one side and then to another he will be apt to think the only clue to extricate him out of this labyrinth of many Religions is to abandon all Nor is this meer Speculation and Conjecture God knows we have had successively through the whole round of Error too many practick experiments of it Several persons there have been whose Zeal to find out truth by an unhappy rule of False directed them to allow of every Error While like sick men who desire to die good cheap they put themselves into the hands of any Empirick follow each bold pretender that has the impudence to talk of Truth till Superstition ends in Profanation Godliness proves Atheism and by having been of many Sects at last have no Religion And surely this is a most unhappy Effect of our discords thus to be stumbling-blocks in our brothers way and when we remember the woes pronounc'd against those that shall Scandalize any of the little ones 't will be strange how men can think to approve their Christianity by the ruine of their Brothers or secure themselves of Heaven by keeping Others thence For though Christ tells his Disciples there should be some that should think it a service to God to kill their Bodies yet to phancy the destroying of Souls so too is a Deception of which we have neither record nor prediction in Holy Writ and is a superfaetation of the spirits of delusion peculiar to those who have placed their own sanctity in these religious wranglings which serve to destroy it in other men And as they thus serve on the one side to shipwrack the faith of these weak unstable Souls so do they on the other advance the impiely of the daring sinner for as they are Temptation to the one so are they Pretence and Excuse to the other to bid defiance to all Religion He whose dissolute affections have so long been courting his understanding to turn Atheist will sure not lose the advantage of so plausible an Argument as our divisions afford him and since his lusts engage him in an irreconcilable War against the practick part of Piety he will most gladly embrace this occasion of quarrel against the Theory also So making himself entire and extinguishing those uneasie regrets and misgivings arising from the repugnancy of his life to his belief It were not hard to give a compendium of these mens Logick and draw out those Schemes of Discourse by which from our differences in Religion they infer the discarding of all But I fear these are already too well known and where they are not I should be loth to be any mans Instructor This is I am sure too palpable that how fallacious soever these Reasonings are they have been very operative as appears by the number of those avowed Atheists among us who placing themselves in the seat of the scorner give themselves much pleasing Divertisement by deriding our eager scuffles about that which they think nothing If any man thinks that the Church is no loser by the defection of such Libertines I must be allowed to dissent from him For first there are examples of the most vicious Persons that have been reduced and while they retain their Christian belief that lays such undeniable obligations to good life that whenever they resume their reason they must take up vertue also with it so that there is an equal possibility of their being good that there is of their being rational But when all hope and fear of a future estate is disclaim'd when those cords are broken which should pull them up from the Dungeon then and not before is their state visibly desperate But besides this possibility of recovering them the danger of losing others is to be considered Bold Atheism is like a raging Pestilence which taints the very Air so that those impious discoursings which are the effects of some mens Vices may be the cause of others and we too often see that those who ascended themselves by degrees do in an instant advance their Proselytes to the height of Irreligion as appears by the strange proficiency of some whose Years allow them not to have arrived to it otherwise than per Saltum And sure this spreading Contagion has been so destructive to the Church that it were to be wisht the meer titular Christians had rather remain'd such than thus to have averted others from being so much AND now if all these scandals be worth our regret if the emboldening and exasperating the bad the corrupting the innocent and the decay of Christian profession consequent to both be formidable Evils we know where to charge the guilt Our contentions must be arraigned as accessaries if not principals in the case And then sure it will befit our angry Zealots to consider whether this be the way of advancing Gods truth or what account they will give to the Lord of the Vineyard who while they pretend to dress and prune the branches do thus debilitate and destroy the roots Nay indeed in this they are treacherous even to their own pretensions for all those several Religions which they so tenderly cherish have no proper root of their own but like Excrescencies spring out of the main stock of Christianity live by its juice and moisture and consequently can never hope to survive it And then certainly there can be nothing more ridiculous than to express their kindness to the one by ways that are so ruinous to the other 'T is as if a Passenger in a Ship should to fortifie his private Cabin tear up the planks and expose the whole Vessel to sinking Yet thus preposterously do many of our chief Pilots apply their care In the mean time it cannot but be a very delightful prospect to the grand Enemy of Souls to see us thus busily promote his interest lay snares for our selves and by our own folly do that which all his subtilties could never compass Nor can we think but he will be as officious to us as is possible while we are thus employed will help us to contrive our Turrets whilst he sees we pluck out stones from the foundation to build them with nor shall we ever want new models of Churches so long as they thus help to destroy the old and how aptly they are fitted for that Purpose needs I suppose no farther Demonstration CHAP. XII A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Disputes in reference to Civil Peace AND now sure we cannot but conclude our Contentions highly injurious to Christianity that thus assault it both in the Practick and Theory And indeed how fierce soever our quarrels are with one another the heaviest blows are sure to fall on that which as in its constitution is of the most Pacifick temper imaginable so it has the common fate of reconcilers to suffer from all parties But Godliness having the promise as well of this life as of that which is to come it often happens that there is such a consent between our spiritual and secular Concerns that the Mischiefs
