Are your tyring attendances an hour or two on Gods Worship time advantages Are your many hours attendances on your flesh-pleasing sensualities the shortest and sweetest hours the reall profit of time I beseech you in good earnest study how Christ walked and then judge your selves whether your debauched loose lives strangers yea enemies to the strict waies of Christianitie will prove you walk like Christ what remains then but if your eies be open the fruit of this arraignment of you before the word of truth will be real conviction you are gross hypocrites your selves I say not this delighting to discover the nakednesse of your deceits but if Gods grace help to reform them It is true there are that make strict profession are hypocrites but wil this help you when God seeth and your selves know your palpable hypocrisies As drunkennesse condemns drunkennesse treason treason uncleanness uncleanness covetousnesse covetousnesse passion passion so too Clodius accusat maechos Catilina Cethegum Juven often hypocrisie hypocrisie How is the Devill pleased to see fellow sinners peal and deeply charge one another who without infinite mercy are fellow travellers to hell and will have no pleasure in accusing each other there O you that are the looser sort of Christians deal not with the stricter who abuse their eminent religious appearances as Diogenes did with Plato Calco fastum Platonis Majore fastu comming into his adorned and stately room he trampled on his braverie being asked the reason of this incivilitie the Cynick answered I trample on Plato's pride Yea saith Plato with greater pride Do you see and comment on the errors and scandals of strict profession Take heed you doe not trample on their hypocrisie with greater hypocrisie I shall finish this digression with an humble and hearty admonition to larger and stricter professors to fear and tremble lest they live and die under the dominion and damnation of hypocrisie Ah Christians who are too Eagle-ey'd in discerning each others hypocrisies and are too guilty of this sad retaliation to charge one another with bitter words but are too Mole-like in seeing your own dissimulation study both I beseech you your own bosom Arch-juglers your own deceitfull lusts Let your chiefest anger Me me adsum qui feci in me convertite ferrum Virgil. and revenge be against the craft and willnesse of your own corruption Be willing O be willing that the word of the Spirit should slay your own See you of loose and you of strict profession one anothers hypocrisies O turn your declamations into lamentations your sharp charges into praiers your scoffs into teares for one another and you that need bowels of compassions and a mantle of charitie to put over not to blaze Veniam damus petimusque vicissim one anothers hypocrisies return piety and tendernesse of spirit to your felloâ— deceivers I mean not soul-ruining flatterie but regular Gospel-charitie To return to the abuse of Adopting grace Whosoever they are as there are but few that are guiltlesse very few but dishonour the glory and dignitie of their Adoption I could wish that it might be laid to heart three things may be seriously considered 1. The naturall respects reverence lively affections and zeal that children bear to their parents â—hoâ—onow the guidance of that engraven Law God hath put into theâ—â— spirits The force of this consideration is this Is it not an high dishonour to the Father of spirits that the Parents of the flesh should have most regard It is storied of a dumb sonne who seeing his fathers life endangered in mightie zeal burst open the long shut doors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodotus of silence and said O kill not the man Doe we not see the name of our heavenly father we call so endangered his Gospel in perill to be lost by common contempts and barrennesse our own soule endammag'd and yet we are not delivered from a dumb devill we want hearts and words to speak for our Father to cry mightily to him that his glory may not be so obscured his Gospel may be preserved our soules may be sanctified and eternally saved Where are our suspitions lest we darken his name by our dis-ingenuous unchild-like carriages I am afraid said the son of Declus lest when I am made Emperour I forget my Vereor inquit Decii filius ne si fiam Imperator dediscam esse fictus Valerius Max. 1. 5. self to be a son â—re we as zealous in our ease prosperities sweet creature injoyments Lest fulness rempt to forgetfulness lest we should be lesse reverent and obedient children when our Tables are most delicious and beds sofrest Doth the light of nature say Parents can never be recompenced Doth the Scripture bid children to requite their parents 1 Tim. 5. 4. which endeavour they may fully accomplish they cannot What shame is Parentibus nunquam redditur aquale it when we are infinitely more indebted to our heavenly father then our earthly progenitors that we should return him irreverence daily dishonours but be very rare and cold and weary of religious loyal and filial returns We reverence saith the Apostle the correcting fathers of our flesh shall we not much rather be in subâ—ection to the father of spirits and lives Heb. 12. 9. There 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a much rather for an honourable deportment under the heavenly than earthly adoption But the fathers of the flesh have a large harvest of respect and service our heavenly Father hath sâ—â—rce the gleâ—nings of duty Would Chrysostome have children Tanquam verna genitoribus euis servito Chrysostom serve the carefull and zealous instruments of their worldly beeing with as close a constraint and duty of love as slaves do their masters from servile fear How do we abuse our high holy and heavenly relation of children when neither out of fear of his hot displeasure nor love of his drawing goodness we doe to God faithful service 2. It is an eminent piece of most abominable ingratitude to abuse best friends dear parents vengeance would not suffer Absolom to live that rose up against his Fathers Crown and life and they who would not obey their Parents a sad monument of divine wrath have obeyed the Hangman Hath God borne so severe testimony against the dishonours of fleshly parents will he not revenge our unthankfulnesse who professe him our heavenly Father live every moment by his protections and provisions spend upon his creatures his bounty his care his patience yea hope to be with him in heaven and yet riot grow unruly and insolent with his goodness wax wanton like well fed heifers in fat pastures refuse his sweet Gospel yoak deafen our ears to our fathers call kick at the tender bowels of his love not onely reject but some of us jeer at the orders of his family discipline Can we think that the zeal of God that hath burnt hot in dreadfull examples against the abuse of Parental rights will not break
rare to meet with the fellows of a precious Minister of whom it was said That he got but lost no heavenly heat and vigor by holy duties the more in it the more furnished with heavenly power love delight and warmth in renewed exercise There was renewed influence of the spirit of grace the picture of the spiritual injoyments of the next life The Apostles rule is It is good to be always zealous in a good thing Gal. 4. 18. Not in fits and pangs of holiness but always â—he Ceremonial Fire was always to burn on the altar They are the choicest happy Christians in whose hearts the heavenly fire of zeal is still burning It is our wantonness we keep not close with God but after heats we cool our hearts in the worlds cold Air and are so benummed in our earthly affections and imployments as if we had never been by Heavens fire The counsel to wanton Sardis is good to us Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die Rev. 3. 2. 3. In slacking diligence How are we too often in Heavens way like Jading Steeds who though well yea high fed in the Inne yet go lazily and worse than before God hath given Heavenly Travellers sweet and full Baits how is his goodness dishonored when after Tastes how gracious he is we yield rather to spiritual slumbers then hold on our way How Nou vis proficere vis ergo deficere Ibi proficere ubi curreredesinis Bernard do those wanton Laborers disparage a good meal that slack their diligence play but work not When our industry in the Lords work abates it is good to put these spurs in our dull spirits O thou wicked and slothful servant the sad charge of the last Judgment Matth. 25. 26. The diligent hand makes rich Be not slothful in business but fervent in spirit serving the Lord Rom. 12. 11. Shew the same diligence unto the full assurance of hope unto Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys the end Heb. 6. 11. Abounding in the work of the Lord as knowing pious labours shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. Work out your own salvation Phil. 2. 12. make thoâ—ow work of it 4. In carnal security Even sound hearts after they apprehend the sweet tastes of Gods love and the bitterness of death is past are too apt to think their mountain strong sing a false Requiem to their spirits as if they were out of the dangers of Desinunt esse perditi cum destiterint esse sâ—curi Salv. ruine committing from their loose unregenerate part in them the sins against which God threatens Hell upon the assurance they are heirs of Heaven thinking themselves secure are not safe Whereas the way of life is the way of holy Jealousie not security It is not the least of Satans wiles to suffer himself to be overcome that he may overcome As conquering Soldiers yet unsuspicious of dangers are taken Prisoners by a routed Cum certamini manifesto cedit ad hoc se viâ—tum demonstrat ut vincat ad hoc fugam simulat ut persequentem occidat Ful. gent. ad Prob. Ep. 3. Army so unjealous Christian Victors by laying by their Watch and Alarms of holy fear are suddenly surprized 'T is an imprudent conclusion because the Bird hath escaped the Foâ—vler therefore he shall ever be out of the danger of the Net and Gun-shot The heart is deceitful We are still in the Enemies Coâ—ntrey Christs Garrisons have false friends in them will open the Gates to the destroyer and while every soul hath Judas's in it to kiss and kill and betray the grace of God into the hands of enemies there is urgent need of a constant watch Fear was the Apostles watch-word to the priviledged Gentiles lest they that stand by Grace should fall by security Rom. 11. 20. Happy is he that feareth always Prov. 28. 14. We abuse spiritual injoyments when we suspect no loss Greatest Beauties Riches and Honors call for most waking eyes and strictest guard When Christ had sweet tidings from Heaven he was Gods beloved Son Matth 3. ver last he was forthwith set upon by the Devil Matth. 4. 1. If the envious vigilant Tempter seeth our private Prayers and tears of Joys hears our joyous triumphs of Gods kindness in Christ malicing such hated glory he will presently lay traps to damp our joyes defile our spirits wound our consciences and bring us to the very Suburbs of Hell Ye are partakers of Christ said Paul of the Christian Hebrews if you hold fast the beginning of your confidence stedfast unto the end Heb. 3. 14. 'T is not enough in first conversion to hold the precious Jewel Jesus Christ in the hand of Faith but there must be a constant hold-fast Is he who is among Thieves careful to hold fast the Pearl in his hand and fearful to let it goe So it should be with every prudent Christian he should fear his own lazinesse cowardize weaknesse should loose his riches 'T is the Apostles counsel to his Hebrews useful to all that think they stand and a soveraign preservative against security Let us fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 4. 1. 5. By dallying with Temptations we pray we may not enter into temptation Gods grace is our deliverance Corruption casts us into the fire the hand of mercy plucks us out But how often do Gods foolish fearless children like ours after we have been burnt and cured we adventurously play with the same fire that scorched us and renew our pains and cries 'T is not an experimentally true spirituall Proverb That all Gods burnt children always hate the fire Even after David had sweet visits and walks with God and the refreshing joyes of his salvation he wantonly dallyed with temptations fire in the roof of his house defiled his soul with forbidden lust of strange beauty and Body too and lost spiritual for carnal delight the joy of his salvation for the pleasure of sin Grace doth not perfectly crucifie the old Man while Lust is an in-dweller it will be an inticer We may as well play with fire near Gun-powder as play with Temptations near Lust 'T is no safe dancing near Pits brinks taking fire into our bosoms welcoming temptations into our hearts The old man is too willing and too pressing to tempt us out of heavens way we need no world nor devil to drive us 'T is good counsel and singular indemnity to our soules if practised Abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thef 5. 22. Hate the garment spotted by the flesh SECT 2. 2. EVidence of close abuse of Gods grace is Irreverence of 2 An Evidence of abuse of abuse of grace is irreverence of Gods Majesty Gods Majesty The best are too apt to wrong their nearnesse to God by forgetting their distance God is so his childrens
glorious aiery appellations of worldly precedencies The childless holy Eunuch was by the Gospel Prophet comforted that he should have a Name better than of Sons and Daughters The new Name either Beleever or Child of God out-titles and out-out-glories the highest worldly stile Fulgentius gave good counsel to Galle a noble Christian of a Godly as wel as Gentile Extraction born of the Spirit as wel as Kin to Roman Consuls Learn to ascribe nothing to your Noble Disce nihil tibi nobiluate generis assignare Fulgent Epist ad Gallam Inter saculares illustris superbiae fomes Fulgent Tametsi speciem aliquam praese ferunt homines tanquam in agris flores qui tamen refulget decori protinvs interit atque evanescis Calvinan Isa 40. In saculi culmine constituti Fulg. Praebentmalae imitationis laqueum aut bonae conversationis exemplum Magna tales aut poena manet aut gloria Fulgent de Conversione ad Theodorum stem Although you have secular illustrious glory yet especially with a perfect humble heart be ambitious of the Spirits Nobilitie If Madam the anointing of the Spirit teach you this lesson that all flesh is grasse and all the goodlinesse thereof is as the flower of the field the glory the ornament the glittering shine of it will disappear in pale gastly death and the chambers of silence and rottenness I hope it teacheth you this also that Regeneration is the birth of births and that the thriving Graces of the Spirit bosom Communion with Jesus Christ here and highest rooms in heaven will be the Honour of Honours Consider Great persons are great blessings or plagues a train follows them to Heaven or Hell they are not saved or damned alone They that stand in the worlds higher ground who either lay the snares of an evil imitation or are the presidents of an holy conversation shall have great either eternal Penalty or Glory Hath free Gospel grace shined in your soul abuse it not Hold forth the Word of Life in a gracious life If you and the faithfull conjugal guide of your soul shall speed your motions to those heavenly eternal Mansions where the better than flowings of Milk and Hony the sweet heavenly Feasts and unglutting delights of eternitie shall be enjoyed If you shall avoid this common scarlet sin of perverting Grace which with an ungrateful Wantonnesse treads under foot the Son of God thinks desires affects and lives as if the blood of the Covenant were an unholy thing and offers a proud despight to the Spirit of Grace If the study of this book shall help you both and others to walk exactly to redeem the time adorn the Gospel credit Profession glorifie God and promote your own and others eternal Salvation you will both accomplish the design of publishing the ensuing Meditations and encourage him who is your remembrancer at the Throne of Grace and remains From Edmondsbury in Suffolk Mar. 18. 1658. Your engaged servant in the Work of the Gospel NICH. CLAGET To the Christian Reader I Shall not detain thee with a long Preface lest I may be injurious by keeping thee too long in the threshold Onely a few things I shall premise concerning the reverend Author and his excellent work As for the Author he hath been well known to me at least Five and twenty years as being of * Magdalen Hall in Oxford that Society with me where from the first even to this day through Gods goodness I yet continue which hath bred and sent forth many faithful Laborers into Gods Vineyard and many †Mr. Tyndal the martyr Dr. Field Dr. Hoyle Dr. Harris M. Pemble Mr. Leigh Dr. Cheynel Dr. Wilkinson now of Ch. Ch in Oxon. Dr. Wilkins M. Obadiah Sedgwick M. Pocock M. Pynke M. Thomas Ford. Mr. Simon Ford c. Edmunds Bury Mr. Jet learned Orthodox Writers Of later years my acquaintance hath been much increased with this worthy Author and I rejoyce therein He hath for these fifteen years in Edmunds Bury in Suffolk Where he now resides given abundant testimony of his industry and fidelity in the discharge of his Ministery and hath studied to approve himself a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed He hath as it is said of Demetrius obtain'd a good report and of the truth He is sound in the faith and holy in life both by his life and Doctrine makes it his business to win many souls unto righteousness I adde no more concerning the Author neither needed I have said so much for he needs not my Letters of commendation His Works speak far lowder and praise him in the Gate That * Corporation where those †two faithful Servants of Christ do now exercise their Ministery hath great cause of thankfulness because God hath raised up such able Ministers now upon the place in the room of their * worthy Predecessors with most of them I rejoyce that I have had the honor of acquaintance And that people who like Capernaum have been lifted up to Hea †Mr. Claget M. Sclater M. Gibbons M. White M. Calamy burroughs M. Sainthill M. Wall ven with Gospel means ought to remember That where much is given much is required As for such who forsake faithful Teachers and the Publick Assemblies I heartily wish them timely and serious repentance and that their Palates might have a right taste then they will conclude that the old wine is better then their new and that godly ordained Ministers are better then upstart un-called self-conceited Seducers Concerning the Book the whole design whereof is to advance grace and decry the abuse thereof it cannot be expected that I should ingage to bring of every Phrase Punctillo or Tittle according to the curiosity of Criticks As for such whose fancies out-run their judgements and with whom affectations of new coyn'd words are more valued then the form of sound words I am not careful to answer them in these matters neither do I think their exceptions worthy of an Answer However I am fully perswaded that the Treatise is solid and profitable tending to edification and throughout the whole there runs a line of a gracious spirit And whoever profits not thereby hath more reason to question himself then the Author For if pride and prejudice be laid aside I doubt not but through Gods blessing much spiritual advantage will follow upon the serious and deliberate perusal of this Book Now if any one Object that the World is glutted with multitude of Books my answer is For good Orthodox solid Writers we have reason to bless God for such helps we have by them and ought to be desirous for the continual increase of them As for vain frothy unsound Writers we wish that they were supprest altogether For some Books we have too many and of others which are rotten heretical and blasphemous we wish we had not any at all but that they and their Authors might be buryed together and never be reviv'd as now adays with sorrow be it mentioned they
