on us is to shew wherein predominant Love to the world is inconsistent with the Love of God 1. Prop. Predominant love to the world is contrary to and therefore inconsistent with the love of God This seems evidently implied in our text If any man love the world c. John brings this as a reason of his prohibition namely that predominant love to the world and love to God are perfectly opposite and therefore by the rule of contraries incoherent and inconsistent The like Mat. 6.24 No man can serve two Masters For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon These words are a good Comment on our text and clearly demonstrate the Inconsistence of Love to the world with the Love of God I shall therefore a little insist on them The design of our Lord here is the same with that of John in our text namely to take off professors from inordinate predominant love to the world and bring them to a Divine Affection unto and living on God as their portion and treasure as v. 19 20 21 22 23. And v. 24. he shews the inconsistence of love to the world with love to God in that the world and God are contrary Lords who require each the whole heart and man This will more fully appear if we examine the particulars He saith No man can serve It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serve (q) Intelligendum est hoc proveâ—bium de Dâ—minis Solidum quomodo Juris consâ—lri dicunt non posse duos esse Dominos ejusdem rei Grot. Now to serve another according to the laws and customs of those times and Nations was to have no power or right to dispose of himself or any thing that belonged to him but to live and depend merely on the Pleasure of his Master Such a service could not be given to God and the world Why 1 Because they are two Masters i. e. in Solidum each of which require the whole heart and man 1 Because they are two (r) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost contrary Masters which commands us to esteem love and endeavour after worldly treasures more than heavenly God commands us to esteem love and endeavour after heavenly treasures more than earthly The world commands you to engage no farther in matters of Religion than may consist with its Interest But Christ commands you to part with all worldly Interest for himself The world commands you to take your fill of the creature to suck out the sweets thereof and feed your hearts therewith But Christ commands you to use this world as if you used it not 1 Cor. 7.31 to affect an universal privation of these lower goods even whilst you enjoy them to give perishing things perishing thoughts esteem and desires to bid farewell to all things so far as they are a snare to you or a sacrifice that God calls for Again the world commands you to endeavour the greatning of your names and reputation But Christ commands you to glory in nothing but his Cross to account abasement for Christ your greatest Honour Lastly the world commandeth you not to be scrupulous about small sins but to take your liberry and latitude But Christ commandeth you to dread the least sin more than the greatest suffering Now how contrary and Inconsistent are these Masters in their Commands Is it possible then that we should be Masters of such contrary Loves O! how doth love to the world eat out love to God 2 Predominant Love to the world is inconsistent with the Love of God in that it robs God of that Love and Honour which is due to him as the Soveraign Chiefest Good according to what measure the heart turns to the world and its concerns in the same measure it turns from God and his concerns When the heart is full of the world how soon is all sense of and love to God choaked how is the Mind bemisted an Will charmed with the painted heart-bewitching shadows of the World This was Israel's Case Hos 10.1 Israel is an empty vine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expositors have variety of Conceptions on these words but the most simple sense seems this Israel is (Å¿) vitis evacuans an evacuant luxuriant Vine which seems to bring forth such abundance of fruit as if she would empty her self of all her juice and fruits at once so richly laden with fruit doth she seem to be Ay but what fruit is it Surely fruit unto her self rotten corrupt fruit her heart and love is not bestowed on God but on her Idols So it follows v. 2. Their heart is divided i. e. This beloved Idol hath one part that another and thus God is robbed of that esteem and love which is due to him 3 Love to the World breeds Confidence in the World whereby the heart is turned off from its Dependence on God as its first cause And O! how inconsistent is this with the love of God God as he is our Last End in point of Fruition so also our first principle or Cause in point of Dependence Now love to the world turns the heart from God to the World not only as the last end but also as the First Cause They that love the world cast the weight of their souls and chiefest concerns on the World and so bid Adieu to God This Confidence in worldly things is inconsistent with Salvation and so with the Love of God as Mark 10.24 How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God This Rhetorick Interrogation implies a Logick negation namely that it is impossible for one that in a prevalent degree trusteth in his riches to enter into the Kingdom of God So Psal 52.7 Lo this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthned or fortified himself in his wickedness or substance The like Prov. 11.28 Ezek. 16.15 1 Tim. 6.17 4 Love to the world is flat idolatry and herein also inconsistent with the Love of God So Eph. 5.5 nor Covetous man who is an Idolater The same Col. 3.5 and covetousness which is idolatry Covetousness is in a peculiar manner branded with this black mark of Idolatry in that it doth expresly proclaim a love to the world as its last end and confidence in it as its first cause So Paul saith of voluptuous persons that they make their belly their God Phil. 3.19 because they love pleasures more than God 2 Tim. 3.4 And indeed every lover of the world is a God-maker so many lusts as men have so many Gods The lust of the flesh makes pleasures its God the lust of the eye worships Riches as its God and the lust of pride exalts some created excellence in the place of God O! how do worldlings lose the true God in the croud of false Gods 5
the Delices of Heaven seem bitter to a Sensual Worldling What makes the heart poorer as to things Divine than the love of worldly Riches How is the Honour of Christ and Religion degraded in that heart which affects worldly Honours what more powerfully stains the Glory of a Christian Profession than an ambitious affectation of Mundane Glory Where is that professor who has his heart engaged in the world without being defiled by it if not drowned in it The world is filled with such a contagious air as that our love is soon poysoned and infected by it Love to the world is the Devil's Throne where he lords it the Helm of the Ship where he sits and steers the Soul Helwards This was the bitter root of Lot's wife her Apostasie from God So Gen. 19.26 But his wife looked back from behind him She had left her heart in Sodom and thence she looks back after it contrary to God's Command v. 17. And what was the Issue of her Apostasie She became a pillar of Salt i. e. She partaked of Sodom's Plague which was brimstone and and salt Deut. 29.23 the storm which fell on Sodom overtook her and turned her into a Pillar of Salt as a standing Monument of God's Justice on Apostates who love the world more than God Whence saith our Lord Luk. 17.32 Remember Lot's wife What made Judas and Demas Apostatize but love to the world As man at first fell from God by loving the world more than God so he is more and more engaged in this Apostasie by love to the world 10 Love to the world transforms a man into the spirit and humour of the world which is inconsistent with the love of God Love makes us like to and so one with what we love For all love aims at Vnity and if it Comes short thereof yet it leaves Similitude which is imperfect Vnity Whence by love to the World men become like to and one with it (w) si terram amas terra es Aug. He that loves the earth is earthly A worldly Man is called Rom. 8.8 9 a fleshly man because his very soul becomes fleshly His heart is drowned in and incorporated with the world his Spirit becomes incarnate with the flesh 11 Yea Love to the world transforms a Man into a Beast and so makes him altogether incapable of Love to God So Psal 49.20 Man that is in honour and vnderstandeth not is like the Beasts that perish This verse is an Epiphonema to the Psalm with which he concludes that a man though never so great in the world yet if his heart cleave unto it he is no better than a Beast albeit he be a man by Nature yet he is a Beast by Affection and Operation Yea what shall I say Love to the world transforms a man into worse than a Beast For it is better to be a Beast than like to a Beast As love to God the Best Good makes us better than the best on other men so Love to the world which is the worst evil makes men worse than the worst of Beasts Love to the world is extatick as well as love to God and the more the heart cleaves to the the world the less power has it to return to God or it self The Application Sect. 6. The Application of the Subject Having Stated and explicated the Case before us we now descend to the several Improvements that may be made thereof both by Doctrinal Corollaries and practick Vses I. As for the Doctrinal Corollaries 1. Doctrinal Corollaries or Inferences that may be deduced from the precedent Discourse they are various and weighty I shall only mention such as more immediately and naturally flow there from 1. By Comparing the Love of God with the Love of the World in their Universal Ideas and Characters we learn How much the love of God doth Excel and transcend the Love of the world Our love is by so much the more perfect by how much the more noble and spiritual its Object is and by how much the more eminent degree it obtains in the subject The greatness of the Object intendeth the Affection And oh how much doth this raise the value of Love to God above worldly Love Is not God the most absolutely necessary Simple Being very Being yea Being it self and therefore most perfect whence is he not also our Last End our Choicest Good every way desireable for himself Then O! what an excellent thing is love to God who is so amiable But as for this world what a dirty whore what an heart-ensnaring thing is it and thence how much is our Love abased by terminating thereon The Love of God is pure and unspotted But O! how filthy and polluted is love to the World What more cordial and sincere than love to God But alas how artificial painted and hypocritick is love to this deceitful world O! how judicious wise and discreet is love to God what abundance of solid deep and spiritual reason has it in its bowels But oh what a brutish sottish passion is love to the world How foolish are all its lusts 1 Tim. 6.9 What a generous and noble Affection is love to God But what more sordid and base than love to this vile world Love to God is Regular and Uniform But O! what Irregularities and Confusions attend love to the World How Masculine puissant and potent is love to God But alas how Effeminate impotent and feeble is love to the World What more solid and Substantial than love to God and what more vain and empty than love to the World It deserves not the name of Love but Lust Worldly-minded men have a world of Lusts but what have they to fill them save a bag of empty wind and vexatious vanities Love to God is most temperate natural and so beautiful But ah what preternatural excessive and prodigious heats are there in Love to the World How is the Mind clarified and brightned by Love to God But oh how is it bemisted and darkened by Love to the World Divine love is the Best Philosopher and master of Wisdome The love of God amplifies and widens the Heart But the Love of the world doth confine and narrow it By Love to God we become Lords over all things beneath our selves But love to the world brings us into subjection to the most base of persons and things Worldly minded men can neither obey nor command their Lusts they cannot obey them because they are infinite and oft contrary they cannot command them by reason of their own feebleness Love to God is tranquil and serene but love to the world tempestuous and turbulent Love to God gives repose and quiet to the soul but love to the world fills it with perpetual agitations inquietude and restless motions without end Worldly love is a laesive passion but Divine love perfective of him that loves In sum love to God is of the same nature with God and therefore the most express Character of
8.36 All they that hate me Love death i. e. in its Causes Oh! how cursed are such as cry up the world and cry down Christ 10. Lastly this Case as before stated is a good Key to open some dark and hard sayings in Scripture As that Mat. 19.24 It is easier for a camel to go thorow an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God Which is a proverbial speech denoting how difficult a thing it is for any rich man but how impossible it is for him that has a predominant love to his riches and so confidence in them to enter into the Kingdom of God as Mark 10.24 2. But to close up this discourse with a few Practick Improvements and Vses Practick Uses 1. This Case as before stated serves for the Conviction and Condemnation of such who profess love to God and yet love the world more than God Our Apostle saith Love not the world and yet what do these love but the world where is the Love which these owe to God And what hopes can such have of God's Love to them Alas how poor and narrow is the love of most Professors to God If they have some good liking to him yet how far short do they come of fervent love to him perhaps their Light and Profession is broad but O! how narrow is their Love to Christ And do not such as want love for Christ fall under the most dreadful curse that ever was even an Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16.22 which was the formule of the highest Excommunication among the Jews mentioned in Enoch's prophesie Jud. 14. and imports a binding over to the great day of Judgment at the coming of our Lord. And Oh! how soon will Christ meet such in a way of Judgment who will not now meet him in a way of love Alas what an hungry paradise have they whose love feeds not on Christ but the things of time Is there not a sting in every creature our love dotes on O! what abundance of Ingratitude and Injustice lies wrapped up in this Love to the world Can there be greater ingratitude than this to spend our choicest love on love-tokens conferred on us by God to wind up our hearts to the love of himself Is it not also the greatest Injustice to give that measure of Affection to the creature which is due to none but the creator Having so fair an opportunity I cannot but enter this solemn Protestation against all such as under a Profession of Love to God concele an adulterous Affection to this world O! think how soon this world will hugg you to death in its arms if your hearts attend to its bewitching charms Alas why should sick dreams run away with your hearts What are all those things your hearts lust after but the Scum Froth Dross and Refuse of the Creation Ah poor fools why are your hearts so much bewitched with the night-visions whorish Idols or Cursed nothings of time Remember how dear you pay for your Beloved Idols how much they are salted with the curse of God 2. Here is matter of doleful Lamentation that in days of so much Light and Profession of love to God Men should so much abuse themselves and the world by over loving of it O that painted shadows and dirty clay should run a way with our love is it not a deplorable case that the golden pleasures of this Idol world should find so much room in our hearts yea what matter of humiliation is this that professors of Love to God should lavish away so much time study care and affection on this perishing world Would it not make any serious heart to bleed when it considers how much the professors of this age are conformable to the fashions humors and lusts of this world O! what an abominable thing is it that professors should fall down and worship this great Idol the world that the sons of God should commit folly with this old Whore which the sons of men have lusted after so many thousand years alas what chains and fetters are there in the world's blandishments what real miseries in all her seeming felicities what do all her allurements serve for but to hide Satan's baits who are they that are most in love with the world but those that least know it Alas how little can this world add to or take from out happiness what hath this world to feed our Love but smoak and wind 3. Here is also a word of caution for professors to take heed how they make Religion and the concerns thereof subservient to worldly interest O! what a curse and plague is this to make the highest excellence subserve the vilest lusts and yet how common is it I tremble to think how far many professors will be found guilty hereof at the last day 4. But that which I mostly design as the close of this Discourse is some few words of Exhortation and Direction unto Christians 1 To labour after an holy contempt of this dirty soul-polluting world O! what an essential obligation do we all lye under to contemn the Grandeur and sun-burnt glory of this fading world What is there in this world you can call yours can you be content to have your Heaven made of such base mettal as mire and clay O what a transient thing is all the glory of this perishing world consider the argument which our Apostle useth in the words following our text 1 John 2.17 and the world i. e. all the splendor pomp beauty pleasures and grandeur of the world passeth away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a scene whereon men acted their parts and then passed away as 1 Cor. 7.31 alas were the world guilty of no other defect but this that it passeth away what a strong argument is this for the contempt thereof again remember this world is but your prison and place of pilgrimage and oh how scornful and disdainful is the pilgrims eye with how much scorn doth he behold other Countries and ought not Christians with a more generous disdain cry out fie fie this dirty world is not like my celestial Canaan Alas what have we here to rejoyce in but fetters and chains how soon doth the fashion of this world pass away 1 Cor. 7.31 i. e. the pageant or scene of worldly glory 2 As for you who are rich in this world consider seriously the exhortation of Paul 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. where having closed his Epistle he has this Divine Inspiration injected by the Spirit Charge them that are rich in this world that they he not high-minded nor trust in uncertain tiches but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy That they do good that they be rich in good works c. There were many rich Merchants at Ephesus where Timothy was who needed this exhortation as I think many among us 3 Here is a more particular word for Merchants Tradesmen and all such as are much engaged in the affairs of
under your care and are they to be neglected I have been the more large upon this Head because this sin is so common and of such dismal consequence and so little care is taken for the redress of it I come now to lay down the positive duties of Masters and that I shall do with somewhat more brevity 〈◊〉 First Let all Masters endeavour to be God's Servants True Religion and divine Principles in the heart will give a man the best measures of action the grace of God will teach him to deny his pride passion sensuality and worldly lusts and to live holily soberly and righteously in this present world Religion in its power O how lovely doth it make a man with what wisdom and prudence doth such an one act with what sweetness and love and yet with what majesty What a brave Master was Abraham and what made him so but the fear of God Mat. 11 28. this this will make a man merciful patient meek heavenly minded and yet diligent in his place this will make him exemplary and as much as in him lyes to act like God in his place And what injury can such a person do can he be cruel that hath such a Master as Christ can he find in his heart to be unmerciful who hath obtained mercy if a man be very holy himself his example will have a drawing power in it to allure to that which is so good and be a constant check to that which is bad Such a one is under the promise of God's blessing and he will teach him and give him wisdom to discharge the duty of his place He is made partaker of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Epictetus Philem. 2â— and so enabled in some measure to act in a conformity to the Divine will It was no small commendation which Paul gave of Philemon when he spake of the Church in his house When our first Parents were in their pure state what homage did all the creatures give them as their visible Lord and had not man by his fall forfeited this prerogative and by denying God's soveraignty lost their own they had no doubt still kept their dominion over the Creatures And now the more of holiness is in a man and the more near God and like him the more likely to get and keep a majesty and dominion in his place Pythagoras Surely great holiness commands respect and reverence and rather choose to have your inferiours reverence than fear you for admiration and love accompany reverence but hatred fear O! what a noble thing were man Hierocles if goodness and purity did always accompany superiority and government these are and shall be honourable in spite of malice it self A right worshipping of God is the captain of all vertue and when this Divine seed is cast into the soul Idem it lays the foundation of brave and true honour and respect such a one he offers himself a sacrifice to God and makes a Temple for God in himself and then in his family and such a Master who would grudg to serve How sweet must obedience then be when nothing is commanded but what God commands and it's interest and profit to obey O Sirs 1 Pet. 5 1. little do you think how much power a meek holy grave conversation hath who that hath the least spark of ingenuity in him will not be restrained if not conquered by it O that Masters would but try this way and if honouring God do not more secure their honour than severity then let me be counted a deceiver this this is the most effectual way to make Servants good 1 Sam. 1.21 to be good your selves this will bring them to a true relish of Religion when it is pressed upon them by precept and example I have known some Servants that have blessed the day that ever they saw their Masters faces O let your excellency allure and draw those under you as the Sun doth mens eyes Aâ— Epict. Anton l. 6. n. 27. or as meat and drink doth the hungry Secondly Endeavour the good of the souls of those under your charge with all your might be in travail to see Christ formed in their souls Rom. 10.1 Give them no rest till you have prevailed with them to be in good earnest for heaven allow them time for prayer reading of the Word hearing of good Sermons and for conversing with good Books commend to them Baxter's Call to the Vnconverted and Mr. Thomas Vincent's Explanation of the Assemblie's Catechism c. and observe what company they keep and if you know a holy experiâ—nced Servant commend their Society and example to them keep â—â—â—stent watch over your Servants remember what temptations they are exposed to know how they spend their time call them oft to an account and look well to your Books it will do them no hurt and you much good be oft in meekness and pity treating with them about their everlasting concerns and let your carriage bring full evidence along with it of your dear love to their immortal souls Labour as well as you can to convince them of the corruption of their nature of the evil of sin of their lost and undone state of their impotency and utter inability to save themselves or to make the least satisfaction to Divine justice or to bear that punishment that is due unto them for every sin shew them their absolute need of a Christ and that without him there is no salvation make them to understand what the new birth is what kind of change it is and how necessary and warn them of the danger of miscarriage in conversion and of taking up with a half work and resting in the outward part of Religion Mat. 5.20 Joh. 17.3 Prov. 3.17 Rom. 12.1 Mat. 11.28 1 Tim. 4.8 and their own righteousness Put them upon labouring to know God in Christ this is life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Do what you can possibly to convince their Judgments of the reasonableness profitableness and sweetness of Religion where it is in its reality vigour and constancy take off the imputations and aspersions which the unexperienced foolish Infidel would cast upon Christianity Cant. 5.16 Prov. 3.15 Never think you can commend Christ too much to them O! if you could allure their souls captivate their hearts and make them in love with him who is altogether lovely O! let them not alone till you see them deeply affected with these things expostulate the case with them frequently by themselves ask them what they think of the estate of their Souls and leave not with their sullen silence ask them plainly how they can eat or drink or sleep without Christ and pardon and what they mean to be so unconcerned Tell them that death may be nearer them than they imagine and that as death leaveth them judgment will find them Tell them that their stupidity is an effect
