you shall mourn without measure without profit and without end So that here the Father of lyes speaks some truth The Disciples of Christ must be mourners Math. 5. 4. mourners for sin though he conceals that such are pronounced blessed by Christ But withall here is a great Lye couched under this little truth viz. that in the ways of sin you shall meet with no sorrow which I say is a huge lye for in the way of sin there is no avoiding sorrow Your Pride crossed expectations frustrated the world failing afflictions and crosses coming unexpectedly upon you will cause great sorrow and anguish of mind These things the Religious and holy man can bear with much patience and chearfulness but they are an heart-breaking to others For if the world frown upon you and friends forsake you as they did Job in affliction and trouble who have you to smile upon you or to comfort you God will not his wrath is revealed from Heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and he is angry with the wicked every day Satan cannot this Master whom you serve will torment you then vex and grieve you then by adding to and aggravating of your miseries but as you commonly speak the Devil a bit of comfort must you expect or shall you receive from him No young men be not thus deluded A sinfull course is and will be a sorrowfull course it will bite like on Adder and sting like a Serpent in the end The wages Satan gives for all the service you can do him is shame reproach and sorrow And is not Godly sorrow for sin which worketh salvation better than sorrow by sin which endeth in damnation Is not that sorrow or kind melting of the heart by a sweet sense of Gods love which will yield more solid delight and pleasure to your inward man than ever you found in the wayes of sin much more Eligible than sorrow that worketh death Then 't is better to be Gods servant then the Devils slave 2. Besides this is a real slander cast upon Religion that there is no pleasure to them that pursue and practise it The faithfull servants of God and disciples of Christ are not required to throw away all comfort and pleasure in Creature-enjoyments God doth no where command you to leave them but only injoynes the prudent and moderate use of them the contrary to which breeds more bitterness in the disappointment than ever it yielded sweetness to any in the enjoyment Religion allows eating and drinking though not to gluttony and drunkenness affords you to take a subordinate comfort and delight in food rayment friends and possessions and herein more true delight and comfort by sweetning these enjoyments with the mercy love and blessing of God than ever you could find in them before for before you enjoyed the Creature only now God with the Creature Therefore Christ is not so severe a Master as Satan represents him He is bountifull enough to his servants allowing them not only for necessity but delight Gives them all things richly to enjoy with Christian moderation He doth not command 1 Tim. 6. 17. David to throw away his Harp nor Christians utterly to abandon all mirth and pleasure but to take and use it in due measure and season Eat thy bread with joy saith God and drink thy wine with a Eccles 9. 7 8. merry heart What can you desire more Religion gives you leave to be merry though not to be mad It allows you so much pleasure and delight as will do you good and no more and to desire more than this is prodigious folly and madness 3. Grant that all sinfull delights must be denyed yet God promiseth other and better delights in exchange and I hope there is no wrong or injury in this Are not those joyes which affect and refresh the Mind preferable to them which only stir the Spleen Those joyes which arise from this sure hope of an enduring Substance are they not better than those joyes which spring from the embraces the feigned and fancied embraces of a shadow what think you of spiritual heavenly joyes and delights If you will throughly forsake the wayes of sin and works of Satan and heartily embrace the practice of Religion carefully endeavouring an imitation of Christ by an holy life with constancy and resolution you shall find such sweet peace and freshing joy flowing from the sense of Gods love the light of his countenance communion with him in his holy Ordinances and in the hope of the beatifical vision hereafter in heaven as the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and pride of life could never afford nor the greatest sensualist ever boast of or pretend to And whatever sorrow you have for sin whatever griefs afflictions or losses you may be exposed to in this life for the sake of Religion they shall last but a while a little while and in the end be turned into the fullest joy Sorrow may continue for a Psal 126. 5 6. night but joy cometh in the morning you may sow in tears but you shall reap in joy you may go forth weeping yet bearing precious seed yet you shall certainly return again rejoycing bringing your sheaves with you This light affliction for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 2 Cor. 4. 