Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	world_n	worship_n	worshipper_n	70	3	11.0638	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39675	Pneumatologia, a treatise of the soul of man wherein the divine original, excellent and immortal nature of the soul are opened, its love and inclination to the body, with the necessity of its separation from it, considered and improved, the existence, operations, and states of separated souls, both in Heaven and Hell, immediately after death, asserted, discussed, and variously applyed, divers knotty and difficult questions about departed souls, both philosophical, and theological, stated and determined, the invaluable preciousness of humane souls, and the various artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered, and the great duty and interest of all men, seasonable and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed / by John Flavel ...	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1685 (1685)	Wing F1176; ESTC R5953	379,180	504

their miscarriages but you see not their humiliations and self-condemnations before God for them Foo● and fearful saith a grave Divine was the scandal of David Ier. Dyke of Scandal p. 33. and what was the issue Presently the Enemies of God and Godliness began to lift their heads and fall foul upon Davids Religion 2 Sam. 12. they blasphemed the Name of God O this is he that was so grand a Zealot that the zeal of Gods house did eat him up This is the man that out of his transcendent zeal danced before the Ark. This is he that prayed thrice a day at morning noon and night This is he that was so precise and strict in his family that a wicked person should not dwell in his house This your great precise Zealot hath defiled the Wife and murdered the Husband Now you see what his Religion is now you see what comes of this profession of so much Holiness and Godliness O that men would seriously consider their evil in such censures as these What is all this to Religion Doth Religion any way countenance or patronize such practices Nay doth it not impartially and severely condemn them It is the glory of the Christian Religion that it is pure and undefiled Iam. 1.27 These practices flow from no Principle of Religion nor are chargeable upon it for it teacheth men the very contrary Tit. 2.11 12. If I see a Papist sin boldly or an Arminian slight Grace I justly condemn their Principles in and with their practices because Popery sets Pardons to Sale and Arminianism exalts Nature into the place of Grace but doth the Doctrine of the Gospel lead to any immoralities Charge it if you can Fourthly And as sensless a thing it is to condemn all for the miscarriages and faults of some which yet is the common practice of the world Are all that profess Godliness loose and careless No no many are an ornament to their holy Profession and the glory of Christianity And why must the innocent be condemned for the guilty What is your reason and ground for that Why might not the Enemies of Christianity have condemned the Eleven Apostles upon the fall of Iudas had they not as good Warrant for it as you have for this To conclude You little know what a snare of the Devil is laid for your Souls in all those prejudices and offences you take at the ways and Professors of Godliness and what a wo you bring upon your own Souls by them You speak evil of persons and things you know not and prejudice is like still to keep you in ignorance of them Wo to the world saith Christ because of offences and Blessed is he that is not offended at me The eleventh way of ruining the precious Soul opened XI The eleventh way wherein abundance of precious Souls perish in the Christianized and professing World is the way of formal Hypocrisie in Religion and Zeal about the Externals of Worship Such a generation of men have in all Ages mingled themselves with the sincere Worshippers of God and the inducement to it is obvious the form of Godliness is an honour but the power of it a burden By the former earthly interests are accommodated by the latter they are frequently exposed and hazarded We find in the Jewish Church abundance of such chaff intermixed with the wheat which the Doctrine of Christ discovered and purged out of the floor Matth. 3.9 12. Such were the Pharisees who were exceeding zealous for Traditions and the external Rites and Ceremonies of the Law but inwardly full of all filthiness Matth. 15.7 8 9. men that honoured the dead and persecuted the living Saints that reverenced the material Temple and destroyed the living Temples that strain'd at Gnats of Ceremonies and swallowed down the grossest immoralities And well had it been if this generation had ended with that state and time of the Church but we find a Prophecy of the increase of these men in the later days 2 Tim. 3.5 which is every where sadly verified Religion runs into stalk and blade into leaves and suckers which should be concocted into pith and fruit Yea it is of sad consideration that amongst many high Pretenders to Reformation their Zeal which should nourish the vitals of Religion and maintain their daily work of Mortification and Communion with God spends it self in some by opinion whilst practical Godliness visibly languisheth in their Conversations How many are there that hate doctrinal errours who yet perish by practical ones who hate a false Doctrine but mean time perish by a false heart 'T is very difficult to reclaim this sort of men from the errour of their way and thereby save their Souls from Hell However let the means be used and the success left with God The way to Hell by Formality barred up 1. No sin intangles the Souls of men faster or damns them with more certainty and aggravation than the sin of formal Hypocrisie It holds the Soul fastest on Earth and sinks it deepest into Hell There was no sort of men upon whom the Doctrine of Christ and the Apostles had so little success and effect as the Scribes and Pharisees they derided him when Publicans and sinners trembled and believed Luke 16.14 15. the form of Godliness wards off all convictions their zeal for the Externals of Religion secures them against the fears of damnation whilst in the mean while their Hypocrisie plunges them deeper into Hell than others that never made such shews of Sanctimony and Devotion He shall appoint him his portion with hypocrites Matt. 24.51 that is he shall be punished in Hell as Hypocrites are punished viz. with the greatest and forest punishment Hypocrisie is a double iniquity and will be punished with double destruction their ungrounded hopes of Heaven serve but to pully up their wretched Souls to a greater height of vain confidence which gives them the more dreadful jerk in their lamentable and eternal disappointment 2. Blind superstitious Zeal which spends it self only about the Externals of Religion usually prepares and ingageth men in a more violent persecution of those that are really godly and conscientious The Lord opened a great door of opportunity at Antioch to Paul the whole City came together to attend the discoveries of Christ in the first publication of the Gospel and the poor Gentiles began to taste the sweetness of the Gospel but the Devil perceiving his Kingdom begin to totter immediately stirred up his instruments to persecute the Apostles and drive them out of the Country and who more fit for that work than the devout and honourable women Acts 13.15 these stirred up their Husbands and all they had influence upon Satan per costam tanquam per scalam ad c●r ascendit Gregor under a fair pretence of zeal for the Law to obstruct the progress of the Gospel No Bird saith one like the living Bird to draw others into the net Men of greatest names and pretensions to Religion if graceless are the

