in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 It is therefore his care and course to give place to wrath when others are angry Rom. 12.18 19. and if it be possible as much as in him lyeth to live peaceably with all men Yea to follow peace when it flyeth from him Heb. 12.14 And not when he is reviled to revile again nor to threaten or revenge himself on them that injure him 1 Pet. 2.21 22 23 24. Reason and Charity hold the reins and passion is kept under Yea it is used holily for God Eph. 4.26 Slow to anger he is in his own cause and watchfull over his anger even in Gods cause Prov. 15.18 and 16.32 Eph. 4.31 Col. 3.8 2. But the weak Christian doth greatly shew his weakness in his unruly passions if he have a temper of body disposed to passion They are oft rising and not easily kept under Yea and too often prevail for such unseemly words as maketh him become a dishonour to his profession Oft he resolveth and promiseth and prayeth for help and yet the next provocation sheweth how little Grace he hath to hold the reins And his passionate Desires and Delights and Love and Sorrows are oft as unruly as his anger to the further weakning of his Soul They are like Ague fits that leave the health impaired 3. And the seeming Christian hath much less power over those Passions which must subserve his carnal minde For Anger it dependeth much upon the temperature of the body and if that incline him not strongly to it his credit or common discretion may suppress it Unless you touch his chiefest carnal interest and then he will not only be angry but cruel malicious and revengefull But his carnal Love and Desire and Delight which are placed upon that pleasure or profit or honour which is his Idol are indeed the reigning passions in him and his grief and fear and anger are but the servants unto these Act. 24.26 27. XXXVII 1. A Christian indeed is one that keepeth a constant Government of his Tongue He knoweth how much duty or sin it will be the instrument of According to his ability and opportunity he useth it to the service and honour of his Creator In speaking of his Excellencies his Works and Word inquiring after the knowledge of him and his will instructing others and pleading for the Truth and wayes of God and rebuking the impiety and inquities of the world as his place and calling doth allow him He bridleth his Tongue from uttering vanity filthiness ribbaldry foolish and uncomely talk and jests from rash and unreverent talk of God and taking of his Name in vain from the venting of undigested and uncertain doctrines which may prove erroneous and perillous to mens souls from speaking imprudently unhandsomly or unseasonably about holy things so as to expose them to contempt and scorn from lying censuring others without a warrantable ground and call from backbiting slandering false accusing railing and reviling malicious envyous injurious speech which tendeth to extinguish the love of the hearers to those he speaketh of from proud and boasting speeches of himself much more from swearing cursing and blasphemous speech and opposition to the Truths and holy wayes of God or opprobrious speeches or derision of his servants And in the Government of his Tongue he alwayes beginneth with his heart that he may understand and love the good which he speaketh of and may hate the evil which his tongue forbeareth and not hypocritically to force his tongue against or without his heart His tongue doth not run before his heart but is ruled by it Eph. 4.15.31.29 and 5.3.4.6 Psal. 37.30 15.2 3. Prov. 16.13 and 10.20 21.23 18.21 15.2.4 Psal. 34.13 Prov. 25.15 23. 28.23 Matth. 12.31 32 34. 2. But the weak Christian though his tongue be sincerely subject to the Laws of God yet frequently miscarryeth and blemisheth his Soul by the words of his lips being much ofter than the confirmed Christian overtaken with words of vanity medling folly imprudence uncharitableness wrath boasting venting uncertain or erroneous opinions c. so that the unruliness of his tongue is the trouble of his heart if not also of the Family and all about him 3. The seeming Christian useth his tongue in the service of his carnal ends and therefore alloweth it so much unjustice uncharitableness falshood and other sins as his carnal interest and designs require But the rest perhaps he may suppress especially if natural sobriety good education and prudence do assist him And his tongue is alwayes better than his heart Pro. 10.32 19.5.9 Ps. 50.20 12.3 144.8 120.2 3. Prov. 21.6.23 XXXVIII 1. The Religious discourse of a confirmed Christian is most about the greatest and most necessary matters Heart-work and heaven-work are the usual employment of his Tongue and Thoughts unprofitable Controversies and hurtfull wranglings he abhorreth And profitable Controversies he manageth sparingly seasonably charitably peaceably and with caution and sobriety as knowing that the servant of the Lord must not strive and that strife of words perverteth the hearers and hindereth edifying 1 Tim. 6.4 5 6. and 4.7 8. 2 Tim. 2.14 15 16 17 24 25. His ordinary discourse is about the Glorious Excellencies Attributes Relations and works of God and the Mysterie of Redemption the Person Office Covenant and Grace of Christ the renewing illuminating sanctifying works of the Holy Ghost the Mercies of this life and that to come the Duty of Man to God as his Creator Redeemer and Regenerater the corruption and deceitfulness of the Heart the methods of the Tempter the danger of particular Temptations and the means of our escape and of our growth in Grace and how to be profitable to others and especially to the Church And if he be called to open any Truth which others understand not he doth it not proudly to set up himself as the Master of a Sect or to draw Disciples after him nor make divisions about it in the Church but soberly to the edification of the weak And though he be ready to defend the Truth against perverse gainsayers in due season yet doth he not turn his ordinary edifying discourse into Disputes or talk of Controversies nor hath such a proud pugnacious Soul as to assault every one that he thinks erroneous as a man that taketh himself for the great champion of the truth 2. But the weak Christian hath a more unfruitful wandring tongue And his religious discourse is most about his opinions or party or some external thing As which is the best preacher or person or book or if he talk of any text of scripture or doctrine of Religion it is much of the outside of it and his discourse is less feeling lively and experimental yea many a time he hindereth the more edifying savoury discourse of others by such religious discourse as is imprudent impertinent or turneth them away from the heart and life of the matter in hand But
your wills and affections and your conversations I. As holiness is in the understanding it is commonly in Scripture called light and knowledg as comprehending the several parts And the confirmation and growth of this must consist in these seven following parts 1. It is ordinary with new Converted Christians to see the great essential truths of the Christian profession with a great imperfection as to the evidences that discover them Either they see but some of the solid evidence overlooking much more than they see or more usually they receive the truth it self upon some low insufficient evidence at first and then proceed to a kind of mixture taking it upon some evidences that are valid and sufficient and joyning some that are invalid with them But you must grow beyond this infancy of understanding when you see greater and sounder evidences for the truth than you did before and when you see more of these solid evidences and leave not out so many as you did and when you lay smaller stress upon the smaller evidences and none upon those that are invalid and indeed no evidences then are your understandings more confirmed in the truth and this is a principal part of their growth So we find the Samaritans of Sychar Joh. 4.39 40 41 42. Many of them believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified He told me all that ever I did This was the first faith upon a weaker evidence And many more believed because of his own words and said unto the woman Now we believe not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the world Here is a notable confirmation and growth by believing and knowing the same thing which they believed before it was before believed on weaker evidence and now upon stronger Thus Nathaniel by Philips perswasion was drawn to Christ but when he perceived his omniscience that he knew the heart and things that were distant and out of the reach of common knowledge he is confirmed and saith Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel And yet Christ telleth him that there were far greater evidences yet to be revealed which might beget a more confirmed stronger faith Because I said unto thee I saw thee under the figtree believest thou Thou shalt see greater things than these verily verily I say unto you hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man Joh. 1.45 49 50 51. There is not one Christian of many thousand that at first hath a full sight of the solid evidences of the Christian doctrine but must grow more and more in discerning those Reasons for the truth which he believeth which in the beginning he did not well discern It is not the most confident belief that is alwayes the strongest confirmed belief but there must be sound grounds and evidence to support that confidence or else the confidence may soon be shaken and is not sound even while it seems unshaken And here young beginners must be forewarned of a most dangerous snare of the deceiver because at first the truth it self is commonly received upon feeble and defective grounds or evidence It is the custom of the Devil and his deceiving instruments to shew the young Christian the weakness of those grounds and thence to conclude that his cause is naught For it 's too easie to perswade such that the cause hath no better grounds than they have seen For having not seen any better they can have no particular knowledge of them And they are too apt to think over highly of their knowledge as if there were no more reasons for the truth than they themselves have reacht to and other men did see no more than they And thus poor souls forsake the truth which they should be built up and confirmed in and take that for a reason against the truth which is but a proof of their own infirmity I meet with very few that turn to any Heresie or Sect but this is the cause They were at first of the right mind but not upon sound and well-laid grounds but held the truth upon insufficient reasons And then comes some deceiver and beats them out of their former grounds and so having no better they let go the truth and conclude that they were all this while mistaken Just as if in my infancy I should know my own father only by his cloaths and when I grow a little bigger one should tel me that I was deceived this is not my father and to convince me should put his cloaths upon another or tell me that another may have such cloaths and hereupon I should be so foolish as to yield that I was mistaken and that this man is not my father As if the thing were false because my reasons were insufficient Or as if you should ask the right way in your travel and one should tell you that by such and such marks you may know your way and you think you have found those marks a mile or two short of the place where they are but when you understand that those are not the marks that you were told of you turn back again before you come at them and conclude that you have mist the way So is it with these poor deluded souls that think all discoveries of their own imperfections and every confutation of their own silly arguments to be a confutation of the truths of God which they did hold when alas a strong well-grounded Christian would make nothing of defending the cause which they give up against more strong and subtile enemies or at least would hold it fast themselves Well! this is the first part of your growth in knowledge when you can see more or better evidences for the great truths of Christianity than you saw before 2. Moreover you must grow to a clearer apprehension of the very same reasons and evidences of the truth which you saw before For when a weak Christian hath the best arguments and grounds in the world yet he hath so dim a sight of them that makes them find the slighter entertainment in his affections The best reason in the world can work but little on him that hath but a little understanding of it There are various degrees of knowledge not only of one and the same truth because of the diversity of evidence but of one and the same evidence and reason of that truth I can well remember my self that I have many a year had a common argument for some weighty truth and I have made use of it and thought it good but yet had but little apprehension of the force of it and many years after a sudden light hath given me in my studies so clear an apprehension of the force of that same argument which I knew so long as that it hath exceedingly confirmed and satisfied me more than ever I was before I beseech you Christians
especially his opinions and distinct manner of worship are the chief of his discourse 3. And for the seeming Christian though he can affectedly force his tongue to talk of any subject in religion especially that which he thinks will most honour him in the esteem of the hearers yet when he speaketh according to the inclination of his heart his discourse is first about his fleshly interest and concernments and next to that of the meer externals of religion as controversies parties and the severall modes of worship XXXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that so liveth upon the great sustantial matters of Religion as yet not willingly to commit the smallest sin nor to own the smallest falsehood nor to renounce or betray the smallest holy truth or duty for any price that man can offer him The works of Repentance Faith and Love are his daily business which take up his greatest care and diligence Whatever opinions or controversies are a foot his work is still the same whatever changes come his Religion changeth not He placeth not the Kingdom of God in meats and drinks and circumstances and ceremonies either being for them or against them but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ as he is acceptable to God so is he approved by such a Christian as this however factious persons may revile him Rom. 14.17 18 1 2 3 4 5 10. The strong Christian can bear the infirmities of the weak and not take the course that most pleaseth himself but that which pleaseth his neighbour for his good to edification Rom. 15.1 2 3. The essentials of Religion Faith and Love and obedience are as Bread and drink the substance of his food These he meditateth on and these he practiseth and according to these he esteemeth of others But yet no price can seem sufficient to him to buy his innocency Nor will he willfully sin and say it is a little one nor do evil that good may come by it nor offer to God the sacrifice of disobedient fools and then say I knew not that I did evil For he knoweth that God will rather have obedience than sacrifice and that disobedience is as the sin of witchcraft And he that breaketh one of the least commands and teacheth men so shall be called Least in the Kingdom of God And he that teacheth men to sin by the example of his own practice can little expect to turn them from sin by his better instructions and exhortations He that will deliberately sin in a small matter doth set but a small price on the favour of God and his salvation Willfull disobedience is odious to God how small soever the matter be about which it is committed Who can expect that he should stick at any sin when his temptation is great who will considerately commit the least especially if he will approve and justifie it Therefore the sound Christian will rather forsake his riches his liberty his reputation his friends and his country than his conscience and rather lay down libertie and life it self than choose to sin against his God as knowing that never man gained by his sin Rom. 3.8 Eccl. 5.2 1 Sam. 15.15 21 22 23. Mat. 5.19 The sin that Saul was rejected for seemed but a little thing nor the sin that Vzzah was slain for and the service of God even his sacrifice and his ark were the pretence for both The sin of the Bethshemites of Achan of Gebezi of Ananias and Saphira which had grievous punishments would seem but little things to us And it is a great aggravation of our sin to be chosen deliberate justified and fathered upon God and to pretend that we do it for his service for the worshiping of him or the doing good to others as if God would own and bless sinful means or needed a lie to his service or glory When he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal. 5.5 and requireth only the sacrifices of righteousness Psal. 4.5 He abhorreth sacrifice from polluted hands they are to him as the offering a dog and he will ask who hath required this at your hand see Psal. 50.8.4 Isa. 1.9 10 11 12. c. 58.1 2 3 4. c. Jer. 6.19.20 The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.8 21.27 It is not pleasing to him all that eat thereof shall be polluted Ho. 9.4 See Isa. 66.1 2 3 4 5 6. The preaching the praying the sacraments of wilful sinners especially when they choose sin as necessary to his service are a scorn and mockery put upon the most Holy one As if your servant should set dung and carrion before you on your table for your food such offer Christ vinegar and gall to drink 2. In all this the weakest Christian that is sincere is of the same mind saving that in his ordinary course he useth to place too much of his Religion in controversies and parties and modes and ceremonies whether being for them or against them and allow too great a proportion in his thoughts and speech and zeal and practice and hindereth the growth of his grace by living upon less edifying things and turnning too much from the more substantial nutriment 3. And the seeming Christians are here of different wayes One sort of them place almost all their Religion in Pharisaical observation of little external ceremonial matters as their washings and fastings and tythings and formalities and the traditions of the Elders Or in their several opinions and wayes and parties which they call Being of the true Church As if their sect were all the Church But living to God in faith and love and in a Heavenly conversation and worshipping him in spirit and truth they are utterly unacquainted with The other sort are truly void of these essential parts of Christianity in the life and power as well as the former But yet being secretly resolved to take up no more of Christianity than will consist with their worldly prosperity and ends when any sin seemeth necessary to their preferment or safety in the world their way is to pretend their high esteem of greater matters for the swallowing of such a sin as an inconsiderable thing And then they extol those larger souls that live not upon circumstantials but upon the great and common truths and duties and pitty those men of narrow principles and spirits who by unnecessary scrupulosity make sin of that which is no sin and expose themselves to needless trouble And they would make themselves and others believe that it is their excellency and wisdom to be above such trifling scruples And all is because they never took God and Heaven for their All and therefore are resolved never to lose all for the hopes of Heaven and therefore to do that whatever it be which their worldly interest shall require and not to be of any religion that will undo them And three great pretences are effectual means in this their deceit One is
