carrieth thee to the place No one forceth thee to sin If thou do it it is because thou wilt do it and lovest it If thou be in good earnest with God and wilt be saved indeed and art not content to part with Heaven for thy cups and company away with them presently without delay § 4. Hast thou lived in wantonness fornication uncleanness gluttony gaming pastimes sensuality to the pleasing of thy flesh while thou hast displeased God O bless the Patience and Mercy of the Lord that thou wast not cut off all this while and damned for thy sin before thou didst repent And as thou lovest thy soul delay no longer but make a stand and go no further not one step further in the way which thou knowest leads to Hell If thou knowest that this is the way to thy damnation and yet wilt go on what pity dost thou deserve from God or man § 5. If thou have been a Covetous Wordling or an Ambitious seeker of honour or preferment in the world so that thy gain or rising or reputation hath been the game which thou hast followed and hath taken thee up instead of God and life eternal away now with these known deceits and hunt not after Vanity and Vexation Thou knowest before hand what it will prove when thou hast overtaken it and hast enjoyed all that it can yield thee and how useless it will be as to thy comfort or happiness at last § 6. Surely if men were willing they are able to forbear such sins and to make a stand and look before them to prevent their misery Therefore God thus pleadeth with them Isa. 1. 16 17 18. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well c. Isa. 55 2 3. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you V. 6 7. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found Call ye upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Christ supposeth that the foresight of judgement may restrain men from sin when he saith Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee John 5. 14. 8. 11. Can the presence of men restrain a Fornicator and the presence of the Judge restrain a Thief yea or the foresight of the Assizes And shall not the presence of God with the foresight of judgement and damnation restrain thee Remember that impenitent sin and damnation are conjoyned If you will cause one God will cause the other Choose one and you shall not choose whether you will have the other If you will have the Serpent you shall have the sting Direction 15. IF thou have sincerely given up thy self to God and consented to his Covenant shew it Direct 15. by turning the face of thy endeavours and conversation quite another way and by seeking Heaven more fervently and diligently than ever thou soughtest the world or fleshly pleasures § 1. Holiness consisteth not in a meer forbearance of a sensual life but principally in living unto God The principle or heart of Holiness is within and consisteth in the Love of God and of his Word and Wayes and Servants and Honour and Interest in the world and in the souls delight in God and the Word and Wayes of God and in its inclination towards him and desire after him and care to please him and lothness to offend him The expression of it in our lives consisteth in the constant diligent exercise of this internal life according to the directions of the Word of God If thou be a believer and hast subjected thy self to God as thy absolute Soveraign King and Judge it will then be thy work to obey and please him as a Child his Father or a Servant his Master Mal. 1. 6. Do you think that God will have Servants and have nothing for them to do Will one of you commend or reward your servant for doing nothing and take it at the years end for a satisfactory answer or account if he say I have done no harm God calleth you not only to do no harm but to love and serve him with all your heart and soul and might If you have a better Master than you had before Aâ—osta faith that the Iâ—aiaâ—s are so addicted to their Idolatry and unwearied in it that he knoweth not what words can sufficiently declare how totally their minds are transformed into it no Whâ—re monger having so mad a love to his Whore as they to their Ido's so that neither in their idleness or their business neither in publick or in private will they do any thing till they have first used their Superstition to their Idols They will neither rejoyce at Weddings or mourn at Funerals neither make a Feast or partake of it not so much as move a foot out of doors or a hand to any work without this Heathemsh Sacriledge And all this they do with the greatest secrefie lest the Christians should know it Lib. 5. c. 8. p. 467. See here how nature teacheth all men that there is a Deity to be worshipped with all possible love and industry And shall the Worshippers of the true God then think it unnecessary preciseness to be as diligent and hearty in his service you should do more work than you did before Will you not serve God more zealoussy than you served the Devil Will you not labour harder to save your souls than you did to damn them Will you not be more zealous in good than you were in evil What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed For the end of those things is death Rom. 6. 21 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life If you are true Behâ—vers you have now laid up your hopes in Heaven and therefore will set yourselves to seek it as worldlings set themselves to seek the world And a sluggish wish with heartless lazy dull endeavours is no fit seeking of eternal joyes A creeping pace beseemeth not a man that is in the way to Heaven especially who went faster in the way to Hell This is not running as for our lives You may well be diligent and make haste where you have so great encouragement and help and where you may expect so good an end and where you are sure you shall never in life or death have cause to repent of any of your just endeavours and where every step of your way is pure and
decent and editying determination of the outward circumstances of Religion and the right ordering of Worship is a needless thing or sinful or that a form of prayer in it self or when imposed is unlawful But let the Soul and Body of Religion go together and the alterable adjuncts be used as things alterable while the life of Holiness is still kept up Direct 19. PRomise not your selves long life or prosperity and great matters in the world lest it entangle Direct 19. your hearts with transitory things and engage you in ambitious or covetous designs and steal away your hearts from God and destroy all your serious apprehensions of Eternity § 1. Our own experience and the alterations which the approach of death makes upon the most doth sensibly prove that the expectation of a speedy change and reckoning upon a short life doth greatly help us in all our preparation and in all the work of Holiness through our lives Come to a man that lyeth on his death-bed or a prisoner that is to dye to morrow and try him with Nemini exploratum potest esse quomodo seâ—e habiturum sit corpus non dico ad annum sed ad vesperum Câ—ceâ—o 2. de fit Dii boni quid est in hominis vita diu Mihi ne diuturnum quidem quicquam videtur in quo est aliquid extremum Cum enim id advenit tum illud praeterâ—it eâ—fluxit tan tum remanet quod virtute recte factis fit consecutus hoâ—ae quidem â—edunt diâ—â— meâ—ses anni nec praeteritum tempus unquam revertitur nec quid sequatur sciri potest Cic. in Cat. Maj. Quem saepe transit casus aliquando invenâ— discourse of riches or honours or temptations to lust or drunkenness or excess and he will think you are mad or very impertinent to tell him of such things If he be but a man of Common Reason you shall see that he will more easily vilifie such temptations than many religious persons will do in their prosperity and health O how serious are we in repenting and perusing our former lives and casting up our accounts and asking What we shall do to be saved when we see that death is indeed at hand and time is at an end and we must away Every sentence of Scripture hath then some life and power in it Every word of Exhortation is savoury to us Every reproof of our negligence and sin is then well taken Every thought of sin or Christ or Grace or Eternity goes then to the quick Then time seems precious and if you ask a man whether it be better spent in Cards and Dice and Playes and Feastings and needless recreations and idleness or in prayer and holy conference and reading and meditating on the Word of God and the life to come and the holy use of our lawful labours How easily will he be satisfied of the truth and confute the Cavils of voluptuous time-wasters Then his judgement will easilier be in the right than Learning or Arguments before could make it In a word the expectation of the speedy approach of the soul into the presence of the Eternal God and of our entring into an unchangeable endless life of joy or torment hath so much in it to awaken all the powers of the soul that if ever we will be serious it will make us serious in every thought and speech and duty And therefore as it is a great mercy of God that this life which is so short should be as uncertain and that frequent dangers and sicknesses call to us to look about us and be ready for our change so usually the sickly that look for death are most considerate and it is a great part of the duty of those that are in youth and health to consider their frailty and the shortness and uncertainty of their lives and alwayes live as those that wait for the coming of their Lord. And we have great reason for it when we are certain it will be ere long and when we have so many perils and weaknesses to warn us and when we are never sure to see another hour and when time is so swift so quickly gone so unrecoverable and Nothing when it is past Common reason requireth such to live in a constant readiness to dye § 2. But if youth or health do once make you reckon of living long and make you put away the Nihil tam sirmum câ—â— periculum 〈◊〉 sâ—â— etiam â—â—â—â—vilido day of your departure as if it were far off this will do much to deceive and dull the best and take away the power of every truth and the life of every good thought and duty and all will be apt to dwindle into customariness and form You will hardly keep the faculties of the soul awake if you do not still think of death and judgement as near at hand The greatest Certainty of the greatest Change and the greatest Joy or Misery for ever will not keep our stupid hearts awake unless we look at all as near as well as certain This is plain in the common difference that we find among all men between their thoughts of death in health and when they see indeed that they must presently dye They that in health could think and talk of death with laughter or lightly without any awakening of soul when they come to dye are oftentimes as much altered as if they had never heard before that they are mortal By which it is plain that to live in the house of mirth is more dangerous than to live in the house of mourning and that the expectation of long life is a grievous enemy to the operations of grace and the safety of the soul. § 3. And it is one of the greatest strengtheners of your temptations to luxury ambition worldliness and almost every sin When men think that they shall have many years leisure to repent they are apt the more boldly to transgress when they think that they have yet many years to live it tempteth them to pass away Time in idleness and to loiter in their race and trifle in all their work and to over-value all the pleasures and honours and shadows of felicity that are here below He that hath his life in his House or Land or hath it for inheritance will set more by it and bestow more upon it than if he thought he must go out of it the next year To a man that thinks of liveing many years the favour of great ones the raising of his estate and name and family and the accommodations and pleasing of his flesh will seem great matters to him and will do much with him and will make self-denyal a very hard work § 4. Therefore though Health be a wonderful great mercy as Enabling him to duty that hath a heart to use it to that end yet it is by accident a very great danger and snare to the heart it self to turn it from the way of duty The best life
can say Matters of endless life or death are not rashly to be ventured on But if it be a thing past dispute in which you have been already convinced and resolved reject the Tempter and tell him that you owe him not so much service as to dispute with him whether you should care for your salvation Else there will be no end till you are betrayed and undone Innocent Eve is deceived when once it comes to a dispute Be not like Balaam that tempted God and would not be satisfied with his answer § 4â— Tempt 10. Also the Tempter overcometh very many by making them presumptuously confident of Tempt 10. their own strength saying Thou art not so weak as not to be able to bear a greater temptation than this Canst thou not gaze on beauty or go among vain and tempting company and yet choose whether thou wilt sin It 's a child indeed that hath no more government of themselves Cannot thy Table thy Cup thy House thy Lands be pleasing and delectable but thou must needs over-love them and turn them to sin § 44 Direct 10. O know thy own weakness the treacherous enemy which thou still carriest about Direct 1â— thee who is ready to open the back-door to the Devil Remember that flesh is on the Tempters â—â—â—â—e and how much it can do with thee before thou art aware Remember what an unsetled wretch thou art and how many a good purpose formerly hath come to nothing and how oft thou hast â—â—â—â—ned by as small a temptation Remember that without the Spirit of Christ thou canst do nothing nor stand against any assault of Satan And that Christ giveth his Spirit and help in his own way and not to those that tempt him to forsake them by thrusting themselves into temptations Shall ever mortall man presume upon his own strength after the falls of an Adam a Noah a Lot a David a Solomon a Hezekiah a Iosiah a Peter and after such ruines of multitudes of professors as our eyes have seen All these things hapned unto them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition on whom the ends of the world are come Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lâ—â—t he fall 1 Cor. 10. 11 12. § 45. Tempt 11. It is a great project of the Devil and successful with many to draw them to venture Tempt 11. on the sâ—n by shewing them first the effectual Remedy the abundant Mercy of God the sufficient satisfaction made by Christ the full and free and universal promise that these are sufficient to cleanse the soul of any sâ—n therefore you need not fear § 46. Direct 11. But God is just as well as merciful and there are vessels of wrath as well as Direct 11. â—â—m â— vessels of mercy Judge how God will use his mercy and who shall have it by his own word For he knoweth better than you to whom and how far to shew mercy Is the Tempter himself saved for all God is merciful And the Gospel hath far sorer punishment than the Law to the abusers of H 〈…〉 1. 10. grace Christ is the most dreadful Judge to the wicked as well as the tenderest Saviour to his own There is enough in his grace to save the penitent but if you will sin upon presumption that grace will save you you have small reason to think that you are penitent or ever will be without a very merciful change How many can you name that ever were converted and forgiven that lived wilfully in sin because the Remedy was sufficient I doubt not but many such have been recalled but this is not the way to hope It 's a terrible thing to sin deliberately and wilfully because of the greatness of mercy or the sufficiency of the death of Christ No man but the Penitent Convert is saved by Christ and this is clean contrary to penitence and conversion Christ doth not as Mountebanks that wound a man to shew people how quickly their balsoms can cure him or make a man drink a Toad to shew the power of their Antidotes But he cureth the Diseases which he findeth in believers but causeth none § 47. Tempt 12. Also the Tempter telieth the sinner how certain and easie and speedy a remedy he Tempt 12. hath in his own power It is but Râ—penting and all sin is pardoned § 48. Direct 12. 1. Is it in thy power If so the greater is thy sin that sinnest more when thou Direct 12. shouldst repent If it be casâ—e what an unexcusable wretch art thou that wilt not do it but go on 2. But Repentance is the gift of God 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. And is he like to give it to them that wilfully abuse him in expectation of it 3. As easie as it is it is but a few that truly repent and are forgiven in comparison of those that go on and perish 4. The easiest Repentance is so bitter that its far easier to forbear the sin It s better not wound your selves than have the best salve if you were sure of it 5. The Repentance which is caused by meer fears of death and Hell without the power of Heavenly Love to God and holiness is but the Repentance of the damned and never procureth pardon of sin The Devil hath such a Repentance as well as such a faith which will not James 2 19. save him § 49. Tempt 13. Satan also emboldneth the sinner by telling him how many have Repented and sped Tempt 13. well that sinned as bad or worse than this He tells him of Noah and Lot and David and Peter and the Thief on the Cross and Paul a Persecutor yea and Manasseh c. § 50. Direct 13. But consider whether any of those did thus sin because that others had scapt Direct 13. that sinned before them And think of the millions that never repented and are condemned as well as of the few that have repented Is Repentance better than sin Why then will you sin Is sin better than Repentance Why then do you purpose to repent Is it not base ingratitude to offend God wilfully because he hath pardoned many offenders and is ready to forgive the penitent And should a man of reason wilfully make work for his own Repentance and do that which he knoweth he shall wish with grief that he had never done If some have been saved that fell into the Sea or that fell from the top of Steeples or that drunk poyson or were dangerously wounded will you therefore cast your self into the same case in hope of being saved § 51. Tempt 14. The Tempter perswadeth the sinner that it cannot be that God should make so great Direct â— a matter of sin because the thoughts of a mans heart or his words or deeds are matters of no great moment when man himself is so poor a worm and whatever he doth it is no hurt to God Therefore you need not make such a matter of
those places where I have opened the difference between Mortal reigning sins and Infirmities At present take this brief solution 1. It is a thing of too great difficulty to determine just how many acts of a great sin may consist with a present state of grace that is of right by Covenant to Heaven 2. All sin which consisteth with an habitual predominant Love of God and Holiness consisteth with a state of Life and no other 3. He that seldom or never committeth such external crimes and yet Loveth not God and Heaven and Holiness above all the pleasures and interests of the flesh is in a state of death 4. It is certain that his Love to God and Holiness is not predominant whose carnal Interest and Iust hath ordinarily in the drift and tenor Rom 6. 16. of his life more power to draw him to the wilfull committing of known sin than the said Love of God and Heaven and Holiness have to keep him from it For his servants men are whom they obey whether it be sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness 5. Therefore the way to know whether sin be mortified or mortal is 1. By feeling the true bent of the will whether we Love or hate it 2. By observing the true bent and tenor of our lives whether Gods Interest in us or the contrary be predominant when we are our selves and are tempted to such sins 6 He that will sin thus as oft as will stand with saving grâ—ce shall never have the assurance of his sincerity or the peace or comfort of a sound believer till he repent and lead a better life 7. He that in his sin retaineth the spirit of Adoption or the Image of God or habitual divine Love hath also Habitual and Virtual Repentance for that very sin before he actually Repenteth Because he hath that Habitual Hatred of it which will cause actual Repentance when he is composed to act according to his predominant habits 8. In the mean time the state of such a sinner is neither to be unregenerate Carnal unholy as he was before Conversion and so to lose all his Right to Life nor yet to have so full a Right as if he had not sinned But a bar is put in against his claim which must be removed before his Right be full and such as is ripe for present possession 9. There are some sins which all men continue in while they live As defect in the degrees of faith hope love c. vain thoughts words disorder passions c. And these sins are not totally involuntary Otherwise they were no sins Yea the Evil is prevalent in the will against the Good so far as to commit those sins though not so far as to vitiate the bent of heart or life 10. There are some sins which none on earth do actually Repent of viz. Those that they know not to be sins and those that they utterly forget and those faults which they are guilty of just at the time of dying 11. In these cases Virtual or Implicite or Habitual Rom 7. 20 21 22 23. Repentance doth suffice to the preventing of damnation As also a Will to have lived perfectly sufficeth in the case of continued imperfections 12. Things work not on the Will as they are in themselves but as they are apprehended by the understanding And that which is apprehended to be either of doubtful evil or but a little sin and of little danger will be much less resisted and ofter committed than sins that are clearly apprehended to be great Therefore where any sort of Lye is apprehended thus as of small or doubtful evil it will be the oftner committed 13. If this apprehension be wrong and come from the predominancy of a carnal or ungodly heart which will not suffer the understanding to do its office nor to take that to be evil which he would not leave then both the Iudgement and the Lye are mortal and not mortified pardoned sins 14. But if this misapprehension of the understanding do come from natural impotency or unavoidable want of better information or only from the fault of a vicious inclination which yet is not predominant but is the remnant of a vice which is mortified in the main then neither the errour nor the often lying is a mortal but a mortified sin As for instance If false Teachers as the Jesuits should perswade a justified person that a lye that hurteth no man but is officious is but a venial or no sin it is possible for such a person often to commit it though he err not altogether innocently 15. Though it is true that all good Christians should not indulge the smallest sin and that true Grace will make a man willing to forsake the least yet certain experience telleth us that some constant sinning aforenamed doth consist with grace in all that have it upon earth And therefore that Lesser sins as thoughts passions are not resisted so much as greater be and therefore that they are more indulged and favoured or else they would not be committed No good men rise up with so great and constant watchfulness against an idle thought or word or a disorder in prayer c. as they do against a heynous sin He that would have this and and all such Cases resolved in a word and not be put on trying the Case by all these distinctions must take another Casuist or rather a Deceiver instead of a Resolver For I cannot otherwise resolve him Quest. 2. Is it not contrary to the light of Nature to suffer e. g. a Parent a King my Self my Quest. 2. Country rather to be destroyed than to save them by a harmless lie Answ. No Because 1. Particular good must give place to common And if once a Lie may pass Answ. for Lawful in cases where it seemeth to be good it will overthrow humane converse and debauch mans nature and the world 2. And if one evil may be made a means for good it will infer that other may be so too and so will confound good and evil and leave vitious man to take all for good which he thinks will do good That is not to be called a harmless Lie which is simply evil being against the Law of God against the order of nature the use of humane faculties and the interest and converse of the sociable world 3. The error of the objectors chiefly consisteth in thinking that nothing is further hurtful and morally evil than as it doth hurt to some men in corporal respects Whereas that is evil which is against the universal Rule of Rectitude against the will of God and against the nature and perfection of the agent much more if it also tend to the hurt of other mens souls by giving them an example of sinning 4. And though there may sometimes be some humane probability of such a thing yet there is no certainty that ever it will so fall out that a Lie shall save the Life of â—ing Parent or
but desired in this life but not attained Much less for others 3. When the principal causes co-operate not with us and we are but subservient Moral Causes We can but perswade men to Repent Believe and Love God and goodness We cannot save men without and against themselves Their hearts are out of our reach Therefore in all these cases we are naturally unable to hinder sin II. It is not in our power to do any thing which God forbiddeth us That which is sinful is to be accounted out of our power in this sense To cure the sin of a Wife by such cruelty or harshness as is contrary to our Conjugal Relation and to the office of necessary Love is out of our power because forbidden as contrary to our duty and so of other III. Those actions are out of our power which are acts of higher authority than we have A subject cannot reform by such actions as are proper to the Soveraign nor a Lay-man by actions proper to the Pastor for want of Authority So a Schoolmaster cannot do that which is proper to a Patient Nor the Master of a family that which is proper to the Magistrate as to punish with death c. IV. We have not power to do that which a Superiour power forbiddeth us unless it be that which God indisponsibly commandeth us The Wife may not correct a Child or Servant or turn him away when the Husband forbiddeth it Nor the Master of a family so punish a sin as the King and Laws forbid on the account of the publick interest V. We have not Power to do that for the cure of sin which is like to do more hurt than good yea perhaps to prove a perniâ—ious mischief If my correcting a servant would make him kill me or set my house on fire I may not do it If my sharp reproof is like to do more hurt or less good than milder dealing If I have reason to believe that correction will make a servant worse I am not to use it because we have our power to edification and not to destruction God hath not tyed us just to speak such and such words or to use this or that correction but to use reproofs and corrections only in that time measure and manner as true reason telleth us is likest to attain their end To do it iâ— it would do never so much hurt with a fiat Iustitia etsi pereat Mundus is to be Rightâ—ous overmuch Yea great and heynous sins may be endured in families sometimes to avoid a greater hurt and because there is no other means to cure them For instance A Wife may be guilty of notorious Pride and of malignant dâ—riding the exercises of Religion and of railing lying slandering back-biting covetousness swearing cursing c. and the Husband be necessitated to bear it not so far as not to reprove it but so far as not to correct her much less cure her Divines use to say that it is unlawful for a man to beat his Wife But the reason is not that he wanteth Authority to do it But 1. Because he is by his relation obliged to a Life of Love with her and therefore must so Rule as tendeth not to destroy Love And 2. Because it may often do otherwise more hurt to her self and the family than good It may make her furious and desperate and make her contemptible in the family and diminish the reverence of inferiours both to Wife and Husband for living so uncomely a life Quest. But is there any case in which a man may silently bear the sins of a Wife or other inferiour without reproof or urging them to amend Answ. Yes In case 1. That Reproof hath been tryed to the utmost 2. And it is most evident by full experience that it is like to do a great deal more hurt than good The Rule given by Christ extendeth as well to families as to others not to cast Pearls before Swine nor to give that which is holy to dogs because it is more to the discomposure of a mans Matâ—h 7. 6. own pâ—ace to have a Wife turn again and all to rend him than a stranger As the Church may cease admonishing a sinner after a certain time of obstinacy when experience hath ended their present hopes of bringing the person to Repentance and thereupon may excommunicate him so a Husband may be brought to the same despair with a Wife and may be disobliged from ordinary reproof though the nearness of the Relation forbid him to eject her And in such a case where the family and neighbourhood knoweth the intractableness and obstinacy of the Wife it is no scandal nor sign of approbation or neglect of duty for a man to be silent at her sin Because they look upon her Psâ—l 81. 11. c. Râ—v 22 10 11. Prov. 1. 24 25. as at present incorrigible by that means And it is the sharpest Reproof to such a one to be unreproved and to be let alone in her sin as it is Gods greatest judgement on a sinner to leave him to himself and say Be filthy still And there are some Women whose Phantasies and Passions are naturally so strong as that it seemeth to me that in many cases they have not so much as Natural Free-will or power to restrain them but if in all other cases they acted as in some I should take them for meer Bruites that had no true reason They seem naturally necessitated to do as they do I have known the long professiâ—n of piâ—ty which in other respects hath seemed sincere to consist in a Wife with such unmastered furious passion that she could not before strangers forbear throwing what was in her hand in her Husbands face or thrusting the burning Candle into his face and slandering him of the filthiest sins and when the passion was over confess all to be false and her rage to be the reason of her speech and actions And the man though a Minister of more than ordinary wit and strength yet fain to endure all without returns of violence till her death They that never knew such a case by tryal can tell how all might be cured easily but so cannot they that are put upon the Cure And there are some other women of the same uncurable strength of Imagination and Passion who in other respects are very pious and prudent too and too wise and conscionable to wrong their Husbands with their hands or tongues who yet are utterly unable to forbear an injury of the highest nature to themselves but are so utterly impatient of being crossed of their wills that it would in all likelihood cast them into Melancholy or Madness or some mortal sickness And no reason signifieth any thing to abate such passions In case of Pride or some sinful custome they are not able to bear reproof and to be hindered in the sin without apparent danger of distraction or death I suppose thâ—se cases are but few but what to do in such
grace and hopes which he hath given you through Christ I know that a pained languishing body is undisposed to express the comforts of the soul But yet as long as the soul is the Commander they may be expressed in some good measure though not with such vivacity and alacrity as in health Behave your selves before all as those that are going to dwell with Christ If you shew them that you take Heaven for a real felicity it will do much to draw them to do so too Shew them the difference between the death of the righteous and of the wicked and that may so draw them to desire to dye the death of the Righteous that it may draw them also to resolve to live their lives How many souls might it win to God if they saw in his dying servants such confidence and joy as beseemeth men that are entering into a world of joy and peace and blessedness If we went out of the body as from a Prison into liberty and from a tedious journey to our desired home it would invite sinners to seek after the same felicity and be a powerful Sermon to convert the inconsiderate § 4. Direct 3. Now tell poor sinners of the vanity of the world and of all its glory wealth and pleasure Direct 3. and of the mischief and deceitfulness of sin Say to them O Sirs you may see in me what the world is worth If you had all the wealth and pleasure that you desire thus it would turn you off and forsake you in the end It will ease no pain It will bring no peace to a troubled soul It will not lengthen your lives an hour It will not save you from the wrath of God It maketh your death the sadder because you must be taken from it Your account will be the more dreadfull O Love not such a vain deceitful world Sell not your souls for so poor a price Forsake it before you are forsaken by it O make not light of any sin Though the wanton flesh would have you take it for a harmless thing you cannot imagine when the pleasure is gone how sharp a sting is left behind Sin will be then no jeasting matter when your souls are going hence into the dreadful presence of the Most Holy God § 5. Direct 4. Now tell those about you of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God of Heaven Direct 4. of Christ and of a holy life Though these may be made light of at a distance yet a soul that is drawing near them will be more awakened to understand their worth say to them O friends I find now more than ever I did before that it is only God that is the end and happiness of souls Nothing but his favour through Iesus Christ can comfort and content a dying man And none but Christ can reconcile us to God and answer for our sins and make us acceptable And no way but that of faith and holiness will end in happiness Opinions and customary forms in Religion will not serve the turn To be of this or that Party or Church or Communion will not save you It is only the soul that is justified by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and brought up to the Love of God and holiness that shall be saved What ever Opinion or Church you are of without Holiness you shall never see God to your comfort as without faith it is impossible to please him Heb. 12. 14. 11. 6. Rom. 8. 6 7 8 9. O now what a miserable case were I in if I had all the wealth and honour in the world and had not the favour of God and a Christ to purchase it and his Spirit to witness it and prepare me for a better life Now I see the difference between spending time in Holiness and in sin between a godly and a worldly fleshly careless life Now I would not for a thousand worlds that I had spent my life in sensuality and ungodliness and continued a stranger to the life of faith Now if I had a world I would give it to be more holy O Sirs believe it when you come to dye sin will be then sin indeed and Christ and Grace will be better than riches and to dye in an unregenerate unsanctified state will be a greater misery than any heart can now conceive § 6. Direct 5. Endeavour also to make men know the difference between the godly and the wicked Direct 5. Tell them I nâ—w see who maketh the wisest choice O happy men that choose the joyes which have no end and lay up their treasure in Heaven where rust and moths do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal and labour for the food that never perisheth Matth. 6. 19 20. John 6. 27. O foolish sinners that for an inch of fleshly filthy pleasure do lose everlasting Rest and joy What shall it profit them that win all the world and lose their souls § 7. Direct 6. Labour also to convince men of the pretiousness of Time and the folly of putting off Direct 6. Repentance and a holy life till the last Say to them O friends it is hard for you in the time of health and prosperity to judge of Time according to its worth But when Time is gone or near an end how pretious doth it then appear Now if I had all the Time again which ever I spent in unnecessary sleep or sports or curiosities or idleness or any needless thing how highly should I value it and spend it in another manner than I have done Of all my life that is past and gone I have no comfort now in the remembrance of one hour but what was spent in obedience to God O take Time to make sure of your salvation before it s gone and you are left under the tormenting feeling of your loss § 8. Direct 7. Labour also to make them understand the sinfulness of sloth and of loytering in the Direct 7. matters of God and their salvation and stir them up to do it with all their might Say to them I have often heard ungodly people deride or blame the diligence and zeal and strictness of the godly But if they saw and felt what I see and feel they could not do it Can a man that is going into another world imagine that any thing is so worthy of his greatest zeal and labour as his God and his salvation Or blame men for being loth to burn in Hell Or for taking more pains for their souls than for their bodies O friends let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy as you love your souls do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation If they think not their labour too good for this world do not you think yours too good for a better world Let them now say what they will when they come to dye there is none of them all that is not quite forsaken of
us Q. 9. May be pray for Grace who desireth it not Q. 10. May he pray that doubteth of his interest in God and dare not call him Father as his Child Q. 11. May a wicked man pray or is he ever accepted Q. 12. May a wicked man use the Lords Prayer Q. 13. Is it Idolatry or sin alwayes to pray to Saints or Angels Q. 14. Must the same man pray secretly that hath before prayed in his family Q. 15. Is it best to keep set hours for prayer Q 16. May we joyn in family prayers with ungodly persons Q. 17 What if the Master or speaker be ungodly or a Heretick Q. 18. May we pray absolutely for outward mercies or only conditionally Q. 19. May we pray for all that we may lawfully desire Q. 20. How may we pray for the salvation of all the world Q. 21. Or for the Conversion of all Nations Q. 22. Or that a whole Kingdom may be converted and saved Q. 23. Or for the destruction of the enemies of Christ or the Kingdom Q. 24. What is to be judged of a particular faith Q. 25. Is every lawful prayer accepted Q. 26. With what faith must I pray for the souls or bodies of others Q. 27. With what faith may we pray for the Continuance of the Church or Gospel Q. 28. How to know when our prayers are heard Q. 29. How to have fulness and constant supply of matter in our prayers Q 30. How to keep up fervency in prayer Q 31. May we look to speed ever the better for any thing in our selves or our prayers Or may we put any trust in them Q. 32. How must that person and prayer be qualified which God will accept to p. 598 Tit. 3. Special Directions for family prayer ibid. Tit. 4. Special Directions for secret prayer p. 599 CHAP XXIV Directions fâ—r families about the Sacrament of the Lords Supper p. 600 What are the Ends of the Sacrament What are the Parts of it Q. 1. Should not the Sacrament have â—â—â—â— preparation than the other parts of worship Q 2. How oft should it be administred Q. 3. Must all members of the visible Church communicate Q. 4. May any man receive it that knoweth himself unsanctified Q. 5. May an ungodly man receive it that knoweth not himself to be ungodly Q. 6. Must a Christian receive who doubteth of his sincerity Q. 7. What if Superiours compell a doubting Christian to receive it by excommunication or imprisonment What should be choose Q. 8. Is not the case of an hypocrite that knoweth not himself to be an hypocrite and of the sincere who knoweth not himself to be sincere all one as to communicating Q. 9. Wherein lyeth the sin of an ungâ—dly person if he receive Q. 10. Doth all unworthy receiving make one lyable to damnation or what Q 11. What is the particular preparation needful to a fit Communicant p. 653. Marks of sincerity ibid. Preparing duties Q 1. May we receive from an ungodly Minister Q 2. May we communicate with unworthy persons in an undisciplined Church Q. 3. What if I cannot communicate unless I conform to an imposed gesture as sitting standing or kneeling Q. 4. What if I cannot receive it but as administered by the Common Prayer Q. 5. If my conscience be not satisfied may I come doubting Obj. Is it not a duty to follow conscience as Gods Officer What to do in the time of administration 1. What Graces must be exercised 2. On what objects 3. The Season and Order of Sacramental duties ad p. 610 CHAP. XXV Directions for fearful troubled Christians who are perplexed with doubts of their sincerity and justification Causes and Cure p. 612 CHAP. XXVI Directions for declining back-sliding Christians about perseverance p. 616 The way of falling into Sects and Heresies and Errors And of declining in Heart and Life Signs of declining Signs of a graceless state Dangerous signs of impenitency False signs of declining Motives against declining Directions against it p. 616 Tit. 2. Directions for perseverance or to prevent back-sliding p. 618 Antidotes against those doctrines of presumption which would binder our perseverance p. 623 CHAP. XXVII Directions for the poor The Temptations of the poor The special Duties of the poor p. 627 CHAP. XXVIII Directions for the Rich. p. 632 CHAP. XXIX Directions for the weak and aged p. 634 CHAP. XXX Directions for the sick p. 637 Tit. 1. Directions for a safe death to secure salvation I. For the unconverted in their sickness A sad case 1. For Examination 2. For Repentance 3. For faith in Christ 4. For a new heart love to God and resolution for obedience Q. Will â—ate Repentance serve the turn in such a case II. Directions to the Gâ—dly for a safe departure Their Temptations to be resisted p. 637 Tit. 2. How to profit by our sickness p 642 Tit. 3. Directions for a comfortable or peaceable Death p. 644. Directions for resisting the Temptations of Satan in time of sickness p. 648 Tit. 4. Directions for doing good to others in our sickness p. 651 CHAP. XXXI Directions to the friends of the sick that are about them p. 653 Q. Can Physick lengthen mens lives Q. Is it meet to make known to the sick their danger of death Q Must we tell bad men of their sin and misery when it may exasperate the disease by troubling them Q. What can be done in so short a time Q. What to do in doubtful cases Q. What order should be observed in counselling the ignorant and ungodly when time is so short Helps against excessive sorrow for the death of friends Yea of the worst A Form of Exhortation to be read in Sickness to the Ungodly or those that we justly fear are such p. 657 A Form of Exhortation to the Godly in Sickness For their comfort Their dying groans and joyes p. 662 TOME III. Christian Ecclesiasticks PART I. CHAP. I. OF the Worship of God in General The Nature and Reasons of it and Directions for it How to know right Ends in worship c. p. 673 CHAP. II. Directions about the Manner of worship to avoid all corruptions and false unacceptable worshipping of God p. 680. The disadvantages of ungodly men in judging of holy worship Q. How far the Scriptures are the Rule or Law of Worship and Discipline and how far not Instances of things undetermined in Scripture What Commands of Scripture are not universal or perpetual May danger excuse from duty and when Rules for the right manner CHAP. III. Directions about the Christian Covenant with God and Baptism p. 688. The Covenant what The Parties Matter Terms Forms necessary Modes Fruits c. External Baptism what Compleat Baptism what Of Renewing the Covenant CHAP. IV. Directions about the Profession of our Religion to others The greatness of the duty of open Profession VVhen and how it must be made p. 692 CHAP. V. Directions about Vows and particular Covenants with God p. 694 VVhat a Vow is The sorts of
p. 199 CHAP. XXXI Cases and Directions about Confessing sins and injuries to others Tit. 1. The Cases p. 201 Q. 1. When must we confess wrongs to those that we have wronged Q. 2. What will excuse us from such Confessions Q. 3. Must I confess a purpose of injury which was never executed Q. 4. When must sins against God be confessed to men Tit. 2. The Directions for just confessing sin to others p. 202 CHAP. XXXII Cases and Directions about satisfaction and Restitution p. 203 Tit. 1. The Cases Q. 1. What is Satisfaction what Restitution and when a duty Q. Why did they restore fourfold by the Law of Moses Q. 2. How far is Satisfaction and Restitution necessary Q. 3. Who are bound to make it Q. 4. To whom must it be made Q. 5. What Restitution is to be made for dishonouring Rulers or Parents Q. 6 How must Satisfaction be made for Slanders and Lyes Q. 7. And for tempting others to sin and hurting their souls Q. 8. And for Murder or Man-slaughter Q. 9. Iâ— a Murderer bound to offer himself to justice Q. 10. Or to do execution on himself Q. 11. What Satisfaction is to be made by a Fornicator or Adulterer Q. 12. In what cases is a man excused from Satisfaction and Restitution Q. 13. What if Restitution will cost the Restorer more than the thing is worth Q. 14. What if confessing a fault will turn the rage of the injured person against me to my ruine p. 203 Tit. 2. The Directions for Practice p. 206 CHAP. XXXIII Cases and Directions about our obtaining pardon from God p. 206 Tit. 1. The Cases Q 1. Is there Pardon to be had for all sin without exception Q. 2. What if one oft commit the same heinous sin Q. 3. Is the day of Grace and Pardon ever past in this life Q. 4. May we be sure that we are pardoned Q. 5. Can any man pardon sins against God and how far Q. 6. Is sin forgiven before it be committed Q. 7. Are the Elect Pardoned and Iustified before Repentance Q. 8. Is Pardon or Iustification perfect before Death Q. 9. Is our pardon perfect as to all sins past Q. 10. May Pardon or Iustification be lost or reversed Q. 11. Is the pardon of my own sin to be Believed â—ide Divina and is it the meaning of that Article of the Creed Q. 12. May one in any kind Trust to his own Faith and Repentance for his Pardon Q. 13. What are the Causes and Conditions of Pardon p. 208 Tit. 2. Directions for obtaining Pardon from God p. 209 CHAP. XXXIV Cases and Directions about self-judging p. 210 Tit. 1. The Cases Q. 1. What are the Reasons Vses and Motives of Self-judging Q. 2. What should ignorant persons do whose capacity will not reach to so high a work as true self-examination and self-judging Q. 3. How far may a weak Christian take the judgement of his Pastor or others about his sincerity and justification Tit. 2. Directions for judging of our Actions p. 211 Tit. 3. Directions for judging of our estates to know whether we are Iustified and in a state of life p. 212 c READER Thou art desired to mend the following Errata with thy Pen especially those markt with a Star Some more false Spellings false Pointings c. there are but too slight to give thee any trouble PAg. 26. l. antepen r. have lived p. 48. l. 7. r. if they p. 44. l. 20. r. once * listed p. 4â— l. 31. r. 〈◊〉 to p. 55. l. 30. r. in the practice p. 59. l. 13. del not l. 43. r. from them that p. 63. l. 46. del not p. 99. l. 50. r. â—ew reâ—â— not fit p. 105. Sect. 11. l. 2. r. â—â—â—â— serves v. 120 â—â— 12â— l. 36. r. * â—â—arl sâ—â—ss p. 150. l 29. r. * world 〈◊〉 p. 154. Sect. 37. l. anteâ— r. 2 * Chron. p. 165. l. 1. r. before them p. 180. l. 3. r. * that clearly p. 219. Sect. 11. l. 1. r. câ—â—jâ—â—es p. 233. Sect. 16. l. ult r. 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â— p. 238. Sect. 50. l. 3. r sound p. 244. l. 21. r. their shame p. 261. l 13. r. * a dâ—â—p p. 323. Sect. â—9 l. 6. r. i◠〈◊〉 p. 325. l. 5â— â— * Dury p. 33. Title r. sinful Desires p. 354. l. 33. r. love him p. 380. Sect. 63 l. 6. r. loath p. 384. l. 4â— r * senseless 〈◊〉 p 386. l. 6. r. * most defile p. 397 Sect. 14. l. 11. r. yet of p. 398. Sect. 19. l. 2. r. sights p. 404. Sect 3 l. 7. r. * present 〈◊〉 p. 410. l 9. r. * mod p. 433. l. 51. r. sermonum l. 53. r. * aftercations p. 437. l. 18. r. General to get p. 4â—â— l. antep r. their â—â—ot p. 442. l. 41. r. give thee p. 445. l. 7. r. contented l. 42. r. got p. 452. l. 26. r. * best employment l. 6. del best p. 460. Title r. â—â—â—â— Zeal Lust. r. in the world p. 461. Sect. 16. l. 2. r. unprofitable * prating p. 462. l. 37. r. 〈…〉 l. 4â— r. othâ—â—s l. 52. r. using them p. 495. l. 8. r. Gods p. 496. l. 45. r. Riâ—ht of propriety p. 500. l. 37. r. Psalms of praise p. 503. l. 33. r. 1 Câ—r l. â—4 r. 〈◊〉 â—oâ— tâ—â—ir house l. 35. r. thy house l. pen. r. Therefore p. 506. l. 56. r. the faith p. 507. l. 37. r. â—it to oâ—â— p. 523 l. â—2 del it ibid. r. this heat p. 536. l. 26. r. will do p. 550. l. ult r. heart-breaking p. 551. l. 39. r evâ—◠〈◊〉 p. 557. l. 46. r. hath * not given p. 599. l 30. r. shorter p. 625. l. â— r. * not wholly p. 635. l. 39. r. * not able p 641. l. 39. r. your 〈◊〉 p. 676. Sect. 19. l. 4. â— Your work p. 692. l. 17. r. himself p. 695. l. 1. r. arctius nobis p. 701. l. 24. r. wicked hands p. 705. Prop. 8. l. 5â—6 del half each line p. 711. l. 42. r. in force l. 58. r. needeth it * not p 713. l. 38. r. by a faâ—se p. 720. l. 3. r. Here note p. 722. l. 19. r. Sâ—â— p. 724. Sect. 3. l. 5. del you p. 727. Sect. 19. l. 10. r. ask p. 745. Sect. â—4 l. r. del of intrusions p. 756. l. antep r. would â—idâ— p. 757. l. 55. r. imitate them p. 759. l. 10. r. murder p. 771. l. ult r. to all p 798. l. 34. r. Oâ—â—â—â—ined as p. 812. Q. 36. l. 5. r. as such unknown p 844. l. 9. r. to * remove p 885. l. 12. r. * not to institute p 898 l. 10 11. r. Gomarus * Somnius p. 900. l. antep r. bare witness p 915. l. 17. r 2 Some things p. 919. l. antep r. see that * aptâ—ntâ—r p. 921. l. 22 r. 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 maâ—â— l. 39. r. after * the Scriptures which Paul is commonly supposed to mean and some of it after he â—ud so p. 922. l. 25. r. Hotâ—â—kis l. 46. r. * Sâ—ccaâ—i l.
