appointed time for these And do you know any other day that is fitter I think you will not pretend to that You would not have another day instead of this but you would have no day at all for such holy works but a day for ease and idleness and sports and vain discourse and pleasures with some little formal publick worship intermixt to cheat your souls It is not then the Day but the serious diligent holy employment and duty that you are against and that I have proved to be Gods will before Doubtless if you leave all men to serve God when they will without any stated time his worship will soon be brought to nothing and they that pretend to keep every day holy will keep none Look upon the places where the Lords day is kept holy and see whether godliness flourish not there incomparably above all other places And I think none can doubt but that more souls have been converted and brought home to God on that day then on any day of the week if not then all the rest beside And there is not the peevishest malignant soul of you that can with any shew of reason prove that the holy observation of the Lords day is unlawful if it were not necessary So that we are at least on the safest side of the hedge For we can say that we take a most happy opportunity for the good of our own souls and the worshipping of God and that we are sure we do that which is no sin our adversaries themselves do not charge us with doing that which is forbidden but that which they conceit unnecessary But if we should do as they and neglect this day we are not sure but it may be a great sin nay indeed we are sure it would be so But what saith the Holy-Ghost now to this question To pass by the fourth Commandement at this time the letter of it and the equity and reason of a seventh day the advantage of reason why there should be no less under the Gospel and such like I shall only now say these two things 1. It is plain in Scripture that de facto the Apostles and Churches used to meet for holy Communion in Gods worship on the Lords day And consequently that this was appointed by the Apostles or immediately by Christ himself there being then no other that pretended to any such authority and that Apostolical allowance no man questioneth The Apostles then having the extraordinary gift of the Spirit by which they were enabled infallibly to make known the will of God and being commissioned as well as enabled here unto as their writing of the holy Scriptures so their constitutions for the ordering of the Church being the effects of that Authority received from Christ and that Ability given them by the Spirit are Divine and principally the acts of Christ and the Holy Ghost whose agents the Apostles were Now that the first Churches did by their appointment observe the Lords day for holy actions is apparent As Christ first laid the ground-work by Râ—sing on that day so he began that very day to preach unto Mary the comfortable doctrine of his Ascension in words that deserve to be written in gold or rather in the deepest room of every true Believers heart John 20. 17. Go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God The first Sermon that ever was preached on a Lords day even on the first Lords day by Christ himself even to a beloved penitent woman whom he chose to be as it were his Apostle to his Apostles to deliver them this Message as from him On the same day the Disciples being Assembled he owned and blessed their Assembly and gave them the Holy Ghost and Apostolicall power When Thomas being absent from the Assembly the first Lords day did miss the sight of Christ and was unbelieving Christ left him a whole week in his unbelief and would not heal him till the next Lords day which he honoured with that cure Then the Disciples being met again Christ came among them and convinced Thomas On another Lords day they were all with one accord in one place and the Holy Ghost was in the extraordinary measure given them And Acts 20. 7. it is mentioned as the custom of the Disciples to come together on the first day of the week to break bread and Paul then preached to them even till midnight And 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. the Collections for the Saints were made every first day of the week in all the Churches of Galatia and at Corinth because they had then their holy Assemblies And therefore Rev. 1. 10. it is called peculiarly the Lords day 2. But to clear this past all rational doubting we find in all the writings of the antients and historie of the Church that all the Churches through the world unanimously observed the Lords day as instituted by Christ or the Holy Ghost in the Apostles none ever questioning or contradicting it that ever I read of He that hath read the writings of the Antients and denyeth this is unworthy to be disputed with The practice of the universal Church is a full exposition of the fore-cited Scriptures and though it be no Law to us it self yet is it a full discovery of the fact telling us what was the primitive practice and so a discovery of the Law And shall any private ignorant man come in alter one thousand six hundred and twenty six years and say the Apostles and all the Churches in the world have been deceived till this day and we must rectifie the mistake Shall these fellows come in at the end of the world and call the Apostles and all the Churches of all ages Puritanes for keeping holy the Lords day Or will any but a brain-sick person hearken to such shameless men as these Object But the antient Churches did not keep that day as a Sabbath but only as a day for publick worship Answ We will not stick with you for the name We urge you not to call it the Sabbath though the Antients sometimes did so See our Homilies of the Place and Time of Prayer if you will call it as Scripture and the Churches did by the name of the Lords day And it was then the custom of the Churches to spend almost all the day in publick Worship and Holy Communion and therefore they had but little time for any private duties that day And yet though the private practises of particular persons on that day be little mentioned in Church-history no man can prove that they used to spend any remaining hours of that day as common time in common business So that to quarrel against the holy observation of the Lords day is but to quarrel with the Holy Ghost and the Apostles and all the Churches of all ages since and with the happyest season for the worshipping of God and seeking our own and other mens edification 7. What
clear in it self and much more clear how few do we prevail with Is not the Question Whether God or the Creature Holiness or Sin Earth or Heaven Short or Everlasting pleasures should be preferred as plain to a wise man as any of those that I mentioned before Is it not as plain a case to a man of judgement Whether Holiness with Everlasting joys be better then fleshly pleasures with damnation as whether a Kingdom be better then a Jayle or Gold then dirt or health then sickness Yet do your salvations lie upon this Question this easie Question I must again repeat it All your salvations lie upon the practical resolution of this easie Question Be but Resolved once that God is Best for you and Heaven is Best for you and accordingly make your Resolute Choice and faithfully Prosecute it and God will be Yours Heaven will be yours as sure as the Promise of God is true But if you will not Choose God and Glory as your Best but will Choose the world and simple pleasures as Better for you you shall have no better then you chose and shall suffer a double condemnation for neglecting and refusing so great salvation You hear now by mens talk and you see by their lives that the world is divided upon this Question What it is that is Best for a man and which is his Best and Wisest course One part and the greater think in their hearts that present prosperity is best because they think that the promised happiness of the life to come is a thing uncertain or iâ— there be such a thing they may have it after the pleasures of sin These are the Infidels Another part have a superficial dead Opinion that Heaven and Holiness are Best but the Love of the flesh and the world lyeth deeper at their hearts and beareth the greater sway in their lives and these are the Hypocrites that is Christians in Opinion and Profession and so much of their Practice as will stand with their fleshly interest but Infidels in their Practical estimation and at the Heart and in the reserves and secret bent of their lives Another part being illuminated and sanctified from above Believe the Certainty and Excellency of Glory and see the vanity and vexation of this life and taste the sweetness of the Love of God and perceive the Necessity and sweetness of that Holiness which others so abhor and hereupon give up themselves