Heresies and Church-divisions as any Sensualist hath in his way And hence it is that a zeal for selfish opinions is easily got and easily maintained when zeal for the saving truths of God is hardly kindled and hardly kept alive Yea multitudes in the world do make the very truth to be the matter of their carnal interest in it while they some way get a seeming peculiar interest and promote it but as an opinion of their own or of their party and use it for selfish carnal ends And hence it is that many that are called Orthodox can easily get and keep a burning zeal for their Orthodox opinions when Practical Christians do find it a very hard matter to be zealous for the same truths in a Practical way Many ungodly men will be hot in Disputing for the truth and crying down all that are against it and perhaps so far exceed their bounds that the godly dare not follow them And the reason is clear Whether it be Truth or Error that a man holds if he hold it but as a conceit of his Own or as the opinion of his party or to be noted in the world as one that hath found out more truth than others or any way make it but the matter of his selfish interest nature and corruption will furnish him with a zeal for it It 's easie to go where sin and Satan drives and to be zelous where zeal hath so small resistance and to swim down the stream of corrupted nature But it is not so easie to be zealous in the practical saving entertainment of the truth and exercising that faith and love to God and holy obedience which truth is sent to work in us A schismatical or Opinionative use of truth it self is but an using it for self against the God of truth and it is no more wonder to see men zealous in this than to see men forward and hot in any evil We cannot tell how to quench or restrain this selfish carnal kind of zeal But when men should use the truth for God and their salvation against Satan and sin and self then it 's hard to make them zealous They are like green wood or wet fuel on the fire that will not burn without much blowing and soon goeth out when it seemed to be kindled if once you leave it to it self Paul spoke not non-sense when he said 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 1 Cor. 3. 3 4 5. How secretly soever it may lurk there is doubtless much of self and flesh in Heresies and unjust Divisions I know that most of them little perceive it James and John in their zeal which would have called for fire from heaven did not know what spirit they were of But God would not have spoke it if it were not true Rom. 16. 17. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Though they little believe that that there is any such wickedness in them as this yet the Spirit of God that is the searcher of hearts is acquainted with it and assureth us that both at the bottom and the End Church-dividing courses have a carnal selfish nature It is some secret interest of self though scarce discerned that kindleth the zeal and carrieth on the work It is not God that is served by the divisions of his Church Many Sects now among us do put a face of Truth and Zeal upon their cause But self is the more dangerously powerful with them by how much the less suspected or observed The Papists under the pretence of the Churches Union are the great dividers of the Christian world unchurching the far greatest part of the Church and separating from all that be not Subjects of the Pope of Rome And do you think it is self and flesh that is the Principle and Life and End of this their Schism were it not for the upholding of this usurped power and worldly immunities and greatness of the Clergy it is morally impossible that so many men of reason and learning could concur in such a schism and in so many gross conceits as go along with it It is not the Pope that they are principally united in For the far greatest part of them it it too evident that it is selfish and fleshly interest that is their Center to which the Pope is but a means Hence it is that many of their Jesuits and Fryars are carried abroad the world with such a fire of zeal to promote their cause that they will compass sea and land for it and day and night are busie at the work to plot and contrive and insinuate and deceive and think no cost or pains too great For a selfish sinful zeal and diligence hath so many friends and so little hindrance that it 's easily maintained but so is not the healing peaceable practical and holy zeal of true believers Well! Consider what I say to you from the Word of the Lord There is a selfish dividing Zeal in Religion which must be denied as well as whoredom or drunkenness If you ask me how it 's known Briefly now I shallonly tell you this much of it 1. That it is usually for either an Error or a particular Truth against the interest and advantage of the body of unquestionable Christian verities They can let Religion suffer by it so their opinion do but thrive 2. It is usually for an Opinion by reason of some special endearment or interest of their own in it 3. They cry up that opinion with a zeal and diligence much exceeding that which they bestow upon other opinions of equal weight and lay a greater stress upon it than any shew of reason will allow them 4. They usually are zealous for a party and division against the Unity of the Catholick Church 5. Their Zeal is most commonly turned against the faithful Pastors of the Church For it 's hard to keep in with schism and with faithful Pastors too And if the Ministers will not own their sin and error they will disown the Ministers The Anabaptists and other Sects of late would never have been so much against Christ's Ministers if the Ministers had not been against their way 6. Their course doth in the conclusion bring down Religion and hinder the thriving of the Gospel and of Godliness Mark what is the issue of most of those ways that these men are so hot for Doth it go better or worse with the Church and cause of Christ in general where they are than it did before Is Religion in more strength and beauty and life and honour or doth real
