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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93751	A sermon on Phil. IV., 11, 12. For I have learned in whatsoever state I am in therewith to be content I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; every where, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.	Stafford, Richard, 1663-1703.	1698 (1698)	Wing S5131A; ESTC R230357	23,094	32

hereby he serves the great Ends of his Kingdom of Darkness in beating People off from God and good things But to answer them in their own familiar way of speaking All is well that ends well It is the same old thredbare Imagination of the People of former Generations which is come down amongst us also and dwells in the Hearts of many People of the present Generation Ye have said it is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard it and a Book of Remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his Name And they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in the day when I make up my Jewels and I will spare them as a Man spareth his own Son that serveth him Then shall ye return and discern between the Righteous and the Wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not Mal. 3. 14 16 17 18. So we refer our Objectors and Unbelievers those ignorant and ungodly Persons that think thus in their Minds over unto the day of Death and of Judgment when they shall see that twofold Distribution of things that is to be made in the after State True indeed the End and Event is to prove all things But whoso suspends his Faith until then his Condition will be without Remedy Then shall they return that is to the proper Understanding of Men and discern what before they might have believed for it was declared and told unto them over and over that there should be a diversity made of Happiness to the one and Misery to the other between the Righteous and the Wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not As to that great doubt and surmise which is in the Thoughts of the Heart of almost every one How that all things happen alike to all and that there is one and the same Event to Godly or Ungodly Righteous or Wicked I have in a printed Sermon on Deut. 8. 2. opened and explained that Mystery wherein I have shewed and assigned the very Reason thereof Why God ordained it so to be Namely That it is to prove the Children of Men To know what is in their Heart whether they will keep his Commandments or no. Indeed if People were not still puzzled and perplexed if they did not alway err in their Heart Heb. 3. 10. whereat his Soul is grieved they would never imagine and talk after that manner That it was the same thing whether they heard or received into their Knowledge words of Comfort or Contentment or not for they may yea and they do think and say the same as to the other words of Grace and Salvation al●o I would ask such vain Imaginers and foolish Reasoners Is it the same thing as to natural ●…ife Whether they do eat and drink or they do not No here they will say It is not for except we eat and drink we must famish and dye Even so it is here in the like manner though they can be hardly made to apprehend this for the natural Man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolish●ess unto him neither can he know them bec●us● they are spiritually discerned As Simeon waited for the Consolation of Israel so the Soul cannot be comforted without the words of Consolation The Soul cannot possibly be saved and happy without the words of Salvation and Happiness As the Body would die for want of Sustenance so the Soul may be indeed held in suspence a little longer time even all the days it is in the Body whereas that cannot be much longer without Food then fourteen days So without the words of Knowledge and Salvation the Soul would die Eternally and fall down into Misery Send Men to Joppa and call for Simon whose Surname is Peter who shall tell thee words whereby thou and thy House shall be saved Acts 11. 13 14. Even so God hath sent unto us Men and Women the reasonable Inhabitants of this Earth Moses and the Prophets Christ and the Apostles who have and do tell us words whereby we and all such as receive and obey the same words shall be saved Christ in an emphatical manner is called the Word John 1. 1. and the word of God For all the words which God made known through Moses and the Prophets the Evangelists and Apostles do all relate unto and meet in him as lines in their Centre And all things were made by him the Word and without him was not any thing made that was made Here the Evangelist hath reference unto John 1. 1. Psal 33. 6. So the certain consequence is That all Men and Women will be saved by him the Word that shall ever be saved For there is no other way under Heaven given unto Men whereby we must be saved And as Moses of old time had even so at this day Christ hath those that Preach him every Sabbath day Therefore see that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven Heb. 12. 25. For though Christ is long since ascended on high and sits at the right Hand of God yet he speaks to us even now by his Word and by his Ministers He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my Words hath one that jud●eth him the Word that I have spoken the same shall judge him at the last day John 12. 48. And if we will not hear that Word nor yet his Ministers neither would we be perswaded if Christ should come once again into the World after the same manner as he did But his next coming is unto Judgment I have often mentioned these and the like things to the froward Inhabitants of this my Country and Generation who are Non-Hearers or Non-Readers of the Word where-ever it is faithfully and truly Preached or made known I have warned them often and I do hereby warn them again and I could almost tell them weeping for my Soul hath Grief and Indignation at them for their stubbornness and refusal herein That since that his Word is every Sabbath day or Week day purely truly and faithfully Preached or made known God will require it of them and impute it as Sin to them severally for as often as they have neglected to come to hear it Hereby also may be seen and perceived How much this Ordinance of Preaching the Word doth further and is absolutely necessary unto the Salvation of Mankind and how that such Men and Women who would indeed have their Souls be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus ought and must attend continually upon the Ministry and hearing thereof for this same Preaching of the Word which doth lead direct and help

