Church and the Rights of his Brother how infamous must the way of Balaam be in the opinions of men who said he would not curse Israel for an house-full of Silver and Gold crying out how good are thy Tents O Jacob and thy Tabernacles O Israel Praying that there might be no Divination against Jacob or Inchantment against Israel yet all this holy Discourse and heavenly Resolution was but a Varnish to a deceitfull heart that was Brib'd with filthy Lucre and the Wages of unrighteousness can a Dogs neck more desecrate an Altar or the image of an Adonis a Temple then for a man to fling out his Invectives against sin and yet to indulge those that are contributary to his Lust and Avarice what are the Prayers of these men but so many Practical Lyes told to heaven who while they pray with a tacite Blasphemy defie God and when they sin by open Atheism deny him and the Votaries are as certainly the Captives of the Devil as they are the creatures of God Avoid those sins that are inconsistent with a Form of Godliness which may be reduced to a tripartite Division Some hinder the Assuming of a Form others Blast it whilst it is Professed and others do Renounce it and Cast it off The sins that hinder the Assuming of a Form are Prejudice and Fear Prejudice against the Precepts that command us to cut off the Right hand which is interpreted the Mutilation of the Body as Fervency of Spirit is the Calenture of the Soul the Communicating and Doing good the Wasting the Estate and being Evil spoken of for the Name of Christ the Wounding the Reputation these are the Grievous Commandments of an Hard Master to which in stead of Binding them to mens Fingers they give them a Manumission and with the Young man in the Gospel Go away and with Orpah salute and forsake together Fear if with Scylla they could see a Crown on the Liver of the Sacrifice the Wages of Godliness the Divinations of Riches and Honour they would become Disciples but when they Observe all that will live Godly in Christ must suffer Persecution and through many Tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven they are offended at the Cross of Christ they think there is a Lyon in the way that affrightens them from any Essay of walking in them These sins hinder men from being Catechumens but which is worse some that are Baptized blast their Profession by a Flagitious Life live without God in the world that it had been better for them they had never known the Way of Truth Such are they that think it below a Brave Spirit to tremble at a Threatning but stifle the Warnings of their own Bosom and live in Chambering and Wantonness Rage and Riot Swearing and Uncleanness that a man without the Breach of Charity may say they have no Faith But Apostacy from Faith and Obedience does Obliterate all the Characters of a Form and makes Shipwrack of Profession and renounceth Communion with the Visible Church There were three sorts of these Apostates in the times of St. Cyprian the Traditores that gave their Bibles in stead of their Bodies to be burnt the Thurificati that offered Incense to Idols and the Libellatici whose Denials of Christ were more Private and Auricular but bought Tickets from the Magistrates to preserve them from that Bloody Inquisition Now an Apostate cannot be an Hypocrite for he is gone out of the Precincts of the Church They went out from us because they were not of us saith St. John they have broken themselves off from that Body into which they were implanted by Baptism and are Strangers to the Covenant of Promise Thus we see the Dignity and Defection of a Form how it is to be exercised suspended and moderated and how to direct its course between a Rude and Rigid Zeal and a loose and Sceptical Profession we see the Grounds and Gradations of its Dishonours and Decays how that it departs from some men as the Glory of the Lord did from the Temple and Altar and Threshold of the house in the Vision of Ezekiel and when the Leafe thus falls and withereth the Tree is Barren and Corrupt for that is the Climacterical time to shew its Disease is Mortal and therefore it must not cumber the Vineyard but be cut down or plucked up by the Rootes But it is high time for us to come to the Power of Godliness which hath so much Goodness in it that it should not be accounted an Offence and so much Wisdom that it should not be accounted Foolishness the Necessity of it is so great that it should not be Delayed and the Excellency so Glorious that it should not be Denied therefore as all men should acquire it for Salvation so our Present Duty is to inquire wherein it Consists and Discovereth it self I have already explained the Phrase that the Reducing of the Habits and Vital Principles of Grace into Act is the Power of Godliness the Philosophy of which Leads us to the Consideration That Habits of Grace are those Divine Qualities infused into the Soul by the Spirit of God which incline the Heart and sway the Conscience to an actual Obedience to the Will of God with Facility and great Delight They are therefore called by the Fathers and Schoolmen the Springs and Fountains of Grace not like the Fountain in the midst of Paradise that flowes with continual waters but like the waters of Siloam that spring from the foot of mount Sion qui non jugibus aequis sed certis horis diebusque ebullit