that their lives were cheap and low priz'd things for his enjoyment And here indeed is the glory and triumph of a Christians Faith and love to Christ For 1 it enables him to part chearfully with what he sees and feels for what his eyes yet never saw 1 Pet. 1.8 Whom having not seen ye love 2 To part with what is dearest on earth and lies nearest the heart of all he enjoys for Christ's sake 3 To reconcile his heart to what is most abhorrent and formidable to nature 4 To endure the greatest of pains and torments to be with him 5 To cast himself into the vast Ocean of Eternity the most amazing change to be with Christ. O the glorious Conquests of Love Inference II. THen the Apostasie of unregenerate Professours in times of eminent danger is not to be wondered at They will and must warp from Christ when their lives are in hazard for him The love of the Body will certainly prevail over their love to Christ and Religion Amor meus pondus meum Self-love will now draw Love is the weight of the Soul which inclines and determines it in the competition of Interests and the predominant Interest always carries it Every Unregenerate Professor loves his own life more than Christ prefers his body before his Soul such a one may upon divers accounts as Education Example slight Convictions of Conscience or Ostentation of gifts fall into a Profession of Religion and continue a long time in that Profession before he visibly recede from Christ hope of the Resurrection of the Interest of Religion in the World Shame of retracting his Profession Applause of his Zeal and Constancy in higher Tryals The Peace of his own Conscience and many such Motives may prevail with a Carnal Professor to endure a while but when dangers of life come to an height they are gone Matth. 24.8 9 10. And therefore our Lord tells us that they who hate not their lives cannot be his Disciples Luke 12.26 Now will they lose their lives by saving them Matt. 16.25 And the Reasons are plain and forcible For 1. Now is the proper season for the predominant love to be discovered it can be hid no longer And the love of life is the predominant love in all such persons For do but compare it with their love to Christ and it will easily be found so They love their lives truly and really they love Christ but feignedly and pretendedly and the real will and must prevail over the feigned love They love their lives fervently and intensely they love Christ but coldly and remissly And the fervent love will prevail over the the remiss love Their love to their Bodies hath a root in themselves their love to Christ hath no root in themselves Matth. 13.21 and that which hath a root must needs outlast and outlive that which hath none 2. Because when life is in hazard Conscience will work in them by way of Discouragement 't will hint the danger of their eternal state to them and tell them they may cast away their Souls for ever in a Bravado for though the cause they are called to suffer for be good yet their Condition is bad and if the Condition be not good as well as the Cause a Man is lost for ever though he suffer for it 1 Cor. 13.3 Conscience which encourages and supports the upright will daunt and appall the Hypocrite and tell him he is not on the same terms in Sufferings that other men are 3. Because then all the Springs by which their profession was fed and maintained fail and dry up Now the wind that was in their backs is come about and blows a storm in their faces There are no Preferment nor Honours now to be had from Religion These mens Sufferings are a perfect Surprize to them for they never counted the cost Luke 14.28 Now they must stand alone and resist unto bloud and sacrifice all visibles for invisibles and this they can never do O therefore Professors look to your hearts try their predominant love compare your love to Christ with that to your lives Now the like question will be put to you that once was put to Peter John 21.15 Lovest thou me more than these What say you to this You think now you do but alas your love is not yet brought to the fire to be tryed You think you hate sin but will you be able to strive unto blood against sin Hebr. 12.4 Will you chuse suffering rather than sin Iob 36.21 O try your love to Christ before God bring it to the tryal Sure I am the love of life will make you warp in the hour of Temptation except 1. You sate down and counted the cost of Religion before-hand if you set out in Profession only for a Walk not for a Iourney if you go to Sea for Recreation not for a Voyage if you be mounted among other Professors only to take the air and not to engage an enemy in sharp and bloudy Encounters you are gone 2. Except you live by Faith and not by Sense 2 Cor. 4.18 Whilst we look not at the things that are seen You must ballance present Sufferings with future glory You must go by that account and reckoning Rom. 8.18 or you are gone Now the just shall live by faith and if Faith don't support your fears will certainly sink you 3. Except you be sincere and plain-hearted in Religion driving no Design in it but to save your Souls else see your lot in that Example 2 Tim. 4.10 Demas hath forsaken me O take heed of a cunning subdolous double heart in Religion be plain be open care not if your ends lay open to the eyes of all the World 4. Except you experience the power of Religion in your own Souls as well as wear the name of it O my Brethren 't is not a name to live that will do you service now Many Ships are gone down to the bottom for all the brave Names of the Success the Prosperous the Haypy return and so will you There is a knowing in our selves by taste and real experience Hebr. 10.34 which doth a Soul more service in a Suffering hour than all the splendid Names and Titles in the World 5. Except you make it your daily work to crucify the Flesh deny self for Christ in all the Forms and Interests of it He that can't deny himself will deny Jesus Christ Matth. 26.24 let him deny himself take up his Cross and follow me else he can't be my Disciple Ponder these things in your hearts whilst yet God delays the Tryal Inference III. IF the Souls of men be naturally so strongly inclin'd and affected towards the Body then hence you may plainly see the Wisdom of God in all the Afflictions and Burdens he lays upon his people in this World and find that all is but enough to wean off their Souls from their Bodies and make them willing to part with them The life of the Saints in this World

is generally a burthened and a groaning life 2 Cor. 5.2 In this Tabernaele we groan being burthened Here the Saints feel 1 A burthen of sin Rom. 7.24 this is a dead and a sinking weight 2 A burthen of Affliction of this all are Partakers Hebr. 12. though not all in an equal degree or in the same kind yet all have their burthens equal to and even beyond their own strength to support it 2 Cor. 1.8 pressed above measure 3 A burthen of inward troubles for sin and outward Troubles in the Flesh both together so had Iob Heman David and many of the Saints Certainly this befals them not 1 Casually Iob 5.6 It rises not out of the Dust 2 Nor because God loves and regards them not for they are fruits of his love Heb. 12.6 Whom he loveth he correcteth 3 Nor because he takes pleasure in our groans Lamen 3. To tread under his feet the Prisoners of the earth the Lord hath no pleasure 'T is not for his own pleasure but his Childrens profit Heb. 12.10 And among the pr●fits that result from these burthens this is not the least to make you less fond of the body than you would else be and more willing to be gone to your everlasting rest And certainly all the Diseases and Pains we endure in the Body whether they be upon inward or outward accounts by Passion or Compassion from God or Men will be found but enough to wean us and loose off our hearts from the fond love of life Afflictions are bitter things to our taste Ruth 1.20 so bitter that Naomi thought a name of a contrary signification fitter for her afflicted condition Call me Marah i. e. bitter not Naomi pleasant beautiful And the Church Lam. 3.19 calls them Wormwood and Gall. The great design of God in afflicting them is the same that a tender Mother projects in putting Wormwood to her Breast when she would wean the Child It hath been observed by some discreet and grave Ministers that before their remove from one place to another God hath permitted and ordered some weaning Providence to befal them either denying wonted success to their labour or alienating and cooling the affections of their people towards them which not only makes the manner of their departure more easie but the grounds of it more clear Much so it falls out in our natural death the comfort of the World is imbittered to us before we