clean and delectable and paved with mercies and fortified and secured by Divine protection and where Christ is your Conductor and so many have sped so well before you and the wisest and best in the world are your companions Live then as men that have changed their Master their end their hopes their way and work Religion layeth not men to sleep though it be the only way to Rest. It awakeneth the sleepy soul to higher thoughts and hopes and labours than ever it was well acquainted with before He that is in Christ is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new 2 Cor. 5. 17. You never sought that which would pay for all your cost and diligence till now You never were in a way that you might make haste in without repenting of your haste till now How glad should you be that Mercy hath brought you into the right way after the wanderings of such a sinful life And your gladness and thankfulness should now be shewed by your cheerful diligence and zeal As Christ did not raise up Lazarus from the dead to do nothing or live to little purpose though the Scripture giveth us not the history of his life So did he not raise you from the death of sin to live idely or to be unprofitable in the world He that giveth you his Spirit to be a principle of heavenly life within you expecteth that you stir up the gift that he hath given you and live according to that heavenly principle Direction 16. ENgage thy self in the chearful constant use of the means and helps appointed by God Direct 16. for thy confirmation and salvation § 1. He can never expect to attain the end that will not be perswaded to use the means Of your selves you can do nothing God giveth his help by the means which he hath appointed and fitted to your help Of the use of these I shall treat more fully afterwards I am now only to name them to thee that thou maist know what it is that thou hast to do 1. That you must hear or read the Word of God and other good Books which expound it and How Paenitents of old did rise even from a particular sin judge by these words of Pacianus Paâ—â—â—â—â—â— ad Poeâ—â—t Bibl. Pat. To. 3. p. 74. You must not only do that which may be seen of the Priest and praised by the Bishop to weep before the Church to lament a lost or sinful life in a â—ordid garment to fast pray to role on the earth if any invite you to the Bath or such pleasures to refuse to go If any bid you to a Feast to say These things are for the happy I have sinned against God and am in danger to perish for ever What should I do at Banquets who have wronged the Lord Besides these you must take the poor by the hand you must beseech the Widdow lye at the feet of the Presbyters beg of the Church to forgive you and pray for you you must try all means rather than perish apply it I shewed you before The new born Christian doth encline to this as the new born child doth to the breast 1 Pet. 2. 1 2. Laying aside all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as new born babes that desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby Psal. 1. 2 3. The blessed mans delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night § 2. 2. Another means is the publick worshipping of God in communion with his Church and people Besides the benefit of the word there preached the prayers of the Church are effectual for the members and it raiseth the soul to holy joyes to joyn with well ordered Assemblies of the Saints in the Praises of the Almighty The Assemblies of holy worshippers of God are the places of his delight and must be the places of our delight They are most like to the Celestial Society that sound forth the praises of the glorious Iebovah with purest minds and cheerful voice In his Temple doth every one speak of his glory Psal. 29. 9. In such a Chore what soul will not be rapt up with delight and desire to joyn in the consort and harmony In such a flame of united desires and praises what soul so cold and dull that will not be enflamed and with more than ordinary facility and alacrity fly up to God § 3. 3. Another means is private prayer unto God When God would tell Ananias that Paul was converted he saith of him Behold he prayeth Acts 9. 11. Prayer is the breath of the new creature The Spirit of Adoption given to every child of God is a Spirit of prayer and teacheth them to cry Abba Father and helpeth their infirmities when they know not what to pray as they ought and when words are wanting it as it were intercedeth for them with groans which they cannot express in words Gal. 4. 6. Rom. 8. 15 26 27. And God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit in those groans The first workings of grace are in Desires after grace provoking the soul to servent prayer by which more grace is speedily obtained Ask then and ye shall have seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you Luke 11. 9. § 4. 4. Another means to be used is Confession of sin not only to God for so every wicked man may do because he knoweth that God is already acquainted with it all and this is no addition to his shame He so little regardeth the eye of God that he is more ashamed when it is known to men But in three Cases Confession must be made also to Man 1. In case you have wronged man and are thus bound to make him satisfaction As if you have robbed him defrauded him slandered him or born false witness against him 2. In case you are Children or Servants that are under the government of Parents or Masters and are called by them to give an acount of your actions You are bound then to give a true account 3. In case you have need of the Counsel or Prayers of others for the setling of your consciences in peace In this case you must so far open your case to them as is necessary to their effectual help for your recovery For if they know not the disease they will be unfit to apply the remedy In these cases it is true that He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Prov. 28. 13. § 5. 5. Another Means to be used is the familiar company and holy converse with humble sincere experienced Christians The Spirit that is in them and breatheth and acteth by them will kindle the like holy flames in you Away with the company of idle prating sensual men that can talk of nothing but their worldly wealth or business or their reputations or their appetites and lusts
to Hell that they cannot be known asunder Hath not Christ taught us plainly how to know them Psal. 1. 15. 1 Iohn 3. and bid us give diligence to make our calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. If all men must hope that they shall be saved then most must hope for that which they shall never have But it is no hope of Gods making which deceiveth men Should so great a matter as our everlasting joy or misery be cast out of our Care and ventured so regardlesly in the dark When it is it that we have life and time and all for to make it sure And what hurt can it do you to find out the truth of your own condition If you are indeed unregenerate and unholy discover it now in time and you have time to be recovered You must despair of being saved without conversion But that preventeth absolute final despair Whereas if you find not out your case till time is past then hope is past and the Devil hath you in endless desperation where he would § 20. Tempt 10. If this prevail not the Devil will seek to carry it by noise instead of reason Tempt 10. and will seek to keep you in jovial merry voluptuous company that shall plead by Pots and Playes and pleasures and shall daily make a jest of Godliness and speak of the godly with scorn as a company of Fanatick Hypocrites § 21. Direct 10. But consider that this is but the rage of fools that speak of what they never understood Direct 10. See Prov. 13. 20 Prâ—v â—8 â— Ephes. 5. 7. 11. Did they ever try the way they speak against Are they to be believed before God himself Will they not â—at their words at last themselves Will their merry lives last alwayes Do they dye as merrily as they live and bring off themselves as well as they promised to bring off you He that will be cheated of his salvation and forsake his God for the ranting scorns of a distracted sinner is worthy to be damned § 22. Tempt 11. Next be telleth them that a godly life is so hard and tedious that if they should begin Tempt 11. they should never endure to hold on and therefore it is in vain to try it § 23. Direct 11. But this pretence is compounded of wickedness and madness What but a wicked Direct 11. heart can make it so hard a thing to live in the Love of God and holiness and in the hopes and seeking of eternal life Why should not this be a sweeter and pleasanter life than drinking and roaring and gaming and fooling away time in vain or than the enjoying of all the delights of the flesh There 's nothing but a sick distempered heart against it that nauseateth that which in it self is most delightful When Grace hath changed your hearts it will be easie Do you not see that others can hold on in it and would not be as they were for all the world And why may not you God will help you It is the Office of Christ and the Spirit to help you Your encouragements are innumerable The hardness is most at first It is the longer the easier But what if it were hard Is it not necessary Is Hell easier and to be preferred before it And will not Heaven pay for all your cost and labour Will you sit down in desperation and resolve to let your salvation go upon such silly bug-bear words as these § 24. Tempt 12. Next the Devils endeavour will be to find them so much employment with Tempt 12. worldly cares or hopes or business that they shall find no leisure to be serious about the saving of their souls § 25. Direct 12. But this is a snare though frequently prevalent yet so irrational and against so Direct 12. many warnings and witnesses even of all men in the world either first or last at conversion or at death that he who after all this will neglect his God and his salvation because he hath worldly things to mind is worthy to be turned over to his choice and have no better help or portion in the hour of his necessity and distress Of this sin I have spoken afterward Chap. 4. Part. 6. § 26. Tempt 13. Lest the soul should be converted the Devil will do all that he can to keep you from Tempt 13. the acquaintance and company of those whose holiness and instructions might convince and strengthen you and especially from a lively convincing Minister and to cast you under some dead hearted Minister and Society § 27. Direct 13. Therefore if it be possible though it be to your loss or inconvenience in the Direct 13. world live under a searching heavenly Teacher and in the company of them that are resolved for Heaven It is a dead heart indeed that feeleth not the need of such assistance and is not the better for it when they have it If ever you be fair for Heaven and like to be converted it will be among such helps as these § 28. Tempt 14. But one of the strongest Temptations of Satan is by making their sin exceeding Tempt 14. pleasant to them for the gain or honour or fleshly satisfaction and so encreasing the violence of their sensual appetite and lust and making them so much in Love with their sin that they cannot leave it Like the thirst of a man in a burning Feavor which makes him cry for cold drink though it would kill him the fury of the appetite conquering reason So we see many drunkards fornicators worldlings that are so deeply in Love with their sin that come on it what will they will have it though they have Hell with it § 29. Direct 14. Against this Temptation I desire you to read what I have said after Chap. 4. Direct 14. Part. 7. Chap. 3. Direct 6. 8. O that poor sinners knew what it is that they so much Love Is the pleasing of the flesh so sweet a thing to you and are you so indifferent to God and holy things Are these less amiable Do you foresee what both will be at last Will your sin seem better than Christ and Grace and Heaven when you are dying O be not so in Love with damning folly and the pleasure of a Beast as for it to despise the heavenly wisdom and delights § 30. Tempt 15. Another great Temptation is the prosperity of the wicked in this life and the reproach Tempt 15. and suffering which usually falls upon the godly If God did strike every notorious sinner dead in the place as soon as he had sinned or struck him blind or dumb or lame or inflicted presently some such judgement then many would fear him and forbear their sin But when they see no men prosper so much as the most ungodly and that they are the persecutors of the holy seed and that sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed then are their hearts set in them
set up some kind of service to him performed by a base sort of Priests they feared the Lord and served their own Gods thinking it was safest to please all 2 Kings 17. 25 32 33. Affliction maketh bad men likest to the good § 80. 5. Good education and company may do very much It may help them to much knowledge and make them professors of strict Religion and constant companions with those that fear sin and avoid it and therefore they must needs go far then as Ioash did all the dayes of Iehojada 2 Chron. 24. 2. As plants and fruits change with the soil by transplantation and as the Climate maketh some Blâ—â—kmoors and some White so education and converse have so great a power on the mind that they come next to grace and are oft the means of it § 81. 6. And God giveth to many internally some grace of the Spirit which is not proper to them that are saved but commâ—n or preparatory only And this may make much resistance against sin though it do not mortifie it One that should live but under the convictions that Iudâ—s had when he hang'd himself I warrant him would have strivings and combats against sin in him though he were unsanctified § 82. 7. Yea the interest and power of one sin may resist another As covetousness may make much resistance against sensuality and pride of life and pride may resist all disgraceful sin § 83. Tempt 8. But saith the Tempter it is not unpardoned sin because thou art sorry and dost repent Tempt 8. for it when thou hast committed it and all sin is pardoned that is repented of § 84. Direct 8. All the foresaid causes which may make some resistance of sin in the ungodly may Direct 8. cause also some sorrow and repenting in them There is repenting and sorrow for sin in Hell All men repent and are sorry at last but few repent so as to be pardoned and saved When a sinner hath had all the sweetness out of sin that it can yield him and seeth that its all gone and the sting is left behind no marvel if he repent I think there is scarce any Drunkard or Whoremonger or Glutton that is not a flat Infidel but he repenteth of the sin that 's past because he hath had all out of it that it can yield him and there is nothing left of it that 's lovely But yet he goeth on still which sheweth that his Repentance was unsound True Repentance is a through change of the heart and life a turning from sin to a holy life and such a sorrow for what is past as would not let you do it if it were to do again If you truly Repent you would not do so again if you had all the same temptations § 85. Tempt 9. But saith the Tempter it is but one sin and the rest of thy life is good and blameless Tempt 9. and God judgeth by the greater part of thy life whether the evil or the good be most § 86. Direct 9. If a man be a Murderer or a Traytor will you excuse him because the rest of his Direct 9. life is good and it is but one sin that he is charged with One sort of poyson may kill a man and one stab at the heart though all his body else be whole you may surfeit on one dish One leak may sink a Ship Jam. 2. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all Sâ—e Ezek. 18. 10 11. Indeed God doth judge by the bent of thy heart and the main drift and endeavour of thy life But canst thou say that the bent of thy heart and the main endeavour of thy life is for God and Heaven and Holiness No if it were thou wert Regenerate and this would not let thee live in any one beloved chosen wilful sin The bent of a mans heart and life may be sinful earthly fleshly though it run but in the channel of one way of gross sinning As a man may be covetous that hath but one Trade and a Whoremonger that hath but one Whore and an Idolater that hath but one Idol If thou lovedst God better thou wouldst let go thy sin And if thou love any one sin better than God the whole bent of thy heart and life is wicked For it is not set upon God and Heaven and therefore is ungodly § 87. Tempt 10. But saith the Tempter it is not reigning unpardoned sin because thou believest in Tempt 10. Iesus Christ And all that Believe are pardoned and justified from all their sins § 89. Direct 10. He that savingly believeth in Christ doth take him entirely for his Saviour and Direct 10. Governour and giveth up himself to be saved sanctified and ruled by him As Trusting your Physicion implyeth that you take his Medicines and follow his advice and so trust him and not that you trust to be cured while you disobey him by bare trusting so is it as to your faith and trust in Christ It is a belief or trust that he will save all those that are ruled by him in order to salvation He is See more of Temptations Chap. 3. Dir. 9. the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Heb. 5. 9. If you believe in Christ you believe Christ And if you believe Christ you believe that except a man be converted and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven John 3. 3 5. Matth. 18. 3. and that he that is in Christ is a new creature old things are past away and all is become new 2 Cor. 5. 17. And that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. And that no fornicator effeminate thieves covetous drunkards revilers extortioners murderers lyars shall enter into or have any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Ephes. 5. 4 5 6. Rev. 21. 27. 22. 14 15. If you believe Christ you must believe that you cannot be saved unless you be converted It is the Devil and not Christ that telleth you you may be pardoned and saved in an unholy unregenerate state And it 's sad that men should believe the Devil and call this a Believing in Christ and think to be saved for so believing as if false faith and presumption pleased God Christ will not save men for believing a lye and believing the Father of lyes before him Nor will he save all that are confident they shall be saved If you think you have any part in Christ remember Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his CHAP. II. I have siâ—ce written a Book on this subject to which I refer the Reader for fulâ—er Direction Directions to young Christians or Beginners in Religion for their establishment and safe proceeding BEfore I come to the Common Directions for the Exercise of Grace and walking with God containing the common duties of Christianity I shall
head-strong Horse that must be kept in at first and is hardly restrained if it once break loose and get the head If you are bred up in temperance and modesty where there are no great temptations to gluttony drinking sports or wantonness you may think a while that your natures have little or none of this concupiscence and so may walk without a guard But when you come where baits of lust abound where Women and Playes and Feasts and Drunkards are the Devils snares and tinder and bellows to enflame your lusts you may then find to your sorrow that you had need of watchfulness and that all is not mortified that is asleep or quiet in you As a man that goeth with a Candle among Gunpowder or near Thatch should never be careless because he goeth in continual danger so you that are young and have naturally eager appetites and lusts should remember that you carry fire and Gunpowder still about you and are never out of danger while you have such an enemy to watch § 2. And if once you suffer the fire to kindle alas what work may it make ere you are aware James 1. 14 15. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Little knoweth the Fish when he is catching or nibling at the bait that he is swallowing the hook which will lay him presently on the bank When you are looking on the cup or gazing on alluring beauty or wantonly dallying and pleasing your senses with things unsafe you little know how far beyond your intentions you may be drawn and how deep the wound may prove how great the smart or how long and difficult the cure As you love your souls observe Pauls counsel 2 Tim. 2. 22. Flee youthful lusts Keep at a full distance Come not near the bait If you get a wound in your consciences by any wilful heinous sin O what a case will you be in How heartless unto secret duty afraid of God that should be your joy deprived of the comforts of his presence and all the pleasure of his wayes How miserably will you be tormented between the tyranny of your own concupiscence the sting of sin the gripes of conscience and the terrors of the Lord How much of the life of faith and love and heavenly zeal will be quenched in a moment I am to speak more afterwards of this and therefore shall only say at present to all young Converts that care for their salvation Mortifie the flesh and alwayes watch and avoid temptations Direct 15. BE exceeding wary not only what Teachers you commit the guidance of your souls unto Direct 15. Nam si falsi solo nomine tumidi non modo non consulendi sed vitandi sunt quibus nihil est importunius nihil insu siâ—s c. Pâ—tâ—a câ— Dâ—al 117. li. 2. but also with what company you familiarly converse That they be neither such as would corrupt your minds with error or your hearts with viciousness profâ—neness lukewarmness or with a feavorish factious zeal But choose if possible judicious holy heavenly humble unblameable self-denying persons to be your ordinary companions and familiars but especially for your near Relations § 1. It is a matter of very great importance what Teachers you choose in order to your salvation In this the free grace of God much differenceth some from others For as poor Heathens and Infidels have none that know more than what the Book of Nature teacheth if so much so in the several Nations of Christians it is hard for the people to have any but such as the Sword of the Magistrate forceth on them or the stream of their Countreys Custom recommendeth to them And it is a wonder Scientiâ— est posse dâ—cere Provâ—â—b Sub indocto tamen doctus evadâ—re potes â—fflaâ—u aliquo divino ut Ciâ—â—ro loquitur Augustinus de seipso testatur cui non omnia credere nefas est quod Aristotelicas Categorias quae inter difficillima numerantur artes liberales quas singulas a praeceptoribus didicisse magnum dicitur nullo tradeâ—te omnes intellexit â—â—â—â—ardus item vir doctrina sanctitate clarissimus omnes suas literas quarum inter cunctos sui temporis abundantissimus fuâ—â— in sâ—lvis in agris didicit non hominum magisterio sed meditando orando nec ullos unquam alios praeceptores habuit quam quercus sagos Pâ—trâ—â—ch li. 2. Dialog 40. if pure Truth and Holiness be countenanced by either of these But when and where his mercy pleaseth God sendeth wise and holy Teachers with compassion and diligence to seek the saving of mens souls so that none but the malignant and obstinate are deprived of their help § 2. Ambitious proud covetous licentious ungodly men are not to be chosen for your Teachers if you have your choice In a Nation where true Religion is in credit and hath the Magistrates countenance or the Major Vote some graceless men may joyn with better in preaching and defending the purity of doctrine and holiness of life And they may be very serviceable to the Church herein especially in expounding and disputing for the truth But even there more experienced spiritual Teachers are much more desirable They will speak most feelingly who feel what they speak And they are fittest to bring others to faith and love who believe and love God and holiness themselves They that have life will speak more lively than the dead And in most places of the world the ungodliness of such Teachers makes them enemies to the Truth which is according to godliness Their natures are at enmity to the life and power of the doctrine which they should preach And they will do their worst to corrupt the Magistrates and make them of their mind And if they can but get the Sword to favour them they are usually the cruellest persecutors of the sincere As it is notorious among the Papists that the baits of Power and Honour and Wealth have so vitiated the body of their Clergy that they conspire to uphold a worldly Government and Religion and in express contradiction to Sense and Reason and to Antiquity and the judgement of the Church and to the holy Scriptures they captivate the ignorant and sensual to their tyranny and false worship and use the seduced Magistrates and multitude to the persecuting of those that will not follow them to sin and to perdition Take heed of proud and worldly Guides § 3. And yet it is not every one that pretendeth Piety and Zeal that is to be heard or taken for a Teacher But 1. Such as preach ordinarily the substantial Truths which all Christians are agreed in 2. Such as make it the drift of their preaching to raise your souls to the Love of God and to a holy heavenly life and are zealous against confessed sins 3. Such as contradict not the
seriousness in Religion made odious or banished from the earth and that themselves may be taken for the Center and Pillars and Law-givers of the Church and the Consciences of all men may be taught to cast off all scruples or fears of offending God in comparison of â—â—â—â—â—â—ing them and may absolutely submit to them and never stick at any feared disobedience to 〈…〉 t They are the scorners and persecutors of strict obedience to the Laws of God and take those that â—ear his judgements to be men affrighted out of their wits and that to obey him exactly which alas who can do when he hath done his best is but to be hypocritical or too precise but to question their domination or break their Laws imposed on the world even on Kings and States without any Authority this must be taken for Heresie Schism or a Rebellion like that of Corah and his company This Luciferian Spirit of the proud Autonomians hath filled the Christian world with bloodshed and been the greatest means of the miseries of the earth and especially of hindering and persecuting the Gospel and setting up a Pharisaical Religion in the world It hath fought against the Gospel and filled with blood the Countreys of France Savoy Rhaetia Bohemia Belgia Helvetia Polonia Hungary Germany and many more that it may appear how much of the Satanical nature they have and how punctually they fulfill his will § 3. And natural corruption containeth in it the seeds of all these damnable Heresies nothing more natural to lapsed man than to shake off the Government of God and to become a Law-giver to himself and as many others as he can and to turn the grace of God into wantonness Therefore the prophane that never heard it from any Hereticks but themselves do make themselves such a Creed as this that God is merciful and therefore we need not fear his threatnings for he will be better than his word It belongeth to him to save us and not to us and therefore we may cast our souls upon his care though we care not for them our selves If he hath predestinated us to salvation we shall be saved and if he have not we shall not what ever we do or how well soever we live Christ dyed for sinners and therefore though we are sinners he will save us God is stronger than the Devil and therefore the Devil shall not have the most That which pleaseth the flesh and doth God no harm can never be so great a matter or so much offend him as to procure our damnation What need of so much ado to be saved or so much haste to turn to God when any one that at last doth but repent and cry God mercy and believe that Christ dyed for him shall be saved Christ is the Saviour of the world and his grace is very great and free and therefore God forbid that none should be saved but those few that are of strict and holy lives and make so much ado for Heaven No man can know who shall be saved and who shall not and therefore it is the wisest way to do no body any harm and to live merrily and trust God with our souls and put our salvation upon the venture no body is saved for his own works or deservings and therefore our lives may serve the turn as well as if they were more strict and holy This is the Creed of the ungodly by which you may see how natural it is to them to abuse the Gospel and plead Gods grace to quiet and strengthen them in their sin and to embolden themselves on Christ to disobey him § 4. But this is but to set Christ against himself even his Merits and Mercy against his Government and Spirit and to set his Death against the Ends of his death and to set our Saviour against our salvation and to run from God and rebell against him because Christ dyed to recover us to God and to give us Repentance unto life and to sin because he dyed to save his people from their sins and to purifie a peculiar people to himself zealous of good works Matth. 1. 21. Tit. 2. 14. He that committeth sin is of the Devil for the Devil sinneth from the beginning For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. John 8. 44. Direct 18. WAtch diligently hath against the more discernable decayes of grace and against Direct 18. the degenerating of it into some carnal affections or something counterfeit and of another kind And so also of Religious duties § 1. We are no sooner warmed with the coelestial flames but natural corruption is enclining us to grow cold Like hot water which loseth its heat by degrees unless the fire be continually kept under it Who feeleth not that as soon as in a Sermon or Prayer or holy Meditation his heart hath got a little heat as soon as it is gone it is prone to its former earthly temper and by a little remisness in our duty or thoughts or business about the world we presently grow cold and dull again Be watchful therefore lest it decline too far Be frequent in the means that must preserve you from declining when faintness telleth you that your stomachs are emptied of the former meat supply it with another lest strength abate You are rowing against the stream of fleshly interest and inclinations and therefore intermit not too long lest you go faster down by your ease then you get up by labour § 2. The Degenerating of Grace is a way of backsliding very common and too little observed How Grace may degenerate It is when good affections do not directly cool but turn into some carnal affections somewhat like them but of another kind As if the body of a man instead of dying should receive the life or soul of a Beast instead of the reasonable humane soul. For instance 1. Have you Believed in God and in Iesus Christ and Loved him accordingly You shall seem to do so still as much as formerly when your corrupted minds have received some false representation of him and so it is indeed another thing that you thus corruptly Believe and Love 2. Have you been fervent in Prayer you shall be fervent still iâ— Satan can but corrupt your prayers by corrupting your judgement or affections and get you to think that to be the cause of God which is against him and that to be against him which he commandeth and those to be the troublers of the Church which are its best and faithfullest members Turn but your prayers against the cause and people of God by your mistake and you may pray as fervently against them as you will The same I may say of preaching and conference and zeal Corrupt them once and turn them against God and Satan will joyn with you for zealous and frequent preaching or conference or disputes 3. Have you a confidence in Christ and his promise for
appetite actively 4. And so whether the will which is the principium actuâ— quoad exercitium were not the first in the omission The intellect having before said This must bâ— further considered the will commanded not that further consideration when it could and should However if it be too hard for us to trace our own souls in all their motions it is certain that the will of Man is the first subject of Moral good and evil And uncertainties must not make us deny that which is certain The Reader who understandeth the importance and consequence of these points I am sure will pardon me for this interposition of these difficult controverted points which I purposely avoid where I judge them not very needful in order to the defence or clearing of the plainer common truths And as for others I must bear their censure § 9. The Degree of sinfulness in the will lyeth in a stiffness and obstinacy a tenaciousness of deceitâ—â—â—â— temporal Good and an Eagerness after it and stubborn averseness to spiritual good as it is against 〈…〉 Non incestum vel aspersione aquae vel dierum numero tollitur Cicero 2. de lâ—gib that temporal flâ—shly good This is the wills disease § 10. 3. The sinfulness of the memory is in its Retentiveness of Evil or things hurtful and prohited and its Looseness and Neglect of better spiritual necessary things If this were only as things present have the natural advantage to make a deeper impress upon the fantasie and things unseen and absent have the disadvantage it were then but a natural innocent infirmity or if in sickness age or weakness all kind of memory equally decay But it is plain that if the Bible be open before our eyes and preaching be in our ears and things unseen have the advantage of their infinite greatness and excellency and concernment to us yet our Memories are like walls of stone to any thing that is spiritual and like walls of wax on which you may write any thing of that which is secular or evil Note here also that the faultiness of the memory is only so farr sinful as it is Voluntary It is the will where the sin is as in its Throne or chiefest subject Because men Love carnal things and Love not spiritual things therefore it is that they mind and understand and remember the one and not the other So that it is but as Imperate and Participatively that the memory is capable of sin § 11. 4. The sinfulness of the Imagination consisteth in its readiness to Think of Evil and of common earthly things and its unaptness to Think of any thing that is Holy and Good And when we do force our selves to holy Thoughts they are disorderly confused unskilfully managed with great averseness Here also voluntariness is the Life of the sin § 12. 5. The sin of the Affections or Passions consisteth in this That they are too easily and violently moved by the sensitive interest and appetite and are Habitually prone to such carnal inordinate motions running before the understanding and will some of them and solliciting and urging them to evil and resisting and disobeying the commands of Reason and the Will but dull and backward to things spiritually good and to execute the right dictates of the Mind and Will § 13. 6. The sin of the sensitive appetite consisteth in the inordinate rage or immoderateness to its object which causeth it to disobey the Commands of Reason and to become the Great inciter of Rebellion in the soul violently urging the Mind and Will to consent to its desires Materially this dependeth much on the temper of the body but formally this also is so farr sinful as positively or privatively mediately or immediately it is voluntary To have an Appetite simply to the object of Appetite is no sin But to have a diseased inordinate unruly appetite is a sin not primarily in it self considered but as it is voluntary as it is the Appetite of a Rational free agent that hath thus disordered the frame of its own Nature § 14. 7. The sin of the exteriour parts tongue hand eys feet c. is only in Act and not in Habit or at least the Habits are weak and subject to the will And it is in the execution of the sinful desires of the flesh and commands of the will that the fame consisteth These parts also are not the primary subject of the guilt but the will that either Positively puts them upon evil or doth not restrain them when it ought And so they are guilty but participatively and secondarily as the other imperate faculties are It is not Good or Evil meerly as it is the act of tongue or hand but as it is the act of the tongue or hand of a Rational free agent agreeable or disagreeable to the Law If a mad-man should speak blasphemy or should kill or steal it were no further sin than as he had Voluntarily contracted the ill disposition which caused it while he had the use of Reason If a mans hand were held and forced by another to do mischief utterly against his will it is the sin of the chief agent and not of the involuntary instrument But no force totally excuseth us from Guilt which leaveth the act to our Rational Choice He that saith Take this Oath or I will kill thee or torment thee doth use force as a Temptation which may be resisted but doth not constrain a man to swear For he leaveth it to his Choice whether he will swear or die or be tormented And he may and ought to choose death rather than the smallest sin The will may be tempted but not constrained § 15. Direct 2. Labour clearly to understand the evil of sin both intrinsecal in it self and in Direct 2. its aggravationâ— and effects When you have found out where it is and wherein it doth consist find out the malignity and odiousness of it I have heard some Christians complain that they read much to shew them the evil of sin in its Effects but meet with few that shew them its evil in it self sufficiently But if you see not the evil of sin in it self as well as in the effects it will but tempt you to think God unjust in overpunishing it and it will keep you from the principal part of true Repentance and Mortification which lieth in hating sin as sin I shall therefore shew you wherein the intrinsical malignity of sin consisteth § 16. 1. Sin is formally the violation of the perfect holy righteous Law of God 2. It is a denyal or contempt of the Authority or Governing-power of God As if we said Thou shalt not be our Governour in this 3. It is an usurping the Soveraign Power to our selves of governing our selves in that act For when we refuse Gods Government we set up our selves in his stead and so make Gods of our selves as to our selves as if we were self-sufficient independent and had Right hereto 4. It is a
denying or contempt of the Wisdom of God as if he had unwisely made us a Law which is unmeet to Rule us 5. It is a setting up of our fâ—lly in the place of Gods Wisdom and preferring it before him as if we were wiser to know how to Govern our selves and to know what is fittest and best for us now to do than God is 6. It is a contempt of the Goodness of God as he is the maker of the Law As if he had not done that which is Best but that which may be corrected or contradicted and there were some Evil in it See Plutarcks Tract entitled That vice is sufficient to make a man wretched Si non ipso honesto movemur ut viri boni simus sed utilitate aliqua atque fructus callidi sumus non boni fi emolumentis non suapte natura virtus experitur vana erit virtus quae malitia rectè dicitur P. scal p. 744. to be avoided 7. It is a preferring our Naughtiness before his Goodness as if we would do it Better or choose better what to do 8. It is a contempt or denial of the Holiness and Purity of God which sets him against sin as Light is against Darkness 9. It is a violation of Gods Propriety or Dominion robbing him of the use and service of that which is absolutely and totally his Own 10. It is a claiming of Propriety in our selves as if we were our own and might do with our selves as we list 11. It is a contempt of the gratious Promises of God by which he allured and bound us to obedience 12. It is a contempt of the dreadful Threatnings of God by which he would have restrained us from evil 13. It is a contempt or denial of the dreadful day of Judgement in which an account must be given of that sin 14. It is a denying of Gods Veracity and giving him the lie as if he were not to be believed in all his Predictions Promises and Threats 15. It is a contempt of all the present Mercies which are innumerable and great by which God obligeth and encourageth us to obey 16. It is a contempt of our own afflictions and his Chastisements of us by which he would drive us from our sins 17. It is a contempt of all the Examples of his Mercies on the obedient and his terrible judgements on the disobedient men and Devils by which he warned us not to sin 18. It is a contempt of the person office sufferings and grace of Jesus Christ who came to save us from our sins and to destroy the works of the Devil being contrary to his bloodshed authority and healing work 19. It is a contradicting fighting against and in that act prevailing against the sanctifying office and work of the Holy Ghost that moveth us against sin and to obedience 20. It is a contempt of Holiness and a defacing in that measure the Image of God upon the soul or a rejecting it A vilifying of all those Graces which are contrary to the sin 21. It is a pleasing of the Devil the enemy of God and us and an obeying him before God 22 It is the fault of a Rational Creature that had Reason given him to do better 23. It is all Willingly done and Chosen by a free-agent that could not be constrained to it Voluntarium est omne peccatum Tolle excusationem Nemo peccat invitus Martin Dunilens de Morib Nihil iuterest quo animo facias quod fecisse vitiosum est quia â—cta cernuntur animus non videtur Id. ibid. 24. It is a robbing God of the Honour and Pleasure which he should have had in our Obedience and the Glory which we should bring him before the world 25. It is a contempt of the omnipresence and omniscience of God when we will sin against him before his face when he stands over us and seeth all that we do 26. It is a contempt of the Greatness and Almightiness of God that we dare sin against him who is so Great and able to be avenged on us 27. It is a wrong to the Mercifulness of God when we go out of the way of mercy and put him to use the way of Justice and severity who delighteth not in the death of sinners but rather that they obey repent and live 28. It is a contempt of the attractive Love of God who should be the End and Felicity and Pleasure of the soul. As if all that Love and Goodness of God were not enough to draw or keep the heart to him and to satisfie us and make us happy or he were fit to be our full delight And it sheweth the want of Love to God For if we Loved him rightly we should willingly obey him 29. It is a setting up the sordid creature before the Creator and dung before Heaven as if it were more worthy of our Love and Choice and fitter to be our Delight and the Pleasure of sin were better for us than the Glory of Heaven 30. In all which it appeareth that it is a practical Atheism in its degree A taking down God or denying him to be God and a practical Idolatry setting up our selves and other creatures in his stead 31. It is a contempt of all the means of Grace which are all to bring us to obedience and keep us or call us from our sins Prayer Sacraments c. 32. It is a contempt of the Love and Labours of the Ministers of Christ a disobeying them grieving them and frustrating their hopes and the labours of their lives 33. It is a debasing of Reason the superiour faculty of the soul and a setting up of the flesh or inferiour faculties like setting-dogs to Govern men or the horse to rule the rider 34. It is a blinding of reason and a misusing the noblest faculties of the soul and frustrating 〈…〉 them of the use and ends which they were made for And so it is the disorder monstrosity sickness or death of the soul. 35. It is in its measure the Image of the Devil upon the soul who is the Father of sin and therefore the moss odious deformity of the soul And this where the Holy Ghost should dwell and the Image and delight of God should be 36. It is the moral destruction not only of the soul but of the whole Creation so farr as the Creatures are appointed as the Means to bring or keep us unto God For the Means as a Means is destroyed when it is not used to its End A ship is useless if no one be carried in it A watch as such is useless when not used to shew the hour of the day All the world as it is the Book that should teach us the will of God is cast by when that use is cast by Nay sin useth the Creature against God which should have been used for him 37. It is a contradicting of our own Confessions and Professions a wronging of our Consciences a violation of our Covenants
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
it And what do men at death say of it And what do converted souls or awakened consciences say of it Is it then followed with delight and fearlesness as it is now Is it then applauded Will any of them speak well of it Nay all the world speaks evil of sin in the general now even when they love and commit the several acts Will you sin when you are dying § 29. Direct 10. Look alwayes on sin and judgement together Remember that you must answer for Direct 10. it before God and Angels and all the world and you will the better know it § 30. Direct 11. Look now but upon sickness poverty shame despair death and rottenness in the Direct 11. grave and it may a little help you to know what sin is These are things within your sight or feeling You need not saith to tell you of them And by such effects you might have some little knowledge of the cause § 31. Direct 12. Look but upon some eminent holy persons upon earth and upon the mad prophane Direct 12. malignant world and the difference may tell you in part what sin is Is there not an amiableness in a holy blameless person that liveth in love to God and man and in the joyful hopes of life eternal Is not a beastly Drunkard or Whoremonger and a raging Swearer and a malicious persecutor a very deformed loathsome creature Is not the mad confused ignorant ungodly state of the world a very pittiful sight What then is the sin that all this doth consist in Though the principal part of the Cure is in turning the Will to the haired of sin and is done by this discovery of its malignity yet I shall add a few more Directions for the executive part supposing that what is said already have had its effect § 32. Direct 1. When you have found out your disease and danger give up your selves to Christ as Direct 1. the Saviour and Physicion of souls and to the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier remembring that he is sufficient and willing to do the work which he hath undertaken It is not you that are to be Saviours and Sanctifiers of your selves unless as you work under Christ But he that hath undertaken it doth take it for his glory to perform it § 33. Direct 2. Yet must you be willing and obedient in applying the Remedies prescribed you by Christ and observing his Directions in order to your Cure And you must not be tender and coy and fineish and say This is too bitter and that is too sharp but trust his Love and skill and care and take it as he prescribeth it or giveth it you without any more ado Say not It is grievous and I cannot take it For he commands you nothing but what is safe and wholesome and necessary and if you cannot take it you must try whether you can bear your sickness and death and the fire of Hell Is humiliation confession restitution mortification and holy diligence worse than Hell § 34. Direct 3. See that you take not part with sin and wrangle not or strive not against your Direct 3. Physicion or any that would do you good Excusing sin and pleading for it and extenuating it and striving against the Spirit and Conscience and wrangling against Ministers and godly friends and hateing reproof are not the means to be cured and sanctified § 35. Direct 4. See that malignity in every one of your particular sins which you can see and say Direct 4. is in sin in general It 's a gross deceit of your selves if you will speak a great deal of the evil of sin and see none of this malignity in your Pride and your worldliness and your passion and pievishness and your malice and uncharitableness and your lying backbiting slandering or sinning against conscience for worldly commodity or safety What self-contradiction is it for a man in prayer to aggravate sin and when he is reproved for it to justifie or excuse it For a Popish Priest to enter sinfully upon his place by subscribing or swearing the Trent Confession and then to preach zealously against sin in the general as if he had never committed so horrid a crime This is like him that will speak against Treason and the Enemies of the King but because the Traytors are his friends and kindred will protect or hide them and take their parts § 36. Direct 5. Keep as far as you can from those temptations which feed and strengthen the sins which Direct 5. you would overcome Lay siege to your sins and starve them out by keeping away the food and fewel which is their maintenance and life § 37. Direct 6. Live in the exercise of those graces and duties which are contrary to the sins which Direct 6. you are most in danger of For grace and duty is contrary to sin and killeth it and cureth us of it as the fire cureth us of cold or health of sickness § 38. Direct 7. Hearken not to weakning unbelief and distrust and cast not away the comforts of God Direct 7. which are your cordials and strength It is not a frightful dejected despairing frame of mind that is fittest to resist sin but it is the encouraging sense of the love of God and thankful sense of grace received with a cautelous fear § 39. Direct 8. Be alwayes suspicious of carnal self-love and watch against it For that is the Direct 8. burrow or fortress of sin and the common Patron of it ready to draw you to it and ready to justifie it We are very prone to be partial in our own cause as the case of Iudah with Thamar and David when Nathan reproved him in a Parable shew Our own passions our own pride our own censures or back-bitings or injurious dealings our own neglects of duty seem small excusable if not justifyable things to us whereas we could easily see the faultiness of all these in another especially in an enemy when yet we should be best acquainted with our selves and we should most love our selves and therefore hate our own sins most § 40. Direct 9. Bestow your first and chiefest labour to kill sin at the Root To cleanse the Heart Direct 9. which is the fountain For out of the heart cometh the evils of the life Know which are the Master-Roots and bend your greatest care and industry to mortifie those And that is especially these that follow 1. Ignorance 2. Unbelief 3. Inconsiderateness 4. Selfishness and Pride 5. Fleshliness in pleasing a bruitish appetite lust or fantasie 6. Senseless hard-heartedness and sleepiness in sin § 41. Direct 10. Account the world and all its pleasures wealth and honours no better than indeed Direct 10. they are and then Satan will find no bait to catch you Esteem all as dung with Paul Phil. 3. 8. And no man will sin and sell his soul for that which he accounteth but as dung § 42. Direct 11. Keep up
