in Deo A Holy Man is never so like a Holy Angel as when he rejoyces in God Have thy set times for solemn Consideration of these things sc How God is Pleased and Honoured by Joy so Hallowed How he Praiseth it and Rewardeth it How much it honours him more than pining querulous Sorrow doth How certain it is that the most pious and penitent Sorrow is nothing but a Purge prescribed by him for cleansing us and making us to relish the fat things of the Feast that I speak of How excellently this Joy strengthens the Soul sweetens Duty lightens Trouble graceth Religion suits the Gospel and an adopted state Yea and serves to subdue the sins that most easily beset us and most extreamly pester us Even incomparably more than all the self-disquieting distraction that goes under the name of Humiliation In a word How desirable a temper the Apostles was As sorrowful yet always rejoycing 2 Cor. 6.10 Sorrowing alway yet never as men without hope 1. Thess 4.13 Reader I must hope if thou dost thus thy following Life shall be a perpetual labour for abiding and abounding Joy And that if Bodily Maladies and Satanical Illusions have made Grief and Fear a second nature to thee thou wilt be perswadable Perswadable to make so necessary a rupture and try to tear thy self from thy self for the possession of this under Heaven The God of Hope fill thee with all Joy and Peace in believing and expecting thy perfected published Reconciliation Amen My next undertaking is to evince the truth of my Doctrine thus explained To demonstrate that every Man hath this to do and no Man hath any more to do in the World but to believe and consider Gods Purpose Christs Purchase and the Holy Ghosts Proof of their purposed and purchased Reconciliation To Pray and Labour for the possession for the perswasion and for the practical improvement of it And to Hope and rejoyce in the Hope of the perfection and publication of it in the day of Jugment I dare not decline it knowing that many do need it Nor shall I be prolix in it They that cannot see by the Light of the one Sun in the Firmament would not see if there were a thousand shining thence Their Conviction I despair of whomsoever these three Considerations shall not convince But I propose them with an humble confidence that they shall be made Eye-salve unto some Souls And mighty through God against Infidelity as very Spittle and Clay as they shall appear in any wanton Eyes They are but three C. 1. The sure word of Prophesie sets us this to do and no more Acknowledge the Scripture to be Gods Word and a perfect Revelation of his Will and a compleat Rule of our Duty and you acknowledge the truth of my Doctrine I am content that no man believe it ever the more for my Ministry of it if I do not shew that the Scripture sets us to do all I say Or if it can be shewn that it sets us any one thing more than I say Reader Rouze up thy Soul and read not with ordinary care what follows I will not overwhelm thee with many Texts but be careful to set very plain and pertinent ones before thee The Belief and Consideration of Gods Love and Gracious Purpose to Reconcile Sinners is set us Psalm 130.4 There are forgivenesses with thee that thou mayst be feared That is q. d. Lord shouldst thou deal with the best Man alive according unto thy Laws strictness and his own Souls frequent fears Hell must have him But O thou hast Eternal and Unalterable Purposes of forgiving Sins and Reconciling Sinners unto thy self And this is believed and considered of by thy Blessed Command And if it were not there were no manner of foundation for Religion in the World All our encouragement to all our Worship of thee is taken from this Joh. 3.16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting Life Who sees not here the Fountain of all good Gods Love that is his Eternal Will and Purpose to Reconcile Sinners This is set to be seen and considered first Then the Conduit through which all the good must flow from that Fountain even Christ the Purchaser of purposed Reconciliation Then the Vessels which must receive all good from the Fountain through the Conduit Namely Believers on Christ entire Consenters to be his in the Bond of the Gospel Covenant Then the streams of good by those Vessels to be received through the Conduit from the Fountain Even Deliverance from ruining Enmity and Possession of blessed Friendship with God for ever To name no more 2 Pet. 1.10 we are commanded to make our Election sure Our Election passively is Gods actively Gods eternal purpose to Reconeile us But how should this be made sure unto our hearts without their believing and considering that God has Eternal Purposes about that matter The Belief and Consideration of Christs Purchase of Reconcilement is set us 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners 'T is the true and great Fundamental Article of Christian Faith Worthy of all reception into Consideration and Improvement that Christ came to save Sinners from Enmity and reconcile them unto God Everlastingly Rom. 5.10 When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son When we did hate and were hated of God Jesus Christ paid a valuable or rather invaluable price to buy our Reconciliation and bought it leaving us as little need