leave it The longer we live in it the less we shall like it We overlive most of our Comforts which engaged our hearts to it that we may more freely take our leave of it It were good for Christians to observe the voice of such Providences as these and answer the Designs of them in a greater willingness to die 1. Is thy Body which was once hail and vigorous now become a crazy sickly pained body to thee neither useful to God nor comfortable to thee a Tabernacle to groan and sigh in And little hopes it will be recovered to a better temper God hath ordered this to make thee willing to be divorced from it The less desireable life is the less formidable death will be 2. Is thy Estate decayed and blasted by Providence so that thy life which was once full of Creature-Comforts is now fill'd with Cares and Anxieties O 't is a weaning Providence to thee and bespeaks thee the more chearfully to bid the World farewel The less comfort it gives you the less it should entangle and engage you We little know with what aking hearts and pensive breasts many of Gods people walk up and down though for Religion or Reputations sake they put a good face upon it but by these things God is bespeaking and preparing them for a better State 3. Is an Husband a Wife or dear Children dead and with them the comfort of life laid in the dust Why this the Lord sees necessary to do to perswade you to come after willingly 'T is the cutting asunder thy roots in the earth that thou maist fall the more easily O how many stroaks must God give at our Names Estates Relations and Health before we will give way to the last stroak of death that fells us to the ground 4. Do the times frown upon Religion Do all things seem to threaten stormy times at hand Are desireable Assemblies scattered Nothing but Sorrows and Sufferings to be expected in this World By these things God will imbitter the earth and sweeten Heaven to his People 5. Is the beauty and sweetness of Christian Society defaced and decayed That Communion which was wont to be Pithy Substantial Spiritual and Edifying becomes either frothy or contentious so that thy Soul hath no pleasure in it This also is a weaning Providence to our Souls Strigelius desired to die that he might be freed ab implacabilibus Theologorum odiis from the Wranglings and Contentions that were in his time Our fond affection to the Body requires all this and much more to wean and mortifie them Inference IV. HOW Comfortable is the Doctrine of the Resurrection to Believers which assures them of receiving their Bodies again though they part with them for a time Believers must die as well as others their Union with Christ priviledges them not from a Separation from their Bodies Rom. 8.10 Heb. 9.27 But yet they have special grounds of Consolation against this doleful separation above all others For 1. Though they part with them yet they part in hopes of receiving them again 1 Thessal 4.13 14. They take not a final leave of them when they die Husbandmen cast their Seed-corn into the earth chearfully and willingly because they part with it in hope so should we when we commit our Bodies to the earth at death 2. Though death separate these dear Friends from each other yet it cannot separate either the one or other from Christ Luke 20.37 38. I am the God of Abraham c. Your very dust is the Lords and the Grave rots not the Bond of the Covenant 3. The very same Body we lay down at death we shall assume again at the Resurrection Not only the same specifical but the same Numerical Body Iob 19.25.26 With these eyes shall I see God 4. The unbodied Soul shall not find the want of its Body so as to afflict or disquiet it nor the Body the want of its Soul but the one shall be at rest in Heaven and the other sweet asleep in the Grave and all that long interval shall slide away without any afflicting sense of each others absence The time will be long Iob 14.12 but if it were longer it cannot be afflicting considering how the Soul is cloathed immediately 2 Cor. 5.1 2. and how the Body sleeps sweetly in Jesus 1 Thess. 4.14 5. When the day of their re-espousals is come the Soul will find the Body so transformed and improved that it shall never receive prejudice from it any more but a singuler addition to its Happiness and Glory Now it clogs us

make Idols of our own Bodies we rob God yea our own Souls to give to the Body It is not a natural and kindly heat of love but a meer feavourish heat which preys upon the very Spirits of Religion which is found with many of us This feavourish distemper may be discovered by the beating of our pulse in three or four particulars 1. This appears by our sinful indulgence to our whining appetites We give the flesh whatsoever it craves and can deny it nothing it desires pampering the Body to the great injury and hazard of the Soul Some have their conversation in the lusts of the flesh as it is Eph. 2.3 Trading only in those things that please and pamper the flesh They sow to the flesh Gal. 6.8 i.e. all their studies and labours are but the sowing of the seeds of pleasure to the flesh Not an handful of spiritual Seed sowen in Prayer for the Soul all the day long what the Body craves the obsequious Soul like a slave is at its beck to give it Tit. 3. 3. Serving diverse lusts and pleasures attending to every knock and call to fulfil the desires of the flesh O how little do these men understand the life of Religion or the great design of Christianity which consists in mortifying and not pampering and gratifying the Body Rom. 14. 13 14. And according to that rule all serious Christians order their Bodies giving them what is needful to keep them serviceable and useful to the Soul but not gratifying their irregular desires giving what their wants not what their wantonness calls for So Paul 1 Cor. 9.27 I beat it down and keep it under he understood it as his Servant not his Master He knew that Hagar would quickly peark up and domineer over Sarah expect more attendance than the Soul except it were kept under These two verbs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very emphatical the former signifies to make it black and blue with buffeting the other to bring it under by checks and rebukes as Masters that understand their place and Authority use to do with insolent and wanton Servants It was a rare expression of an Heathen Major sum ad 〈◊〉 natus quàm ut corporis mei sim mancipium I am greater and born to greater things than that I should be a drudge or Vassal to my Body And it was the saying of a pious Divine when he felt the flesh rebellious and wanton Ego faciam aselle ut non calcitres I will make thee thou Ass that thou shalt not kick I know the superstitious Papists place much of Religion in these external things but though they abuse them to an ill purpose there is a necessary and lawful use of these abridgments and restraints upon the Body and it will be impossible to mortifie and starve our lusts without a due rigour and severity to our flesh But how little are many acquainted with these things They deal with their Bodies as David with Adonijah of whom it 's said 1 Kings 1.6 His Father had not displeased him at any time in saying Why hast thou done so And just so our flesh requites us by its Rebellions and Treasons against the Soul it seeks the life of the Soul which seeks nothing more than its content and pleasure this is not ordinate love but fondness and folly and what we shall bitterly repent for at last 2. It appears by our sparing and favouring of them in the necessary uses and services we have for them in Religion Many will rather starve their Souls than work and exercise their Bodies or disturb their sluggish rest thus the idle excuses and pretences of endangering our health oftentimes put by the duties of Religion or at least lose the fittest and properest season for them We are lazying upon our beds when we should be wrestling upon our knees The World is suffered to get the start of Religion in the morning and so Religion is never able to overtake it all the day long This was none of David's course he prevented the dawning of the morning and cryed Psal. 119.147 and Psal. 5.3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up And indeed we should consecrate unto God the freshest