Dâ—â—r l. 1. p. 46. â—aâ—th that Possi 〈…〉 s believed that Epiâ—urus thought there was no God but put a sâ—orn upon him by describing him like a man idle careless c. which he would not have done if he had thought there was a God to any of his creatures 3. God is Omnipresent and therefore you may every where lift up holy hands to him 1 Tim. 2. 8. And you must alwayes worship him as in his sight 4. God is Omniscient and knoweth your Hearts and therefore let your Hearts be employed and watched in his worship 5. God is most wise and therefore not to be worshipped ludicrously with toyes as children are pleased with to quiet them but with wise and rational worship 6. God is most Great and therefore to be worshipped with the greatest reverence and seriousness and not presumptuously with a careless mind or wandring thoughts or rude expressions 7. God is most Good and Gracious and therefore not to be worshipped with backwardness unwillingness and weariness but with great Delight 8. God is most Merciful in Christ and therefore not to be worshipped despairingly but in joyful Hope 9. God is True and faithful and therefore to be worshipped believingly and confidently and not in distrust and unbelief 10. God is most Holy and therefore to be worshipped by Holy persons in a Holy manner and not by unholy hearts or lips nor in a common manner as if we had to do but with a man 11. He is the Maker of your Souls and Bodies and therefore to be worshipped both with soul and body 12. He is your Redeemer and Saviour and therefore to be worshipped by you as sinners in the humble sense of your sin and misery and as Redeemed ones in the thankful sense of his Mercy and all in order to your further cleansing healing and Recovery 13. He is your Regenerater and Sanctifier and therefore to be worshipped not in the confidence of your natural sufficiency but by the Light and Love and Life of the Holy Ghost 14. He is your Absolute Lord and the Owner of you and all you have and therefore to be worshipped with the absolute resignation of your self and all and honoured with your substance and not Hypocritically with exceptions and reserves 15. He is your Soveraign King and therefore to be worshipped according to his Lawes with an obedient kind of worship and not after the Traditions of men nor the will or wisdom of the flesh 16. He is your Heavenly Father Mat. 15. 2 3 6. Mar. 7. 3. to 14. Col. 2. 8 18 2â— and therefore all these Holy dispositions should be summed up into the strongest Love and you should run to him with the greatest readiness and Rest in him with the greatest Ioy and thirst after the full fruition of him with the greatest of your Desires and press towards him for himself with the most servent and importunate suites All these the very Being and Perfections of God will teach you in his worship And therefore if any controverted worship be certainly contrary to any of these it is certainly unwarranted and unacceptable unto God § 8. Direct 7. Pretend not to worship God by that which is destructive or contrary to the Ends of Direct 7. worship For the aptitude of it as a means to its proper end is essential to it Now the Ends of worship are 1. The Honouring of God 2. The Edifying of our selves in Holiness and delighting our souls in the contemplation and praises of his perfections 3. The communicating this Knowledge Holiness and delight to others and the increase of his actual Kingdom in the world 1. Avoid then all that pretended Worship which dishonoureth God not in the opinion of carnal men that judge of But with the Ba 〈…〉 Aâ—â—â—â—a the 〈…〉 p. 2. 9. â— 2. 〈…〉 riâ—u signa oâ—â—â—â—â— exteâ—num cultum diligenter câ—â—are His quippe delectâ—ntur d 〈…〉 homines animaleâ— N. B. â—donec paulatim aboleatur memoria gustus praeteritorum So Gâ— â—issiâ— sâ—â—â—â—h iâ— viâ—a Gâ—eâ— Nâ—oâ—as that they turned the Pagans Festivals into Festivals for the Martyrs to please them the better Which Bâ—dâ— and many others relate of the practice of those times him by their own misguided imaginations but according to the discovery of himself to us in his works and Word Many Travellers that have conversed with the soberer Heathen and Mahometan Nations tell us that it is not the least hinderance of their conversion and cause of their contempt of Christianity to see the Christians that live about them to worship God so ignorantly irrationally and childishly as many of them do 2. Affect most that manner of worship caeteris paribus which tendeth most to your own right information and holy resolutions and affections and to bring up your souls into nearer communion and delight in God And not that which tendeth to deceive or flatter or divert you from him nor to be in your ears as sounding brass or a tinkling Cymbal or as one that is playing you a lesson of Musick and tendeth not to make you better 3. Affect not that manner of worship which is an enemy to knowledge and tendeth to keep up Ignorance in the world Such as is a great part of the Popish worship especially their reading the Scriptures to the people in an unknown tongue and celebrating their publick prayers and praises and Sacraments in an unknown tongue and their seldome preaching and then teaching the people to take up with a multitude of toyish Ceremonies instead of knowledge and rational worship Certainly that which is an enemy to knowledge is an enemy to all Holiness and true obedience and to the Ends of worship and therefore is no acceptable worshipping of God 4. Affect not that pretended worship which is of it self destructive of true Holiness Such as is the preaching of false doctrine not according to godliness and the opposition and reproaching of a holy life and worship in the misapplication of true doctrine and then teaching poor souls to satisfie themselves with their Mass and Mass Ceremonies and an Image of worship instead of serious Holiness which is opposed Prov. 24. 24. He that saith to the wicked thou art Righteous him shall the people curse Nations shall ahhor him And if this be done as a worship of God you may hence judge how acceptable it will be Isa. 5. 20. Wo unto them that call Evil Good and Good Evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter To make people believe that Holiness is but Hypocrisie or a needless thing or that the Image of Holiness is Holiness it self or that there is no great difference between the godly and ungodly doth all tend to mens perdition and to damn men by deceiving them and to root out Holiness from the earth See Ezek. 22. 26. 44. 23. Jer. 15. 19. If thou take forth the pretious from the vile thou shalt be as
Q. 121. May a Minister pray publickly in his own name singly for himself or others or only in the Churches name as their mouth to God ibid. Q. 122. May the name Priests Sacrifice and Altar be lawfully now used instead of Christs Ministers Worship and the Holy Table p. 882 Q. 123. May the Communion Table be turned Altar-wise and Railed in And is it lawful to come up to the Rails to communicate p. 882 Q. 124. Is it lawful to use David's Psalms in our Assemblies p. 883 Q. 125. May Psalms be used as prayers and praises and Thanksgivings or only as Instructive Even the Reading as well as the singing of them ibid. Q. 126. Are our Church-Tunes Lawful being of mans invention p. 884 Q. 127. Is Church Musick by Organs or such Instruments Lawful ibid. Q. 128. Is the Lords day a Sabbath and so to be called and kept and that of Divine institution And is the seventh day Sabbath abrogated c p. 885 Q. 129. Is it Lawful to appoint humane Holy dayes and observe them ibid. Q. 130. How far is the holy Scriptures a Law and perfect Rule to us p. 886 Q. 131. What Additions or humane Inventions in or about Religion not commanded in Scripture are Lawful or Unlawful p. 887 Q. 132. Iâ— it unlawful to obey in all thâ—se cases where it is unlawful to impose and command or in what cases And how far Pastors must be believed and obeyed p. 888 Q. 133. What are the additions or inventions of mâ—n which are not fâ—rbidden by the Word of God whether by Rulers or by private men invented p. 889 Q 134. What are the mischiefs of unlawful Additions in Religion p. 891 Q. 135. What are the mischiefs of mens errour on the other extream who pretend that Scripture is a Rule where it is not and deny the aforesaid lawful things on pretence that Scripture is a perfect Rule say some for all things p. 892 Q. 136. How shall we know what parts of Scripture precept or example were intended for universal constant obligation and what were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to p. 893 Q. 137. How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation to be believed and understood p. 894 Q. 138. How may we know the Fundamentals Essentials or what parts are necessary to salvation And is the Papists way allowable that some of them deny that distinction and make the difference to be only in the degrees of mans opportunities of knowledge p 895 Q 139. What is the use and Authority of the Creed And is it of the Apostles framing or not And is it the Word of God or not p 896 Q 140. What is the use of Catechisms p. 897 Q. 141. Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the Essentials of Religion from the rest if tradition had not given them to us in the Creed as from Apostolical Collection ibid. Q. 142. What is the best method of a true Catechism or sum of Theologie p. 898 Q. 143. What is the use of various Church-Confessions or Articles of faith ibid. Q. 144. May not the subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the foresaid ends without Creeds Catechisms or Confessions ibid. Q. 145. May a man be saved that believeth all the Essentials of Religion as coming to him by verbal Tradition and not as câ—ntained in the Holy Scriptures which perhaps he never knew p. 899 Q 146. Is the Scripture fit for all Christians to read being so obscure ibid. Q. 147. How far is Tradition and mens words and Ministry to be used or truâ—â—ed in in the exercise of faith p. 900 Q 148. How knâ—w we the true Canon of Scripture from Apocrypha ibid. Q. 149. Is the publick Reading of the Scripture the proper wâ—rk of the Minister or may a Lay man ordinarily do it or another officer p. 901 Q 150. Is it Lawful to Read the Apocrypha or any good Books besides the Scriptures to the Church as â—omiliâ—s c ibid. Q 151. May Church Assemblies be held where there is no Minister or what publick Worship may be so performed by Lâ—y men As among Inâ—idels or Papists where persecutiâ—n haâ—h killed imprisoned or expelled the Ministry p. 902 Q. 152. Is it Lawful to subscribe or profess full assent and consent to any religious Books besides the Scriptures seeing all men are fallible ibid. Q. 153. May we lawfully Swear obedience in all things lawful and honest either to Usurpers or to our Lawful Pastors ibid. Q. 154. Must all our Preaching be upon some Text of Scripture p. 904 Q. 155. Is not the Law of Moses abrogated and the whâ—le Old Testament out of date and therefore not to be Read publickly and Preached ibid. Q. 156. Must we believe that Moses Law did ever bind other Nations or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them or belonged to them or that the Iews were all Gods visible Church on earth p. 905 Q. 157. Must we think accordingly of the Christian Churches nâ—w that they are only advanced above the rest of the World as the Iews were but not the only people that are saved p. 906 Q. 158. Should not Christians take up with Scripture wisdom only without studying Philosophy or other Heathens humane Learning p. 907 Q. 159. If we think that Scripture and the Law of Nature are in any point contradictory to each other Which must be the standard by which the other must be tryed p. 908 Q. 160. May we not look that God should yet give us more Revelations of his will than there are already made in Scripture ibid. Q. 161. Iâ— not a third Rule of the Holy Ghost or perfecter Kingdom of Love to be expected as different from the Reign of the Creator and Redeemer p. 909 Q. 162. May we not look for Miracles hereafter p. 910 Q. 163. Is the Scripture to be tryed by the spirit or the Spirit by the Scripture and which of them is to be preferred ibid. Q. 164. How is a pretended Prophet or Revelation to be tryed p. 911 Q. 165 May one be saved who believeth that the Scripture hath any mistake or errours and believeth it not all ibid. Q. 166. Who be they that give too little to the Scriptures and who too much and what is the danger of each extream p. 912 Q. 167. How far do good men now Preach and pray by the spirit p. 913 Q. 168. Are not our own Reasons studies memory strivings Books Forms Methods and Ministry needless yea a hurtful quenching or preventing of the Spirit and setting up our own instead of the spirits operations p. 914 Q. 169. How doth the Holy Ghost set Bishops over the Churches p. 914 Q. 170. Are Temples Fonts Utensils Church-Lands much more the Ministry holy and What reverence is due to them as holy p. 915 Q. 171. What is Sacriledge and what not p. 916 Q. 172. Are all Religious private-meetings forbidden by Rulers unlawful Conventicles or are
Holy Ghost Read Luke 19. 27. Some think it strange that any men should be called Haters of God And I believe you will find it hard to meet with that man that will confess it by himself till converting Grace or Hell constrain him And indeed if God himself had not charged men with that sin and called them by that name we should scarce have found belief or patience when we had endeavoured to convince the world of it Intreat but the worst of men to repent of Hating God and try how they will take it Yet they may read that name in Scripture Rom. 1. 30. Psal. 81. 15. Luke 19. 14. Did not the Iews hate Christ think you when they murdered him and when they hated all his followers for his sake Matth. 10. 22. Mar. 13. 13. And doth not Christ say that they shall be hated for his sake not only of the Jews but also of all Nations and all men Matth. 24. 9. 10. 22. Even by the world Iohn 17. 14. 15 17 18 19 c. And this was a hating both Christ and his Father Iohn 15. 23 24. But you will say It is not possible that any man can hate God I answer How then come the Devils to hate him Yea every ungodly man hateth God Indeed no man hateth him as Good or as Merciful to them But they hate him as Holy and Iust as one that will not let them have the pleasure of sin without damning them as one engaged in justice to cast them into Hell if they dye without conversion and as one that hath made so pure and precise a Law to govern them and convinceth them of sin and calls them to that repentance and Holiness which they hate Why did the world hate Christ himself He tells you John 7. 7. The world cannot hate you but me it hateth because I testifie against it that the works thereof are evil John 3. 19. This is the condemnation that Light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil Nay it is a wonder of blindness that this God-hating world and age should not perceive that they are God-haters while they hate his servants to the death and implacably rage against them and hate his holy wayes and Kingdom and bend all their power and interest in most of the Kingdoms of the world against his interest and his people upon earth While the Devil fighteth his battels against Christ through the world by their hands they will yet confess the Devils malice against God but deny their own as if he used their hands without their hearts Well poor wretched worms instead of denying your enmity to him lament it and know that he also taketh you for his enemies and will prove too hard for you when you have done your worst Read Psal. 2. and tremble and submit This is especially the case of persecutors and open enemies but in their measure also of all that would not have him to reign over them And therefore Christ came to Reconcile us unto God and God to us and it is only the sanctified that are Reconciled to him See Col. 1. 21. Phil. 3. 18. 1 Cor. 15. 25. Rom. 5. 10. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God nor indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. Mark that Text well § 2. 2. As long as you are unsanctified you are unjustified and unpardoned you are under the guilt of all the sins that ever you committed Every sinful thought word and deed of which the least deserveth Hell is on your score to be answered for by your self And what this signifieth the threatnings of the Law will tell you See Acts 26. 18. Mar. 4. 12. Col. 1. 14. There is no sin forgiven to an impenitent unconverted sinner § 3. 3. And no wonder when the unconverted have no special interest in Christ. The pardon and life that is given by God is given in and with the Son God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 10 Rom. 8. 9. 11 12. Till we are members of Christ we have no part in the pardon and salvation purchased by him And ungodly sinners are not his members So that Jesus Christ who is the hope and life of all his own doth leave thee as he found thee and that is not the worst for § 4. 4. It will be far worse with the impenitent rejecters of the grace of Christ than if they had never heard of a Redeemer For it cannot be that God having provided so precious a Remedy for sinful miserable souls should suffer it to be despised and rejected without encreased punishment Was it not enough that you had disobeyed your Great Creator but you must also set light by a most Gracious Redeemer that offered you pardon purchased by his blood if you would but have come to God by him Yea the Saviour that you despised shall be himself your judge and the Grace and Mercy which you set so light by shall be the heaviest aggravation of your sin and misery For how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. And of how much sorer punishment then the despisers of Moses Law shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God c. Heb. 10. 29. § 5. 5. The very prayers and sacrifice of the wicked are abominable to God except such as contain their returning from their wickedness So that terror ariseth to you from that which you expect should be your help See Prov. 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa. 1. 13. § 6. 6. Your common Mercies do but increase your sin and misery till you return to God Your carnal hearts turn all to sin Tit. 1. 15. Unto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled § 7. 7. While you are unsanctified you are impotent and dead to any holy acceptable work when you should redeem your time and prepare for eternity and try your states or pray or meditate or do good to others you have no heart to any such spiritual works your minds are byassed against them Rom. 8. 7. And it is not the excusable impotency of such as would do good but cannot but it is the malicious impotency of the wicked the same with that of Devils that cannot do good because they will not and will not because they have blind malicious and ungodly hearts which makes their sin so much the greater Tit. 1. 16. § 8. 8. While you have unsanctified hearts you have at all times the seed and disposition unto every sin And if you commit not the worst it is because some providence restraining the Tempter hindereth you No thanks to you that you do not daily commit Idolatry Blasphemy Theft
Murder Adultery c. It is in your hearts to do it when you have but temptation and opportunity and will be till you are renewed by sanctifying Grace § 9. 9. Till you are sanctified you are heirs of death and Hell even under the curse and condemned Unus gehennae ignis est in Inferno sed non uno modo omnes excruciat peccatores Uniuscujusque enim quantum exigit culpa tantum illic sentitur poena Nam sicut hic unus sol non omnia corpora aequaliâ—er caâ—eâ—acit ita illic unus ignis animas pro qualitate crimiâ—um dissimiliter exurit H go Etherianus de Aâ—im regres cap. 12. already in point of Law though judgement have not past the final sentence See Iohn 3. 18 19 36. And nothing is more certain than that you had been damned and undone for ever if you had dyed before you had been renewed by the Holy Ghost and that yet this will be your miserable portion if you should dye unsanctified Think then what a life you have lived until now And think what it is to live any longer in such a case in which if you dye you are certain to be damned Conversion may save you but unbelief and self-flattery will not save you from this endless misery Heb. 12. 14. Heb. 2. 3. Matth. 25. ult § 10. 10. As long as you are unsanctified you are hasting to this misery Sin is like to get more Idem undique in infernum descensus est saith Anaxagoras in Laert. to one that only lamented that he must die in a strange Countrey rooting and your hearts to be more hardened and at enmity with grace and God more provoked and the Spirit more grieved and you are every day nearer to your final doom when all these things will be more sensibly considered and better understood 2 Tim. 3. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 3. Thus I have given you a brief account of the case of unrenewed souls and but a brief one because I have done it before more largely Treat of Convers. Direction 10. WHen you have found out how sad a condition you are in consider what there is in Direct 10. sin to make you amends or repair your loss that should be any hinderance to your Conversion § 1. Certainly you will not continue for nothing if you know it to be nothing in so dangerous and doleful a case as this And yet you do it for that which is much worse than nothing not considering what you do Sit down sometimes and well bethink you what recompence the world or sin will make you for your God your souls your hopes and all when they are lost and past recovery Think what it will then avail or comfort you that once you were honoured and had a great estate that once you fared of the best and had your delicious cups and merry hours and sumptuous attire and all such pleasures Think whether this will abate the horrors of death or put by the wrath of God or the sentence of your condemnation or whether it will ease a tormented soul in Hell If not think how small and short and silly a commodity and pleasure it is that you buy so dear And what a wise man can see in it that should make it seem worth the Joyes of Heaven and worth your enduring everlasting torments What is it that is supposed worth all this Is it the snare of preferment Is it vexing riches Is it befooling honours Is it distracting cares Is it swinish luxury or lust Is it beastly pleasures Or what is it else that you will buy at so wonderful dear a rate O lamentable folly of ungodly men O foolish sinners Unworthy to see God! and worthy to be miserable O strangely corrupted heart of man that can fell his Maker his Redeemer and his salvation at so base a price Direction 11. ANd when you are casting up your account as you put all that sin and the world Direct 11. will do for you in the one end of the scales so put into the other the Comforts both of this life and of that to come which you must part with for your sins § 1. Search the Scriptures and consider how happy the Saints of God are there described Think what it is to have a purified cleansed soul to be free from the slavery of the flesh and it's concupiscence to have the sensitive appetite in subjection unto Reason and Reason illuminated and rectified by faith to be alive to God and disposed and enabled to love and serve him to have access to him in prayer with boldness and assurance to be heard to have a fealed pardon of all our sins and an interest in Christ who will answer for them all and justifie us to be the children of God and the heirs of Heaven to have peace of Conscience and the joyful hopes of endless joyes to have communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit and to have that Spirit dwelling in us and working to our further holiness and joy to have communion with the Saints and the help and comfort of all Gods Ordinances and to be under his many precious promises and under his protection and provision in his family and to cast all our care upon him to delight our selves daily in the remembrance and renewed experiences of his love and in our too little knowledge of him and love to him and in the knowledge of his Son and of the Mysteries of the Gospel to have all things work together for our good and to be able with joy to welcome Death and to live as in Heaven in the foresight of our everlasting happiness I would have orderly here given you a particular account of the priviledges of renewed souls but that I have done so much in that already in my Treatise of Conversion and Saints Rest. This taste may help you to see what you lose while you abide in an unconverted state Direction 12. WHen you have thus considered of the condition you are in consider also whether Direct 12. it be a condition to be rested in one day § 1. If you die unconverted you are past all hope for out of Hell there is no redemption And Alienus est à â—ee qui ad â—â—â—â—ndam pâ—â—â—â—enâ—am tempuâ— expecâ—aâ—â—enecturis I◠〈◊〉 Pa â— in Aâ—â—ot 〈◊〉 12. Multos vitam differenteâ— morâ— incerta praeâ—â—nit Id. ib. ex Sâ—â—â—â— certain you are to dye ere long and uncertain whether it will be this night Luke 12. 20. You never lay down with assurance that you should rise again You never went out of doors with assurance to return You never heard a Sermon with assurance that you should hear another You never drew one breath with assurance that you should draw another A thousand accidents and diseases are ready to stop your breath and end your time when God will have it so And if you dye this night in an unregenerate state there is no more time or help or
As the Athenians that condemned Socrates to death and then lamented it and erected a Braâ—en Statue for his Memorial Acosta saith that he that will be a Pastor to the Indians must not only resist the Devil and the flesh but must resist the custome of men which is grown powerful by time and multitude and must oppose his breast to receive the darts of the envious and malevolent who if they see any thing contrary to their prophane fashion they cry out A Traytor an Hypocrite an Enemy Li. 4. c. 15. p. 404. It seems among Papists and Barbarians the Serpents seed do hiss in the same manner against the good among themselves as they do against us dye Or think whether they will not change their minds when death hath sent them into that world where there is none of these deceits And think whether thou shouldst be moved with that mans words that will shortly change his mind himself and wish he had never spoke such words § 7. 3. Observe well whether their own Profession do not condemn them and whether the very thing that they hate the godly for be not that they are serious in Practising that which these malignants themselves profess as their Religion And are they not then notorious Hypocrites To profess to believe in God and yet scorn at those that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. To profess faith in Christ and hate those that obey him To profess to believe in the Holy Ghost as the Sanctifier and yet hate and scorn his sanctifying work To profess to believe the day of Judgement and everlasting torment of the ungodly and yet to deride those that endeavour to escape it To profess to believe that Heaven is prepared for the Godly and yet scorn at those that make it the chief business of their lives to attain it To profess to take the holy Scriptures for Gods Word and Law and yet to scorn those that obey it To pray after each of the Ten Commandments Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and yet to hate all those that desire and endeavour to keep them What impudent hypocrisie is joyned with this malignity Mark whether the greatest diligence of the most godly be not justified by the formal profession of those very men that hate and scorn them The difference between them is that the Godly Profess Christianity in good earnest and when they say what they believe they believe as they say But the ungodly customarily and for company take on them to be Christians when they are not and by their own mouths condemn themselves and hate and oppose the serious Practice of that which they say they do themselves believe PART II. The Temptations whereby the Devil hindereth mens Conversion with the proper Remedies against them § 1. THE Most Holy and Righteous Governour of the world hath so restrained Satan and all our enemies and so far given us Free-will that no man can be forced to sin against his will It is not sin if it be not positively or privatively voluntary All our enemies in Hell or Earth cannot make us miserable without our selves nor keep a sinner from true Conversion and Salvation if he do it not himself no nor compell him to one sinful thought or word or deed or omission but by tempting and entising him to be willing All that are Graceless are wilfully Graceless None go to Hell but those that chose the way to Hell and would not be perswaded out of it None miss of Heaven but those that did set so light by it as to prefer the world and sin before it and refused the holy way that leadeth to it And surely man that naturally loveth himself would never take so mad a course if his reason were not laid asleep and his understanding were not wofully deluded And this is the business of the Tempter who doth not drag men to sin by violence but draw and entice them by Temptations I shall therefore take it for the next part of my work to open these Temptations and tell you the Remedies § 2. Tempt 1. The first endeavour of the Tempter is in General to keep the sinner asleep in sin so that Tâ—â—pt 1. â—e shall be as a dead man that hath no use of any of his faculties that hath eyes and seeth not and ears but heareth not and a heart that understandeth not nor feeleth any thing that concerneth his peace The light Ephes 2. 1. Col 2 13. 1 Coâ— 15. 35. 1 Tim. 5. 6. Joeâ— 1. 5. that shineth upon a man asleep is of no use to him His work lyeth undone His friends and wealth and greatest concernments are all forgotten by him as if there were no such things or persons in the world You may say what you will against him or do what you will against him and he can do nothing in his own defence This is the case that the Devil most laboureth to keep the world in even in so dead a sleep that their Reason and their Wills their fear and hope and all their powers shall be of no use to them That when they hear a Preacher or read the Scripture or good Books or see the holy examples of the godly yea when they see the Grave and know where they must shortly lie and know that their souls must stay here but a little while yet they shall hear and see and know all this as men asleep that mind it not as if it concerned not them at all never once soberly Considering and laying it to heart § 3. Direct 1. For the Remedy against this deadly sin 1. Take heed of sleepy opinions or Doctrines Direct 1. and conceits which tend to the Lethargie of Security 2. Sit not still but be up and doing Stirring tends to shake off drowziness 3. Come into the light Live under an awakening Minister and in wakening company that will not sleep with you nor easily let you sleep Agree with them to deal faithfully with you and promise them to take it thankfully 4. And meditate oft on wakening considerations Think whether a sleepy soul beseem one in thy dangerous condition Canst thou sleep with such a load of sin upon thy soul Canst thou sleep under the thundering threatnings of God and the Curse of his Law with so many wounds in thy Conscience and Ulcers in thy soul If thy body were sick or in the case of Iob yea if thou hadst but an aking Tooth it would not let thee sleep And is not the guilt of sin a thing more grievous If Thorns or Toads and Adders were in thy Bed they would keep the waking And how much more odious and dangerous a thing is sin If thy body want but meat or drink or covering it will break 2 Tim. 2. 26. thy sleep And is it nothing for thy soul to be destitute of Christ and Grace A condemned man will be easily kept awake And if thou be unregenerate thou art already condemned
In your Baptism you renounced the world with its pomps and vanity and now do you deifie what you then defied § 36. Temp. 18. Another Temptation is to draw on the sinner into such a custom in sin and long Tempt 18. neglect of the means of his Recovery till his Heart is utterly Hardened § 37. Direct 18. Against this read after Chap. 4. Part. 2. against Hardness of Heart Direct 18. Tempt 19. § 38. Temp. 19. Another Temptation is to Delay Repentance and purpose to do it hereafter § 39. Direct 19. Of this I entreat you to read the many Reasons which I have given to shame and Direct 19. waken delayers in my Book of Directions for a sound Conversion § 40. Tempt 20. The worst of all is to tempt them to flat unbelief of Scripture and the life Tempt 20. to come § 41. Direct 20. Against this read here Chap. 3. Dir. 1. Chap. 4. Part. 1. and my Treatise against Direct 20. Infidelity § 42. Temp. 21. If they will needs looks after Grace he will do all he can to deceive them with counterfeits Tempt 21. and make them take a seeming half conversion for a saving change § 43. Direct 21. Of this read my Directions for sound Conversion and the Formal Hypocrite and Direct 21. Saints Rest Part. 3. c. 10. § 44. Temp. 22. If he cannot make them flat Infidels he will tempt them to question and contradict Tempt 22. the sense of all those Texts of Scripture which are used to convince them and all those doctrines which grate most upon their galled consciences as of the Necessity of Regeneration the fewness of them that are saved the difficulty of salvation the torments of Hell the necessity of mortification and the sinfulness of all particular sins They will hearken what Cavillers can say for any sin and against any part of Godliness and with this they wilfully delude themselves § 45. Direct 22. But if men are resolved to joyn with the Devil and shut their eyes and â—avil Direct 22. against all that God speaketh to them to prevent their misery and know not because they will not know what remedy is left or who can save men against their wills This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 19 20. In Scripture some things are hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. Of particulars read the end of my Treatise of Conversion § 46. Temp. 23. Yea Satan will do his worst to make them Hereticks and teach them some doctrine Tempt 23. of licentiousness suitable is their lusts It s hard being wicked still against Conscience in the open light This is kicking against the pricks too smarting work to be easily born Therefore the Devil will make them a Religion which shall please them and do their sins no haâ—m Either a Religion made up of loose Opinions like the Familists Ranters Libertines and Antinomians and the Jesuites too much or else made up of trifling formalities and a great deal of bodily exercise and Stage-actings and complement as much of the Popish devotion is And a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine It s easier to get such a new Religion than a new heart And then the Devil tells them that now they are in the right way and therefore they shall be saved A great part of the world think their case is good because they are of such or such a Sect or Party and of that which they are told by their Leaders is the true Church and way § 47. Direct 23. But remember that what ever Law you make to your selves God will judge Direct 23. you by his own Law Falsifying the Kings Coyn is no good way to pay a debt but an addition of Treason to your former misery It is a new and a holy heart and life and not a new Creed or a new Church or Sect that is necessary to your salvation It will never save you to be in the soundest Church on earth if you be unsound in it your selves and are but the dust in the Temple that must be swept ouâ— Much less will it save you to make your selves a Rule because Gods Rule doth seem too strict § 48. Tempt 24. Another way of the Tempter is to draw men to take up with meer Convictions Tempt 24. instead of true Conversion when they have but learnt that it is Necessary to salvation to be Regenerate and have the Spirit of Christ they are as quiet as if this were indeed to be regenerate and to have the Spirit As some think they have attained to perfection when they have but received the opinion that perfection may here be had so abundance think they have sanctification and forgiveness because now they see that they must be had and without sanctification there is no salvation And thus the knowledge of all Grace and Duty shall go with them for the grace and duty it self and their judgement of the thing instead of the possession of it and instead of having grace they force themselves to believe that they have it § 49. Direct 24. But remember God will not be mocked He knoweth a convinced head from Direct 24. a holy heart To think you are Rich will not make you rich To believe that you are well or to know the remedy is not enough to make you well You may dream that you eat and yet awake hungry Isa. 29. 8. All the Land or money which you see is not therefore your own To know that you should be holy maketh your unholiness to have no excuse Ahab did not scape by believing that he should return in peace Self-flattery in so great and weighty a case is the greatest folly If you know these things happy are ye if you do them John 13. 17. § 50. Tempt 25. Another great Temptation is by hiding from men the intrinsick evil and odiousness Tempt 25. of â—in What harm saith the Drunkard and Adulterer and voluptuous Sensualists is there in all this that Preachers make so great ado against it What hurt is this to God or man that they would make us believe we must be damned for it and that Christ dyed for it and that the Holy Ghost must mortifie it Wherefore say the Iews Ier. 16. 10. hath God pronounced all this great evil against us or what is our iniquity or what is our sin that we have committed He that knoweth not God knoweth not what sin against God is especially when the Love of it and Delight in it blindeth them § 51. Direct 25. Against this I intreat you to ponder on those forty intrinsecal evils in sin which Direct 25. I have after
hold it with any that will drive us from it unless we will commit some sin Statedly we must hold it with the Church which regularly we are joyned to and live with and Occasionally we must hold it with all others where we have a call and opportunity who in the substance worship God according to his Word and force us not to sin in conformity to them It is not Schism to lament the sins of any Church or of all the Churches in the world The Catholick Church on earth consists of sinners It is not Schism to refuse to be partaker in any sin of the purest Church in the world Obedience to God is not Schism It is not Schism that you joyn not Bodily with those Congregations where you dwell not nor have any particular call to joyn with them Nor that you choose the pureâ—â— and most edifying Society rather than one that is less pure and profitable to you â—aeteris paribus supposing you are at liberty nor that you hold not Bodily Communion with that Church that will not suffer you to do it without sinning against God Nor that you joyn not with the purest Church when you are called to abide with one less pure But it is worse than Schism to separate from the Universal Church To separate from its Faith iâ— Apostasie to infidelity To separate from it in some one or few essential Articles while you pretend to hold to Christ the Head is Heresie To separate from it in Spirit by refusing Holiness and not loveing such as are truly holy is damning ungodliness or wickedness To differ from it by any error of judgement or life against the Law of God is sin To magnifie any one Church or party so as to deny due Love and Communion to the rest is Schism To limit all the Church to your Party and deny all or any of the rest to be Christians and parts of the Universal Church is Schism by a dangerous breach of Charity And this is the principal Schism that I here admonish you to avoid It is Schism also to condemn unjustly any particular Church as no Church And it is Schism to withdraw your Bodily Communion from a Church that you were bound to hold that Communion with upon a false supposâ—tion that it is no Church or is not lawfully to be communicated with And it is Schism to make Divisions or parties in a Church though you divide not from that Church Thus I have briefly told you what is Schism § 4. 1. One pretence for Schism is Usurped Authority which some one Church may claim tâ— Command others that owe them no subjection Thus Pride which is the Spirit of Hell having crepâ— into the Church of Christ and animated Usurpations of Lordship and Dominion and contending for superiority hath caused the most dangerous Schisms in the Church that ever it was infested with The Bishop of Rome advantaged by the Seat and Constitution of that Empire having claimed the Government of all the Christian world condemneth all the Churches that will not be his subjects And â—o hath made himself the Head of a Sect and of the most pernicious Schism that ever did rend the Church of Christ And the Bishop of Constantinople and too many more have followed the same Method in a lower degree exalting themselves above their Brethren and giving them Laws and then condemning and persecuting them that obey them not And when they have imposed upon other Churches their own usurped Authority and Laws they have laid the plot to call all men Schismaticks and Sectaries that own not their tyrannical Usurpation and that will not be Schismaticks and Sectaries with them And the cheat lyeth in this that they confound the Churches Unity with their pretended Authority and Schism with the refusal of subjection to them If you will not take them for your Lords they cry out that you divide from the Church As if we could hold Communion with no Churches but those whose Bishops we obey Communion with other Churches is maintained by Faith and Charity and Agreement in things necessary without subjection to them As we may hold all just Communion with the Churches in Armenia Arabia Russia without subjection to their Bishops so may we with any other Church besides that of which we are members Division or Schism is contrary to Unity and Concord and not to a Usurped Government Though disobedience to the Pastâ—rs which God hath set over us is a sin and dividing from them is a Schism Both the Pope and all the lower Usurpers should do well first to shew their Commission from God to be our Rulers before they call it Schism to refuse their Government If they had not made better advantage of Fire and Sword than of Scripture and Argument the world would but have laughed them to scorn when they had heard them say All are Schismaticks that will not be our Subjects Our Dominion and will shall be necessary to the Unity of the Church The Universal Church indeed is One united under One Head and Governour but it is only Jesus Christ that is that Head and not any Usurping Vicar or Vice-Christ The Bishops of particular Churches are his Officers but he hath Deputed no Vicar to his own Office as the Universal Head Above all Sects take heed of this pernicious Sect who pretend their Usurped Authority for their Schism and have no way to promote their Sect but by calling all Sectaries that will not be Sectaries and Subjects unto them § 5. 2. Another pretence for Schism is the Numbers of the Party This is another of the Papists motives As if it were lawful to Divide the Church of Christ if they can but get the greater party They say We are the most and therefore you should yield to us And so do others where by the Sword they force the most to submit to them But we answer them As many as they are they are too few to be the Universal Church The Universal Church containing all true professing Christians is much more than they The Papists are not a third part if a fourth of the whole Church Papists are a corrupted Sect of Christians I will be against Dividing the Body of Christ into any Sects rather than to be one of that Sect or divided party which is the greatest § 6. 3. Another pretence for Schism is the soundness or Orthodoxness of a Party Almost all Sects pretend that they are wiser and of sounder judgement than all the Christian World besides yea those that most palpably contradict the Scriptures as the Papists in their half-communion and unintelligible service and have no better reason why they will so Believe or Do but because others have so Believed and Done already But 1. The greatest pretenders to Orthodoxness are not the most Orthodox 2. And if they were I can value them for that in which they excell without abating my due respect to the rest of the Church 3. For the whole Church is Orthodox in