all which will most certainly come upon every one of us one time or another And then if there be amongst ye any prophane Person as Esau who for one morsel of Meat sold his Birth-right who for the Pleasures of Sin for a season for the Reward of Iniquity or the Gains of Unrighteousness hath forfeited his or her share in that Blessing which the Lord hath commanded even Life for evermore Even these very same Persons either when they come to lie in the point or extremity of Death or more certainly because many may remain stupid or ignorant or unbelieving even then afterward that their Souls are gone forth into the invisible World they would fain inherit the Blessing and then they will seek for it carefully with Tears though it will be to no purpose for they will find no place for Repentance because here he gave them a space for Repentance and they repented not Then if such a thing were possible and might be admitted of which yet is not even those very same Persons would give thousands of Rams and ten thousand Rivers of Oyl their first born for their Transgression and the fruit of their Body for the sin of their Soul who now will not make Restitution for one farthing of ill gotten Goods nor yet hardly give a thousand farthings in Alms giving or towards good Works or who will not now give up a Lust or a sinful profit at all the commandments and Requirings of God If any such profane careless and indifferent Souls should hear or read these lines Behold I have told you before I do hereby warn and make known unto such before hand that their Thoughts and Apprehensions will be thus mightily altered and changed as to what they stand so unconcerned and unaffected now for as on the one hand it will be the best contentment and greatest satisfaction I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness Psal 17. 12. to be possessed of and make sure of Heaven So again there will be no discontent so bad as that to miss and come short thereof This will be the gnawing of the Worm which shall never die Of this kind will be that Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish which shall be upon every Soul of Man that doth evil Rom. 2. 8 9. There shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth when ye shall see Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and ye your selves thrust out Though as to these little vain and fugitive things we may know and be instructed and also bear with how to be full or how to be hungry But as to that fulness or Hunger spoken of in Luke 6. 21. 25. Blessed are ye that hunger now for ye shall be filled Wo unto you that are full for ye shall hunger Here it is Impossible even for the Tongue of Men and Angels to instruct the Creatures or perswade the Souls to be contented and bear therewith The reasonable Creature can never be content to lose Heaven and fall into Hell because of the exceeding greatness of the loss that compleat and absolute Misery this would be to be involved in as also from the very long duration and irreversibleness thereof If God comes to contend for ever in the Punishment and Misery of his Creatures and to be always wroth then the Spirit should fail before me and the Souls which I have made But on the other better hand if one is a Child of God and an Heir of the Kingdom of Heaven then he can very well be contented under all the Evils and Hardships of this present World All one as an Heir of a good Estate doth rub through some little and trivial Inconveniencies in the mean while out of Prospect and Expectation of that Besides the Faith of Great and unseen things which are Eternal a through Knowledge of the littleness of all present and temporal things will soon make us content as to the having or not having them or rather work us into that blessed Temper and Disposition of Paul As having nothing and yet possessing all things His Mind was so qualified with Grace and transformed into the Divine Nature that it was the same as if he possessed all things As to the littleness of all present things consider within your selves What is your Life It is as a Vapour that appeareth for a very little time and then vanisheth away Remember how short my time is Wherefore hast thou made all Men in vain Their Mirth or Divertisements are as the flyings up and down of a Swallow during its appointed time Their heaviness or Misery seems all one as the mourning of a Dove which also is ended Whatever delights or afflicts soon passeth away and we are gone As to our outward sensible good or evil though we would fain have the one and avoid the other yet there is not much more in it then the ticklings of a Feather or to prevent the scratchings of a Pin. Our goings up and down each day appear as the moving of a Shaddow which is lost in darkness And so we might run through or over all the several things of this present Life they are all little fugitive and vain As on the one hand this true consideration is a mighty word of Comfort and Contentment to the Children of Faith the Heirs of Life and Immortality so on the other the more knowing People of this World turn it into a matter of Scepticism as also the more brutish ignorant and ungodly sort of People do hereby harden and confirm themselves in their old wonted manner of Life of Brutishness Ignorance and Ungodliness and they will not easily be brought off from it for like as there are in the last days Scoffers walking after their own ungodly Lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation So they imagine and reason within themselves What need of any words of Comfort or Contentment at all seeing that all things here are so little fugitive and vain All things come alike to all There is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked to the good to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the Good so is the Sinner And he that sweareth as he that feareth an Oath The World passeth away and goes on in its course and we will make a shift to rub through it as well as other People and there is an end Here hath been delivered a Discourse concerning Contentment and for all that and all the words in the World concerning it we do perceive that those People live altogether as contented for the Life who do not hear them as those who do hear them As is the knowing Man so is the ignorant Person it seems to come all to one By this Objection Satan works in the Minds of many People especially of the common and poorer sort and