and fittest parts of our time when our bodily Senses are most vigorous and we would do so except God by his providence disable us were our hearts fully set for God and Religion lay with weight upon our Spirits Some I confess cannot receive this injunction being naturally disabled by prevailing infirmities but those tha● 〈◊〉 ought to do so But O how many slothful excuses doth the flesh invent to put off duty We shall injure our health c. O the hypocrisy of such pleas if profit or pleasure call us up we have no such shifts but can rise early and sit up late O Friends why hath God given you Bodies if not to waste and wear them out in his service and the service of your own Souls if your Bodies must not be put to it and exercised this way where is the mercy of having a Body If a stately Horse were given you on this condition that you must not ride or work him what benefit would such a gift be to you Your Bodies must and will wear out and it 's better wear them with working than with rusting we are generally more sollicitous to live long than to live usefully and serviceably and it may be our health had been more precious in the eyes of God if it had been less precious in our own eyes 'T is just with God to destroy that health with diseases which he sees we would cast away in slothfulness and idleness Think with thy self had such a Soul as Timothies or Gaius's been blessed with such a Body as thine so strong and vigorous so apt and able for service they would have honoured God more in it in a day than perhaps you do in a year Certainly this is not love but laziness not a due improvement but a sinful neglect and abuse of the Body to let it rust out in idleness which might be imployed so many ways for God for your own and others Souls Well remember death will shortly dissolve them and then they can be of no more use and if you expect God should put glory and honour upon them at the Resurrection use them for God now with a faithful self-denying diligence 3. It appears by our cowardly shrinking from dangers that threaten them when the glory of God our own and others Salvation Here the Soul receives a deadly wound upon it self toward it ●ff from the Body So did Spira bid us expose and not regard them Some there are that rather than they will adventure their flesh to the rage of man will hazard their Souls to the wrath of God They are too tender to suffer pain or restraint for Christ but consider not w●●t

a very short period of time when those few years are past then I must go to my long home my everlasting abode never more to return to this world The way whence I shall not return elsewhere called the way of all flesh Iosh. 23.15 and the way of all the earth 1 King 2.2 Eccles. 8.8 There is no man that hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit neither hath he power in the day of death and there is no discharge in that War By Spirit understand the natural Spirit or breath of life which as I shewed before connects or tyes the Soul and Body together this Spirit no man can retain in the day of death we can as one speaks as well stop the Chariot of the Sun when posting to night and chase away the shadows of the evening Mortem inquit Se●eca nulla diligentia evitat nulla soelicitas domat nulla potentia vincit as escape this hour of darkness that is coming upon us A man may escape the Wars by pleading priviledge of years or weakness of Body or the Kings protection or by sending another in his room but in this War the press is so strict that it admits no dispensation young or old weak or strong willing or unwilling all 's one into the field we must go and look that last and most dreadful Enemy in the face 'T is in vain to think of sending another in our room for no man dyeth by Proxy or to think of compounding with death as those self-deluding Fools did Isai. 28.15 Who thought they had been discharged of the debt by seeing the Sergeant no no there is no discharge in that War Nihil prodest ora concludere vitam fugientem retinere saith Hierom on that Text Let us shut our mouths never so close struggle against death never so hard there is no more retaining the Spirit than a woman can retain the fruit of her Womb when the full time of her deliverance is come Suppose a man were sitting upon a Throne of Majesty surrounded with armed Guards or in the midst of a Colledge of expert and learned Physicians death will pass all these Guards to deliver thee the fatal message neither can Art help thee when Nature it self gives thee up The Law of Mortality binds all good and bad young and old the most useful and desirable Saints whom the World can worst spare as well as useless and undesireable sinners Rom. 8.10 and if Christ or though Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin Peter himself must put off his Tabernacle for they are but Tabernacles frail and moveable frames not built for continuance these will drop off from our Souls as the Shell falls of from the Bird in the Nest be our earthly Tabernacles never so strong or pleasant (2) The speediness of death The Scriptures borrow Metaphors from all the Elements to this purpose we must depose them and that shortly our lease in them will expire quickly we have but a short term Iames 4.14 Like a thin mist in the morning which the Sun presently dissipates this is a Metaphor chosen from the Air You have one from the Land where the swift Post runs Iob 9.25 So doth our life from Stage to Stage till its journey be finished and a third from the Waters there Sail the swift Ships Iob 9.26 which weighing Anchor and putting into the Sea continually lessen the Land till at last they have quite lost sight of it from the Fire Psal. 58.4 The lives of men are as soon extinct as a blaze made with dry thorns which is almost as soon out as in Thus you see how the Spirit of God hath borrowed Metaphors from all the Elements of Nature to shadow forth the brevity and frailty of that life we now live in these Tabernacles So that we may say 〈◊〉 one did before us Nescio an dicenda sit vita mortalis an vitalis mors I know not which to call it a mortal life or a living death The continuance of these our Tabernacles or Bodies is short whether we consider them absolutely or comparatively I. Absolutely if they should stand seventy or eighty years which is the longest duration Psal. 90.10 How soon will that time run out what are years that are past but as a dream that is vanished or as the waters that are past away It is in fluxu continuo there is no stopping its swift course or calling back a moment that is past Death set out in its journey towards us the same hour we were born and how near is it come this day to many of us it hath us in chase and will quickly fetch us up and overtake us but few stand so long as the utmost date II. Comparatively let us compare our time in these Tabernacles 1 either with Eternity or with him who inhabits it and it shrinks up into nothing Psal. 39.5 Mine age is nothing unto thee So vast is the disproportion that it seems not only little but nothing at all Or 2 with the Duration of the Bodies of men in the first Ages of the World when they lived many hundred years in these fleshly Tabernacles The length of their life was the benefit of the World because Religion was then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing handed down from Father to Son but certainly it would be no benefit to us that are in Christ to be so long suspended the fruition of God in the everlasting Rest. The Grounds and Reasons of this Necessity that lies upon all to put off their earthly Tabernacles so soon are 1. The Law of God or his Appointment 2. The Providence of God ordering it suitably to this Appointment 1. The Law or Appointment of God which came in force immediately upon the Fall Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye And accordingly it took place upon all mankind immediately upon the first Transgression Rom. 5.12 Death entred by sin●● The threatning not his immediate actual personal death in the day that he should eat but a state of Mortality to commence from that time to him and his posterity hence it s said Heb. 9.27 It is appointed to all men once to die 2. The Providence of God ordering and framing the Body of man suitably to this his Appointment Quotidie mo●imur quotidie enim demitur aliqu● pars vita tunc quoque cum crescimus vit● decrescit I●fantiam amisimus deinde Adolescenti●m usque ad besternam quicquid transit temporis perit a frail weak Creature having the seeds of death in his Constitution Thousands of Diseases and Infirmities are bred in his Nature and the smallest pore in his Body is a door large enough to let in death Hence his Body is compared to a piece of cloth which Moths have fretted Psal. 39.11 it 's become a seary rotten thing which cannot long hang together And indeed it is a wonder it continues so long as it doth