of his duties and the concernments of his soul permitting the world to take up too much of the vigour of his spirit Or else he is confident in his mistakes and verily thinks that he understandeth better than many wiser men these things which he never understood at all He chooseth his party by the Zeal that he findeth in them without any judicious tryal of the truth of what they hold and teach He is very earnest for many a supposed truth and duty which proveth at last to be no truth or duty at all And he censureth many a wiser Christian than himself for many a supposed sin which is no sin but perhaps a duty For he is alwayes injudicious and his heat is greater than his light or else his light is too flashy without heat Peremptorily he doth set down some among the number of the most wise and excellent men for keeping him company in his mistakes And he boldly numbreth the best and wisest of his Teachers with the transgressors for being of a sounder understanding than himself and doing those duties which he calleth sins And hence it is that he is a person apt to be mislead by appearances of Zeal and the Passions of his Teachers prevail more with him than the Evidence of Truth He that Prayeth and Preacheth most fervently is the man that carryeth him away though none of his Arguments be truly cogent If he hear any hard name against any opinion or manner of worship he receiveth that prejudice which turneth him more against it than reason could have done so the bug-bear name of Heresie Lutheranism and Calvinism frightneth many a well-meaning Papist both from the Truth and almost from his wits And the names of Popery Arminianism Prelacy Presbyterianism Independency c. do turn away the hearts of many from things which they never tryed or understood If a zealous Preacher do but call any opinion or practice Antichristian or Idolatrous it is a more effectual terrour than the clearest proof Big and terrible words do move the passions while the understanding is abased or a stranger to the cause And Passion is much of their Religion And hence alas is much of the calamity of the Church Rom. 14.1 2 3 4 c. 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3 4. Act. 21.20 Gal. 4.17 18. 3. But the seeming Christian is only zealous finally for Himself or zealous about the smaller matters of Religion as the Pharisees were for their Ceremonies and traditions or for his own inventions or some opinions or wayes in which his honour seemeth to be interessed and pride is the bellows of his zeal But as for a holy zeal about the substance and practice of Religion and that for God as the final cause he is a stranger to it He may have a zeal of God and of and for the Law and Worship of God as the material cause but not a true zeal for God as the chief final cause Rom. 10.2 2 Sam. 21.2 2 King 10.16 Act. 22.3 LI. A Christian indeed can bear the infirmities of the weak Though he love not their weakness yet he pittyeth it because he truly loveth their persons Christ hath taught him not to break the bruised reed and to gather the Lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosome and gently lead them that are with young Isa. 40.11 42.3 If they have diseases and distempers he seeketh in tenderness to cure them and not in wrath to hurt and vex them He turneth not the Infants or sick persons from the family because they cry or are unquiet unclean infirm and troublesome but he exerciseth his love and pitty upon their weaknesses If they mistake their way or are ignorant and peevish and froward in their mistakes he seeketh not to undoe them but gently to reduce them If they censure himself and call him erroneous heretical antichristian idolatrous because he concurreth not with them in their mistakes he beareth it with Love and patience as he would do the peevish chidings of a child or the frowardness of the sick He doth not lose his charity and set his wit against a Child and aggravate the crimes and being reviled revile again and say you are Schismaticks hypocrites obstinate and fit to be severely dealt with but he overcometh them with love and patience which is the conquest of a Saint and the happiest victory both for himself and them It is a small matter to him to be judged of man 1 Cor. 4.3 4. He is more troubled for the weakness and disease of the consorious than for his own being wronged by their censures Phil. 1.16 17 18. Rom. 15.1 2 3. 14.2 3. 2. But the weak Christian is readier to censure others than patiently to bear a censure himself Either he stormeth against the Censurers as if they did him some unsufferable wrong through the over-great esteem of himself and his reputation or else to escape the fangs of censure and keep up his repute with them he complyeth with the censorious and overruns his judgement and conscience to be well spoken of and counted a sincere and stedfast man Gal. 2.12 13 14. 3. But the seeming Christian is so proud and selfish and wanteth Charity and tenderness to the weak that he is impatient of their provocations and would cure the diseases of the servants of Christ by cutting their throats or ridding the Countrey of them If a Child do but wrangle with him he cryeth Away with him he is a troubler of the World He taketh more notice of one of their infirmities than of all their graces yea he can see nothing but obstinacy and hypocrisie in them if they do but cross him in his opinions or reputation or worldly ends Selfishness can turn his Hypocrisie into Malignity and cruelty if once he take them to be against his interest Indeed his interest can make him patient He can bear with them that he looketh to gain by but not with them that seem to be against him The radical enmity against sincerity that was not mortified but covered in his heart will easily be again uncovered Mark 6.18 20 21 22. Phil. 1.15 16. 3 Joh. 9. LII 1. A Christian indeed is a great esteemer of the Vnity of the Church and greatly averse to all Divisions among Believers As there is in the natural body an abhorring of dismembring or separating any part from the whole so there is in the mystical body of Christ The members that have life cannot but feel the smart of any distempering attempt For abscision is destruction The members die that are separated from the body And if there be but any obstruction or hinderance of communion they will be painfull or unusefull He feeleth in himself the reason of all those strict commands and earnest exhortations 1 Cor. 1.10 Now I beseech you Brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same
Physical passive Reception as Wood receiveth the Fire and as our Souls receive the Graces of the Spirit but it is a Moral Reception or Reputative which is Active and Metaphorical This will be better understood when the object is considered which is Christ Jesus the Lord To receive Christ as Christ or the Anointed Messias and as the Saviour and our Lord is to believe that he is such and to consent that he be such to us and to trust in him and resign our selves to him as such The Relation we do indeed Receive by a proper passive Reception I mean our Relation of being the Redeemed Members Subjects Disciples of this Christ. But the person of Christ we only Receive by such an active moral reputative Reception as a Servant by consent Receives a Master a Patient by Consent receives a Physitian a Wife by consent receives a Husband and a Schollar or Pupil by Consent receives a Teacher or Tutor or the Subjects by Consent receive a Sovereign So that it is the same thing that is called Receiving Jesus the Lord and believing in him as it is expounded Joh. 1.12 There are three great observable acts of Faith essential to it the first is Assent to the truth of the Gospel the second is Consent or Acceptance of Christ and Life as the offered good the third is Affiance in Christ for the accomplishing of the ends of his Office Now the word Faith doth most properly express the first act and the last and the word Receiving doth most properly express the middlemost but which ever term is used when it is Justifying Faith that is spoken of all three are intended or included By what hath been said you may discern whether you have Received Christ or not For your Faith may be known by these acts which are its parts 1. If you sincerely believe the Gospel to be true which must be with a belief so strong at least as that you are resolved to venture your happiness upon this belief and let go all for the hope that is set before you 2. If an offered Christ in his Relation as a full and perfect Saviour be heartily welcom to you If you consent to the Gospel offer and are but truly willing to be his and that he be yours in that Relation Faith is not only called a Receiving of Christ but is oft exprest by this term of Willing him And therefore the Promise is to Whosoever will Rev. 22.17 and the wicked are denyed a part in Christ because they will not have him reign over them Luke 19.27 or Will not come to him that they may have life Joh. 6.40 even because they would none of him Psal. 81.11 12. which is because they are not true Believers or Disciples of Christ. 3. If you thus by consent take Christ for your Saviour Teacher and Lord it must needs follow that you fiducially rely upon him or trust him to accomplish the ends of his Relations that you trust to him for deliverance from the guilt and power and punishment of sin and for quickning strengthening and preserving Grace and for everlasting life that you resign your selves up to him as his Disciples to learn of him with a confidence or trust that he will infallibly teach you the way to happiness And that you also give up your selves to him as his Subjects with a Trust that he will govern you in truth and Righteousness in order to your Salvation and will defend you from destroying enemies This much is of the very Being of Faith or the Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord And these parts are inseparable he that hath one in truth hath all Whenever we find in Scripture the Promise of Justification or Salvation made to us if we believe it is this believing and none but this that is intended It is not only believing in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest that is the Faith which Justifyeth and believing in him as a Teacher or Lord that sanctifyeth the effects are not thus parcelled out to several essential parts of this same Faith but it is this one entire Faith in all these essential parts that is the undivided condition of all these benefits and in that way of a Condition of the free Promise it doth procure them So much for the meaning of the first words Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord I will be briefer about the next The second is walking in him which is no more but the living as Christians when once we are become Christians and using that Christ to the ends which we received him for when once we have received him Two things are necessary to such as we that have lost our way the first is to get into the right way and that is to get into Christ who is the way the other is to travel on when we are in it For it is not enough to bring us to our Journeyes end that we have found out the right way The next word to be explained is rooted Which doth not intimate that any are really planted into Christ without any rooting in him at all but by rooted is meant deeply rooted For the Roots increase under ground as well as the Tree above ground Rooting hath two ends and both are here implyed The first is for the Firmness of the Tree that blustring winds may not overturn it The second is for nutriment that it may receive that nourishment from the earth which may cause its preservation growth and fruitfulness This is the Rootedness of Christians in Christ that they may be confirmed in him against all assaults and may draw from him that nutriment that is necessary to their growth and fruit The next term is built up in him No house consisteth of a bare Foundation Five things are expresly contained in our being built up in him The first is that we are united or conjoyned to him as the building is on the Foundation The second is that we rest wholly on him as our support as the building doth on the Foundation The third is that we are also conjoyned one unto another and are become one spiritual building in the Lord. The fourth is that the Fabrick doth increase in bigness as the house doth by being built up so that it importeth our increase in Grace and the increase of the Church by us The fifth is the fitness of the building to its intended ends and use Till it be built up it is not fit for habitation And till Christians are built up God hath not that use of them to which he doth intend them The next term is stablished or confirmed in the Faith which signifyeth but that strengthening and fixing of us that may prevent our fall or shaking And it compriseth these two things First that we be soundly bottomed on Christ who is our Foundation And secondly that we be cemented and firmly joyned to each other And this comprehendeth their stability in the doctrine of Faith And therefore he addeth as ye have been taught to fortify
way and went far and by going further might have attained to Salvation The heart of many a Minister hath been glad to see their Hearers humbled and bewailing sin and changing their minds and lives and becoming forward Professors of Godliness when a few years time hath turned all this joy into sorrow and one of our hopeful seeming Converts doth grow cold and lose his former forwardness another falls to desperate sensuality and turns Drunkard or Fornicator or Gamester another turns worldling and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of Riches and the cares of this life and another if not many to one is deluded by some deceiver and infected with some deadly errors and casts off duty and sets himself like a hired instrument of Hell to divide the Church oppose the Gospel and reproach and slander and rail at the Ministers and Professors of it and to weaken the hands of the Builders and strengthen the ungodly and serve the secret enemies of the truth Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their Conversion do break our hearts by their Apostacy and subversion and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ and greater Plagues to the Church of God that those that never professed to be Religious Those that were wont to joyn with us in holy worship and went up with us to the house of God as our companions do afterwards despise both Worshippers and Worship Whereas if these men had been rooted and confirmed you should never have seen them fall into this misery O how many Prayers and Confessions and Duties do these men lose How many years have some of them seemed to be Religious and after all have proved Apostate miscreants and the World and the Flesh and Pride and Error swallow up all See then what need you have to be rooted confirmed and built up in Christ. 4. Consider also How much of the Work of your Salvation is yet to do when you are Converted You have happily begun but you have not finished You have hit of the right way but you have your Journey yet to go you have chosen the best Commander and fellow Souldiers but you have many a Battle yet to fight If you are Christians indeed you know your selves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer and many a temptation yet to overcome and many a necessary work to do And there is a necessity of these after-works as well as of the first For these are the use and end of your conversion that you may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World denying ungodliness and wordly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 And how can Infants go through all these works Which of you would desire an Infant or Criple to be your servant But though God be in this more merciful than man yet he may well expect that you should not be still Infants What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition O pittiful blindness that any man that knows that he hath a Soul to save should think an Infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting Life In the matters of this Life you feel the need and worth of strength you will not think an Infant fit to Plow or Sow or Reap or Mow or Travel or play the Souldier and yet will you rest satisfied with an Infant-strength to do those great and matchless works which your Salvation lyeth on 5. Moreover the weak unconfirmed Souls are usually full of trouble and live without that assurance of Gods love and that spiritual peace and comfort which others do possess One would think no other Argument should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and Diseases than the pain and trouble that alwayes attendeth them It s more pain to a sick man to travel a mile than to a sound man to go ten To the lame or feeble every step hath pain and all that they do is grievous to them when far more would be a recreation to one that is in health O therefore delight not in your own languishings Choose not to live in pain and sorrow But strive after Confirmation and growth in Grace that overgrowing your infirmities you may overcome your sad complaints and groans and may be acquainted with the comfortable life of the Confirmed O how roundly and cheerfully would you go through your work how easy and sweet and profitable would it prove to you if once you were strong confirmed Christians Alas the Souls of those that are not confirmed lye open to every temptation of the malicious enemy of their peace and how small a matter will disquiet and unsettle them every passage in Scripture which they understand not and which seems to make against them will disturb them A Minister cannot Preach so plainly or so cautelously but somewhat which they understand not will be matter of their disquiet Providences will trouble them because they understand them not Afflictions will be bitter to the mind as well as the body and will immoderately perplex them because they understand them not or have not strength to bear them and improve them The sweeter mercies of prosperity will much lose their sweetness for want of holy Wisdom and strength to digest them And what man would choose such a weak and languishing state as this before a confirmed healthful state Will you run up and down for Physick when you are sick and will you no more regard the health and stability and spiritual peace and vigour of your souls 6. Moreover it is the strong confirmed Christian that hath the true use and benefit of all Gods ordinances Meat is digested by the healthful stomack and it s seen upon them and we use to say It is not lost It is sweet to them and doth them good and they are strengthened more by it And so is the confirmed Christian by Gods Ordinances But to the weak unconfirmed Soul how much of the means of Grace is even as lost How little sweetness do they find in means and how little good can they say they get by them I deny not but some good they get and that they must use them still for though the sick have little relish of his meat yet he cannot long live without it and though it breed not strength or health yet it maintaineth that languishing life but this is all or almost all What a sad thing is this to your selves and unto us when Ministers that are as the Nurses of the Church or Stewards of the Houshold to give them all their meat in due season must see that all that ever they can do for you will do no more than keep you alive Yea how often are you quarrelling with your food and you do not like it or you cannot get it down somthing still ails
