sin whatever it be you cannot be so infinite in sinning as he is infinite in pardoning if you repent yea sins upon repentance are so remitted as if they had never been committed I will put away thy transgressions as a cloud and thy sins as a mist Isa. 44.22 And what by corruption hath been done by repentance is undone As the former examples witness Come and let us Reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow Isa. 1.18 Yea whiter than snow For the Prophet David laying open his blood guiltiness and his original impurity useth these words Purge me with Hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Psal. 51.7 And in reason did Christ come to call sinners to repentance and shall he not shew mercy to the penitent Or who would not cast his burden upon him that desires to give ease As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner Ezek. 18.32 and 33.11 Onely apply not this salve before the ulcer be searched to the bottome Lay not hold upon mercy until thou be'st throughly humbled The onely way to become good is first to believe that you are evil and by accusing our selves we prevent Satan by judging our selves we prevent God Are we as sick of sorrow as we are of sin Then may we hopefully go to the Physitian of our Souls who came into the World onely to cure the sick and to give light to them onely who sit in darkness and in the shadow of Death God does not pour the Oyl of Grace but into a broken and contrite Heart Wouldest thou get out of the miserable estate of Nature into the blessed estate of Grace and of Satans bond-slave become the Child of God and a Member of Christ Wouldest thou truly know thine own Heart and be very sensible how evil and wicked it is that so thou mayest have a more humble conceit of thy self Lay to heart these three particulars 1. The corruption of our nature by reason of original sin 2. Our manifold breach of Gods Righteous Law by actual sin 3. The guilt and punishment due to us for them both This being done thou wilt see and finde thy necessity of a Redeemer And it is Thirst onely that makes us relish our Drink Hunger our meat The full Stomack of a Pharisee surcharged with the superfluitics of his own Merits will loath the Honey-comb of Christs Righteousness This was it which made the Young Prodigal to relish even servants fare though before wanton when full fed at home No more relish feels the Pharisaical heart in Christs blood than in a chip But O how acceptable is the Fountain of living Waters to the chased Heart panting and braying The blood of Christ to the weary and tired soul to the thirsty Conscience scorched with the sense of Gods wrath He that presents him with it how welcome is he even as a special choice man one of a thousand And the deeper the sense of Misery is the sweeter the sense of Mercy is Sect. 21. Then if you would be satisfied for time to come whether your Repentance and Conversion be true and sound these particulars will infallibly inform you If you shall persevere when this trouble for sin is over in doing that which now you purpose it is an infallible signe your Repentance is found otherwise not If thou doest call to minde the Vow which thou madest in Baptism and doest thy endeavour to perform that which then thou didst promise If thou doest square thy life according to the Rule of Gods Word and not after the Rudiments of the World If thou art willing to forsake all sin without reserving one for otherwise that one sin may prove the bane of all thy Graces even as Gideon had seventy sons and but one Bastard and yet that Bastard destroyed all the rest that were legitimate Judg. 9.5 Sin is like the Ivy in the Wall cut off bough branch body stump yet some Sprigs or other will sprout out again Till the Root be pluckt up or the Wall be pulled down and ruined it will never utterly die Regeneration or New-birth is a creation of new qualities in the soul as being by nature onely evil disposed Gods children are known by this mark They walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 If Christ have called you to his service your life will appear more spiritual and excellent than others As for your fails it is a sign that sin hath not gained your consent but committed a Rape upon your Soul when you cry out to God If the ravished Virgin under the Law cryed out she was pronounced guiltless A sheep may fall into the mire but a swine delights to wallow in the mire Great difference between a woman that is forced though she cries out and strives and an alluring Adultress Again the thoughts of the godly are godly of the wicked worldly and by these good and evil men are best and truliest differenced one from another Would we know our own hearts and whether they be changed by a new birth Examine we our thoughts words actions passions especially our thoughts will inform us for these cannot be subject to hypocrisie as words and deeds are Sect. 22. Then by way of Caution know That a Childe may as soon create it self as a man in the state of nature regenerate himself We cannot act in the least unless God bestows upon us daily privative grace to defend us from evil and daily positive grace enabling us to do good And those that are of Christs teaching know both from the Word and by Experience that of themselves they are not onely weak but even dead to what is good moving no more than they are moved that their best works are faulty all their sins deadly all their Natures corrupted originally You hath he quickned that were dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2.1 Yea we are altogether so dead in sin that we cannot stir the least joynt no not so much as feel our own deadness nor desire life except God be pleased to raise and restore our souls from the death of sin and grave of long custom to the life of grace Apt we are to all evil but reprobate and indisposed to all Grace and Goodness yea to all the means thereof My Powers are all corrupt corrupt my will Marble to good but Wax to what is ill Insomuch that we are not sufficient of our selves to think much less to speak least of all to do that which is good 2 Cor. 3.5 John 15.4 5. If we have power to chuse or refuse the object to do these well we have no power We have ability we have will enough to undo our selves scope enough Hell-ward but neither motion nor will to do good that must be put into us by him that gives both power and will and power to will Finally Each sanctified heart feels this but no words are able
in like manner lay open my Original Defilement which is the Fountain whence all the former whether sins of commission or sins of omission do flow But touching it be pleased to peruse that small Tract intituled A short and sure way to Grace and Salvation Or Three Fundamental Principles of Christian Religion by R. Y from p. 4 to p. 10. Sect. 17. Loose Libertine if this hath been your case no wonder it hath startled you for to deal plainly with you as you have done with me what I have heard from you makes me tremble For if such honest moral men that live so unreproveably as you have done go not to Heaven what will become of me that have been so openly prophane and notoriously wicked all my time Yea it contented me not to doe wickedly my self and to damn my own soul but I have been the occasion of drawing hundreds to hell with me by seducing some and giving ill example to others the infection of sin being much worse than the act As how many have I drawn to be drunkards and swearers and whoremongers and prophane persons Insomuch that the blood of so many souls as I have drawn away will be required at my hands Yea my life hath been so debauch'd and licentious that I have brought a scandal upon the Gospel and made it odious to the very Turks and Infidels Rom. 2.24 Convert Alas I what I did that was morally good or what evil I refrained was more for self-ends or for fear of mens Laws than for love of Christs Gospel True I went under the notion of an honest man and a good Christian I was baptized into the Faith and made a member of Christs visible Church but I was so far from endeavouring to perform what I then promised that in effect I even renounced both Christ and my Baptism in persecuting him all that sincerely professed his Name thinking I did God good service therein John 16.2 Gal. 1.13 14. Phil. 3.6 Nor was it for want of ignorance that you thought so of me for by nature be we never so mild and gentle we are all the seed of the serpent Gen. 3.15 and children of the Devil John 8.44 Yea the very best moral man is but a tame Devil as Athanasius well notes But it is a true Proverb The blind eat many a Fly and all Colours are alike to him that is in the dark Loose Libertine So much the worse is my condition for my conscience tells me there is not a word you have spoken of your self but I can justly apply the same unto my own soul a great deal more for whereas you have been a moral honest man so that none except your self could tax you for breaking either Gods Law or mans I have been so wicked and prophane that I could most presumptuously and of set purpose take a pride in my wickedness commit it with greediness speak of it defend it joy in it boast of it tempt and inforce to it yea mock them that disliked it As if I would send challenges into Heaven and make love to destruction and yet did applaud my self and prefer my own condition before other mens saying I was no dissembler yea I hated the hypocrisie of Professors I do not justifie my self and despise others like the Puritans I am not factious schismatical singular censorious c. I am not rebellious nor contentious like the Brownists and Anabaptists I am a good fellow and love an honest man with my heart c. and as touching a good conscience I was never troubled in mind as many scrupulous fools are I have a good heart and mean as well as the precisest But now I see the Devil and my own deceitful heart deluded me so that my whole life hitherto hath been but a dream and that like a blind man I was running headlong to Hell when yet I thought my self in the way to Heaven Just as if a Beggar should dream that he were a King or as if a Traytor should dream of his being Crowned when indeed he was to be beheaded the case of Laodicea Rev. 3.17 the young man in the Gospel Luke 18.20 21. and that Pharisee spoken of Luke 18.11 12. Sect. 18. Convert It was not your case alone but so it fares with the worst of sinners Onely it much rejoyces me that it hath pleased God to open your eyes to see all this in your self For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto you Yea we are naturally so blind and deaf and dead in sin and in soul that we can no more discern our spiritual filthiness nor feel sin to be a burden than a blind Ethiopian can see his own blackness or then a dead man can feel the weight of a burden when it is laid upon him Acts 28.27 Isa. 6 9 10. And this common experience shews for if you observe it who more jocund confident and secure than the worst of sinners They can strut it under an unsupportable mass of Oaths Blasphemies Thefts Murders Adulteries Drunkenness and other the like sins yea can easily swallow these spiders with Mithridates and digest them too when one that is regenerate shrinks under the burden of wandring thoughts and want of proficiency But why is it They are dead in sin Ephes. 