to draw another to waste his time in wantonness and foolish sports An ambitious or proud person is fit to kindle that fire in others A swearer is fittest to make a swearer â—nd so of many other sins § 33. 2. The Devil usually chooseth for his Instruments men that have no great tenderness of conscience or fear of sinning or of hurting souls He would have no such Cowards in his Army as men fearing God are as to his Ends It must be men that will venture upon hell themselves and fear not much the loss of their own souls and therefore must not be too tender or fearful of destroying others Butchers and Souldiers must not be chosen out of too tender or loving a sort of people such are not fit to go through his work § 34. 3. He usually chooseth Instruments that are most deeply engaged in his cause whose preferment and honour and gain and carnal interest shall be to them as Nature is to a dog or wolf or fox or other ravenous creature who think it a loss or danger or suffering to them if others be not hundered in good or made as bad as they Thus Demetrius and the other crafts-men that Act. 19. 24 38 39. lived upon the trade are the fittest to plead Diana's cause and stir up the people against the Apostles And the Iews were the fittest Instruments to persecute Christ who thought that if they let him alone all men would believe on him and the Romans would come and take away both their place and nation and that it was expedient for them that one man die for the people and that the whole nation perish not John 11. 48 49. And Pilate was the fittest Instrument to condemn him who feared that he should else be taken to be none of Caesars friend And Pharoah was the fittest Instrument to persecute the Israelites who was like to lose by their departure § 35. 4. when he can he chooseth such Instruments as are much about us and nearest to us who have opportunity to be oft speaking to us when others have no opportunity to help us The fire that is nearest to the wood or thatch is liker to burn it than that which is farr off Nearness and opportunity are very great advantages § 36. 5. If it be possible he will choose such Instruments as have the greatest Abilities to do him service One man of great wit and learning and elocution that is nimble in disputing and can make allmost any cause seem good which he defendeth or bad which he opposeth is able to do more service for the Devil than an hundred Ideots § 37. 6. If possible he will choose the Rulers of the World to be his Instruments that shall command men and threaten them with imprisonment banishment confiscation or death if they will not sin as the King of Babylon did by the three witnesses and Daniel Dan. 3. 6. and all persecutors have done in all ages against the holy seed For he knoweth that though not with a Iob yet with a carnal person skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life And therefore they that have the power of life and liberty and estate have carnal men by the handle that will rule them § 38. 7. He maketh the Rich his Instruments that having the wealth of the world are able to reward and hire evil doers and are able to oppress those that will not please them Landlords and Rich men can do the Devil more service than many of the poor They are the Iudas's that bear the bag As the Ox will follow him that carieth the hay and the Horse will follow him that carrieth the provender and the Dog will follow him that feedeth him and the Crow will be where the carrion is so carnal persons will follow and obey him that bears the purse § 39. 8. The Devil if he can will make those his Instruments whom he seeth we most Esteem and Reverence Persons whom we think most wise and fit to be our Counsellors we will take that from these which we would suspect from others § 40. 9. He will get our Relations and those that have our Hearts most to be his Instruments A Husband or a Wife or a Dalilah can do more than any others and so can a bosom friend whom we dearly love when all their Interest in our affections is made over for the Devils service it may do much Therefore we see that Husbands and Wives if they love entirely do usually close in the same Religion opinion or way though when they were first married they differed from each other § 41. 10. As oft as he can the Devil maketh the Multitude his Instrument that the crowd and noise may carry us on and make men valiant and put away their fear of punishment § 42. 11. He is very desirous to make the Embassadors of Christ his prisoners and to hire them to speak against their masters cause that in Christs name they may deceive the silly flock speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Acts 20. 30. Sometimes by pretence of his Authority and Commission making poor people believe that not to hear them and obey them in their errors is to be disobedient rejecters of Christ and thus the Romish party carry it Sometime by their parts and plausible perswasive speeches And sometime by their fervency frightning people into error And by these two ways most Hereticks prevail None so succesfully serveth Satan as a false or bribed Minister of Christ. § 43. 12. He is exceeding desirous to make Parents themselves his Instuments for their childrens sin and ruine And alas how commonly doth he succeed He knoweth that Parents have them under their hands in the most ductile malleable age and that they have a concurrence of allmost all advantages They have the purse and the portion of their children in their power They have the interest of Love and Reverence and estimation They are still with them and can be often in their sollicitings They have the rod and can compel them Many thousands are in Hell through the means of their own Parents such cruel monsters will they be to the souls of any others that are first so to their own If the Devil can get the Parents to be cursers swearers gamesters drunkards worldlings proud deriders or railers at a holy life what a snare is here for the poor children § 44. V. In the Method of Satan the next thing is to shew you how he labours to keep off all the forces of Christ which should resist him and destroy his work and to frustrate their endeavours and fortifie himself And among many others these means are notable § 45. 1. He would do what he can to weaken even natural Reason that men may be blockish and uncapable of good And it is lamentable to observe how hard it is to make some people either understand or regard And a beastly kind of education doth much to
it § 52. Direct 14. If God so much regard us as to make us and preserve us continually and to become Tempt 14. our Governour and make a Law for us and judge us and Reward his servants with no less than Heaven than you may easily see that he so much regardeth us as to observe whether we obey or break his Laws He that so far careth for a Clock or Watch as to make it and wind it up doth care whether it go true or false What do these men make of God who think he cares not what men do Then he cares not if men beat you or râ—b you or kill you for none of this hurteth God And the King may say if any murder your friends or children why should I punish him he hurt not me But Iustice is to keep order in the world and not only to preserve the Governour from hurt God may be wronged though he be not hurt And he will make you pay for it if you hurt others and smart for it if you hurt your self § 53. Tempt 15. The Tempter laboureth to extenuate the sin and make it seem a little one and if Tempt 15. every little sin must be made such a matter of you 'll never be quiet § 54. Direct 15. But still remember 1. There is deadly poyson in the very nature of sin as Direct 15. there is in a Serpent be he never so small The least sin is worse than the greatest pain that ever man selt and would you choose that and say its little The least sin is odious to God and had a hand in the death of Christ and will damn you if it be not pardoned and should such a thing be made light of And many sins counted small may have great aggravations such as the knowing deliberate wilful committing of them is To love a small sin is a great sin specially to love it so well that the remembrance of Gods Will and Love of Christ and Heaven and Hell will not suffice to resolve you against it Besides a small sin is the common way to greater James 1. 14 15. When lust hath conceived it brings forth sin and sin when it is finished brings forth death James 3. 5. Behâ—ld how great a matter a little fire kindleth The horrid sins of David and Peter had small beginnings Mortal sicknesses seem little matters at the first Many a thousand have sinned themselves to Hell that began with that which is accounted small § 55. Tempt 16. Also the Devil draweth on the sinner by promising him that he shall sin but once Tempt 16. or but a very few times and then do so no more He tells the Thief and the Fornicator that if they will do it but this once they shall be quiet § 56. Direct 16. But O consider 1. That one stab at the heart may prove uncurable God may Direct 16. deny thee time or grace to repent 2. That it is easier to forbear the first time than the second For one sin disposeth the heart unto another If you cannot deny the first temptation how will you deny the next When you have lost your strength and grieved your helper and strengthened your enemy and your snare will you then resist better wounded then now when you are whole § 57. Tempt 17. But when the Devil hath prevailed for once with the sinner he makes that an argument Tempt 17. for a second He saith to the Thief and Drunkard and Fornicator It is but the same thing that thou hast done once already and if once may be pardoned twice may be pardoned and if twice why not thrice and so on § 58. Direct 17. This it is to let the Devil get in a foot A spark is easier quenched than a flame Direct 17. but yet remember that the longer the worse the oftner you sin the greater is the abuse of the Spirit of God and the contempt of grace and the wrong to Christ and the harder is repentance and the sharper if you do repent because the deeper is your wound Repent therefore speedily and go no further unless you would have the Devil tell you next It 's now too late § 59. Tempt 18. The Tempter maketh use of the greater sins of others to perswade men to venture Tempt 18. upon less Thou hearest other men curse and swear and rail and dost thou stick at idle talk How many in the world are enemies to Christ and persecute his Ministers and Servants and dost thou make so great a matter of omitting a Sermon or a prayer or other holy duty § 60. Direct 18. As there are degrees of sin so there are degrees of punishment And wilt thou Direct 18. rather choose the easiest place in Hell than Heaven How small soever the matter of sin be thy wilfulness and sinning against conscience and mercies and warnings may make it great to thee Are great sinners so happy in thy eyes that thou wouldst be as like them as thou darest § 61. Tempt 19. Also he would embolden the sinner because of the Commonness of the sin and Tempt 19. the multitude that commit either that or worse as if it were not therefore so bad or dangerous § 62. Direct 19. But remember that the more examples you have to take warning by the more Direct 19. unexcusable is your fall It was not the number of Angels that fell that could keep them from being Devils and damned for their sin God will do Justice on many as well as on one The sin is the greater and therefore the punishment shall not be the less Make the case your own Will you think it a good reason for any one to abuse you beat you rob you because that many have done so before He should rather think that you are abused too much already and therefore he should not add to your wrongs If when many had spit in Christs face or bufletted him some one should have given him another spit or blow as if he had not enough before would you not have taken him to be the worst and cruellest of them all If you do as the most you 'll speed as the most § 63. Tempt 2â— â—â— is a dangerous Temptation when the Devill propâ—seth some very good end and â—â—â—â—t 2â— mâ—kâ—t◠〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 or the necessary means to accomplish it when he blindâ—th men sâ— farr as tâ—â—â—â—â—k tâ—â—â—â— it is necessary tâ— their salvation or to other mens or to the wellfare of the Church or pro 〈…〉 oâ— the pleasing of God then sâ—n will be commited without regret and continued in â—â—â—â—â—◠〈…〉 Oâ— this account it is that â—â—reâ—â—e and will-worship and superstition are kept up â—â—â—â— 2. 18 21 22 23. Having a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting the body It is for God that much of the wickedness of the world is done against God It s for the Church aâ—â— Truth that Papists have murdered and persecuted so
many § 64. Direct 20. Remember that God needeth no sinful means to attain his ends He will not be Direct 20. beholden to the Devil to do his work He would not have forbad it if he would have had you done it He is never at such a loss but he can find right means enough to perform his work by It is a great pâ—â—t of our wisdom which our salvation lieth on to choose and use right means when we are resolved on a right end It 's a horrible injury against God to intitle him to sin and make it seem necessary to his ends and honour Good ends will not justifie evil actions What sin so odiouâ— that hath not had good ends pretended for it Even Christ was murthered as a malefactor 〈…〉 ds at least pretended even to vindicate Gods honour from blasphemy and Caesar from 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—â—â— and the nation from calamity And his disciples were killed that God might be served by it â—â—d â—â—â—â—â—ent troublers of the world taken away § 65. Tempt 21. He would make us presume because we are Gods children and speciall grace 〈…〉 â—aâ—â—â—â—t be wholy lâ—â—t and we have found that once we had grace therefore we may venture as being safe § 66. Direct 21. But many a thousand shall be damned that once thought they had the truth Direct 21. of Grace It is a hard controversie among learned and godly men whether some in a state of saving grace do not fall from it and perish But it is past controversie that they shall perish that live and dâ—â— impâ—nitently in willful sin To plead truth of grace for encouragement in sin is so much against the nature and use of grace as may make you question the truth of it You can be no suâ—â—r that you have true grace than you are sure that you hate all known sin and desire to be free from it Christ teacheth you how to answer such a horrid temptation Mat. 4. 6 7. Iâ— thâ—â—â—e the Son of God cast thy self down For it is written â—e shall give his Angels charge over thâ—â— Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Son-ship and promises and truth of grace are incongruous arguments to draw you to sin and heynous aggravations of sin so committed § 67. Tempt 22. The Devil â—ft most dangerously imitateth the Holy Ghost and comes in the shape of Tempt 22. â—n Angel of light He will be for knowledge in the Gnosticks for Unity and Government in the Papists for Mortifcation in the Fryars for free-grace and tenderness of our Brethrens Consciences in the Libertiâ—â—s for Peace and Mutual forbearance in the Socinians for Zeal Self-denâ—al and fearfulness of men and pretended revelations and spirituality in the Quakers He will be against heresie schism error disobedience hypocrisie pretendedly in haters and persecutors of holiness and reformation And when he will seem religious he will be superstitious and seem to out-go Christ himself § 68. Direct 22. Kerp close to Christ that you may know his voice from the voice of strangers Direct 22. And get â—oâ—y wisdom to try the spirits and to discern between things that diâ—â—â—â—r Let the whole frame of Truth and Godliness be in your Head and Heart that you may perceive when any would make a breach in any part of it The Devil setteth up no good but in order to some evil Therefore examine whither it tendeth and not only what it is but what use he would have you make of it And love no evil because of any Goâ—d that is pretended for it and dislike or reject no good because of any evil use that is by others made of it And whatever doctrine is brought you try it thus 1. Receive none that is against the certain Nature Attributes and honour of God 2. Nor any that is against the Light or Law of nature 3. Nor any that is against the Scripture 4. Nor any that is against Holiness of heart and life 5. Nor any against Charity and Justice to men 6. Nor any about matters to be ordered by men that is against order nor any against Government and the peace of Church and State 7. Nor any that is against the true Unity Peace and Communion of Saints 8. Nâ—r any that is certainly inconsistent with great and certain truths Thus try the spirits whether they be of God § 69. Tempt 23. The Tempter usually draâ—eth men to one extream under pâ—etense of avoiding another Tempt â—3 causing men to be so fearful of the danger on one side as to take no heed of that on the other sâ—de § 70. Direct 23 Understand all your danger and mark the latitude or extent of Gods commands Direct 23. and watch on every side And you must know in what duties you are in danger of extreames and in what not In thâ—se acts of the soul that are purely rational about your ultimate end you cannot do too much as in knowing God and Loving him and being willing and resolved to please him But passions may possibly go too farr even about God especially fear and grief for they may be such as nature cannot bear without distraction death or hinderance of duty But few are guilty of this But towards the creature passions may easily exceed And in external actions towards God or man there may be excess But especially in point of Iudgement its easie to slide from extream into extream 2. And you must know in every duty you do and every sin which you avoid and every truth you receive what is the contrary or extream to that particular truth or sin or duty and keep it in your eye If you do not thus watch you will râ—â—l like a drunken man from side to side and never walk uprightly with God You will turn from Prodigality to Covetousness from cruel persecution to Libertinism or from Libertinism to persecuting cruelty from hypocritical formality to hypocritical pretended spirituality or from enthusiasms and faction to dead formality But of this I have spoke at large Chap. 5. Part. 2. Dir. to Students § 71. Tempt 24. On the contrary the Tempter usually pleadeth Moderation and Prudence against Tempt 24. a holy life and accurate zealous obedience to God and would make you believe that to be so diligent in duty and sâ—rupulously afraid of sin is to run into an extream and to be righteous over much and to make Religion a vexatious or distracting thing and that its more a do than needs § 72. Direct 24. This I have answered so oft that I shall here say but this that God cannot be Direct 24. too much loved nor Heaven too much valued nor too diligently sought or obeyed nor sin and Hell be too much avoided nor doth any man need to fear doing too much where he is sure when he hath done his best to do too little Hearken what men say of this at death § 73. Tempt 25. The Tempter would perswade us that one sin is necessary to avoid
be improved Keep thus a just account of your Receivings and what Goods of your Masters is put into your hands And make it a principal part of your study to know what every thing in your hand is good for to your Masters use and how it is that he would have you use it § 9. Direct 6. Keep an account of your expences at least of all your most considerable talents and Direct 6. bring your selves daily or frequently to a reckoning what good you have done or endeavoured to do Every day is given you for some good work Keep therefore accounts of every day I mean in your conscience not in papers Every mercy must be used to some good Call your selves therefore to account for every mercy what you have done with it for your Masters vse And think not hours and minutes and little mercies may be past without coming into the account The servant that thinks he may do what his list with Shillings and Pence and that he is only to lay out greater summs for his Masters use and lesser for his own will prove unfaithful and come short in his accounts Less summs than pounds must be in our reckonings § 10. Direct 7. Take special heed that the common Thief your carnal-self either Personal or in your Direct 7. Relations do not rob God of his expected due and devour that which he requireth It is not for nothing that God calleth for the first fruits Honour the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase so shall thy Barns be filled with plenty and thy Presses shall burst forth with new wine Prov. 3. 9 10. So Exod. 23. 16 19. 34. 22 26. Lev. 2. 12 14. Nehem. 10. 35. Ezek. 20. 40. 44. 30. 48. 14. For if carnal self might first be served its devouring greediness would leave God nothing Though he that hath Godliness with contentment hath enough if he have but food and rayment yet there will be but enough for themselves and children where men have many hundreds or thousands a year if once it fall into this Gulf. And indeed as he that begins with God hath the promise of his bountiful supplyes so he whose flesh must first be served doth catch such an hydropick thirst for more that all will but serve it And the Devil contriveth such necessities to these men and such Uses for all they have that they have no more to spare than poorer men and they can allow God no more but the leavings of the flesh and what it can spare which commonly is next to nothing Indeed though Holy uses in particular were satisfied with first fruits and limited parts yet God must have all and the flesh inordinately or finally have none Every penny which is laid out upon your selves and children and friends must be done as by Gods own appointment and to serve and please him Watch narrowly or else this thievish carnal self will leave God nothing § 11. Direct 8. Prefer greater duties caeteris paribus before lesser and labour to understand Direct 8. well which is the greater and to be preferred Not that any real duty is to be neglected But we call that by the name of Duty which is materially good and a duty in its season But formally indeed it is no duty at all when it cannot be done without the omission of a greater As for a Minister to be praying with his family or comforting one afflicted soul when he should be preaching publickly is to do that which is a duty in its season but at that time is his sin It is an unfaithful servant that is doing some little charâ— when he should be saving a Beast from drowning or the house from burning or doing the greater part of his work § 12. Direct 9. Prudence is exceeding necessary in doing good that you may discern good from evil Direct 9. discerning the season and measure and manner and among divers duties which must be preferred Therefore labour much for Wisdom and if you want it your self be sure to make use of theirs that have it and ask their counsel in every great and difficult case Zeal without Iudgement hath not only entangled souls in many heinous sins but hath ruined Churches and Kingdoms and under pretence of exceeding others in doing good it makes men the greatest instruments of evil There is scarce a sin so great and odious but ignorant zeal will make men do it as a good work Christ told his Apostles that those that killed them should think they did God service And Paul bare record to the Sell all and give to the poor and follow mâ— But sell not aâ—l except thou follow me that is Except thou have a vocation in which thou maist do as much good with little means as with great Lord Bacon Essay 13. the murderous persecuting Jews that they had a zeal of God but not according to knowledge Rom. 10. 2. The Papists murders of Christians under the name of Hereticks hath recorded it to the world in the blood of many hundred thousands how ignorant carnal zeal will do good and what Sacrifice it will offer up to God § 13. Direct 10. In doing good prefer the souls of men before the body caeteris paribus To convert Direct 10. a sinner from the error of his way is to save a soul from death and to cover a multitude of sins Jam. 5. 20. And this is greater than to give a man an alms As cruelty to souls is the most heinous cruelty as persecutors and soul-betraying Pastors will one day know to their remediless wo so mercy to souls is the greatest mercy Yet sometime Mercy to the Body is in that season to be preferred For every thing is excellent in its season As if a man be drowning or famishing you must not delay the relief of his body while you are preaching to him for his conversion but first relieve him and then you may in season afterwards instruct him The greatest duty is not alwayes to go first in time Sometimes some lesser work is a necessary preparatory to a greater And sometimes a corporal benefit may tend more to the good of souls than some spiritual work may Therefore I say still that PRUDENCE and an HONEST HEART are instead of many Directions They will not only look at the immediate benefit of a work but to its utmost tendency and remote effects § 14. Direct 11. In doing good prefer the good of many especially of Church or Common-wealth before Direct 11. the good of one or few For many are more worth than one And many will honour God and serve him more than one And therefore both piety and charity requireth it Yet this also must be Absurdum est unum â—aâ—te vivere cum multi â—suriant Quanto enim gloriosâ—uâ— est multis benefacere quam magnifice habitate Quanto prudentius in homines quam in lapides in auâ—um impâ—nsas facere
a duty As to commit Idolatry to blaspheam God to deny Christ to deny â—â—â—â—â—criptâ—râ—â— to hatâ— or râ—proach or oppose a holy life to be perjured to approve or justifie the â—â—â—â— oâ—â—thâ—râ— c. It can be no duty which cannot be done without the willful yielding to â—â— committing these or any known sin § 48. Rule 4. There are some Duties so great and clear and consâ—â—â—â—t to all that none but a prâ—fâ—â—gâ—â—e or 〈…〉 ne that is fearfully pâ—ysâ—ned with sin can make a doubt of it deliberately Tâ—â—â—â— therefore come not within the case before us § 49. Rule 5. Iâ— Mâ—â—al evil be compared only with Natural Good or Moral Good with Natuâ—â—â—â— Evil there iâ— no dâ—ubt to be made of the case the least sin having more evil in it than the Prospeâ—â—â—â—y or Lives of miâ—â—â—â—ns of men have Good considered in themselves as Natural good and the least â—uâ—â— tâ— God having more good in it than the death of millions of men as such hath evil For the God of duty and the evil of sin are greatned by their respect to God and the other lessened as being 〈…〉 only uâ—to men and with respect to them § 50. Rule 6. Where I am in an equal degree uncertain of the Duty to be omitted and of the sin 〈…〉 committed it is a Greater sin to venture doubtfully upâ—n the committing of a positive sin that is Great in case it prove a sin than upon the omitting a duty which in case it prove a â—uty 〈…〉 Aâ—d on the contrary it is worse to venture on the omitting of a Great duty than on the committing of a small positive sin As suppose my own or my neighbours house be on â—â—re and I am in doubt whether I may take another mans water to quench it against his will Oâ— if my own or my childs or neighbours life be in danger by famine and I doubt whether I may take another mans apples or pears or ears of corn or his bread against his will to save my own lâ—â—e or anothers Really the thing is allready made Lawful or Unlawful which I now determine not by the Law of God But in my unavoidable uncertainty if I be equally doubtful on both sâ—des it is a far greater sin if it prove a sin to omit the saving of the House or Life than to takâ— anâ—ther mans water or fruit or bread that hath plenty if this prove the sin So if King and Nobles were in a ship which would be taken and all destroyed by Pirates unless I told a lie and said They are other persons If I were equally in doubt which course to take to lie or not though sin have more evil than all our Lives have good yet a sinful omitting to save all their lives is a greater sin than a sinful telling of such a lie Suppose I am in doubt whether I may lawfully save an Ox or Asse or a Mans life by labour on the Sabbath day Or David had doubted whether he might eat the consecrated shew-bread in his necessity It 's clear that the sinful neglect of a mans life is worse than the sinful violation of a Sabbath or the sinful use of the consecrated bread If I equally doubt whether I may use a ceremony or disorderly defective form of prayer and whether I should preach the Gospel to save mens souls where there are not others enough to do it it 's clear that sinfully to use a ceremony or disorderly form of prayer is caeteris paribus a lesser sin than sinfully to neglect to preach the Gospel and to save mens souls On the other side suppose I dwelt in Italy and could not have leave to preach the Gospel there unless I would subscribe to the Trent confession or the canon third of Concil Lateran Sub Innocent 3. One of which requireth men to swear for Transubstantiation and to interpret the Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers who never unanimously consented in any exposition of the greatest part of the Scriptures at all The other dâ—â—râ—â—th the Popes deposing Temporal Lords and disobliging their subjects from their allegiance On one side I doubt whether by subscribing I become not guilty of justifying Idolatry Perjury and Rebellion and making my self guilty of the perjury of many thousand others On the other side I doubt whether I may disobey my Superiors who command me this subscription and may forbear preaching the Gospel when yet I apprehend that there are others to preach it and that my worth is not so considerable as that there should be any great loss in putting me out and putting in another and God needeth not me to do him service but hath instruments at command and that I know not how soon he may restore my liberty or that I may serve him in another Country or else in sufferings at home in such a case the sinful justifying of Perjury or Rebellion in whole Countries is a far greater sin than the sinful omission of my preaching for he that justifieth Perjury destroyeth the bonds of all societies and turneth loose the subjects against their Soveraigns Or if I being a Minister were forbidden to preach the Gospel where there is necessity unless I will commit some sin if I doubt on one side whether I should disobey my Superiors and on the other whether I should forbear my calling and neglect the souls of â—inners it is a lesser sin caeteris paribus to disobey a man sinfully than to disobey God and to be cruel to the souls of men to their perdition sinfully Or if I have made a vow and sworn that I will cast away a penny or a shilling and I am in doubt on one side whether I be not bound to keep it as a Vow and on the other whether it be not a sin to keep it because to cast away any of my talents is a sin in this case the sinful casting away of a penny or a shilling is not so great a sin as sinful Perjury If Daniel and the three witnesses had been in equal doubt whether they should obey the King or Pray to God as Daniel 6. and renounce the bowing to his Idol Daniel 3. The sinful forbearance of prayer as then commanded and the sinful bowing to the Idol had been a greater sin than a sinful disobeying the Kings command in such a case if they had mistaken § 51. Rule 7. If I cannot discern whether the Duty to be omitted or the sin to be committed be Rule materâ—ally and in other respects the greater then that will be to me the greater of the sins which my doubting Conscience doth most strongly suspect to be sin in its most impartial deliberation For if other things be equal certainly the sinning against more or less conviction or doubting must make an inequality As if I could not discern whether my subscription to the Trent confession or my forbearing to preach or my preaching though prohibited were the greater sin
thy most comprehensive odious sin and observe this as the life of all thy particular sins and hate it above all the rest This is the very death and greatest deformity of the soul the absence of Gods Image and Spirit and objectively of himself I never lothe my heart so much as when I observe how little it loveth the Lord. Methinks all the sins that ever I committed are not so lothsome to me as this want of Love to God And it is this that is the venom and malignity of every particular sin I never so much hate my self as when I observe how little of God is within me and how far my heart is estranged from him I never do so fully approve of the Justice of God if he should condemn me and thrust me for ever from his presence as when I observe how far I have thrust him from my heart If there were any sin which proceeded not from a want of Love to God I could easilier pardon it to my self as knowing that God would easilier pardon it But not to Love the God of Love the Fountain of Love the felicity of souls is a sin unfit to be pardoned to any till it be repented of and partly cured Christ will forgive it to none that keep it And when it is uncurable it is the special sin of Hell the badge of Devils and damned souls If God will not give me a heart to Love him I would I had never had a heart If he will give me this he giveth me all Happy are the poor the despised and the persecuted that can but live in the Love of God O miserable Emperours Kings and Lords that are strangers to this Heavenly Love and love their lusts above their Maker Might I but live in the fervent Love of God what matter is it in what Countrey or what Cottage or what Prison I live If I live not in the Love of God my Countrey would be worse than banishment a Palace would be a Prison a Crown would be a miserable comfort to one that hath cast away his comfort and is going to everlasting shame and woe Were we but duly sensible of the worth of Love and the odiousness and malignity that is in the want of it it would keep us from being quiet in the daily neglect of it and would quicken us to seek it and to stir it up § 23. Direct 6. Improve the principle of self-love to the promoting of the Love of God by considering Direct 6. what he hath done for thee and what he is and would be to thee I mean not carnal inordinate self-love which is the chiefest enemy of the Love of God But I mean that rational Love of Happiness and self-preservation which God did put into innocent Adam and hath planted in mans nature as necessary to his Government This natural innocent self-love is that remaining principle in the Heart of man which God himself doth still presuppose in all his Laws and Exhortations and which he taketh advantage of in his works and word for the conversion of the wicked and the perswading of his servants themselves to their obedience This is the common principle in which we are agreed with all the wicked of the world that all men should desire and seek to be happy and choose and do that which is best for themselves or else it were in vain for Ministers to preach to them if we were agreed in nothing and we had not this ground in them to cast our seed into and to work upon And if self-love be but informed and guided by understanding it will compell you to Love God and tell you that nothing should be so much Loved Every one that is a man must Love himself We will not intreat him nor be beholden to him for this And every one that Loveth himself will Love that which he judgeth Best for himself And every wise man must know that he never had nor can have any good at all but what he had from God Why do men Love lust or wealth or honour but because they think that these are good for them And would they not Love God if they practically knew that he is the Best of all for them and instead of all Unnatural unthankful heart Canst thou Love thy self and not Love him that gave thee thy self and gives thee all things Nature teacheth all men to love their most entire and necessary friends Do we deserve a reward by loving those that love us when Publicans will do the like Matth. 5. 46. Art thou not bound to love them that hate thee and curse and persecute thee ver 44 45. What reward then is due to thy unnatural ingratitude that canst not love thy chiefest friend All the friends that ever were kind to thee and did thee good were but his messengers to deliver what he sent thee And canst thou love the bearer and not the giver He made thee a man and not a beast He cast thy lot in his visible Church and not among deluded Infidels or miserable Heathens that never heard unless in scorn of the Redeemers name He brought thee forth in a Land of light In a Reformed Church where Knowledge and Holiness have as great advantage as any where in all the world and not among deluded ignorant Papists where ambition must have been thy Governour and Pride and Tyranny have given thee Laws and a formal Ceremonious Image of Piety must have been thy Religion He gave thee Parents that educated thee in his fear and not such as were prophane and ignorant and would have restrained and persecuted thee from a holy life He spoke to thy Conscience early in thy childhood and prevented the gross abominations which else thou hadst committed He bore with the folly and frailties of thy youth He seasonably gave thee those Books and Teachers and company and helps which were fittest for thee and blest them to the further awakening and instructing of thee when he past by others and left them in their sins He taught thee to pray and heard thy prayer He turned all thy fears and groans to thy spiritual good He pardoned all thy grievous sins and since that how much hath he endured and forgiven He gave thee seasonable and necessary stripes and brought thee up in the School of affliction so moderating them that they might not disable or discourage thee but only correct thee and keep thee from security wantonness stupidity and contempt of holy things and might spoil all temptations to ambition worldliness voluptuousness and fleshly lust By the threatnings of great calamities and death he hath frequently awakened thee to cry to Heaven and by as frequent and wonderful deliverances he hath answered thy prayers and encouraged thee still to wait upon him He hath given thee the hearty prayers of many hundreds of his faithful servants and heard them for thee in many a distress He hath strangely preserved thee in manifold dangers He hath not made thee of the
acceptance of their work O that we would do that honour and right to true Religion as to shew the world the nature and use of it by living in the cheerful Praises of our God and did not â—each them to blaspheme it by our mis-doings I have said the more of the excellency and benefits of this work because it is one of your best helps to perform it to know the Reasons of it and how much of your Religion and Duty and comfort consisteth in it and the forgetting of this is the common cause that it is so boldly and ordinarily neglected or slubbered over as it is § 23. Direct 2. The keeping of the heart in the admiration and glorifying o◠〈◊〉 according to Direct 2. the forâ—-going Directions is the principal help to the right praising of him with 〈…〉 ps For out of the hearts abundance the mouth will speak And if the Heart do not bear itâ— part no praise is mâ—lâ—dious to God § 24. Direct 3. â—ead much those Scriptures which speak of the praises of God especially the Psalms Direct 3. and furnish your memories with store of those holy expressions of the excellencies of God which he himself hath taught you in his Word None knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God who teacheth us in the Scriptures to speak divinely of things divine No other diâ—lâ—ct so well becometh the work of praise God that best knoweth himself doth best teach us how to know and praise him Every Christian should have a treasury of these sacred materials in his memory that he may be able at all times in Conference and in Worship to speak of God in the words of God § 25. Direct 4. Be much in singing Psalms of praise and that with the most heart-raising cheerfulness Direct 4. and melody especially in the holy assemblies The melody and the conjunction of many serious holy souls doth â—end much to elevate the heart And where it is done intelligibly reverently in conjunction with a rational spiritual serious Worship the use of Musical Instruments are not to be scrupled or refused any more than the Tunes and Melody of the Vâ—ic◠§ 26. Direct 5. Remember to allow the praises of God their due prâ—portion in all your prayers Direct 5. Use not to shut it out or forget it or cut it short with two or three words in the conclusion The Lords Prayer begins and ends with it and the three first Petitions are for the glorifying the Name of God and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing oâ— his Will by which he is glorified and all this before we ask any thing directly for our selves Use will much help you in the Praise of God § 27. Direct 6. Especially let the Lords Day be principally spent in Praises and Thanksgiving for the Direct 6. work of our Redemption and the benefits thereof This day is separated by God himself to this holy work And if you spend it ordinarily in other Religious duties that subserve not this you spend it not as God requireth you The thankful and praiseful Commemoration of the work of mans Redemption is the special work of the day And the celebrating of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ which is therefore called the Eucharist was part of these laudatory exercises and used every Lords Day by the Primitive Church It is not only a holy day separated to Gods Worship in general but to this Eucharistical Worship in special above the rest as a day of Praises and Thanksgiving unto God And thus all Christians ordinarily should use it § 28. Direct 7. Let your holy conferâ—â—ce with others be much about the glorious Excellencies Direct 7. Works and Mercies of the Lord in way â—f praise and admiration This is indeed to speak to Edification and as the Oracles of God Eph. 4. 29. that God in all things may be glorified 1 Pet. 4. 11. Psal. 29. 9. In his Temple doth every one speak of his glory Psal. 35. 28. My tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praises all the day long Psal. 145. 6 11 21. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts They shall speak of the glory of thy Kingdom and talk of thy power to make known to the Sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious Majesty of his Kingdom My mouth shall speak of the praises of the Lord and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever Psal. 105. 2 3. Talk ye of all his wondrous works glory ye in his holy name § 29. Direct 8. Speak not of God in a light unreverent or common sort as if you talkt of common Direct 8. things but with all possible seriousness gravity and reverence as if you saw the Majesty of the Lord. A common and a holy manner of speech are contrary That only is holy which is separated to God from common use You speak prophanely in the manner how holy soever the matter be when you speak of God with that careless levity as you use to speak of common things Such speaking of God is dishonourable to him and hurts the hearers more than silence by breeding in them a contempt of God and teaching them to imitate you in sleight conceits and speech of the Almighty Whereas one that speaketh reverently of God as in his presence doth ofttimes more affect the hearers with a reverence of his Majesty with a few words than unreverent Preachers with the most accurate Sermons delivered in a common or affected strain When ever you speak of God let the hearers perceive that your hearts are possessed with his Fear and Love and that you put more difference between God and man than between a King and the smallest Worm so when you talk of death or judgement of Heaven or Hell of holiness or sin or any thing that nearly relates to God do it with that gravity and seriousness as the matter doth require § 30. Direct 9. Speak not so unskilfully and foolishly of God or holy things as may 〈…〉 pt the hearers Direct 9. to turn it into a matter of scorn or laughter Especially understand how your p 〈…〉 are suited to the company that you are in Among those that are more ignorant some weak discourses may be tolerable and profitable For they are most affected with that which is delivered in their own Dialect and Mode but among judicious or captious hearers unskilful persons must be very sparing of their words lest they do hurt while they desire to do good and make Religion sâ—em ridiculous We may rejoyce in the scorns which we undergo for Christ and which are bent against his holy Laws or the substance of our duty But if men are jeered for speaking ridiculously and foolishly of holy things they have little reason to take comfort in any thing of that but their honest meanings and intents Nay they must be humbled for being a dishonour to the name of godliness
against it at large before Chap. 3. Direct 6. 8. but shall add these â—ew § 2. Direct 1. Remember the Majesty and presence of that Most Holy God with whom we have to dâ— Direct 1. Heb. 4. 13. Nothing will more affect and awe the heart and over-rule it in the matters of Religion than the true knowledge of God We will not talk sleepily or contemptuously to a King How much less should we be stupid or contemptuous before the God of Heaven It is that God whom Angels worship that sustaineth the world that keepeth us in life that is alwayes present observing all that we think or say or do whose commands are upon us and with whom we have to do in all things and shall we be hardned against his fear Who hath hardned himself against him and hath prospered Job 9. 4. § 3. Direct 2. Think well of the unspeakable greatness and importance of those Truths and Things Direct 2. which should affect you and of those duties which are required of you Eternity of Iâ—y or Torment is such an amazing thing that one would think every thought and every mention either of it or of any thing that concerneth it should go to our very hearts and deeply affect us and should command the obedience and service of our souls It is true they are things unseen and therefore less apt in that respect to affect us than things visible But the Greatness of them should recompence that disadvantage a thousand fold If our lives laâ— upon every word we speak or upon every step we go how carefully should we speak and go But O how deeply should things affect us which our everlasting life is concerned in One would think a thing of so great moment as dying and passing into an endless life of pain or pleasure should so take up and transport the mind of mâ—n that we should have much ado to bring our selves to mind regard or talk of the inconsiderable interests of the flâ—sh How unexcusable a thing is a sensless careless negligent heart when God looketh on us and Heaven or Hell is a little before us Yea when we are so heavily laden with our sins and compassed about with so many enemies and in the midst of such great and manifold dangers to be yet sensless under all is so far to be dead Will not the wounds of sin and the threatnings of the Law and the accuâ—â—tions of conscience make you feel He that cannot feel the prick of a Pin will feel the stab of a Dagger if he be alive § 4. Direct 3. Remember how near the time is when stupidity and sensless neglect of God will be banished Direct 3. from all the world and what certain and powerful means are before you at death and judgement Lento gradu ad vindictaâ—â— suâ— Divina procâ—dit ira â—arditatemque supplâ—â—iâ— gravitare compensat Valerius Maâ— de Dioâ—ys l. 1. c. 2. to awaken and pierce the hardest heart There are but few that are quite insensible at Death There are none past feeling after death in Heaven or Hell No man will stand before the Lord in the day of Judgement with a sleepy or a sensless heart God will recover your feeling by misery if you will lose it by sin and not recover it by grace He can make you now a terror to your selves Ier. 20. 4. He can make conscience say such things in secret to you as you shall not be able to forget or slight But if conscience awake you not the approach of Death its likely will awake you when you see that God is now in earnest with you and that dye you must and there is no remedy will you not begin to think now whither must I go and what will become of me for ever Will you then harden your heart against God and his warnings If you do the first moment of your entrance upon Eternity will cure your stupidity for ever It would grieve a heart that is not stone to think what a feeling stony hearted sinners will shortly have When God will purposely make them feel with his wrathful streams of fire and brimstone When Satan that now hindereth your feeling will do his worst to make you feel and Conscience the never dying Worm will gnaw your hearts and make them feel without ease or hope of remedy Think what a wakening day is coming § 5. Direct 4. Think often of the Love of God in Christ and of the bloody sufferings of thy Redeemer Direct 4. for it hath a mighty power to melt the heart Iâ— Love and the Love of God and so great and wonderful a Love will not soften thy hardned heart what will § 6. Direct 5. Labour for a full apprehension of the evil and danger of a Hardned heart It is Direct 6. the Death of the soul so far as it prevaileth At the easiest it is like the stupidity of a paralytical member or a seared part Observe the names which Scripture giveth it The Hardning of the heart Prov 28. 14. The hardning of the neck Prov. 29. 10. which signifieth Inflexibility The hardning the face which signifieth impudency Prov. 21. 29. The seâ—redness of the Conscience 1 Tim. 4. 2. The Impenitency of the heart Rom. 2. 5. Sometime it is called sottishness or stupidity Ier. 4. 22. Sometime it is called a not caring or not laying things to heart and not regarding Isa. 42. 25. 5. 12. 32. 9 10 11. Sometime it is denominated metaphorically from inanimates A face harder than a rock Jer. 5. 3. Stony hearts Ezek. 11. 19. 36. 26. A neck with an Iron sinew Isa. 48. 4. and a brow of brass It is called sleep and a deep slumber and a Spirit of slumber Rom. 13. 11. 11. 8. Matth. 25. 5. and Death it self 1 Tim 5. 6. Ephes. 2. 1. 5. Col. 2. 13. Jude 12. § 7. Observe also how dreadful a case it is if it be predominant both symptomatically and effectively It is a fore-runner of mischief Prov. 28. 14. It is a dreadful sign of one that is far more unlikely than others to be converted when they are alienated from the life of God by their ignorance and are past feeling they are given up to work uncleanness with greediness Ephes. 4. 14. Usually God calleth those that he will save before they are past feeling Though such are not hopeless their hope lyeth in the recovering of the feeling which they want And a hardned heart and Iron neck and brazen forehead is a sadder sign of Gods displeasure than if he had made the Heavens as Brass and the Earth as Iron to you or let out the greatest distress upon your bodies When men have eyes and see not and ears and hear not and hearts but understand not it is a sad prognostick that they are very unlikely to be converted and forgiven Mark 4. 12. Acts 28. 27. A hardned heart prâ—dominantly is garrisoned and fortified by Satan against all the means
that we can use to help them and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them Let Husband or Wife or Parents or the dearest friends intreat a hardned sinner to be converted and he will not hear them Let the learnedst or wisest or holiest man alive both preach and beseech him and he will not turn At a distance he may reverence and honour a great Divine and a learned or a holy man especially when they are dead But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth and intreat him daily to repent and he will either hate and persecute him or neglect and disobey him What Minister was ever so learned or holy or powerful a Preacher that had not sad experience of this When the Prophet Isa. 53. 1. cryeth out Who hath believed our report And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them and were abused and scorned and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved Nay Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed scorned and murdered by sinners what better should his ablest Ministers expect St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africk that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called they could not convert one hardned sinner by all their Authority Wit or diligence without the power of the Almighty God For will they be converted by Man that are hardned against God What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts and get within them and do them good Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgements of the Lord and of his wrath against them Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it or laugh at them Shall we tell them of Death and Judgement and Eternity Why we speak to the posts or men asleep They hear us as if they heard us not Shall we tell them of endless Ioy and Torments They feel not and therefore fear not nor regard not They have heard of all these till they are a weary of hearing them and our words seem to them but as the noise of the Wind or Water which is of no signification If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher that healed the sick and raised the dead they would wonder at him but would not be converted For Christ did thus and yet prevailed but with few Iohn 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most Acts 7. 57. 22. 22. Nay if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning he might affright them but not convert them for Christ hath told us so himself Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them they would be hardned still as Balaam and others have been Christ rose from the dead and yet was after that rejected We read not of the Conversion of the Souldiers that watcht his Sepulchâ—e though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels but they were after that hired for a little money to lye and say that Christs Disciples stole him away If Magistrates that have power on their bodies should endeavour to bring them to Godliness they would not obey them nor be perswaded King Hezekiahs messengers were but mocked by the people David and Solomon could not convert their hardned subjects Punish them and hang them and they will be wicked to the death Witness the impenitent Thief that dyed with Christ and dyed reproaching him Though God afflict them with rod after rod yet still they sin and are the same Psal. 78. Hâ—s 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face and let them see that they must presently go to judgement it will affright them but not convert them Let them know and confess that sin is bad that Holiness is best that death and eternity are at hand yet are they the same and all will not win their hearts to God Till Grace take away their stony hearts and give them tender fleshy hearts Ezek 36. 26. § 8. Direct 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world This fills the Direct 6. world with wickedness and confusion with Wars and bloodshed and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mahometanism for hardning their hearts against the Lord How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation because they hardned their hearts against the light of truth What vice so odious even beastly filthiness and bitterest hatred and persecution of the wayes of God which men of all degrees and rancks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts This is the thing that grieves the godly that wearieth good Magistrates and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers when they have done their best they are fain as Christ himself before them to grieve for the hardness of mens hearts Alas we live among the dead Our Towns and Countreys are in a sadder case than Aegypt when every house had a dead man Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground and most of our seats had not a dead man that sitteth as if he heard and kneeleth as if he prayed when nothing ever pierced to the quick We have studied the most quickning words we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner and yet we cannot make them feel As if we cryed like Baals worshippers O Baal hear us or like the Irish to their dead Why wouldst thou dye and leave thy house and lands and friends So we talk to them about the death of their souls and their wilful misery who never feel the weight of any thing we say we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears we cast the seed into stony ground Matth. 13. 5 20. It stops in the surface and it is not in our power to open their hearts and get within them I confess that we are much too blame our selves that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in our selves for which God now justly layeth so many of us by But yet we must say our importunity is such as leaveth them without excuse we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world we speak it to them in the name of God we shew them his