17. weight of glory Which text alone is sufficient to wipe off this prejudice of Satan against Religion and to make you strictly Religious in good earnest § 5. There is but this one objection or prejudice more that I shall mention which Satan hath to discourage you from following of Christ He represents it as a thing exceeding perilous and dangerous O saith he you cannot follow Christ but you must run your selves upon great hazards and dangers you may lose all you have for your profession if perilous times come your Religion may cost you your Estates Liberty nay your very Lives and is it not better sleeping in a whole skin and to save all then hazard and lose all for an humor and fancy of which you may repent when it is too late 1. As fierce as this Lyon in the way appears yet you need not be frighted if you will remember that as great losses attend you in the ways of sin as in the way of Religion In reference to your Estate which you may lose for the sake of Christ which you ought not to reckon upon yet you shall be no looser in the end And whatever your profession may cost you Sin may cost you as much Some mens lusts are more expensive to them than other mens consciences are to them And if you should lose your worldly comforts yet you may have never the less comfort in the world For if the stream fail the fountain cannot You may fetch comfort from above if you have none below And usually the less comfort the sinner hath from the creature the more the Soul hath from God The treasure of
of your own Consciences Are you convinced that God in all respects is the best Master and that Religion will bring you the greatest profit and surest gain in the end having the promise both of the life that now is and of that which is to come Why then will you not serve God and become Religious Do you not know that sins against conscience will bring upon you the greatest Vengeance Are you not also convinced of this that men when they come to dye wish they had minded Religion more and served God better And do you not think that when death seizeth you you shall be of the same mind and say O that I had more regarded holiness and the practice of Religion and dedicated and devoted my self to God by an holy life who made me heaped many mercies upon me and promised infinite and eternal rewards to me And will not the thoughts and remembrances of your neglect of Religion and service of God now at death be more bitter than the practice of it could have been burthensome in your life Without doubt it will and must Therefore if you would not be self-condemned at death and judgment resolve to become speedily and seriously Religious to redeem your time to serve the true and Living God with the deepest humility the greatest fear the hottest love and highest faith and the remainder of your days to have your fruits unto holiness that the end may be everlasting life CHAP. VIII Wherein is briefly set forth the excellency of the wayes of Religion above the wayes of Sin § 1. AS a farther perswasive to the practice of Religion and an holy life consider that the way of holiness the way to Heaven take it at the very worst with all the miseries and afflictions that may attend it is better than the way of sin the way to Hell take it at the very best with all the sensual delights and pleasures that are to be found in it The poorest bitterest most despised way to rest and felicity is infinitely more choosable than the richest sweetest fullest and fairest way to torment and misery It is better to go to Christ through a Dungeon in chains of iron than to Satan through a Paradise in chains of Gold Look upon these two with a proper real and sound estimation and there is no comparison between the worst of Piety and the best of Iniquity One is called the way of darkness the other the way of light the one the way of truth the other the way of error the way of holiness is called the way of life the way of sin the way of death The one ends in the highest communion with God the other in the fullest separation from God The former leads to the greatest supernatural blessedness the other to the lowest and most inconceivable destruction Now that I may fully convince your judgments of the truth of this point I shall hint some scripture arguments to confirm it and such as carry with them the greatest force of reason to perswade the minds of men to believe it They are such as these § 2. Though there be more miserable evils in the way of the Godly yet there are more sinfull evils in the way of the wicked Divines distinguish of evils Sinfull and sorrowfull evills Sorrowfull or penall evils which are these outward losses abridgment want disquietness pain sickness reproach and such like There are indeed many of these evils in the way of the righteous And there are sinfull evils as wickedness of heart profaneness of life in the way of the ungodly Now consider all the sorrowful miserable evils of this life and they are but minima in genere malorum the least kind of evils As the good things of this life are the least kind of good things therefore so often heaped upon the wicked And as I said these outward evils which are opposite to these outward good things are but the least kind of evils As Poverty is opposite to Riches imprisonment to liberty sickness to health and want to fulness But what is a sinful evil opposite to 'T is opposite to the best to the greatest good that is God Opposite to the Will of God to the nature glory presence and fruition of God Some good may come by sorrowfull evils a man may climb to Heaven by the cross as the good Thief did But no good can come to a man by sinfull evils for they are all killing and damning Now what is a light affliction for a moment to a destruction endless and intolerable § 3. There be some crosses in the way of Holiness and Religion but there be many curses in the way of sin Our Saviour hath said indeed If any man will come after me let him take up his cross and follow me Such must expect trouble But the advantage is as the Christian is not exempted from the Cross so neither is the Cross divided from the Comfort But as their sufferings abound so their consolation Cor. 2. 