2.1 Revel 3.1 Now lay a mountain upon a dead man he feels not once the weight To a Christian that hath the life of grace the least sin lies heavy upon the conscience but to him that is dead let his sins be as heavy as a mountain of lead he feels in them no weight at all Again they are insensible of their sin and danger because ignorant for for what the eye seeth not the heart rueth not Security makes worldlings merry and therefore are they secure because they are ignorant A dunce we know seldom makes doubts Yea a fool says Solomon boasteth and is confident Prov. 14.16 neither do blind men ever blush And the truth is were it not for pride and ignorance a world of men would be ashamed to have their faces seen abroad For take away from mens minds vain opinions flattering hopes false valuations imaginations and the like you will leave the minds of most men and women but poor shrunken things full of melancholy indisposition and unpleasing to themselves Ignorance is a vail or curtain to hide away their sins wherupon they are never troubled in conscience nor macerated with cares about eternity but think that all will be well The Devil and the Flesh prophesie prosperity to sin yea life and salvation as the Pope promised the Powder Traytors but Death and Damnation which Gods Spirit threatens will prove the crop they will reap For God is true the Devil and all Flesh are liars When we become regenerate and forsake sin then the devil strongly and strangely assaults us as he did Christ when he was newly baptized and Pharaoh the children of Israel when they would forsake Egypt and Herod the children when Christ was
greater success to the weaker means The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas yet not the Jews at the preaching of Christ who was greater then Jonas The Apostles did greater signs in Christs Name than Christ himself Joh. 14.12 It was a greater miracle that the shadow of St. Peter as he walked in the street should heal many sick persons Acts 5.15 16. than that the hem of Christs vesture should heale one single woman of her bloudy Issue Mat. 9.21 22. Who then can cavil or indeed wonder at the ensuing story the which I am now to relate Yea who that hath either heart or brain shall well consider this preceding matter and the difference of Hearers and not be forced to acknowledg that which follows to be the case of every one that shall hear it be they what they will I mean before their hearts are renewed with the power of Gods word which is the strong arm of the Lord and the mighty power of God to salvation Rom. 1.16 And the sword of the spirit Eph. 6.17 And like as a fire or an hammer that breaketh even the Rock in pieces Jer 23.29 30. And that irresistable Cannon-shot that is mighty to beat down all the strong holds of sin and Satan 2 Cor. 10.4 Quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword and pierceth even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and of the joynts and marrow and to the discerning of the very thoughts and most secret intents of the heart Heb. 4 12. Sect. 9. And look to it for if thou dost not see and acknowledg the very secrets of thy heart to be clearly laid open to thy conscience in the one or other first or last of these ensuing Characters I dare peremptorily conclude That Satan the God of this world hath blinded thy mind that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should not shine unto thee 2 Cor. 4.3 4. Eph. 2.2 2 Thes. 2.9.10 11. 1 Tim. 4.2 But this is the misery and a just plague upon our so much ignorance formality and prophaness under our so much means of Grace there be very few men that make not the whole Bible and all the Sermons they hear yea the checks of their own Consciences and the motions of Gods spirit utterly ineffectual for want of wit and grace to apply the same to themselves as they can unto others being better able to discern others meats than their own beams If you question what Satan can do in this case Look upon what he hath done to others as wise and as good as the best of us I le give you instances both of the godly and wicked and likewise Testimonies I pray mind them seriously and turn to the places for they are exceeding considerable In the first place take notice how he blinded and deluded Ahabs four hundred Prophets 1 Kings 22.22 And Judas John 13.2 And all Magistrates when they persecute the people of God Rev. 2.10 And indeed all men in their natural estate whereof not a few think they do God good service in persecuting and killing the Prophets as our Saviour expresly tells us John 16 2. But see other particular instances as that of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5.3 Then for the godly how he hath blinded and beguiled them as our first Parents Adam and Eve Eve by himself and Adam by making her his instrument and that in the state of innocency when they had wit at will Gen. 3. And holy David a man after Gods own heart 1 Chron. 21.1 Then Peter who so dearly loved Christ Mat. 16.22 23. And having this done argue thus with thy self If Satan so blinded and besotted these if he made such use of all these whereof some were the best and wisest of Gods children and servants who hate the very appearance of evil 1 Thes. 5 22. Jude 23. Ephes. 