to God and set themselves to seek for the Immortal treasure and make it the principal care of their hearts and business of their lives to escape damnation and live with Christ in endless Glory All the world consisteth of these three sorts of men Infidels Hypocrites and true Believers Now the Question is Which of these three are in the right Both the other do condemn the Hypocrite that halteth between two opinions and One thinks that Baal is God that the World is Best and therefore he gives up himself to it and the other thinks that The Lord is God and Heaven is best and therefore he gives up himself to it And if it would do any thing with those that doubt towards the turning of the scales to tell you which side Christ is on it s told you here in my Text as plain as the tongue of man can speak One thing is Needful Mary hath chosen that Good part which shall not be taken away from her THe Doctrine which I am now to handle to you from the plain words of the Text is this Doct. That those that prefer the Learning of the word of Christ to guide them by Holiness to Everlasting Happiness before all the lower matters of this world are they that choose the Better part even that which shall never be taken from them If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn I had done my work I needed not to go any further You would be now resolved that Heaven and Holiness is best and would set your hearts and lives to seek it and so it would be your own for ever But this Text hath long stood in the Gospel and men have heard and read it often and yet the most are not perswaded and therefore I must try to open it a little farther to you and plead it with you and work the Reason of it upon your minds Reader our business is but to enquire What it is that is Best for Man to set his heart on and seek after in his Life and Enjoy for ever I say it is the Everlasting Enjoyment of God in Heaven For Christ saith so If thou think otherwise let us debate the case If thou believe as I do Live as thou professest to believe If men did but deeply and soundly know what it is that is best for them it would set right their hearts and lives and make them happy But not knowing this is it that keepeth them from God and Holiness and everlastingly undoes them Though I have often opened this heretofore on other occasions yet my present subject now requireth 1. That I tell you What that is that here is called The Good part 2. What it is that is set against it and by fleshly minds preferred before it And having briefly opened these two things I shall come to the Comparison and shew you which is the better part 1. That which Christ calls here that good part is 1. Principally the end of man or our everlasting Happiness with God in Heaven 2. Subordinately the Means by which it is attained 3. That Happiness which is the end comprehendeth in it these particulars which if you distinctly apprehend you will much the better understand the nature and excellency of it 1. The true Believer hath the small beginnings and earnests and foretastes of the Everlasting Blessedness in this Life in his approaches to God and living upon him by Faith and Love and â—â— his believing apprehensions of the Favour of God the Grace â—â— Christ and the Happiness which in Heaven he shall enjoy for ever 2. At death the souls of true Believers do go to Christ and enter upon a state of Happiness 3. At the last day the body shall be raised and united to the soul and the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory to judge the world where he will openly absolve and justifie the Righteous when he condemneth the ungodly and will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe and the Saints shall also judge the world and be themselves adjudged to everlasting Glory 4. Their everlasting habitation shall be in the Heavens even near unto God and in the presence of his Glory 5. Their company will be only Blessed Spirits even the holy Angels and glorified Saints with whom we shall be One Body and constitute the New Jerusalem and be perfectly one in God for ever 6. Their Bodies shall be perfected and made immortal spiritual incorruptible and glorious bodies shining as the Stars in the Celestial Firmament No more subject
in their hearts Ephes 3. 17. Rom. 8. 11. 1 Cor. 3. 16. God himself doth dwell in them and converse with them and write his Law in their hearts and teach them himself by this his Spirit 2 Cor. 6. 16. Heb. 8. 10. â—â— 1â— Hereby we know that he dwelleth in us by the Spirit which â—e 〈…〉 given us 1 John 3. 24. Yea he that is joyned to the Lord is One spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. For the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. We are an habitation of God through the Spirit Ephes. 2. 22. Because we are sons God hath sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. By this Spirit the Saints have access unto the Father Ephes 2. 18. and by this it is that they are quickened to prayer and holy worship and their infirmities are helpt Ephes 6 18. Rom. 8. 11 26. By this they fight against the flesh and overcome it Gal. 5. 17 18. Rom. 8. 13. In this they live and walk and work Rom. 8. 1 5. Gal. 5. 16 25. This Spirit is the Testimony of their Adoption Rom. 8. 16. and the seal and earnest of their heavenly inheritance 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Ephes 4. 30. By this they are new born John 3. 5 6. And put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and being renewed in the spirit of their minds do put on the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes 4. 22 23 24. By the illumination of this spirit they have a new understanding and are brought out of darkness into the marvellous Light of Christ 1 Pet. 2. 9. that they may know what is the hope of the Christian Vocation and what is the Riches of the glory of Christs inheritance in the Saints Eph. 1. 18. In a word by this Spirit their sins are mortified their souls renewed and made like to God and they become a holy Priest-hood a peculiar people unto Christ and in this Spirit have Communion with him Rom. 8. 13. Tit. 3. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Tit. 2. 14. 2 Cor. 13. 14. And what is all the Riches of this world to this Heavenly Treasure the Spirit of the Lord They that have this Spirit are taught by it to set light by all your Riches and to esteem one dayes Communion with Christ above all the Gold and Glory of this world And that which sets the soul of man so far above Riches is better then those Riches As your Lands and honours do set you above the pins and points that children take for their treasure and set as much by as you do by yours so the Spirit of Christ and the Life of Faith doth set the souls of true Believers a thousandâ—old more above your Riches then you are above your childrens â—oyes If yet you see not the Riches of Saints consider but the wonderful expression â— Pet. 1. 4. that they have exceeding great 〈…〉 precious promises given them that by these they may be partakers of the Divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust And can there be more on earth bestowed on man then to be made partakers of the Divine nature As it would be a greater gift to a bruit to be made a man and have manly Riches then to have store of Provender suited to his brutishness so is it greater Riches to the ungodly to be sanctified and made partakers of that nature that is called Divine by God himself then to have provision for unmortified lusts and to have all the contentments of a fleshly mind It were a greater gift to an Ideot to be made a wise and learned man then to be furnished with feathers or sticks to play with So is it here 4. Every truly sanctified man is restored from the misery that he was brought into by sin He hath all his sins forgiven him and is freed from the curse of the Law by the merits of Christ and the promise of the Gospel For in him we have Redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins Col. 1. 14. And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 13. 39. When we were dead in our sins we were quickened with Christ and had all our trespasses forgiven us Col. 2. 13. Ask a wounded Conscience that groaneth under the weight of sin and under the sense of Gods indignation Whether forgiveness of sin be a Treasure or not I am sure they that now are past forgiveness and feel what sin is in the bitter fruits would give ten thousand worlds if they had them for the pardon of their sins and would account forgiveness a greater mercy then all the Riches and Kingdoms of the world What a heavy curse did the Spirit of God pass upon Simon Magus for thinking that money was a valuable thing to purchase the Holy Ghost with Acts 8. 20 21. Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased by money Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of God repent therefore of this thy wickedness c. The name of Simon Magus is odious to us all and yet I doubt that most among us exceed him in the sin for which he is thus cursed For he thought the gift of the holy-Ghost to be better then his money or else he would not have offered his money for it But most men take their money to be better then the gift of the Holy-Ghost If he that would have purchased the Holy-Ghost yea a lower and less necessary gift of the spirit was pronounced wicked and cursed with such a heavy curse What are they that set more by their money then by the special gift of the Holy-Ghost yea that hate and deride it and plead against its Sanctifying work The time is near when your Riches will fail you and your prosperity die and your sins will live and then there is none of you all but will say that Pardon and Grace are greater Riches then all the world 5. Moreover the godly have Angels to attend them and be their guard as I have proved to you before And are horses and kine and oxen think you greater Riches then the Guard and Ministration of the Angels of God Heb. 1. 14. Psalm 91. 11 12. 6. And surely the very Communion of Saints and Ordinances of God which in the Church we here enjoy are greater Riches then all the world We are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow-Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Ephes 2. 19. We are members of that well-tempered body where all the members are obliged and disposed to have the same care one for another that if one suffer all suffer and if one be
Lord if your merry companions do please you better then the Communion of the Saints or if you cannot submit to the order and discipline of the family of Christ that you may partake of his provision you may follow your own corrupt desires and see whither they will lead you But here it is that I shall choose my pleasures till I reach the everlasting pleasures And though in this low communion of imperfect Saints we see but in a glass and have but some small imperfect Sasts of the glorious things which Hope expecteth yet this is more then all that earth and flesh can yield and it is most perfect Pleasure that by these is revealed sealed and Represented Sacraments can assure us of perfect joys though they give us but little joy in hand Obj. But if Sacraments be so pleasant why then saith a disconsolate soul have I found no more pleasure or comfort in them Answ Even in the soul that 's made alive by Grace diseases may much corrupt the appetite and make the sweetest thing seem bitter Are not Sacraments sweet to you and do you not delight in the communion of God and of his Saints I will not say much to you lest it seem degrestive but briefly ask you these few Questions 1. Are the thoughts of God of Christ of Heaven sweet to you If they be me thinks the Ordinances should be sweet If they be not it s no wonder that you sét light by Sacraments if you can set light by Christ and heaven it self Quest 2. Is not sin grown sweet to you If it be the ordinances will not be sweet no nor unless your sins grow bitter Quest 3. Doth not the world grow sweet to you and your condition or expectations and your thriving state more plesant to you then heretofore If so no wonder if Sacraments and all spiritual things do lose their sweetness Quest 4. Have you been faithful in your preparation by free confession true humiliation strong resolution hungring and thristing after Christ and all this furthered by diligent self-examination An unprepared soul must blame it self if it find not the sweetness of the Ordinance The holy appetite and relish that is necessary to your Delight must be stirred up much in your Preparations Quest 5. Are you careful and conscionable humble and holy in your lives If you neglect God in your ordinary conversations and walk not with him on other daies you are unlike to meet him comfortably here And if you are slight and careless in your ordinary duties you will find here that God took notice of it Quest 6. Do you faithfully endeavour to exercise Faith Repentance Love and all Sacramental Graces in the use of the ordinances You come not to a meer receiving but to a Work Have your souls been adorned with the wedding garment and do you come hither for a meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ Do you see him by faith and take all that is here Represented to you as if you had seen the things themselves Do you remember that your Lord is coming and do you lift up your heads in the expectation of your Redemption and do this in remembrance of him till he come An idle loytering in Gods work is not the way to find the sweetness of it Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. l. 1. init gives it as a Reason why every one took his own part of the Bread of the Sacrament in those times because man being a free agent must be the chooser or refuser of his own happiness The Papists on the contrary do but gape and the Priest doth pop the bread into their mouths having first perswaded them that it is not bread Do you not expect to receive the spiritual benefits just as the Papists do receive the Bread as if you had nothing to do but gape As if your presence here were as much as is to be expected from you for your edification How can you tast the sweetness that is offered when you do not exercise your spiritual senses Quest 7. Do you exercise faith as well as feeling in judging of the benefit of Sacraments Pardon and Justification and Title to Salvation are benefits which in themselves you cannot feel It is by Believing the promise that you must know them If God have promised a blessing on his Ordinance it is sure to the faithful soul as if we felt it though perhaps we may seem long without it Heaven it self which is the principal end of Ordinances will not be attained in this life and yet the Ordinace is not in vain Quest 8. Have you the true understanding of the use of Sacraments of the abundant Love that is here set forth and the freeness and fulness of the Promise here sealed If not no wonder if you taste not the sweetness when you know not how to break the shell that you may feed on the kernel of the Ordinances Quest 9. Have you not troubled your own souls and muddyed your comforts by causeless doubts and ignorant scruples about the gestures or manner or persons that you joyned with or some such circumstances as these If so no marvel if you lose the comfort Quest 10. Or at least have you not been negligent in the review and after improving of the Ordinances and have you not thought that all was done when you had received Any one of these miscarriages may make this pleasant duty bitter or at least deprive you of the most of the delight But if your hearts be suted to the work and you deprive not your selves of the offered consolation you shall find that God deals bountifully with you and will feast you even with Angels food 5. The publike worship being all thus sweet how sweet are the Lords days these holy seasons that are wholly consecrated to this work How light is the Christian that hath this day cast off his worldly cares and business and cogitations and hath set himself apart for God as if there were to world to mind On the week days he doth walk with Goa But so that his necessary worldly business doth frequently divert and distract his mind But what a sweet and happy day is this when he may strip himself of these distractions as he doth of his work-day courser cloaths and may wholly apply himself to God As the Bee goes from flower to flower labouring at all but with a Pleasant labour to gather Honey and prepare for winter so doth the Christian especially on the Lords day employ himself in labour and delight and the more he laboureth the more is his delight From Prayer he goeth to Reading and to the instructing his family if he be a superiour or learning if he be an inferiour and have helps From private worship to publike and from publike to private again and gathering Honey food and sweetness to his soul from all Tell me you childish brutish wantons Do you think in your heart that you have as much solid joy and pleasure in a play day or in
