Pains to stem the difficult Tyde and are at last got within fight of Shore you should now faint and yield to the Fury of it and suffer your selves to be born down by it again into that Ocean of Sin and Guilt out of which you were so safely recovered Wherefore as you would not render your albour in vain in the Lord and utterly defeat your selves of all the Fruit of your Religious Endeavours be still persuaded to struggle and contend to strive and press forward to the mark of your high-calling For if now you slacken or remit your Endeavourse yield to the Current of Temptation you will soon be driven down by it again as far from the Love of God and from the Hope of HEaven as ever you were in the most degenerate State of your Natures III. CONSIDER that if by willfully sinning we retreat from our Christian Warfare we shall forfeit the Fruit of our Labour after we have undergon the greatest Difficulty of it For as I shewed above the main Difficulty of the Christian Warfare lies in the Entrance of it and this I suppose you to have already past You have already indured those sharep Pangs and Throws that are wont to accompany the Birth of a new Resolution you have undergon the hard Pennance of a deep and through Consideration the sharp Stings and Remorses of a solemn and sorrowful Repentance you have forc'd your most Importunate Inclinations and withstood the most violent Counter-struggling of a perverse and denegerate Nature you have Conquered your Will in the Height of all its Obstinacy and Resistance and Rescued it from the Arms of your Lusts when 't was most inslaved and captivated by them all this you did if you did any thing to any purpose when you first entered upon this holy Walfare And ever since you have been breaking the Strength of your evil Inclinations and conquering the Antipathies of your Nature to your Religion in which if you have made any Progress you must by this Time have broken the Heart of the Difficulty of your Warfare and have much less Opposition to contend with than ever So that now in all Probability there is nothing so difficult between you and Heaven as that which you have already ingaged with and surmounted and will you now turn your backs upon your Enemy when his main Strength is spent and you have already sustained the most violent Shocks of his Power If you had retreated at the first Onset when your Sin was seated in its Dominion and you were yet but raising your Forces and arming your Resolution against it it had been much more excusable for then you had the sharpest Part of your Conflict to undergo being to contend with a flusht and a victorious Enemy who having as yet all his Strength about him could not fail to put your Courage to a mighty Tryal But now to retreat when you are past the worst and have gotten above half Way through when you have pulled down your Lust from its Throne and Dominion and so far subdued it to your Religion and your Reason that you have henceforward no more to do but to pursue a Victory which though you got with a great deal of Toil you may finish with a great deal of Ease and Pleasure now I say to retreat in such a prosperous Juncture and give up the blessed Prize which you have been so long contending for what desperate Madness is it If you had never begun this Warfare or yielded in the first Conflict of it what a deal of Pains might you have saved How many Prayers and Tears Struglings and Contentions with your selves might you have escaped and avoided and at last been in as good a Condition if not a better than that wherein your Apostacy will certainly leave you And when a man hath been so long taking Heaven by Storm and Violence when he hath broken through so many Oppositions to come at it and in Despite of all the Darts of Temptation from without and of all the Weights and Pressures of Inclination from within he is gotten up as it were to the Top of the Scaling-Ladder has laid hands on the Battlements of Heaven and is ready to leap in and take Possession of the Joys of it what a Madness is it for him now to let go his Hold and tumble headlong down again into that Abyss of Sin and Misery out of which he had recovered himself with so much Labour and Difficulty Especially considering IV. THAT by this our Relapse we shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but also render our Recovery more hazardous and difficult than ever For what the Apostle pronounces concerning Apostates from Christianity is in a great Measure applicable to those who having ingaged in the Christian Warfare fall off from it again to their old sinful Courses it is impossible i. e. 't is extreamly difficult for those that were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made
than these worldly things which are continually pressing upon our Senses we should as oft as we have Opportunity withdraw our Thoughts from these sensible Objects and retire into the immaterial World and there entertain our selves with the close View and Contemplation of the Joys and Glories it abounds with For we are a sort of Beings that being compounded of Flesh and Spirit are by these opposite Principles of our Nature ally'd to two opposite Worlds and placed in the middle between Heaven and Earth as the common Center wherein those distant Regions meet By our spiritual Nature we hold Communion with the spiritual World and by our corporeal with this earthly and sensible one whose Objects being always present with us and striking as they do immediately upon our Senses we lye much more bare and open to them than to those of the spiritual World So that unless we now and then withdraw our selves from these sensible things which hang like a Cloud between we can never have a free Prospect into that clear Heaven above them And hence it becomes necessary that we should now and then make a solemn Retirement of our Thoughts from earthly Objects and Enjoyments that so we may approach near enough to Heaven to touch and feel the Joys and Pleasures of it which while we transiently behold in