it for matter or manner or else if the Minister displease you your feeble stomachs do loath the food because you like not the Cook that dresseth it or because his hands are not so clean as you desire The full Soul loatheth an Honey-comb but to the hungry every bitter thing is sweet Prov. 27.7 Or if you get it down you can hardly keep it but are ready to cast it up to our faces And thus a great deal of our labour is lost with you holy Doctrine lost and Sacraments and other Ordinances lost because you have not strength to digest them Labour therefore to be stablished and built up 7. I beseech you look upon the face of the World and see whether it have not need of the strongest helps Whereas the weak and sick are burthensome to others rather than fit to help the distressed It is a multitude among us and abroad in the world that are ignorant and ungodly and in the depth of misery And if there be but a few to help them those few should not be Babes Abundance of this multitude are obstinate in their sin blind and wilful captivated by the Devil and have sold themselves to do evil and shall such miserable Souls as these have none but children or sick folks to help them I tell you Sirs their Diseases prove too hard for the skilfullest Physicians It will put the wisest man in England to it to perswade one obstinate enemy of godliness to the hearty love of a holy life or to cure one old superstitious person of his self-conceitedness or one covetous person of his love of the World or one old drunkard or glutton of his sensuality How then will silly ignorant Christians be able to perswade them I know it is not the ability of the Instrument but the will of God that is the principal cause but yet God useth to work by instruments according to their fitness for the work What a case is that Hospital in where all are sick and no healthful persons among them to help them Poor weak Christians you are not able much to help one another how much less to help the dead ungodly World Wo to the World if it had no better helpers And wo to your selves if you had not the help of stronger than your selves seeing it is Gods way to work by means Alas a child or sick person is so unfit to labour for the Family and to work for others that they are the burdens of the Family and must be provided for by others They are so unmeet to help others in their weakness that they must be carried or attended and waited on themselves What a Life is this to be the burdens of the Church when you might be the Pillars of the Church To be so blind and lame when you might be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame I speak not this to extenuate Gods mercies to you nor to undervalue the great felicitie of the Saints even the poorest and weakest of them I know that Christ is tender of the weakest that are sincere and will not forsake them But though you are so far above the dead world even in the bed of your groaning and languishing yet O how far are you below the Confirmed healthful Christian You are happy in being alive but you are unhappy in being so diseased and weak You are happy in being of the Family and fellow-Citizens with the Saints But you are unhappy in being so useless and unprofitable and burdensom For indeed you live but as the Poor of the Parish not only on the Alms of Christ for so we do all but on the Alms of your brethrens assistance and support And I know that in worldly matters you will rather labour with your hands that you may have to give to them that need than be troublesom to others and live upon Charity Eph. 4.28 I know that the time is not yet come that there shall not be a Beggar in Israel I mean one that needs not our continual relief The poor we shall have alwayes with us even the poor in Grace to exercise our Charity and I know that the strong must bear with their infirmities and exercise compassion on them But yet you should remember the words of Christ It is more honourable to give than to receive And therefore be perswaded to be stir your selves for spiritual health and strength and riches that the multitudes of needy miserable Souls may have some help from you and that when they come to your doors you may not turn them away with so cold an answer Alas we have nothing for our selves Were you but strong confirmed Christians what blessings might you be to all about you What a stay to the places where you live Your lips would feed many as a Tree of Life The ear that heard you would bless you and the eye that saw you would bear you witness Job 29.11 You would be to poor Souls as bountiful Rich men are to their bodies the support and relief of many that are needy You would not eat your morsells alone nor would you see any perish for lack of cloathing but the loyns of the poor would bless you Job 31.17 18 19 20. Oh pity the poor World that needeth more than Childrens help and grow up unto Confirmation O pity the poor Church that abounds with weaklings that 's pestered with childish self conceited quarrellers and needeth more than childrens help and grow up to confirmation O pity your selves and live not still in so childish sickly and beggarly a condition when the way of riches and health is before you but up and be doing till you have attained confirmation 8. Yea this is not all you do not only deny the Church your assistance but most of the troubles and divisions of the Church are from such unsetled weaklings as you In all Ages almost these have made the Church more work than the Heathen Persecutors did with Fire and Sword These Novices as Paul calleth them that is your beginners in Religion are they that most commonly are puffed up with Pride and fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 These are they that are easiest deceived by Seducers as being not able to make good the truth nor to confute the plausible reasonings of the adversaries and withall they have not that rooted love to the Truth and wayes of God which should hold them fast and they quickly yield like cowardly Souldiers that are able to make but small resistance And as Paul speaks they are like children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive Eph. 4.14 If you will still continue children what better can we expect of you but thus to be toss'd and carryed about Thus you gratify Satan and Seducers when you little think on it And thus you harden the ungodly in their way And thus you grieve the hearts
of the godly and especially of the Faithful guides of the Flocks Alas that so many of the children of the Church should become the scourges and troublers of the Church and should set their teeth so deep in the breasts that were drawn out for their nourishment If you were never drawn to do any thing to the reproach of the Church yet what a grief must it be to us to see so many of your selves miscarry Ah thinks a poor Minister What hopes had I once of these Professors and are they come to this O mark Sirs the Apostle's warning Heb. 13.9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines And his way of prevention is that the heart be established with Grace 9. Consider also that it is a dishonour to Christ that so many of his Family should be such weaklings so mutable and unsetled and unprofitable as you are I do not mean that it is any real dishonour to him for it all the World should forsake him they would dishonour themselves and not him with any competent Judg As it would dishonour the beholders more than the Sun if all the world should say that it is darkness But you are guilty of dishonouring him in the eyes of the misguided world O what a reproach it is to Godliness that so many Professors should be so ignorant and imprudent and so many so giddy and unconstant and so many that manifest so little of the glory of their holy Profession All the enemies of Christ without the Church are not capable of dishonouring him so much as you that bear his Name and wear his Livery While your Graces are weak your corruptions will be strong and all those corruptions will be the dishonour of your Profession Will it not break your hearts to hear the ungodly pointing at you as you pass by to say yonder goes a Covetous Professor or yonder goes a proud or a tipling or a contentious Professor If you have any love to God and sense of his dishonour methinks such sayings should touch you at the heart While you are weak and unconfirmed you will like children stumble at every stone and catch many a fall and yield to temptations which the stronger easily resist and then being scandalous all your faults by foolish men will be charged on your Religion If you do but speak an ill word of another or rail or deceive or over-reach in bargaining or fall into any scandalous Opinions or practice your Religion must bear all the blame with the World Ever since I can remember it hath been one of the principal hinderances of mens Conversion and strengtheners of the wicked in their way that the Godly were accounted a sort of peevish unpeaceable covetous proud self-seeking persons which was a slander as to many but too much occasioned by the scandalousness of some And methinks you should be afraid of that Wo from Christ Wo be to him by whom offence cometh If you be Children you may have the Wo of sharp castigations and if you be Hypocrites you shall have the Wo of overlasting sufferings The world can judg no farther than they see And when they see Professors of Holiness to be so like to common men and in some things worse than many of them what can you expect but that they despise Religion and judg of it by the Professors of it and say If this be their Religion let them keep it to themselves we are as well without it as they are with it And thus will the holy waies of God be vilified through you If you will not excel others in the beauty of your conversations that in this glass the World may see the beauty of your Religion you must expect that they should take it but for a common thing which bringeth forth but common fruits to their discerning You should be such that God may boast of and the Church may boast of to the face of the accuser then would you be an honour to the Church when God may say of you as he did of Job Hast thou considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil Job 1.8 If we could say so of you to the malignant enemies See what men the godly are there is none such among you men of Holiness Wisdome uprightness sobriety meekness patience peaceable and harmless living wholly to God as strangers on earth and Citizens of Heaven then you would be ornaments to your holy profession Were you such Christians as the old Christians were Act. 4. we might boast of you then to the reproaching adversaries 10. Moreover till you are confirmed and built up you may too easily be made the instruments of Satan to further his designs The weakness of your understandings and the strength of your passions and especially the interest that carnal Self hath remaining in you may lay you open to temptations and engage you in many a cause of Satan to take his part against the truth And how sad a case is this to any that have felt the love of Christ Have you been warmed with his wondrous love and washed with his blood and saved by his matchless mercy and may it not even break your hearts to think that after all this you should be drawn by Satan to wound your Lord to abuse his honour to resist his cause to hurt his Church and to confirm his enemies and gratify the Devil I tell you with shame and grief of heart that abundance of weak unsetled Professors that we hope have upright meanings in the main have been more powerful instruments for Satan to do his work by for the hindering of the Gospel the vilifying of the Ministry the dividing of the Church and the hindering of Reformation than most of the notoriously prophane have been What excellent hopes had we once in England of the flourishing of piety and happy union among the Churches and servants of Christ And who hath not only frustrated these hopes but almost broke them all to pieces Have any had more to do in it than weak unstable Professors of Religiousness What sad confusions are most parts of England in at this day by reason of the breaking of Churches into Sects and shreds and the contentions and reproaches of Christians against Christians and the odious abuse of holy truth and Ordinances And who is it that doth this so much as unstable Professors of Piety What greater reproach almost could have befallen us than for the adversary to stand by and see men pulling out each others Throats and hating and persecuting and reproaching one another and that our own hands should pull down the house of God and tear in pieces the miserable Churches while men are striving who shall be the Master of the Reformation O what a sport is this to the Devil when he can set his professed enemies by the ears and make them fall upon one another when if he have any
trouble you consider that your own weakness leaves you lyable to far greater and offer offences against God and this should trouble you much more Let me give you another instance If you have a Pastor that is truly godly and yet is so weak that he can scarce speak with any understanding or life the Message that he should deliver and withall is undiscreet and as scandalous as will stand with Grace what good is this man like to do for all his Godliness At least you will soon see a lamentable difference between such a one and a judicious convincing holy heavenly powerful and unspotted man O what a blessing is one to the place and the other may be a grievous judgment and you would be ready to run away from his Ministry Why Sirs if there be so great a difference between Pastor and Pastor where both have Grace methinks you should see what a difference there is also between People and People even where all have Grace For truly poor Ministers find this to their sorrow in their people as well as you can find it in them Some Ministers have a stayed confirmed judicious humble meek self-denying teachable peaceable and experienced people and these walk comfortably and guide them peaceably and labour with them cheerfully and O what beauty and glory is upon such Assemblies and what order and growth and comfort is among them But alas how many Ministers have a flock even of those that we hope are godly that grieve them by their levity or weary them by their unteachable ignorance or self-conceitedness or hinder their labours by errors and quarrels and perverse opposition to the truths which they do not understand So that there is a great difference between people and people that are godly Brethren it is far from the desire of my heart to cast any unjust dishonour upon Saints much less to dishonour the Graces of God in them No I take it rather for an honour to that immortal spark that it can live among its enemies and not be conquered and in the waters of corruption and not be quenched But yet I must take up a just complaint that few of us answer the cost of our Redemption and the provisions of God or are near such a people as our receiveings or Professions require we should be It is one of the most grievous thoughts that ever came to my heart to observe how the lives of the greatest part of Professors do tend to dishonour the power and worth of Grace in the eyes of the World and that the ungodly should see that Grace doth make no greater a difference and do no more upon us than it doth Yea it is a sore temptation oftentimes to Believers to see that Grace doth no more in the most but that so many are still a shame to their Profession I must confess that I once thought more highly of Professors as to the measure of their Grace than experience now will suffer me to think Little did I think that they had been so unstable so light so ignorant so giddy as to follow almost any that do but whistle them What a dreadful sight it is to see how quickly the most odious Heresies do infect and destroy even multitudes of them and that in a moment as soon as they appear the grossest mists of the bottomless pit are presently admired as the light of God If a Church-divider do but arise how quickly doth he get Disciples If a Papist have but opportunity he will lightly catch some as oft as he doth cast his net If he cannot prevail bare-faced it is but puting on the visor of some other Sect. Even the odious Heresies of the Quakers themselves and their railings which an honest Pagan would abhor do presently find entertainment with Professors and let the matter or manner be never so sensless yet is it accepted if it be but zealously