and self obligations to God 38. It is a preferring of Time before Eternity and regarding things of a transitory nature and a moments pleasure before that which never shall have end The perâ—â—rtâ—â—â—â— and confusion of 〈…〉 39. It is a making a breach in the harmonie and order of the world As the dislocation or deformity of a particular member is the trouble and deformity of all the Body because the comliness and welfare of the whole containeth the comliness proportion and welfare of all the parts And as the dislocation or breaking of one part in a Watch or Clock is against the use of all the engine so every man being a part of the Kingdom of God doth by sin make a breach in the order of the whole and also giveth an ill example to other parts and makes himself unserviceable to the body and dishonoureth the whole body with the blot of Rebellion and le ts in judgement on the world and kindleth a consuming fire in the place where he liveth and is cruel and injurious to others 40. Sin is not only a preferring the Body before the Soul but it is also an Unmercifulness or Cruelty against our selves both soul and body and so is contrary to the true use of the indeleble principle of self-love For it is a wounding and abusing the Soul and defiling the Body in this life and a casting both on the wrath of God and into the flames of Hell hereafter or a dangerous venturing them into the way of endless damnation and despair and a contempt of those insufferable torments All these parts of malignity and poyson are intrinsecal to sin and found in the very Nature of it § 17. The common Aggravations of sin being written of by many and easily gathered from what is said of the nature of it I shall briefly name only a few 1. The Infinite perfection of God in all those blessed Attributes and Relations which sin is against is the Greatest Aggravation of sin 2. The unconceivable Glory of Heaven which is despised is a great aggravation of sin 3. So is the greatness of the Torments of Hell which sinners despise and venture on 4. So is the great Opposition that God hath made against sin having said and done so much against it and declared himself to hate nothing else immediately in the world 5. The clearness of evidence against it the nothingness of all that can be said for it is also a great aggravation of it 6. So is the fullness and fitness and power of all the Means in Creatures providences and Scriptures that is vouchsased the world against it 7. So is the experience and warning of all ages the repentings of the converted and the disowning it by almost all when they come to die Wonderful that the experience of the world for above five thousand years will teach them no more effectually to avoid so mortal pernicious a thing 8. The neerness to us also is an Aggravation It is not a distant evil but in our bowels in our very hearts we are bound so strictly to love our selves that it is a great aggravation to do our selves so great a mischief 9. The constant inhaesion of sin is a great aggravation that it is ever with us lying down and rising up at home and abroad we are never free from it 10. That it should poyson all our common mercies and corrupt all our duties is an aggravation But we shall take up some of these anon § 18. The special Aggravations of the sins of Gods own Children are these 1. They sin against See the Assemblâ—â— larger Catechism about aggravations of sin a neerer Relation than others do even against that God that is their Father by the new birth which is more heynous than if a stranger did it 2. They are Christs own members and it is most unnatural for his Members to rebel against him or do him wrong 3. They sin against more excellent operations of the spirit than others do and against a principle of Life within them 4. They sin against the differencing grace which appeared in their conversion God took them out of a world of sinners whom he past by when he could as well have sanctified them And should they so quickly thus requite him 5. They sin against the pardon and Iustification which they have already received Did God so lately forgive them all their former debts so many so great and heinous sins and that so freely to them when the procurement was so dear to Christ and should they so soon forget or so ill requite so great a mercy 6. They sin against a more serious Covenant which at their conversion they entred into with God than other men do 7. They sin against all the heart-breaking or humbling sorrows which they have tasted of at their conversion and since They have known more of the evil of sin than others in their sad experience of its sting 8. They sin against more knowledge than other men They have known more what sin is and what Christ is and what the will of God is than others and therefore deserve to be beaten with many stripes 9. They have oftner confessed sin than others and spoke odiously of it as the vilest thing and aggravated it to God and man 10. Their many Prayers against it and all their labour in hearing and reading and Sacraments and other means do aggravate it 11. They make a greater Profession of strict obedience and therefore sin against their own profession 12. They have renewed their Promises of obedience to God in prayer at Sacraments and at other times much more than others 13. They have had more experience than others of the goodness of obedience and of the comforts and benefits that attend it in the favour of God and communion with him therein 14. Their sins are aggravated by all the reproofs and exhortations which they have used to others to tell them how unreasonable and bad it is to provoke the Lord. 15. They sin under greater hopes of glory than others do and provoke that God with whom they hope to live for ever 16. The high Titles of love and praise which God doth give them in his Word do aggravate their sin That he should call them his treasure his peculiar people his jewels and the apple of his eye his sons and daughters and a holy people and Priests to God and boast of them as a people more excellent than their neighbours and after this they should sin against him 17. They have had audience with God the answer of prayers and many a deliverance and mercy in this life which others have not which aggravate their sins as being thus contemned and as obliging them more to God than others 18. They dishonour God more than any others by their sins His honour lyeth not so much upon the actions of the ungodly as on those that are nearest to him 19. They harden the wicked more than such sins in other men would
observest thy danger Nor perceivest that this very desire to have the Power to do evil sheweth a degree of the evil in thy heart and that thou art not yet sâ—t so far from it as thou must be if thou wouldst be safe Contrive thy self if thou be wise and love thy self into the greatest difficulties of sinning that thou canst Make it Impossible if it may be done The Power is for the act Desire not to be able to sin if thou wouldst not sin Not that Natural power to do goâ—d should be destroyed because it is also a power to do evil but cast as many blâ—cks in the way of thy sinning as thou canst till it amount to a moral impossibility Desire the strictest Laws and Gâ—vernâ—rs and to be still in the eye of others and contrive it that thou maist Psal 101. 3. have no hope of secrecie Contrive it so that it may be utter shame and lâ—ss to thee if thou sin If thou be tempted to fornication never be private with hâ—r or him that is thy snare If thou be tempted to deceive and rob those that trust thee avoid the trust or if ever thou have done it restore and confess that shame may preserve thee § 37. Tempt 7. Next the Tempter importunately soliciteth ouâ— Thoughts or fantasies to feed upon Tempt 7. the tempting thing That the lustful person may be thinking on the objects of his lusts and the ambitious man thinking on his desired honour and the coveteous man of his desired wealth his house or lands or gainful bargains and the malitious man be thinking of all the real or imaginary wrongs which kindle malice § 38. Direct 7. Keep a continual watch upon your thoughts Remember that this is the common Direct 7. entrance of the greatest sins And if they go no further the searcher of hearts will judge thee for the adultery murder and other sins of thy heart But especially see that your thoughts be so employed on better things that sin may never find them vacant § 39. Tempt 8. The Tempter also is diligent to keep the end from the sinners eye and to perswade Tempt 8. him that there is no danger in it and that it will be as good at last as at first He cannot endure a thought a word of death or judgement unless he can first fortifie the sinner by some presumptuous hope that his sons are pardoned and his case is good either he will make them believe him that there is no such danger to the soul as should deterr them or else he keepeth them from thinking of that danger He is loth a sinner should so much as look into a grave or go to the house of mâ—urning and see the end of all the living lest he should lay it to heart and thence perceive what worldly pleasure wealth and greatness is by seeing where it leaveth sinners If one do but talk of death or judgement and the life to come the Devil will stir up some scorn or weariness or opposition against such dâ—scourse If a sinner do but bethink himself in secret what will become of him after death the Devil will either allure him or trouble him and never let him rest till he have cast away all such thoughts as tend to his salvation He cannot endure when you see the pomp and pleasure of the world that you should think or ask How long will this endure And what will it prove in the latter end § 40. Direct 8. Go to the holy Scriptures and see what they foretel concerning the end of Direct 8. Psal. 1. 15. Mat. 25. Godliness and sin God knoweth better than the Devil and is more to be believed You may see in the word of God what will come of Saints and sinners Godly and ungodly at the last and what they will think and say when they review their present life and what Christ will say to them and how he will judge them and what will be their reward for ever This is the infallible Prognostication where you may foresee your endless state In this glass continually foresee the end Never judge of any thing by the present gust alone Ask not only how it tasteth but how it worketh and what will be the effects Remember that Gods Law hath inseparably conjoyned Holiness and Heaven and sin unrepented of and Hell and seeing these cannot be separated indeed let them never be separated from each other in your thoughts Otherwise you will never understand Christ or Satan When Christ saith wilt thou deny thy self and take up the Cross and follow me his meaning is shall I â—eal thy carnal worldly heart and life and bring thee by grace to the sight of God in endless Glory You will never understand what prayer and obedience and holy living mean if you see not the End even Heaven conjoyned to them When the Devil saith to the Glutton eat also of this pleasant dish and to the Drunkard take the other cup and to the Fornicator take thy pleasure in the dark and to the Voluptuous go to the Play-house or the Gaming-house come play at Cards or Dice his meaning is Come venture upon sin and fear not Gods threatnings and refuse his word and spirit and grace that I may have thy company among the Damned in the fire which never shall be quenched This is the true English of every temptation Open thy ears then and when ever the Devil or any sinner tempteth thee to sin hear him as if he said I pray thee leap into the flames of Hell § 41. Tempt 9. If the Tempter cannot quickly draw men to the sin he will move them at least to Tempt 9. abate their resolution against it and to deliberate about it and hear what can be said and enter into a dispute with Satan or some of his instruments telling them that it is a sign of falshood which will not indure the trial and that we must prove all things And while the sinner is deliberating and disputing the vâ—â—â—â—me is working it self into his veins and sense is secretly undermining and betraying him and deceiving his mind brâ—bing his reason and seducing his will Iust as an enemy will treat with those that keep a Garrison that during the treaty he may send in spies and find out their weakness and corrupt the souldiers So doth the Devil with the sinner § 42. Direct 9. Remember that it is Christ and not Satan that you are to hear Truth is strong and Direct 9. can bear the tryal before any competent judge but you are weak and not so able to judge as you may imagine Ignorant unskilful and unsetled persons are easily deceived be the cause never so clear If it be a cause untryed by you it is not untryed by all the godly nor unknown to him that gave you the holy Scriptures If it be fit to be called in questim and disputed take the help of able godly Teachers or friends and hear what they
zeal and delight remembring that you are engaged to God as servants to their Lord and Master and are entrusted with his talents of the improvement whereof you must give account § 1. THe next Relation between Christ and us which we are to speak of subordinate to that of King and Subjects is this of MASTER and SERVANTS Though Christ saith to the Apostles John 15. 5. Henceforth I call you not servants but friends the meaning is not that he calleth them not servants at all hut not meer servants they being more than servants having such acquaintance with his counsels as his friends For he presently verse 20. bids them Remember that the servant is not greater than the Lord. And John 13. 13. Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am And Matth. 23. 8. One is your Master Christ and all ye are brethren So Ver. 10. And the Apostles called themselves the servants of Iesus Christ Rom. 1. 1. 1 Cor. 4. 1. Phil. 1. 1. and of God Tit. 1. 1 c. § 2. He is called our Master and we his servants because he is our Rector ex pleno dominio with What it is to be Christâ— Servants absolute propriety and doth not give us Laws to Obey while we do our own work but giveth us his work to do and Laws for the right doing of it And it is a service under his eye and in dependance on him for our daily provisions as servants on their Lord. God hath WORK for us to do in the world and the performance of it he will require God biddeth his Sons Go work to day in my Vineyard Matth. 21. 28. and expecteth that they do it Ver. 31. His Servants are as Husbandmen to whom he entruâ—â—â—â—th his Vineyard that he may receive the fruit Ver. 33 34 41 43. Faithful servants shall be made Rulers over his houshold Matth. 24. 45 46. Christ delivereth to his servants his talents to improve and will require an account of the improvement at his coming Mat. 25. 14. GOOD WORKS in the proper comprehensive sense are all actions internal and external that are morally good But in the narrâ—weâ— acception they are Works not only formally good as acts of Obedience in general but also materially good such as a servant doth for his Master that tend to his advantage or the proâ—it of some other whose welfare he regardeth Because the doctrine of GOOD WORKS is controverted in these times I shall first open it briefly and then give you the Directions § 3. 1. Nothing is more certain than that God doth not need the service of any creature and that he receiveth no addition to his perfection or felicity from it and consequently that on terms of commutative Iustice which giveth one thing for another as in selling and buying no creature is capable of meriting at his hands 2. It is certain that on the terms of the Law of Works which required perfect obedience as the condition of life no sinner can do any work so good as in point of distributive governing Iustice shall merit at his hands 3. It is certain that Christ hath so fulfilled the Law of Works as to Merit for us 4. The Redeemed are not Masterless but have still a Lord who hath now a double Right to govern them And this Governour giveth them a Law And this Law requireth us to do good works as much as we are able though not so terribly yet as obligingly as the Law of Works And by this Law of Christ we must be Iudged And thus we must be judged according to our works and to be judged ☜ is nothing else but to be Iustified or Condemned Such works therefore are Rewardable according to the Distributive Iustice of the Law of Grace by which we must be Iudged And the antient Fathers who without any opposition spoke of Good works as Meritorious with God meant no more but that they were such as the Righteous Iudge of the world will Reward according to the Law of Grace by which he judgeth us And this doctrine being agreed on as certain truth there is no controversie left with them but whether the word Merit was properly or improperly used And that both Scripture and our common speech alloweth the Fathers use of the word I have shewed at large in my Confession 5. Christ is so far from Redeeming us from a necessity of good works that he dyed to restore us to a capacity and ability to perform them and hath new-made us for that end Tit. 2. 14. He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Ephes. 2. 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus to good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them 6. Good works opposed to Christ or his satisfaction merit righteousness mercy or free-grace in the matter of Justification or Salvation are not good works but proud self-confidence and sin But good works in their due subordination to Gods mercy and Christs merits and grace are necessary and Rewardable 7. Though God need none of our works yet that which is good materially pleaseth him as it tendeth to his glory and to our own and others benefit which he delighteth in 8. It is the communicating of his goodness and excellencies to the creature by which God doth glorifie himself in the world and in Heaven where is the fullest Communication he is most glorified Therefore the praise which is given to the creature who receiveth all from him is his own praise And it is no dishonour to God that his creature be honoured by being good and being esteemed good Otherwise God would never have created any thing lest it should derogate from himself Or he would have made them bad lest their goodness were his dishonour and he would be most pleased with the wicked and least pleased with the best as most dishonouring him But madness it self abhorreth these conceits 9. Therefore as an act of Mercy to us and for his own Glory as at first he made all things very good so he will make the new creature according to his Image which is Holy and Iust and Good and will use us in good works and it is our honour and gain and happiness to be so used by him As he will not communicate Light to the world without the Sun whose glory derogateth not from his honour So will he not do good works in the world immediately by himself only but by Vir bonus est qui prodest quibus potest nocet autem nemiâ—â— P. Scalig. Ne pigeat Evangelicum Ministrum aegâ—otum visitare xenio aliquo recreare famelicum cibario saltem pane pascere nuâ—um operire paupâ—râ—m cuâ— non est adjutor a divitum calumniis potentia eripere pro afflictis principem magistratumve convenire râ—m familiaâ—em câ—nsili augegere morientibus sedulo benigne astare lites dissidia
Unbelief is one of the Causes of them and the sinfullest Cause § 2. And that the Article of Remission of sin is to be Believed with application to our selves is certain The Article of Remission of sin to be believed applyingly But not with the application of Assurance Perswasion or Belief that we are already pardoned but with an applying Acceptance of an offered pardon and Consent to the Covenant which maketh it ours We believe that Christ hath purchased Remission of sin and made a Conditional Grant of it in his Gospel to all viz. if they will Repent and Believe in him or take him for their Saviour or become Penitent Christians And we consent to do so and to accept it on these terms And we believe that all are actually pardoned that thus consent § 3. By all this you may perceive that those troubled Christians which doubt not of the truth of the Word of God but only of their own sincerity and consequently of their Justification and Salvation do ignorantly complain that they have not faith or that they cannot believe For it is no act of unbelief at all for me to doubt whether my own heart be sincere This is my ignorance of my self but it is not any degree of unbelief For Gods Word doth no where say that I am sincere and therefore I may doubt of this without doubting of Gods Word at all And let all troubled Christians know that they have no more unbelief in them than they have doubting or unbelief of the truth of the Word of God Even that despair it self which hath none of this in it hath no unbelief in it iâ— there be any such I thought it needful thus far to tell you what unbelief is before I come to give you Directions against it And though the meer doubting of our own sincerity be no unbelief at all yet real unbelief of the very truth of the Holy Scriptures is so common and dangerous a sin and some degree of it is latent in the best that I think we can no way so much further the work of Grace as by destroying this The weakness of our faith in the truth of Scriptures and the remnant of our unbelief of it is the principal cause of all the languishings of our Love and Obedience and every Grace and to strengthen faith is to strengthen all What I have â—ullier written in my Saints Rest Part 2. and my Treatise against Infidelity I here suppose § 4. Direct 1. Consider well how much of Religion Nature it self teacheth and Reason without Direct 1. supernatural Revelation must needs confess as that there is another life which man was made for and that he is obliged to the fullest Love and Obedience to God and the rest before laid down 〈…〉 in the world are perpetual visible Evidences in my eyes of the truth of the Holy Scriptures 1 That there should be so Universal and implacable a hatred against the godly in the common sort â—f unrenewed men in all Agâ—â— and Nations of the Earâ—h when thâ—se men deserve so well of them and do them no wrong â—s a visible proof of Adams fall and he 〈◊〉 of a Saviour and a Sanctifier 2 That all those who are seriously Christians should be so far renewed and recovered from the common corruption as their heavenly â—inds and lives and their wonderful difference from other men sheweth this is a visible proof that Christianity is of God 3. That God doth â—o â—lainly shew a particular special Providence in the converting and confirming souls by differencing Grace and work on the soul as the sanctified feel doth shew that indeed the work is his 4. That God doth so plainly grant many of his Servants prayers by special Providences doth prove his owning them and his 〈◊〉 5. That God suffereth his Servants in all times and places ordinarily to suffer so much for his Love and Service from the world and flâ—sh dâ—â—h shew that there is a Judgement and Rewards and Punishments hereafter Or else our highest duty would be our greatest losâ— and thâ—n how should his Government of men be just 6. That the Renewed Nature which maketh men better and therefore is of God doth wholly look at the life to come and lead us to â—t and live upon it this sheweth that such a life there is or else this would be delusory and vain and Goodness it self would be a deceit 7. When it is undenyable that de facto esse the world is not Governed without the Hopes and Fears of another life almost all Nations among the Heathens believing iâ— and shewing by their very worshipping their dead Heroes as Gods that they believed that their soulâ— did live and even the wicked generally being restrained by those hopes and fears in themselves And also that de posse it is not pâ—â—â—â—ible the world should be governed agreeably to mans rational nature without the hopes and fears of another life But men would be wâ—â—se than Beasts and all Villanies would be the allowed practice of the world As every man may feel in himself what he were like to be and do if he had no such restraint And there being no Doctrine or Life comparable to Christianity in their tendency to the life to come All these are visible staâ—ding evidences assisted so much by common sense and reason and still apparent to all that they leave Infidelity without excuse and are ever at hand to help our faith and resist temptations to unbelief 8. And if the world had not had a Beginning according to the Scriptures 1. We should have found Monuments of Antiquity above sâ—x thousand years old 2. Arts and Sciences would have come to more perfection and Printing Guns c. not have been of so late invention 3. And so much of America and other parts of the world would not have been yet uninhabited unplanted or undiscovered Of Aâ—heâ—sm I have spoken before in the Introduction and Nature so clearly revealeth a God that I take it as almost needless to say much of it to sober men in the Introduction And then observe how congruously the doctrine of Christ comes in to help where Nature is at a loss and how exactly it suits with Natural Truths and how clearly it explaineth them and fully containeth so much of them as are necessary to salvation and how suitable and proper a means it is to attain their Ends and how great a testimony the Doctrines of Nature and Grace do give unto each other § 5. Direct 2. Consider that mans End being in the life to come and God being the righteous and Direct 2. merciful Governour of man in order to that End it must needs be that God will give him sufficient means to know his will in order to that end And that the clearest fullest means must needs demonstrate most of the Government and Mercy of God § 6. Direct 3. Consider what full and sad experience the world hath of its pravity and great
corruption Direct 3. and that the natural tendency of Reason is to those high and excellent things which corruption and bruitishness do almost extinguish or cast out with the most and that the prevalency of the lower-faculties against right Reason is so lamentable and universal to the confusion of the world that it is enough to tell us that this is not the state that God first made us in and that certainly sin hath sullied and disordered his work The wickedness of the world is a great confirmation of the Scripture § 7. Direct 4. Consider how exactly the Doctrine of the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is suited to Direct 4. the lapsed state of man even as the Law of Works was suited to his state of innocency so that the Gospel may be called the Law of Lapsed Nature as suited to it though not as revealed by it as the other was the Law of Entire Nature § 8. Direct 5. Compare the many Prophecies of Christ with the fulfilling of them in his person As Direct 5. that of Moses recited by Stephen Acts 7. 37. Isa. 53. Dan. 9. 24 25 26 c. And consider that those Jews which are the Christians bitterest enemies acknowledge and preserve those Prophecies and all the Old Testament which giveth so full a testimony to the New § 9. Direct 6. Consider what an admirable suitableness there is in the Doctrine of Christ to the relish Direct 6. of a serious heavenly mind and how all that is spiritual and truly good in us doth close with it and embrace it from a certain congruity of Natures as the eye doth with the light and the stomach with its proper food Every good man in reading the Holy Scripture feeleth something even all that 's good within him bear witness to it And only our worser part is quarrelling with it and rebells against it § 10. Direct 7. Consider how all the first Churches were planted by the success of all those Miracles Direct 7. mentioned in the Scripture And that the Apostles and thousands of others saw the Miracles of Christ and the Churches saw the Miracles of the Apostles and heard them speak in Languages unlearnt and had the same extraordinary gifts communicated to themselves And these being openly and frequently manifested convinced unbelievers and were openly urged by the Apostles to stop the mouths Gal 3. 1 2 3. of opposers and confirm believers who would all have scorned his arguments and the faith which they supported if all these had been fictions of which they themselves were said to be eye-witnesses and agents So that the very existence of the Churches was a testimony to the matter of fact And what testimony can be greater of Gods interest and approbation than Christs Resurrection and all these miracles § 11. Direct 8. Consider how no one of all the Hereticks or Apostates did ever contradict the matters Direct ◠of fact or hath left the world any kind of confutation of them which they wanted not malice or encouragement or opportunity to have done § 12. Direct 9. Consider how that no one of all those thousands that asserted these miracles are Direct 9. ever mentioned in any history as repenting of it either in their health or at the hour of death whereas it had been so heinous a villany to have cheated the world in so great a cause that some consciences of dying men especially of men that placed all their hopes in the life to come must needs have repented of § 13. Direct 10. Consider that the witnesses of all these Miracles and all the Churches that believed Direct 10. them were taught by their own doctrine and experience t◠forsake all that they had in the world and to be reproached hated and persecuted of all men and to be as lambs among wolves in expectation of death and all this for the hope of that blessedness promised them by a Crucified Risen Christ. So that no worldly end could move them to deceive or willingly to be deceived § 14. Direct 11. Consider how impossible it is in it self that so many men should agree together to deceive Direct 11. the world and that for nothing and at the rate of their own undoing and death and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously And that none of these should ever confess the deceit and disgrace the rest All things well considered this will appear not only a Moral but a Natural impossibility Especially considering their quality and distance there being thousands in several countries that never saw the faces of the rest much less could enter a confederacie with them to deceive the world § 15. Direct 12. Consider the certain way by which the Doctrine and Writings of the Apostles and Direct 12. other Evangelical messengers hath been delivered down to us without any possibility of material alteration Because the Holy Scriptures were not left only to the care of private men or of the Christians of one country who might have agreed upon corruptions and alterations But it was made the office of the ordinary Ministers to read and expound and apply them And every Congregation had one or more of these Ministers And the people received the Scriptures as the Law of God and that by which they must live and be judged and as their charter for Heaven So that it was not possible for one Minister to corrupt the Scripture Text but the rest with the people would have quickly reproved him Nor for those of one Kingdom to bring all other Christians to it throughout the world without a great deal of consultation and opposition if at all which never was recorded to us § 16. Direct 13. Be acquainted as fully as you can with the History of the Church that you may Direct 13. know how the Gospel hath been planted and propagated and assaulted and preserved until now which will much better satisfie you than general uncertain talk of others § 17. Direct 14. Iudge whether God being the Wise and Merciful Governor of the world would Direct 14. Neq enim potest Deus qui summa Veritas Bonitas est hu manum genus prolem suam decipere suffer the honestest and obedientest subjects that he hath upon earth to be deceived in a matter of such importance by pretence of Doctrines and Miracles proceeding from himself and which none but God or by his special grant is able to do without disowning them or giving any sufficient means to the world to discover the deceit For certainly he needeth not deceit to govern us If you say that he permits Mahometanism I answer 1. The main positive doctrine of the Mahometanes for the worshiping of one only God against Idolatry is true And the by-fancies of their pretended Prophet are not commended to the world upon the pretense of attesting Miracles at all but upon the affirmation of Ma sil 〈◊〉 de
into the causes of all the oppressions rapines cruelties and inhumanity which have made men so like to Devils Look into the corrupted lacerated Churches and enquire into the cause of their contentions divisions usurpations malignity and cruelty against each other And you will find that Pride and Worldliness are the Causes of all When men of a Proud and Worldly mind have by fraud and friendship and Simony Usurped the Pastorship of the Churches according to their Minds and Eâ—ds they turn it into a Malignant Domination and the Carnal worldly part of the Church is the great enemy and Persecutor of the spiritual part and the fleshly Hypocrite as Cain against Abel is filled with envy against the serious believer even out of the bitter displeasure of his mind that his deceitful Sacrifice is less respected What Covetousness hath done to the advancement of the pretended Holy Catholick Church of Rome I will give you now but in the words of an Abbot and Chronicler of their own Abbas Urspergens Chron. p. 3â—â— Vix remansit aliquis Episcopatus sive dignitas Ecclesiastica vel etâ—am Parochialis Ecclesiae quae ron fieâ—et litigâ—osa Romam deduceretur ipsa causa sed non manu vacua Gaude mater nostra Roma quonâ—am aperiuntur cataractae thesaurorum in teâ—ra ut ad te consâ—uant rivi aggeres nummoâ—um in magna copia Laetare super iniquitate filiorum hominum quonâ—am in recompensationem tantorum malorum datur tibi precâ—um Jocundare super adjutrice tua discordia quia erupit de puteo infernalis abyssi ut accumulentur tibi multa pecuniaâ—um praemia Habes quod semper sitisti decanta Canticum quia per malitiam hominum non pâ—â— tuam Religionem orbem vicistâ— Ad te trahit homines non ipsorum devotio aut pura Conscientia sed sâ—â—lerum multiplicium perpetratio litium decisio precio comparata Foâ—tun Galindas speaking of Pope Paul the fifth his love to the Iesuites for helping him to money saith Adeo praestat acquirendarum pecuniarum quam animarum studiosum peritum esse apud illos qui cum animarum Christi sanguine redemptarum in se curam receperint vel quid anima sit nesciunt vel non pluris animam hominis quam piscis faciunt quod credo suum officium Piscatum quendam esse aliquando per strepitum inaudierint quibus propterea gratior fuerit qui Animam auri cum Paracelso quam animam Saxoniae Electoris invenisse nuntiet Arcan Soci Iesu. pag. 46. Lege ibid. Iâ—struct secret de Iesuitarum pâ—axi Et Ioh. Sarisbur l. 7. c. 21. de Monach. Potentiores ditiores favore vel mercede recepta facilius absolutione exâ—nerant peccatis alienis humeros supponentes jubent abire in tunicas vestes pullas quicquid illi se commisisse deplorant Si eis obloquetâ—s Religionis inimicus veritatis diceris impugnator hand It is the departing of the heart from God to creatures See the malignity of it before Good men have been overtaken with heinous sins but its hard to find where Scripture calleth any of them Covetous A heart secretly cleaving most to this present world and its prosperity is the very killing sin of every hypocrite yea and of all ungodly men 2. Worldliness makes the Word unprofitable and keepeth men from believing and repenting and coming home to God and minding seriously the everlasting world What so much hindereth the Conversion of sinners as the love and caâ—es of earthly things They cannot serve God and Mammon Their treasure and hearts cannot be chiefly be both in Heaven and Earth They will not yield to the terms of Christ that love this world They will not forsake all for a treasure in Heaven In a word as you heard The love of money is the root of all evil and the Love of the Father is not in the lovers of the world 3. It destroyeth holy meditation and conference and turneth the thoughts to worldly things And it corrupteth Prayer and maketh it but a means to serve the flesh and therefore maketh it odious to God 4. It is the great hinderance of mens necessary preparation for death and judgement and stealeth away their hearts and time till it is too late 5. It is the great cause of contentions even among the nearest relations and the cause of the Wars and calamities of Nations and of the woful divisions and persecutions of the Church when a worldly generation think that their worldly interest doth engage them against self-denying and spiritual principles practices and persons 6. It is the great cause of all the injustice and oppression and cruelty that rageth in the world They would do as they would be done by were it not for the love of money It maketh men perfidious and false to all their friends and engagements No vows to God nor obligations to men will hold a Lover Iâ—m â— 1. 2 3 4 5. 1 Iohn â— â—â— of the world The world is his God and his worldly interest is his rule and law 7. It is the great destroyer of Charity and Good works No more is done for God and the poor because the Love of the world forbids it 8. It disordereth and proâ—aneth families and betrayeth the souls of Children and Servants to the Devil It turneth out prayer and reading the Scripture and good books and all serious speeches of the liâ—e to come because their hearts are taken up with the world and they have no relâ—sh of any thing but the provisions of their flesh Even the Lords own Day cannot be reserved for holy works nor a duty performed but the world is interposing or diverting the mind 9. It tempâ—eth mâ—n to sin against their knowledge and to forsake the truth and fit themselves to the rising side and save their bodies and estates whatever become of their souls It is the very price that the Dâ—vil gives for souls With this he bought the soul of Iudas who went to the Pharisâ—es with a What will you give me and I will deliver him to you With this he attempted Christ himself 2 Tim 4. 10. Matth. 4. 9. All these will I give thee if thâ—u wilt fall down and worship me It is the cause of Apâ—â—â—â—acy and unfaithfulness to God And it s the price that sinners sell their God their Conscience and their salvation for 10. It depriveth the soul of holy communion with God and comfort from 1 â—im 6. 17 1â— him and of all foretaste of the life to come and finally of Heaven it self For as the Love of the world keepeth out the Love of God and Heaven it must needs keep out the hopes and comforts Christs Sheep mark is 〈◊〉 on the Sheep that are shorâ— When the Hâ—ece groweth long the Mark wears out which should arise from holy love It would do much to cure the love of money and of the world if you knew how pernicious a sin it is § 35.