not be desired simply and ultimately for it self As you must pray but for your daily bread and be content with food and rayment so you must see that these be but for better things even in order to the doing of the Will of God the promoting of his Kingdom and the Hallowing of his Name which must be first and most desired The order of your duty is to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and then other things are promised with it Matth. 6. 33. and therefore for it must be desired and sought And if your very food and life must be desired but for this everlasting End then it is still but one thing that is necessary and finally to be desired For the Means is willed but with an imperfect willing because not for it self and that only hath our full and perfect Love which is Loved for it self Even in the act of Love unto the Means it is more properly the End that is Loved then the Means and the Means is chosen for that End So that you see that for all the necessity of creatures and of diligence in our Callings the truth is still clear that it is only One thing that is truly Necessary Use THE understandidg is the subservient faculty to let in that light which may by direction and excitation guide the will Having shewed you the Truth I am next to shew you how you may improve it and so to apply it as may best help you to apply it to your selves And if I should here fall upon things impertinent or make it my work to claw your ears or exalt my self in your esteem by an unseasonable ostentation of learning or eloquence or carry on any such corrupt design while I should faithfully do the work of God my Text it self would openly condemn me If One thing be needful it is that One that I must do my self while I am exhorting you to do it And woe be to me if I should lay by that to do any other unnecessary work even to fish for the applause of Carnal wits while my very subject is the Reproofs of Christ against a much more tolerable error And as to the manner of my admonition if One thing be needful I hope you will allow me to be as plain and serious as I can about this One And my first address to you shall be for tryall And I shall make it now my earnest request to you that you â—ill bethink you how much you are concerned to compare your â—arts and lives with this passage and judge your selves by the Word of God that is now before you And for your own sakes â—â— it seriously and faithfully as passengers that are hasting to the â—â—eat Assize What say your Consciences Sirs to this Question Have you indeed lived in the world as men that believe that One thing is necessary Hath this One had your chiefest care and labour and have you chosen rather to neglect all other things then â—is Look behind you and judge of the course that you have taken by the light of this one text I do not ask you Whether you have heard that One thing is Necessary nor whether you have talked of it and confessed it to be true nor whether you have been called Christians by your selves and others and have come to Church and forborn those sins that would have most â—â—emished your honour in the world This is nothing to the question Thus many thousands do that were never acquainted with the One thing Necessary Nor do I ask you Whether you have used to allow God half an hours lip-service or formal â—rowsie prayer at night when you have served the world and â—â—esh all day Nor whether you have been Religious on the by and given God some lean devotion which cost you little and which your flesh can spare without any great diminution or deâ—iment in its ease and honour and profit and sensual delights Nor whether you run to some kinde of duties of Religion to make all whole when you come from wilful reigning sin and so make Religion a fortress to your lusts to quiet your Consciences while you serve the flesh I confess such a kind of Religioussess as this the world is acquained with But this is unanswerable to the Rule before us But the question is Whether this One thing hath been the Treasure and Jewel of your estimation the darling of your affections the prize of your most diligent endeavours and the only felicity of your souls Sirs as lightly as you hear this question now you will One day find that your lives yea your salvation lyeth upon your answer to it Can you say truly as before the searcher of hearts that it is he that hath had your hearts That this One thing hath been more esteemed by you than all the world besides That other things have all stooped unto this One and served under it And that this hath had the stream of your heartiest affections and the drift of your endeavours and hath been the matter that you have had first to do and the thing for which you have lived in the world If this be not so never talk of your Christianity for shame Your Religion is vain if this be not your Religion Alas I know that we have all of us yet too much of the flesh and are too cold in our affections and too slow and uneven in our endeavours for our end But yet for all that I must still tell you as I have often done because it is necessary that here lyeth the difference between the truly sanctified soul and all the hypocrites and half-Christians in the world Every true Christian is devoted unto God and hath made an hearty and absolute resignation of himself and all that he hath unto him and therefore loveth him with his superlative most appretiative love and serveth him with the best he hath and thinks nothing too good or too dear for God and for the attainment of his everlasting Rest Christ hath the chiefest room in his heart and the bent and drift of his life is for him He studyeth how he may best serve and please him with his time his interest and all that he hath and if he fall as it is contrary to the habitual resolution of his soul and contrary to the scope and current of his heart and life so he riseth again by repentance with sorrow for his sin and loathing of himself and sincerely endeavours to amend and goeth on resolvedly in his holy course This is the state of every one that is in a state of life But for all hypocrites and half-Christians their case is otherwise The world and flesh is dearest to them and highest in their practical estimation though not in their speculative and it hath their highest affections of Love and Delight and the very bent and stream of heart and life while God is served heartlesly on the by for fear lest they be damned when they can enjoy
the world and sin no longer and is put off with the leavings of the flesh and hath no more of their hearts their tongues their time their wealth then it can spare They ask their flesh how far they shall be Religious and will go no further then will stand with their prosperity in the world With the first and best they serve the flesh and with the cheapest and the refuse they serve the Lord When they go highest in their out-side carnal Religiousness they go not beyond this hypocritical reserved state and usually as Cain they hate Abel for offering a more acceptable sacrifice God must take up with this from them or â—â— without They alway serve him with this reserve though it 〈…〉 not alwayes explicite and discerned by them Provided that â—â— may go well with me in the world and I may have some competent proportion of honour profit or pleasure and Religion may not â—â—ose me to be undone If God will not take them on these 〈…〉 as most certainly he never will he must go look him â—â—â—er servants and so he will and make them know at last 〈…〉 their sorrow that he needed not their service but it was 〈…〉 that needed him and the benefits of his service I thought meet though I have done it oft before to give â—â—â— this difference between the Hypocrite and the sincere And â—â—w it is my earnest request unto you all that you will presently â—â— your souls to an account and know which of these two â—â—rses you have taken and which of these two is your own â—â—ondition If nature had made you such strangers to your selves as that 〈…〉 were unable to answer such a question I would never trouble 〈…〉 with it but I suppose by faithful enquiry you may know 〈…〉 much of your selves if you are but willing You know where it is that you have dwelt and what it is that you have been â—â—â—ng in the world and you can review the actions of your lives though they have been of smaller consequence Why then may 〈…〉 not quickly know if you will so great a thing as What hath â—â— the very End and Business for which you have lived in the â—â—rld till now Have you been running so long and know not â—â— what is the prize that you have run for Have you forgot the â—â— and that you have been so long going on Have you been â—â—sie all your daies till now and know not about what or why â—ertainly this is a thing that may be known if you are willing and â—igent to know it It is for one of these two that you have â—â—ed for the world or for God To please your flesh or to â—ease God and be saved Either to make provision for Earth or â—raven Which of these is it Deal plainly with your selves â—or your salvation is deeply concerned in the account Perhaps you will say that It was for both for as you have a soul and a body so you must look to both Yea but so as one â—â—at knoweth that One thing is Needful As your body is but â—â—e prison the case the servant of your souls so it must be proâ—â—ded for and used but as a servant and maintained only in a fitâ—ess for its work But the question is Which of them hath had the preheminence Which hath had the life of your affections and endeavours Which of them was your end and about which hath been the chief business that you have most carefully and diligently carryed on This is the great question You cannot have two masters though you may have many instruments and fellow-servants You cannot acceptably serve God if you serve Mammon Every wicked man may do somthing in Religion and every good man may do something that is contrary to Religion A carnal man may do something for God and for his soul and a spiritual man ought to do something subordinately for his body and too often alas doth something for it inordinately But which bears the sway and which is first sought and which comes behind and hath but the leavings of the other Be not deceived God is not mocked Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap If you sow to the flesh of the flesh you shall reap corruption but if you sow to the spirit of the spirit you shall reap everlasting life Gal. 6. 