put off O who would have thought that our people that seemed godly should be so greedy of the Devils baits as to catch at any thing yea and to devour the bare hooks O who would have thought that so many that seemed lovers of God would so readily believe every deceiver that speaks against him if he can but do it with a pious pretence Yea if Seekers themselves do but cast in their objections how many of our people are presently at a loss and their Faith is muddied and they are to seek for a Ministry and to seek for a Church and to seek for Ordinances and to seek for a Scripture even for the Gospel it self and therefore it 's like they are to seek for a Christ or to seek for a Religion if not to seek for God and for a Heaven O sad day that ever these things should come to pass and that we are forced to utter them having no possibility of concealing them from the World Were these men confirmed and stablished in the Faith Were these men rooted and built up in Christ Alas Sirs if any deceivers come among us how few of our people are able to withstand them and defend the truth of God against them but they are catcht up by the Devils Faulconers as the poor Chickens by the Kite except those that fly under the wings of a judicious setled Minister If an Anabaptist assault their Baptism how few of them can defend it And silly Souls when they find themselves non-plus't they suspect not their own unfurnished understandings or unexperienced unsetled hearts but suspect the truth of God and suspect their Teachers be they never so far beyond them in knowledg and holiness as if their Teachers had misled them when ever these unprofitable Infants are thus stalled If a Papist be to plead his cause with them how few have we that can answer him If an Infidel should oppose the Scripture or Christ himself how few among us are able to defend them and solidly give proof either of the truth of Scripture or of the Faith that they do profess And this is not all though it is a heart-breaking case but even in their Practice alas what remisness and what corruptions do appear How few in secret do keep any constant watch upon their hearts and fear and abhor the approach of an evil thought Nay how few are they that do not leave their fancy almost common and ordinarily even feed on covetous proud malicious or lustful thoughts and make no great matter of it but live in it from day to day How few do keep up life and constancy in secret Prayer or Meditation How few are the Families where the Cause and Worship and Government of Christ is kept up in life and honour and where all is not dissolved into a little weary disordered heartless performance Look into our Congregations and judg but by their very looks and carriage and gestures how many even of those that we think the best do so much as seem to be earnest and serious in Prayer or Praise when the Church
and ye have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hosts and ye brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick thus ye brought an offering should I accept this of your hand saith the Lord But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and voweth and Sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen If you better knew the Majesty of God you would knew that the best is too little for him and trifling is not tollerable in his service When Nadab and Abibu ventured with false fire to his Altar and he smote them dead he silenced Aaron with this reason of his Judgment I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people will I be glorified Lov. 10.1 2 3. That is I will have nothing common offered to me but be served with my own holy peculiar service When the Bethshemites were smitten dead 50070 men of them they found that God would not be dallyed with and cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God 1 Sam. 6.20 2. Consider also It was an exceeding great price that was payed for your Redemption For you were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Fathers but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. It was an exceeding great Love that was manifested by God the Father and by Christ in this work of Redemption such as even paseth Angels and men to study it and comprehend it 1 Pet. 1.12 Eph. 3.18 19. And should all this be answered but with trissâ—ng from you Should such a matchless Miracle of Love be answered with no greater 〈◊〉 especially when you were purposely 〈◊〉 from all iniquity that you might be sanctified 〈◊〉 a peculiar people zealous of good works 〈◊〉 14. It being therefore so great a price that you are bought with remember that you are none of your own but must glorify him that bought you in body and spirit 1. Cor. 6.20 3. Consider also that it is not a small but an exceeding glory that is promised you in the Gospel and which you live in hope to possess for ever And therefore it should be an exceeding Love that you should have to it and an exceeding care that you should have of it Make light of Heaven and make light of all Truly it is an unsuitable unreasonable thing to have one low thought or one careless word or one cold Prayer or other performance about such a matter as eternal glory Shall such a thing as Heaven be coldly or carelesly minded and sought after Shall the endless fruition of God in glory be look't at with sleepy heartless wishes I tell you Sirs if you will have such high hopes you must have high and strong endeavours A slow pace becomes not him that travelleth to such a home as this If you are resolved for Heaven behave your selves accordingly A gracious reverent godly frame of spirit producing an acceptable service of God is fit for them that look to receive the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12.18 The believing thoughts of the end of all our labours must needs convince us that we should be stedfast and unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 O heatken thou sleepy slothful Christian Doth not God call and Conscience call Awake and up be doing man for it is for Heaven Hearken thou negligent lazy Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee O man make hast and mend thy pace it is for Heaven Hearken thou cowardly saint hearted Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee Arm man and see thou stand thy ground do not give back nor look behind thee but fall on and fight in the strength of Christ for it is for the Crown of endless glory O what a heart hath that man that will not be heartned with such calls as these Methinks the very name of God and Heaven should awaken you and make you stir if there be any stirring power within you Remissness in wordly matters hath an excuse for they are but trifles but flackness in the matters of Salvation is made unexcusable by the greatness of those matters O let the noble greatness of your Hopes appear in the Resolvedness exactness and diligence of your lives 4. Consider also that it is not only low and smaller Mercies that you receive from God but mercies innumerable and inestimable and exceeding great And therefore it is not cold affections and dull endeavours that you should return to God for all these mercies Mercy brought you into the World and Mercy hath nourished you and bred you up and Mercy hath defended and maintained you and plentifully provided for you Your bodies live upon it Your Souls were recovered by it It gave you your being It rescued you from misery It saveth you from sin and Satan and your Selves All that you have at the present you hold by it All that you can hope for for the future must be from it It is most sweet in quality what sweeter to miserable souls than Mercy It is exceeding great in quantity The Mercy of the Lord is in the Heavens and his faithfulness reacheth to the Clouds His Righteousness is like the great Mountains His Iudgments are a great deep Psal. 36.5 6. O how great is his goodness which he hath laid up for them that fear him which he hath for them that trust in him before the sons of men Psal. 31.19 His Mercy is great unto the Heavens and his truth unto the Clouds Psal. 57.10 And O what an insensible heart hath he that doth not understand the voice of all this wondrous mercy Doubtless it speaketh the plainest language in the World commanding great returns from us of Love and praise and obedience to the bountiful bestower of them With David we must say Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me marvellous kindness in a strong City O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth all the faithfull Psal. 31.21 23. Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth Vnite my heart to fear thy Name I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorify thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my Soul from the lowest Hell Psal. 86.11 12 13. Vnspeakable Mercies must needs be felt in deep impressions and be so savoury with the Gracious soul that methinks it should work us to the highest resolutions Unthankfulness is a crime that Heathens did detest And it is exceeding great unthankfulness if we have not exceeding great love and obedience under such exceeding great and many mercies as we possess 5. Consider that they are exceeding great helps and means that you possess to further your holiness and obedience to God and
resignation of your selves to him Of which I warned you in the former Directions O this is it that makes our people fall so fast in a day of tryal some shrink in adversity and some are enticed away by prosperity Greatness and honour deceiveth one and riches run away with another and fleshly pleasure poison a third and his Conscience Religion Salvation and all he Sacrificeth to his belly and swalloweth it down his throat and all the Love and goodness of God the Bloud of Christ the workings of the Spirit the Precepts and Promises and Threatnings of the Word and the joy and torments which once they seemed to believe all are forgotten or have lost their force And all because the Foundation was not laid well at the first But because this was the very business of the former Directions I will dismiss it now DIRECT II. Think not that all is done when once you are Converted but remember that the work of your Christianity then comes in and must be as long as the time of your lives OF this also I shall say but little because it is the drift of all the moving Considerations before-going I doubt it is the undoing of many to imagine that if once they are sanctified they are so sure in the hands of Christ that they have no more care to take nor no more danger to be afraid of and at last think that they have no more to do as of necessity to Salvation and thus prove that indeed they were never sanctified I confess when a man is truly Converted the principal part of his danger is over he is safe in the love and care of Christ and none can take him out of his hands But this is but part of the truth the other part must be taken with it or we deceive our selves There is still a great deal of work before us and Holiness is still the way to happiness and much care and diligence is required at our hands And it is no more certain that we shall be saved by Christ than it is that we shall be kept in Faith and love and holy obedience by him It is as true that none can separate us from the Love of God and from a care to please him and from a holy diligence in the work of our Salvation as that none can take us out of his hands and bring us into a state of condemnation He that is resolved to bring us to Glory is as much resolved to bring us to it by perseverance in Holiness and diligent obedience for he never decreeth one without the other and he will never save us by any other way Indeed when we are Converted we have escaped many and grievous dangers but yet there are many more before us which we must by care and diligence escape We are translâ—ted from death to life but not from earth to heaven We have the life of Grace but yet we are short of the life of Glory And why have we the life of Grace but to use it and to live by it Why came we into the Vineyard but to work And why came we into the Army of Christ but to fight Why came we into the race but to run for the prize or why turned we into the right way but to travel in it We never did God faithful service till the day of our Conversion and then it is that we begin And shall we be so sottish as to think we have done when we have but begun Now you begin to live that before were dead Now you begin to awake that were before asleep And therefore now you should begin to work that before did nothing or rather a thousand fold worse than nothing Work is the effect of life it is the dead that lye still in darkness and do nothing If you had rather be alive than dead you should rather delight in action than in idleness It 's now that you set to Sea and begin your voyage for the blessed Land many a storm and wave and tempest must you yet expect Many a combat with temptations must you undergo many a hearty prayer have you yet to pour forth Many and many a duty to perform to God and man Think not to have done your care and work till you have done your lives Whether you come in at the first hour or at the last you must work till night if you will receive your wages And think not this a grievous doctrine It is your priviledge it is your joy your earthly happiness that you may be so employed that you that till now have lived like swine or moles or earthly vermine may now take wing and fly to God and walk in heaven and talk with Saints and be guarded by Angels is this a life to be accounted grievous Now you begin to come to your selves to understand what you have to do in the world to live like men that you may live like Angels And therefore now you should begin accordingly to bestir you I would not have you retain the same measure of fear of Gods displeasure nor the same apprehensions of your misery nor the doubts and perplexities of mind which you were under at your first conversion for these were occasioned by the passage in your change and the weakness of your grace in that beginning and your former folly made them necessary for a time But I would have you retain your fear of sinning and be much more in the love of God and in his service than you were at first Temptations will haunt you to the last hour of your lives If therefore you would not fall by these temptations you must watch and pray to the last Give not over watching till Satan give over tempting and watching advantages against you The promise is still but on condition that you persevere and abide in Christ and continue rooted and stedfast in the faith and overcome and be faithful to the death as you may see in Joh. 15. throughout Joh. 8.31 Rev. 2. 3. Col. 1.22 23. Work out therefore your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 If you have begun resolvedly proceed resolvedly It 's the undoing of mens souls to think that all the danger is over and lose their apprehensions of it when they are yet but in the way when their care and holy fears abate their watch goes down the soul 's laid open as a common wilderness and made a prey to every lust And therefore still know your work 's not done till your life be done DIRECT III. Be sure that you understand wherein your establishment and growth consisteth that you may not miscarry by seeking somewhat else instead of it nor think you have it when you have it not or that you want it when you have it and so be needlessly disquieted about it FOr your assistance in this I shall further shew you wherein your confirmation and growth consisteth in its several parts both as it is subjected or exercised in your understandings
consider of this weighty truth it is not the knowledge of the Truth that will serve your turns without a true and solid knowledge of that truth nor is it the hearing or understanding of the best grounds and reasons or proofs in the world that will serve the turn unless you have a deep and solid apprehension of those proofs and reasons A man that hath the best arguments may forsake the truth because he hath not a good understanding of those arguments As a man that hath the best weapons in the world may be kill'd for want of strength skill to use them I tell you if you knew every truth in the Bible you may grow much in knowledge of the very same truths which you know 3. Moreover a young ungrounded Christian when he seeth all the fundamental Truths and seeth good evidence and reasons of them perhaps may be yet ignorant of the right order and place of every truth It 's a rare thing to have young Professors to understand the necessary truths methodically And this is a very great defect For a great part of the usefulness and excellency of particular truths consisteth in the respect they have to one another This therefore will be a considerable part of your confirmation growth in your understandings to see the body of Christian doctrine as it were at one view as the several parts of it are united in one perfect frame and to know what aspect one point hath upon another and which is their due places There is a great difference between the sight of the several parts of a clock or watch as they are disjoynted and scattered about and the seeing of them conjoyned and in use and motion To see here a pin and there a wheel and not know how to set them all together nor ever see them in their due places will give but little satisfaction It is the frame and design of holy Doctrine that must be known and every part should be discerned as it hath its particular use to that design and as it is connected with the other parts By this means only can the true nature of Theology together with the harmony and perfection of truth be clearly understood And every single truth also will be much better perceived by him that seeth its place and order than by any other For one truth exceedingly illustrates and leads in another into our understanding Nay more than so your own hearts and lives will not be well ordered if the method or order of the truths received should be mistaken For the truths of God are the very instruments of your sanctification which is nothing but their effects upon your understandings and wills as they are set home by the holy Ghost Truths are the seal and your souls are the wax and holiness is the impression made If you receive but some truths you will have but some part of the due impression Nay indeed they are so coherent and make up the sence by their necessary conjunction that you cannot receive any one of them sincerely without receiving every one that is of the essence of the Christian belief And if you receive them disorderly the image of them on your souls will be as disorderly