and grant that those things which the craft and subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us may be brought to nought and by the providence of his goodness may be dispersed that we his Servants being hindred by no persecution may give thanks to him in his holy Church and serve him in holiness and pureness of life to his Glory through Jesus Christ Vse 3 You may see hence how much those men are mistaken who talk of the Good Works or Lives of Christians as that which must have no honour lest it dishonour God As if all the honour were taken from Christ which is given to Good Works and the Patients health were the dishonour of the Physitian When we are Redeemed and Purified to be zealous of good works and created for them in Christ Jesus as Tit. 2.14 Eph. 2.10 Yea and shall be judged according to our Works This Informeth you that the Good Works or Lives of Christians is a Vse 4 Great means ordained by Christ for the Convincing of Sinners and the Glorifying of God in the World Preaching doth much but it is not appointed to do all The Lives of Preachers must also be a convincing Light And all true Christians Men and Women are called to Preach to the World by their Good Works And a Holy Righteous and Sober Life is the great Ordinance of God appointed for the saving of your selves and others O that the Lord would bring this close to all our hearts Christians if you abhor dumb Teachers because they starve and betray Souls take heed lest you condemn your selves you owe Men the convincing helps of a holy fruitful life as well as the Preacher owes them his Ministry Preach by well-doing shine out in good works or else you are no Lights of Christ but betrayers of Mens souls you rob all about you of a great Ordinance of God a great means appointed by him for mens Salvation The world will judge of the Scriptures by your Lives and of Religion by your Lives and of Christ himself by your Lives If your Lives are such as tend to perswade men that Christians are but like other Men yea that they are but self-conceited Sinners as Carnal Sensual Uncharitable Proud Self-seeking Worldly Envious as others and so that Christianity is but such This is a horrid blaspheming of Christ how highly soever your Tongues may speak of him and how low soever your Knees may bow to him O that you knew how much of God's great Work of Salvation in the world is to be done by Christians Lives Your Lives must teach men to believe that there is a Heaven to be won and a Hell to be escaped Your Lives must help Men to believe that Christ and his Word are true Your Lives must tell Men what Holiness is and convince them of the need of Regeneration and that the Spirit of Sanctification is no fancy but the witness of Jesus Christ in the world Your Lives must tell Men by Repentance and Obedience that sin is the greatest Evil and must shew them the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked Yea the Holiness of God must be Glorified by Your Lives Father Son and Holy Ghost the Scripture the Church and Heaven it self must be known much by our Lives And may not I say then with the Apostle 2 Pet. 3.11 What manner of Persons then ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness when the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us to deny ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2.11 12. Vse 5 But alas What suitable and plentiful matter doth this offer us for our Humiliation and Lamentation on such a day as this A floud of Tears is not too much to lament the scandals of the Christian world With what wounded Hearts should we think of the State of the Churches in Armenia Syria Egypt Abassia and all the oppressed Greeks and all the poor deceived and oppressed Papists and all the ignorant Carnal Protestants O how unlike are your Lives to your Christian Faith and to the Pattern left them by their Lord Doth a worldly proud and fleshly and contentious Clergy Glorifie God Doth an ignorant Ministry Glorifie him who understand not the Message which they should deliver Will the world turn Christians by seeing Christians seek the blood and ruine of each other And hearing even Preachers Reproach each other Or seeing them silence or persecute each other Or by seeing the People run into many Sects and separate from one another as unworthy of Christian Communion Will Proud Ignorant Censorious Fleshly Worldly Professors of Religion ever draw the World to love Religion Or will peevish self-willed impatient discontented Souls that are still wrangling crying and repining make men believe that their Religion rejoyceth blesseth and satisfieth the Soul and maketh men far happier than all others in the world Alas what wonder that so small a part of the world are Christians and so few converted to the love of Holiness when the Great Means is denied them by you which God hath appointed for their Conversion and the world hath not one Helper for a hundred or thousand that it should have You cry out of those that put out the Church-lights under pretence of snuffing them while your selves are Darkness or as a stinking Snuff O Brethren and Christians all I beseech you let us now and often closely ask our selves What do we more than an Antonine a Seneca or a Cicero or a Socrates did beyond opinions words and formalities What do you which is like to convert the world to convince an Infidel or glorifie God Nay do not some among us think that it is the height or part of their Religion to live so contrary to the world as to be singular from others even in lawful or indifferent things and to do little or nothing which the world thinks well of As if crossing and displeasing men needlesly were their winning conversation O when once we go as far beyond them in love humility meekness patience fruitfulness mortification self-denial and heavenliness as we do in opinions profession and self-esteem then we shall win Souls and glorifie God and he will also glorifie us And here we see the wonderful mercy of God to the World who Vse 6 hath appointed them so much means for their Conviction and Salvation So many Christians as there be in the World so many Practical Preachers and helps to mens Conversion are there appointed by God And let the blame and shame lye on us where it is due and not on God if yet the World remain in darkness It is God's Will that every Christian in the World should be as a Star to shine to sinners in their darkness and O then how gloriously would the World be bespangled and enlightned If you say Why then doth not God make Christians better That is a question which cannot be well answered without a
conformity with the will of God which is the highest liberty where the x 2 Cor. 3.17 spirit of the Lord is there is liberty It is a poor liberty that consists in an indifferency Do not the Saints in heaven love God freely yet they cannot but love him As the only Efficient cause of our loving God is God himself so the only procuring cause of our loving God is Jesus Christ that Son of the Father's love who by his Spirit implants and actuates this grace of love which he hath merited for us Christ hath a Col. 1.20 made peace through the blood of his Cross Christ hath as well merited this grace of love for us as he hath merited the reward of glory for us Plead therefore Dear Christians the merit of Christ for the inflaming your hearts with the love of God that when I shall direct to rules and means how you may come to love God you may as well address your selves to Christ for the grace of love as for the pardon of your want of love hitherto Bespeak Christ in some such but far more pressing language Lord thou hast purchased the grace of love for those that want and crave it my love to God is chill do thou warm it my love is divided Lord do thou unite it I cannot love God as he deserves O that thou would'st help me to love him more than I can desire Lord make me sick of love and then cure me Lord make me in this as comfortable to thy self as 't is possible for an adopted Son to be like the Natural that I may be a Son of God's love both actively and passively and both as near as it is possible infinitely Let 's therefore address our selves to the use of all those means and helps whereby love to God is b Fovetur augetur excitatur exeritur nourished encreased excited and exerted I will begin with removing the impediments we must clear away the rubbish e're we can so much as lay the Foundation Impediment 1. Self-love Impediments of our love to God this the Apostle names as Captain general of the Devil's Army whereby titular Christians manage their enmity against God in the dregs of the last dayes this will make the times dangerous Men shall be lovers of their own c 2 Tim. 3.1 2. selves When men over-esteem themselves their own endowments of either body or mind when they have a secret reserve for self in all they do self-applause or self-profit this is like an errour in the first concoction get your hearts discharg'd of it or you can never be spiritually healthful the best of you are too prone to this I would therefore commend it to you to be jealous of your selves in this particular for as conjugal-jealousie is the bane of conjugal love so self-jealousie will be the bane of self-love Be suspicious of every thing that may steal away or divert your love from God Imped 2. Love of the world this is so great an obstruction that the most loving and best beloved Disciple that Christ had said (d) 1 Joh. 2.15 love not the world nor the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him and the Apostle James makes use of a Metaphor (e) Jam. 4.4 calling them Adulterers and Adulteresses that keep not their conjugal love to God tight from leaking out toward the world he chargeth them as if they knew nothing in Religion if they knew not this that the friendship with the world is enmity with God and 't is an universal truth without so much as one exception that whosoever will be a friend of the world must needs upon that very account be God's enemy the Apostle Paul adds more weight to those that are e'en press'd to Hell already (f) 1 Tim. 6.9 10 11. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves thorow with many sorrows but thou O man of God flee these things c. when men will be some-body in the world they will have Estates and they will have honours and they will have pleasures what variety of vexatious distractions do unavoidably hinder our love to God when our hearts are hurried with hopes and fears about worldly things and the world hath not wherewithall to satisfie us how doth the heart fret under its disappointments and how can it do otherwise we would have happiness here Sirs I 'le offer you fair name me but one man that ever found a compleat happiness in the world and I dare promise you shall be the second but if you will flatter your self with dreams of impossibilities this your way will be your folly though 't is like your posterity will approve your sayings (g) Psal 49.13 and try experiments while they live as you have done but where 's your love to God all this while 't is excluded by what Law by the Law of Sin and Death by the love of the world and destruction for Christ tells us all that hate him love death (h) Prov. 8.36 Imped 3. Spiritual sloath and carelessness of Spirit when men do not trouble themselves about Religion nor any thing that is serious Love is a busie passion a busie grace love among the passions is like Fire among the Elements Love among the Graces is like the Heart among the Members now that which is most contrary to the nature of love must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it the truth is a careless frame of Spirit is fit for nothing a sluggish lazy slothful careless person never attains to any excellency in any kind what is it you would intrust a lazy person about let me say this and pray think on 't twice e're you censure it once Spiritual sloath doth Christians more mischief than scandalous relapses I grant their grosser falls may be worse as to others the grieving of the Godly and the hardning of the wicked and the Reproach to Religion must needs be so great as may make a gracious heart tremble at the thought of falling but yet as to themselves a sloathful temper is far more prejudicial e. g. those gracious persons that fall into any open sin 't is but once or seldom in their whole life and their repentance is ordinarily as notorious as their sin and they walk more humbly and more watchfully ever after whereas Spiritual sloath runs through the whole course of our life to the marring of every duty to the strengthning of every sin and to the weakning of every grace Sloath I may rather call it unspiritual sloath is a soft moth in our spiritual wardrobe a corroding rust in our spiritual Armory an enfeebling consumption in the very vitals of Religion Sloath and
doth God mean to give me such a command as never to any one else in this world He consults not his Wife Oh what will Sarah say He sticks not at what might expose Religion What will the Heathen say You may well suppose great struglings between Nature and Grace but God seemed to press upon him with this Question Whether dost thou love me or thy child most Abraham doth as it were answer Nay Lord if that be the question it shall soon be decided how and where thou pleasest Another instance we have in Moses (k) Exod. 3.13 and 33.15.18 if you will compare two or three Scriptures Moses at first he enquires of God as we do of a stranger what is his Name upon Gods further discovery he begs more of his special presence and upon God's granting of that his Love grows bold and he said I beseech thee shew me thy Glory upon his finding God propitious he begs that God would remove the cloud and shew him as much of his Glory as he was possibly able to bear the sight of Take one instance more and that is of Paul who thinking God might have more glory by saving of many than by saving of him was willing to quit the happiness of salvation for not the least Grace much less grace in the height of it could possibly choose a necessity of hating and blaspheming God which is the venom of Damnation but his Love to God is greater than his love to himself and so he 'l reckon himself happy without Glory provided God may be more glorified And thus I have produced three Examples of one before the Law one under the Law and one under the Gospel How will you receive it if I shall venture to say We have in some respect more cause to love God than any than all these Persons put together What singular gleams of warm Love from God they had more than we are in some respects exceeded by the noon-day light and heat of Gospel-love that we have more than they What love-visits God was pleased to give them are excelled by Christs as to them extraordinary presence among us What was to them a Banquet is to us our daily bread God opens the windowes of heaven to us God opens his very heart to us We may read more of the Love of God to us in one day than they could in their whole Life 2. Angels that unweariedly behold the face of God (l) Mat. 18.10 they refuse nothing that may evidence their love to God 'T is ordinarily the Devils work to be the Executioners of Gods wrath it is said (m) Psal 78.49 he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath and indignation and trouble by sending evil Angels among them but the good Angels will not stick at it when God requires it (n) 2 King 19.35 The Angel of the Lord went out and smote in the Camp of the Assyrians 185000. But now we have more cause to love God than the Angels God hath expressed greater Love to us in Christ than he hath to them He took no hold of Angels c. (o) Heb. 2.16 not any one of them receiv'd so much as the pardon of any one sin God would not bear with them in so much as the least tittle So soon as they ceased to love God with a perfect love God hated them with a perfect hatred And for the blessed Angels (p) Heb. 1.14 are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation but none of the Saints are to minister to the Angels in any thing How should we love such a Master but I have a Pattern to commend to you above the Angels 3. Christ and oh that the mention of Christs Love to his Father might transport us though Christ did nothing but (q) Joh. 8.29 what pleased his Father Christ suffered every thing that might please him ( ) Phil. 2.8 Christ obeyed every Command endured every Threatning that it was possible to endure and that to the intensive extent of them yet God dealt more hardly with Christ than ever he doth with any of us (s) Isa 53.10 It pleased the Father to bruise him and to put him to grief whereas the Church in the midst of her Lamentations must acknowledge (t) Lam. 3.33 he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of men yet Christ pray'd (u) Joh 17.23 that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me Should not we then pray and strive to love God as near as it is possible as Christ loved him Christ had not one hard thought of Gods severe Justice no not when he endur'd what was equivalent to the eternal torments of the Damned and shall our love shrink at Gods fatherly Chastisements Christs love to God did not abate while God poured out his Wrath and shall ours abate under Medicinal Providences whatever our outward condition is in this World 't is better than Christ's Thus I have endeavoured to acquaint you what Abilities are requisite and how to attain them that you may love God c. How to improve and augment our love to God 4. How to improve and augment all our possible abilities to love God with all our Heart Soul Mind and Strength and for this I shall give you one general yet singular direction though I must inform direct and press several things under it and that is set your selves to love God Set upon it as you are able do for the engaging of your love to God as you would do for engaging your hearts in love to a person commended to you for marriage Here 's a person commended to you which you never saw nor before heard of All the report you can hear speaks a great suitableness in the person and consequently happiness in the match you thereupon entertain the motion and a treaty to see whether reports be true and affections feasible though at first you find no affection on either side yet if you meet with no discouragements you continue converse till by a more intimate acquaintance there ariseth a more endearedness of affection at length a non-such love becomes mutual Do something like this in spirituals I now solemnly bespeak your highest love for God Perhaps God and thy soul are yet strangers thou hast not yet met with him in his ordinances nor savingly heard of him by his spirit Don't slight the overture for from thy first entertainment of it thou wilt be infinitely happy Every thing of Religion is at first uncouth the work of mortification is harsh and the work of holâ—ness difficult but practice will facilitate them and make thee in love with them so the more thou acquaintest thy self with God the more thou canst not but love him especially considering that God is as importunate with thee for thy love as if his own happiness was concern'd whereas he is infinitely above receiving benefit
Love to the world is spiritual Adultery and thence incoherent with the Love of God The jealousie of God will not admit of any corrival in the bent of the heart but Oh! how doth love to this world run a whoring after other Lovers so Ezek. 16.17 18 38. and 23.5 11. and Aholah played the harlot when she mas mine c. The like James 4.4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendsh p of the world is enmity with God Which implies that love to and friendship with this whorish world is spiritual Adultery and so hatred against God O! how soon are those that love the world killed by its adulterous imbraces hence 6 Love to the world is a deliberate contrived lust and so habitual enmity and rebellion against God Acts of lust which arise from suddain passions though violent may consist with the love of God but a deliberate Bent of heart towards the world as our supreme interest cannot The single act of a gross sin arising from some prevalent Temptation speaketh not such an inveterate bitter root of enmity against God as predominant love to the world James 4.4 whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God Oh! how much of contempt rebellion and enmity against God is there in friendship and love to the world 7 Love to the world forms our profession into a subservience unto our worldly interest and so makes Religion to stoop unto yea truckle under lust Now what can be more inconsistent with the Love of God than this This was the case of the carnal Jews Ezech. 33.31 With their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness They shew much love in profession but O how little have they of sincere affection and why because their avaricious hearts made the whole of their profession to conform to their worldly interest Thus also it was with unbelieving Jews in our Lords time John 5.42 But I know you that ye have not the love of God in you I know you There lies a great emphase in that you you who profess so much and yet have so little love in you They had much love to God in their mouth but none in their heart this appeareth by v. 43 44. where our Lord tells them in plain terms that their worldly honour and interest was the only measure of their profession This also was the measure of Judas's Religion John 12.5 6. where he pretends much love to the poor but really intends nothing but the gratifying his avaricious humor The like Hos 10.11 Ephraim loveth to tread out the Corn c. because there was profit liberty and pleasure in that but Ephaim loved not plowing work because that brought her under a yoke and brought in no advantage to her Love to the world brings us under subjection to it and so takes us off from the service of God What we inordinately love and cleave unto we are soon overcome by Now subjection to the world and subjection to God are inconsistent Mat. 6.24 8 Love to the world is the root of all sin and therefore what more inconsistent with the love of God To love God is to hate evil Psal 97.10 therefore to love evil either in the cause or effect is to hate God Now love to the world has not only a love for but also a causal influence on all sin And that 1 As it exposeth men to the violent incursion and assaults of every tentation so 1 Tim. 6.9 But they that will be rich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that have their wills biassed with a violent bent or vehement weight of carnal love towards riches This Solomon expresseth Prov. 28.22 By hasting to be rich What befalls such why saith Paul such fall into tentation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition and destruction and then he gives the reason and cause of it v. 10. For the love of money is the root of all evil c. i. e. There is no sin but may call the love of money Father whence Philo calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Metropolis of evil 2 Love to the world is the cause of all sin in that it blinds and darkens the mind which opens the door to all sin It is an observation of the prudent moralist (t) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch that every lover is blind about that he loves which he himself interprets of love to lower goods And oh how true is this of those that love the world what a black veil of darkness is there on their minds as to what they love hence Paul calls such mens love 1 Tim. 6.9 foolish lusts They are indeed foolish not only eventually but causally as they make men fools and sots 3 Love to the world stifles all convictions breaks all chains and bars of restraining grace and so opens a more effectual door to all sin We find a prodigious example hereof in Balaam Numb 22.22 40. where you see at large how his predominant love to the wages of unrighteousness 2 Pet. 2.15 stifled all those powerful convictions of and resolutions against sin he lay under 4 Love to the world is the disease and death of the soul and therefore the life of sin 1 Tim. 5.6 she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth 5 Love to the world (u) Amor est quidam ingressus animi in rem amatam quae si fuerit ipso amante ignobilior polluit Dignitatem ejus Jansen August pollutes our whole Being Animal passions defile the soul inordinate lustings after things lawful pollute the most of professors more or less 6 Love to the world puts the whole soul yea world into Wars Confusion and Disorders so James 4.1 From whence come wars and fightings among you come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your Members 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of your pleasures i. e. by a Metonymie from your lusts after pleasures and superfluous things that war in your members Hence note that all extern wars and confusions come from the wars and confusions of intern lust in the heart Now all intern wars and disorders are inconsistent with the love of God which is peaceable and orderly In these regards love to the world impedes and hinders the love of God 9 Love to the world is inconsistent with the love of God in that it causeth Apostasie from God The Conversion of the heart to the Creature always implies its Aversion from God He that cannot part with the World will soon part with God The world draws Men from God at Pleasure because it doth engross your best Time Thoughts Affections and Strength in its service How many professors by being bewitched with love to the World have lost many hopeful blossomes and beginnings of love to God How little do Spiritual Suavities savour with Carnal Hearts Yea do not the Flesh-pleasing sweets of this World make all