a continual suâ—vitv affording still fresh delights though thou meditate on him a thousand years or to all eternity Thou maist better say that the Ocean hath not water enough for thee to swim in or that the Earth hath not room enough for thee to tread upon than that there is not matter enough in God for thy longest Meditations and most delighting satisfying thoughts The blessed Angels and Saints in Heaven will find enough in God alone to employ their minds to all eternity O horrid darkness and atheism that yet remaineth on our hearts that we should want matter for our thoughts to keep them from feeding upon air or filth or want matter for our delight to keep our mindâ— from begging it at the creatures door or hungring for the husks that feed the Swine when we have the Infinite God Omnipotent Omniscient most good and bountiful our life and hope and happiness to think on with delight § 3. Direct 3. If you have but an eye of faith to see the things of the unseen world as revealed Direct 3. in the sacred Word you cannot want matter to employ your thoughts Scripture is the glass in which 3. The world to come you may see the other world There you may see the Antient of Dayes the Eternal Majesty shining in his Glory for the felicitating of holy glorified Spirits There you may see the humane nature advanced above Angels and enjoying the highest Glory next to the uncreated Majesty and Christ reigning as the King of all the world and all the Angels of God obeying honouring and worshipping him you may see him sending his Angels on his gracious messages to the lowest members of his body the little ones of his flock on earth you may see him interceding for all his Saints and procuring their peace and entertainment with the Father and preparing for their reception when they pass into those mansions and welcoming them one by one as they pass hence There you may see the glorious celestial society attending admiring extolling worshipping the Great Creator the Gracious Redeemer and the Eternal Spirit with uncessant glorious and harmonious Praise you may see them burning in the delicious flames of holy Love drawn out by the Vision of the face of God and by the streams of Love which he continually powreth out upon them you may see the magnetick attraction of the uncreated Love and the felicitating closure of the attracted Love of holy Spirits thus united unto God by Christ and feasting everlastingly upon him you may see the ravishments of joy and the unspeakable pleasures which all these blessed Spirits have in this transporting Sight and Love and Praise You may see the extasies of Ioy which possess the souls of those that are newly passed from the Body and escaped the sins and miseries of this world and find there such sudden ravishing entertainment unspeakably beyond their former expectations conceivings or belief You may see there with what wonder what pity what lothing and detestation those holy glorified souls look down upon earth on the negligence contempt sensuality and profaneness of the dreaming and distracted world You may see there what you shall be for ever if you be the holy ones of Christ and where you must dwell and what you must do and what you shall enjoy All this you may so know by sound believing as to be carried to it as sincerely as if your eyes had seen it Heb. 11. 1. 2 Cor. 5. 7. And yet can your thoughts be idle or carnal or worldly and sinful for want of work Are your meditations dry and barren for want of matter to employ them Doth the fire of Love or other holy affections go out for want of fuell to feed it Is not Heaven and Eternity spatious enough for your minds to expatiate in Is not such a world as that sufficient for you to study with fresh and delectable variety of discoveries from day to day or that which is more delightful than variety Would you have more matter or higher and more excellent matter or sweeter and more pleasant matter or matter which doth nearlier concern your selves Get that faith which all that shall be saved Live by which makes things absent as operative in some measure as if they were present and that which will be as if it now were and that which is unseen as if it were now open to your eyes and then your Thoughts will want neither matter to work upon nor altogether an actuating excitation If this were not enough I might tell you what Faith can see also in Hell which is not unworthy See in my Tract on Heb 11. 1. called The Life of Faith of your serious Thoughts What work is there what direful complaints and lamentations what self-tormentings and what sense of Gods displeasure and for what But I will wholly pass this by that you may see there is delightful work enough for your thoughts and that I set you no unpleasant task § 4. Direct 4. Get but the Love of God well kindled in your Heart and it will find employment Direct 4. even the most high and sweet employment for your Thoughts Your selves shall be the Judges whether 4. The work of Love your Love doth not for the most part rule your thoughts assigning them their work and directing them when and how long to think on it See but how a lustful lover is carried after a beloved silly piece of flesh Their thoughts will so easily and so constantly run after it that they need no spur Mark in what a stream it carrieth them how it feedeth and quickneth their invention and elevateth an ordinary fancy into a Poetical and passionate strain What abundance of matter can a Lover find in the narrow compass of a dirty Corpse for his thoughts to work on night and day And will not the Love of God then much more fill and feast your thoughts How easily can the Love of money find matter for the thoughts of the worldling from one year to another It s easie to think of any thing which you love O what a happy spring of Meditation is a rooted predominant Love of God Love him strongly and you cannot forget him You will then see him in every thing that meets you and hear him in every one that speaketh to you If you miss him or have offended him you will think on him with grief If you taste of his Love you will think of him with Delight If you have but hope you will think of him with Desire and your Minds will be taken up in seeking him and in understanding and using the Means by which you may come to enjoy him Love is ingenious and full and quick and active and resolute It is valiant and patient and exceeding industrious and delighteth to encounter difficulties and to appear in labours and to shew it self in advantageous sufferings and therefore it maketh the mind in which it reigneth exceeding busie and findeth the
you of such a crazed wit If you say Yea Then believe and trust that person and resolve to follow his Direction And I would ask you were you not once of another judgement concerning your self If so then were you not as sound and able to judge and liker to be in the right than you are now § 25. Direct 21. My last advise is to look out for the cure of your disease and commit your Direct 21. self to the care of your Physicion and obey him And do not as most melancholy persons do that will not believe that Physick will do them good but that it is only their soul that is afflicted For it is the spirits imagination and passions that are diseased and so the soul is like an eye that looketh through a coloured glass and thinks all things are of the same colour as the glass is I have seen abundance cured by Physick and till the body be cured the mind will hardly ever be cured but the clearest Reasons will be all in vain Tit. 6. Directions for young Students for the most profitable ordering of their studying Thoughts § 1. Direct 1. LET it be your first and most serious study to make sure that you are Regenerate Direct 1. and sanctified by the Holy Ghost and justified by faith in Christ and Love God above all as your reconciled Father and so have right to the Heavenly inheritance § 2. For 1. You are nearest to your selves and your everlasting happiness is your nearest and your highest interest what will it profit you to know all the world and to lose your own souls To know as much as Devils and be for ever miserable with Devils § 3. 2. It is a most doleful employment to be all day at work in Satans Chains To sit studying God and the Holy Scriptures while you are in the power of the Devil and have hearts that are at enmity to the Holiness of that God and that Scripture which you are studying It is a most preposterous and incongruous course of study if you first study not your own deliverance And if you knew your case and saw your chains your trembling would disturb your studies § 4. 3. Till you are renewed you study in the dark and without that internal sight and sense Act. 26. 18. Eph. 1. 18 19. Col. 1. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Rom. 8. 7. 1 Cor. 2. 14 15. by which the life and spirit and kernel of all that you study must be known All that the Scripture saith of the darkness of a state of sin and of the illumination of the spirit and of the marvellous light of regenerate souls and of the natural man 's not receiving the things of the spirit and of the carnal mind that is enmity against God and is not subject to his Law nor can be all these and such other passages are not insignificant but most considerable truths from the spirit of truth You have only that Light that will shew you the shell and the dead letter but not the soul and quickening sense of any practical holy truth As the eye knoweth meat which we never tasted or as a meer Grammarian or Logician readeth a Law book or Physick book who gather nothing out of them that will save a mans estate or life so will you prosecute all your studies § 5. 4. You are like to have but ill success in your studies when the Devil is your Master who hateth both you and the holy things which you are studying He will blind you and pervert you and possess your minds with false conceits and put diverting sensual thoughts into you and will keep your own souls from being ever the better for it all § 6. 5. You will want the true end of all right studies and set up wrong ends and therefore whatever be the matter of your studies you are still out of your way and know nothing rightly because you know it not as a Means to the true end But of this anon § 7. Direct 2. When you have first laid this foundation and have the true Principle and End of Direct 2. all right Studies be sure that you intend this End in all even the Everlasting Sight and Love of God and the promoting his Glory and pleasing his holy will And that you never meddle with any studies seperated from this end but as a means thereto and as animated thereby § 8. If every step in your journey is but loss of time and labour which is not directed to your journeys end and if all that you have to mind or do in the world be only about your End or the Means and all creatures and actions can have no other moral Goodness than to be the means to God your ultimate end then you may easily see that when ever you leave out God as the End of any of your studies your are but sinning or doting for in those Studies there can be no Moral Good though they may tend to your knowledge of Natural Good and Evil. And when you think you grow wise and learned men and can dispute and talk of many things which make to your renown while your wills consent not to the wholsom words of our Lord Iesus Christ and the doctrine which is according 1 Tim. 6 3 4 5 6. to Godliness you are proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railing evil surmisings perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds supposing that gain is Godliness from such turn away As there is no knowledge but from God so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto God § 9. Direct 3. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to God Direct 3. your end and use them still under the notion of means and that you estimate your knowledge by this End and judge your selves to know no more indeed than you know of God and for God And so let practical Divinity be the soul of all your Studies Therefore when Life is too short for the Studies of all things which we desire to know make sure of the chief things and prefer those studies which make most to your End spend not your time on things unprofitable to this end And spend not your first and chiefest time on things unnecessary to it Noâ— aâ—â—em nec subâ—to câ—â—imus philosoâ—hari nec mediocrem a primo tempore aetatis in co studio operam curamque consumpsimus cum minime videbamur tum maxime philosophebamur Cicero 〈…〉 r. pag. 5. For the near connexion to God the end is it that enobleth the matter of your studies All true knowledge leads to God but not all alike the nearest to him is the best § 10. Direct 4. Remember that the chief part of your growth in knowledge is not in knowing Direct 4. many smaller things of no necessity but in a growing downwards in a clearer insight into the foundation of
use And though I cannot say that Grace immediately maketh any alteration on the senses yet mediately it doth by altering the mind and so the Will and then the imagination and so the sensitive appetite and so in exercise the sense it self We see that Temperance and Chastity do not only restrain but take down the appetite from the rage and violence which before it had Not the natural appetite but the sensitive so far as it is sinful § 2. The Sanctifying and Government of the senses and their appetite lyeth in two parts First In guarding them against the entrance of sin and Secondly In using them to be the entrance of good into the soul. But this latter is so high a work that too few are skilled in it and few can well perform the other § 3. Direct 1. The principal part of the work is about the superiour faculties to get a well informed Direct 1. judgement and a holy and confirmed will and not about the sense it self Reason is dethroned by sin and the will is left unguided and unguarded to the rapes of sensual violence Reason must be restored before sense will be well governed for what else must be their immediate Governour It is no sin in Brutes to live by sense because they have not Reason to rule it And in man it is ruled more or less as reason is more or less restored When Reason is only cleared about things temporal as in men of worldly wisdom there sense will be mastered and ruled as to such temporal ends as far as they require it But where Reason is sanctified there sense is ruled to the ends of sanctification according to the measure of grace § 4. Direct 2. It is only the high eternal things of God and our salvation objectively setled in the Direct 2. mind and will and become as it were connatural to them and made our Ruling End and interest that can suffice to a true and holy Government of the senses Lower things may muzzle them and make men seem temperate and sober as far as their honour and wealth and health and life require it But this is but stopping a gap while most of the hedge lyeth open and an engaging the sense to serve the Flesh the World and the Devil in a hansome calm and less dishonoured way and not so filthily and furiously as others § 5. Direct 3. The main part of this Government in the exercise is in taking special care that no Direct 3. sensitive good be made the ultimate End of our desire nor sought for it self nor rested in nor delighted in too much but to see that the soul having first habitually fixed on its proper higher end and happiness dâ— direct all the actions of every sense so far as it falls under deliberation and choice to serve it remotely to those holy ends For the sense is not sanctified if it be not used to a holy end and its object is not sanctified to us if it be not made serviceable to more holy objects A meer negative restraint of sense for common ends is but such as those ends are for which it s done When the eyes and ears and taste and feeling are all taught by reason to serve God to his glory and our salvation then and never till then they are well governed § 6. Direct 4. To this End the constant use of a lively belief of the Word of God and the things unseen Direct 4. of the other world must be the first and principal means by which our Reason must govern every sense bâ—th aâ— to their restraint and their right employment And therefore living by sight and living by faith are opposed in Scripture 2 Cor. 5. 7. For we walk by faith not by sight that is sight and sense is not our principal guiding faculty but subservient to faith nor the objects of sight the things which we principally or ultimately seek or set by but the objects of faith As it is before expounded 2 Cor. 4. 18. While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Therefore Faith is described to be the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Heb. 12. 1. Believing is to a Christian instead of seeing because he knoweth by Gods testimony that the things believed are true though they are unseen And you know that the objects of sense are all but trifles to the great astonishing objects of faith Therefore if faith be lively it must needs prevail and over-rule the senses because its objects utterly cloud and make nothing of the transitory objects of sense Therefore the Apostle Iohn saith 1 John 5. 4. Whatsoever is bâ—rn of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith And Moses by seeing him that is invisible overcame the desires of Aegypts treasures and the fear of the wrath of the King Heb. 11. 26 27. having respect to the recompence of reward Stephen easily bore his cruel death when he saw Heaven opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God Acts 7. 56. I dare appeal to that man that is most sensual and saith I am nâ—t able to deny my appetite or rule my senses whether he would not be able if he did but see at the same time what 's done in the other world If he saw Heaven and Hell the glorified and the damned and saw the Majesty of that God who commandeth him to forbear would he not then be able to let alone the Cup the Dish the Harlot the Sport which is now so powerful with him I would not thank the most beastly sensualist among you to live as temperately as to the act as the strictest Saint alive if he did but see the worlds which departed souls now see It is not possible but it would overpower his sensual desires yea and call off those senses to serve him in some enquiry what he should do to be saved Therefore if Believing the unseen world be instead of seeing it with our eyes its most certain that the means to overcome sensuality is faith and lively Belief must rule our senses § 7. Direct 5. The more this Belief of God and glory doth kindle Love to them the more effectual in Direct 5. will be in the Government of the senses Our common Proverb saith Where the Love is there is the Fye How readily doth it follow the heart Love will not alter the sense it self but it commandeth the Use of all the senses It will not clear a dimm decayed sight but it will command it what to look upon As the stronger love of one dish or one sport or one company will carry you from another which you love more faintly so the Love of God and Heaven and Holiness will carry you from the captivity of all sensual things § 8.
Ghost should dwell and Ephes. 4. 29. Ephes. 5. 4. work in so filthy a room and with such filthy company Darest thou go pray or read the Scripture or speak of any holy thing with those lips that talk of filthy ribaldry Dost thou find thy self fit to go to prayer after such discourse Or rather dost thou not allow all that hear thee to think that thou renouncest God and Godliness and never usest any serious Worship of God at all And if thou do pretend to Worship him with that filthy tongue what canst thou expect in answer to thy prayers but a vengeance worse than Nadab and Abihu's Lev. 10. 1 2 3. Shall sweet water and bitter come from the same fountain Jam. 3. 11. Dâ—st thou bless God and talk filthily with the same tongue and think he will not be avenged on thy hypocrisie § 7. Direct 7. Consider how thou bidst defiance also to common civility Thou dost that which civil Direct 7. Heathens would be ashamed of As if thou hadst a design to reduce England to the Customs of Cannibals and Savages in America that go naked and are past shame § 8. Direct 8. Observe what service thou dost the Devil for the corrupting of others as if he had Direct 8. hired thee to be a Tutor in his Academy or one of his Preachers to draw the minds of the hearers 1 Cor. 15. 33. from modesty and prepare them for the Stews Especially people can scarce have more dangerous Wild-fire cast into their fantasies than by hearing rotten filthy talk And wilt thou be one of Venus's Priests § 9. Direct 9. Remember how little need there is of thy endeavour Is not lust and filthiness so natural Direct 9. and the minds of all unsanctified and uncleansed ones so prone to it that they â—eed no Tutor nor instigator nor pander to their lusts This fire is easily kindled The Bellows of thy sâ—urrility are needless to make such Gunpowder burn § 10. Direct 10. Presently lament before God and man the filthiness that thy tongue hath been guilty Direct 10. of and wash heart and tongue in the blood of Christ and â—â—y from the company and converse of the obscene as thou wouldst do from a Pâ—st-house or any infectious pestilential â—ire And if thou hear such rotten talk râ—prove it or be gone and let them see that thou hatest it and fearest God § 11. Obj. But saith the filthy mouth I think no harm may we not jeast and be merry Obj. Answ. What! hast thou nothing to jeast with but dung and filth and sin and the defilement of Answ. souls and the offending of God Wouldst thou be unclean before the King or cast dung in mens faces and sâ—â— I think no harm but am in jeast § 12. Obj. But saith he those that art so demure are â—â— bad in secret and worse than we Obj. Answ. What! is a chaste tongue a sign of an unchaste life Then thou maist as equally take a Answ. meek and quiet tongue to be a sign of an angry man or a lying tongue to be a sign of a true man Would the King take that excuse from thee if thou talk Treason openly and say Those that do not are yet in secret as bad as I I trow he would not take that for an excuse Tit. 6. Directions against Prophane deriding scorning or opposing Godliness § 1. TO prevent the Replyes or excuses of the scorner I must here tell you 1. That by Godliness The Explication I mean nothing but an entire devotednes to God and living to him The doctrine and practice which is agreeable to the holy Scripture I mean no fansies of mistaken men nor the private opinions of any sect but the practice of Christianity it self § 2. 2. And yet I must tell you that it is the common practice of these scorners to fasten more upon the concrete than the abstract the person than the bare doctrine and to oppose Godly persons as such when yet they say that they oppose not Godliness The Reasons of this are these 1. Because they dare be bolder with the person than with the Rule and doctrine of God himself If they scorn at the Bible or at Godliness directly as such they should so openly scorn at God himself that the world would cry shame on them and Conscience would worry them But as Godliness is in such a neighbour or such a Preacher or such a man so they think they may reverence it less and that what they do is against the person and not the thing 2. In men they have something else to pretend to be the matter of their scorn Godliness in men is latent invisible unprovable as to the sincerity of it and obscure as to the exercise If he that scorneth a Godly man say He is not Godly but an Hypocrite in this world there is no perfect Justification to be had against such a calumny but the probable evidence of Profession and a Godly life is all that can be brought But Godliness as it is in Scripture lyeth open to the view of all and cannot be denyed there but by denying the Scriptures themselves 3. Godliness as in the Rule or holy Scripture is perfect without any blemish that may give a scorner a pretence But Godliness in men is very imperfect and mixt with sins with faults which the world may oft discern and the Godly themselves are forwardst to confess And therefore in them a scorner may find some plausible pretense And when he derideth these Professours of Godliness as being all Hypocrites he will not instance in their vertues but in their faults as in Noahs drunkenness and Lots incest and Davids Adultery and Murder and Peters denying Christ Yet so as the dart shall be cast at Piety it self and the Conclusion shall not be to drive men from drunkenness adultery or any â—in but from serious Godliness it self 4. Godliness as in the Rule is to them a more unobserved dormant thing and doth not so much annoy them for they can shut their Bibles or make nothing of it but as a few good words But Godliness in the Godly existent in their Teachers and Neighbours is more discernable to them and more active and more troublesome to them and so more hated by them In a dead letter or dead Saint that troubleth them not they can commend it but in the living they are molested by it And the nearer it is to them the more they are â—xasperated against it The word is the seed of Godliness which least offendeth them till it spring up and bring forth the fruit which condemneth their wicked lives § 3. 3. And as opposers and scorners do usually strike at Godliness through the person and his faults so they use to strike at the particular parts of Gods Worship through some modes or circumstances or imperfections of men in the performance It is not Preaching or Praying that they scorn if you believe
to honour the names of Peter and Paul and Stephen and Iohn of Augustin Hierom Chrysostom and other such saints of God And yet wilt thou make a scorn of those that strive to imitate them Search and see if any of these men did after their conversion live in luxury carding dicing prophaneness and if any of them was against a Holy life against much Praying Hearing Reading the Scriptures meditating exact obedience to God then let not the shame be thine but mine He that is most unlike them let him have the scorn § 25. 19. Thou deridest men for Repenting of their former sins and for accepting that mercy which Christ hath purchased and God hath offered them and sent his messengers to intreat them to accept Can they Repent of their former ungodliness and not turn from it and amend If thou knewest what they know thou wouldst repent thy self and not deride men for repenting If thou knewest the gift of God thou wouldst beg it and gladly accept of it thy self and not deride them that accept it § 26. 20. Thou scornest men for keeping that Covenant which thou also madest with God in thy Baptism thy self At the same time thou speakest against the Anabaptists that will not have their children baptised and deridest those that keep their Covenant which in baptism they made What a monster of contradictions is an ungodly Hypocrite Didst thou not in Baptism renounce the flesh the world and the Devil and give up thy self in Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost And dost thou not yet know what thou didst But scorn them that perform it What is it to be given up to God in Baptism but to take him for thy God thy Saviour and Sanctifier whom thou must Love and seek and obey in Holiness with all thy Heart and Soul and Might He is a Covenant-breaker indeed that hates the keeping of it I have hitherto been shewing thee what it is that thou opposest and deridest I shall now tell thee further what thou dost in shewing thee the Aggravations of thy sin and its importance § 27. 2. Consider in all this what an open enemy thou art to God and an open Souldier for the Devil What canst thou do more against God and do thy worst than make a scorn of all his work and sâ—â—vants He feareth not thy power or rage thou canst not hurt him How many millions of such woâ—ms as thou can he tread to Hell or destroy in a moment It is in his servants and service that he is honoured or opposed here and that mortals shew their Love or hatred to him And how canst thou devise if thou wouldst do thy worst to serve the Devil more notoriously than by opposing and deriding the service of God If such be not Satans Servants he hath none § 28. 3. Consider what a terrible badge of misery thou carriest about thee thou bearest the mark of Satan Death and Hell in thy forehead as it were If there were any doubt whether a Swearer or drunkard or Fornicator may be in a state of Grace yet it is past all doubt that a Scorner of Godliness is not It were strange indeed for that man to be Holy that derideth Holiness There is scarce any sort of men in the world that are more undoubtedly in a state of damnation than thou art It is dark to us what God will do with Infidels and Heathens that never had the means of salvation But what he will do with all the unbelieving and ungodly that have had the means we know past doubt much more what he will do with those that are not only void of Holiness but deride it I deny not but yet if thou be converted thou maist be saved And O that God would give the repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that thou mightest escape out of the Devils snares who leads thee captive at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25. 26. It is written of Basil that by his prayers he caused the Devil to give back a writing by which a wretched man had sold his soul to him that he might enjoy his Masters daughter and that the man repented and was delivered If thou maist be so recovered it will be a happy day for thee But till then it is as sure as the Scripture is sure that thou art a miserable creature and an undone â—â—â—â—iâ—â—us Arriaâ—â—â—â—um Episâ—â—â—â—uâ— Hâ—â—nâ—riâ—â—m Râ—gâ—m pâ—rsâ—â—sit non pâ—sâ—â— pacaâ—um atque longaevum obtinere regnum nisi nomen perderet innocentum Qui tamen Dei judicio post non mulâ—os dâ—es turpâ—ssâ—ma moâ—te prâ—ventus scateâ—s vermibus expiravit Victor Vâ—ic p. 369. man if thou die in that condition that thou art in O with what fear shouldst thou rise and lie down if thou hadst thy wiâ—s about thee lest thou shouldst die before thou art converted § 29. 4. To scorn at Holiness is a defiance of grace as if thou didst renounce Gods mercy Thou dost thy worst to drive away all hope and make thy case uncurable and desperate For if ever thou be saved it must be by this gâ—â—ce and Holy life which thou deridest And is scorning grace the way to get it And is it likely that the Holy-Ghost will come and dwell in the man that scorneth his sanctifying works § 30. 5. To scorn at Godliness is a daring of God to give over his patience and presently to execute his vengeance on thee Canst thou wonder if he should make thee a monument of his Justice and set thee up for all others to take warning by Who is fitter for this than the scornful opposers of his grace and service Hasten not vengeance man it will come time enough Will a worm defie the God of Heaven § 31. 6. How little dost thou understand of all that thou opposest Didst thou ever try a holy life If thou hadst thou wouldst not speak against it If thou hadst not art thou not ashamed to speak evil of that which thou dost not understand It is a thing that none can througly know without experience Try it a while and then speak thy mind § 32. 7. Didst thou ever consider how many judgements are against thee and whom thou dost contradict and scorn 1. If thou scorn at serious Godliness at Preaching hearing reading Praying Meditating and strict avoiding sin thou contradictest God himself for none in all the world is so Holy or so much for Holiness as he And therefore ultimately it is him that all thy malice is against even God the Father and the Redeemer and the Sanctifier 2. Thou settest thy self against all the evidence of Scripture 3. And against all the works of God For all conspire to call the world to Holiness and strict obedience to God 4. And thou contradictest all the Prophets and Apostles and all the ancient Fathers of the Church and all the Martyrs and Saints of God that ever were in the world and all the learned faithful Ministers and Pastors of the Church that are
much as he that goeth two mile one hour and sits still the next O what abundance of their lives do idle persons lose When Time is gone they will better understand the greatness of their sin and loss that now make light of it § 15. 8. Idleness is not a single sin but a continued course of sinning An idle person is sinning all the while he is idle And that 's with some a great part of their lives And therefore it is the greater because the continuance sheweth that it is not effectually Repented of § 16. 9. Idleness is a destroyer of grace and gifts and natural parts They will rust for want of use The slothful is brother to the great waster Prov. 18. 9. Weeds will grow up and choak the fruit § 17. 10. Idleness and sloth is a fruit of flesh-pleasing and so cometh from the most pernicious vice It is but to please the flesh that one is drunk and another gluttonous and another a fornicator and another covetous And your Idleness and sloth is but pleasing the same flesh in another way which is forbidden as well as those And if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye Rom. 8. 13. § 18. 11. It is a strengthning the flesh against the Spirit by indulging it in its ease and sloth and maketh it not only unruly and unserviceable but masterly and earnest for its own desires § 19. 12. Idleness is the Mother and Nurse of many heinous sins 1. It cherisheth lust and draweth people to fornication which hard labour would have much prevented 2. It is the time for foolish sports and vanity and wantonness and excess of ryot and all the mischiefs which use to follow it 3. It is the time for idle talk and medling with other folks matters and therefore Paul reprehendeth the Idle as busie-bodies or medlers with matters that concern them not and twatlers and tale-carryers 2 Thess. 3. 11. 1 Tim. 5. 13. 1 Thess. 4. 11. They that do not what they should Prov. 26 16. Prov. 24. 30. will be doing what they should not 4. It is the time for gluttony and drunkenness and gaming and all other sensuality 5. Yea it is the time for seditions and rebellions as in Armies it is the time for Mutinies § 20. 13. Idleness is the season of Temptation It is Satans seed-time It is then that he hath opportunity to tempt men to malice revenge and all other villany that is committed § 21. 14. Idleness is a disorderly walking 2 Thess. 3. 10 11. Out of the way that God hath appointed us to eat our bread in and receive his blessings in The large description of a virtuous woman Prov. 31. 10. to the end is worthy to be studied by the slothful She seeketh Wooll and Flax and worketh willingly with her hands She is like the Merchants Ships She bringeth her food from afar She riseth also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her houshold and a portion to her maidens She See Psal 128 â— Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands Prov. 14. 23. 13. 11. considereth a field and buyeth it with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard She girdeth her loyns with strength and strengthneth her arms She perceiveth that her merchandize is good her candle goeth not out by night She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff She stretcheth out her hand to the poor yea she reacheth forth her hand to the needy She is not afraid of the snow for her houshold for all her houshold are clothed with scarlet She looketh well to the wayes of her houshold and eateth not the bread of idleness I desire our Ladies and Gentlewomen that take this pattern to be below them to remember that it was not a Plowman but a King and that the greatest that ever Israel had that gave this counsel as received from his Mother who concludeth v. 30. 31. Ver. â— Favour is deeceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates But if our Gallants should have no meat or clothing but what were the fruit of their hands it would make a foul change in Cleanthes coactam aliquando stipem in medium familiarium â— intulit dicens Cleanthes alium Cleanthem posset nutâ—ire si vellet And when he was questioned in judgement how he lived Adeo robustus tam boni habiâ—ûs the Gardiner that he workt for and the Woman that baked his Mâ—al were the witnesses that acquit him Hard labour and hard fare enabled him for hard study Laert. in Cleanth their garb and dyet And if their own works must be the matter of their praise instead of the Names of their Ancestors Arms Lands and Titles it would also make a foul change in their Honours § 22. 15. Idleness usually bringeth Poverty And it is a just and merciful chastisement of God to cure the sin But such can have little comfort in their wants nor expect that others should pity them as they would do the diligent Yea many when by idleness they are brought to poverty by poverty are brought to murmuring and stealing to the ruine both of soul and body and family and reputation § 23. 16. Idleness is a murderer of the body Gluttony and Idleness kill most of the world before their Time No two sins more constantly bring this Curse along with them § 24. 17. Idleness maketh thee the shame of the Creation Seest thou not how all the world is in action How the Sun runneth his course for thee the Waters flow the ground bringeth forth thy Cattell labour for thee and all things that are most excellent are most active and all things that are most unactive are most vile and dead and drossie The Scripture sendeth the slothful even to the Ant to learn to labour Prov. 6. 6. And shall the Ant the Bee and every creature be a witness against thee to condemn thy sloth § 25. 18. Lastly Idleness disableth you from doing good to others You should work with your own hands that you may have to give to him that needeth Ephes. 4. 28. Or if you give out of your superfluity that which cost you no labour it is not so much to your honour or comfort as if you were purposely thrifty and laborious to do good He that pleaseth his flesh with ease and fulness and giveth his leavings how much soever to the poor will never have that comfort and evidence of Gods acceptance and grace in it as he that pampereth not his flesh by his abundance but giveth that to the poor which he getteth with his diligence and which he denyeth to his inordinate desires § 26. Direct 2. Those persons must be extraordinary watchful against this sin of Idleness whose constitutions unhappy educations condition of life or company do most strongly tempt them to it It is a sin