and the enemies of Godliness to say that he is Proud and preacheth to draw disciples after him and to be admired by men for they judge of the hearts of others by their own As if they knew not that Christ and his most excellent servants have been crowded after without being thereby lifted up or chargeable with pride As the Sun is not accusable for being beheld and admired by all the world nor fire and water earth and air food and rest for being valued by all Little do they know how deep a sense of their own unworthiness is renewed in the hearts of the most applauded Preachers by the occasion of mens estimation and applause and how much they desire that none may over-value them and turn their eye from the doctrine upon the person And how oft they cry out with the laborious Apostle who is sufficient for these things And how oft they are tempted to cast off all through fear and sense of their unfitness when the envious dullards fearlesly utter a dry discourse and think that they are wronged because they are not commended and followed as much as others they think the common sense of all the faithful and the love of truth and care of their salvation must be called Pride because it carrieth men to prefer the means which is fitted best to their edification and salvation 14. If a humble Christian have after much temptation and a holy life attained to well-grounded perswasions of his salvation and be thankful to God for sanctifying him and numbring him with his little flock when the world lyeth in wickedness he will be taken for Proud by ungodly men that cannot endure to hear before hand of the difference which the judgement of God will declare between the righteous and the wicked As if it were Pride to be happy or to be thankful 15. If a man that is falsly accused or slandered shall modestly deny the charge and use that lawful means which he oweth to his own vindication he will be accused of Pride because he contradicteth proud accusers and consenteth not to belie himself yea though the dishonour of Religion and the hinderance of mens salvation be the consequent of his dishonour 16. Many of the poor do mistake their Superiours to be proud if their apparel be not in fashion and value almost like their own though it be sober and agreeable to their rank 17. Some are of a more rustick or careless disposition unfit for complement and some are taken up with serious studies and employments so contrary to complement that they have neither â—â—â—â— a incessu adâ—o gestuoâ—u compoâ—iâ—â—s ut vel â—â—nde supâ—rbissimi animi contrarerit infamiam Callimach Exper. de Attil p. 341. time nor mind for the observance of the humours of complemental persons who because they expect it and think they are neglected do usually accuse such men of Pride 18. Some are of a silent temper and are accused for Pride because they speak not to others as oft as they expect it 19. Some are naturally unapt to be familiar till they have much acquaintance and are so far from impudent that they are not bold enough to speak much to strangers and take acquaintance with them no though it be with their inferiours and therefore are ordinarily mis-judged to be proud 20. Some have contracted some unhansome customes in their speech or gestures which to rash censurers seem to come from Pride though it be not so By all these seemings the humble are judged Quod â— magnaâ—um ac procâ—â—um congressu abstinuerit Chrysanthius alieniotque â—uerit non arrogantiae aut fastui tribuendum est quin potius rusticitas quaedam aut simplicitas existimari debet in eo qui quid esset potestas ignorabat ita vulgariter minime dissimulanter cum illis verba factitabat Eâ—â—aâ—ius in Châ—â—sâ—st by many to be Proud § 8. III. There are also many counterfeits of Humility by which the Proud are taken to be Humble As 1. An accusing of themselves and bewailing their vileness through meer terror of Conscience as Iudas or the constraint of affliction as Pharaoh or of the face of death 2. A customary confessing of such sins in prayer or in speech with others which the best are used to confess and the confessing of them is taken rather to be an honour than a disgrace 3. A Religious observance of those Commandments and Doctrines of men which the Apostle speaketh of Col. 2. 18 19 20 21 22 23. which have a shew of wisdom in Will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh 4. A holding of those Tenets which doctrinally are most to mans abasement but yet never humbled themselves at the heart 5. A discreet restraint of boasting and such a discommending of themselves as tendeth to procure them the reputation of modesty and humility 6. An affected condescension and familiarity with others even of the lower sort which may seem humility when the poorest have their smiles and courtesie and yet may be but the humility of â— Sam. 15. 3 4 5 6. Absolom the fruit of pride designed to procure the commendations of the world 7. A choosing to converse with their inferiours because they would bear sway and be alwayes the greatest themselves in the company Like Dionysius the Tyrant that when he was dethroned turned Schoolmaster that he might domineer among the boyes 8. A constrained meanness of apparel provisions and deportment when poverty forceth men to speak and live as if they were humble whereas if they had but wealth and honours they would live as high as the proudest of them all How quiet is the Bear when he is chained up and how little doth serve a Dog or a Fox when he can get no more 9. An affected meanness and plainness in apparel while pride runs out some other way He that is odiously proud of his supposed wisdom or learning or holiness or birth or great reputation may in his very pride be above the womanish and childish way of pride in apparel and such other little toyes 10. A loathing and speaking against the pride of others while he overlooks his own perhaps because the pride of others cloudeth him as the covetous hate others that are covetous because they are the greatest hinderers of their gain as Dogs fight for the bone which both would have Many more counterfeits of Humility may be gathered from what is said before of the seemings of Pride whereto it is contrary § 9. Direct 2. Observe the motions and discoveries of pride toward God and Man that it may not Direct 2. like the Devil prevail by keeping out of sight Because this is the chief part of my work I shall here distinctly shew you the signs and motions of it in its several wayes against God and Man Signs of the worst part of PRIDE against GOD. § 10. Sign 1. Self-idolizing Pride doth cause men to glory in their
such a sight The Swine or Beast hath as clean an inside And what if this filth be covered with a whiter skin or clearer colour than your neighbours have is there any cause of pride in that When sickness hath altered and consumed you then where is that which you called beauty If but the â—â—prosiâ— or the Small Pox deform it or a Feaver Consumption or Dropsie waste it or the Stone or Gowt or any such torment seize upon thee thou wilt feel or see that which may shame thy pride Should such a worm be proud that cannot though he be a Herod keep the worms from eating him alive that in a flux cannot retain his excrâ—ments that cannot bear easily the aking of a tooth If thou be fit â—or Pride forbid diseases to touch thy flesh or stain thy beauty Do not be sick nor weak nor pained Let not the Worm and corruption be thy guests Or if thou be so poor a thing as cannot hinder any of these then know thy self and be ashamed of Pride And when thou art in sickness thou wilt be burdensome to others Its likely thou must have their helps even to feâ—d thee to dress thee to turn thee and keep thee clean And when all is done thou must dye and be laid in darkness in a grave There must thou lye rotting night and day till thy flesh be turned into earth The grass doth wither when it is cut down but yet it is sweet The Tree that is cut down will rot in time but not with such a lothesome stink as we He that had seen what the late doleful Wars did often shew us when the fields were strowed with the carkasses of men and when they lay by heaps among the rubbish of the Ditches of Towns and Castles that had been assaulted would think such lothesome lumps of flesh should never have been proud When once death hath deprived thy body of its soul thy best friends will quickly be weary of the remainder and glad to rid thee out of sight and smell Go to the Church-yard and look on the dust and bones that are there cast up and scattered and bethink thee whether those that must come to this have reason to be proud See whether there be any differing mark of honour upon the dust of the rich or strong or beautiful and whether the bones there strive for principality and dominion Therefore the desire of adorned Monuments upon mens Graves is one of the most odious sorts of pride when the neighbourhood of rottenness and dust doth shame it As our serious Poet Hâ—â—bert saith When th' hair grows sweet with Pride and lust The powder doth forget the dust And though thy soul be far nobler than thy body yet here how ignorant and weak and distempered is it How full of false Idea's are mens minds How little know they of that which they might know or are confident they do know How daâ—k are we about all the works of God and about his word much more about himself The greatest Doctors are strongly tempted to be Scepticks and the ignorant that this year are confident to a contempt and censoriousness of all that differ from them perhaps the next year do change their judgements and recant themselves And are our Hearts and lives any happier than our understandings While we are imprisoned in flesh and its interest is ours and its appetites and passions have so much advantage to corrupt seduce or disturb the soul Know thy self and Pride will dye § 97. Direct 16. If thou have any thing to be proud of remember what it is and that it is Direct 16. not thine own but given or lent thee by that God who chiefly hateth Pride 1. Art thou tempted to be proud of Riches Remember that they are in themselves but dross which will leave thee at the grave as poor as any And as to their Usefulness they are but thy Masters talents and the more thou hast the greater will be thine account And very few rich men scape the snare and come to Heaven Thy charge and danger therefore should rather humble thee and make thee exceedingly to fear Read Iam. 5. 1 2 3 4. and Luke 12. 19 20. 2. Is it Greatness and dominion or humane applause or honour that you are proud of Remember that this also is in it self a dream that maketh thee really neither better nor safer than other men Thou standest upon higher ground where thou hast more than others of the storms and dangers and shalt be levelled with the lowest in thy fall And as to the Use of thy Power and Greatness it is for God and not thy self And so great will be thy reckoning according to the trust reposed in thee as would affright a considerate believer to foresee 3. Is it youthful strength that you are proud of How little can it do for thee of that which thou most needest And how soon will it be turned to weakness How many are cut off in youth and their life is among the unclean as Elihu speaks Job 36. 14. Their bones are full of the sins of their youth which shall lye down with them in the dust Job 20. 11. 4. Is it Beauty that you are proud of I have told you what sickness and death will do to that before When God rebuketh man for sin he makes his beauty to consume as a moth surely every man is vanity Psal. 39. 11. Read Psal. 49. 12 13 14. And if your beauty would continue how little good will it do you and who but fools do look at the skin of a rational creature when they would discern their worth A fool and a slave of lust and Satan may be beautiful A Sepulchre may be guilded that hath rottenness within Will you choose the finest purse or the fullest Who but a child or fool will value his Book by the fineness of the cover or guilding of the leaves and not by the worth of the matter within Absalom was beautiful and what the better was he 2 Sam. 14. 25. Prov. 31 30. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised 5. If it be fine Clothes and gaudy Ornaments that you are proud of it is a sin so foolish and worse than childiâ—h that I shall give it no other confutation than to tell you that it contradicteth it self by making the person a scorn and laughing stock to others when their design was to be more admired and that an Ass or a Post may have as fine and costly attire as you and that shortly â—sa 3. you shall change it for a Winding-sheet 6. Is it your birth and progenitors and great friends that you are proud of Personal merits are incomparably more excellent than this relation to the most meritorious parents much more than a relation to their empty titles Cain was the Son of Adam the Father of mankind and Cham of Noah and Esau of Iacob and Absalom of David when a
didst omit Thou hast an offended God to be reconciled to and for thy estranged soul to know as thy Father in Jesus Christ what abundance of Scripture truths hast thou to learn which thou art ignorant of How many holy duties as Prayer Meditation holy conference c. to learn which thou art unskilful in and to perform when thou hast learned them How many works of Justice and Charity to mens souls and bodies hast thou to do How many needy ones to relieve as thou art able and the sick to visit and the naked to cloath and the sad to comfort and the ignorant to instruct and the ungodly to exhort Heb. 3. 13. Heb. 10. 25. Ephes. 4. 29. what abundance of duty hast thou to perform in thy Relations to Parents or Children to Husband or Wife as a Master or a Servant and the rest Thou little knowest what sufferings thou hast to prepare for Thou hast Faith and Love and Repentance and patience and all Gods graces to get and to exercise daily and to increase Thou hast thy accounts to prepare and assurance of salvation to obtain and Death and Judgement to prepare for what thinks thy heart of all this work Put it off as lightly as thou wilt it is God himself that hath laid it on thee and it must be done in time or thou must be undone for ever And yet it must not be thy toyl but thy delight This is appointed thee for thy chiefest recreation Look into the Scripture and into thy Heart and thou wilt find that all this is to be done And dost thou think in thy Conscience that this is not greater business than thy gawdy dressings thy idle visits or thy needless sports which is more worthy of thy Time § 10. Direct 3. Remember how gainful the Redeeming of Time is and how exceeding comfortable Direct 3. in the review In Merchandize or any trading in husbandry or any gaining course we use to say of a man that hath grown rich by it that he hath made use of his Time But when Heaven and communion with God in the way and a life of holy strength and comfort and a death full of joy and hope is to be the gain how cheerfully should Time be Redeemed for these If it be pleasant for a man to find himself thrive and prosper in any rising or pleasing employment How pleasant must it be continually to us to find that in redeeming Time the work of God and our souls do prosper Look back now on the Time that is past and tell me which part is sweetest to thy thoughts However it be now I can tell thee at death it will be an unspeakable comfort to look back on a well spent life and to be able to say in humble sincerity My time was not cast away on worldliness ambition idleness or fleshly vanities or pleasures but spent in the sincere and laborious service of my God and making my calling and election sure and doing all the good to mens souls and bodies that I could do in the world It was entirely devoted to God and his Church and the good of others and my soul What a joy is it when going out of the world we can in our place and measure say with our blessed Lord and pattern John 17. 4 5. I have Glorified thee on earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and now O Father glorifie me with thy self Or as Paul 1 Tim. 4. 6 7 8. I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Iudge shall give And 2 Cor. 1. 12. For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdâ—m we have had our conversation in the world It s a great comfort in sickness to be able to say with Hezekiah Isa 38. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight O Time well spent is a precious cordial to a soul that is going to its final sentence and is making up its last and general accounts Yea the reviews of it will be joyful in Heaven which is given though most freely by the Covenant antecedently yet as a Reward by our most righteous judge when he comes to sentence men according to that Covenant § 11. Direct 4. Consider on the contrary how sad the review of ill spent time is and how you will Direct 4. wish you had spent it when it is gone Hast thou now any comfort in looking back on thy despised hours I will not so far wrong thy understanding as to question whether thou know that thou must die But thy sin alloweth me to ask thee Whether at thy dying hour it will be any comfort to thee to remember thy pastimes And whether it will then better please thee to find upon thy account so many hours spent in doing good to others and so many in prayer and studying the Scriptures and thy Heart and in preparing for death and the life to come so many in thy calling obediently managed in order to eternity or to hear so many hours spent in idleness and so many in needless sports and plays hawking and hunting courting and wantonness and so many in gathering and providing for the flesh and so many in satisfying its greedy lusts Which reckoning doth thy Conscience think would be most comfortable to thee at the last I put it to thy own Conscience if thou were to die to morrow how thou wouldst spend this present day Wouldst thou spend it in idleness and vain pastimes Or if thou were to die this day where wouldst thou be found and about what exercises Hadst thou rather death found thee in a Play-house a Gaming-house an A L E house in thy fleshly jollity and pleasure Or in a holy walking with thy God and serious preparing for the life to come Perhaps you 'l say that If you had but a day to live you would lay by the labours of your calling and yet that doth not prove them sinful But I answer There is a great difference between an evil and a small unseasonable Good If death found thee in thy honest calling holily managed Conscience would not trouble thee for it as a sin And if thou rather choose to die in prayer it is but to choose a greater duty in its season But sure thou wouldst be loth on another account to be found in thy Time-wasâ—â—ing pleasures And Conscience if thou have a Conscience would make thee drâ—ad it as a sâ—n Thou wilt not wish at death that thou hadst never laboured in thy lawful calling though thou wouldst be found in a more seasonable work But thou wilt wish then if thou
thy meditations And though these thoughts be not the sweetest 8. 〈…〉 and wants yet thy own folly hath made them necessary If thou be dangerously sick or but painfully sore thou canst scarce forget it If poverty afflict thee with pinching wants thy Thoughts are taken up with cares and trouble day and night If another wrong thee thou canst easily think on it And hast thou so often wronged thy God and Saviour and so unkindly vilified his mercy and so unthankfully set light by saving Grace and so presumptuously and securely ventured on his wrath and yet dost thou find a scarcity of matter for thy meditations Hast thou all the sins of thy youth and ignorance to think on and all the sins of thy rashness and sensuality and of thy negligence and sloth and of thy worldliness and selfishness ambition and pride thy passions and thy omissions and all thy sinful thoughts and words and yet art thou scanted of matter for thy thoughts Dost thou carry about thee such a body of death so much selfishness pride worldliness and carnality so much ignorance unbelief averseness to God and backwardness to all that is spiritual and holy so much passion and readiness to sin and yet dost thou not find enough to think on Look over the sins of all thy life see them Thus Evil may be made the object and occasion of good It is good to meditate on evil to hate it and avoid it Keep acquaintanâ—â— with Conscience and read over its Books and it will furnish your thoughts with humbling matter in all their aggravations as they have been committed against knowledge or means and helps against mercies and judgements and thy own vows or promises in prosperity and under affliction it self in secret and with others in thy general and particular calling and in all thy relations in every place and time and condition that thou hast lived in thy sins against God directly and thy injuries or neglects of man sins against holy duties and sins in holy duties in prayer hearing reading Sacraments meditation conference reproofs and receiving of reproofs from others thy negligent preparations for death and judgement the strangeness of thy soul to God and Heaven Is not here work enough for thy Meditations certainly if thou think so it is because thy heart never felt the bitterness of sin nor was ever yet acquainted with true Repentance but the time is yet to come that Light must shew thee what sin is and what thou art and what thou hast done and how full thy heart is of the Serpents brood and that thy sin must find thee out Dost thou not know that thy sins are as the Sands of the Shore or as the hairs upon thy head for number and that every sin hath deadly poyson in it and malignant enmity to God and holiness and yet are they not enough to keep thy Thoughts from being idle Judge by their language whether it be so with penitents Psal. 51. 2 3. Wash me throughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me Psal. 40. 12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up they are more than the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me Psal. 119. 57. I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies True Repentance is thus described Ezek. 36. 31. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your own iniquities and for your abominations Yea Gods forgiving and forgetting your sins must not make you forget them Ezek. 16. 60 61 62 63. I will establish to thee an everlasting Covenant Then thou shalt remember thy ways and be ashamed And I will establish my Covenant with thee That thou maist remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God of Hosts § 9. Direct 9. Be not a stranger to the methods and subtleties and diligence of Satan in his Temptations Direct 9. to undo thy soul and thou wilt find matter enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness He is 9. Satans Temptations thinking how to deceive thee and destroy thee and doth it not concern thee to think how to defeat him and escape and save thy self If the hare run not as fast as the dog he is like to dye for it O that thy eyes were but opened to see the snares that are laid for thee in thy nature in thy temperature and passions in thy interests thy relations thy friends and acquaintance and ordinary company in thy businesses and possessions thy house and goods and lands and cattel and tenants and servants and all that thou tradest with or hast to do with in thine apparel and recreations in thy meat and drink and sleep and ease in prosperity and adversity in mens good thoughts or bad thoughts of thee in their praise and in their dispraise in their benefits and their wrongs their favour and in their falling out in their pleasing or displeasing thee in thy thinking and in thy speaking and in every thing that thou hast to do with Didst thou but see all these temptations and also see to what they tend and whither they would bring thee thou wouldst find matter to cure the idleness or impertinencies of thy thoughts § 10. Direct 10. The world and every creature in it which thou daily seest and which revealeth to Direct 10. thee the great Creator might be enough to keep thy Thoughts from idleness If Sun and Moon and Stars if Heaven and Earth and all therein be not enough to employ thy thoughts let thy idleness have some excuse I know thou wilt say that it is upon some of these things that thou dost employ them Yea but dost thou not first destroy and mortifie and make nonsense of that on which thou meditatest Dost thou not first separate it from God who is the life and glory and end and meaning of every creature Thou killest it and turnest out the soul and thinkest only on the Corps or on the Creature made another thing as food for thy sensual desires As the Kite thinketh on the Birds and Chickens to devour them to satisfie her greedy appetite Thus you can think of all Gods works so far as they accommodate your flesh But the World is Gods book which he set man at first to read and every Creature is a Letter or Syllable or Word or Sentence more or less declaring the name and will of God There you may behold his wonderful Almightiness his unsearchable Wisdom his unmeasurable Goodness mercy and compassions and his singular regard of the sons of men Though the ungodly proud and carnal wits do but play with and study the shape and comeliness and order
of Christs Body and Blood aright But besides all these what a deal of duty have you to perform to Magistrates Pastors Parents Masters and other superiours to subjects people children servants and other inferiours to every neighbour for his soul his body his estate and name and to do to all as you would be done by And besides all this how much have you to do directly for your selves for your souls and bodies and families and estates Against your ignorance infidelity pride selfishness sensuality worldliness passion sloth intemperance cowardize lust uncharitableness c. Is not here matter for your thoughts § 15. Direct 15. Overlook not that life full of particular mercies which God hath bestowed on your Direct 15. selves and you will find pleasant and profitable matter for your thoughts To spare me the labour of 15. All our particular Mercies repeating them look back to Chap. 3. Dir. 14. Think of that mercy which brought you into the world and chose your Parents your place and your condition which brought you up and bore with you patiently in all your sins and closely warned you of every danger which seasonably afflicted you and seasonably delivered you and heard your Prayers in many a distress which hath yet kept the worst of you from death and Hell and hath Regenerated justified adopted and sanctified those that he hath fitted for eternal life How many sins he hath forgiven How many he hath in part subdued How many and suitable helps he hath vouchsafed you From how many Enemies he hath saved you how oft he hath delighted you by his word and grace what comforts you have had in his Servants and ordinances in your relations and callings His mercies are innumerable and yet do your meditations want matter to supply them If I should but recite the words of David in many thankful Psalms you would think Mercy found his Thoughts employment § 16. Direct 16. Foresee that exact and righteous judgement which shortly you have to undergo Direct 16. and it will do much to find you employment for your thoughts A man that must give an account to 16. The account at Judgement God of all that he hath done both good and evil and knoweth not how soon for ought he knows before to morrow me thinks should find him something better than vanity to think on Is it nothing to be ready for so great a day To have your justification ready your accounts made up Your Consciences cleansed and quietted on good grounds To know what answer to make for your selves against the accuser To be clear and sure that you are indeed Regenerate and have a part in Christ and are washed in his blood and reconciled to God and shall not prove hypocrites and self-deceivers in that trying day when it is a sentence that must finally decide the question whether we shall be saved or damned and must determine us to Heaven or Hell for ever and you have so short and uncertain a time for your preparation will not this administer matter to your Thoughts If you were going to a Judgement for your lives or all your estates you would think it sufficient to provide you matter for your thoughts by the way How much more this final dreadful judgement § 17. Direct 17. If all this will not serve the turn it 's strange if God call not home your thoughts Direct 17. by sharp afflictions and methinks the improvement of them and the removal of them should find some 17. Our Afflictions employment for your thoughts It 's time then to search and try your ways and turn again unto the Lord Lam. 3. 4. To find out the Achan that troubleth your peace and know the voice of the rod and what God is angry at and what it is that he calleth you to mind To know what root it is that beareth these bitter fruits and how they may be sanctified to make you conformable to Christ and partakers of his holiness Heb. 12. 10. Besides the exercise of holy patience and submission there is a great deal of work to be done in sufferings to exercise faith and honour God and the good cause of our suffering and to humble our selves for the evil cause and to get the benefit And if you will not meditate of the Duty you shall meditate of the pain whether you will or not and say as Lam. 3. 17 18 19 20. I forgate prosperity and I said My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord Remembring mine affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me Put not God to remember you by his spur and help your meditations by so sharp a means Psal. 78. 33 34 35. Therefore did he consume their days in vanity and their years in trouble when he â—lew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer § 18. Direct 18. Be diligent in your callings and spend no time in idleness and perform your labours Direct 18. with holy minds to the glory of God and in obedience to his commands and then your thoughts will 18. The business of your Calling have the less leisure and liberty for vanity or idleness Employments of the body will employ the Thoughts They that have much to do have much to think on For they must do it prudently and skillfully and carfully that they may do it successfully and therefore must think how to do it And the urgency and necessity of business will almost necessitate the thoughts and so carry them on and find them work Though some employments more than others And let none think that these Thoughts are bad or vain because they are about worldly things For if our Labours themselves be not bad or vain then neither are those thoughts which are needful to the well-doing of our work Nor let any worldling please himself with this and say My thoughts are taken up about my calling For his calling it self is perverted by him and made a carnal work to carnal ends when it should be sanctified That the thoughts about your labours may be good 1. Your Labours themselves must be good performed in obedience to God and for the good of others and to his glory 2. Your Labours and thoughts must keep their bounds and the higher things must be still preferred and sought and thought on in the first place And your Labours must so far employ your thoughts as is needful to the well-doing of them but better things must be thought on in such labours as leave a vacancy to the Thoughts But diligence in your calling is a very great help to keep out sinful thoughts and to furnish us with thoughts which in their place are good § 19. Direct 19. You have all Gods spiritual helps and holy ordinances to feed your meditations Direct 19. and
the final obstinate refusers of Christ and life 4. That he that so far believeth the truth of the Gospel as to Consent to the Covenant of Grace even that God the Father be his Lord and Reconciled Father and Christ his savior and the Holy Ghost his sanctifier hath true saving faith and right to the blessing of the Covenant 5. That the day of Grace is so far commensurate or equal to our Life time that whosoever truly Repenteth and Consenteth to the Covenant of Grace before his death is certainly pardoned and in a state of life and that it is every mans duty so to do that pardon may be theirs 6. That Satans temptations are none of our sins but only our yielding to them 7. That the effects of natural sickness or diseasedness is not in it self a sin 8. That those are the smallest sins formally and least like to condemn us which we are most unwilling of and are least in Love or liking of 9. That no sin shall condemn us which we hate more than love and which we had rather leave and be delivered from than keep For this is true Repentance 10. That he is truly sanctified who had rather be perfect in Holiness of heart and life in Loving God and Living by Faith than to have the greatest pleasures riches or honours of the world taking in the Means also by which both are attained 11. That he who hath this Grace and desire may know that he is elect and the making of our Calling sure by our Consenting to the holy Covenant is the making of our Election sure 12. That the same thing which is a great duty to others may be no duty to one who by bodily distemper as Feavors Phrensies Melancholy is unable to perform it § 6. Direct 2. Take heed of worldly cares and sorrows and discontents Set not so much by earthly things as to enable them to disquiet you But learn to cast your cares on God You can have less peace in an affliction which cometh by such a carnal sinful means It s much more safe to be distracted with cares for Heaven than for Earth § 7. Direct 3. Meditation is no duty at all for a melancholy person except some few that are able to Direct 3. bear a diverting meditation which must be of something farthest from the matter which troubled them Or except it be short meditations like ejaculatory prayers A set and serious meditation will but confound you and disturb you and disable you to other duties If a man have a broken leg he must not go on it till it s knit lest all the body fare the worse It is your Thinking faculty or your Imagination which is the broken pained part and therefore you must not use it about the things that trouble you Perhaps you 'll say That this is to be prophane and forget God and your soul and let the tempter have his will But I answer No It is but to forbear that which you cannot do at present that by doing other things which you can do you may come again to do this which you now cannot do It is but to forbear attempting that which will but make you less able to do all other duties And at the present you may conduct the affairs of your soul by holy Reason I perswade you not from Repenting or Believing but from set and long and deep Meditations which will but hurt you § 8. Direct 4. Be not too long in any secret duty which you find you are not able to bear Prayer Direct 4. it self when you are unable must be performed but as you can Short confessions and requests to God must serve instead of longer secret prayers when you are unable to do more If sickness may excuse a man for being short where nature will not hold out the case is the same here in the sickness of the brain and spirits God hath appointed no means to do you hurt § 9. Direct 5. Where you find your selves unable for a secret duty struggle not too hard with your Direct 5. selves but go that pace that you are able to go quietly For as every striving doth not enable you but vex you and make duty wearisom to you and disable you more by increasing your disease Like an Ox that draweth unquietly and a Horse that chaseth himself that quickly tireth Preserve your willingness to duty and avoid that which makes it grievous to you As to a sick stomach it is not eating much but digesting well that tends to health and little must be eaten when much cannot be digested So it is here in case of your meditations and secret prayers § 10. Direct 6. Be most in those dutys which you are best able to bear which with most is Prayer Direct 6. with others hearing and good discourse As a sick man whose stomach is against other meats must eat of that which he can eat of And God hath provided variety of means that one may do the work when the other are wanting Do not misunderstand me In cases of absolute necessity I say again you must strive to do it whatever come of it If you are backward to believe to Repent to Love God and your neighbour to live soberly righteously and godly to pray at all here you must strive and not excuse it by any backwardness for it is that which must needs be done or you are lost But a man that cannot read may be saved without his reading and a man in prison or sickness may be saved without hearing the word and without the Church-communion of Saints And so a man disabled by melancholy may be saved by shorter thoughts and ejaculations without set and long meditations and secret prayers And other duties which he is able for will supply the want of these Even as nature hath provided two eyes and two ears and two nostrils and two reins and lungs that when one is stopt or faulty the other may supply its wants for a time So is it here § 11. Direct 7. Avoid all unnecessary solitariness and be as much as possible in honest chearful company Direct 7. You have need of others and are not sufficient for your selves And God will use and honour others as his hands to deliver us his blessings Solitariness is to those that are fit for it an excellent season for meditation and converse with God and with our hearts But to you it is the season of temptation and danger if Satan tempted Christ himself when he had him fasting and solitary in a wilderness much more will he take this as his opportunity against you Solitude is the season of musings and thoughtfulness which are the things which you must fly from if you will not be deprived of all § 12. Direct 8. When blasphemâ—us or disturbing thoughts look in or fruitless musings presently meet Direct 8. them and use that authority of Reason which is left you to cast them and command them out If you
have not lost it Reason and the will have a command over the thoughts as well as over the tongue or hands or feet And as you would be ashamed to run up and down or fight with your hands and say I cannot help it or to let your tongue run all day and say I cannot stop it so should you be ashamed to let your Thoughts run at random or on hurtful things and say I cannot help it Do you do the best you can to help it Cannot you bid them be gone Cannot you turn your thoughts to something else Or cannot you rowze up your self and shake them off Some by casting a little cold water in their own faces or bidding another do it can rowze themselves from melancholy musings as from sleep Or cannot you get out of the room and set your self about some business which will divert you You might do more than you do if you were but willing and knew how much it is your duty § 13. Direct 9. When you do think of any holy things let it be of the best things of God and Grace Direct 9. and Christ and Heaven Or of your brethren or the Church and carry all your meditations outward but be sure you pâ—re not on your selves and spend not your thoughts upon your thoughts As we have need to call the Thoughts of careless sinners inwards and turn them from the Creature and sin upon themselves so we have need to call the Thoughts of self-perplexing melancholy persons outwards For it is their disease to be still grinding upon themselves Remember that it is a far higher nobler and sweeter work to think of God and Christ and Heaven than of such worms as we our selves are When we go up to God we go to Love and Light and Liberty But when we look down into our selves we look into a dungeon a prison a wilderness a place of darkness horror filthiness misery and confusion Therefore though such thoughts be needful so far as without them our Repentance and due watchfulness cannot be maintained yet they are grievous ignoble yea and barren in comparison of our thoughts of God When you are poring on your hearts to search whether the Love of God be there or no it were wiser to be thinking of the infinite Amiableness of God and that will cause it whether it were there before or not So instead of poring on your hearts to know whether they are set on Heaven lift up your thoughts to Heaven and think of its Glory and that will raise them thither and give you and shew you that which you were searching for Bestow that time in planting holy desires in the garden of your hearts which you bestow in routing and puzling your selves in searching whether it be there already We are such dark confused things that the sight of our selves is enough to raise a loathing and a horror in our minds and make them melancholy But in God and Glory there is nothing to discourage our thoughts but all to delight them if Satan do not mis-represent him to us § 14. Direct 10. Overlook not the Miracle of Love which God hath shewed us in the wonderful incarnation Direct 10. office life dâ—ath resurrection ascention and reign of our Redeemer But steep your thoughts most in these wonders of mercy proposed by God to be the chief matter of your thoughts You should in reason lay out many thoughts of Christ and Grace for one that you lay out on your sin and misery God requireth you to see your sin and misery but so much as tendeth to magnifie the remedy and cause you to accept it Never think of sin and Hell alone but as the way to the thoughts of Christ and Grace This is the duty even of the worst Are your sins ever before you Why is not pardoning grace in Christ before you Is Hell open before you Why is not the Redeemer also before you Do you say Because that sin and Hell are yours but Christ and Holiness and Heaven are none of yours I answer you It is then because you will have it so If you would not have it so it is not so God hath set Life first before you and not only Death He hath put Christ and Holiness and Heaven in his end of the ballance and the Devil puts the pleasure of sin for a season in the other Jâ—h 3 16. 1 Joâ—n 5 10 11 12. Rev. â—â— 17. John 5. 40. end That which you choose unfeignedly is yours For God hath given you your choice Nothing is truer than that God hath so far made over Christ and Life to all that hear the Gospel that nothing but their final obstinate refusal can condemn them Christ and Life are brought to the will and choice of all though all have not wills to accept and choose him And if you would not have Christ and Life and Holiness what would you rather have And why complain you § 15. Direct 11. Think and speak as much of the Mercy which you have received as of the sin you Direct 11. have committed and of the mercy which is offered you as of what you want You dare not say that the mercy you have received is no more worthy to be remembred and mentioned than all your sins Shall God do so much for you and shall it be overlooked extenuated and made nothing of As if his mercies had been a bare bone or a barren wilderness which would yield no sustenance to your thoughts Be not guilty of so great unthankfulness Thoughts of Love and mercy would breed Love and sweetness in the soul while thoughts of sin and wrath only breed averseness terror bitterness perplexity and drive away the heart from God § 16. Direct 12. Tie your selves daily to spend as great a part of your Time in your prayers in the Direct 12. confessing of mercy received as in confessing sin committed and in the Praises of God as in the lamenting of your own miseries You dare not deny but this is your duty if you understand your duty Thanksgiving and praise are a greater duty than confessing sin and misery Resolve then that they shall have the largest share of Time If you will but do this much which you can do if you will it will in time take off the bitterness of your spirits and the very frequent mention of sweeter things will sweeten your minds and change their temperature and habit as change of dyet changeth the temperature of the body I beseech you resolve and try this course If you cannot mention mercy so Thankfully as you would nor mention Gods excellencies so holily and praisefully as you would yet do what you can and mention them as you are able You may command your Time what shall have the greatest share in prayer though not your affections You will find the benefit very great if you will do but this § 17. Direct 13. Overvalue not the passionate part of duty but know that
avoided And usually narrow sighted persons are fearful only of one extream and see no danger but on one side and therefore are easily carried by avoiding that into the contrary § 38. I think it not unprofitable to instance in several particular Cautions that you imitate not them that put asunder what God hath conjoyned and cast not away truth as oft as you are puzzled in the right placing or methodizing it § 39. Inst. 1. The first and second Causes are conjoyned in their operations and therefore must not Instance 1. be put asunder If the way of influx concourse or co-operation be dark and unsearchable to you do not deny that it is because you see not how it is The honour of the first and second Cause also are conjunct according to their several interests in the effects Do not therefore imagine that all the honour ascribed to the second cause is denyed or taken away from the first For then you understand not their order Otherwise you would see that as the second causeth independance on the first and in subordination to it and hath no power but what is communicated by it so it hath no honour but what is received from it and that it is no less honour for the first cause to operate mediately by the second than immediately by it self And that there is no less of the Power Wisdom or Goodness of God in an effect produced by means and second causes than in that which he produceth of himself only without them And that it is his Goodness to communicate a power of doing good to his creatures and the honour of working and causing under him but he never loseth any thing by communicating nor hath the less himself by giving to his creatures For if all that honour that is given to the Creature were taken injuriously from God then God would never have made the world nor made a Saint and then the worst creatures would least dishonour God Then he would not shine by the Sun but by himself immediately and then he would never Glorifie either Saint or Angel But on the contrary it is Gods honour to work by adapted means And all their honour is truly his As all the commendation of a Clock or Watch is given to the Workman And though God do not all so immediately as to use no means or second causes yet is he never the further from the effect but immediatione virtutis suppositi is himself as near as if he used none § 40. Inst. 2. The special Providence of God and his being the first Universal cause are conjunct Instance 2. with the culpability of sinners and no man must put these asunder Those that cannot see just how they are conjoyned may be sure that they are conjoyned It is no dishonour to an Engineer that he can make a Watch which shall go longer than he is moving it with his finger Nor is it a dishonour to our Creator that he can make a Creature which can Morally determine it self to an action as commanded or forbidden without the predetermination of his Maker though not without his universal concourse necessary to action as action If Adam could not do this through the natural impossibility of it than the Law was that he should dye the death if he did not overcome God or do that which was naturally impossible and this was the nature of his sin Few dare say that God cannot make a free self-determining agent And if he can we shall easily prove that he hath and the force of their opposition then is vanished § 41. Inst. 3. The Omniscience of God and his Dominion Government and Decrees are conjunct with Instance 3. the liberty and sin of man yet these by many are put asunder As if God must either be Ignorant or be the author of sin As if he made one poor by Decreeing to make another Rich As if he cannot be a perfect Governour unless he procure all his subjects perfectly to keep his Laws As if all the fault of those that break the Law were to be laid upon the Maker of the Law As if all Gods will de debito were not effective of its proper work unless man fulfill it in the Event And as if it were possible for any Creature to comprehend the way of the Creators Knowledge § 42. Inst. 4. Many would separate Nature and Grace which God the author of both conjoyneth Instance 4. When Grace supposeth Nature and in her Garden soweth all her seed and exciteth and rectifieth all her powers yet these men talk as if Nature had been annihilated or Grace came to annihilate it and not to cure it As if the Leprosie and Disease of Nature were Nature it self And as if Natural Good had been lost as much as Moral Good As if man were not man till Grace make him a man § 43. Inst. 5. Many separate the Natural Power of a sinner from his Moral impotency and Instance 5. his Natural freedome of will from his Moral servitude as if they were inconsistent when they are conjunct As if the Natural faculty might not consist with an evil disposition or a Natural power with an habitual unwillingness to exercise it aright And as if a sinner were not still a man § 44. Inst. 6. Many separate General and special Grace and Redemption as inconsistent when they Instance 6. are conjunct When the General is the proper way and means of accomplishing the ends of the special Grace and is still supposed As if God could not give more to some if he give any thing to all Or as if he gave nothing to all if he give more to any As if he could not deal equally and without difference with all as a Legislator and righteously with all as a Iudge unless he deal equally and without difference with all as a Benefactor in the free distribution of his gifts As if he were obliged to make every Worm and Beast a man and every man a King and every King an Angel and every Clod a Star and every Star a Sun § 45. Inst. 7. Many separate the Glory of God and mans salvation God and man in assigning the Instance 7. ultimate End of man As if a Moral Intention might not take in both As if it were not finis amantis and the end of a Lover were not union in Mutual Love As if Love to God may not be for ever the final act and God himself the final object And as if in this magnetick closure though both may be called the End yet there might not in the closing parties be an infinite disproportion and one only be finis ultimate ultimus § 46. Inst. 8. Yea many would separate God from God while they would separate God from Heaven Instance 8. and say that we must be content to be shut out of Heaven for the Love of God! When our Heaven is the perfect Love of God And so they say in effect that for