5.27 2 Pet 3.14 James 1.27 Have the eye of faith and the spirits direction and know the mind of Christ above others 1 Cor. 2.12 to 17. John 10.14 How much more can he work the same upon his own children and servants that delight onely in wickedness and are ignorant of Satans wiles as not having the least knowledge or ability to discern spiritual things 1 Cor. 2.14 2 Cor. 4 4. But if you still question the truth of this turn to Joh. 14.30 and 12.31 Gen. 3.15 John 8.44 2 Tim 2.20 Eph. 2.2 3. which are such clear testimonies that none who shut not their eyes against the light can gainsay Mat. 13.15 Which being so in reading this ensuing Dialogue or Index of the heart Make the application to your selves and not to others as David did Nathans parable 2 Sam. 12.1 to 8. And Ahab the Prophets 1 Kings 20.39 to 43. which yet concerned no less then their own lives And so much the rather for that in all probability what this will not effect touching your amendment no ordinary means are like to doe As what can be further expected No glass can more lively represent your faces than this Book does your hearts if you be yet in your natural condition unregenerate Neither can you look that Christ Jesus himself should call to you severally by name as he did to Saul for now we have the Gospel written at large Visions and Miracles cease Or put case Christ himself should do so I question whether you would be any more warned or reclaimed by it than Hazael was when the Prophet told him what abominable wickedness he should shortly commit 2 Kings 8.12 13 c. Yea Abraham tells Dives the contrary Luke 13 31. And so I come to the Conference it self Sect. 10. A loose Libertine meeting with his friend that had lately been a formal Christian he greets him as followeth Sir Me thinks I have observed in you a strange alteration since our last meeting at Middleborough not onely in your behaviour company and converse but even in your countenance What is the matter if I may be so bold Convert Truly Sir you are not at all mistaken nor am I unwilling to acquaint you with the cause if you can afford to hear it Soon after my return into England I was carried by a friend to hear a Sermon where the Minister so represented the very thoughts secrets and deceitfulness of my heart unto my conscience that I could not but say of him as the Woman of Samaria once spake of our Saviour He hath told me all things that ever I did Which made me conclude with that unbeliever 1 Cor. 14. 24 25. That God was in him of a truth nor could he ever have so done if he were not of God as the Young man in the Gospel reasoned with the Pharisees touching Jesus when he had opened his eyes that had been blind from his birth John 9.32 33. Whereupon I could have no peace nor rest until I had further communed with him about my estate for I found my self in a lost condition touching
sufficiently to express what impotent wretches we are when we are not sustained So that we have no merit but the mercy of God to save us nothing but the blood of Christ and his mediation to cleanse and Redeem us nothing but his obedience to inrich us As for our good works we are altogether beholding to God for them not God to us nor we to our selves because they are only his works in us Whatsoever thou art thou owest to him that made thee whatever thou hast thou owest to him that Redeemed thee Therefore if we do any thing amiss let us accuse our selves if any thing well let us give all the praise to God And indeed this is the test of a true or false Religion that which teacheth us to exalt God most and most to depress our selves is the true that which doth most prank up our selves and detract from God is the false as Bonaventure well notes Sect. 23. Now to wind up with a Word of Exhortation If thou beest convinced and resolvest upon a new course let thy resolution be peremptory and constant and take heed you harden not again as Pharaoh the Philistines the Young man in the Gospel Pilate and Judas did resemble not the Iron which is no longer soft than it is in the Fire for that good saith Gregory will do us no good which is not made good by perseverance If with these premonitions the Spirit hath vouchsafed to stir up in thine heart any good motions and holy purposes to obey God in letting thy sins go Quench not grieve not the spirit 1 Thes. 5.19 Return not with the Dog to thy vomit least thy latter end prove seven-fold worse than thy beginning Mat. 12.43 45. Oh it is a fearful thing to receive tho grace of God in vain and a desperate thing being warned of a Rock wilfully to cast our selves upon it Neither let Satan perswade you to defer your repentance no not an hour lest your Resolution proves as a false conception which never comes to bearing Besides death may be sudden even the least of a thousand things can kill you and give you no leisure to be sick Thirdly If thou wilt be safe from evil works avoid the occasions have no fellowship with the workers of iniquity neither fear their scoffes for this be sure of If your person and wayes please God the world will be displeased with both If God be your friend men will be your enemies if they exercise their malice it is where he shews mercy But take heed of losing Gods favour to keep theirs Beda tells of a Great man that was admonished by his friends in his sickness to repent who answered He would not yet for that if he should recover his friends and companions would laugh at him but growing sicker and sicker they again prest him but then his answer was That it was now too late for I am judged and condemned already A man cannot be a Nathanael in whose heart there is no guile but the World counts him a fool But Christ sayes Verily except ye be converted and become as little Children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Matth. 