as we had ability to bring any Meritory price for it And how plainly do all the Texts that command our Faith in Christs Blood whereby it is Purchased suppose our Belief and Consideration of it to precede The Belief and Consideration of the Holy Ghosts proof of this is set us That it is in especial manner the work of the Glorious Spirit to Reveal and to Communicate all Purposed by the Father and all Purchased by the Son is foreshewn in this our Discourse well known to the Church of Christ and admirably well shewn by him whom I use to call John the Divine I mean our Learned Dr. Owen in his Pneumatologie or Discourse of the Holy Spirit worthy to be wrote in Cedar and Marble That we are required to believe and to consider his testimony of this matter this single Text would brightly evince if we had no other Mat. 12.31 The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto mer. Observe here our Saviour had Preached Gods Purpose and his Errand into the World to make a Purchase of the Reconciliation of Sinners The Proof hereof was made by many Testimonies of the Holy Ghost Principally by Miracles wrought by his Power which indeed are the utmost proofs possible These themselves some would not believe and consider unto due purpose No but as it is Mar. 3.30 They
or abate their degree of Religion but then when Satan can indeed present an appearance of gain by it I mean a gain of somewhat better or as good as Gods Love in their very own Thoughts And Secondly That when ever they have thought themselves to have seen profit coming by it and have by and by found their mistake That then they would acknowledge their horrid effascination and resolve never again to trust the spectacles through which they looked unto their cost I know that Lust does bewitch into Error and Error when it gets into the throne of the Heart fearfully plays the Tyrant Let Men but listen unto their Senses Fancies and Passions they shall take the most loathsome Lyes for self-evident Truths And when they have done they shall be as much governed by them They shall adore Dogs and Crocodiles scorning God and his Christ They shall dig for a Worms favour as for immortal Treasure and dye away for fear of its frown And all with unshaken Confidence as if God were nothing and Idols were all things As if the smiles of a mortal Man were really a richer good then Gods Heaven and a hard look from Caesar were more dreadful by far then Hell-fire But I do also know and I keep some stir to make others know it too Such is the admirable constitution of our Religion such is its perspicuity with its purity that Humane Minds are not presently so stupified as to be unsensible of its Glory or so distracted as to dream ought spoke against it to be true or so much as probable 'T is abundance of Opium you give your Reason before you make it dormant enough to let an ill thought of Religion into your Heart Before you are capable of your sweet Follies and dear Deceits Most commonly you that neglect Religion are fain to serve Satan without so much as any imagination of gain by it I and with many a fearful expectation of loss too And when your bewitched Eyes are drawn unto some imaginary recompence in any way of sin ye oftentimes soon afterward find the Proverbs truth Fraud and Frost end in dirt Well were it if then you would set your selves to verifie another as known a saying Burnt Children dread the fire In a word The day is coming that will reveal it The Religion instituted and taught by Jesus Christ is one that Men can bray and bark against as they do and as he foretold us that they would But they cannot argue against Without that quickness and subtlety and solidity which are the priviledges of very few heads its excellence and importance are the plainest of things unto all honest hearts And our Motives unto the severest Duty are ten thousand times stronger then our Temptations unto the sweetest Sin He has a very hard task who goes about to prove that I shall do better without Gods friendship then with it That I shall have more Light if I go further from the Sun I. 9. The Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink Christianity or Gospel saving Religion doth not consist in external Observances and little Opinions If it be Reconciliation or a new very Friendship with God it cannot stand in the poor despicable things wherein 't is placed by too many Ceremonialists I mean Ceremonialists of every Sect and Party among us Many of which seem to value themselves more by some peculiar dividing Ceremony then by common and universally professed Christianity Natural corruption disposes Men to allow God nothing at all of Subjection or Obedience By Gods inward and outward Calls of Conscience Parents Ministers they are brought quickly unto shame of that open malignity But Carnality and Sloth admit not any great liberality to him And Lust and Fancy and ill Example soon prescribe a narrow pittance He shall have outward Homage and Bodily service Presence at the places of his Worship and observation of all laudable gestures therein He shall have Lamps of Profession carried for him Oyl they cannot tend for Graces are mysterious things He shall have loud Cryes but as for intelligent and sincere Prayers they promise