as if your bodily members were monstrously misplaced Study therefore to grow in the more methodical knowledge of the same truths which you have received And though you are not yet ripe enough to discern the whole body of Theology in due method yet see so much as you have attained to know in the right order and placing of every part As in Anatomy its hard for the wisest Physician to discern the course of every branch of veins and arteries but yet they may easily discern the place and order of the principal parts and greater vessels So it is in Divinity where no man hath a perfect view of the whole till he come to the state of perfection with God but every true Christian hath the knowledge of all the essentials and may know the order and places of them all 4. Another part of your confirmation growth in understanding is In discerning the same truths more practically than you did before and perceiving the usefulness of every truth for the doing of its work on your hearts and lives It was never the will of God that bare speculation should be the end of his Revelations or of our belief Divinity is an Affective practical Science therefore must truths be known and believed that the good may be received and a holy change may be made by them on the heart and life Even the Doctrine of the Trinity it self is practical and the fountain of that which is more easily discerned to be practical There is not one Article of our faith but hath a special work to do upon our hearts and lives and therefore a special fitness for that work Now the understandings of young Christians do discern many truths when they see but little of the work to be done by them and the special usefulness of those truths to those works This therefore must be your daily enquiry and in this you must grow As if you come into a workmans shop and see a hundred tools about you it is a small matter to discern the shape and fashion of them and what mettle they are made of But you will further ask What is this tool to do and what is that to do If ever you will learn the trade you must know the use of every tool So must you if you will be skilful Christians be acquainted with the use of the truths which you have received and know that this truth is to do this work and that truth to do that work upon the soul and life A Husbandman may know as many herbs and flowers and fruits as a Physician and be able to tell them all by name and say this is such an herb and that is such a one and to perceive the shape and beauty of them But he knows little or nothing that they are good for unless to feed his cattle Whereas the Physician can tell you that this herb is good against this disease and that herb against another disease and can make use of those same herbs to save mens lives which other men tread under foot as useless A Countrey man may see the names that are written on the Apothecaries boxes but it is the Physician that knows the medicinal use of the drugs So many men that are unsanctified may know the outside of holy doctrine that little know what use is to be made of it And the weak Christian knows less of this than the grown confirmed Christian doth Learn therefore every day more and more to know what every truth is good for that this is for the exercise and strengthening of such a grace and this is good against such or such a disease of the soul. Every leaf in the Bible hath a healing vertue in it They are the leaves of the Tree of Life
Every sentence is good for somthing All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Not a word is without its usefulness 5. Moreover you must grow not only in knowing the usefulness of truths but also in knowing how to use them that you may have the benefit of that worth that is in them Many a man knows what use a workmans tools are for that yet knows not how himself to use them And many a one knows the use and vertue of herbs and drugs that knows not how to make a medicine of them and compound and apply them There is much skill to be used in knowing the seasons of application and the measure and what is fit for one and what for another that we may make that necessary variation which diversity of conditions do require As it is a work of skill in the Pastors of the Church to divide the word of God aright and speak a word in season to the weary and give the children their meat in due season 2 Tim. 2.15 Isa. 50.4 Mat. 24.45 So is it also a work of skill to do this for your selves to know what Scripture it is that doth concern you and when and in what measure to apply it and in what order and with what advantages or correctives to use it as may be most for your own good You may grow in this skill as long as you live even in understanding how to use the same truths which you have long known O what excellent Christians should we be if we had but this holy skill and hearts to use it We have the whole armour of God to put on and use but all the matter is how to use it The same sword of the spirit in the hand of a strong and skilful Christian may do very much which in the hand of a young unskilful Christian will do very little and next to nothing A young raw Physician may know the same medicines as an able experienced Physician doth but the great difference lieth in the skil to use them This is it that must make you rich in grace when you increase in the skilful use of truths 6. Moreover your understandings may be much advanced by knowing the same truths more experimentally than you did before I mean such truths as are capable of experimental knowledge Experience giveth us a far more satisfactory manner of knowledge than others have that have no such experience To know by hearsay is like the knowing of a Countrey in a Map and to know by experience is like the knowing of the same Countrey by sight An experienced Navigator or Soldier or Physician or Governour hath another manner of knowledge than the most learned can have without experience even a knowledge that confirmeth a man and makes him confident Thus may you daily increase in knowledge about the same points that you knew long ago When you have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious Psal. 34.8 1 Pet. 2.3 you will know him more experimentally than you did before when you have tasted the sweetness of the promise and of pardon of sin and peace with God and the hopes of glory you will have a more experimental knowledge of the riches of grace than you had before And when you have lived a while in communion with Christ and the Saints and walked a while with God in a heavenly conversation and maintained your integrity and kept your selves unspotted of the world you will then know the nature and worth of holiness by a knowledge more experimental and satisfactory than before And this is confirmation and growth in knowledge 7. Moreover you must labor to grow in a higher estimation of the same truths which you knew before And this will be a consequent of the forementioned acts A child that findeth a jewel may set by it for the shining beauty when yet he may value it many thousand pounds below its worth You see so much wisdom and goodness in God the first hour of your new life as causeth you to prefer him before the world and you see so much necessity of a Saviour so much love and mercy in Jesus Christ as draweth up your hearts to him and you see so much certainty and glorious excellency of the life to come that makes you value it even more than your lives But yet there is in all these such an unsearchable treasure that you can never value them neer their worth for all that thou hast seen of God and Christ and Glory there is a thousand times more excellency in them yet to be discerned For all the beauty thou hast seen in holiness it is a thousand fold more beautiful than ever thou didst apprehend it for all the evil thou hast seen in sin it is a thousand fold worse than ever thou didst perceive it to be So that if you should live a thousand years you might still be growing in your estimation of those things which you knew the first day of your true conversion For the deeper you dig into this precious Mine the greater riches will still appear to you There is an Ocean of excellency in one Article of your belief and you will never find the banks or bottom till you come to heaven and then you will find that it had neither banks nor bottom And thus I have shewed you what confirmation growth is needful for your understandings even about the very same truths which at first you knew And now I shall add 8. You must also labour to understand more truths for number than at the first you understood and to reach to as much of the revealed will of God as you can and not to stop in the meer essentials For all divine revelations are precious and of great use and none must be neglected And the knowledge of many other truths is of some necessity to our clear understanding of the essentials and also to our holding them fast and practising them Secret things belong to God but things revealed to us and to our children Deut. 29.29 But here I must give you this further advice 1. That you proceed in due order from the fundamental points to those that lye next them do not overpass the points of next necessity and weight and go to higher and less needful matters before you are ready for them 2. And also see that you receive all following truths that are taught you as flowing from the foundation and conjoyned with it Disorderly proceedings have unspeakably wrong'd the souls of many thousands when they are presently upon controversies and smaller matters before they understand abundance of more necessary things that must be first understood This course doth make them lose their labour and worse it deceiveth the understanding instead of informing it and thereupon it perverts the will it self and turns
men to an heretical proud or perverse frame of spirit and then it must needs mislead their practises and cause them like deluded men to be zealous in doing mischief while they think they are doing good In common matters you can see that you must learn and do things in their due order or else you will but make fools of your selves Will you go to the top of the stairs or ladder without beginning at the lower steps Will you sow your ground before you manure or plow it or can you reap before you sow it Will you ride your colt before you break him Will your rear an house before you frame it Or will you teach your children Hebrew and Greek and Latine before they learn English or to read the hardest books before they learn the easiest or can they read before they learn to spell or know their letters No more can you learn the difficult controversies in divinity as about the exposition of obscure Prophesies or doctrinal doubts till you have taken up before you those many great and necessary truths that lye between It would make a wise man pity them and be ashamed to hear them when young raw self-conceited Professors will fall into confident expositions of Daniel the Revelations or the Canticles or such like or into disputes about free-will or predestination or about the many controversies of the times when alas they are ignorant of a hundred truths about the Covenants Justification and the like which must be known before they can reach the rest By this much that I have said already you may understand that though we should reach as far as we can in knowing all necessary revealed truths yet the principal part of your growth in knowledge when once you are converted consisteth not in knowing more than you knew before as to the number of truths but in knowing better the very same fundamental truths which you knew at first This is the principal thing that I would here teach you Abundance are deluded by not understanding this you see here you have seven several things in which you must daily grow in knowledge about the same truths which you first received 1. You must see better and sounder reasons and evidences for the fundamental truths than you saw at first or more such evidences than you did then perceive 2. You must grow to a clearer sight or apprehension of those same evidences 3. You must see truths more methodically all as it were at one view and all in their due proportion and place as the members of a well composed body and how they grow together and what strength one truth affords to another 4. You must see every truth more practically than before and know what use it is of for your hearts and lives and what you must do with it 5. You must learn more skill in the using of these truths when you know what they are good for and must be better able to manage them on your selves and others 6. You must know more experimentally than you did at first 7. You must grow into a higher esteem of truths All this you have to do besides your growing in the number of truths And I must tell you that as it was these Essentials of Christianity that were the instrumental causes of your first Conversion and were more needful and useful to you then than ten thousand others So it is the very same points that you must alwayes live upon and the Confirmation and growth of your Souls in these will be more useful to you than the adding of ten thousand more truths which yet you know not And therefore take this advice as you love your peace and growth Neglect not to know more but bestow many and many hours in labouring to know Better the great truths which you have received for one hour that you bestow in seeking to know more Truths which you know not Believe it this is the safe and thriving way You know already that God is All-sufficient and infinitely wise and good and powerful And you know not perhaps the nature of free Will or of Gods Decrees of Election and Reprobation or a hundred the like points True knowledg of any of the revealed things of God is very desirable But yet I must tell you that you are fourty times more defective here in your knowledg of that of God which you do know than of the other which you know not that is the want of more Degrees of this necessary knowledg is more dangerous to your Souls than the total want of the less necessary knowledg And the addition of more Degrees to the more needful parts of knowledg will strengthen and enrich you more than the knowing of less necessary things which you knew not before at all You know Christ Crucified already but perhaps you know not certain Controversies about Church-Government or the definitions and distinctions of many matters in Divinity It will be a greater growth now to your knowledg to know a little more of Christ Crucified whom you know already than to know these lesser matters which you know not yet at all If you had already a hundred pound in Gold and not a penny of Silver it will more enrich you to have another purse full of Gold than a purse full of Silver Trading in the richest Commodities is liker to raise men to great estates than trading for matters of a smaller rate They that go to the Indies for Gold and Pearl may be rich if they get but little in quantity When he may be poor that brings home Ships laded with the greatest store of poor Commodity That man that hath a double measure of the knowledg of God in Christ and the clearest and deepest and most effectual apprehensions of the Riches of Grace and the Glory to come and yet never heard of most of the Questions in Scotus or Ockam or Aquinas's sums is far richer in knowledg and a much wiser man than he that hath those Controversies at his fingers ends and yet hath but half his clearness and solidity of the knowledg of God and Christ of Grace and Glory There is enough in some One of the Articles of your Faith in One of Gods Attributes in One of Christs benefits in One of the Spirits Graces to hold you study all your lives and afford you still an increase of knowledg To know God the Father Son and Spirit and their relations to you and operations for you and your Duties to them and the way of Communion with them is that knowledg in which you must still be growing till it be perfected by the celestial beatifical Vision Those be not the wisest men that can answer most questions but those that have the fullest intellectual reception of the infinite Wisdom You will confess that he is a wiser man that hath Wisdom to get and Rule a Kingdom than he that hath wit enough to talk of a hundred trivial matters which the other is ignorant of That 's