Earth as among the Indians or Abyssines But our business is to see what knowledge we our selves considering our condition dismissing others in differing circumstances are to labour after in obedience to God's command and for our more holy and comfortable walking with God and carrying on the affairs of our Salvation And therefore though my text lead me directly enough to the former yet I shall confine my self to the latter making it my business rather to press men to labour after much knowledge than trouble my self or others with unedifying distinctions about or uncertain catalogues of fundamentals or truths absolutely needful to be known which I suppose few in the World be so Magisterial as Peremptorily to define And for my part if I could certainly determine which those truths are I should take heed to whom I told them least I should encourage men slothful enough of themselves to rest satisfied in a lesser measure of Spiritual knowledg when a greater might be gotten 3. These things premised I come to answer the case in some propositions of which the first shall be this Prop. 1. That supposing it were certainly defined how much knowledge and the knowledge of what truths were sufficient to Salvation Yet no man that is in a capacity of getting more knowledge ought to acquiesce in just so much Luk. 12.48 To whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required For the more full understanding of this proposition take these following rules Rule 1. By how much the better means men have for the getting of knowledge so much the more they ought to know There is more knowledge required in them that have more means than in them that have less Every servant's improvement is to be according to his talent and the gain of one is not sufficient for him that hath received five nor the gain of five for him that hath received ten According to the means men have so their duty is to be judged of and their accounts will be expected I suppose it can scarce be doubted but that 1. They that live under the Gospel since Christ's coming in the flesh ought to abound more in Spiritual knowledge than they that lived before his coming and that for this very reason because the means of knowledge have been greater since his coming than before it not only as to the extensiveness of them in the publication of the truth in those places where it was not heard before but as to the efficacy of the means themselves and the more clear revelation of the will of God in some things which were formerly but less clearly revealed The pouring out of the Spirit was not only for the further spreading of the truth but for the more plain and full manifestation of it The great mysteries of Religion which under the Old Testament dispensation were more obscure as being wrapt up in types and figures which were though a shadowing of them out yet a kind of covering to them are now under the Gospel more clearly set forth without those veils in their native lustre and brightness What was then future is now come to pass What then was Prophecy is now become History So that there being as to the means more advantages for our knowledge than there was for theirs who lived in those ages we are engaged to labour after more And excepting Prophecies and immediate Revelations I see no reason why vulgar Saints may not now know more than Patriarchs did then And if they may I dare say they should 2. They that live in the Reformed World in this age of Light should abound more in knowledge than they that lived before the Reformation in the darkness of Popery A little knowledge might have gone further then than a great deal more now The means of knowledge are now much greater than 3 or 4 hundred years ago they were There is not only more humane learning abroad in the World than then there was but the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written are better known The Word is more soundly and powerfully preached Controversies in Religion are more throughly discussed more good books are written more cases stated more errors detected and in a word many truths which though always to be found in Scripture yet were almost lost in the World in the Ignorance of those ages are anew discovered 3. They who live under better means of Instruction now should ordinarily be more knowing than such as have not the like means They that have the word preached to them more plainly powerfully frequently should know more than they who sit under an idle ignorant Ministry They that may hear a Sermon every day if they will than they that can scarce hear one Sermon in many months And so should they likewise who live in Religious Families where God is daily worshipped Children and Servants daily instructed know more than they who live under profane or ignorant Masters or Parents Rule 2 They that have more time for the gaining of knowledge are concern'd to know more than they that have less time Not only by how much the longer men enjoy such means the more they should know and more than such as have lived a less season under them Upon which account the Apostle blames the Hebrews Ch. 5.12 because when for the time they ought to be Teachers they had need that one should again teach them which were the first Principles of the Oracles of God And 2 Tim. 3.7 He speaks of some that were ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth But likewise by how much more leisure men have for studying the Scriptures and attending on the means of Grace while they do enjoy them so much the more proportionably they should know They that have plentiful Estates easie employments few avocations may and therefore ought to seek after a greater measure of knowledge than they who by reason of more burdensome callings a lower condition in the World and the necessity of providing for themselves and their Families are not in a capacity of spending so much time in attending on those means whereby a greater proportion of knowledge might be gained They that have their time lying on their hands and know not how to fill it up but with enquiring after News and Fashions studying Pleasures and diversions how much knowledge might they arrive unto if they spent but half that time in studying the truth and enquiring after the things of God Rule 3. By how much the better capacities men have for the receiving of knowledge so much the more caeteris paribus they are to know They that have riper parts quicker apprehensions stronger memories a deeper reach should know more than they that are naturally more weak and less capable of learning Although I suppose there be none that have the use of their reason but they are capable of understanding so much of the things of God as is absolutely needful to Salvation and may be
he had made and rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made This some learned Divines suppose to have been by way of Anticipation only to be a Sabbath in Deck as it were until the Church should have need of it Others as eminent and learned as they do assert it to have been by way of institution a notion of a far more easie understanding than the former and more useful This Sabbath rested it seems sometimes in silence Save only that we may possibly spell it out in some imperfect Characters in their offerings and sacrifices before ever the Law was given which were originally proper Sabbath work until at length we may read of it in words at length Exod. 16.22 23. and Moses spake to the people this is that which the Lord hath said to morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath And this some conceive to be a second and renewed Institution but with little probability Moses rather speaks of it as a thing notoriously known to the Israelites in the Wilderness it being of a more antient Original than the Miracle of the Manna yet it may serve as a testimony unto the Sabbath and of use unto our purpose From thence therefore we must step on as far as Mount Sinai for a new institution and there we may find it standing in the midst of the 10 Moral precepts the fourth whereof it makes in number Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day c. Exod. 20.8 9 10 11. Then was that command which before was given by word of mouth and continued by tradition now written in words at length engraven in stone by the immediate finger of God and there it stands during all the time of Moses and the Prophets on its own basis until the Messiah came who put upon it his own Sanction Mat. 5.17 to the end And under that Sanction did the seventh day Sabbath continue until upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that sun of Righteousness and by his Command to his Apostles Acts 1.2 the Sabbath was translated to the First day of the week and that continued by Apostolical practice and by the practice of succeeding ages of the Evangelical Church the Gospel Sabbath or Lords Day even to this present generation Such I say hath been the care and love of God to his Church to this day Lam. 2.6 that it never was without a Sabbath unless it were when the want of a Sabbath was the Punishment of sinful neglect and obstinate violation of the Sabbath And this care God used upon a twofold account 1. Upon the account of his own Soveraignty Sc. that by reserving one day in seven for his own immediate worship he might be actually acknowledged as the great Soveraign Lord of our selves and of our time The Sabbath is as the first fruits among the Jews whereby we do not only intitle God to the whole harvest but whereby the whole lump and mass is sanctified to us 2. A Second Account is Gods pity and compassion to his Creatures Eccles 3.11 God saw the heart of man since the Fall so fixed to the world and immersed in the Pleasures and Profits thereof that had he left man to himself he would not have spared for Divine worship one day in seven weeks not possibly in seven months or in the whole year but he would have even drudg'd himself and the irrational Creature to death in the pursuit of worldly fruitions And therefore God hath injoined him the severe observation of one day in seven that he might lay upon him the necessity of minding and seeking the things of eternity and whilest the rational creature did enjoy a spiritual rest for the soul the irrational creature might have natural rest for self-preservation Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift 2. Observe Rule or N teâ— this day God was pleased to honour with the title of a Sabbath as both here and in the fourth Commandment which signifies rest because on this day both God the Father and God the Son respectively Gen. 2.2 did rest from their own proper work and by their precept and pattern command it and commend it for a stated rest to the Church of God for ever What the reason therefore is why some learned men of our generation should be so exceedingly offended at that name Sabbath that they cannot so much as hear it with patience is to me a wonder even to astonishment And while they are so much offended at the name the vulgar sort of Christians are thereby I am afraid as much offended at the thing As to the first of these I have heard some say they like it not because it is Jewish but to that we reply 1. Not the Jews but the God of the Jews gave it that name here and elsewhere and 2. The notion of a Sabbath signifies no more but Rest and is Rest Jewish Oh that men would look into their hearts to see whether the reason of this disgust is not more latent there 3. And were it a Jewish name indeed is not the Jewish name Sabbath better than the Heathenish-name Sunday The name which Heathenish Idolaters gave it in their Dedication of that day to the Created Sun Notwithstanding consult their Calenders Writings and Languages and you can meet with no other name or notion but Sunday all over At this we have more cause to be offended than they have at the notion of a Sabbath As for the vulgar sort of people it is the thing which offends them more than the name not the Rest so much as the Nature of the Rest is that which they dislike were it a Carding Rest a Gaming Rest a Dancing Rest such an one as the Israelites once celebrated in the wilderness wherein they did eat and drink and rose up to play such an one for all the world as the Popish Devotion celebrates after Mass and Even Song as they call it pipe and dance and then to the Ale-house or Tavern such a Rest would gratifie the sensual world of carnal Christians but for an holy rest a rest to be spent in Publick Domestick and Secret duties of Religion Reading the Scriptures praying singing of Psalms Hearing the word preach't repeating at home what they heard in publique Catechising their families Meditation c. These things do not please the unregenerate part but men are ready to murmur as they did of old what a weariness is it and when will the Sabbath be over Amos 8 5. c. This is a lamentation c. Rule 3 From these words my holy day take a third Rule We must look upon the Sabbath as a day of Divine Institution not of an humane ordination the Sabbath hath a jus divinum written upon it more authentique than theirs that decry it My holy day and the
apt to credit and believe By pious Education the true Religion is kept up in the world and propagated from Age to Age. The care of the two Tribes and an half of propagating the true Religion to their Posterity is very notable in that famous Scripture Josh 22.24 25. They built an Altar of Testimony v. 10. At this their Brethren the Israelites are highly offended but received full satisfaction when they were assured that this was done for the sake of Posterity lest they should be made to cease from fearing the Lord. 6. Parents have many and great advantages above all others for the successful instructing and educating of their children 1. Children are more confident of their Parents love than any others Whether Ministers and strangers speak to them in love they are uncertain but of their Parents love they are well assured Now nothing takes so much with any one as that which is believed to proceed from love specially by one that loves This instruction saith the loving Child comes not only from my dear Father's lip or head but from his affectionate heart and therefore I will readily receive it and lodg it in my own 2. Parents have their children in hand betimes before they are fly-blown with any false Opinions or leven'd with bad impressions before they have any other sin than that which was born with them Parents therefore have an opportunity of making the first impressions on them even while they are most docile tender flexible and least apt to make resistance against instruction But now when they come to their Minister Instructer Tutor they are as a Paper Printed before and therefore unapt to receive another Impression They have much to be untaught before they can be taught fraught with self conceitedness and proud objections more apt to strive against and resist Instruction than humbly and readily to receive it 3. To wind up this Argument on the closest Bottom Children wholly depend on Parents for their present maintenance and their future Portions and they know 't is their interest to hearken and obey Parents Authority over their Children is most unquestionable They dare not open their mouths against it as they will adventure to do against Ministers Parents have the Power of the Rod to back Instruction Prov. 22.15 They best know the peculiar Diseases and temperatures of their Children and so best know how to chuse and apply the most proper Remedy Parents are nearest their Children and can best discern all their faults in time and have opportunity of speaking to them in the most familiar manner that may best be understood and after this to inculcate their Instructions and drive them home that what is not done at one time may be done at another By all these advantages it appears that God hath furnished Parents above all others to be Instruments of their Childrens good and the first and greatest promoters of their Salvation Object 1 But methinks I hear some Parents muttering To instruct Children is the grand Duty of our Ministers 'T is they that are to take the great charge of the Souls of these our Lambs 1. And do you indeed give up these your Lambs to be fed to be instructed by them 2. Suppose you did as Heaven knows thousands of Parents do not as they ought yet know That every Parent is as deeply charged with the souls of his Children as any Pastor is with the souls of his Flock and more deeply too 1. You are as oft and as expresly charged to use the means to save your Childrens souls and to breed Grace in them as any Minister is Read consider remember Exod. 13.18 Thou shalt shew thy Son the meaning end use of the Sacrament Deut. 6.6 7. Psal 78.5 Eph. 6.4 Shew me any Text of Scripture more express and peremptory for any Ministers Instructing of his Flock 2. Parents stand obliged to their Children by more and stronger Bonds than any Pastor can be to his Flock Bonds of Nature as well as Grace 3. Parents have more means and opportunities to prevail with their Children than any Pastor living can have to do good on his Flock What a surpassing Interest have Parents in the esteem love affection of their Children What Advantage may they take of their Childrens tender years What continual Converse with them What an awful Authority over them What strict Obligations upon them which no Minister can so much as pretend unto The truth is none upon Earth have such fair opportunities to instruct and bring others to goodness as Parents have This was that that holy Hezekiah meant in his Prayer Isa 38.18 19. The Living Deut. 4 10. the Living he shall praise thee and who among all the Living The Father he shall do it chiefly principally but how by making known Thy truth to their Children q. d. Parents by deriving Religion to their Posterity may greatly honour God above others Obj. 2. But to what end should we teach Children Alass they do not understand what they say They do but Act the Parot know not what it is they do repeat and so whilest we pretend to advance the fear and service we do but make our Children to profane the Name of God or to take it in vain Sol. 1. Our carnal Reasonings ought not to countermand Divine injunctions The Text is express Train up a Child Deut. 6.7 Thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children or whet and sharpen my Law upon them Timothy's Instruction and that from a little sucking Child is commended by the Apostle as a fair president to the whole Christian World 2 Tim. 3.15 We know not who are under God's Election nor the appointed time of his effectual Calling and therefore must use the means to all especially to Children that are under the federal stipulation such are commanded to Remember their Creator in the days of their Youth Eccl. 12.1 And who should endeavour to make deep impressions of God upon their Hearts Eph. 6.4 but those that are over them by Divine appointment who ought to bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. 2. If this fear and jealousie must hinder Catechising of Children who knows how long it will be hindered for even Children well grown up being not before Catechized are not likely at their first Teaching so to understand what is said to them as to repeat it with due reverence Do we not find Christ himself instructing Nicodemus in the great Mystery of Regeneration when he was able to return him no more than that childish Answer How can a Man be born again when he is old John 3.4 Can he enter the second time into his Mothers Womb We find our Saviour delivering a Divine Truth to those that were known to be his Disciples who still accompanied him and repeated themselves what he spake to them in the very same words wherein he delivered it and yet when all was done confessed they could not tell what he said Joh. 16.16
pleasant than easie what is more pleasant than a feast and this of all feasts is the sweetest if the perishing Manna in the wilderness were so delicious as that the tast of it was like wafers made with honey Exod. 16.31 how much more delicious must this celestial Manna this bread of eternal life be which is spread before you in this Supper it is a feast of love of the love of the Father and of the Son there is a voice in every morsel of bread you there eat and in every draught of wine you there drink saying behold O sinners how you are beloved of the Father and Son had not the Father loved you he would never have parted with his Son and if the Son had not loved you he would never have parted with his life for you Oh therefore come ye to this Supper come eat and drink ye beloved of the Lord and remembes his love more than wine let all the redeemed of the Lord come hither and praise him Nor is it a duty less honourable than pleasant it is a pleasant thing to feast but it is honorable to feast with a King most honorable with the King of Kings and Lord of the whole earth How did Haman glory that he was invited to the banquet with the King he reckoned not of it as his task but his priviledg not as his work but his reward And shall a feast with an earthly mortal King be more valued than a feast with the heavenly and immortal God this Supper is the Lord's Supper it is the great God hath made the provision and it is his eternal Son that hath made the invitation Oh take heed of excuses for though you make them God will not take them make therefore your selves ready put on your wedding-garments and come away let not a Table so well furnished want its guests least Christ lose the honour and you the comfort of the entertainment But if you will still draw back know this that you do not only sin but that your sin is great because against a command that is so easie sweet and honourable as I have shewn you this is 5. There is one circumstance more in the command which should quicken you to the observance and that is the time when this command was given It was the very night in which he was betrayed the very last night he lived on the earth the night before that day in which he offered up himself a sacrifice to justice for us Then it was he said do this in remembrance of me As if he had said my friends I am now to leave you and to be taken out of your sight but oh let me not be out of your mind to morrow you shall see how I love you when you see me scorned of men deserted of God praying groaning bleeding dying for you oh let not that love of mine be forgotten and least it should I therefore institute this supper charging you with my whole Church till I come again that so often as they eat this bread and drink this cup they remember me This is the charge of our dying Lord and surely if we have any love for him we should not dare but observe it When Jacob was dying he gave in charge as some of his last words that Joseph should forgive the unkindness of his brethren and when he was dead the brethren thought it a good argument to move Joseph to take pitty on them they therefore sent messengers to Joseph saying thy Father did command before he died Gen 50.16 17 18. saying forgive I pray thee the trespass of thy brethren this argument broke Josephs heart it is said he wept when they spake unto him and said fear not oh how did the words of his dying Father move and melt him methinks I hear him say was this the desire of my dying Father I cannot then but yield would my Father have me forgive I freely do it Now my brethren why should you not do as much for your dying Jesus as Joseph for his dying Jacob was Jacob his Father Jesus is our Saviour did Jacob love Joseph but he did not dye for him as Jesus did for us and shall we find a heart to deny our Lord in his dying request when Joseph could not find one to deny his Father oh then as Joseph forgave so let us This do in remembrance of him which will be an instance of that great love and honour we do keep for his memory 6. In the next place I desire you would think of the contempt you throw upon this Ordinance by your neglect What is it but that you have slight thoughts of the Authority of the Institutor and very mean thoughts of the institution it self and is not this to proclaim to the world that there is in your judgment a command of the Lord Christ and a duty in the Christian Religion that is frivolous and childish not worth the observance believe it the World will judg of it by your practice and not by your profession The Rechabites would drink no wine because Jonadab the son of Rechab did forbid them nor will the Turks drink wine because that Impostor Mahomet forbad them thus the one honoured their Father and the other their false Prophet and will you that are Christians let these men rise up in judgment against you shall error be more prevalent with them than truth with you and will you let the Turks outdo you in honouring a false prophet more than you do the true is Mahomet dearer and his institutions more sacred to his followers then Jesus Christ and his institution are to you Christ bids you drink of this cup in remembrance of him and you will not but Mahomet forbids them wine and they obey him judg you now who gives the greatest honor they to Mahomet or you to Christ methinks you should blush to think of it Oh Christians for shame amend and give no more occasion to Christ's Ministers to reprove you for so gross a sin 7. I have not yet done Think once more with what hypocrisie this neglect is accompanied What is hypocrisie but to endeavour to seem better than indeed we are to seem zealous for Christ and his Ordinances when in truth we are luke-warm and indifferent Ye are Protestants by profession your Fathers were so before you and ye seem ready to plead their Cause Oh that ye would look back and consider the Age past With what zeal was this Ordinance pleaded for in King Henry the 8th and Queen Mary's days The Papists would give you the bread only but you would have the Cup also they would have you adore the bread as a God ye would not commit so great Idolatry for which cause how many were exiled how many imprisoned racked hanged burned and after all these heats Oh gross Hypocrisie you will neither have bread nor wine nor will you take it in the Gospel-way without the incumbrances of Superstition and Idolatry Ye talk