7 8. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world for themselves for if any man love the world with his chiefest Love the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2. 15. Is it not a wonder that any reasonable man can be such a stranger to himself as not to know what he lives for and what hath had his heart and what hath been the principal business of his life Some by-matters you may easily forget or over-look but can you do so by your end which hath been your chiefest care and business If indeed you no more know your own minds nor what you have all this while been doing in the world ask those that you have conversed with and judge by the effects and signs Others can tell what you have most seriously talked of They may conjecture by their observation what you have most carefully sought and resolutely adhered to Whether it be God or the flesh this world or Heaven The One thing Needful or the many troubling trifles in your way It is like that wise and godly observers can help you to discern it though sensualists will but deceive you A mans Love at least his chiefest Love cannot be hid but will appear in his behaviour If you Love God above the world you will seek him and his Glory before the world and if you do so it may partly be discerned if you have conversed with discerning men Heaven and earth are not so like nor the way to each of them so like but it may partly be discerned which way men are going and what they drive at in their daily course But I will urge you no further to the tryal I will take it for granted that your Consciences are telling many of you that you have been troubled about many things while the One thing Needful hath been neglected And if indeed this be your case suffer me to tell the guilty plainly what it is that they have done 1. Whatever you have been doing in the world you have lost your Time if you have not been seeking the One thing necessary If you have been gathering riches or growing up in honour as the rush groweth in the mire Job 8. 11. or filling your purses or your barnes or pleasing your fantasies and flesh you have but fooled away your time and done just nothing and much worse Nothing is done if the One thing Necessary be undone Believe it Time is a precious thing and ought not to have been thus cast away When you come to the end of it the worst and proudest of you shall confess it is precious Then O for one year more
Let him take all there is no living quietly by 〈…〉 A dog at his carrion or a swine in his trough is not more greedy then many of these sensualists that labour of the Caninus appâ—titus to their trash But to Holiness they have no appetite and are worse then indifferent to the things that are inâ—…sirable They have no covetousuess for the things which 〈…〉 commanded earnestly to covet 1 Cor. 12 31. They have â—…tle hunger and thirst after righteousness that a very little or none will satisfie them Here they are pleading alwayes for â—â—deration and against too much and too earnest and too long And all is too much with them that is above stark naught or dead hypocrisie and all is too earnest and too long that would make Religion seem a business or would engage them to seem serious in their own profession or put them past jeast in the worship of God and the matters of their salvation Let but their servants or children neglect their worldly business which I confess they should not do and they shall hear of it with both ears But if they sin against God or neglect his Word or Worship they shall meet with more patience then Eli's sons did A cold reproof is usually the best and it is well if they be not encouraged in their sin and if a child or servant that begins to be serious for salvation be not rebuked derided and hindred by them If on their dayes of labour they over-sleep themselves they shall be sure to be called up to work and good reason but when do they call them up to prayer When do they urge them to read or consider or conferr of the things that concern their everlasting life The Lords own day which is appointed to be set apart for matters of this nature is wasted in idleness or worldly talk Come at any time into their company and you may have talk enough and too much of news or of other mens matters of their worldly business sports and pleasures But about God and their salvation they have so little to say and that so heartlesly and on the by as if they were things that belonged not to their care and duty and no whit concerned them Talk with them about the renovation of the soul and the nature of holiness and the life to come and you shall find them almost as dumb as a fish or as dry as a chip or as erroneous or insensible as those that speak but words by rote to shew you how little they savour or mind the things of the Spirit The most understand not matters of this nature nor much desire or care to understand them If one would teach 〈…〉 personally they are too old to be catechized or to learn though not too old to be ignorant of the matters which they were made for and are preserved for in the world They are too wise to learn to be wise and too good to be taught how to be good â—…ough not too wise to follow the seducements of the Devil â—…he world nor too good to be the slaves of Satan and the deâ—…rs and enemies of goodness If they do any thing which theâ—… a serving of God it is some cold and heartless use of wordâ—…ake themselves believe that for all their sins they shall be saved so that God will call that a serving of their sins and abomination which they call a serving of God Some of them will confess that Holiness is good but they hope God will be merciful to them without it And some do so hate it that it is a displeasing irksom thing to them to hear any serious discourse of holiness and they detest and deride those as fanatick troublesome Precisians that diligently seek the One thing necessary So that if the Belief of the most may be judged by their practices we may confidently say that they do not practically believe that ever they shall be brought to Judgement or that there is any Heaven or Hell to be expected and that their confession of the truth of the holy Scriptures and their profession of the Articles of the Christian Faith are no proofs that they heartily take them to be true Who can be such a stranger to the world as not to see that this as the case of the greatest part of men And which is worst of all they go on in this course against all that can be said to them and will give no impartial considerate hearing to the truth which would recover them to their wits but live as if it would be a felicity to them in Hell to think that they came thither by wilful resolution and in despight of the remedy And is it not a sad prospect to a man that believeth the Word of God and the life to come to look upon such a distracted world O Sirs if Jesus Christ be wise that condemneth their course and them then certainly all these men are fools And if Christ knew what he said we must needs think that they know not what they do O what is the matter that reasonable men should have no more use of their reason in things of such importance then thus to neglect their everlasting state for a thing of naught Did God make them unreasonable or give them understandings uncapable of things of such high concernment Or rather have 〈…〉 not drowned their reason in sensuality and wilfully poisoâ—…th malicious aversness to God and Holiness What is â—…ter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God made them believe that they shall dwell here for ever and never die No surely this is so gross a lye that the Devil himself cannot make them believe it They know that they musâ—… sure as they are alive And yet they prepare not but wâ—…eir dayes in scraping in this dunghill world as if they werâ—…o no further Did God never warn them by a Sermon or 〈…〉 to prepare for the life which they must live for ever Yes â—…y a time but they would take no warning Did God never â—â—ll them that after this life there is another where they must live in endless joy or torment Yes and they professed that they did believe it They heard it an hundred times over till they were weary of hearing it Did God make them believe that they shall die like beasts that have no further to go nor any other life to live No if they do believe this it is the Devil and not God that maketh them believe it What then is the matter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God shut up their souls in desperation so that it is in vain to seek or trouble themselves for that of which there is no hope Oh no! his compassion hath provided them a full remedy by the death of his Son Redemption is procured and he hath made them a deed of gift of Christ and pardon and eternal life and tendred it to them that upon theâ—â— acceptance it may be