whose Streams are not alwayes Current but in the due seasons of time The musical knowledge of a Lutanist in his Quavers Rests and Motions whereby he is able on all occasions to play those delightfull Airs that commend his skill is the Habit of the Artist but suppose the Hand of the Lutanist be wounded he hath still the knowledge and Habit of his Faculty although the Exercise be prevented by the Indisposition of that necessary Instrument of his musick so the Godly man that hath these principles of a Celestial Original hath upon all occasions his sences exercised by reason of use sutable to those commands the law of God requires and those Emergencies the Providences of God expose him to and although the Acts of Grace may be suspended sometimes by Natural or Civil actions sometimes by inevitable Infirmities yet still he hath a New Nature the Unction of the Holy one and the seed of God abiding in him for our clearer understanding of which we are to consider 1. The Plenty of Godliness consists in the Habits of Graces The Righteous are said to be Trees Planted by the Rivers of water and the Trees of the Lord are full of Sappe The Radical moysture of these noble Vines may Retire to the Root in Winter yet at the return of the Sun they send forth their Grapes in Clusters and their Perfume as the smell of Lebanon as a
Godliness the Form of Godliness the Power the Denying the power under the Form of it Godliness if we consult the Etymon the Hellenists will tell us is derived from a verb that signifies to worship and imports that solemn Reverence a Creature oweth his Maker and that in the dayes of Moses he was called a Godly person that was a Proselyte of the Gate acknowledged and ador'd a Deity observed the seven precepts of the sons of Noah with Cornelius and the Ethiopian Eunuch But the Essence of it consists in the Latitude of Holiness the Rectitude and Conformity of the heart and life to the first and second Tables of the Law Godliness is profitable to all things that is obedience to that Law that is holy in its Precept just in its Penalties and good in its Rewards Yet in other places of these Epistles to Timothy it is to be understood in a more limited sense sometimes for the Systeme of fundamental truths call'd the Doctrine according to Godliness the Symbol of which the Apostle gives us when he saith Great is the mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh c. Sometimes for the Duties of Religion distinct from the Moralities of honest men so we are exhorted to live peaceable and quiet lives in Godliness and honesty but here being opposed to a Form an External Pomp and Pageantry it is the inward Purity and Devotion of the heart whereby God is worshipped in Spirit without Carnality and in Truth without Hypocrisie The form of Godliness is its Scheme and external Similitude a Fashion and resemblance or appearance of that which is not real and intrinsical As Jupiter among the Poets was metamorphosed into the shape of a Beast though he pretended to be a Deity so these men would pretend to be Deities when they are but Beasts the word beings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Essential Form cannot be here intended which is so far from the denial of Godliness that it gives it Difference and Operation as the Reasonable Soul is the form of a man whereby he discourseth and is distinguished from all other Ranks of Beings so the Image of God is the Form of Godliness that gives it Power and Distinction from all things that are not homogenial to it But that form which consists in a Cumulation of accidents and is the more Vain and and void as the Text is excellent on which it is a Gloss and Paraphrase so Esau who was under the Curse of the Creation to bring forth Briars and Thorns being an hairy and rough man in the form and apparel of Jacob seem'd a Paradise and smelled like a Field which the Lord had blessed so a common person in a Comedy may represent the Majesty of a Monarch But then these Forms are like the Idea's of Plato wholy abstracted from matter and destitute of the power of Godliness This power of Godliness is when the Habits of Grace send forth the vigorous and vital Actings of holyness as the Fountain doth Streams and the Sun Rayes and Emanations of light as will appeare in the sequel of this discourse Men deny the power under the form of Godliness when they seem to be Pious because they are Politick and profess themselves Christians because Subjects to a King that is the Defender of the Faith yet think that the exquisite Holiness of the Law is but the Severity of Melancholick Men who have represented Christ to be an hard Master and therefore although they invocate his Name are disloyal to his Commands profess they know God but in works Deny him ingeminate an oral Loyalty crying Lord Lord but do not his will and so think to palliat the Atheism of their lives by the Religion of their Language Thus the Emphasis and Important Terms of the Proposition are explained We might justly expect when an Apostle is giving us the Kalander and Ephimerides of the Times of the Messias that the first Prospect in the Firmament of the Church would be an Horizon of hope the dispensation of the Gospel being so bright and blessed When the Sun of righteousness did appear with healing in his wings yet he presageth nothing