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
1 Cor. 3.9 10. Christ knew the necessity that the Infants of his Family had of such Nurses and he knew what numbers of such weak ones there would be in comparison of the strong or else he had never appointed the strong to such an Office And having appointed it he will keep up the honour of his Officers and will send you his Alms your food your Physick your Pardon your Priviledges by their hands If you be drawn by Seducers to forsake or neglect the Ministry of Christs Officers you forsake or neglect your helps and mercies you refuse his Grace you are like Infants that scorn their Nurses help and like Subjects who reject all the Officers of the King and like the Chickens that forsake the Hen you forsake the School and Church of Christ and may expect to be quickly catcht up by the Devil as straglers that have no defence or guide 2. Yet is there great difference between one Minister or Pastor and another as much as between Physicians Lawyers or men of any other function And there being no case in the world that you are so much concerned to be careful in as the instructing and conduct and safety of your souls you have exceeding great reason to take heed whom you choose to commit the care and conduct of your Souls to It is not enough to say that He is a true Ordained Minister and that his administrations are not nullities no more than to say of an ignorant Physician or Cowardly Captain that he hath a valid License or Commission when for all that if you trust him it may cost you your lives Nor is it a wise mans answer to say that God giveth his Grace by the worst as soon as by the best and by the weakest as soon as by the strongest and therefore I need not be so careful in my choice For though God have not confined the working of his Spirit to the most excellent means yet ordinarily he worketh according to the means he useth And this both Scripture Reason and daily experience fully prove God worketh rationally on man as man that is as a rational free agent by Moral operation and not by a meer Physical injection of his Grace When we see the man that is made wise unto Salvation by meer infusion of Wisdom without a Teacher or the study of the Word of God or when we see God work by his Word as by a charm that a few words shall convert a man though the speaker or hearer understood them not then we may hearken to this conceit And then we may think that a Heretick may as well teach you the truth as the Orthodox or a Schismatick teach you Unity and Peace as well as a Catholick peaceable Pastor or a man that is ignorant of the mysteries of Regeneration and holy Communion with God may best teach you that which he knoweth not himself and an enemy to Piety and Charity may teach you to be Pious and Charitable as well as any other But I need not say much more of this for all parties would never so strive to have such Ministers as they like and to put out such as they dislike if they thought not that the difference between Ministers and Ministers were very great See therefore that the Guide whom you choose for your Souls be 1. Judicious for an injudicious man may pervert the Scripture and lead you into Error and Heresie and sin before you are aware As an unskilful Coachman may soon overturn you or an unskilful Waterman may drown you yea though he be a zealous fervent Preacher yet if he be injudicious he may ignorantly give you Poison in your food as the experience of this age hath lamentably proved 2. See if possible that he be an experienced man that knoweth by experience on himself not only what it is to be regenerate and sanctified and made a new Creature but also how all the combate between the Spirit and the Flesh is to be managed and what are the methods and stratagems of the tempter and what are the chief helps and defensatives of the Soul and how they are all to be used For it is not harder to be a Judicious Physician or Lawyer or Souldier without experience than a judicious Pastor And therefore the Holy Ghost commandeth that he be not a novice or raw unexperienced Christian 1 Tim. 3.6 3. See that he be Humble for if he be puft up with pride he falleth into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 And then he will either scorn the labour of the Ministry as a drudgery to preach in season and out of season to beseech and exhort and stoop to the poorest of the flock or else he will speak perverse things to draw away Disciples after him Acts 20.30 or he will as Diotrephes reject the Brethren as loving himself to have the preheminence 3 John 9 10. and will Oversee the Church by constraint for filthy lucre as being a Lord over Gods heritage 1 Pet. 5.2 3. See Doctor Hammond on the Text. 4. See that he be Holy in his life for though this be not essential to his Office yet the unholy are unexperienced yea and have a secret enmity in their hearts against that Holiness which they should daily Preach and will usually be shewing it in their close disgracing discouraging speeches against that serious Piety which they should promote And they will neglect most of the personal care of their Flock and will unpreach by their lives the good which they Preach by their tongues and harden and embolden the people in their sins and make them believe that they believe not what they Preach themselves Choose not an enemy of Holiness to lead you in the way of holiness a way that he never went himself nor an enemy of Christ to conduct you in the Christian warfare when he is a servant of the Devil the world and flesh against whom you fight 5. See that he be of a Heavenly mind or else his Doctrine will be unsavoury and dry and he will be Preaching some speculations or barren Controversies instead of Heavenly edifying truth 6. See that he be faithful and diligent in his Ministry as one that knoweth the worth of Souls and will not sell them or betray them to the Devil for filthy lucre or his fleshly ends nor make Merchandise of them as desiring rather theirs than them and preferring the Fleece before the safety of the Flock But one that imitateth the pattern Acts 20. and in meekness instructeth those that are opposers 2 Tim. 2.25 26. 2 Pet. 2.3 1 Cor. 4.2 Rom. 16.17 18. 1 Pet. 5.3 4. 2 Cor. 12.14 7. See that he be a Lively serious Preacher for all will be little enough to keep up a lively seriousness in such dull and frozen hearts as ours A cold Preacher with cold hearts is like to make cold work He that speaks senslesly and sleepily about such matters as Heaven and Hell doth by the manner of his