changed in the point of Baptism and these are greatly offended with me for dissenting and giving the Reasons of my dissent what uncharitable dealings some of them have been guilty of I shall not now express Some of them have turned to one opinion and some to another and almost all that make these turns have left their Charity behind them Some of them take up new Causes in the Common-wealth and these are as angry with me as the rest because I cannot follow them in their Changes How many waies hath a man to lose a selfish friend I was once beloved by all these men and now I am either hated or lookt at as a stranger at least when I am where I was when I had their Love If I know my heart I speak not this in any great sense of the loss of my own interest but in the sense of the lamentable Power and Prevalency of Self-love and Self-conceitedness in the world And while I am bitterly censured by almost every party how easily could I recover my interest and reputation with any one of them if I could but be of their mind and side How wise and how honest a man could I be with the Anabaptists if I would but be Rebaptized and turn to them And how much should I be valued by the Papists if I would turn to them The like I may say of all the other fore-named parties For every one of them have by word or writing signified so much to me Even the Grotian Prelatists would wipe their mouths and speak me fairer if I could turn to them Mr. Pierce himself that hath exceeded all men in his late Book abounding with visible falâ—hoods and unchristian abuse of the servants of the Lord whom he calleth Puritans yet telleth me page 212. We contend for your fellowship and daily pray for your coming in if you by name should have occasion to pass this way and present your self with other guests at the holy Supper of our Lord no man on earth should be more welcome but if you and your partners will continue your several separations and shut your selves out from our Communion as it were judging your selves unworthy of the Kingdom of God and excommunicating your selves c. See here the power of Selfishness A man that is painted out as Lazie a Reader a Proud Hypocrite and much more should be as welcome as any man on earth if he will but have communion with them in their way how much more if he were but of their party This would cure Hypocrisie Pride and all these crimes And till we can comply with them we Excommunicate our selves and judge our selves unworthy of the Kingdom of God He that thinks Bishops should not be as now Diocesan and undertake many hundred Parishes and then feed and govern them by others and he that submits not to their mode in a Surplice or some form of Prayer doth therefore judge himself unworthy of the Kingdom of God as if Gods Kingdom were confined to them and lay in meats and drinks and not in Righteousness and Peace And as if we continued in an excommunication of our selves because we are not of their party when yet we deny no Protestants to be our Brethren nor refuse local Communion with them so they will grant it us on Scripture-terms which if they will not we will yet hold communion with them in several Congregations But thus it appeareth how strong self-interest is in the world and how charitable men are to those of their own opinions or parties and how easily many do take liberty to speak their pleasure against any that are not of their mind 8. Observe also how forward men are to Teach and how backward to be Learners and then judge of their Self-denial Why are so many unwilling to enter by the way of Ordination but too commonly because they judge better of their Own abilities than Ordainers do and therefore suspect that they may be rejected by the Ordainers or disgraced at the least while they think highly of themselves But if they were self-denying men they would think the sober faithful Pastors much fitter Judges of their abilities than themselves and would not run before they are sent Many that reproach the Ministers as deceivers will needs be themselves the Teachers of the people As if they should say We silly ignorant souls are wiser and fitter to be Teachers than you come down and let us take your places In conference you may observe that most are forwarder to speak than to hear which shews that they over-value their own understandings And so much are Proud men delighted to be thought the Oracles of the world that if you will but seem to hearken to them and learn of them and yield to their Opinions you win their hearts and shall be the men that have their commendations Insomuch that some late ambitious persons that have thought to rise by the art of dissimulation have found that there is no way for the deceiving of the people and procuring the good will of most like this even to seem to be of every mans opinion that they talk with and to make every Sect and Party believe that they are their friends and of their mind Especially if