a wanton loosenesse and daring licentiousnes in sin This being done in the times and places amongst the persons of Gospell light that owne the name of Christian The Doctrine will be hat In Gospell times the Grace of God hath such high abuse as to Doctrine be turned into wantonnesse In handling this sad truth I shall enquire into six things Method of handling the Doctrine 1. What are the kinds of Turning Gods Grace into wantonness 2. When it is Turned into Wantonness 3. Why it is Turned into wantonnesse 4. How great is the sin thereof and 5ly What is the Punishment God usually followes this sin withall 6ly and lastly What improvement we may make of it by some usefull Application CHAP. III. Shewing in how many ways or kinds the Grace of God may be Turned into Wantonnesse 1. PREDESTINATING grace is Turned 1. Predestinating grace is turned into wantonnesse into Wantonness It is a wrested Conclusion from this glorious principle God hath chosen me to life therefore though I live as I list I shall be saved A bastard inference and practise that this chast truth never begat The Contrary deduction flowes from the grace of Election As the Elect of God holy not loose Col. 3. 12. He hath chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the spirit 2. Thes 2. 13. through it as a part of our salvation execution of Gods decree ornament of the saving Gospell fitnes for eternall life not through the filthines of flesh and spirit as if wickedness were the way to happines and God had from Eternity designed an everlasting rest to the industrious services of the Devill He hath chosen us in him that we should be holy Ephes 1. 4. That Holynesse which lay hid in the womb of Gods eternal purpose is infallibly brought forth in time in all vessels of honour The Apostle inferred Sobriety Faith and Hope in the children of Gospel light from Gods appointments not a loose sleeping in sinne Let us be sober c. For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes 5. 9. God hath not appointed us the Word nor put us or set or placed us in a state of avenging 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrath but gracious salvation He puts us in this blessed estate by predestinating calling drawing regenerating and justifying not by a fearlesse carelesse living and dying in reigning sin Musculus well taxeth this abuse The contempt of Gods Non dicas nihil periâ—uli quomodocunque vivam contemptus gratiae Dei iram illius gravissimam reddit Muscul Absit ut peccem in gratiam et voluntatem dei ac peream potius accommodabo me gratiae illius ut salver Geram me sicut homini convenit non ethnico sed christiano Muscul Annon ejusmodi verba dementis Muscul grace incurrs his heaviest wrath Wherefore say not There is no danger however I live God hath put me into a state of salvation his positive decree is firme I cannot be damned I shall be saved Rather say Farre be it that I should sinne against Gods gracious purposes and perish rather I will a commodate my self unto his gracious will and be saved He hath designed me for this would have me be a Christian therefore I must live the gracious life of a Christian not the infamous of an Heathen Hoâ— irrationall and ungodly is the inference of wickednesse from Gods pure purposes If a sick patient should say under mortall diseases It matters not what I doe I will eat and drink and doe what I list my Physician hath not appointed me to death but recovery Would you not think him a mad man and self-destroyer O impure disputer against the holy purposes of God it will appeare to be thy folly and madnesse because God thou thinkest hath not appointed thee to Hell but Heaven to live as a vessel of wrath and yet hope to be saved when the direct way to the North leads to the South shalt thou goe to glory in the way of Gods reproach the contempt of Christ and thine own damnation Gods gracious promises and decrees tune with each other As he never promised so he never purposed eternall salvation to an unregenerate heart and a loose life His Predeterminations to a blessed end involve suitable meanes As he never intended man should live by poyson but by bread so it is absolutely distant from the thoughts of his heart that a man should live to God and with God for ever by an indulgence to the flesh in its lusts and affections sensualities and Vides nautaruÌ„ ministeri is opus fuisse ut divina promissio adimpleretur Granaten delights God appointed Paul and his company to escape shipwracke but it was by swimming on boards and broken peeces of the ship Act. 27. 24. Thus God hath appointed some to escape the wrath to come but it is by faith and mortification getting on the planck of repentance swimming through by the strength of Christ not drowning in the sea of the world God appointed Noah to salvation from the worlds deluge but it was by getting into the Arke A Loose heart and life is no accommodation to execution of predestinating grace but opposition The eternall Predestinatio Dei multis est Cauta standi nemini causa labendi Aug. de Predestinatione Sanctorum saving discriminating Counsels of God are to many the cause of their standing to noâ— chosen vessell the cause of their falling The doctrine of absolute and free election rightly understood powerfully revealed in the evidences of grace well used hinders no vessell of glory but helps him to heaven They that can without any Scripture warrant any choise worke of the spirit easily and presumptuously write their names in the book of life and as the Israelites wantonly played about their golden Idol so in a lascivious mirth are loose flesh-pleasers and feast their Corruptions will have a dreadfull demonstration after death in judgment and to eternitie that their names were written in the black book of death not the white of life The most holy and righteous Judge of the world will never say Come yee blessed eternally prepared by a free choise to an heavenly kingdome to those that lived and died in their indulged cursed natures and lives but to those select happy ones whose hearts were gloriously transformed and conversation really fashioned after the Gospell pattern O the sad confutation of them that build prophane libertinisme on this firme and pure foundation Predestinating grace their pretended interest in it and pleasing conceits of it will vanish like a golden dreame They will not rise as Elect but reprobate The Lord will say with hottest indignation against unreformed Carnall Gospellers Goe yee cursed workers of iniquitie Sect. 2. 2. SParing Grace is turned into Wantonnesse It was Gods 2 Sparing grace is turned into wantonnesse complaint of the house of Israel They despised my judgements and walked not in my statutes
tempora quasi damnationis tempora timeamus Greg. Mor. l. 17. c. 3. Quanto vita nostra est longier tantoculpa nostra fit numerosior gravior c. Otho Casmannus Innocence but without Book After 400 years suffering the seed of the Amorites to oppress Gods Israel Gen. 15. 13. black doom-day put a period to their Prosperities and Persecutions A long lived Libertine under the days of Grace hath more reason to fear his approaching destruction then salvation The Counsel of an ancient is wholsome well were it if accustomed slighters of Gods grace would lay it to heart it would fire them out of their perilous security It is necessary said he that we fear and tremble lest the prolonged times of Gods mercy do prove the times of our damnation It is the lamentation of a serious modern Writer The longer we live the more numerous is the account and the more heavy the weight of sin Hence when the just Judge comes he will turn the indulged times of mercy into an eternity of wrath and penalty SECT 4. 4. THe whole time of Grace is turned into Wantonnesse 4. The whole time of grace is turned into wantonness not onely sparing and long-suffering Grace but all the daies of Grace even to their late dying periods are also abused Backsliding is perpetuall The most under Gospel times refuse to return Ier. 8. 5. The Lord questions in his Word O Ierusalem how long shall vain thoughts lodge in thee Jer. 4. 14. Wilt thou not he made clean when shall it once be c. 13. 27. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Prov. 1. 22. How long The answer is not more sad then true for ever Should the loose persons of unconverted hearts and unreformed lives not bettered under a threescore years convincing and awakening Ministry and the frequent woings of the Holy Ghost be left to themselves should they live an eternity on earth they would still wrong the grace of God There is a Countrey phrase To while away the time O how many do while away precious time most do the works of darkness while Gospel light shines round about them yea in their mindes they cannot deny and yet they defame the glory of it While Christ knocks at the doors of their souls for entrance the Divel is bid welcome while the Spirit crys Repent repent the flesh wallows in the pollutions of the World while he passionatly solicits and perswades to accept of salvation upon salvations tearms the pathes of damnation are still troden in The hardened house of Israel will die While God is tendred as an everlasting portion the world is violently pursued while the pilgrimage delights of the spirit and the Heavenly Countrey Pleasures of Gods right hand are held forth to unregenerate mindes foolish souls hunt after the pleasures of sin and vanishing Creature delights While precious seasons to sue out a pardon are granted out for sins past more Treasons and Rebellions are heaped up against God while this vanishing life is proposed as a probation for Eternity lying vanities are skilfully and uncessantly pursued Five things will load this ause 1. Time one of the most precious things in the world is abused 1. Time is abused Nil pretiosius tempore heu nil hodie vilius invenitur Bernard Nothing says Bernard is more precious then it and alass nothing now a days is more slighted and vilified It is made the numbring measure of unholy and unrighteous motions but very rarely of heavenly conversation the thriving opportunity of Satans Kingdom but rarely as to the multitude of Christs The preciousness of time industriously heavenly as well as earthly merchants will tell you The worth of time an enraging afflicted Conscience on a death bed will tell you that breathed out lamentable crys Call time again call time again The excellency Veniet tempus quo vel unam horam ad resipiscendum redimere mirum quantum optabimus Otho Casmannus of time most awakened loose departing souls will tell you who will abound in fervent wishes to admiration that they might redeem but one hour to repent The dignity of time the damned in hell were they among us would tell us That had they a world they would give it to escape their torments they feel and shall endure for ever and to be in a state of Grace of Salvation The glory of time the glorified in heaven would tell us were they suffered to acquaint us with their unspeakable Joys Eternity it self will be little enough to bless God they have not lost their time but obtained salvation in the days of Grace It will ravish their hearts when as one phraseth it they shall think within themselves O blessed moment of Grace O happy days of Conversion O choicely spent time in holy mournings O beatum momentum gratiae and obedience O rarely improved time to be the shining witnesses of God against the wicked world O Heavenlized time in communion with God that contemned the world O 2. The possibility of escaping eternal misery is abused Quomodo eos pudebit pigebitque qui videbunt se opportuno tempore gratiae impenso potuisse in vita sua acerbam illam horribilem lamentabilem aeternitatem evadere the wise use of time that hath laid up treasures in Heaven and fitted espoused souls for the joyous eternal imbracements of their heavenly Bridegroom 2. The possibilities of escaping eternal misery and obtaining everlasting life are abused when the whole provisional space of preventing the wrath to come of preparing for glory in the foolish pursuit of the worlds shadows is lost when loose Prodigals of the time of Grace are impossibilitated to have a moment more What shame and grief will surprise them when they shall consider their secure neglect of the Jewel of time and the force of Eternity prevailing thoughts when set home on the conscience to make the profuse lavishers of the golden seasons of Grace the most thrifty Husbands How stinging will this sad conviction be if the opportune time of Grace were well managed they might have escaped that bitter horrible and lamentable Eternity wherein they are plunged and safely arrive to the Port of everlasting rest These things were once possible now they are not O sinners fear and tremble your sporting with sin your indignities and injuries put upon the grace of God doth exceedingly slight and despise your saving possibilities while the mouth of the bottomless pit is not shut upon you do no more disparage but honor your Gospel-seasons of Grace if you crucifie the Son of God and still despise the Spirit of Grace either laugh at or delay the necessary change of your hearts and lives be assured the next minute after your death you shall see a dreadful fixed unalterable gulf before your eyes that as the Saints in glory cannot come to your Hell so it will appear everlastingly impossible