but Clouds and Darkness Eclipses of that light that should shine before many glaring and portentous Phainomena's and the Signes of Heaven without Celestial Influences in the last dayes perillous times shall come Last dayes they are in regard of the administration that doth succeed and exceed that which was Levitical Christ being a better Prince then Moses in his Sanctions a better Priest then Aaron in his Sacrifice he was not onely an High Priest but an Apostle that was sent out of the Bosome of the Father to bring glad tydings yet when the Plenty of Grace was most of all dispersed the Power of Godliness was most despised so that men were efferated by clemency enraged by meekness impatient by forbearance wax wanton in the most goodly Heritage and live as if Christ were an hard Master in the Largess of his Bounty For in the last dayes men shall be Lovers of themselves having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof So that first the Form and then the Power are the Arguments of my present Discourse A Form may be considered as a Virgin or a Prostitute as abstracted from or concomitant upon the powers of Religion as Diana was in Heaven a star but in Hell a firebrand and Consort of Pluto so a form flowing from the power of Godliness is Angelical but divested from it Diabolical For when our Works of Darkness appear as Angels of Light we mock God by honouring him with our Lips and dethroning him from our Hearts we crucifie the Lord of Glory and as the Souldiers put a Crown on his Head and Robes on his body and salute him with an Irony Hail King of the Jews we worship the true God as if he were an Idol that had eyes and saw not not considering his great Attribute of searching the heart we make God abhor his own Institutions and reverse his Laws bring no more vain Oblations incense is an abomination to me as if he would receive no Honour from the Services of Hypocrites but what he distrains for by his publick Judgements Thus a form is a desperate Incentive to and a plausible Engine of the greatest Villanies Cain first Sacrificed to his God and then slaughtered his Brother Jezabel institutes a Fast and then thirsts for the Blood of Naboth The strange Woman paid her vowes with Peace-offerings in her hands and then managed the Artifices of an Adulteress and entred into Obscene Dialogues of defiling her husbands Bed The Jews consecrated Gifts to the Treasury of the Temple and then cryed the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are we but the Corban turned Bethel the House of God into Bethaven an House of Affliction to their indigent and unrelieved Parents Thus a Formalist makes the Rites of Religion a Gloss for sin sollicits wickedness
in the external glorifications of God and is like those sort of Meteors that shine onely in their fall from heaven But a Form in conjunction with the Power is an Ornament of great Price in the sight of God St. Paul doth not discourage a form that is modest in Complexion grave in Gesture discreet in the Expressions of it self that waits on the Power of Godliness as a Disciple on his Master or a Servant on his Lord as he saith in the first Epistle Good works become women professing Godliness Religion is not to be like those mineral mountains that appear barren when the Veins of Gold lodge in their Bowells but as the Kings daughter all glorious within yet her Rayment is of wrought Gold Can a Maid forget her ornaments or a Bride her attire or the Spouse of Christ her Rayment of Needle-work as David invited all his faculties within him so his Glory his Tongue to joyn in the Chorus as the most natural proper and musical Instrument whereby an heart Big with the Burden in the songs of Praise could best deliver it self our Lights are so to shine before men that they seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven The corruption of this form is either Gross and Pharisaical when men are Zealots for the first Table for the Temple and Invocation for Sacrifices and Altars for Incense and Oblation Sabbaths and solemn Feasts but break in pieces the second neither sparing their neighbours Wives in Lust nor their Lives in their Anger nor their Estates in their Avarice nor their Good Names in their Ambition as if the two Tables were as the two Principles and Gods of the Manichees the one Good and the other Evil the first Table a Sacred Edict a Royal Promulgation to be kept the second to be violated as a Snare and Tyrannical Exaction The other corruption is Subtile and Moral when a Form of Godliness and Honesty do meet together and Kiss each other A man may be born in the Pale of the Church baptized into the most holy faith instructed in her Catechismes and Homilies And only be a Patriot of Virtue in the profession of Faith he may stand up at the recitation of the Creed and say Amen to every Article and yet be just in his actions temperate in his life generous in his spirit upon no other principles then Socrates or Seneca might be his Religious Duties are all Moralities he reads the scripture and entertains them with an humane Faith as the stories of Zenophon or Plutarch he gives to the Poor and calls it Charity when his Almes are the Issues of a natural Compassion and Benignity what he doth is from the Dictates of Reason which are perfective of the humane nature not