our selves before hand here Suffer every the vilest lust to rule over us Is so glorious a prize annext to the victory and will it not animate the faintest heart and feeblest hands to the combate What Lions can we fear in the way which this hope is not Sampson enough to encounter How light are our heaviest how momentary our most lasting Afflictions if balanced with that eternal weight of Glory Are we spoil'd of our goods here is a reserve of treasure which no Thief neither the slye nor the avowed the pilferèr nor the sequestrator can invade Are we reduced to our Saviours destitution not to have where to lay our head yet we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Are we reproacht for the name of Christ that Ignominy serves but to advance our future Glory every such Libel here becomes Panegyrick there Nay are we persecuted to death that sends us but to take possession of the Crown of Life Upon such sure grounds does our Christianity set us While we make good its condition it puls out the sting of all that is most deadly And in a more comprehensive sense possesses us of the priviledge promised the Disciples that nothing should by any means hurt them Mar. 16. The most adverse chances being but like the ploughing and breaking the ground in order to a more plentiful harvest And yet we are not so wholly turned off to that reversion as to have no supplies for the present for besides the comfort of so great and certain an expectation in another life we have promises also for this Even of all those internal and spiritual satisfactions which attend the practice of piety The feast of a good Conscience is the true Christians daily diet and sure whatever the rich men of the world think he only can be said to fare deliciously nay he has yet more supernatural food Manna rain'd down immediately from Heaven the Holy Spirit sent on purpose to refresh and support him those Joys which differ rather in degree than kind from those which are to be his final portion And that the Soul may not be too much incommoded in her house of clay there is provision made for that also such necessaries secured to the body as may keep it in Tenantable repair we have Christs express promise for it that to those that seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness all these things shall be added if not that superfluity which may oppress and load render the body rather the Tomb than Mansion of the Soul yet such as may sustain and support us and sure 't is easie to decide which is the happier lot In short we are sure of enough to defray the charge of that voyage which lands us at Eternal Bliss and certainly he must be of a very sluggish or querulous humour that shall demur upon setting out or demand higher encouragements AND as the nature and value of the Promises render them most proper engagements and incentives to all vertue so if we consider the manner of proposing we shall find them in that respect also highly contributive to the same end For first they are clear and express not wrapt up in dark enigmatical insinuations wherein men must exercise their sagacity aswell as their faith but revealed with that plainness that 't is impossible for any who knows but the letter of the Gospel to be ignorant of the Eternal rewards it proposes And herein the difference belongs to Christianity above all other Religions some whereof have left men so much in the dark that many Sects among them have denied the immortality of the Soul and sure they were but faint encouragements they could propose unto that vertue which was to perish with them What should animate them to the rugged severe tastes of restraining appetites subduing passions eradicating habits who discerned no rewards for blameless Souls 'T is true indeed vertue is in her self perfectly amiable though she brought no dowry but experience shews us she has not many Platonick lovers and when so few are ambitious to wed Her when she brings an Eternal inheritance with her we may easily guess how little she will be sought without it When men once conclude that their Spirits shall vanish into the soft Air the inference is very obvious Come on let us use the creatures as in youth as we find it elegantly pursued Wisd. 2. But of those who acknowledged a future being their preceptions were very misty and obscure The Heathens had such confus'd notions of their Elysium that the Epithet of shades belong'd more properly to the darkness than the refreshment and was a reward fit for the votaries of those ambiguous Oracles they consulted And proportionably to the obscurity of their hopes were the Exercises of their vertue their Piety was even overwhelmed and confounded by the multitude of their Deities nay which is yet stranger their Gods themselves seem to have been lost in their own croud else sure the Athenians would never have inscrib'd an Altar to the unknown God and indeed their offices were generally such as if they had been devoted to no other they having as little discerning of their Worship as of their God 'T was wrapt up in clouds and darkness had mysterious recesses to which the common worshipper had no admittance such as were to acquire a veneration only by not being understood and though this must needs deprive their services of that spirit and quickness which constitutes the vertue of devotion yet alas their Religion had more than that negative contrariety to Vertue Many of their worships being nothing but a solemnity of the foulest vices and their Divinity taught them to violate Morality A deceit Satan could not probably so long have triumpht in had they had the Gospel notion of Heaven for sure they could not have suppos'd their Gods of such mutable inclinations as to affect purity in their cohabitants and pollution in their Votaries or such incongruous dispensers of rewards as to apportion an impeccable state hereafter to the most flagitious criminals on Earth AS to the Iews 'tis true they derived their light from a clearer Fountain were under the Oeconomy of immediate Revelation and therefore might be suppos'd to have had a freer prospect into that Heaven from whence their Law descended yet even they were in this as in many other particulars under Moses his veil had rather dark adumbrations and those too overwhelmed with the multitude of express temporal promises The earthly Canaan lay so fair and open to their prospect as easily intercepted their view of the Heavenly and their faith must remove at least overlook that mountain before it could come to any sight of the Horizon and extended Sky Nay when 't is remembred that the Sadduces a great and learned part of their Doctors denied all future being we must think the intimations of it were very obscure it being scarce imaginable that any considering men should think the Souls