him not He shall have their Eyes lift up to Heaven but he must excuse them if their Affections be set on Earth He shall have their Company at every Sacramental Feast but they desire in this thing to be forgiven if they come having not on the Wedding-garment and unengaged in the cares of imputed inherent and practical Righteousness He shall have Zeal for the Religion they neither know nor practice I and it may be against the sins that they do love and live in They hope he will accept it from them without Integrity In short He shall have his Church obeyed and Gospel too as far as they themselves please But that reaches not unto the concerns of Regeneration Repentance Faith Love and Obedience principled from them Entering Covenant and keeping Covenant with him with all the Heart and Soul and Strength is that which they see no necessity of Miserable Creatures Do ye believe the blessed God to be a spirit or a dead stock Did ye ever read one Chapter of the Holy Bible Yea or of the Heathen Moralists Can ye in sober sadness think that our Blessed Redeemer was sent to raise dead sinners that he might make them unnatural and monstrous Flatterers Or that the Holy Spirit was sent by him to make painted Sepulchres of you Can ye really perswade your selves that God may be honoured and Satans Kingdom be demolished and your Souls be changed and qualified for Heaven by your Trifling and your Lying And without your Loving God as both your Benefactor and Ruler O shut not your eyes so very close till Vengeance open them for you Look out a little see my Doctrine and its Proof It shall possess you of other thoughts and rid you of these delusions It shall stop your scoffing at Spirituality as a thing imaginary At Vnion and Communion with God as though they were dreams or but lying pretensions of Hypocritical Men. At Gods Living in Men and their Living in God as though there were no such things It shall make you as confident as now you are ignorant that they are mad Men whom you hear Jearing at the Life of holy Love and Promising Heaven to ever so little washed swine Magna ista credimus quia nos parvi sumus Senec. It shall make you to own that had not your Sense been little you had never took any thing but very Friendship with God for honourable and great I. 10. True Religion is its own Reward It is so framed by God that in it there is great Reward besides what is prepared for it It is evidently so if as our Doctrine asserts it stands in Reconciliation and Friendship with God If it be not a meer Service but a very Friendship If as is most certain God admits all his convert Servants unto the relation of very Children and the dignity of Friends All and every of his Commands
and declared so to be For you are told He that hath the Son of God hath Life 1 Joh. 5.12 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 And being justified by Faith you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 5.1 Come Reader come take Eternal Life from these Lines Hold thy self not a minute longer in Hell-fire for Gods wrath is not a jod less Down with my Book and down fall thou on thy Knees and utter the few words which will make God and thy Soul everlasting Friends No longer dare to live Damned Venture to strike the Gospel-Covenant and be saved Say to Jesus Christ Lord I will stay no longer I am thine upon thy Gospel-terms for ever From this instant to Eternity I will be thine Say to thy self Heart bid an eternal adieu unto Vnrighteousness and unto trust in self-righteousness as satisfactory or meritory Say unto vain Company Sirs I take my leave of you I must travel no farther with you that are not for the strait gate and narrow way If you will not be Reconciled to God with me I will not any longer sight against God with you But whither do I break Be it known unto every Reader this is Gospel God is not Reconciled to us FOR our Repentance and Faith The most penitent Believers are but unprofitable servants unto him But he is never to be Reconciled WITHOVT Repentance and Faith Both are as necessary as tho' they were Meritory though they are infinitely far from it Yea and upon the first penitent and faithful consenting to the Gospel-Covenant God and Sinners become as true Friends as God and Holy Angels And as Eternally inseparable ones Rom. 8.38 39. 'T is not to be denyed or concealed The grant of Peace is one thing and the sense of it is another And these two are separable God may be Reconciled to a Covenant-servant of his for months and years and the servant be in fear and doubt of it Those sins that hinder not Gods grant of Peace to us do often hinder our sense and assurance of it Wherefore we are to consider another particular concerning Reconciliation To wit 5. The Believers perswasion of it For though Reconciliation be the greatest good though it be Eternally purposed for me and by Christs Death purchased for me and be by the Holy Spirit proved to me that it is for some Purposed and Purchased Yea though through Grace I am possessed of it what then Until I know that I am possessed of it I am but like a Child in the Womb Living indeed in a bag of water but not knowing my own Life I have a Life that is only in degree inferiour to the Life of Angels But yet I live in