Covenant of Salvation wherein the whole Trinity doth humble themselves The Father so much as to have thoughts of grace to relieve and succour lost sinners the Son that humbled himself to an obscuring incarnation a life of sorrows spotlesse obedience a bloudy death the price of Redemption The Holy Ghost to come into vile sinners to plead the acceptance and improvement of the Father and Sons love O inconsiderate sinners of what a scarlet tincture is your unworthy slighting of the Trinities kindness your treading under foot the blessed Gods acts of grace might he not have left you as the fall of Adam made you to be in a lost polluted helplesse and damnable estate Doth hee need your persons recovery services holynesse and happinesse Doth goodnesse in accepting Christ and his Gospel extend to him Is it his profit if you accept Is it his hurt if you despise him Psal 16. 2. Job 22. 3. 35. 6 8. Hath he humbled himself to enter into peace with you when he might have proclaimed and maintained everlasting War Will a King bear it that his descending below himself to save obstinate Traytors should be despised Surely the blessed God will not alwaies beare the insolent refusall of his mercifull condescensions who every minute could confound rebellious sinners 3. You abuse the infinite purchase of that grace that is offered 3 The infinite purchase of Grace offered is abused Now Christ hath by his active and passive obedience satisfied Justice and dearly payd for pardoning and purging grace He sits at Gods right hand to give unto Israel repentance and remission of sinnes Acts 5. 31. to offer it in common to the worst of sinners hath made an healing plaister of his blood Isa 53. 5. and offers the application of it to diseased sinners what else but a spiritual madnesse is it to cry out we will have none of the physick away with this mortifying Grace severities of repentance If we submit to unpleasing medicines of strict Gospell prescription we must never have merry dayes our deare lusts must be pinion'd and starved such adoe about Religion the new creatures that precise Puritans talk of will make our lives miserable We will not have this man to reign over us Luk. 19. 14. Take Christ who will we have made and we will keep our covenant with the world and the flesh we will have our ease and delights come what will of it Jer. 7. 9. Loose hearts and lives speak these sad things this deplorable injury to the Lord Jesus He is highly affronted that the price of grace the purchase of infinite redemption should be so unworthyly vilified 4. You abuse the heavenly messenger of Grace the Holy Ghost who proceeds from the Father and the Sonne and comes 4. The Holy Ghost the heavenly Messenger of Grace is abused with sweetest intelligence of Peace Pardon Purity and Glory The heavenly Spirits whispers would be powerfully taking if vile sinners their false loves and cursed lusts did not oppose them Hath not the Spirit told many of us a gracious conversation is incomparably better than a carnal and that there is to be found a more high noble pleasurable satisfying and gainfull life in Jesus Christ than the world flesh and devill can possibly afford Have not these inward speakings according with the outward written word the just standard awakened the soul that Sobriety Chastity Charity Liberality Faith Love Heavenly-mindednesse a fear of God a tender Conscience redeeming time c. are rather to be chosen than their contrary vices and corrupt inclinations and affections that resist them Have not many by the woings and strivings of the Holy Ghost with Agrippa not onely been almost perswaded to be reall Christians but often promised God their utmost and zealous endeavours for a through change But what is the issue a wanton loose spirit hath banished former serious gravity These warm heavenly motions are soon coold and dead by the world and the fleshes cold pourings in How ill doth the holy and delicate Spirit take it soon sensible of affronts that his gracious inspirations should either coldly be received or positively rejected or after entertainment be ungratefully forsaken The Spirits goads that prick and stir up lazy sleeping consciences are quickly blented O our unkind abuse of the good Spirit Those Divinos instinctus vel non animadvertimus vel dissimulamus in aliud tempus differrimus vel quod deterrimum est negligimus divine instincts wherewith we are excited and moved to holynesse of life and Gospell obedience either we take no notice of them or we dissemble them or we put them off to another time or which is worst of all we totally neglect them sayth an holy writer This O this is the spirits punishment not more dreadfull than disregarded the heavenly messenger bids an eternall welfare and never knocks again at those rebellious houses where he hath been never bid welcome but constantly refused My spirit shall not always strive with flesh Gen. 6. is a plague a fearfully avenging one Resolved Libertines will not follow the wisdome and saveing guidance of the spirit and the Lord chuseth their delusions Isa 66. 4. What safe Leader they will not have they shall not have they will wander from the way to heaven divine power now shall not stop them they shall dye without instruction and in the greatness of their folly they shall go astray Prov. 5. 23. Then those eyes deep securitie hath shut wrath will open either in a death-bed despaire or in hels flames after death O unkind Spirit greevers and resisters lay it to heart before it is too late Ingenspericulū divinis inspirationibus resistere Granatensis 5 The Messengers of grace are abused It is an eminent danger to oppose Divine inspirations 5. You abuse the faithly messengers of grace the Ministers of the Gospell Their worke is in the authoritie of their Master Jesus Christ to exhort and enjoyne you to beleeve and repent and if this prevaile not to beseech you in Christs stead to be reconciled 2. Cor. 5. and if this mild course speed not but gospell grace is put away as it was by the hardned Jews Act. 13. 46. Their other sad part of their Commission is to tell them He that beleeveth not shall be damned Mark 16. 16. and that very gospell grace that to others is a savour of life unto life embraced will be to them a savour of death unto death when it is despised As the Hanunites that cut of Davids Messengers garments had a warr Commenced against them for answering their kind errands with such shamefull indignities 2 Sam. 10. 3 4. 7. so the angry King of heaven will wage an eternall warre against them that unnaturally abuse the messengers and messages of grace O Take warning Loose-livers under the convictions of Gospel strictness that when you hear read of the saving overtures of the word of life you may no more be as slighty sensless under
their scoffing Table-talk when the Upright are called Hypocrites Righteous dealers are voted unjust or for one piece of unequal dealing are ever condemned so When the glorifiers of God before men out of conscience of duty because under a command are thought vain-glorious When exact walkers fearful of sin dare not run with others into excess of riot nor give allowances fond and liberal to their fawning lusts shall be called over-righteous deemed needless precisians making too much ado in the Church of God as if men could be too godly when the highest measures of holy strictness are exceedingly short of the rule and the life of Christ as if too much care conscience and pains according to requiries of Scripture either could be is or ever was in any Believer in the World as if when the word says real Saints are to give all diligence in the exercise of all Graces 2 Pet. 1. 5. c. To work out their salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. To make through work of it to redeem the time to be followers of Christ they could be too diligent and strict by the warrant of these and other Scriptures to assure and promote their eternal Salvation Every serious dying-Saint thinks he hath done too little for the honor of God and his Gospel for his own soul and others Every glorified Saint seeth his massy glory doth exceedingly outweigh his most diligent services and patient sufferings The abuse of holy examples is too general an injury to God and his choice servants The gracious the graceless are both guilty 1. The gracious low spirited Christians whose light is in a dark lanthorn that shine forth to outward view little or nothing of the glory and power of Religion O ye Christians of the lower form look to those that have out-learned you in Christs School continue not still in your weak Graces and strong Corruptions see you not some of your fellow-Converts are very Heavenly Let this correct your earthiness Are some meek let this shame and cure your passions Have they liberal hearts and hands let this open your shut bowels and purses Can they forgive great wrongs let this blame and mend you that can hardly pass by little Dare they not speak idely and frothily guarding the doors of their lips Let this urge you to repentance who speak not onely idly but wickedly uttering such corrupt communication that slanders by must needs conclude foul hearts when tongues are so foul Do they grow under the means of Grace Let their proficiency spur you to better progresses by holy Ordinances Do they practice Religion where they are most in their own Families Let your sinful Houshold omission of holy Duties or but cold formal performances your domestick disorders be reformed Lastly Do they live in the power of godliness let this warn your too powerless profession that you labor more for the power 2. The graceless are guilty of abusing the grace of God in the examples of Grace How will this load your guilt at the great day that as you have wronged the Gospel of Grace so you have gracious Gospellers you look on them as the vile off-scouring of the World 1 Cor. 4. 13. of whom the world is not worthy Heb. 11. 38. Can proudly judge them sometimes base persons for their despised though honorable Divine nature and their loathed holiness herein like to the Heathens of old who made the practice of Christianity and the Christians owning the Christian name their crime Though you cast contempt on vessels of honor whom you debase God esteems It is no flattering but Scripture Language The Scripture stiles them Precious Isa 43. 4. Jewels Mal. 3. 17. Honorable Isa 43. 4. Noble Acts 17. 11. Kings Rev. 1. 6. Princes in all Lands Psal 45. 16. that have the happiness to enjoy them If they be as dirt in your eyes they are as gold in Gods Be intreated to take a measure by the golden line of the Sanctuary whose examples are most Scriptural safe to the interest of immortal souls those you contemn or those you follow Though with a supercilious from you disdain to follow their sober chaste heavenly pious mortified penitential reformed lives Truth will make your awakned mindes when you die wish you had traced their holy steps and when you would at the great day be glad to follow them in glory this for ever will shut the door of hope and happiness you never followed them in Grace It is in vain with Balaam to wish the death of the righteous and with vulgar dead imaginary Believers to hope for the glory of the righteous when there is not with upright Saints living the life of the Righteous Holy and happy should you be that follow the huge multitudes that troop to hell in the broad way of pleasing evil examples if converting Grace did powerfully whisper in your Spirit and draw you back to the narrow way of life Here you should meet with a thin but blessed company Fellow O follow them who through Faith and unwearied patience in well-doing have their race answered with an eternall prize and them also who after their holy course is finished shall inherit the promises It will never grieve you if once you return from your mad errours and courses to your sober spiritual witts that you have changed undoing for saving presidents that you have left your soul-ruining good-fellowship for communion with Saints Angels the Mediator of the Covenant and with the blessed Trinitie for all Eternitie Have any of you ridden about life and death and with exceeding grief lost both your time and way have you rejoyced to meet with an unerring gride that hath not onely brought you out from your wandrings but set you in your way yea rode before you as a courteous faithfull guide The like joy yea greater you will find if after you have strayed like lost travellers God set before you leaders and you have the wisdome and grace to follow in the erring and dangerous wilderness of this world your holy guides to the heavenly Canaan SECT 8. 8. REconciling Grace is turned into Wantonness As in the 8 Reconciling grace is turned into Wantonness former Section the choice Presidents of Grace so in this and the following particulars the choice priviledges of Grace will appear to be abused God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5. 10. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5. 10. The propitiatory atoning sacrifice of Christs death in putting away Gods destructive wrath is rich grace Even this is injured Reconciliation with God stands in many with agreement with Satan what in them lies peace with God and sin kisse each other as if a league with heaven and hell could stand together Seditious persons reconciled to their Prince abuse his goodness when at the same time they are Traiterous friends with his enemies hold intelligence with them doe homage to them are ruled by them
a property of true repentance 2 Cor. 7. 11. 6 A choice Gospel blessing is denyed 6. You deny your selves a choice Gospel blessing which is the turning of you from your iniquities Act. 3. 26. Joyfull news to sound hearts to be rid of the power of their tyrannizing sins 7 A choice fruit of Christs Intercessâ—oÌ„ is mist 7. You miss a choice fruit of Christs intercession which is to give repentance to Israel Act. 5. 31. One of the great donatives of the Prince of Life installed in his heavenly glory a choice Royal gift to fit for Heaven 8. You divide what God hath joyned together Remission and 8 That is divided which God hath joyned 9 Selfishnesse appears in thoughts hopes and desires Repentance Act. 5. 31. Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus 1 Pet. 1. 2. 9. You are wholly selfish in your thoughts hopes and desires of pardon would have God blot out your sinnes to serve your own turn not to serve him to sinne with a peaceable spirit not serve him with a pure conscience That you might not goe to Hell not that you might be fit for Heaven O Christians abuse not upon these accounts pardoning grace If you doe and die in this wickedness be sure these considerations will like fire flashing about the ears in the other world flame upon your consciences as daring wantons that have played and sported with Gods pardons If you say God forbid we should abuse pardoning grace we are free from so great a sinne Take heed you dream not of innocence where the Word chargeth you with guilt Surely you play the wantons with pardoning grace if seven things are verified of you 1. If you sinne in hope of pardon which is wretched presumption 1. To sin in hope of pardon is wretched presumption Are you not like those ill nurtured and impudent children that are vile and wicked because they expect their fond and indulgent Parents forgivenesse or like those Rogues that rob and steal because they hope for a Psalm of Mercy or like those tempters of God that wound themselves because they look for healing from a soveraign Balsome What is this expectation of pardon but a confirmation in sin and an encourgaement to doe still more wickedly 2. If after your assurance that you are pardoned you boldly 2 To sin upon hopes of pardon is to welcome the flesh willingly and delightingly bid the next temptations welcome this is in effect as if you should say Welcome flesh we are your servants welcome devil we are your subjects welcome world with all your snares sinfull pleasures and pollutions we will refuse none of you we are out of gun-shot you can doe us no hurt we had lately a pardon sent into our bosoms and now we may have liberty of sport and dalliance we have a gracious God that will forgive us and a suretie who will pay all our debts If this be your case do you not clearly affront pardoning grace 3. If your design of desiring and obtaining pardon be onely 3 Such as sin in hope of pardon can easily beare the pollution of sin to have a quiet conscience but not a good one you can very well bear the obstruction the rebellion the pollution of your sinnes but onely dread their damnation If the use you make of pardons is onely that you may not be troubled not that you may be holy here is evident injury to Pardoning grace 4. When you goe on in sin after thoughts of pardon you 4 To sin after thoughts of pardon shews no love unto Jesus Christ have no sincere love to Jesus Christ Many rest in hopes yea some in assurances they are forgiven who yet never heartily loved the Lord Christ They never had a love to labour for his name Revel 2. 3. to prize his presence Psal 16. 8. to stoop to his strict spiritual Government Mich. 5. 2. to regard his image to be living Saints Rom. 8. 29. To have evill Psal 119. 104. An eminent yet pardoned sinner will prove this high abuse of pardoning grace Much was forgiven her for she loved much Luk. 7. 47. She could not but answer love for love If you that write your selves down in your quiet consciences absolved persons love not the Lord Jesus you are worse than Publicans they love those that love them Mat. 5. 46. If a liberal creditor should freely forgive all your debts could you deny your lovelesse carriage to him is an high abuse of his goodnesse Should you hate your suretie conscience would tell you his love should be abused Thus doe you deal with God your creditor Christ your suretie you disgrace the pardoning grace you thinke you have from them when you hate the Father and the Sonne yea abhorre the guiding your hearts and lives by the Spirits motions 5. If after thoughts of obtained pardon you have no tender 5 Then pardoning grace is abused when there is no tender conscience c. conscience no mournings weepings meltings of love of Gospel joy for Absolution no serious sense of the dishonourable evill even of pardoned sinne no watchfull fearefull thoughts of the next transgression no sorrowfull apprehension of renewed sin When you came over a narrow bridge and very hardly saved your life are not you tender of comming that way again You have narrowlie scaped hell doe you think pardoning grace hath kept you off it O where is your tendernesse of sinning there again where you had been almost plunged into the bottomlesse pit An heart hardned in sin after thoughts of granted forgivenesse is an evident wrong to this Gospel grace 6. If after thoughts of getting a pardon you have no holy 6 Pardoning grace is abused when there is no shame for sin shame for your sinnes Mary Magdalen was pardoned but in an holy shame shee stood behind her Saviour Luk. 7. 38. The absolved Romans were ashamed even of their pardoned sinnes Rom. 6. 21. Ye are now said the Apostle ashamed of them Ingenious children of God are ashamed when renewing repentance in their Fathers presence they looke over the black roll even of pardoned sinnes Surely you that have impudent reflections on your conceited sinnes yea have no shame to keep you off from renewed and pleasing sins do much disparage pardoning grace 7. If after thoughts your sins are pardoned you cannot you 7 Pardoning grace is abused when you will not pardon others will not pardon others not your enemies not your friends not your joynt professors of the same heavenly faith and hope not your loving reprovers not your hearty intercessors at the throne of grace for you Are you indeed pardoned that cannot pardon Pardon of sin is an eminent part of Gospel-glory True believers are changed into it 2 Cor. 3. 18. When they see how much they are forgiven they cannot but forgive when they see an hundred debts are forgiven will they strain at it to forgive one Yea
