mends them not as they say and a soule day paires them not As they are peremptorily consident the Pearle wil be had at their price so they are constantly peremptory never to become more precise And if it fall out sometimes that they meet with some faithfull man of GOD who hiâ—…s right upon their humour discovering the insufficiency of their present spirituall state for future happinesse and perswading them upon a necessity of salvation to an universall resignation of themselves with unreservednesse and zeale to all the world and will and waies of GOD they are wont to put it off thus or in the like manner The man is a good man and of good parts one whom I love well but a little too hot too boisterous and rough and pinches too much upon precisenesse and particularizing mens spirituall states that is all his â—…ault I must confesse I am of such a nature and disposition that I shall be more mooved with milder sermons and calmer cariage in the Pulpit I do not see how this Ministeriall severity and roughnesse sharpnesse of reproofe and such searching into and peremptory censuring mens state to GOD ward doth so much good c. My whole Discourse of true Happinesse is a touchstone and looking glasse for a triall and discovery of the unsoundnesse and spirituall selfe-deceit and therefore thither I remit them 10. A serious and fruitfull meditation upon the foure last things hath been ever holden very materiall and of speciall moment to make us by GODS blessing more humble un-worldly provident and prepared for the evill Day Give me leave therefore to select and propose some profitable Considerations thereabouts and Conclusions thence which may serve to mortifie our affections to the world take off the edge and eagernesse in pursuit after earthly things mollifie and make fit our hearts for a more easie entrance and effectuall entertainment of all saving impressions and motions of the Word and Spirit for our spirituall good that in times of terrour we may stand like Mount Zion unmooveable and magnanimous About DEATH Consider 1. That all the pleasures treasures and comforts of this life wife children goods gold great friends lands livings possessions offices honours high roomes brave situations faire prospects sumptuous buildings pleasant walkes and even the world it selfe upon which thou hast lost so much labour time care thought-fulnesse and doted so long holding a divorce as death it selfe must all upon the stroke of death which not heaven and earth or any created power can any wayes possibly prevent divert or adjourne be suddenly utterly and for ever left never more to be minded medl'd with or enjoyed in this world or the world to come When our breath goeth forth and we returne to our earth all our thoughts perish Even the thoughts of the greatest Princes and mightiest Monarchs upon earth who happily may have in their heads whole common-wealths and the affaires of many kingdomes Put not your trust in Princes saith King David nor in the sonne of man in whom there is no helpe His breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth in that very day his thoughts perish And therefore let it be thy wisdome to rent and weane thine affections from the world with an holy resolute violence in the meane time Disdaine and scorne to set thine heart upon those things here which thou canst not thou must not have in the second life And there is good reason for it For they are all as I said before at the best and in the height 1. But vanity And 2. Vexation of spirit 3. They cannot satisfie the soule 4. They will not profit in the day of revenge 5. They reach not to eternity 6. There is no man so assured of his honour wealth or any worldly thing but he may be depriued of them the very next moment 7. Thou needs to feare no want There is no man saith CHRIST that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the Gospels but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the world to come eternall life Of eternall life the point is cleare But how shall they be so manifoldly remunerated in this life 1. In the same kind sometimes and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they say Abraham at GODS command left his countrey kindred and fathers house and he was afterwards as you know crowned with riches and honour abundantly and became a great and mighty Prince Iob for the glorifying of GOD and confounding of Satan bore patiently and blessed GOD for the losse of all and how richly was he after repayed with a large and singular addition and excellency of goods and children Valentinian the Emperour was put from his place of command in the army by Iulian and banished for the profession of CHRIST but afterward was called backe from banishment and with much honour and applause advanced to the height of the Imperiall dignity The Apostles forsaking all for CHRISTS sake had afterwards for one poore cottage the houses of all the faithfull Christians in the world to which they were farre more welcome than ever any Haman was to his proudest palace and so all godly Ministers in all ages ever find heartier entertainment amongst the Houshold of Faith truly so called than ever any naturall father mother sister or brother could possibly affoord because as yet they can see no beauty in the image of CHRIST in others or in their feet who bring glad tidings nor love spiritually 2. Or in equivalence by contentment which doth incomparably both in sweetnesse and worth surpasse and over-weigh all worldly wealth Witnes that worthy reply of the most famous Italian Marquesse Galeacius Caracciolus having left