of the Discerning of it some having but little holiness and some but little discerning of it in themselves yet the least may afford much comfort to the soul upon justifiable grounds though not so much as the greater degrees of grace and clearer discerning of it may do § 8. The foundation being thus laid it must be our next endeavour to build upon it a setled Peace of Conscience and quietness of soul For till we can attain to Ioy it is a great mercy to have Peace and to be free from the accusations fears and griefs which belong to the unjustified And Peace must be the temper more ordinary than much joy to be expected in this our frail condition § 9. Thirdly Peace being thus setled we must endeavour to rise up daily into Ioy as our great duty and our great felicity on earth It being frequently and earnestly commanded in the Scriptures that we Rejoyce in the Lord always and shout for joy all that are upright in Heart Psalm 33. 1. Phil. 3. 1. 4. 4. Deut. 12. 12 18. 27. 7. Thus he that proveth his own work may have Rejoycing in himself Gal. 6. 4. even in the testimony of his Conscience of his own simplicity and godly-sincerity 2 Cor. 1. 12. And this all believers should maintain and actuate in themselves § 10. Fourthly with this Rejoycing in God our lawful natural mirth must be taken in as subordinate or sanctified that is we must further our holy joy by natural mirth and cheerfulness and by the comforts of our Bodys in Gods lower mercies promote the service and the comforts of our souls And this is the right Place for this mirth to come in and this is the true Method of rejoycing § 11. Direct 4. Mark well the usefulness and tendencie of all thy Mirth and if it be useful to fit thee Direct 4. for thy duty and intended by thee to that end though you alway observe not that intention at the time and if it tend to do thee good or help thee to do good without a greater hurt or danger then cherish and promote it But if it tend to carry thee away from God to any creature and to unfit thy soul for the dutys of thy place and to carry thee into sin then avoid it as thy hurt Still remembring that the necessary support of nature must not be avoided by good or bad A Christian that hath any acquaintance with himself and with the work of holy watchfulness may discern what his mirth is by the tendency and effects and know whether it doth him good or harm § 12. Direct 5. Take beed that the flesh defile not your mirth by dropping in any obscene or ribbald Direct 5. talk or by stirring up fleshly lust and sin Which it will quickly do if not well watcht and holy mirth and cheerfulness is very apt to degenerate on a sudden into sinful mirth § 13. Direct 6. Consider what your mirth is like to prove to others as well as to your selves If it be Direct 6. like to stir up sin in others or to be offensive to them you must the more avoid it in their presence or manage it with the greater caution If it be needful to cheer up the drooping minds of those you converse with or to remove their prejudice against a holy life you must the more give place to it For it is good or bad as it tendeth unto good or bad § 14. Direct 7. Never leave out Reason or Godliness from any of your mirth Abhor that mirth Direct 7. that maketh a man a fool or playeth the fool And take heed of that ungodliness which maketh a man merriest when he is furthest from God like the Horse or Ox that leapeth and playeth for gladness when he is unyoaked or loosed from his labour Something of God and Heaven should appear or be dropped into all our mirth to sweeten and to sanctifie it § 15. Direct 8. Watch your tongues in all your mirth for they are very apt to take liberty then Direct 8. to sin Mirth is to the tongue as Holydays and Playdays to idle scholars who are glad of them as a time in which they think they have liberty to game and fight and do amiss § 16. Direct 9. If a word break forth from your selves or your companions to the wrong of others Direct 9. in your mirth as of backbiting evil speaking jearing scorning defaming yea though it be your enemy rebuke it and cast it out as dirt or dung that falleth into your dish or cup. § 17. Direct 10. If Prophaness intrude and any make merry with jeasting at Scripture Religion Direct 10. or the slanders or scorns of godly persons with a tendencie to make Religion odious or contemptible if they are such as you may speak to reprove them with reverent seriousness to their terror if they are not then shew your abhorrence of it by turning your backs and quitting the place and company of such devillish enemies of God Be not silent or seemingly-consenting witnesses of such odious mirth against your maker § 18. Direct 11. If the mirth of others in your company begin to grow insipid frothy foolish wanton Direct 11. or impious or otherwise corrupt drop in some holy salt to season it and something that is serious and divine to awe it and repress it As to remember them of Gods presence or to recite such a text as Ephes. 5. 3 4. But fornication and all uncleaneness or covetousness let it not be once named amongst you as becometh saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jeasting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks § 19. Direct 12. If mirth grow immoderate and exceed in measure and carry you away from God Direct 12. and duty by the very carnal pleasure of it have always at hand these following considerations to repress Considerations to repress excessive mirth it 1. Remember that God is present and levity is not comely in his sight 2. Remember that Death and judgement are at hand when all this levity will be turned into seriousness 3. Remember that your souls are yet under a great deal of sin and wants and danger and you have a great deal of serious work to do 4. Look on Iesus Christ and remember what an example he gave you upon earth Whether he laught and plaid and jested and taught you immoderate or carnal mirth And whether you live like the Disciples of a crucified Christ. 5. Think on the ordinary way to Heaven described in Scripture which is through many tribulations afflictions fastings temptations humiliation sufferings and mortification And think whether a wanton jesting playful life be like to this 6. Think of the course of the ancient and excellent Christians who went to Heaven through labour and watchings and fasting and poverty and cruel persecutions and not through carnal mirth and sport 7. Think of the many calamitous objects of sorrow that are
soon as Isaac had given it to Iacob Answ. When he had sold his birth-right it was too late to recall it for the right was made over to his Brother It seemeth to be Isaac's Repentance which â—â—aw found no place â—â—â—â— But â—â— it be spoken oâ— the unacceptableness of his own Repentance when it was too late it signifieth not that any mans is too late in this life as to 〈…〉 and it was not Repentance and cryes and tears that could recal the right he had sold nor recal the words that Isaac had spoken But this doth not prove that our day of grace doth not continue till death or that any man Repenting before his death shall be rejected as Esau's repentance was The Apostle neither saith nor meaneth any such thing The sense of his words are only this much Take heed lest there be any so prophane among you as to set so light by the blessings of the Gospel even Christ and life eternall as to part with them for a base lust or transitory thing as Esau that set more by a morsel of meat than by his birth-right For let them be sure that the time will come even the time mentioned by Christ Matth. 25. 10 11. when the door is shut and the Lord is come when they will dearly repent it and then as it was with Esau when the blessing was gone so it will be with them when their blessing is gone Repentance and cries and tears will be too late For the Gospel hath its justice and terrors as well as the Law This is all in the Text but there is no intimation that our day of Grace is as short as Esau's hope of the blessing was § 15. Obj. 4. Saul had but his time which when he lost he was forsaken of God Obj. 4. Answ. Saul's sin provoked God to reject him from being King of Israel and to appoint another in Answ. his stead But if Saul had Repented he had been saved after that though not restored to the Crown And its true that as God withdrew from him the spirit of Government so many before death by the greatness of their sins cause God to forsake them so far as to withhold those motions and convictions and fears and disquietments in sin which sometime they had and to give them over to a reprobate mind Rom. 1. 28. to commit all uncleanness with greediness and glory in it as being past feeling Eph. 4. 18 19. If it be thus with you you would be no better you would not be recovered you think sin is best for you and hate all that would reform you § 16. Obj. 5. It is said 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvavation Obj. 5. And Heb. 3. 7 12 13. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Answ. This saith no more than that the present time is the hest yea the only certain time and we Answ. are not sure that the day of salvation will continue any longer because death may cut us off But if it do not yet sin is a hardening thing and the longer we sin the more it hardeneth yea God may withhold the motions of his spirit and leave us to our selves to the hardness of our hearts and thus he doth by thousands of wicked persons who are left in impenitency and hatred of the truth But most certainly if those men Repented they might be saved and the very reason why they have not Christ and life is still because they will not consent § 17. Direct 6. Understand by what help and strength it is that the Obedience to the Gospel must be Direct 6. performed not meerly by your own strength but by the help of grace and strength of Christ If he have but made you willing he will help you to perform the rest You are not by this Covenant to be a Saviour and sanctifier to your selves but to Consent that Christ be your Saviour and the Holy Spirit your Sanctifier You might else despair indeed if you were left to that which you are utterly unable to do Though you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling it is he that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. § 18. Direct 7. Understand well the difference between mortal sins and Infirmities that you may not Direct 7. think that every sin is a sign of death or gracelesness but may know the difference between those sins which should make you think your selves unjustified and those sins which only call for particular humiliation being such as the justified themselves commit Though in the Popish sense we take no sin to be venial that is which in it self is properly no sin nor deserveth death according to the Law of works yet the distinction between Mortal and Venial sin is of very great necessity that is between sins which prove a man De quâ vide Tract Râ—b Baâ—oâ—â—â—â— Of Mortal and Venial sin in a state of death or unjustified and sins which consist with a state of Grace and justification between sins which the Gospel pardoneth not and those which it pardoneth that is all that stand with true Repentance There are some sins which every one that Repenteth of them doth so forsake as to cease committing them And there are some lesser sins which they that Repent of them do hate indeed but yet frequently renew as our defective degrees in the exercise of Repentance it self faith love trust fear obedience our vain thoughts and words some sinful passions omissions of many duties of thought affection word or deed towards God or man some minutes of time over-slip us prayer and other duties have a sinful coldness or remissness in them and such like Many such sins are fitly called Infirmities and Venial because they consist with Life and are forgiven It is of great use to the peace of our Consciences to discern the difference between these two for one sort require a Conversion to another state and the other require but a particular repentance and where they are unknown are forgiven without particular repentance because our general repentance is virtually though not actually particular as to them One sort are cause of judging our selves ungodly and the other sort are only cause of filial humiliation Any one may see the great need of discerning the difference but yet it is a matter of very great judgement doctrinally to distinguish them much more actually to discern them in every instance in your selves The way is to know first what is the condition of the New-Covenant and of absolute necessity to salvation or justification and then every sin that is inconsistent with that condition is mortal and the rest that are consistent and do consist with it are venial or but infirmities As Venial signifieth only that sort of sin which is
pardonable and may consist with true grace so a Venial sin may be in an unsanctified person materially where it is not pardoned that is e. g. his wandering thought or passion is a sin of that sort that in the Godly is consistent with true grace But as Venial signifieth a sin that is pardoned or pardonable without a regeneration or conversion into astate of life from astate of death so Venial sin is in no unregenerate unjustified person but is only the Infirmities of the Saints and thus I here speak of it In a word that sin which actually consisteth with habitual repentance and with the hatred of it so far that you had rather he free from it than commit or keep it and which consisteth with an unfeigned consent to the Covenant that God be your Father Saviour and Sanctifier and with the Love of God above all is but an infirmity or venial sin But to know from the nature of the sin which those are requireth a Volume by it self to direct you only § 19. Direct 8. Understand how necessary a faithful Minister of Christ is in such cases of danger and Direct 8. difficulty to be a guide to your Consciences and open your case truly to them and place so much confidence in their judgement of your state as their office and abilities and faithfulness do require and set not up your timerous darkened perplexed judgements above theirs in cases where they are fitter to judge Such a Guide is necessary both as appointed by Christ who is the Author of his office and in regard of the greatness and danger and difficulty of your case Do you not feel that you are insufficient for your selves and that you have need of help sure a soul that 's tempted to Despair may easily feel it You are very proud or blindly self conceited if you do not And you may easily know that Christ that appointed them their office requireth that they be both used and trusted in their office as far as Reason will allow And where there is no office yet Ability and faithfulness deserve and require credit of themselves Why else do you trust Physicions and Lawyers and all artificers in their several professions and arts as far as they are reputed able and faithful I know no man is to be believed as infallible as God is but man is to be believed as man And if you will use and trust your spiritual guide but so far as you use and trust your Physicion or Lawyer you will find the great benefit if you choose aright § 20. Direct 9. Remember when you have sinned how sure and sufficient and ready a remedy you have Direct 9. before you in Iesus Christ and the Covenant of grace and that it is Gods design in the way of Redemption not to save any man as innocent that none may glory but to save men that were first in sin and misery and fetch them as from the gates of hell that Love and mercy may be magnified on every one that is saved and grace may abound more by the occasion of sins abounding Rom. 5. 15 20. Not that any should continue in sin because Grace hath abounded God forbid Rom. 6. 1. But that we may magnifie that grace and mercy which hath abounded above our sins and turn the remembrance of our greatest sins to the admiration of that great and wonderful mercy To magnifie mercy when we see the greatness of our sin and to Love much because much is forgiven this is to please God and answer the very design and end of our Redemption But to magnific sin and extenuate mercy and to say My sin is greater than can Luk. 7. 47. be forgiven this is to please the Dâ—vil and to cross Gods design in the work of our Redemption Is your disease so great that no other can cure it It is the fitter for Christ to honour his office upon and God to honour his Love and mercy on Do but come to him that you may have life and you shall find that no greatness of sin past will cause him to refuse you nor no infirmities which you are Joh. 5. 40. Luk. 15. 20 22 23. willing to be rid of shall cause him to disown you or cast you out The Prodigal is not so much as upbraided with his sins but finds himself before he is aware in his Fathers arms cloathed with the best Robes the Ring and Shooes and joyfully entertained with a Feast Remember that there is enough in Christ and the promise to pardon and heal all sins which thou art willing to forsake § 21. Direct 10. Take heed of being so blind or proud in thy humility as to think that thou Direct 10. canst be more willing to be a servant of Christ than he is to be thy Saviour or more willing to have grace than God is to give it thee or more willing to come home to Christ than he is to receive and wellcome thee Either thou art willing or unwilling to have Christ and grace to be sanctified and freed from sin If thou be willing Christ and his grace shall certainly be thine Indeed if thou wouldst have pardon without Holiness this cannot be nor is there any promise of it But if thou wouldst have Christ to be thy Saviour and King and his spirit to be thy sanctifier and hadst rather be perfect in Love and Holiness than to have all the Riches of the World then art thou in sincerity that which thou wouldst be in perfection Understand that God accounteth thee to be what thou truly desirest to be The great work of Grace lyeth in the renewing of the will If the will be sound the Man is sound I mean not the conquered uneffectual Velleity of the wicked that wish they could be free from Pride sensuality gluttony drunkenness lust and covetousness without losing any of their beloved honour wealth or pleasure that is when they think on it as the way to Hell they like not their sin but wish they were rid of it but when they think of it as pleasing their fleshly minds they love it more and will not leave it because this is the prevailing thought and will So Iudas was unwilling to sell his Lord as it was the betraying of the innocent and the way to Hell but he was more willing as it was the way to get his hire So Herod was unwilling to kill Iohn Baptist as it was the murder of a Prophet but his willingness was the greater as it was the pleasing of his Damosel and the freeing himself from a troublesome reprover But if thy willingness to have Christ and perfect Holiness be more than thy unwillingness and more than thy willingness to keep thy sin and enjoy the honour wealth and pleasures of the world than thou hast an undoubted sign of uprightness and that Love to Grace and desire after it which nothing but Grace it self doth give And if thou art thus willing it is
great wrong to Christ to doubt of his willingness For 1. He is a greater lover of Holiness than thou art and therefore cannot come behind thee in being willing of thy Holiness 2. He is more merciful to thee than thou art to thy self His Love and mercy is beyond thy measure 3. He hath begun to thee and fully shewed his willingness first He dyed to prepare thee a full remedy He hath drawn up the Covenant He hath therein expressed his own consent and intreateth thine He is the first in consenting and is a suiter to thee Never sinner did yet begin to him in the world Never any was willing of the match before him His general offer of mercy and Covenant tendered to all doth shew his willingness before they can shew theirs by their acceptance Never man over-went him in willingness and was more willing than he Take this sinner as Gods infallible truth If the match break between Christ and thee and thou be lost it shall not be through his refusal but through thine And it cannot break any other way no not by the craft or force of all the Devils in Hell but either because Christ is unwilling or because thou art unwilling And on Christs part it shall never break And therefore if thou be willing the match is made and there is no danger but lest thy heart draw back If thou art not willing why complainest thou for want of that which thou wouldst not have If thou art willing the Covenant is then made for Christ is more willing and was willing first § 22. Direct 11. Write out these sentences that contain the sense and substance of the Gospel and Direct 11. often read them Write them on thy very chamber walls and set them still before thine eyes and try whether Deut. 6. 6 7 8. 11. 18 19 20. they agree with the words of him that tempteth thee to despair such as these which I here transcribe for thee Joh. 3. 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life v. 19. This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil 1 Joh. 5. 10 11 12. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself he that believeth not God hath made him a lyar because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life Joh. 1. 11 12. He came unto his own and his own received him not but to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God to them that believe on his name Rev. 22. 17. Let him that is athirst come And whoever will let him take the water of life freely Joh. 5. 40. And ye will not come unto me that ye may have life Joh. 6. 37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Joh. 7. 37. If any man thirst let him come to me and drink Luk. 14. 17. Come for all things are now ready And read oft Luk. 15. § 23. Direct 12. Distinguish between sin seen and felt and sin reigning unto death that you may Direct 12. not be so blinded as to think your sin greatest or your condition worst when your sight and feeling of it Eph. 4. 19. is greatest To see and feel your sin and misery is at least the ordinary preparation for recovery To be dead is to be past feeling They that are most forsaken of God are most willing of their present condition and most love their sin and hate holiness and all that would reform them and if they have power will persecute them as enemies § 24. Direct 13. Think not that the troublesome strivings and temptations which weary you are the Direct 13. worst condition or a sign of the victory of sin It is rather a sign that you are not yet forsaken of God while he beareth witness in you against sin and is yet following you with his disswasives Paul saith Gal. 5. 15. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would Read Rom. 7. from 14. to the end § 25. Direct 14. Understand the difference between weak grace and no grace that you may not Direct 14. think every want of grace is a sign of total gracelesness When you have opened in your complaints a long Catalogue of weaknesses consider whether yet there be not a true desire to be better and some degree of life with all these § 26. Direct 15. Think well of the excellency of the least degree of special grace that it is a seed of glory Direct 15. the beginning of life eternal the Divine nature and the image of God and of greater worth than all the learning wealth and honour in the world And be not unthankful for so great a mercy because you have not more § 27. Direct 16. Make Conscience of observing the grace and mercy received as well as the wants Direct 16. remaining and the sins committed and of the thankful remembrance and mention of mercy as much as the humble mention of sin Think as oft of mercy as of sin Talk of it as much to others and mention it to God as much in prayer This is your plain duty If you will not do it your wilfull unthankfulness for what you have received may well leave you in distress without the comfort of it § 28. Direct 17. Let your thoughts of Gods Goodness hear some proportion with your thoughts of his Direct 17. Knowledge and his Power And then you will not be so apt to entertain false suspicions of it and think of him as a man-hater like the Devil nor to run away from him that is the infinite most attractive Good § 29. Direct 18. Record the particular kindnesses to thy self by which God hath testified his particular Direct 18. love to thee that they may stand as neer and constant witnesses of his mercy and readiness to do thee good against thy excessive fearfulness and despair § 30. Direct 19. Think how few there are in the world so likely for mercy as thy self Look not Direct 19. only on a few that are better than thy self but think how five parts of the world are open Infidels and Heathens and of the sixth part that are Christians how few are Reformed from Popish and Barbarous ignorance and superstition and among Protestants how small is the number of them that are less in Love with sin than thy self I know that many wicked men abuse
unacquainted with the particular weaknesses and dangers of your own hearts or Direct 9. any of your sinful inclinations That when you know where the wall is weakest you may there make the best defense That wanton word will set a wanton heart on fire which a sober mind doth hear with pity as a bedlam kind of speech A pievish passionate heart is presently disturbed and kindled with those words which are scarce observed by a well-composed soul. § 10. Direct 10. Hear every sinful word as dictated by the Devil and suppose you saw him all Direct 10. the while at the speakers elbow putting each word into his mouth and telling him what to say For it is as verily the Devil that doth suggest them all as if you saw him Suppose you saw him behind the rayler hissing him on as boys do dogs in fighting and bidding him Call him thus or thus Suppose you saw him at the malignants ear bidding him Revile a holy life and speak evil of the ways and servants of the Lord Suppose you saw him behind the wanton bidding him use such ribbald talk or on the stage suggesting it to the actors or at the ear of those that would provoke you to passion to tell them what to say against you This just supposition would much preserve you § 11. Direct 11. Suppose you heard the end annexed to every speech As when you hear one Direct 11. tempting you to lust suppose he said come let us take our pleasure a while and be damned for ever So also in every word that tempteth you to any other sin if the Tempter put in the sin do you put in Gods wrath and Hell and separate not that which God hath adjoyned but with the serpent see the sting § 12. Direct 12. Observe when the infection first seizeth on you and presently take an antidote to Direct 12. expel it if yâ—u love your souls The signs of infection are 1. When your zeal abateth and you grow more indifferent what you hear 2. Next you will feel some little inclination to it 3. Next you will a little venture upon an imitation 4. And lastly you will come to full consent and so to ruine If you feel but a remitting of your dislike and hatred or any filth or tincture left on your thoughts and fantasie go presently and shake them off Bewail it to God in true Repentance and wash your souls in the blood of Christ and cast up the poison by holy resolutions and sweat out the remnant by the servent exercises of Love and Holiness PART IV. Directions for Governing the Tast and Appetite Tit. 1. Directions against Gluttony § 1. THE most that is necessary to be said to acquaint you with the Nature and Evil of this sin is said before in Chap. 4. Part 7. against Flesh-pleasing But something more particularly must be said 1. To shew you what is and what is not the sin of Gluttony 2. To shew you the Causes of it 3. The odiousness of it and 4. To acquaint you with the more particular Helps and Means against it § 2. I. Gluttony is a Voluntary excess in eating for the pleasing of the Appetite or some other carnal So the Israâ—lites Num 11. loathing Manna because they must have change of dyet waâ— a sin of gulâ—sity or gluttony being more for Appetite than Health end Here note 1. The Matter 2. The end or effect of this excess 1. It is sometime an excess in quantity when more is eaten than is meet 2. Or else it may be an excess in the Delicious quality when more regard is had of the Delight and sweetness than is meet 3. Or it may be an excess in the frequencie and ordinary unseasonableness of eating When men eat too oft and sit at it too long 4. It may be an excess in the costliness or price when men feed themselves at too high rates 5. Or it may be an excess of curiosity in the dressing and sawâ—ing and ordering of all 2. And it is usually for some carnal end whether it may be properly called Glttony if a man should think that at a Sacrifice or thanksgiving he were bound to eat inordinately and so made the service of God his end we need not enquire though I see not but it may have that name For that 's a case that is more rare and it is undoubtedly a sin And it is Gluttony if it be done for the pleasing of Even fruitful land saith Plâ—tarch enricheth not if it cost too much the manuring So here others that are importunate with you But the common Gluttony is when it is done for the pleasing of the Appetite with such a pleasure as is no help to Health or Duty but usually a hurt to Body or Soul the Body being hurt by the excess the soul is hurt by the inordinate Pleasure § 3. Yea it is a kind of Gluttony and excess when men will not fast or abstain when they are required from that which at other times they may use with abstinence and without blame If a man use not to eat excessively nor deliciously yet if he will not abstain from his temperate dyet either at a publick fast or when his lust requireth him to take down his body or when his Physicion would dyet him for his health and his disease else would be encreased by what he eateth this is an inordinate eating and excess to that person at that time Or if the Delight that the appetite hath in one sort of meat which is hurtful to the body prevail against reason and health so with the person that he will not forbear it it is a degree of Gulosity or Gluttony though for quantity and quality it be in it self but mean and ordinary § 4. By this you may see 1. That it is not the same quantity which is an excess in one which is in another A labouring man may eat somewhat more than one that doth not labour and a strong and healthful body more than the weak and sick It must be an excess in quantity as to that particular person at that time which is when to please his appetite he eateth more than is profitable to his health or duty 2. So also the frequency must be considered with the quality of the person For one person may rationally eat a little and often for his health and another may luxuriously eat ofter than is profitable to health Eccles. 10. 16 17. Wo to thee O land when thy King is a child and thy Princes eat in the morning Blessed art thou O land when thy King is the son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness 3. And in point of costliness the same measure is not to be set to a Prince and to a plow-man that is luxurious excess in one which may be temperance and frugality in another But yet unprofitable cost which all things considered would do more good another way is
Princes are restrained so much as from unseasonable eating Eccles. 10. 16. If it was one of the great sins that Sodom was burnt with fire for judge whether England be in no danger by it Read O England and know thy self and tremble Ezek. 16. 49. Behold this was the iniquity of thy Sister Sodom PRIDE FULNESS of bread and abundance of IDLENESS was in her and in her daughters neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy IV. The Directions or Helps against it § 37. Direct 1. Mortifie the flesh according to the Directions Chap. 4. Part 7. Subdue its inclinations Direct 1. and desires and learn to esteem and use it but as a servant Think what a pitiful price a Saith Plato God is the temperate mans Law and pleasure the intemperate mans Gal. 5. 24. little gluttonous pleasure of the Throat is for a man to sell his God and his salvation for Learn to be indifferent whether your meat be pleasing to your appetite or not and make no great matter of it Remember still what an odious swinish damning sin it is for a mans heart to be set upon his belly All that are Christs have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts § 38. Direct 2. Live faithfully to God and upon spiritual durable delights And then you will Direct 2. fetch the measure of your eating and drinking from their tendency to that higher end There is no Heb. 13. 9. using any inferiour thing aright till you have first well resolved of your end and use it as a means thereto and mark how far it is a means § 39. Direct 3. See all your food as provided and given you by God and beg it and the blessing of Direct 3. it at his hand and then it will much restrain you from using it against him He is a wretch indeed that will take his food as from his Fathers hand and throw it in his face though perhaps a petulant child would do so by a fellow-servant He that thinketh he is most beholden to himself for his plenty will say as the fool Luke 12. 19 20. Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years But he that perceives it is the hand of God that reacheth it to him will use it more reverently It is a horrid aggravation of the Gluttony of this age that they play the Hypocrites in it and first for custom crave Gods blessing on their meat and then sit down and sin against him with it Such are the prayers of Hypocritical sensualists But a serious discerning 1 Cor. 10. 31. of God as the Giver would teach you whether you eat or drink to do all to his glory from whom it comes § 40. Direct 4. See by faith the blood of Christ as the purchasing cause of all you have and then Direct 4. sure you will bear more reverence to his blood than to cast the fruit of it into the sink of sensuality and to do worse than throw it on the dunghill What! Must Christ be a sacrifice to God and dye to recover you the mercies which you had forfeited and now will you cast them to the Dogs and please a sinful appetite with them Did he dye to purchase you provision for your lusts and to serve the flesh with § 41. Direct 5. Forget not how the first sin came into the world even by eating the forbidden Direct 5. fruit And let the slain creatures whose lives are lost for you remember you of that sin which brought the burden on them for your sakes And then every piece of flesh that you see will appear to you as with this caution written upon it O sin not as your first Parents sinned by pleasing of your appetite for this our death and your devouring the flesh of your fellow-creatures is the fruit of that ☞ sin and warneth you to be temperate Revell not to excess in your fellow-creatures lives § 42. Direct 6. Keep an obedient tender Conscience not scrupulously perplexing your selves about Direct 6. every bit you eat as melancholy persons do but checking your appetite and telling you of Gods Commands and teaching you to fear all sensual excess It is a graceless disobedient senseless heart that maketh men so boldly obey their appetite When the fear of God is not in their hearts no wonder if they feed and feast themselves without fear Jude 12. Either they make a small matter of sin in the general or at least of this sin in particular It is usually the same persons that fear not to spend their time in idleness sports or vanity and to live in worldliness or fleshly lusts who live in Gluttony to feed all this The belly is a Bruit that sticks not much upon Reason Where Conscience is asleep and scared Reason and Scripture do little move a sensual belly-god And any thing will serve instead of Reason to prove it lawful and to answer all that 's said against it There is no disputing the case with a man that is asleep especially if his Guts and Appetite be awake You may almost as well bring Reason and Scripture to keep a Swine from over-eating or to perswade a hungry Dog from a Bone as to take off a Glutton from the pleasing of his throat if he be once grown blockish and have mastered his conscience by unbelief or stilled it with a stupifying opiate His taste then serveth instead of Reason and against Reason Then he saith I feel it do me good that is he feeleth that it pleaseth his Appetite as a Swine feeleth that his meat doth him good when he is ready to burst and this answereth all that can be said against it Then he can sacrifice his time and treasure to his Belly and make a jeast of the Abstinence and Temperance of sober men as if it were but a needless self-afflicting or fit only for some weak and sickly persons If the constant fear and obedience of God do not rule the soul the Appetite will be unruled And if a tender conscience be not Porter the Throat will be common for any thing that the Appetite requireth One sight of Heaven or Hell to awaken their Reason and sleepy Consciences would be the best remedy to convince them of the odiousness and danger of this sin § 43. Direct 7. Understand well what is most conducible to your health and let that be the ordinary Direct 7. measure of your diet for quantity and quality and time Sure your Nature it self if you are yet Socrates â—deo parce temperate vixit ut cum Athenas pettis saepenumero vastaret solus ipse nunquam aegrotaverit Laertius iâ— Socrate men should have nothing to say against this measure and consequently against all the rest of the Directions which suppose it Nature hath given you Reason as well as Appetite and Reason telleth you that your health is more to be regarded than your
in the most adorned manner and do all that Harlots can do to make themselves a snare to fools do put the charitable hard to it whether to believe that it is their tongues or their backs that are the lyer As Hierome saith Thou deservest Hell though none be the worse for thee for thou broughtest the poyson if there had been any to drink it Let thy apparel be suited not only to thy rank but to thy disease If thou be enclined to lust go the more meanly clad thy self and gaze not on the ornaments of others It s folly indeed that will be enamoured on the Taylors work yet this is so common that its frequently more the apparel than the person that â—ntiseth first and homely rags would have prevented the deceit As the Poet saith Auferimur cultu gemmis auroque teguntur Omnia pars minima est ipsa puella sui Ovid. de Remed Am. § 13. Direct 11. Think on thy tempting object as it is within and as it shortly will appear without Direct 11. How ordinary is it for that which you call Beauty to be the portion of a fool and a fair skin to cover a silly childish pievish mind and a soul that is enslaved to the Devil And as Solomon saith Prov 11. 22. As a jewel of Gold in a Swines snout so is a fair woman without discretion And will you lust after an such adorned thing Think also what a dunghill of filth is covered with all those ornaments that it would turn thy stomach if thou sawest what is within them And think what a face that would be if it were but covered with the Pox and what a face it will be when sickness or age hath consumed or wrinkled it And think what thy admired Carkass will be when it hath lain a few days in the grave Then thou wouldst have little mind of it And how quickly will that be O man there is nothing truly amiable in the Creature but the image of God the wisdom and holiness and righteousness of the soul. Love this then if thou wilt Love with wisdom with purity and safety For the Love of Purity is pure and safe § 14. Direct 12. Think on thy own death and how fast thou hastest to another world Is a lustful Direct 12. heart a seemly temper for one that is ready to dye and ready to see God and come into that world where there is nothing but pure and holy doth abide § 15. Direct 13. Consider well the tendency and fruits of lust that it may still appear to your Direct 13. minds as ugly and terrible as it is indeed 1. Think what a shame it is to the soul that can no better rule the body and that is so much defiled by its lusts 2. Think what an unfit companion it is to lodge in the same heart with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit shall a member of Christ be thus polluted shall the Temple of the Holy Ghost be thus turned into a Swine sty Is lust fit to dwell with the Love of God wilt thou entertain thy Lord with such odious company what an unkindness and injury is this to God that when he that dwelleth in the highest Heavens condescendeth to take up a dwelling in thy heart thou shouldst bring these Toads and Snakes into the same room with him Take heed lest he take it unkindly and be gone He hath said he will dwell with the humble and contrite heart but where said he I will dwell in a lustful heart 3. Think how unfit it makes thee for Prayer or any holy address to God What a shame and fear and deadness it casts upon thy spirit 4. And think how it tends to worse Lust tendeth to actual filthiness and that to Hell cherish not the Eggs if thou wouldst have none of the Brood It s an easie step from a Lustful heart to a defiled body and a shorter step thence to everlasting horrour than you imagine As St. Iames saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and entised then when lust both conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 13 14. Gal. 6. 8. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Remember that Lust is the spawn of sin and sin is the way to Hell § 16. Direct 14. Be sure to keep up a holy constant Government over thy Thoughts Suffer them not Direct 14. to go after tempting filthy sensual things As soon as ever a thought of Lust comes into thy mind abhor it and cast it out Abundance of the cure and of thy safety lyeth upon thy Thoughts They that let their Thoughts run uncontrolled and seed on filthiness are already fornicators in the heart and are hatching the Cockatrice Eggs and no wonder if from Thoughts they proceed to deeds O what a deal of uncleanness is committed by the Thoughts which people are little ashamed of because they are unseen of men If the Thoughts of many were open to beholders what wantonness and lust would appear in many adorned Sepulchres Even in the time of holy Worship when once such give the unclean spirit possession of their thoughts how hardly is he cast out they can scarce look a comely person in the face without some vicious thought If Hierome confess that in his Wilderness his Thoughts were running among the Ladies at Rome what may we think of them that feed such filthy Phantasies Say not you cannot rule your Thoughts You can do much if you will and more than you do If money and honour can make an ungodly Preacher command his Thoughts to holy things in the studies of Divinity through much of his life you may see that your Thoughts are much in your power but of this before § 17. Direct 15. If other means serve not open thy case to some friend and shame thy self to him as Direct 15. I advised under the former Title Confession and shame and advise will help thee § 18. Direct 16. Above all go to Christ for help and beg his spirit and give up thy Heart to better Direct 16. things O if it were taken up with God and Heaven and the Holy life that 's necessary thereto these things are so Great and Holy and sweet and of such concernment to thee that they would leave little room for Lust within thee and would make thee abhor it as contrary to those things which have thy heart No such cure for any carnal Love as the Love of God nor for fleshly lusts as a spiritual renewed Heavenly mind Thou wouldst then tell Satan that God hath taken up all the room and thy narrow Heart is too little for him alone and that there is no room for lust or the thoughts that serve it A true Conversion which turneth the heart to God doth turn it from this with other sins though some sparks may still be unextinguished It was once noted
your selves For God can open the eyes of that enemy whom you think to blind by a lie and cause him to know all the truth and so take away that Life which you thought thus to have saved 5. And there are lawful means enough to save your lives when it is best for you to save them That is Obey God and trust him with your lives and he can save them without a lie if it be best And if it be not it should not be desired 6. And if men did not erroniously over-value Life they would not think that a Lie were necessary for it When it is not necessary to Live it is not necessary to Lie for Life But thus one sin brings on another when carnal men over-value Life it self and set more by it than by the fruition of God in the Glory of Heaven they must needs then over-value any means which seemeth necessary to preserve it See Iob 13. 7 8 9. 10. Prov. 13. 17. Rom. 6. 15. 3. 7 8 9. Psal. 5. 7. Hos. 4. 2. Ioh. 8. 44. Rev. 21. 27. 22. 15. Col. 3. 9. 1 Ioh. 2. 21. 7. Yet as to the degree of evil in the sin I easily grant with Augustine Enchirid. that Multum interest quo animo de quibus quisque mentiâ—tur Non enim ita peccat qui consulendi quomodo ille qui nocendi voluntate mentitur nec tantum nocet qui viatorem mentiendo in adversum iter mittit quantum is qui viam vitae mendacio fallente depravat Object Are not the Midwives rewarded by God for saving the Israelitish children by a lie Object Answ. I need not say with Austin The fact was rewarded and the Lie pardoned For there is no such Answ. thing as a lie found in them Who can doubt but that God could strengthen the Israelitish women to be delivered without the Midwives And who can doubt but when the Midwives had made known the Kings murderous command that the women would delay to send for the Midwives till by the help of each other the children were secured Which yet is imputed to the Midwives because they confederated with them and delaid to that end So that here is a dissembling and concealing part of the truth but here is no lie that can be proved Object But Heb. 11. 31. Jam 2. Rahab is said to be justified by faith and works when she saved Object the Spies by a lie Answ. 1. It is uncertain whether it was a lie or only an equivocation and whether her words Answ. were not true of some other men that had been her guests But suppose them a lie as is most like the Scripture no more justifieth her lie than her having been an harlot It is her believing in the God of Israel whose works she mentioned that she is commended for together with the saving of the Spies with the hazard of her own life And it is no wonder if such a woman in Iericho had not yet learned the sinfulness of such a lie as that Object But at least it could be no mortal sin because Heb. 11. 31. Jam. 2. say she was Object justified Answ. It was no mortal sin in her that is a sin which proveth one in a state of death because it Answ. had not those evils that make sin mortal But a lie in one that doth it knowingly for want of such a predominancie of the authority and Love of God in the soul as should prevail against the contrary motives habitually is a mortal sin of an ungodly person It is pernicious falshood and soul delusion in those Teachers that make poor sinners think that it is the smallness of the outward act or hurt of sin alone that will prove it to be as they call it Venial or mortified and not mortal Quest. 3. Is deceit by Action Lawful which seemeth a Practical lie And how shall we interpret Quest. 3. Christs making as if he would have gone farther Luk. 24. 28. and Davids feigning himself mad and common stratagems in war and doing things purposely to deceive another Answ. 1. I have before proved that all Deceiving another is not a sin but some may be a duty As Answ. a Physicion may deceive a Patient to get down a medicine to save his life so he do it not by a lie 2. Christs seeming to go farther was no other than a lawful concealment or dissimulation of his purpose to occasion their importunity For all dissimulation is not evil though lying be And the same may be said of lawful stratagems as such 3. Davids case was not sinful as it was meer dissimulation to deceive others for his escape But whether it was not a sinful distrust of God and a dissimulation by too unmanly a way I am not able to say unless I had known more of the circumstances Quest. 4. Is it lawful to tempt a child or servant to lie meerly to try them Quest. 4. Answ. It is not lawful to do it without sufficient cause nor at any time to do that which inviteth Answ. them to lie or giveth any countenance to the sin as Satan and bad men use to tempt men to sin by commending it or extenuating it But to lay an occasion before them barely to try them as to lay money or wine or other things in their way to know whether they are thieves or addicted to drink that we may the better know how to cure them and so to try their veracity is not unlawful For 1. The sin is virtually committed when there is a Will to commit it though there should be no temptation or opportunity 2. We do nothing which is either a commendation of the sin or a perswading to it nor any true cause either Physical or Moral but only an occasion 3. God himself who is more contrary to sin than any creature doth thus by tryal administer such occasions of sin to men that are vitiously disposed as he knoweth they will take And his common mercys are such occasions 4. God hath no where forbidden this to us We may not do evil that good may come by it but we may do good when we know evil will come of it by mens vice 5. It may be a needful means to the cure of that sin which we cannot know till it be thus detected Quest. 5. Is all equivocation unlawful Quest. 5. Answ. There is an equivocating which is really Lying As when we forsake the usual or just sense of Answ. a word and use it in an alien unusual sense which we know will not be understood and this to deceive such as we are bound not to deceive But there is a use of equivocal words which is lawful and necessary For humane language hath few words which are not of divers significations As 1. When our equivocal sense is well understood by the hearers and is not used to deceive them but because use hath made those words to be fit
it will do its duty well in nothing and zeal will quickly be extinct Diligence will die when Conscience is corrupted or fallen aslèep § 39. Direct 8. Live in a constant expectation of death Do not foolishly flatter your self with Direct 8. groundless conceits that you shall live long There is a great power in Death to rowze up a drowsie soul when it is taken to be near And a great force in the conceit of living long to make even good men grow more negligent and secure § 40. Direct 9. Live among warm and serious Christians especially as to your intimate familiarity Direct 9. There is a very great power in the zeal of one to kindle zeal in others as there is in fire to kindle fire Prov. 22. â—4 â—5 27. 17. Heb. 3 13. 10 24 25. Rom. 15. 14. Serious hearty diligent Christians are excellent helps to make us serious and diligent He that travelleth with speedy travellers will be willing to keep pace with them and tired sluggards are drawn on by others When he that travelleth with the slothful will go slowly as they do § 41. Direct 10. Lastly Be oft in the use of quickning means Live if you can attain it under a Direct 10. quickning zealous Minister There is life in the word of God which when it 's opened and applied lively will put life into the hearers Read the holy Scriptures and such lively writings as help you to understand and practise them As going to the fire is our way when we are cold to cure our benummedness so reading over some part of a warm and quickning book will do much to warm and quicken a benummed soul And it is not the smallest help to rowze us up to prayer or meditation and put life into us before we address our selves more nearly unto God I have found it my self a great help in my studies and to my preaching when studying my own heart would not serve the turn to awake me to serious servency but all hath been cold and dull that I have done because all was cold and dull within I have taken up a book that was much more warm and serious than I and the reading of it hath recovered my heat and my warmed heart hath been fitter for my work Christians take heed of a cold and dull and heartless kind of Religion and think no pains too much to cure it Death is cold and life is warm and labour it self doth best excite it PART II. Directions about Sports and Recreations and against excess and sin therein § 1. Direct 1. IF you would escape the sin and danger which men commonly run into by unlawful Direct 1. sporting under pretense of lawful recreations you must understand what lawful recreation is and what is its proper end and use No wonder else if you sin when you know not what you do § 2. No doubt but some sport and recreation is lawful yea needful and therefore a duty to some What lawful recreation is men Lawful sport or recreation is the use of some Natural thing or action not forbidden us for the exhilerating of the natural spirits by the fantasie and due exercise of the natural parts thereby to fit the body and mind for ordinary duty to God It is some delightful exercise § 3. 1. We do not call unpleasing Labour by the name of sport or recreation though it may be better and more necessary 2. We call not every Delight by the name of sport or recreation For eating and drinking may be delightful and holy things and duties may be delightful and yet not properly spâ—â—ts or recreations But it is the fantasie that is chiefly delighted by sports § 4. Qual 1. All these things following are necessary to the Lawfulness of a sport or recreation and the want of any one of them will make and prove it to be unlawful 1. The end which you really intend in using it must be to fit you for your service to God that is either for your callings or for his worship or some work of obedience in which you may Please and Glorifie him 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether ye eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the Glory of God It is just to your Duty as the Mowers whetting to his Sithe to make it for to do his work § 5. Qual 2. Therefore the person that useth it must be one that is heartily devoted to God and his Service and really liveth to do his work and please and glorifie him the world which none but the Godly truly do And therefore no carnal ungodly person that hath no such Holy end can use any recreation lawfully because he useth it not to a due end For the end is essential to the moral good of any action and an evil end must needs make it evil Tit. 1. 15. Unto the Pure all things are Pure that is all things not forbidden but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing Pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled § 6. Quest. But must all wicked men therefore forbear recreation Answ. 1. Wicked men are such as Quest. will not obey Gods law if they know it and therefore they enquire not what they should do with any purpose sincerely to obey But if they would obey that which God commandeth them is immediately to forsake their wickedness and to become the servants of God and then there will be no room for the question 2. But if they will continue in a sinful ungodly state it is in vain to contrive how they may sport themselves without sin But yet we may tell them that if the sport be materially lawful it is not the matter that they are bound to forsake but it is the sinful end and manner And till this be reformed they cannot but sin § 7. Qual 3. A lawful recreation must be a means fitly chosen and used to this end If it have no aptitude to fit us for Gods service in our ordinary Callings and duty it can be to us no lawful recreation Though it be lawful to another that it is a real help to it is unlawful to us § 8. Qual 4. 4. Therefore all Recreations are unlawful which are themselves preferred before our Callings or which are used by a man that liveth idly or in no Calling and hath no ordinary work to make him need them For these are no fit means which exclude our end instead of furthering it § 9. Qual 5. 5. Therefore all those are unlawful sports which are used only to delight a carnal fantasie and have no higher end than to please the sickly mind that loveth them § 10. Qual 6. 6. And therefore all those are unlawful sports which really unfit us for the dutys of our Callings and the service of God which laying the benefit and hurt together do hinder us as much or more than they help us Which is the case of all voluptuous wantons § 11. Qual 7.
