not Child-hood and Youth the time wherein Solomon adviseth the Children of men should be trained up in the way wherein they should goe O Parents Prov. 22.6 If God be worth your own acquaintance is he not worth the acquaintance of such as are so near and dear unto you Can you without trembling think that as soon as Death breaks up your house you may to Heaven and your Children must to Hell and thither through your default But if you should dye in this neglect of instructing your Children you will be miserable as well as they And O! What a greeting will there be hereafter between ungodly Parents and Children What an hearing will it be to your tormented Souls to hear your Children cry out against you All this that we suffer was long of you you should have taught us better and did not What an addition will such out-cries be to your misery 4. Suffering Children to fall out with one another By not redressing the disorderly carriages of your Children towards one another How few Reboccah's are there She was carefull to remove jars and mischiefs that might arise between her two Sons 5. Not praying for â—hem By not praying for your Childrens Souls and against those very particulars which their natural constitution leads them mostly to 6. Not correcting aright By not correcting them aright as to time not early enough He that loveth him correcteth him betimes not whilst the fault is fresh in his thoughts with all the aggravating circumstances thereof Not with compassion enough You have reason saith Mr Dod to be angry with your selves rather than to be bitter to your Children for you correct your own sin in your Children If the Child be curst and froward hath he not seen his Parent brawling and contentious c not ushering correction with Prayer that God would bless word and rod. Commonly Parents correct in an high passion whereby Prayer is hindered and the Medicine becomes invalid 7. Being over-angry By being angry without a cause or above the desert Anger must be let out according to the nature of the offence If Parents be always chiding or correcting they make their Children resolute like Hagar and Ismaei to take up their heels and into the Wilderness will they any where to be delivered from such hard usages Provoke not your Children to wrath Eph. 6.4 Some Parents want natural affections are too severe Correction like Physick if too frequent will work no more with Children than our meat with us 8. By loving your Children more than God Loving inordinately loving them as they are yours not as they are Gods as they bare your Image not Gods for their beauty and parts rather than for their graces loving a beautifull Child that is voyd of grace more than a deformed Child though eminent in grace loving one excessively as Jacob Joseph hence Joseph is envyed by the rest prodigal favours to some especially if without reason are offensive to others who are less respected Loving so as loth to let them go when God calls for them you cannot say as Eli it is the Lord 1 Sam. 3.18 let him do as seems him good God pulls and you pull and you quarrel with God about the goard and you think you do well to be angry Job blessed God when God took all away at once by one blow 9. Not providing callings for them or not the best By not devoting them to some honest calling but letting them live in idleneness and so they grow up monuments of your neglect Some Gentlemen train up their Children to hold an Hawk to follow a Dog and commonly they dye in an Alehouse or shorten their lives thereby But if you do provide a calling for your Children is it not what is most gainfull rather than what will be most usefull to the good of the Soul Had you not rather have them rich Factours among Idolaters where they learn the manners of the Heathens then to have a meaner calling at home where the Gospel is preached in power and purity 10. Not matching them aright By not matching them to godly persons but rather to the rich Hereby ye shew that the silver shrines are in higher repute than grace and Godliness 11. Giving away all to them By giving all to your Children though the Church of God hath more need of it Hereby you evidence that you prefer not Zion before your chiefest joy that you love the outward grandeur of your Children more than the prosperity of the Church It is a wonder saith Mr. Baxter how so many seemingly holy can quiet their Consciences in such a sin as this is If one of you have two or three hundred pounds per annum it is a wonder if you leave an hundred pounds a year of it to pious or charitable uses Nay do not Parents leave all to their Children when they have apparent proofs that they will spend it in the service of Hell O! Let Parents tremble What wilt thou inable and strengthen thy Children to rebell against God put fuell to the fire put swords into their hands to sight against the most high Parents I beseech you look diligently to your duties be humbled for these and such like miscarriages O! look about you and you will see a sad Apostasy in Children Parents civil the Children debauched Parents godly the Children formall or loose Parents eminent for grace Children notorious for lewdness Let your bowels turn within you to see so great a degeneracy Double your diligence that there may be an holy seed Knock off the chains of Hell from your Children what you may lay not out all your time how they may be rich It is no time to seek great things for your selves seek them not Pitty the Souls of your Children that are slaves to the Devil How can ye mind your trades fields bodies whilst the Souls of your Children are in danger of perishing How can ye see the Devil driving your Children to Sin and Hell and ye stand still with a gallio-Gallio-Spirit Go to your Closets and ask your hearts whether the Soul be not the principal part of the Child and whether that needs not your care more than the body Do not throw away the Blade to preserve the Scabbard God hath set you to watch their Souls to train up their Souls to provide for their Souls if you do not what is your love more than a Pagans a Turks towards your Children You think you should be unnatural if you should not lay up for your Children though many Professours upon pretence that God will provide indulge to the flesh pamper their bodies and starve their Children but here is the best laying up to lay up a stock of Prayers for them and a stock of Counsell and Instruction in them O Parents Once more I beseech you put on bowels of pitty and compassion Pitty the perishing Souls of your own Children Command your Children to keep the way of
sentence of death thus to employ his Pen when he cannot his Tongue for the good of thy Soul Every particular Chapter will if God add his blessing prove a compleat Soul-saving Treatise I shall add no more to perswade thee to Come and see but this that nothing but unwillingness to see what is here to be seen and unperswadableness to make such improvement of such Sights can make thy Case desperate Be sure only Before In and After thy serious perusal of these Chapters of so much worth that thou beg earnestly of God that he would be pleased with some of his Sons Eye-salve to open thine eyes that thou mayest see and by his Spirit move so upon thy spirit that thine eye may suitably affect thine heart with what so much tends to the promoting of thine eternal welfare The Sins of Professours CHAP. I. Their regardlesseness of Souls 1. HOw Careless are we of our own Souls 1. Ignorance of their preciousness O how few do believe they are men having bodies that must dye but Souls that will never dye How few do believe that their bodies were given them to be serviceable to their Souls Their heads their hearts their eyes their ears their hands their feet c. were all to attend upon their souls and to help them to Heaven But this is not believed by many As they are ignorant of the blessed God who made them and of Jesus Christ who came to redeem them and know not whether there be an Holy-Ghost or no So they are ignorant of the preciousness of their Souls Christ hath not given them eyes to read and understand that a man is not cannot be profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own Soul Christ's questions what will it profit a man c. What shall a man give in exchange for his Soul Matth. 16.26 Put it out of all question Alas many who carry the name of Christians deserve not the name of men When you begin to value your Souls you begin to be men Oh that men would value that which once they shall they must value The damned Spirits know now the worth of their Souls How many will not 2. Inconsiderateness How few consider the worth and preciousness of their Souls When do such thoughts as these possesse you Here in this earthly tabernacle in this house of booths dwells a thing that I never said that is worth a world though here I crawl up and down like a worm of two or three Cubits long and am in danger to be thrown into an hole every day yet I carry with me a Jewell the loss whereof the whole world cannot repair How seldome do nominal Professours consider sadly and seriously what will become of their souls when their excellency Job 4 21. which is in them shall go or journey away as Eliphaz speaks Examine your thoughts all the day long from morning to Evening and few are laid out for the Soul 3. Caring â—â—â—e for the body â—han the 〈◊〉 Are not all the thoughts and cares laid out upon the body though the body be but clay and the soul is a spirit the body must dye but the soul shall never dye How frequently do we think of our â—odies what their wants burthens necessities are but not so of our souls How much of every day is spent in providing for thy body but how little for thy souâ— The body should be but the soul's servant yet men feed the slave and starve the child The body must be fed every day clad every day yea adorned every day and â—hysick'd if distempered but the soul needs food rayment phyâ—ck continually yet lyeth unregarâ—ed is left miserable naked starved c. A servant hath two talents to keep the child and the child's cloaths will the Master thank the servant if he plead I have kept the cloaths but I have neglected the life of the child Thy body is but thy souls outward garment How often have your Ministers told you that the soul was better than the body and that your souls needed dayly care more than your bodies and yet you look after the one with the neglect of the other A day is coming when thou wilt wish thou hadst been bred in the Field among the beasts and worms for that thou regardest thy soul no more than if thou hadst but the life of a beast thou wilt wish thou hadst been made a toad a serpent a worm a dog a swine c. for then thou shouldst not have suffered to eternity as now thou wilt unless the eyes of thy understanding be opened to see consider and make provision for thy precious but perishing soul Thy body is perishing every day and thy soul is upon the borders of eternity it must live for ever and yet all thy care is for the body which likely will not live threescore years and ten but the soul is neglected that must live threescore millions of years in hell without repentance and then when that date is over thou art as far from the end of thy misery as thou wast the first day thou wast thrown among the damned 4. Strangeness towards our souls How many will not speak with their souls They are greater strangers to them than the Londoners are to their next Neighbours Didst thou ever ask thy soul such questions O my soul how is it how will it be with thee O my soul in what state art thou O my soul what will become of thee O! what will become of thee in the next world 5. Niggardlyness towards our souls At what cost were we any time for our jeoparded souls The Physitian is consulted with if there be an ache upon the body we will with the woman part with all beggar our selves to recover health of body When did you know a man starve himself if he could have bread and water what ever it cost We will be at any expence of time labour and charges to keep our bodies from starving but how are the Ordinances of God the Word and Sacraments the spiritual food of the soul neglected The flesh must be satisfied as for the soul there is little regard to its well-being 1 Pet. 2 2. We cannot endure to see a Cat a Dog a Beast want meat but how easily do many digest the want of that milk whereby they should be maintained and grow God saith one gives to these their requests he gives them quailes but sends leanness into their souls 6. How fearless are many of soul-losses Fearlessness of souls losses how common is it for people to draw back from the service of Christ O! what is the matter I shall lose my estate liberty pay such a fine c. They little consider what their souls will lose if they do not persevere if they live not up their light Professours pardon me that I miscall you though you are blind and mad and see not the worth of your souls yet know that
your souls are the most considerable Jewels you stand possessed of All the world will not weigh with one soul Thy money may ransome thy body nothing save Christs blood thy soul Pause a while Reader and reflect on all thy sinfull neglects of thy immortal Soul lest on thy death-bed thou shriek and cry O my soul whether art thou going 2. Carelessness of others souls How little are the souls of others valued and cared for how many masters are there that care no more for their servants souls than for the dogs nay not so much Perhaps some of you are carefull that the bodies of your families be cloathed be fed c. but the souls lie unprovided for Soul-poysoners not censured as they ought to be Make nothing to lay poyson for souls more care is taken for the pigs than for the souls 1. How do we justly censure them as worthy of Capital punishments that murther the bodies of men but not so others who poyson and destroy thousands of souls How do you hate to have an hand in murthering the bodies of any to lay poyson for the destruction of any and yet how commonly do men lay the poyson of ill councell and ill example before others to cause them to fall into the pit of hell and are not affected with this great evil 2. Not troubled at soul-murtherers How troubled are we at any that kill bodies or that murther others but not so at the millions that destroy their own and others souls that have an hand in ruining in damning themselves and others 3. If any neglect means that might have continued the life of their husbands children c. how are they dejected how do the wring their hands and beat their breasts whereas if by carelessness if by the neglect of their duties if by evil example they have destroyed their souls they are not troubled about these matters 4. Low esteems of those that prize their souls How do you account meanly of all that take pains for their souls that wait at the pools of Bethesda that consult Ministers and books and attend on the Ordinances for their souls whilst you account it your wisdome to lay out the most if not all of your time for your bodies Hast thou the name of a Christian I pray God to let one word to sink into thine heart thou hast not Christ thou hast not the Spirit of Christ in thee he knows how to value souls and therefore shed blood for them and sends his Spirit in the Gospel to be importunate for their salvation CHAP. II. Their want of saving Conviction and Compunction HOw many Professours like Paul Alive without the Law Rom 7.9 Rev. 3.1 are alive without the Law How many like Sardis have a name to live imagine they are alive when they are dead How many are alive in their own conceit and perhaps in the conceit of others and yet are void of the true super-natural life How many are contented with their being baptized They see no need of Christ they were born of Christian Parents Luke 3.3 they are of the stock of Abraham We have Abraham to our Father They do not consider how many baptized persons are deadly enemies to Christ and to their souls and averse to the wayes of holiness they will not consider that Swearers Drunkards and Adulterers have as good claimes to Christ and heaven as these have How many also please themselves with the Religion of Education God hath not moulded their hearts though Parents their lives their Parents have taught them some Principles of Religion but they are strangers to the wonderful operations and teachings of the Holy Ghost they have not the Unction from above they know not what it is that teacheth all things and yet such as these are alive i. e. merry jocund jovial confident if any goe to heaven they shall be of the number But to speak more particularly First Few convinced of original sin imputed How many are there that were never convinced of original sin imputed or imparted 1. How few are convinced that Adam was a common person and that we sinned in his loynes that if he had stood we had stood and that it is just with God that he ship wracking himself we should be counted sinners in him We did eat of the forbidden fruit in Adam we in Adam believed the Devil rather thaâ— God we in Adam broke with God for toyes and trifles we were ungrateful disobedient in him we apostâ—tized in him and broke covenant with God in him hence by one mans offence sin entred into the world Rom. 5.12 and death by sin for that as Levi paid tithes in Abraham so we becâ—me rebells against the Majesty of Heaven in our first Parents when did you shed a tear for Adam's sin for your and his grand provocation 2. Few convinced of original sin inherent Psal 5.9 How few see Adam 's sinful nature imparted to them They see not their inward part is very wickedness nothing but wickedness Few see what a sad Apostacy from the perfection of mans nature Sin hath brought into the world and how black an Image of Sathan it hath drawn upon the soul they never saw what filthy dirty loathsome things they are in the eyes of God they never saw their noysomeness and venome the garbage and malignity of their hearts How few see a general defect of all righteousness and holiness wherein at first they were created How few are convinced of an antipathy to all that is good That they are haters of God by nature Eph. 2.1 that they are dead in trespasses and sins a more dreadful estate than if they were rotting in their graves that they have an Ocean of corruption within them that will never be dried up in this life that they have a worse Leprosie than that among the Jewes which got into the walls and would never out till the house was demolished who almost thinks so sadly of themselves They bless God their hearts are good though they be the worst of men pray not slight Ordinances closet duties and family worship lies neglected yet the Devil perswades them all is well their hearts are good though the heart of man by nature be like hell it self whose fire of lust is unquenchable though it be like Peter's great sheet which he saw in the Vision full of all unclean things Acts 11.6 though it be a receptacle of all impiety yet how few turn their eyes inward to see their natural deformities Alass All the venome the Snake sends forth is nothing to the poyson that lies in its nature And all those monstrous impieties which the lives of men are taunted with are not to be compared with the venome that lurks in the heart of every man by nature Men would not glory in their blood and descent did they but believe how sin descended and was conveyed Men could not content themselves to walk heavily under some actual