Christians though their Worship hath errors and faults repugnant to the right order and manner of Worship so be it you joyn not in that Worship which is substantially evil and such as God doth utterly disown Or that you commit no actual sin your selves or that you approve not of the errors and faults of the Worshippers and justifie not their smallest evil Or that you prefer not defective faulty Worship before that which is more pure and agreeable to the Will of God For while all the Worshippers are faulty and imperfect all their Worship will be so too And if your actual sin when you Pray or Preach defectively your selves doth not signify that you approve your faultiness much less will your presence prove that you allow of the faultiness of others The business that you come upon is to joyn with a Christian Congregation in the use of those Ordinances which God hath appointed supposing that the Ministers and Worshippers will all be sinfully defective in method order words or circumstances And to bear with that which God doth bear with and not to refuse that which is Gods for the adherent faults of men no more than you will refuse every dish of meat which is unhansomly Cooked as long as there is no poyson in it and you prefer it not before better 1 Cor. 1.10 and 3.1 2 3. with 11.17 18 21. Rom. 15.1 2. DIRECT XIV Keep up a constant Government over your Thoughts and Tongues especially against those particular sins which you are stronglyest tempted to and which you see other Christians most overtaken with KEep your Thoughts imployed upon somthing that is good and profitable either about some useful Truths or about some duty to God or man of your general or particular Calling yea about all these in their several seasons Learn how to watch your thoughts and stop them at their first excursions and how to quicken them and make them serviceable to every grace and every duty You can never improve your solitary hours if you have not the Government of your Thoughts And as the Thoughts must be governed because they are the first and intimate actings of good or evil so the Tongue must be Governed as the first expresser of the mind and the first instrument of good or hurt to others Especially take heed of these sins which the faultiness of most Professors of Religion doth warn you to avoid 1. An ordinary course of vain jesting and unprofitable talk 2. Provoking passionate inconsiderate words that tend to kindle wrath in others 3. Backbiting censuring and speaking evil of others without any just call when it is either upon uncertain reports or uncharitable suspition or tendeth more to hurt than good 4. A forward venting of our own conceits and a confident pleading for our uncertain unproved Opinions in Religion and a contentious wrangling for them as if the Kingdom of God lay in them And a forwardness in all company to be the Speakers rather than the Hearers and to talk in a Magisterial Teaching way as if we took our selves to be the wisest and others to have need to learn of us But especially take heed of speaking evil of those that have wronged you or of those that differ from you in some tollerable Opinions in Religion And hate that devilish uncharitable vice which maketh many ready to believe any thing or say any thing be it never so false of those that are against their Sect yea of whole parties of men that differ from them when there is not one of a thousand of all the party that ever they were acquainted with or ever could prove the thing by of which they are accused By the means of these bold uncharitable reports the Devil hath unspeakably gained against Christ and the Kingdom of malice hath won upon the Kingdom of Love and most Christians are easier known to be factious by hating or slandering one another than they can be known to be Christs Disciples by loving one another And while every Sect without remorse doth speak reproachfully and hatefully of the rest they learn hereby to hate one another and harden the Infidel and ungodly world in hating and speaking evil of them all So that a Turk or Heathen need no other witness of the odiousness of all Christians than the venemous words which they speak against each other And as foul words in quarrels prepare for blows so these malicious invectives upon differences in Religion prepare for the cruellest persecutions From my own observation which with a grieved soul I have made in this Generation I hereby give warning to this and all succeeding Ages that if they have any regard to Truth or Charity they take heed how they believe any factious partial Historian or Divine in any evil that he saith of the party which he is against For though there be good and credible persons of most parties yet you shall find that passion and partiality prevaileth against Conscience Truth and Charity in most that are sick of this Disease And that the envious zeal which is described Jam. 3. doth make them think they do God service first in believing false reports and then in verting them against those that their zeal or laction doth call the enemies of truth so that there is little credit to be given to their reproaches farther than some better evidence is brought to prove the thing Nay it would astonish a man to read the impudent lies which I have often read obtruded upon the World with such confidence that the Reader will be tempted to think Surely all this cannot be false Yea about publick words or actions where you would think that the multitude of Witnesses would deter them from speaking it if it were not true and yet all as false as tongue can speak Therefore believe not Pride or Faction or Malice in any evil that it saith unless you have better evidence of the truth Most Christian is that advice of Dr. H. More that all Parties of Christians would mark all the Good which is in other Parties and be more forward to speak of that than of the Evil And this would promote the work of Charity in the Church and the interest of Christianity in the World whereas the overlooking of all that 's good and aggravating all the evil and falsly seigning more than is true is the work of greatest service to the Devil and of greatest enmity to Christianity and Love that I know commonly practised in the World Keep your tongues from all such hellish work as this DIRECT XV. Let every state of life and Relation that you are in be sanctifyed unto God and conscionably used And to that end understand the advantages and duties of every condition and Relation and the sins and hinderances and dangers which you are most lyable to THe duties of our Relations are a great part of the work of a Christians life As Magistrates and Subjects Pastors and Flocks Parents and Children Husband and Wife Masters and
is a high esteemer of the Unity of Christians and abhorreth the principles spirit and practises of Division 128 53. He seeketh the Churches unity and concord not upon partial unrighteous or impossible but upon the possible righteous terms here mentioned 139 54. He is of a mellow peaceable spirit not masterly domineering hurtfull unquiet or contentious 146 55. He highliest regardeth the interest of God and mens salvation in the world and regardeth no secular interest of his own or any mans but in subserviency thereto 152 56. He is usually hated for his Holiness by the wicked and censured for his Charity and Peaceableness by the factious and the weak and is moved by neither from the way of Truth 157 57. Though he abhor ungodly soul-destroying Ministers yet he reverenceth the Office as necessary to the Church and world and highly valueth the holy faithfull Labourers 159 58. He hath great Experience of the Providence Truth and Justice of God to fortifie him against temptations to Unbelief 161 59. Though he greatly desireth lively Affections and gifts yet he much more valueth the three Essential parts of holiness 1. A high estimation in the Understanding of God Christ Holiness and Heaven above all that be set in any competition 2. A resolved choice and adhesion of the Will to these above and against all competitors 3. The seeking them first in the endeavours of the life And by these be judgeth of the sincerity of his heart 162 60. He is all his life seriously preparing for his death as if it were at hand and is ready to receive the sentence with joy but especially he longeth for the blessed day of Christs appearing as the answer of all his desires and hopes 164 Six Uses of these Characters 170 THE CHARACTER OF 1 A Sound Confirmed Christian 2 And of the Weak Christian 3 And of the Seeming Christian. IN the Explication of the Text which I made the ground of the foregoing discourse I have shewed you that there is a Degree of Grace to be expected and sought after by all true Christians which putteth the Soul into a sound confirmed radicated state in comparison of that weak diseased tottering condition which most Christians now continue in And I have shewed you how desireable a state that is and what calamities follow the languishing unhealthfull state even of such as may be saved And indeed did we but rightly understand how deeply the errors and sins of many well-meaning Christians have wounded the interest of Religion in this age and how heynously they have dishonoured God and caused the enemies of holyness to blaspheme and hardened thousands in Popery and Ungodliness in probability to their perdition Had we well observed when Gods Judgements have begun and understood what sins have caused our Warres and Plagues and Flames and worse than all these our great heart-divisions and Church-distractions and convulsions we should ere this have given over the flattering of our selves and one another in such a Heaven-provoking state and the ostentation of that little goodness which hath been eclipsed by such lamentable evils And instead of these we should have betaken our selves to the exercise of such a serious deep Repentance as the quality of our sins and the greatness of Gods Chastisements do require It is a dolefull case to see how light many make of all the rest of their distempers when once they think that they have so much Grace and Mortification as is absolutely necessary to save their souls And expect that Preachers should say little to weak Christians but words of comfort setting forth their happiness And yet if one of them when he hath the Gout or Stone or Collick or Dropsie doth send for a Physitian he would think himself derided or abused if his Physitian instead of curing his disease should only comfort him by telling him that he is not dead What excellent disputations have Cicero and Seneca the Platonists and Stoicks to prove that Virtue is of it self sufficient to make Man happy And yet many Christians live as if Holiness were but the way and means to their felicity or at best but a small part of their felicity it self or as if felicity it self grew burdensome or were not desireable in this life or a small degree of it were as good as a greater And too many mistake the will of God and the nature of Sanctification and place their Religion in the hot prosecution of those mistakes They make a composition of error and passion and an unyielding stiffness in them and siding with the Church or party which maintaineth them and an uncharitable censuring those that are against them and an unpeaceable contending for them And this composition they mistake for Godliness especially if there be but a few drams of Godliness and Truth in the composition though corrupted and over-powered by the rest For these miscarriages of many well-meaning zealous persons the Land mourneth the Churches groan Kingdoms are disturbed by them Families are disquieted by them Godliness is hindered and much dishonoured by them the Wicked are hardened by them and encouraged to hate and blaspheme and oppose Religion the glory of the Christian Faith is obscured by them and the Infidel Mahometan and Heathen World are kept from Faith in Jesus Christ and many millions of Souls destroyed by them I mean by the miscarriages of the weaker sort of Christians and by the wicked lives of those carnal Hypocrites who for custome or worldly interest do profess that Christianity which was never received by their hearts And all this is much promoted by their indiscretion who are so intent upon the consolatory opening of the safety and happiness of Believers that they omit the due explication of their Description their Dangers and their Duties One part of this too much neglected work I have endeavoured to perform in the foregoing Treatise Another I shall attempt in this second Part There are five Degrees or ranks of true Christians observable 1. The Weakest Christians who have only the Essentials of Christianity or very little more As Infants that are alive but of little strength or use to others 2. Those that are lapsed into some wounding sin though not into a state of damnation Like men at age who have lost the use of some one member for the present though they are strong in other parts 3. Those that having the Integral parts of Christianity in a considerable measure are in a sound and healthfull state though neither perfect nor of the highest form or rank of Christians in this life nor without such infirmities as are the matter of their daily Watchfulness and Humiliation 4. Those that are so strong as to attain extraordinary degrees of grace who are therefore comparatively called Perfect as Mat. 5.45.5 Those that have an absolute Perfection without sin that is The Heavenly Inhabitants Among all these it is the third sort or degree which I have here characterized and upon the by the first sort and the Hypocrite
I meddle not now with the Lapsed Christian as such nor with those Giants in holiness of extraordinary strength nor with the perfect blessed Souls in Heaven But it is the Christian who hath attained that confirmation in grace and composed quiet fruitfull state which we might ordinarily expect if we were industrious whose Image or Character I shall now present you with I call him oft-times A Christian indeed in allusion to Christs description of Nathaniel Joh. 1.47 and as we commonly use that word for one that answereth his own profession without any notable dishonour or defect As we say such a man is a Scholar indeed and not as signifying his meer sincerity I mean one whose heart and life is so conform to the Principles the Rule and the Hopes of Christianity that to the Honour of Christ the true Nature of our Religion is discernible in his conversation Mat. 5.16 In whom an impartial Infidel might perceive the true nature of the Christian Faith and Godliness If the World were fuller of such living Images of Christ who like true Regenerate Children represent their Heavenly Father Christianity would not have met with so much prejudice nor had so many enemies in the World nor would so many millions have been kept in the darkness of Heathenism and Infidelity by flying from Christians as a sort of people that are common and unclean Among Christians there are Babes that must be fed with milk and not with strong meat that are unskilfull in the word of righteousness 1 Joh. 2.2.12 13 14. Heb. 5.12 13 14. and Novices who are unsetled and in danger of an overthrow 1 Tim. 3.6 Joh. 15.3 5 c. In these the nature and excellency of Christianity is little more apparent than Reason in a little childe And there are strong confirmed Christians who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Heb. 5.13 14. and who shew forth the glory of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light of whom God himself may say to Satan and their malicious enemies as once of Job Hast thou not seen my servant Job c. This Christian indeed I shall now describe to you both to confute the Infidels slanders of Christianity and to unteach men those false descriptions which have caused the presumption of the profane and the irregularities of erroneous Sectaries and to tell you what manner of persons they be that God is honoured by and what you must be if you will well understand your own Religion Be Christians indeed and you will have the Comforts indeed of Christianity and will finde that its Fruits and Joyes are not dreams and shadows and imaginations if you content not your selves with an imagination dream and shaddow of Christianity or with some clouded spark or buryed seed The Characters I. A CHRISTIAN INDEED by which I still mean a sound confirmed Christian is one that contenteth not himself to have a seed or Habit of Faith but he Liveth by Faith as the Sensualist liveth by sight or sense Not putting out the eye of sense nor living as if he had no Body nor lived not in a world of sensible Objects But as he is a Reasonable creature which exalteth him above the sensitive Nature so Faith is the true information of his Reason about those high and excellent things which must take him up above things sensible He hath so firm a Belief of the Life to come as procured by Christ and promised in the Gospel as that it serveth him for the Government of his Soul as his bodily sight doth for the conduct of his Body I say not that he is assaulted with no temptations nor that his Faith is perfect in degree nor that believing moveth him as passionately as sight or sense would do But it doth effectually move him through the course and tenour of his life to do those things for the life to come which he would do if he saw the Glory of Heaven and to shun those things for the avoiding of damnation which he would shun if he saw the flames of Hell Whether he do these things so fervently or not his Belief is powerfull effectual and victorious Let sight and sense invite him to their Objects and entice him to sin and forsake his God the objects of Faith shall prevail against them in the bent of an even a constant and resolved life It is things unseen which he taketh for his treasure and which have his heart and hope and chiefest labours All things else which he hath to do are but subservient to his Faith and Heavenly interest as his sensitive faculties are ruled by his Reason His Faith is not only his Opinion which teacheth him to choose what Church or Party he will be of but it is his Intellectual Light by which he liveth and in the confidence and comfort of which he dyeth 2 Cor. 5.7 8 9. For we walk by faith not by sight We groan to be cloathed upon with our heavenly house Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him Heb. 10.3 Now the just shall live by faith Heb. 11.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Most of the examples in Heb. 11. do shew you this truth that true Christians live and govern their actions by the firm Belief of the promise of God and of another Life when this is ended v. 7. By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith V. 10. Abraham looked for a City which had foundations whose builder and maker is God Moses feared not the wrath of the King for he indured as seeing him who is invisible v. 27. So the three witnesses Dan. 3. and Daniel himself ch 6. And all Believers have lived this life as Abraham the Father of the faithfull did who as it is said of him Rom. 4.20 Staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God The Faith of a Christian is truly Divine and he knoweth that Gods truth is as certain as sight it self can be however sight be apter to move the passions Therefore if you can judge but what a Rational man would be if he saw Heaven and Hell and all that God had appointed us to Believe then you may conjecture what a confirmed Christian is though sense do cause more sensible apprehensions 2. The weak Christian also hath a faith that is Divine as caused by God and resting on his word and truth And he so far liveth by this Faith as that it commandeth and guideth the scope and drift of his heart and life But he believeth with a great deal of staggering and unbelief And therefore his Hopes are interrupted by his troublesom doubts and fears and the dimness