and perfect than when the Body in an Ecstasie is laid aside as to any use or assistance of the mind The Soul for that space uses not the Bodies assistance as the very words Ecstasie and Rapture convince us Si autem hoc non est ex natura animae sed per accidens hoc convenit ei ex to quod corpori alligatur sicut Platonics posu●runt de facili quaestio solvi possit Nam remoto impedimento corporis rediret anima ad suam naturam Aquin. p. 1. Q. 8. Art 1. 2. To understand by Species doth not agree to the Soul naturally and necessarily but by accident as it is now in Union with the Body Were it but once loosed from the Body it would understand better without them than ever it did in the Body by them A Man that is on Horse-back must move according to the motion of the Horse he rides but if he were on Foot he then uses his own proper motion as he pleaseth So here But though we grant the Soul doth in many cases now make use of Phantasms and that the agitation of the Spirits which are in the Brain and Heart are conjunct with its acts of Cogitation and Intellection Yet as a searching Scholar well observes The Spirits are rather Subjects than Instruments of those actions And the whole essence of those acts is antecedent to the motion of the Spirits As when we use a Pen in writing or a Knife in cutting How 's Blessedness pag. 174 175. there is an operation of the Soul upon them before there can be any operation by them They act as they are first acted and so do these bodily Spirits So that to speak properly the Body is bettered by the use the Soul makes of it in these its noble actions but the Soul is not advantaged by being tied to such a Body It can do its own work without it its operations follow its essence not the Body to which it is for a time united In summ 'T is much more absonous and difficult to conceive a stupefied benumbed and unactive Soul whose very nature is to be active lively and always in motion than it is to conceive a Soul freed from the shackles and clogs of the Body acting freely according to its own nature I wish the favourers of this Opinion may take heed lest it carry them farther than they intend even to a denial of its Existence and Immortality and turn them into down-right S●matists or Atheists PROP. VI. That the separated Souls of the just having finished all their work of obedience on earth and the Spirit having finished all his work of Sanctification upon them they do ascend to God with all the habits of Grace inherent in them and all the comfortable improvements of their Graces accompanying and following them THis Proposition is to be opened and confirmed in these four Branches 1 When a gracious Soul is separated from the Body all its work of obedience in this World is finished Therefore death is called the finishing of our course Acts 20.24 the night when man works no more Iohn 9.4 There is no working in the grave Eccles. 9.10 for death dissolves the Compositum and removes the Soul immediately to another World where it can act for it self only but not for others as it was wont to do on earth I shall see man no more saith Hezekiah with the Inhabitants of the World Isaiah 38.11 that which was said of David's death is as true of every Christian that having served his Generation according to the Will of God he fell asleep Acts 13.36 I do not say this lower World receives no benefit at all by them after their death for though they can speak no more write no more pray for and instruct the Inhabitants of this World no more nor exhibit to them the beauty of Religion in any new acts or examples of theirs which is that I mean by saying they have finished all their work of obedience on earth Yet the benefit of what they did whilst in the Body still remains after they are gone as the Apostle speaks of Abel Hebr. 11.4 Who being dead yet speaketh This way indeed abundance of service will be done for the Souls of men upon earth long after they are gone to Heaven And this should greatly quicken us to leave as much as we can behind us for the good of Posterity that after our decease as the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 1.15 they may have our words and examples in remembrance But for any service to be done de novo after death it is not to be expected We have accomplished as an Hireling our day and have not a stroke more to do 2 As all our work of obedience is then finished by us so at death all the Work of God is finished by his Spirit upon us The last hand is then put to all the preparatory work for glory not a stroke more to be done upon it afterward which appears as well by the immediate succession of the life of glory whereof I shall speak in another Proposition as by the cessation of all sanctifying means and instruments which are totally laid aside as things of no more use after this stroke is given Adepto fine cessant media Means are useless when the end is attain'd There is no work saith Solomon in the Grave How short soever the Souls stay and abode in the Body was though it were regenerated one day and separated the next yet all that is wrought upon it which God ever intended should be wrought in this World and there is no preparation-work in the other World 3 But though the Soul leave all the means of grace behind it yet it carries away with it to Heaven all those habits of grace which were planted and improved in it in this World by the blessing of the Spirit upon those means though it leave the Ordinances it loseth not the effects and fruits of them though they cease their effects still live The truth dwelleth in us and shall be in us for ever 1 John 2.17 The Seed of God remaineth in us 1 John 3.9 Common gifts fall at death but saving grace sticks fast in the Soul and ascends with it into glory Gracious habits are inseparable Glory doth not destroy but perfect them They are the Souls meetness for Heaven Col. 1.12 and therefore it shall not come into his presence leaving its meetness behind it In vain is all the work of the Spirit upon us in this World if we carry it not along with us into that World seeing all his works upon us in this life have a respect and relation to the life to come Look therefore as the same natural Faculties and Powers which the Soul had though it could not use them in its imperfect Body in the Womb came with it into this World where they freely exerted themselves in the most noble actions of natural life so the habits of Grace which by Regeneration are here