neglected to talk of what you have heard Have not some Not talking of it as soon as dismiss'd from the Sermon fallen into impertinent discourses about news and trifles or into worldly business Mat. 13.7 22. and so the thornes choak'd all the convictions which they received under the Ministry They consider not that the Word they have heard hath been the savour of life or of death 2 Cor. 2.16 and that every one that goes from a Sermon goes off either with God or the Devil in his company Have not you been hearers of the Word only Not practising it Jam. 1.22 and not doers of it Have not you so deceived your own selves Your Ministers have prest you to secret Prayer and to constancy in it but have not you gone away and continued in the neglect of that wherein the power of godliness and heart-sincerity mainly consists Blessed are they that hear the Word of God Luke 11.28 and keep it i. e. that are good Practitioners that have a conscionable care to regulate heart and life according to what they hear and know They are rather blest than the Mother of Christ was for bringing him into the World Christ puts a rather upon the good Practitioner than upon the Virgin Mary But alas Let it be for a Lamentation that so many Professours have been for hearing but for doing only what they listed Amos 8.5 6 7 8 9. Saying When will the new Moon be gone that we may sell Corn and the Sabbath that we may set forth Wheat Making the Ephah small and the Shekel great and falsifying the Ballances by deceit That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shooes yea and sell the refuse of the Wheat The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob Surely I will never forget any of their works Shall not the Land tremble for this c The Kingdome of God shall be taken from you Mat. 21.43 Luke 12.43 and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof But Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing When did you find the Glasses to discover and amend your Spots Have you been cast into the Form of the Doctrine which ye have received Have you obeyed from the heart the Form of Doctrine delivered to you Hath your profiting appear'd answerable to the many months and years you have sate under the Dews of Heaven What do you know more than you did before What do you believe love and hope for more than you did Have your hearts and lusts stooped more and more to this Scepter of Christ Believe it Sirs If Sin be not more odious and Christ more sweet and precious after you have been in the Shepheards Tents you have lost your hearing hours yea contracted more guilt to your Souls That you have not been chang'd from glory to glory is a great stain to the Ministry and a great ground of sadness to the poor Ministers who fear they have laboured in vain And yet have not you been such unprofitable hearers that Seekers Ranters and Quakers have took occasion to cry down the Office of the Ministry as a Cheat as an old Almanack out of date because they have seen how unsuccessful the labours of Christs Ministers have been upon your Souls If you had come down from these Mounts with your faces shining if you had received more of God upon your hearts and lives you had more credited the Ministry and put to silence these foolish men What shall I say A worse Famine is coming on Professours than what happened to Egypt and if you have laid up no store what will ye do in the years of lean Kine 7. Have not you greatly miscarried Their miscarriages as to consulting with their Ministers Mat. 16.19 as to consulting with them Though one great work of your Ministers was to deal personally with your Souls and God intrusted them with the power of binding and loosing doctrinally at least and hath promised to loose in Heaven what they loosed on Earth and to confirm the Word of his Servants Isa 44.26 and perform the Counsel of his Messengers yet how little weight have you laid upon their judgements Have not you more credited the Physicians opinion of your Bodies Laying little weight on their Judgements Not consulting with them at all and the Lawyers about your Estates than you have your Ministers concerning your Souls How seldome are Ministers consulted with about the business of the Soul and Eternity Will not they in the Acts rise up to condemn this Generation They repaired to Christs Ministers with Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved Acts 2.37 But alas How many have sate 30 40 50. Years under a Minister and never advised with him what to do They have been no more moved Through hard Heartedness Bride than the Rocks were that Bede preached to Or else through the Pride of their hearts they have thought to heal themselves They have been so puff'd up with their own knowledge that they have not cared to hear what their Ministers could declare unto them If they be to take a Journey they will ask the Way of every one they meet but so unreasonably consident are they of their knowing the Way to Glory though there be many Wayes Prov. 14.12 that do indeed lead down to Hell yet seem the right Way to Heaven that they will not so much as ask the Way thither-ward of any Guide Prov. 26.16 The Fool is wiser in his own conceit than seven men thas can render a reason Or else they have thought as well of their Souls as some doe of their flesh Thinking the wound will heal of it self that the wound will heal of it self And hath it not so done no body knows how Can you tell how the troubles and impressions made by the Ministry in your own Souls have worn away have not Ministers sound after the House hath been swept and garnished that seven worse Spirits have entred into the Souls of many convinced and terrified Professors and their latter end was worse than their beginning Many saith famous Hooker in a stupid kind of sottish senselessness wear out the blow and so wast away to nothing as many out of sorrow have become like senseless blocks How oft hath Satan like a Cut-purse drawn thee into solitudes disswaded thee from going near thy Minister that he may rob thee of thy Convictions and the better to effect this hath he not perswaded thee to look on the Minister as proud high scorning to condescend to hear thy Soul grievances and complaints whereas he hath many and many a time with the greatest importunity beg'd this trouble of dressing thy sores If you have consulted with your Ministers Not consulting with them soon enough Acts 24.25 have not you delayed going to these Soul-Physicians When the wound was newly given and bleeding you should have
told the prudent should hold their peace in an evil day though I know 't is an unthankful office to admonish and reprove c. Yet I have laid by all Impediments and Objections that Self was obtruding and wish I had such gifts and such affections and such a discerning of the hearts and lives of Professours as might render me some way useful to put you upon self-reflection upon self-tryal in order to a full Repentance I pray God I may so farr at least succeed as to obstruct that cursed exclaiming against the sins of Governours and the sins of divided Parties as at length to make you cry out What have I done O! how have I provoked God Out of pity to your souls have I undertaken this subject Our pangs like those of a travailling Woman are hastening the Clouds are swelling I am loth they should fall on you in a secure and impenitent condition I am not ashamed to tell you that I foresee foul weather and I would you should be in readiness for boisterous Seas I know nothing save guilt will then sink your hearts the load of affliction will be so heavy and hard upon you that I would have nothing else not the load of millions of unrepented sins at the same time to press you down Sins unrepented of will soon as poyson drink up your spirits If sin be confessed and repented of if God hath forgiven no matter what loads lye upon the back seeing no guilt lyes upon the Conscience Having given you an accompt of my Design and the reason of it I shall only add That it may not be expected I should give you a full Catalogue of all your sins which are provocations in the eyes of the Lord this day Who can understand his errours Cleanse thou me and the Land from all our secret Psal 19.12 as well as known faults God forbid I should be so censorious as to judge all Professours guilty of these sins in all the Particularities or in all the Aggravations of them Some are to be charged one way some another few can wash their hands in innocency that they are no ways Principals or Accessories Farr be it from me to be partial in my Charge to advance any Faction of men upon the ruines of their Brethren I desire you would take this Catalogue into your Closets with you and as you read set a special mark of observation on those sins which are chiefly yours in order to repentance and amendment and then give the Lord no rest till he hath took his Pen and dipt it in the blood of his Son and blotted them out of his Diary and remembrance And Lastly Let me beseech the Reader to be very importunate with the Lord for an humble tender spirit that prejudice unbelief and hardness of heart may not accompany him in the perusal of the following lines and thereby both his and my own endeavours become abortive A Brief ACCOUNT OF What may be expected in the following TREATISE By a Friend to the Authour and Reader PRofessour In this necessary and seasonable Gospel-Glass there are many sad but useful Sights for thee First Wouldst thou know what may be seen I 'le tell thee Herein the Miscarriâ—ges of Professours and therefore of thine own self are enumerated and aggravated The Sins enumerated are either against the Law and Gospel joyntly or against the Gospel and Law severally Professours Sins against the Law and Gospel joyntly are hinted in the first Chapter which shews their Regardlessness of their own and others Souls Their Sins against the Gospel more peculiarly are spoken to in the seven next Chapters The 2d shews their Want of saving Conviction and Compunction the 3d. their Want of Despair in Self the 4th their Miscarriages about Soul-troubles the four following Chapters their Miscarriages about believing in Christ the 5th their Ignorance of Christ serving their turns of Christ making base Capitulations with him the 6th their Delayes to close with Christ the 7th their Taking Christ partially without conjugal Affections and without considering the Cost they may be at the 8th their Shuffling together false Signes of closing with Christ. Their Sins against the Law more peculiarly are either against the First or Second Table Their Sins against the First Table under the Head of Vngodliness are discovered in the Eleven following Chapters The 9th shews their Ignorance and Errours the 10th their Want of Love to God the 11th their Evil Surmises of God the 12th their Vnthankfulness the 13th their Neglect of Prayer especially of Secret both Ejaculatory and Closet-Prayer the 14th their Miscarriages about their Prayers the 15th their Slighting the written Word of God especially in not reading and meditating on it as they ought the 16th their Miscarriages about the Promises the 17th their Abuse of Providence the 18th their Hypocrisy the 19th their Sabbath-Sins Their Sins against the Second Table are either Personal or Relative Their Personal Sins are evinced in the four next Chapters The 20th shews their Miscarriages about Self-tryal the 21st their Pride the 22d their Gluttony the 23d their Idleness Their Relative Sins are spoken to in the Fourteen following Chapters The 24th shews their Vnmercifulness the 25th their Vnrighteousness or Vnfaithfulness in Trading the 26th their Covetousness the 27th their Envy the 28th their Sins as Superiours the 29th as Husbands or Wives the 30th as Parents or Children the 31st as Masters or Servants the 32d their Miscarriages towards Ministers before their silencing the 33d Since their silencing the 34th their Miscarriages towards Sinners The Aggravations of their Miscarriages that are here enumerated thou hast in the two next Chapters The 37th shews their Dis-ingenuity and Scandalousness the 38th their Sinning against Knowledge and impenitently notwithstanding all means to bring them unto Repentance Secondly Wouldst thou know and that experimentally How useful such Sights may be unto thy Soul Read diligently the two last Chapters The 39th shews What Vse thou shouldst make of this Glass and the 40th What Reason there is thou shouldst make such Vse thereof And now Consciencious Reader so I stile thee because I hope thou resolvest so to be having given thee this brief Account of what thou mayest expect in the following excellent Treatise I cannot but assure thee that if thou bringest hither with thee a serious and teachable Spirit desirous to have thy Soul searched to the quick and the sores thereof launced and throughly cured thou wilt not lose thy cost and pains The closeness and pythiness of the Compilement will not only please but the Materials so full of Spiritual vigour and Scriptural-experience will wonderfully advantage thy Soul and give thee cause all the dayes of thy life yea to eternity to bless God for putting it into the heart of the Reverend Authour after he hath sacrificed his spirits and strength in a publick way of service to God and his Church with more than ordinary activity and self-denial under many bodily weaknesses yea under a
dung of hell devoured and swallowed How few see sin to be contrary to the works of God although God had no sooner perfected the goodly faâ—rick of Heaven and Earth but sin gave a shrewd shake to all it shook and dis-joynted all and had it not been for Christ the great Mediatour it had ruined the whole frame of Nature How few see sin to be contrary to the will of God God saith I will have this done I 'le not do it saith Sin I 'le have this suffered saith God I 'le not suffer it saith Sin Nay so great is the contest betwixt Sin and God that if it could it would unbee God How few take notice of its contrariety to the very nature of God God is good Sin is evil God is pure Sin is impure How few believe sin to be universally evil that there is no good in it We cannot perswade men that there is good in poverty good in disgrace good in reproaches with the tongue and persecutions unto death but easily are men perswaded there is some good in sin How few are convinced of the miserable effects and consequences of sin The wrath of God is not revealed against their unrighteousnest and ungodliness so as to make their knees to tremble The hand-writing on the wall is not observed They are still alive We cannot for our hearts perswade men to goe up to heaven to see what spoyles it made there could we herein prevail then would they inferr that there is more evil in the least sin than there is good in all the Angells of heaven for that one sin conquered them and spoyled them of all their beauty and made them of glorious creatures to become such loathsome and hideous spectacles neither can we prevail with any almost to take a journey to Paradise to see its venome there or to goe to the Garden or to Mount Calvary to see what work it did there or to goe to hell-gate to hear the doleful shrieks and cries which it hath caused there though God hath said Psal 68.21 God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses though there is no peace saith my God to the wicked Isa 57.21 though sin be the sole object of Gods hatred for God loved the whole Creation till its beauty was blasted and stained by sin though sin only seperates between God and souls Isa 59.2 though in the belly of it be found all miseries deaths and hells though it be the founder of all graves and of Tophet though it fill the conscience with terrours and hell with fire and brimstone yet few are affected with the evils of it but they drink in iniquity as water Thirdly Few sensible of being under the wrath of God John 3.28 36. Eccles 8.11 How few Professours are sensible that they are cast by an holy and righteous Law that they are condemned creatures that the wrath of God abideth on them Few have seen the black cloud full of woes brim full of wrath ready to empty it self upon their souls they take no notice that though the sentence be not executed speedily yet it is given forth and there may be but a little breath and they are gone to perish for ever How many senseless souls are there in our Parishes whose consciences were never shaken whose spirits were never wounded who never received the spirit of bondage to fear who never knew what a fearfull expectation of judgement meant who go dancing to hell in the Devils chains and yet count themselves the noble and gallant spirits and flatter themselves in their own eyes and say we shall have peace though we walk in the imaginations of our hearts Deut. 29.19 Rev. 3.16 17. These are Laodicean-like rich and full and needing nothing when God is about to spue them out of his mouth as we discharge our stomacks of some loathsome surfets Pro. 26.16 These are wiser in their own conceit then seven men that can render a reason Though one Minister at the heels of another endeavour with Scripture upon Scripture to convince them of and to prick them at the heart for their sin and danger yet they are boysterously confident and presumptuous that they shall to heaven as soon as any Precisians in the Country Never did many break one nights sleep upon the consideration of their sinfull and lost condition by nature never did they loath their ordinary food or feel the smart of broken bones as David did though they have sinned at an higher rate never did they know what a wounded spirit meant what anguish of soul was never did they feel Gods wrath or sin a burthen insupportable they were never pricked at the heart so as to cry out What shall I do to be saved What shall I do to have me sins pardoned Would you know the reason of all this security Alas they are dead in sins and trespasses A dead condition is an insensible condition death deprives of sense as well as life the dead are not frighted with the swords and pistols at their breasts the dead fear not though threatned with fire and brimstone the dead hear not though God be on Mount Ebal thundering curses upon curses the dead see not though sin be so ugly a monster and hell so frightfull a place the dead smell not though sin stinks worse than the vomit of dogs 2 Pet. 2.20 than rotten Sepulchres or than the corrupted matter of the most nasty disease it offends not the dead to have this stinking Carrion alwayes in their bosomes the dead feel not though that which is heavier than montains of lead be lying on their backs they grown not neither do they complain so much as Cain did they do not go softly in the bitterness of their souls by reason of their sins Many cannot say with Hannah that ever they were of a sorrowfull Spirit Though there be so many curses upon the heads of all natural persons though there be an entayl of wrath upon the heads of the very sins they live in though their sins are or may be circumstantiated to a greater degree than any of the Scripture-Offendors that we read of as being committed under the open Sun of the Gospel though Hell be open to receive them every moment whilst impenitent whilst hardned though the Valley of Hinnom is making room for them to entertain them with the vengeance of a justly-provoked God yet few fear few work out their salvation with weeping eyes and trembling hearts they are still alive without the Law they never walked softly with Ahab or were under Soul-trouble with Judas they fall short of the pangs and sense of Hypocrites Oh! Oh! Oh! I pitty these secure souls how short will they fall of their hopes and how farr short of Heaven Fourthly Few sensible of Sathans working in them Eph. 2.2 How few are sensible that all this while the Devil works in them as in his