to the natural nor will the gnawing of the worm appear more intolerable to any than those who here make it their business to tye up its Iaws gag or stupifie that Conscience which would now admonish but will there torment And when to this is added the perpetuity of these pains that the worm shall never die the fire never be quencht certainly this puts such an edge upon the terror as may well make it in the Apostles phrase quick and powerful searching even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit the joynts and marrow When we are assur'd that the Axe is thus laid unto the root of the tree and that every tree that brings not forth good fruit must be hewn down and cast into the fire we shall sure be warn'd to bring forth meet fruits of repentance and fly from the wrath to come BUT because neither invitations nor threats can avail with those who are any way invincibly impeded to apply them to their benefit since the most glorious prize the most formidable danger is insignificant to him who wants power to run unto the one or from the other it has pleased God to inspirit and actuate all his Evangelical methods by a concurrence of supernatural strength makes it not only eligible but possible I may say easie and pleasant for us to do whatever he commands us and notwithstanding our natural debility makes us through Christ which strengthens us able to do all things by his Spirit he prevents assists restrains excites comforts convinces gives grace and adds to that the happier largess of a will to use it and knowledge to discern the want of more infusing to the Soul an ardent thirst of greater powers and readier means of service which the performance actuates to greater strengths and yet enflames to new desires and more importunate pursuits whilest God at once bestows and crowns his own donations still giving unto him that has till that at last he gives himself and grace is swallowed up in glory And to assure us of this aid he has been pleased to oblige himself descends to the solemnity of a Pact and Covenant has indented with us and constituted it a principle part of the new and everlasting Covenant made with mankind in the blood of the Son of God to send the comforter his Holy Spirit to be with us till the end of the world and do all this So that the Gospel is at once the assigner of our tasks and the Magazeen of our strength so much Spirit goes along with that Letter so much internal grace is annexed to its outward administration as will to all who do not resist it infallibly render it the power of God to salvation For 't is not the sole priviledge of a S. Paul but the common portion of all Christians That Gods grace shall be sufficient for them which is sure a more Gospel-like promise than that it should be too strong for them so violent and irresistible as to commit a rape upon their Spirits such a mighty wind as drives them headlong upon duty Indeed this competency is of all other proportions the most incentive to industry we see in Temporals too little makes men desperate and too much careless and certainly 't would be the same in Spirituals but now when we have stock enough to set up with and that too of so improvable a nature that is capable of infinite advancement and yet on the other side no less capable of total decay also it being given with this express condition that upon neglect it shall be withdrawn so that our own sloth may make us poor but nothing else can keep us from being abundantly rich what can be imagin'd more animating to diligence and endeavour And this being the condition wherein our Christianity has placed us added to the former considerations will beyond exception or subterfuge evince its perfect aptitude and fitness for the End to which it was aim'd the Planting and nourishing all true Vertue among men the introducing the tree of life into the world again and so forming us a Paradise even amidst the briers and thorns of our Exil'd state CHAP. II. The Character of Christian-mens Practice shewing their multiplied failance both from the rule of that holy profession and its genuine effect AND now who can suspect that a cause so rightly dispos'd should miss of its effect That this so auspicious Planet should be counter-influenc't by any malevolent Star Or that what has so many tenures in us should be finally disseis'd For admit we have not the Piety to be prevail'd upon by the reverence of the Author yet the excellency of its composition does so much recommend it to our reason that we must put off the best part of our Nature to evacuate the force of our Religion nay supposing us to have done that too to have struck our selves out of the list of Rationals yet if we keep but the rank of Animals if we have not extinguisht passion and sense it descends even to them addresses to our hopes and fears with most importunate solicitations and convincing motives So that unless we have the absurd ill luck to have much of the Stoick and nothing of the Philosopher 't will be impossible to resist its impressions and sure he that comtemplates this will be apt with some confidence to conclude Christendom to be the Goshen of the world not only in respect of its light but of its immunity from all those Locusts and Caterpillers those swarms of mean and sordid Vices which both cover and devour the rest of the Earth BUT this must be the inference of a meer contemplative a Recluse that converses only with his own meditations for let him be so much secular as once to look abroad the most transient glance will serve to unravel all this hopeful speculation shew him that Christendom may be as much Heathen as America whereas 't is usually said that ill Manners produce good Laws we have reverst the Aphorism and our good Law has introduc'd the most corrupt manners Our holy faith which like a foundation should support good works has like a gulf swallowed them up And so universal a depravation is there among us that we have scarce any thing left to distinguish us from the most barbarous people but a better name and worse vices AND here what terms of wonder or of grief can be significant enough to express or to bewail so strange and so perverse degeneration that the light of the world should thus darken it the salt of the Earth be the means of putrifying and corrupting it that those who were by God drawn out from the Heathen world should so outvie the Gentiles crimes as if they had forsaken them only because they were too innocent This indeed is one of Satans subtillest stratagems to fill Christ's Camp thus with his Souldiers by whose intestine treacheries he has been more triumphant than by all his open assaults and avowed hostilities What a