1. 5. abounds much more by Christ And a sweetned Cross is better than an imbittered Crown 'T is better that the meat lye in the preserving Brine than rot in the sweetest honey But on the contrary in the way of sin there are it may be not so many Crosses but more Curses As the way of the wicked is filled up with sins so 't is filled up all along with Curses The Pro. 3. 33. Curse of the Lord is in the House of the wicked but he blesseth the habitation of the just And in the 28th of Deuteronomy see how Deut. 28. ad finem cap. thick Curses are sown in the way of the wicked Cursed shall he be in the Field Cursed shall he be in the City Cursed in his basket in his store c. And is not this a miserable way that a man cannot set a step in it but a Curse attends him Is not a Prison where the light of Gods countenance shines better than a Palace where the cloud of Gods wrath sets Is it not better to meet with unpleasant Physick than to drink a delightfull Cup of Poyson Is not a Cross in the way and happiness in the end better than pleasure in the way and Cursedness in the end Then the way of Religion is better than the way of sin § 4. Though in the way of sin you may enjoy more of the Creature yet in the ways of holiness you shall enjoy more of God Wicked men in Scripture are called children of the night good men children of the day Now though in the night there be more stars yet in the day there is more Sun and the Sunlight is better than starlight The ungodly possess more of this world therefore called the men of the world whose bellies God is said to fill with this world as he did Dives his but he had better been without it And David speaking of the wicked saith they Psa 73. Job 21. have more than heart can wish And Job
or later if you will be saved and the sooner the better the Prophet tells you so 't is good to bear the yoak in your youth And St. Paul who paid so dear for setting out after Christ no sooner gives this advice to his young son Timothy to flee all youthful lusts and to follow after righteousness 2 Tim. 2. 22. faith and charity And you read under the Law it was Gods ordinance that in the Lev. 2. 14. Meat offerings of their First fruits they should offer green Ears of corn The Gospel of it is this that God expects and requires a primary and early dedication of our selves to him That so soon as we come to age and understanding to dispose of our hearts and affections we should first offer them to him For with such offerings the first fruits the green Ears the youthfull age God is well pleased as you may gather by the favour of God to those persons who very early devoted themselves to his service as Samuel who began to serve God in his minority Josiah who at eight years of age did that that was right in the sight of God and Tymothy who knew the Scriptures from a child and the children of the elect Lady whom St. John testifies walked in the truth These precepts and presidents from Scripture 2 Epist v. 3 4. are sufficient to prove that it is the duty of young men to mind Religion to walk in all the wayes of God and to take up Christs yoak and burden and to follow him who in the dayes of his humiliation encouraged such to come to him by telling them that of such was the Kingdom Mark 10. 14. of God CHAP II. Containing some Arguments to prove the Equity and Necessity and Safety of this Duty and to enforce the Practice of it § 1. SIrs though at first view this may seem an hard saying and an harsh and unreasonable task yet upon deliberate and serious thinking you will find it is founded upon good upon great very great reason It is highly reasonable and just that God who made you should have the best of you the best of your age and time Now our first dayes are our best Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi prima fugit The choycest part of mans life is that which first passeth from him Youth is the Golden age wherein our souls are brisk and lively and our bodies active and strong to labour Now are you fittest and best able to watch and pray and undergoe the severities of Religion Old age is full of infirmities dim eyes shaking heads trembling hands and feeble legs Old men are dull of apprehension of bad Capacity and remembrance and clogged with those cares and crosses which youth is free from And is there any reason God should be put off with the dregs of old age when you have spent your spriteful youth in the service of sin You read that the King of Babel would have young men well favoured Dan. 1. 4. without blemish and such as were of great ability to stand before him and shall the King of Israel the Lord of Glory have none to stand in his Courts but the halt the blind and the lame such as David hated Old Barzillay rendred this as a reason why he was unfit to wait on the King at Jerusalem his old age and is old age which is neither serviceable nor acceptable to men good enough for God When you have not a good leg to bring you to Gods House nor good Ears to hear his Word nor a good Eye to read the Scriptures nor a good head to retain nor a good Intellect to apply or improve what you read or hear shall God be served now and not before Hath God given you those members senses and faculties perfect and good and will you not employ them in his service till they are spoiled and fit for nothing Till the members of your bodyes are multiplied by Crutches and Glasses and the powers of your souls quite debilitated and decayed is there any reason for this Were you to present a gift to the King would you not present the best you have how much more ought you to do this to God dare you think he deserves less than man or will be put off with what man will not accept If you do you are vilely mistaken If you offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil or the lame and the Mal. 1. 