justified 1 Cor. 4. 4. The Lord Christ his personall duty is beleevers perfect righteousness not their own sanctification 4. There will be no escaping the curse of the Law Christ crucified was made a curse for his people Galat. 3. 13. that they might not be accursed Their services and penalties are no deliverances from Gods curse which unremoved will flame in everlasting burnings All beleevers have infinite reason to say The Lord Jesus not their own Graces hath delivered them from the wrath to come 5. There will be no refuge against conscience stormes in a 1 Thes 1. 10. trusted-in righteousnesse of graces Bare inherent holynesse failing and polluted with corrupt mixtures cannot secure a tempted soul by the Laws arrests the accusing conscience and Satans indictments This subtle and potent pleader will drive assaulted Christians from the weak holds of their pettie performances yea bring them to the brink of despair untill they run to the Cross of Christ and get within the invincible and royal Fort Christs imputed Righteousnesse This is the Saints refuge against their sharpest temptations and conscience-stormes Heb. 9. 12 14. and 10. 2. 6. There will not be a sufficient Argument utterly to strip believers from all glorying in themselves about a perfect Righteousnesse Would our own bare obedience be a current title to glory beleevers might wantonly applaud themselves and dance about their high duties as the Israelites about their Golden Idol they might commend themselves and boast in heart for the glory of their holynesse their Prayers Tears Alms Mortification as they are too apt to do But when they know and beleeve the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 21. Christ is made Righteousness unto them there was not so much as a good thought either in them or from them contributed to the making of this glorious robe imputed righteousness now they are denyed all glorying in themselves As to their perfect legal obedience they onely glory in Jesus Christ He is of God made our righteousnesse that according as it is written he that gloryeth let him glory in the Lord 1 Cor. 2. 30 31. 7. There will be no sure title to eternal life The perfect and infinite righteousness of the God-man Jesus Christ is an equivalent intitling purchase to the Gospels infinite reward of the next life As God is just and a justifier of beleevers so he is just and will be their glorifier Rom. 3. 26. 2 Tim. 4. 8. Let these things be a warning to all those that would secure their hopes confidences and joyes of salvation from miscarrying to study that righteousnesse which will fully and equally answer the demands of infinite justice and as to a justified estate from the guilt of sin to account their imperfect obedience polluted defective yea as dung compared with the complere personal righteousnesse of Jesus Christ But alass this error is too common yea too much an error in reall Christians very ignorant of the mystery of an imputed Righteousnesse to lay either the whole or the greatest weight on a weak foundation The Philosophers spake much of virtue but their external shining virtues were headless virtues because they were without the knowledge and worship of the true God so were it possible that an unjustified person should eminently shine in all the graces of the Spirit and be voted the none-such of the Age in contempt of the world mortification and new obedience these graces would be headless graces Christ would profit him nothing in his choicest doings and sufferings while his active and passive obedience is nor a sinners infinite compleat and everlasting righteousnesse SECT 13. 13. GLoryfying grace in the hopes and confidences thereof is 13 Gloryfying grace is turned into Wantonness turned into wantonnesse It is called the grace of life 1 Pet. 3. 7. and eternal life is the gift of God Rom. 6. 23. The crown of Glory is a crown of Free Grace adorned with that most orient Pearl the imputed Righteousnesse of Christ and the Jewels of the graces of the Spirit in their most perfect splendour and exercise that stand with the full fruition of God It is Grace that rewards Grace with Glory It is Grace that beginneth increaseth and consummates Grace Now many hope for gloryfying grace who almost but hope for heaven Who that have most just cause to feare yet are afraid in the serious and sad dwelling thoughts of their condition they are in eminent danger of Hell Instead of the blessed hope or hope of blessednesse the regular and warrantable expectation of glorifying grace there is a common hope and a cursed hope of Satans suggestion and corruptions entertainment though men continue in their sinnes they shall have heaven at length This hope never purifyed the heart and life 1 Joh. 3. 3. but will prove to them that trust in it like the thin and weak webb to the spider be swept away with the besom of destruction An evill conscience Pessima spei contubernalis mala conscientia Granat is the most dangerous companion of Hope Because many hope to be saved in the way of ruin their diseases become incurable like foolish patients that conclude health from that which increaseth their disease and hastneth their death Carnal hopes might have been cured by conditionall despair that ever soules should be saved while false hopes are rested in An hope of life in the paths of death is destruction to the soul A despair of ever getting good by such an hope might make men looke out for better hopes and more saving securities There are doubtlesse many that will in the other world curse their irrationall unscripturall and groundlesse hopes of Heaven A Prince hopes to wear his Fathers Crown How doth he abuse his hopes by living like a scullion and consorting with beggars Dishonourable imployments are below Royal state Many hope to wear the white robes of glory Rev. 3. 4 5. and yet embrace dunghill lusts and courses live dishonourably and abusively under their high expectations These resemble the Lapwing accounted an Emblem of infelicity which feeds on dung though it weares a Coronet on its head In the common abused hope of glory Hope is put out of office the springs of Hope are not regarded the work of hope is not done the properties of Hope are not to be found 1. Hope is put out of office It hath the office of a setling Anchor in heaven in tempestuous and troublesome times But the vulgar hope though it pretend heaven for its hold casts Anchor only among the creatures of which is worse among the Devils staying and strengthning it self in their counsels and lusts It hath the office of a saving refuge against Afflictions Desertions Temptations Corruptions Heb. 6. 18. The carnal hope of glory hath no City of Refuge but below viz. Wits Riches Friends Honours c. It hath the office of purging water which makes inside and Job 31. 24. 1 John 3. 3. outside clean The false hope of heaven wallows Swine-like in
the filthinesse of flesh and spirit layes in the mire of wickedness but riseth not out It hath the office of a diligent servant It looks for an heavenly reward and it serves God day and night Act. 26. 6 7. But the bare fancy of the hope of glory is content to serve the world flesh and devill It looks for an heavenly harvest and yet follows Satans Plow and soweth to the flesh Gal. 6. 8. It hath the office of a comforting cordial Good hope through Grace is the hearts comforter But the feigned hope of glory gives no more real comfort than the dream of a cordial doth a sleeping or dying man Carnal hopes never drinks out of the cup of heavenly consolations no draughts really please them but of earthly solaces Thus doe unregenerate men what ever they think put the hope of glory out of office so in the common abused hope of glory 2. The springs of hope are not regarded The Free grace of God is a Spring of Hope Good hope through Grace 2 Thes 2. 16. But loose spirits are as much strangers to the glory puritie and power of Free grace as true Hope They have not good hope through grace but ill hope through presumption The holy Ghost is a spring of hope that ye may abound in hope by the holy Ghost Rom. 15. 13. But un-Gospel wantons have their hopes from the evil spirits suggestion not the good spirits inspiration The perfect righteousness of Christ is a spring of hope The hope of righteousness Gal. 5. 5. But the dreamers of Heavenly hopes take the rise of their high hopes from their opinionative righteousness their good meanings good works as they think external either moralities outward or religious exercises or both Justifying Faith is a Spring of hope Rom. 5. 1 2. The hope of glory grows out of it But the vaine barren hope of Glory issues from self-sufficiencie As it comes not from a justified estate so neither doth it shew any evidence of sanctifying Grace The Promise is a Spring of Hope The Hope of the Promise Act. 26. 6. but lying hope of glory never sprang from any Gospel-promise For the promises have a cleansing virtue 2 Cor. 7. 1. The hope of the wicked hath none The Love of God shed abroad in the heart is a spring of Hope It makes not ashamed from the sweet sense of divine love Rom. 5. 5. But a sensual brutish hope of glory never felt the sweet pleasures of Gods love They that are acquainted with the Paradise delights of it are not wont to run a whoring after creature sportings much lesse after sinfull joyes The glorious feastings of the delicious eternal distinguishing Love of God in renewed soules have a mortifying virtue of pleasing vanities below Gracious Experience is a Spring of Hope Experience worketh Hope Rom. 5. 4. The Experience of Regenerating Grace of those sweet whispers Thy person is accepted Fear not I am thy God Christ is made to thee Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption of the mighty awe of Gods presence in the soul of hating vain thoughts of cleansing from secret sins of sealing of promises of victory over corruption and much more work renewed hopes of glory that God will both perfect and reward his own work The filthy streames of a dissolute hope of heaven that are strangers to these pure springs betray their impure originalls The unclean spirit the filthy heart the worlds pollutions are the common abused Hope of Glory 3. The Work of Hope is not done The work of Hope is to work patient and diligent continuance in well-doing We desire you to shew diligence to the full of assurance of hope unto the end Heb. 6. 11. But Hypocrites most heavenly hopes are both impotent and transient they neither communicate strength nor will they hold out they have short breath lame legs and withered hands and are a meer vapour a fancie and worke no diligence nor perseverance in the waies of Godlyness True Hope will work the soul out of the vanities dependancies inordinate rejoycings of earthly Hope Job had the hope of glory before his eyes hence he was assured that hee should see his Redeemer this swallowed up earthly hopes If I have made gold my hope or have said to the fine gold thou art my confidence If I rejoyced because my wealth was great c. Job 31. 24 25. But the dissembled Hopes of Glory never dead the heart to the vaine trusts and joyes of earthly Hopes when these are gone those have no estate in the other world It is the work of Hope to work up the soul to the infinite Riches Pleasures and Honours that are above The Hope that is laid up for you in heaven Col. 1. 5. But the adulterate hopes of heaven shew their falsenesse Reall worldlings hopes under Gospel pretensions are fastned onely to perishing things and must perish like themselves It is the work of Hope to succour the hearts of fainting beleevers to strengthen the feeble knees as a good daughter helps a sickly mother When Faith the Mother Grace is ready to faint Hope the daughter lends it a supporting hand and sayes hold out Faith There is an expected end of corruptions and afflictions Look Faith O look within the heavenly vayl even Holy of Holyes Conflicts are sharp O Faith see thy Crowns Wants are many O Faith see thy Supplies The race of obedience is tiresome O Faith see thy Prize Now there is sowing in tears O Faith see thy joyes The sweet countenance of God is clouded O Faith see his eternal smiles Beleevers are tossed with the waves of doubtings despondencies sometimes despair O Faith see thine unshaken assurance and everlasting rest But the easie false-hearted hopes of notional Christians can never succour their fainting Faiths At best their Faith was but fancy their confidence presumptuous and when their false faiths expire their groundless hopes are gone too Ah miserable self-deceivers that wrong the Faith and Hope of Glory In the common abused hopes of Glory 4. The Properties of Hope are not to be found The Hope of Glory is a regenerated Hope Begotten to a lively Hope 1 Pet. 1. 3. It is one of the new births graces The Hope of Unregeneracie then is a spurious hope New hopes never grow out of the old soyle The Hope of Glory is an high born grace its pedigree is abused when a vile sensual wicked life a bastard issue is laid at its doors The Hope of Glory is an Active Hope High hopes oyl the wheels of motion Hopes of great Matches Pardons Liberty sweetest earthly Pleasures Riches Crowns shake off sluggishness A reall Christian hath the highest hopes and this makes him goe yea run the wayes of Gods Commandements Too many abuse the hopes of glory They are negligent lazy indifferent yea opposers in the methods and unpleasing services of Gospel Hope What doe most that hope for Heaven doe to get it Where are their wrestlings at the Throne of Grace Where their
self-denyals Where their Fightings in Spiritual Armes against their corruptions Where are their Conquests Where their labours of Love Where their zealous pursuances of their own and others salvation Where the diligent improving of their general and particular calling for the glory of God Where their working out their salvation with fear and trembling Where their giving all diligence to make their Calling and Election sure Where is their making Religion their businesse to be found Most have the hopes of heaven but they are drowsie idle have no power of godlyness These in an especial manner are the Abusers of true Hope The Hope of Glory is a Rejoycing Hope We rejoice in the Hope of Glory Rom. 5. 2. When the Perspective of Faith hath fetched in the farre distant blessed objects of Eternity hath realized and substantialized them to the soul so that Faith saith to Hope I see the glory of Heaven I see the infinite rewards of sound Christians I see the infinite pleasures and satisfactions and ravishing joys of those blessed Citizens above Then saies Hope I look for them I expect them with unspeakable joy I wait for their Revelations and Fruitions A real Christian will not part with the joyes of his Hopes for a thousand worlds He is incomparably richer in hopes than worldlings are in hand but a delusive hope of glory continually joyned with joyous solitary worldly hopes is a stranger to the joyes of heavenly hopes The Hypocrite hath the fancy but never the reallitie of these hopes The joyes of these do not in him out-joy the joyes of earthly hopes they doe not lighten and sweeten the losse of worldly expectations Experience will prove it of unsound pretenders to their rejoycing hopes of Glory That if their hopes and the joy of their hopes below are gone they have no rejoycing hopes above The hope of Glory is a Lust denying hope The grace of God teacheth us the deniall of worldly lusts looking for that blessed hope 11. 12 13. As pilgrims and strangers here and therefore looking for your heavenly countrey abstain from fleshly lusts 1 Pet. 2. 11. Ye shall appear with Christ in glory Mortifie therefore your fleshly lusts fornication uncleanness covetousness your inordinate affections the root of all evill concupiscence Col. 3. 4 5. They then that obey sin in the lusts thereof Rom. 6. 12. that walk after their own lusts their ungodly lusts as these wantons in Jude did Epist Jud. v. 16 18. and live and die in them and yet hope for heaven they clearly contradict Scripture that the servants of carnall lusts shall not inherit the kingdome of God 1 Cor. 6. 9. That the wicked shall be turned into hell Psal 9. That the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience Col. 3. 6. That Libertines that count it pleasure to riot in the day time of Gospel light The Churches spots and blemishes not jewels sporting themselves with their own deceivings in their fearelesse feastings adulterous infectious examples covetous impenitent shall perish in their corruption and receive the reward of unrighteousness 2 Pet. 2. 