the rich and pleasant Marquesdome of Vico all Imperiall Popish Princely Courtly favours and other proportionable felicities attending upon such humane greatnesse for the Gospels sake to a wicked Iesuite tempting him with a great summe of gold to returne out of Zion to Sodom from Geneva into Italy Let their money perish with them who esteeme all the gold in the world worth one daies society with IESVS CHRIST and His HOLY SPIRIT I make no doubt but to any of our learned and holy men exiles for CHRIST in Queene Maries time of whom many after returned and received an hundred fold according to the letter of the Text browne bread and the Gospell in Germany during that bloudy five yeares were infinitely more sweet and deare than all the Bishopricks of ENGLAND with Subscription to the six Articles 3. Even in an overflowing and transcendent manner in a pressed and heaped and even over-inlarged measure by spirituall joy peace of conscience contentment of soule more familiarity with GOD nearer communion with IESVS CHRIST fuller assurance of His love and our portion in Him more sensible
wherein such as these are ordinarily entangled and holden fast from which inferiours are for the most part free Let us come into a towne or countrey village and we shall find all the rest not so exorbitant but enter into the Noblemans Gentlemans or Knights house if there be any there there shall we find a nest of new-fangl'd fashionists naked breasts and naked armes like bedlams saith that excellent and learned Gentleman in his Oyle of Scorpions Bushes of vanity in the one sexe which they will not part with said Marbury untill the Devill put a candle into the bush and cut haire in the other stirs against the Ordinance of GOD and nature in both and many other such deformed lothsome and prodigious fashions censured by that stinging and flaming place against fashion-mongers Zeph. 1. 8. And these are the more pernicious because it were many times more easie for us of the Ministerie I speake out of some experience to undertake by GODS blessing caeteris paribus as they say the driving of an impure wretched drunkard from his beastly and swinish sin which would be a very hard taske than to draw such as delight in and dote upon these miserable fooleries from the abhorred vanity of strange fashions nay and though somtimes they would be thought to looke towards religion And thus I have done with the reasons peculiar to every severall sort of greatnesse I now come to those which are common to them all 1. All the great ones according to the flesh in any of these kinds I say ye are all as yet deadly enemies from the very heart-root to the profession and practice of the holy men without which holinesse we cannot see GOD you cannot endure to be called puritans much lesse to become such and yet without purity none shall ever see the face of GOD with comfort Mistake me not I meane CHRISTS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHRISTS puritans and no other Matth. 5. 8. Ioh. 13. 11. 15. 3. Secondly I meane onely such as Bellarmine intimates when he cals King IAMES puritan for he so cals him saith D. Harkwit against Carrier because in the first booke of his Basilicon Doron he affirmes that the religion professed in Scotland was grounded upon the plaine words of the Scripture And againe in his second Booke that the reformation of religion in Scotland was extraordinarily wrought by GOD. Gracious and holy speeches as you see with men of the world are puritanicall And if a man speake but holily and name but reformation Scripture conscience and such other words which sting their carnall hearts it is enough to make a man a puritan Thirdly I meane the very same of whom Bishop Downam one of the greatest schollers of either Kingdome speakes thus in his Sermon at Spittle called Abrahams Triall And even in these times saith he the godly live amongst such a generation of men as that if a man do but labour to keepe a good conscience in any measure although he meddle not with matters of State or Discipline or Ceremonies as for example if a Minister diligently preach or in his preaching seeke to profit rather than to please remembring the saying of the Apostle If I seeke to please men I am not the servant of CHRIST Gal. 1. 10. Or if a private Christian make conscience of swearing sanctifying the Sabbath frequenting Sermons or absteining from the common corruptions of the time he shall straightway be condemned for a Puritan and consequently be lesse favoured than either a carnall Gospeller or a close Papist c. Fourthly I meane none but those whom the Communion-Booke intends in that passage of the prayer after confession That the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy Now these come by their purity by preaching the Word Now saith CHRIST ye are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cleane by the Word which I have spoken unto you Ioh. 15. 