this Croud of worldly Objects is plac'd at such a Distance from us that it looks like a thin blew Landskip next to nothing and hath not apparent Reality enough in it to raise our Desires and Expectations AND hence we are commanded to set our affections upon or as it is in the original to mind those things that are above Col. iii. 2 and that by these things above he means the Enjoyments of Heaven it 's plain from v. 1. where he expresly tells us that by the above in which these things are he means Heaven where Christ sits at the right hand of God So that the Sence of the Precept is this that we should fix in our Minds such lively Representations of the Glory and Reality of the Celestial State as may raise in our Hearts a longing Desire and earnest Expectation of being made partakers of it Which Hope and Expectation he elsewhere injoyns us to put on for an Helmet i. e. for a necessary Piece of defensive Armour against the Difficulties and Discouragements of our Christian Warfare 1 Thes. v. 8 and Heb. vi xix this hope which enters into that within the veil i. e. into Heaven is said to be the Anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast i. e. 't is that which stayes and secures the Soul in the midst of those many Storms of Temptation it meets withall in its Voyage to Heaven and it being so we are bid to look to and imitate our Blessed Lord who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is now sat down at the right hand of God Heb. xii 2 The meaning of all which is that we should earnestly indeavour to fix in our minds a vigorous Sense and Expectation of that immortal Happiness with which God hath promised to crown all that come off Conquerors from this spiritual Warfare that all along as we march we should keep Heaven in our Eye and incourage our selves with the Hope of it to charge through all those Difficulties and Temptations that oppose us in the way in a word that we should frequently awaken in our minds the glorious Thoughts of a blessed Immortality and possess our selves with a lively Expectation of injoying it if we hold out to the End WHICH is a Duty of a vast Consequence to us in the Course of our spiritual Warfare For Heaven being the End and Reward of our Warfare must needs be the grand Encouragement thereunto and consequently if once we lose Sight of Heaven and suffer earthly things to interpose and eclipse the Glory and Reality of it our Courage will never be able to bear up against those manifold Temptations that do continually assault us But whilst we continue under a lively Sense of that blessed Recompence of Reward that will so spirit and invigorate our Resolution that nothing will be able to withstand it and all the Terrors and Allurements that Sin can propose will be forced to fly before it and to retreat like so many impotent Waves that dash against a Rock of Adamant For while we are under a lively Sense and Expectance of the Happiness above we live as it were in the Mid-way between Heaven and Earth where we have an open Prospect of the Glories of both and do plainly see how faint and dim those below are in comparison with those above how they are forced to sneak and disappear in the presence of those eternal Splendors and to shroud their vanquisht Beauties as the Stars do when the Sun appears And whilst we interchangeably turn our eyes from one to t'other how fruitlesly do the Pleasures Profits and Honours below importune us to abandon the Joys and Glories above and with what Indignation do we listen to the proposals of such a senseless and ridiculous Exchange And could we but always keep our selves at this stand we should be so fortified with the Sight of those happy Regions above that no Temptation from below would ever be able to approach us and the sense that we are going on to that blessed State would carry us through all the weary Stages of our Duty with an indefatigable Vigour For what may a man not do with Heaven in his Eye with that potent I had almost said Omnipotent Encouragement before him To pull out a right Eye to cut off a right hand to tear a darling Lust from his Heart even when 't is wrapt about it and twisted with its Strings what an easie Atchievement is it to a man that hath a Heaven of immortal Glories in his View The Hope of which is enough to recommend even Racks Torments and turn the Flames of martyrdom into a Bed of Roses For 't was this blessed Prospect that inabled the Good old martyrs to triumph so gloriously as they did in the midst of their Sufferings they knew that a few Moments would put an End to their Miseries and that when once they had weather'd those short storms they should arive at a most blessed Harbour and be crowned at their landing and that from thence they should look back with infinite Joy and Delight upon the dangerous Sea they had escaped and for ever bless those Storms and Winds that drave them to that happy Ports for as the Author to the Hebrews tells us they sought a heavenly Countrey Heb. xi 14.16 XI AND lastly To the successful Progress of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should live in the frequent use of the publick Ordinances and Institutions of our Religion namely in the religious Observation of the Lords Day and in frequent Communion with one another in the Holy Sacrament both which