If you be so proud or rash as to reply why should I leave my sport for another mans conceits or judgement I will tell thee that which shall shame thy reply and thee if thou canst blush 1. It is not some humorous odd fanatick that I alledge against thee nor a singular Divine But it is the judgement of the antient Church it self The Fathers and Councils condemn Christians and Ministers especially that use spectacula spectacles or behold Stage-plays and Dicing 2. Even the oldest Canons of our own Church of England forbid Dicing to the Clergy which is because they reputed it evil or of ill report 3. Many Laws of Religious Princes do condemn them 4. Abundance of the most learned holy Divines condemn them 5. The sober learnedest of the Papists condemn them 6. And how great a number of the most Religious Ministers and people are against them of the age and place in which you live you are not ignorant And is the judgement of the antient Church and of Councils and Fathers and of the most learned Protestants and Papists and the most Religious people besides many antient Laws and Canons of no force with you in such a case as this Will you hold to a thing confessedly unnecessary against the judgement of so many that account them sinful Are you and your play-fellows more wise and learned than all these Or is it not extremity of Pride for such unstudied empty men to prefer their sensual conceits before such a concurrent stream of wiser and more ponderous judgements Read but Dr. Io. Reignolds his Treat against Stage-Plays against Albericus Gentilis and you will see what a world of witnesses are against you And if the judgement of Voetius Amesius and other Learned men against all Lusory Lots be of no authority at least it should move you that even Mr. Gataker and other that write for the lawfullness of them in that respect as Lusory Lots do yet lay down the rest of the requisites to make them lawful which utterly condemn our common use of Cards and Dice much more our Gamesters So that all the sober Divines that ever I read or heard condemn all these And are you wiser than all of them § 26. 4. Besides this your Consciences know that you are so far from them using to fit you for your Callings that you either live idly out of a Calling or else you prefer them before your Callings You have no mind of your work because your mind is so much upon your play you have no mind of your home or family but are weary of your business because your sports withdraw your hearts And you are so far from using them to fit you to any holy duty that they utterly unfit you and corrupt your hearts with such a kind of sensual delight as makes them more backward to all that is good insomuch that many of you even grow so desperate as to hate and scorn it This is the benefit it bringeth you § 27. 5. And you cannot but know what a Time-wasting sin it is Suppose the game were never so lawful Is it lawful to lay out so many hours upon it as if you had neither souls nor bodies nor families nor estates nor God nor death nor Heaven to mind § 28. 6. And how much prophaneness or abuse of others is in many of your Stage-plays How much wantonness and amorous folly and representing sin in a manner to entise men to it rather than to make it odious making a sport and mock of sin with a great deal more such evil And your Cards and Dice are the exercise usually of covetousness the occasion of a great deal of idle talk and foolish babble about every cast and every Card and oft-times the occasion of cursing and swearing and railing and hatred of those that win your money and oft it hath occasioned fighting and murder It is one of the Roman Laws 12. tab Prodigo bonâ—rum suorum administratâ—o interdicta esto it self And even your huntings are commonly recreations so costly as that the charge that keepeth a pack of Hounds would keep a poor mans family that is now in want Besides the Time that this also consumeth So that the case is clear that our Gamesters and licentious sportfull Gallants are a sort of people that have blinded their minds and seared their Consciences and despise the Laws and presence of God and forget death and judgement and live as if there were no life to come neglecting their miserable souls and having no delight in the word or holy worship of God nor the forethoughts of eternal joys and therefore seek for their pleasure in such foolish sports and spend those pretious hours in these vanities which God knows they had need to spend most diligently in repenting of their sins and cleansing their souls and preparing for another world § 29. If yet any impenitent Gamester or idle Time-waster shall Reply I will not believe that my Object Cards or Dice or Plays are unlawful I use them but to fit me for my duty What! would you have all men live like heremites or anchorites without all pleasure I answer you but by this reasonable request Will you set your selves as dying men in the presence of God and the â—ight of eternity and provide a true answer to these few Questions even such an answer as your Consciences dare stand to at the bar of God § 30. Quest. 1. Dost thou not think in thy Conscience that thy Maker and Redeemer and his work and Quest. 1. service and thy family and calling and the forethoughts of Heaven are not fitter matters to delight a sober mind than Cards or Stage-plays And what can it be but a vain and sinful mind that should make these toys so pleasant to thee and the thoughts of God and Heaven so unpleasant § 31. Quest. 2. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that it is not to fit thee for thy Calling or Gods Quest. 2. service that thou usest these sports but only to delight a carnal fantasie Doth not Conscience tell thee that it is more the pleasure than the benefit of it to thy soul or body that draws thâ—e to it Dost thou work so hard or study so hard all the day besides as to need so much recreation to refresh thee § 32. Quest. 3. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that if thy sensual fantasie were but cured it Quest. 3. would be a more profitable recreation to thy body or mind to use some sober exercise for thy body which is confined to its proper limits of time or to turn to variety of labour or studies than to sit about these idle games § 33. Quest. 4. Dost thou think that either Christ or his Apostles used Stage-plays Cards or Dice Quest. 4. or ever countenanced such a temper of mind as is addicted to them Or was not David as wise as you that took up his pleasure in the word of God and his
to your selves And that both in time of Health and Sickness § 31. 1. In Health you must be careful to provide for each other not so much pleasing as wholsome food and to keep each other from that which is hurtful to your health disswading each other from Gluttony and Idleness the two great Murderers of mankind If the bodies of the poor in hunger and cold and nakedness must be relieved much more of those that are become as your own flesh § 32. 2. Also in Sickness you are to be tenderly regardful of each other and not to be sparing of any cost or pains by which the health of each other may be restored or your souls confirmed and Gen. 27. 14. your comforts cherished You must not lothe the Bodies of each other in the most lothsom sickness Eph 5 29 31. Job 19. 17. Job 2. 9. nor shun them through loathing no more than you would do your own Prov. 17. 17. A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity Much more those that are so nearly bound for sickness and health till death shall separate them It is an odious sin to be aweary of a sick or suffering friend and desirous that God would take them meerly that you may be eased of the trouble And usually such persons do meet with such measure as they measured to others and those that they look for help and comfort from will perhaps be as weary of them and as glad to be rid of them § 33. Direct 8. Another duty of Husbands and Wives is to be helpful to each other in their worldly Direct 8. business and estates Not for worldly ends nor with a worldly mind but in obedience to God See Prov. 31. Gen. 31. 40. Tit. 2. 5. 1 Tâ—m 5. 14. 5. 8. who will have them Labour as well as pray for their daily bread and hath determined that in the sweat of their brows they shall eat their bread and that six dayes they shall labour and do all that they have to do and that he that will not work must not eat The care of their affairs doth lye upon them both and neither of them must cast it off and live in idleness unless one of them be an Ideot or so witless as to be unfit for care or so sick or lame as to be unfit for labour § 34. Direct 9. Also you must be careful of the lawful honour and good names of one another Direct 9. You must not divulge but conceal the dishonourable failings of each other as Abigail except 1 Sam. 25. 25. Matth. 18 16. Matth. 1. 19. 2 Sam. 11. 7. Prov. 31. 28. Eccles 7 3. Prov. 22. 1. 2 Sam. 6. 20. Gen 9 22 25. in any case compassion or justice require you to open them to any one for a cure or to clear the truth The reputation of each other must be as dear to you as your own It is a sinful and unfaithful practice of many both Husbands and Wives who among their companions are opening the faults and infirmities of each other which they are bound in tenderness to cover As if they perceived not that by dishonouring one another they dishonour themselves Love will cover a multitude of faults 1 Pet. 4. 8. Nay many disaffected pievish persons will aggravate all the faults of one another behind their backs to strangers and sometimes slander them and speak more than is truth Many a man hath been put to clear his good name from the slanders of a jealous or a passionate Wife And an open enemy is not capable of doing one so much wrong as she that is in his bosome because she will be easily be believed as being supposed to know him better than any other § 35. Direct 10. It is also a great part of the duty of Husbands and Wives to be helpful to one Direct 10. another in the education of their Children and in the government of the inferiors of the family Some 〈…〉 m 3. 4 12. Gen. 18. 19. â—â— 35. 2 c. 〈…〉 24 14. 〈…〉 101. men cast all the care of the Children while they are young upon their Wives And many women by their passion and indiscretion do make themselves unfit to help their Husbands in the Government either of their Children or Servants But this is one of the greatest parts of their employment As to the Mans part to govern his house well it is a duty unquestionable And it is not to be denyed of the Wife 1 Tim. 5. 14. I will that the younger Women marry bear Children guide the house Bathshâ—ba taught Solomon Prov. 31. 1. Abigail took better care of Nabal's house than he did himself They that have a joint interest and are one flesh must have a joint part in government although their power be not equal and one may better oversee some business and the other other business yet in their places they must divide the care and help each other And not as it is with many wicked persons who are the most unruly part of the family themselves and the chiefest cause that it is ungoverned and ungodly or one party hindreth the other from keeping order or doing any good § 36. Direct 11. Another part of their Duty is to help each other in works of charity and hospitality Direct 11. While they have opportunity to do good to all but especially to them of the houshold of faith Heb. 13. 2. Gen. 18. 6 c. Rom. 12. 13. 2 Cor. 9. 6. â—uke 1â— 9. 1 Tim 3. 2. 5. 10. Prov. 11. 20 28 Neh. 8. 10. Prov. 19. 17 Job 29. 13. 31. 20. Acts 20. 35. and to sow to the Spirit that of the Spirit they may reap everlasting life yea to sow plentifully that they may reap plentifully Gal. 6. that if they are able their houses may afford relief and entertainment for the needy especially for Christs servants for their Masters sake who hath promised that He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward Matth. 10. 41 42. The woman of Sâ—â—â—â—em lost nothing by the entertainment of Elisha when she said to her Husband Behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God which passeth by us continually Let us make him a little Chamber I pray thee on the wall and let us set for him there a Bed and a Table and a Stool and a Candlestick and it shall be when he cometh to us that he shall turn in thither 2 Kings 4. 10. But now how common is it for the people to think all too little for themselves and if one of them be addicted to
experiences thou wilt be very hardly kept from desperation Thou wilt read such passages as Heb. 6 4 5 6. and Heb. 10. 26 27 28 29. with so much horrour that thou wilt hardly be perswaded that there is any hope Thou wilt be ready to think that thou hast sinned against the Holy Ghost and that thou hast trampled underfoot the blood of the Covenant and done despite to the spirit of grace And thou wilt think that there is no being twice born again Or if thou be restored to Life thou wilt hardly ever be restored to thy comforts here if thy backsliding should be very great But indeed the danger is exceeding great lest thou never be recovered at all if once thou be twice dead and pluckt up by the roots Jud. 6. and lest God do finally forsake thee And then how desperate will be thy case § 35. 16. Is it not the example of Backsliders very terrible which God hath set up for the warning of his servants as monuments of his wrath Luk. 17. 32. Remember Lot's Wife saith Christ to them that are about to lose their estates or goods or lives by saving them How frightful is the remembrance of a Cain a Iudas a Saul a Ioas 2 Chron. 24. 2. a Iulian How sad is it to hear but such a one as Spira especially at his death crying out of his backsliding in the horrour of his soul and to see such ready to make away themselves § 36. 17. Consider that there is none that so much dishonoureth God as a Backslider Others are supposed to sin in ignorance But you do by your lives as bad as speak such blaspheamy as this against the Lord As if you should say I thought once that God had been the best Master and his servants the wisest and happiest men and Godliness the best and safest life but now I have tryed both and I find by experience that the Devil is a better master and his servants are the happiest men and the world and the flesh do give the truest contentment to the mind This is the plain blaspheamy of your lives And bethink thee how God should bear with this § 37. 18. There is none that so much hardeneth the wicked in his sin and furthereth the damnation of souls as the Backslider If you would but drive your Sheep or Cattle into a house those that go in first do draw the rest after them but those that run out again make all the rest afraid and run away One apostate that hath been noted for Religion and afterwards turneth off again doth discourage many that would come in For he doth as it were say to them by his practice Keep off and meddle not with a Religious life for I have tryed it and found that a life of worldliness and fleshliness is better And people will think with themselves Such a man hath tryed a Religious life and he hath forsaken it again and therefore he had some reason for it and knew what he did Woe to the world because of offences and woe to him by whom the offence shall come â—â—k 17. 1. Mat. 18. 7. How dreadful a thing is it think that mens souls should lie in Hell and you be the cause of it It were good for that man that a milstone were hanged about his neck and be were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18. 6 7. Luk. 17. 2. § 38. 19. There is none that are so great a terrour to weak Christians as these Backsliders For they are thinking how far such went before they fell away And those that think that true grace may be lâ—st are saying Alas how shall I stand when such that were better and stronger than I have faln away And those that think true grace cannot be lost are as much perplexed and say How far may an Hypocrite go that after falleth away How piously did this man live how sorrowfully did he repâ—nt how blamelesly did he walk how fervently and constantly did he pray how savourily did he speak how charitably and usefully did he live And I that come far short of him as far as I can discern can have no assurance that I am sincere till I am sure that I go further than ever he did Woe to thee that thus perplexest the consciences of the weak and hinderest the comforts of believers § 39. 20. Thou art the greatest grief to the faithful Ministers of Christ Thou canst not conceive what a wound it giveth to the heart and comforts of a Minister when he hath taken a great deal of pains for thy Conversion and after that rejoyced when he saw thee come to the flock of Christ and after that laboured many a year to build thee up and suffered many a frown from the ungodly for thy sake to see all his labour at last come to nought and all his glorying of thee turned to his shame and all his hopes of thee disappointed I tell thee this is more doleful to his heart than any outward loss or cross that could have befaln him It is not persecution that is his greatest grief as long as it hindereth not the good of souls It is such as thou that are his â—orest persecutors that frustrate his labours and rob him of his joyes And his sorrows shall one day cost thee dear The life and comforts of your faithful Pastors is much in your hands 2 Cor. 7. 3. 1 Thes. 3. 8. Now we Live if ye stand fast in the Lord. § 40. 21. Thou art more treacherous to Christ than thou wouldst be to a common friend Wouldst thou forsake thy friend without a cause especially an old and tryed friend And especially when in forsaking him thou dost forsake thy self Prov. 27. 10. Thy own friend and thy fathers friend forsake not Prâ—v 17. 17. A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity If thy friend were in distress wouldst thou forsake him And wilt thou forsake thy God that needs thee not but supplyeth thy needs Ruth was more faithful to Naomi Ruth 1. 16 17. that resolved Whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge where thou dyest I will dye And hath God deserved worse of thee § 41. 22. Nay thou dealest worse with God than the Devils servants do with him Alas they are too constant to him Reason will not change them nor the Commands of God nor the offers of everlasting life nor the fears of Hell nothing will change them till the spirit of God do it And wilt thou be less constant to thy God § 42. 23. Consider also that thy end is so near that thou hadst but a little while longer to have held out And thou mightest have known that thou couldst keep thy worldly pleasures but a little while And it is a pitiful thing to see a man that hath born the forest brunt of the battle and run till he is almost at the end of the race to lose all for want of a
and accordingly your speech must be mixt and tempered and your counsels or comforts given with the Conditions and Suppositions exprest § 13. Quest. But what order would you have us observe in speaking to the ignorant and ungodly Quest. 5. when the time is so short Answ. 1. Labour to awaken them to a lively sense of the change which is at hand that they may Answ. understand the necessity of looking after the state of their souls 2. Then shew them what are the terms of salvation and who they are that the Gospel doth judge to salvation or damnation 3. Next advise them to try which of these is their condition and to deal faithfully seeing self-flattery may undo them but can do them no good 4. Then help them in the tryal q. d. If it have been so or so with you then you may know that this is your case 5. Then tell them the Reasons of your fears if you fear they are unconverted or of your hopes if you hope indeed that it is better with them 6. Then exhort them conditionally if they are yet in a carnal unsanctified state to lament it and be humbled and penitent for their sinful and ungodly life 7. And then tell them the Remedy in Christ and the Holy Ghost and the Promise or Covenant of Grace 8. And lastly tell them their present duty that this Remedy may prove effectual to their salvation And if you have so much interest or authority as maketh it fit for you excite them by convenient questions so far to open their case as may direct you and as by their answers may shew whether they truly resolve for a holy life if God restore them and whether their hearts indeed be changed or not § 14. Direct 7. If you are not able to instruct them as you should read some good Book to Direct 7. them which is most suitable to their case Such as Mr. Perkins Right art of Dying well The Practice of Piety in the Directions for the Sick Mr. Ed. Lawrences Treatise of Sickness or what else is most suitable to them And because most are themselves unable for counselling the sick aright and you may not have a fit Book at hand I shall here subjoyn a brief Form or two for such to Read to the Sick that can endure no long discourse And other books will help you to forms of Prayer with them if you cannot pray without such help § 15. Direct 8. Iudge not of the state of mens souls by those carriages in their sickness which Direct 8. proceed from their diseases or bodily distemper Many ignorant people judge of a man by the manner of his dying If one die in calmness and clearness of understanding and a few good words they think that this is to die like a Saint Whereas in Consumptions and oft in Dropsies and other such Chronical diseases this is ordinary with good and bad And in a Feaver that 's violent or a Phrensie or Distraction the best man that is may die without the use of Reason Some diseases will make one blockish and heavy and unapt to speak and some consist with as much freedom of speech as in time of health The state of mens souls must not be judged of by such accidental unavoidable things as these § 16. Direct 9. Be neither unnaturally sensless at the death of friends nor excessively dejected or afflicted Direct 9. To make light of the Death of Relations and friends be they good or bad is a sign of a very vitious nature that is so much selfish as not much to regard the Lives of others And he that regardeth not the Life of his friends is little to be trusted in his lower concernments I speak not this of those persons whose temper alloweth them not to weep For there may be as deep a regard and sorrow in some that have no tears as in others that abound with them But I speak of a naughty selfish nature that is little affected with any ones concernments but its own § 17. Yet your grief for the death of friends must be very different both in degree and kind 1. For ungodly friends you must grieve for their own sakes because if they dyed such they are lost for ever 2. For your Godly friends you must mourn for the sake of your selves and others because God hath removed such as were blessings to those about them 3. For choice Magistrates and Ministers and other instruments of publick good your sorrow must be greater because of the common loss and the judgement thereby inflicted on the World 4. For old tryed Christians that have overcome the world and lived so long till age and weakness make them almost unserviceable to the Church and who groan to be unburdened and to be with Christ your sorrow should be least and your joy and thanks for their happiness should be greatest But especially abhor that nature that secretly is glad of the death of Parents or little sorrowful because that their estates are faln to you or you are enriched or set at liberty by their death God seldom leaveth this sin unrevenged by some heavy judgements even in this life § 18. Direct 10. To overcome your inordinate grief for the death of your relations consider these Direct 10. things following 1. That excess of sorrow is your sin And sinning is an ill use to be made of your Help against excessive grief for the Death of friends affliction 2. That it tendeth to a great deal more It unfitteth you for many duties which you are bound to as to Rejoice in God and to be Thankful for mercies and cheerful in his Love and Praise and Service And is it a small sin to unfit your selves for the greatest duties 3. If you are so troubled at Gods disposal of his own what doth your Will but rise up against the will of God as if you grudged at the exercise of his Dominion and Government that is that he is God! Who is wisest and Best and fittest to dispose of all mens lives Is it God or you Would you not have God to be the Lord of all and to dispose of Heaven and earth and of the lives and Crowns of the greatest Princes If you would not you would not have him to be God If you would is it not unreasonable that you or your friends only should be excepted from his disposal 4. If your friends are in Heaven how unsuitable is it for you to be overmuch mourning for them when they are rapt into the highest Joyes with Christ and Love should teach you to rejoice with them that rejoice and not to mourn as those that have no hope 5. You know not what mercy God Isa. 57. 1. shewed to your friends in taking them away from the evil to come you know not what suffering Phil. 1. 2◠23. the Land or Church is falling into or at least might have faln upon themselves nor what sins they might have
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
Jer. 31. 34. Eph. 1. 7. Act. 5. 31. Eph. 5. 26. Rev. 1. 5. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Mal. 3. 17. Joh. 1. 12. 3. 16. Eph. 2. 14. Rom. 8. 1 17. Luk. 4. 18. Rom. 5. 1 5. Luk. 1. 74. Joh. 10. 28. Luk. 23. 43. 1 Cor. 15. 8. Tit. 3. 3 4. Act. 4. 4 5 6. 1 Tim. 1. 13 14 15 16. A Form of Exhortation to the Godly in their Sickness DEar Friend Though Nature teacheth us to have compassion on your flesh which lyeth in pain yet Faith teacheth us to see the nearness of your Happiness and to Rejoyce with you in hope of your endless Joyes which seem to be at hand We must Rejoyce with you as your friends that Love you and therefore are partakers of your welfare And we must Rejoyce with you as your fellow-travellers and fellow-souldiers that are going along with you to the same felicity and if we are left behind for a little while yet hope ere long to overtake you and never to be separated from you more This is the day for which Christ hath been so long preparing you And which you have so long foreseen and have been so long preparing for your self This is the day which you thought on in all your prayers and patience in all your labours and sufferings your self-denyal and mortification since God did bring you to your self and him Now you are going to see the things which you have believed and to possess the things which you have sought and hoped for To see the final difference between the Righteous and the wicked between a Holy and a worldly life between the vessels of mercy and of wrath Your Time is hasting to an end and Endless Blessedness must succeed it O now what a mercy is it to have a Christ That you are not to encounter an unconquered Death nor to go to God without a Mediator But that Death is by Christ disarmed of its sting and that you may boldly resign your soul into the hands of your Redeemer and commend it to him as a member of himself Now what a case had your soul been in if you had no Intercessor If you had been to answer for your sins your self only and had not a Saviour to be your Advocate and answer for you Now you may better perceive than ever you have done what God did for you when he opened your eyes and humbled and changed and renewed your heart and how great a mercy it is to be a penitent Believer You may now see more fully than ever heretofore what God intended for you when he converted you When he forgave all your sins and justified you by his Grace and adopted you for his child and an heir of life and sealed you with his Spirit and sanctified and separated you to himself Now what a case were you in if you were yet in your sins and in the bondage of Satan and had not this evidence of your title to eternal life If you had your heart now to soften and to humble and to convert and your faith and justification all to seek and all your preparations for Heaven to make If you had all this to do with a pained body and a distracted mind in so short a time with God and Eternity and Death before you ready with terror to overwhelm your souls If now you were to seek for an interest in Christ and for the pardon of all your sins and your peace with God were yet to make If you had all your life past to look back upon as consumed in sin and when Time is at an end must cry out of all that is past as lost This is the case that God in justice might have left you to But what an unspeakable mercy is it that you have already been Reconciled to that God that you are going to and that the sins which now would have been your terror are all forgiven through the blood of Christ That you can look back upon your Time since the day of your Conversion as spent in faithful Devotedness to God and in a believing preparation for your endless life and in godly sincerity notwithstanding your manifold sinful imperfections which Christ hath undertaken to answer for himself Though you have nothing of your own to boast of and no works that will justifie you according to the Law at the Barr of God but you need a Saviour and a Pardon for the failings even of the best that ever you did Yet must you with thankfulness remember that Grace which hath begun eternal life within you and prepared and sealed you to the full possession of it For all the mercy that is in God and for all the Glory that is in Heaven and for all the Merits and satisfaction of Christ and for all the fulness and freeness of the Gal. 4. 4 6. Rom. 8. 16 17. Rom. 8. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 7. Promise if God had not given you a believing penitent heart and sanctified and sealed you by the Spirit of his Son all this could have afforded you little comfort but would have aggravated your misery as it did your sin Seeing then that many of the wicked would be glad to dye the death of the Righteous and when it is too late they would all be glad if their latter end might be like his how glad should you be that God by such a life hath prepared you for such an end And though a humble soul hath still an eye upon its own unworthiness and Satan is ready to aggravate our Rom. 5. 2. 17. Rom. 5. 20 21. sins in order to our discouragement and fear yet must you remember what an honourable victory grace hath had over them And look on them as Christ did as the advantage of his grace that where sin abounded there grace hath superabounded You have had something to humble you and to Rom. 8. 35 36. Ephes. 1. 6 7. 2. 5 7 8 Tit. 3. 3 5 6 7. Rom. 3. 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Luke 15. 4 6 24. Matth. 18. 11. 2 Pet. 3. 9. shew you that you were a child of Adam And you have had something for grace to contend with and to conquer and for Christ to pardon Bless him through whom you have had the victory Had you not deserved Hell Christ could not have saved you from a deserved Hell and the Song of the Lamb would not have been so sweet to you in the everlasting remembrance and experience of his grace You have sinned as a Man and he hath pardoned as God You have been weak and nothing but his grace hath been sufficient for you and by his strength you can do all things He hath as dear a Love to you now in his exaltation as he had upon the Cross when he was bleeding for your sins And will he suffer a chosen soul to perish for whom he hath paid so dear a price A Christ in Heaven John 3. 15 16. Matth. 18. 14. Luke 21. 18. John 18. 9.