Virgin doth well So then he that marrieth doth well but he that marrieth not doth better And mark Christs own words Matth. 19. 11. His Disciples say unto him If the case of a man be so with his wife it is not good to marry But he said unto them All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given He that is able to receive it let him receive it § 30. 10. The business of a married state doth commonly devour almost all your time so that little is left for holy contemplations or serious thoughts of the life to come All Gods service is contracted and thrust into a corner and done as it were on the by The world will scarce allow you time to meditate or pray or read the Scripture You think your selves as Martha under a greater necessity of dispatching your business than of sitting at Christs feet to hear his Word O that single persons knew for the most part the pretiousness of their leisure and how free they are to attend the service of God and learn his Word in comparison of the married § 31. 11. There is so great a diversity of temperaments and degrees of understanding that there are scarce any two persons in the world but there is some unsuitableness between them Like stones that have some unevenness that maketh them lye crooked in the building some crossness there will be of opinion or disposition or interest or will by nature or by custome and education which will stir up frequent discontents § 32. 12. There is a great deal of duty which Husband and Wife do owe to one another As to instruct admonish pray watch over one another and to be continual helpers to each other in order to their everlasting happiness and patiently to bear with the infirmities of each other And to the weak and backward heart of man the addition of so much duty doth add to their weariness how good soever the work be in it self And men should feel their strength before they undertake more work § 33. 13. And the more they Love each other the more they participate in each others griefs And one or other will be frequently under some sort of suffering If one be sick or lame or pained or defamed or wronged or disquieted in mind or by temptation fall into any wounding sin the other beareth part of the distress Therefore before you undertake to bear all the burdens of another and suffer in all anothers hurts it concerneth you to observe your strength how much more you have than your own burdens do require § 34. 14. And if you should marry one that proveth ungodly how exceeding great would the affliction be If you loved them your souls would be in continual danger by them They would be the powerfullest instruments in the world to pervert your judgements to deaden your hearts to take you off from a holy life to kill your prayers to corrupt your lives and to damn your souls And if you should have the grace to scape the snare and save your selves it would be by so much the greater difficulty and suffering as the temptation is the greater And what a heart-breaking would it be to converse so nearly with a child of the Devil that is like to lye for ever in Hell The daily thoughts of it would be a daily death to you § 35. 15. Women especially must expect so much suffering in a Married life that if God had not put into them a natural inclination to it and so strong a love to their children as maketh them patient under the most annoying troubles the world would ere this have been at an end through their refusal of so calamitous a life Their sickness in breeding their pain in bringing forth with the danger of their lives the tedious trouble night and day which they have with their children in their nursing and their childhood besides their subjection to their husbands and continual care of family affairs being forced to consume their lives in a multitude of low and troublesome businesses All this and much more would have utterly deterred that Sex from marriage if Nature it self had not enclined them to it § 36. 16. And O what abundance of duty is incumbent upon both the Parents towards every child for Art thou discontented with thy childless state Remember that of all the Roman Kings noâ— one of them left the Crown to his Son Plutarch de â—ranq anim the saving of their souls What uncessant labour is necessary in Teaching them the Doctrine of Salvation Which made God twice over charge them to teach his word diligently or sharpen them unto their children and to talk of them when they sit in their houses and when they walk by the way and when they lye down and when they rise up Deut. 6. 6 7. 11. 19. What abundance of obstinate rooted corruptions are in the hearts of Children which Parents must by all possible diligence root up O how great and hard a work is it to speak to them of their sins and Saviour of their God their souls and the life to come with that reverence gravity seriousness and unwearied constancy as the weight of the matter doth require and to suit all their actions and carriage to the same ends Little do most that have Children know what abundance of care and labour God will require of them for the sanctifying and saving of their Childrens souls Consider your fitness for so great a work before you undertake it § 37. 17. It is abundance of affliction that is ordinarily to be expected in the miscarriages of Children when you have done your best much more if you neglect your duty as even godly Parents too often do After all your pains and care and labour you must look that the foolishness of some and the obstinacy of others and the unthankfulness of those that you have loved best should even pierce your hearts You must look that many vices should spring up and trouble you and be the more grievous by how much your children are the more dear And O what a grief it is to breed up a Child to be a servant of the Devil and an enemy of God and godliness and a persecutor of the Church of God! And to think of his lying in Hell for ever And alas how great is the number of such 18. And it is not a little care and trouble that servants will put you to so difficult is it to get those that are good much more to make them good so great is your duty in teaching them and minding them of the matters of their salvation so frequent will be the displeasures about your work and worldly business and every one of those displeasures will hinder them for receiving your instructions that most families are houses of correction or affliction § 39. 19. And these marriage Crosses are not for a year but during life They deprive you of all hope of relief while you live
beyond our Callings nor into confusion Argument 5. It is a Duty to receive all the mercies that God offereth us But for a family to have access to God in joynt prayers and praises is a mercy that God offereth them Therefore it is their duty to accept it The major is clear in nature and Scripture Because I have offered and ye refused is Gods great aggravation of the sin of the rebellious How oft would I have gathered you together and ye would not All the day long have I stretched out my hand c. To refuse an offered kindness is contempt and ingratitude The minor is undeniable by any Christian that ever knew what family prayers and prayses were Who dare say that it is no mercy to have such a joynt access to God Who feels not conjunction somewhat help his own affections who makes conscience of watching his heart Argument 6. Part of the Duties of families are such that they apparently loose their chiefest life and excellency if they be not performed joyntly Therefore they are so to be performed I mean singing of Psalms which I before proved an ordinary Duty of conjunct Christians Therefore of families The Melody and Harmony is lost by our separation and consequently the alacrity and quickning which our affections should get by it And if part of Gods praises must be performed together it is easie to see that the rest must be so too Not to speak of teaching which cannot be done alone Argument 7. Family prayer and praises are a Duty owned by the teaching and sanctifying work of the spirit Therefore they are of God I would not argue backward from the spirits teaching to the words commanding but on these two suppositions 1. That the experiment is very general and undeniable 2. That many texts of Scripture are brought already for family prayer and that this argument is but to second them and prove them truly interpreted The Spirit and the word do alway agree If therefore I can prove that the spirit of God doth commonly work mens hearts to a love and savour of these Duties doubtless they are of God Sanctification is a transcript of the precepts of the word on the heart written out by the spirit of God So much for the consequence The Antecedent consisteth of two parts 1. That the sanctified have in them inclinations to these Duties 2. That these Inclinations are from the spirit of God The first needs no proof being a matter of experience I appeal to the heart of every sound and stable Christian whether he feel not a conviction of this Duty and an inclination to the performance of it I never met with one such to my knowledge that was otherwise minded Object Many in our times are quite against family prayer who are good Christians Answ. I know none of them I confess I once thought some very good Christians that now are against them but now they appear otherwise not only by this but by other things I know none that cast off these Duties but they took up vile sins in their stead and cast off other Duties as well as these Let others observe and judge as they find 2. The power of delusion may for a time make a Christian forbear as unlawful that which his very new nature is inclined too As some think it unlawful to pray in our Assemblies and some to joyn in Sacraments And yet they have a spirit within them that inclineth their hearts to it still and therefore they love iâ— and wish it were lawful even when they forbear it upon a conceit that it is unlawful And so it 's possible for a time some may do by family Duties But as I expect that these ere long recover so for my part I take all the rest to be graceless Prejudice and error as a temptation may prohibit the exercise of a Duty when yet the spirit of God doth work in the heart an inclination to that Duty in sanctifying it 2. And that these inclinations are indeed from the spirit is evident 1. In that they come in with all other grace 2. And by the same means 3. And are preserved by the same means standing or falling increasing or decreasing with the rest 4. And are to the same end 5. And are so generally in all the sâ—iâ—ts 6. And so resisted by flesh and blood 7. And so agreeable to the Word that a Christian sins against his new nature when he neglects family Dutys And God doth by his spirit create a desire after them and an estimation of them in every gracious soul. Argument 8. Family prayer and praises is a Duty ordinarily crowned with admirable divine and special blessings Therefore it is of God The consequence is evident For though common outward prosperity may be given to the wicked who have their portion in this life yet so is not prosperity of soul. For the Antecedent I willingly appeal to the experience of all the holy families in the world Who ever used these Duties seriously and found not the benefits What Families be they in which grace and Heavenly mindedness prospereth but those that use these Duties Compare in all your Towns Cities and Villages the families that read Scriptures pray and praise God with those that do not and see the difference Which of them abound more with impiety with Oaths and cursings and railings and Drunkenness and Whoredoms and Worldliness c. And which abound most with Faith and Patience and Temperance and Charity and Repentance and Hope c. The controversie is not hard to decide Look to the Nobility and Gentry of England See you no difference between those that have been bred in praying families and the rest I mean taking them as we say one with another proportionably Look to the Ministers of England Is it praying families or prayerless families that have done most to the well furnishing of the Universities Argument 9. All Churches ought solemnly to pray to God and praise him A Christian family is a Church Therefore The major is past doubt the minor I prove from the nature of a Church in general which is a society of Christians combined for the better worshipping and serving of God I say not that a family formally as a family is a Church But every family of Christians ought moreover by such a combination to be a Church Yea as Christians they are so combined seeing Christianity tieth them to serve God conjunctly together in their Relations 2. Scripture expresseth it 2 Cor. 16. 19. Aquila and Priscilla salute much in the Lord with the Church that is in they house He saith not which meeteth in their house but which is in it So Philemon 2. And to the Church in this house Rom. 16. 5. Likewise greet the Church that is in their house Col. 4. 15. Salute the brethren that are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house Though some Learned men take these to be meant of part of the Churches assembling in
satisfaction for our sins and Risen from the dead and conquered death and Satan and is ascended and Glorified in Heaven and that he is the King and Teacher and High Priest of the Church That he hath made a new Covenant of Grace and pardon and offered it in his Scriptures and by his Ministers to the World and that those that are sincere and faithful in this Covenant shall be saved and those that are not shall remedilâ—sly be damned because they reject this Christ and Grace which is the last and only remedy And here open to them the nature of this Covenant that God doth offer to be our Reconciled God and Father and Felicity and Christ to be our Saviour to forgive our sins and reconcile us unto God and renew us by his spirit and the Holy Spirit to be our sanctifier to illuminate and regenerate and confirm us and that all that is required on our part is such an unfeigned consent as will appear in the performance in our serious endeavours Even that we wholly give up our selves to be renewed by the holy spirit to be justified taught and Governed by Christ and by him to be brought again to the Father to Love him as our God and End and to live to him and with him for ever But whereas the temptations of the Devil and the allurements of this deceitful world and the desires of the flesh are the great enemies and hinderances in our way we must also consent to renounce all these and let them go and deny our selves and take up with God alone and what he seeth meet to give us and to take him in Heaven for all our portion And he that consenteth unfeignedly to this Covenant is a member of Christ a justified reconciled Child of God and an heir of Heaven and so continuing shall be saved and he that doth not shall be damned This is the Covenant that in Baptism we solemnly entred into with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Father and Felicity our Saviour and our Sanctifier This in some such brief explication you must familiarly open to them again and again § 10. Direct 10. When you have opened the Baptismal Covenant to them and the Essentials of Direct 10. Christianity cause them to learn the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments And tell them the Uses of them that man having three Powers of soul his Understanding his Will and his Obediential or executive power all these must be sanctified and therefore there must be a Rule for each And that accordingly the Creed is the summary Rule to tell us what our Understandings must Believe and the Lords Prayer is the summary Rule to direct us what our wills must desire and our tongues must ask and the Ten Commandments is the summary Râ—le of our Practice And that the Holy Scripture in general is the more large and perfect Rule of all And that all that will be taken for true Christians must have a General implicite Belief of all the Holy Scriptures and a particular explicite Belief Desire and sincere practice according to the Creeds Lords Prayer and ten Commandments § 11. Direct 11. Next teach them a short Catechism by memory which openeth these a little Direct 11. more fully and then a larger Catechism The shorter and larger Catechism of the Assembly are very well fitted to this use I have published a very brief one my self which in eight Articles or Answers containeth all the essential points of Belief and in One Answer the Covenant-consent and in four Articles or Answers more containeth all the substantial parts of Christian duty The answers are some of them long for Children But if I knew of any other that had It is in my 〈…〉 and by it self so much in so few words I would not offer this to you because I am conscious of its imperfections But there are very few Catechisms that differ in the substance Which ever they learn let them as they go have your help to understand it and let them keep it in memory to the last § 12. Direct 12. Next open to them more distinctly the particular part of the Covenant and Catechism Direct 12. And here I think this Method most profitable for a family 1. Read over to them the best expositions that you can get on the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments which are not too large to confound them nor too brief so as to be hardly understood For a summary Mr. Brinsleyes True watch is good but thus to read to them such as Mr. Perkins on the Creed and Dr. King on the Lords Prayer and Dod on the Commandments are fit so that you may read one Article one Petition and one Commandment at a time And read these over to them divers times 2. Besides this in your familiar discourse with them open to them plainly one Head or Article of Religion at a time and another the next time and so on till you come to the end And here 1. Open in one discourse the nature of man and the Creation 2. In another or before it the nature and attributes of God 3. In another the fall of man and especially the Corruption of our nature as it consisteth in an inordinate inclination to earthly and fleshly things and a backwardness or averseness or enmity to God and Holiness and the Life to come and the nature of sin and the impossibility of being saved till this sin be pardoned and these natures renewed and restored to the Love of God and Holiness from this Love of the world and fleshly pleasures 4. In the next discourse open to them the doctrine of Redemption in general and the Incarnation and natures and person of Christ particularly 5. In the next open the Life of Christ his fulfilling the Law and his overcoming the Tempter his humble life and contempt of the world and the end of all and how he is exemplary and imitable unto us 6. In the next open the whole Humiliation and suffering of Christ and the pretenses of his persecutors and the Ends and Uses of his suffering death and burial 7. In the next open his Resurrection the proofs and the Uses of it 8. In the next open his Ascension Glory and Interâ—ession for us and the Uses of all 9. In the next open his Kingly and Prophetical offices in General and his making the Covenant of Grace with man and the nature of that Covenant and its effects 10. In the next open the Works or Office of the Holy Ghost in General as given by Christ to be his Agent in men on earth and his great witness to the world and particularly open the extraordinary gift of the spirit to the Prophets and Apostles to plant the Churches and indite and seal the holy Scripture and shew them the authority and use of the holy Scriptures 11. In the next open to them the ordinary works of the Holy Ghost as the Illuminater Renewer
XXX Directions for the Sick THough the chief part of our preparation for Death be in the time of Health and it is a work for which the longest life is not too long yet because the folly of unconverted sinners is so great as to forget what they were born for till they see Death at hand and because there is a special preparation necessary for the best I shall here lay down some Directions for the sick And I shall reduce them to these four heads 1. What must be done to make Death safe to us that it may be our passage to Heaven and not to Hell 2. What must be done to make sickness profitable to us 3. What must be done to make Death comfortable to us that we may Dye in Peace and Ioy 4. What must be done to make our Sickness Profitable to others about us Tit. 1. Directions for a safe Death to secure our Salvation THe Directions of this sort are especially necessary to the unconverted impenitent sinner yet needful also to the Godly themselves and therefore I shall distinctly speak to both 1. Directions for an uncoverted sinner in his sickness It is a very dreadful case to be found by sickness in an unconverted state There is so Great a work to be done and so little time to do it in and soul and body so unfit and undisposed for it and the misery so great even everlasting torment that will follow so certainly and so quickly if it be undone that one would think it should overwhelm the understanding and heart of any man with astonishment and horrour to foresee such a condition in the time of his health much more to find himself in it in his sickness And though one would think that the near approach of Death and the nearness of another world should be unresistibly powerful to convert a sinner so that few or none shold Die unconverted however they lived yet Scripture and sad experience declare the contrary that most men Die as well as live in an unsanctified and miserable state For 1. A life of sin doth usually settle a man in Ignorance or Unbelief or both so that sickness findeth him in such a dungeon of Darkness that he is but lost and confounded in his fears and knoweth not whither he is going nor what he hath to do 2. And also sin wofully Hardeneth the Heart and the long resisted spirit of God forsaketh them and giveth them over to themselves in sickness who would not be ruled and sanctified by him in their health And such remain like blocks or beasts even to the last 3. And the Nature of sickness and approaching death doth tend more to affright than to renew the soul and rather to breed fear and trouble than Love And though Grief and fear be good preparatives and helps yet it is the Love of God and Holiness in which the souls Regeneration and Renovation doth consist and there is no more Holiness than there is Love and Willingness And many a one that is affrighted into strong Repentings and cryes and prayers and promises and seem to themselves and others to be Converted do yet either Die in their sins and misery or return to their unholy lives when they recover being utter strangers to that true Repentance which reneweth the heart as sad experience doth too often testifie 4. And many poor sinners finding that they have so short a time do end it in meer amazement and terrour not knowing how to compose their thoughts to examine their hearts and lives nor to exercise faith in Christ nor to follow any Directions that are given them but lye in trembling and astonishment wholly taken up with the fears of Death much worse than a beast that is going to be butchered 5. And the very pains of the body do so divert or hinder the thoughts of many that they can scarce mind any spiritual things with such a composedness as is necessary to so great a work 6. And the greatest number being partly confounded in ignorance and partly withheld by backwardness and undisposedness and partly disheartned by thinking it impossible to become new-creatures and get a regenerate heavenly heart on such a sudden do force themselves to hope that they shall be saved without it and that though they are sinners yet that kind of Repentance which they have will serve the turn and be accepted and God will be more merciful than to damn them And this false Hope they think they are necessitated to take up For there is but two other wayes to be taken The one is utterly to Despair and both Scripture and Reason and Nature it self are against that The other way is to be truly converted and won to the Love of God and Heaven by a lively faith in Iesus Christ And they have no such faith and to this they are strange and undisposed and think it impossible to be done And if they must have no Hopes but upon such terms as these they think they shall have none at all Or else if they hear that there is no other Hope and that none but the holy can be saved they will force themselves to hope that they have all this and that they are truly converted and become new creatures and do Love God and holiness above all not because indeed it is so but because they would have it so for fear of being damned And instead of finding that they they are void of faith and Love and Holiness and labouring to get a renewed soul they think it a nearer way to make themselves believe that it is so already And thus in their presumption self-deceiving and false hopes they linger out that little time that is left them to be converted in till death open their eyes and hell do undeceive them 7. And the same Devil and wicked men his instruments that kept them in health from true Repentance will be as diligent to keep them from it in their sickness and will be loth to lose all at the last cast which they had been winning all the time before And if the Devil can but keep them in his power till sickness come and take them up with pain and fear he will hope to keep them a few dayes longer till he have finished that which he had begun and carryed on so far And if there be here and there one that will be held no longer by false hopes and presumption he will at last think to take them off by desperation and make them believe that there is no remedy § 4. And indeed it is a thing so difficult and unlikely to convert a sinner in all his pain and weakness at the last that even the Godly friends of such do many times even let them alone as thinking that there is little or no hope But this is a very sinful course As long as there is life there is some hope And as long as there is hope we must use the means A Physicion will try the best Remedies
been tempted to But you are sure that Heaven is better than Earth and that it is far better for them to be with Christ. 6. You allwayes knew that your friends must die To grieve that they were mortal is but to grieve that they were but men 7. If their mortality or death be grievous to you you should rejoice that they are arrived at the state of Immortality where they must Live indeed and die no more 8. Remember how quickly you must be with them again The expectation of living long your selves is the cause of your excessive grief for the death of friends If you lookt your selves to die to morrow or within a few weeks you would lâ—ss grieve that your friends are gone before you 9. Remember that the world is not for one Generation only Others must have our places when we are gone God will be served by successive Generations and not only by one 10. If you are Christians indeed it is the highest of all your Desires and Hopes to be in Heaven And will you so grieve that your friends are gone thither where you most Desire and Hope to be § 19. Obj. All this is reason if my friend were gone to Heaven But he dyed impenitently and Object how should I be comforted for a soul that I have cause to think is damned Answ. Their misery must be your grief But not such a grief as shall deprive you of your greater Answ. Joyes or disable you for your greater duties 1. God is fitter than you to judge of the measures Helps to moderate our sorrow for the dâ—mned of his mercy and his judgements and you must neither pretend to be more merciful than he nor to reprehend his Justice 2. All the works of God are Good and all that is Good is amiable Though the misery of the creature be Bad to it yet the works of Justice declare the Wisdom and Holiness of God and the perfecter we are the more they will be amiable to us For 3 God himself and Christ who is the merciful Saviour of the World approve of the damnation of the finally ungodly 4. And the Saints and Angels in Heaven do know more of the misery of the souls in Hell than we do And yet it abateth not their Joyes And the perfecter any is the more he is like-minded unto God 5. How glad and thankful should you be to think that God hath delivered your selves from those eternal flâ—mes The misery of others should excite your Thankfulness 6. And should not the Joyes of all the Saints and Angels be your Ioy as well as the sufferings of the wicked be your sorrows But above all the thoughts of the Blessedness and Glory of God himself should over-top all the concernments of the creature with you If you will mourn more for the Thieves and Murderers that are hanged than you will rejoice in the Justice prosperity and honour of the King and the wellfare of all his faithful subjects you behave not your selves as faithful subjects 7. Shortly you hope to come to Heaven Mourn now for the damned as you shall do then or at least let not the difference be too great when that and not this is your perfect state A Form of Exhortation to the Ungodly in their Sickness or those that we fear are such DEar Friend The God that must dispose of us and all things doth threaten by this sickness to call away your soul and put an end to the time of your pilgrimage and therefore your friends that Love and pity you must not now be silent if they can speak any thing for your preparation and salvation because it must be Now or Never When a few days are past they must never have any such opportunity more If now we prevail not with you you are likely to be quickly out of hearing and past our advice and help for ever And because I know your weakness bids me be but short and your memory is not to be burdened with too much and yet your Necessity must not be neglected I shall reduce all that I have to say to you to these four heads 1. Of the change which you seem near to and the world which you are going to 2. Of the Preparation that must be made by all that will be saved and who they be that the Gospel doth Iustifie or Condemn 3. I would fain help you to understand which of these conditions you are in and what will become of your soul if it thus goeth hence And 4. If your case be bad I would direct you how you may come out of it and what is yet to be done while there remaineth any time and hope And I pray you set your heart to what I say for I will speak nothing but the certain truth of God revealed to the world by his son and spirit expressed in the Scripture and believed by all the Church of Christ. I. God knoweth the change is great which you are near You are leaving this world where you have spent the dayes of your preparation for eternity and leaving this flesh to corrupt and turn to common earth and must here converse with man no more You are going now to see that world which the Gospel told you of and you have often heard of but neither you nor we did ever see Before your friends have laid your body in the grave your soul must enter into its endless state and at the Resurrection your Body be joyned with it Either Heaven or Hell must be your lot for ever If it be Heaven you will there find a world of Light and Love and Peace A world of Angels and glorified souls who are all made perfect in Knowledge and Holiness living in the perfect flames of Love to their Glorious Creator Redeemer and Regenerater And with them you will be thus perfected your self your soul will see the Glory of God and be rapt up in his Love and filled with his Joyes and employed triumphantly in his Maâ— 13. 2 Thes 1. 6 7 8 9 10 11. praises and this for ever If Hell should be your portion you will there be thrust away as a hated thing from the face of God and there you will find a world of Devils and unholy damned miserable souls among whom you must dwell in the flames of the wrath of God and the horrours of your own Conscience remembring with anguish the mercy which you once rejected and the warnings and time which once you lost and at the Resurrection your Soul and Body must be reunited and live there in torment and despair for ever I know these things are but half believed by the â—ngodly world while they profess to believe them And therefore they must feel that which they refuseâ— to believe But God hath revealed it to us and we will believe our Maker You are now going to see the great difference between the end of Holiness and of sin between the Godly and the ungodly and to
united your Heart unto himself and turned it from sin to Holiness from the world to God and from Earth to Heaven and made you a new creature to live for Heaven as you did for earth Surely this is not so small and indiscernable a work or change but he that hath felt it on himself may know it It is a great work to bring a sinner to feel his unrighteousness and misery and to apply himself to Christ for Righteousness and life It is a great work to take off the heart from all the felicity of this world and to set it unfeignedly upon God and to cause him to place and seek his happiness in another world what ever become of all the prosperity or pleasure of the flesh It is thus with every true Believer for all the remnant of his sins and weaknesses And may you not know whether it be thus or not with you One of these is your case And it 's now time to know which of them it is when God is ready to tell you by his judgement If indeed you are in Christ and his Spirit be in you and hath renewed you and sanctified you and turned your heart and life to God I have then nothing more than Peace and Comfort to speak to you as in the following Exhortation But if it be otherwise and you are yet in a carnal state and were never renewed by the spirit of Christ Will you give me leave to deal faithfully with you as is necessary with one in your condition and to set before you at once your sin and your Remedy and to tell you what yet you must do if you will be saved IV. And first will you here lay to heart your folly and unfeignedly lament your sinful life before the Lord Not only this or that particular sin but principally your fleshly heart and life that in the main you have lived to this corruptible flesh and loved and sought and served the world before your God and the happiness of your soul. Alas friend did you not know that you had an immortal soul that must live in joy or misery for ever Did you not know that you were made to Love and serve and honour your maker and that you had the little time of this life given you to try and prepare you for your endless life and that as you lived here it must go with you in heaven or hell for ever If you did not believe these things why did you not come and give your Reasons against them to some judicious Divine that was able to have shewed you the Evidence of their truth If you did believe them alas how was it possible that you could forget them Could you believe a Heaven and a Hell and not regard them or suffer any transitory worldly vanity to be more regarded by you Did you know what you had to do in the world and yet is it all undone till now Were you never warned of this day Did never Preacher nor Scripture nor book nor friend nor conscience tell you of your end and tell you what would be the fruit of sin and of your contempt and slighting of Christ and of his grace Did you know that you must Love God above the world if ever you would be saved and that you must to that end be partaker of Christ and renewed by his spirit and yet would you let out your heart upon the world and follow the bruitish pleasures of the flesh and never earnestly seek after that Christ and spirit that should thus renew and sanctifie you Do you not think now that it had been wiser to have sought Christ and grace and set your affections first on the things above and to have made sure work for your soul against such a day as this than to have hardened your heart against Gods grace and despised Christ and Heaven and your salvation for a thing of nought You see now what it was that you preferred before Heaven what have you now got by all your sinful Love of the world where now is all your fleshly pleasure Will it all now serve turn to save you from death or the wrath of God and everlasting misery will it now go with you to another world Or do you think it will comfort a soul in Hell to remember the wealth which he gathered and left behind him upon earth would it not now have been much more comfortable to you if you could say My dayes were spent in Holiness in the Love of my dear Redeemer and in the hearty service of my God in praising him and praying to him in learning and obeying his holy word and will My business in the world was to please God and seek a better world and while I followed my lawful trade or calling my eye was chiefly on eternal life Instead of pleasing the flesh I delighted my soul in the Love and praise and service of my Redeemer and in the hopes of my eternal blessedness and now I am going to enjoy that God and happiness which I believ'd and sought Would not this be more comfortable to you now than to look back on your time as spent in a worldly fleshly life which you preferred before your God and your salvation Christ would not have forsaken you in the time of your extremity as the world doth if you had cleaved faithfully to him You little know what peace and comfort you might have found even on earth in a holy life How sweet would the word of God have been to you How sweet would prayer and meditation and holy conference have been Do you think it is not more pleasant to a true Believer to read the promises of eternal life and to think and talk of that blessed state when they shall dwell with God in Ioy for ever than it was to you to think and talk of worldly trash and vanity If you had used the world as a traveller doth the necessaries of his journey the thought of heaven would have offorded you solid rational comfort all the way O little do you know the sweetness of the Love of God in Christ and how good a Christian findeth it when he can but exercise and increase his knowledge and faith and Love to God and thankfulness for mercy and hopes of Heaven and walk with God in a heavenly conversation Do you not wish now that this had been your course But that which is done cannot be undone and time that is past can never be called back But yet there is a sure Remedy for your soul if you have but a heart to entertain and use it God so loved the world Joh. 3. 16 18. that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever Believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Iesus Christ being God and Man is the Mediator between God and man His death is a sufficient Sacrifice for our sins It is his Office to save all those that come to God by him Do but unfeignedly