you will seem to be changed by their arguments and give them the glory of your convictions and illuminations you will then be the dearly beloved of their hearts In all this you may see the rarity of self-denial Yea in the very work of God too many of the most zealous godly Ministers that have been the instruments of converting many souls are toucht a little with the temptation to this selfishness looking too much to their own part in the work 9. Observe but how commonly with men called Christians the interest of Christ is trodden in the dirt when it seemeth to cross any interest of their own An Argument drawn from the commands of God or the necessity of the Church or of the souls of men seems nothing to them if their Honour or Gain or Greatness or safety do stand up against it and be inconsistent with its conclusion Hence it is that the souls of Hypocrites do cheat themselves by a Carnal Religiousness serving God only in subserviency to themselves Hence it is that Hypocrites do most shew themselves in matters of self-interest In the cheap part of Religion they seem to be as good as any as zealous for their party and opinions which they call the Truth and as long and loud in prayer and for as strict a way of Discipline with others But touch them in their Estates or Names Call them to costly works of Charity or to let go their right for peace or publick good or to confess and lament any sin that they commit and you shall then see that they are but common men and Self bears rule instead of Christ Hence also it is that so many persons can bear with themselves in any calling or trade of life
break out in the Town and infect but a quarter as many houses as here are infectious Alehouses that harbour tiplers and drunkards and see whether the Magistrates of this or any Town will not a little better bestir themselves and send to search after infected places and nail up their doors and write on them Lord have mercy on us that all may take warning and keep away They will not here be offended with Informers nor say Am I bound to look after them And why are they not as zealous against sin as against the plague Great reason Self is for sin and God only is against it but self is against the Plague because it is concerned in it sin doth but hurt the soul and bring men to Helfire but the plague destroys their body and this is the greater matter with them because they have flesh and sense to judge of it but they have not faith to believe the other Again let but one house in the Town be on fire and all are up to quench it and the Bell is rung and the Magistrate doth not think that he wants a Call himself to look after it And when the fire of Hell is kindling in an Ale-house that 's nothing but must be let alone there 's no such zeal nor no such haste And why so Why one they see in good sadness and perceive that it is fire indeed but the other they believe in jest as if it would prove but a painted fire Again let but an ungodly fellow slander the Magistrate or call him all to naught especially if he give him but two or three boxes on the ear and see whether he will let that man alone But let the same man abuse the name of God and break his Laws and with too many he may be let alone unless they be urged to do Justice And how comes this difference Why self is toucht in one and it is but God But God! O Atheists that 's touched in the other Self can do more with them than God can do Remember still when I say that self can do more with them than God that I speak not of what God could do by his Omnipotency if he would but of the final Causality or the small interest that God hath in their hearts by holy Faith and Love Again let but a servant rob the Magistrate and carry his money and goods to an Ale-seller to reset and try whether he will look after him and the Ale-seller And why not as soon and as zealously when Ale-sellers reset mens sons and servants and drown mens understandings and turn them into beasts Why because in one it is but God and mens souls that are concerned a matter of nothing but in the other it is self a greater matter with them Shall I give you but one instance more that the Ale-sellers themselves will take my part in so far as to bear me witness that its true Here are Farmers of the Excise that have power to know what Ale-houses are in the Town and their gain lyeth on it and there shall scarce a man in Town or Country sell Ale so secretly but they will know it nor sell a Barrel but what they are acquainted with They do not say I am not bound to go search after them nor that they be not able to discover them and to bring them to pay Excise But the Justices too commonly can overlook abundance that the Excise-men can find and they cannot make one of twenty pay when the other can And what 's the matter Why one works for self and money and the other works but for God and his own and other mens salvation a small matter See then beyond denyal what self and money can do with such men when God and mens salvation can do next to nothing But I must desire you not to mistake me and think I speak this of any honest godly Magistrate and abuse the good by joyning them with the bad No far be it from me to be so injurious For its evident that they can be no good men nor have any true Love of God in their souls that are such in a predominant sense as I have here described It is not in my thoughts to lay this blame on any honest Godly Magistrate for none but the ungodly would do as I have mentioned and prefer