upon a Cross at the will of proud malitious persecutoâ—s You shall there see that Person whom God hath Chosen to advance above the whole Creation and in John 17. â—4 Phil. 2 7 8 9 10. whom he will be more glorified than all the Saints The wonderful condescension of his Incarnation and the wonderful Mysterie of the Hypostatical Union will there be better understood And which is all in all you shall see the most Blessed God himself whether in his Essence or not yet undoubtedly in his Glory in that state or place which he hath prepared to reveal his Glory in Matth. 5. 8. Heb. 12. 14. for the Glorifying of holy Spirits You shall see him whose sight will perfect your understandings and Love him and feel the fulness of his Love which is the highest felicity that any created Being can attain Though this will be in different measures as souls are more or less amiable and capacious or else the humane nature of Christ would be no happier than we yet none shall have any sinful or trouble some imperfection and all their capacities shall be filled with God O dear friend I am even confounded and ashamed to think that I mention to you such high and glorious things with no more sense and admiration and that my soul is not drawn up in the flames of a more â—ervent Love nor lifted up in higher joyes nor yet drawn out into more longing desires when I speak of such transcendent happiness and joy O had you and I but a glimpse with Acts 7. 56. 2 Cor. 12. 3 4 5. Gal. 1. 4. blessed Stephen or Paul of these unutterable pleasures how deeply would it affect us and how should we abhorr this life of sin and be aweary of this dark and distant state and be glad to be gone from this Prison of flesh and to be delivered from this present evil world This is the life that you are going to live Though a painful Death must open the Womb of Time and let you into eternity how quickly will the pain be over And though Nature make Death dismal to you and sin have made it penal and you look at it now with backwardness and fear yet this will all be quickly past and your souls will be born into a world of joy which will make you forget all your fears and sorrows It is meet that as the Birth of Nature had its pains and the Birth of Grace hads its penitent John 16. 21. John 3. 3 5 7 8. sorrows so the Birth of Glory should have the greatest difficulties as it entreth us into the happiest state O what a change will it be to a humbled fearful soul to find it self in a moment dislodged from a sinful painful flesh and entred into a world of Light and Life and holy Love unspeakably above all the expressions and conceptions of this present life Alas that our present ignorance and fear should make us draw back from such a change That whilst all our brethren that dyed in faith are triumphing in these Joyes with Christ our trembling souls should be so loth to leave this flesh and be afraid to be called to the same felicity O what an enemy is the remnant of Unbelief to our imprisoned and imperfect souls That it can hide such a desirable Glory from our eyes that it should no more affect us and we should no more desire it but are willing to stay so long from God How wonderful is that Love and Mercy that brings such backward souls to Happiness and will drive us away from this beloved world by its afflicting miseries and from this beloved flesh by pain and weariness and will draw us to our joyful blessedness as it were whether we will or not and will not leave us out of Heaven so long till we are willing our selves to come away You seem now to be almost at your journeys end But how many a foul step have those yet to go whom you leave behind you in this dirty world You have fought a good fight and kept the faith and shall never be troubled with an enemy or temptation when this one concluding brunt is over You shall never be so much as tempted to unbelief or pride or worldly mindedness or fleshly lusts or to any defects in the service of your Lord But how many temptations do you leave us encompassed with and how many dangers and enemies to overcome And alas how many falls and wounds may we receive You seem to be near the end of your race when those behind you have far to run You are entring into the harbour and leave us tossed by Tempests on the Waves Flesh will no more entice or clog your soul You will no more have unruly senses to command nor an unreasonable appetite to govern nor a stragling fantasie or wandering thoughts or headstrong lusts or boistrous passions to restrain You will no longer carry about a root of corruption nor a principle of enmity to God! It will no more be difficult or wearisome to you to do good Your service of God will no more be mixed and blemished with imperfections You shall never more have a cold or hard or backward heart or a careless customary duty to lament That primitive Holiness which consisteth in the Love of God and the exercise and delights thereof will be perfected And those subservient duties of Holiness which consist in the use of Recovering means will cease as needless Preaching and Studying and Books will be necessary no more Sacraments and Church Discipline and all such means have done their work Repentance and Faith have attained their end As your bodies after the Resurrection 2 Cor. 3. 18. 2 Cor. 4. 6. 1 Cor. 13. 12. will have no need of food or rayment or care or labour so your souls will be above the use of such Creatures and Ordinances as now we cannot be without For the Glass will be unnecessary when you must see the Creator face to face Will it not be a joyful day to you when you shall know God as much as you desire to know him and love him as much as you desire to love him and be loved by him as much as much as you can reasonably desire to be loved and rejoyce in him as much as you desire to rejoyce Yea more than you can now desire I open you but a Casement into the everlasting mansions and shew you but a dark and distant prospect of the promised Land the Heavenly Ierusalem The satisfying sight is reserved for the time when thereby we shall have that satisfying fruition And is there any such thing to be hoped for on earth Will health or wealth will the highest places or the greatest pleasures make man happy You know it will not Or if it would the happiness would be so short as maketh it little worthy of our regard Have you not seen an end of all perfection Have you not observed and tryed what a deluding dream
and shadow of felicity the world puts off its followers with How they act their parts as Players on a stage and they that in a dream or Mask did yesterday seem Princes Lords or Conquerours to day are buryed in a darksome grave And they that yesterday seemed great and rich to day have no more of their furniture or possessions than a Coffin and a Winding-sheet and a place to hide their lothesome flesh And they that yesterday were merry and jovial and in health and honour to day lye groaning in painful misery and are leaving their dear bought beloved riches never to be delightful to them any more How little doth it concern them that must dwell in Heaven or Hell for ever whether they live in wealth or poverty in honour or shame in a Palace or a Cottage in pain or pleasure for so short a time as this transitory life which is almost at an end as soon as it is begun How many millions of dying Parents have cryed out of the world as VANITY and VEXATION and yet their besotted posterity admire it and through the love of it lose their souls and everlasting hopes They boast or rejoyce in the multitude of their Riches as if their houses would continue for ever though in their honour they abide not but are like the beasts that perish and death feedeth on them when like sheep they are laid in the grave And though this their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings and follow them by the same sin to the same Perdition Psal. 49. 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 17 19 20. And is this a world for a holy soul to be in love with Hath it merited our affections Doth it love us so much or use us so well that we should be lothe to leave it Iohn 15. 18 19 20. As it loved our Lord it will love his followers As it used him it will use us if he restrain it not Is a blinded Bedlam world a malitious cruel and ungodly world a false perfidious deceitful world a place for 1 John 2. 15. John 15. 17 18 19 20. a Saint to be lothe to leave O blessed be that Love that Blood that Grace which hath provided better for us And shall we be unwilling to go to so sweet a Feast and to partake of a happiness which cost so dear Come on then Dear Friend and faint not at the last and fear not to encounter with the King of Post illam pugnâ—m tâ—â—umphabimus Victoâ—es eâ—m nostro Signiâ—ero in vita aeterna Diu in Christum credidi Desidero jam finem fide ut non â—mplius credam in eum sed videam eum in quem credidi ut gustem quam suavis sit Dominus palpem manibus Dominum meum Deum meum Ibi vocabor Abraham qui laetatur videns diem Christi Exper us sum quod in â—âc vitâ peccatum sit omnia in omnibus Experiar etiam aliam vitam ubi est Dominus omnia in omnibus Abr. Bâ—choltze rfâ—â—â—â—ate Abr. Scâ—lâ—eto ia Cuâ—ic vitae suae pag. 15. fears It is the last enemy and it is a conquered enemy Conquer this and you have no more to conquer Lift up your head and look to your Victorious Reigning Lord Gird up the loins of your mind and let faith and patience hold out yet a little while and play well this last part and all 's your own If the Tempter now assault your faith and sinking flesh do give him any advantage abhorr his blasphemies and cry for help to him that conquered him Do you think yonder high and spacious 1. mansions are uninhabited When every part of Sea and Land hath its inhabitants Why have those blessed Angels been so long employed in ministring for you but to let you know that your souls are not so distant from them but that they are glad of familiarity with you and you may be like them Luke 20. 26. or equal with them in felicity Nature hath put you out of doubt that there is a God of Infinite Eternal Being Power Wisdom and Goodness who is the Efficient Dirigent and Final Cause of all the Creator and Governour of the world And the same Nature hath put you out of doubt that All that his Creatures have or can do is due to him from whom they have it and that so far as you are capable to Know and Love and Serve him that you should employ your faculties herein And nothing is more undenyable to you than that it is our Duty to Love and Serve our God with all our heart and soul and might And it is as clear to you that neither are these Powers given us in vain nor this Duty required of us in vain nor yet that mans Natural highest Duty is made to be the way of his misery and undoing And sure that way which turneth the mind from sensual pleasures and casteth a man on the 2. malice and cruelty of the world and engageth him in so much duty which both the flesh and the world are utter enemies to would be his misery and torment if there were no Rewards and Punishments hereafter and no future Judgement to set all strait that seemed crooked in the judgements of men If all the intrinsick evidences of credibility in the Sacred Word were not sufficient If all the cntecedent Evidences of Prophecy were too little If the concomitant Evidence of all the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles and other of his servants with his own Resurrection and Ascension did seem too distant from you yet mark what subsequent continued Evidences it hath pleased God to bring even to your very sense to assure you of the truth of his Gospel and of the life to come Whence 3. cometh that Universal unreasonable enmity which in all Generations and Nations of the world from Cain and Abel till this day is found in the Carnal against the Spiritual holy seed Even a Seneca telleth us of it among Heathens against that remnant of vertue and temperance and sobriety that was found in the better sort of men Could all mankind be thus infected and hate a Saint that never hurt them much more than those that themselves confess to be most vitious if the fall of Adam were not true Have we a whole world before our eyes that are visibly polluted with that irrational Leprosie and yet shall we doubt whether our common Father was sick of that disease And do you not see that 4 the Gospel where ever it is heartily entertained doth renew the soul and change the life and make the man to be another man not only amending some little things that were amiss but making us new creatures and turning the bent of heart and life another way Though the carnal nominal Christian that never heartily received the Gospel do differ from a Heathen but in opinion and formality yet serious Christians are other men and so transformed as that their holy desires
order to our Absolution and Communion 4. Especially so far as is necessary to subdue our fleshly lusts and tame our bodies and bring them into a due subjection to our faith and to avoid our sin for the time to come And also by 2 Cor. 7. 9 10 11. 1 Cor. 9 27. Col. 1. 5 6. Rom. 13 13 14. the exercise of sober mortification prudently to keep under all our worldly phantasies and love of this present world without unfitting our selves for duty 5. And so far as is needful by such mortification to fit us for fervent prayer especially by fasting on dayes of humiliation and to help us in our meditations of death and judgement and to further our heavenly contemplations and conversation 6. The greatest difficulty is Whether any self-revenge be lawful or due which is answered by Psal. 69. 10. Lev. 16. 29 31. â—3 27 32. Numb 29. 7. 30. 13. Ezra 8. 21. what is said already None such as disableth us for Gods service is lawful But true Repentance is an anger or great displeasure with our selves for sin and a hatred of sin and loathing of our selves for it And to judge condemn and afflict our own souls by a voluntary self-punishing is but that exercise of justice on our selves which is fit for pardoned sinners that are not to be condemned by the Lord and indeed the just exercise of Repentance and displeasure against our selves On which accounts of sober self-revenge we may cherish such degrees of godly sorrow fasting course cloathing as Sackcloth and denying our selves the pleasures of this world as shall not be hurtful but helpful to our duty And if great and heinous sinners have of old on these terms exceeded other men in their austerities and self-afflictings we cannot condemn them of superstition unless we more particularly knew more cause for it But popishly to think that self-afflicting without respect to Isa. 58. 5. such causes or necessities is a meritorious perfection fit for others is superstition indeed And â—o think as many of the Melancholy do that self-murder is a lawful self-revenge is a heinous sin and leadeth to that which is more heinous and dangerous Quest. 101. Is it lawful to observe stated times of fasting imposed by others without extraordinary occasion And particularly Lent Answ. REmember that I here meddle not with the question how far it is lawful for Rulers to 2 Chron. 20 3. Ezâ—a 8. 21. Jonah 3. 5. Zech. 8. 19. Joel 2. 15. Read Dallaeus Treatise de Iejuniis impose such Fasts on others save only to say 1. That it is undoubtedly fit for Kings to do it by Precepts and Churches by Consent in extraordinary cases of defection sin or judgements 2. That it is undoubtedly sinful usurpation for either Pope or any pretended Ecclesiastical Universal Rulers to impose such on the Universal Church Because there are no Universal Rulers Or for a neighbour Bishop by usurpation to impose it on a neighbour Church 3. And that it is sinful in all or many Churches to make by their Agreements such things to be necessary to their Union or Communion with their neighbour Churches so that they will take all those for Schismaticks that differ from them in such indifferent things But as to the Using of such fasts omitting the imposing I say I. 1. Thâ—â— so great and extraordinary a duty as holy fasting must not be turned into a meer Isa. 58. 3 5 6 7 8. formality oâ— ceremony 2. No particular man must be so observant of a publick commanded anniversary fast as for it to neglect any duty commanded him by God which is inconsistent with it As to rejoyce or keep a day of Thanksgiving in Lent upon an extraordinary obliging cause To keep the Lords day in Lent as a day of Thanksgiving and Rejoycing To preserve our own health c. It is not lawful in obedience to man to fast so much or use such dyet as is like to destroy our lives or health These being not so far put into the power of man Nor can man dispence with us as to the duty of self-preservation If God himself require us not to offer him our lives and health needlesly as an acceptable Sacrifice nor ever maketh self-destruction our duty no nor any thing that is not for mans own good then we are not to believe without very clear proof that either Prince or Prelates have more power than ever God doth use himself 3. Such an Anniversary fast as is meet for the remembrance of some sin or judgement if commanded is to be kept both for the Reason of it and for the Authority of the Commander For 1. It is not unlawful as Anniversary For 1. It is not forbidden and 2. There may be just occasion Some arbitrarily keep an anniversary fast on the day of their Nativity as I have long done and some on the day that they fell into some great sin and some on the day of the death of a friend or of some personal domestick or National Calamity and none of this is forbidden 2. And that which is not unlawful in it self is not therefore unlawful to be done because it is commanded seeing obedience to superiours is our duty and not our sin unless in sinful things 4. Whether it be lawful or meet to commemorate Christs sufferings by anniversary fasts is next to be considered II. As for Lent in particular We must distinguish 1. Between the antient Lent and the later Lent 2. Between keeping it on a Civil account and on a Religious 3. Between true fasting and change of dyet 4. Between the Imitation of Christs fourty dayes fasting and the meer Commemoration of it Which premised I conclude 1. The keeping a true Fast or Abstinence from food for fourty dayes on what account soever being impossible or self-murder is not to be attempted 2. The Imitation of Christ in his fourty dayes fasting is not to be attempted or pretended to Because his miraculous works were not done for our imitation And it is presumption for us to pretend to such a power as is necessary to Miracles or yet to make any Essayes at such an imitation any more than at the raising of the dead 3. The pretending of a fast when men do but change their dyet Flesh for Fish Fruit Sweet-meats c. is but hypocritical and ridiculous Most poor labourers and temperate Ministers do live all the year on a more flesh-denying dyet and in greater abstinence than many Papists do in Lent or on their fasting dayes And what a ridiculous dispute is it to hear e. g. a Calvin that never eateth but one small meal a day for many years to plead against the keeping of the Popish fasts and their Clergy call him voracious and carnal and an Epicure and plead for fasting as holy mortification who eat as many meals and as much meat on a Lent day or fasting day as Calvin did in three feasting dayes and drink as much Wine in
Deut. 29. 22. Eâ—â—d 12. 26. Jos. 4. 6. 22. 22. 24 25. and not only to the Countrey where he liveth Many things seem necessary for some present strait or work that we would do which in the next age may be of mischievous effects Especially in Ecclesiastical and Political professions Covenants and impositions we must look further than our present needs And many things seem necessary for a local narrow interest which those at a distance will otherwise esteem 17. He that will walk uprightly must be able to bear the displeasure of all the world when the interest of truth requireth it yea to be rejected of learned and good men themselves and account 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. John 5. 44. Luke 14. 26. Gal. 2. 13. 14. Acts 11. 2 3. mans favour no better than it is Not to despise it as it is a means to any good but to be quite above it as to his own interest Not that uprightness doth use to make a man despised by the upright but that it may bring him under their censure in some particulars which are not commonly received or understood to be of God 18. He must make it a great part of the work of his life to kill all those carnal desires which the Col. 3. 4 5. Rom. 6 1 c. 13. 12 13. 8. 13. sensual make it their work and felicity to please That Appetite sense and lust and self-will may not be the constant pervertâ—rs of his life As a fool in a Dropsie studyeth to please his Thirst and a wise man to cure it 19. He must live a life of constant and skilful watchfulness apprehending himself in continual Matth. 24. 42. â—5 1â— Mat. 13. 37. 1 Tâ—ess 5. 6. 1 Pet. 4. 7. 1 Cor. 1â— 13. Matth. 6. 13. 26. 41. danger and knowing his particular Corruptions Temptations and Remedies He must have a tender conscience and keep as far as possible from temptation and take heed of unnecessary approaches or delightful thoughts of sin O what strong Resolutions what sound knowledge have the near-baits of seâ—suality meat drink lust and pleasures overcome Never think your selves safe among neartemptations and opportunities of sinning 20. Live as those that are going to the grave Dye daily and look on this world as if you did look on it out of the world to which you go Let Faith as constantly behold the world unseen as Eccles. 7. 2 3 4 5 6. 2 Cor. 4. 16. 5. 1 7 8. Luke 12. 17 18 19 20. 16. 20 c. Matth. 25. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Acts 7. 56 60. your eye seeth this Death and Eternity make men wise We easily Confess and Repent of many things when we come to dye which no Counsels or Sermons could make us penitently confess before Death will answer a thousand objections and temptations and prove many vanities to be sin which you thought the Preacher did not prove Dying men are not drawn to drunkenness filthiness or time-wasting sports nor flattered into folly by sensual baits Nor do they then fear the face or threats of persecuters As it is from another world that we must fetch the Motives so also the Defâ—nsative of an Upright life And O happy are they that faithfully practise these Rules of Uprightness THough it be my judgement that much more of the Doctrine of Politicks or Civil Government Among the Jews it was all one to be a Lawyer and a Divine but not to be a Lawyer and a Pâ—iest belongeth to Theology than those men understand who make Kings and Laws to be meer humane Creatures yet to deliver my Reader from the fear lest I should meddle with matters that belong not to my Calling and my Book from that reproach I shall over-pass all these points which else I should have treated of as useful to Practice in Governing and Obeying 1. Of Man as sociable and of Communities and Societies and the Reason of them of their Original and the Obligation on the members 2. Of a City and of Civility 3. Of a Republick in general 1. Of its Institution 2. Of its Constitution and of its parts 3. Of its Species 4. Of the difference between it 1. And a Community in general 2. A Family 3. A Village 4. A City 5. A Church 6. An accidental Meeting 5. Of its Administration 6. Of the Relation between Gods Government and Mans and Gods Laws and Mans and of their difference and between Mans Judging and Gods Judging Nay I will not only gratifie you by passing over this and much more in the Theory but also as to the Practical part I shall pass over 1. The Directions for Supream Governours 2. And for inferiour Magistrates towards God and their Superiours and the people 3. And the Determination of the Question How far Magistrates have to do in matters of Religion Whether they be Christian or Heathen 4. How far they should grant or not grant Liberty of Conscience as it is called viz. of Judging Professing and Practising in matters of Religion with other such matters belonging to Government And all the Controversies about Titles and Supremacy Conservations Forfeitures Decayes Dangers Remedies and Restorations which belong either to Politicians Lawyers or Divines All these I pretermit save only that I shall venture to leave a few brief Memorandums with Civil Governours instead of Directions for securing the Interest of Christ and the Church and mens salvation Yet assuring the Reader that I omit none of this out of any contempt of the matter or of Magistracy or as if I thought them not worthy of all our Prayers and Assistance or thought their office of small concernment to the welfare of the world and of the Church but for those Reasons which all may know that know me and the Government under which we live and which I must not tell to others CHAP. II. Memorandum's to Civil Rulers for the interest of Christ the Church and mens Salvation § 1. Memor 1. REmember that your power is from God and therefore for God and not against Memor 1. God Rom. 13. 2 3 4. You are his Ministers and can have no power except it be Finis ad quem Rex principaliter intendere debet in sâ—ipso in subditis est aeâ—erna beatitudo quae in visione Dei consistit Et quia ista visio est perfectissimum bonum maxime movere debet Regem quemcunque Dominum ut hunc finem subditi consequantur Lib. de Regim Principum Thomae adscript Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 9. Even Aristotle could say Polit. 7. c. 1 2. Eudem fine that each mans active and contemplative life is the end of Government and not only the publick peace and that that is the best life which conduceth most to our consideration of God and that is the worst which calleth us off from considering and worshiping him Vide Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 10. Quam multa injuste fieri possunt
your labour is in vain How easie is it for you to overlook some one thing among a multitude that must be seen about the Causes and Cure of diseases unless God shall open it to you and give you a clear discerning and an universal observation And when twenty considerable things are noted a mans life may be lost for want of your discerning one point more What need have you of the help of God to bring the fittest remedies to your memory And much more to bless them when they are administred as the experience of your daily practice may inform you where Atheism hath not made men fools § 5 Direct 5. Let your continual observation of the fragility of the flesh and of mans mortality Direct 5. make you more spiritual than other men and more industrious in preparing for the life to come and greater contemners of the vanities of this world He that is so frequently among the sick and a spectator of the dead and dying is utterly unexcusable if he be himself unprepared for his sickness or for death If the heart be not made better when you almost dwell in the house of mourning it is a bad and deplorate heart indeed It is strange that Physicions should be so much suspected of Atheism as commonly they are and Religio medici should be a word that signifieth irreligiousness Sure this conceit was taken up in some more irreligious Age or Countrey For I have oft been very thankful to God in observing the contrary even how many excellent pious Physicions there have been in most Countreys where the purity of Religion hath appeared and how much they promoted the work of Reformation such as Crato Platerus Erastus and abundance more that I might name And in this Land and Age I must needs bear witness that I have known as many Physicions Religious proportionably as of any one profession except the Preachers of the Gospel But as no men are more desperately wicked than those that are wicked after pious education and under the most powerful means of their reformation so it is very like that those Physicions that are not truly good are very bad because they are bad against so much light and so many warnings And from some of these it 's like this censorious Proverb came And indeed mans nature is so apt to be affected with things that are unusual and to lose all sense of things that are grown common that no men have more need to watch their hearts and be afraid of being hardened than those that are continually under the most quickening helps and warnings For it is very easie to grow customary and sensless under them and then the danger is that there are no better means remaining to quicken such a stupid hardened heart Whereas those that enjoy such helps but seldom are not so apt to lose the sense and benefit of them The sight of a sick or dying man doth usually much awaken those that have such sights but seldom But who are more hardened than Souldiers and Sea men that live continually as among the dead when they have twice or thrice seen the fields covered with mens Carkasses they usually grow more obdurate than any others And this is it that Physicions are in danger of and should most carefully avoid But certainly an Atheistical or ungodly Physicion is unexcusably blind To say as some do that they study nature so much that they are carryed away from God is as if you should say They study the work so much that they forget the workman or They look so much on the Book that they overlook the sense or that They study medicine so much that they forget both the patient and his health To look into Nature and not see God is as to see the creatures and not the light by which we see them or to see Trees and Houses and not to see the Earth that beareth them For God is the Creating Conserving Dirigent Final Cause of all Of him and Through him and To him are all things He is All in all And if they know not that they are the subjects of this God and have immortal souls they are ill proficients in the study of Nature that know no better the nature of man To boast of their acquisitions in other Sciences while they know not what a Man is nor what they are themselves is little to the honour of their understandings You that live still as in the fight of death should live as in the sight of another world and excell others in spiritual wisdom and holiness and sobriety as your advantages by these quickening helps excell § 6. Direct 6. Exercise your Compassion and Charity to mens souls as well as to their Bodies and Direct 6. speak to your patients such words as tend to prepare them for their change You have excellent opportunities if you have hearts to take them If ever men will hear it is when they are sick and if ever they will be humbled and serious it is when the approach of death constraineth them They will hear that counsel now with patience which they would have despised in their health A few serious words about the danger of an unregenerate state and the necessity of holiness and the use of a Saviour and the everlasting state of Souls for ought you know may be blest to their conversion and salvation And it is much more comfortable for you to save a soul than to cure the body Think not to excuse your selves by saying It is the Pastors duty For though it be theirs ex officio it is yours also ex charitate Charity bindeth every man as he hath opportunity to do good to all and especially the greatest good And God giveth you opportunity by casting them in your way The Priest and Levite that past by the wounded man were more to be blamed for not relieving him than those that never went that way and therefore saw him not Luk. 10. 32. And many a man will send for the Physicion that will not send for the Pastor And many a one will hear a Physicion that will despise the Pastor As they reverence their Landlords because they hold their estates from them so do they the Physicion because they think they can do much to save their lives And alas in too many places the Pastors either mind not such work or are insufficient for it or else stand at ods and distance from the people so that there is but too much need of your charitable help Remember therefore that he that converteth a sinner from the errour of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Jam. 5. 20. Remember that you are to speak to one that is going into another world and that must be saved now or never And that all that ever must be done for his salvation must be presently done or it will be too late Pity humane nature and harden not your hearts against a man
upon an absolute obedience to your Commanders in all things consistent with Direct 6. your obedience to God and the Soveraign power Disobedience is no where more intolerable than in an Army Where it is often unfit for a Souldier to know the reason of his commands and where self-conceitedness and wilfulness is inconsistent with their common safety and the lives of many may pay for the disobedience of a few If you cannot obey undertake not to be Souldiers § 7. Direct 7. Especially detest all murmurings mutinies sidings and rebellions For these are to Direct 7. an Army like violent Feavors to the body or like a Fire in a City and would make an Army the greatest plague to their King and Countrey How many Emperours Kings and Commanders have lost their dignities and lives by the fury of mutinous enraged Souldiers And how many Kingdoms and other Common-wealths have been thus overthrown and betrayed into the enemies hands And how many thousands and millions of Souldiers have thereby lost their lives In your discontents and murmuring passions you may quickly set the house on fire over your heads and when you feel your misery repent too late Passion may begin that which fruitless penitence must end The leaders of mutinies may easily have many fair pretences to enflame an Army into discontents They may aggravate many seeming injuries they may represent their Commanders as odious and unworthy by putting an ill appearance on their actions But in the end it will appear that it was their own advancement which they secretly aimed at and the destruction of the present Government or the Souldiers ruine which is like to be the effect A mutinous Army is likest Hell of any thing I know among Gods creatures and next Hell there is scarce a worse place for their Commanders to be in § 8. Direct 8. Use not your power or liberty to the robbing or oppressing or injuring of any Though Direct 8. military Thieves and oppressors may scape the Gallows more than others they shall come as soon to Hell as any If you plunder and spoil and tyrannize over the poor people under pretence o◠supplying your own wants there is a God in Heaven that will hear their cryes and will avenge them speedily though you seem to go scot-free for a time You may take a pride in domineering over others and making your selves Lords by violence of other mens estates and when you see none that will question you for it you may take that which you have most mind of But the poor and oppressed have a just defender who hath a severer punishment for you than the Sword or Gallows And though he take you not in the very fact and his sentence is not presently executed yet be certain of it that your day is coming § 9. Direct 9. Take heed lest custome and the frequency of Gods judgements do harden your hearts Direct 9. into a reprobate stupidity Many a man that formerly by the sight of a Corpse or the groanings of the sick was awakened to serious thoughts of his latter end when he cometh into an Army and hath often seen the dead lye scattered on the earth and hath often scaped death himself groweth utterly senseless and taketh blockishness to be valour and custome maketh such warnings to be of no effect You can scarce name a more strange and lamentable proof of the madding and hardning nature of sin That men should be most senseless when they are in the greatest danger And least fear God when they are among his dreadfullest judgements And least hear his voice when his calls are lowdest And live as if they should not dye when they look death so often in the face and see so many dead before them That they should be most regardless of their endless life when they are nearest it and sense it self hath such notable advantage to tell them of all this What a monstrous kind of sottish stupidity is this Think whither the soul is gone when you see the carkass on the earth and think where your own must be for ever § 10. Direct 10. Take heed of falling into drunkenness and sensuality though Temptations and Liberty Direct 10. be never so great It is too common with Souldiers because they are oft put to thirst and wants to think they may lawfully powre it in when they come at it without moderation or restraint Even as many poor men take a gluttonous meal for no sin because they have so many dayes of hunger so is it with such Souldiers in their drink till drunkenness first have wounded their consciences and afterwards grow common till it have debauched and seared them and then they have drowned Religion and Reason and are turned sottish miserable bruites § 11. Direct 11. If necessity deprive you of the benefits of Gods publick or stated Worship see that Direct 11. you labour to repair that loss by double diligence in those spiritual duties which yet you have opportunity for If you must march or watch on the Lords Dayes redeem your other time the more If you cannot hear Sermons be not without some profitable Book and often read it And let your meditations be holy and your discourses edifying For these you have opportunities if you have hearts § 12. Direct 12. Take heed that Command or Successes do not puff you up and make you over-value Direct 12. your selves and ineline you to rebell against your Governours What lamentable effects hath England lately seen of this A silly half-witted Souldier if he be but made a Captain doth carry it as if he were wiser than the Preacher or the Judge As if his dignity had added to his wit When Victories have laid the power at mens feet and they think now that none is able to controll them how few are they that abuse not such success to their own undoing and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts when they have conquered others How ordinarily do they mis-expound the Providence of God and think he hath put the Government into their hands because they have the strength and from the Histories of former successful Rebels and the fairness of their opportunity encourage themselves to Rebell and think they do but what 's their duty How easily do they justifie themselves in those unlawful deeds which impartial by-standers see the evil of And how easily do they quiet their consciences when they have but power enough to raise up flatterers and to stop the mouth of wholsome reprehension How lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk and sudden advancement overturn their brains and their greatness together with ther pride and fury preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom and of sober men that so their malady may have no remedy And there like a drunken man they rave a while and speak big words and lay about them and glory in the honour of a pestilence that they can kill men and we must not speak to them
individual Christians Therefore if one particular Church may so narrow the door of its Communion then another and another and every one may do so if not by the same particular impositions yet by some other of the like nature For what power one Church hath herein others have And then Catholick Communion will be scarce found existent externally in the world but a meer Catholick Christian would be denyed Communion in every particular Church he cometh to And how do you hold Catholick Communion when you will admit no meer Catholick Christian as such to your Communion but only such as supererogate according to your private Church-terms 2. But grant that every Church may impose more upon its members it must be only that which is Necessary to those common things which all agree in And then the necessity will be discernable to all sober minded persons and will prevent divisions As it is Necessary that he that will communicate with our Churches do joyn with them in the same Translation of Scripture and Version of Psalms and under the same Pastor as the rest of the Church doth For here the Church cannot use variety of Pastors Translations Versions c. to fit the variety of mens humours There is an evident necessity that if they will be one Society they must agree in the same in each of these Therefore when the Church hath United in one if any man refuse that one person or way which the Church is necessarily United in he refuseth communion with that Church and the Church doth not excommunicate him But if that Church agree on things hurtful or unnecessary as necessary to its communion it must bear the blame of the separations it self 3. And grant yet that some Churches cannot admit such scrupulous persons to her communion as dare not joyn in every punctillio circumstance or mode It doth not follow that those persons must therefore be excommunicated or forbidden to worship God among themselves without that which they scruple or to joyn in or with a Congregation which imposeth no such things upon them Persecution will unavoidably come in upon such domineering narrow terms as those The man is a Christian still though he scruple one of our modes or ceremonies and is capable of Catholick Communion And if private and little inconveniencies shall be thought a sufficient cause to forbid all such the publick worshipping of God on pretence that in one Nation there must not be variety of modes this is a dividing principle and not Catholick and plungeth men into the guilt of persecution It was not so in the Churches of the Roman Empire In the dayes of Basil his Church and that at Neocaesarea differed and ordinarily several Bishops used several forms of prayer and worship in their several Churches without offence And further § 37. Direct 16. Different faults must have different penalties And excommunication or forbidding Direct 16. men all publick worship of God must not be the penalty of every dissent Is there no smaller penalty sufficient if a doubtful subscription or ceremony be scrupled than to silence Ministers therefore from preaching the Gospel or excommunicating men and forbidding them to worship God at all except they can do this This is the highest ecclesiastical penalty that can be laid on men for the greatest heresie or crime Doubtless there are lesser punishments that may suffice for lesser faults § 38. Direct 17. Every friend of Christ and the Church must choose such penalties for Ministers and Direct 17. private Christians who offend as are least to the hinderance of the Gospel or hurtful to the peoples souls Therefore silencing Ministers is not a fit penalty for every fault which they commit The providence of God as I said before hath furnished the world with so few that are fit for that high and sacred work that no man can pretend that they are supernumeraries or unnecessary and that others may be substituted to the Churches profit For the number is so small that all are much too few and so many as are silenced so many Churches either the same or others must be unsupplyed or ill-supplyed And God working ordinarily by means we may conclude that silencing of such Preachers doth as plainly tend to mens damnation as the prohibiting of Physicions doth to their death and more And it is not the part of a friend either of God or men to endeavour the damnation of one soul much less of multitudes because a Minister hath displeased him If one man must pay for another mans sins let it be a pecuniary mulct or the loss of a member rather than the loss of his soul. It is more merciful every time a Minister offendeth to cut off a hand or an arm of some of his flock than to say to him Teach them no more the way to salvation that so they may be damned If a Father offend and his children must needs pay for â—ll his faults it is better beat the children or maim them than forbid him to feed them when there is none else to do it and so to famish them What Reason is there that mens souls should be untaught because a Minister hath offended I know still those men that care not for their own souls and therefore care as little for others will say What if the People have but a Reader or a weak ignorant lifeless Preacher Doth it follow that therefore the people must be damned I answer no No more than it followeth that the City that hath none but Women Physicions must dye of their sicknesses or that they that live only upon Grass or Roots must famish Nature may do more to overcome a disease without a Physicion in one than in another Some perhaps are converted already and have the Law written in their hearts and are taught of God and can make shift to live without a Teacher But for the rest whose diseases need a skilful diligent Physicion whose ignorance and impenitence extreamly needeth a skilful diligent lively Teacher he that depriveth them of such doth take the probable course to damn them And it is the same course which the Devil himself would take and he partly knoweth what tendeth to mens damnation He that knoweth what a case the Heathen Infidel Mahometan world is in for want of Teachers and what a case the Greek Church the Moscovites the Abbassines Syrians Armenians Papists and most of the Christians of the world are in for want of able skilful godly Pastors will lay his hand on his mouth and meddle with such reasonings as these no more Object But by this devise you will have the Clergie lawless or as the Papists exempt them from the Magistrates punishments for fear of depriving the people of instruction Answ. No such matter It is the contrary that I am advising I would have them punished more severely than other men as their sins are more aggravated than other mens Yea and I would have them silenced when it is meet and that
created for § 2. Mot. 2. There is no subject so sublime and honourable for the Tongue of man to be imployed about as the matters of God and life eternal Children will talk of childish toyes and Countreymen talk of their Corn and Cattel and Princes and Statesmen look down on these with contemptuous smiles as much below them But Crowns and Kingdoms are incomparably more below the business of a holy soul The higher subjects Philosophers treat of the more honourable if well done are their discourses But none is so high as God and glory § 3. Mot. 3. It is the most profitable subject to the hearers A discourse of Riches at the most can but direct them how to grow rich A discourse of Honours usually puffeth up the minds of the ambitious And if it could advance the auditors to Honour the fruit would be a vanity little to be desired But a discourse of God and Heaven and Holiness doth tend to change the hearers minds into the nature of the things discourst of It hath been the means of converting and sanctifying many a thousand souls As learned discourses tend to make men learned in the things discourst off so holy discourses tend to make men holy For as natural Generation begetteth not Gold or Kingdoms but a Man so speech is not made to communicate to others directly the wealth or health or honours or any extrinsecal things which the speaker hath but to communicate those Mental Excellencies which he is possest of Prov. 16. 21 22. The sweetness of the lips increaseth learning Understanding is a well-spring of life to him that hath it Prov. 10. 13 21. In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found The lips of the righteous feed many Prov. 15. 7. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge but the heart of the foolish doth not so Prov. 20. 15. There is Gold and a multitude of Rubies but the lips of knowledge are a precious Iewel Prov. 10. 20. The tongue of the just is as choice Silver the heart of the wicked is little worth § 4. Mot. 4. Holy discourse is also most profitable to the speaker himself Grace increaseth by the exercise Even in instructing others and opening truth we are oft times more powerfully led up to further truth our selves than by solitary studies For Speech doth awaken the intellectual faculty and keepeth on the thoughts in order and one truth oft inferreth others to a thus excited and prepared mind And the tongue hath a power of moving own our hearts When we blow the fire to warm another both the exercise and the fire warm our selves It kindleth the flames of holy love in us to declare the praise of God to others It increaseth a hatred of sin in us to open its odiousness to others We starve our selves when we starve the souls which we should cherish § 5. Mot. 5. Holy and Heavenly discourse is the most delectable I mean in its own aptitude and to a mind that is not diseased by corruption That which is most Great and Good and Necessary is most delectable What should best please us but that which is best for us And best for others And best in it self The excellency of the subject maketh it delightful And so doth the exercise of our Graces upon it And serious conference doth help down the truth into our hearts where it is most sweet Besides that Nature and Charity make it pleasant to do good to others It can be nothing better than a subversion of the appetite by carnality and wickedness that maketh any one think idle jeasts or tales or plays to be more pleasant than spiritual Heavenly conference and the talking of Riches or Sports or Lusts to be sweeter than to talk of God and Christ and grace and glory A holy mind hath a continual feast in it self in meditating on these things and the communicating of such thoughts to others is a more Common and so a more pleasant feast § 6. Mot. 6. Our faithfulness to God obligeth us to speak his praise and to promote his truth â—â—d plead his cause against iniquity Hath he given us tongues to magnifie his name and set before us the admirable frame of all the World to declare his Glory in And shall we be backward to so sweet and great a work How precious and useful is all his holy word What light and life and comfort may it cause And shall we bury it in silence What company can we come into almost where either the bare-faced committing of sin or the defending it or the opposition of truth or Godliness or the frigidity of mens hearts towards God and supine neglect of holy things do not call to us if we are the servants of God to take his part and if we are the Children of light to bear our testimony against the darkness of the World and if we love God and truth and the souls of men to shâ—w it by our prudent seasonable speech Is he true to God and to his cause that will not open his mouth to speak for him § 7. Mot. 7. And how precious a thing is an immortal soul and therefore not to be neglected Did Christ think souls to be worth his Mediation by such strange condescension even to a shameful death Did he think them worth his coming into flesh to be their teacher And will you not think them worth the speaking to § 8. Mot. 8. See also the greatness of your sin in the negligence of unfaithful Ministers It is easie to see the odiousness of their sin who preach not the Gospel or do no more than by an hours dry and dead discourse shift off the serious work which they should do and think they may be excused from all personal oversight and helping of the peoples souls all the Week after And why should you not perceive that a dumb private Christian is also to be condemned as well as a dumb Minister Is not profitable conference your duty as well as profitable preaching is his How many persons condemn themselves while they speak against unfaithful Pastors being themselves as unfaithful to Families and Neighbours as the other are to the flock § 9. Mot. 9. And consider how the cheapness of the means doth aggravate the sin of your neglect and shew much unmercifulness to souls Words cost you little Indeed alone without the company of good works they are too cheap for God to accept of But if an Hypocrite may bring so cheap a sacrifice who is rejected what doth he deserve that thinketh it too dear What will that man do for God or for his Neighbours soul who will not open his mouth to speak for them He seemeth to have less love than that man in Hell Luk. 16. who would so fain have had a messenger sent from another World to have warned his brethren and saved them from that place of torment § 10. Mot. 10. Your fruitful conference is a needful help to the ministerial work When