8. sick is it not evil offer it now unto thy governour will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of hosts Take heed therefore you do not reserve that for God which you would be ashamed to offer to man he will not accept it nor is there any reason he should 'T is highly reasonable and just you give him the best of all from whom you receive all you have and hope for § 2. Youth is the most seasonable time for Religion and the service of God Then are men most capable of instruction advice and Counsel then are they most flexible and most apt and easie to be wrought upon to be brought to a good course of piety and Religion Pueri ad omnem disciplinam sunt flexibiliores ad omnem disciplinam tardior est senectus There is a vast difference between Youth and old age in respect of discipline and flexibility The Wax when 't is soft receives the best and fairest impression the Tree while young is most easily bowed Young persons are most receptive of wholsome instruction and most easily brought to any thing that is good Remember this you that are young if you shall neglect Religion slight and shun the wayes and Commands of God now and vanquish all thoughts of God and his service till you are old you cannot imagin what an hard matter you will find it then to dispose your minds to holiness and frame your lives to godliness and Religion as hard a matter as for an aged person to learn to read well in a day that never knew a letter in all his life We say of a man who hath long addicted himself to sloth he cannot work Why what is the matter hath he not his limbs his health his strength and a Calling to imploy them in yes but he hath gotten such an habit of idleness that he cannot work he had rather suffer than labour want then work Thus 't is in respect of Religion if you now addict your selves to impiety and sin and are wholly unhinged as to Religion and the service of God while you are young in old age you will find a kind of impossibility to be otherwise to change your course seriously to mind Religion to brook an holy and strict course of life to imitate obey and follow Christ whithersoever he calls you though 't is to save your immortal souls There is very much in those words of Solomon to this purpose Train up a child in the way he should goe and when he
fool he walks and looks as if he had neither life nor soul in him This saith Satan you must expect and meet with if you will be so precise and singular and can you bear this 1. Well be it so Yet to overcome this prejudice against Religion and the practice of it think who they be that are offended at your new course of life and well-doing They are the most vile contemptible people in the world that vilifie the wayes of God and sincere followers of his Son And it is most absurd and ridiculous in them to do it 't is as if a man should laugh at the shining of the Sun as if a crooked and deformed person should deride one that is straight and beautifull as if a company of Vassals should vilifie those that are at liberty Yea as if a company of condemned Malefactors should laugh at all that are not in the same condemnation And therefore their derisions and reproaches are not at all to be valued or taken notice of 2. Though you may be reproached for being good religious and holy by men yet you are most highly esteemed of God and most dearly beloved of Jesus Christ He esteems you as the most excellent persons here and will own you reward and crown you in the face of the proudest scorners at the last day Those persons you read of in Heb. 11. who were vilified and reproached as the Rubbish and Off-scowring of the world were the men saith the Apostle of whom the world was not worthy The World as highly as it thought of it self and as meanly as it judged of them was not worthy of their company and for whom God had provided some better thing than the world is Now having honour and Heb. 11. 38 40. esteem with God what need you value the reproach or scorn of men This is but the common lot of the righteous to be debased and vilified by the wicked Jeremiah not worthy to live David the song of the Drunkards Job an Hypocrite and St. Paul a pestilent fellow and mover of Sedition nay Christ himself who had no sin in his Nature and did nothing amiss in his Life was vilified and reproached beyond what you ever were or can be He was reputed an Impostor a cheat an enemy to Caesar a Blasphemer a Friend to Publicans and sinners a conjurer who cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils And were Christ now on Earth the Hectoring Atheists and hellish Ishmaels of our time would mock and scoff at him For 't is not you but your godliness not you but Christ in you that they deride and vilifie Now what Christ said of persecution is true of derision If they persecute me deride me they will also persecute and deride you and surely if you have your Masters fare you have little reason to complain Moreover these men shall one day pay dear for their taunts and scoffs at the followers of Christ when he shall come in the Glory of the Father Matt. 18. 