other design but that of taking the lightest those to which their constitutions or other circumstances carry least repugnance and come unto the Gospel not to as a law but to a Market cheapen what they best like and leave the rest for other customers THAT thus it is with many needs no other proof than the variety visible in the lives of several professors One man behaves himself modestly and tells you his religion commands him humility yet at the same time transgresses the as strict precept of Justice and will defraud him he bows to On the contrary another is Just but Insolent and though his Sentence do not bend expects his Clients should That man owns the purity of his religion in visiting the fatherless and widows yet disclaims it again by not keeping himself unspotted of the world This person is Abstemious but Uncharitable will drink no wine but thirsts for bloud He prays much yet curses more whilest he is meek but indevout Now while the Rule is one and the same how should it come that mens Practices should so vary were it not for the unequal Application did they take it entire though there might be difference in the degrees yet sure not in the kinds of their Vertues and as men would not differ so from one another so neither would they from themselves there would be then no such thing as a charitable Drunkard a devout Oppressor a chast Miser Monsters engendred by this unnatural commixture of light with darkness but Piety would be uniform and extensive and bring into captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. And till it be thus Christianity can never be thought to have atchiev'd any part of its design which was not aim'd against any one single limb but against the whole body of sin Alas 't is not the lopping off one of the remote members that will render the remaining ones any whit the less vital the having a part less to animate will rather serve to concenter the spirits and make them more active in the rest as we see the pruning of Trees makes them more prolifick And this effect is very obvious among men he who has no general dislike to vice if he repudiate one 't is commonly that he may cleave closer to another and what he defalks from some dry insipid sin is but to make up a Benjamin's Mess for some other more gustful If the Wanton be sober 't is odds he thinks excess a Rival to his lust if the Proud man be liberal 't is because covetousness is inglorious such unevennesses are caus'd not by an unkindness to any Sin unless possibly that aversion which natural constitution raises in some but by a partiality to one or more favourite Vices for whose better accommodation and securer reign not only Vertue but other Vices also must give place AND this 't is much to be fear'd will upon a true account be found to be the sum of many mens piety something they think they must pay to the importunity of their Religion which upbraids them so loudly that they are willing to stop its mouth but yet would do it with as much frugality and good managery as may be and so consider what 't is they can best spare what refuse Sin which brings them in little of satisfaction and is perhaps in competition with some other more agreeable and this they can be content to devote to the slaughter set it to receive all the impressions of the sword of the spirit and so use it as a buckler to their darling lusts to ward off those blows which must else fall heavy on them but alas this is not to obey but to delude to ransom a greater Sin with a less and to transcribe in this matter the Counsel of Caiphas to let one die for the People that the whole nation Perish not To make one forlorn guilt a Patriot to the rest whilest in the tempest which threatned a general shipwrack the precious wares are preserv'd by throwing the less valuable over board AND truly that is commonly the event men are so jolly and triumphant when they have worsted a trivial inconsiderable sin as if they had defeated the whole army this poor despicable spoil is set up as their Trophe and must they think witness for them both to God and man that they are good souldiers of Iesus Christ they can like Saul with full confidence meet the Prophet and tell him they have fulfilled the Commandment of the Lord 2 Sam. 15. 13. though Agag and the best cattle the reigning and fattest sins be spar'd and while they are thus secure their sins will certainly be so also have no disturbance or disquiet from them but lie at Ease and rest feed like Canibals upon their own kind be nourisht by the carkasses of those unlucky vices on whom the exterminating lot hapned to fall and by that means grow to a prodigious bulk and corpulency And upon these terms Satan himself will allow us to mortifie some sins nay will himself cast the first stone at them and like a rooking gamester purposely lose these petty stakes that he may afterwards sweep the board FOR if men should give themselves up universally to all sorts of Ill if they should set themselves in a total opposition to all the documents of their profession he would lose one of his most useful engins there could be no such thing as a false delusive hope they might possibly by obstinacy harden or by diversion gag Conscience but they could not bribe and corrupt it make it sit down well pleas'd and satisfied with its self For when the threats against disobedience shall occurr to the mind of one who has in all instances disobey'd 't is impossible he should find any salve any way of Evading the Threats they make so directly at him but he who can alledge for himself that he obeys in some things confronts that to all Objections and resolves he is not in the list of the disobedient One or two such comfortable instances are as mighty as God promis'd the Israelites should be Deut. 32. 30. one able to chase a thousand and two to put ten thousand to flight all fears and misgiving thoughts are dissipated and fled before them and as once the French King in his return to the numerous swelling titles of the Spaniard thought the bare repetition of France France France was a full ballance to them all so when whole files of great and scandalous Crimes present themselves one single vertue is thought a sufficient counterpoize He whose Conscience upbraids him with all Profaneness towards God and in Sobriety towards himself yet if he can but answer that he is just to his neighbour he thinks he has quit scores and fears no farther reckonings he who is immerst in all the filthiness both of flesh and spirit has abandon'd his Mind to pride and envie his Body to lust and intemperance and so sacrificed both those to Devils yet if he