themselves before the Lord and the bodies of men before the souls And alas if the Soveraign Powers of the Nations of the world were not too sick of the same disease gain would not be accounted Godliness but Godliness the greatest gain and carnal Policie would not go for Piety but true Piety would go for the surest Policie It would not be so common in most Nations to have the Truth and Cause of Christ disowned and his servants persecuted and their lives and blood to be made a sacrifice to carnal Self and worldly Interests Nor would the breaches of the Churches be so long unhealed and grow wider and wider and few much regard them but all have their own work to do which must be looked after Yea and the Cause of Christ and the Gospel must be trod down if it stand in the way of their own And the Churches must be set on fire by their wars and contentions for their selfish Interests And if Self were not too strong among us we should not have had such connivence at doctrinal and practical abominations nor so much delay or neglect of healing the discomposed Churches and uniting the divided Christians or attempting it more effectually than we have done But because I desire to speak to none but those that are within my hearing I will return home to our selves The holy ordering and instructing of families and suppressing sin in Children and servants is one of the most effectual works for the building up of the Church and the glory and stability of the Common-wealth O if Parents and Masters would but sanctifie their houses to the Lord and teach their families the will and fear of God and do their best by punishment when instruction will not serve to hinder sin how fast would Reformation then go on And what hindreth why carnal Self If it were but for wordly commodities they would do more Would you have me prove it Let experience speak Let a servant or child go prayerless to their work and few regard it but they will not go without meat or drink or cloaths The Master will suffer them to neglect Gods service but if they neglect his own and should do him no more or better service than they do to God they should soon hear of it and be turned out of door and they were no servants for him They will teach their children to do their own work or set them Apprentices to learn it but the work of God and their salvation they shall for them have little teaching in how plainly soever God hath commanded it them Deut. 11. 18 19. 6. 6 7 8. Ephes 6. 4. Let
doctrine of Christ and how much it doth to make them like or dislike their teachers or any point or practice in Religion And he is a stranger even among Divines themselves that seeth not the sway that self doth bear in their judgements and disputes and course of life and the choice of their party or society to which they joyn themselves CHAP. VI. Mens great aversness to costly or troublesome duties 3. ANother discovering instance of the rarity of self-denyal is this The great aversness of men to any costly or troublesome or self-denying duty how necessary soever how plainly soever revealed in the Scripture and how generally soever acknowledged by the Church As if self had a Negative voice in the making of Laws for the Government of the world and none must be binding without its consent I shall come down to some more particular instances 1. The great duty of charitable relieving our brethren in necessity to the utmost of our power is commonly made almost nothing of in the world And men cheat their souls by thinking they are passed from death to life because they love the brethren with such a cold and barren love as will neither lay down estate for them nor venture life for them but think they are sure Christians because they can say as the believers that James mentioneth Depart in peace be you warmed and filled but give them not that which is necessary thereto James 2. 16. Though it be told them plainly by Christ himself that it is not a fruitless uneffectual love but that which causeth them to feed and cloath and visit the Saints that must stand them instead at judgement Matth. 25. and the Apostle asketh them How the love of God can dwell in that man that seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him 1 John 3. 17. Yet do men think that by dropping now and then a penny they have discharged all this great duty And when they see many wayes by which they might promote the Gospel and help the Church and serve God with their estates yet self will not let them see the meaning of the plainest Scriptures that do require it 2. When men should practise the great duty of forgiving injuries trespasses and debts and of loving our enemies and blessing them that curse us and praying for them that hate and persecute us how stubbornly doth selfishness resist these duties What abundance of words may you use in vain with most men to perswade them to any of this work No they must have their right and that which is their own though it be to the undoing of their brother Passion and revenge even boil within them and the thoughts of an injury stick in their minds and if they do take on them dissemblingly to forgive it yet they cannot forget it nor heartily love a brother that displeaseth them much less an enemy And all this is from the dominion of self and shews that it prevaileth above God in the soul and therefore shews a graceless heart 3. When the Ministers of the Gospel themselves should be painful in their great and necessary work and should watch over all the flock Acts 20. 28. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Col. 1. 28. condescending to men of the lowest sort and teaching them in season and out of season what reasonings and shifts will self bring in to resist so great and excellent a duty and prove it no duty and that God will give them leave to spare their pains and all because of the Powerful interest of self 4. And let the same Ministers have a disordered flock that hath scandalous members especially if they be great ones or many and how rarely will they do their duty to them in plain reproof and in case of impenitency and continuance in sin by Publick Admonition and Rejection what shiftings and cavillings will they find against this displeasing work of Discipline even when they will reproach a man themselves whose Opinion is against Discipline and when they have preacht and written and disputed so much for it and almost all parties are agreed of the necessity of it in the substance yet when it comes to practice it cannot be done without procuring mens hatred and opposition and laying us open to much incommodity and therefore self doth perswade us to forbear and whether God or self have the more servants even yet in a reformed Ministry I leave you to judge as your observation of the congregations through the Land shall direct you But were it not for self I should undertake to do more for discipline and personal Instruction with most Ministers by one Argument than I have done by a volume and you might see an unanimous concurrence in the work and consequently a great alteration in the Churches 5. And whence is it but from selfishness that plain and close Application in our Sermons is taken to be an injury to those that think themselves concerned in it If a Minister will speak alike to all and take heed of medling with their sores they will patiently hear him but if he make them know that he meaneth them in particular and deal closely with them about their miserable state or against any special disgraceful sin they fall a railing at him and reproaching him behind his back and perhaps they will say They 'le hear him no more O saith the selfish ungodly wretch I know he meant me to day had he no body but me to speak against As if a sick man should be angry with the Physitian for giving directions and medicines to him in particular and say Had he no body to give Physick to but me Were there not sick men enough in the Town besides me When Christ told the Despisers of the Gospel of the certain and dreadful destruction that was near them Mat. 21. 41 44 45. its said that When the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they perceived that he spake of them A hainous business and therefore they sought to lay hands on him but that they durst not do it for fear of the multitude 6. Nay let a Minister preach but any such doctrine as seems consequentially to be against Self and to conclude hardly of them and they are ready to say as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he prophesieth not good of me but evil 1 Kings 22. 8. Let us but tell them how few will be saved what holiness and striving and diligence is necessary though we have the express word of God for it Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 7. 13 14. Luke 13. 24. 2 Pet. 1. 10. yet because they think that it makes against their carnal peace they cannot abide it Plain truth is unwelcome to them because it is rough and grates upon the quick and tells them of that which is troublesome to know Though they must know their sin and danger and misery or
state of the world and of the Church through the world doth scarce know how to order his affections or compose his prayers even in those greatest petitions about the honour Kingdom will of God They cannot grieve with the Church in grief nor mourn with it when it mourns so that it is a great duty of a Christian to labour to understand by History the former and present state of the Church And it is a great mark of a gracious soul that longs to hear of the prosperity of the Saints and free progress of the Gospel and a mark of a graceless person that careth not for these things But when History is not used to acquaint us with the matters of God or to surnish us with useful knowledge but to please a ranging carnal mind then it is but sinful sensuality or vanity Many persons have no such delight to read the useful History of Church-affairs as they have to read the curiously penned though less useful History of other matters Though I know that the History of the whole world is very serviceable to the knowledge of Divine things yet they that use it to holy ends will make choice accordingly and be no more in it than may suit with those ends It is the most humane with the most light ridiculous passages that are most pleasing to vain unsanctified wits but the godly delight in it so far as it shews them something of God and leadeth them to him In the very reading of Scripture a carnal reader may be much pleased with the History that hath no savour in the Doctrine but is weary to read it and yet I must add this caution by the way If we find a carnal kind of delight in Scripture-history or any other that is profitable we must not therefore cast off the History but seek after the cure of our disease that we may spiritually take pleasure in all for God and he may be the beginning end the life the All of our studies and delights And though our carnal delight in News and History be a sin in us yet God doth sometime make it an occasion of Good by leading us to that holy truth which after may be the means of our sanctification though at first we received it but as a Novelty And so the carnal pleasure that many have in hearing News and sitting with folks that will talk of other mens matters or things that concern them not is nothing but a sinful pleasing of the fancy and loss of time and neglect of greater matters which call for all our time and care It was the voice of the Athenians Act. 17. 