wish that God were angry with him for he is angry with him though for the present he do prosper but when it comes it will be the heavier The Poet gives a full answer to this Objection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense I give thus Though wicked men feel not th'Almightie's blow Forthwith his wrath is sure when it is slow At length his plagues in greater loads shall lie On them their Wives and all their Progenie Question The last thing only now remains wherein I must be short What excuses are often brought for the non-performance of Family Prayer How answered Obj. All this while you do not give us any one express Scripture in so many words shew that and we will do it Answ This is objected either by openly profane or more sober men To the first I answer 1. Wilt thou do nothing but what thou hast an express command for in so many syllables Why then art thou so often drunk and dost thou so often swear and lye and take Gods Name in vain Where is thy command Nay is not all this against express command 2. Why dost thou not do that for which thou hast express commands Wilt thou repent be holy and believe in Christ and forsake thy sin if I can shew express commands from God for these Then read Ezek. 18.30 31. Acts 2.38 and 17.30 1 Joh. 3.23 Go thy way now and do these things sincerely and I shall not doubt but thou wilt see reason from what hath been said to set up Prayer in thy Family nor question but thou wilt do it But if thou wilt not repent and leave thy manifest and apparent sins when thou art expresly commanded to do so why should any man think thou wouldest do this if this were shewed to thee Yet know there is enough said to render thee inexcusable if thou wilt not do it Secondly to the more sober I answer Dum scripturam dicimus perf ctam non intelligimus ac si ad literam omnia quae ad salutem sunt necessaria continerentur sed quod quaedam per certam consequentiam ex illis quae clarè dicta sunt deduci debeant Maccov distin p. 9. Quicquid per bonam consequentiam ex scriptura deducitur illud ipsum est scriptura Quod elicitur ex Mose Davide dicuntur Moses David dixisse idem p 21. Scripturae â—im consistere non in verbis sed in sensu communiter dicitur sunt autem conclusiones in scriptura vel totidem verbis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel habent praemissas suas in scriptura expressas ex quibus evidenter deducuntur vel una tantùm posita praemissa in scriptura addita alia ex rationis principiis aut ex evidentia sensus conclusio etiam eruitur necessaria quae vim eandem habet cum propositionibus quae totidem verbis leguntur juxta regulam Quaedam in Scripturis sunt dicuntur quaedam in iisdem sunt etsi non dicuntur nempe totidem verbis Rivet Isag ad Scrip. cap. 17. That what is drawn from the word of God by just necessary and immediate consequence is the mind of God The sense of the Scripture is God's revealed Will. And you your selves allow some things to be a duty that are not expresly commanded in the Word of God I could give you instances in many particulars but because I am straitned for room and for plainness of the case I will instance but in this one which is a Woman's receiving of the Lord's Supper Is it the duty of some Women so to do No doubt But where is your express command or any express example that ever they did Look for it and produce it Will you say the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used 1 Cor. 11.28 signifying both man and woman shews the command for Womens eating at the Lord's Table but what if it be sometimes in Scripture used for the man only and the woman excluded as it is Joh. 7.22 ye circumcise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man being taken in one place for the man only how will you prove it is not so in the other but by Consequence True but where then is your express command Consequence must be allowed in this case and is abundantly sufficient For validity of Scripture-consequence much may be said but my length already commands me to forbear seeing there is as much Scripture and firm immediate consequence for your praying in your Family as a woman's receiving the Lord's Supper which is an acknowledged duty Object 2. But I pray alone in secret and that is sufficient Answ But it is not 1. One duty done doth not excuse you from the performance of another It hath been proved before to be your duty you ought then to do the one and not to leave the other undone 2. But do all in thy Family pray in secret every day dost thou watch them daily so narrowly as thou art sure they do every one So they should but yet notwithstanding conjunct Prayer is a duty also as hath before been shewn 3. Dost thou pray in secret So thou mightest have done if God had struck all thy Family dead in the night besides thy self Take heed thou dost not hereby cause God to strip thee of thy Relations and thy comfort in them with whom thou wilt not pray and send thee with a witness into a corner to pray by thy self alone 4. Dost thou pray alone So thou mightest have done if thou hadst lost thy tongue Hast thou a tongue only to buy and sell and talk of the world or of religion only and not to imploy it in conjunct praying to and praising of God in thy Family Read before 5. Dost thou pray alone I doubt thou dost It may be thou speakest more in that word alone than thou thinkest of Infaelix Iniqua lex amoris rerum nolle ut ament alii nolle ut ament alios non ità miserum pressum eligas amorem superest Deo amor dilatatus superest bonitas ut amot ametur cum abest à felle ut rivales optet Zelotypia gaudet Hoc interest inter Zelum humani amoris divini Zelus amantis Deum optat ut alii ament Zelus a mantis hominem ne alius amet ille socios quaerit iste fugit pro qualitate nimirum amatorum Socios ille quaerit quia superest bonitas amato cui amorem suum aequalem non putat coadjutores exoptat ut suppleat votis alienis proprium defectum iste non admittit collegas exiguum bonum timet ne desit sibi distributum etiam aliis perinde ac qui splendidum epulum paravit cui ipse non est satis convivas quaerit invitat plures gavisus consortio epulantium At misellus famelicus rusticus frustulum Hordeacei panis quia sibi non sufficit non distribuit aliis non palam comest ne alius qui appetat petat O
monuments (u) Jos 4.6 7 21. whereby Children might take occasion to ask the meaning of them and so Parents might acquaint them with the Ordinances of God (w) Deut. 6.20 21. No doubt but religious Parents have been careful to observe this for the transmitting of pure Religion Adam had taught his Sons to sacrifice as well as train'd them up to business though one of them did not worship God in an acceptable manner (x) Gen. 4.3 4.5 26. Heb. 11.4 He had acquainted them it seems with the fundamental promise concerning remission of sin which the Apostle saith could not be without shedding of blood (y) Heb. 9.22 represented in the instituted Sacrifice which Cain wanted faith to offer acceptably as Abel did giving credit to the divine institution and behaving himself sincerely in this solemn worship as he was instructed Noah also taught his Children though one of them did not observe the instructions (z) Gen. 9 8 22. But we have Abraham the Father of the faithful expresly commended with a special approbation of God for effectually instructing i. e. training or catechizing his children and servants after his example to keep the way of the Lord (a) 18.19 with 14.14 And therefore they are called his initiated ones or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom the Rabbins say †Alting Hist Acad Hebâ— p. 18 19. he did no less instruct in the divine precepts and their observation than train up to war Other memorable instances we have of David (b) Prov. 4 3 4. with Psal 7â— Titl who seems kindly to call Children apart to teach them the fear of the Lord (c) 34.11 which Obadiah learn'd from his youth (d) 1 Kings 18.12 So of his Wife Bathsheba (e) Prov. 31.1 2 c. and those good Women in the New Testament Lois and Eunice (f) 2 Tim. 1 5. And other persons there were who did catechize in all good things (g) Gal 6 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the rudiments of the Gospel wherein the most excellent Theophilus was catechized or instructed (h) Luke 1.4 as the Jewish children had been catechized in the Law (i) Rom. 2.18 But this part of Education viz. Catechziing being handled at this Exercise in another distinct Query by one well vers'd in the practick part of this necessary Duty may fairly give me who have so much on mine hands a Supersedeas from enlarging now upon it Only let it be remembred that sith Man is born like a wild Asse's colt (k) Job 11 12. and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (l) Prov 1.7 with Psal 111.10 Parents are concern'd to be industrious and not be discourag'd from teaching their offspring the words and terms of goodness in confidence they will afterwards comprehend the sense and practically hold fast the form of sound words (m) 2 Tim. 1.13 the little Bibles as Luther us'd to call orthodox Catechisms gather'd up from the holy Scripture which it seems Timothy had known from a child (n) 3. â—5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little one indeed yea and we have some late considerable examples of such little ones * Token and little Book for Chiâ—dren And therefore Parents themselves according to their different calls and abilities taking in convenient help and all to forward the Pastor's work should not through humour indisposition laziness or an over-eager minding of worldly business neglect this affair of so great importance to the welfare of their Children but be solicitous to get the seeds sown in their tender hearts before the weeds of the world grow up therein and canker the soyl Even according to Natures dictates Diotima timely instill'd such notions of prudence into Socrates which rendred him famous And Cato though he kept a Tutor for his Son yet was frequent himself in teaching and examining of him in learning and natural Religion Much more should Christians as Theodosius the Great who was diligent in catechizing his Sons Arcadius and Honorius with the assistance of Arsenius A notable means was Catechizing to propagate the Reformed Religion notwithstanding the contagion of Popery as Sir Edwyn Sandys well observ'd †Survey of Religion in Europe 1593. pag. 113. mihi and it will be so to preserve it Especially if Instruction be follow'd with a 2. particular in Education and that is Watchfulness or Inspection which is a dayly putting children on exercise to practise the things wherein they have been instructed by a prudent oversight of their behaviour This domestick Episcopacy or Family discipline is of singular use for the edification of children Governors especially should watch unto al things (o) 2 Tim. 4.5 This is the most proper means to preserve the good seed which is sown from being stoln away and to guard it lest the enemy come slily and sowe tares amongst the wheat which he lays wait to do if he can take Parents asleep or inobservant (p) Mat. 13.25 when they should be awake in this good government (q) 1 Tim. 3.4 and intent upon it in their houshold (r) Pâ—al 101.6 7. taking special care that in practice their children be found faithful and not chargeable with riot and unruliness (s) Tit. 1.6 It is not enough to teach children the rudiments of faith worship and obedience but to bring them where the Ark is to the acts of solemn worship both in the Family and Congregation Our Saviour's Parents brought him (t) Luke 2.41 42 48 49. though he was born without sin and had not need upon that account as others have much more should others who now are not required to go so far bring theirs to worship God according to his appointment see to their reverend deportment there examine them afterward and observe their proficiency carry a jealous eye and hand over them as Job did over his (u) Job 1.5 and take care there be no connivance at palpable faults but a seasonable discountenancing of every sin in the dearest of them (w) Gen 49.6 no allowance of any practice dissonant to that which is right (x) Deut. 33.9 with 13.6 and Exod. 32.28 Zach. 13 6. but a solicitous care that they do not decline and apostatize or be not seduced from the pure worship of the holy God and the good ways they have acquainted them with (y) Jos 22.27 c. Gen. 24.6 7. 18.19 We know Abraham that Father of blessed memory commanded his children as was noted before and there was a positive Law after to command children upon their lives to observe and do what God enjoyned (z) Deut. 32.46 47. This belongs to the training up of youth to a good habit which will not easily be removed (a) Prov. 22.6 They that handle this matter wisely will find good (b) 16.20 in their children and to do it so as to avoid undue lenity and severity is great prudence For it requires
by the Prophet in the name of the Lord (m) Jer. 29.6 1 Cor. 7.36 to take wives to their sons and give daughters to their husbands should with a good and serious conscience without carnal glosses study this prime Canon as they really design the promotion and spiritual advancement of their offspring Thus Abraham so famous in his parental government (n) Gen. 18.19 was very careful with respect to the Lord in covenant for the matching of his son Isaac that in a matter of so great importance lest he should be tempted to a failure in his trust he took a most solemn oath by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth from his faithful Steward Eleazer (o) 24.2 4 6 8. upon serious seeking of God by Prayer that he should take a wife for him out of a religious Family and by no means yield that Isaac should be brought into a relation communion and residence with any of those who might be an occasion to alienate his affections from the service of the true God in a true manner which had an excellent effect sith Isaac and Rebekah were the most chast pair of all those Patriarchal Worthies their affections being entirely united And Isaac at his wife Rebekah's motion when almost dead for fear of an ungodly wife (p) 27. ver followed his Father's example in the disposal of his son Jacob (q) 28.2 c. We indeed live in an age wherein there is much complaint by many wealthy Parents that though they like well of this grand rule yet they know not where to have suitable matches for their children especially of the female sex I confess there is too much ground for this lamentation The Lord remove it Yet I may with submission not being sollicitous to please man but my Lord and Master (r) Gal. 1.10 Eph. 6.6 Mr. White put these complainants in mind of what hath been observ'd by another before me That Persons of quality and estate likely have in one respect a greater advantage than others in that they have a greater latitude of choice amongst those who are in estate below them So that of religious prudent and suitable persons they may choose almost whom they please But the truth is many Parents who sit at the upper end of the world though they profess Religion they are too often so biassed with the love of this world that marrying to the very height of their estate hath the casting vote and so they bestow their pious hopeful children upon persons in whom they have no probable positive evidence of real godliness and sobriety or on such who are not comparably so vertuous as others they might have more religious prudent and desirable who upon conjuncture of Estates would be abundantly well accommodated for a comfortable and chearful livelyhood When alas some of them are so sway'd by carnal motives that as one saith †Mr. Baxter pol. p. 484. they marry their children to a swine for a golden trough they prefer temporals to spirituals and eternals riches and honour or comliness to vertue and godliness and take one that is at enmity with God (s) Rom. 8.7 8. into the nearest and strictest league of amity with those they are oblig'd to love best And thence it comes to pass that in succeeding generations by unequal mixture of the holy seed with the profane (t) Ezra 9 2 4. there is such a decay of piety as at this day amongst those sprung on one side from worthy Progenitors being much like those of the old world who defiled the face of the earth with an unblest generation which so grieved the Almighty that after he had given the inhabitants fair warning by the preacher of righteousness (u) Gen. 6.2 4. See more Gen. 26.34 35. 34 14. 38.2 7 8.9 10. he swept them all away but eight persons with an universal deluge I know upon the hearing of this some professing Parents of our Age will be touch'd to the quick though they do thereby a little shake their own title to the best inheritance but it concerns a watchman when call'd to give them warning from the Lord (w) Ezek. 3.17 to deal faithfully Upon the remembrance of which and an affecting apprhension of this growing epidemical distemper I do in the name of the Lord put all Christian Parents in mind not too vehemently to seek after great things to themselves (x) Jer. 45.5 in bestowing of their children richly but labour to link them with gracious and suitable persons where there may be mutual kindness and hearty liking of each other and with vvhom they may live religiously and contentedly For the truth is without this mutual complacency and loving contentment each in other vvhich the Scripture calls for (y) Prov. 5.19 with Gen. 20.16 Ezek. 24.16 18. upon a good foundation there cannot be an happy match Wherefore in this great office of Parents vvhich is a comfortable one for their Children if well done but most uncomfortable if otherwise they are mostly concern'd to look after the fear of the Lord. For the Wise man by the spirit of God hath so determin'd upon weighing of things saying (z) Prov. 31.30 with 19.23 Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised and so shall the man also If things be tryed at God's ballance Religion will weigh most Houses and riches are the inheritance of Fathers but a prudent wife is from the Lord (a) 19.14 and so is a prudent husband too Either is to be valued as a more blessed gift than any temporal portion left by Parents who may and ought to be provident but there is a more special finger of God who gives wisdom and unites hearts in every happy match Wherein good-nature or as we now speak good-humour doth much sweeten society in a humane way but I pray you what doth it in a Christian way wherein the married couple should live as being heirs together of the grace of life that their prayers he not hindred (b) 1 Pet. 3.7 Alas my Friends as to this a good nature as one saith * Mr. Thomas Couns l to married Couples is but like the white of an egg which as it offends not so it relisheth not There may be a tolerable conversation as to temporals on the week day but what is pleasant in it as to spirituals especially on the Lord's day and at other seasons when the Soul hath need of quickening direction and comfort or a companion in Heavenly joys Then real grace with all its faults will be better than refined nature (c) Eccles 2.13 as light than darkness Discretion will set a lustre on Religion and is to be look'd after else how troublesom will it be for wisdom to be subject to folly No one can live lovingly and comfortably with a Fool. Next an ungodly an unworthy yoke-fellow especially if in Husbands is to be feared And next to
or colour sinful practices hereby they are profaned and the holier they be the wickeder Woe to you ye devour Widow's Houses and for a pretence make long Prayers 3. Our most common Speeches that might otherwise seem culpable are not only allowable but commendable as they may be referred unto some good purpose As first for the remission of a mind over-bent and burthened with serious matter that one may return with more vigor to it Secondly For the prevention of worse Discourse where better will not be entertained Thirdly For insinuation into bad men that we may gain an opportunity of doing good upon them and for introduction into better Discourse which abruptly cannot be brought in So much then depending upon the Scope of our Discourse let me give two Cautions hereon Caution First That none Pride themselves in the material goodness of their Discourse if the design be bad it is like a fair Apple rotten at the core 2. That we judg none rashly for the seeming commonness of their Discourse if it be not their common dialect and especially if they are among common spirited People there may be a pious guile in it a reason for it and it is Charity to suppose it but let every one judg himself who only hath a Capacity to know himself and let us all be cautious however that we lay not a stumbling block before a weak Brother How may Detraction be best prevented or Cured Serm. XXI Psal 15.3 He that backbiteth not with his Tongue nor doth evil to his Neighbour nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour AMong the many Sins for which God is contending with England and especially with the Professors of Religion in it I doubt not but one and that none of the least is the gross misgovernment of their Tongues The abuses of the Tongue are many one whereof is the malignity of it And whereas in David's time a malignant and virulent Tongue was the badg and cognizance of an Atheist Psal 59.7 Behold they belch out with their mouths Swords are in their Lips for who say they doth hear Now alas this Spot is become the Spot of God's Children and high professors of Religion A man can scarce come into any Company but his Ears shall be filled with censures detractions reproaches Party against Party Person against Person Instead of that old Christian Love and Charity for which the Ancient Christians were noted and applauded even by their Adversaries Behold said they how the Christians love one another Mens hearts are generally full of rancour and their Tongues of sharp reflections contemptuous and reproachful expressions censures and slanders against their absent and oft-times innocent and more worthy Brethren This is the Disease which I would endeavour to administer some Physick to from these words The Coherence is plain David proposeth a Question verse 1. Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle Who shall dwell in thy holy Hill By which you may understand either Sion where the Ark then was or Moriah where the Temple was to be Built and by either of them the Church of God here and especially the Heavenly Temple hereafter So that it is as if David had said and asked what is the qualification of the true Members of God's Church of the Citizens of the New Jerusalem By what properties are they known and distinguished from other men To this David doth not answer that they are so differenced by their high Talks by their crying out upon the sins of other men or the wickedness of the times by their frequent attendance at God's Tabernacle but by the uprightness of their Hearts by the good Government of their Tongues by the holiness of their Lives Verse 2. He that walketh uprightly and worketh Righteousness and speaketh the Truth in his heart And in this 3d. Verse that I have now read He that backbiteth not with his Tongue nor doth evil to his Neighbour nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour It is the last clause which I intend to speak to because it will comprehend the former Nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour The words I shall explain in the handling of the Doctrine which is this Doct. It is the Duty and must be the care of every true Christian not to take up a Reproach against his Neighbour I shall first explain the point then prove it and lastly apply it For Explanation three things are to be enquired into 1. Who is my Neighbour There are some men of Name in the world that will tell you that in the Language of the Old Testament by Neighbour is to be understood one of the same Countrey and Religion Popularis Israelita and it is the peculiarity of the Gospel that every man is made my Neighbour But if we examine Scripture we shall find this to be a gross mistake I need not go farther for the confutation of it than to the Decalogue it self Thou shalt not bear false Witness against thy Neighbour I suppose it will seem a very hard saying to affirm that it is Lawful to bear false Witness against a Stranger So when God commands Thou shalt not lye carnally with thy Neighbour's Wife Lev. 18.20 I presume these Gentlemen would not allow themselves that Liberty with the Wife of a Stranger If God may be his own Interpreter this Controversie will quickly be ended from Lev. 19. ch where if you compare two Verses Verse 18. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self with Verse 34. But the Stranger that Dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you and thou shalt love him as thy self you will not need the help of an Artist to form this Conclusion that the Stranger is in God's Account and ought to be in mine Account my Neighbour To the same purpose you may please to compare two other places of Scripture together Deut. 22.4 Thou shalt not see thy Brother's Ass nor his Ox fall down by the way and hide thy self from them thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again with Exod. 23.4 5. If thou meet thine Enemie's Ox or his Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring him back again If thou seest the Ass of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen thou shalt help him up He who is my Brother which is nearer than a Neighbour in the one place is mine Enemy and he that hateth me in another place And it is further observable to this end that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Neighbour is usually rendred in Scripture by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another as Rom. 13.8.9 He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law for the Law saith thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Most true therefore is that of St. Augustine Proximus est omnis homo homini every man is a Neighbour to any other man Nay the more intelligent part of the Jews were of this Opinion and Kimchi upon these words saith He is