and leave nothing to the mercy of a Law-quirk And in both cases thank the vigilant care of their informer that gave them notice of their danger but let the Divine tell them he sees their Souls languishing under the most mortal diseases that they have actually forfeited their inheritance in the land of the living they can hear it unconcernedly say or at least think those cares are to be remitted to Felix his more convenient season that when their Bodies are as infirm as their Souls then care may be taken for both together That 't is enough for their spiritual Life to commence when the natural is expiring and then to provide for everlasting Habitations when they are putting off their Earthly Tabernacle as for the thanks they give their Monitor 't is generally the same that St. Paul received from the Galatians to count him their enemy for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. but alass he has no reason to resent the injury since 't is but the same they offer to their nearest and most intimate friend that Angel guardian which God and Nature has placed within their own breasts I mean their Conscience let that at any time whisper the same admonition and immediately they cry out as Ahab to Eliah Hast thou found me O my Enemy All arts are us'd to convey themselves out of its Reach Business or Company or Drink or any thing is solicited to come in to their rescue that in that throng they may deceive its pursuit or at least in that louder noise drown its voice and is not this to look on it as their Enemy while they shun it as a Malefactor does the Officer Yet I appeal to the breasts of those who lean upon the broken reed of a late Repentance whether this be not the case with them let them tell me whether they dare trust themselves alone with their Conscience give it opportunity of speaking freely to them of laying before them the mad adventure they make of their precious Souls which they do not only expose to as many hazards of a swift damnation as there are accidents which may surprize their bodies with a sudden death but do besides by this resistance repel and quench that Spirit without which they can never hope to effect that so necessary so difficult a work nay I may I fear ask some of them whether they have not so often shunned these parleys that their Consciences like an abus'd Friend has at last given them over ceast to pursue them with more of those unwelcome importunities and by its silence left them secur'd from all noise which may disturb that treacherous sleep into which they have lulled themselves To those who are thus given up to the spirit of slumber I cannot hope to speak loud enough to rouse them but to those that are but of the former rank that have not yet so prosper'd in their unkind design against themselves as quite to have alienated their bosom friend that are yet within the reach of those amica verbera the stripes and reproofs of their own Conscience to such I would address with this most affectionate petition that they would not seek to remove themselves from that wholsome discipline that they would not fly that Chyrurgion whose Lancet threatens none but the imposthumated parts but rather chuse to be shewed the formidableness of their Danger than by a blind embracing it to perish in it And if they have but any general confus'd inclinations to this so reasonable a request I shall then put on more solemnity assume to come as an Envoy from those dreaded Consciences of theirs to mediate an enterview to propose the fixing some time of parley and bespeak their patience to hear it out And let them but grant this let them but dare to do so much in order to their own safety and I can scarce think it possible they should after retain that daring which only tends to their ruine In a word let men seriously and attentively listen to that voice within them and they will certainly need no other medium to convince them either of the error or danger of thus procrastinating their Repentance which themselves acknowledge must not upon their utmost peril be finally omitted and yet nothing but an immediate dispatch can secure it shall not 'T WILL be needless to descend to a particular view of more of these deceits they will easily be detected by this one general Rule that whatsoever falls short of a present universal permanent Change falls as much short of Repentance All the pretences that are made upon any other score are but the Garments of the elder brother put upon the back of the younger which though they might delude a blind Isaac will never be able to deceive an all-seeing God All that remains is to offer to the Readers consideration how nearly he is concern'd to guard himself against all delusions in this so important an affair It was an ancient Stratagem of War to poison the waters in an Enemies Camp that so they may drink their own deaths but Satan has here far out-vied that Policy Were but our Nourishment infected we had still a recourse left us to Medicine but here he has envonom'd our very Physick and what cure remains for those whose very remedies are their disease when that Bath which was design'd to cleanse us is its self polluted we may well cry out as Dyonisius of the corrupted River of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Flood shall cleanse these Waters Where can we be secure when our Repentance which the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 26. supposes the Means of disentangling us is its self become our Snare This as it loudly proclaims our danger so surely in all reason it should awake our care teach us not to suffer our selves to be abus'd with delusive appearances and shadows of Repentance lest we finally find that Ixion-like we have embrac'd a Cloud What an amazing defeat will it be to him who presumes his Tears have blotted out the hand-writing against him to find the full Bill brought in at the great Assize and those he call'd his penitential sorrows here to prove but the Prologue to that Tragedy which ends in weeping and gnashing of teeth And therefore let every one timely provide against that fatal surprize use this excellent receipt not as a Cosmetick only to beautifie the face give him some fair appearance to himself but as Medicine to restore health reduce him to such an Athletick vigorous Habit as may evidence its self in all vital Actions which will prove the best evidences in our last trial where the inquisition will not be so much upon our Mouths or Eyes as upon our Hands not how many confessions we have made or how many tears shed but what acts of Vertue we have substituted in the room of our Vices whether we have broke off our Sins by righteousness and our Iniquities by shewing mercy to the Poor and without this 't is infallibly