more plainly expressed than nature hath exprest it All is not Christs Law that is any way exprest in Scripture but all Christs Laws are exprest in the Matth. 28. 20. Scriptures Not written by himself but by his Spirit in his Apostles whom he appointed and sent ☜ to Teach all Nations to observe what ever he commanded them who being thus commissioned and enabled fully by the Spirit to perform it are to be supposed to have perfectly executed their commission and to have taught whatsoever Christ commanded them and no more as from Christ And therefore as they taught that present age by Voice who could Hear them so they taught all ages after to the end Rom. 13. 9. Matt. 22. 37. Isa. 8. 16. 20. Acts 8. 25. Acts 15. 35 36. Acts â—6 17 18. 1 John 1. 9. Nâ—heâ—â— 1. 6. Lâ—v. 16. 21. Pâ—â—l 4. 6. Psal. 50. 14. 69 30. 100. 1 2 4. Eph. 5. 19. Psal. 9. 11. 95. 1. Luke 11. â— 3. c. Matth. 2â— 1â— 1 Câ—r 11. 27. 24 25 26 28. 1 Cor. 14. 5 1â— â—6 2 Cor. 10. 8. 13. 10. Rom. 15. 2. 1 Cor. 14. 40. Rom. 14. 15 2â— 1 Cor. 9. 20 21 22. 1 Cor. 8. 10. 10. 19 28. 2 Cor. 6. â—6 of the world by writing because their voice was not by them to be heard § 16. 3. So far then as the Scripture is a Law and Rule it is a perfect Rule But how far it is a Law or Rule it s own contents and expressions must determine As 1. It is certain that all the Internal worship of God by Love fear trust desire c. is perfectly commanded in the Scriptures 2. The Doctrine of Christ which his Ministers must read and preach is perfectly contained in the Scriptures 3. The grand and constantly necessary points of Order in preaching are there also expressed As that the opening of mens eyes and the converting of them from the power of Satan to God be first endeavoured and then their Confirmation and further Edification c. 4. Also that we humble our selves before God in the confession of our sins 5. And that we pray to God in the name of Christ for mercy for our selves and others 6. That we give God Thanks for his mercies to the Church our selves and others 7. That we Praise God in his excellencies manifested in his Word and Works of Creation and Providence 8. That we do this by singing Psalms with holy joyfulness of heart 9. The matter and order of the ordinary prayers and praises of Christians is expressed in the Scripture As which parts are to have precedency in our estimation and desire and ordinarily in our expressions 10. Christ himself hath determined that by Baptizing them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost men be solemnly entered into his Covenant and Church and state of Christianity 11. And he hath himself appointed that his Churches hold communion with him and among themselves in the Eucharistical administration of the Sacrament of his Body and blood represented in the breaking delivering receiving and eating the consecrated Bread and in the pouâ—ing out delivering receiving and drinking the consecrated Wine 12. And as for the mutable subservient circumstances and external expressions and actions and orders which were not fit to be in particular the matter of an Universal Law but are fit in one place or at one time and not another for thâ—se he hath left both in Nature and Scripture such General Laws by which upon emergent occasions they may be determined and by particular Providences he â—itteth things and persons and times and places so as that we may discern their agreeableness to the descriptions in his General Laws As that all things be done Decently in Order and to Ediâ—ication and in Charity Unity and Peace And he hath forbidden Generally doing any thing undecently disorderly to the hurâ—â—â— destruction of our brethren even the weak or to the division of the Church 13. And many things 2 Commandment Col. â— 18 c. 1 Joh. 5. 21. Rev. 2. 14. he hath particularly forbidden in Worship as making to our selves any graven Image c. and Worshipping Angels c. § 20. And as to the order and Government of the Church for I am willing to dispatch all here together this much is plainly determined in Scripture 1. That there be Officers or Ministers under Mat. 28. 19. Rom. 10. 7 8. Act. 14. 23. Act. 2. 42. 20. 7 28. â—ph 4. 11 14. Mal 2. 7. 〈…〉 3. 17 21. 1 Coâ— 12. 17 28. Câ—â— 1. â—8 Act. 2â— â—â— 1 Thes. 5. 12. Hâ—b 13. 7 17. Act. â— 37. â— 37 38. 3. 20. 23. 1 Cor. 10. 16. 9. 13 14. Act. 20. 2 Cor. 2. 11. Heb. 12. 15. Deut. 10. 8. 2 â—iâ— 4. 1 2 3. Matth. 18. 15 16 17. 2 Thes. 3. 1 Cor. 5. 11. 2 Joh. 10. 11. â—â— 3. 10. 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Rom. 16 17. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Luk 10 16. 12. 42. Act. â—3 â—3 Tâ—t 1. 5 9. 1 Tim. 3. 5. 1 Pet. 5. 1 2. 3 4. Rev. 1. 10. Act. 20. 7. 1 Cor. 16 2. Christ to be the stated Teachers of his people and to Baptize and Administer the Sacrament of his Body and Blood and be the Mouth and Guide of the people in publick Prayers thanksgiving and praises and to bind the impâ—nitent and loose the penitent and to be the Directers of the flocks according to the Law of God to life eternal And their Office is described and determined by Christ. 2. It is required that Christians do ordinarily Assemble together for Gods publick worship and be Guided therein by these their Pastors 3. It is required that besides the unfixed Ministers who employ themselves in converting Infidels and in an itinerant service of the Churches there be also stated fixed Ministers having a special charge of each particular Church and that they may know their own flocks and teach them publickly and from house to house and the people may know their own Pastors that are â—ver them in the Lord and honour them and obey them in all that they teach them from the Word of God for their salvation 4. The Ministers that Baptize are to judge of the capacity and fitness of those whom they Baptize whether the Adult that are admitted upon their personal profession and Covenanting or Infants that are admitted upon their Parents profession and entering them into Covenant 5. The Pastors that administer the Lords Supper to their particular flocks are to discern or judge of the fitness of those persons whom they receive newly into their charge or whom they admit to Communion in that Sacrament as members of their flock 6. Every such Pastor is also personally to watch over all the members of his flock as far as he is able lest false teachers seduce them or satan get advantage of them or any corruption or root of bitterness spring up
them greater Love and Honour than you ow 〈…〉 ny Saints on Earth Eph. 3. 15. The whole â—â—â—â—ly in Heaven and Earth is named of Christ. Those are the happiest and noblest paâ—â—s that are most pure and perfect and dwell in the highest and most glorious habitations nearest unto Christ yea with him If Holiness be lovely the most Holy are the most lovely We have many obligations therefore to Love them more than the Saints on earth They are more excellent and amiable and Christ Loveth them more And if any be Honourable it must especially be those spirits that are of greatest excellencies and perfections and advanced to the greatest Glory and nearness to their Lord. Make Conscience therefore of this as your duty not only to Love and Honour blessed souls but to Love and Honour them more than those that are yet on Earth And as every Duty is attended with Benefiâ— so we shall find this exceeding great benefit in the performance of this duty that iâ— will incline our â—earts to be the more Heavenly and draw up our Desires to the society which we so much Love and Honour § 2. Direct 2. Remember that it is a part of the life of faith to see by it the Heavenly Society of Direct 2. the blessed and a part of your Heavenly Conversation to have frequent serious and delightful thoughts Heb. 11. 1. of thâ—se Crowned souls that are with Christ. Otherwise God would never have given us such descriptions of the Heavenly Ierusalem and told us so much of the Hosts of God that must inhabit it for ever that must come from the East and from the West and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God When it is said that our conversatiâ—n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in Heaven Phil. 3. 20. the meaning extendeth both to our Relation Priviledges and Converse We are Denizâ—ns or Citizens of the Heavenly Society and our title to their happiness is our highest Priviledge and Honour and therefore our daily business is there and our sweetest and most serious converse is with Christ and all those blessed spirits Whatever we are doing here our Eye and Heart should still be there For we look not at the temporal things which are seen but at the eternal things which are not seen 2 Cor. 4. 18. A wise Christian that hath forsaken the Kingdom of darkness will be desirous to know what the Kingdom of Christ is into which he is translated and who are his fellow Subjects and what are their several ranks and dignities so far as tendeth to his congruous converse with them all And how should it affect us to find that we are come unto Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of Iust men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant Heb. 12. 22 23 24. Live then as the members of this society and exclude not the chief members from your thoughts and converse though our local visible communion be only with these rural inferiour inhabitants and not with the Courtiers of the King of Heaven yet our Mental Communion may be much with them If our home and treasure be there with them our Hearts will be there also Mat. 6. 21. § 3. Direct 3. It is the will of God that the Memory of the Saints be honoured on earth when they are Direct 3. dead It is some part of his favour which he hath promised to them Prov. 10. 7. The memory of the just is blessed but the name of the wicked shall rot Matth. 26. 13. Verily I say unto you wheresoever this Gospel shall be Preached in the whole world there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her The history of the Scripture recordeth the Lives of the Saints to their perpetual honour And God will have it so also for the sake of his abused servants upon earth that they may see that the slanders of malicious tongues shall not be able to obscure the glory of his Grace and that the lies of the ungodly prevail but for a moment And God will have it so for the sake of the ungodly that they may be ashamed of their malicious enmity and lyes against the godly while they perceive that the departed Saints do leave behind them a surviving testimony of their sanctity and innocency sufficient to confound the venemous calumnies of the Serpents Seed Yea God will have the Names of his eminent servants to be honoured upon earth for the honour of their Head and of his Grace and Gospel so that while malice would cast dishonour upon Christ from the meanness and failings of his servants that are alive the memory of the dead who were once as much despised and slandered shall rise up against them to his honour and their shame And it is very observable how God constraineth the bitter enemies of Holiness to bear this Testimony for the honour of Holiness against themselves that many who are the cruelest persecutors and murderers of the Living Saints do honour the Dead even to excess How zealous are the Papists for the multitude of their Holy dayes Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. can 3. and the honouring of their Names and Relicts and pretending many Miracles to be wrought by a very touch of their Shrines or Bones whilest they revile and muder those that imitate them and deprive Temporal Lords of their Dominions that will not exterminate them Yea while they burn the living Saints they make it part of their crime or Heresie that they honour not the Dayes and Relicts of the Dead so much as they To shew us that the things that have been shall be and that wickedness is the same in all generations Matth. 23. 29 30 31 32 33. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites because ye build the Tâ—mbes of the Prophets and garnish the Sepulchres of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets wherefore ye be witnesses to your selves that ye are the Children of them which killed the Prophets Filâ— ye up then the measure of your fathers Ye Serpents ye generation of Vipers how can ye escape the damnation of Hell I know that neither did the Pharisees nor do the Papists believe that those whom they murdered were Saints but Deceivers and Hereticks and the troublers of the World But if Charity be the grace most necessary to salvation then sure it will not keep any man from damnation that he had malice and uncharitableness sufficient to perswade him that the members of Christ were Children of the Devil But thus God will force even the persecutors and haters of his Saints to honour them And
our deliverance from the Powder-plot I know not why it should be thought unlawful to do the like in this case also Provided 1. That it be not terminated in the honour of a Saint but of the God of Saints for giving so great a mercy to his Church 2. That it be not to honour a Saint meerly as a Saint but to some extraordinary eminent Saints Otherwise all that go to Heaven must have Festivals kept in remembrance of them and so we might have a million for a day 3. That it be not made equal with the Lords Day but kept in such a subordination to that Day as the Life or death of Saints is of inferiour and subordinate respect to the work of Christ in mans Redemption 4. And if it be kept in a spiritual manner to invite men to imitate the Holiness of the Saints and the constancy of the Martyrs and not to encourage sensuality and sloth CHAP. XI Directions about our Communion with the Holy Angels § 1. Direct 1. BE satisfied in knowing so much of Angels as God in Nature and Scripture Direct 1. hath revealed but presume not to enquire further much less to determine of unrevealed things That there are Angels and that they are holy Spirits is past dispute But what number they are and of how many worlds and of what orders and different dignities and degrees and when they were created and what locality belongeth to them and how far they excell or differ from the souls of men these and many other such unnecessary questions neither Nature nor Scripture will teach us how infallibly to resolve Almost all the Hereticks in the first ages of the Church did make their doctrines of Angels the first and chief part of their Heresies arrogantly intruding into unrevealed things and boasting of their acquaintance with the orders and inhabitants of the higher worlds These being risen in the Apostles dayes occasioned Paul to say Col. 2. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puft up by his fleshly mind Direct 2. § 2. Direct 2. Understand so much of the Ministry of Angels as God hath revealed and so far take notice of your communion with them but affect not any other sort of communion Angelorum vocabulum nomen est officii non naturae nam sancti illi coelestis patriae spiritus semper sunt spiritus sed semper vocari Angeli non possunt Greâ—or I shall here shew how much of the Ministry of Angels is revealed to us in Scripture § 3. 1. It is part of the appointed work of Angels to be Ministring Spirits for the heirs of salvation Dan. 4. 13. Gen. 32. 1 2. Exod. 32. 2. Dan. 6. 22. Acts 12. 7 11. 1 King 19. 5 â— Heb. 1. 14. Not Ministers or Servants of the godly but Ministers of God for the godly As the Shepherd is not a servant of the sheep but for the sheep It is not an accidental or occasional work which they do extraordinarily but it is their undertaken Office to which they are sent forth And this their Ministry is about the ordinary concernments of our lives and not only about some great or unusual cases or exigents Psal. 34. 6 7. Psal. 91. 11 12. § 4. 2. It is not some but All the Angels that are appointed by God to this Ministration Heb. 1. 1 4. Are they not all ministring Spirits sent forth c. Mark here that if you enquire whether God have any higher Spirits that are not imployed in so low an Office but govern these Angels or if you enquire whether only this world be the Angels charge or whether they have many other worlds also of Viators to take care of neither Nature nor Scripture doth give you the determination of any of these questions and therefore you must leave them as unrevealed things with abundance more with which the old Hereticks and the Popish Schoolmen have diverted mens minds from plain and necessary things But that all the Angels minister for us is the express words of Scripture § 5. 3. The work of this Office is not left promiscuously among them but several Angels have their Luke 1. 13. 18. 19 26 28. 2. 10 13 21. Actâ— 10. 7. 22. 12. 8 9. Dan. 3 28. 6. 22. Gen. 24. 40. several works and charge Therefore Scripture telleth us of some sent of one message and some on an other And tells us that the meanest of Christs members on earth have their Angels before God in Heaven Matth. 18. 10. I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do alwayes behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven Whether each true Believer hath one or more Angels and whether one Angel look to more than one Believer are questions which God hath not resolved us of either in Nature or Scripture But that each true Christian hath his Angel is here asserted by our Lord. § 6. 4. In this office of Ministration they are servants of Christ as the Head of the Church and the 1 Peâ— 3. 22. Matth. 26. 53. Mediator between God and man to promote the ends of his superiour office in mans Redemption Mat. 28. 18. All power is given to me in Heaven and Earth John 13. 3. Eph. 1. 20 21 22. And set him at his right hand in the celestials far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the Church Rev. 23. 16. I Iesus have sent Rev. 1. 1. mine Angel to testifie unto you these things in the Churches Whether the Angels were appointed about the service of Adam in innocency or only began their Office with Christ the Mediator as his Ministers is a thing that God hath not revealed But that they serve under Christ for his Church is plain § 7. 5. This care of the Angels for us is exercised throughout our lives for the saving of us from 2 Kings 6. 17. all our dangers and delivering us out of all our troubles Psal. 34. 6 7. This poor man cryed and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles the Angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear him and delivereth them Psal. 91. 11 12. For he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes They shall bear thee up in their hand lest thou dash thy foot against a stone In all our wayes that are good and in every step we tread we have the care and Ministry of tutelar Angels They are our ordinary defence and guard § 8. 6. In all this Ministry they perfectly obey the Will of God and do nothing but by his command Dan. 4. 35. Psal. 103. 10. Zech. 1. 8 10.
of a distinct order the Reader must not expect that I here determine For 1. The Power is by Christ given to them as is before proved and in Tit. 1. 5. 2. None else are ordinarily able to discern aright the Abilities of a man for the sacred Ministry The people may discern a profitable moving Preacher but whether he understand the Scripture or the substance of Religion or be â—ound in the faith and not Heretical and delude them not with a form of well uttered words they are not ordinarily able to judge 3. None else are fit to attend this work but Pastors who are separated to the sacred office It requireth Act. 13. 2. Rom. 1. 1. 1 Tim. 4. 15. more time to get fitness for it and then to perform it faithfully than either Magistrates or people can ordinarily bestow 4. The power is no where given by Christ to Magistrates or people 5. It hath been exercised by Pastors or Church-officers only both in and ever since the Apostles dayes in all the Chuâ—ches of the World And we have no reason to think that the Church hath been gathered from the beginâ—â—â—â— till now by so great an errour as a wrong conveyance of the Ministerial power III. The word Iurisdiction as applyed to the Church officers is no Scripture Word and in the common sence soundeth too bigg as signifying more power than the servants of all must claim For Isa. 33. 2â— Jam. 4. 1â— there is One Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy But in a moderate sence it may be tolerated As Jurisdiction signifieth in particular 1. Legislation 2. Or Judicial Process or Sentence 3. Or the Execution of such a sentence strictly taken so Ordination is no part of Jurisdiction But as Iurisdiction signifieth the same with the power of Government Ius Regendi in general so Ordination is an Act of Jurisdiction As the placing or choosing of Inferiour officers may belong to the Steward of a Family or as the Calling or authorizing of Physicions belongeth to the Colledge of Physicions and the authorizing of Lawyers to the Judges or Society or the authorizing of Doctors in Philosophy to the Society of Philosophers or to particular rulers Where note that in the three last instances the Learning or Fitness of the said Persons or Societies is but their Dispositio vel aptitudo ad potestatem exercendam but the actual Power of conveying authority to others or designing the Recipient person is received from the supream power of the Land and so is properly an Act of Authority here called Jurisdiction So that the common distinguishing of Ordination from Iurisdiction or Government as if they were totâ specie different is unsound IV. Imposition of hands was a sign like the Kiss of peace and the anointing of persons and like our kneeling in Prayer c. which having first somewhat in their nature to invite men to the use was become a common significant sign of a superiours benediction of an inferiour in those times and Countreys And so was here applyed ordinarily for its antecedent significancy and aptitude to this use and was not purposely Instituted nor had its significancy newly given it by Institution And so was not like a Sacrament necessarily and perpetually affixed to Ordination Therefore we must conclude 1. That Imposition of hands in Ordination is a decent apt significant sign not to be scrupled by any nor to be omitted without necessity as being of Scripture ancient and common use 2. But yet that it is not essential to Ordination which may be valid by any fit designation and separation of the person And therefore if it be omitted it nullifieth not the action And if the Ordainers did it by Letters to a man a thousand miles off it would be valid And some persons of old were ordained when they were absent V. I add as to the need of Ordination 1. That without this Key the office and Church doors would be cast open and every Heretick or Self-conceited person intrude 2. It is a sign of a proud unworthy person that will judge himself fit for so great a work and Act. 13. 2. Heb. 5. 4. 10. intrude upon such a conceit when he may have the Judgement of the Pastors and avoideth it 3. Those that so do should no more be taken for Ministers by the people than any should go for Christians that are not Baptized or for marryed persons whose marriage is not solemnized Quest. 20. Is Ordination necessary to make a man a Pastor of a particular Church as such And is he to be made a General Minister and a particular-Church-Elder or Pastor at once and by one Ordination I Have proved that a man may be made a Minister in general yea and sent to exercise it in Converting Infidels and baptizing them before ever he is the Pastor of any particular Church To which I add that in this General Ministry he is a Pastor in the universal Church as a Licensed Physicion that hath no Hospital or Charge is a Physicion in the Kingdom And 1. As Baptism is as such our Enterance into the universal Church and not into a particular so is Ordination to a Minister an enterance only on the Ministry as such 2. Yet a man may at once be made a Minister in general and the Pastor of this or that Church in particular And in Kingdoms wholly inchurched and Christian it is usually fittest so to do Lest many being ordained sine titulo idleness and poverty of supernumeraries should corrupt and dishonour the Ministry Which was the cause of the old Canons in this case 3. But when a man is thus called to both at once it is not all done by Ordination as such but his complicate Relation proceedeth from a complication of Causes As he is a Minister it is by Ordination And as he is The Pastor of this People it is by the conjunct causes of appropriation which are 1. Necessarily the Peoples Consent 2. Regularly the Pastors approbation and recommendation and reception of the person into their Communion 3. And sometimes the Magistrate may do much â—â— oblige the people to consent 4. But when a man is made a Minister in general before he needeth no 〈◊〉 Ordination to fix him in a particular charge but only an Approbation recommendation particular Investiture and Reception For else a man must be oft ordained even as oft as he removeth But yet Imposition of hands may fitly be used in this particular Investiture though it be no proper ordination that is no collation of the office of a Minister in general but the fixing of one that was a Minister before Quest. 21. May a man be oft or twice Ordained IT is supposed that we play not with an ambiguous word that we remember what Ordination is And then you will see Cause to distinguish 1. Between entire true Ordination and the external act or words or ceremony only 2. Between one that was truly ordained before and one that
for the edification of many persons At least those that cannot otherwise do so well Therefore those persons must use a form Full experience doth prove the Minor and nothing but strangeness to men can contradict it Quest. 72. Are Forms of Prayer or Preaching in the Church lawful Answ. YEs Most Ministers study the Methodical form of their Sermons before they preach God gave forms of preaching to Moses and the Prophets See a large form of prayer for all the people Deut. 26. 13 14 15. And so elsewhere there are many them And many write the very words or study them And so most Sermons are a form And sure it is as lawful to think before hand what to say in praying as in preaching 1. That which God hath not forbidden is lawful But God hath not forbidden Ministers to study their Sermons or Prayers either for matter method or words and so to make them many wayes a form 2. That which God prescribed is lawful if he reverse it not But God prescribed publick forms of prayer As the titles and matter of many of the Psalms prove which were daily used in the Jewish Synagogues Object Psalms being to be sung are more than Prayers Answ. They were Prayers though more They are called Prayers and for the Matter many of them were no more than prayers but only for the measures of words Nor was their singing like ours now but liker to our saying And there are many other prayers recorded in the Scripture 3. And all the Churches of Christ at least these thirteen or fourteen hundred years have taken publick forms for lawful which is not to be gainsayed without proof Quest. 73. Are publick Forms of mans Devising or Composing lawful Answ. YEs 1. The Ministers afore mentioned throughout the Christian world do devise and compose the form of their own Sermons and Prayers And that maketh them not unlawful 2. And who ever speaketh ex tempore his words are a form when he speaketh them though not a premeditated form 3. And when Scripture so vehemently commandeth us to search meditate study the Scriptures and take heed to our selves and unto doctrine c. What a person is that who will condemn prayer or preaching only because we before hand studied or considered what to say As if God abhorred diligence and the use of reason Men are not tyed now from thinking before hand what to say to the Judge at the Bar for estate or life or what to say on an Embassage or to a King or any man that we converse with And where are we forbidden to forethink what to say to God Must the people take heed how they hear and look to their foot when they go into the house of God And must not we take heed what we speak and look to our words that they be fit and decent Object Forms are Images of prayer and preaching forbidden in the second Commandment Answ. Prove it and add not to the Word of God 1. Then Scripture and Gods servants even Christ himself had broken the second Commandment when they used or prescribed forms 2. Forms are no more Images than extemporate words are as they signifie our minds Are all the Catechisms printed and written Sermons and Prayers Images or Idols All forms that Parents teach their children O charge not such untruths on God and invent not falshoods of his Word while you cry down mans inventions Quest. 74. Is it lawful to Impose Forms on the Congregation or the people in publick Worship YEs and more than Lawful It is the Pastors duty so to do For whether he fore-think what to pray or not his prayer is to them a form of words And they are bound in all the lawful parts to concur with him in Spirit or desire and to say Amen So that every Minister by Office is daily to impose a form of prayer on all the people in the Congregation Only some men impose the same form many times over or every day and others impose every day a new one Quest. 75. Is it lawful to use Forms Composed by man and imposed not only on the people but on the Pastors of the Churches Answ. THe question concerneth not the Lawfulness of Imposing but of using forms imposed And 1. It is not unlawful to use them meerly on that account because they are imposed or commanded without some greater reason of the unlawfulness For else it would be unlawful for any other to use imposed forms as for a Scholar or Child if the Master or Parent impose them or for the Congregation when the Pastor imposeth them which is not true 2. The using of Imposed forms may by other accidents be sometimes good and sometimes evil as the Accidents are that make it so 1. These accidents may make it evil 1. When the form is bad for matter or manner and we voluntarily prefer it before that which is better being willing of the imposition 2. When we do it to gratifie our slothfulness or to cover our wilful ignorance and disability 3. When we voluntarily obey and strengthen any unlawful usurping Pastors or powers that impose it without authority and so encourage Church-tyranny 4 When we choose a singular form imposed by some singular Pastor and avoid that which the rest of the Churches agree in at a time when it may tend to division and offence 5. When the weakness and offence of the Congregation is such that they will not joyn with us in the imposed form and so by using it we drive them from all publick Worship or divide them 2. And in the following circumstances the using of an imposed form is lawful and a duty 1. When the Minister is so weak that he cannot pray well without one nor compose so good a one himself 2. Or when the errors or great weakness of the generality of Ministers is such as that they usually corrupt or spoil Gods Worship by their own manner of praying and no better are to be had and thereupon the wise and faithful Pastors and Magistrates shall impose one sound and apt Liturgy to avoid error and division in such a distempered time and the Ablest cannot be left at liberty without the relaxing of the rest 3. When it is a means of the Concord of the Churches and no hinderance to our other prayers 4. When our hearers will not joyn with us if we use them not For error and weakness must be born with on one side as well as on the other 5. When obedience to just Authority requireth it and no command of Christ is crost by it 6. When the imposition is so severe that we must so worship God publickly or not at all and so all Gods publick Worship will be shut out of that Congregation Countrey or Nation unless we will use imposed prayers â—7 In a word when the good consequents of Obedience Union avoiding offence Liberty for Gods publick Worship and preaching the Gospel c. are greater than the bad consequents which are
paribus by an unnecessary thing to occasion divisions in the Churches But where one part judgeth Church Musick unlawful for another part to use it would occasion divisions in the Churches and drive away the other part Therefore I would wish Church-musick to be no where set up but where the Congregation can accord in the use of it or at least where they will not divide thereupon 2. And I think it unlawful to use such streins of Musick as are Light or as the Congregation cannot easily be brought to understand Much more on purpose to commit the whole work of singing to the Choristers and exclude the Congregation I am not willing to joyn in such a Church where I shall be shut out of this noble work of praise 3. But plain intelligible Church-musick which occasioneth not divisions but the Church agreeth in for my part I never doubted to be lawful For 1. God set it up long after Moses Ceremonial Law by David Solomon c. 2. It is not an instituted Ceremony meerly but a natural help to the minds alacrity And it is a 1 Sam. 18. 6. 1 Chron. 15. 16. 2 Chron. 5. 13. 7. 6. 23. 13. 34. 22. Psal. 98. 99. 149. 150. duty and not a sin to use the helps of nature and Lawful art though to institute Sacraments c. of our own As it is lawful to use the comfortable helps of spectacles in reading the Bible so is it of Musick to exhilerate the soul towards God 3. Jesus Christ joyned with the Jews that used it and never spake a word against it 4. No Scripture forbiddeth it therefore it is not unlawful 5. Nothing can be against it that I know of but what is said against Tunes and Melody of Voice For whereas they say that it is a humane invention so are our Tunes and Metre and Versions Yea it is not a humane invention As the last Psalm and many other shew which call us to praise the Lord with instruments of musick And whereas it is said to be a carnal kind of pleasure they may say as much of a Melodious harmonious confort of Voices which is more excellent Musick than any Instruments And whereas some say that they find it do them harm so others say of melodious singing But as wise men say they find it do them good And why should the experience of some prejudiced self-conceited person or of a half-man that knoweth not what melody is be set against the experience of all others and deprive them of all such helps and mercies as these people say they find no benefit by And as some deride Church-musick by many scornful names so others do by singing as some Congregations neer me testifie who these many years have forsaken it and will not endure it but their Pastor is fain to unite them by the constant and total omission of singing Psalms It is a great wrong that some do to ignorant Christians by putting such whimseyes and scruples into their heads which as soon as they enter turn that to a scorn and snare and trouble which might be a real help and comfort to them as well as it is to others Quest. 128. Is the Lords day a Sabbath and so to be called and kept and that of Divine institution And is the seventh day Sabbath abrogated c. Answ. ALL the Cases about the Lords day except those practical directions for keeping it in the Oeconomical part of this Book I have put into a peculiar Treatise on that subject by it self and therefore shall here pass them over referring the Reader to them in that discourse Quest. 129. Is it Lawful to appoint humane Holy dayes and observe them Answ. THis also I have spoke to in the foresaid Treatise and in my Disput. of Church-Govern and Cer. Briefly 1. It is not lawful to appoint another weekly sabbath or day wholly separated to the Commemoration of our redemption For that is to mend pretendedly the institutions of God Yea and to contradict him who hath judged one day only in seven to be the fittest weekly proportion 2. As part of some dayes may be weekly used in holy assemblies so may whole days on just extraordinary occasions of prayer preaching humiliation and thanksgiving 3. The holy doctrine lives and sufferings of the Martyrâ— and other holy men hath been so great a mercy to the Church that for any thing I know it is lawful to keep anniversary Thanksgivings in remembrance of them and to encourage the weak and prâ—voke them to constancy and imitation 4. But to dedicate dayes or Temples to them in any higher sence as the Heathens and Idolaters did to their Hero's is unlawful or any way to intimate an attribution of Divinity to them by word or Worship 5. And they that live among such Idolaters must take heed of giving them scandalous encouragement 6. And they that scrupulously fear such sin more than there is cause should not be forced to sin against their Consciences 7. But yet no Christians should causelesly refuse that which is lawful nor to joyn with the Churches in holy exercises on the dayes of thankful commemoration of the Apostles and Martyrs and excellent instruments in the Church Much less peâ—ulantly to work and set open Shops to the offence of others But rather to perswade all to imitate the holy lives of those Saints to whom they give such honours Quest. 130. How far is the holy Scriptures a Law and perfect Rule to us Answ. 1. FOr all thoughts words affections and actions of Divine faith and obedience supposing still Gods Law of Nature For it is no Believing God to believe what he never revealed nor no Trusting God to trust that he will certainly give us that which he never either directly nor indirectly promised Nor no obeying God to do that which he never commanded 2. The Contents will best shew the Extent Whatever is Revealed promised and commanded in it for that it is a perfect Rule For certainly it is perfect in its kind and to its proper use 3. It is a perfect Rule for all that is of Universal Moral necessity That is Whatever it is necessary that 1 Tim. 3. 16. 2 Pet. 1. 20. 2 Tim. â— 15. Rom. 15. 4. 16. 26. Joh. â— 3â— Act. 1â— 2. 11. Joh. 19. 24 28 36 37. man believe think or do in all ages and places of the World this is of Divine obligation Whatever the World is Universally bound to that is All men in it it is certain that Gods Law in Nature or Scripture or both bindeth them to it For the World hath no Universal King or Lawgiver but God 4. Gods own Laws in Nature and Scripture are a perfect Rule for all the duties of the understanding thoughts affections passions immediately to be exercised on God himself For no one else is a discerner or judge of such matters 5. It perfectly containeth all the Essential and Integral parts of the Christian Religion so