6. Jude v. 14 15. with his holy Angels to take vengeance on them for all their hard speeches against the godly When they shall wish their tongues had had as many blisters on them as their Jawes had teeth wish that their tongues had cleaved to the roof of their mouth yea that they had never been For they shall be now convinced Christ was the Butt they shot at through your sides who will now reward them for what they have done against you or said against you as said and done against himself And their bitter scoffings shall now be turned into hellish and eternal howlings Now they would lye at the feet of the meanest of you who are found holy in that day to share with you in your happiness if it might be Therefore when you have any thoughts or Motions of serving God and setting your faces Heaven-ward be not disheartened by this the reproaches of wicked men They are not to be regarded they did the same to Christ himself you are never the less but the more Esteemed and Beloved of God who will shortly convince the mad world who are the most worthy and render to them a full and just recompense of reward § 3. The Devil endeavours to quash all thoughts and purposes in young persons of being Religious by representing Religion as too difficult and hard for them Tells them that the way which is called holy is marvellous uneasie and paved throughout with difficulty As the disciples once said to our Saviour when they heard him declare Joh. 6. 60. himself to be the Bread of life and that they which did not eat his flesh and drink his blood had no part in him O say they this is an hard saying who can hear it So saith Satan to young men when they hear of the necessity of following Christ of the necessity of being Religious holy and walking circumspectly O this is a rough way who can walk in it There are many harsh sayings in Religion which you cannot hear many heavy yoaks which you cannot bear and many hard duties which you cannot do Can you endure to hear of renouncing the world mortifying the flesh and denying your selves your youthfull sports and pastimes and all innocent and necessary delights and Recreations To be tyed up to a strict austere precise life living like Diogenes in his Tub or an Hermit in his Cell never giving your selves liberty to please your selves in one sinfull action in one gracefull Oath gainfull Lye or wanton dalliance can you go bound hand and foot and tongue-tied all your days can you hear these sayings and truckle to these intolerable restrictions You can never bear it never brook it to continue constant in a way so difficult Is not the way you are in where you have all the liberty you can desire much better Are you not greatly imprudent to be bound who may go free Free from the severities of Religion and niceties of holiness which the way of wisdom is made up of and which all the followers of Christ must daily and hourly observe or else they can have no peace night or day Thus doth this hellish adversary by his wiles wind himself into the hearts of young persons that he may gain upon them and win them to his will to their eternall perdition if they yeild to him But to obviate so great an evil be alwayes prepared with these or the like Meditations 1. That the most difficult things are the most Excellent Difficilia quae pulchra difficulty implies excellency the way of Religion though difficult is excellent 'T is called a more excellent way 'T is 1 Cor. 12. ult Rev. 15. 3. Prov. 3. 17. Prov. 8. 32. Psal 110. 24 25. the way of truth and righteousness a way of peace and pleasantness a way of pleasure and delightfulness yea a way of glory and happiness And what difficulty will not men go through to obtain things excellent what hazards and hardships do men
then choose the pleasures of sin for a season for a few dayes and refuse the pleasures at Gods right hand for evermore Suppose I were now tumbling and trembling upon my dying bed under a cold sweat my eyes set my heart fainting and my breath departing as it must and will be with me a few days hence should I then choose Hell before Heaven should I say then God damn me Lord reject my soul for evermore or this rather Lord Jesus receive my spirit Lord take me to thy self in glory would I then say Lord never let me share in thy mercy or Lord have mercy upon me Lord let me be a companion for the Devil and his Angels in regions of darkness and devouring burnings to all eternity or Lord let me enter into the new Jerusalem the City of the living God the Church of the first-born to the communion of Saints and the spirits of just men made perfect Which of these states would you then choose § 3. Why sinner the former of these is that which you choose now who choose the ways of sin and service of Satan You choose wrath and damnation the company of Devils exclusion from Heaven the place of bliss and the fullest the furthest separation and distance from God the chief good and center of all happiness And is this the choyce you will make in the end when you come to dye No God forbid then reflect and consider a little and be not rash but serious I beseech you in these great things If Heaven be better than Hell life sweeter than death if glory be more desirable upon a dying bed than misery and mercy than wrath why should not the way to mercy and glory be better than the way to destruction the way to life more pleasant to you than the way to death Why should you not choose the way of Religion and holiness now and enter upon it