good Name is of absolute necessity to make a man considerably serviceable in the World when a Man hath once lost this the very good which he doth is despised and dis-regarded And this reason especially concerns you in the reproaching of three sorts of Persons which I do therefore in a special manner caution you against 1. In reproaching of Magistrates of Kings and Persons in Authority Magistrates though bad in themselves yet are to be looked upon as great blessings And if we had the Persian Experiment of absolute Anarchy but for a few days that every man might do that which seemed right in his own eyes we should all be sensible of this Truth Now the Magistrate's Reputation is the great Supporter of that Majesty and Authority which he bears and the Magistrates Authority is the Peoples benefit And therefore all Persons should be tender in this particular they should not expose Kings and Magistrates to contempt and scorn nor beget irreverence in People towards them And therefore they ought to take heed not only of divulging false reports concerning them but even such as possibly may be true they must take heed of publishing the secret miscarriages of Princes for this as I told you is a sin against any Man but much more against Persons in Authority 2. Against Ministers Their Fame is most necessary for their usefulness in the Word And therefore when a Man defames a Minister besides that Injury which is common to other men he doth this peculiar mischief he endeavours to rob the World of all the good which such a Person may do in it I cannot but take this occasion to vent my great grief and the scandal I justly take at those Ministers and Christians who if a Man differ from them in some Doctrines or Rites of less moment though otherwise never so eminent make it their business to disparage and bespatter him and think they do God good Service in blasting his Reputation representing him as a Papist Socinian Time-server c. In the fear of God consider the sinfulness of this practice Whatsoever good such a Person might do in convincing converting and building up of Souls so far as this is hindered by thy means the Blood of such Souls will fall upon thy head Nay which is more although good should not be hindered by it yet thou shalt answer for all that might have been hindered by it And for this reason Constantine the Great did profess that if he should know any secret miscarriage of a Minister he would cover it with a Mantle 3. Against good men or eminent Professors of Religion who I confess when they are bad are the vilest of Men and when their sins are known and publique they ought to be used with most severity and such shall have the hottest place in Hell who use Religion as a Cloak for their Villanies yet when the sins of such Persons are secret and scarce known we should take heed of spreading of them Tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Askelon not for their sakes but for the sake of Religion which infinitely suffers by their misdemeanours and the Reproaches which arise from them 4. This is a great Injury to other men in these particulars 1. Thou corruptest others by thy Example Especially Ministers and eminent Professors of Religion they should above all others avoid this sin because their Actions are presidential They that will not follow your counsel will imitate your Example and though our Saviour hath cautioned us concerning the Pharisees Mat. 23.3 What they bid or teach you observe and do but do not after their Works yet in spite of all that Christ hath said Men will take a contrary course they will not hear your Sermons but will diligently attend to your conversations O consider this every time another hears thee censuring and reproaching thy Neighbour thou dost in effect Preach and perswade him to this Practice Thou settest a Copy which other men may write after when thou art gone into another World and no man knows how far the contagion of such an evil Example may spread nor how great a fire a little spark may kindle 2. Thou art a disturber of Humane Society an Incendiary in the place where thou dwellest The Peace and tranquillity of Cities and Kingdoms is often disturbed by this means Whence come Wars and Fightings among you Come they not hence even from your Lusts that War in your Members They do not come from Men's Lusts as they remain in their own hearts for so they are secret and unknown to the World but as they break out first in their Lips and then in their hands 3. Thou art a great Enemy to the Church of God however thou maist seem to thy self or others a zealous Friend of it It is not easie for any man to conceive the great mischief which these Censures and Reproaches produce in the Church they break the peace of it and fill it with sharp contentions and Divisions Yea they strike at the being of it You know a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand they do their part to pull down the glorious Building of the Church so as one stone should not be left upon another They Eclipse the glory of the Church which doth not consist in external splendour in Riches and Ornaments but in Love Peace and Unity among themselves This was Jerusalem's Beauty that it was Built as a City that is Compact together Psal 122.3 This hinders the growth and Progress of the Church and of Religion When Persons professing Religion allow themselves in such sins which are not only offensive to God but also odious in the World it fills the minds of men with powerful and invincible prejudices against Religious men and against Religion it self for their sakes I must tell you if the Professors of Religion would learn the Government of their Tongues and the right ordering of their Conversations it would be the likeliest means to propagate Religion in the World And Christians if ever you would do this do it now never was it more necessary or seasonable to wipe off those stains and blemishes which at this day lye upon Religion for the neglect of this Duty by the Professors of it And thrice blessed are all you that contribute to so glorious a work as the Restauration of that Beauty and Glory which Religion once had in some of our Remembrance But when the Tongues of Christians are Exercised in this sinful practice besides the particular injury to the Person Reproached it hinders the conversion and Salvation of others Consider I beseech you a little the greatness of this sin You think it a great Crime and so it was in Elymas the Sorcerer who when Sergius Paulus called for Barnabas and Saul and desired them to Preach to him the Word of God withstood them seeking to turn the Deputy from the Faith Acts 13.8 He did this by his words and thou dost it by thy Actions Thou dost
their good Works 3. Their Light and good works are their own though by the grace of Christ And it is no injury to Christ or his Righteousness or Grace to say that they are their own 4. The splendour of Christians in their good Works must be such as may be seen of Men. 5. The Glorifying of God must be the end of our Good Works and of their appearance unto men 6. As bad as corrupted Nature is there is yet something in mankind which tendeth to the approving of the good works of Christians and to their glorifying God thereupon 7. God is glorified even by common men when they approve of the Glory of Holiness in Believers It is not only by Saints that God is glorified 8. As contrary as Holiness is to corrupted Nature there is such resplendent goodness in true Christians works which common men may glorifie God for And so somewhat in them and in Christianity which hath such agreeableness as may tend to further good 9. The Excellency and Splendour of the good works of Christians especially Teachers is a grand means ordained by God himself for the Conviction of the World and the glorifying of God But the resolving the Question What the splendour of these works must be is my present undertaken task God is not glorified by our adding to him but by our receiving from him not by our making him greater or better or happier than he is but by owning him loving him and declaring him as he is that we and others may thereby be wise and good and happy He is his own glory and ours And by his own light only we must know both him and all things We are not called to bring our Candle to shew the World that there is a Sun but to perswade them into its light to open the Windows and Curtains to disperse the Clouds and to open the eyes of blinded sinners I. The way of doing this and glorifying God is in the order following 1. The first thing that our works must shew is their own goodness They can never prove the Cause good till it is clear that they are good themselves Therefore doubtless Christ here intendeth that we must abound especially in those good works which the world is capable of knowing to be good and not only in those which none but Christians themselves approve If believers and unbelievers agreed in no common principles we were not capable of preaching to unbelievers nor convincing them nor of conversing with them There are many excellent things which Nature doth approve and which both parties are agreed to be good By the advantage of these as granted principles we must convince them of the conclusions which they yet deny and not as the scandalous Christian so absurdly affect singularity as to make light of all good which is taken for good by unbelievers and to seek for eminency in nothing but what the World thinks evil There is a glory in some good works which all do honour and which manifesteth it self 2. And then the goodness of the work doth manifest the goodness of the doer Every man's work is so far his own that he is related to it and by it either as laudable or as culpable as it is Gal. 6.4 5. Let every man prove his own work and then shall he have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another for every man shall bear his own burthen God himself will judge men according to their works and so will men and so must we much do by our selves for it is the rightest judging which is likest God's This subordinate honour God grants to his servants If their works were not an honour to them as the next Agents they could be none to him in their Morality as man's acts though they might as acts in general ordered to good by his own goodness If God's Natural Works of Creation Sun and Moon and Earth c. were not praise-worthy in themselves God would not be praised for them as their Maker There are works that God is said to be dishonoured by Rom. 2.23 24. And what are they but such as are really bad and a dishonour to the Authors It is so far from being true that no praise or honour or comfort from good works is to be given to man that God himself is not like else to be honoured by them as morall good if the Actors be not honoured by them The World must first be convinced that Christians are far better than other men and the righteous more excellent than his Neighbour before they will glorifie God as the Author of their goodness In God's own Judgment Well done is the first word and Good and Faithful Servant is the second and Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord is the third Two sorts of Scandalous persons rob God of his honour in his Saints 1. Those that professing Christianity live wickedly or at least no better than other men whose lives tell the World that Christians are but such as they 2. Those that slander and belye true Believers and would hide their goodness and make them odious to the World As for them that say only that we have no righteousness in our selvet by which we can be justified I shall not differ with them if they do but grant that all shall be judged according to their works and that he that is accused as an Infidel Impenitent an Hypocrite or an Unregenerate Ungodly Person must against that accusation be justified by his own Faith Repentance Sincerity and Holiness or be unjustified for ever 3. The next thing to the Work and the Person that is hereby honoured is the Christian Religion it self with the Spirit 's operations on the Souls of Christians The outward Doctrine and Example Of Christ who teacheth his Servants to be better than the World and the inward Sanctification of the Spirit which maketh them better The Air and Food are commended which make men healthy and the Medicines are praised which cure the disease That is accounted good as a means and cause which doth good and which maketh men good If Christians were more commonly and notoriously much better than all other men the World would believe that the Gospel and the Christian Religion were the best But when scandalous Christians appear as bad or worse than Infidels the World thinks that their Religion is as bad or worse than theirs 4. The next ascent of Honour is to the Maker or Author of our Religion the World will see that he is good that maketh so good a Law and Gospel and that maketh all his true Disciples so much to excel all other men And here the first honour will be to the Holy Spirit which reneweth Souls and maketh them holy And the next will be to the Son our Saviour who giveth us both the Word and Spirit And the highest or ultimate Glory will be to God the Father who giveth us both his Son and his Spirit And thus Honour ascendeth to the Highest by these
steps and the World beginneth at that which is nearest to them and Reason will proceed by these degrees 1. The excellent holy lives of Christians are better than other mens 2. Therefore Christians are better than other men 3. Therefore their Religion is the best or the Word and Work which make them such 4. Therefore the Spirit is good which makes them good the Saviour is good who giveth them that Word and Spirit and God the Fountain of all even the Father of Mercies Is the Fountain of all good and consequently the End of all And thus God is known and glorified by our works II. The works which thus glorifie him are first to be described in general and then enumerated in special I. In General 1. They must be such as make or shew men to be in their places like to God They must be such as represent the particular Perfections of God which are called his Communicable Attributes and such as declare his Relations to us and such as declare his Attributes as so related and his works Aâ— 1. We must so live that men may see that indeed we take not our selve to be our own but God to be our absolute Owner and that it is not our selves but He that must of right dispose both of us and ours and that we willingly stand to his disposal 1 Cor. 6.19 Ye are not your own 2. We must so live as may declare that we are not lawless nor the mere servants of men but the resolved Subjects of God the Soveraign King of all and that really we are ruled by his Laws and Will and not by our own lusts or wills nor by the wills of any but as under him and that we fear not any hurt to the flesh or them that can but kill the body in comparison of that one Law-giver and Judge who is able to save or to destroy for ever Luke 12.4 Jam. 4.12 1 Cor. 7.23 and that we are moved more by his Promises than by all that mortal men can give us and trust wholly to the Heavenly reward of glory and not to the transitory prosperity of this world believing that God is True and Just and none of his Word shall ever fail 1 Pet. 1.3 We are begotten again unto a lively hope through the Resurrection of Christ to an Inheritance incorruptible c. 3. We must so live as may declare that God is our Grand Benefactor from whom we have all the good that ever we received and from whom we hope for all that ever we shall possess and that he is infinitely good the Original and End of all created good We must live as those that believe that we are made for God even to glorifie him and please his blessed Will not by making him beholden to us but by a willing receiving of his mercies and a willing improvement of them to our own felicity And as those that believe that his love is better than life it self and that to know him and love him and glorifie him for ever is the ultimate End and Happiness of man Psal 4.7 8. and 63.3 and 73.25 26 28. Phil. 3.7 8. Matth. 6.33 1 Pet. 1.5 6 8 9. 2 Cor. 5.1 2. And we must so live in relation to Christ and to his Spirit as may declare to the world that the mercy of the Father is conveyed to us by the Son and the Grace of the Father and Son by the Spirit and what wonders of Wisdom Goodness and Power Truth and Justice Holiness and Mercy are manifested in Christ and his Mediation to Mankind Gal. 2.20 Eph. 3.16 17. Phil. 1.20 21. Job 17.10 3. In sum the works that glorifie God must have these three parts of his likeness upon them 1. They must be works of Light like the Light which from the Father of Lights doth illuminate us Christians must be much wiser than the men of the world in holy though not in worldly things Col. 1.9 28. and 3.16 Darkness is the state of Satan's Kingdom and ignorant Christians are scandalous and a dishonour to Christ not those that are ignorant of unnecessary unprofitable or unrevealed things but those that are ignorant of revealed necessary saving truths 1 Cor. 3.2 Heb. 5.11 12. 2. They must be works of Holy Love to God and Man which shew that God and Goodness have our hearts and that we would imitate God in doing good to all according to our places and power Gal. 6.10 Rom. 13.10 11 12. 3. They must be works of Life and Power where serious diligence expresseth zeal and we set our selves no lower bounds than with all our heart and mind and might 2 Tim. 1.7 Rom. 12.11 Thus much for the general description of them II. The description of a Christian whose works glorifie God according to Scripture and Experience may be given you in the following particulars I. He is one that placeth his saving Religion in the practical knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ the Saviour whom he hath sent Joh. 17.3 He puts no limits to his endeavours after useful knowledge but what God hath put by his Word or Providence He would abound in holy wisdom and thinks it worth his greatest diligence and is still upon the increasing hand He hath so much knowledge of the lesser matters of Religion as to keep him from scandalous miscarriages about them but it is the knowledge of God and of a crucified and glorified Christ in which he taketh wisdom to consist Joh. 17.3 1 Cor. 2.2 This is the Light in which he hath his daily conversation the Light which governeth his will and practice which feedeth his Meditations his prayers and his discourse which repelleth his temptations which maintaineth his hope and is his daily work of Recreation his Food and Feast For Men will now perceive 1. That his Religion is not a matter of names and words and trifling Controversies but hath the greatest and most excellent Subject in the world And as Nature teacheth all to reverence God so it will tell them that they must reverence that Religion that Conversation and that Person who is most Divine and where the most of God appeareth 2. And they will see that his Religion consisteth not in uncertainties which no man can be sure of when he hath done his best but in things so sure as none should doubt of which will easily bring men over to consent and shame or silence Contradicters 3. And then they will see that it is a Religion which all sober personr are united in and doth not lose its Authority or Reverence by the divisions wranglings and digladiations of Sects of different minds for God is denied by no sober man nor the Essentials of Christianity by any true Christian 4. And men will see that our Religion is no matter of Indifferency which one may do well enough without but of absolute necessity to Salvation and that which man was made and redeemed for And a Religion of the greatest Subject the greatest
Certainty the greatest Consent and the greatest Necessity will honour it self and its Author in the world if it be rightly represented in the Lives of them that do profess it But when mens over-doing shall pretend that all this is too little and shall seek to raise it as to more perfection by their own Inventions or uncertain Opinions in Doctrine Worship Church-Discipline or Practice they presently cast it as a Foot-ball before the Boys in the Streets and make it a matter of doubtful endless Disputations of multiplied Sects of pernicious Contentions and cruel Persecutions And then the Reverence and Glory of it is gone and every Philosopher will vie with it in subtilty and every Stranger will presume to censure it if not to blaspheme it and deride it And thus Over-doers are the Scandals of the World II. The Christian that will glorifie God and his Profession must be conscionable in the smallest matters but he must ever describe and open the Nature of his Religion as consisting in great and certain things and not talk too much of smaller matters as if it were those that men were to be saved by Tell men of the necessity of believing fearing obeying trusting and loving God and of coming to him by Jesus Christ the Great Mediator between God and Man Tell them of the intrinsick evil of sin and of God's Justice and of Man's Corruption and of the Nature and Excellency of Holiness and of the necessity of being New-born of the Holy Spirit and of mortifying the desires and deeds of the Flesh and tell them of Judgment Heaven and Hell especially the certainty and excellency of the everlasting promised Glory perswade them to believe all this to think much of all this and to be true to what they know and to make it the work of Life to be always prepared for Death Let this be your discourse with sinners as I told you in the first Character it must be your own Religion and then men will perceive that Religion is a matter that doth indeed concern them and that they are indeed great and necessary things in which you differ from ungodly men But the Scandalous Christian talketh most of external Church-orders and Forms and Opinions and Parties and thereby maketh the ignorant believe that the difference is but that one will sit when the other kneeleth and one will pray by the Book and the other without Book and one is for this Church Government and another for that and one for praying in White and the other in Black And talking too much of such things as these deceiveth the hearers some it maketh formal hypocrites who take up this for their Religion and the rest it hardeneth and maketh them think that such people are only more humourous and self-conceited and giddy and factious than others but no whit better III. The Genuine Christian hath an humble and cautelous understanding sensible when he knoweth most how little he knoweth and how much he is still unacquainted with in the great mysterious matters of God His Ignorance is his daily grief and burden and he is still longing and looking for some clearer Light Not a new word of Revelation from God but a clearer understanding of his Word He knoweth how weak and slippery Man's understanding is and he is humbly conscious of the darkness of his own Therefore he is not conceitedly wise nor a boaster of his knowledge but saith as Paul 1 Cor. 8.2 He that thinketh that he knoweth any thing that is is proudly conceited of his own knowledge knoweth nothing as he ought to know And hence it is that though he daily grow in the firmer apprehension of necessary Truths yet he is never confident and peremptory about uncertain doubtful things And therefore he is not apt to be Quarrelsome and contentious nor yet censorious against those that differ from him in matters of no greater moment And hence it is that he runneth not into Sects nor burneth with the scaverish dividing Zeal nor yet is scandalously mutable in his Opinions because as one that is conscious of his Ignorance he doth not rashly receive things which he understands not but suspendeth his judgment till Evidence make him fit to Judge and joyneth with neither of the contending Parties till he is sure or know indeed which of them is right And thus he avoideth that dishonouring of Religion which the scandalous Christian is wofully guilty of who with an unhumbled understanding groweth confident upon quick and insufficient information and Judgeth before he understandeth the case and before he hath heard or read and considered what on both sides may be said and what is necessary to a true understanding And thus either by audacious prating of what he never understood or reviling and censuring Men wiser than himself or by making himself a Judge where he hath need to be many years a Learner or making a Religion of his own mistakes and setting up dividing Sects to propagate them or else by shameful mutability and unsettledness he becometh a scandal to harden unbelievers and a Disease to the Church and a shame to his profession Read James 3. Conceited Wisdom kindleth a contentious Zeal and is not of God but from beneath v. 15.16 17. IV. The Christian who Glorifieth God by his Religion is one that so Liveth that men may perceive that his carnal Interest is not the End and Ruler of his Life but that God is his End and to please him is his Work and his Reward in which he is comforted though the Flesh and World be never so much displeased And that the perfect Light and love of God in the unseen Glory of another Life is the satisfying sum of all his hopes for which all the World must be forsaken To talk much of Heaven and to be as much and as eager for the World as others is the way by which the scandalous Hypocrite doth bring Religion into Contempt It is no high nor very honourable Work to talk of the vanity of the World but to Live above it and to be out of the power of it Nor is it any great matter to speak honourably of Heaven but to Live as believing-seekers of it and as those that have there their Treasure and their hearts Mat. 6.20 21. and are comforted more by the Hopes of the Life to come than by all their possessions or pleasures in the World If we will glorifie God our Lives must perswade Men that he will certainly be our Everlasting Portion and the sure and plentiful Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 It is much of the use of a true Christian's Life to convince Unbelievers that there is a Heaven for Saints and the scandalous worldling perswadeth them that there is none Mat. 5.5 11 12. Phil. 3.26 21. Col. 3.1 2 3 4 5. V. Therefore it Glorifieth God and our Religion when Christians Live in greater Joy or at least greater contentedness and Peace than other Men when they can answer