are of great Use to us in the Course and Progress of our spiritual Warfare For as for the Lords Day it is instituted and ever since the Apostles Time hath been observed in the Christian Church as a Day of publick Worship and weekly Thanksgiving for our Saviours Resurrection in which the great Work of our Redemption was consummated And certainly it must needs be of vast Advantage to be one day in seven sequester'd from the World and imployed in divine Offices in solemn Prayers Praises and Thanksgivings and be obliged to assist and edifie one another by the mutual Example and Vnion of our Devotions to hear the Duties of our Religion explained the Sins against it reprehended and the Doctrins of it unfolded and reduced to plain and easie Principles of Practice what a mighty advantage might we reap from all these blessed Ministries if we would but attend to them with that Concern and Seriousness which the matter of them requires and deserves Especially if when the publick Offices are over we would not let loose our selves all the rest of the Day as we too frequently do to our secular Cares and Diversions and thereby choak those good Instructions we have heard and stifle those devout and pious Affections which have been raised and excited in us but instead of so doing we would devote at least some good Portion of it to the Instruction of our Families and to the private Exercise of our Religion to Meditation and Prayer to the Examination of our selves concerning our past Behaviour and the reinforcing our Resolution to behave our selves better for the future if I say we would thus spend our Lords Day we should doubtless find our selves better Men for it all the Week after we should go into the World again with much better Affections and stronger Resolutions with our Graces more vigorous and our bad Inclinations more reduced and tamed and whereas the Jews were to gather Manna enough on their sixth Day to feed their Bodies on the ensuing Sabbath we should gather Manna enough upon our Sabbath to feed and strengthen our Souls all the six days after BUT to this we must also add frequent Communions with one another in the Holy Sacrament which is an Ordinance instituted on purpose by our blessed Saviour for the improving and furthering us in our Christian Warfare For besides that herein we have one of the most puissant Arguments against Sin represented by visible Signs to our Sense viz. the bloody Sacrifice of our blessed Lord to expiate and make Atonement for it besides that those bleeding Wounds of his which are here represented by the breaking of the Bread and pouring out of the Wine do proclaim our Sins his Asassines and Murderers the thought of which if we had any ingenuity in us were enough to incense in us the most implacable Indignation against them besides that his Sufferings for our Sins of which this sacred Solemnity is a lively Picture do horribly remonstrate Gods Displeasure against them who would not be induced to pardon them upon any meaner Expiation than the Blood of his Son than which Hell it self is not a more dreadful Argument to scare and terrifie us from them in a word besides that his so freely submitting and offering up himself to be a Propitiation for us of which this holy Festival is a solemn Commemoration is an expression of Kindness sufficient to captivate the most ungrateful Souls and extort Obedience from them besides all this I say as it is a Feast upon the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood it is a Federal Rite whereby God and we by feasting together do accordingly to the antient Customs both of Jews and Heathens mutually oblige our selves to one another whereby God by giving us the mystical Bread and Wine and we by receiving them do mutually ingage our selves to one another upon those sacred Pledges of Christs Body and Blood that we faithfully perform each others Part of that everlasting Covenant which was purchased by him And what can be a greater Restraint to us when we are solicited to any Sin than the sense of being under such a dreadful Vow and Obligation With what face dare we listen to any Temptation to Evil when we remember lately we solemnly ingaged our selves to the contrary and took the Sacrament upon it And verily I doubt 't is this that lies at the bottom of that seeming modest Pretence of Vnworthiness which men are wont to urge in Excuse for their Neglect of the Sacrament namely that they love their Lusts and cannot resolve to part with them and therefore are afraid to make such a solemn Abjuration of them as the eating and drinking the consecrated Elements implies And I confess if this be their Reason they are unworthy indeed the more shame for them but 't is such an Vnworthiness as is so far from excusing that it only aggravates their Neglect For for any man to plead that he dares not receive the Sacrament because he is resolved to sin on is to make that which is his Fault his Apology and to excuse one Sin with another Wherefore if we are heartily resolved by the Grace of God to reform and amend let us abstain no longer from this great Federal Rite upon Pretence of Vnworthiness For 't is by the use of this among other Means that we are to improve and grow more and more worthy For the very Repetition of our Resolution as I have shewed above is a proper Means of strengthning and confirming it and certainly it must needs be much more so when 't is renewed and repeated with the Solemnity of a Sacrament And therefore it is worth observing how much Care our Lord hath taken in the very Constitution of our Religion to oblige us to a constant solemn Repetition of our good Resolutions For at our first Entrance into Covenant with him we are to be baptized in which Solemnity we do openly renounce the Devil and all his Works and religiously devote our selves to his service But because we are apt to forget this our baptismal Vow and the Matter of it is continually to be performed and more than one World depends upon it therefore he hath thought fit not to trust wholly to this first Engagement but hath so methodized our Religion as that we are ever and anon obliged to give him new Security For which End he hath instituted this other Sacrament which is not like that of Baptism to be received by us once for all but to be often reiterated and repeated that so upon the frequent Returns of it we might still be obliged to repeat over our old Vows of Obedience For he hath not only injoyned us that we should do this in remembrance of him Luk. xxii 19 i. e. that we should celebrate this sacred Festival in the Memory of his Passion but by thus doing the Apostle tells us we are to continue the Memorial of it to the end of the World or to shew his death till he