3. The Word must first illighten convince and cast them downe so that out of sight of sinne and sense of divine wrath being weary sicke lost wounded bruised broken-hearted these are Scripture-phrases and thereupon casting their eyes upon the amiablenesse excellency and sweetnesse of the LORD IESVS and the All-sufficiency of His bloud to cure them resolve to sell all to confesse and forsake all their sinnes not to leave an hoofe behind and then taking him offered by the hand of GODS free grace as well for an Husband Lord and King to love serve and obey Him as for a Saviour to free them from hell They put on with the hand of faith the perfect purity of His imputed righteousnesse attended ever with some measure of inherent purity infused by the sanctifying Spirit and after entring the good way their lives are ever after pure and holy These are CHRISTS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Puritans I meane And these men of purity some never meane to be nay they heartily hate the very image of IESVS CHRIST in them they speake spitefully against them David was not onely the drunkards song but those also that sate in the gate spoke against him they are your musicke and matter of your mirth I am your musicke saith the Church in the person of Ieremie Lam. 3. They will many times call upon a roguish vagabond at your feasts to sing a song against them whom they should rather set in the stockes they are transported and inwardly boyle with farre more indignation and heart-rising against their holinesse purity precise walking and all meanes that lead thereunto though enjoyned upon paine of never seeing the face of GOD in glory than more simple poorer and meaner men and that 's a reason they sticke faster in the Devils clutches than they and that few of them are called converted and saved according to my Text. Secondly ye that are thus the worlds favourites are very loth to become fooles and therefore in the meane time he lockt full fast in the Devils bands and cannot escape except ye be such I speake a very displeasing thing to worldly-wise men but they are the very words and wisdome of the Spirit of GOD 1 Cor. 3. 18. Let no man deceive himselfe if any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world let him become a foole that he may be wise Let no man deceive himselfe such caveats as this are wont to be premised when men out of their carnall conceipts are peremptory to the contrary and would venture their salvation as they say that it is not so See Ephes. 5. 6. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Mat. 5. 2. And did not most of your hearts rise against these words of mine you must become fooles or never be saved untill I brought Scripture Give me here leave I pray you to intimate in a few instances the meaning of the place and the truth of your false and selfe-couzening hearts in obnoxiousnesse to the point Suppose a messenger of GOD should deale faithfully
of folly And the very same attempt as to make two parallel lines to meet You thinke yee have a reach beyond the Moone To lie in some sweete sinne and yet to nourish in your selves some hope of salvation To have two heavens one in this world and another in the world to come which was never heard of to weare two crownes of joyes whereas IESVS CHRIST himselfe had the first of thornes But alas Beloved if you be saved in this condition you must have a new Scripture and there must bee found out another way to heaven then any of the Saints ever went since the Creation or shall doe to the end of the world And therefore we may say of you as Quintilian some where of some deluded with an overweening conceit of themselves That they might have prooved excellent Schollers if they had not beene so perswaded already So if you did not thinke falsly your selves safe already you might be saved But while you thus hugge the golden dreame of your mistaken states to GOD-ward like the Pharisees the very Publicans and Harlots shall goe into the Kingdome of heaven before you Matth. 21. 31. Fourthly you that are great in the world in the foure forenamed respects and meant in the Text cannot possibly downe with and digest downe-right dealing and the foolishnesse of preaching as it is called vers 21. And that vtterly undoes you You like well enough nay and much approve and applaud such Sermons as King IAMES censures in the reasons of his directions for preaching c. which he there cals a light affected and unprofitable kind of preaching which hath beene of late years saith he taken up in Court University City and Countrey whereby the people are filled onely with ayrie nourishment c. and I warrant you not especially hating to be reformed or disquieted for these are not wont to discover your consciences nor disturbe you in your present courses they never terrifie you with any fore-thought of the evill day neither torment you before the time but now let a man come with the foolishnesse of preaching by which it pleaseth GOD saith the Apostle to save them that believe with demonstration of the Spirit and of power and come home to the conscience if he suffer not Satan to revell in the bloud of your soules without resistance nor see you post furiously towards eternall fire but will tell you that the pit of hell is a little before you In a word if he take the right course to convert you and shew you therefore onely your spirituall misery that you may be fitted for mercy c. O such a fellow is a dangerous man a terrible and intolerable Teacher able to drive men to distraction despaire selfe-destruction he breaths out nothing but damnation and his searching Sermons are as scorching as the very flames of hel Fit phrases for the Devil himself railing in a drunkard or scoffing Ishmael against faithfulnesse in preaching and if you know where or when such men preach and it may be you entertaine some intelligence for that purpose to prevent the torture you will not you dare not heare them for your hearts except you cannot decline it for starke shame or for a time or two to satisfie your curiosities but as S. Paul saith you become their enemies because they tell you the truth to which truth not to have listened in this day of your visitation will herafter when it is too late torment you more than ten thousand