towards obtaining the rest to come doth also instruct that others may learn in whatsoever state they are in the mean while therewith to be content to know how to be full and how to be hungry And tho it be here surmised nevertheless That those people also are content who do very seldom or ever hear the word preached much less are they frequenters of it What advantage then of my preaching and what profit of your hearing the word Much every way chiefly because it is an Ordinance and appointment of God for those who have the gifts of preaching to preach and profit therewithal But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal 1 Cor. 12. 7. For what if some do despise and refuse to attend upon this Ordinance shall their despising or Refusal make this Ordinance of God of none effect or that the word which goeth out of his mouth shall return vo●… In no wise God forbid for so it is some will be ●aved by the Ministry of the Word others will be condemned by it Some will be more edified and benefited others thro their refusal and turning away their Feet from the place where it is preached with a lively Voice will be more hardened and rendred yet worse and more inflexible to the Exhortation thereof But it will be so much the better for every man or woman the more he or she shall glorify God and the more good they shall do in their Generation as also the more they shall abstain from all appearance of Evil. Now the Word and the preaching thereof doth help and assist us in these two points to eschew Evil and do Good Unless these two Ends of Life eschewing Evil and doing Good are answered and observed ir would be better not to have been born or not to have lived at all Most people when they hear or read such a Scripture as this following do not attend thtoughly to the full meaning and signification thereof For all this they sinned still and believed not his wondrous works Therefore their days did he consume in Vanity and their Years in trouble Psal 78. 32 33. The Life of sinners and ungodly is spent in one of these two either Vanity or Trouble Ay but many think that the former of these is no Curse or Punishment For as it is written O ye sons of men how long will ye love Vanity Psal 4. 2. And it is seen and experienced that they take mirth and delight therein But to those who have Faith and Knowledge nothing sounds so bad as to have their Days consumed in Vanity and their Years in trouble Because that every thing in this life tends to future Account one way or another And to this thing of consuming their Days in Vanity succeeds loss for all Eternity Even a loss of that Reward and Blessedness God hath promised and reserved for his Creatures if such had been found worthy and had been meet to have been partakers thereof Cast the unprofitable Servant into utter darkness there shall be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth Now Vanity and Unprofitabless is near the same thing And to them who thus consumed their Years in trouble will succeed endless Pains Now to be miserable here and miserable hereafter also is a sad thing For indeed if they had consumed their Years in trouble in the way of Duty in the Service of God or in a Good thing then indeed it might have been Reasonably expected as to such the promise that they should have Rested from their Labours and they were of the Number of those who through Manifold Tribulations should enter into the Kingdom of God And the return should have been made upon them when they arrived there These are they that have came through Great Tribulation But whereas contrarywise as it is in the Words of our Psalmist They sinned still then the only consequent which they will meet withal is Condemnation and Misery hereafter As for those who sin still or add sin to sin against whom a Woe is pronounced They do Treasure up to themselves wrath against the Day of wrath It is alike yea and the very same Folly and Madness as for a Man himself to carry and heap on more fuel on that fire which shall burn and torment him but yet never consume him Many Sorrows shall be to the Wicked Psalm 32. 10 for whether his days are consumed in Vanity judge by the way whether or no the consuming ones time in Cards Dice Ale-houses Skettle-pins Shufflboard idle Talk Play Gaming or such like is not consuming ones days in Vanity according to the intent of the Holy Ghost here he shall suffer so much the more loss throughout all Eternity which some think to be the greatest pain of Hell Or whether their years are consumed in Trouble as they all are in one or the other to this succeeds Pain and Punishment of Sense even more Misery and Torment still which shall as much exceed his Trouble here as to be thrown into a hot fiery Furnace is beyond a Flea-biting Consider of this ye that forget God or who pretend to serve him a little in Form or Custom or outward Manner but ye do not think much of him afterwards Whose days are consuming in Vanity and whose Hearts are in trouble or in doubt and fear about what your future State and Condition will be Bethink your selves throughly and how can ye be content to go on in such a kind of Life as that is Know ye not or do ye not believe it However ye will find it so that ye must give Account and such an Account I tell ye before hand of your days being consumed in Vanity ye will be forced to give up with Grief and not with Joy which will be unprofitable for ye For here to allude again unto Heb. 13. 17. The right consequence is and the word of Instruction to every one of ye is seeing that we must all give Account for noth●…g is so sure and certain as that is we should so live in the mean while that we may give up this same Account with Joy and not with Grief for that will be profitable for us As was before said none will be nor can be contented hereafter to lose Heaven and fall into Hell So now in this short mean while between though the generality of the World is setled upon their Lee● yet none ought nor yet should be contented with a vain sinful or ungodly Life now for this will bring them unto the other sad thing The sensual blinded World judge very much by Events and because it may be they have Health and Plenty and things at will and things continue as they were since the days of the Creation they are apt to think that God is not angry or displeased with them So it is in the Sense and Mind of the Spirit when a Nation or People commit a great deal of Sin then God is angry with them as again when they