attendance on practick Duties and so whilest we quarrel with one another give our great Master too just ground of quarrel with us all by neglecting the great and indeed only Business entrusted to us NOW indeed that our contentions do thus divert us is too apparent to any that shall consider it in any of the three forementioned particulars for first for our time they do not only insensibly steal away much of it a modesty which most other diversions do still retain but Magisterially exact it and accordingly have large parcels of it solemnly and avowedly devoted to them the scanning old questions and raising new ones having been the profest Business of many mens lives their very Vocation and Trade wherein they have arrived to such eminence as shews they made liberal oblations of their Time to it And of this every age has left so many Records as the meer reading them would allow few vacant minutes to the succeeding And had not time a little reveng'd his own quarrel and consum'd many of those writings by which himself was wasted the Hyperbole would not be very extravagant in this case which we find warrantably us'd in another Io. 21. that even the world its self could not contain the Books which have been written As it is there are more than enough to employ nay devour time for when men once launch into the vast Sea of Controversie they are tossed there endlesly and seldom recover a harbour Difficulties like waves crouding one upon the neck of another And accordingly we see in Polemick Disputes how every rejoynder swells bigger and bigger till like Gehazies cloud from a hand breadth it over-spread the Heavens every little Manual becomes the Parent of vast Volumes and unless the evil cure its self by majoration unless the greatness of the task bring in despair to supplant curiosity and keep men from reading the spectators will have as little respite as the Combatants both Writers and Readers will be so ingrost that they will have little leisure for any thing else And I dare in this appeal to any that have engag'd deep either way whether they have not found it experimentally true I wish they would but snatch some broken parcel as a plank from the common shipwrack of their time rescue a few minutes for a sober reflection and audit what real Profit accrues to them from the expence of so many precious Hours how much it advances that grand business for which their Time here was allotted and according to which their Eternity hereafter will be awarded always remembring that if it promote it not it hinders it by diverting that time which should have been so employed And indeed there cannot be a more comprehensive mischief than this of the loss of time it being that which virtually contains the frustrating of all other Advantages whereby we should work out our Salvation The operations even of Christ himself were he tells us limited to a certain season I must work the work of my Father whilest it is day the night cometh when no man can work and if the Night overtake us it matters not how we are stored with instruments of Action since they all at once then become useless Our Laws anciently set a greater penalty upon the stealing Beasts of breed than on other Cattel of the same species as calculating the dammage by the possibilities of which the Owner was robb'd Time is the universal womb of things and actions and therefore when we lose that we suffer an accumulative prejudice forfeit our Rights in reversion as well as our Possessions our capacities as well as enjoyments As in an Abortion the unhappy Mother besides the frustration of her hopes and child-birth pains sustain'd acquires an aptitude to miscarry for the future and never to be able to bring forth a vital birth And thus God knows multitudes of Embryon purposes perish and the misery of it is they are our best that do so We generally pursue our frivolous projects with an active vigour but keep our great and concerning affairs only in design till death come and surprize us which like the fatal Metamorphoses the Poets talk of fixes us in the posture it finds us and so presents us to Iudgment Now I would know of the most eager Contender whether he would not chuse then to be found with his hands stretcht out in prayer to God or alms to the poor rather than dealing blows amongst his fellow servants if he would certainly 't is his concern to put himself into that form he would then appear in to husband his little span of time so as may stand him in stead when time shall be no more BUT if men will needs be improvident yet why will they be ridiculous too if they will barter away their time methinks they should at least have some ease in exchange but to be industrious ill-husbands to lose all their advantage and none of their toil is such a solemn piece of folly as is at once matter of Scorn and Wonder yet this is the very case here our wranglings do not only exhaust our time but our strength too We pursue them with so vehement an intention as if our Faith propos'd not to us any other victory but over this sort of Opponents We run our selves breathless in this race where the prize is only a few fading Leaves or what is more transitory a little popular applause and make not towards the incorruptible Crown till we are grown too feeble and decrepit for the other pursuit Men macerate their Bodies and waste their Spirits in Polemick studies prescribe themselves no time of discharge from that War till they are able no longer to weild their weapons and then when meer Impotence makes them peaceable begin to cry out of contention snatch up Devotion when Controversie begins to be too heavy for them and at their Death pray for that peace of the Church which they have made it the business of their life to disturb This as it sufficiently attests what mens thoughts are in their cool blood what apprehensions they have of the way when they draw near their journeys End so does it abundantly evince the unspeakable prejudice Piety receives from our Disputes Those have the active and vigorous Abettors while That is turn'd off to languishing bed-rid Votaries So that the division between these two is like that of the Cattel between Iacob and Laban all the stronger to the one and feebler to the other Would God the Scene were not in one respect chang'd and that the Syrian had not here got the better share But in the mean time what greater advantage can Satan wish for our strength and industry is diverted upon these foreign expeditions and Sion is left to be guarded by the lame and the blind such only as are not able to follow the Camp and then 't is not strange to see what succesful assaults he has made that that true practick vertue which once made such victorious salleys on