fiery Scorpions stings and gnaw upon your consciences with unknowne and everlasting horrour Alas Beloved what meane you You will give your Physitian leave to tell you the distempers of your body the Lawyer to discover unto you any flaw in your deeds your horse-keeper to tell you the surfets of your horses nay your hunâ—…sman the surrances of your dogs and shall onely the Minister of GOD not tell you that your soules are bleeding to eternall death Preposterous and prodigious incongruity If it be thus then that of all the severall sorts of great men mentioned before by reason that they are beset with such variety of snares entangled in so many temptations so much taken up by the world and for other reasons rendred already very few are called converted and saved my counsell in a word unto all such is CHRISTS owne word Luke 13. 24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate lay violent hands upon flesh and blond strangle your lusts contend and wrastle as for the Garland in the Olympian Games to which the word seemes to allude become fooles in the worlds censure that you may be wise in the mystery of CHRIST be little and vile in your own esteeme that you may be great and gracious in the eyes of GOD. In a word submit your soules to the sword of the Spirit and foolishnesse of preaching as the Apostle cals it that you may be wrought upon savingly and brought into the good way and that by such works and waies as these Upon which before I enter give me leave to give you an account why at this time I labour rather to work upon your consciences for your personall conversion than as heretofore to tender unto you counsels and considerations for a more conscionable deportment in your severall publike places When I well weighed with my selfe the truth of that principle and position in Hooker That it is no peculiar conceipt but a matter of sound consequence that all duties are by so much the better performed by how much the men are more religious from whose abilities the same proceed And finding by experience of all ages and most of all in these worst and wofull times that men of publike imployment and in high places untill there be infused into their soules by the Spirit of grace an internall supernaturall principle and divine habit to worke by untill aliquid CHRISTI as they say be planted in them by the power of the Ministry they cannot possibly be universally thorow and unshaken Some strong affection feare favour or some thing will make them flie out and faile in some particular very fowly Upon extraordinary temptation they will serve the times and their owne turnes for alas as yet their spirits are not steeled with that heavenly edge and mighty vigour as to set to their shoulders against the torrent of the times and not to be overflowen with it I say upon this ground I have advisedly chosen to assay and follow this way at this time for if once you turne on the LORDS side in truth you are won for ever to an invincible constancy and conscionablenesse in an uniforme regular and religious discharge of your publike duties and will ever hold fast without partiality cowardlinesse or feare of mans face that brave and noble resolution Vt fiat justitia ruat coelum let heaven and earth be blundred together with horrible confusision before I make shipwracke of a good conscience or be any waies drawne to do basely Being
the discharge of it in every point and particular every company thou hast come into and all thy behaviour there every Sermon thou hast heard every Sabbath thou hast spent every motion of the Spirit which hath been made unto thy soule c. Let us then while it is called To Day call our selves to account examine search and trie thorowly our hearts lives and callings our thoughts words and deeds let us arraigne accuse judge cast and condemne our selves and prostrated before GODS Mercy-Seat with broken and bleeding affections lowlinesse of spirit and humblest adoration of His free grace upon the same ground with the Aramites 1 Kings 20. 31. We have heard that the Kings of the House of Israel are mercifull Kings let us I pray thee put sack cloth on our loines and ropes on our heads and go out to the King of Israel peradventure he will save thy life Let us there give our mercifull GOD no rest untill we have sued out our pardon by the intercession of the LORD IESVS c. And then we shall find the reckoning made up to our hand and all matters fully answered before-hand And which is a Point of unconceiveable comfort He that was our Advocate upon earth and purchased the Pardon with His owne hearts bloud shall then be our Iudge 3. That all the beastly and impure abominatitions of thine heart all thy secret sinnes and closet-villanies that no eye ever looked upon but that which is ten thousand times brighter than the Sun shall all then be disclosed and laid open before Angels Men and Devils and thou shalt then and there be horribly universally and everlastingly ashamed Thou now acts perhaps securely some harefull and abhorred worke of darknesse and wickednesse not to be nam'd in thine owne heart or one way or other in secret which thou wouldst not for the whole world were knowne to the world or to any but thy selfe or one or two of thy cursed companions curbed by their obnoxiousnesse but be well assured in that Day at that great assize thou shalt in the face of heaven and earth be laid out in thy colours to thine eternall confusion Never therefore go about or encourage thy selfe to commit any sinne because it is mid-night or that the doores are lockt upon thee because thou art alone and