there are of the rude and ignorant multitude who are bred themselves much like the Beasts they daily converse withal and so they are fitly described Iob 30.6 7. Go into their houses and you may sooner find in the window or upon the shelf a Pack of Cards than a Bible or Catechise their Beds and Tables differ little or not at all from the Stalls and Cribs where beasts lye down and feed in respect of any worship of God among them or if for fashion sake a few words be hudled over in the evening when their bodies are tired the man saith something he scarce knows what the wife is asleep in one corner the children in another and the servants in a third This is the Education multitudes of Parents give their Children all the week and when the Sabbath comes the most they learn to know at Church is where their own seat stands and that it is necessary to speak with such a Neighbour after Prayers about such or such a bargain or business for the next week And others there are who breed their Children as prophanely as these do sottishly teaching them by their Examples the newest Oaths that were last minted in Hell and to revile and scoff all serious Godliness and the sincere Professors of it smiling to hear with what an Emphasis they can talk in the Dialect of Devils and how wittily they can droll upon godly Ministers and Christians Such Families are Nurseries for Hell and though God by an extraordinary hand of Providence now and then snatch a Soul by conversion from among them as a brand out of the fire yet generally they die as they live going to the generation of their Fathers where they shall never see light Psal. 49.19 I know Education and Regeneration are two things but I also know one is frequently made the instrument of working the other Quo semel est imbuta recens c. and that the savour of what first seasons our youth generally abides to old age Prov. 22.6 We may observe all the World over how tenacious men are of that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to them by their Parents O what a cut must it be to the heart of that Father whose Sons life shall tell his Conscience what a profane Sons lips once told his Father to his face Si malè seci à te didici If I have done evil I have learnt it of you Had they felt more of your prudent correction it might have prevented their destruction Prov. 23.14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell That this is a common beaten path to Hell is beyond all question but how to bar it up and stop the multitudes that are engaged in it to their own ruine this is the labour this the work I cannot be large but I will offer a few weighty Considerations The first way to Hell barr'd 1. Let all Parents consider what a fearful thing it is to be the instruments of ruining for ever those that received their Beings instrumentally from them and to seek whose good they stand obliged by all the Laws of God and Nature In vain are all your cares and studies for their bodies whilst their Souls perish for want of knowledge You rejoyced at their birth but they will have cause to curse the day they were born of you and say Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which I was conceived You were solicitous for their bodies but careless of their Souls earnest to see them rich but indifferent whether they were gracious You neglected to teach them the way of Salvation but the Devil did not neglect to teach them the way of sin You will one day wish you had never been Parents when the dol●ful cries of your damned Children shall ring such Notes as these in your Ears O cursed Father O cruel merciless Mother whose examples have drawn me after you into all this misery You had time enough and motives enough to have warned me of this place and misery whilst my heart was tender and my affections pliable Had it not been as easie to have put a Bible as a Play-book before me To have chastised me when I provoked God by sin as when I provoked you about a trifle One word spoken in season might have saved my Soul one reproof wisely given and set on by your example might have preserved me Had it not been the same pains to have asked me Child what wilt thou do to be saved as what wilt thou do to live in the world Or had I but observed any serious Religion in you had I but found or heard my Father or Mother upon their knees in prayer it might have awakened me to a consideration of my condition in my youth I was shame fac'd fearful credulous and apt to imitate had you had but wisdom as other Parents have to have taken hold of any of these handles in time you had rescued my Soul from Hell Nay so cruel have you been to your own Child that you allowed me no time if I had had a disposition for any exercise of Religion yea you have quenched and stifled the sparks of convictions and better inclinations that sometimes were in my heart O happy had it been if I had never been born of you or seen your faces This must be the result and issue of your negligence except God by some other hand which is no thanks to you rescue them from their impending ruine 〈…〉 ldren whose unhappy Lot it is to be born of 〈…〉 carnal and irreligious Parents consider God hath endued them with a Reason and Conscience of their own to enable them to make a better choice than their Parents did and that there is no taking Sanctuary from the wrath of Go● in their Parents examples We read in 1 Kings 14.13 of a good Abijah in whom was found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Ieroboam Here was a Child that would not follow his wicked Father to Hell though he had both the authority of a Father and of a King over him Amandus genitor sed praeponendus Creator You must honour your Parents but still you must prefer your God before them God will never lay it to your account as your sin but place it to the account of your duty and comfort that you refused to follow them in paths of sin and destruction No Law of God no tye of Nature binds you to obey their commands or tread in their steps farther than they command in Gods Authority and Name and walk in his ways Your temptations indeed are strong and disadvantages great but the greater will the mercy of your deliverance be It will be no Plea for you at the Judgment-seat to say Lord my Father or Mother did so and so before me and I thought I might safely follow them or thus and thus they commanded me and I thought I

Sin Heaven and Hell Soul and Eternity have lost their awful sound and efficacy with you But it is a question only to be decided by the event whether ever yo● shall attain to the years of your Fathers it is not the sprightly vigour of your youth that can secure you from death What a madness then is it to put your So●ls and eternal happiness upon such a blind adventure What if your presumption of so many fair and proper opportunities hereafter fail you as it hath failed millions who had as rational and hopeful a prospect of them as you can have where are you then And if you should have more time and means than you do presume upon are you sure your hearts will be as flexible and impressive as now they are O beware of this sin of vain presumption to which the generality of the damned owe their everlasting ruine The eighth way of losing the Soul opened VIII The eighth way of ruining the precious Soul is by drinking in the Principles of Atheism and living without God in the World Atheism stabs the Soul to death at one stroke and puts it quite out of the way of Salvation Other Sinners are worse than Beasts but Atheists are worse than Devils for they believe and tremble these banish God out of their thoughts and what they can out of the world living as without God in the world Eph. 2.12 It is a sin that quencheth all Religion in the Soul he that knows not his Landlord cannot pay his Rent he that assents not to the Being of a God destroys the foundation of all religious Worship he cannot fear love or obey him whose Being be believes not this sin strikes at the Life of God and destroys the life of the Soul Some are Atheists in opinion but multitudes are so in practice The fool hath said in his heart there is no God Psal. 14.1 Though he hath engraven his N●me upon every Creature and written it upon the Table of their own Hearts yet they will not read it or if they have a slight fluctua●●●g notion or a secret suspicion of a Deity yet they neither acknowledge his Presence nor his Providence Fingunt Deum talem qui nec videt nec punit They say How doth God know can he judge through the dark clouds thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not Job 22.14 Others profess to believe his Being but their lives daily give their lips the lye for they give no evidence in practice of his fear love or dependence on him If they believe his Being they plainly shew they value not his favour delight not in his presence love not his ways or people but lye down and rise eat and drink live and die without the worship or acknowledgment of him except so much as the Law of the Country or Custom of the place extorts from them These dregs of time produce abundance of Atheists of both sorts many ridicule and hiss Religion out of all Companies into which they come and others live down all sense of Relion they customarily attend indeed upon the external Duties of it hear the Word but when the greatest and most important Duties are urged upon them their inward thought is this is the Preachers Calling and the man must say something to