be observed 1. That you keep not his sword for your benefit and advantage nor claim a propriety in it but give it his friends or deliver it to the Magistrate 2. That you do nothing without the Magistrate in which you may safely stay for his Authority and help But if two be fighting or thieves be robbing or murdering a man or anothers life be in present danger you must help them without staying for the Magistrates authority 3. That you make not this a pretence for the usurping of Authority or for resisting or deposing your lawful Prince or Magistrate or Parent or Master or of exercising your own will and passions against your Superiours pretending that you take away their swords to save themselves or others from their rage when it is indeed but to hinder justice § 21. Quest. 14. May I not then much more take away that by which he would destroy his own or other Quest. 14. mens souls As to take away Cards or Dice from Gamesters or heretical or sâ—diâ—ious books or Play-books and Romances or to pull down Idols which the Idolaters do adore or are instruments of Idolatry Answ. There is much difference in the cases though the soul be more precious than the body For 1. Here there is supposed to be so much leisure and space as that you may have time to tell the Magistrate of it whose duty primarily it is Whereas in the other case it is supposed that so much delay would be a mans death Therefore your duty is to acquaint the Magistrate with the sin and danger and not to anticipate him and play the Magistrate your self Or in the case of Cards and Dice and hurtful books you may acquaint the persons with the sin and perswade them to cast them away themselves 2. Your taking away these instruments is not like to save them For the love of the sin and the Will to do it remaineth still and the sinner will but be hardened by his indignation against your irregular course of charity 3. Men are bound to save mens bodies whether they will or not because it may be so done But no man can save anothers soul against his will And it is Gods will that their salvation or damnation shall be more the fruit of their own wills than of any others Therefore though it 's possible to devise an instance in which it is lawful to steal a poysonous book or idol from another when it is done so secretly as will encourage no disobedience or disorder nor is like to harden the sinner but indeed to do him good c. yet ordinarily all this is A Wife or near friend that is under no suspicion of alienating the thing to their own commodity nor of ill designes may go somewhat further in such cases than an inferiour or a stranger unlawful for private men that have no Government of others or extraordinary interest in them § 2. Quest. 15. May not a Magistrate take the subjects goods when it is necessary for their own preservation Quest. 15. Answ. I answered this question once heretofore in my Political Aphorisms And because I repent of medling with such subjects and of writing that Book I will leave such cases hereafter for fitter persons to resolve Quest. 16. But may I not take from another for a holy use As to give to the Church or maintain the Quest. 16. Bishops If David took the hallowed bread in his necessity may not hallowed persons take common bread much more Answ. If holy persons be in present danger of death their lives may be saved as other mens on the terms mentioned in the first case Otherwise God hath no need of theft or violence nor must you rob the Laity to cloath the Clergy But to do such evil on pretence of piety and good is an aggravation of the sin CHAP. XIX General Directions and particular Cases of Conscience about Contracts in general and about Buying and Selling Borrowing and Lending Usury c. in particular Tit. 1. General Directions against injurious Bargaining and Contracts BEsides the last Directions Chap. 18. take these as more nearly pertinent to this case § 1. Direct 1. See that your hearts have the two great principles of Iustice deeply and habitually Direct 1. innaturalized or radicated in them viz. The true Love of your neighbour and the Denyal of your self which in one precept are called The Loving of your neighbour as your self For then you will be freed from the Inclination to injuries and fraud and from the power of those temptations which carry men to these sins They will be contrary to your habitual will or inclination and you will be more studious to help your neighbour than to get from him § 2. Direct 2. Yet do not content your self with these habits but be sure to call them up to act Direct 2. when ever you have any bargaining with others and let a faithful Conscience be to you as a Cryer to proclaim Gods Laws and say to you Now remember Love and Self-denyal and Do as you would be done by If Alexander Severus so highly valued this saying Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris as to make it his Motto and write and engrave it on his doors and buildings having learned it of some Christians or Jews saith Lampridius What a crime and shame is it for Christs own profest Disciples neither to learn or love it Put home the question when you have any bargaining with others How would I be dealt with my self if my case were the same with his § 3. Direct 3. When the Tempter draweth you to think only of your own commodity and gain remember Direct 3. how much more you will lose by sin than your gain can any way amount to If Acan Gehezi Ahab Iudas c. had foreseen the end and the greatness of their loss it would have curbed their covetous desires Believe Gods Word from the bottom of your heart that you shall lose things eternal if you sinfully get things temporal and then you will not make haste to such a bargain to win the world and lose your souls § 4. Direct 4. Understand your neighbours case aright and meditate on his wants and interest You Direct 4. think what you want your self but you think not whether his wants with whom you deal may not be as great as yours Consider what his commodity costeth him or what the toil of the workmans labour is What house rent he hath to pay and what a family to maintain and whether all this can be well done upon the rates that you desire to trade with him And do not believe every common report of his riches or of the price of his commodity For same in such cases is frequently false § 5. Direct 5. Regard the publick good above your own commodity It is not lawful to take up Direct 5. or keep up any oppressing monopoly or Trade which tendeth to enrich you
Offices and Lands who must bear the loss Answ. The case is near the same with that in Quest. 17. It is supposed that the seller should have lost it himself if he had kept it but a little longer And that neither of them foresaw the change And therefore that the seller hath all his money rather for his good hap than for his Lands or Office which the buyer hath not Therefore except it be to a rich man that feeleth not the loss or one that expresly undertook to stand to all hazards foreseeing a possibility of them Charity and humanity will teach the seller to divide the loss § 22. The same is the case of London now consumed by fire where thousands of suits are like to rise between the Landlords and the Tenants Where the providence of God permitting the burning zeal of some Papists hath deprived men of the houses which they had hired or taken leases of humanity and charity requireth the Rich to bear most of the loss and not to exact their Rents or Re-building from the poor what ever the Law saith which could not be supposed to foresee such accidents Love your neighbours as your selves Do as you would be done by and Oppress not your poor brethren and then by these three Rules you will your selves decide a multitude of such doubts and difficulties which the uncharitable only cannot understand Tit. 4. Cases of Conscience about Lending and Borrowing § 1. Quest. 1. MAy a poor man borrow money who knoweth that he is unable to repay it and hath Quest. 1. no rational proof that he is very likely to be able hereafter Answ. No unless it be when he telleth the lender truly of his case and he is willing to run the hazard Else it is meer thievery covered with the cheat of borrowing For the borrower desireth that of another which he would not lend him if he expected it not again And to take a mans money or goods against his will is robbery Object But I am in great necessity Answ. Begging in necessity is lawful but stealing or cheating is not though you call it borrowing Object But it is a shame to beg Answ. The sin of thievish borrowing is worse than shame Object But none will give me if I beg Answ. If they will give but to save your life at the present you must take it though they give you not what you would have The poorest beggars life is better than the thiefs Object But I hope God may enable me to pay hereafter Answ. If you have no rational way to manifest the soundness of that hope to another it is but to pretend faith and hope for thievery and deceit Object God hath promised that those that fear him shall want no good thing and therefore I hope I may be able to repay it Answ. If you want not Why do you borrow If you have enough to keep you alive by begging God maketh good all his promises to you Yea or if you dye by famine For he only promiseth you that which is best which for ought you know may be beggery or death God breaketh not promise with his servants who dye in common famine no more than with them that dye in Plagues or Wars Make not God the Patron of sin Yea and your faith a pretence for your distrust If you trust God use no sinful means If you trust him not this pleading of his promise is hypocrisie § 2. Quest. 2. May a Tradesman drive a Trade with borrowed money when his success and so his Quest. 2. repayment is utterly an uncertain thing Answ. There are some Trades where the gain is so exceeding probable next to certain as may warrant the borrowing of money to manage them when there is no rational probability of failing in the payment And there are some Tradesmen who have estates of their own sufficient to repay all the money which they borrow But otherwise when the money is rationally hazardous the borrower is bound in conscience to acquaint the lender fully with the hazard that he may not have it against his will Otherwise he liveth in constant deceit or thievery And if he do happen to repay it it excuseth not his sin § 3. Quest. 3. If a borrower be utterly unable to pay and so break while he hath something may be Quest. 3. not retain somewhat for his food or rayment Answ. No unless it be in order to set up again in hope to repay his debts For all that he hath being other mens he may not take so much as bread to his mouth out of that which is theirs without their consent § 4. Quest. 4 But if a man have bound himself to his Wives friends upon marriage to settle so much Quest. 4. upon her or her children and this obligation was antecedent to his debts may he not secure that to his Wife and Children without any injury to his Creditors Answ. The Law of the Land must much decide this controversie If the propriety be actually before transferred to Wife or Children it is theirs and cannot be taken from them But if it were done after by a deed of gift to defraud the Creditors than that deed of gift is invalid till debts be paid If it be but an Obligation and no collation of propriety the Law must determine who is to be first paid and whether the Wife be supposed to run the hazard of gaining or losing with the Husband And though the Laws of several Countreys herein differ and some give the Wife more propriety than others do yet must they in each place be conscientiously observed as being the Rule of such propriety But we must see that there be no fraudulent intent in the transaction § 5. Quest. 5. May not a broken Tradesman retain somewhat to set up again if his creditors be willing Quest. 5. to compound for a certain part of the debt Answ. If he truly acquaint them with his whole estate and they voluntarily allow him part to himself either in charity or in hope hereafter to be satisfied this is no unlawful course But if he hide part from them and make them believe that the rest is all this is but a thievish procurement of their composition or consent § 6. Quest. 6. May a borrower lawfully break his day of promised payment in case of necessity Quest. 6. Answ. True necessity hath no Law that is a man is not bound to do things naturally impossible But if he might have foreseen that necessity or the doubtfulness of his payment at the day it was his sin to promise it unless he put in some limitation If I be able and acquainted the lender with the uncertainty However it be when the time is come he ought to go to his Creditor and tell him of his necessity and desire further time and endeavour to pay it as soon as he is able and if he be not able to make him what satisfaction he can by his labour
consenting to it which is Repentance and saith being the very condition of the present reception of these benefits And therefore it is that the antient Writers still affirmed that all the Baptized were regenerated justified and adopted Whether an adult person be truly fit for Baptism Lege quamplutima veterum testimonia in D. Gatakero contra Davenantium de Baptismo or not the Pastor that baptizeth is to judge And he must see the credible signs of true faith and repentance before he baptize him which are no other than his understanding voluntary sober profession of consent to the Baptismal Covenant But when he is baptized and professeth to stand to that Covenant once made he is to be judged a godly person by all the Church-members who have not sufficient proof of the contrary Because if he be sincere in what he did and still professeth he is certainly godly And whether he be sincere or not he himself is the best and regular Judge or discerner so far as to put in his claim to Baptism which the Pastor is obliged not to deny him without disproving him And the Pastor is Judge as to his actual admittance And therefore the people have nothing necessarily to do but know whether he be baptized and stand to his baptism For which they are to take him as sincere Unless by his notorious discovery of the contrary they can disprove him These are not only the true terms of Church-communion but of Love to the godly And though this goeth hardly down with some good men who observe how few of the baptized seem to be seriously religious and therefore they think that a Visible Church member as such is not at all to be accounted sincere that is to be believed in his profession and that we owe him not the special love which is due to the godly but only a common love due only to professors without respect to their sincerity Yet this opinion will not hold true Nor is a profession required without respect to the truth or falshood of it the credibility of it being the very reason that it is requisite Nor is it any other faith or consent to the Covenant below that which is sincere and saving which must be professed by all that will be taken for Church-members And though those that are of the contrary opinion are afraid leâ—t this will occasion too much strictness in the Pastors in judging whose Profession is credible and consequently will countenance separation in the people yet God hath provided a sufficient remedy against that fear by making every man the opener of his own heart and tying us by the Law of Nature and of Scripture to take every mans Profession for credible which is sober understanding and voluntary unless they can disprove it or prove him a lyar and perfidious and incredible And whereas it is a latitude of Charity which bringeth them to the contrary opinion for fear lest the incredible professors of Christianity should be all excluded from the Visible Church yet indeed it is but the Image of Charity to bring Catechumens into the Church as to set the Boys of the lowest Form among them that are in their Greek and to deny all special Christian Love to all Visible members of the Church as such and to think that we are not bound to take any of them as Disputations of Right to Sacraments such to be sincere or in the favour of God or justified for fear of excluding those that are not But of this I have written largely in a Treatise on this subject Quest. 5. Must we take all Visible-Church-members alike to be godly and love them equally Quest. 5. Answ. No There are as many various degrees of credit due to their profession as there are various degrees of credibility in it Some manifest their sincerity by such full and excellent evidences in a holy life that we are next to certain that they are sincere And some make a profession so ignorantly so coldly and blot it by so many false Opinions and Vices that our fear of them may be greater than our hope Of whom we can only say that we are not altogether hopeless of their sincerity and therefore must use them as godly men because we cannot prove the contrary but yet admonish them of their danger as having much cause to fear the worst And there may be many notorious wicked men in some Churches through the Pastors fault for want of Discipline And these for order sake we must assemble with but not dissemble with them and our own consciences so as to take them for godly men when the contrary is notorious nor yet to admit them to our familiarity The Pastor hath the keys of the Church but we have the keyes of our own houses and hearts Quest. 6. Must we love all equally that seem truly godly the strong and the weak Quest. 6. Answ. No he that loveth men for their holiness will love them according to the degrees of their holiness as far as he can discern it Quest. 7. Must we love him more who hath much grace or holiness and is little useful for want of Quest. 7. gifts or him that hath less grace and eminent useful gifts Answ. They must both be loved according to the diversity of their goodness He that hath most grace is best and therefore most to be loved in himself But as a Means to the conversion of souls and the honour of God in the good of others the man that hath the most eminent gifts must be most loved The first is more loved in and for his own goodness The second is more lovely propter aliud as a means to that which is more loved than either of them Quest. 8. Must we love him as a godly man who liveth in any great or mortal sin Quest. 8. Answ. Every man must be loved as he is If by a mortal sin be meant a sin inconsistent with the Love of God and a state of grace then the question is no question it being a contradiction which is in question But if by a great and mortal sin be meant only this or that act of sinning and the question be Whether that act be mortal that is inconsistent with true grace or not Then the particular act with the circumstances must be considered before that question can be answered Murder is one of the most heinous sins And one man may be guilty of it out of deliberate habituate malice and another through a sudden passion and another through meer inadvertency carelesness and negligence Stealing may be done by one man presumptuously and by another meerly to save the life of himself or his children These will not equally prove a man in a state of death and without true grace And which is a mortal sin inconsistent with the life of Grace and which not is before spoken to and belongeth not to this place Only I shall say that the sin be it great or
small as to the outward act or matter which certainly excludeth the habitual devotedness of the soul to God by Resignation Obedience and Love is mortal or a mark of spiritual death And so is all sin which consisteth not with habitual repentance and a predominant hatred of sin as sin and of a disobedient unholy heart and life And therefore all sin which is not repented of as soon as it is known and the sinner hath time and opportunity of deliberation Because in such a case the habit of Repentance will produce the act Quest. 9. Must an excommunicate person be loved as Godly or not Quest. 9. Answ. You must distinguish 1. Of Excommunication 2. Of the person that is to judge 1. There is an Excommunication which censureth not the state of the sinner but only suspendeth him from Church-communion as at the present actually unfit for it And there is an Excommunication which habituately or statedly excludeth the sinner from his Church-relation as an habituate impenitent obstinate person 2. Some persons have no opportunity to try the cause themselves being strangers or not called to it but must take it upon the Pastors judgement And some have opportunity to know the person and the cause whether he be justly excommunicated or not Now 1. Those that know by notoriety or proof that the person is justly excommunicated with the second sort of Excommunication must not nor cannot Love him as a Godly man 2. Those that know by notoriety or proof that the person is unjustly Excommunicated are not therefore to deny him the estimation and love which is due to a Godly man though for order sake they may sometimes be obliged to avoid external Church-communion with him 3. Those that know nothing of the cause themselves must judge as the Pastor judgeth who is the legal judge yet so as to take it to be but a humane fallible and no final judgement Quest. 10. Can an unsanctified hypocrite unfeignedly love a Godly man Quest. 10. Answ. There is no doubt but he may materially love him on some other consideration As because he is a kinsman friend benefactor or is witty learned fair c. Quest. 11. But can he love a Godly man because he is Godly Quest. 11. Answ. He may love a Godly man at least as he may love God An unholy person cannot Love God in all his perfections respectively to himself as a God who is most holy and just in his Government forbidding all sin and condemning the ungodly For the Love of his sins is inconsistent with this Love But he may love him as he is most great and wise and good in the general and as he is the maker and benefactor of the world and of the sinner yea and in general as his Governour And so he may verily think that he loveth God as God because he loveth him for his Essentialities But indeed he doth not speaking strictly because he leaveth out some one or more of these essentialities even as he that loveth man as rational but not as a Voluntary free agent loveth not man as man And as a Heretick is no Christian because he denyeth some one Essential part of Christianity Even so as to the Love of Godly men an ungodly man may believe that they are better than others and therefore love them But not as Godliness is the consent to that Holiness and Justice of God which would restrain him from his beloved sins and condemn him for them So far as they are simply Godly to themselves without respect to him and his sins he may love them Quest. 12. May he love a Godly man as he would make him godly and convert him Quest. 12. Answ. He may love him as a better man than others and in general he may wish himself as good and may love him because he wisheth him well But as he cannot be or rather is not willing himself to leave his sins and live in holiness so another is not grateful to him who urgently perswadeth him to this Quest. 13. Doth any ungodly person love the Godly comparatively more than others Quest. 13. Answ. So far as he doth love them as Godly so far he may love them more than those that are not such Many a bad Father loveth a religious Child better than the rest Because they think that wisdom and Godliness are good and they are glad to see their Children do well as long as they do not grate upon them with troublesome censures For another mans Godliness costeth a bad man little or nothing He may behold it without the parting with his sins Quest. 14. Doth every sincere Christian love all the Godly with a special love even those that oppose Quest. 14. their opinions or that they think do greatly wrong them Answ. 1. Every true Christian loveth a Godly man as such and therefore loveth all such if he take them to be such 2. No Godly man doth habitually and impenitently live in such malice or enmity as will not suffer him to see the Godliness of a dissenter or adversary when it hath sufficient evidence 3. But ill education and company and want of opportunity may keep a true Christian from discerning the Godliness of another and so from loving him as a Godly man 4. And errour and faction and passion may in a temptation so far prevail as at the present to pervert his judgement and make him misjudge a Godly man to be ungodly though when he hath opportunity to deliberate and come to himself he will repent of it Quest. 15. What is that Love to the Godly which proveth a mans sincerity and which no hypocrite or unregenerate Quest. 15. person doth attain to Answ. It hath in it these essential parts 1. He loveth God best and his servants for his sake 2. He loveth Godliness and the person as Godly and therefore would fain be such himself or loveth it for himself as well as in others 3. He loveth not one only but all the Essential parts of Godliness our absolute resignation to God our Owner our absolute obedience to God our Ruler and our highest Gratitude and Love to God our Benefactor and our End 4. He loveth Godliness and Godly men above his carnal worldly interest his honour wealth or pleasure and therefore will part with these in works of Charity when he can understand that God requireth it These four set together make up that Love which will prove your sincerity and which no hypocrite doth perform Hypocrites either love the Godly only as their benefactors with a self-love or they love them as Godly to themselves but would not be like them and love not Godliness it self to make them Godly or they love them for some parts of Godliness and not for all or they love them but in subjection to their worldly love with such a dry and barren Love as Iames rejecteth Iam. 2. as will not be at any great cost upon them to feed or cloath or
works of charity both because the Tythes are now more appropriate to the maintenance of the Clergy and because as is aforesaid the people give them not out of their own I confess if we consider how Decimation was used before the Law by Abraham and Iacob and established by the Law unto the Iews and how commonly it was used among the Gentiles and last of all by the Church of Christ it will make a considerate man imagine that as there is still a Divine Direction for one day in seven as a necessary proportion of Time to be ordinarily consecrated to God besides what we can spare from our other dayes so that there is something of a Divine Canon or direction for the Tenth of our revenews or increase to be ordinarily consecrated to God besides what may be spared from the rest And whether those Tythes that are none of your own and cost you nothing be now to be reckoned to â—rivate men as any of their Tenths which they themselves should give I leave to your consideratiâ—â— Amongst Augustines works we find an opinion that the Devils were the Tenth part of the Angels and that man is now to be the Tenth order among the Angels the Saints filling up the place that the Devils fell from and there being nine orders of Angels to be above us and that in this there is some ground of our paying Tenths and therefore he saith that Haec est Domini justissima consuetudo ut si tu illi decimam non dederis tu ad decimam revocaberis id est daemonibus qui sunt decima pars angelorum associaberis Though I know not whence he had this opinion it seemeth that the devoting of a tenth part ordinarily to God is a matter that we have more than a humane Direction for 15. In times of extraordinary necessities of the Church or State or Poor there must be extraordinary bounty in our Contributions As if an enemy be ready to invade the Land or if some extraordinary work of God as the Conversion of some Heathen Nations do require it or some extraordinary persecution and distress befall the Pastours or in a year of famine plague or war when the necessities of the poor are extraordinary The tenths in such cases will not suffice from those that have more to give Therefore in such a time the Primitive Christians sold their possessions and laid down the price at the feet of the Apostles In one word an honest charitable heart being presupposed as the root or fountain and prudence being the discerner of our duty the Apostles general Rule may much satisfie a Christian for the proportion 1 Cor. 16. 2. Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him And 2 Cor. 8. 12. According to that a man hath though there be many intimations that ordinarily a Tenth part at least is requisite III. Having thus resolved the question of the quota pars or proportion to be given I shall say a little to the question Whether a man should give most in his life time or at his Death Answ. 1. It is certain that the best work is that which is like to do most good 2. But to make it best to us it is necessary that we do it with the most self-denying holy charitable mind 3. That caeteris paribus all things else being equal the present doing of a good work is better than to defer it 4. That to do good only when you dye because then you can keep your wealth no longer and because then it costeth you nothing to part with it and because then you hope that this shall serve instead of true Repentance and Godliness this is but to deceive your selves and will do nothing to save your souls though it do never so much good to others 5. That he that sinfully neglecteth in his life time to do good if he do it at his death from true repentance and Conversion it is then accepted of God though the sin of his delay must be lamented 6. That he that delayeth it till Death not out of any selfishness backwardness or unwillingness but that the work may be the better and do more good doth better than if he hastened a lesser good As if a man have a desire to set up a Free School for perpetuity and the money which he hath is not sufficient if he stay till his Death that so the improvement of the money may increase it and make it enough for his intended work this is to do a greater good with greater self-denial For 1. He receiveth none of the increase of the money for himself 2. And he receiveth in his life time none of the praise or thanks of the work So also if a man that hath no Children have so much Land only as will maintain him and desireth to give it all to charitable uses when he dyeth this delay is not at all to be blamed because he could not sooner give it and if it be not in vain-glory but in love to God and to good works that he leaveth it it is truly acceptable at last So that all good works that are done at death are not therefore to be undervalued nor are they rejected of God but sometimes it falleth out that they are so much the greater and better works though he that can do the same in his life time ought to do it IV. But though I have spent all these words in answering these Questions I am fully satisfied that it is very few that are kept from doing good by any such doubt or difficulty in the case which stalls their judgements but by the power of sin and want of grace which leaveth an unwillingness and backwardness on their hearts Could we tell how to remove the impediments in mens wills it would do more than the clearest resolving all the cases of Conscience which their judgements seem to be unsatisfied in I le tell you what are the impediments in your way that are harder to be removed than all these difficulties and yet must be overcome before you can bring men to be like true Christians rich in good works 1. Most men are so sensual and so selfish that their own flesh is an insatiable gulf that devoureth all and they have little or nothing to spare from it to good uses It is better cheap maintaining a family of temperate sober persons than one fleshly person that hath a whole litter of vices and lusts to be maintained So much a year seemeth necessary to maintain their pride in needless curiosity and bravery and so much a year to maintain their sensual sports and pleasures and so much to please their throats or appetites and to lay in provision for Feavers and Dropsies and Coughs and Consumptions and an hundred such diseases which are the natural progeny of gluttony drunkenness and excess and so much a year to maintain their Idleness and so of many other vices But if one of these persons have the Pride
him but not till he thus forsake it Quest. 3. Is the day of grace and pardon ever past in this life Quest. 3. Answ. The day of grace and pardon to the penitent is never past in this life There is no day or Some speak too ignorantly and dangerrously about the day of grace being past in this life hour in which a true penitent person is not pardoned or in which the impenitent is not conditionally pardoned that is if he will truly repent and believe in Christ And as for the day of true penitence it is not past to the impenitent for it never yet came that is They never truly repented But there is a time with some provoking forsaken sinners when God who was wont to call them to repentance by outward Preaching and inward motions will call and move them so no more but leave them more quietly in the blindness and hardness of their hearts Quest. 4. May we be certain of pardon of sin in this life Quest. 4. Answ. Yes every man that understandeth the Covenant of Grace may be certain of pardon so far as he is certain of the sincerity of his faith and repentance and no further And if a man could not be sure of that the consolatory promises of pardon would be in a sort in vain And we could not tell how to believe and repent if we cannot tell when we truly do it Quest. 5. Can any man pardon sins against God and how far Quest. 5. Answ. Pardon is the remitting of a Punishment So far as man is to punish sinners against God so far they may pardon that is remit that punishment Whether they do well in so doing is another question Magistrates are to execute corporal penalties upon subjects for many sins against God and they may pardon accordingly The Pastors of the Church who are its Guides as to publick Church-communion may remove offenders from the said Communion and they may absolve them when they are penitent and they may rightfully or wrongfully remit the penalty which they may inflict 2. The Pastors of the Church may as Gods officers declare the conditional general pardon which is contained in the Covenant of grace and that with particular application to the sinner for the comforting of his mind q. d. Having examined your Repentance I declare to you as the Minister of Christ that if it be as you express it without dissembling or mistake your Repentance is sincere and your sin is pardoned 3. On the same terms a Pastor may as the Minister or Messenger of Christ deliver this same conditional pardon contained in the Covenant of grace as sealed by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper which is an act of investiture q. d. I do as the Minister of Christ hereby seal and deliver to you in his name the pardon of all your sins through his blood supposing your professed faith and repentance be sincere otherwise it is void and of no such effect But this is 1. But a conditional pardon though with particular application 2. And it is but a Ministerial act of Delivery or investiture and not the act of the Donor by himself nor the gift of the first title so that it is no whit proper to say that the Minister pardoneth you but that the Minister bringeth and delivereth you the pardon and sealeth it in his Masters name or that Christ doth pardon you and send it you by his Minister As it is utterly improper to say that the Kings Messenger pardoneth a Traytor because he bringeth him a pardon from the Ring And though if we agree of this sense the Controversie remaining will be but de nomine yet is it not of small moment when abused words do tend to abuse the peoples understandings and he that saith I forgive your sins doth teach the people to take him for a God whatever he meaneth in himself and blaspheamous words will not be sufficiently excused by saying that you have not a blaspheaming sense So that a Pastor may 1. Declare Christs pardon 2. And seal and deliver it conditionally in Christs name But he cannot pardon the internal punishments in this life nor the eternal punishments of the next 3. But the punishments of Excommunication he may pardon who must execute them Quest. 6. Doth God forgive sin before it be committed or justifie the sinner from it Quest. 6. Answ. No for it is a contradiction to forgive that which is not or to remit a penalty which is not due But he will indeed justifie the person not by Christs righteousness but by his own innocency in tantum so far as he is no sinner He that hath not committed a sin needeth no pardon of it nor any righteousness but his innocency to justifie him against the false accusation of doing that which he never did God doth prepare the sacrifice and remedy before upon the foresight of the sin And he hath made an universal act of pardon before hand which shall become an actual pardon to him who penitently accepteth it And he is purposed in himself to pardon all whom he will pardon so that he hath the decretive nolle punire before But none of this is proper pardon or the justification of a sinner in the Gospel sense as shall be further shewed Quest. 7. Is an Elect person pardoned and justified before faith and repentance Quest. 7. Answ. Laying aside the case of Infants which dependeth on the faith of others the former answer will serve for this question Quest. 8. Is pardon or justification perfect before death Quest. 8. Answ. 1. De re 1. The pardon which you have this year extendeth not to the sins which you commit the next year or hour but there must be a renewed act of pardon for renewed sins though not a new Gospel or Covenant or act of Oblivion to do it But the same Gospel-Covenant doth morally perform a new act of pardon according to the Redeemers mind and will 2. The pardon which we have now is but constitutive in jure and but virtual as to sentential Iustification But the sentence of the Judge is a more perfective act or if any think that God doth now sentence us just before the Angels in any Coelestial Court yet that at Judgement will be a more full perfective act 3. The executive pardon which we have now which is opposite to actual punishing is not perfect till the day of judgement Because all the punishment is not removed till the last enemy Death be overcome and the body be raised from the Earth 2. And now the Controversie de nomine whether it be proper to call our present justification or pardon Perfect is easily decided from what is said de re Quest. 9. Is our pardon perfect as to all the sins that are past Quest. 9. Answ. 1. As to the number of sins pardoned it is For all are pardoned 2. As to the species of the act and the plenary effect it
cases when they come is the present question Nay the Question is yet harder Whether to avoid such inconvenience one may contribute towards anothers sin by affording them the means of committing it Answ. 1. No man may contribute to sin as sin formally considered 2. No man may contribute to anothers sin for sinful ends nor in a manner forbidden and sinful in himself 3. No man may contribute to anothers sin when he is not naturally or morally necessitated to it but might forbear it But as it is consistent with the holiness of God to contribute those Natural and providential mercies which he knoweth men will abuse to sin so is it in some cases with us his creatures to one another God giveth all men their lives and time their Reason and Free-will which he knoweth they will abuse to sin He giveth them that meat and drink and riches and health and vigour of senses which are the usual means of the sin and undoing of the world Object But God is not under any Law or obligation as we are Answ. His own perfection is above all Law and will not consist with a consent or acting of any thing that is contrary to holiness and perfection But this I confess that many things are contrary to the order and duty of the creature which are not contrary to the place and perfection of the Creator 1. When man doth generate man he knowingly contributeth to a sinful nature and life For he knoweth that it is unavoidable and that which is born of the flesh is flesh And yet he sinneth not Ioh. 3. 6. Eph. 2. 2 3. by so doing because he is not bound to prevent sin by the forbearance of Generation 2. When one advanceth another to the office of Magistracy Ministry c. knowing that he will sin in it he contributeth accidentally to his sin But so as he is not culpable for so doing 3. A Physicion hath to do with a froward and intemperate Patient who will please his appetite or else if he be denyed his passion will increase his disease and kill him In this case he may lawfully say Let him take a little rather than kill him though by so doing he contribute to his sin Because it is but a not-hindering that which he cannot hinder without a greater evil The sin is only his that ☞ chooseth it And it is specially to be noted that that which Physically is a positive act and contributing to the Matter of the sin yet Morally is but a not-hindering the sin by such a withholding of materials as we are not obliged to withhold which is the case also of Gods contributing to the matter of sin If the Physicion in such a case or the Parent of a sick and froward Child do actually give them that which they sin in desiring that Giving is indeed such a furthering of the sin as cannot be lawfully forborn lest we do hurt and therefore is morally but a not hindering it when we cannot hinder it 4. If a man have a Wife so proud that she will go mad or disturb him and his family by rage if her pride be not gratified by some sinful fashions curiosities or excesses if he give her money or materials to do it with to prevent her distraction it is but like the foresaid case of the Physicion or Parents of a sick Child In these cases I will give you a Rule to walk by for your selves and a caution how to judge of others 1. Be sure that you leave nothing undone that you can lawfully do for the cure and prevention of others sins And that it be not for want of zeal against sin through indifference or slothfulness that you forbear to hinder it but meerly through disability 2. See that in comparing the evil that is like to follow the Impedition you do not mistake but be sure that it be indeed a greater evil which you avoid by not hindering that particular sin 3. See therefore that your own caanal interest weigh not with you more than there is cause and that you account not meer fleshly suffering a greater evil than sin 4. But yet that dishonour which may be cast upon Religion and the Good of souls which may be hindered by a bodily suffering may come into the comparison 5. And your own duties to mens bodies as to save mens lives or health or peace is to be numbred with spiritual things and the materials of a sin may in some cases be administred for the discharge of such a duty If you knew a man would die if you give him not hot water and he will be drunk if you do give it him In this case you do but your duty and he commits the sin You do that which is good and are not bound to forbear it because he will turn it to sin unless you see that the hurt by that sin is like to be so great besides the sin it self as to discharge you from the duty of doing good 2. As to others 1. Put them on to their duty and spare not 2. But censure them not for the sins of their families till you are acquainted with all the case It 's usual with rash and carnal censurers to cry out of some godly Ministers or Gentlemen that their Wives are as proud and their Children and Servants as bad as others But are you sure that it is in their power to remedy it Malice and rashness judge at a distance of things which men understand not and sin in speaking against sin Quest. 2. IF a Gentleman e. g. of 500. or 1000. or 2000. or 3000. li. per annum could spare honestly half his yearly rents for his Children and for charitable uses and his wife be so proud and prodigal that she will waste it all in house-keeping and excesses and will rage be unquiet or go mad if she be hindered what is a mans duty in such a case Answ. It is but an instance of the fore-mentioned case and must thence be answered 1. It is supposed that she is uncurable by all wise and rational means of perswasion 2. He is wisely to compare the greatness of the cvil that will come by crossing her with the good thâ—â— may come by the improvement of his estate and the forbearance of those excesses If her rage or distraction or unquietness were like by any accident to do more hurt than his estate may do good he might take himself disabled from hindering the sin And though he give her the money which she mis-spendeth it is not sinning but only not hindering sin when he is unable 3. Ordinarily some small or tolerable degree of sinful waste and excess may be tolerated to avoid such mischiefs as else would follow but not too much And though no just measure can be assigned at what rate a man may lawfully purchase his own peace and consequently his liberty to serve God or at what rate he may save his Wife from madness or some mortal mischiefs of
to find them out so that the blood-thirsty man doth seldome live out half his dayes The Treatises purposely written on this subject and the experience of all Ages do give us very wonderful Narratives of Gods judgements in the detecting of murderers and bringing them to punishment They go about awhile like Cain with a terrified Conscience afraid of every one they see till seasonable vengeance give them their reward or rather send them to the place where they must receive it 3. For it is eternal torment under the wrath of God which is the final punishment which they must expect If very great Repentance and the blood of Christ do not prevent it There are few I think that by shame and terrour of Conscience are not brought to such a Repentance for it as Cain and Iudas had or as a man hath that hath brought calamity on himself and therefore wish they had never done it because of their own unhappiness thereby except those persecutors or murderers that are hardened by Errour pride or power But this will not prevent the vengeance of God in their damnation It must be a deep Repentance proceeding from the Love of God and man and the hatred of sin and sense of Gods displeasure for it which is only found in sanctified souls And alas how few Murderers ever have the grace to manifest any such renovation and repentance Tit. 2. Advice against Self-murder THough Self-murder be a sin which Nature hath as strongly inclined man against as any sin in the World that I remember and therefore I shall say but little of it yet experience telleth us that it is a sin that some persons are in danger of and therefore I shall not pass it by The prevention of it lyeth in the avoiding of these following Causes of it § 1. Direct 1. The commonest cause is prevailing Melancholy which is neer to madness therefore Direct 1. to prevent this sad disease or to cure it if contracted and to watch them in the mean time is the chief prevention of this sin Though there be much more hope of the salvation of such as want the use of their Understandings because so far it may be called involuntary yet it is a very dreadful case especially so far as reason remaineth in any power But it is not more natural for a man in a Feaver to thirst and rave than for Melancholy at the height to incline men to make away themselves For the disease will let them feel nothing but misery and despair and say nothing but I am forsaken miserable and undone and not only maketh them aweary of their lives even while they are afraid to dye but the Devil hath some great advantage by it to urge them to do it so that if they pass over a Bridge he urgeth them to leap into the Water If they see a Knife they are presently urged to kill themselves with it and feel as if it were something within them importunately provoking them and saying Do it Do it now and giving them no rest In so much that many of them contrive it and cast about secretly how they may accomplish it Though the cure of these poor people belong as much to others care as to their own yet so far as they yet can use their reason they must be warned 1. To abhor all these suggestions and give them not room a moment in their minds And 2 To avoid all occasions of the sin and not to be neer a Knife a River or any instrument which the Devil would have them use in the execution And 3. To open their case to others and tell them all that they may help to their preservation 4. And especially to be willing to use the means both Physick and satisfying Counsel which tends to cure their disease And if there be any rooted cause in the mind that was antecedent to the Melancholy it must carefully be lookt to in the cure § 2. Direct 2. Take heed of worldly trouble and discontent for this also is a common Cause Direct 2. Either it suddenly casteth men into Melancholy or without it of it self overturneth their reason so far as to make them violently dispatch themselves Especially if it fall out in a mind where there is a mixture of these two Causes 1. Unmortified love to any Creature 2. And an impotent and passionate mind there discontent doth cause such unquietness that they will furiously go to Hell for ease Mortifie therefore first your worldly lusts and set not too much by any earthly thing If you did not foolishly overvalue your selves or your credit or your wealth or friends there would be nothing to feed your discontent Make no greater a matter of the world than it deserveth and you will make no such great matter of your sufferings And 2. Mortifie your turbulent passions and give not way to Bedlam fury to overcome your reason Go to Christ to beg and learn to be meek and lowly in spirit and then your troubled minds will have rest Matth 11. 28 29. Passionate Women and such other feeble spirited persons that are easily troubled and hardly quietted and pleased have great cause to bend their greatest endeavours to the curing of this impotent temper of mind and procuring from God such strengthening grace as may restore their Reason to its power § 3. Direct 3. And sometimes sudden passion it self without any longer discontent hath caused Direct 3. men to make away themselves Mortifie therefore and watch over such distracting Passions § 4. Direct 4. Take heed of running into the guilt of any heynous sin For though you may Direct 4. feel no hurt from it at the present when Conscience is awakened it is so disquieting a thing that it maketh many a one hang himself Some grievous sins are so tormenting to the Conscience that they give many no rest till they have brought them to to Iudas's or Achitophel's End Especially take heed of sinning against Conscience and of yielding to that for fear of men which God and Conscience charge you to forbear For the case of many a hundred as well as Spira may tell you into what Calamity this may cast you If man be the master of your Religion you have no Religion For what is Religion but the subjection of the soul to God especially in the matters of his Worship And if God be subjected to man he is taken for No-God When you Worship a God that is inferiour to a man then you may subject your Religion to the will of that man Keep God and Conscience at peace with you if you love your selves though thereby you lose your peace with the World § 5. Direct 5. Keep up a Believing foresight of the state which Death will send you to and then if Direct 5. you have the use of Reason Hell at least will hold your hands and make you afraid of venturing upon death What Repentance are you like to have when you dye in the very
act of sin And when an unmortified lust or love of the world doth hurry you to the halter by sinful discontent And what hope of pardon without Repentance How exceeding likely therefore is it that when ever you put your selves out of your present pain and trouble you send your souls to endless torments And will it ease you to pass from poverty or crosses into Hell Or will you damn your souls because another wrongeth you O the madness of a sinner Who will you think hath wronged you most when you feel Hell fire Are you aweary of your lives and will you go to Hell for ease Alas how quickly would you be glad to be here again in a painfuller condition than that which you were so weary of yea and to endure it a thousand years Suppose you saw Hell before your eyes Would you leap into it Is not time of Repentance a mercy to be valued Yea a little reprieve from endless misery is better than nothing What need you make haste to come to Hell Will it not be soon enough if you stay thence as long as you can And why will you throw away your hopes and put your selves past all possibility of recovery before God put you so himself § 6. Direct 6. Understand the wonders of mercy revealed and bestowed on mankind in Iesus Christ Direct 6. and understand the tenour of the Covenant of Grace The ignorance of this is it that keepeth a bitter taste upon your Spirits and maketh you cry out Forsaken and Undone when such Miracles of mercy are wrought for your salvation And the ignorance of this is it that maketh you foolishly cry out There is no hope The day of grace is past It is too late God will never shew me mercy When his Word assureth all that will believe it that who ever confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy Prov. 28 13. And if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive 1 John 1. 9. And that whoever will may freely drink of the waters of life Rev. 22. 17. And that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 17. I have no other hope of my salvation but that Gospel which promiseth pardon and salvation unto all that at any time repent and turn to God by faith in Christ And I dare lay my salvation on the truth of this that Christ never rejected any sinner how great soever that at any time in this life was truly willing to come to him and to God by him John 6. 37. He that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out But the malitious Devil would â—ain make God seem odious to the soul and representeth Love it self as our enemy that we might not Love him Despair is such a part of Hell that if he could bring us to it he would think he had us half in Hell already and then he would urge us to dispatch our selves that we might be there indeed and our despair might be uncurable How blind is he that seeth not the Devil in all this CHAP. IX Directions for the forgiving of Enemies and those that injure us Against Wrath See Tom. 1. Ch. against Anger and Malice and Revenge and Persecution § 1. IT is not only actual Murder which is forbidden in the sixth Commâ—ndment but also all inordinate Wrath and Malice and desires of Revenge and injuring the person of our neighbour or our enemy For so the Prophet and Judge of the Church hath himself expounded it Mat. 5. 21 22. Anger hath a hurting inclination and Malice is a fixed Anger and Revenge is the fruit of both or either of them He that will be free from injurious actions must subdue that wrath and malice which is their cause Heart-murders and injuries must be carefully rooted up For out of the Heart proceed evil thoughts and murders c. Matth. 15. 19. This is the fire of Hell on which an evil tongue is set Iames 3. 6. and this must be quenched if you would be innocent § 2. Direct 1. See God in your neighbour and Love him for that of God which is upon him If he Direct 1. be Holy he hath the Moral Image of God If he be unholy he hath his Natural Image as he is a man He is not only Gods Creature but his Reasonable Creature and the Lord of his inferiour works And art thou a child of God and yet canst not see him and love him in his works Without God he is nothing whom thou art so much offended with And though there be somewhat in him which is not of God which may deserve thy hatred yet that is not his substance or person Hate not or wrong not that which is of God It would raise in you such a reverence as would asswage your wrath if you could but see God in him that you are displeased with § 3. Direct 2. To this end observe more the Good which is in your neighbour than the evil Malice Direct 2. overlooketh all that is good and amiable and can see nothing but that which is bad and detestable It hearkeneth more to them that dispraise and open the faults of others than to those that praise them and declare their virtues Not that Good and Evil must be confounded But the Good as well as the Evil must be acknowledged We have more use our selves for the observation of their virtues than of their faults and it is more our duty And were it never so little good that is in them the right observing of it at least would much diminish your dislike § 4. Direct 3. Learn but to Love your neighbour as your self and this will make it easie to you both Direct 3. to forbear him and forgive him With your self you are not apt to be so angry Against your self you bear no malice nor desire no revenge that shall do you hurt As you are angry with your self penitently for the faults you have committed but not so as to desire your own destruction or final hurt but with such a displeasure as tendeth to your recovery so also must you do by others Direct 4. To this end be sure to mortifie your self ishness For it is the inordinate respect Direct 4. that men have to themselves which maketh them aggravate the faults of all that are against them or offend them Be humble and self-denying and you will think your selves so mean and inconsiderable that no fault can be very great nor deserve much displeasure meerly as it is against you A proud self-esteeming man is easily provoked and hardly reconciled without great submission because he thinketh so highly of himself that he thinketh heinously of all that is said or done against him and he is so over-dear to himself that he is impatient with his adversary § 5. Direct 5. Be not your own Iudge in cases of setled malice or revenge but let some impartial Direct 5. sober by