abatement of his love And weak Christians are usually the most censorious because they have the smallest degree of Love which covereth faults and thinketh no evil and is not suspicious but ever apt to judge the best till the worst be evident 1 Cor. 13.4 5. It beareth all things believeth all things that are credible hopeth all things endureth all things v. 7. But it is no wonder to see children fall out even about their childish toyes and trifles And what the dissentions of the children of the Church have done against themselves in these Kingdoms I need not I delight not to record See 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3 4. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even 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 carnall for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are you not carnall and walk as men 3. The seeming Christian may have some love to reall Christian even for their goodness sake But it is a Love subservient to his carnal self-love And therefore it shall not cost him much As he hath some Love to Christ so he may have some Love to Christians but he hath more to the world and fleshly pleasures And therefore all his Love to Christ or Christians will not make him leave his worldly happiness for them And therefore Christ at the day of Judgement will not enquire after empty barren love but after that love which visited and relieved suffering Saints An hypocrite can allow both Christ and Christians such a cheap superficial kind of love as will cost him little He will bid them lovingly Depart in peace be you warmed and filled Jam. 2.15 16 17. But still the World is most beloved XLIV 1. A Christian indeed doth love his enemies and forgive those that injure him and this out of a thankfull sense of that grace which forgave him a farr greater debt Not that he thinketh it unlawfull to make use of the Justice of the Government which he is under for his necessary protection or for the restraint of mens abuse and violence Nor is he bound to love the malice or injury though he must love the man Nor can he forgive a crime as it is against God or the common good or against another though he can forgive an injury or debt that is his own Nor is he bound to forgive every debt though he is bound so farre to forgive every wrong as heartily to desire the good of him that did it Even Gods Enemies he so farre loveth as to desire God to convert and pardon them while he hateth their sin and hateth them as Gods enemies and desireth their restraint Psal. 139.21 22. 101.3 119.4 68.1 21.8 But those that hate and curse and persecute himself he can unfeignedly love and bless and pray for Matth. 5.43 44 45 46 47 48. For he knoweth that else he cannot be a child of God v. 45. And that to love those that love him is not much praise-worthy being no more than Heathens and wicked men can do v. 46 47. He is so deeply sensible of that wondrous love which so dearly redeemed him and saved him from Hell and forgave him a thousandfold worse than the worst that ever was done against himself that Thankfulness and Imitation or Conformity to Christ in his great compassions do overcome his desires of revenge and make him willing to do good to his most cruel enemies and pray for them as Christ and Stephen did at their deaths Luk. 23.34 Acts 7.60 And he knoweth that he is so inconsiderable a worm that a wrong done to him as such is the less considerable And he knoweth that he daily wrongeth God more than any man can wrong him and that he can hope for pardon but on condition that he himself forgive Matth. 6.12 14 15. 18.34 35. And that he is far more hurtfull to himself than any other can be to him 2. And the weakest Christian can truely love an enemy and forgive a wrong but he doth it not so easily and so fully as the other But it is with much striving and some unwillingness and aversness and there remaineth some grudge or strangeness upon the minde He doth not sufficiently forget the wrong which he doth forgive Indeed his forgiving is very imperfect like himself Matth. 18.21 Luk. 9.54 55. not with that freeness and readiness required Eph. 4.2 With all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Col. 3.12 13. Put on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of minde meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as Christ forgave you so also do ye Rom. 12.14 19. Avenge not your selves c. 3. As for the seeming Christian he can seem to forgive wrongs for the sake of Christ but if he do it indeed it is for his own sake As because it is for his honour or because the person hath humbled himself to him or his commodity requireth it or he can make use of his love and service for his advantage or some one hath interposed for reconciliation who must not be denyed or the like But to love an enemy indeed and to love that man be he never so good who standeth in the way of his preferment honour or commodity in the world he never doth it from his heart whatever he may seem to doe Matth. 6.14 15. 18.27 30 32. The Love of Christ doth not constrain him XLV 1. A Christian indeed is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God For he knoweth that God requireth this as strictly at his hands 1 Thess. 4.6 That no man go beyond or defraud his Brother in any matter for the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned and testified He is one that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour If he swear to his own hurt he changeth not He putteth not out his money to unjust or unmercifull Vsury nor taketh reward against the innocent Psal. 15. He obeyeth that Lev. 19.13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning He can say as Samuel 1 Sam. 12. Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blinde mine eyes therewith and I will restore it And they said Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us neither hast thou taken ought of any mans hand And if heretofore he was ever guilty of defrauding any he is willing to his