in the love and service of this God and in the practice of holiness and in the hopes of Heaven How meet are they for Hell that will venture upon it deliberately and upon choice to scape the trouble of living in the holy Love delight and service of the ever blessed God that is to scape the trouble of Heaven Is it so great a sin to shut up the bowels of compassion against our brother in his need 1 John 3. 17. And is it not more unnatural to deny compassion to your selves in your own necessity and in the greatest necessity O poor sinners remember your Necessities Your own your great your absolute Necessities When you hear men that gather alms cry Remember the poor doth it make thee think What a poor necessitous soul have I to remember As Paul saith of Preaching to others I may say much mote to you of minding and practising this great work of your salvation Necessity is laid upon you and woe to you if you do it not 1 Cor. 9. 16. Woe to you that ever you were born and that ever you were reasonable creatures or rather that ever you so abused your Reason if you neglect and miss of the One thing necessary I know you have other wants to be supplyed and other matters to look after in the world But alas how small are they God will supply all your other wants if you will first and saithfully look after this Phil. 4. 19. Matth. 6. 33. 1 Pet. 5. 7. Or if life and all go you will find all in heaven But if you miss of this One thing nothing in the world can make supply or do you good And though now your feeling tell you not these things alas how quickly will God make you feel and teach you by that sensible way that you would needs be taught by Awake then you sluggish careless souls Your house over your heads is on a flame The hand of God is lifted up If you love your selves prevent the stroke Vengeance is at your backs The wrath of God pursueth your sin and woe to you if he find it upon you when he overtaketh you Away with it speedily Up and be gone return to God make Christ and mercy your friend in time if you love your lives The Judge is coming for all that you have heard of it so long till you believe it not You shall shortly see the Majesty of his appearance and the dreadful glory or his â—aâ—â— and yet do you not begin to look about you and to maâ—e ready for such a day Yea before that day your separated souls shall begin to reap as you have sowed here Though now the partition that stands between you and the world to come do keep unbelievers strange to the things that most concern them yet Death will quickly find a Portal to let you in and then sinners you will find such doings there as you little thought of or at least did sensibly regard on earth Before your Corpse can be wrapt up in your Winding-sheets you will see and feel that which will tell you to the quick that One thing was necessary If you do die without this One thing Necessary before your friends can have finished your funerals your souls will have taken up their places among the Devils in endless torment and despair and all the wealth and honour and pleasure that the world afforded you will not ease you This is sad but it is true Sirs for God hath spoken it Up therefore and bestir you for the life of your souls Necessity will awake the sluggard Necessity we say will break stone walls The proudest will stoop when they perceive Necessity The most sloathful will bestir them when they feel Necessity The most careless will look about them and be industrious in Necessity Necessity is called the Tyrant of the world that can make men do any thing that is possible to be done And yet cannot Necessity make you cast away your sins and take up a Holy and Heavenly life Necessity will make men fare hard and work hard and travel hard and go bare and suffer much yea it will even cut off a leg or an arm to save their lives And yet can it not prevail with reasonable creatures to cast away the poison of a fruitless filthy deceitful sin and to be up and doing for their salvation O poor souls Is there think you a greater Necessity of your sin then of your salvation and of pleasing your flesh for a little time then of pleasing the Lord and scaping everlasting misery I beseech you consider your own Necessities 2. COnsider also that It is but One thing which God hath made Necessary for you And I shewed you before how that the means themselves though they are many have a certain unity in their harmony and connexion and as they center in the ultimate end which is One. If God had sent you upon such a multitude of errands as the flesh and the world doth and set you on such disagreeing contrary works then you had been excusable if you had neglected some of them But he hath sent you but upon One errand even to seek and make sure of everlasting life and therefore if you neglect this One you are unexcuseable If the world be divided into a thousand opinions or go a thousand several wayes they may thank themselves who are the Authors of this confusion but God is no cause of it or friend to it He hath made them but One work and set them but One way to heaven and given them One Master Jesus Christ to teach that way and written but One Law even his holy Scripture to be their sure and constant guide And if men would stick to this One Master and not make flesh and blood their master or the multitude their master or the Rulers of the world or the custum of their fore fathers the master of their fatih and if they would stick to this One Word of God and not run after the Traditions of men they would not be in such a maze nor of so many minds as now they are But they do in their doctrines as they do in their practice God hath marked them out but One way in the holy Scripture which is the good and the sure way the way that Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles went to heaven in and this way will not serve mens turns but they will run an hundred waies instead of this One and they must make new wayes which the Apostles of Christ were never acquainted with If God had loaded your memories with many things you might possibly have said we cannot remember them all but he hath set you finally but one thing to remember even to lay hold on everlasting life and press on to the Crown that is set before you and he hath an ill memory that cannot remember One thing and such a thing as this is too It may be you are Ignorant and cannot learn
perisheth in the using and flyeth from us when we have greatest need That is the good part which all men will say is good in the Conclusion which the wicked themselves that are now of another mind will confess at last to be the best and not that which is commended only in prosperity while the frensy or dream of sensuality doth beguile men â—â—â— which they will all cry out against at last If you would know which is the best part take counsel of God and see what he saith and ask men of wisdom and of greatest experience that have tried both and men that have staid the end and seen what fleshly pleasures and profits and honours can do for them For how can men make so true a judgement that do not either stay the end or else foresee the end by faith Do not take their judgements that are drunk with their sensual delights and that will confess they must repent themselves and therefore confess they must be of another mind Take not their judgements that neither have seen nor yet foresee the end the worst is yet to come with them Their states and minds are near a change The day is near when they will say that heaven was the better part and be convinced by punishment that would not be convinced by instruction Surely Sirs it is so easie a Question to reason it self where sin hath not blinded it whether God or the world be the better part that one would think