no mortall eye seeth thee neither is it possible to be reveal'd And yet I must tell thee by the way secret villanies have and may be discovered 1. In sleepe 2. Out of horrour of conscience or in time of distraction For suppose it be concealed and lie hid in as great darknesse as it was committed untill that last and great Day yet then shall it out with a witnesse and be as legible in thy fore-head as if it were writ with the brightest starres or the most glittering Sun beame upon a wall of Crystall 4. In what a wofull case thy heavy heart will be and with what strange terrour trembling and desperate rage it must needs be possest and rent in peeces when thou shalt heare that dreadfull sentence of damnation to eternall torments and horrour pronounced over thine head Depart from me thou cursed wretch into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his angels Every word breathes out nothing but fire and brimstone vengeance and woe bites deeper and terrifies more than ten thousand Scorpion stings To depart from that glorious presence were hell enough but thou must also go with a curse nor onely so but into fire and that must be everlasting fed continually with infinite rivers of brimstone and kept still in flame and fiercenesse by the unquenchable wrath of the most just GOD thorow all eternity And in that horrible dungeon and fiery lake thou shalt never have other company or comforters but wicked devils and they insulting over thee everlastingly with much hellish spite and stinging exprobrations for neglecting so great salvation all thy life long and losing heaven for some base lust and believing their lies If the drowning of the old world swallowing up of Korah and his complices burning up of Sodome with brimstone were attended with such terrours and hideous out cries How infinitely transcendent to all possibility of conceipt expression or beliefe will the confusions and tremblings of that Day be when so many millions of men shall be drag'd downe with all the Devils of hell to torments without end and past imagination There was horrible scryking when those five filthy cities first felt fire and brimstone drop downe upon their heads when those rebels saw the ground cleave asunder and themselves and all theirs go downe quicke into the pit when all the sonnes and daughters of Adam found the floud rising and ready to over-flow them all at once But the most horrid cry that ever was heard or ever shal be in heaven or earth in this world or the world to come will be then when all the forlorne condemned reprobates upon sentence given shal be violently and unresistably haled downe to hell and pulled presently from the presence not onely of the most glorious GOD the LORD IESVS Angels and all the blessed Ones but also of their Fathers Mothers Wives Husbands Children Sisters Brothers Lovers Friends Acquaintance who shall then justly and deservedly abandon them with all detestation and derision and forgetting all nearenesse and dearest obligations of nature neighbourhood alliance any thing rejoyce in the execution of divine justice in their everlasting condemnation So that no eye of GOD oâ—… man shall pitie them neither shall any teares prayers promises suits cries yellings calling upon rocks and mountains wishes never to have been or now to be made nothing c. be then heard or prevaâ—…e iâ—… their behalfe or any one in heaven or earth be found to mediate or speake for them to reverse or stay that fearefull doome of eternall woe but without mercy without stay without any farewell they shall be immediately and irrecoverably cast downe into the bottomlesse pit of easelesse endlesse and remedilesse torments which then shall finally shut her mouth upon them Oh! What then will be the guawings of the never dying worme what rage of guilty consciences what furious despaire what horrour of mind what distractions and feares what bitter looking backe upon their mis-spent time in this world what banning of their brethren in iniquity what cursing the day of their birth and even blaspheming of GOD Himselfe blessed for ever what tearing their haire and gnashing of teeth what wailing and wringing of hands what desperate roaring what hideous yellings filling heaven and earth and hell c. No tongue can tell no heart can thinke Be fore-warned then in a word To thirst long and labour infinitely more to have IESVS CHRIST in the meanetime say in the Ministry to thy truly humbled soule I am thy salvation than to be Possessour iâ—… it were possible of all the riches glory and pleasures of moe worlds than there are starres in
be driven from his hold by the power of the Word and how he playes the Devill indeed when the light of the Gospell begins to shine in a place which himselfe hath long kept in darknesse and errour by those twofold fiends ignorance and prophanenesse Perhaps at the very first rising of that glorious sun of the Word of life unto a people that hath sit in darknesse and under the shadow of death it breeds onely astonishment and amazement they are for a while onely dazelled with the glory and beauty of so rare and extraordinary a light but when after some little space they be thorowly heated and it begin to burne up their noy some lusts to gall their guilty consciences to sting their carnall hearts to vexe and disquiet their covetous affections then begins all the stirre and Satan to play his part the sudden infliction of a wound is not so very painefull and while it is greene it is not so grievous but after when it comes to be searched in cold bloud to have tents put into it and corrasives applied then it goeth to the heart When the sword of the Spirit first strikes the carnall heart it may perhaps beare away the blow reasonable well but if the Chirurgion of the soule I meane the Minister of the Word follow his cure faithfully and open the wound wider as he sees need apply spirituall corâ—…osives to eat away the ranknesse of the flesh and the poyson of sinne then begins the prophane man if the LORD give him not grace to suffer his soule to be saved to rage and rave with the smart of it and perhaps with malice and fury to fly into the face of his soules Physitian See the humour of prophane men against the power of a conscionable Ministery Ier. 44. 