insufficiencies he sees not his unworthiness to goe to Heaven and Glory he sees not his inability to think a good thought he hopes without a Christ he can do something If he did judge his condition hopeless he would tremble and have no rest in himself till God hath delivered him he would see an absolute necessity of obtaining Christ and his righteousness and he would be put off with nothing else But O! how hard a work do Ministers find it first to take off men from their sins and then from considence in their duties We tell men Christ will have no sharer in the glory of saving lost man but people will at least have their works and Christ to divide the spoyles to share in the glory of bringing back lost Souls to God We advise men to lay no weight on their duties bâ—t to lean alone on Christ's merits but in vain Christ saith If yee seek me let these go their way these duties as well as these sins but the deaf eare is turned and we find it much easier to perswade men their sins will damn them then their duties whilst Christ is thereby neglected CHAP. IV. Their miscarriages about their Soul-troubles IF the Spirit of the Lord have convinced men of their danger by their sins Miscarriages about Soul-troubles and their own righteousness that they still see God angry with them and if their Souls remain under trouble and disquiet yet are they not guilty of some if not all of the following miscarriages 1. Few iustifie God How few are there that justifie God Few accept of the punishment of their iniquities they do not clear God as they should from all unrighteousness Commonly proud hearts swell and fume against these methods of God Though the filthiness of their hearts be laid open before them yet they fall not down upon their faces in the acknowledgement of their unworthiness of mercy few charge themselves and acquit God They cannot be brought to give God the glory of his righteousness if he should condemn them to the pit of hell they do not willingly and uprightly own the desert of damnation and charge themselves with it as their due portion and most just inheritance Lam. 3.30 Mic. 7.9 Ezra 9.13 Dan. 9.7 8. Few give their cheeks to him that smiteth as the Church did they do not say I will bear the iudignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him or with Ezra thou hast punished us lesse than our iniquities have deserved or with Daniel O Lord Righteousnesse belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face How seldome do you hear Professours with this Confession in their mouths Lord I am thy creature and thou mayst do with thy creature what pleaseth thee It pleased thee to put thine image on me Eccl. 7.29 Isa 52.3 to create me upright but I have sought out many inventions I have sold my self for nought I have preferred the Devils work before thine and therefore thou mayst abhor me and give me my portion among the damned crew and if I feel some sparks of hell fire in thy wrathfull present frowns it is of thy rich patience and mercy that they are but sparks if thou cast me off for ever it is but what I have deserved long ago it is of the Lords mercy that I was not hurled from the womb or cradle to hell because of my native sinfulness but wo is me I have provoked the pure eyes of thy glorious Majesty dayes without number I have been a Rebel of a long standing against thee my will hath been justling and quarrelling with thine these many years and therefore if I be sent to hell thou art righteous and clear when thou judgest Psa 51.4 I can blame none save my self if I perish everlastingly though I have many fears and sorrows on me yet blessed be God they are not the sorrows of hell thanks be to the Lord that I am not yet among the damned ones roaring in the Pit of hell Few believe they deserve damnation hence Souls are murmuring at any affliction at the loss of an Husband Child Estate c. as if God had dealt hardly with them in depriving them thus How few Professours Few willingly under Soul-trouble Hos 2.6 Rom. 8.15 when under Soul-troubles are willingly under them They see not the advantage of having their way hedg'd up with these thorns They do not receive the Spirit of Bondage They do not accept this punishment They take it not kindly at Gods hands Their troubles are involuntary few kindly works that I meet with among awakened and startled Professours they are held in the chains against their will How many are afraid of sorrow for sin Some think it will spoyl good faces and their beauty may he lost through their troubles but others think it will bring them to despair and therefore farewell to such a Preacher he is too terrible for their Souls Hence Saul must have his harp to divert him the Cards must be taken up again some merry Books some Romances must be read perhaps a Play may be seen jovial frothy Company must be called in and all this to divert the Soul from minding its danger lest it be swallowed up of grief or some unskilfull and unfaithfull Emperick shall be sent for to sow pillows under him that he may sleep the quieter Few Daniel-like when their cogitations much trouble them Dan. 7.28 so that their countenances are changed in them keep notwithstanding the matter in their hearts How few are active in their Soul-troubles Retire and go alone that they may search the Scriptures and ransack their hearts in order to contrition and humiliation of their hearts How few are gladded by any portion of Gods word that brings their sinfulness and self-fulness to remembrance and causeth any meltings of heart and humblings of Souls under it How do some Professours quarrel with their Ministers and snarl at the Books that give them trouble of Spirit 3. Few mourn on spiritual accounts How few mourn for Sin upon Spiritual accounts That their God is dishonoured their good and gracious God who hath done so much for them c. doth not chiefly cut their hearts Against thee Psal 51.4 thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight but perhaps they are troubled for wronging themselves endangering themselves c. They cry as dogs when they have done a fault they fear the whip and so they houle 4. Few reforming and believing mourners How many Professors mourn for their sins yet live in the continued practise of them Notwithstanding their tears yet their hearts are in league with their lusts Thus like the Scolds at Billingsgate they are soon out soon in again with their lusts but few whilst mourning for their sins are sollicitous and carefull which way God may have satisfaction for the injuries that have been done unto him The mourning of many Professours last no longer than the trouble of
have nothing but Sathans leavings O! Doubtless for these delays is Christs wrath ready to be powred out upon this Nation to the uttermost The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven 2 Thes 17.8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ By delaying to hearken to Christs calls and invitations thou tellest Christ to his face that he is not altogether lovely that he is not the fairest of ten thousand that there is somewhat in Sins service and the Devils that is more desirable than what can be had in Christs And canst thou imagine such Blasphomy viz. To tell Christ to his face that thou valuest thy lusts above the enjoyment of him is not provoking O! if ever these come over fully to Christ if Christs patience be extended yet longer and they be at length wone to him How will they befool themselves that they came into Christs service no sooner Nimis sero te amaâ—â— O! I have loved thee too late Oh thâ—â—oy the unspeakable Joy I have lost Oh the peace that I might have had Oh the assurance of Gods love that my Soul might have been filled with Oh the experiences of the grace of God that I might have had if I had come into Christ on Christs first call and intreaty Oh the opportunities of service that I might have had when the marrow was in my bones when I was young and fresh for duty Oh! Lam. 3.27 How good had it been if I had born Christs yoak sooner in my youth O the many sins that I have been guilty of Oh! how long withstood I the Grace of God and grieved the Spirit of God Oh! What a burden was I to Christs Ministers and much more to Christ himself But God alone knows how soon his Spirit shall cease striving with these poor Souls and how long they shall be within a capacity of obeying the Heavenly Call The Jewes have a Rule that if a man vowes any service to God before he dyes he must do it presently because he may dye presently Rev. 6.8 Death and Hell are described coming on Horseback in full speed Ask thy self therefore Jeremiah's question Jer. 12.5 Can I out-run or escape these Horsemen However through the great and wonderful averseness there is in mens hearts from Christ they stay and linger like Lot in Sodom that if God do not work a miracle upon them and for them they will perish in the flames They know what the foolish Virgins lost by their delayes all is one no coming to Christ as long as possibly they can make any shift to live without him and until an Almighty power exert it self on their Souls to make them willing of a Christ One hath a Wife another a Yoak of Oxen all of them some business or other to detain them for the present from Christ They do not utterly deny to come but at present they have such employments as that they have no present freedome to wait upon him The Son of God must dance attendance on them they must be banqueting with the Devil within and Christ must stand without yea wait their leasure till they receive him in There are several sorts of these delaying Professours 1. Delayes to come to Christ Some and they the worst sort from their great love to their lusts and to the comforts and sensualities of this life which they fear From love to worldly Lusts when they are under Christs yoak they shall be bereaved of delay coming to Christ Sin hath so rooted it self in their hearts and affections that they are loth to take a final farewell thereof loth to mortifie their earthly members Sin is so prevalent with them that they had rather part from their right eye hand and foot than part from their sins hence they choak their Convictions what they can admit of any pleasures and diversions to wear out the impressions that are made in their Consciences that they may still lodge sin in their bosomes and not come to Christ hence they labour to quench the Spirit of God and through the prevails of spiritual sloth will not use the means whereby they may be fully converted to Christ They pretend they are desirous of Christ only they doubt whether Christ is willing to receive them but that which lieth at the bottom is this they are loth to leave their darling lusts and loth to pray and watch their hearts and to do what God requires and expects at their hands in order to Conversion You may imagine God is highly provoked hereby for God to send his Son unto you the best Jewel that ever lay in his bosome and for you to neglect and undervalue him and preferr swinish lusts before him 't is a plain argument that you never saw sin aright in its nature and effects and that you do not credit God in his discoveries of the glory of his Son You do not believe you are so miserable without a Christ as indeed you are you slight the greatest Gift that ever God conferr'd upon the children of men you make void the great counsels of God all the thoughts of his wisdome and grace in contriving such a way as by Jesus Christ to save you from wrath to come you also frustrate the expectations of God Mat. 21.37 for Surely saith God they will reverence my Son whereas by your trifling delayes you tell God and men that you believe not any advantage you shell have by the Son of God you think it will be to your loss to receive in the Lord of glory He tells you Psal 36.8 Ye shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of his House Cant. 5.1 3. and ye shall drink of the Rivers of his Pleasures He tells you He hath gathered his Myrrh with his Spices He hath wine milk and honey You cry out Prov. 24.33 I have put off my Coat how shall I put it on c. A little more slumber in the Devil's Lap a little more folding of the hands to sleep You are told of Joyes unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 Phil. 4.7 John 17.3 of Peace that passeth all understanding of eternal Life by knowing Christ You are told you can never be reconciled unto God but by Christ that he must end all Controversies between Christ and your Souls that He is able to save to the uttermost Hebr. 7.25 Psal 19.10 Acts 24.25 Luke 14.18 Jo. 8.24 Jo. 3.36 Pro. 8.34 35. Rev. 3.20 all that come unto God by him that His Word is more desirable than gold yea than much fine gold But all this prevails not with you When I have a convenient Season c. Yet I cannot I pray have me excused He tells you If you believe not that I am he you shall dye in your sins and that he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him yet delayes still He tells you Blessed
anew He is even ashamed to unravell all the Clue of his ungrounded confidences What begin upon a new bottome No not he and so Christ and he part He takes his supposed grace to be a Christ or at least that there must be Christ where such changes are and so cries out Soul take thine ease thou hast goods laid up for many years yea for Eternity CHAP. IX Their Vngodliness their Ignorance their Errours etc. HAve not many Professors been ungodly men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men without worship Profectors Vngodliness If to deny or withhold any part of that respect or honour that is due unto God Jude 4. be ungodliness how much ungodliness hath there been and is there still amongst us Which of us hath not been guilty of not giving God his right or due honour Have not we suck'd in many ungodly Principles As that it is in vain to worship God there is no happiness comparable to what the World doth afford in communion with God Religion is but a notion and fancy Policy is the only Piety This world must be look'd after whatever becomes of Conscience c. Psal 50.21 Job 22.12 13. Psal 14.1 Have not we been guilty of ungodly thoughts have not we thought that God is not so harsh but we may take liberty in sinning that he taketh no notice of what we think speak and do yea that there is no God Have not we spoken ungodly words have not we uttered those very hard speeches which ungodly sinners speak Have not we spoken against Gods servants yea have we been afraid to speak against his Servant Moses And have not many of our deeds been ungodly yea though we have not ungodly committed them God hath always been sorely provoked by ungodliness The Flood swept away the World of the Ungodly 2 Pet. 2.7 but yet we might have been ungodly under the Law at a cheaper rate than under the Gospel because the Gospel gives us more clear and certain notions of Gods excellency and glory and lays more obligations upon us to respect God and therefore is called a doctrine according to godliness 1 Tim. 6.3 Psa 1.5 Jude 15. The ungodly shall not stand in judgement neither in the world to come nor in this world The day of Judgement is appointed on purpose to take vengeance of ungodly persons First Their Ignorance of God 1 Cor. 15.34 John 4.22 Have not some Professors been and still are altogether ignorant of God Some have not the knowledge of God I speak this saith the Apostle to your shame May it not be said to many of us Ye worship ye know not what Do not many Professours worship God upon no other account than the Romans did their Jupiter or the Ephesians their Diana viz. because he is the God of the Nation wherein they were born because he was their fore-Fathers God because his worship is in credit and because the Magistrate commands that God be worshipped Have not we worshipped God by Tradition more than out of Conviction of Judgement Hath not our worship been to the unknown God Acts 17.23 God is truly in a Scripture sense unknown to all that do not know him experimentally and practically Now have we tasted and seen Psal 34.8 that the Lord is gracious Have not we said we knew God and yet kept not his Commandements He that saith so is a Lyar 1 Jo. 2.4 3. and the truth is not in him Hereby know we that we know him if we keep his Commandements If we do not thus know God we are none of his Children he hath no Child so little but he knoweth his Father Jer. 31.4 They shall all know me from the least to the greatest Our being the People of God in Profession will not secure us from ruine Hos 4 6 2 Thes 1.8 My People are destroyed for lack of Knowledge The Lord Jesus will come in flaming Fire to render vengeance on us for he will so deal with all that know not God Secondly Their Eâ—rours How erroneous have been Professours None can be such a stranger to our Israel as to be ignorant that a Spirit of Delusion hath been let loose abroad from Dan to Beersheba so that the Pillars of Religion are shaken the most concerning Truths questioned if not exploded with scorn and contempt Have not some made God the Author of Sin Have not others forgot that they were Creatures and have assumed the liberty or rather highest impudence to say that they were Godded and that the fulness of the God-head doth dwell bodily in every Saint in the same measure as it did in Christ Jesus whilst he dwelt upon the Earth Nay have not others affirmed Jesus Christ to be a Bastard Have not others said They were Christ and would in the pride of their hearts have others to worship them Have not some denied Christs Deity affirming That he was not God essentially but only nominally yea that his pure Nature was stained with Sin How many have denied the Trinity of Persons How many under pretence that the Law of Works binds not have abrogated all the Laws of Christ and turned cursed Libertines How many have under pretence of advancing the Spirits testimony maintained Sanctification to be a dirty qualification and cryed down all marks and signes How many have held that the Doctrine of Repentance Fasting and Humiliation are too Legal for the Spirit of a Christian How many have denied Christs sitting in a Body at the right hand of God How many have denied his Satisfaction and Purchase Have not some held that there is no Heaven no Hell no Resurrection from the Dead and that the Beast and Man have one common end How many have been altogether for Inspirations and profess'd themselves above the Sphere of all Ordinances How many have denied Water-Baptism the Supper the Ministry yea the Scriptures of God How many have accounted it their highest Perfection to sin away all tenderness of Conscience and look'd upon themselves the more holy by how much Villany they could be guilty of beyond others How can we refrain from weeping out our eyes how should our eares tingle Considerations to promote mourning for errours to see and hear these Abominations How hath the God of Truth been provoked by these cursed miscreants What horrible affronts have been offered to the dread Majesty of God thereby How many thousand Souls have perished by these Delusions And what aâ—dishonour hath come to the Christian Religion by reason thereof I cannot express Certainly saith one there is more deadly mischief Bp. Hall and higher offence to God in them than in those practical evils which honest hearts profess to abhorr These as they are immediate fruit of our spiritual part so they do more immediately strike at the God of Spirits in his truth and holiness And as Religion is the highest Concernment of the Soul so the depravation of Religion must needs be the most