21. for all the Athenians and strangers that were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing yea novelty of Doctrine and Religion and Teachers is a snare and bait to carnal fancies which many are taken by that are forsaken of God having first forsaken him and proved false to the truth received CHAP. XXXII Unnecessary Knowledge and Deligh therein 15. ANother part of Carnal Pleasure which self must be denied in is A desire after unnecessary Knowledge and Delight therein This is the common sin of man but not of all alike Even they that can live without the Knowledge of the saving Principles of Religion do yet itch to know unprofitable things and many a foolish question they will be asking about matters unrevealed or that concern them not when they overlook that which their salvation lieth on but the learneder sort and especially more prying wits and those that are bred up among disputes are the pronest to this sin and though it be an odious vice yet it so befooleth many that they reckon it confidently among their vertues God cannot be known too much nor can any man be too much in love with the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ without this knowledge the mind is not good nor can the heart be sanctified or the man be saved Nor can any man know too much of the will and word of God nor yet of his works in which he revealeth himself to the world But the Carnal knowledge which is to be denied is of another nature than the sanctified knowledge of believers I shall shew you the difference in certain particular respects 1. This desire to know which is in the unsanctified is partly from meer nature and partly from a distempered fantasie which is like a crorupt enraged appetite that chooseth that which is unwholsom and yet is over-greedy after it But the desire after knowledge in the sanctified is kindled by the love of God and the love of those holy and heavenly things which they are inquiring after It is not the Love of God that sets ungodly men upon their studies but a common and carnal desire to know and this appears in the end which is next 2. This carnal knowledge is but to feed and furnish and please a carnal fancy because it is some adding to our understandings and because it is naturally pleasant to know and because it brings in some novelty and variety and because it makes us seem wiser than other men and furnisheth us with matter of discourse and ostentation and rids the mind of some troublesom doubts therefore even the worst have a mind to know But this is the knowledge that must be denied that which must be valued and sought after is To know God that we may love and reverence and trust and admire and honour him and enjoy him To know Christ that we may have more Communion with him To know the word and works of God that in them we may know his nature and his will and knowing his will may serve him and please him These must be the ends of Christian knowledge There is nothing in the world that God hath revealed but in its place we may be willing to know so that we stick not in the creature or sense of the words or common verities but use every thing as a book or looking-glass we love not a book so much for the letters as for the matter which they contain we love not a Glass for it self so much as for its use to shew us the face which we would see in it so if we go to the creatures but as a book in which we may read the mind of God and see his nature and as a glass in which his glory doth shine forth our study and knowledge will be sanctified and divine And thus as Paul would know nothing but Christ Crucified so every Christian should be able to say that he would know nothing but God in Christ for though we know a thousand matters and that of the lowest nature in themselves yet as long as we study them not for themselves but for God it is not them that we know so much as God in them and so all is but the knowing of God even as in our duty though the works may be many and
sin and misery I might have these mens consent so it reflected not upon themselves Were I to wring the unlawful gains out of the hands of another I might have their consent or were I to perswade another from his Pride or lust or passion they would give me free leave because it is not self that is concerned in it nor self-denial that is necessary to it in them But when we come to themselves there is no dealing with them till God by Grace or Judgement deal with them They cannot endure to know the worst by themselves much less to come out of it If we tell them of their sin and danger they say we speak against them And therefore they say It is out of malice or humour or pride And as well might all diseased persons say so of their Physicians that when they tell them of their disease and danger they speak against them and speak out of malice or ill will It is natural for men to think well of all that they love and of all that they do and whom do they love better than themselves Pride will not let men think so meanly and hardly of themselves as the Scripture speaks of them and Ministers must plainly tell them The Prophet wept that foresaw the cruelty of Hazael but he had so good a conceit of himself that he would not believe he should be so cruel 2 Kings 8. 