fill up his hour and get his living If they dare not put their thoughts into words and call the Gospel Fabula Christi the Fable of Christ as a wicked Pope once did or say of Hell and the dreadful Sufferings of the Damned as Calderinus the Jesuit did tunc credam cum illuc venero I will believe it when I see it yet their hearts and lives are of the same complexion with these mens words They do not heartily assent to the Truth of the Gospel which they hear and though bare assent would not save them yet their dissent or non-assent will certainly damn them except the Lord heal their understandings and hearts by the light and life of Religion To this last sort I shall offer a few things The eighth way to Hell shut up by six weighty Considerations 1. You that attend upon the Ordinances but believe them no more than so many dev●●●d Fables nor heartily assent to the Truth of what you hear know assuredly that the Word shall new 〈…〉 do your Souls good it can never come to your hearts and affections in its regenerating and sanctifying efficacy whilst it is stopt and obstructed in your understandings in the act of assent And thus you may sit under the best Ordinances all your lives and be no more the better for them than the Rocks are for all the showres of rain that fall upon them Heb. 4.2 The word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it This is Satans chief strength and fastness wherein he trusteth he fears no Argument whilst he can maintain this Post the Devil hath no surer Prisoner than the Atheist there 's no escaping out of his possession and power whilst this bolt of Unbelief is shut home in the Mind or Understanding An unbelieved Truth never converted or saved one Soul from the beginning of the world nor never shall to the end of it Those bodies that have the Boulema or Dog-appetite whatever they eat it affords them no nourishment or satisfaction they thrive not with the best fare just so it is with your Souls no Duties no Ordinances can possibly do them good as in Argumentation no Conclusion be it never so regularly drawn and strongly inferred is of any force to him that denies Principles 2. If you assent not to the Truth of the Gospel you not only make God speak to your Souls in vain which is fatal to them but you also make God a lyar which is the greatest affront a Creature can put upon his Maker 1 Ioh. 5.10 He that believeth not God hath made him a lyar Vile dust darest thou rise up against the God that made thee and give him the lye An affront which thy fellow-Creature cannot put up or bear at thy hands Darest thou at once stab his Honour and thy own Soul Are not the things which thou lookest on as Romances and golden Dreams a meer Artifice neatly contrived to cheat and awe the world Are they not all built upon the Veracity of God which is the firmest foundation and greatest security in the world Hath he not intermingled for our satisfaction not only frequent assertions but his asseverations and Oath to put all beyond doubt And yet dare any of you lift up your ignorant blind Understandings against all this and give him the lye Surely the wrath of God shall smoke against every Soul of man that doth so and his own bitter lamentable doleful experience shall be his conviction shortly except he repent 3. Dare any of you give the thoughts of your hearts as certain conclusions under your hand and stand by them to the last and venture all upon them Wretched

are unsearchable and what use God may make upon one occasion or another of these following Considerations I will adventure to drop a few words upon these forlorn Sinners as far as they seem to be gone beyond recovery beseeching the Lord to make way for these things to their hands and hearts and make them the instruments of pulling some of them as brands out of the burning The ninth way to Hell by Prophaneness stopt 1. And first Let it be laid to heart that though the case and state of many thousand Souls be doubtful and uncertain so that neither themselves nor any other know what they are or to whom they belong yet our condition is without controversie miserable and forlorn all men know whose you are and whither you are going The Apostle appeals in this case to the Bar of every mans Reason and Conscience as a thing allowed and yielded by all Eph. 5.5 For this ye know saith he that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God This is a clear case there is no controversie about it Many there be in a doubtful case but no doubt of these they are fast and sure in the power of Satan and as sure as God is a God of Truth they that die in this condition shall never see his face And to the same purpose again 1 Cor. 6.9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God Know ye not saith he q. d. Sure you cannot be so ignorant and blind to think that there is any room in Heaven for such wretches as these If the righteous be scarcely saved where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear If all strictness holiness self-denial diligence be all little enough to win Heaven what hope can there be of those that not only cast off all duties of Religion but also cast themselves into all the opposite ways and courses which directly lead to damnation He that refuseth his food endangers his life but he that drinks poison certainly and speedily destroys it 2. As far as you are gone in a course of prophaneness you are not yet gone beyond the reach of Mercy and all hopes of Salvation if now at last after all your Debaucheries and prophan●ness the Lord touch your hearts with the sense of your sinful and miserable estate and turn your feet to his Testimonies When the Apostle in 1 Cor. 6.9 10. had told us the doom of such men upon the supposition of their perseverance in that course yet presently he adds as a motive to their repentance an Example of Mercy upon such wretches as these And such were some of you but ye are washed v. 11. The golden Scepter of free Grace hath been held forth to many as prophane and notorious sinners as you to a blaspheming Saul to a Mary Magdalen to a Manasseh 'T is not the greatness of the sin but the impenitence and infidelity of the sinner that ruines him Well then there is a certainty of damnation if you go and yet a possibility of forgiveness and mercy before you a mercy invaluable 3. Nay this is not all but in some respect there is more probability and hope of your return and repentance than there is of many others who have led a more sober smooth and civil life than you have done Your prophaneness hath more dishonoured God but the Morality and Civility of some men secures them faster in the snare of the Devil they have many things in themselves to build up their presumptuous hopes upon but you have nothing It is hard for conviction to reach that mans Conscience that hath a righteousness of his own to trust in but methinks it should have an easier access to yours whose notorious courses lay your Consciences naked and bare before the word to be wounded by it Christs Ministry had little success among the Pharisees who were righteous in their own eyes but it wrought effectually upon Publicans and sinners Hence Christ told them Matt. 21.31 That Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of God before them Publicans were esteemed the worst of men and Harlots the worst of women yet the one and other as vile as they were stood fairer for Conviction and consequently for Salvation than those that thought they needed no repentance All this is matter of hope and runs into a powerful motive and loud call to repentance He that hath an ear to hear let him hear The tenth way leading to Destruction marked X. Deep and fixed prejudices against Godliness and the sincere Professors thereof precipitate thousands of Souls into their own ruine and damnation It was not without a weighty reason that Christ denounced that wo upon the world Matt. 18.7 Wo unto the world because of offences The poor world will be ruin'd by scandals and prejudices they will take such offences at the ways of Godliness that they will never have good thoughts of them any more This Sect is every where spoken against Acts 28.21 and so Christians are condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the common reproach as Iustin