the chiefest among ten thousand his head is as the most fine gold his locks are bushy black as a Raven his eyes are as the eyes of Doves by the Rivers of waters washed with milk and fitly set his cheeks are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers his lipps like Lillies dropping sweet smelling myrrhe his hands are like gold Rings set with the Berill his belly is as bright Ivory overlaid with Saphires his legs are as Pillars of Marble set upon sockets of sine gold his countenance is as Lebanon excellent as the Cedars his mouth is most sweet yea he is altogether lovely This is my Beloved c. I 'le praise thee with uprightness Psal 119.7 164. Septies i. e. Saepissime Psal 148. I 'le praise thee seven times a day Yea David thought seven times a day too little and therefore he call'd in all the Creatures of Heaven and Earth Air and Sea to praise God the Dragons in the deep must not be silent True Lovers praise God as much as they can they exalt God to the utmost of their power and then from a sense that God is above all their praise they would have every thing that hath breath to praise the Lord yea and inanimates too for to joyn in the Quire Doth Praise wait for God 11. Did you love God Not loving all of God and Christ Jo. 13.34 35. 1 Jo. 4.19 you would love every thing of God Do you love his Omnipresence his Justice his Holiness True love to Christ sticks not barely in the Person of Christ but reacheth to all that have an Union with him Do we love Christ mystical as well as personal Are we of Catholick Spirits The Apostle is peremptory and brandeth them all as Liars that pretend to love God and Christ and do not love Saints 12. Not thirsting after nearer Communion True Lovers of God thirst after nearer Commuion with God My Soul followeth hard after thee The Soul still encroacheth upon God Let me see thy Glory saith Moses though he saw more than Mortals were commonly permitted to behold yet Semper avarus eget Much would have more Psal 42.1 2. As the Hart panteth after the Water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God my Soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God A true Lover of God is under an holy impatience till he ceaseth to see darkly in a glass He would fain see with open face O! saith such a Soul the distance between Christ and me is too great O! I cannot but groan earnestly when I consider I am absent from the Lord whilst present in the body Lord saith Austin I will dye that I may enjoy thee I will not live but I will dye I desire to dye that I may see Christ and refuse to live that I may live with Christ The broken Rings Contracts and Espousals content not the true Lover but he longs for the Marriage day Here are Clouds that oft pass 'twixt God and my Soul O that I were above them Here if I see and enjoy the fear of losing so sweet a sight abates the comfort of fruition but then welcome an eternal day that shall never have a night 13. Being weary of his Commands If you loved God his Commandements would not be grievous to you Love cannot be easily poised Love hath a kind of Almightiness in it so that heavy burdens are made light 1 Jo. 5.3 and almost impossible things become feasible But of how many things do we say Mal. 1.13 What a weariness is it How are you haled by Governours by Conscience and by the terrours of the Law unto Duties How like Slaves chain'd to Gallies you must work though sore against your wills Did you love God you would count nothing tedious Hebr. 12.1 save dulness in his service Sin would only be the Weight O the burden of Formality Pride c But O the pleasures of the wayes of God! His yoak is easie his burden light 14. Did you love God Not fearing how it goes with Gods affairs 1 Sam. 4.13 you would be jealous lest it should goe ill with Gods affairs The loving Mother trembleth lest the Child should suffer when she is off from it But alas how few Elies are there whose hearts tremble beause of the Ark Do you really fear lest Formality should eat out the Power of Godliness lest Traditions should make void the Commandements of God lest your Trades should spoyl your Communion with God You may easily imagine Considerations tending to humble us for want of Love to God the want of Love to God must needs be a great Provocation O to pretend love and yet Judas-like betray Christ with a kisse to say Hail Master and yet preferr a base Lust before him What an indignity is it to the Husband that the Wife loves the Slave before him The World should be your Slave but it hath got the heart the bosome and Christ must stand without doors till his locks are wet Cant. 5. O that God should stoop so low as to love you as to make you the birth of his everlasting counsels of love that he should carry you long in the womb of his eternal purpose This goodly Fabrick of Heaven and Earth had not been erected but as a Stage whereon he would shew his love to you And did he not in the fulness of time purchase you by the blood of his First-born yea of his only begotten Son and for this very end that he might gain your love as well as reveal his own love And yet that your love should not be like an Eccho which returneth what it receiveth Sure you should cast back Gods beams of love upon himself This is all he expects My Son give me thine heart All the command he layes upon you Mat. 22 36 37. is in one word To Love him God might have commanded our Children to be sacrificed to pass through the Fire O! what a favour is it to love the Lord That God will honour us so farr as to suffer us to love him And yet we love any thing any sordid base Lust rather than God We would count it a favour if a Prince would give us a privy Key to come to him when we please Here is more honour we may have recourse to the bosom of God when we will God would have us to love him with all the heart with all the soul The Lord would not lose one grain of our love O that we should deny him that which he with reverence be it spoken and thought on is so fond of Deut. 10.12 And now Israel what doth the Lord require of thee but to love him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul God requires not now Cattle upon a thousand Hills or Rivers of Oyle Only Love me Love me Love me heartily constantly chiefly and yet we deny him our
loves O! I hate my self whilst writing this that I love the Lord so little so seldom It was he that made me and not I my self He hath wonderfully formed me and wonderfully preserved me and shewed many wonders in the deeps to me O! what shall I do to love the Lord with a superlative love O I am ready to say Let me love nothing if I love not thee nay love nothing till I love thee O that you would grieve abundantly for want of Love to God! You have past as through the Red Sea you have been as the flaming Bush God hath looked after you as if he minded none but you you have been as the Signet on his right hand nay more you have been engraven on his Palmes and what not love the Lord Shame upon you that you can dote upon the dark filthy dirty World and neglect the Lord of Glory All the Affections you have God gave them when he gave thee a reasonable Soul but for this end that you should place them on himself and not on his Enemy Is it not hard measure that God should be denied Love when he gave you power to love If a Friend sends you Bottels of Wine it is hard that when he comes to you you should deny him a taste of his bounty Believe it Sirs whatever you do for the Lord unless you Love him yea unless you Love him more than any thing else it is not accepted 1 Cor. 13.3 Though you give your Body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth you nothing Though you bring forth Fruit yet you are empty Vines Hos 10.1 because you eye Self not God Your most exquisite Services are but pieces of dead Carrion unless they be seasoned with the Salt of Love This People draw nigh with their lips but I abhorr them and their Duties because the silly Dove is without an heart Whatever a man gives me if his heart be not in it I slight it God much more What shall I say The Holy Apostle counts him worthy of a Curse that loves not Jesus Christ If any man love not the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 16.22 let him be Auathema Maranatha And is it not sad to be cursed to the coming of Christ He deserves it that loves not Christ and he must and shall be forced to own the Righteousness of God in sentencing him to Eternal flames who might have been secured against them had he but loved Christ more than a base dunghill Lust CHAP. XI Their evil surmises of God 4ly Their evil surmises of God EVil surmises of God is another piece of ungodliness found too frequently among some of the more raised Professours even such as have the root of the matter in them I shall the rather insist on this sin because right thoughts of God are the fuell which maintains the fire of Religion without which it soon decayeth and is extinguished 1. Miscalling his love-to-kens Do not we miscall Gods love-tokens Hath not God sent thee many love-tokens by his Spirit to assure thee that he owns thee and delights in thee as his Spouse For thee to question thy relation to him upon every turn must needs be grievous to him how grievous then is it for thee to deny all his tokens of grace and love to thy Soul and to count them but delusions but the works of the Infernal Spirit transforming himself into an Angel of Light To call light darkness good evil sweet bitter the work of Christ the Devils work is ill resented by the Lord it goeth unto his heart You that are Husbands Wives Parents Children cannot endure to have your love and fidelity suspected upon every base suggestion and whisper Believe it God takes notice and laies to heart all your jealousies of him all your base unworthy censures of him 2. How ill are Gods Providences resented III resenting Gods Providences 1 Cor. 3.22 Rom. 8.28 Although God hath told you there is a beauty in their contexture that things present and things to come are yours that all shall work together for good that your Providential losses as well as your Providential enjoyments that your changes as well as your setlings your wants as well as your abundance shall all be Sanctified to you yet how few with that blessed man bless the Lord Job 1.21 Rom. 5.2 3. when taking away And with Paul rejoyce yea glory in tribulations God assures you that your sicknesses reproaches wants shall do you good yea death shall do you good all shall be good or do you good all shall be food or physick out of the eater shall come forth sweetness even from Gods desertions you shall have advantages your very thorns shall drop honey shall bear grapes yet notwithstanding what hard thoughts have you of God under such dispensations Didst thou onely accuse thy self judge thy self abhorre thy self it were well but in speaking against thy self thou fallest foul upon God himself by questioning his love from these providences Deny thy self what thou wilt but beware of a denial of Gods love and of the Spirit of grace that hath taken up his lodgings within thee O that all melancholly doubting Christians would consider of this too seldome suspected provocation and unkindness of theirs towards God! O! take up and keep up better thoughts of God what ever his carriage be towards you Though he slay you yet trust in him When will you be as David who though beleaguered with Enemies yet kept up good thoughts of God he doubted not of Gods pitty of Gods favour and protection and therefore I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people Psa 3.6 Psa 27.3 v. 1. that have set themselves against me round about Though an host should encamp against me my heart shall not fear c. in this will I be confident In what Why that the Lord is my Light and my Salvation and the strength of my life God hath not spent all his stores he hath enough for me he will not suffer me to be tempted above what I shall be able to bear but will with the temptation make way for my escape And hath not God told thee that the mountains shall depart Isa 54.10 and the hills be removed yet his loving kindnesse shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of his peace be removed But alas Thou canst entertain good thoughts of God in fair weather Mar. 4.38 but let them fall in a storm then it is Master carest thou not that we perish Thou canst trust in God when he carrieth himself as a Friend and answereth all thy requests and granteth all thy desires but not so when he seemeth an Enemy Canst thou with Paul say I am perswaded that neither Death Rom. 8.38 39. nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
which was appointed to strengthen their Remembrance of past Mercies Hath not God told us that he hath formed us for his praise And what yet backward thereunto We can never love God to an height whilst we forget his loving Kindnesses I wonder not that many complain of their decayes of Love to God whilst they forget his wonders of Grace and Love to their Souls Even Publicans will love those of whom they are beloved And did we oftner recount the Mercies of God they would work endearments betwixt God and our Souls Did we consider what a wonder it is that God should draw us out of nothing that he who stoops to behold the things of Heaven should put his singer to our workmanship that he should curiously work us as Needle-work in the dark Vaults of Nature and that when we were fuller of sin than the Toad of poyson that yet he should feed a Toad and cloath a Cockatrice the Fire of Love to God would burn within our breasts How is God provoked by this sin God took it ill at the hands of the Israelites that they remembred not his hand Psal 78.42 nor the day in which he delivered them How much more do we grieve the Lord who remember not the goodness and salvations of the Lord in Canaan yea in Zion Our Saviour was grieved that his Disciples remembred not the five Loaves Mat. 16.8 9 10. and the seven Loaves and how many Baskets they took up Innumerable greater favours hath God shewed to us and yet we forget them How have we forgot the God that bridled Natures proud waves and said Hitherto ye shall goe and no farther When we were ripe for Judgement then Mercy stept in and yet how slow to give thanks Hardly one of tea blesseth God for cleansing Mercy as they ought Were there not ten cleansed but where are the nine This makes me fear People have not had a deep sense of the misery and stains of Nature for that their Saviour is no more thanked Did not the Lord force thee by an over-powering work of Grace upon thy Soul at first Conversion to be willing to be made happy Did not he compel thee to come into the Feast Was it not God that brought thee to such a Parish to such a Minister and to such a Text And did not he by his Almighty power enable thee to believe and apply Was it not he that broke thine heart when as hard as a nethermost Mill-stone and made it soft malleable and pliant to his will and pleasure And what forget the wonders of the Lord in the deep This vexeth the Lord to the heart Did not he cause the Walls of Jerâ—co to fall as by the voice of Rams-hornes by weak inconsiderable means Did not he alienate thine heart from Lusts that were dearer to thee than thine eyes Did not he present the face of Christ as lovely to thy Soul who before was despised aend rejected And hath not Christ fed thee with fresh supplyes of free Grace that have watered thy Soul every moment so that you have been kept through his mighty power How many doubts hath Christ answered and how many scruples hath he by his Holy Spirit satisfied thee in And yet O wretched heart how unthankfull hast thou been Thou hast forgot all his benefits A man would think it were impossible that every unpleasing Providence should make us so forgetful of all the mighty Works that have been done within doors upon our Souls How just is it with God to plague us for this our unkindness unto him Isa 17.10 11. Because thou hast forgotten c. therefore the harvest shall be an heâ—â— In the beginning all succeeded well saith Vatablus upon the place according to our desire In the day the Plant grew and in the morning the Seed flourished but because of unthankfulness extreme misery followed Wonder not that the Showres are with-held that the Lord causeth the Sun to set on the Prophets at Noon day that the Manna falls not before your doors that the hidden Mannah Ingrato quod donatur deperditur Sen. and white Stone are denied you you have been unthankfull you have not taken care for the fragments that nothing be lost Gods Mercies have been lost upon you Or Waters were become Wines our Gleanings were better than the Worlds Vintage God dealt with us as Sons But now if he draws in his hand and make his Garden as a desolate Wilderness for this sin who can say unto God What dost thou Must not all of us put our mouths in the dust Did not we sit under our own Vines Had we not our solemn Assemblies Did not we goe in troops to the house of the Lord Was not Holiness in credit Did not the mix'd multitude joyn with us and desired to be numbred amongst us because God was with us Did not fear come upon all the People And had not the Churches rest Did we fear the shaking of the Spear Might we not have been as holy as we pleased Had not we as much liberty as we desired But O then how unthankfull were we How troubled were we that every Mordecai did not bow that every one would not be of our mind and dance after our Pipe God knows what a Controversie there is with the Land for the Unthankfulness of them that dwelt therein O how glad would ye be of one of the dayes of the Son of man of your old Privileges and Spiritual Liberties Because ye have not served God with joy and praise in dayes of plenty therefore it is but a righteous thing that you serve in scarcity and famine of Bread of the Word of the Lord. CHAP. XIII Their neglect of Prayer especially of secret Prayer 6ly NEglect of Prayer is another part of Ungodliness Professors neglect of Prayer too common even among Professours Request and Thanksgiving are saith one like the double motion of the Lungs by which they suck in and breath out the air again In the Petitionary part of Prayer we desire either the bestowing of some good thing or the preventing or removing of some evil from our selves or the inflicting of some evil on Gods implacable Enemies And in the Gratulatory part of Prayer we return the praise of glory of what we have received from God unto God Though the Thanksgiving part of Prayer be most yet the Petitionary part of Prayer is too much neglected It is Ungodliness to goe about any Business or Journey to fix our Abode to use any Creature Food or Physick without asking Gods leave and blessing in Prayer Yea it is a branch of Atheism this Brat of irreligion is laid at the door of Atheism by the Psalmist Is it not a Lamentation Psa 14.1 3 4. and should it not be for a Lamentation that so many Professours should be guilty of such Ungodlineâ—â— Are there not many that never prayed in all their lives Never Praying Professours are looked upon by the world as Praying people
but O! how is the world mistaken in many of them Thou hast not called upon me Isa 41.21 23. O Jacob Though Jacob was a People sever'd into a Church-State with an aim at Gods praise yet Jacob pray'd not This was grievous unto God Do not many Professours clearly evidence that they are prayerless Souls by their disobedience to the Preceptive their impatience under the Providential Will of God By their distrust of the All-sufficiency and Faithfulness of God Zeph. 3.2 She obeyed not the voice she received not correction she trusted not in the Lord she drew not near to her God By their entring into so many Temptations Matth. 