13. Is thy servant a dog that he should do this The false Prophet Zedekiah could not forbear but struck Micaiah when he made it known that he was a lying Prophet 1 Kings 22. 24. And Ahab hated him because he prophesied not good of him but evil It was all the Proud men that rose up against Jeremiah and contradicted his prophecie and rejected his word Jer. 43. 2. The word of God is quick and powerful and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and it is the plain word of that God that feareth not the faces of the Proudest sinners on earth and will not flatter nor daub with any of them all but will tell them to their faces what they are and what will become of them if they do not turn and what they must trust to This is the word that God hath put into our mouths and commanded us to preach to them not the flattering words of an inferior nor the tender language of a man-pleaser but the commanding words of the God of heaven and the peremptory threatnings of everlasting fire against all unconverted unsanctified men denounced from him that feareth none of them all but will make them all stoop at last to him and fear and tremble before his Majesty And is it any wonder if Proud and selfish sinners are displeased with such a word as this They stand all the while they are hearing a plain and powerful Preacher as prisoners arraigned at the bar and sometime are ready to tremble as Felix did when he heard Paul dilating of righteousness and temperance and the judgement to come Acts 24. 25. And can self endure to be thus used and arraigned for its life especially when they think it is but by a man For they have not the understanding to know that it is Christ that owneth all that his Messengers speak by his Commission Hence it is that men hate those Ministers that they feel thus to judge them in their Doctrine and take them for their enemies for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. and think they are but the troublers of the Countrey as Ahab called Elijah the troubler of Israel which he had troubled himself 1 Kings 18. 17. and meet them as he did the same Prophet 1 Kings 21. 20. Hast thou found me O mine Enemy They meet not a Minister as the Messenger of God that calls them to repentance but as an enemy in the field to strive against him and raise up all the reasonings and passions of their souls against him because he condemneth their unregenerate state tells them but what God hath charged him to tell them when the poor sinners consider not that before God hath done with them as sure as they breathe he will make them either by grace or Judgement condemn themselves as much as any of his Ministers condemned them from the word of God at whom they were most offended Ah little do these Proud worms that rage at us now for faithful dealing and for telling them that which they will shortly find true little do they think that they shall shortly say the very same against themselves which they hated us for saying Nay with an hundred times more bitterness and self-revenge will they speak these things against themselves than ever we spoke them Hence it is that faithful plain-dealing Ministers are commonly hated and persecuted by the ungodly especially by the great ones and honourable sinners For their message is against self and therefore self will rise up against them and so many selfish unmortified persons as there be in the Congregation so many enemies usually hath such a Minister And therefore the Lords of Israel petition the King that Jeremy may be put to death Jer. 38. 4. And Amaziah the Priest calls Amos a conspirator against the King and tells the King that the Land was not able to bear his words and commands him to preach no more at the Kings Chappel or his Court Amos 7. 10 11 12 13. And what was the matter that deserved all this yea and the death of almost all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ why it was for speaking against self and its carnal interest But was it not a truth that was spoken True or false if it be against self it cannot be born As the Bishop of Ments that Luther speaks of meeting with a Bible and reading an hour in it I know not saith he what book this is but I am sure it is against us Meaning the Popish Clergy So these men say by our preaching and by the word of God it self Be it never so true we are sure it is against us Or rather we will not believe it because it is against us But if these men had their wits about them they would see that this is for them which they think is against them It is for their healing and salvation had they hearts to entertain it though it be for the troubling of them at the present by humiliation O how tender are carnal persons of this self How quickly do they feel if a Minister do but touch them How impatiently do they smart if he meddle with the galled place and plainly open their most disgraceful sins and most dangerous courses as one that had rather be guilty of displeasing them than of silently permitting them to displease God and undo their souls They fret and fume at the Sermon and go home with passion in their hearts and reproaches in their mouths against the Ministers And are of the mind of the desperate Sodomites Gen. 19. 9. that said to Lot when he