to disbelieve this only upon his bare credit who was a lyar from the beginning This indeed is a prodigious composition of blasphemy and folly a strange contumely to God but fatal treachery to our selves For alas Satan entertains us all this while but with a trick of Leger de main and as Iuglers make us believe we have cut the string which yet presently after they shew us whole so he perswades us he has thus sever'd the Condition from the Promises when to our grief it will finally appear their union was inviolable 'T is not all our vain confidence that can reverse the immutable divine Law we may 't is true delude our selves keep up our spirits high in a secure jollity eat and drink and rise up to play and so not only loyter but revel out our day till the night overtake us wherein no man can work but we shall never be able to propagate the deceit where only it could avail us to perswade God to pay the hire to those that have been no labourers or give the prize to any who have not run to obtain it Let every man therefore in a just tenderness to his own Soul strictly examine his hopes try not how high they towre but how deep they are founded whether on the sand or on the rock the flattering delusions of Satan and the dreams of his own Phancy or on the Promises of God for though all pretend to build on the latter yet God knows a multitude of foolish Architects there are which mistake their ground take that for assurance that is not and this truly is a thing deserves to be soberly consider'd they that most greedily catch at the Promises do often embrace a cloud instead of the Deity which they so eagerly grasp and thereby think to enjoy But faithful obedience and not insolent hopes commend us unto God The Gospel indeed describes to us great and inestimable felicities but he that can think this gives him Title to them may as well pretend to the whole World because he has the Map of it in his house for though it mentions them to all yet it promises them to none but the obedient And those Israelites which fled from the sight of Goliah 1 Sam. 17. 25. might as reasonably challenge the reward propos'd to the victor as men can pretend to enter into life without keeping the Commandments this then is the one Criterion by which a man may judge of his hopes if they be but proportionable to his obedience they are then regular and such as will not make him asham'd but prove incentives and engagements to every good work Let him obey as much as he can and then he need not deny himself the comfort of hoping as much as he can too But if his hopes exceed this measure and square themselves only by his wishes if he look for Heaven not because he is qualified for it but because he wants or covets it this is rather to dream than hope and such whimsies will as soon invest the begger in wealth the defam'd in honour the sick in health or any man in any thing he has but a mind to as compass Heaven for the bold Fiduciary IT is indeed like those Lunacies wherein mens fancies adopt them Heirs to those Kingdoms they know nothing more of than the names and sure the Analogy holds as well in the cure as the disease let these Patients awhile be kept dark taken from the dazling contemplations of their imaginary priviledges to the sad reflection on their sins and as God expostulates with Israel Ezek. 33. 26. Ye stand upon the sword ye work abomination and ye defile every man his neighbours wife and shall ye possess the land So let them recite to themselves the Catalogues of their impieties and then ask their own hearts whether these be the qualifications of those that shall rest in Gods holy hill Whether these marks of the Beast can ever rank them among the followers of the Lamb And let these Considerations be prest home reiterated so often till by repeated strokes they have made good the other part of the method made their Souls bleed and by that Spiritual Phlebotomy temper'd their swelling veins allayed the over-sanguiness of their constitution and then there remains but one thing more to complete the course and that is bringing them into the Work-house setting them really to work out their salvation with fear and trembling which they had so near played away by confidence and presumption And when they have done thus they have verified their hopes and then may safely reassume them They are return'd again with advantage to their first point and are that in soberness and reality which they then were only in fiction and imagination AND now would God men would once be content to be thus disabus'd that they would not be so in love with deceit as in the Prophets phrase Ier. 8. 5. to hold it fast that they would not chuse Chymaera's and phantastick Images before real and substantial Felicities and prefer that hope which will be sure to ship-wrack them before that which will be an Anchor of the Soul sure and stedfast Heb. 6. 19. and if this so reasonable a proposal may be embrac't if the World should as the Spaniard said but rise wise one morning what a deal of dead merchandize would Satan have upon his hands Many of those they call the comfortable Doctrines would want vent which are now the staple commodity of his Kingdom What those are 't is no part of my design to examine it will be every mans particular concern to do it for himself which he may do by this one test whether they more animate men to hope well than to live well Whether they bring Alexanders sword to cut asunder the Gordian knot to sever between the promise and the condition Or the sword of the Spirit to subdue all to the obedience of Christ If the former we may expect the fruits of such will be all that licentiousness which St. Paul describes as the works of the flesh Gal. 5. 19. it being not to be imagin'd that the precepts of the Gospel which they divide from the promises only that they might fall off shall then be voluntarily taken up in meer good nature and heroick Generosity that those who are so industrious to avoid the necessity of Christian practice will make it their free-will-offering If there should happen to be some few of so ingenuous a gratitude yet 't is certain that is not our common mould few men will be better than they think their interest bids them be and therefore such principles are dangerous Seminaries of Libertinism and 't is mens very important concernment not to admit them Let not then their cheerful aspect recommend them to our embraces men may be kill'd with too much Cordial that which seems to refresh the Spirits may enflame the Blood and though cold poisons have gotten the fame of being the most malignant yet