12 13 14. That what a man soweth that shall he reap if to fleshly lusts an harvest of eternall torments if to the spirit a rich crop of eternall life Gal. 6. 7 8. All these eternal Truths that divine Justice will infallibly make good Lust-pleasers not denyers nourishers not crucifiers doe blot out by their unchanged hearts dissolute lives and reall unbelief The slaves of their absurd unreasonable ungodly lusts doe in effect and interpretation speak these blasphemies God is an holy and righteous God and he will reward our unrighteousness and unholynesse with eternall life When we play the wantons with our lusts we think God and our selves alike Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self Psal 50. 21. That God hath not so pure a nature and pure eies Hab. 1. 13. but when hee seeth sin he likes it well enough he delights in wickedness Ye say every one that doth evill is good in the sight of the Lord and he delighteth in them or where is the God of judgment Mal. 2. 17. That the Word of God is false that godliness is true gain that the righteous onely go into eternal life that there is danger in sin that the wanton abuses of Gods grace perish in their corruption that the blackness of darkness for ever is reserved for them Thus doth Lust-favouring and pampering Hope abuse the Hope of Glory The Hope of Glory is a well living Hope The saving grace of God teacheth us to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for the blessed hope c. Tit. 2. 12 13. I have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust and herein doe I exercise my self to have alwaies a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men Act. 24. 15 16. He that hopes for the full summe is glad of the assuring earnest hee that would have the full harvest is pleased with the first fruits The hope of glory that rejoyceth to thinke of the eternal summe and harvest of holyness is carefull to get and joyfull to obtain the earnest and first fruits of the Spirit of grace But the common absurd foolish hope of glory expects an heavenly eternal summe when it hath no earnest here looks for an eternal harvest when the first fruits are neglected and despised it pleasingly dreams to live happily with God in glory when it never lived holily with God in grace The hope of Glory is an Affliction-enduring and sanctifying Hope For this Hope the Apostle Paul was called in question Act. 23. 6. Judged Act. 26. 6. Accused v. 7. Imprisoned chained Act. 28. 20. suffered any persecution with patience contentment and joy For the hope of the Resurrection he took pleasure in his infirmities As the hope of Riches makes the Merchant Cum est propositum cum hoste certamen esuriendum sitiendum vigilandum periclitandum ut omnibus pacis victoriae bonis per frui possis â—prius laborandum ut sis postmodum in otio Lact. l. 6. c. 4. crosse the Seas at any hazard even to the utmost Indies and of victory which makes the Souldier endure hunger cold watching blows and wounds It 's hope of gain maketh the industrious Tradesman to be up early encounter all Highway storms It 's hope of a good crop maketh the painfull Husbandman to endure Winters cold and Summers heat It 's hopes of Crowns which maketh the ambitious run the hazard of losing their liberties and lives and undoing their families to hew out their way to Soveraignty by bloody deaths that stare them in the faces So the heavenly expectations of immortall Riches Victories Pleasures Crownes are Affliction-enduring hopes But the Imaginary hopes of Glory are cowardly effeminate soft lascivious and are founded in pollicy not in piety measured by the interests of the body not the soul are pleased
Practical Adversaries of Gods grace clearly opened to see the Insolencies Indignities and Injuries they do against it they could not but in a trembling conviction conclude these and these things are certain dishonors of grace Stains of holy Profession Inconsistencies with the new Creature Lust and Satans methods of Damnation and denials of the hope of Glory As when Paul said to Ananias God shall smite thee thou whited wall he had not said so had he known hee was the High Priest Act. 23. 3 5. â—o had the bold abusers of Gods Summus Lethargus quasi mors humanae conscientiae ignorantia voluntatis divinae grace strong and clear convincements the frame of their hearts and carriages of their lives were the high injuries of Grace eminent perils of destruction and demerits of the hottest room in Hell in the noon-light of such an acknowledgement they would feare and tremble to stumble upon their owne ruin SECT 2. 2. VVAnt of Faith to believe the signall danger of sinne this 2 Want of Faith to beleeve the danger of sin is a wrong to Grace Caecus assensus plane temerarius sine praeeunte notitia non potest induere rationem fidei Parkerus de Traduct peccat ad Deum Thesis 56. huge sin is the wrong of Grace It is no wonder that the evill which is not known is not believed nor declined Unbeliefe is the evill heart that departs from the living God It sets not to its seal that God is true in his promises nor threatnings believes not the abominable damnable nature of sinne and dallies with it As daring wantons who know that the cup that stands before them is of poyson yet beleeve it not but drink and burst or the plague is in the house they goe into believe it not are mortally infected and die And as the Egyptians beleeved not that the cattle and men that were found abroad one storming day should die adventured abroad and were slaine so dallying adventurers that beleeve not the mischief of their sinfull pleasures contempts of Christ and his Gospel they are dancing over the mouth of Hell by the sudden push of death are kickt into it The loose old world beleeved not the destruction Preached by Noah in the making of the Ark were not moved with his holy example and penitentiall instructions The Sonnes of God playd the wantons with the fair idolatrous daughters of men Gen. 6. 2. and were at length swept away with the flood Faith would make Libertines fear and tremble Unbelief is daring Minatur Deus negligitis minatur terrenus Judex contremiscitis The wrath of man is more feared than Gods When God saith one threatens eternal punishment ye neglect it when an earthly Judge threatens temporal ye tremble at it SECT 3. 3. WAnt of Heat Intention and Livelinesse in Religion If 3 The want of life in Religion causeth abuse of Grace God be not served in fervency of Spirit Lust will If Satan cannot keep from Religious exercise he tempts to Luke-warmnesse yea Key-coldnesse in the performance of them Instinctu Satanae faith one by Satans deading and flatting instinct a drowsie tyring in good things steals upon body and spirit Faint fighting is not wont to overcome nor faint service of God to mortisie Lust How feâ— are there in a Christian congregation superabounding in spiritual joy alwaies pleasant and merry in the Lord fervent in spirit day and night meditating in the Law of God lifting up pure hands in prayer follicitous observers and students of their own hearts zealous witnesses of holy affections to good works to whom Christian discipline is amiable Fasting sweet long Watching short the whole pietie of a regular conversation is a delitious feast yea doth exceed the sweetnesse of the Quorum brevis rara compunctio animalis conversatio sermo fine circumspectione oratio sine cordis intentione lectio sine edificatione Bern. Virga calcaribus indigentes hony and the hony comb Alass how many are there who in an impartial inquest will be found remisse in the studies of Holyness fainting under Christs easie yoak and light burden whose compunction is short and rare conversation naturall speech without circumspection prayer without intention of heart reading without edification good purpose without execution religious exercise without fervencie who in the waies of godliness want the whipp and spurs but in the too prone and nimble motions of dislolute looseness need curbing bridles Licentious courses are so strong and impetuous that the modest shame of uncomeliness the bridle of reason yea the fear of Hell can hardly restrain them No wonder if corruption be daring dissolute and potent when religious exercises are flat dead cold and feeble Wee blush not Sine debita attentione fervore spiritus Bern. said one to pray to God without due attention and fervour of spirit He that hath no sweet communion with God will seek it in the world and pleasing his inticing lusts When the minde is senceless in reading and meditation and affections are dull corruption will be lively 'T is sad to consider how many seemed to discover the fervour of a pious conversation in whom by degrees charity hath waxen cold and iniquity abounded and what appeared to be begun in the Spirit ends it is to be feared in the flesh Gal. 3. 3. Draw me and we will run after thee because of the savour of thine ointments Cant. 1. 3 4. Therefore there is need of Opus habeo trahi quia refriguit pauliâ—per in nobis ignis amoris tui Bernard drawing because the divine fire of the soules love for want of fewel to it and blowing of it by degrees abates ad cooles Drawing nigh the fire is for warmth and drawing nigh of God is for holy heat In near approaches to him the new creature is a zealous enemy to wanton looseness Cockering cooleness in the severe religious exercises of Mortification is the bane of Profession Adonijah was a very goodly man David his Father displeased him not at any time in saying why hast thou done so 1 King 1. 6. In the sist verse you sinde him a daring Rebel you may read in the Contents of the Chapter Adonijah Davids darling usurpeth the Kingdome Thus is it with every fair faced goodly lust The indulgent Christian is it too remisse in rebuking and chastizing it and it riseth up in arms against him Cockering Mothers cold in rebuking wanton sons teach them to be Libertines ost-times train them up for the Gallows and Hell so when the heart is remiss and cold for good and against evill Lust will have its reins and lawlesse liberty and ruin its servants SECT 4 4. WAnt of receiving the Truth in the Truth in the love of it is an Advantage 4. Want of receiving the truth in the love is an advantage to turn a Libertine to trun a Libertine The Apostle describes the Antichristian spirit that waxed wanton in taking pleasure in unrighteousnesse receiving
and pardoning mercy of God Ishall never be cleard of this guilt the glory of his Justice will shine in my ruin the glory of whose grace hath been darkned by my looseness The daring thoughts counsels words and practices of all Libertines doe betray such a spirit as was in Marcion of old who fancied God made all of mercy and grace and removed severities and judicial penal authorities from the good God as if he were a stupid Essence insensible of any affronts and indignities put upon him Thus as if God were not essentially just as well as mercifull he is by impudent Libertinisme spoyled of his Justice who as hee is just and a justifier of true beleevers so he is just and a condemner of all his enemies the greatest whereof are they that continue in sin because grace abounds SECT 6. 6. VVAnt of Grace changing and affecting the heart that 6 Want of Grace changing the heart causeth Gods grace to be turned into wantonnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 violent uÌ„ quiddam significat Beza Vsurpatur de iis qui in carcere custodia detinentur Gen. 39. 20. Quotquot in officio suo tor pent dona spiritus ignavo otio defodiunt nec propriam nec alioruÌ„ salutem provehunt Gualt in Luk 19. Hom. 174. Verba in opera Bernard shines in the Head Convictions may and doe often stand with positive Rebellion The truth of God is held prisoner in unrighteousness Rom. 1. 18. takes no hold on the wills and affections of men such violent restraint is laid upon it by over-powering worldly lusts that its sanctifying reforming liberty and authority is quite supprest It is with the lightsome beames of Gods grace as with the Sun The light may shine in the upper sleeping room but be shut out of the lower working rooms The grace of God shines often in the upper sleeping room idle drousie Speculation and conviction in the mind but is shut out of the lower working rooms the Will and the Affections Evil servants know their Masters will but have no hearts to doe it They are evill servants who in the Lords spirituall husbandry trading and occupation are negligent in their duty and hide the talents of the Spirits gifts in sluggish idlenesse and neither promote their own nor others salvation Family-guides cannot beare it who see their loose Attendants waste and abuse the light of great Candles to wantonnesse when their more conscionable Ministers doe much work by lesser lights What a shame will it bee in the reckoning day when persons of vast apprehensions but loose hearts and lives shall be condemned from the vast practice of Godliness in men of mean yet sound intellectuals who turn a few gracious notions into holy motions and words into works SECT 7. 7. WAnt of the upright and genuine use of Cods grace 7. Want of the genuine use of grace causeth it to be turned into wantonness Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an assault because if the flesh have never so little liberty it will assault us as a Medicine to cure not as a Cloak to cover sin We read 1 Pet. 2. 16. a Cloak of maliciousness or wickedness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the danger of usâ—rg liberty an occasion to the flesh Gal. 5. 13. which let alone will make assault upon us as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports The Sheeps-skin on the Wolves back doth indeed cover not alter the ravenous Creature While the cloak of grace doth but hide not heal the old Man he will be a Libertine The matter is not with carnal Gospellers whether they sin or no but whether concealed Unsound hearts are not so much troubled with the conscience as infamy of sin Much wickedness in the world appearing in its native colours would be abominable but when it borrows a dress from the grace of God it looks lovely and is unsuspected A pitty it is so fair a cloak as Gods grace should be put on so foul a body as sin it is as if a leprous Body were covered with Purple and a Dung-hill with Scarlet It was a part of Jeremiah's Lamentations That the Sons of Zion that were cloathed in Scarlet embraced Dung-hills Lam. 4. 5. It should be for a lamentation that spurious Gospellers the false sons of Zion clad in a rich scarlet glorious profession should stain themselves with durg-hill words and works To put the cover of nature upon unnatural unmorral sins is abominable to put the cloak of grace on works of darkness to wash the Devils face with holy-water is much more detestable It is as if Satan should court God to license his wickedness as if his pure nature should priviledge uncleanness They were false Jews uncircumcised in Spirit though not in flesh who made their ceremonious services which Jer 7. 8. Plus licentiae sibi in ceremoni is sumebant quae debebant esse paenitentiae â—â—â—ercitia Calv. should have been exercises of repentance the Patrons of Licentiousness and so they are adulterate Christians who prostitute their Religious Worship to irreligious designs and practices But sure Grace was never intended to cover but cure sin As the God of grace hath clearly vindicated grace from this dishonor in his Scriptures and in the mortified conversation of his real â—aints so will he in the great day of restitution of all things all things by their proper names set them on their own bottoms arraign sin as sin grace as grace the enemies of Christ as enemies and friends as friends and avenge before the world dishonors done to his Gospel-grace and invincibly clear it to the judgement both of elect and reprobates that grace is a destroyer not a Saviour of sin an help not an hindrance of good life Take with you words and say receive us graciously Hos 14. 2. This grace was an healing remedy I will heal their backslidings v. 4. Grace like the covering wings of the Chicken like the covering Plaister of the wound doth both cover and cure Pardoning and purging Grace go together As the wisdom so the grace that is from above is pure as well as peaceable It is the constant Petition of the sound Spirit of Prayer Lord pardon Lord heal my sins SECT 8. 8. VVAnt of sound conviction of the mischief of original 8. Want of conviction of original corruption is a cause of turning the grace of God into wantonness corruption and severe mortification thereof is an experimented account why grace is abused Here are two branches 1. Want of clear convincement of the old mans mischief The Character of his wickedness is very large when it is not known at all or but slightly no wonder if the bosome Enemy play Rex and rule as he he His sinfulness as followeth not discerned nor regarded begetteth high abuse of the Grace of God Were these things known and believed concerning original corruption professed Christians could not be so licentious Sad experience will give this evil report of it One saith truly