doubts and fears that I am like unto Divels and that I shall lodge for ever in their unquenchable fire Now be it carefully heeded The Holy Spirit who is given to work Grace in us he is also given to witness Grace unto us and to make us know the things that are freely given to us of God 1 Cor. 2.12 He is a free and soveraign Agent indeed and he works and witnesses in them in whom he worketh as he pleaseth He giveth assurance of Peace with God as much as he pleaseth and as soon and no more and no sooner than he pleaseth 1 Cor. 12.11 At the first Plantation of the Gospel-Church he used together to convert Souls and to assure them of their Reconciliation unto God But now we see he doth not ordinarily so do And as commanded 2 Pet. 2.10 most Converts do give great diligence before their Election and Reconciliation are made sure I contemn the Roman Synagogue that measures all Cloth by its own Ell and denyeth the attainableness of that assurance which they neither duly seek or ever attain Our Divines have confuted and shamed them so much that there needs not any thing to be said unto their blasphemous Dreams Let the desirous Reader see but that one most excellent Sermon of Mr. Samuel Fairclough on 2 Pet. 1.10 in the Morning Lectures against Popery The Churches of Christ do believe and teach that the blessed Spirit doth ordinarily sooner or later witness unto true Converts their Reconciliation And seal them to the day of Redemption And this either mediately or immediately Immediately by a sort of spiritual words Such as pass between God and the Blessed Spirits above By these the Holy Ghost testifieth unto humble diligent Believers that they are Gods Reconciled and Adopted Children And when he doth so he doth it with a clearness and sweetness that carry their own evidence with them For there is no Rule beyond it by which it may be tryed as there is no other visible besides the Light it self whereby you may try it Rom. 8.16 He is said therefore to witness with our Spirits that we are the Children of God And Eph. 1.13 with Eph. 4.30 He is said to seal us But how so Unless he doth set some print and stamp upon us distinguishing our state and Relation Again mediately the Spirit perswadeth us also of our Reconciliation To wit by enabling us to see our Graces truth and sincerity and from thence to infer our certain Reconciliation Both wayes he is ordinarily the Comforter of sound Believers I have read of a Woman that would say she had born eight or nine Children and with as much pain as other Women used to undergo But she would be content to bear all that pain over again for this comfort of the Spirit O that the same mind were in all that profess a value of it But well what if you had sought and found it too There 's another very material particular concerning Reconciliation to God that would ask for your thoughts and cares To wit 6. The practical improvement of it I mean of his Reconciliation and of his perswasion or assurance of it Hear the Apostle 2 Cor. 7.2 Having these promises to wit of Reconciliation and all Grace chap. 6. latter end what use are we to make of them Why Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God q. d. Let us live as far as we can without sin Let us do Gods will on Earth as 't is done in Heaven unto our utmost ability Let us do all we are able to make our Reconciliation more honourable to God then our Damnation would have been Assurance is a special priviledge Scarce any Childs portion at all times And 't is possible that some of Gods Children may live and dye without it However when it is bestow'd extraordinary Aids of Grace and Advantages for Duty are bestowed with it The helps which School-Men call necessary are given to all that are Converted But those which they call liberal are given but to them that are Assured In Conversion all Gods Children do receive strength sufficient to walk acceptably with him But when they are sealed by the Holy Spirit
they receive additional strength to walk more serviceably Now as more is given to them proportionably more is required from them more than from other Converts that are not yet assured of their Peace with God Luk. 12.48 Every Israelite owed God much but the Nazarite owed him much more If I were asked Who of all the living were deepest Debtors unto God and had most work set them to do I would say assured Christians Yea and I verily think that next unto Saints Glorified none are so painful and so humble as the assured True it is in many things they themselves do offend And 't is not in Perfection attained but expected that the best of them dare to glory Wherefore their Eye is at least it ought to be ever kept upon the last particular concerning our Reconciliation unto God And that is 7. The Judgment days publication and perfection of it Acts. 3.19 Sins shall be in open Court blotted out when that day of refreshment cometh from the presence of the Lord. Reconciliation shall be published to purpose when in the audience of Men and Angels God the Judge of all shall pronounce it with his Mouth And so that he will be admired in his Saints and all that believe To wit for the heights whereto he exalteth them 2 Thess 1.10 Hear but one Apostle more 1 Joh. 3.2 When he shall appear we