there are hot that are as infallibly mortiferous Let it be our care in opposition to both to keep our selves in that moderate equal temper which belongs to healthy Souls and since that is the vitallest heat which is gotten by exercise set to our business employ our selves diligently in all those duties the Gospel exacts and then we shall not want such an hope as may warm our hearts keep us in a cheerful expectation till we come to the glorious fruition of that Eternal Salvation which God has promised to all them and only them that obey him And till we do thus till we consider as well what we are to do as what we are to receive there will be no hope of restoring Christianity to its native vigour we shall make it evaporate all its strength in unsignificant hopes convert it into Air to bear up our Bubbles instead of that firm ground whereon we should build virtue here and glory hereafter CHAP. V. A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Carnal Consideration AFTER the disadvantages of partial Consideration may fairly be subjoyn'd the ills of that advertency which is impregnated by sensuality and sloth and makes pretence unto right reason but tends indeed as much as any thing to the frustrating the design and enfeebling the force of our Religion such close reserves of deceit and malice have men to their own Souls that when they quit one strong hold of Satans 't is only to retreat to another When they are not so brisk and Aerial as lightly to skip over those precepts that lye in their way they are so gross and unwary as to fall at them if they may not pass for Straws and Chaffe such as every blast of vain confidence may blow away they shall then be improved into Heaps and Mountains become stones of stumbling and rocks of offence and when they are call'd upon to Consider them they do it in so perverse a manner as if they meant to revenge themselves on that unwelcome importunity their consideration is worse than neglect They look into them insiduously not as Disciples but as Spies not to weigh the obligeingness but to quarrel the unreasonableness or difficulty of the injunctions not to direct their practice but excuse their prevarications FROM this unsincere kind of inspection it is that the Precepts have got so formidable appearance with many that they have fallen under such heavy prejudices as to resolve them intolerable yokes insuperable tasks that this Canaan is a land that eats up its inhabitants wherein there is so little of enjoyment that it scarce affords a being Men count a life under such restraints so joyless and uneasie that it differs from death only by being more passive They think Zeal like a Hectick Feaver in a slow but certainly fatal Fire exhausts and consumes the Spirits Mortification and self-denial macerate and decay the body and liberality dissipates and wastes the estate and with these Apparitions which themselves have conjur'd up men run frighted from duty resolve the burden is unsupportable or at least grievous to be born and therefore as our Saviour says of the Pharisees will not touch it no not so much as with one of their fingers Mat. 23. 4. never make any attempt to try what indeed they are but take their measures from their own or perhaps other mens prejudicate opinions and thence take out an Authentick Record and Patent for sloth fancy the journey too long for them and therefore sit still first call Christs commandments grievous and then improve that slander into a manumission absolve themselves from obeying them And unless they may have the Gate to life cut wider made capacious enough to receive them with all their lusts about them will never essay to enter it BUT if the Prince of darkness have enacted it a Law that difficulty shall pass for excuse yet if real uneasiness may be admitted to be as deterring as imaginary ones his own decree will retort the most ruinously on himself and men may plead it as their discharge from all those base drudgeries those tyrannous impositions wherewith he loads them The Drunkard may experimentally tell him the pain of an aking head of an overcharged stomack the ruine of a wasted Estate and claim a dispensation from pursuing that uneasie and costly sin The Wanton may bring his macerated body like the Levites Concubine Iud and urge it as an evidence how cruel a Master he serves and from thence emancipate and free himself and indeed every sin carries in it so much of visible toil or secret smart as would by force of this rule supplant and undermine its self and sure Satan would never have arm'd men with so dangerous a weapon had he not discern'd them so in love with slavery as secures him it should never be us'd against him for if it should nothing could give him a more mortal wound more irrecoverably shake his Kingdom Nor would only that infernal Region feel the force of that destructive principle it would make as strange confusions in secular Regiments FOR if such pleas as these may be admitted they will easily cancel all Humane as well as Divine Laws and every malefactor will transfer his guilt on the severity of the Legislator the Thief may say it is too great a difficulty for him to resist the temptation of an apt opportunity a rich prize that his fingers are too slippery even for himself and he cannot restrain them and then quarrel the strictness of the Law which has rais'd so high a fence about mens properties that he who climbs it must endanger his neck The Rebel may complain that the bands of Allegiance are too strait the yoke sits too close galls and frets his tender flesh exclaim loudly at the Tyranny of those that laid it on and in that out-cry drown the noise of his own Treason And so every other transgressor may accuse the rule as accessary to his swervings till at last the Laws be made the only Criminals I leave every man to judge both of the equity and consequencies of such discoursings in Civil matters and shall only desire he will apply them to Spiritual also where certainly they are neither more just nor less ruinous and whilest such absurd pretences as these pass currant no wonder if Christianity languish and grow impotent want strength to impress its self on the lives of its professors The most infallible receipt can work no cure on him who upon the suspicion of its bitterness refuses to taste it The most excellent Laws must look their regulating power where the execution of them is obstructed and we may as reasonably look for the efficacy of Christianity among those who never heard the name as among those who owning the name do yet disclaim its precepts and so all those interpretatively do who by accusing them of too great rigour avert both themselves and others from their Obedience THAT the Charge is scandalously unjust will appear to any who shall