18.3 Again Satan and your deceitful heart will suggest unto you that a Religious life is a dampish and melancholy life but holy David will tell you That light is sown to the Righteous and joy to the upright Psal. 97.11 Isa. 65.14 And experience tells us that Earthly and Bodily joyes are but the body or rather the dregs of that joy which Gods people feel and are ravished with As Oh the calm and quietness of a good Conscience the assurance of the pardon of sin and joy in the Holy Ghost the honesty of a virtuous and holy life how sweet they are Yea even Plato an Heathen could say That if Wisdome and Virtue could but represent it self to the Eyes it would set the heart on fire with the love of it And the like of a sinners sadness as hear what Seneca sayes If there were no God to punish him no Devil to torment him no Hell to burn him no man to see him yet would he not sin for the ugliness and filthiness of sin and the guilt and sadness of his Conscience But Experience is the best informer wherefore take the counsel of holy David Psalm 34.8 O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him To which accordeth that of holy Bernard Good art thou O Lord to the soul that seeks thee what art thou then to the soul that findes thee As I may appeal to any mans Conscience that hath been softned with the Unction of Grace and truly tasted of the powers of the World to come to him that hath the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost whether his whole life be not a perpetual Hallelujah in comparison of his natural condition Whence they are able to slight all such objections as he did You tell me that scrupling of small matters is but stumbling at straws that they be but trifles when I know your tongue can tell nothing but truth I will believe you Fifthly Beg of God that he will give you a new heart and when the heart is changed all the members will follow after it as the rest of the creatures after the Sun when it ariseth But without a work upon the heart wrought by the spirit of God it will follow its own inclination to that which it affecteth whatsoever the judgment shall say to the contrary That must be first reformed which was first deformed It is idle and to no purpose to purge the chaanel when the fountain is corrupt Whence the Apostle orderly bids us first Be renewed in the Spirit of our mindes and then Let him that stole steal no more Ephes. 4.23 24. Yea it is Gods own counsel to the men of Jerusalem Jer. 4. Wash thy heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved verse 14. It is most ridiculous to apply Remedies to the outward parts when the distemper lies in the stomack To what purpose is it to crop off the top of weeds or top off the boughes of the Tree when the Root and Stalk remain in the Earth As cut off the sprig of a Tree it growes still a Bough an Arm still it growes lop off the top yea saw it in the midst yet it will grow again stock it up by the roots then and not till then it will grow no more Whence it is that God saith Give me thine heart Prov. 23.26 Great Cities once expunged the dorps and villages will soon come in of themselves the heart is the treasury and storehouse of wickedness Mat. 12.34 such as the heart is such are the actions of the body which proceed from it Mat. 12.35 Therefore as Christ saith Make clean within and all will be clean otherwise not Mat. 23.26 therefore Davids prayer is Create in me a new heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me Ps. 51.10 Do thou the like importune him for grace that you may firmly resolve speedily begin and continually persevere in doing and suffering his holy will desire him to inform and reform you so that you may neither mis-believe nor mis-live to change and purifie your nature subdue your reason rectifie your judgment reform and strengthen your will renew your affections and beat down in you whatsoever stands in opposition to the Scepter of Jesus Christ. Sixthly and lastly If you receive any power against your former corruptions forget not to be thankeful yea study all possible thankfulness for that you and I are not at this present frying in Hell flames never to be freed that we have the offer of Grace here and Glory hereafter it is his unspeakable goodness And there is nothing more pleasing to God nor profitatable to us both for the procuring of the good we want or continuing the good we have than thankfulness He will sow there and there onely plenty of his blessings where he is sure to reap plenty of thanks and service But who will sow those barren sands where they are sure not onely to be without all hope of a good harvest but are sure to lose both their seed and labour Consider what hath been said and the Lord give you understanding in all things And so much for the Second Part. An Appendix follows wherein you may have instances of all sorts how sin besots Men. FINIS London Printed by J. Hayes and are to be sold by Mrs. Crips in Popes-head-Alley with nine and Thirty other Pieces composed by the same Authour 1663.