from an assent to a divine Revelation or Obedience to the will of God Now Virtue in a Profession of Godliness is the highest semblance of Grace I cannot perswade my self that the light of nature that convinceth Atheism and contemplates on the Omnipotence and Wisdom of God is an ignis fatuus or that the Law of Nature that God hath written in the Sacred Scriptures as well as the hearts of all men is a Throne of Iniquity or that Honesty Temperance Chastity and Justice are glittering sins but rather beleive that they are Rudiments of our Creation not wholy Obliterated by the fall of man though they do not please God in that way of Complacency that faith doth they may be Strictures and darker Shaddowes though Graces are the Bright and Orient Colours in that Soul that is created after Gods image To apply all this if a man professeth himself a Christian and is only Chast as a Brave Romane out of Glory or a Mind cultivated by Reason none can resolve the Sophism and say that his Virtue doth not flow from the influences of faith but the infallibility of Heaven and his own Conscience The Formes of Godliness being then skilfull to deceive I shall absolve my discourse in two particulars First in shewing Reasons why Godliness will express it self in a Form then Rules to direct the Form by the Power Reasons why Godliness hath a Form The nature of Graces is to be active in the Discovery of it self The Spirit of God is no where more Rhetorical then in the Variety of Metaphors on this Subject He calls it a Light that must shine before men that may as easily be suppressed in its Heat as conceal'd in its Brightness He compares it to the vital moysture of a Tree planted by the Rivers of water that sendeth forth its Blossoms and Fruits in due season to Leaven whose Fermentation continues till it hath Leavened the whole Lump to perfumed Garments the smel of Lebanon and the Powders of the Merchants such an Impulse there is in Grace to display its own Glory So it was with St. Paul who was to beare the name of Christ before Kings saith he I beleived therefore have I spoken and in St. Peter who bare the name of Christ before the Sanedrim we cannot but speake the things we have seen and heard when David mused the Fire burned but it flamed forth when he spake out of the Abundance of his heart with the heart a man beleiveth unto Righteousness and with the tongue Confession is made unto Salvation The sense of those great Priviledges and divine Relations we have by Godliness excites us to it if we are a chosen Generation a Royal Preist-hood a Holy Nation and Peculiar People it is to shew forth the Praises of him that called us so David that was a chosen Prince a Royal Prophet a Peculiar Person did Come and heare all ye that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for my Soul it is not proper for that Soul that is Loud in begging mercyes to be Silent when it receives them God hath delivered my Darling from the Paw of the Lyon redeemed me from sin rescued me from Satan ransomed me from the Bottomless Pit and with a greater depth of Love hath invited me with glorious Liberties made me a member of his Son equal to the Angels an Heir of his Kingdom and if I am still silent I must implead his goodness because it is unutterable and my own joy that is unspeakable and full of glory It is Gods end in giving Graces that their intrinsick Worth and Lustre may shine forth to his own Glory and the Good of others we are filled with the fruits of Righteousness to the praise and glory of God and hereby is the Father glorifyed if we bring forth much fruit Grace loseth that advantage of its Influence and Exemplarity when it is a candle put under a bushel which it hath when all the Graces shine as a Branch of lights to the whole house when faith leads a Monastick Life is an Hermit in Solitudes and agitates devout meditations in a private Bosome it is an inclosed Garden in a Wilderness it gives pleasure to a contemplative Life but
homage of gratitude to the Influenences of Heaven and the Blessings of God These are the Gifts of a Liberal God like those of a Prince in his Inauguration and Festivity for he sheds abroad the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost abundantly upon us that we may abound in the work of the Lord. And as there is more light in the body of the Sun then in all the beams that shine on the World for suppose they were all Eclipsed the Sun in a moment or imperceptible time could supply them all by one Irradiation so if the Acts of Grace were all vanished they would be Renewed by the treasures of their Causes The Acts of Grace are Transient but the Habits are Permanent and Replenish the soul with innumerable Activities to the Comfort of the Believer and the Glory of the Giver This is called a Living by Faith therefore acts flow from the Habits of grace as beams from the Sun and streams from a fountain are many mighty pleasing vigorous and delectable they are free frequent natural and numberless 2. The Power of Godliness is the reducing the Habits of Grace into Exercise and Operation The same word doth the Apostle use to his son Timothy Be strong in the Grace that is in Jesus Christ go on from Strength to Strength till thou appear before God in Sion shine like the Sun more and more till the perfect Day who from the Twylight