he perswades himself he is walking in the streets nor is an unlettered man a Scholar who is confident of his learning A crackt Title will not bear out the cheated Purchaser in Law though he is assured of the contrary O the sottish condition of unregenerate Gospellers whose onely or main argument of their good Estate in Christ is because they are assured it is so and so neither dare nor will by so much as questioning it disturb their false peace Is it possible this evidence should pass for Grace and Glory How long O self-deluding Wantons will ye love simplicity When you have given almost as large allowances to your lust as the flesh will require Can this support a perswasion that you are gracious The Word did never witness to it nor will the Spirit of God ever seal to it that you are the servants of God while the Devils Subjects you are the children of Light while you walk darkness you are in the straight way to life while you are in the broad road to destruction A bare perswasion of being in a state of Grace is a palpable delusion where ever this is by constant experience we know that the Grace of God is abused 7. Counterseit Grace conceived and believed real Grace begets Libertines The Devil appeared in Samuels Mantle and reigning sins appear to Gods discerning eye in the vail of counterfeit Grace The old Serpent and the old Man care not how glorious the notions and pretensions of Grace are These are their friends 'T is real Grace onely is their ruine What grace is there that is not without it's counterfeit The Devil is Gods Ape and Corruption is Graces Ape There is a shadow of true faith Some things have a fine semblance of the love of God That passeth among men as repentance that is none Pride is clad in Humilities cloathes There is a natural unsanctifying meekness that was never taught in Christs School Matth. 11. 29. Wilde Passion puts on the name of holy Zeal Pleasing and deluding carnal hope is as easily perishing as the Spiders Web is swept away False uprightness makes the Hypocrite pass for a most plausible honest man The Ape in Mans apparel will have Apish tricks and corruption in the cloathes of Grace will and can do no otherwise then act like it self a lewd Wanton It ever makes the Devils trade it 's good earnest and Religious profession it's pastime and sport SECT 14. 5. THe error of abusive Interpretation of Scripture hath sadly 14. Abusive Interpretations of Seriptures hath produced the abuse of grace produced loose Monsters in Religion The Devil the Arch-Antiscripturist well knoweth that the Scriptures rightly understood and used are the down-fall of his Kingdom If he cannot banish the faith of its Divine Authority out of the world he doth what he can to hinder it's efficacy Among sundry ways he useth to make void the benefit of it this is one to deprave the sense If he can make Gods word speak his own interpretation he hath his end a dark minde a loose heart and a debauched life By turning the pure and genuine meaning of the Scripture into strange and adulterate he hath a double success first the obedience of his own will and then the colour and Patronage of Gods word to make his cheats sacred and unsuspected He hath Scripture on his side to consecrate and facilitate his wickedness and his Scholars of sad delusion wrest it to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. Is it not made a Sanctuary for Popery Herisie Hypocrisie Cruelty Worldliness yea gross Prophaneness O high dishonor to the Holy Ghost who revealed to holy Men who wrote and published the Scriptures that spurious idolatrous silthy senses should be laid at the chaste doors of Gods holy word O eminent peril to immortal souls When bold Ignorance carnal Affections Lusts and Interests give the sense of the Word The sad issue is The word of life is turned into a word of death The true Light of Divine Knowledge is dimm'd or blown out Sincere Milk is turned into deceitful Poyson The Chrystal Waters of the Sanctuary are bemired from holy turned into impure The Hellish Archer endeavors to out-shoot God in his own Bow and by the leave and licence of abused Scripture he lures brain-shot erring Christians into the ways of sin and death To open this wherein abusive sense of Scripture doth advantage a loose Faith and a wanton Life as in Church History in all Ages since the Apostles and in the present Age would be fitter for a Book then a Section I shall instance in some Sect-Masters or sides of corrupt Glossers and abusers of the sacred Text. Where were your understandings O Arians who could not see the plain God-head of Jesus Christ in that you read him equal with the Father without any robbery to his Glory Phil. 2. 6. and that by him were made all things that were made John 1. 3. Did ever meer Creature make all things What though he said my Father is greater then I John 14. Could you not distinguish he was so as Christ was Man or as Mediator but not simply as the Eternal Son of God These wanton wits that by wresting the word have denyed Christs God-head the Mediator of Grace and so possibility of Grace have as History Records been abusive enemies of the Gospel of grace and most bloody Persecutors of Orthodox and gracious Christians So what high dishonor to God the Law the Gospel Christian Liberty and Profession have the Antinomian party published to the World who have made these Scriptures Ye are not under the Law but Grace Rom. 6. 14. The Law is not made for a righteous man 1 Tim. 1. 9. and such places to speak that it never intended a discharge from obligation to the Laws direction and obedience as an erring Preacher of this way alledging this Text Wherefore my Brethren ye are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ Rom. 7. 4. roundly said Believers are not onely free from the Minatory and Promissory but Mandatory part of the Law A gross Opinion which as it blots out the Ten Commandments out of the Canon so it opens a door to all dissolute Conversation Further What infinite mischief to the comforts of the Faith and hope of Christians and to the power of godliness have that pernicious Sect of Allegorists done as to the glorious Article of Christian Faith The â—esurrection of the Body Hymenaeus and Philetus held the Resurrection was past already and overthrew the faith of some 2 Tim. 2. 18. It is thought by some they held no Resurrection but of Baptismal Regeneration in which there is rising to a new life The confounding and wresting the Corporal into an Allegorical Resurrection was in Tertullians Sunt qui resurrectionem mortuorum manife sio annunciatam in imaginariam significtionem distorquent Terful in lib. de Resurrect Hodie sunt suriost quidem â— Daemonibus obsessi qui se libertinos vocant
as they desired in sin Psal 78. 29. Much of the Creatures is desired to consume upon Lusts Jam. 4. 3. Drunkenness Gluttony Pride Voluptuousness Ambition Doâ—ination Sad will be the account of vast expences of the Creatures sacrificed in and upon the service of Lust against which usurpation the voices of Reason Grace and the Creatures will give severe testimony 2. To the sinful end of hindring Gods service we should use the Creatures onely to fit and whet our attendances on God but when they prove Obstructions as mostly they doe take off our leisure and pleasure to doe his will we wrong God and our own souls Christ told the busie man who excused his following of Christ one would think a tolerable excuse by going home to bid his friends farewel that his civil courtesie at that time did unfit him for the Kingdom of God Luke 9. 61. yea concluded that the civil burial of the dead in opposition to religious service argued a soul dead in sin And so the Field the yoak of Oxen the married Wife are set down as Remora's and Impediments to come and feed upon Christs Gospel-feasts Matt. 22. 4. and those that flow in Creature-comforts say Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Job 21. 14. Why doth Christ say Wo to you that are full Luke 6. 25. but to threaten at once rest in Creature-fulness is a temptation to forget God and duty The poor in the world rich in faith Jam. 2. 5. receive the Gospel Luke 7. 22. Have any of the Rulers believed on him Joh. 7. 48. 'T is true there is not an absolute inconsistency of grace with Riches and Greatness Rich Abraham as well as poor Lazarus are in Heaven But ordinarily the Creatures are used to a sinful end to estrange and arm the heart with weapons of Rebellion against God which should be inducements of obedience 3. When they are used onely to a perishing end a Belly that shall be destroyed a fine back that shall be uncloathed and lay in the chamber of death rottenness and silence a mortal body Belluinus vescendimos Mar lorat a posterity that must die When rational Creatures use the creatures unreasonably onely like bruit Beasts to satisfie sensualities that must give up the ghost with the Sensualists expiring breath when they have not an eternal end in their eye to use money meat drink health strength life to fit for eternity when men do not make them friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness Luke 16. 9. and though they cannot at once serve God and Mammon yet do not so manage Creature use as to make Mammon serve God they are exceedingly unserviceable and injurious to the grace of God 4. When they are not used to Gods ends They are four 1. Stronger engagement unto God The pious intention of Jacob if he might have the mercy of Divine protection convenient His verbis se obstrinxit Jacob Calv. food and raiment he promised The Lord should be his God These were the holy Patriarchs binding words Gen. 28. 30 31. As courtesies binde to men so creature-mercies binde pious men to God When the sweet silken cords of mercies do not binde the heart to God grace is dishonored when it is common dis-ingenuity to break the bonds of kindness to despise the riches of creature-goodness this is a signal evident ingratitude to the God of grace 2. End of Gods Creature-mercies is faithful and chearful service Deut. 28. 47. But when it is usual and sad practice as Israel served not God in a good and fat Land Neh. 9. 35. so the unworthy Professors of Gospel-grace and the Christian name do not conclude a necessary joyous and rational service from the free and plentiful allowances of sweet Creatures do not seriously ponder with themselves Why have I hundreds and thousands by the year Why have I food convenient and competent allowance between envy and pitty Why have I any House to dwell in any food and raiment Why have I had sweet repose this night when others in waking tortures count the tedious hours Why have I health Am I strong Doe I live Have I so good a Master Is it that I should be a loose wanton servant and do him no work What blushing will sit on the face trembling on the limbs horror on the hearts of pretenders to Gods grace in the accounting day when large Creature-allowances shall in all their sad inventories be proved to be wrested from the imployments of Gods reasonable service 3. End of Gods Creature-mercies is the exaltation and commendation of his loving kindness Davids gracious spirit versed in the high praises of God did ordinarily take the elevation of Gods goodness and kindness from Creature-mercies and spent Psalms in Doxologies seeing the glory of God in the glass of the Creatures shining before his spirit and in and in high strains of praise exalted the great and glorious name of God made the Creatures Trumpets to sound his praise and an occasion of high thoughts of God Indeed he that is thankful to God for his unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ cannot but having the best Gospel-tenure of common mercies holding them in capite praise God for every perishing mercy as a token of special everlasting love and an earnest penny of eternal mercies His bread to him is Covenant-bread his Apparel Covenant-apparel his Money Covenant-money yea his Afflictions Covenant-afflictions whether he have much or little it s all to him the dispensation of choice kindness and the allotted sufficiency of infinite Wisdom and Love to bear his charges in the narrow road to life until he come to his Fathers House and eternal Inberitance But now to rob God of this glorious end the exaltation of his love or to resent no love but of Creature-mercies and to prostitute that to self-love and carnal sensualities How below is this to the honor of man the glory of God and the power of Grace 4. End of Gods Creature-mercies in spiritualizing the Creatures Turning Earth into Heaven making visible created Excellencies Ladders to climb up to the invisible God The pious practice of our Lord Jesus in his holy heavenly travels to lead the understandings of men by the light and hand of Creatures to the apprehensions of heavenly and immaterial things by a Well of water still springing up signifying the eternal Spring of the Spirit of grace in regenerate souls what by fleshly relations leading us to believe the high account he hath of spiritual kindred by seed lost in evil ground fruitful in good instructing us in the word lost to most hearers succesful in a few good and honest hearts by all his Parables elegantly picturing out the Orient Beauties and Glories of his Kingdom of grace and glory and the ugly face of sin Holy Bradford was happy this way who made Creature-mercies his advantage ground to see into Gospel-glories When putting on Apparel his thoughts were O Christ cloath me with thine own self that I catch
not the cold of this World When the cloathes were put off he thought of death he should be uncloathed of Flesh and of the Resurrection to put it on again as his cloathes were put on in the morning When the day-light appeared he minded Christ the light that knows no Night nor Evening but is always as bright Mid-day His Journying taught him to think this life a Pilgrimage the way is dangerous that there is need of Christ the Guide in the high way to glory How injurious are we to Gods end of his Creatures unto our own rational faculties and to the ingenuities that grace would put upon us if we gain not affective and active Meditations by what daily comes into the doors of our senses If so great be the sweetness and glory of Gods out-house the visible World what transcendencies of delight and honor are the happy reserves in the invisible state and place of heavenly glory in the next life It is an ungracious frame of spirit that is confined to the things below They are strangers and enemies to their own happiness that could take up with a visible Eternity of poor sublunary things and cannot abide the thoughts of death the destruction of their earthly Gods Thus Reader in the forementioned eleven Sections maist thou try and take a measure of thy loose heart and life if in impartial Judgement thou canst and wilt be so faithful to the Truth and thine own soul as to believe thy guilt of manifest and gross abuses of Gods grace confess it to God deeply lay it to heart repent of it lest it prove thy ruine CHAP. XI Containing a second Branch of Examination how we may know the secret close and more refined Abuses of Gods Grace HAving enquired into the more visible and notorious affronts of Gods grace My next labor shall be rifling bosom-work to go into the inward Rooms of the heart and there to finde out the inward Libertine that dares impurely and immodestly to licentiate before the Lord This searching inward filthy cells of darkness by the bright Candle of the word of Truth as it is always unpleasant to a close Hypocrite all whose Religion is a constant jugling with God and men so to soundest upright hearts it is very desirable If the secret rotten double-hearted Professor shall read the following Conceptions without a blush fear and trembling laying a better foundation for his propriety to Christ assurance of Grace and the hope of Heaven then cheating appearances If he have scarce patience and heart to try himself by ensuing discoveries yea though he read them will wickedly deny the signs of close dishonors to Gods grace are not in him he may shift of Paper Arraignments he shall not the unbosoming Judgement of the great day when his Sheeps skin shall be pluckt off the inside shall be turned outwards and the close Hypocrite shall appear a wicked impenitent abuser of Gods grace Indeed I have little hope to do good to the habitual Jugleâ— in the things of God who hath made a play of his Religion aâ—â— never been in good earnest My hope is a Blessing from Heaven may second Convictions in the sound heart searching Reader who is ever most charitable to others but most jealous off and servere against his own heart for thy sake O self-basing abhorring mourner in Zion I have endeavored to lay down the Transcript the Counterpane of thy wretched heart I know thou â—ilt say the next Pages are thine own experience look over weep over pray strive against the ungrateful unkinde wrongs to thy gracious God thy dear Redeemer the Spirit of Grace gracious motions thy principle of grace I know by the help of grace thou wilt lay to heart and repent of the secret Injuries of grace where the prophane hypocritical world scarce see any sin or if so very slightly think of it and have no care and conscience to reform Weigh and ponder then the evidences of close and less discerned abuse of Gods grace as laid down in the subsequent method SECT 1. 1. EVidence of close Abuse of Gods grace is a sinful close of spiritual Injoyments By these I mean all the Ordinances of grace whose ends and fruits are spiritual where succesful also the gifts of Grace Knowledge Judgement Invention Memory Utterance in Divine things Adde hereunto the sanctifying graces of the Spirit the sâ—eet motions of the Holy Ghost the joys of the Spirit in the light of Gods countenance in the Faith of Attonement by Christs blood in the sight of sincerity victory over Lusts c. These are all spiritual injoyments Now when the close of these is sinful there is a secret abuse of grace It is sinful in five things 1. In self-advancement Gods free grace is either wronged by his Servants as a Benefactor by a boasting Beggar he is well fed fat and fine and while he should lift up the bounty of the giver he is glorying in himself as a receiver So when the giver of grace in his heavenly Alms should be magnified how often do the best of men advance themselves The richest Saints in Earth and Heaven are but vessels of mercy Rom. 9. 22. Utensils Instruments God is pleased to use No thank to the tool but to the hand if it work No house builds it self When we see a comely building we praise the Art of the Builder The action of the Instrument is reduced to the essicient Ashur forgat himself and God when he looked not on God but himself Boasting in an Instrument is as if the Saw should magnifie it self it cut well and the Ax should magnifie it self it hewed well Isa 10. 15. If the Workman holds his hands the Tools do nothing Believers are the spirits Instruments God works in and by them and they dishonor the grace of God by transferring the work to themselves saying I prayed I preached I wept I gave alms I rejoyced in God I did this and that good As lofty Nebuchadnezzar lookt onely on his great boasting This I did this was my doing Is not this Babel that I have built for the glory of my Majesty So I have done this and that is the Poison that mars all the breathing of Satan turn'd angel of light the high abuse of Gods grace â—h Christian be humbled for it Diabolus laudat qua se perspicit superari virtutem injicit cordi jactantiam c. Fulgent ad Probam ep 3. and correct it by the Glass of Pauls self-abasing Grace and Christ-advancing I labored more than the other Apostles yet not I but the Grace of God 1 Cor. 15. 10. I live yet not I but Châ—ist lives in me Gal. 2. 20. 2. In dulling the edge of holy zeal This is the sad and frequent lacquey of spiritual injoyments We converse with them to a blunting and dulling of our spirits They should be as whetstones to set a keener sharpness on our hearts but they are as stones to the Sithes that gap and blunt them It is