them and all the loving promises and invitations of the Gospel And must not our Hearts our Ministry and our Lives be answerable to all this Believe it it must be a Preacher whose matter and manner of Preaching and Living doth shew forth a hearty Love to God and Love to Godliness and Love to all his Peoples Souls that is the fit Instrument to glorifie God by convincing and converting sinners God can work by what means he will by a scandalous domineering self-seeking Preacher but it is not his ordinary way Foxes and Wolves are not Nature's Instruments to generate sheep I never knew much good done to Souls by any Pastors but such as Preached and Lived in the Power of Love working by clear convincing Light and both managed by a holy lively seriousness You must bring fire if you would kindle fire Trust not here to the Cartesian Philosophy that meer motion will turn another Element into fire Speak as loud as you will and make as great a stir as you will it will be all in vain to win mens Love to God and Goodness till their hearts be touched with his Love and Amiableness which usually must be done by the Instrumentality of the Preacher's Love Let them hate me so they do but fear me and obey me is the saying of such as set up for themselves and but foolishly for themselves and like Satan would Rule Men to damnation If Love be the sum and fulfilling of the Law Love must be the sum and fulfilling of our Ministry But yet by Love I mean not Flattery Parents do love as necessarily as any and yet must Correct And God himself can love and yet Correct Yea he chasteneth every Son that he receiveth Heb. 12.6 7. And his Love consisteth with paternal justice and with hatred of sin and plain and sharp reproof of sinners And so must ours but all as the various operations of Love as the objects vary And what I say of Ministers I say of every Christian in his place Love is the great and the new Commandment that is the last which Christ would leave at his departure to his Disciples O could we learn of the Lord of Love and Him who calleth himself LOVE it self to love our Enemies to bless them that curse us and to do good to the Evil and pray for them that hurt and persecute us we should not only prove that we are genuine Christians the Children of our Heavenly Father Mat. 5.44 45. but should heap coals of fire on our Enemies heads and melt them into Compassion and some remorse if not into an holy Love I tell you it is the Christian who doth truly love his Neighbour as himself who loveth the Godly as his Co-heirs of Heaven and loveth the ungodly with a desire to make them truly Godly who loveth a Friend as a Friend and an Enemy as a Man that is capable of Holiness and Salvation It is he that Liveth walketh speaketh converseth yea suffereth which is the great difficulty in love and is as it were turned by the love of God shed abroad upon his heart into love it self who doth glorifie God in the World and glorifie his Religion and really rebuke the Blasphemer that derideth the Spirit in Believers as if it were but a Fanatick Dream And it is he that by tyranny cruelty contempt of others and needless proud singularities and separations Magisterially condemning and vilifying all that walk not in his fashion and pray not in his fashion and are not of his opinion where it 's like enough he is himself mistaken that is the Scandalous Christian who doth as much against God and Religion and the Church and mens Souls as he doth against Love And though it be Satan's way as an Angel of Light and his Ministers way as Ministers of Righteousness to destroy Christ's Interest by dividing it and separate things which God will have conjoyned and so to pretend the love of Truth the love of Order or the love of Godliness or Discipline against the love of Souls and to use even the name of love it self against love to justifie all their cruelties or censures and alienations yet God will keep up that Sacred Fire in the hearts of the sound Christians which shall live and conquer these temptations and they will understand and regard the warning of the Holy Ghost Rom. 16.17 I beseech you mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them in their sinful dividing offensive ways for they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus though they may confidently think they do but their own bellies or carnal interests though perhaps they will not see it in themselves and by good words and fair or flattering speeches deceive the hearts of the simple The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hominum minime malorum no bad men or harmless well meaning men who in case it be not to mortal Errours perhaps may be in the main sincere and may be saved when their stubble is burnt But whether sincere or not they are Scandals in the World and great dishonourers of God and serve Satan when they little think so in all that they do contrary to that Vniversal Love by which God must be glorified and sinners overcome VII A publick mind that is set upon doing good as the work of his life and that with sincere and evident self denial doth greatly glorifie God in the World As God maketh his Goodness known to us by doing good so also must his Children do Nothing is more communicative than Goodness and Love nothing will more certainly make it self known when ever there is opportunity That a wordy barren Love which doth not help and succour and do good is no true Christian Love St. James hath told us fully in his detection of a dead and barren faith No man in reason can expect that others should take him for a Good man for something that is known to no one but himself save only that publick converse and communion must be kept up by the charitable belief of Professions till they are disproved The Tree is known by its Fruits and the Fruits best by the taste though the sight may give some lower degree of commendation The Character of Christ's purified peculiar people is that they are zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 The Scandalous Christian may be zealous against others and zealous to hurt them to persecute them to censure them to disparage them and to avoid them but the Genuine Christian is zealous in loving them and doing them all the good he can To do a little good upon the by and from a Full Table to send an Alms to Lazarus at the door yea to give to the Needy as much as the Flesh can spare without any suffering to it self or any abatement of its Grandeur pomp and pleasure in the world will prove you to be men not utterly void of all compassion but it will never prove
you to be Christians nor better than Infidels and Heathens Look not that men should think you better than your fruits do manifest you to be nor that they take you to be good for saying that you are good nor judge you to excel others any further than your works are better than others And marvel not if the World ask What do you more than others when Christ himself doth ask the same Matth. 5.47 If ye salute your Brethren and those of your own Opinion and way and if ye love them that love you and say as ye say do not even Publicans and Infidels do the same Matth. 5.46 Marvel not if men judge you according to your works when God himself will do so who knoweth the heart He that is all for himself may love himself and think well of himself but must not expect much love from others Selfishness is the Boil or Imposthume of Societies where the Blood and Spirits have an inordinate Afflux till their corruption torment or gangrene the part While men are all for themselves and would draw all to themselves instead of loving their Neighbour as themselves and the Publick Good above themselves they do but hurt and destroy themselves for they forfeit their communion with the body and deserve that none should care for them who care for none but themselves To a Genuine Christian another's good rejoyceth him as if it were his own and how much then hath such a one continually to feed his joy and he is careful to supply another's wants as if they were his own But the scandalous selfish hypocrite doth live quietly and sleep easily if he be but well himself and it go well with his Party however it go with all his Neighbours or with the Church or with the World To himself he is fallen to himself he liveth himself he loveth himself he seeketh and himself that is his temporal prosperity he will advance and save if he can whatever his Religion be and yet himself he destroyeth and will lose It is not well considered in the World how much of sin consisteth in the narrow Contraction of mens love and regard unto their natural selves and how much of goodness consisteth in a Community of love and what a glory it is to the Government and Laws of God that he maketh it so noble and necessary a part of every man's duty to love all men and to do good to all as he is able though with a difference God could do us all good enough by Himself alone without one another But what a mercy is it to the World that as many Persons as there are so many there are obliged by God to love their Neighbours as themselves and to do good to all about them And what a mercy is it to the Actor that God will thus make him the Instrument and Messenger of his Beneficence Ministers and Christians all Would you be thought better than others Are you angry with men that think otherwise of you What good do you more than others in your places What good do you that other men 〈◊〉 see and feel and taste and judge of Every man loveth himself and can feel what doth him good in natural things And God that by giving you food and other mercies to your bodies would have you therein taste his love to your Souls would use you just so for your Brethrens good Do you give them good words and counsel It is well But that is not it that they can yet taste and value You must do that sort of good for them which they can know and relish not that this will save them or is any great matter of it self no more than God's common bodily mercies to you but this is the best way to get down better And he that seeth his Brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him 1 Joh. 3.17 Give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away Matth. 5.42 That is let not want of Charity hinder thee at any time from giving though want of ability may hinder thee and prudence may restrain thee and must guide thee If you say Alas we have it not to give I answer 1. Do what you can 2. Shew by your compassion that you would if you could Take care of your poor Brethren 3. Beg of others for them and put on those that can to do it Say not These carnal people value nothing but carnal things and cannot perceive a man's love by spiritual benefits For it is not Grace but the means and out-side of things spiritual that you can give them and for ought I see the most of us all do very hardly believe God's own love to us if he deny us bodily mercies If you languish in poverty crosses and painful sickness any thing long your murmuring sheweth that you do not sufficiently taste God's goodness without the help of bodily sense And can you expect that natural men believe you to be good for your bare words when you so hardly think well of God himself though he promise you Life Eternal unless he also give you bodily supplies VIII He that will glorifie his Religion and God before men must be strictly just in all his dealings just in governing just in trading and bargaining just to Superiours and to Inferiours to Friends and to Enemies just in performing all his promises and in giving every man his Right He that in love must part with his own Right for his Neighbour's greater good must not deprive another of his Right for Charity includeth Justice as a lower Vertue is included in a higher and more perfect He must not be unjust for himself for riches or any worldly ends he must not be unjust for Friends or Kindred he must not be drawn to it by fear or flattery no price must hire him to do an unrighteous deed But above all he must never be unjust as for Religion as if God either needed or countenanced a lye or any iniquity No men are more scandalous dishonourers of Religion and of God than they that think it lawful to deceive or lye or be perjured or break Covenants or be rebellious or use any sinful means to secure or promote Religion as if God were not able to accomplish his Ends by righteous means This cometh from Atheism and Unbeliâ—f when men think that God will lose his Cause unless our wits and sinful shifts preserve it as if we and not He were the Rulers of the world The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 and seldom scape the hatred or contempt of men IX He that will glorifie God must know and observe the Order of Commands and Duties and that God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and must prefer the End before the Means as such He must not pretend a lesser Duty against a greater nor take the lesser at that time for a Duty
2. Temptations also have their season and must just then be resisted lest many a year repair not an hours loss And they are very many And narrow-sighted careless persons who avoid two and fall into the third or avoid nineteen and are conquered by the twentieth are always scandalous 3. And rash adventures on any Opinions or actions but especially of publick consequence are usually most scandalous and pernicious to the Church As in Military Affairs and in Physick ubi non licet bis errare mens lives must pay for our temerity and errour and all the World cannot remedy the effects of one mistake So in matters of Religion if we mistake by our rash conceitedness and take not time for necessary tryal and proceed not as a man on the Ice or among Quick-sands with great care and deliberation the shaking of Kingdoms the ruine of Churches the silencing of Ministers the corruption of Doctrine Worship and Discipline and the sin and damnation of many Souls may be the effect of our proud presumption and temerity But the humble self-suspecting man that suspendeth his judgment and practice till he hath throughly proved all doth preserve the honour of Religion and avoid such late and dear repentance XVIII The man whose works shall glorifie God must be devoted to the Vnity and Concord of Believers and be greatly averse to dividing and love-killing Opinions words and practices and as much as in him lies he must live peaceably with all men 1 Cor. 1.10 Phil. 2.1 2 3. Eph. 4.3 4 14 15 16. Rom. 16.17 and 12.18 1 Thes 5.17 Joh. 17.24 When Paul saith that Dividers serve not the Lord Jesus but their own bellies he intimateth to us that though Truth and Purity be in their mouths and really intended by them as they take it yet there is usually a secret self-interest that is carried on that byasseth the judgment And when he telleth them Act. 20.30 that of their own selves should men arise speaking perverse things which they called and it 's like believed to be the Truth yet self-interest lay at the bottom to be some-body in drawing Disciples after them For it is so notorious a truth that Unity and Concord are indispensably necessary to the Church as it is to our Body to Families to Kingdoms that men could not do so destructive a thing as dividing is if some sin had not first caused the errour of their minds It greatly honoureth Christ and Religion in the world when Believers live in love and unity And their discords and divisions have in all Ages been the scandal of the World and the great reproach and dishonour of the Church When Christ's Disciples are one in him it is the way to the Infidel-world's Conversion that they may believe that the Father sent him Joh. 17.24 And here the Devil hath two sorts of servants 1. The true Schismatick or Heretick who fearlesly and blindly divideth the Churches 2. The over-doing Papist and Church-Tyrant who will have a greater unity than Christ will here give us that so we may have none And when Christ prays that we may be one in him the Pope saith that we shall also be one in him or we shall be accounted Schismaticks and destroyed as such And when the Ancient Church according to Christ's Institution united all in the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed and Paul numbreth the necessary terms of unity Eph. 4.4 5 6. 1. One Body or Church of Christ into which we are baptized 2. One Spirit of Holiness in all 3. One Hope of the Glorious Reward 4. One Lord by whom we do attain it 5. One Faith even the Christian Verity 6. One Baptism or Covenant of Christianity 7. And One God and Father of all and in these God would have all his Servants to be One then come in these Over-doers and they must have us to be all One in all their Papal policy and all the Decrees of their Popes and Councels de Fide and in their multitude of corruptions and ceremonious impositions which is as much as to say You shall have no Vnity For he that saith to all the City or Kingdom You shall be destroyed for discord or reproached as dividers if you are not all of one Complexion or have not all the same Appetite Age or Bodily Stature doth pronounce reproach or destruction on them absolutely So is it with all others that put their self-devised terms on their Brethren as necessary to Unity and Peace on how pious or fair pretences soever Impossible conditions make the thing impossible These are the Church-tearing scandals These are the snares by which Satan hath made the Church a scorn and our Religion a Stumbling block to Turks and Heathens But had the Peace-makers been heard who learned of the Holy Ghost Act. 15. to impose nothing on the Brethren but necessary things and who have laboured to revive love and shame emulations and divisions God had been more glorified by men and the reproach of the Churches and solemn Assemblies taken away When all Sects and Parties have busled and raised a dust in the World to foul the Church and blind each other if ever the Churche's Glory be restored and our shame taken away it will be by men of Love and Peace by healing uniting reconciling principles and means XIX He that will glorifie God must live in and to the Will of God and seek to reduce his own will wholly into God's and to destroy in himself all will that striveth against God's Will 1. The disposing Will of God our Owner must be absolutely submitted to and the bounteous Will of God our Benefactor thankfully and joyfully acknowledged 2. The ruling Will of God our Law-giver must be with daily study and care obeyed and his punishing and rewarding Justice glorified 3. The final felicitating Will and Love of God our ultimate end and object that we may please him and be everlastingly pleased in him love him and be loved by him must be totally desired and sought as the only and perfect Rest of Souls O! that is the holy the joyful the honourable Christian who daily laboureth and in some good measure doth prevail to have no Will but the Will of God and that which wholly is resolved into it who looketh no further to know what he should do but to know by his Word what is the Law or Will of God who believeth that all that God willeth is good and had rather have his life and health and wealth and friends at God's will and disposal than his own who knoweth that God's Will is love it self and that to please him is the End of all the World and the only felicity of men and Angels and resteth wholly in the pleasing of that will What can be more wise and just than to have the same will objectively with him who is infinitely wise and just What can be more honourable than to have the same Will as God himself and so far as his Children to be like
our Father What can be more orderly and harmonious than for the will of the creature to move according to the Creator s Will and to be duly subservient to it and accurately compliant with it What can be more Holy nay what else is Holiness but a will and life devoted and conformed to the Will of God What can be more safe or what else can be safe at all but to will the same things which the most perfect Wisdom doth direct to and infinite love it self doth chuse And what can be more easie and quieting to the Soul than to rest in that Will which is always good which never was misguided and never chose amiss and never was frustrated or mist of its decreed ends If we have no will but what is objectively the same with God's that is if we wholly comply with and follow his will as our Guide and rest in his will as our ultimate end our wills will never be disordered sinful misled or frustrate God hath all that he willeth absolutely and is never disappointed And so should we if we could will nothing but what he willeth And would you not take him unquestionably for a happy man who hath whatsoever he would have Yea and would have nothing but what is more just and good There is no way to this Happiness but making the Will of God our will God will not mutably change his Will to bring it to ours Should Holiness it self be conformed to sinners and perfection to imperfection But we must by Grace bring over our wills to God's and then they are in joynt and then only will they find content and rest O what would I beg more earnestly in the World than a will conformed wholly to God's Will and cast into that Mould and desiring nothing but what God willeth But contrarily What can be more foolish than for such Infants and ignorant Souls as we to will that which Infinite Wisdom is against What more dishonourable than to be even at the very Heart so contrary or unlike to God What can be more irregular and unjust than for a created Worm to set his will against his Maker's What else is sin but a will and life that is cross to the regulating Will of God What can be more perillous and pernicious than to forsake a perfect unerring Guide and to follow such ignorant judgments as our own in matters of Eternal consequence What can that Soul expect but a restless state in an uncomfortable Wilderness yea perpetual self-vexation and despair who forsakes God's Will to follow his own and hath a will that doth go cross to God's Poor self-tormenting sinners consider that your own wills are your Idols which you set up against the Will of God and your own wills are the Tyrants to which you are in bondage your own wills are your Prison and the Executioners that torment you with fear and grief and disappointments What is it that you are afraid of but lest you miss of your own wills For sure you fear not lest God's Will should be overcome and frustrate What are your cares about but this What are your sighs and groans and tears for And what is it else that you complain of but that your own wills are not fulfilled It is not that God hath not his Will What is it that you are so impatient of but the crossing of your own wills This person crosseth them and that accident crosseth them and God crosseth them and you cross them your selves and crost they will be while they are cross to the Will of God For all this while they are as a bone out of joynt there is no ease till it be set right In a word a will that is contrary to God's Will and striveth and struggleth against it is the Off-spring of the Devil the sum of all sin and a fore-taste of Hell even a restless self-tormenter And to will nothing but what God willeth and to love his will and study to please him and rest therein is the rectitude and only Rest of Souls and he that cannot rest contentedly in the Will of God must be for ever restless And when such a Holy will and contentment appeareth in you mankind will reverence it and see that your Natures are Divine and as they dare not reproach the Will of God so they will fear to speak evil of yours When they see that you chuse but what God first chuseth for you and your wills do but follow the Will of God men will be afraid of provoking God against them as blasphemers if they should scorn deride or vilifie you And could we convince all men that our course is but the same which God commandeth it would do much to stop their reproach and persecution And if they see that we can joyfully suffer reproach or poverty or pains or death and joyfully pass away to God when he shall call us and live and die in a contented complacency in the Will of God they will see that you have a beginning of Heaven on Earth which no Tyrant no loss or cross or suffering can deprive you of while you can joyfully say The Will of the Lord be done Act. 21.14 Object But if it be God's Will for sin to punish me or forsake me should I contentedly rest in that revenging Will Answ 1. That sin of ours which maketh us uncapable objects of the complacential Will of God is evil and to be hated But that Will of God which is terminated on such an object according to the nature of it by just hatred is good and should be loved And punishment is hurtful to us but God's Will and Justice is good and amiable 2. If you will close with God's Will you need not fear his Will If your will be unfeignedly to obey his commanding Will and to be and do what he would have you his Will is not to condemn or punish you But if God's Will prescribe you a holy life and your will rebel and be against it no wonder if God's Will be to punish you when your wills would not be punished Joh. 1.13 Heb. 10.10 Joh. 7.17 Luk. 12.47 XX. It glorifieth God and Religion in the World when Christians are faithful in all their Relations and diligently endeavour the sanctifying and happiness of all the Societies which they are members of I. Holy Families well ordered do much glorifie God and keep up Religion in the World 1. When Husbands live with their Wives in wisdom holiness and love and Wives are pious obedient meek and peaceable Eph. 5.22 25. Col. 3.18 19. yea unto such Husbands as obey not the Word that without the Word they may be won by the conversation of the Wives 1 Pet. 3.1 2. 2. When Parents make it their great and constant care and labour with all holy skill and love and diligence to educate their Children in the fear of God and the love of goodness and the practice of a holy life and to save them from sin and the