shall be like him That is when God displays his own Glory in the Son of his Love who comes at the last day in the Glory of his Father we shall be as like him as shall be fit for Children to be like a Father There shall be no sign of any variance ever being betwixt us But all the Blessedness possible shall speak his perfect Reconciliation to us and all the Holiness possible shall speak our like Reconciliation unto him Whether the sins of Believers shall be all of them published in the general Judgment is a Question Learned Alting brings five Reasons for the Affirmative and as many for the Negative But it is most undoubted that the blessed Friendship betwixt God and them shall be then shewn abroad through the whole Creation and be exalted beyond the reach of our present words or thoughts St. Austins Mother hearing a Sermon of Heaven is reported to have cryed out O what do I here in this World Methinks Reader thou shouldst imitate her And here exclaim O what have I to do all my days but provide for this Judgment-day Wouldst thou know what course to take for this provision I beseech thee attend unto the fifth and last Position that I offer for explicating my Doctrine Pos 5. Mans business touching his Reconciliation unto God falls into three particular exercises Attention Reader Attention give here thy best Attention and the greatest thou ever gavest to the things that best deserve it These Exercises must be thine if ever the war between God and thee do come to an end The war lies in this which of you shall have their will Fain thou wouldst have thy own will as bad an one as it is As mad a Mind as 't is led by I mean as void as 't is of Truth and as possessed as 't is with Error Self-will is the sin of sin It lives longest and dyes last in every sinner Fain wouldst thou live as thou listest Think speak and act as thou pleasest have thy Thoughts and Works also free Fain wouldst thou be thy own Man yea and God too Making to thy self no God but thy self and observing no Law but thy Lust I and after this done thou wouldst not be undone Thou wouldst gain this in the World and not lose thy Soul take the Hell in sin and miss the Hell prepared for it Thou wouldst Temporally and Eternally disjoyn the evil of Suffering from the evil of Doing And escape that though thy Life be spent to the last breath of it in this But God saith thee nay and sends forth Proclamations to the contrary From him I have Commission to tell thee and I do by these Presents give thee to know God will tear Heaven and Earth in pieces and if it could be he would himself dye in the fight rather than thou shouldst have that will of thine Rather then thou thy self shouldst escape the misery of Divels if thou wilt hold their enmity and keep unreconciled as they Yea and rather than he will ever afford thee Reconciliation in any way but that of his Gospel-Revelation If therefore thou learn'st not and fallest not unto these Gospel-Exercises that I am commending thou plainly thus speakest To Hell my Soul get thee going to Hell O extremity of torment I will venture thee O eternity of anguish I fear thee not O Worm that ever livest and O Fire that never dyest I will bear you both And O you exercises that are the Chariots of Grace and Eternal Glory I tell you all three I scorn you Frightful words and not to be heard without amazement and a quaking Heart Reader were I to beg but one Blessing for my own Soul and for those that are dearest unto me it should be this That we might happily begin and hold on these three Exercises Whereof I shall treat as plainly and fully though as briefly as I am able Take them together first thus They are 1. Of Believing and Considering Reconciliation in respect to the three first particulars That is as purposed as purchased and as proved to be so 2. Of praying and labouring for Reconciliation in respect to the three next particulars That is as possessed as perswaded or assured of and as practically improved 3. Of hoping for Reconciliation and rejoycing in it in respect to the last particular That is as published and perfected And here observe thou well how far it is from brick and bondage whereto thou art called Idleness is of the worst wracks that an Humane Soul can be set on and thou art called to employment right honourable Thy Labour is not desired till admirable encouragements unto it are known and well considered first by thee No nor till superabundant aids from Heaven are invoked Thou art not set to Labour but in Hope and for or with Joy unspeakable and full of glory The World deals quite contrary with its Vassals In the ways of sin Men know not whither they go and are not suffered to consider what they are like to have for their Labour And indeed their Labour is to sow in much pain what they reap in Eternal Torment In their Lives and Labours as in their Deaths they have no Hope or what is worse than none They are far from Joy the Spirit of God assures us there is no Peace to them And their Mirth is nothing in the world but light-headedness Their going to Play-houses is but sending themselves to Bedlam Come on then and learn the way and enter into the joy of the Lord. The Lord that sends me to invite thee and thus direct thee First Thou must believe and