and languor of his Faith is seen in the faintness of his desires and the many blemishes of his Heart and Life And sight and sensual objects are so much the more powerfull with him by how much the light and life of faith is dark and weak 3. The Hypocrite or best of the unregenerate believeth but either with a Humane faith which resteth but on the Word of Man or else with a dead opinionative faith which is overpowered by infidelity or is like the dreaming thoughts of a man asleep which stirre him not to action He liveth by sight and not by faith For he hath not a Faith that will overpower Sense and sensual objects Jam. 2.14 Mat. 13.22 II. 1. A Christian indeed not only knoweth why he is a Christian but seeth those Reasons for his Religion which disgrace all that the cunningest Atheist or Infidel can say against it and so far satisfie confirm and establish him that emergent difficulties temptations and objections do not at all stagger him or raise any deliberate doubts in him of the truth of the Word of God He seeth first the naturall evidence of those foundation-truths which Nature it self maketh known as that there is a God of infinite Being Power Wisdom and Goodness the Creator the Owner the Ruler and the Father Felicity and End of man that we owe him all our love and service that none of our fidelity shall be in vain or unrewarded and none shall be finally a loser by his duty that man who is naturally governed by the hopes and fears of another life is made and liveth for that other Life where his Soul shall be sentenced by God his Judge to happiness or misery c. And then he discerneth the attestation of God to those supernatural superadded Revelations of the Gospel containing the Doctrine of mans Redemption And he seeth how wonderfully these are built upon the former and how excellently the Creators and Redeemers Doctrine and Lawes agree and how much countenance supernatural truths receive from the presupposed naturals so that he doth not adhere to Christ and Religion by the meer engagement of education friends or worldly advantages nor by a blind resolution which wanteth nothing but a strong temptation from a Deceiver or a worldly Interest to shake or overthrow it But he is built upon the Rock which will stand in the assault of Satans storms and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Mat. 16.18 13.23 7.25 Joh. 6.68 69. 2. But a weak Christian hath but a dim and general kind of knowledge of the reasons of his Religion or at least but a weak apprehension of them though he have the best and most unanswerable reasons And either he is confident in the dark upon grounds which he cannot make good and which want but a strong assault to shake them or else he is troubled and ready to stagger at every difficulty which occurreth Every hard saying in the Scripture doth offend him And every seeming contradiction shaketh him And the depth of mysteries which pass his understanding do make him say as Nicodemus of Regeneration How can these things be And if he meet with the objections of a cunning Infidel he is unable so to defend the truth and clear his way through them as to come off unwounded and unshaken and to be the more confirmed in the truth of his belief by discerning the vanity of all that is said against it Heb. 5.12 13. Matth. 15.16 1 Cor. 14.20 Joh. 12.16 3. The seeming Christian either hath no solid Reasons at all for his Religion or else if he have the best he hath no sound apprehension of them But though he be never so learned and orthodox and can preach and defend the Faith it is not so rooted in him as to endure the tryall but if a strong temptation from subtilty or carnal interest assault him you shall see that he was built upon the sand and that there was in him a secret root of bitterness and an evil heart of unbelief which causeth him to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 Matth. 13.20 21 22. Matth. 7.26 27. Heb. 12.15 Joh. 6.60 64 66. 1 Tim. 6.10 11. III. 1. A Christian indeed is not only confirmed in the essentials of Christianity but he hath a cleer delightful sight of those usefull truths which are the Integrals of Christianity and are built upon the fundamentals and are the branches of the master-points of Faith Though he see not all the lesser Truths which are branched out at last into innumerable particles yet he seeth the main body of sacred Verities delivered by Christ for mans sanctification and seeth them methodically in their proper places and seeth how one supports another and in how beautifull an order and contexture they are placed And as he sticketh not in the bare Principles so he receiveth all these additions of knowledge not notionally only but practically as the food on which his Soul must live Heb. 5.13 14. 6.1 2 c. Matth. 13.11 Eph. 1.18 3.18 19. Joh. 13.17 2. A weak Christian in knowledge besides the Principles or Essentials of Religion doth know but a few disordered scattered Truths which are also but half known because while he hath some knowledge of those points he is ignorant of many other which are needfull to the supporting and clearing and improving of them And because he knoweth them not in their places and order and relation and aspect upon other Truths And therefore if Temptations be strong and come with advantage the weak Christian in such points is easily drawn into many errors and thence into great confidence and conceitedness in those Errors and thence into sinfull dangerous courses in the prosecution and practice of those Errors Such are like children tost up and down and carryed to and fro by every winde of doctrine through the cunning sleight and subtilty of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4.14 2 Cor. 11.3 Col. 2.4 2 Tim. 3.7 3. The seeming Christian having no saving practical knowledge of the Essentials of Christianity themselves doth therefore either neglect to know the rest or knoweth them but notionally as common Sciences and subjecteth them all to his Worldly interest And therefore is still of that side or party in Religion which upon the account of safety honour or preferment his flesh commandeth him to follow Either he is still on the greater rising side and of the Rulers Religion be it what it will or if he dissent it is in pursuit of another game which Pride or fleshly ends have started 2 Pet. 2.14 Gal. 3.3 Joh. 9.22 12.42 43. Matth. 13.21.22 IV. 1. The Christian indeed hath not only Reason for his Religion but also hath an inward connatural principle even the spirit of Christ which is as a New-nature inclining and enlivening him to a holy life whereby he mindeth and savoureth the things of the Spirit Not that his Nature doth work blindly as Nature doth in the
grounds of comfort and when they cannot raise their souls to any high and passionate joys they yet walk in a settled peace of soul and in such competent comforts as make their lives to be easie and delightful being well pleased and contented with the happy condition that Christ hath brought them to and thankful that he left them not in those foolish vain pernicious pleasures which were the way to endless sorrows 3. But the seeming Christian seeketh and taketh up his chief contentment in some carnal thing If he be so poor and miserable as to have nothing in possession that can much delight him he will hope for better dayes hereafter and that hope shall be his chief delight or if he have no such hope he will be without delight and shew his love to the world and flesh by mourning for that which he cannot have as others do in rejoycing in what they do possess and he will in such a desperate case of misery be such to the world as the weak Christian is to God who hath a mourning and desiring love when he cannot reach to an enjoying and delighting Love His carnal mind most savoureth the things of the flesh and therefore in them he findeth or seeketh his chief delights Though yet he may have also a delight in his superficiall kind of Religion his hearing and reading praying in his ill-grounded hopes of life eternal But all this is but subordinate to his chiefest earthly pleasure Isai. 58.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my waies as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God they ask of me the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching unto God And yet all this was subjected to a covetous oppressing mind Mat. 13.20 He that received the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended Whereby it appeareth that his love to the word was subjected to his love to the world Obj. But there are two sorts of people that seem to have no fleshly delights at all and yet are not in the way to salvation viz. the Quakers and Behmenists that live in great austerity and some of the Religious orders of the Papists who afflict their flesh Answ. Some of them undergo their fastings and pennance for a day that they may sin the more quietly all the week after And some of them proudly comfort themselves with the fancies and conceit of being and appearing more excellent in austerity than others And all these take up with a carnal sort of pleasure As proud persons are pleased with their own or others conceits of their beauty or witt or worldly greatness so prouder persons are pleased with their own and others conceits of their holiness And verily they have their reward Mat. 6.2 But those of them that place their chiefest happiness in the love of God and the eternal fruition of him in heaven and seek this sincerely according to their helps and power though they are mislead into some superstitious errors I hope I may number with those that are sincere for all their errors and the ill effects of them XXIV 1. A confirmed Christian doth ordinarily discern the sincerity of his own heart and consequently hath some well grounded assurance of the pardon of his sins and of the favour of God and of his everlasting happiness And therefore no wonder if he live a peaceable and joyfull life For his grace is not so small as to be undiscernable nor is it as a sleepy buried seed or principle but it is almost in continual act And they that have a great degree of grace and also keep it in lively exercise do seldom doubt of it Besides that they blot not their Evidence by so many infirmities and falls They are more in the light and have more acquaintance with themselves and more sense of the abundant love of God and of his exceeding mercies than weak Christians have and therefore must needs have more assurance They have boldness of access to the throne of grace without unreverent contempt Eph. 3.12 2.18 They have more of the spirit of Adoption and therefore more child-like confidence in God and can call him Father with greater freedom and comfort than any others can Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 Eph. 1.6 1 Joh. 5.19 20. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lyeth in wickedness c. 2. But the weak Christian hath so small a degree of grace and so much corruption and his grace is so little in act and his sin so much that he seldom if ever attaineth to any well-grounded assurance till he attain to a greater measure of grace He differeth so little from the seeming Christian that neither himself nor others do certainly discern the difference When he searcheth after the truth of his faith and love and heavenly mindedness he findeth so much unbelief and aversness from God and earthly mindedness that he cannot be certain which of them is predominant and whether the interest of this world or that to come do bear the sway So that he is often in perplexities and fears and more often in a dull uncertainty And if he seem at any time to have assurance it is usually but an ill-grounded perswasion of the truth though it be true which he apprehendeth when he taketh himself to be the child of God yet it is upon unfound reasons that he judgeth so or else upon sound reasons weakly and uncertainly discerned so that there is commonly much of security presumption fancie or mistake in his greatest comforts He is not yet in a condition fit for full assurance till his love and obedience be more full 3. But the seeming Christian cannot possibly in that estate have either certainty or good probability that he is a child of God because it is not true His seeming certainty is meerly self-deceit and his greatest confidence is but presumption because the spirit of Christ is not within him and therefore he is certainly none of his Rom. 8.9 XXV 1. The Assurance of a confirmed Christian doth increase his alacrity and diligence in duty and is alwayes seen in his more obedient holy fruitful life The sense of the love and mercy of God is as the rain upon the tender grass He is never so fruitful so thankful so heavenly as when he hath the greatest certainty that he shall be saved The Love of God is then shed abroad upon his heart by the Holy Ghost which maketh him abound in love to God Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. He is the more stedfast unmoveable and alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord when he is most certain that his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 2. But the weak Christian is unfit
fear the Lord and that he keepeth all the tears of his servants till the reckoning day And if judgement begin at the house of God and the righteous be saved through so much suffering and labour what then shall be their end that obey not the Gospel and where shall the ungodly and sinner appear 1 Pet. 4.17 18. Eccl. 8.12 Prov. 11.31 13.6 Psal. 56.8 Deut. 32.35 Jam. 5.9 2. And the weak Christian is one that will forsake all for the sake of Christ and suffer with him that he may be glorified with him and will take his treasure in heaven for all Luk. 14.26 33. Luk. 18.22 But he doth it not with that easiness and alacrity and joy as the confirmed Christian doth He hearkens more to the flesh which saith favour thy self suffering is much more grievous to him And sometimes he is wavering before he can bring himself fully to resolve and let go all Mat. 16.22 3. But the seeming Christian looketh not for much suffering He reads of it in the Gospel but he saw no probability of it and never believed that he should be called to it in any notable degree He thought it probable that he might well escape it And therefore though he agreed verbally to take Christ for better and worse and to follow him through sufferings he thought he would never put him to it And indeed his heart is secretly resolved that he will never be undone in the world for Christ Some reparable loss he may undergo but he will not let go life and all He will still be religious and hope for heaven But he will make himself believe and others if he can that the Truth lieth on the safer side and not on the suffering side and that it is but for their own conceits and scrupulosity that other men suffer who go beyond him and that many good men are of his opinion and therefore he may be good also in the same opinion though he would never have been of that opinion if it had not been necessary to his escaping of sufferings what flourish soever he maketh for a time when persecution ariseth he is offended and withereth Mat. 13.21 6. Unless he be so deeply engaged among the suffering party that he cannot come off without perpetual reproach and then perhaps Pride will make him suffer more than the belief of heaven oâ— the love of Christ could do And all this is because his very belief is unrooted and unsound and he hath secretly at the heart a fear that if he should suffer death for Christ he should be a loser by him and he would not reward him according to his promise with everlasting life Heb. 3.12 XXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that followeth not Christ for company nor holdeth his belief in trust upon the credit of any in the world and therefore he would stick to Christ if all that he knoweth or converseth with should forsake him If the Rulers of the Earth should change their religion and turn against Christ he would not forsake him If the multitude of the people turn against him nay if the professors of Godliness should fall off yet would he stand his ground and be still the same If the learnedest men and the Pastors of the Church should turn from Christ he would not forsake him Yea if his nearest relations and friends or even that Minister that was the means of his conversion should change their minds and forsake the truth and turn from Christ or a holy life he would yet be constant and be still the same And what Peter resolved on he would truly practise Mat. 26 33 35. Though all men should be offended because of thee yet would not I be offended Though I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee And if he thought himself as Elias did left alone yet would he not how the knee to Baal Rom. 11.3 If he hear that this eminent Minister falleth off one day and the other another day till all be gone yet still the foundation of God standeth sure he falleth not because he is built upon the rock Mat. 7.22 23. His heart saith Alas whither shall I go if I go from Christ Is there any other that hath the word and spirit of eternal life Can I be a gainer if I lose my soul Joh. 6.67 68. Mat. 16.26 He useth his Teachers to bring him that light and evidence of truth which dwelleth in him when they are gone And therefore though they fall away he falleth not with them 2. And the weakest Christian believeth with a Divine faith of his own and dependeth more on God than man But yet if he should be put to so great a tryal as to see all the Pastors and Christians that he knoweth change their minds I know not what he would do For though God will uphold all his own whom he will save yet he doth it by means and outward helps together with his internal grace and keepeth them from temptations when he will deliver them from the evil And therefore it is a doubt whether there be not degrees of grace so weak as would fail in case the strongest temptations were permitted to assault them A strong man can stand and go of himself but an infant must be carried and the same and sick must have others to support them The weak Christian falleth if his Teacher or most esteemed company fall If they run into an error sect or schisme he keeps them company He groweth cold if he have not warming company He forgeteth himself and letteth loose his sense and passion if he have not some to watch over him and warn him No man should refuse the help of others that can have it and the best have need of all Gods means But the weak Christian needeth them much more than the strong and is much less able to stand without them Luk. 22.32 Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. 3. But the seeming Christian is built upon the sand and therefore cannot stand a storm He is a Christian more for company or he credit of man or the interest that others have in him or the encouragement of the times than from a firm Belief and love of Christ and therefore falleth when his props are gone Mat. 7.24 XXX 1. A strong Christian can digest the hardest Truths and the hardest works of Providence He seeth more of the reason and evidence of truths than others And he hath usually a more comprehensive knowledge and can reconcile those truths which short sighted persons suspect to be inconsistent and contradictory And when he cannot reconcile them he knoweth they are reconcileable For he hath laid his foundation well and then he reduceth other truths to that and buildeth them on it And so he doth by the hardest Providences Whoever is high or low whoever prospereth or is afflicted however humane affairs are carried and all things seem to go against the Church and cause of Christ he knoweth yet that God is good to Israel Psal.