Martyr complain'd All the scandals which fall out in the Church are so many Swords and Daggers put into the hands of the wicked world to murder their own Souls withal Some have sucked in such Opinions of the ways of Godliness as make them irreconcileable Enemies to them and fierce Opposers of them And from hence are most of the Persecutions that befal the People of God When you see showres of slanders and reproaches going before expect storms of persecution coming after Slanders beget prejudices and these prepare for persecutions O how keen and fierce are the minds of many against the upright and innocent Servants of God whom they have first represented to themselves in such an odious dress and Character as the Devil hath drawn them in upon their fancies and imaginations So the primitive Christians were represented to the Heathens as Monsters and their Conventions in the night occasioned by the fury of Persecutors was reported to be for lascivious and barbarous ends to deflower Virgins and murder innocent Children and by this artifice the Heathens were secured against conversion to Christ. This hath been the policy of Hell from the beginning and it hath prospered so much in the world that Satan hath reason to change his hand But how may this Plot of Hell be defeated and the ruine of Souls prevented The tenth way of destroying Souls shut up by two Counsels 1. It will be impossible to prevent the ruine of a great part of the World by prejudices against the ways of Godliness except those that profess them walk more holily and conformably to the rule and pattern of Christ

whose Name is called upon them I therefore shall first address my Discourse to the Professors of Religion beseeching them in the bowels of Christ to take pity upon the multitudes of Souls which are daily ruined and destroyed by their scandals and miscarriages Did you live according to the rules you profess your well-doing would put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2.15 and consequently the ruine of many might be prevented I remember Bernard speaking of the lewd and loose life of the Priests of his time sighs out this just and bitter complaint to God about it Bern. in Convers Pauli Ser. 1. Misera eorum conversatio plebis tuae miserabilis subversio est O Lord saith he their miserable conversation is the miserable subversion of thy people O of how many who glory in the Title of the Sons of the Church Ecce qui jactant se redemptos à tyrannide Satanae qui praedicant se mortuos mundo nihilominus à cupiditatibus suis vincuntur Salvian Vbi est catholicalex quam credunt ubi pietatatis castitatis exempla quae discant Evangilia legant impudici sunt Apo●olos audiunt inebriantur may Christ say as Iacob did of his two lewd Sons Simeon and Levi Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the Inhabitants of the Land Gen. 34.30 And how many Professors who pretend to more than ordinary reformation and holiness do shed Soul blood by their scandalous conversations Salvian brings in the wicked of his Age upraiding the loosness of Christians in this manner Behold those men who boast themselves redeemed from the Tyranny of Satan and profess themselves dead to the world yet are conquer'd by the lusts of it And Cyprian long before his day brings in the Heathens thus insulting over looser Christians Where is that Catholick Law which they believe Where are the Examples of Piety and Chastity which they should learn They read the Gospel yet are immodest they hear the Apostles yet are drunk O Professors where are your bowels to the poor Souls of sinners If your Neighbours Ox or Ass fall into the pit you are bound to deliver him if you can and will you not do as much for a precious Soul as you would do for a Beast Nay you dig pits by your scandalous lives to destroy them If you sin there are instruments enough to spread it and multitudes of Souls ready perpared to take the infection Say not f they do the fault is theirs for though they are Principals in the murder of their own Souls by taking the scandal yet you are Accessaries in giving it he is a mad man that will kill himself with a Sword and he no better that will put it into his hand O therefore if you have any regard to the precious Souls of men live up to the rules of your Profession O be blame less and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a perverse and froward generation let the heavenliness of your Conversation stop those mouths that accuse you as men of a worldly Spirit let them see by your moderation in seeking it your patience in losing it your readiness in distributing it that it is a groundless calumny under which your Names suffer Let them see by your apparel company and discourses you are not such proud lofty Spirits as you are represented to be Convince them by your flexibleness to all things that are lawful and expedient by manifesting as much as in you lieth that it is the pure bond and tye of Conscience which keeps you from compliance in all other things and by your meekness in suffering for such non-compliance that you are not such turbulent factious Incendiaries as the wicked world slanderously reports you to be Convince the world by your exact righteousness in all your civil dealings and by the lip of truth in all your promises and engagements that you have the fear of God in your hearts as well as the Livery of Christianity upon your backs In a word so live that none may have just ground to believe the impudent slanders the Devil raises in the world against you Let your light so shine before men that they may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Without your care and circumspection the shedding of a world of precious Soul-blood can never be prevented 2. Let me advise and beseech all men to be so just to others and merciful to their own Souls as not to cast them away for ever by receiving prejudices against Godliness from the miscarriages of some that make more than a common profession of it If others stumble before you and break their shins don't you stumble at them and break your necks To prevent this fatal effect of scandal and prejudice at Religion I desire a few particulars may be impartially weighed First Very many of those Scandals bandied up and down the World against the Professors of Godliness are devised and forged in Hell as so many traps and snares to catch and destroy mens Souls to beget an irreconcileable aversation and enmity in men to the ways of God They devise deceitful matters saith the Psalmist against them that are quiet in the land Psal. 35.20 So Ier. 18.18 Come say they let us devise devices against Ieremiah and smite him with the tongue And there is as as little equity in the credulous receiver as there is honesty in the wicked forger of these slanders With one arrow of censure you wound no less than three viz. the honour of God your innocent Brother and your own Souls as to the two former wounds they will in due time be healed God will vindicate his own Name fully and the reputation of his innocent Servants shall be cleared and repaired abundantly but mean time your Souls may perish by the wounds prejudices have given so that you may never be reconciled to Godliness and its Professors whilst you live but turn Scoffers and Persecutors of them Secondly Examine whether the matters that are charged upon them as their Crimes be not their Duties Sometimes it falls out to be so and if so you fight more immediately and directly against God than men This was Davids case Psal. 69.10 When I wept and chastened my soul that was to my reproach my piety was turned to reproach They called his tears Crocodiles tears and his fastings hypocritical shadows of devotion and humility Thus the very matter of his duty was turned into reproach And so it was with the primitive Christians their very owning of themselves to be Christians was crime enough to condemn them Thirdly If Professors of Religion do in some things act unbecoming their holy Profession yet every slip and failing in their lives is no sufficient Warrant for you to censure their persons as hypocrites much less to fall upon Religion it self and condemn it for the faults of them that profess it There 's many an upright heart overtaken by temptation You see