absolutely subjected to God will obey none against him whatever it cost them as Dan. 3. 6. Heb. 11. Luk. 14. 26 33. Matth. 5. 10 11 12. therefore it hath proved the occasion of bloody persecutions in the Churches by which professed Christians draw the guilt of Christian blood upon themselves 12. And hereby it hath dolefully hindered the Gospel while the persecutors have silenced many worthy Conscionable Preachers of it 13. And by this it hath quenched Charity in the hearts of both sides and taught the sufferers and the afflicters to be equally bitter in censuring if not Rom. 14 15. detesting one another 14. And the Infidels seeing these dissensions and bitter passions among Christians deride and scorn and hate them all 15. Yea such causes as these in the Latine and Greek Churches have engaged not only Emperours and Princes against their own subjects so that Chronicles and Books of Martyrs perpetuate their dishonour as Pilate's name is in the Creed but also have set them in bloody Wars among themselves These have been the fruits and this is the tendency of usurping Christs prerogative over his Religion and Worship in his Church And the greatness of the sin appeareth in these aggravations 1. It is a mark of pitiful Ignorance and Pride when dust shall thus like Nebuchadnezzar exalt it self against God to its certain infamy and abasement 2. It sheweth that men little know themselves that think themselves fit to be the makers of a Religion for so many others And that they have base thoughts of all other men while they think them unfit to Worship God any other way than that of their making And think that they will all so far deny God as to take up a Religion that 's made by man 3. It shews that they are much void of Love to others that can thus use them on so small occasion 4. And it sheweth how little true sense or reverence of Christian Religion they have themselves who can thus debase it and equal their own inventions with it 5. And it leaveth men utterly unexcusable that will not take warning by so many hundred years experiences of most of the Churches through the World Even when we see the yet continued divisions of the Eastern and Western Churches and all about a humane Religion in the parts most contended about When they read of the Rivers of Blood that have been shed in Piedmont France Germany Belgia Poland Ireland and the flames in England and many other Nations and all for the humane parts of mens Religion He that will yet go on and take no warning may go read the 18th and 19th of the Revelation and see what Joy will be in Heaven and Earth when God shall do Justice upon such But remember that I speak all this of no other than those expresly here described Quest. 135. What are the mischiefs of mens error on the other extream who pretend that Scripture is a Rule where it is not and deny the foresaid lawful things on pretence that Scripture is a perfect Rule say some for all things Answ. 1. THey fill their own minds with a multitude of causeless scruples which on their principles can never be resolved and so will give themselves no rest 2. They make themselves a Religion of their own and superstition is their daily devotion which being erroneous will not hang together but is full of contradictions in it self and which being humane and bad can never give true stability to the soul. 3. Hereby they spend their dayes much in melancholy troubles and unsetled distracting doubts and fears instead of the Joyes of solid faith and hope and love 4. And if they escape this their Religion is contentious wrangling censorious and factious and their zeal flyeth out against those that differ from their peculiar superstitions and conceits 5. And hereupon they are usually mutable and unfetled in their Religion This year for one and the next for another because there is no Certainty in their own inventions and conceits 6. And hereupon they still fall into manifold parties because each man maketh a Religion to himself by his mis-interpretation of Gods Word So that there is no end of their divisions 7. And they do a great deal of hurt in the Church by putting the same distracting and dividing conceits into the heads of others And young Christians and Women and ignorant well meaning people that are not able to know who is in the right do often turn to that party which they think most strict and godly though it be such as our Quakers And the very good conceit of the people whom they take it from doth settle so strong a prejudice in their mind as no argument or evidence scarcely can work out And so Education Converse and humane estimation breedeth a succession of dividers and troublers of the Churches 8. They sin against God by calling good evil and light darkness and honouring superstition which is the work of Satan with holy names Isa. 5. 20 21. 9. They sin by adding to the Word of God while they say of abundance of Lawful things This is unlawful and that is against the Word of God and pretend that their Touch not taste not handle Col. 2. 22 23. not is in the Scriptures For while they make it a Rule for every Circumstance in particular they must squeeze and force and wrest it to find out all those Circumstances in it which were never there and so by false expositions make the Scriptures another thing 10. And how great a sin is it to Father Satans works on God and to say that all these and these things are forbidden or commanded in the Scripture and so to belye the Lord and the Word of Truth 11. It engageth all Subjects against their Rulers Laws and Government and involveth them in the sin of denying them just obedience while all the Statute Book must be found in the Scriptures or else condemned as unlawful 12. It maintaineth disobedience in Churches and causeth Schisms and Confusions unavoidably For they that will neither obey the Pastors nor joyn with the Churches till they can shew Scriptures particularly for every Translation Method Metre Tune and all that 's done must joyn with no Churches in the world 13. It bringeth Rebellion and Confusion into families while Children and Servants must learn no Catechism hear no Minister give no account observe no hours of prayer nay nor do no work but what there is a particular Scripture for 14. It sets men on Enthusiastical expectations and irrational scandalous worshipping of God while all men must avoid all those Methods Phrases Books Helps which are not expresly or particularly in Scripture and men must noâ— use their own Inventions or prudence in the right ordering of the works of Religion 15. It destroyeth Christian Love and Concord while men are taught to censure all others that use any thing in Gods Worship which is not particularly in Scripture and so to censure
3. Either Christianity is something and discernable or nothing and undiscernable If the latter then Christians are not to be distinguished from Heathens and Infidels If the former then Christianity hath its Constitutive parts by which it is what it is And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest 4. The word Fundamentals being but a Metaphor hath given room to deceivers and Contenders to make a Controversie and raise a dust about it Therefore I purposely use the word Essentials which is not so lyable to mens Cavils 5. Those are the Essentials of Christianity which are necessary to the Baptism of the Adult Know but that and you answer all the pratings of the Papists that bawle out for a list of Fundamentals And sure it is not this day unknown in the Christian world either what a Christian is or who is to be baptized Do not the Priests know it who baptize all that are Christened in the world And why is Baptism called our Christening if it make us not Christians And why hath Christ promised that He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16. 16. if that so much faith as is necessary to baptism will not also serve to a mans state of salvation 6. The Baptismal Covenant of Grace therefore is the Essential part of the Gospel and of the Christian Religion And all the rest are the Integrals and Accidents or Adjuncts 7. This Covenant containeth I. Objectively 1. Things True as such 2. Things Good as such 3. Things Practicable or to be done as such The Credenda Diligenda Eligenda Agenda as the objects of mans Intellect Will and Practical power The Credenda or things to be known and believed are 1. God as God and our God and Father 2. Christ as the Saviour and our Saviour 3. The Holy Ghost as such and as the Sanctifier and our Sanctifier as to the offer of these Relations in the Covenant The Diligenda are the same three persons in these three Relations as Good in themselves and unto us which includeth the grand benefits of Reconciliation and Adoption Justification and Sanctification and Salvation The Agenda in the time of baptism that make us Christians are 1. The actual Dedition resignation or dedication of our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost in these Relations 2. A Promise or Vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken relations though not in perfection that is as Creatures to their Creator and their Reconciled God and Father as Christians to their Redeemer their Teacher their Ruler and their Saviour And as willing Receivers of the Sanctifying and Comforting operations of the Holy Spirit II. The Objects tell you what the Acts must be on our part 1. With the Understanding to know and believe 2 With the Will to love choose desire and resolve and 3. Practically to deliver up our selves for the present and to promise for the time to come These are the Essentials of the Christian Religion 8. The Creed is a larger explication of the Credenda and the Lords Prayer of the Diligenda or things to be willed desired and hoped for and the Decalogue of the Natural part of the Agenda 9. Suffer not your own Ignorance or the Papists Cheats to confound the Question about Fundamentals as to the Matter and as to the expressing words It is one thing to ask What is the Matter ☞ Essential to Christianity And another What Words Symbols or Sentences are Essential to it To the first I have now answered you To the second I say 1. Taking the Christian Religion as it is an Extrinsick Doctrine in signis so the Essence of it is Words and Signs expressive or significant of the Material Essence That they be such in specie is all that is essential And if they say But which be those words I answer 2. That no particular Words in the world are essential to the Christian Religion For 1. No one Language is essential to it It is not necessary to salvation that you be baptized or learn the Creed or Scriptures in Hebrew or Greek or Latin or English so you learn it in any Language understood 2. It is not necessary to salvation that you use the same words in the same Language as long as it hath more words than one to express the same thing by 3. It is not necessary to salvation that we use the same or any one single form method or order of words as they are in the Creeds without alteration And therefore while the Antients did tenaciously cleave to the same Symbol or Creed yet they used various words to express it by As may be seen in Irenâ—â—s Tertullian Origen and Ruffin elsewhere cited by me so that its plain that by the same Symbol they See the Appendix to my Reformed Pastor meant the same Matter though exprest in some variety of words Though they avoided such variety as might introduce variety of sense and matter 10. Words being needful 1. To make a Learner understand 2. To tell another what he understandeth it followeth that the great variety of mens capacities maketh a great variation in the necessity of Words or Forms An Englishman must have them in English and a Frenchman in French An understanding man may receive all the Essentials in a few words But an Ignorant man must have many words to make him understand the matter To him that Understandeth them the words of the Baptismal ☞ Covenant express all the Essentials of Christianity But to him that understands them not the Creed is necessary for the explication And to him that understandeth not that a Catechism or larger Exposition is necessary This is the plain explication of this question which many Papists seem loth to understand Quest. 139. What is the Use and Authority of the Creed And is it of the Apostles framing or not And is it the Word of God or not Answ. 1. THe Use of the Creed is to be a plain explication of the Faith professed in the Baptismal Covenant 1. For the fuller instruction of the duller sort and those that had not preparatory knowledge and could not sufficiently understand the meaning of the three Articles of the Covenant what it is to believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost without more words 2. And for the satisfaction of the Church that indeed men understood what they did in baptism and professed to believe 2. The Creed is the Word of God as to all the Doctrine or Matter of it what ever it be as to the order and composition of words 3. That is oft by the Antients called the Apostles which containeth the matter derived by the Apostles though not in a form of words compiled by them 4. It is certain that all the words now in our Creed were not put in by the Apostles 1. Because Vid. 〈…〉 Vossiâ—m de Symbolis some of them were not in till long after their dayes 2. Because the
those doctrines against which no Minister shall be allowed to preach and according to which he is to instruct the people 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or forreign Churches in an heterodox contentious and suspicious age how we understand the Scriptures for the Confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions and the maintaining Communion in Faith and Charity and Doctrine Quest. 144. May not the Subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the foresaid ends without Creeds Catechisms or Confessions Answ. BY Subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either Generally and Implicitly that All in them is True and Good though perhaps you know not what is in it Or else particularly and explicitly that every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true In the first sense it is not sufficient to salvation For this Implicite faith hath really no act in it but a Belief that all that God faith is true which is only the formal object of faith and is no more than to believe that there is a God for a Lyar is not a God And this he may do who never believed in Christ or a word of Scripture as not taking it to be Gods Word yea that will not believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life Infidels ordinarily go thus far In the second sense of an explicite or particular Actual belief the belief of the whole Scriture is enough indeed and more than any man living can attain to No man understandeth all the Scripture Therefore that which no man hath is not to be exacted of all men or any man in order to Ministration or Communion While 1. No man can subscribe to any one Translation of the Bible that it is not faulty being the work of defectible man 2. And few have such acquaintance with the Hâ—brew and Chaldee and Greek as to be able to say that they understand the Original Languages perfectly 2. And no man that understands the words doth perfectly understand the matter It followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all things in the Scriptures as particularly understood by him with an Explicite faith And an Implicite is not half enough 2. The true Mean therefore is the antient way 1. To select the Essentials for all Christians to be believed particularly and explicitely 2. To Collect certain of the most needful Integrals which Teachers shall not preach against 3. And for all men moreover to profess in General that they implicitely believe all which they can discern to be the holy Canonical Scripture and that all is true which is the Word of God Forbearing each other even about the number of Canonical Books and Texts And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God which hath so ordered it that the Scripture shall 1 Cor. 8. 1 2. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 Cor. 8. 3. Rom. 8. 28. have enough to exercise the strongest and yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand sentences without danger of damnation so they do but understand the Marrow or Essentials and labour faithfully to increase in the knowledge of the rest Quest. 145. May not a man be saved that believeth all the Essentials of Religion as Coming to him by Verbal Tradition and not as contained in the holy Scriptures which perhaps he never knew Answ. 1. HE that believeth shall be saved which way ever he cometh by his belief So be it it be sound as to the object and act that is If it contain all the Essentials and they be predominantly Believed Loved and practised 2. The Scriptures being the Records of Christs Doctrine delivered by Himself his Spirit and his Apostles it is the Office of Ministers and the duty of all Instructers to open these Scriptures to those they teach and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these Inspired sealed Records which contain them 3. They that thus receive particular truths from a Teacher explaining the Scripture to them do receive them in a subordination to the Scripture Materially and as to the Teachers part though not formally and as to their own part And though the Scripture authority being not understood by them be not the formal object of their faith but only Gods authority in general 4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture have a great disadvantage to their faith 5. Yet we cannot say but it may be the case of thousands to be saved by the Gospel delivered by Tradition without resolving their faith into the authority of the Scriptures For 1. This was the case of all the Christians as to the New Testament who lived before it was written And there are several Articles of the Creed now necessary which the Old Testament doth not reveal Matth. 16. 16. Rom. 10. 9 10 13 14 15. 2. This may be the case of thousands in Ignorant Countreys where the Bible being rare is to most unknown 3. This may be the case of thousands of Children who are taught their Creed and Catechism before they understand what the Bible is 4. This may be the case of thousands among the Papists where some perverse Priests do keep not only the Reading but the Knowledge of the Scriptures from the people for fear lest they should be taught to resolve their faith into it and do teach them only the Articles of Faith and Catechism as known by the Churches tradition alone Quest. 146. Is the Scripture fit for all Christians to read being so obscure Answ. 1. THe Essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain 2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it and meditate John 5. 39. Psalm 1. 2. Deut. 6. 11. Psal. 19. 7 8 9 10 11. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Psal. 119. 98 105. 133. 148. Acts 17. 11. Acts 8. in it day and night to search it to teach it our very children speaking of it at home and abroad lying down and rising up and to write it on the posts of our houses and on our doors c. 3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest to give light to the simple and to make the very foolish wise 4. The antient Fathers and Christians were all of this mind 5. All the Christian Churches of the world have been used to Read it openly to all even to the simplest And if they may Hear it they may Read the same words which they hear 6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian Eunuch when he found him Reading the Scriptures though he knew not the sense of what he read and sent him Philip to instruct him and convert him 7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his childhood 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 15. 4. Mat. 12. 24. 8. That which is written to and for all men may be read by all that can But the Scripture was written to and for all c. Object But there are many things in it hard to be understood Answ.
1. And there are many things easie to be understood 2. We never said that men should not use the help of their Teachers and all that they can to understand it 3. Were not those Teachers once ignorant And yet they did read it by the help of Teachers And so may others 4. As the King for Concord commandeth all the Schoolmasters to teach one Grammar So God makeeth it the Ministers Office to Instruct people in the Scriptures And were it not a question unworthy of a Schoolmaster to dispute Whether the Scholars must learn by their Book or by their Master Yea to conclude that it must be by their Master and not by their Book or that they must never open their Book but when their Master is just at hand to teach them The Doctrine of the Papists who tell us that the Scriptures should not be read by the Vulgar it being the rise of all Heresies is so inhumane and impious as savouring of gross enmity to Scriptures and to knowledge that were there no other it would make the Lovers of Religion and mens souls to pray earnestly to Christ to save his flocks from such seducers who so Jewishly use the Key of Knowledge Object But many wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and what Heresie is not defended as 2 Pet. 3. 1â— Psal. 19. 3 8 9 10. 2 Tim. 3. 16. â— Pet. 1. 23. by their authority Answ. 1. And many thousands receive saving knowledge and grace by them The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. All Scripture is profitable to instruction c. to make the man of God perfect It is the incorruptible seed by which we are born again and the sincere milk by which we are nourished 2. And is it not as true 1. That the Law of the Land is abused by every false pretender Lawyer and Corrupt Judge What title so bad that is not defended in Westminster Hâ—ll sometimes under pretence of Law And what action so bad that some pretend not Law for What then Must the Law be forbidden the common people for this 2. Nay what is so much abused to unrighteousness and sin as Reason it self What Heresie or Crime do not men plead Reason for Must Reason therefore be forbidden the Vulgar 3. Yea Contrarily this signifieth that Law and Reason are so far from being things to be forbidden men that they are indeed those things by which Nature and Necessity have taught all the world to try and discern right from wrong good from bad Otherwise good and bad men would not all thus agree in pretending to them and appealing to their decisions 4. If many men are poysoned or killed in eating or drinking If many mens eye sight is abused to mislead them unto sin c. the way is not to eat nothing but what is put into our mouths nor to put out our eyes or wink and be led only by a Priest but to use both the more cautiously with the best advise and help that we can get 5. And do not these Deceivers see that their Reason pleadeth as strongly that Priests and Prelates themselves should never read the Scripture and consequently that it should be banished out of the world For who that is awake in the world can be ignorant that it is Priests and Prelates who have been the Leaders of almost all Heresies and Sects who differ in their Expositions and opinions and lead the Vulgar into all the Heresies which they fall into Who then should be forbidden to read the Scripture but Priests and Prelates who wrest them to their own and other mens destruction Quest. 147. How far is Tradition and mens Words and Ministry to be used or trusted in in the exercise of faith Answ. 1. THe Churches and Ministers received the Gospel in Scripture from the Apostles and Heb. 2. 3 4. 2 Pet. 1. 17 18 19 20 21. 2 John 1. 1 1 3 4 5. 4. 6. 2 Tim. 2. 2. Titus 1. 5. the Creed as the summary of faith And they delivered it down to others and they to us 2. The Ministers by Office are the Instructers of the people in the meaning of it And the keepers of the Scriptures as Lawyers are of the Laws of the Land Quest. 148. How know we the true Canon of Scripture from Apocrypha Answ. BY these means set together 1. There is for the most part a special venerable excellency in the Books themselves which helpeth us in the distinct reception of them 2. The Tradition of infallible Church History telleth us which Books they are which were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost and who sealed their Doctrine with Miracles in those times It being but matter of fact which Books such men wrote whom God bear witness to infallible Church History such as we have to know which are the Statutes of the Land and which are counterfeit is a sufficient notification and proof 3. The sanctifying Spirit still in all Ages and Christians attesteth the Divinity and Truth of the Doctrine of the main body of the Bible especially the Gospel And then if we should err about the authority of a particular Book it would not overthrow our Faith It is not necessary to salvation to believe this particular Text to be Divine But it is sin and folly to doubt causelesly of the parts when the Spirit attesteth the Doctrine and the Body of the Book I pass these things briefly because I have largelier handled them elsewhere Quest. 149. Is the publick Reading of the Scripture the proper work of a Minister or may a Lay-man ordinarily do it or another Officer Answ. 1. IN such cases as I before shewed that a Lay-man may preach he may also Read the Scriptures Of which look back 2. No doubt but it is a work well beseeming the ordained Ministers or Pastors and an integral part of their Office and should not be put off by them when they can do it 3. When they need help the Deacons are ordained Ministers authorized to help them in such work and fittest to do it 4. Whether in a case of necessity a Lay-man may not ordinarily Read the Scripture to the Congregation is a Case that I am loth to determine being loth to suppose such a necessity But if the Minister cannot and there be no Deacon I cannot prove it unlawful for a Lay-man to do it under the direction of the Pastor I lived sometime under an old Minister of about eighty years of age who never preached himself whose eye sight failing him and having not maintenance to keep an assistant he did by Memory say the Common-prayer himself and got a Taylor one year and a Thresher or poor day-labourer another year to Read all the Scriptures Whether that were not better than nothing I leave to consideration And I think it is commonly agreed on that where there is no Minister it is better for the people to meet and hear a Lay-man Read the Scriptures and some good Books
to true penitent believers with a right to everlasting life and as to the obligation to sincere obedience for salvation though not as to the yet future coming of Christ in the flesh And this Law of Grace was never 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 15. 4. 16. 26. yet repealed any further than Christs coming did fulfill it and perfect it Therefore to the rest of the world who never can have the Gospel or perfecter Testament as Christians have the former ☞ Law of Grace is yet in force And that is the Law conjoyned with the Law of Nature which now the world without the Church is under Under I say as to the force of the Law and a former Matth. 22. 29. Luke 24. 27 32 45. John 5. â—9 Acts 17. 2. 11. 18. 24 25. John 20. 9. John 7. 38 42. 10. 35. 13. 18. 19. 24 28. Luke 4. 18. 21. 2 Tim. 3. 16. 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. Acts 8. 32 33 35. Rom. 1. 2. promulgation made to Adam and Noah and some common intimations of it in merciful forbearances pardons and benefits though how many are under it as to the knowledge reception belief and obedience of it and consequently are saved by it is more than I or any man knoweth 6. There are many Prophecies of Christ and the Christian Church in the Old Testament yet to be fulfilled and therefore are still Gods Word for us 7. There are many Precepts of God to the Jews and to particular persons given them on Reasons common to them with us where parity of Reason will help thence to gather our own duty now 8. There are many holy expressions as in the Psalms which are fitted to persons in our condition and came from the Spirit of God and therefore as such are fit for us now 9. Even the fulfilled Promises Types and Prophecies are still Gods Word that is his Word given to their several proper uses And though much of their Use be changed or ceased so is not all They are yet useful to us to confirm our faith while we see their accomplishment and see how much God still led his Church to Happiness in one and the same way 10. On all these accounts therefore we may still Read the Old Testament and preach upon it in the publick Churches Quest. 156. Must we believe that Moses Law did ever bind other Nations or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them or belonged to them or that the Iews were all Gods Visible Church on Earth Answ. I Conjoyn these three Questions for dispatch I. 1. Some of the Matter of Moses Law did Rom. 2. Rom. 1. 20 21 Enod 12. 19 43 48 49. 20. 10. Lev. 17. 12 15. 18. 26. 24. 16 22. Numb 9. 14. 15. 14 15 16 29 30. 19. 10. Deut. 1. 16. bind all Nations that is The Law of nature as such 2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish Law were bound â—ollaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the Law of nature in it and all the Laws which were given upon reasons common to all the world As about degrees of Marriage particular rules of Justice c. As if I heard God from Heaven tell another that standeth by me Thou shalt not marry thy fathers Widow for it is abominable I ought to apply that to me being his subject which is spoken to another on a common reason 3. All those Gentiles that would be proselytes and joyn with the Jews in their policy and dwell among them were bound to be observers of their Laws But 1. The Law of Nature as Mosaical did not formally and directly bind other Nations 2. Nâ—r were they bound to the Laws of their peculiar policy Civil or Ecclesiastical which were positives The reason is 1. Because they were all one body of Political Laws given peculiarly to one political body Even the Decalogue it self was to them a political Law 2. Because Moses was not authorized or sent to be the Mediator or deliverer of that Law to any Nation but the Jews And being never in the enacting or Promulgation sent or directed to the rest of the World it could not bind them II. As to the second Question Though the Scripture as a writing bound not all the World yet 1. The Law of Nature as such which is recorded in Scripture did bind all 2. The Covenant of Psal. 145. 9 103. 19. Psal. 100. 1. Rom. 14. 11. Act. 34 35. Jud. 14. 15. Grace was made with all mankind in Adam and Noe And they were bound to promulgate it by Tradition to all their off-spring And no doubt so they did whether by word as all did or by writing also as it 's like some did as Henochs Prophesies were it 's like delivered or else they had not in terms been preserved till Iudes time 3. And God himself as aforesaid by actual providences pardoning and benefits given to them that deserved hell did in part promulgate it himself 4. The neighbour Nations might learn much by Gods doctrine and dealing with the Jews III. To the third Question I answer 1. The Jews were a people chosen by God out of all the Deut. 14. 2 3. 7. 2. 6 7. Exod. 19. 5. 6. 7 8. Lev. 20. 24 26. Deut. 4. 20 33. 29. 13. 33. 29. Rom. 3. 1 2 3. Nations of the Earth to be a holy Nation and his peculiar treasure having a peculiar Divine Law and Covenant and many great priviledges to which the rest of the World were strangers so that they were advanced above all other Kingdoms of the world though not in wealth nor worldly power nor largeness of Dominion yet in a special dearness unto God 2. But they were not the only people to whom God made a Covenant of Grace in Adam and Noe as distinct from the Law or Covenant of Innocency 3. Nor were they the only people that professed to Worship the true God neither was holiness and salvation confined to them but were found in other Nations Therefore though we have but little notice of the state of other Kingdoms in their times and scarcely know what National Churches that is whole Nations professing saving faith there were yet we may well conclude that there were other visible Churches besides the Jews For 1. No Scripture denyeth it and charity then must hope the best 2. The Scriptures of the Old Testament give us small account of other Countreys but of the Jews alone with some of their Neighbours 3. Sem was alive in Abrahams dayes yea about 34 years after Abrahams death and within 12 years of Ismaels death viz. till about An. Mundi 2158. And so great and blessed a man as Sem cannot be thought to be less than a King and to have a Kingdom governed according to his holiness and so that there was with him not only a Church but a National Church or holy Kingdom 4. And Melchizedeck was a holy King and
more mercy from Christ than there is faith in Christ. 14. No man could ever be saved without Believing in God as a merciful pardoning saving God though many have been saved who knew not the person of Christ determinately For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him who is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him 12 Ps. 145. 9. 〈…〉 4. 10. Rom. 10. 20. 13 Act. 4. 12. Joh. 14. 6. 14 Heb. 11. 6. Act. 10. 35. 2 Thes. 1. 11 12. Jâ—r 10. 25. 〈…〉 10. 12 13 1â— 15. 15. All Nations on Earth that have not the Gospel are obliged by God to the use of certain means 15 Act. 14. 17. 17. 27 28 29 30. Rom. 1. 19 20 21 22. 2. 4 7 10 14 15 16 27. Isa. 55. 6 7. and improvement of certain mercies in order or tendency to their Salvation And it is their sin if they use them not 16. God hath appointed no means in vain which men must either not use or use despairingly But his Command to use any means for any end containeth though not an explicite promise yet great and comfortable encouragement to use that means in hope 17. Therefore the world is now in comparison of the Catholick Church much like what it was before Christs incarnation in comparison of the Jews Church who yet had many wayes great 16 Jonah 4. 2. 3. 10. Act. 10. 35. Mal. 3. 14. Isa. 45. 19. Deut. 32. 47. Mal. 1. 10. Prov. 1. 22 23 24. Gâ—n 4. 7. Rom. 3. Rom. 2. advantage though God was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles who had a Law written in their hearts and an accusing or excusing Conscience 18. Those over-doing Divines who pretend to be certain that all the World are damned that are not Christians do add to Gods word and are great agents for Satan to tempt men to Infidelity and â—o Athâ—ism it self and to disswade mankind from discerning the Infinite goodness of God and occasion many to deny the Immortality of the soul rather than they will believe that five parts in six of the world now and almost all before Christs incarnation have Immortal souls purposely created in thâ—m to be damned without any propounded means and possibility-natural of râ—tnedy And as I know they will pour out their bitter censure on these lines which I could avoid if I regarded it more than truth so with what measure they mete it shall be measured to them and others will dâ—mn them as confidently as they damn almost all the world And I will be bold to censure that they are UNDOERS of the Church by OVER DOING See more in my Vindication of Gods Goodness Quest. 158. Should not Christians take up with Scripture wisdom only without studying Philosophy and other Heathens humane Learning Answ. I Have already proved the usefulness of common knowledge called Humane Learning by twenty Reasons in my book called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity pag. 163. part 2. sect 23. Prov. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Psal. 92. 5 6. 104. 24 25. 113. 5 6. 107. 8 15 21. Psal. 66. 3. 4. Psal. 111. 2 3 4 5 6. 145. 7 8 9 10 11 17 18 19. Act. 2. 6 7 8 9. 21. 40. 24. 2. 1 Cor. 14. 2 4 9 13 14 19 26 27. Rev. 9. 11. 14. 16. 5. 9. Psal. 19. 1 2 3. 94. 10. 139. 6. Prov. 2. 1 2 3 4. 8. 9 10 12. 1 Cor. 15. 34. Prov. 19. 2. Job 32. 8. 38. 36. Yet I refer the Reader to my Treat of Knowledge which sheweth the Vanâ—ty of pretended Learning to which I refer the Reader And only say now 1. Grace presupposeth Nature We are men in order of nature at least before we are Saints and Reason is before supernatural Revelation 2. Common knowledge therefore is subservient unto faith We must know the Creator and his works And the Redeemer restoreth us to the due knowledge of the Creator Humane Learning in the sense in question is also Divine God is the Author of the light of nature as well as of grace We have more than Heathens but must not therefore have less and cast away the good that is common to them and us Else we must not have souls bodies reason health time meat drink cloaths c. because Heathens have them Gods works are honourable sought out of all them that have pleasure therein And physical Philosophy is nothing but the knowledge of Gods works 3. And the knowledge of Languages is necessary both for humane converse and for the understanding of the Scriptures themselves The Scriptures contain not a Greek and Hebrew Grammar to understand the language in which they are written but suppose us otherwise taught those tongues that we may interpret them 4. The use of the Gospel is not to teach us all things needful to be known but to teach us on supposition of our common knowledge how to advance higher to supernatural saving knowledge â—aith Love and practice Scripture telleth us not how to build a house to plow sow weave or make our works of art Every one that learneth his Countrey tongue of his Parents hath humane Learning of the same sort with the learning of Greek and Hebrew He that learneth not to read cannot read the Bible And he that understandeth it not in the Original tongues must trust other mens words that have Humane Learning or else remain a stranger to it But though none but proud fools will deny the need of that humane Learning which improveth Col. 2. 8 9 23. 1 Cor. 2. 1 4 5 6 13. 3. 19. 2 Cor. â— 12. â—ob 28. 28. Prov. 1. 7. 9. 10. Joh. 17. 3. Gal. 4. 9. Eph. 3. 10. 1 Joh. 2. 13 14. Col. 1. 9 27 28. Eph. 6. 19. 1 Cor. 2. 11. Col. 3. 16. nature and is subservient to our knowledge of supernatural Revelations yet well doth Paul admonish us to take heed that none deceive us by vain Philosophy and faith that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and that the knowledge of Christ Crucified is the true Christian Philosophy or Wisdom For indeed the dark Philosophers groping after the knowledge of God did frequently stumble and did introduce abundance of Logical and Physical vanities uncertainties and â—alsities under the name of Philosophy by meer niceties and high pretendings seeking for the glory of wisdom to themselves when as it is one thing to know Gods works and God in them and another thing to compose a systeme of Physicks and Metaphysicks containing abundance of errours and confusion and jumbling a few certainties with a great many uncertainties and untruths and every sect pulling down what others asserted and all of them disproving the methods and assertions of others and none proving their