Father as that he is their King Though the name Father speaks boldness yet the name King speaks greater reverence Irreverent are saucy children more bold than welcome I am a great King saith God Mal. 1. 14. His name is great Mal. 1. 11. and reverend Psal 111. 9. We need grace to serve God with reverence and godly fear because he is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. It is a wrong to grace when we do it not Is it the state of earthly gods to keep their distance with them on whom they shine the brightest beams of their royal favours and shall we think the infinite great and blessed God before whom the Kings of the Earth are as Grashoppers Worms Nothing less than Nothing will not have the rails and vails of holy reverence the humble tokens of distance The Apostate Angels at once lost their good manners and their happiness they kept not within their limited station Should the standing Angels loose their Reverence they should lose their Glory It is the â—â—lae volantes celeritatem promptitudineÌ„ significant Faciem tegentes indicant Angeli Majestatem Dei ferre nequeunt Pedes tegentts quod tenues divini splendoris radiolos in Angelis perspicere non possumus Calv. in Isa 6. Gospel Prophets Hieroglyphick The holy heavenly Angelical Hoast are Birds of Paradise and have six Wings two to cover their faces two their feet two to fly with are said to have flying wings to resemble their quick and nimble obedience facecovering wings to shadow out their reverence as not daring to pry into nor bear Gods infinite glory are said to have feetcovering wings to teach our distance from the Angels who are too weak to behold their finite little rayes of glory much lesse that infinite bright Sun of the divine Essence This Lesson the Prophet teacheth us those spotlesse Spirits that see the blessed face of God to their everlasting happinesse are ever full of a Reverential awe of Gods Majesty But how unsuitable are the heirs of salvation to their heavenly guard Angels are reverent Saints are unmannerly These are wanton those dare not bee so Believers study your hearts gestures words conversations that they all may be Holinesse to the Lord Is he sanctified in you when you draw nigh him Levit. 10. 3. When you are before him as in no minute no place no darkness no solitariness you are out of his flaming eyes piercing views your insides and external deportments are layd in his unerring ballance He tryes you every moment Job 7. 18. What mean your uncomely spirits your external indecencies your slight services Would your governour like such carriages you present to and abuse your gracious God with As Ahasuerus said to Haman Will he force the Queen before me Esth 7. 8. So lay it to heart will you abuse grace before God It was a God-wearing sin evil men did evilâ— and yet thought they were good in Gods sight Mal. 2. 17. What a God-affronting sinne is it to thinke because Free-grace hath made you good and accepted in Gods sight therefore you may abuse it to irreverence in his presence I know your hearts if sound abhorre this doctrinal inference from so glorious a principle but doth not the frame of your spirits words of your mouthes loose carriage prove you dare be irreverently and abusively bold with your Fathers kindnesse Who that seeth a grown Son come to years of understanding knowing his duty to walk mannerly yet standing with his Hat on playing ill feats before yea with his Fathers face slighting his commands but will say there is a wanton unmannerly boy It is no calumny to say so of many of Gods unmannerly children their unbecoming Irreverencies are their heavenly Fathers reproach A Reverent Christian that hath the mighty awe of God upon his spirit in all times places companies providences temptations is a Phenix an Angel among Professors Happy holy harmless preserved are they that maintain the reverent awe of God upon their spirits SECT 3. 3. EVidence of close abuse of Gods grace is Forgetfulness of God The House of Israel perverted their way and forgot 3 Forgetfulness is an evidence of abuse of grace the Lord their God Jer. 3. 22. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked Of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindfull and hast forgotten God that formed thee Deut. 32. 15 18. Too often the answers of Gods kindnesse are like the chief Butlers of Josephâ— The holy man gave a comfortable interpretation of the Butlers Drem Pharaohs restorement of him to his office with this rational caution but think of me when it shall be well with thee Yet did not the chief Butler remember Joseph but forgat him Gen. 40. 13 14 23. Thus the Holy God speaks comfort to many a gracious soul in the deeps of trouble with those equal motions upon their spirits that they would think upon this name and not return again to folly yet in sundry duties they doe not remember God but forget him They know not their own hearts that in the trust and boast of their own sufficiencies promise God if he will reveal his love in his Son to them they will be exact walleâ—s but many of his loose children after they have seen his face have opposed his will and answered the Kisses of his love by unkind Rebellions Gods Israel of the spirit have need of the same cautions the Israel of the flesh had When the Lord thy God shall give thee for his promise sake Cities Houses Wells Vineyards and Olive-trees when thou shalt have eaten and be full then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God Deut. 6. 10 11 12. So Beleever when the Lord thy God for his covenant sake shall priviledge thee in the heavenly blessings of Reconciliation Justification Adoption the Joy of Atonement and the sweet sight of thy name written in heaven when thou shalt eat and be full of the heavenly feast of fat things beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God 'T is no seldom indignitie put upon the grace of God to forget him in Temptations Vocations Relations Conditions in the world We charge upon our servants such and such duties call them to account our pleasure is neglected The excuse is we were forgotten doth not this speak a loose careless Spirit Surely the Lords servants forgetfulnesse of their charge argues their wantonness A serious faithful considering spirit would remember Christian charge home the basenesse and unfaithfulness of thy spirit with sharp reproof Ah foolish heart and unwise How have I requited the Lords grace I forget not vanitie but how have I forgotten the great concernments of Eternity A Bride will not forget her Ornaments the Worldling his Market and Teeming summes Pleasure-hunters forget not their delights nor the children of Revenge their opportunities of doing mischief How hast thou forgotten the Lord his blessings on thee his cautions to thee his motions in thee his hoped glory laid up for thee his everlasting love designing
and filthy will be so still Rev. 22. 11. ye will revolt more and more Isa 1. 5. Evil men under the Abuse of grace will wax worse and worse 2 Tim. 3. 13. and under the form of godlyness increase the power of wickedness 2 Tim. 3. 5. continue in sinne because grace abounds Rom. 6. 1. It is here also as it is with two men that abuse their friends One doth it and seeth the ungrateful disingenuitie of it and mends the fault another doth it and loads his dear friend with more disgraceful insolencies So a gracious man wrongs his best friend Jesus Christ and sayes of his abuses as Ephraim of his Idols what have I to doe any more with them A gracelesse Professor wrongs the Lord Jesus his owned friend and multiplyes still ungratefull injuries SECT 5. 5. DIfference A real Christian wrongs Gods grace and as 5 A Regenerate repents and is pardoned it is repented of so it is pardoned This iniquity proves not his ruin There is pardoning grace for the abuses of pardoning grace The blood of Christ washes away beleevers wanton abuses of the blood of Christ Gospel grace like the Sun blots out the thin and thick clouds of sin A pretended Christian wrongs Gods grace and as he hath no repentance so no pardon He is not cleansed by the blood of sprinkling that hath been without ceasing and remorse abused by a prophane wanton heart and loose life The contrary events of Abusing Gods grace are like the different issue of two Subjects abusing their King The one doth it is humbled for it accepted and pardoned the other doth it is hardned rejected and hanged Be vailed pardoned Abuses of grace hinders not heirs of glory from their eternal Inheritance Unreformed wrongs of grace in vessels of wrath not blotted out by the blood of Christ will cast them into hell CHAP. XIV Containing an Vse of Exhortation 5. VSe is Exhortation in these things Observe the Use 5 for Exhortation helps to escape this great sin the Abuse of Gods grace Blesse God for Perservation Be alwaies jealous of the sin long for a riddance from it and joy in the hope of it SECT 1. 1. LEarn of the gracious and precious heart and life of Jesus Christ 1. Learne of the gracious and precious heart life of Jesus Chr. Fulnesse of grace dwelt personally in him Hee never in the least playd the wanton with his Fathers grace sought not himself in pleasing his own will nor glory had nothing of the loose spirit of the world in him was not taken with its empty pomps ever went about doing good Acts 10. 38. was his Father and his Churches faithful servant Isa 42. 1. busie in saving work while in the flesh Luk. 2. 49. wrought by did not idle and play away his light Joh. 9. 4. was solid weighty serious in all his affaires with God and men To bee still writing after his fair copy would mend the loose Errata of Christains lives 'T is the Apostles counsel Let us walk decently as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness Rom. 13. 13. If it be said how the next words shew But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill it in the lusts thereof v. 14. Christ is two waies put on By Justification when the chief Robe of his imputed Righteousnesse is put on and by Imitation when the Garments of his communicable graces are put on Put on as the Elect of God bowels of mercy kindness c. Col. 3. 12. Did wee learn the truth as it is in Jesus and trace the steps of his Faithfulnesse Zeal Meekness Humility Heavenly mindedness Divine communion Self-denial Spiritualitie we neither should nor could be such wantons with the Gospel as our loose spirits tempt us to doe Christian set before thee the heavenly purity gravitie soliditie of the Lord Jesus it will awe thy daring insolent spirit What is Christianity but a transcript from the original copy Jesus Christ Should not servants that goe in their Masters Livery doe his work Really put on the cloaths of Heaven and thou wilt not do the work of Hell What an horrid incongruitie is it to pretend to be like Christ and act like the Devil The lazy Philosopher talked of virtue but did it not and the lazy Christian can discourse of the grace of Christ and Quid inter se simile habeat Philosophus Christianus Graeciae discipulus caeli Tertul. in Apolog c. 46. act it not As the Greeks professed Philosophy so doe Libertines Christianity The real imitation of Jesus Christ would be a prevention of loosenesse These daily thoughts would do well I am a professed Disciple of Christ Did he think as I think Reason as I doe Were his affections like mine Did such words come from his mouth Were such designs driven by him SECT 2. 2. HElp is a cleansed purged heart Legal pollutions the 2 A cleansed purged heare is a special help to avoid abusing of the grace of God Types of Moral debarred from serving the holy God An impure heart serves not God but abuseth him The purging of the conscience from dead works and serving the living God are put together As well may a dead man ferve a living Prince as a polluted heart with dead works serve the living God To the pure all things are pure to the impure all things are in their use impure Tit. 1. 15. An impure heart makes an impure use of the holy God his Prayers Confessions Confidences Hopes are impure whose heart is so Cleanse your hearts said James then draw nigh to God Jam. 4. 8. It is with a pure heart as with a pure fountain it will work out mire and dirt It is with a clean heart as with a clean stomack it turns good meat into nourishment not ill huniour Christian purge thy heart by the wholsome working Physâ—ck of Gods grace of self-love worldly lusts voluptuousness covetous proud filthy desires vain-glory vanity of mind folly caâ—nal securitie and then wholsome meat the food of blessed Angels will not accidentally prove as hurtful to thee as the carrion food of Devils 'T is a sweet truth Beleeveâ—s draw nigh Absque cruore domini nemo appropinquat Deo Hier. to God by the blood of Christ Ephes 2. 13. Without a bloody skreen God would be a consuming fire to every sinner for the least sin But what doth the impure unwashen heart coâ—nt of the blood of the Covenant but as an unholy thing Heb. 10. 29. when not used in a way of gracious cleansing but emboldning allowance of sinne A cleansed heart will neither prophane the blood spirit nor word of Christ SECT 3. 3. HElp is the fear of God It is a Soveraign remedy against all 3 The fear of God is a help against abuse of Grace Religio esse non potest ubi â—imor nullus Lact. filthâ—nesse of the flesh spirit