presently this day before the next since you are convinced you must come into this way before you dye or you can never be saved And since you purpose it hereafter and talk of repentance and holiness hereafter why have you any such thoughts or purposes at all but that you are convinced 't is the way to Heaven and that you shall choose the end of this way when death comes And why should you not refuse shun hate and avoid the way of sin now when you are convinced in your consciences you shall be loath to receive the fruit and end of that way when you come to leave the world Certainly wicked men have no reason on their side The Apostle saith Great is the mystery of godliness truly I may invert his words and say Great is the mystery of wickedness For I can see no reason nor do I think any man upon serious thoughts can render any good or solid reason why he should choose the way of the wicked rather than the way of the upright to follow the Devil rather than Christ and to walk in the paths of sin rather than the way of Religion Only men will do it so they are sinful and wicked and will be for ever miserable and wretched because they will fulfilling that of the Prophet their destruction is of themselves 't is wilfull destruction 't is chosen damnation § 4. Therefore young men for whose sake principally I undertook this little work take for a close that of the Prophet Say unto the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Isa 3. 10 11 Woe unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him And sit down and consider it till you have brought your hearts to a firm belief of the truth of it There are but two wayes wherein all the men in the world are travelling the way of Sin and the way of Righteousness But two Leaders whom they all follow Christ or the Devil But two places whither they all tend Heaven or Hell And know this direction and exhortation is from the Lord though handed to you by his unworthy servant and if you deny me you therein deny him and if so the time is coming and will come when he will deny you And dare any of you deny the Lord and say as those wicked ones to the Prophet Jeremiah Jer. 44. 16 17. As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the Name of the Lord we will not hearken to it We will not forsake our sins we will not follow Christ nor be tyed and bound to such circumspection and holiness as his followers are and as his Word requires But we will do whatsoever proceedeth Jer. 18. 12. ceedeth out of our own mouth do our own devices and walk every one after the imagination of his own evil heart And are you content and willing God should take you at your words and for ever give you over to your own hearts lusts to walk in your own wayes and after your own counsels Are you willing from henceforth to give up all your hopes in Christ your hope of Heaven your hope of Life Salvation and eternal glory and to be damned for ever in another world why this is the choyce you are put to either to live an holy life or to be for ever miserable after death either to submit to the Yoak of Christ or never to receive benefit by the Cross of Christ to kiss the Scepter of his Mercy or fall by the sword of his Justice either to follow him in his Kingdom of Grace or to be eternally excluded his Kingdom of Glory There is no other way but these two One of these you must choose The summe of all is you must repent or perish and follow after Holiness or never see the Lord. Religion is the only way God hath made to Heaven and if you never walk in the way you can never come thither And assure your selves I can have no other end or interest to aim at in taking any pains to perswade you to be good and to be sincere followers of our Lord Jesus Christ but this His glory and your salvation which to aim at is doubtless your Interest as much as mine and if all that I have written cannot convince you 't is so 't is but a few days more and Death and Judgment shall Gloria Trinuni Deo sine Fine THE Young Man's Monitor OR A POETICAL PARAPHRASE Upon the XIIth Chapter of ECCLESIASTES The PREFACE Eccles XII i. Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth while the evil dayes come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them YOung man remember in thy youthfull age Thy Great Creator and betimes ingage Thy Soul and body both with all thy might To do him Service e're the sable night Of frightfull death approach or evil day Of old decrepid age wherein you 'l say There is no pleasure nor a will to work Youth 's
expose themselves to for Silver and Gold for Pearls and Diamonds and such things as are excellent in the worlds esteem So grant there be some difficulty in following Christ yet oppose its excellency to its difficulty that it will bring you to honour peace plenty to a Kingdom a Crown to Rivers of pleasures and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory and you will yet conclude it the best choyce you can make 'T is also absolutely necessary you must walk in this way if ever you will be blessed or happy in this world or that to come and this you are convinced of 2. Adde to this that the difficulty lyes not in Religion but in your own lusts that clog and hinder you in your Christian course called by the Apostle that weight Heb. 12. 