non esse penes Regeâ— sed aut penes Ordines aut certe penes id corpus quod Rex juncti constituunt ut Bodinus Suarezius Victoria aliique abunde demonstratunt Certum summum Imperium totum aliquid imperare non posse ideo tantum quod alter veteâ— aut intercedat plane sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this or that or the other thing or not Nor whether it shall be exercised thus or thus by standing Courts or temporary Judges c. 3. Nor hath he named the person or family that shall rule § 6. Prop. 5. Though these in the constitution are determined of by explicite or implicite contract or consent between the Ruler and the Community yet by none of these three can the people be truly and properly said to Give the Ruler his Power of Government Not by the first or last for both those do but determine who shall be the Recipient of that power whether one or more and who individually Not the second for that is but a limiting or bounding or regulating the Governing power that it be not exercised to their hurt The bounding and regulating of their power is not the Giving them power The People having the strength cannot be ruled against their concordant wills And therefore if they contract with their Governours that they will be Ruled thus and thus or not at all this is not to Give them power Yet Propriety they have and there they may be Givers So that this Bounding or Regulating and Choosing the form and Persons and giving of their propriety is all that they have to do And the choosing of the Family or person is not at all a Giving the Power They are but sine quibus non to that They do but open the door to let in the Governour They do but name the family or man to whom God and not they shall Give the power As when God hath already determined what authority the Husband shall have over the Wife the Wife by choosing him to be her Husband giveth him not his power but only chooseth the man to whom God giveth it by his standing Law Though about the disposing of her estate she may limit him by pre-contracts But if she contract against his Goâ—ernment it is acontradiction and null Nor if he abuse his power doth it at all fall into her hands If the King by Charter give power to a Corporation to choose their Mayor or other Officer they do but nominate the persons that shall receive it but it is the Kings Charter and not they that give him the power If a Souldier voluntarily list himself under the Kings General or other Commanders he doth but choose the man that shall command him but it is the Kings Commission that giveth him the power to command those that voluntarily so list themselves And if the authority be abused or forfeited it is not into the Souldiers hands but into the Kings § 7. Prop. 6. The Constituting-Consent or Contract of Ancestors obligeth all their posterity if Prop. 6. they will have any of the protection or other benefit of Government to stand to the constitution Else Governments should be so unsetled and mutable as to be uncapable of their proper End § 8. Prop. 7. God hath neither in nature or Scripture estated this Power of Government in whole or Prop. 7. in part upon the people of a meer Community much less on Subjects whether Noble or Ignoble So foolish and bad â—s the 〈◊〉 tâ—o 〈…〉 man shâ—uâ—d not endanger himself for his Countrey because wisdom is not to be cast away for the commodity of fools Laert. in Aristip. But a wise man must be wise for others and not only for himself Learned or unlearned the part of the Community or the whole body Real or Representative The people as such have not this Power either to Use or to Give But the absolute Soveraign of all the world doth communicate the Soveraign power in every Kingdom or other sort of Common-wealth from himself Immediately I say Immediately not without the Mediation of an Instrument signifying his will for the Law of Nature and Scripture are his Instrument and the Charter of Authority nor yet so Immediately as without any kind of medium for the Consent and Nomination of the Community before expressed may be Conditio sine qua non so far as aforesaid But it is so Immediately from God as that there is no immediate Recipient to receive the power first from God and convey it to the Soveraign § 9. Prop. 8. The Natural power of individual persons over themselves is tota specie different from Prop. 8. this Political or Civil Power And it is not the Individuals resignation of this Natural power of selfdisposal It was one of the Roman Laws of the twelve Tables Vendendi filium patri potestas esâ—o But this Law rather giveth the Father that power than declareth it to be naturally in him Nature alloweth him no other selling of him than what is for his Child 's own good unto one or more which is the efficient Cause of Soveraignty or Civil Power § 10. Prop. 9. If you take the word Law properly for the expression of a Rulers Will obliging Prop. 9. the Governed or making their duty and not improperly for meer Contracts between the Soveraign and the people then it is clear in the definition it self that neither Subjects nor the Community as such have any Legislative power Neither Nature nor Scripture hath given the people a Power of making Laws either by themselves or with the Soveraign Either the sole power or a part of it But the very Nature of Government requireth that the whole Legislative power that is the power of making Governing Laws belong to the summa Majestas or Soveraign alone Unless when the summa potestas is in many hands you compare the partakers among themselves and call one Party the Soveraign as having more of the Soveraignty than the rest For those that are no Governours at all cannot perform the chief act of Government which is the making of Governing-Laws But the people are no Governours at all either as a Community or as Subjects So that you may easily perceive that all the Arguments for a natural Democracy are built upon false suppositions and where ever the People have any part in the Soveraignty it is by the after-Constitution and not by Nature And that Kings receive not their Power from the peoples gift who never had it themselves to use or give but from God alone § 11. Prop. 10. Though God have not made an Universal determination for any one sort of Government against the rest whether Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy because that is best for one people which may be worse for others yet ordinarily Monarchy is accounted better than Aristocracy and Aristocracy better than Democracy So much briefly of the Original of Power § 12. Object 1. But saith worthy Mr. Richard Hooker
though the Kings of the Nations rule over them and exercise authority and are called Benefactours yet with them it shall not be so Answ. These were the old cavils of Celsus Porphyry and Iulian but very impudent As though Answ. Love and Patience were against peace and Government Christ commandeth nothing in all these words but that we love our neighbour as our selves and love his soul above our wealth and that we do as we would be done by and use not private revenge and take not up the Magistrates work And is this doctâ—ine against Government It is not Magistrates but Ministers and private Christians whom he commandeth not to resist evil and not to exercise Lordship as the Civil Rulers do When it will do more hurt to the soul of another than the benefit amounteth we must not seek our own right by Law nor must private men revenge themselves All Law-suits and contentions and hurting of others which are inconsistent with loving them as our selves are forbidden in the Gospel And when was Government ever disturbed by such principles and practices as these Nay when was it disturbed but for want of these when was there any sedition rebellion or unlawful wars but through self-love and Love of earthly things and want of Love to one another How easily might Princes rule men that are thus ruled by Love and patience § 81. Obj. 3. Christianity teacheth men to obey the Scriptures before their Governours and to obey no Object 3. Law that is contrary to the Bible And when the Bible is so large and hath so many passages hard to be understood and easily perverted some of these will be alwayes interpreted against the Laws of men And then they are taught to fear no man against God and to endure any pains or death and to be unmoved by all the penalties which should enforce obedience and to rejoyce in this as a blessed martyrdom Le Blank in his Travails pag. 88. saith of some Heathen Kâ—ngs They are all jealous of our Religion holding that the Christians adore one God great above the rest that will not suffer any others and that he sets a greater esteem and value upon innocent poor and simple people than upon the rich Kings and Princes and that Princes had need to preserve to themselves the affections and esteem of their subjects to reign with greater ease to the face of Kings and thâ—se that punish them are reproached as persecutors and threatned with damnation and made the vilest men on earth and represented odious to all Answ. The sum of all this Objection is that That there is a God For if that be not denyed no Answ. man can deny that he is the Universal Governour of the world and that he hath his proper Laws and judgement and rewards and punishments or that Magistrates are his Ministers and have no power So B. Bilson of subject p. 243. Princes be supream not in respect that all things be subject to their wills which were plain Tyranny not Christian authority But that all persons within their Realms are bound to obey their Laws or abide their pains So p. 242. but from him and consequently that the commands and threats and promises of God are a thousand fold more to be regarded than those of men He is a beast and not a man that feareth not God more than man and that feareth not Hell more than bodily sufferings And for the Scriptures 1. Are they any harder to be understood than the Law of nature it self Surely the Characters of the will of God in naturâ rerum are much more obscure than in the Scriptures Hath God sent so great a Messenger from Heaven to open to mankind the mysteries of his Kingdom and tell them what is in the other world and bring life and immortality to light and yet shall his revelation be accused as more obscure than nature it self is If an Angel had been sent from Heaven to any of these Infidels by name to tell them but the same that Scripture telleth us sure they would not have reproached his message with such accusations 2. And are not the Laws of the Land about smaller matters more voluminous and difficult And shall that be made a reproach to Government And for misinterpretation it is the fault of humane nature that is ignorant and rash and not of the Scriptures Will you tell God that you will not obey him unless he will make his Laws so as no man can misinterpret them when or where were there ever such laws God will be God and the Judge of the world whether you will or not And he will not be an underling to men nor set their Laws above his own to avoid your accusations If there be another Life of joy or misery it is necessary that there be Laws according to which those rewards and punishments are to be adjudged And if Rulers oppose these who are appointed to promote obedience to them they must do it at their perils For God will render to all according to their works § 82. Obj. 4. Doth not experience tell the world that Christianity every where causeth divisions and Object 4. sets the world together by the ears What a multitude of sects are there among us at this day And every The differences are oft among the Lawyers which set the Common-wealth on fire and then they are charged on Divines â— g. Grotius de Imper. p. 53. Si â—rma in eos reges sumpta sâ—nt in quos totum populi jus translatum erat ac qui proinde non precariò sed proprio jure imperabant laudari salva piâ—tate non possâ—nt quâ—mcunque tandâ—m praetâ—xtum aut eventum habuerint Sin alicubi Reges tales suere qui pactis sive positivis legibus Seraâ—us aliâ—ujus aut Ordinum decretis astâ—ingerentur in hos ut summum Imperium non obtinent arma ex optimatum tanquam superioâ—um sententia sumi justis de causis poâ—uerinâ— Multi enim Reges etiam qui sanguinis jure succedunt Reges sunt nomine magâ—s quam Imperio Sed fallit imperitos quod illam quotidianam maximè in oculoâ— in curâ—entem rerum administrationem quae saepe in optimatum statu penes unum est ab interiore Reipublicae constitutione non satis disceruunt Quod de Regibus dixi idem multo â—agis de iis acceptum volo qui â—e nomine non Reges sed Principes fuere h. e. non summi sed Priâ—i p. 54. one thinketh that his salvation lyeth upon his opinion And how can Princes govern men of so contrary minds when the pleasing of one party is the losing of the rest We have long seen that Church-divisions shake the safety of the State If it were not that few that are called Christians are such indeed and serious in the Religion which themselves profess there were no quietness to be expected For those that are most serious are so full of scruples
office nor yet may he break his Laws for the avenging of himself He may use no other means than the Law of God and his Soveraign do allow him Therefore he may not rail or revile or slander or rob or strike or hurt any unless in case of defence as afterward nor take any other prohibited course § 17. Prop. 9. No rigor or severity must be used to right my self where gentler means may probably do it but the most harmless way must first be tryed § 18. Prop. 10. In general All wrongs and debts and damages must be forgiven when the hurt is like to be greater which will come by our righting our selves than that which by forbearance we shall sustain And all must be forgiven where Gods Law or mans forbiddeth us not to forgive Therefore a man that will here know his duty must conduct his actions by very great prudence which if he have not himself he must make use of a guide or Counsellour and he must be able to compare the Evil which he suffereth with the evil which will in probability follow his Vindication and to discern which of them is the greater Or else he can never know how far and when he may and must forgive And herein he must observe § 19. 1. The hurt that cometh to a mans soul is greater than the hurt that befalleth the body And therefore if my suing a man at Law be like to hurt his soul by uncharitableness or to hurt my own or the souls of others by scandal or disturbances I must rather suffer any meer bodily injuries than use that means But if yet greater hurt to souls would follow that bodily suffering of mine the Case is then altered the other way So if by forgiving debts or wrongs I be liker to do more good to the soul of him whom I forgive or others than the recovery of my own or the righting of my self is like any way to equal I am obliged to forgive that debt or wrong § 20. 2. The good or hurt which cometh to a community or to many is caeteris paribus to be more regarded thâ—n that which cometh to my self or any one alone Because many are of more worth than One and because Gods honour caeteris paribus is more concerned in the good of many than of one Therefore I must not seek my own right to the hurt of many either of their souls or bodies unless some greater good require it § 21. 3. The good or hurt of publick persons Magistrates or Pastors is caeteris paribus of more regard than the good or hurt of single men Therefore caeteris paribus I must not right my self to the dishonour or the hurt of Governours no though I were none of their charge or subjects because the publick good is more concerned in their honour or wellfare than in mine The same may be said of persons by their Gifts and interests more eminently serviceable to God and the common good than I am § 22. 4. The good or hurt of a neer relation of a dear friend of a worthy person is more to be regarded by me caeteris paribus than the good or hurt of a vile unworthy person or a stranger And therefore the Israelites might not take Usury of a poor brother which yet they might do of an aliene of another Land The Laws of nature and Friendship may more oblige me to one than to another though they were supposed equal in themselves Therefore I am not bound to remit a debt or wrong to a Thief or deceiver or a vile person when a neerer or a worthier person would be equally damnified by his benefit And thus far if without any partial self-love a man can justly estimate himself he may not only as he is neâ—rest himself but also for his real worth prefer his own commodity before the commodity of a more unworthy and unserviceable person § 23. 5. Another mans Necessities are more regardable than our own superfluities as his life is more regardable than our corporal delights Therefore it is a great sin for any man to reduce another to extremity and deprive him of necessaries for his life meerly to vindicate his own right in superfluities for the satisfaction of his concupiscence and â—ensual desires If a poor man steal to save his own or his Childrens lives and the rich man vindicate his own meerly to live in greater fulness or gallantry in the World he sinneth both the sin of sensuality and uncharitableness But how far for the common good he is bound to prosecute the Thief as criminal is a case which depends on other circumstances And this is the most common case in which the forgiving of debts and damages is required in Scripture viz. when the other is poor and we are rich and his necessities require it as an act of Charity And also the former case when the hurt by our vindication is like to be greater than our benefit will countervail § 24. Quest. 2. What is the meaning of those words of Christ Matth. 5. 38 39 40 41 42. Quest. 2. Ye have heard that it hath been said An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you that ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also and if any man will sue thee at the Law and take away thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also And whosoever shall compell thee to go a mile go with him two Give to him that asketh thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away Answ. The meaning of the Text is this as if he had said Because you have heard that Magistrates are required to do justice exactly between man and man and to take an eye for an eye c. therefore you may perhaps believe those Teachers who would perswade you that for any man to exact this satisfaction is no fault But I tell you that duties of Charity must be performed as well as Iustice must be done And though it be the Magistrates duty to do you this Iustice it is not your duty alwayes to require it but Charity may make the contrary to be your duty Therefore I say unto you overvalue not the concernments of your flesh nor the trifles of this world but if a man abuse you or wrong you in these trifles make no great matter of it and be not presently inflamed to revenge and to right your selves but exercise your patience and your Charity to him that wrongeth you and by a habituated stedfastness herein be ready to receive another injury with equal patience yea many such rather than to fly to an unnecessary vindication of your right For what if he give you another Stroke Or what if he also take your Cloke or what if he compel you to another mile for him Let him do it Let him take it How small is your hurt What inconsiderable things are these Your resistance and
Son and Holy Ghost when they have in Baptism vowed themselves unto his service Of all men on earth these men will have least to say for their sin or against their condemnation § 22. 12. Lastly Remember that Christ taketh all that is done by persecutors against his servants for his cause to be done as to himself and will accordingly in judgement charge it on them So speaketh he to Saul Acts 9. 5 6. Saul Saul why persecutest thou me I am Iesus whom thou persecutest And Matth. 25. 41. to 46. Even to them that did not â—eed and clothe and visit and relieve them he saith Verily I say unto you in as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me What then will he say to them that impoverished and imprisoned them Remember that it is Christ reputatively whom thou dost hate deride and persecute § 23. Direct 3. If you world escape the guilt of persecution the cause and interest of Christ in the Direct 3. world must be truly understood He that knoweth not that Holiness is Christs end and Scripture is his Word and Law and that the Preachers of the Gospel are his messengers and that preaching is his appointed means and that sanctified believers are his members and the whole number of them are his mystical body and all that profess to be such are his visible body or Kingdom in the world and that sin is the thing which he came to destroy and the Devil the world and the flesh are the enemies which he causeth us to conquer I say He that knoweth not this doth not know what Christianity or Godliness is and therefore may easily persecute it in his ignorance If you know not or believe not that serious Godliness in heart and life and serious preaching and discipline to promote it are Christs great cause and interest in the world you may fight against him in the dark whilst ignorantly you call your selves his followers If the Devil can but make you think that Ignorance is as good as Knowledge and Pharisaical formality and hypocritical shews are as good as spiritual worship and rational service of God and that seeming and lip-service is as good as seriousness in Religion and that the strict and serious obeying of God and living as we profess according to the principles of our Religion is but hypocrisie pride or faction that is that all are hypocrites who will not be hypocrites but seriously Religious I say if Satan can bring you once to such erroneous malignant thoughts as these no wonder if he make you persecutors O value the great blessing of a sound understanding For if Error blind you either impious error or factious error there is no wickedness so great but you may promote it and nothing so good and holy but you may persecute it and think all the while that you are doing well John 16. 2. They shall put you out of the Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service What Prophet so great or Saint so holy that did not suffer by such hands Yea Christ himself was persecuted as a sinner that never sinned § 24. Direct 4. And if you would escape the guilt of persecution the cause and interest of Christ Direct 4. must be highest in your esteem and preferred before all worldly carnal interests of your own Otherwise the Devil will be still perswading you that your own interest requireth you to suppress the interest of Christ For the truth is the Gospel of Christ is quite against the interest of carnality and concupiscence It doth condemn ambition covetousness and lust It forbiddeth those sins on pain of damnation which the proud and covetous and sensual love and will not part with And therefore it is no more wonder to have a proud man or a covetous man or a lustful voluptuous man to be a persecutor than for a Dog to fly in his face who takes his bone from him If you love your pride and lust and pleasures better than the Gospel and a holy life no marvel if you be persecutors For these will not well agree together And though sometimes the providence of God may so contrive things that an ambitious hypocrite may think that his worldly interest requireth him to seem religious and promote the preaching and practice of godliness this is but seldome and usually not long For he cannot choose but quickly find that Christ is no Patron of his sin and that Holiness is contrary to his worldly lusts Therefore if you cannot value the Cause of Godliness above your lusts and carnal interests I cannot tell you how to avoid the guilt of persecution nor the wrath and vengeance of Almighty God § 25. Direct 5. Yea though you do prefer Christs interest in the main You must carefully take Direct 5. beed of stepping into any forbidden way and espousing any interest of your own or others which is contrary to the Laws or interest of Christ. Otherwise in the defence or prosecution of your cause you will be carryed into a seeming Necessity of persecuting before you are aware This hath been the ruine of multitudes of great ones in the world When Ahab had set himself in a way of sin the Prophet 1 Kings 22. 8 27. 1 King 13. 2 4. must reprove him and then he hateth and persecuteth the Prophet because he prophesied not good of him but evil When Ieroboam thought that his interest required him to set up Calves at Dan and Bethel and to make Priests for them of the baâ—est of the people the Prophet must speak against his sin and then he stretcheth out his hand against him and saith Lay hold on him If Asa sin and 2 Chron. 16. 10. the Prophet tell him of it his rage may proceed to imprison his reprover If Amaziah sin with the Idolaters the Prophet must reprove him and he will silence him or smite him And silenced he is 2 Chron. 15. 16. and what must follow 2 Chron. 15 16. The King said to him Art thou made of the Kings counsel forbear why shouldst thou be smitten This seemeth to be gentle dealing Then the Prophet forbore and said I know that God hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not hearkned to my counsel It Pilate do but hear If thou let this man go thou art not Caesars friend he thinketh John 19. 12. it his interest to crucifie Christ As Herod thought it his interest to kill him and therefore to kill so many other Infâ—nts when he heard of the birth of a King of the Jews Because of an Herodias Matth. 2. 16 17 18. Matth. 14. 6 7 8 9. Mar. 6. 19. 21 22. Acts 12. 2 3 4. and the honour of his word Herod will not stick to behead Iohn Baptist And another Herod will kill Iames with the Sword and imprison Peter because he seeth that it pleaseth
proved and let him be admonished and censured as it deserves Censured I say not for not subscribing more than Scripture but for corrupting the Scriptures to which he hath subscribed or breaking Gods Laws which he promised to observe § 59. Direct 37. The Good of men and not their ruine must be intended in all the Discipline Direct 37. of the Church Or the good of the Church when we have but little hope of theirs If this were done it would easily be perceived that persecution is an unlikely means to do good by § 60. Direct 38. Neither unlimited Liberty in matters of Religion must be allowed nor unnecessary Direct 38. force and rigour used but Tolerable differences and parties must be tolerated and intolerable ones by the wisest means supprest And to this end by the Counsel of the most prudent peaceable Divines the Tollerable and the Intollerable must be statedly distinguished And those that are only Tolerated must be under a Law for their Toleration prescribing them their terms of good behaviour and those that are Approved must moreover have the Countenance and Maintenance of the Magistrate And if this were done 1. The advantage of the said Encouragement from Governours 2. With the regulation of the the toleration and the Magistrates careful Government of the Tolerated would prevent both persecution and most of the divisions and calamities of the Church Thus did the ancient Christian Emperours and Bishops And was their experience nothing The Novatians as good and Orthodox men were allowed their own Churches and Bishops even in Constantinople at the Emperours nose Especially if it be made the work of some Justices 1. To judge of persons to be tolerated and grant them Patents 2. And to over-rule them and punish them when they deserve it No other way would avoid so many inconveniences § 61. Direct 39. The things intolerable are these two 1. Not the believing but the Direct 39. preaching and propagating of principles contrary to the essentials of Godliness or Christianity or Government Iustice Charity or Peace 2. The turbulent unpeaceable management of those opinions which in themselves are tollerable If any would Preach against the Articles of the Creed the Petitions of the Lords Prayer or any of the Ten Commandments he is not to be suffered And if any that is Orthodox do in their separated meetings make it their business to revile at others and destroy mens Charity or to stir men up to rebellion or sedition or contempt of Magistracy none of this should be endured § 62. As for those Libertines that under the name of Liberty of Conscience do plead for a liberty of such vitious practices and in order thereto would prove that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in matters of Religion I have Preached and wrote so much against them whilest that Errour raigned and I find it so unseasonable now the constitution of things looks another way that I will not weary my self and the Reader with so unnecessary a task as to confute them Only I shall say that Rom. 13. telleth us that Rulers are a terrour to them that do evil and that Hereticks and turbulent firebrands do evil therefore Rulers should be a terrour to them And that if all things are to be done to the Glory of God and his interest is to be set highest in the World then Magistrates and Government are for the same end And if no action which we do is of so base a nature as ultimately to be terminated in the concernments of the flesh much less is Government so vile a thing when Rulers are in Scripture called Gods as being the Officers of God § 63. Direct 40. Remember Death and live together as men that are neer dying and must live Direct 40. together in another world The foolish expectation of prosperity and long life is it which setteth men together by the ears When Ridley and Hooper were both in Prison and preparing for the flames their contentions were soon ended and Ridley repented of his persecuting way If the persecutors and persecuted were shut up together in one house that hath the Plague in the time of this lamentable Contagion it 's two to one but they would be reconciled When men see that they are going into another World it takes off the edge of their bitterness and violence and the apprehensions of the righteous judgement of God doth awe them into a patience and forbearance with each other Can you persecute that man on Earth with whom you look to dwell in Heaven But to restrain a man from damning souls by Heresie or turbulencie or any such course my Conscience would not forbid it me if I were dying § 64. Direct 41. Let the Proud themselves who will regard no higher motives remember how Direct 41. fame and History will represent them to posterity when they are dead There is no man that desireth his name should stink and be odious to future Generations There is nothing that an ambitious man desireth more than a great surviving name And will you knowingly and wilfully then expose it to perpetual contempt and hatred Read over what History you please and find out the name of one Persecutor if you can that is not now a word of ignominy and doth not rott as God hath threatened If you say that it is only in the esteem of such as I or the persecuted party neither your opinion shall be judge nor mine but the opinion and language of Historians and of the wisest men who are the masters of fame Certainly that report of Holy Scripture and History which hath prevailed will still prevail And while there are Wise and Good and Merciful men in the World the Names and Manners of the Foolish and Wicked and Cruel will be odious as they continue at this day § 65. I have wrote these Directions to discharge my duty for those that are willing to escape the guilt of so desperate a sin But not with any expectation at all that it should do much good with any considerable number of persecutors For they will not read such things as these And God seldom giveth professed Christians over to this sin till they have very grievously blinded their minds and hardened their hearts and by malignity and obstinacy are prepared for his 2 Tim. 3. 11 12. Mat 5. 11 12. Luk. 14. 26 33. sorest judgements And I know that whoever will live Godly in Christ Iesus It is not said Who professeth to believe in Christ Iesus but to live Godly shall suffer persecution and that the Cross must still be the passage to the Crown CHAP. XII Directions against Scandal as given § 1. SCandal being a murdering of souls is a violation of the general Law of Charity and of the sixth Commandment in particular In handling this subject I shall 1. Shew you what is true scandal given to another 2. What things go under the Name of Scandal which are not it but are falsly so
named 3. What are the particular wayes and sorts of scandal 4. The greatness of this sin 5. Directions to avoid it § 2. I. I shall not need to stand upon the Etymologie of the word Scandal whether it come Scandal what it is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 claudico as Erasmus thought or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 curvum c. Martinius Stephanus Lyserus c. have sufficiently done it whither I referr you As for the sense of the word it is past doubt that the ordinary use of it in Scripture is for a stumbling block for a man to fall upon or a trap to ensnare a man And in the Old Testament it is oft used for a stumbling stone on which a man may fall into any corporal calamity or a snare to hurt or ruine a man in the world As Exod. 10. 7. 1 Sam. 18. 21. 25. 31. Psal. 119. 165. Ezek. 7. 19. Sept. But in the New Testament which speaketh more of spiritual hurts it is taken for a stumbling block or temptation by which a man is in danger of falling into sin or spiritual loss or ruine or dislike of Godliness or any way to be turned from God or hindered in a Religious holy way And if sometimes it be taken for Grieving or Troubling it is as it hereby thus hindereth or ensnareth So that to scandalize is sometimes taken for the doing of a blameless action from which another unjustly taketh occasion to fall or sin or be perverted But when it signifieth a sin as we take it in this place then to scandalize is By something unlawful of it self or at least unnecessary which may occasion the spiritual hurt or ruine of another 1. The matter is either something that is simply sinful and then it is a double sin or something Indifferent or unnecessary and then it is simply the sin of scandal 2. It must be that which may occasion anothers fall I say occasion For no man can forcibly cause another man to sin but only occasion it or tempt him to it as a Moral Cause § 3. II. By this you may see 1. That to scandalize is not meerly to displease or grieve another What is not Scandal that is by many so called For many a man is displeased through his folly and vice by that which tendeth to his good and many a man is tempted that is scandalized by that which pleaseth him When Christ saith If thy right eye or hand offend or scandalize thee pluck it out or cut it off c. Mat. 5. he doth not by offending mean displeasing or grieving For by so offending it may profit us But he plainly meaneth If it draw thee to sin or else he had never added that it is better to enter maimed into life than having two eyes or hands to be cast into Hell That is in a word Thy damnation is a greater hurt than the loss of hand or eye and therefore if there were no other way to avoid it this would be a very cheap way So pedem offendere in lapidem is to stumble upon a stone The most censorious and humorous sort of men have got a notion that what ever offendeth or displeaseth them is scandalous And they think that no man must do any thing which grieveth or displeaseth them lest he be guilty of scandal And by this trick who ever can purchase impatiency and pievishness enough to be alwayes displeased with the actions of others shall rule the world But the truth is the ordinary way of scandalizing these men is by pleasing them § 4. I will give you one instance of scandal in Scripture which may help this sort of people better to understand it Gal. 2. 10. to 16. Peter there giveth true scandal to the Jews and Gentiles He walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel but laid a stumbling block before the Jews and Gentiles And this was not by displeasing the Jews but by pleasing them The Jews thought it a sin to eat with the Gentiles and to have communion with uncircumcised men Peter knew the contrary but for fear of them of the circumcision lest they should be offended at him as a sinner he withdrew and separated himself This scandal tended to harden the Jews in their sinful separation and to seduce the Gentiles into a conceit of the necessity of circumcision and Barnabas was carryed away with the dissimulation Here you may see that if any think it a sin in us to have communion in such or such Congregations with such persons in such worship which God alloweth us not to separate from it is a sin of scandal in us to separate to avoid these mens offence We scandalize them and others even by pleasing them and by avoiding that which they falsly called scandalous And if we would not scandalize them we must do that which is just and not by our practice hide the sound doctrine which is contrary to their separating error § 5. 2. And it is as apparent that to scandalize another is not as is vulgarly imagined by the ignorant to do that which is commonly reputed sinful or which hath the appearance of a sin or which will make a man evil thought of or spoken of by others Yet commonly when men say This is a scandalous action they mean it is an action which is reproachful or of evil report as a sin And therefore in our English speech it is common to say of one that slandereth another that he raised a scandal of him But this is not the meaning of the word in Scripture Materially indeed scandal may consist in any such thing which may be a stumbling block to another But formally it is the Tempting of another or occasioning his fall or ruine or hurt which is the nature of scandalizing And this is done more seldome by committing open disgraceful sins and doing that which will make the doer evil spoken of For by that means others are the more assisted against the temptation of imitating him But scandal is most commonly found in those actions which are under least reproach among men or which have the most plausible appearance of good in them when they are evil For these are apter to deceive and overthrow another § 6. 3. And it is also apparent that it is no sinful scandalizing to do a duty or necessary action which I have not power to forbear though I know that another will be offended or fall by it into sin If God have made it my duty even at this time I must not disobey him and omit my duty because another will make it an occasion of his sin It must be either a sinful or an indifferent action that is scandal or something that is in my own power to do or to forbear Yet this must be added that Affirmatives binding not ad semper to all times and no duty being a duty at every moment it may oft fall out that that which else would have been my duty at