purified your heart by the spirit 1 Pet. 1. 22. The spirit mortifieth the deeds of the body Rom. 8. 13. Let us walk in the spirit not desirous of vain glory provoking envying one another Gal. 5. 25 26. Quantumvis se Christianum vel millies glorietur He that hath not the spirit of Christ saith one belongs not to him although he should a thousand times over glory he is a Christian Where Christ with his Spirit dwelleth there is a proof of his inhabitation the guidance of his Spirit is followed the body of sin is gradually destroyed The spirits walks are clean principles are holy motions are pure Much wantonness in Religion is entertained from the spirits allowance and is guilty of this real blasphemy as if the holy Spirit were an unclean one It is not because men live in the Spirit but because they live not that they live and speak so loosly in filthy Ranterism in odious Libertinism When the Apostle prayed that the Colossians might be filled with all spiritual Wisdom and Understanding have inlightned mindes and renewed wills and affections Col. 1. 9. his meaning was that they might walk holily and strictly not uncleanly and loosly That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing ver 10. not by a Popish worthinesse of Merit but by a Gospel-worthinesse of fitnesse decency and non-repugnance to Gospel-grace walking worthy a Christians call Eph. 4. 1. Worthy of God 1 Thess 2. 12. Worthy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospel Phil. 1. 27. All which is done by following the guidance of the spirit and not serving the lusts of the flesh which is the fruit of spiritual Wisdom and Understanding Sensual not having the spirit Jude Ep. ver 19. Will be a condemning evidence that wanton Sensualists were but pretended Spiritualists and real Carnalists The Spirits way is a way of holinesse a clean way Impure Libertines never walked in it Get in it and the dirty miry pathes of the worlds pollutions will be avoided SECT 7. 7. HElp is serious thoughts what it is to crucifie lusts The 7. Serious thoughts what it is to crucifie lusts is an help to prevent the abuse of grace not understanding of nor submitting to the crucifying work of grace is an experienced grand omission in all loose delicate Christians They choose and like onely that Religion that gives most liberty ease and life to the flesh Crucifying grace hath three irksome terrible and unpleasing severities which carnal wisdom and wantonness abhors Restraint Pain and Death 1. Restraint The Roman Malefactors that were fastned to the Crosse had not the free use of their members So when the Body of sin is Crucified its earthly Members are as it were nailed fastned to the Wood that they cannot have liberty to move as formely The Spirit never crucifieth but the flesh is nailed Carnem nostraÌ„ clavis in crucem agamus ut etiam invita sâ—iritui subjecta essecogatur to the Cross and is compelled to be subject to its dominion 2. Pain Piercing with nails Hanging bleeding on the Cross was a tormenting penalty when the Grace of God crucifieth it torments the flesh It s spiritual arms puts corruption to pain When it is vexed and afflicted it is as it should be No crucifying without pain 3. Death The kinde of death Christ died was Crucifixion He gave up the Ghost on the Crosse Crucifying grace is killing grace it at length utterly destroys this grand Malefactor the old man The same spirit of grace that is said to crucifie is also said to mortifie Rom. 8. As the Apostle Characterizeth true Christians by this They have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. so he exhorts Mortifie your earthly members Coloss 3. 5. For want of serious and solid pondering what the hard and rigorous work of Christian â—eligion is it gives no liberty to the flesh but nails it to the Crosse of grace puts it to pain and at length toâ—tures it to death it comes to pass that effeminate pleasant carnally joâ—und flesh-pampeing professed Christians in their indulgent wantonnesses are as far off from the severities of repentance as if they had never read nor believed Christ was crucified and that on pain of damnation the old man must be crucified also Take this wholsome counsel O loose Reader If thou wouldst repent of thy wantonnesse Be informed in and submit to the power of Crucifying grace when thou art loth to pinion and imprison thy lusts this is not to crucifie Câ—nst not endure to torment thy covetous vain-glorious malicious unclean intemperate lusts this is not to crucifie When thou doest reprieve them and deliver them as they that did Barrabas this is not to crucifie But when corruption would have a large room restrain it rather this is crucifying When thy heart is vexed and grieved to part with a dear lust it is great inward pain and smart to thee the rather smite and asslict deeply wound thy corrupt nature this is to Crucifie When it is death to thee to deny thy wisdom will and part with thy money delights carnal ease and interests yet to deny these things this is to Crucifie As Papists deal with their Crucifixes they please themselves with a painted Crucifix that have not the vertue of Christ crucified in their hearts and lives So loose Proâ—estants have a fancy Crucifix imagine their old man is crucified not a real Crucifix Their flesh is not at all crucified in their spirits and conversations SECT 8. 8. HElp is a thankful spirit It becomes the upright to be 8 A thankfull spirit is a special help to prevent the abuse of grace thankful Sincerity is the lustre and glory of every grace Hypocrisie keeps mercy returns it not uprightnesse will Can that heart be upright in it self that returns sin for grace nay makes grace to serve and lacquey to sin Do ye thus requite the Lord Oâ—â—e foolish people and unnise Deâ—â— 32. 6. Do you give him Straw for Pearls Dirt for Gold â—re â—â—â—bellions good thanks for pâ—â—dons Are sparing no â—llowanâ—es to Justs good ansâ—ers of sparing â—â—ace Is long 〈…〉 an high hand without remorse a good requital to long-suffering grace Deal you ingenuously with the despised and rejected offers of grace when at the same time you close with the offers of sin Deal you kindly with the gifting purifying sealing spirit of Grace when you turn you turn your back upon him and beâ—â—ay a spirit of pride worldlinesse and security Well doth the Apostle joyn together Unthankful and Unholy The Libertine is unthankful and unholy The â—entiles were unthankful and wantons against nature Pretended Christians are unthankful and wantons againâ—t Grace That thanks for the infinite goodnesse of God in Christ that would give up body and soul a reasonable sacrifice unto God would not dishonor the dominion of Christ and Temples of the spirit by loose wantonnesse Study and practice that of the Apostle What soever
means to prevent abuse of grace Homines secundum gratiam ipsam creantur i. e. constituuntur in novo esse ex nihilo Aquin. 12 ae q. 110. 2 Gratia auxilium Dei Aqu. 1 2 ae q. 113. 9. Arg. 2. Arg. 2. Gratia habituale donum excedens ordineÌ„ naturae bonum gratiae unius est magis bâ—num naturae totius universi Ib. Grace is the new Creature By it the sinner saith Aquinas is created in a new being now how unworthy is it of the new Creature to look again like the old man It must be with the supernatural as it is with common Creatures they shew according to their properties formes and inclinations what is put into them by the benefit of their creation Grace is the glory of God Let me see thy glory saith Moses God shewed it in his grace I wil be gracious to whom I wil be gracious Exod. 33. 18 19. God in his Grace is a King in his Throne The Throne of grace Heb. 4. 16. Abuse grace and you spit upon the King in his Throne this is to deal with God as Davids enemies did with him to Turn his glory into shame Grace is the arme of God his strong arm by which hee aydes and defends his people and casts down Satan to wrong grace is to weaken the arm of God Grace is a matchlesse goodnesse of finite excellencies the chiefest exceeds all the good of nature All the Creatures Riches Honours Pleasures of this world are inconsiderable to Grace the least filing of its precious gold the least dramme of its soveraign worth the lowest degree of it excells the Abstract the Quintessence the Composition the Spirits the united Glory of the whole worlds desirables The poorest Saint doth outwealth the richest sinners rich Libertines that swim in pleasures have reason to wish they could change states with poor Beleevers the rich heirs of glory but it was never yet known that a real needy Saint would change conditions with gracelesse prosperous worldlings and mighty Cedars Look not upon the wicked of the world with envy but with pitty they that see in the Sancturary of God what wil be their dreadful end fret not to see bruitish christians fatted in their wealthy pastures like Oxen for the slaughter they know their delicate and superfluous meate is sweet til the reckoning come weigh things by their ends not present enjoyments the references they bear to eternity not this life Grace is a christians holy water a christal spring the well of water springing up to eternal life is the spirit of Grace Joh. 4. Gratia caelestis rivus Justin Prot. Patriar venetiae 14. To debase the grace of God to sin is to throw dirt into a pure spring to muddy a pure stream that the christians face cannot be seen in it Grace is spirituall light a saving beam of the Sun of righteousnesse Gratia spirituale lumen Aq. 1 2 ae q. 211. 5. Arg. 3. that makes day in the soule where it is and speakes its enlightned subjects children of light Now loose wanton works of darknesse what in them lyes turn the day into night make the beautiful Sons of Zion to looke like uncomly Negroes black Ethiopians turnes Heaven into Hell the christians fairenesse into foulnesse his glory into shame Grace is the choice love token of God Hos 14. 2 4. Eph. 2 4 7. To Abuse Grace is as if a Spouse should blot and blur her Bridegroomes Love-Letters and cast his kind tokens under feet Grace is a christians ornament the ornament of a meeke and quiet spirit 1 Pet. 3 4. the ornament of grace unto the head and chaines about the neck Pro. 1. 9. a ravishing comliness to Jesus Christ Can. 4. 9. A gracious christian though his outward appearance be never so meane is a more comly peice to spiritual Dignitasin indigno est ornamentum in luto Salvian eyes then the fairest face of the Limners art yea then the most beautiful face of flesh and bloud that ever God made the filth cast upon grace is like dirt cast upon a brides ornaments or dung on scarlet Grace is a christians distinguishing character by it said Paul I am what I am 1 Cor. 15. 10. It makes the great difference in the world it differs the spiritual from the carnal as the resonable soul doth a man from a bruit to sin by grace is to make the sun darkness to turn a man into a beast to be filthy by a clean spring is a great contradiction to the nature and distinguishing formality of Gratia est similitu do Dei Aq. 3. â— 2. 10. Arg. primum Grace Grace is Gods image to wrest grace to sin is to make Gods picture look like the Devils Grace is a christians heaven begun eternal life to mingle sinwith grace is to mingle hel with heaven and death with eternal life Gratia sanitas mentis Aq. 1 2 ae q. 11 3. c. Quasi murâ— gratiae civinae circum quaque communiti fideles Chrys Grace is the soules health to abuse grace is to turn health into sickness the sweet temper of the mind into a diseased distemper Grace is a christians walled city his safety lyes in this that he is walled round with grace to shelteâ— sin under grace is to throw down a securing wall and to make it useless grace in its vigour liberty and exercise wil shelter the soul against all its assaults Grace is a christians store house gives out supply for Life and Vnico hoc gratiae vocabulo continetur ingens ille beneficiorum acervus Davâ—nant in Colos godlinesse My grace is sufficient for thee this one word grace is an Abridgment of gospel blessings all are in grace Paul was wont to begin and end his Epistles with grace as the foundation and top-stone of eternal happinesse Sin against grace by the leave of grace is the pick-lock theefe that comes into the christians store-house and robs him of all his blessings Grace is the earnest for glory to make grace give liberty to sin is to turn the earnest of Heaven into an earnest for hel it is like a wanton servant to cast his masters earnest into the gutter Thus O christian get a lively dwelling sense upon thy spirit of the fair face of grace and thou wilt not dare by thy filthy thoughts words and workes to bemire it consider the high honour of grace and thou wilt not disgrace it FINIS
for you to come to their Heaven 3. The remembrance of lost time will be an eternal corrosive 3. The remembrance of lost time will be a corrosive to tormented consciences to the tortured awakned Spirit and torment the wounded Conscience like fire when time-loosers shall call to minde That they had a time to be converted but now they are hardned had a season to come to Christ their ark but now they are drowned in an eternal fiery lake They had opportunity to weep heavenly Gospel-tears and now they eternally weep hellish legal tears under the fear and hate of their angry Judge and the intollerable smart of endless avenging Punishment They had leasure to store up Grace against the day of Mercy but now they see throughout the whole neglected time of Grace they have treasured up sin against the day of wrath They had a long while Divine patient woings authoritative commandings dreadful threatnings melting beseechings to be reconciled to God and reformed but now penal Justice and their own Wickedness hath sealed them up under the power of sin In brief they had a sweet and fair day of mercy to finde favor with God through Jesus Christ but now it is gone down in a tempestuous night of endless and unappeasable fury 4. It will not be the least part of Hells Torments that hopeless 4. Tormented souls have helpless hopeless fruitless wishes helpless Spirits shall be tortured with fruitless wishes that they had not lost the unvaluable advantages of their saving opportunities When they shall mourn and say How have we hated instruction how have our hearts despised reproof and have not obeyed the voice of our teachers nor inclined our ears to our instructers Prov. 5. 11 12 13. Every unprofitable wish that the time had been redeemed in this world will be as a renewed bloody lash on exulcerated wounded tender bodies O unwise children of men that riot in the liberal indulgences to your flesh even in the noon-time of cleer Gospel-light Take a serious view of these impertinent and afflictive wishes in the other world O that God would grant one day of Grace more O that I were to live over my time again how would I look upon the flesh displeasing sharpest severities of repentance as favors O that I had kneeled on flints and wept mine eyes out in strong cries and tears for a pardon O that I had given my Goods to the poor O that I had changed the delights of the flesh for the pleasures of the Spirit that I had been filled with the Spirit when I was drunk with Wine Ephes 5. 18. O that I had watched over my loose heart day and night O that I had fasted and prayed whole days and nights O that affliction had driven me to Christ that I had rather gone through dirty Lanes to an heavenly Fathers House than through pleasant Meadows to a Prison and a place of Execution O that a godly sorrowing life had ended in joy Psal 126. 5. And that a carnal voluptuous life had not ended in eternal sorrows Jam. 5. 1 5. Have you seen Bankrupts that from the published Statutes of Execution have their Goods seized on and their persons Imprisoned wringing their hands beating their heads bedewing their cheeks breaking their hearts with these words O that I had been a good Husband that I had hearkned unto my friends avoided undoing-Company kept my Shop improved my time I had never come to this but I am undone I am undone Have you seen a condemned Felon that must have no Psalm of Mercy suddenly screek and roar out in the Assises and swoon in the torturing fear and assurance of death when the Judge tells him there is no mercy for him this also adding to his woe O that I had taken the counsel of my dear friends that I were to live over my youth and man-hood O that I had not lost my time of Grace O that I had kept the Sabbath better O that I had not rebelled against my dear Parents and despised good men and godly Ministers Think then what is and will be the woe of lost souls in the other life racking their Spirits with fruitless wishes that they had not lavished away the time of Grace 5. Wasters of the time of Grace out-sin the very Devils of 5. Wasters of the time of Grace out-sin the very Devils of Hell Hell They never had a year day or minutes time of repentance and pardon The next moment of their Transgression was a damning moment to endless and remediless punishment In this respect the Devils will load carnal Gospellers playing the wantons with the seasons of Grace and rejoyce in their society in destruction with this kinde of triumph Glad we are in your fellowship of damnation Is it just we are cast into Hell your company with us in torments is more just You have out-sinned us we were never guilty of such an affront to the Grace of God merits of Christ seasons of Grace as you are The Son of God assumed not our nature undertook not our redemption interceded not with his Father to give us scores of years space of repentance ten years a year a day a minute He took your nature died for you pleads you may have the precious saving seasons of Grace your abuse of the Gospel mis-spending the space of repentance is superlative guilt of a deeper die then our transgression How sad a thing is it that loose Gospellers that fill up their time with secret or open wickedness or both should out-sin the very Devils O friends did Christ speak it with passionate tears concerning self-undoing Jerusalem Hadst thou known in this thy day the things belonging to thy peace but now they are hidden from thee Luke 19. 42. How ought you to weep over your turning the time of Grace into wantonness Ah foolish sinners that waste your inestimable opportunities of getting Christ and Grace walking exactly dying to sin that you may not eternally die in it and for it honoring God in your Generation obtaining your souls Salvation laying up treasure in Heaven preparing for blessed Eternity if you bewail not this in hearty Compunction bitter Tears if the sense of being Spend-thrifts of most precious time make you not ashamed before the Lord know it and believe you shall in the next life look over your ungrateful neglects with unutterable mournings and eternal tears SECT 5. 5. THe calling inviting offers of Grace are turned into wantonness 5. The calling inviting offers of Grace are turned into wantonness The great things of the Kingdom of Heaven were rendred to the Inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida and to the Capernaites but they gave still wanton indulgences to their lusts repented not and this in the judgement of our Lord Christ should double their woe aggravate their rejecting the way of salvation and plunge them deeper in Hell Luke 10. 15. because Heaven on Gospel-tearms was offered and refused Be sure of this the Kingdom of