26.41 Jer. 10.21 Watch and Pray lest you enter into Temptation By their being deceived and labouring to deceive others in the things of God The Pastours are become bruitish and have not sought the Lord. By their Back-slidings Zeph. 1.6 Considerations against this sin Psa 10.4 Joh. 21.15 and Apostasies And them that are turned back from the Lord and those that have not sought the Lord. Doth not this sin speak out high contempt of God That God is not entertained so much as in a thought He will not seek God God is not in all his thoughts That the thoughts of God are blasphemous What profit should we have if we pray unto him Yea Doth not this sin speak out the hearts denial of God What saith the Psalmist Psa 53.1 4. The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God he calls not upon God To live without Prayer is to be dead while alive for it is to live without God Jer. 10.25 The Families that know not God and that call not on his Name are the same What Will ye not do so much as Pray unto God What can you do less for God than by this homage to own him for your Maker Or less for your own Souls than to beg their lives of him whose hand of Justice is lift up against them Their Souls and theirs only shall live Psa 69.32 that seek the Lord. No Malefactours dye more unlamented than those that when cast will not beg for their lives How many also are there Restraining Prayer that have cast off Prayer How many have restrained Prayer And that both when they have thought they have prayed themselves out of affliction they have had no more to say to God Job 15.4 till under affliction again and when they have for some time prayed for deliverance to no purpose This evil is of the Lord why should I wait any longer This is worse than not to pray at all Not to pray at all notes only the neglect of duty but to cast off Prayer a distaste of duty But I shall be more particular Though Prayer be the only Key Neglecting Eâ—aculatary Prayer to unlock the Store-houses and Treasuries of all Blessings yet how little hath this Key been used I shall wave publick and private and only instance in secret Prayer and that both sudden and composed and solemn How few Professours have made conscience of Ejaculatory Prayer How seldome have we darted up our Souls to Heaven upon sudden emergent occasions in some short desires As when we are hearing Lord set home this Word upon my heart When in Prayer our hearts are melting c. Lord suffer not my heart any more to be hardened from thy fear When we are about our worldly employments Lord keep my heart with thy self c. Are not some of us wholly unacquainted with this kind of Praying Not such a Dart saith one to be found in all their Quiver They know not how in the midst of their worldly businesses and company yea in the midst of their solemn religious duties in hearing reading conferring praying c. to send their thoughts to give God a visit though a short one in a desire or two to speak at least one or two heart-words unto him Have not most Professours too much contented themselves with their solemn Visits of God but between their solemn Duties have scarce ever conversed with God What account shall we be able to give of our thoughts the first-born of our Souls from morning to evening Is not this the highest improvement of them to send them in embasies unto Heaven and by them to converse with God Do not the best of us find strangeness apt to grow between God and our Souls between our set Duties And may we not impute that strangeness to our omission of these more â—â—ansient and occasional talkings with God How many precious things in Christian conference in Sermons in our solemn joynt Prayers are lost for want of present liâ—ting up our hearts to God for his presence therein and blessing thereupon How many blessed motions or the Holy Spirit suggested to us in our particular Callings are quench'd for want of these short sallyes of our Souls to Heaven for more grace that these sparks may be kept alive yea blown into a flame Neglect of this kind of Prayer is no small provocation it grieves God there is much unkindness in it that God should be so gracious as to let his door stand wide open at all times and that he should assure us of welcome when ever we come to him and yet that we should not be so kind as to step in to visit him with a desire hour after hour and that though we may thus visit him and not neglect but rather further any business we have in hand and without being uncivil to any company in which we are He cannot but take this udkindly How few Professours have made conscience of closet-Prayer Neglecting closet Prayer Though Christ takes it for granted that his Disciples will thus pray and hath annexed a sweet promise to the due performance of this duty When thou prayest enter into thy Closet Mat. 6.6 and when thou hast shut thy door pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly Retire thy self get thee a place set thy self a time wherein thou mayest vacare Deo be at leisure to make it thy business to pray to God c. Yet how is this duty wholly omitted by some and too too seldom performed by others Satan prevails with some otherwise honest Souls to put off this duty from time to time by telling them either that they will but play the hypocrites therein or that the time is not convenient by reason either of some bodily or of some soul distempers or that this and the other worldly business must of necessity be dispatch'd at such a time c. O how little do such love the Lord that are afraid to talk too secretly or too often in secret with him But alas how many omit closet-Prayer altogether Some content themselves with praying with others either in the Church or in the Family How can such look upon themselves as Saints whatever Profession they make What a Saint and yet
and victory Have we made conscience to meditate upon our Wants what Graces we mostly need of their Wants what we are most defective in From this neglect we pray as if we did not pray without zeal earnestness and importunity Whereas had we viewed our Wants of God of his Grace Spirit Protection Mercy and Presence we should pray as for Life and those stragling vain thoughts would hereby have been suppressed When the Malefactour is begging his Life at the Barr his Soul is not running adrift after every Feather but he minds his business 't is Life and his Life that is endangered and therefore he gathers up all possible arguments that may induce the Judge to abate of the rigour of Justice towards him But how oft have we been on our knees and have been ignorant of what ailes us so that we might truly say we knew not what to ask When you goe to your Markets you consider what you and yours want but do we so when we goe to our Spiritual Markets Have not we neglected to meditate of the Mercies of God of Mercies received which we have received Hence we come either customarily before God or not with that holy boldness as we should One Mercy opens a door to another The Valley of Achor was given as a door of hope to Israel Hos 2. Forgetting the returns of Prayer makes our hearts ake and knees faint We should book the passages of Gods grace how he remembred us in our low condition how he hath visited us day by day when we have come in as the parched ground we have found God a dew to us and springs of water have appeared in the wilderness When we have come in before God with our Shackles on our Feet with Irons that have entred our Souls God hath made it a Jubilee he hath proclaimed the acceptable year he hath let us out of the Prison-house and hath set our feet in a large place When we have come in before God with guilt on our Souls and with fearful expectations how hath God given us the white stone and sent us away with his blessing and with gladness of heart The neglect of our Diaries of the Providences and Mercies of God the want of reflecting on all the Rings that God hath sent us makes us more like Slaves than Children Do we with David cry out Psa 40.5 Many O Lord my God are thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts which are to us-ward they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee if I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbred Have not we neglected to meditate on the great and wonderful things of the prevalency of Prayer that have been done upon the Prayers of Gods People We should have in everlasting remembrance what a powerful Engine Prayer is Gen. 32.28 Exod. 32.32 Jam. 5.17 18. It hath held the hands of the Almighty Jacob and Moses prevailed over God It hath been a Key to open and shut the Heavens Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months And he prayed again and the Heaven gave rain and the Earth brought forth her fruit And O what wonderful things hath God promised to a Praying People Jer. 33.3 Mat. 21.22 Call unto me and I will answer thee and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not Whatsoever ye ask in my Name c. Here is more than Herod offered that was but half the Kingdome here is a Whatsoever Did we appear before God with these instances of grace and promises fresh in our thoughts we should not say What a weariness is it Or that there is no profit in serving God and gallop through our duties as we are wont 2. Not stirring up Grace received Another neglect before Prayer is The not stirring up our Graces before we set upon the Duty We too much rest on habitual preparation whereas actual is necessary He that leaps immediately from the Shop to the Throne of Grace and labours not to quicken his dull Soul and to leave worldly businesses behind him as Abraham his Servants when he goeth to sacrifice no wonder if he lose the Duty and provoke the Lord rather than be accepted with him The Well is seldome so full but that you may nay you must throw in a little to fetch up the more It is thought by the redoubling of David's charge that he found not his heart in a good frame for the exalting of God and therefore cries out so vehemently Psa 103.1 2. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits 2ly When Praying How have we failed when we have entred upon the Duty And that in Invocation in Confession in Petition and in Thanksgiving 1. In our Invocations In Invocation We call God Father and yet how unlike are we unto him we resemble not him we call Father we reverence not him we call Father we trust not to him with that confidence we would to receive of our Fathers of the Flesh we fear when we ask Bread he will give us a Stone we have lower thoughts of Gods bowels than of our own we think our selves more pitiful better natur'd than God himself If I were a Mother and my Child in distress I should deny him nothing 2. In our Confession of Sin Confession Psa 119 26. We are not full and free and ingenious we sit with Rachel upon some Idols we do not declare our wayes unto him but rather cover our transgressions as Adam Few can clear themselves as Job did You will perhaps confess Job 31. We have erred and strayed from thy wayes like lost sheep We have left undone c. Dolus in generalibus Psa 32.3 but still in generals David was in this gravelled When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long But you descend not to particulars or if to particulars yet the Benjamin is reserved loth to let Benjamin goe loth to confess envy pride breach of vowes want of love to Saints loving the rich only neglecting the poor You will confess what every man knows you are guilty of or what every man is addicted to but you shame not your selves by instancing in the particular neglects and commissions by which you chiefly provoke the Lord the Agags are not brought to execution the best of the Cattel are kept back one Wedge is hid in the Tent. Or if you confess most particularly yet it is without hatred of the sins confess'd You confess sin yet hugg it bosome it plead for it within one quarter of an hour You confess sin but without self-abhorrence 1 Kings 8.38 Job 42.6 you loath it not as the Plague
in this Divine Garden but it is the Meditater the Christian-Bee that gathers the honey out of them though it be the duty by which the Soul digesteth truths and draweth forth their strength for its nourishment and refreshment yea the duty by which all other duties are improved yet how much is this duty neglected by all sorts of Professours because though it be the delightfullest task to the Spirit yet it is the most tedious to the Flesh that ever men on earth were imployed in Have not many been long Professours At all and yet if they would tell all the truth they will confess they never spent one hour together in mediating on the most weighty Scripture-truths on God on Mans Estate by Creation Degeneration Regeneration Glorification on Christ on the Vanity of the Creature on the Beauty of Holiness on Death on Judgement on Heaven and Hell Meditation saith Mr. Baxter in his Saints rest is confest to be a duty by all but by constant neglect denyed by most and I know not by what fatal customary security it comes to pass that men that are very tender Conscienced toward most other duties yet do as easily overslip this as if they knew it not to be a duty at all they that are presently troubled in mind if they omit a Sermon a Fast a Prayer in publick or private yet were never troubled that they have omitted Meditation perhaps all their life time unto this very day How few have mannaged this duty aright Aright Hath not that which we call Meditation been Study only Hath not some controversial point or some nice speculation been the matter of our Meditation Hereby we evidence that we have not so great spiritual hunger after Righteousness as we should Hungry men saith one do not use to stand and pick bones when they have meat enough to eat Hath not our end in meditating been only the increasing of our knowledge and not the improving of our knowledge Have not we begun this work without God When we were going about to Meditate have not we neglected Prayer for help from Heaven to go through with the work though without God we can neither know resolve upon nor perform what is good for from him yea from his own good pleasure comes both the will and the deed Have not we idled away our meditating seasons If we have sequestred our selves from worldly businesses and company for meditation at any time have not we idled away that time by suffering our thoughts to gad and wander up and down to no purpose to be sure not to fetch in considerations for the stamping holy impressions upon our hearts and lives Have not we in meditating been without a due sense of Gods presence May not we cry out Gen. 28.16 surely the Lord was in such and such a place where I have been meditating and I knew it not i. e. I considered it not Hath not the work of our understandings in this business been to retain and not to convey truth into the heart Have our understandings represented what should work holy affections and resolutions aright Have they presented things good of a Divine and Heavenly nature as God Christ Heaven c. in their prime and beauty Have they presented things in their nature simply evil as Sin Gods wrath Hell at their worst Have not we left off meditating before we attained the end of Meditation before holy affections and resolutions are wrought Have not we rush'd out of this duty as well as rush'd into it Have not we gone from this work as a bird out of the snare with joy and speed Have not we ended as well as begun this work without God not praying to God for strength to perform what we have been inabled by grace to resolve upon for God and for pardon of what hath been amiss in the duty O! when will English Professours be prevailed with to make conscience of this duty of duties I once more intreat thee to use Mr. Baxters words as thou art a man that maketh conscience of a revealed duty and that darest not wilfully resist the Spirit as thou valuest the high delights of a Saint and the Soul-ravishing exercise of Heavenly Contemplation and as thou art faithfull to the peace and prosperity of thine own Soul that thou speedily and diligently set upon this great duty O! Considerations against flighting Gods written Word what a mighty blessing is it to have such a book wherein are written by God himself the great counsels of his will concerning mans Eternal Salvation What a sin is it then to have low mean yea vile and base thoughts of it Is not our slighting of the Word of the Lord the cause of all the wickedness in our hearts and lives Whence are all our omissions and commissions but because we make a light matter of sinning against the Scriptures Certainly this great provocation hath a great hand in our miseries and threatneth utter ruine to us Prov. 13.13 Isa 5.24 Who so despiseth the Word shall be destroyed Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeth the chaff so their root shall be rottenness and their blosome shall go up as dust because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the Word of the Holy one of Israel CHAP. XVI Their miscarriages about the Promises 9ly Professors miscarriages about the Promises MUch Ungodliness is also evidenced in Professors miscarriages about the Promises of the Ward the promises being the great promoters of godliness in the world not only as arguments to induce it by shewing how God will reward it but likewise as principles of godliness or the chief instrument whereby God makes Souls partakers of the Divine nature 1. Not believing their truth How little do we believe the truth of the Promises How little do we believe that the Spirit of God and glory rests on them that suffer for Christ and his Gospel and that as tribulations do abound for Christ so shall consolations by him or that we shall have an hundred fold advantage by any loss we sustain for Christ and his concernments All that fear of man all that cowardise all those tremblings of heart that are upon Professors this day all that enmity against the Cross of Christ which appears on the faces and hearts of men are clear demonstrations how little the promises for the bearing up under suffering for the deliverance out of suffering or rewarding of suffering for Christ are believed We cannot set the Promises against all Crosses 2. Not prizing them enough How low are our esteems of the Promises of God of the great and faithful God in comparison of what they are concerning the Promises of honest and sufficient men I appeal to thee if a King should promise thee a thousand pound per annum whether it would not more rejoyce thine heart than the Promises of eternal Life which God hath made unto thee do With how
There is no other way but by this Ark to escape drowning and the longer they wander in this Wilderness the more hard it will be at last to enter into Canaan the longer they keep off from the promise the more corrupt will their hearts grow and the more corrupt they grow the work of the heart-purifying-faith will be the more difficult 12. Eyeing Providences more than Promises How many of us eye Providences more than Promises and make the Providences rather than the Promises of God the Ground of their Faith One saith well The Star-light of one single Promise is of more use to Christians than a Constellation of many Providences both to assure them in their wayes and to support them under any difficulties 13. Do not we pretend to eye the Promises using indirect means for getting what is promised and yet use indirect means to bring our devices to pass We have pretended to live the Life of Faith but God knows what shifts men have had and wicked at least questionable courses men have taken how much evil hath been done that good may come Have not we to help Gods Promises to bring forth turned out of Gods way resisted Dignities offered Violence to known Laws wronged Conscience forgot all Obligations upon us Not looking that they attain their ends in our Souls 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Jo. 3.3 regarded nothing that stood in our way of compassing our designes 14. How little do we exmaine the Fruits of Gods Promises in our own Souls The exceeding great and precious Promises are given that we might be partakers of the Divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust that we might purifie our selves even as God is pure But do we look for these ends to be attained by the Promises in our Souls Do we look not only for a Change from Looseness to Civility but a through Sanctification in Body Mind and Spirit 2 Cor. 7.1 Alas which of us can say Having these Promises we do cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit and are perfecting holiness in the fear of God CHAP. XVII Their Abuse of Providence 10ly Professors Abuse of Providence ABuse of Providence is another branch of Ungodliness too much spreading among Professours God is to be honoured not only as the chiefest Good and as the supream Truth and Authority but as the first Cause that giveth Beeing to all things and therefore ordereth and disposeth of all things as he pleaseth having absolute Dominion over all events But O! how is God dishonoured by abusing his Providence The blind World are not only guilty who do not acknowledge God at the other end of Causes as swaying all things by his Wisdome and Power but set up an Idol called Chance but even Professours eminent Professours are herein very guilty 1. Evidenced in their non-observing it How seldome do we observe Gods Providence The Finger of God is in all the Creatures not only We but all Creatures live move and have their beeing from God and in God The whole course of Nature moves as it is turned by the hand of God and directed by his counsel It is not with the work of God as with the Artificers Clock which put into a frame and hang'd with weights will goe though the Artificer be off from it but though God set all the Creatures in frame yet the motion of every wheel depends on God There is not a drop of rain falls till God utter his voice Jer. 10.13 and cause the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth Yet how is God not minded We see not his footsteps We may say in this He passeth this way and that and we see him not Our eyes are held to secondary Causes We look when the Wind or Moon will change but we are so short-sighted that we reach not God How seldome do we consider that though Gods Providence doth deliver up his choicest Friends into the hands of his and their Enemies yet doth it not deliver them up unto their will they cannot do what they please but only what pleaseth God Such of Gods own are still engraven on the palmes of his hands though turned over into the hands of the Ungodly they are Gods Favourites still though the wicked say Persecute them and take them for God hath forsaken them How little do we mind that our times are in Gods hands and that as Satan is in a Chain so are his Instruments We fear Men more than God O! when shall we hear that Word of God Say not a confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say a confederacy Isa 8.12 13 14. neither fear ye their fear nor be afraid Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and let him be your fear and let him be your dread And he shall be for a Sanctuary c. 2. Not being affected therewith How little are we affected with the continual course of Providence though it guards and keeps us every moment The Stars in their courses would fight against us the Sea would swallow us up and break in as a devourer the Beasts of the Field would arm against us if God did not check them and bound them yea one man would eat up another were it not for the Lord who sets bounds to the rage of all the Creatures It is the eye of jealousie that is still wakeful for us it is the Lord that puts the hook into the nose and the bridle in the lips of the Senacheribs of the World and yet how little are our hearts affected how little are they comforted and born up how little do they cleave unto the Lord On the contrary But distrusting â—t How distrustful are we of Gods Providence in a time of seen dangers though we are wonderfully delivered from invisible ones every day Who can number the legions of Devils so many deliverances hast thou by Gods Providence every moment and yet how diffident and doubtful are we upon all new imminent outward dangers How little do we believe that God will bring in good to us by such Providences as are ungrateful to Sense to Flesh and Blood Though nothing is more usual than for God to take away some comforts and lay in better comforts to take away an Abel and make it up in Seth to deprive Noah of the comforts of the whole World for a while and then to wash it from its filthiness and to deliver him the possession of it with manifest proofs of his singular distinguishing care of him and his Family whilst all the rest of the Creatures perished in the waters to deprive Mary and Martha of their Brother Lazarus and to return him from the dead unto them with great advantage to deprive Job of his Children and Estate to make his last dayes better than his first Job 1.3 compared with Ch. 42.10 12. and to give him twice as much as he had before for seven thousand Sheep