few men can but get money enough to purchase all the Land in a County they think that they may do with their own as they list and set such hard bargains of it to their Tenants that they are all but as their servants yea and live a more troublesome life than servants do when they have laboured hard all the year they can scarce scrape up enough to pay their Landlords rent Their necessities are so urgent that they have not so much as leisure to pray Morning or Evening in their families or to read the Scriptures or any good Book nor scarce any room in their thoughts for any holy things Their minds are so distracted with necessities and cares that even on the Lords Day or at a time of prayer they can hardly keep their minds intent upon the sacred work which they have in hand If the freest minds have much adoe to keep their thoughts in seriousness and order in meditation or in the worshipping of God how hard must it needs be to a poor oppressed man whose body is tired with wearisome labours and his mind distracted with continual cares how to pay his rent and how to have food and rayment for his family How unfit is such a troubled discontented person to live in thankfulness to God and in his joyful praises Abundance of the Voluptuous great ones of the world do use their Tenants and servants but as their Beasts as if they had been made only to labour and toil for them and it were their chief felicity to fulfil their will and live upon their favour § 9. Direct 1. The principal means to overcome this sin is to understand the Greatness of it For Direct 1. the flesh perswadeth carnal men to judge of it according to their self ish interest and not according to the interest of others nor according to the true principles of Charity and Equity and so they justifie themselves in their oppression § 10. 1. Consider That Oppression is a sin not only contrary to Christian Charity and Self-denyal but even to Humanity it self We are all made of one earth and have souls of the same kind There is as near a kindred betwixt all mankind as a specifical identity As between one Shâ—ep one Dovâ— one Angel and another As between several drops of the same water and several sparks of the same fire which have a natural tendency to Union with each other And as it is an inhumane thing for one brother to oppress another or one member of the same body to set up a proper interest of its own and make all the rest how painfully soever to serve that private interest So is it for those men who are children of the same Creator Much more for them who account themselves members of the same Redeemer and brethren in Christ by grace and regeneration with those whom they oppress Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father Hath not one God created us Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother By profaning the Covenant of our Fathers If we must not lye to one another because we are members one of another Ephes. 4. 25. And if all the members must have the same care of one another 1 Cor. 12. 25. Surely then they must not oppress one another § 11. 2. An Oppressor is an Anti-christ and an Anti-god He is contrary to God who delighteth to do good and whose bounty maintaineth all the world Who is kind to his enemies and causeth his Psal. 145. Matth. 5. Lam. 3. Sun to shine and his rain to fall on the just and on the unjust and even when he afflicteth doth it as unwillingly delighting not to grieve the Sons of men He is contrary to Jesus Christ who gave himself a ransome for his enemies and made himself a curse to redeem them from the curse and condescended in his incarnation to the nature of man and in his passion to the Cross and suffering which they deserved and being rich and Lord of all yet made himself poor that we by his poverty might be made rich He endured the Cross and despised the shame and made himself of as no reputation accounting it his honour and joy to be the Saviour of mens souls even of the poor and despised of the world And these Oppressors live as if they were made to afflict the just and to rob them of Gods mercies and to make crosses for other men to bear and to tread on their brethren as stepping stones of their own advancement The Holy Ghost is the Comforter of the just and faithful And these men live as if it were their Calling to deprive men of their comfort § 12. 3. Yea an Oppressor is not only the Agent of the Devil but his Image It is the Devil that is the destroyer and the devourer who maketh it his business to undo men and bring them into misery and distress He is the grand Oppressor of the world Yet in this he is far short of the malignity of men-devils 1. That he doth it not by force and violence but by deceit and hurteth no man till he hath procured his own consent to sin whereas our Oppressors do it by their brutish force and power 2. And the Devil destroyeth men who are not his brethren nor of the same kind But these oppressors never stick at the violating of such relations § 13. 4. Oppression is a sin that greatly serveth the Devil to the damning of mens souls as well as to the afflicting of their bodies And it is not a few but millions that are undone by it For as I shewed before it taketh up mens Minds and Time so wholly to get them a poor living in the world that they have neither mind nor time for better things They are so troubled about many things that the one thing needful is laid aside All the labours of many a worthy able Pastor are frustrated by oppressors To say nothing of the far greatest part of the world where the tyranny and oppression of Heathen Infidel and Mahometane Princes keepeth out the Gospel and the means of life nor yet of any other Persecutors If we exhort a Servant to read the Scriptures and call upon God and think of his everlasting state he telleth us that he hath no time to do it but when his weary body must have rest If we desire the Masters of families to instruct and catechise their children and servants and pray with them and read the Scriptures and other good Books to them they tell us the same that they have no time but when they should sleep and that on the Lords Day their tired bodies and careful minds are unfit to attend and ply such work So that necessity quietteth their consciences in their ignorance and neglect of heavenly things and maketh them think it the work only of Gentlemen and rich men who have leisure but are further alienated from it by prosperity than these are by their poverty And
Matth. 18. 10. being his Messengers to man § 9. 7. Much of their work is to oppose the malice of evil spirits that seek our hurt and to defend 1 Kings 22. 19 20 21 22. us from them against whom they are engaged under Christ in daily Warr or Conflict Rev. 12. 7 9. Psal. 68. 17. 78. 49. Matth. 4. 11. 1 Thess. 2. 18. § 10. 8. In this their Ministration they are ordered into different degrees of superiority and inferiority Luke 1. 19 26. and are not equal among themselves 1 Thess. 4. 16. Iude 9. Dan. 10. 13 20 21. Eph. 1. 21. Col. 2. 10. Eph. 3. 10. 6. 12. Col. 1. 16. Zech. 4. 10. Rev. 4 5. 5 6. § 11. 9. Angels are employed not only about our bodies but our souls by furthering the means of Acts. 7. 53. our salvation They preached the Gospel themselves as they delivered the Law Luke 2. 10 9. Luke 1. 11 c. Heb. 2. 2. Gal. 3. 19. Acts 10. 4. Dan. 7. 16. 8. 15 16 17. 9. 21 22. Luke 1. 29. 2. 19. Especially they deliver particular messages which suppose the sufficiency of the Laws of Christ and only help to the obedience of it § 12. 10. They are sometime Gods instruments to confirm and warn and comfort and excite the Acts 27. 24. Luke 1. 13 30. 2. 10. Dan. 10. 12. 2 Kings 6. 16. Gen. 16. 9 10. Numb 22. 32. soul and to work upon the mind and will and affections That they do this perswasively and have as much access and power to do us good as Satan hath to do us evil is very clear Good Angels have as much power and access to the soul to move to duty as Devils have to tempt to sin As God hath sent them oft upon monitory and consolatory messages to his servants in visible shapes so doth he send them on the like messages invisibly Iudg. 5. 23. Mat. 1. 20. Psal. 104. 4. Luke 22. 43. An Angel from Heaven is sent to strengthen Christ himself in his agony § 13. 11. They persecute and chase the enemies of the Church and sometimes destroy them as Psal. 35. 5 6. 2 Kings 19. 35. Isa. 37. 36. and hinder them from doing hurt Numb 22. 24. § 14. 12. They are a Convoy for the departing souls of the godly to bring them to the place of their felicity Luke 16. 22. though how they do it we cannot understand § 15. 13. They are the attendants of Christ at his coming to judgement and his Ministers to gather his elect and sâ—ver thâ— wicked from the just in order to their endless Punishment or Joy 1 Thess. 4. 16. The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Arch-angel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up c. Matth. 13. 41 49. The Son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather 2 Thess. 1. 7. Mark 8. 38. Matth. 25. 31. out of his Kingdom all offences or scandals and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire At the end of the world the Angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire c. § 16. Direct 3. Understand our near affinity or relation to the Angels and how they and we are concerned Direct 3. in each others condition and affairs As to our Nature our Immortal souls are kin or like unto the Angels though our Bodies are but like the Brutes Those souls that are created after the Image of God in their very Natural Essence as Rational and Free agents besides his Moral Image of sanctity Gen. 9. 6. may well be said to be like the Angels He made us little lower than the Angels Psal. 8. 5. And God hath made us their charge and care and therefore no doubt hath given them a special Love unto us to fit them to the due performance of their trust As Ministers have a special paternal Love to their flocks and as Christians are to have a special Love to one another to enable and engage them to the duties appointed them by God towards each other so these excellent Spirits have no doubt a far purer and greater Love to the Image of God upon the Saints and to the Saints for the Image and sake of God than the dearest friends and holiest persons on earth can have For they are more holy and they are more perfectly conformed to the mind of God and they love God himself more perfectly than we and therefore for his sake do love his people much more perfectly than we And therefore they are more to be loved by us than any mortals are both because they are more excellent pure and amiable and because they have more Love to us Moreover the Angels are servants of the same God and members of the same society which we belong to They are the Inhabitants of the heavenly Ierusalem of which we are heirs They have possession and we have title and shall in time possess it We are called to much of the same employment with them we must love the same God and glorifie him by obedience thanks and praise and so do they Therefore they are Ministers for our good and rejoyce in the success of their labours as the Ministers of Christ on earth do Heb. 1. 14. There is not a sinner converted but it is the Angels Joy Luke 15. 10. which sheweth how much they attend that work We are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of Angels c. Heb. 12. 22 23. 24. They are especially present and attendant on us in our holy Assemblies and services of God and therefore we are admonished to reverence their presence and do nothing before them that is sinful or unseemly 1 Cor. 11. 10. Eccles. 5. 6. The presence of God and the Lord Iesus Christ and the elect Angels must continually awe us into exact obedience 1 Tim. 5. 21. With the Church they pry into the mysterie of the dispensations of the Spirit to the Church 1 Pet. 1. 12. And so by the Church that is by Gods dealings with the Church is made known the manifold wisdom of God even to these heavenly principalities and powers Eph. 3. 10. In conclusion Christ telleth us that in our state of blessedness we shall be equal to the Angels Luke 20. 36. and so shall live with them for ever § 17. Direct 4. When your thoughts of Heaven are staggering or strange and when you are tempted Direct 4. to doubt whether indeed there is such a life of glory for the Saints it may be a great help to your faith to think of the world of Angels that already do possess it That there are such excellent and happy inhabitants of the superiour
Orbs besides what Scripture saith even reason will strongly perswade any rational man 1. When we consider that Sea and Land and Air and all places of this lower baser part of the world are replenished with inhabitants suitable to their natures And therefore that the incomparably more great and excellent Orbs and Regions should all be uninhabited is irrational to imagine 2. And as we see the Rational Creatures are made to govern the Brutes in this inferiour world so reason telleth us it is improbable that the higher Reason of the inhabitants of the higher Regions should have no hand in the government of man And yet God hath further condescended to satisfie us herein by some unquestionable apparitions of good Angels and many more of evil spirits which puâ—s the matter past all doubt that there are inhabitants of the unseen world And when we know that such there are it maketh it the more easie to us to believe that such we may be either numbered with the happy or unhappy Spirits considering the affinity which there is between the nature of our souls and them To conquer senseless Saducism is a good step to the conquest of irreligiousness He that is well perswaded that there are Angels and Spirits is much better prepared than a Sadducee to bâ—lieve the immortality of the soul And because the infinite distance between God and man is apt to make the thoughts of our approaching his Glory either dubious or very terrible the remembrance of those myriads of blessed Spirits that dwell now in the presence of that glory doth much embolden and confirm our thoughts As he that would be afraid whether he should have access to and acceptance with the King would be much encouraged if he saw a multituâ—e as mean as himself or not much unlike him to be familiar attendants on him I must confess such is my own weakness that I find a frequent need of remembring the holy Hosts of Saints and Angels that are with God to embolden my soul and make the thoughts of Heaven more familiar and sweet by abating my strangeness â—mazedness and fears And thus far to make them the Media that I say not the Mediators of my thoughts in their approaches to the Most High and Holy God Though the remembrance of Christ the true Mediator is my chief encouragement Especially when we consider how servently those holy Spirits do love every holy person upon earth and so that all those that dwell with God are dearer friends to us than our Fathers or Mothers here on earth are as is briefly proved before this will embolden us yet much more § 18. Direct 5. Make use of the thoughts of the Angelical Hosts when you would see the Glory and Direct 5. Majesty of Christ If you think it a small matter that he is the Head of the Church on earth a handful of people contemned by the Satanical party of the world yet think what it is to be Head over all things far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come that is Gave him a power dignity and name greater than any power dignity or name of men or Angels and hath put all things under his feet Ephes. 1. 21 22 23. Being made so much better than the Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they Of him it is said Let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. 1. 4 6. Read the whole Chapter Our Head is the Lord of all these Hosts § 19. Direct 6. Make use of the remembrance of the glorious Angels to acquaint you with the dignity Direct 6. of humane nature and the special dignity of the servants of God and so to raise up your hearts in Magna dignitas fidelium animarum ut unaquaeque habeat ab ortu nativitatis in custodiam sui Angelum depuâ—atum imo plures Hitro Luke 20. 36. thankfulness to your Creator and Redeemer who hath thus advanced you 1. What a dignity is it that thâ—se holy Angels should be all Ministring Spirits sâ—nt for our good that they should love us and concern themselves so much for us as to rejoyce in Heaven at our conversion Lord What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Psal. 8. 4. 5. 2. But yet it is a higher declaration of our dignity that we should in Heaven be equal with them and so be numbered iâ—to their society and joyn with them everlastingly in the praise of our Creator 3. And it is yet a greater honour to us that our Natures are assumed into union of person with the Son of God and sâ— advanced above the Angels For he took not on him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham Nâ—r hath he put the world to come in subjection to the Angels Heb. 2. 5 16. This is the Lords doing and it is wonderous in our eyes § 20. Direct 7. When you would admire the works of God and his government look specially to the Direct 7. Angels part If God would be glorified in his works then especially in the most glorious parts If he take delight to work by Instruments and to communicate such excellency and honour to them as may conduce to the honour of the principal cause we must not overlook their excellency and honour unless we will deny God the honour which is due to him As he that will see the excellent workmanship of a Watch or any other Engine must not overlook the chiefest parts nor their operation on the rest So he that will see the excellent order of the works and Government of God must not over-look the Angels nor their Offices in the Government and preservation of the inferiour creatures so far as God hath revealed it unto us We spoil the Musick if we leave out these strings It is a great part of the glory of the works of God that all the parts in Heaven and Earth are so admirably conjoyned and joynted as they are and each in their places contribute to the beauty and harmony of the whole § 21. Direct 8. When you would be apprehensive of the excellency of Love and Humility and exact Direct 8. obedience tâ— the will of God look up to the Angels and see the lustre of all these vertues as they shine Heb. 1. 14. Psal. 103. 20 21 in them How perfectly do they Love God and all his Saints Even the weakest and meanest of the members of Christ With what humility do they condescend to minister for the heirs of salvation How readily and perfectly do they obey their Maker Though our chiefest pattern is Christ himself who came nearer to us and appeared in flesh to give us the example of all such duties yet under him the
all true Worshippers in the world 16. Yea it will tempt men at last to be weary of their own Religion because they will find it an unsatisfactory uncomfortable tiresome thing to do their own superstitious work 17. And they will tempt all that they draw into this opinion to be weary of Religion also And truly had not Gods part which is wise and good and pleasant prevailed against the hurtfulness of mens superstition which is foolish bad and unpleasant Religion had ere this been cast off as a wearisome distracting thing or which is as bad been used but to delude men 18. Yea it will tempt men at last to Infidelity For Satan will quickly teach them to argue that if Scripture be a perfect particular Rule for forty things that were never there then it is defective and is not of God but an undertaking of that which is not performed and therefore is but a deceit 19. And the notoriousness and ridiculousness of this error will tempt the prophane to make Religious people a scorn 2o Lastly And Rulers will be tempted in Church and State to take such persons for intolerable 〈…〉 cieties and such whose principles are inconsistent with Government And no thanks to this 〈◊〉 if they be not tempted to dislike the Scripture it self and instead of it to fly to the Papists Traditions and the Churches Legislative Soveraignty or worse But here also remember that I charge none with all this but those before described Quest. 136. How shall we know what parts of Scripture Precept or Example were intended for universal constant obligations and what were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to Answ. IT is not to be denyed but some things in Scripture even in the New Testament are not Laws much less universal and perpetual And the difference is to be found in the Scripture it self As 1. All that is certainly of universal and perpetual obligation which is but a Transcript of the Universal and perpetual Law of Nature 2. And all that which hath the express Characters of Universality and Perpetuity upon it And such are all the substantial parts of the Gospel As Except ye Repent ye shall all perish Luke 13. 3 5. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven John 3. 3 5. He that believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16. 16. Without Holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Go preach the Gospel to all Nations baptizing them c. teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you Matth. 28. 19 20. Abundance such Texts have the express Characters of Universality and Perpetuity which many call Morality 3. And with these we may number those which were given to all the Churches with commands to keep them and propagate them to posterity 4. And those that have a plain and necessary connexion to these before mentioned 5. And those which plainly have a full parity of reason with them And where it is evident that the Command was given to those particular times and persons upon no reasons proper to them alone but such as were common to all others I deny not but as Amesius noteth after others many ceremonial and temporary Laws are urged when they are made with natural and perpetual motives But the reasons of making them were narrower what ever the reasons of obeying them may be On the other side Narrow and temporary precepts and examples 1. Are void of all these foresaid characters 2. They are about Materials of temporary use 3. Or they are but the ordering of such customes as were there before and were proper to those Countreys 4. And many speeches are plainly appropriated to the time and persons 5. And many actions were manifestly occasional without any intimation of reason or purpose of obliging others to imitation For instance 1. Christs preaching sometimes on a Mountain sometimes in a Ship sometimes in a House and sometimes in the Synagogues doth shew that all these are lawful in season on the like occasion But he purposed not to oblige men to any one of them alone 2. So Christs giving the Sacrament of his Body and Blood in an upper room in a private house after Supper to none but Ministers and none but his family and but to twelve and on the fifth day of the Week only and in the gesture of a decumbent leaning sitting all these are plainly occasional and not intended as obliging to imitation For that which he made a Law of he separated in his speeches and commanded them to do it in remembrance of him till his coming And Paul expoundeth the distinction 1 Cor. 11. in his practice So the promise of the Spirit of Revelation and Miracles is expounded by the event as the feal of the Gospel and Scripture proper to those times in the main So the primitive Christians selling their estates and distributing to the poor or laying it down at the Apostles feet was plainly appropriated to that time or the like occasions by the Reason of it which was suddenly to shew the world what the belief of Heaven through the promises of Christ could make them all and how much their Love was to Christ and one another and how little to the world And also by the cessation of it when the persecutions abated and the Churches came to any setlement Yea and at first it was not a thing commanded to all but only voluntarily done So the womens Vail and the custome of kissing each other as a token of Love and mens not wearing long hair were the customes of the Countrey there ordered and improved by the Apostles about sacred things but not introduced into other Countreys that had no such custome So also Anointing was in thâ—se Countreys taken for salubrious and refreshing to the body and a ceremony of initiation into places of great honour Whereupon it was used about the sick and Gods giving the gift of healing in those times was frequently conjunct with this means So that hence the anointing of the sick came up and the antient Christians turned it into an initiating Ceremony because we are Kings and Priests to God Now these occasions extend not to those Countreys where Anointing neither was of such use or value or signification So also Pauls becoming a Jew to the Jews and being shaved and purifying himself and circumcising Timothy are evidently temporary complyances in a thing then lawful for the avoiding of offence and for the furtherance of the Gospel and no obligatory perpetual Law to us And so most Divines think the eating of things strangled and blood were forbidden for a time to them only that conversed with the Jews Acts 15. Though Beckman have many Reasons for the perpetuity not contemptible So the Office of Deaconesses and some think of Deacons seemeth to be fitted to that time and
deceivers If the very Vices the Ambition the Carnal Policies and Pomps the filthiness and worldliness of the Roman Clergy did not become a preservative to mens minds against the Temptations which would draw them to their way and if the Atheism Infidelity Whoredoms and prophaneness of Papists did not become an Antidote how few were like to return uninfected And because the Jesuits know that they can never take this stumbling block out of the way therefore too many of them have thought best to debauch those first whom they would proselyte and to reconcile them first to Playes and drunkenness and whoredoms that so the dislike of these may not hinder their reconciliation with the Kingdom of Rome yea that a seeming necessity of a Priests pardon may make it seem necessary to become their subjects And as unfurnished are these young travellers usually to resist the temptations to this sensuality lust and pomp as those of Popery So that they are perfidiously sent into a Pesthouse when they are in the greatest disposition to be infected And if they come not home drunkards gluttons gamesters idle prodigal proud infidels irreligious or Papists its little thanks to those perfidious Parents who thus perform their promise for them in Baptism by sending them to Satans Schools and University to be educated Whereas if they were but kept to their due studies and under a holy government at home till they were furnished with sound religious knowledge and till they were rooted in holiness and in a Love to a pious sober life and till they had got a setled hatred of intemperance and all sin and till they had a Map of the places persons and affairs of the world well imprinted on their minds by study and due information then necessary travel would be more safe and then they would be in a capacity to learn wisdom from other mens folly and virtue from other mens vice and piety from other mens impiety which Novices are rather apâ— to imitate 5. And in the mean time the loss of all the helps which they should have at home doth greatly tend to their destruction For they oft travel into Countreys where they shall have no publick worship of God which is lawful or which they understand or if they have it is usually cold preaching and dull praying when they have need of the best and all too little And they have seldome such pious society to edifie and quicken them by private converse as they have or might have here at home And seldome come into such well ordered religious families And if humane nature be prone to infection by temptations and so averse to holiness that all means is too little and even in the best families folly and sensuality and a distaste of Godliness often thrives as unsown Weeds overspread the Garden where with great cost and labour only better things were sowed What then but sin and misery can be expected from those that by their own Parents are banished from their native Countrey not so well as into a Wilderness but into the pestilent infected Countreys of the world I would ask those Parents that plead for this crime and cruelty as a kindness Are you no wiser or better your selves than the company into which you send your children Can you teach them and educate them no better nor give them better examples than they are like to have abroad Can you set them on no better work for the improvement of their time If not Why do you not repent of this your shame and misery and reform your selves If you can Why will you then betray your children Congressus sapientum consert prudentiam non montes non maria Erasm. Or if you cannot Are there no Schools no Learned and Pious men no Religious families and company at home in your own Land where you might place them to better advantage than thus to expose them to the Tempter Undoubtedly there are and such as may be had at Cheaper rates 6. And it is not the smallest part of the guilt and danger that they are sent abroad without due oversight and conduct They that do but get them some sober or honest servant to attend them or some sober companion think they have done well when as they had need of some Divine or Tutor of great Learning Piety Prudence and Experience whom they will reverence and obey that may take the oversight of them and be ready to answer any Sophister that would seduce them But the charge of this is thought too great for the safety of their own children whom they themselves expose to a necessity of it I know that carnal minds will distaste all this and have Objections enough against it and reasons of their own to make it seem a duty to betray and undo their childrens souls and to break their promise made for them in Baptism All this is but our preciseness They must have experience and know the world or else they will be contemptible tenebriones or Owls When ever they go it will be a temptation and such they must have at home There is no other part of their age so fit or that can be spared and we must trust God with them where ever they are and they that will be bad will be bad in one place as well as another and many are as bad that stay at home And thus quos perdere vult Iupiter hos dementat Yea the poor children and the Common-wealth must suffer by such Parents soâ—tish folly And well saith Solomon Prov. 28. 11. The Rich man is wise in his own conceit And because it is not Reason indeed but Pride and the Rich disease and Carnality which is here to be consuted I shall not honour them with a distinct particular answer But only tell them If all companies be alike send them to Bedlam or to a Whore-house If all means be alike let them be Janizaries and bred up where Christ is scorned If you think they need but little helps and little watching it seems you never gave them more And its pity you should have children before you know what a man is and how much nature is corrupted and how much is needful to its recovery And its pity that you dedicated them to God in Baptism before you believed Christ and knew what you did And engaged them to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil under a Crucified Christ while you purposed like hypocrites to train them in the School and Service of the World the Flesh and the Devil and in the contempt of the Cross of Christ or of a holy mortified life And if all ages be alike and Novices be equal to experienced persons let the Scholars rule their Master and let Boyes be Parliament men and Judges and let them be your Guides at home And if acquaintance with Courtship and the customes of the world and the reputation of such acquaintance be worth the hazarding of their souls renounce God and give up your
names to Mammon and be not such paultry hypocrites as to profess that you believe the Scriptures and stand to your baptismal Vows and place your hopes in a Crucified Christ and your happiness in Gods favour and the life to come And if the preaching of the Gospel and all such religious helps be unnecessary to your unsetled children dissemble not by going to Church as if you took them to be necessary to your selves In a word I say as Elias to the Israelites Why halt ye between two opinions If God be God follow him If the world be God and Pride and Sensuality and the worlds applause be your felicity follow it and let it be your childrens portion Do you not see more wise and learned and holy and serviceable persons among us proportionably in Church and State that were never sent for an education among the Papists and prophane than of such as were But I will proceed to the Directions which are necessary to those that must or will needs go abroad either as Merchants Factors or as Travellers Direct 1. Be sure that you go not without a clear warrant from God which must be all things Direct 1. laid together a great probability in the judgement of impartial experienced wise men that you may get or do more good than you were like to have done at home For if you go sinfully without a Call or Warrant you put your self out of Gods protection as much as in you is that is you forfeit it And what ever plague befalls you it will arm your accusing Consciences to make it double Direct 2. Send with your children that travel some such pious prudent Tutor or Oversâ—â—r as is Direct 2. afore described And get them or your Apprentices into as good company as possibly you can Direct 3. Send them as the last part of all their education when they are setled in knowledge Direct 3. sound doctrine and godliness and have first got such acquaintance with the state of the world as Reading Maps and Conversation and Discourse can help them to And not while they are young and raw and uncapable of self-defence or of due improving what they see And those that are thus prepared will have no great lust or fancy to wander and lose their time without necessity For they will know that there is nothing better considerably to be seen abroad than is at home That in all Countreys Houses are Houses and Cities are Cities and Trees are Trees and Beasts are Beasts and Men are Men and Fools are Fools and Wise men are Wise and Learned men are Learned and Sin is Sin and Virtue is Virtue And these things are but the same abroad as at home And that a Grave is every where a Grave and you are travelling towards it which way ever you go And happy is he that spendeth his little time so as may do God best service and best prepare him for the state of immortality Direct 4. If experience of their youthful lust and pride and vitious folly or unsetled dangerous Direct 4. state doth tell you plainly that your Child or Apprentice is unfit for travel venture them not upon it either for the carnal ornaments of education or for your worldly gain For souls that cost the blood of Christ are more pretious than to be sold at so low a rate And especially by those Parents and Masters that are doubly obliged to love them and to guide them in the way to Heaven and must be answerable for them Direct 5. Choose those Countreys for your Children to travel in which are soundest in doctrine Direct 5. and of best example and where they may get more good than hurt and venture them not needlesly into the places and company of greatest danger especially among the Jesuits and Fryars or subtile Hereticks or enemies of Christ. Direct 6. Study before you go what particular Temptations you are like to meet with and study Direct 6. well for particular Preservatives against them all As you will not go into a place infected with the Plague without an Antidote It is no small task to get a mind prepared for travel Direct 7. Carry with you such Books as are fittest for your use both for Preservation and Edification Direct 7. As to preserve you from Popery Drelincourts and Mr. Pools small Manual For which use my Key for Catholicks and Safe Religion and Sheet against Popery may not be useless And Dr. Challoners Credo Ecclesiam Catholicam is short and very strong To preserve you against Infidelity Vander Meulin in Latin and Grotius and in English my Reasons of the Christian Religion may not be unfit For your practice the Bible and the Practice of Piety and Mr. Scudders Daily Walk and Mr. Reyners Directions and Dr. Ames Cases of Conscience Direct 8. Get acquaintance with the most able Reformed Divines in the places where you travel Direct 8. and make use of their frequent converse for your edification and defence For it is the wisest and best men in all Countreys where you come that must be profitable to you if any Direct 9. Set your selves in a course of regular study if you are Travellers as if you were at Direct 9. home and on a course of regular employment if you are Tradesmen and make not meer wandering and gazing upon novelties your Trade and Business But redeem your time as laboriously as you would do in the most setled life For time is precious where ever you be And it must be diligence every where that must cause your proficiency for Place and Company will not do it without your labour It is not an University that will make a sluggish person wise nor a forreign Land that will furnish a sensual sot with wisdom Coelum non animum mutant qui trans more currunt There is more ado necessary to make you wise or bring you to Heaven than to go long journeys or see many people Direct 10. Avoid temptations If you acquaint your selves with the humours and sinful opinions Direct 10. and fashions of the time and places where you are let it be but as the Lacodamonians called out their children to see a drunkard to hate the sin Therefore see them but taste them not as you would do by poyson or lothesome things Once or twice seeing a folly and sin is enough If you do it frequently custome will abate your detestation and do much to reconcile you to it Direct 9. Set your selves to do all the good you can to the miserable people in the places where Direct 9. you come Furnish your selves with the foresaid Books and Arguments not only to preserve your selves but also to convince poor Infidels and Papists And pity their souls as those that believe that there is indeed a life to come where Happiness and Misery will shew the difference between the godly and the wicked Especially Merchants and Factors who live constantly among the poor ignorant