there should be left no room for doubting Dare any of you speak out and say that earth is better then heaven or sin then grace or temporal pleasure then eternal happiness I think you dare not Shame will forbid you and Conscience will contradict you if you should say so And will you commend God by your words and discommend him by your lives Will you say heaven is best and yet seek the world before it and not let it have the best of your affections and endeavours Shall it be highest in your mouthes and lowest in your hearts and lives Shall it have the first place in your prayers and the last in your labours Why then you commend God but to his dishonour and your condemnation You extoll heaven and heavenly things but to the confusion of your own faces that your own confessions may be brought in hereafter as witnesses against you In the name of God therefore I charge you if you know which is the better part condemn not your selves by making choice against your knowledge 4. COnsider also that this good part is offered you and you have your choice whether God or the world whether heaven or earth shall be your portion It is not Purchasing or proper meriting but choosing the good part that you are called to It is not Mary hath purchased or merited the better part but hath chosen the better part Two things are here contained 1. That it is not matter of Impossibility that you are called to you are not excluded from the hopes of salvation by any exceptions that God hath put in against you in his promise but it is conditionally made as well to you as to others 2. And the condition is not any thing â—â—reasonable but your own consent Christ and salvation are offered to your choice If you will but prefer them before the trifles of the world you may have them The door of Grace is open to you as well as to others if you will but enter you may live you are not left in a remediless case nor given over to desperation you cannot say Repenting and Believing will do us no good we cannot have Christ though we were never so willing You cannot say We would fain have Christ and his Spirit to sâ—nctifie us but we cannot we are willing to be his Disciples but he is not willing to accept us and to be our Saviour you cannot say so and say truly you cannot say he is set to sale to you and that he expecteth such a price as you are unable to give for you are called to take him freely and though this be sometimes called buying yet it is a buying without money and without price Isa 55. 1 2 3 4. And though you must sell all you have for this unvaluable pearl Matth. 13. 46. yet that is but a Metaphorical selling a parting with your sin and fleshly pleasure as troubles and impediments that would keep you from salvation As a sick man sells his diseases for health or at least as he hath health by forbearing some hurtful things that please him Or as a prisoner purchaseth the liberty that is freely given him by consenting to come forth and cast off his fetters Your hands are full of dirt and God offers you gold and you cannot receive it till you throw away the dirt This is your Purchase You give God nothing as a valuable price for his mercy but you throw away the sin that is inconsistent with your happiness Still I shall tell you you may have Christ if you will pleasures and profits are flattering you to your destruction and God calls you from them and offereth you his son and everlasting life and intreateth you to accept them And here you have your choice The offer is whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. And if you will but chuse that happiness that is offered you and Christ the way to that happiness all the world cannot bereave you of your choice It is brought to your hand and urged on you You have now your choice whether you will have Christ or the flesh grace or sin heaven or hell As you chuse so you shall have And if you miss of life it will be because you did not chuse it Even because you would not come to Christ that you might have life John 5. 40. and would not have him to rule over you Luke 19. 27. and would not have the Lord indeed for your God Pâ—â—â—m 81. 11. and did not chuse the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 29. yea when Christ would have gathered you you would not be gathered Matth. 23. 37. It is this turning away of the simple that doth slay them because they refuse when Christ calls them and regard not when he stretcheth forth his hand but set at naught his counsel and will have none of his reproof Prov. 1. 24 25 32. See therefore that you refuse not him that speaketh for if you turn away from him that speaks from heaven and neglect or make light of so great salvation how do you think it possible you should escape Heb. 12. 25. 2. 3. Mat. 22. 5. But perhaps some of you will think to excuse your selves for want of Free-will and say How is it in our choice when God must give us to will and to do and we can do nothing of our selves have we free-will or power to chuse the better part You must not set up the power or will of man too high Answ
the Lord On Magistracy and Ministry and the great works of their office On prayer and preaching and Sacraments and Discipline and all other Ordinances of God and also on all the frame of the holy Scripture and also on all the workings and graces of the Holy-Ghost and tell me whether thou darest say that all or any of these are in vain and whether that Holiness which all these are appointed for can be a vain and needless thing Quest 18. Darest thou say that Christ doth more then needs in his Intercession for us with the Father now in Heaven It is he that sendeth the spirit to sanctifie us It is he that prayeth that we may be sanctified by the truth We have no grace and holiness but what we have from him And darest thou say he doth too much It is he that sends his Ministers to call men to a holy life Look into his Word and see whether the doctrine which they preach be not there prescribed to them and the duties of holiness there commended If therefore it were erroneous or excessive it would be long of Christ and not of his Messengers or Disciples that speak and do no more for holiness then he bids them but fall exceeding short Quest 19. Art thou wiser in this and more to be believed then all the antient Prophets and Apostles and servants of God in former ages and then all that are now alive on earth that ever tryed a holy life The Scripture will tell thee that Abraham Isaac Jacob David and all the rest of the Saints that were then most dear to God were so far from thinking that a holy life was more then needs that they thought they could never be holy enough and blamed their defects when they excelled such as now thou blamest as too precise And if thou wilt preferr the words and example of a worldling or of a sottish sensual man before the judgement and example of these Saints the company that thou choosest and the deceivers whom thou followest shall be also thy companions in calamity where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see the Saints from East and West from North and South sit down with Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and you and such as you thrust out Even when the last in time whom you here despised shall be equal to the first and antient Saints Luke 13. 27 28 29 30. Why do you hypocritically honour the names and memorials of the Prophets Apostles and other former Saints and keep Holy-dayes for them and yet reproach their holy course and preferr the judgement of a drunkard or a malignant enemy of godliness before theirs For so you do when you argue against a holy life Quest 20. Dost thou think that there is now one soul in Heaven or Hell that is of thy prophane opinion and would say that a diligent holy life is more ado then needs for mens salvation Certainly those in Heaven have more knowledge and experience and love to God and man and goodness then to be of so impious a mind or once to entertain such beastly thoughts And those in Hell though still â—â— holy have learned to their cost to know the great Necessity of â—…ss And would tell you if they could speak with you that the most strict and heavenly life for millions of ages were not too dear for the escaping of the everlasting misery Why else do we find one of them in Luke 16. described as so desirous that oâ—… the dead might be sent to his Brethren to warn them that they come not to that place of torment And what is it that he would have had them warned of but that they should live a holy self-denying life and with all their diligence lay up a treasure in the life to come instead of liying so sensual and voluptuous and ungodly a life as he had lived The scope of the story tells us that this would have been his message if he might have sent Quest 21. Dost thou think in thy Conscience that