the world comes in But how little pleas'd with the galleries wherein the beloved may be held How are men pleased with the earth but find no more rellish in Christ and his ways than in the white of an egge What great journeys have you taken even compassed Sea and Land to gain riches and hardly can go a mile or two to meet with God How is every opportunity laid hold of to get more to the heap But do not you remain contented with the least measures of grace yea with somewhat below grace How oft have you left your meat to serve a Customer but when so to serve the Lord Jesus Christ How few design for riches as a means to carry them to a further end They should be but as the rounds of a Ladder not to stand upon but thereby to ascend higher even to glory and to the new Hierusalem But alas few desire the world in subordination to God and as a means to glorifie God but the more they love the World the less God is loved and the more their desires are carried out after riches the less after God How few pursue earthly things in obedience to Gods call How many out of a desire of filthy lucre How few seek the World with an holy indifferency How few reserve their zeal and hottest endeavours for heavenly things Is not the general cry Psa 4.6 Who will shew us any good We need no proof of this there are instances every where How for the getting of a penny Note will some debarr themselves of Ordinances Is it not a sufficient excuse with some for not attending on the Worship of God that they met with a Customer that kept them from the Ordinance Doth not the Clock strike too fast whilst thou art selling to advantage Doth not time run away too fast Dost thou not wish thou couldst with Joshuah cause the Sun to stand still on a Market-day or on a Fair-day when trading is quick But O! The Sexton is blamed for suffering the Clock to stand still on a Sabbath day and when thou art in the Worship of God O! When will the Sabbath be gone Amos 8.5 When will the Duty be over that we may fell How many Hypocritical out-cries are there against the World O! It eats up my time O! It eats up my spirits It robs me of communion with God We say it is an Enemy and yet we can bosome this Snake lodge this Enemy Col. 3.5 that God would have us to kill Mortifie Covetousness How oft hath God charged thee against Covetousness Take heed and beware of it Considerations to withdraw the heare from Covetousness Luke 12.15 Two words to the same purpose all little enough to take thee off from earthly pursuits How apparently hath God with-drawn from thee ever since thou wast taken with this Dalilah How hardly art thou pull'd out of the deep pit and miry clay to Duty much more to God And wilt thou be rich Art thou resolved to run into the bryars Then farewell to thee not only in time but to eternity Mat. 13.23 How many convictions and impressions of the blessed Spirit have your worldly cares choaked How have your inordinate desires of riches puzled your Souls and diverted them from minding and improving the counsells of God and Conscience But O! How unreasonable are earthly prosecutions in this day of Gods wrath When God is plucking up by the roots now to be seeking great things for our selves to have Baruck's sore running on us Jer. 45. ult this makes us the more inexcusable sinners This is altogether unseasonable this is no time for it this is ignoble yea base O that we were ashamed of it We say The last dayes are perillous dayes we pretend to expect the Cross and is this good preparation for the Cross of Christ to load our selves with thick clay to crack our Consciences and thereby to incurr Gods farther displeasure How unlike art thou to the primitive Converts Paul when converted Phil. 3.8 counts all things but dung in comparison of Christ And Zacheus no sooner had a work of grace begun upon him but down went the World faster than ever it went up He parts from riches with more freedome than he sought them The half of my goods I give to the poor Luke 19.8 and if I have wronged any man I will restore four-fold John the beloved Disciple affirms That there is an inconsistency between loving the Father 1 John 2.15 1 John 5.4 and the World and that Whosoever is born of God evercometh the World But alas Our hearts are as Cities without walls the World hath a thorow-fare in them and may come and goe without any Pass from Heaven How hath God put a remark of his sore displeasure upon our worldly endeavours We have to dwell in our seiled houses neglected Gods house Hag. 1.2 4 6. and said The time is not come for the building the waste places for the restoring the Worship of God for the building of the house of God and how hath God caused many of us to vomit up our sweet morsels which we rolled under our tongues O! Consider your wayes Ye have sowen much and bring in little ye eat but have not enough ye drink but ye are not silled with drink and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bagg with holes How hath this Sin deadned you to all the Worship of God How by the interposition of this dark body of the Earth hath the light of Heaven yea the light of Gods countenance been darkned and how hath thy Soul been benighted and clouded They say If a Knife be put into the Earth it will lose its edge I am sure of this experiment That Christians who were once lively and active for God yet by engaging their hearts to the World they have lost their zeal their keenness and their lustre which once they had When thou hast gained time from thy business to think of God and to discharge duty hast hot thou miss'd thine heart hast not thou left and lost it in the croud How dost thou debase thy self hereby The curse of Cham is upon thee a servant of servants thou art a slave to that which thou shouldst rule over God did not give thee a reasonable Soul that thou shouldst choose the Serpents curse to crawl and live upon the Earth O! What sordid practises have some stoop'd unto for the getting this Worlds riches Ahab to gain a few handfulls of earth dares walk to it through Naboth's bowells Judas to pocket thirty Pieces will venture to betray his Lord and the Lord of Heaven and Earth O! tremble to think what sad effects your Covetousness may have upon you before you dye Demas left Christ lost his Soul shipwrack'd his faith and all to embrace this present evil world Prov. 28.20 And if thou make hast to be rich shalt thou be innocent Whether thou place thy confidence and hope
Church doth commend Christ but seldome are Wives careful herein to imitate the Church of God How many do blazon their infirmities more frequently than commend their graces The Church is careful to please Christ in all things 1 Cor. 7.34 The married Woman should care study to please her Husband by her attire behaviour words She should goe speak and do so Eph. 5.24 as may render her most acceptable in his sight in every thing How many cross Wives are there that love to vex rather than to delight their Husbands They will cloath and adorn their bodies to make them lovely to strangers rather than to their own Husbands The Church bears patiently rebukes and blows from Christ so should Wives as Sarah was commended for her meekness 1 Pet. 3.4 5 6. The ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit is in the sight of God of great price for after this manner in the old time the holy Women adorned themselves being in subjection to their own Husbands even as Sara c. The Church gives Christ reverend Titles of honour and esteem but alas Wives are so proud so self-conceited of their own worth and merit that they cannot but disrespect all others even their own Husbands Hereby they shew not themselves to be the Daughters of Sarah Gen. 18.12 1 Pet. 3.6 She having occasion to think of her Husband presently this title Lord came out of her heart into her mouth and the Holy Ghost takes notice of it yea a second time sure it was for some high end and proves that she obeyed Abraham because She called him Lord. Perhaps the Wife will tell me these are but trifles that I cross my Husband in I must tell thee to break the order of God for toyes and trifles will greaten thy sin at the day of accounts What wilt thou darest thou for so slender a matter tread down the Law of thy God and hazard the ruine of thy Soul O! consider this and turn not your duties to your Husbands into matter of talk and pastime as the manner of most Women is CHAP. XXX The miscarriages of Professing-Parents and Children PArents As Parents O! how little do you plot for the good of future generations how little do you care whether God hath a Name when you be dead and gone that Christ survive and holiness flourish when you shall be rotten in your graves O! 't is through your default that the name of Christ is not had in everlasting remembrance if you were faithfull how would the generations to come bless the Lord in your behalf If you were active and diligent you might convey holiness down to your posterity as you have been unhappy instruments to convey down a stock of sinne you have been instruments to convey down the curse but are not you careless to convey down grace The World would soon meâ—â— the Church of Christ would soon regain its antient lustre and beauty if ye did but faithfully discharge your duties to your Children you might suffer little Children to come to Christ yea you might fill the Kingdom of Heaven but do not you rather fill the Kingdom of Hell And as Jereboam made Israel to sin do not you instead of leading them the way to Heaven lead them the way to Hell O! consider seriously and sadly how farr you are guilty with respect to the Souls of your Children 1. By giving them bad examples Giving their Children bad examples Chams not covering his Fathers nakedness was a sin conveyed down to all his race and therefore God chargeth the Church of the Jews against that sin under the expressions of walking in the manners of the Nations Levit. 20.11 23. compar Ye shall not walk in the manners of the Nations which I cast out before you for they committed all these things Your pride sensuality carelesness in the worship of God your passions towards your Wives and Wives towards their Husbands your frowardness toward servants c. teach your Children so to carry themselves towards others One check't his Son and said never Parent had so wicked a Child yes said the Son My Grandfather had 2. Cockering them in sin By humouring and cockering your Children in their Sins Teaching them early to be proud of their fine clothes and to revenge Come give me a blow saith the Mother to the Child whilst it sits on her lap By indulging to his voluptuous course of life it is thought Isaack smarted in his Son 's future disobedience even by suffering him to sport and hunt away too much of precious time Many like Apes kill their Children with culling them Austin tells a sad Story of one Cyrillus who loved an only Son immoderately and let him do without correction what he would afterwards this cockered Son in a fit of drunkenness offers violence to his Mother killed his Father wounded mortally two of his Sisters and would have ravished another Through foolish pity Parents especially Mothers give the reines unto their Children when they are young and thereby they grow head-strong Prov. 29.15 and are a shame to the Mother that bore them The sparing of the Rod is the ruine of the Child Do not you reprove your Children as old fond Eli did Thereby he brought a plague upon himself and upon his posterity What saith one never cease convincing or correcting till thou hast subdued the spirit of thy Child if he contends with thee You pretend such harshness is inconsistent with love but I say from the Lord such fondness and indulgence is consistant with hatred and I am sure the Lord is on my side in this Prov. 13.24 He that spareth his rod hateth his Son he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes Is it love to suffer a wound in thy Child to fester and thereby to destroy him rather than to apply a painful corrosive for the expediting the cure But what saith the fond Mother O! If the Child should be the worse for my correction it would be a trouble to me whilst I live O that such a doting Mother would hear the Lord himself Correct thy Son Prov. 29.17 Prov. 23.13 and he shall give thee rest yea he shall give delight to thy Soul With hold not correction from the Child for if thou beatest him with the Rod he shall not dye Foolishness is bound in the heart of a Child Prov. 22.15 but the rod of correction shall drive it farr from him 3. By not acquainting them with the Lord Not instructing them and his wayes and that betimes Hath not God commanded that his Laws should be whetted by you upon your Children Deut. 6.7 Thou shalt teach them diligently Hebr. whet or sharpen unto thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up Some conceive that Catethiling of Children is not obscurely hinted in this ancient Precept And is
our rising up early and sitting up late our spending our strength our lungs our spirits yea and our estates among you you have requited us evil for good even to the spoyling of our Souls Acts 7.51 52. Ye stiffe-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears ye do alwayes resist the Holy-Ghost as your Fathers did so do ye Which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted c. Have not you in your hypocrisie made outcries against others for silencing your Ministers for taking away the bread out of yours and your Childrens mouths and for removing them from their stations and dwellings But may not I profess in the name of all my Fellow-Sufferers that your misimprovements your inconstancies your pride and earthliness have been and are our chiefest burdens a greater pressure to us than any burdens that lye upon our names bodies or estates I cannot but think of a passage of holy Mr. Shepheard The Jews saith he did long for Christ and when he came they Crucified him and you would have Ministers and you had them and though you did not immediately cast them out of their places yet you so wearied their Spirits and grieved the Spirit in them that you made them glad to bury themselves and leave their places you had Prophets and their teâ—â—s and their sorrows too yea and their blâ—â—d too and O! what a light matter was it teâ—â—s you to break their very hearts How little did you obey them that ruled over you Hebr. 13.17 and submitted your selves that they might give their account with joy and not with grief How little did you believe that that is unprofitable for you Have not you made nothing of it for your Ministers to lose their labour to put them upon crying out I have laboured in vain Isa 49.45 Yea how have you grieved their very Souls with reproaches Some who have pretended affection to them yet have had their reproachfull Names of Priest Parson Vicar c. Though God hath put a Crown of honour upon them by making them his Ambassadours yet how have some impudent Professours blasted them with their stinking breath and prosane scoffs Ambassadours are inviolable by the Laws of Nations The Lord saith one hath set a better mark on them than Cain had and given them a better pasport touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm yet you have made a light matter of vexing their very Souls When you could have nothing else against your Minister have not you been censuring him for his manner of speaking 2 Cor. 10.10 His Letters say they are weighty and powerfull but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible Lastly And being weary of them Have not your Ministers been so troublesome to you in your sins in your formality worldliness lukewarmness c. that you were even weary of them Have not you been as weary of them as the Children of Israel of Angels food as weary as weak somachs are of feeding on one dish Your Ministers urged flesh-displeasing and self-denying duties they would not suffer you to sin quietly and were not you therefore burthened with them they would not stand and comply with your carnal ends and sinfull interests and did not your hearts therefore cry out away with them Have not you been like the Gadarenes more willing to part with your Ministers than with your swinish lusts Rom. 1.28 Because you did not like to retain God in your knowledge 't is no wonder if God give up many of you to a reprobate mind Hath not the Gospel been too costly too chargeable to some of you and too irksome requiring too much pains taking to others of you O! when you Remember your crying iniquities for which God is chiefly contending with you forget not this dreadfull sinne of being weary of Gods Ambassadours of being weary of speaking with God and of hearing God speak unto your Souls CHAP. XXXIII Their misearriages with reference to the Ministers of Christ Professours miscarriages toward their Ministers since their removal Not finding the want of them Not esteeming the loss great enough since their removal 1. H How many of you do not find them wanting This will be evident by the following Queries Have you indeed accounted that none in the world want help like your selves upon this very account Do you look upon your selves as litting in darkness yea in the region and shadow of death under a worse Plague than the Egyptian-darkness that was a darkness wherein men lived but do you look on this as a darkness of death Do you account a Throne without the Gospel but the Devils Dungeon Wealth without the Gospel fuell for Hell Advancement without the Gospel but a going high to have the greater fall Do you look upon your selves as under a worse famine than that of bread Cannot you your selves make up this great loss cannot you set other things in the breach Do not some of you set good books in the room of your Ministers Going about to make it up by good books I confess saith a Reverend Man Reading hath its use but the voice hath a secret force upon the Soul it hath a Ministerial efficacy by which the Authority and Soveraign efficacy of the Spirit is conveyed I pray God the fruitfullness of the Press may not beget a dis-esteem and contempt of the great Ordinance of the Minister already you have been told already that Luther had rather his books should be burnt than the Scriptures suffer a dishonour and neglect by perusing his papers Do not some of you set your own parts and gifts in their room Their own parts and gifts Do not some of you think that you have so profited by their Ministry that you have no further need to attend upon any Ministers of Christ May not such doubt whether their experience of the power and efficacy of the Ministry hath been true seeing true experience thereof sweetneth the Ministry unto Souls raiseth up their esteems of it and engageth them to a further and more chearfull attendance upon it A true tast will sharpen the Souls appetite the true Christian gets a Stomach by eating as the new born babe by sucking 1 Pet. 2.2 3. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby if so be that ye have found that the Lord is gracious Do not some of you go about to make up your selves by attending on Christ's companions in the sense of Solomon And Christ's companions Cant. 1.7 by going to Wells without water by sucking empty breasts whence you can draw nothing but wind or blood what is this but seeking the living among the dead expecting gracious showers from Clouds without rain making up the want of bread with stones if not poyson O! why do not you say Tell me O thou whom my Soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy Flocks to rest at Noon for why should I be as