temptations of the world the flesh and the devil and have more tender care of their Souls than of their bodies that so the Church may have a succession of Saints And when children love honour and obey their Parents and comfort them by their forwardness to all that is good and their avoiding the ways and company of the ungodly Eph. 6.1 Col. 3.20 Psal 1.1 2. 3. When Masters rule their Servants as the Servants of God and Servants willingly obey their Masters and serve them with chearful diligence and trust and are as careful and faithful about all their goods and business as if it were their own Eph. 6.5 9. Col. 3.21 and 4.1 1 Pet. 2.18 When the Houses of Christians are Societies of Saints and Churches of God and live in love and concord together and all are laborious and faithful in their Callings abhorring idleness gluttony drunkenness pride contention and evil speaking and dealing justly with all their Neighbours and denying their own right for love and peace this is the way to glorifie Religion in the world II. Well ordered Churches are the second sort of Societies which must glorifie God and propagate Religion in the world 1. When the Pastors are Learned in the holy Scriptures and skilful in all their sacred work and far excel all the people in the Light of Faith and knowledge and in love to goodness and to mens Souls and in lively zealous diligence for God and for mens Salvation thinking no labour cost or suffering too dear a price for the peoples good when no sufferings or reproaches move them nor account they their lives dear to them that they may but finish their course and Ministry with joy when their publick Preaching hath convincing light and clearness and powerful affectionate application and their private over-sight is performed with impartiality humility and unwearied diligence and they are able to resolve the peoples Cases of Conscience solidly and to exhort them earnestly with powerful reason and melting love This honoureth Religion and winneth Souls When they envy not one another nor strive who shall be greatest or uppermost but contrariwise who shall be most serviceable to his Brethren and to the peoples Souls When they over-see and feed the Flock of God which is among them not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over God's Heritage but being ensamples to the Flock and seeking not theirs but them are willing to spend and be spent for their sakes yea though the more they love them the less they are beloved not minding high things but condescending to men of low estate This is the way for Ministers to glorifie God 1 Pet. 5.1 2 3 4. 2 Tim. 2.14 15. 1 Tim. 4.10 Heb. 4.11 13. Act. 20.24 1 Thes 2.8 2 Tim. 4.1 2 3. Luke 22.24 25 26. 2 Cor. 12.14 15. Rom. 12.16 When Ministers are above all wordly interest and so teach and live that the people may see that they seek not the honour which is of men but only that which is of God and lay not up a treasure on Earth but in Heaven and trade all for another world and are further from pride than the lowest of their stock when they have not only the cloathing of sheep but their harmless profitable nature and not the ravenousness or bloudy jaws of destroying Wolves when they use not carnal weapons in their warfare but by an eminency of light and love and life endeavour to work the same in others when they are of more publick spirits than the people and more self-denying and above all private interests and envyings and revenge and are more patient in suffering than the people through the power of stronger Faith and Hope and Love when they are wholly addicted to holiness and peace and are zealous for the Love and Unity of Believers and become all things to all men to win some in meekness instructing opposers abhorring contention doing nothing in strife or vain-glory but preferring others before themselves not preaching Christ in pride or envy nor seeking their own praise but thirsting after mens conversion edification and salvation Thus must Christ be honoured by his Ministers in the world When they speak the same things being of one mind and judgement uniting in the common Faith and contending for that against Infidels and Hereticks and so far as they have attained walk by the same rule and mind the same things and where they are differently minded or opinioned wait in meekness and love till God reveal to them reconciling truth when they study more to narrow Controversies than to widen them and are skilful in detecting those ambiguous words and verbal and notional differences which to the unskilful seem material when they are as Surgeons and not as Souldiers as skilful to heal differences as the proud and ignorant are ready to make them and can plainly shew the dark Contenders wherein they agree and do not know it when they live in that sweet and amicable concord which may tell the world that they love one another and are of one Faith and Heart being one in Christ This is the way for Ministers to glorifie God in the world And with thankfulness to God I acknowledge that such for many years I had my conversation with of whom the world that now despiseth them is not worthy Phil. 2.21 Matth. 6.19 20 21. John 5.44 2 Cor. 10.4 2 Tim. 2.25 26. 1 Cor. 9.19 20 22. and 10.33 Phil. 2.1 2 3. 1 Tim. 6.3 4. Jam. 3.14 15 16. 2 Tim. 2.14 24. Phil. 3. 15 16 17. John 17.24 Eph. 4.3 4 5. 1 Cor. 1.10 James 3.17 18. And the maintaining of sound Doctrine Spiritual Reasonable and Reverent Worship without ludicrous and unreverent trifling or rudeness or Ignorance or Superstition or needless singularity much honoureth God as is aforesaid And so doth the Exercise of Holy Discipline in the Churches Such Discipline whereby the precious may be separated from the vile and the holy from the profane by Authority and Order and not by popular usurpation disorder or unjust presumptions Where the cause is fairly tryed and judged before men are cast out or denyed the priviledges of the Church Where Charity appears in embracing the weakest and turning away none that turn not away from Christ and condemning none without just proof And justice and holiness appeareth in purging out the dangerous leaven and in trying and rejecting the obstinately impenitent Heretick and gross sinner after the first and second admonition and disowning them that will not hear the Church Mat. 18.15 16. Tit. 3.10 1 Cor. 5.11 When the neglect of Discipline doth leave the Church as polluted a Society as the Infidel World and Christians that are owned in the publick Communion are as vitious sensual and ungodly as Heathens and Mahometans it is one of the greatest injuries to Christ and our Religion in the World For it is by the purifying of a peculiar people zealous of good works that Christ is
known to be really the Saviour of the World and by making his followers better than others that he and his Doctrine and Religion are known to be the best Travellers tell me that nothing so much hindreth the conversion of the Mahometans as their daily Experience that the Lives of the Greek Christians and others that Live among them are too ordinarily worse than theirs More drunkenness and more falshood lying deceit it 's said are among those Christians than among the Turks If that be true those are no true Christians but woe be to them by whom such offence cometh I have oft heard those Souldiers justly censured as profane who turn Churches into Stables without great necessity But how much more hurtfully profane are they who for carnal ends confound the World and the Church and keep the multitude of the most sensual ungodly Persons in their Communion without ever calling them Personally to Repentance and use the Church Keys but to revenge themselves on those that differ from them in some Opinions or that cross their Interest and wills or that seem too smart and zealous in the dislike of their Carnality Sloth and Church-pollutions When the Churches are as full of scandalous sinners as the Assemblies of Infidels and Heathens the World will hardly ever believe that Infidelity and Heathenism is not as good as the Christian Faith It is more by Persons than by Precepts that the World will judge of Christ and Christianity And what Men on Earth do more scandalize the World more expose Christianity to reproach more harden Infidels more injure Christ and serve the Devil than they that fill the Church with impious Carnal Pastors as in the Church of Rome and then with impious Carnal People maintained constantly in her Communion without any open disowning by a distinguishing reforming Discipline When such Pastors are no better than the soberer sort of Heathens save only in their Opinion and formal words and when their ordinary Communicants are no better it 's no thanks to them if all turn not Infidels that know them and if Christianity be contemned and decay out of the World And it 's long of such that disorderly separations attempt that Discipline and distinguishing of the godly and the notoriously wicked which such ungodly Pastors will not attempt See Lev. 19.17 Mat. 18.15 16. 1 Cor. 5. Tit. 3.10 Jer. 15.19 Psal 15. 2 Thes 3. Rom. 16.17 2 Tim. 3.4 5. III. But O how great an honour is it to God and to Religion when Kings Princes and States do zealously devote their Power to God from whom they do receive it and labour to make their Kingdoms Holy When Truth Sobriety and Piety have the countenance of humane powers and Rulers wholly set themselves to further the faithful Preaching and practising of the Holy Faith and to Unite and strengthen the Ministers and Churches and to suppress Iniquity and be a terror to evil doers it taketh Satan's great advantage out of his hand and worketh on carnal Men by such means as they can feel and understand Not that God needs the help of Man but that he hath setled Officers and a Natural Order by which he usually worketh in the World And as it cannot be expected that an unholy Parent and Master should have a Holy Family or an unholy Pastor a Holy Church unless by extraordinary Mercy no more can we expect that ungodly Magistrates should have a godly Kingdom or Common-wealth of which the Sacred History of the Jewish and Israelitish Kings doth give you a full confirmation But this I must now say no more of And thus I have told you in Twenty particulars what are those good Works in which the Light of Christians must shine before Men to the Glorifying of God Object Doth not Mat. 5.10 11 12. Contradict all this Blessed are ye when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Answ No You must here distinguish 1. Of Men. 2. Of Righteousness and Good Works I. The Men that we have to do with are 1. Ordinary Natural Men Corrupted by Original sin but yet not hardened to Serpentine Malignity as some are 2. Or they are Men that by sinning against Nature and common Light are forsaken and given up to malignant minds II. The Good Works which Natural Light and humane Interest can discern and commend do differ from those which are merely Evangelical of Supernatural Revelation 1. Malignant Persons hardened in Enmity will scorn and persecute Holiness it self and even that Good which Reason Justifies and therefore are called unreasonable wicked Men 2 Thes 3.2 Good works with these Men make us odious unless they are such as gratifie their Lusts 2. But there are Natural Men not yet so hardened and forsaken who are usually them that the Gospel doth Convert And these have not yet so blinded Nature nor lost all sense of good and evil but that they honour him that doth good in all the Twenty particulars which I have named and think ill of those that do the contrary though yet they relish not the Christian Righteousness and things of Supernatural Revelation for want of Faith Let us briefly now apply it This informs us what an honourable state Christianity and true Godliness Vse 1 is when God hath made us to be the Lights of the world to shine before Men to the Glory of his Holiness as the Sun and Stars do to the Glory of his Power No wonder if in Glory we shall shine as Stars in the Firmament of our Father if we do so here Dan. 12.3 Mat. 13.43 Phil. 2.15 This must not make us proud but thankful for our Pride is our shame and our Humility is our Glory And what wonder if all the Powers of darkness do bend their endeavours Vse 2 to obscure this Sacred Light The Prince of darkness is the Enemy of the Father of Lights And this is the great war between Christ and Satan in the world Christ is the Light of the World and setteth up Ministerial Lights for the world and for his House his work is to send them forth to teach them and defend them and to send his Spirit to work in and by them to bring Men to the everlasting Light And Satan's work is to stir up all that he can against them high and low learned and unlearned and to put Christ's Lights both Ministers and People under a bushel and to make the world believe that they are their Enemies and come to hurt them that they may be hated as the Scorn and off-scouring of the world and to keep up Ignorance in Ministers themselves that the Churches Eyes being dark the darkness may be great But let us pray that God would forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their hearts and that he would open our Lips that our mouths may shew forth his praise and though his Ministers and People have their faulty weaknesses that he would be merciful to our Infirmities
larger opening of the Methods of Grace than we can now have leasure for and therefore must be don◠its proper season Those that honour God he will honour and therefore let us also give Vse 7 them that honour which is their due The barren Professors who honour themselves by over-valuing their poor knowledge gifts and grace and affecting too great a distance from their Brethren and censuring others as unworthy of their Communion without proof are not the men that honour God and can lay claim to no great honour from men But God hath among us a prudent holy humble laborious patient Ministry that glorifie him by their works and patience and he hath among us a meek and humble a blameless and a loving and fruitful sort of Christians who imitate the Purity Charity and Simplicity yea and Concord of the Primitive Church These tell the World to their sight and experience that Religion is better than Ignorance and Carnality These tell the World that Christ and his Holy Word are true while he doth that in renewing and sanctifying Souls which none else in the World can do These shew the World that Faith and Holiness and Self-denial and the hopes of Immortality are no deceits These glorifie God and are the great Benefactors of the World I must solemnly profess that did I not know such a people in the world who notwithstanding their infirmities do manifest a holy and heavenly disposition in their lives I should want my self so great a help to my Faith in Christ and the promise of Life Eternal that I fear without it my Faith would fail And had I never known a holier Ministry and People than those that live but a common life and excel Heathens in nothing but their Belief or Opinions and Church orders and Formalities I should find my Faith assaulted with so great temptations as I doubt I should not well withstand No talk will perswade men that he is the best Physitian that healeth no more nor worse diseases than others do Nor would Christ be taken for the Saviour of the World if he did not save men And he saveth them not if he make them not holier and better than other men O then how much do we owe to Christ for sending his Spirit into his Saints and for exemplifying his holy Word on holy Souls and for giving us as many visible proofs of his Holiness Power and Truth as there are Holy Christians in the world we must not flatter them nor excuse their faults nor puff them up But because the Righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour we must accordingly love and honour them and Christ in them For Christ telleth us that he is glorified in them here Joh. 17.10 And that what is done to them his Brethren even the least is taken as done to him Mat. 25. And he will be glorified and admired in them when he cometh in his Glory at the last 2 Thes 1.8 9 10. And he will glorifie their very works before all the world with a Well done good and faithful Servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. What is it to do all we do in the Name of Christ and how may we do so Serm. XXIII Colos 3.17 And whatsoever ye do in word and deed do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him THERE have been and still are many great and famous Names in the World into which men have been Baptized according to which they have been call'd and also walked in the world Rev. 11.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of great Name or men of Renown Gen. 6.4 What a Renowned Name had the Beast in the Earth Rev. 13.3 4. that the world wondered after the Beast and worshipped the Dragon that gave power to the Beast and they worshipped the Beast saying Who is like to the Beast Pharaoh was a great Name amongst the Kings of Egypt which were so call'd from their famous Predecessors So the Kings of the Amalakites were called Agag and of Tyre Hyram and of Lycia Antiochus of Pontus Mithridates of the Emperours of Rome Caesars and in the Church Professors have affected to be call'd by the Name of some Eminent persons 1 Cor. 3.4 5. Some cryed up Paul others Peter and this was a growing evil in the Church 1 Cor. 1.12 13 14. They ambitiously affected to be denominated from some Eminent Persons among them As the Lutherans and Calvinists and many others at this day have been call'd and denominated from some great persons that have been famous in their Generation But here is a Name in my Text is above all Names in Heaven and Earth and all Christians are call'd by this Name and call on this Name Jer. 14.9 Amos 9.12 This Name you must trust in and boast in beyond and above all Names whatsoever Isa 45.24 25. Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength and in the Lord shall all the Seed of Israel be justified and shall glory See what a Name is given to Christ Isa 6.7 And bow to it his Name shall be call'd Wonderful Councellour and consider every Letter of his Name and adore it The Apostle according to his usual manner in this Epistle having spoken of the Doctrine of the Gospel and how they received it and the influence it had on them v. 12 13. And concerning Christ in whom they had Redemption v. 14 15 16 17 18 19. And of the Excellency of his Person and of the riches of the glory of his Grace revealed in it v. 27. Then Chap. 2. he stirs them up to live such lives as becometh the Gospel and to beware of Seducers v. 16. to the end Then Chap. 3. he puts them in mind of several duties throughout the Chap. He lays down some general Exhortations with reference to the Gospel and their living suitably to it from v. 1. to 17. Then he proceeds to particular duties in our place and Relations and in this v. 17. having laid down something he gathers up all into one sum how to carry themselves in the whole course of their lives in their thoughts words and works We may observe from the general Scope Doct. That the Doctrine of the Gospel carrieth the highest and strictest obligations upon all such to whom it reveal'd to duty and service in their places and relations to God and Man In the words we have 1. A Rule laid down 2. The things that are under the Rule words works and thoughts and secret motions of the heart which works also are well known to God and so they come under Rule 3. Here is the Universality of the Rule in its extent and full compass it fetcheth in all words and works without exception and all persons for this You takes in all persons of what rank or degree soever 4. Here is the manner how they must be done so as to answer the Mind of God in the Name of Christ 5. Here is a further
to be worshipped that the soul is immortal that there is a state of bliss in another world that righteousness is the way to that bliss Now as there are but two righteousnesses the righteousness of Christ of which the whole Creation is silent and nature altogether ignorant and Angels knew it not until it was revealed to them and a mans own righteousness So there are but two Religions in the world sc Christianity and nature Call Religions by what names you list Judaism Turcism Paganism Popery common Protestantism 't is still but nature The Sea hath many names from the Countries and shores but still it is the same Sea These two righteousnesses cannot be mixt in the business of justification in the sight of God If it be of Christ as the Scripture faith it is no more of works if it be of works as nature saith it is no more of Christ we cannot be justified in his sight partly by the righteousness of Christ's obedience and partly by our own The Law is not of Faith Gal. 3.13 as many as are of the works are under the curse v. 10. the just shall live by faith ergo not by law This is Paul's Logick v. 11. A man cannot be Son of two mothers Gal. 4. lat end Cast out the bond-woman and her Son for the Son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the Son of the free-woman And a woman cannot be wife to two husbands together Rom. 7.4 There is but one strait gate Matth. 7.13 one door Joh. 10.9 one way Joh. 14.5 one name Acts 4.12 Paul is the most lively instance in this great case while he was alive to the Law he was dead to Christ and when he was alive to Christ he was dead to the Law Gal. 2.19 dead to the Law as a rule of righteousness and alive to the Law as a rule of obedience dead to the Law in point of dependance and alive to the Law in point of love and practice his Christianity did ennoble and heighten his morality he was just and sober and temperate blameless while he was a Pharisee but when he was a believer he did the same things from a noble principle in a spiritual manner for the right ends before he did act from himself for himself now from Christ and for Christ The deduction from hence is this If we would live in true comfort we must be true Christians A man may be a Protestant yet not a Christian indeed a man may be blameless and Christless and by consequence Godless Remember the parable of the foolish Virgins they were not harlots profane but Virgins they were not persecutors or blasphemers or malicious but foolish i. e. supine careless negligent they had lamps in their hands but no oyl in their hearts the parable of the builders the sandy believers of the Kings supper the man that had not on a wedding garment Indeed most of the preaching of the Lord Jesus tends this way and these parables live to this day and as much at this day Let us look to our selves the oyl of Faith and comfort go together the oyl of holiness and the oyl of gladness true Christians are anointed with both Consider the man that wanted the wedding robe was not discerned by any at the table the Lord espied him quickly who would have thought such a professor should go to hell bind him hand and foot he did pretend to Christ and it was but a pretence I may dispute for preach up Christ's righteousness active and passive and the imputation thereof according to the Scripture and the judgement of the best learned that ever the Churches have had and yet I may go about to establish mine own I may lift up Christ to you and pull him down in mine own heart The sum is this Nullum bonum sine summo bono Austin I will expound it thus No good work without God no God without Christ no Christ without heart-Faith no Faith without love no love without obedience no such obedience without comfort Doct. more or less This brings me to the Doctrine It is the property and practice of believers to love the Lord Jesus and to rejoyce in him and in the hope of eternal life by him 1. First It is their property they and all they and always and none but they there is no man in the world that loves God and the Redeemer Jesus but a believer the Philosophers were haters of God Rom. 1.30 the Gentiles and their wise men for it is plain that the Apostle speaks of them not of the Gnosticks that is an idle conceit and I am bound to believe Paul's Characters of the Gentiles and their Philosophers before Diogenes Laertius Plutarch or any man else the Jews hated Jesus Christ John 15.24 the world hated him John 7.7 Luke 19.14 All Gospel-Atheism said that incomparable Dr. Twisse is against Jesus Christ So for joy there 's never a joyful man alive but a believer Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins why that is the Devil's joy or that they rejoyce in full barns and bags that is the Fool 's joy or that they rejoyce in wine i. e. all dainties that gratifie the palate that is a Bedlam joy I have said of mirth thou art mad Read and believe Eccles 2.3 indeed from the first v. to the 11. The whole book but especially that Chapter is the divinest Philosophy that ever was or will be 2. 'T is their practice they love the Lord Jesus in incorruption or sincerity Eph. 6. last The Church i. e. Believers joyntly and singly say of Jesus that he it is whom their soul loves Cant. 1.7 in the 3. chap. the 4 first ver we have it four times and none but that I sought him whom my soul loveth v. 1. I will arise and seek him whom my soul loveth v. 2. I said to the watchmen saw ye him whom my soul loveth v. 3. after a little while I found him whom my soul loveth v. 4. here is no supernumerary repetition every believer's soul bears a part in this divine song so for joy that is their practice too we have no confidence in the flesh but rejoyce in Christ Jesus which joy in him did plainly flow out of their confidence of an interest in him Phil. 3.3 as sorrowful yet always rejoycing 2 Cor. 6.9 we rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 and we rejoyce in God by Jesus Christ v. 11. with many more Texts to the same purpose there need no more only observe 't is we rejoyce 't is not only Paul or the Apostles but the Philippians Romans and so all believers we rejoyce I shall speak something 1. For the explication of the Doctrine 2. For the vindication of the truth 3. For the resolution of the case 1. For explication these two affections Love and Joy will be best described by their properties objects causes Love is the return of an holy affection to Jesus Christ with desires after