2. which so easily besets us Let a man who hath fetters on his feet walk in never so smooth a path yet he complains whereas were he free from these he could go chearfully on making no complaint of the way at all So though the way of Gods Commandments be never so delightfull and fair yet while you are clogged with the weights of sin and fetters of your lusts no wonder you find some tediousness and difficulty in it But as the Apostle exhorts lay these aside and you will find this way so pleasant that you will walk in it with great delight with much pleasure and without much complaint And the greater progress you make in it the more easie and delightfull will it be to your souls as it was to St. Paul who met with as rough a path in Religion and as great difficulties in following Christ as you are like to meet with yet he delighted in the Rom. 7. 22. Law of God after the inward man that is the new man This way was once as cross and difficult to St. Paul as it can be to you yet afterwards it was his delight 'T is true as St. Paul would not so that slothfull lazy part thy old man will never take pleasure in Gods service but thy new man will Wherefore let not Satan deceive you by his false impositions on God and Religion For what difficulty is ariseth from himself and your own sins Were you in some measure rid of these and love to them the practice of Religion would be more pleasant and easie than the Devil represents it to be For the divine power and grace will assist and strengthen you in it which is able to make this difficult way delightfull this crooked thorny way as Satan and sin make it smooth strait and plain before you Christ hath as much power now as ever to make the blind to see and the lame to walk God by the powerfull aid and influence of his holy Spirit and Grace can make those feet that have been swift in the wayes of sin nimble and strong in the way of holiness those hearts of yours which have been ravished with the pleasures of sin the delights and vanities of the World he can as strongly and powerfully incline to delight in his Commandments He can give you new wills affections desires new aims purposes and ends so that you shall tend Heaven-ward mind religion and follow the example of his Son Jesus Christ with great readiness He can make the severest precepts pleasant the hardest part and most difficult duties of Christianity delightfull to your Souls yea his whole service perfect freedom Nor is God only able but willing to this Nay he hath promised to help by the assistance of his Spirit the Spirit of truth will Joh. 16. 13. Luk. 1. 79. guide you Christ will be your leader and God hath said he will write his Law in your hearts take away your natural enmity and indisposition and give you a sutableness of heart and spirit to walk in his statutes and to keep his Judgments and do Jer. 31. 33. Ezek. 36. 26 27. 2 Cor. 7. 1. them Having therefore these precious promises cleanse your selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and perfect holiness in the fear of God never doubting but that your sincere endeavours shall prove successeful and that there is no difficulty in the way to Heaven but the divine assistance and your own diligence will carry you through it 3. And whereas the Devil would discourage you by suggesting great difficulty in the way of Religion know 't is far easier than the way of sin 'T is easier to follow Christ than the Devil The yoak of Christs commands is easier and lighter than the yoak of Satans injunctions whose servants and followers are all drudges perfect slaves and Vassals but Christs servants are Freemen set into a glorious liberty and are stiled Freemen a servant and yet free saith the Apostle There is 1 Cor. 7. 22. not such an expression in all the Book of God concerning a servant of Satan or sin And when you have a while accustomed your selves to the exercises of Religion and wayes of Wisdom you will be of Solomons mind that compared with the bondage and drudgeries of sin her wayes are wayes of pleasantness and all her paths Prov. 3. 17. are peace § 4. And lest this should prove too weak and srail he hath another like it and not less powerfull ready at hand how Unpleasant the wayes of God are Not only strawed with difficulty but destitute of all delights If once you embrace Religion you must shake hands with all earthly felicity you must never look for a merry hour more Will you believe a great Religionist one who had all the advantages a Kingdom could afford to make his way pleasant yet complaines how he was plagued all the day long and Psal 73. 14. chastened every morning That tears were his repast day and night and he water'd his couch with his tears Cries out of wounds and broken bones and want of rest He found this way so unpleasant as to imbitter all the pleasures and delights that a Scepter and Crown could yield And it is no where recorded that the great Founder of Religion Jesus Christ himself ever laughed but wept frequently and the same may be said of all his followers And can you dispense with this That all your laughter should be turned into monrning all your joy into heaviness and all your Mirth into Lamentations Continual experience tells you what a company of Mellancholy persons Christs Disciples are and how they censure and find fault with all that are not like themselves and can you take any pleasure in their society who must be your constant companions 1. Here this wicked warrier makes his pass very home yet with a little consideration you may easily put it by without any dammage at all Indeed you must repent of sin if ever you will be saved and your sorrow in some measure must last as long as life lasts because of the continuance of sin You must mourn for sin here or burn for sin hereafter where