mind If all were as unmercifull as some of you they and their Children would swoon away in desolate Wildernesses Remember Hagar and the Child Did God pity that Egyptian and have you no pity on your poor Ministers Are not you so far from the Macedonian bounty 2 Cor. 8.3 of giving above your power that you will not afford them your superfluities Who is there that redeems from his table from his belly from his cloaths to cover these naked shoulders and to fill these empty bellies Doth not Baruck's sore run upon you you trade for your selves seek great things for your selves and send away your spiritual Fathers with I pray God bless you c. be ye cloathed c. but do not give according to their necessities and your abilities O! Jam. 2.15 16 17. How dwelleth the love of God in you Boast what you will of your Profession and Faith your Faith without Works is but dead CHAP. XXXIV Want of Love among Professours AS touching brotherly love saith the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians you need not that I write unto you A complaint of the want of love among Christians 1 Thes 4.10 for ye your selves are taught of God to love one another and indeed you do it But may not I say to English Professours As touching brotherly love you need that I write unto you for you are not taught of God The fire of brotherly love saith one is almost ready to goe out scarce any spark of it yet remaining among us but instead of the fire of love the wild-fire of passion rageth vehemently and is predominant Many live as if they had been born on the Mountains of Bether the Mountains of Division and as if they had been baptized in the Waters of Meribah the Waters of Strife Oh! that my head were waters and mine eyes fountains of tears 〈◊〉 weep day and night for the want of love in the Christians of this generation towards one another How common hath it been to confine our love to our own party We have not loved all the Saints Col. 1.14 How few Bucers are there How few love all in quibus aliquid Christi vident in whom they see any thing of Christ Many even hate those that differ from them though but in Circumstantialls Others though they are ashamed to profess their hatred upon such an account Prov. 26.26 yet cover their hatred by deceit till their wickedness can be hid no longer but shew'd before the whole Congregation The Devil began his Legerdemain this way by covering his Enmity with pretence of Friendship What saith the Apostle Let love be without dissimâ—lation Rom. 12.9 Psal 12.2 1 Pet. 1.22 1 John 3.18 But alas With a double heart how do Professours speak How few have turified their Souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the Brethren Most love in word and in tougue only but not in deed and in truth Many like your Feather caps humble Servant pretend love but it never appears above-board it is Dear Friend Good Soul but their hearts are not with you Evidenced in calling for Fire from Heaven against those of different perswasions In order to the convincing of us of our guiltiness herein O that our Consciences may be suffered to give in full answers to the following Queries 1. How have we call'd for Fire from Heaven like the two Disciples when we have thought our selves dishonoured in that others have not given such a reception to our wayes and practises in Religion as we expected Have not Magistrates been instigated against godly persons if of a different perswasion from our selves Have not we wished others that divided from us in some Circumstances of Worship even banished Have we not cryed out the Land is not able to bear them Have not we been glad when such were put out of all Offices and Places of Profit And have not some thought it good service to God if they had been kill'd Whilst some under colour of mercy and tenderness oryed for a general Toleration even of blasphemy Others ran into the other extream and would endure nothing that they deemed an Errour Even to this day if men scruple at the lawfulness of some Ceremonies and Gestures in the Service of God they are thought worthy not only to be cast out of the Church but to be delivered over to the Secular Magistrate for Imprisonment and Confiscation of Goods at least So much is Pauls meekness forgotten and un-imitated who though zealous against the Faith-destroying Errours of Hymeneus and Philetus yet would have much forbearance for others when doubting of the use of Meats and the Jewish Ceremonies Baxters Saints Rest Edit 8. part 1. chap. 7. p. 111. I read indeed in Pagan Writers saith one that Christians were as cruel as Bears and Tygers against one another c. But I had hoped that this accusation had come from the malice of Pagan Writers Little did I think to have seen it so farr verified c. Lord What Devils are we Unsanctified when there is yet such a Nature remaining in the Sanctified Such a Nature hath God in these dayes suffered to discover it self even in the Godly that if he did not graciously and powerfully restrain they would shed the blood of one another and no thanks to us that it is not done 2. un-Sainting of them upon that account Hildersham on Psa 51. P. 691. To facilitate the destroying of such without remorse Have not we blotted out the reputation of their holiness and represented Saints even as Devils It is utterly a fault mong you said one of our English Worthies formerly that the difference in judgement and practice about the Ceremonies of our Church hath caused such strangeness and alienation of mind and affection between such as do truly fear God both Ministers and People We are so farr from receiving esteeming loving and maintaining society one with another notwithstanding this difference of judgement about these things that we are apt to despise and judge one another for it and doubt whether there be any truth of grace in them that differ from us in these things Surely saith the one side the indifferency and lawfulness of these things is now so clearly manifested as these men must needs be willfully blind that do not see it Nay certainly they cannot chuse but see it well enough and were it not for a carnal respect to their credit with the people among whom they have gotten a great Name and Applause by standing out so long they would doubtless conform themselves And surely saith the other side the utter unlawfulness of these Ceremonies is now so clearly revealed that these men must needs be wilfully blind that see it not Nay they do see it well enough and were it not for a carnal respect they have unto their worldly peace and estate they would never use them certainly they sin against their Conscience in observing of them And
c. How seldome have we had any great conflict for those whose faces in the flesh we never saw Have not we been like Jacobs Children unmercifull enough sate down to eat and drink and forgot Joseph in the Pit Have not we had a late instance of this our hard-heartedness when the Plague so forraged in London and the parts adjacent How little did we mourn with them that mourned Perhaps fear lest the Flying Role might visit us caused us a little to put finger into the eye I must tell you I wish I could weeping that iniquity abounds and the love of many waxeth cold 17. Insulting over them 1 Cor. 13.4 Have not we been so far from sympathizing with them that we have insulted over them Reall love vaunteth not it self is not puffed up But how have we vaunted over fall'n Brethren fall'n into misery that is bad but fall'n into sin that is abominable How oft have I known some high Professours making it an entertainment a banquet for their Friends to speak of the Spots Vanities Gestures c. of others different in some Opinions or Practices from them when their laughture hath given evident proof what contentment they took in the infirmities of their Brethren Ye are puffed up 1 Cor. 5.2 and have not rather mourned c. said Paul to the Corinthians and may not I say so to English-Professours Have not we been worse than Dives's dogs seeing they licked the soars of Lazarus whilst we have rub'd and fretted them and insulted over his miseries 18. Publishing their secrets Have not we very unfaithfully published their secrets We are wont to keep the secrets of those we dearly love especially when they charge us and we promise so to do But how many of us are swift to hear but not slow to speak of what we hear even under the rose Few faithfull Spirits Prov. 11.13 that conceal the matter How many are there that creep into houses yea farther into bosomes to know secrets that they may inslave them to their wills for fear of their publications or else when they have got what they can of them most wretchedly betray the trust reposed in them This makes me even to cry out trust not in a Brother 19. Selfishness 1 Cor. 13.5 Have not we been selfish in our love Charity seeketh not her own Observe it the most love that is going is Publican-love we are careless of their company or to have any intimacy with them from whom nothing is likely to be returned if a Professour be rich he hath many Friends such as they be but the poor is despised of his Neighbour O! how base and mercenary is our love Even your Ministers to whom you have pretended dear and high affections yet if they be laid by or removed at a distance from you that you cannot have them as a pleasant song to you how strange are you instantly to them How soon do you forget them Judas may kiss you but he hath a design upon you Joab may salute but he is working nothing but his own base design 20. Inconstancy Hath not our love been inconstant Real love is abiding but do not we quickly exchange Friends Do we keep them as long as an Almanack to the end of the year Do not new pickt flowers tempt us to throw by the old 1 Cor. 13.4 Charity suffereth long But how soon is our love quenched It makes a blaze but soon is out soon kindled soon quench'd like Children won with an Apple lost with a Nut How have we been at swords point for every trifle Those seven ones one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all should have been as so many quoines to lock together all parts of the building into one But alas every extravigant or extrinsecal opinion hath broken us and our hearts to pieces Have not we been humourish peevisn lovers Our love is dearly bought and more hardly kept Humour is like tinder as soon on fire as touched no love without conformity in every thing we could hardly bed board or house together unless we all said the same thing we loved only whilst pleased and our humours were not crost but the least unkindness the least difference though our agreemenss were more by hundreds than our differences would quench or at least abate our love Charity is not easily provoked 1 Cor. 13.5 Gal. 6.1 And to fullfil the law of love its requisite in the Apostles Judgement that we bear one anothers burthens But O! ever since I can remember what a rigid imperious and tyrannical commanding of an Uniformity in every punctilio hath there been Though the pretence be love to Christs Church yet if men would consult their own hearts 't is love of their own power and rule and Lordship over their Brethren and therefore the same party of men when in the Saddle when uppermost have cryed for this rigid Conformity away with cursed tolleration c. and when reduced and brought lower have as much commended Charity Love Forbearance in matters less momentous Now when these things are thus amongst us The greatness of this evil shall we sit still in silence and stupidity and suffer the sweet and soft fire of love quite to expire and the wild-fire of passion and contention to spread and prevail without moving a tongue or hand towards the repressing of the one and reviving of the other This were enough to make the dumb to speak and therefore may justifie my writing when I may not speak yea my expatiating a little in venting my thoughts about this great evil and the desires of my heart to redress it Is it nothing to us In its disobedience See Williams transcendency of Christs love Chap. 9. Sect. 3 4 5. John 13.33 34 35.14.12.15.12 17 that hereby we are in a special manner guilty of disobedience to Jesus Christ That all Christians would love one another was our Lord Jesus his dying charge which he frequently inculcated sweetly insinuated and powerfully enforced it as a Commandement not a bare advice and counsel It is a Commandement of Christs own prescribing A Commandement I give unto you It is a Commandement given as a special Love-token in his last Will and Testament It is a new Commandement A new Commandement I give unto you It is a most excellent Commandement in a new Edition corrected and amended from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees and enlarged from his own example Before it was only Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self now it is Love one another as I have loved you This new Commandement is not once only given but given again and again and again by our dying Lord to intimate that as he had one Disciple who went by the name of the Disciple whom Jesus loved So he would have a darling Commandement and that this should be it Love one another Yea he calls it These things as
unfaithfullness YOu have Professed in your Creed to believe the Communion of Saints You have been admitted to the Priviledges of this Communion you thought it not safe or good for man to be alone to live retired from the Society of Saints you have been inrolled among the Saints in Jerusalem which came down from above you have with some Solemnity engaged your selves to be faithfull to the Souls of your Brethren and yet what an unprofitable Hermit hast thou been in Zion Like a wild-beast thou comest out of thy Den for thy prey to feed upon the Mountains of Spices to enjoy the provisions of Gods house but immediately thou retirest and art no way serviceable to the Body It is a wonder to me how Christians can content themselves with the Priviledges of Gods house and neglect the mutual duties that are incumbent on them A learned man complains of many Ministers that they are but Traditional-Preachers and I fear there are too many Traditional-Christians who are very zealous for the practising of some Duties which they have received from their Fore-fathers whilst they can over-look many express Commandements obliging them to take care as Members of the Natural Body do each for other The Apostle tells us that the meanest Members in the Church yet are necessary But alas How many are there who shut up their Light in dark-lanthornes who immure themselves within their own walls who are so involved in worldly businesses and have so little care and zeal for the house of God that they no way profit no way edifie their Brethren How can such over-look those plain express requiries of Christ by his Apostle Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace Rom. 14.19 1 Thes 5.11 and things wherewith one may edifie another Wherefore comfort or exhort your selves together and edifie one another I wish I could add as the Apostle doth even as also ye do 1 Cor. 14.12 26. Ephes 4.16 For as much as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the Church Let all things be done to edifying From whom i. e. Christ the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love v. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Rom. 15.2 3. Let every one of us please his Neighbour for his good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself c. But exhort one another daily Hebr. 3.13 while it is called to day lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin And let us consider one another to provoke unto love 10.24 25. and unto good works Not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of same is but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching Look not every man on his own things Phil. 2.4 5. 〈…〉 man also on the things of others 〈…〉 excluded it is every mans work 〈…〉 mind be in you which was also in Christ â—esus Hebr. 12.15 Look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness spring up trouble you and thereby many be defileâ— If they do not over-look how dare they â—â—ntemn all these Commandements of our 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ How can they look upon themselves as no way concerned in these duties 〈…〉 a Lamentation and should be for a Laâ—◠〈…〉 on that so many Church-Members like 〈…〉 of prey slye alwayes alone and through 〈…〉 ritual sloth through a lothness to displeaâ—â— through want of charity and pitty to the 〈◊〉 of their Brethren suffer them to perish in carelessness sensuality formality c. rather than they will labour to quicken restore and save them An Ingrosser is hateful to men But of how much sorer punishment shall ye be thought worthy who ingross your graces your gifts your experiences wherewith a Church of Christ might be edified 〈◊〉 Every man is a Steward Give an account of 〈…〉 But you are Stewards in an 〈◊〉 meaner You are Stewards of the 〈◊〉 the spirit which are given to profit 〈◊〉 How dare ye hide your Talents in a 〈◊〉 You have a greater trust committed 〈…〉 others have You have Souls 〈…〉 to your care for Church-Member are to care even naturally one for anoâ—â— If God hath two Servants and he inâ—â— one with his Lumber the other with 〈◊〉 children and if both be negligent sure 〈◊〉 all suffer the highest indignation from the Lord who neglects the Children What are you afraid you shall have the less light the less grace the less comfort from Christ for that others share with you And therefore will ye turn Ingrossers and Monopolists O! Know the more useful you are to invite the Children to their Father the more you your selves will be inriched and supplyed and whilst you are dividing your loaves God will act at a wonderful rate for you the bread will multiply you shall receive whilst you are disbursing your light and heat will increase by your holy dispersing it 2. Neglecting godly Conference How is godly conference neglected even among Church members What! are you ashamed of your God is the speaking of grace and glory some kind of disparagement to your tongues When Saints come together 〈…〉 precious time is devoured in back 〈…〉 undue unseasonable censuring of 〈…〉 who are not capable of making 〈…〉 esence or else in foolish impertinent discourses of worldly matters Few like the Disciples in their journey to Emaus discourse of such matters as Christ himself joyns with them in and causeth their hearts to burn When do you warm one anothers hearts and sit each other to enter into Communion with God in secret How do many complain of you that their hearts are estranged from God by converses and intimacies with you and that they loose their affections by keeping up correspencies with you and therefore count it their wisdom to retire into their closets rather than mispend precious hours in foolish communications with such barren frothy empty Professors How many weak Christians are there who are not acquainted with the wiles of Satan and they sit down pensive and dejected thinking no condition like theirs and conclude hereupon that they are none of Gods Children whom if you were spiritual pitiful active and free to acquaint them with your own experiences that you have been tempted as they you might succour under their temptations and comfort with the comforts wherewith you have been comforted and ease them by hearkning to their doubts and complaints and shewing them a way how to deliver their Souls Were you of a Christ-like Spirit you would not break these bruised reeds nor quench these smoaking flaxes but rather blow up their graces and labour