of the morning Runs his Race like a Gyant till it comes to its meridian brightness The Initials of Grace are weak like an Embryo infirm as an Infant but by superadded acts the Smoaking Flax is kindled into a Flame and the Bruised Reed becomes a Cedar the Habits grow in strength and stature by the addition of one grace to another which is the supply of every part extensively adding to faith virtue and intensively by the addition of one degree of Grace unto another till it comes to the measure of its stature when righteousness is revealed from faith to faith Grace is never commensurate in the beauty of proportion till it is consummate in the beauty of perfection They that were divorced from their sins as Phaltiel was from Michal who went weeping after her to Bahurim when this Gift of God is stirred up in them contemplate holiness with joy they that did deprecate Wrath with Fear implore Mercy with Confidence They that sought after him whom their soul Loved when with Andrew they have found the Messias Lean on his bosom Love him dearly Esteem him highly Follow him fully and Live with him eternally The weak in the faith and the feeble-minded wrestle not with Principalities and Powers but with God himself give all diligence to make their Calling sure press forward to the Price of their high Calling abound in the work of the Lord till by uncessant Labours they rest in the Fruition of him as if we might suppose a spark of Fire unextinguishable it would be in continual Ascents till it came to its own Countrey and Region under the Concave of the Moon 1. There is a mighty Tendency and Impulse in Habits to exert themselves into Act they are the full Breasts of Consolation that are uneasie till they are Drawn and Dispenced they are as seed cast into the Earth that lives and growes up into an Harvest They are Talents to be improved and Lamps to be furnished and because Flames are soon spent unless God be in the Bush and Streams soon vanish without an Ocean it being God that worketh in us both to Will and to Doe that giveth Life and Motion to these Qualities of the Soul we must have still Recourse to the Influences of his Power and the supplyes of his spirit 2. There is a Gratitude in free and frequent acts to further the Growth Strength and Radication of their Habits as natural Qualities are intended by natural Actions so are supernatural as the more a man playes on a Musical Instrument the greater are the habiliments of his art So Hoseah 6.3 Then shall ye know the Lord if ye follow on to know the Lord infused knowledge should be increased by a studious meditation So Coll. 1.10 Filled with the Knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding there is the Infusion of the Habit That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing being fruitfull in every good work there it is reduced to act increasing in the knowledge of God there is the Radication of it For he that will do Gods will shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God Joh. 17.7 they are not Lazy and Languid things but are discovered by the facility strengthned by the frequency of their own Actions The habit and the act are thus bound up together in the Bundles of life combine in Vigor and Virtue in Influence and Causality on one another and hence it is that an Habit of Grace is a Quality difficultly removed and although it may be interrupted and suspended by impetuous Temptations and imperious Lusts yet in this Hostility and Conflict it is Restless till it is prevalent and have Dominion as the Sympathy of a Needle touched with a Load-stone makes it unquiet in its greatest trembling and disturbance till it Rests as in its Center in a Direct Line poynting at the Polar star And as in an uneven Ally a Bowl may run one way when the Byass inclines it another so a Godly Man may be Disturbed by Surreption and Infirmity though the Habit doth sublimate and sway the heart to the service of God The habits of Grace will not be kept in arctâ custodiâ but will break prison and walk at Liberty This Power discovereth it self 1. In Resisting strong Temptations to express it in the Allusion of the Apostle it quits it self like a Man in its spiritual Olympicks when the messenger of Satan buffeted our Apostle he besought the Lord thrice the assault of an Enemy excites the valour of a Veteran Souldier so the urgency and vehemency of Temptation made him ingeminate his requests to God 2. In mortifying strong corruptions dethroning Satan from his strong holds captivating every Imagination that towreth against the commands of Christ destroying every Reigning sin as Josuah did the Kings of Canaan 3. In Acts of eminent Obedience A sacrifice can be worth but little that costs nothing Abel offered up his Best Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son St. Paul himself he was ready to be offered This Power animates and enobles the heart to hate father and mother to cast away his chiefest Joy as a snare to cut off the Right hand and pull out the Right eye to fling away the most precious Treasure as a Torment at the command of Christ if a man have Wit and Learning this divine power is as a spring of Motion to him to be usefull and profitable in worthy Instances and Institutions in meditations on Gods Word Defence of his Truth Instruction of his People and