and return to dust and that the most potent are impotent when they contend with God and are unequal matches to strive against their maker and that it will prove hard for them to kick against the pricks and that whoever seemeth now to have the day it is God that will be Conquerour at last Job 25.6 17.14 24.20 Psal. 79.31 103.16 144.4 Act. 9.4 5 6. Psal. 144.3 4 5. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help his breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth in that very day his thoughts perish Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help whose hope is in the Lord his God Isa. 45.9 Wo to him that striveth with his maker He knoweth that it is more irrational to fear man against God than to fear a flea or a fly against the greatest man The infinite disproportion between the creature that is against him and the Creator that is for him doth resolve him to obey the command of Christ Luk. 12.4 Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea I say unto you fear him Isa. 57.7 8. Hearken unto me ye that know righteousness the people in whose heart is my law Fear ye not the reproof of man neither be afraid of their revilings for the moth shall eat them up like a garment and the worm shall eat them like wool but my righteousness shall be for ever and my Salvation from generation to generation Isa. 50.6 7 8 9. I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting For the Lord God will help me therefore shall I not be confounded therefore have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed He is neer that justifieth me who will contend with me Let us stand together who is mine adversary let him come neer to me Behold the Lord God will help me who is he that shall condemn me Loe they all shall wax old as a garment the moth shall eat them up Isa. 35.4 41.10 13 14. 7.4 Jer. 46.27 28. Mat. 10.26 31. Isa. 2.22 Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Jer. 17.5 8 9. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man c. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord c. Alas how terrible is the wrath of God in comparison of the wrath of man and how easie an enemy is the cruellest afflicter in comparison of a holy sin revenging God Therefore the confirmed Christian saith as the three witnesses Dan. 3.16 17 18. We are not carefull to answer thee in this matter the God whom we serve is able to deliver us But if not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up Dan. 6.10 When Daniel knew that the Decree was past he prayed openly in his house as heretofore Heb. 11.27 Moses feared not the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible Prov. 28.1 The righteous is bold as a Lion Act. 4 13. when they saw the boldness of Peter and John they marvelled 2 Cor. 11.21 Pauls bonds made others bold Eph. 6.19 20. Act. 4.29 31. 1 Joh. 4.18 Perfect love casteth out fear 1 Pet. 3.14 If ye suffer for righteousness sake happy are ye and be not afraid of their terrour neither be troubled Heb. 13.6 So that we may boldly say The Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me 2. But the weak Christian though he also trust in God is much more fearful and easily daunted and discouraged and ready with Peter to be afraid if he perceive himself in danger Matth. 26.69 He is not valiant for the truth Jer. 9.3 Though he can forsake all even life it self for Christ Luk. 14.26 33. yet is it with a deal of fear and trouble And Man is a more significant thing to him than to the stronger Christian. 3. But the seeming Christian doth fear man more than God and will venture upon the displeasure of God to avoid the displeasure of men that can do him hurt because he doth not soundly believe the threatnings of the word of God L. 1. A Christian indeed is made up of Judgement and Zeal conjunct His Judgement is not a patron of Lukewarmness nor his Zeal an enemy to knowledge His judgement doth not destroy but increase his Zeal and his Zeal is not blind nor self-conceited nor doth run before or without judgement If he be of the most excellent sort of Christians he hath so large a knowledge of the mysteries of godliness that he seeth the body of sacred truth with its parts and compages or joynts as it were at once It is all written deeply and methodically in his understanding He hath by long use his senses exercised to discern both good and evil Heb. 5.14 He presently discerneth where mistaken men go out of the way and lose the truth by false suppositions or by false definitions or by confounding things that differ And therefore he pittyeth the contentious sects and disputers who raise a dust to blind themselves and others and make a stir to the trouble of the Church about things which they never understood And in the sight of that truth which others obscure or contradict he enjoyeth much content or pleasure in his own mind though uncapable persons zealously reject it Therefore he is stedfast as knowing on what ground he seteth his foot And though he be the greatest lover of truth and would with greatest joy receive any addition to his knowledge yet ordinarily by erroneous zealots he is censured as too stiff and self-conceited and tenacious of his own opinions because he will not entertain their errours and obey them in their self-conceitedness For he that knoweth that it is truth which he holdeth is neither able nor willing to hold the contrary unless he imprison the truth in unrighteousness But if he be one that hath not attained to such a clear comprehensive judgement yet with that measure of judgement which he hath he doth guide and regulate his zeal and maketh it follow after while understanding goeth before He treadeth on sure ground and knoweth it to be duty indeed which he is zealous for and sin indeed which he is zealous against and is not put to excuse all his fervour and forwardness after with a non putarem or I had thought it had been otherwise 1 Cor. 1.5 2 Cor. 8.7 Col. 3.16 4.12 2. But the weak Christian either hearkeneth too much to carnal wisdom which suppresseth his zeal and maketh him too heavy and dull and indifferent in many
excellency and necessity of the holiness and spirituality of the soul in worship yet withall he is more judicious and charitable than the pievish and passionate infant Christians who think that God doth judge as they do and seeth no grace where they see none and taketh all to be superstitious or fanatical that differ from their opinions or manner of worship or that he is as ready to call every error in the method or the words of prayer Idolatry or Wilworship as those are that speak not what they they know but what they have heard some Teachers whom they reverence say before them He that dwelleth in Love doth dwell in God and God in him and he that dwelleth in God is liker to be best acquainted with his mind concerning his children and his worship than he that dwelleth in wrath and pride and partiality 2. But the weak Christian though so far as he hath grace he is of the same mind and abhorreth discord and division among the flock of Christ yet being more dark and selfish and distempered he is much more prone to unwarrantable separations and divisions than the stronger Christian is He is narrower fighted and looketh little further than his own acquaintance and the Country where he liveth and mindeth not sufficiently the general state of the Churches through the world nor understandeth well the interest of Christ and Christianity in the earth His knowledge and experience being small his charity also is but small and a little thing tempteth him to condemn another and aggravate his faults and think him unworthy of the communion of the Saints He is much more sensible of the judgement and affections and concernments of those few with whom he doth converse and that are of his opinion than of the judgement and practice and concernments of the universal Church He knoweth not how to prefer the judgements and holiness of some that he thinketh more excellent than the rest without much undervaluing and censuring of all others that are not of their opinion He cannot chuse the actual local communion of the best society without some unjust contempt of others or separation from them He hath not so much knowledge as may sufficiently acquaint him with his ignorance And therefore he is apt to be unreasonably confident of his present apprehensions and to think verily that all his own conceptions are the certain truth and to think them ignorant or ungodly or very weak at least that differ from him For he hath not throughly and impartially studied all that may be said on the other side The Authority of his chosen Teacher and sect is greater with him if he fall into that way than the Authority of all the most wise and holy persons in the world besides What the Scripture speaketh of the unbelieving world he is apt to apply to all those of the Church of Christ that are not of his mind and party And when Christ commandeth us to come out of the world he is prone to understand it of coming out from the Church into some stricter and narrower society and is apt with the Papists to appropriate the name and priviledges of the Church to his party alone and to condemn all others Especially if the Church-Governours be carnal and self-seeking or otherwise very culpable and if Discipline be neglected and if prophaneness be not sufficiently discountenanced and godliness promoted he thinketh that such a Church is no Church but a prophane society God hath taught him by repentance to see the mischief of ungodliness but he yet wanteth that experience which is needfull to make him know the mischiefs of Church-divisions He had too much experience himself of the evil of prophaneness before his conversion but he hath not tryed the evil of Schism and without some sad experience of its fruits in himself or others he will hardly know it as it should be known Because it is the custome of some malignant enemies of godliness to call the godly Hereticks Schismaticks factious Sectaries c. therefore the very names do come into credit with him and he thinks there are no such persons in the world or that there is no danger of any such crimes Till he be taught by sad experience that the professors of sincerity are in as much danger on that side as on the other and that the Church as well as Christ doth suffer between two thieves the Prophane and the Dividers Paul was unjustly called the ring-leader of a Sect Acts 24.5 and Christianity called a Heresie and a Sect every where spoken against Acts 28.22 24.14 But for all that Heresie is a fruit of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and some of them called damnable 2 Pet. 2.1 and they are the tryal of the Church to difference the approved members from the chaff 1 Cor. 11.19 And an obstinate Heretick is to be avoided by true Believers Titus 3.10 And the Pharisees and Sadduces are well reputed to be several Sects Acts 5.17 15.5 26.5 And dividers and divisions are justly branded in Scripture as aforesaid There must be no Schism in the body of Christ 1 Cor. 12.25 The following of selected Teachers in a way of division from the rest or opposition to them doth shew that men are carnal in too great a measure though it be not in predominancy as in the prophane 2 Cor. 3.1 2 3. And I Brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal as unto babes in Christ I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able For ye are yet carnal For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo are ye not carnal How much more when he that is for Paul doth censure and rail at Cephas and Apollo He that hath seen the course of men professing godliness in England in this age may easily and sadly know how prone weak Christians are to unjust separations and divisions and what are the effects He that had heard many zealous in prayer and other duties and the next year see them turning Quakers and railing in the open Congregations at the ablest holiest self-denying Ministers of Christ and at their flocks with a Come down thou deceiver thou hireling thou wolf ye are all greedy doggs c. and shall see how yet poor souls run into that reviling and irrational Sect to say nothing of all other Sects among us will no longer doubt whether the weak be inclinable to Schism but will rather lament the dangerousness of their station and know that all is not done when a sinner is converted from an ungodly state Study the reason of those three texts Ephes. 4.13 14 15 16. For the edifying the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
predominant in him But alas he is too easily tempted into Religious passions discontents contentious disputations quarrelsome and opprobrious words and his judgement lamentably darkened and perverted whenever contentious zeal prevaileth and passions do perturb the quiet and orderly operations of his soul. He wanteth both the knowledge and the experience and the mellowness of spirit which riper Christians have attained He hath a less degree of Charity and is less acquainted with the mischiefs of unpeaceableness And therefore it is the common course of young professors to be easily tempted into unpeaceable waies and when they have long tryed them if they prove not Hypocrites to come off at last upon experience of the evils of them and so the young Christians conjunct with some hypocrites make up the rigorous fierce contentious and vexatious party and the aged riper Christians make up the holy moderate healing party that groan and pray for the Churches peace and mourn in secret both for the ungodliness and violence which they cannot heal Yea the difference is much apparent in the Books and Sermons which each of them is best pleased with The ripe experienced Christian loveth those Sermons that kindle Love and tend to Peace and love such healing Books as do narrow differences and tend to reconcile and heal such as Bishop Halls Peace-maker and Pax terris and all his writings and Bishop Davenants Bishop Mortons and Bishop Hall's Pacificatory Epistles to Duraeus and Mr. Burroughs's Irenicon Ludov. Crocius Amyraldus Junius Paraeus's and many other Irenicons written by forein Divines to say nothing of those that are upon single controversies But the younger sowre uncharitable Christians are better pleased with such Books and Sermons as call them aloud to be very zealous for this or that controverted point of Doctrine or for or against some circumstance of worship or Church discipline or about some fashions or customs or indifferent things as if the Kingdom of God were in them Rom. 14.1 2 15 16. 3. But the seeming Christian is either a meer temporizer that will be of that Religion whatever it be which is most in fashion or which the higher powers are of or which will cost him least Or else he will run into the other extream and lift up himself by affected singularities and by making a bustle and stir in the world about some small and controverted point and careth not to sacrifice the peace and safety of the Church to the honour of his own opinions And as small as the Christian Church is he must be of a smaller society than it that he may be sure to be amongst the best while indeed he hath no sincerity at all but placeth his hopes in being of the right Church or Party or Opinion And for his Party or Church he burneth with a feverish kind of zeal and is ready to call for fire from Heaven and to decieve him the Devil sendeth him some from Hell to consume those that are not of his mind Yet doth he bring it as an Angel of light to defend the Truth and Church of Christ And indeed when the Devil will be the Defender of Truth or of the Church or of Peace or Order or Piety he doth it with the most burning zeal You may know him by the means he useth He defendeth the Church by forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in a known tongue and by imprisoning and burning the soundest and holiest members of it and abusing the most learned faithfull Pastors and defendeth the flock by casting out the Shepherds and such like means as the murders of the Waldenses and the Massacres of France and Ireland and the Spanish Inquisition and Queen Maries Bonefires and the Powder-plot yea and the Munster and the English rage and phrensies may give you fuller notice of He that hath no Holiness nor Charity to be zealous for will be zealous for his Church or Sect or Customs or Opinions And then this zeal must be the evidence of his piety and so the Inquisitors have thought they have religiously served God by murdering his servants and it is the badge of their honour to be the Devils hang-men to execute his malice on the members of Christ and all this is done in zeal for Religion by irreligious Hypocrites There is no standing before the malicious zeal of a graceless Pharisee when it riseth up for his carnal interest or the honour and traditions and customs of his Sect Luk. 6.7 And they were filled with madness and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus Luke 4.28 Acts 5.17 13.45 John 16.2 Rom. 10 2. Phil. 3.6 Acts 36.10 11. The zeal of a true Christian consumeth himself with grief to see the madness of the wicked But the zeal of the Hypocrite consumeth others that by the light of the fire his Religiousness may be seen You may see the Christians fervent Love of God by the fervent flames which he can suffer for his sake And you may see the fervent Love of the Hypocrite by the flames which he kindleth for others By these he cryeth with Jehu Come and see my zeal for the Lord 2 King 10.16 2 Sam. 21.2 LV. 1. A Christian indeed is one that most highly esteemeth and regardeth the interest of God and mens salvation in the world and taketh all things else to be inconsiderable in comparison of these The interest of Great men and Nobles and Commanders yea and his own in corporal respects as riches honour health and life he taketh to be things unworthy to be named in competition with the interest of Christ and Souls The thing that his heart is most set upon in the world is that God be glorified and that the world acknowledge him their King and that his Laws be obeyed and that darkness and infidelity and ungodliness may be cast out and that pride and worldliness and fleshly lusts may not hurry the miserable world unto perdition It is one of the saddest and most amazing thoughts that ever entreth into his heart to consider how much of the world is overwhelmed in ignorance and wickedness and how great the Kingdom of the Devil is in comparison of the Kingdom of Christ that God should forsake so much of his Creation that Christianity should not be owned in above the sixth part of the world and Popish pride and ignorance with the corruptions of many other Sects and the worldly carnal minds of Hypocrites should rob Christ of so much of this little part and leave him so small a flock of holy ones that must possess the Kingdom His soul consenteth to the Method of the Lords Prayer as prescribing us the order of our Desires And in his prayers he seeketh first in order of estimation and intention the Hallowing of Gods name and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven before his daily bread or the pardon of his sins or the deliverance of his own soul from temptations