to scatter and disperse those fogs and mists which over-cloud their Souls you should be eyes to the blind but you are not you should be of a merciful Spirit to all Souls more especially to the Souls of all Saints most especially to the Souls of those Saints to whom you are peculiarly related but you are not Exod. 23.5 1 Thes 5.14 1 Cor. 12.7 Mal. 3.16 In the old Law God took care of Asses if they lay under a burthen Israel was to help them Doth God take care for beasts and will not ye for men for Saints for the redeemed of the Lord God requires of you that you comfort the feeble minded The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall Christ expects his own with increase They that feared the Lord spake often one to another to comfort one another with the promises of God made to his people against the flourishing of the wicked and overflowing of ungodliness and the Lord hearkned and heard it and a book of Remembrance was written before him c. the Lord book't that good service Nihil de Scripturis nihil de salute Animarum agitur sed nugae risus verba proferuntur inventum he pur it upon record But though the Lord hearknetâ— and hears yet he seldom finds us so employed our neglects are sealed up in his bag I pray God we may lay it to heart repent and reform Bernards complaint may justly be revived Not a word of the Scriptures nothing of the Salvation of the Soul but trisles and to yes laughter and words as light as the wind eat up the time I know there have been too many Uzza's amongst us who have had an itching desire to be fingring of the Ark thinking of themselves more highly than they ought to think and like the ambitious Sons of Levi taking too much upon them whereby the Ministry hath suffered much contempt The Lord forgive these daring Phaetons who have set the world in a slame hereby But let not us run from one extreme into another Let us give to the Ministry their due Jude v. 20. and yet not neglect to build up our selves in our most holy faith Mutual duties should be exercised between Christian and Christian The Apostle is express for it in the places already quoted I shall adde one more Col. 3.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another O! if God would be with me so far as to make me an instrument to prevail with you to go and visit one another and stir up one another that knowing the terours of the Lord you may perswade men O! bewail thy unserviceableness thy private spiritedness thy want of love and bowels to others especially now when the Ministerial help fails to such a degree and when there is so great an Apostasie Sure then is no time wherein Christian-fellowship is more called for and wherein it may be more profitable than at this time But alas How are the wise as well as the foolish Virgins asleep generally secure without action no way usefull to each other no more than they are who are fast asleep in their beds of rest O! how few are there like Jonathan and David how few enter into a brotherly promise to exhort one another to call one another to account to tell one another their fears to know of one another their growth in Religion We are proud and loath to have our nakedness appear yea some of us have few stories to tell of Gods goodness and bounty to our Souls and we hate a discovery how low earthly vain backsliding we are Hence reserved to each other But God will bring forth the hidden works of dishonesty 3. Not admonishing or not aright How is Fraternal correption neglected or spoyl'd in the managing Some totally neglect reproving their Brethren Gallio-like they little care for these things they are little concern'd whether God be honoured or dishonoured Others delay admonition Either neglecting it altogether or delaying it The Flesh is backward to this self-denying work and so the many weighty circumstances which should bring the Offendor to Repentance are forgot The Offendor is also hardned in his Sin He thinks by thy silence thou art altogether like unto him so he judgeth of Gods silence these things hast thou done and I kept silence Psa 50.21 thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self so he judgeth of thy silence It 's much easier to fetch out a spot of inck from a cloth the day it is stained than afterwards Sin like a Mole will quickly bury it self and the longer let alone the harder it is to dig it up The longer a disease is let alone the harder cured Cronical diseases are seldome a credit to the Physitian Besides if you neglect the Reproof this day or hour perhaps by the next he will commit the same Sin again for either he knows it not to be a sin or in case he knows it yet every new act doth strengthen the habit of sin It is the nature of sin to blind the Mind to stupifie the Conscience and to harden the heart Exhort therefore one another dayly Heb. 3.13 while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin If the finner add sin to sin put that to your account for neglecting the Ordinance of God for his reducement If he loseth the favour of God and neglects hereupon all private communion with the Lord put that to thy account If at length he becomes impudent in sin so that like a Bedlam he feels not the pricks of sharp admonition put all this to your account because you have delayed to cure to heal to save the Soul of your Brother A timely reproof might have saved a Soul and covered a multitude of sins Besides have you time at your command that you with Faelix will do your duty at a more convenient season May'st not thou dye or the Offendor dye and both in sin thou in the sin of Omission and he in the sin of Commission unrepented of before the day comes wherein thou art resolved to tell him roundly of his fault Why art not thou trembling with fear of blood-guiltiness Is Soul-murther no sin with thee Or have you the Holy-Ghost at command Without the Holy Spirits a sistances and concourse your labour will be in vain you will get a blot by reproving the delinquent will flye in your face hate you for telling the truth he will add sin unto sin and perhaps put you into a flame too and must the Holy-Ghost dance attendance on you If you observe his hour you must go presently whilst the wound is fresh and bleeding but if you neglect his call it is a question whether your hour will be Gods Others miscarry in reproving Some reprove Or miscarrying in it not reproving privately Matth. 18.15 Prov. 10.12 Si solus nosti
et vis coram pluribus arguere non es Corrector sed Proditor Augustin but not privately though Christ be so expresâ— for it If thy Brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone though the Law of Charity binds us to cover our Brothers nakedness as much as we can Love covereth all sins yet some Doeg-like backbite their Neighbour and tell it to every one save him who should hear of it How few modestly affectionately and humbly in the most private manner communicate their fears of sins decayes and infirmities to the supposed delinquents Are not most too forward sinfully and wickedly to divulge their undue suspicions to others whereby the names of some suffer Souls lye neglected prejudices and heart-burnings are promoted Schisme is made in the body of Christ Though the Law of Wisdome bind us not to use more means than needs must if gentle private reproofs will serve to reclaim not to blazon infirmities yet Professours through pride envyâ— want of Charity at least want of wit publish on the house top what is done in a corner Herein we do as we hate to be dealt with were it our own concernment Hereby we make the Offendor to hate us and beget in him due prejudices against us viz. 〈◊〉 we thâ—â—â— to draw the blood of his Nameâ— yet how many Church-Members are peâ—canâ— herein It will be hard to make him believe thou comeâ— to heal 〈◊〉 Soul if thou haâ—â— already wounded his Name Have not some Church-Member 〈◊〉 â—or bringing it immediately to the 〈◊〉 Hereby innumerable evils ensue many are grieved many offended the party that is impeached stands on his guard pleads for his sin extenuates it or is strengthned in his sin by the uncharitable proceeding and irregular acting of the Brother who first took cognizance of the miscarriage and so Judah justifies Samaria Others reprove that those injuries that have been offered to the 〈◊〉 may be recompenced Reproveing selfishly rather than thaâ— their Brothers Soul may be healed and it appears â—erein if the wrong done them may be remidied little do they heed whether there be any other Repentance They reprove not to gain their Brother but to make gain of him and therefore Jehu-like they drive furiously in their own cases but in Gods they are dumb and dull enough Other busie-bodies would be thought very tender of Christs honour Reproveing only for disputable things they tithe Mint and Annise c. they reprove such things as are disputable and neglect to teprove where there are too many just accusations to lay in They will be very severe in censuring their Brethren for their Hair Cloathes or some controverted recreations and yet let them alone to live in worldliness sensuality lukewarmness pride sloth c. Others are so Magisterial in their reproofs Reproveing Magisterially as if they had forgotten that they are in the body as if they had no native corruption remaining in them they want the Spirit of meekness they have forgotten the Apostles Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault Gal. 6.1 ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the Spirit of meekness c. O! how haughtily do some carry it towards offending Brethren I wish you would sling the first stone at your selves If you are not guilty of the same offence yet you are of others at least you have the seed of the same Sin within you O that offending Brethren might know that it is only Conscience of duty that brings you to them and that it is love to their Souls puts you upon such displeasing work to your flesh But wo and alas How few will condescend The work is not managed with that humility as it ought and therefore no Brother is gained Others are so light frothy Reproveing lightly and unserious in this business that they spoyl all They do not invocate God to accompany them in the work they do not cry out who is sufficient They forget it is Soul-work they are imployed in they forget how abortive such labours have been they do not set upon it with that fear and trembling which they should Few rebuke with authority as having Gods Glory and mens Everlasting Salvation in their eye and hence when they come off from this work their Conscience smites them that they have been no more serious and fervent in a matter that concerns life and death Few continue their admonitions Putting an end to Reproof too soon and follow them till the Delinquent be brought to conjession repentance and amendment We soon tire and put the ill names of Doggs and Swine upon our offending Brethren to excase our sloth and to take off that diligence about their Sou's which their dulness and hardness of heart calls for We should in meekness instruct them though they oppose themselves We should bear with their present stubbornness and abuses and wait if God peradventure will give them repentance We forget how many years God waited on us though we were stout stubborn and refractory how patient and long-suffering he was unto us Though the more we love the less we are beloved though men even flye in our faces yet we should do as our Lord and his Ministers not presently shake off the dust of our feet against them 4. Not bearing Reproof Christianly How few behave themselves Christianly under Reproof When men come to you from the great God to discharge the duties they owe to your Souls your behaviour is such that none will meddle with such Patients to dress their wounds if the Lord had not charged them with this Commission How few receive a Reproof kindly and affectionately Not lovingly This makes me fear that there are more Hâ—pocrites in Churches than we are aware of It is a great mercy to be reproved As many as I love 〈◊〉 rebuke Rev. 3.19 To sin against Reproof is aggravated wickedness The revolters are profound 〈◊〉 make slaughter Hos 5.2 though I have been a râ—buker of them all It is an argument of â—atred not to reprove Levit. 19.15 Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thine heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour c. Yet how are they counted turbulent pragmatical void or affection rigâ—d and censorious who will not let them goe on in their sin He that hates reproof Prov. 15.10 shall surely dye There is not a sadder Omen that God hath an endless controversie with thee I know saith the Prophet to Amaziah the Lord hath determined to destroy thee 2 Chron. 25.16 because thou hast not hearkened to my reproof Others seem to earken to the Reprover and give him verbal thanks for his plain dealing but from that day their hearts boyl inwardly and they are fill'd with prejudice which will express it self when ever it meets with a fair opportunity How few do engage some Friend to be a faithful Monitor to them to be open-hearted to them
that it would please God to make my words as an Hammer Motives to let our hearts be broken for and from our Sins to break the Rocks O that I may be thus usefull to your Souls O that somewhat at last may be hinted that may through the blessing of Goâ— break your hearts for and from sin that may promote your Repentance for your own and your othermens sins And indeed unless your hearts be broken for sin they will never be broken from sin But the more bitterness of Spirit you are in for sin the more probability there is you will not return unto sin When men have furfetted upon a Dish and are greatly afflicted and pained by it the more unlikely they are to return again unto that Dish That is certain saith Mr. Burroughs either a mans sin will make an end of his mourning or his mouâ—ning will make an end of his sin Yea if your hearts be not broken for other mens sins they are not kindly broken for your own sins You will never put it out of all doubt that your sorrow is right and genuine unless you mourn for others as well as your own sins for it will alwayes be objected that if Sin as Sin were your Burden if Sin as dishonouring God as wounding Christ as grieving the Spirit then other mens sins being reslexions on the Authority and Will of the great God Father Son and Spirit should have some considerable weight upon your Souls The truth is others sins become thine if thou knowest them and mournest not for them O then In what a case are all the hardned jolly Professours who can make a sport of Drunkeness Uncleanness Superstition Perjury c. in others Consider therefore by the Help of this Glass others sins as well as thine own to help on thy brokeness of heart for and from sin Psal 119.158 Behold with David the transgressour and be grieved because they keep not Gods word Let your Souls with Lot be vexed there are greater sins found among Professours in England than were in Sodom Let thy Soul be as his was as in Hell as upon the Rack How can you evidence that you are translated from death to life because you love the Brethren whilst you are not troubled to see them wounding and damning their souls by their sins you are grieved to see any Friends of yours in great hazards and dangers by the Sword by Sickness by Fire but the Souls of your Friends are in the greatest danger yet you lament not the sight of these deplorable spectacles God forbid that any of you should have grounds of hope to gain Liberties and outward Privileges by others provocations whilst all their sins become yours whilst you are not humbled for them But to lay before you some Considerations that may set home by the Spirit draw water out of the Flint 1. God is greatly incensed Should not your hearts be broken for and from sin seeing sin hath so incensed God against the Land of your Nativity Can you retire from the World and seriously consider the Prints of Gods displeasure against poor England and yet remain impenitent Is it nothing to you that God hath for many years been withdrawing from his Sanctuary in England O! Your Ministers have had miscarrying Wombs and dry Breasts Though they rose early and sate up late were much in watchings and in labours for the Conversion and Edification of Souls yet how seldome have any been under the Pangs of the New Birth How seldome were any pricked at the heart How seldome have any cryed out What shall we do to be saved And for others concerning whom we hoped better things How have they shed their Leaf How have they pined and withered away as to Practical Godliness How have they lost that Seriousness that Heavenlyness that Power of Godliness which before they seemed to have had Your Ministers saw this and lamented it they acquainted you with it invited you to remember from whence you are fall'n to repent and do your first works But yet You returned not unto the Lord. Should not this pierce your very hearts Is it nothing to you that not only your selves but so many Professours in England should lose their faithful and painful Ministers Is it nothing to you for God to call home by Death and otherwise so many of his Embassadours whom you have grieved whom you have despised and affronted and who have been more burthened with your Pride Earthliness Divisions Sensuality c. than they are with their present Poverty and Dishonours under which they lye What doth it portend save War and Hostility when Embassadours are called home And may not you fear that the wrath of God is and will be against you till there be no remedy They mocked the Messengers of God 2 Chron. 36.16 and despised his Words and misused his Prophets untill the wrath of the Lord arose against his people till there was no remedy If God will treat with you no more believe it he will fight with you And O! O! O! Who will set the Bryars and Thornes against him He will goe through them he will consume them in his wrath Is it nothing to you that there is yet such a Spirit of Division in the Land O! What heats and heart-burnings what animosities and jealousies are there so that a Brother cannot trust a Brother Is it nothing to you that God hath been so long contending with the Land by the Sword and by the Pestilence and so lately by Fire Is it nothing to you that God permitted that dreadful Fire in London to break forth about Three of the Clock on a Lords Day morning Did he not thereby cause his Sabbath in a manner to cease in London Did not he make his holy Day of Rest a Day of labour and disquiet Did not he hereby as it were anticipate his Peoples conventions to expiate him and so drew them as it were off from the Remedy that his hands being loosened he might punish 2 Chron. 7.12 Deut. 9.14 Jer. 2.2 and not be prevailed with to pardon May we not say with Jeremiah even upon this account The Lord hath swallowed up all the Habitations of Jacob and hath not pittied he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong Holds of the Daughter of Judah he hath brought them down to the ground Is it nothing that at the same time God should send forth such a boysterous Wind to fann and blow up the Fire East West South and North God therein executing the Judgement threatned against Elam Jer. 49.36 of bringing the four Winds from the four Quarters of Heaven c. If the punishment of one Element saith a late Writer be dreadful as the Water was to the old World and the Air is in Pestilential Infections and the Earth was when it opened its mouth to swallow up Corah and his company how dreadful is Gods punishing a Land or Person with double and treble Judgements in one