the Souls of others with close and pressing importunities to prize and prosecute that Element and State of Joys and Holiness which is not credited relished and valued by himself And further 2. Were it supposed also that the regular faithfulness of a Minister was separable from the spirit faithfulness of a Christian either in themselves or in the Subject yet how can we imagine such operative influential apprehensions and true relishes of the joy reported and proposed as shall prevail against all oppositions and discouragements and competitions from the frowns and flatteries bribes and stroaks of Earth and Hell to animate a Minister's brest so as to make him through in all the Enterprizes and Employments of his Function whil'st his own Work and Interest as a Christian is neglected and those influences of this joy entailed upon a course well finished though they be powerful to make him faithful in the one shall yet be found too languid to issue in the same diligence and success as to the other And 3. We must conclude that this Eagle-eyed Apostle saw and reckoned on it that a Christian Minister and an Apostle must be a through-Christian and something yea much more or else he could not possibly conclude his Course would bring him to his Joys 1 Cor. 9.24 27. Therefore the Sense and Errand of the Text amounts to this Doctr. That the comforts of a well compleated course will make all discerning serious Christians to be above the regard of Life or fear of all afflictions bonds or death to compass them Rom. 8.18 and Phil. 1.20.23 The very instance argument and errand of my Text and Doctrine grounded thereupon imply and include several things as that 1. there is a state of future joys and retributions for we have no reason to imagine that our Apostle was so blind as to be deceived himself nor so wicked as to deceive others No man that knows and credits the existence of a Deity but he must take him to be the strongest wisest the best of beings and so that he must needs be omnipotent omniscient and all-sufficient and if so then it is beyond all controvesie that omnipotence can at such a rate address it self to Creatures as to make them happy or miserable as it best becomes it self He that ordained and framed this state cannot be thought to have acted to the utmost of his strength for what can stint omnipotence and doth it suit the wisdom of God to make a Creature capable of an everlasting state and of the hopes and prospect of it and to implant in it an expectation of it and rule him by those hopes and fears which do and must derive their influences from an eternal state and after all to make it evident that man was only made to be imposed on or ruled and managed by mistakes and meer fallacious arguments and errours or hath God afforded us the least intimation of his mind in nature providence or scriptures that this is the way of conciliating that love and honour from his Subjects or of implanting and maintaining those necessary fears in man which government requires for the attainments of its ends to make them live in expectation of what is no ways fit to reach its ends because it is either false or mean and therefore I need not go about to prove what here is granted and improved and what so many incomparably better pens have proved before me 2. this state hath sufficient force as to argument and motive to press us to do and suffer all that we can meet with or be called to in our whole Christian course All those severe perplexities which our religion calls us to as to obedience in sufferings and duty are not beyond the compensations of these approaching expected joys and if they obstruct the influences and eclips the light and glory of what is proposed and promised as our great argument and encouragement 't is utterly only our own fault that makes what is sufficient to be ineffectual 3. The comforts of a course well finished cannot be had without the regular management finishing of our course this can never be without resolution and preparation of the heart by which it must be born and kept above immoderate love to life and fear of sufferings and death Faith is the spirit of religion the spirit of faith is hope and the spirit of hope is love and these are all the most successful preparations of the heart Had faith its liberty power and prospect in the heart of all professors it would make them too sagacious concerned to be imposed on by plausible delusions and bold pretences in all these sublunary trifles to that substantial solid satisfaction and excellency which are expected by ductile mortals to be experienced therein or hoped for therefrom Did we but look beyond the grave and wilderness and search and see that land of promise which is beyond them we might be entertained and allured with such clusters from it as would afford us more grateful relishes and spirits than all the feculent extractions of these transient comforts could amount to All our delights and pleasures in and great sollicitudes about these lower things would be effectually mortified and conquered 2 Cor. 4.17 18. what breasts of consolation are evidence substance Heb. 11.1 sense and presence do strangely invigorate strengthen the dangerous influences of this Worlds comforts and concernments in their addresses to the heart of man 2 Tim. 4.10 And because the gain and comforts of true Religion are invisible and distant therefore their certainty and transcendent excellency must be concocted into deep and sound Perswasions and be digested into answerable Affections Resolutions and Pursuit and all those Arguments and Motives which must prevail upon us to run and finish the course and race which is set before us must be derived from and are to be reduced to this deep perswasion of these certain and transcendent comforts nor is it possible that Religion should live or thrive but in the power of and true proportion to our apprehensions and perswasions of those fundamental truths and principles of God's existence and rewarding excellency Heb. 16.6 Man must be ruled as God hath made him and as fear and love are the commanding passions and affections of every subject capable of moral government so something there must be reported and determined fit for the exercise and discipline thereof and if transcendency in what must influence â—oth be not credible and demonstrable their influences must of necessity prove too languid to attain their end Equality spoils choice as far as iâ— extends and if the comforts of another state do not exceed what we can meet with here sure powerful Godliness would lose its life and brests together nor could it be existent in its practice without its arguments and motives and with submission to better judgments I think that impossibility of pleasing God without faith spoken of Heb. 11.6 Results not only
embraces which our true happiness deserves and should we thus embrace them our Idols arms and hearts would certainly be broken altogether Our lawful comforts and delights are hereby embittered and polluted and melt away to nothing and bid farewel with dreadful gripes and bitter relishes and fly away upon the wings we give them for indeed the great affections of our enflamed hearts cannot but turn them all to smoak It is their subservient usefulness and relation to God our present work and future glory that make and speak them excellent and if you change their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you rob the cluster of its best juice and blessing and if your lives and comforts turn God's competitors and enemies you Spin them into snares and ruines And were but this the rule and measure of all our fears and love there would be joy in keeping and resigning them God would be with them in their stay and in their stead and places when they are gone in Psal 73.24 26. Oh! how disgracefully is this world reflected on in holy Writ 2 Cor. 4.18 Mat. 6 19 1. Rom. 8.18 And when you do compare it with that above and cast them both into an equal balance in your considerate and serious thoughts and pauses then think which is noblest in its nature most indisturbed in its possessions most uniform in its constitution most enduring in its excellence most adequate in its proportions and most desirable in its full dimensions 1 Pet. 1.4 And what advantages herein are others testimonies in the Case Would you but measure the good and evil of both worlds by the experiences and apprehensions of dying and awakened persons how vast a difference would you see betwixt the life and comforts of them both yea and their sorrows too Where have you any thing in this world that can preponderate or equal the comforts of God's blessed Face and Favour especially when all clouds and frowns are gone what is this world more apt to do than to deface God's Image in us or prevent it darken his Glory obstruct his comfortable emanations and addresses to us and to foment our Jealousies and suspitions about his present interest in us and his eternal kindness to us O what a difference is there betwixt the mantle of our mortal life which falls upon that dark and sluggish world where purblind man delights to be and those more glorious and enduring Robes of Righteousness Salvation Praise and Immortality which our Redeemer hath provided for us where by our death he calls and takes us What therefore but our inconsiderateness can make us love our Prisons Chains and Rags or the pretences of ensnaring Cheats Impostures and Delusions Direct 3. Look upon life and all its Comforts as a probationary state for something else and use them so Prov. 9.12 Eccles 9.10 2 Cor. 5.10 Rom. 2.6.10 Heb. 9.27 Trifle not here for it is your time of trial we are all designed to live elsewhere and future retributions must be answerable to our present carriage This is our trading season and would you be always in the Shop or Market Would you be always travelling homeward and never reach your Fathers house 2 Cor. 5.6 9. We must not dream of being always on the Stage we have our parts to act our work to do and must be called off ere long that others may succeed us and after a few successive Acts the Theatre must be taken down and can we fancy shadows representations and resemblances to be everlasting What! hath God sent us hither to doat upon those Lives and Comforts which are built upon the weak uncertain Sands and spend themselves in triflings upon the hasty streams of short uncertain Time Or is it not rather that we should be acting and ripening for eternal joys and exercises This is our time of Discipline Exercise and education for the Prince's Court to fit us for our everlasting Ministrations before the great Jehovah Now we are learning Principles and labouring to understand and try what it is to love and honour God what to be ruled and taught that so we might be saved by Christ to thrive upon and under preparatory quicknings counsels and consolations of the Spirit what it is to receive reflect refract God's Holiness and Image in his instituted ways and methods and can we terminate our Affections Pleasures and Desires upon these preliminary elements and prelusions to those more lofty Exercises and enjoyments that wait for us when we have regularly finished our probationary Course Surely our dark discoveries slender attainments cold affections frequent and great disturbances and faint attempts to get near God our mean proficiency and the true prospect of what we want as to both our accomplishments and enjoyments should make us easily resolve our value care and love into this one single aim and enterprize namely to see that Comforts Lives and Time be most effectually managed and improved for the securing of these joys before us for there is nothing that we are and have below but it is a Talent for the Market not the Napkin and therefore neither Life nor Comforts should lie as dead Goods upon our hands nor be as Idols in our hearts Have we but one thing needful to secure and are we upon our tryal for it and shall we turn our trust and helps to snares and hinderances by doating on them and by fixing and abiding where we should be in motion Are not we called to labour in the Vineyard in order to our reckoning and reward at night and is it not to day that we must work Heb. 3.12 15. John 17.4.5 Will not our Crop and Harvest be answerable to our Seed Gal. 6.7 9. What wonder is it that the guilty Drone so much desires to live and fears to die or that he rages frets and trembles to hear his Hour and the Judge is come When men have trifled all the day 't is a most frightful sight to see the lengthned shadow and declining Sun Stupefaction is no conquest of the fear of Death or love of Life But when the awakened soul expects and sees the King of Terrors in the head of his whole Army and on his hasty March what then can steell that countenance whose heart and life have been expended and embezled in trifling dotages and mistakes yea and gross neglects of what the man was sent into the world to do He that was sent into the world to please his God and save his Soul and to grapple with and trample on the twisted strength and subtilties of Earth and Hell and to acorn and propagate Religion by an exact and exemplary conversation and so under Christ to make all clear within and sure above when he hath neglected all cannot be comfortably furnished to sacrifice or part with life for the Concernments of Eternity with chearfulness and out of choice or to conquer the Exercises Fears and Challenges of a dying hour And besides did we but carry as upon our trial weaning our hearts
carelessness without an Epithete bare sloath without any thing to aggravate it ordinarily doth the Soul more hurt than all the Devils in hell yea than all its other sins Shake off this and then you will be more than Conquerors over all other difficulties shake off this and there is but one sin that I can think of at present that you 'l be in danger of and that 's spiritual pride You 'l thrive so fast in all grace you 'l grow up into so much communion with God that unless God sometimes withdraw to keep you humble you will have a very Heaven upon Earth Imped 4. The love of any sin whatsoever the love of God and the love of any Sin can no more mix together than Iron and Clay every Sin strikes at the being of God (i) Deicidium The very best of Saints may possibly fall into the very worst of pardonable Sins but the least of Saints get above the love of the least of Sins we are ready to question Gods love unto us as Dalilah did Sampson's love to her if he do not gratifie us in all we have a mind to but how could Dalilah pretend love to Sampson while she comply'd with his mortal enemy against him how can you pretend to love God while you hide Sin his enemy in your hearts as it was with the grand-child of Athaliah (k) 2 King 11.1 2 c. stoln from among those that were slain and hidden though unable at present to disturb her e're long procures her ruine so any Sin as it were stoln from the other Sins to be preserv'd from Mortification will certainly procure the ruine of that Soul that hides it can you hide your Sin from the search of the Word and forbear your Sin while under the smart of affliction and seem to fall out with Sin when under gripes of Conscience and return to Sin as soon as the storm is over never pretend to love God God sees through your pretences and abhors your hypocrisie (l) Job 34.21 22. His eyes are upon the ways of man and he seeth all his goings there 's no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves Come Sirs let me deal plainly with you you are shameful strangers to your own heart if you do not know which is your darling Sin or Sins and you are Traytors to your own Souls if you do not endeavour a through Mortification and you are wilful Rebels against God if you do in the least indulge it never boggle at the Psalmist's counsel (m) Psal 97.10 ye that love the Lord hate evil Imped 5. Inordinate love of things lawful and in some respect here 's our greatest danger here persons have Scripture to plead for their love to several persons and things that it is a duty to bestow some love upon them and the meer stones are not so plainly set as easily to discern the utmost bounds of what is lawful and the first step into what is sinful and here having some plausible pretences for the parcelling out of their love they plead not guilty though they love not God with all their hearts souls and minds whereas they should consider that the best of the world is not for enjoyment but use not our end but means conducing to our chief end Here 's our sin and our misery our foolish transplacing of end and means Men make it their end to eat and drink and get estates and injoy their delights and what respect they have to God I know not whether to call love or Service they shew it but as means to flatter God to gratifie them in their pitiful ends Having warned you of some of the chief Impediments I shall propose some means to engage your hearts in love to God which you may confidently expect to be effectual through the operation of the Holy Ghost and you may likewise expect the operation of the Spirit in the use of such means The means are either Directing Promoting or Conserving Means to attain love to God 1. Directing and that is Spiritual Knowledge this is beyond what can be spoken in its commendation A clear and distinct knowledge of the love and loveliness of God in the amazing yet ravishing methods of its manifestations and the clear understanding of the heavenly priviledge of having our hearts inflam'd with love to God this will do I would fain perswade you to try I am not able to say how much to direct you in this case plainly get and exercise this twofold knowledge 1. The knowledge of Spiritual things did we but perfectly know the Nature of the most contemptible insect nay did we but know the Nature of Atoms this would lead us to admire and love God but then to know those things that no graceless person in the world cares for the knowledge of e. g. the inward workings of Original Sin and how to undermine it the powerful workings of the Spirit of grace and how to improve it what are the joys of the Holy Ghost and how to obtain them would not such things insinuate the love of God into you add then 2. The knowledge of ordinary things in a Spiritual manner so as to make the knowledge of Natural things serve Heavenly designs Thus Christ in all the Metaphors in all the Parables he used To value no knowledge any further than it is reducible to such an use this would lead us into the loving of God Thus I name but one directing means promoting means are various not but that Spiritual knowledge doth singularly promote the love of God but it 's proper work lyes in directing The several things I shall name for inward means your way of managing must make them so 1. Self-denyal this is so necessary that no other grace can supply the want of it It is among the graces of the Soul as among the members of the Body one member may supply the want of another the defect of the Lungs may be supplied by other parts The want of prudence may be supplied with Gospel-simplicity which looks like quite another thing but nothing can supply our want of love to God nor can any thing supply our want of Self-denyal in order to our loving of God We can never have n Fo◠fotidissimus suo 〈◊〉 horribilissimum stercus vermis nequis simus Bonavent stimul Amor. p 153. too low thoughts of ourselves provided we do not neglect our duty and let go our hold of Christ Those very things that not only we may love but we must love 't is our duty to love them and our sin not to love them yet all these must be denyed when they dare to stand in competition with our love to God o Luk. 14.26 If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple Christ would have us count what Religion will cost us
before we meddle with it 2. Contempt of the world As love of the world is a great impediment so contempt of the world is a great promoter of our love to God may not our contempt of the world be best express'd by our worldly diffidence we have no confidence in it no expectation of happiness from it I take both the understanding and will to be the seat of Faith now to have both these against the world is to have our understanding satisfied that the world cannot satisfie us to look upon the world as an empty Drum that makes a great noise but hath nothing in it and therefore the will doth not hanker after it hath no kindness for it That person is a good proficient in divine love that can make the world serviceable to devotion by drawing arguments from his worldly condition be it what it will to promote piety e. g. Have I any thing considerable in the world I will manage it as a Steward blessed be God he hath entrusted me with any thing whereby I may shew my love to him in my love to his Have I nothing in the world Blessed be God for my freedom from worldly snares God knows I need food and raiment and I am of Jacob's mind p Gen. 28.20 21. if God will give me no more he shall be my God and I will be content whatever my condition be in the world 't is better than Christ's was and Oh that I could love God as Christ did 3. Observation of God's benefits to us 't is goodness and beneficence that draws out love God is our infinite Benefactor the very brutes love their Benefactors q Isa 1.3 Qui beneficia invenit compedes invenit Sen. The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass his Master's crib but my people doth not consider Who can reckon up the benefits he receives from God the commonest of our mercy deserves a return of love how much more our Spiritual merces those very mercies that are troublesome to us deserve our love e. g. Trouble for Sin though to a degree of horror hungring after Christ though unto languishing disappointments in the world though without satisfaction any where else lamenting after God though with fear we shall never enjoy him Such like throws of anguish make way for spiritual joy and comfort and the Soul that goes through such exercises grows in love to God every day As for other kinds of Benefits I 'le say but this God doth more for us every hour of our lives than all our dearest Friends or Relations on Earth than all the Saints and Angels in Heaven can do so much as once should they do their utmost and can you do less than love him 4. Watchfulness over our own hearts When we love God we are to remember that we love a jealous God This will restrain the stragling of our affections we should keep as careful a watch over our own hearts as we should over a rich Heiress committed to our Guardianship we reckon she 's undone and we shall never be able to look God or Man in the face if she be unworthily match'd through our default Christians your hearts through the condesension of God and Blood and Spirit of Christ are a match for the King of Glory several inferiour objects not worth the naming are earnest suitors we are undone if any but God have our Supream love if you be not severely watchful this heart of yours will be stoln away be perswaded therefore to examine every thing that you have cause to suspect call your selves often to an account be jealous of your hearts and of every thing whereby you may be endangered 5. Prayer All manner of Prayer is singularly useful to enflame the heart with love to God Those that pray best love God best mistake me not I do not say those that can pray with the most florid expressions or those that can pray with the most general applause but they that most feel every word they speak and every thought they think in Prayer they whose apprehensions of God are most over-whelming whose affections to God are most Spiritually passionate whose Prayers are most wrestling and graciously impudent this is the man that prayes best and loves God best I grant these are the Prayers of a great proficient in the love of God but you may pray for this frame when you cannot pray with it The Soul never falls sick of divine love in Prayer but Christ presently gives it an extraordinary visit (r) Cant. 2.5 6. so soon as ever Christ's Spouse sayes she is sick of love the next words she speaks are that his left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me Compare that with those words (s) Cant. 6 5 Turn away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me Christ speaks as of being overcome and conquer'd Rouze up your selves therefore give your selves unto Prayer Pray for a more Spiritual discovery of Gods amiableness did you know God better you could not but love him more and none can discover God to us as he discovers himself so spiritually so powerfully take no denyal God will never be angry with your being importunate for hearts to love him Bradward de causa dei l. 1. p. 118 119. O my God it is thy self I love above all things 't is for thy self in thee my desires are terminated and therefore what wilt thou give me if thou wilt not give me thy self thou wilt give me nothing If I find thee not I find nothing thou dost not at all reward me but vehemently torment me heretofore when I sought thee finally for thy self I hop'd that I should quickly find thee and keep thee and with this sweet hope I comforted my self in all my labours but now if thou deny me thy self what wilt thou give me shall I be for ever disappointed of so great a hope shall I always languish in my love shall I mourn in my languishment shall I grieve in my mourning shall I weep and wail in my grief shall I alwayes be empty shall I alwayes disconsolately sorrow incessantly complain and be endlesly tormented O my most good most powerful most merciful and most loving God thou dost not use so unfriendly and like an enemy to despise refuse wound and torment those that love thee with all their heart soul and strength that hope for full happiness in thee Thou art the God of truth the beginning and end of those that love thee thou dost at last give thy self to those that love thee to be their perfect and compleat happiness Therefore O my most good God grant that I may in this present life love thee for thy self above all things seek thee in all things and in the life to come find thee and hold thee to eternity 6. Meditation A duty as much talk'd of and as little practis'd as any duty of Christianity Did you but once a day In that time of the day which