15 c. Acts 13. 8. and Cap. 14. 2 c. and Ver. 19. and Cap. 16. 19. and Cap. 17. 5. and Ver. 32. and Cap. 19. 2â—… and 24. 5. This spite and malice of Satan against sincerity and grace is to be seene also in private families if the governours of the house the children and servants be all prophane as it is very true of very many in most places then they are passing well met for matter of Religion and were there nothing amongst them to breed difference and dissention but GODS service they would never fall out for they are all content to heare no more or more often of the affaires of heaven judgements for sin the wayes of GOD and reformation of their life than they must needs they are all willing and forward to prophane the Sabbath in one kind or other some by absenting themselves from the house of GOD some by worldly talke all the day long some by idlenesse some by sinfull sports c. They are well content to lie downe at night like wild beasts in their dens without lifting up their hearts together unto that mercifull GOD which hath preserved and prospered them all the day to rise up also in the morning prayerlesse or onely with formall prayers They all joyne in malice against the Ministry of the Word in slanderous lies against the messengers of GOD in base and reviling speeches against the professours of Christianity The reason is they are all possessed with the same spirit of prophanenesse love of pleasures hatred to be reformed and carnality of heart But if it once please the LORD to plant grace in the heart of the Master of the family so that he begin to plant in his house reformation houshold instruction prayer sanctification of the Sabbath and other holy orders and godly exercises then presently begins the Devill to stir in the hearts and tongues of their prophane servants they begin to be furiously impatient of such precisenesse strictnesse and restraints for so they wickedly and wrongfully call the pleasures of grace and way to heaven they can by no meanes digest such new fashions they 'l not be troubled with giving account of Sermons they heare they 'l have their recreation on the Sabbath that they will they 'l not be mew'd up at home when other mens servants are at their sports abroad c. Nay perhaps even their owne children except the LORD season them with the same grace may grow stubborne and refractory and very rebellious and disobedient to the best things so that in a holy sense CHRISTS words may be there truly verified Matth. 10. 34 35. Thus was zealous David troubled with the vanity of a scornefull proud and prophane wife 2 Sam. 5. 20. Abel with a bloudy brother Gen. 4. 8. Iacob with a prophane Esau Gen. 27. 41. Isaac with a mocking Ishmael And many a gracious heart in families where grace beares not sway with the lewdnesse malice and ungodly oppositions of those among whom they live Or if it so fall out that the power of grace seaze on the heart of a servant or sonne so that he begin to be sensible of the ignorance disorders prophanenesse and sinfull confusions of the house where he dwels desires to spend the Sabbath as Christians use to do then presently begins Satan to put rage into the heart and frownings into the face of the father or master of the family he then takes on tels him that such precisenesse is not for his profit hee 'l have no such inferiour fellow to be a reformer of his family hee 'l not be controlled and contradicted in his owne house hee 'l governe his people in the old fashion as his father did before him c. so that there is no longer biding for that new convert under such a crabbed master without a very great deale of patience All this and a thousand more mischiefes are the blacke broods and bloudy effects of Satans malice against the power of the Word and the plantation of grace GOD Himselfe is the GOD of peace CHRIST IESVS the Prince of peace and the blessed Spirit is the fountaine of peace that passeth all understanding the holy Word is the Gospell of peace the faithfull Ministers are the Messengers of reconciliation and peace the Saints of GOD are the children of peace The Divell and the rebellious corruptions of prophane men are indeed and truth the true causes of all these stirs and strong oppositions which are raised any where at any time any waies in the case and cause of Religion The fault I confesse and imputation of troublesomenesse is lai'd upon GODS children by the lewd tongues of gracelesse men See Ier. 15. 10. utterly without cause 1. Kings 18. 17. Act. 24. 3 c. but these and the like are lies hatch't in Hell and managed by the malice of carnall men And that was most true which the blessed Prophet of GOD Elijah and the holy Apostle Saint Paul answered in such cases 1. Kings 18. 18. Act. 24. 13 14. and so proportionably may all Christians answer all prophane wretches amongst whom they liue It is you and your prophane families your proud ignorance hatred to be reformed malice