at the hour â—â— thy death or at least at Judgement thou shalt think thy self that Holiness was unnecessary Doth not thy heart tell thee that then thou shalt be of another mind and wish with the deepest desires of thy soul that thou hadst lived as strictly and prepared for everlasting life as seriously and served God as diligently as ever did any Saint on earth But alas those wishes will be then too late Now is thy day and now thou takest thy work to be needless And to see the Necessity when time is gone will be thy torment but not thy remedy Not one in this Congregation or Town or Countrey not one in England or in all the world but shall be forced at last whether he will or no to justifie the wisdom of the godly and the worst of you shall then with ten thousand fruitless groans desire that you had imitated the holyest persons that you knew Not a tongue then shall say What needs all this ado for heaven Not a man there dare call his neighbour Puritane nor take up a contemptuous jear against the diligent servants of the Lord. Quest 22. Is not that man at the heart against the Lord that reproacheth his serious diligent servants and counts his work a needless thing Men are more willing to please those that they love and more ready to do the works they love If your son or servant speak against your service but as you do against Gods what would you think of their affections Doubtless it is no better then a secret hatred to the holiness of God and a Serpentine eâ—â—ity to his holy wayes that causeth all these sensless cavils and impious speeches against the life that he hath commanded us to live Quest 23. Is it not most unreasonable impiety for that man â—â— speak against too strict exact obedience and against serving God â—â— much that hath served the world the flesh and the Devil in â—â— vigour and flower of his dayes and this with pleasure and never said It is too much When thou wast drinking and sporting thou wast not aweary When it comes to a matter of riches or honour or ease or pleasure to gratifie thy worldliness pride laziness and voluptuousness then thou never saist It is too much And is all too little for sin and the Devil and all too much for thy soul and God Let Conscience tell thee whether this be just Quest 24. Is it not a foolish wickedness for that man to cry out against making haste to heaven and going so fast in the wayes of God that hath loytered already till the evening of his dayes and lost so much time as thou hast done If thou hadst begun as soon as thou hadst the use of reason and remembred thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth and never lost an hour of thy time since then till now thou hadst done no more then what thy God thy soul
what is thy word that we should regard it before the Word of God Quest 27. Dost thou not know that by thy speaking against a diligent holy life thou gratifyest the Devil and openly servest him and saist the very things that he would have thee say What can more please him and advance his Kingdom and suit his malicious ends then to stop and cool men in the service of the Lord and make them believe that holiness is but a needless thing If the Devil might have leave to walk visibly among men and speak to them in their language he would speak to them as thou dost and say the same things which he 〈…〉 into thy mouth and would do all that he could to keep men from a holy life And darest thou thus openly play his part Quest 28. Canst thou think when eternal life is at the stake that a man so weak in the midst of so many hindrances and enemies hath cause to count his diligence unnecessary When Satan like a roaring Lyon is seeking day and night to devour thee 1 Pet. 5. 8. when his malice subtilty and diligence is so great and so unwearied when his instruments are so many so subtile and so powerful when the world aboundeth round about thee with such dangerous enticing snares and baits when thy trayterous flesh so near thee is thy most perilous enemy uncessantly drawing thee from God unto the creature and when thou art so impotent to resist all these assaults art thou then in a condition fit to cry out against the greatest diligence for thy soul Should a man going up the sleepest hill when it is for his life be afraid of going too fast When thou hast done all thou canst it is well for thee that ever thou wast born if it suffice If weaknesses and enemies cause such a difficulty that the righteous themselves are scarcely saved that is with much ado is it then time for thee to ask What needs so much ado Quest 29. Dâ—st thou not deal exceeding unthankfully and unequally with God When he thinks not the Sun and Moon and all the creatures too good to serve thee nor all his mercies too great for thee no not the blood of his beloved Son nor his Spirit nor Heaven it self if thou wilt accept them in his way wilt thou think thy best too good for him and thy most diligent service to be too much When thy All is next to Nothing and thy Best doth not profit the Almighty but thy self and the gain will be thy own If a man should think it too much to put off his hat and thank thee when thou hast given him a thousand pound or to go a mile for thee when thou hast saved his life thou wouldst say he were not a man but a monster of ingratitude But thy unthankfulness is ten thousand-fold worse to God who would deliver thee from everlasting torments and give thee everlasting glory and save thee from Satan and all thy sins if thou wilt but take his safe remedies and thou churlishly refusest as if all were not worth so much ado Quest 30. Dost thou know what a life it is that thou accountesâ— an unnecessary toil It is a life of the greatest Safety Commodity Honour and Delight besides the justice and honesty of it of any in the world and indeed thou canst not choose any other but at thy peril and to thy greatest loss and ruine and to thy present and everlasting shame and sorrow It is the sweetest and most pleasant life on earth that thou ignorantly accountest such a tedious toyl The manifestation of this shall be my work in the second Part of this Discourse And now I dare affirm that when the dreadful God shall shortly judge thee who hast read or heard these words it will be found indelibly written upon thy Conscience that thou hadst here such Reasons laid before thee to prove the Necessity of a serious diligent holy life as all the wit in earth or Hell is not able solidly to confute and that an ungodly sensual life is most unreasonable and that if after this thou continue in an unsanctified fleshly state thou shall justly perish as one that wilfully refused salvation as in despight of God his mercies and his messengers and of the plainest undenyable Truth and Reason And that in refusing to be a SAINT thou madest thy self in the greatest matters no better then a BRUTE wilfully subjecting thy Reason to thy sensuality and judging thy self unmeet for everlasting Happiness BUt here I know the self-deceiving Hypocrite will object That all this that I am proving so diligently is confest and nothing to the point in question Which is not Whether One thing be needful and Holiness be of Necessity to salvation For who denyeth this But the question is Whether it be this Puritanical precise way of serving God which only deserves the name of Holiness and Whether they be net as truly godly and sanctified that say their prayers morning and night and go to Church on Sundayes and follow their businesses the rest of the week without any more ado Answ Either it is the substance of holy duties or but the circumstances which you quarrel at as Puritanical and precise If it be only the circumstances as Whether we should receive the Lords Supper standing or kneeling or sitting Whether we should pray publickly without Book or on the Book and Whether a Scripture-form or another be better and Whether a continued speech or versicles anthems and oft-repeated words and sentences be better What form of Church Government is best â— by Diocesane Bishops or by all the Pastors and the like It is not of such things as these that I am pleading with thee Though some of them are matters of considerable moment for the helping or hindring men in godliness yet it is greater matters then these that I am now contending for Agree with us practically in the substance in Faith Repentance Love Obedience Mortification Heavenliness Humility Patience and serious diligence and zeal in all and then I am none of those that will condemn or censure you but one that will rejoyce in you as those that I hope to rejoyce with for ever But if it be the substantial duties of godliness that you resist while you own but the Name of godliness in the general I must tell you that it is not Names and Generals that will save you nor prove that you have your selves one spark of Grace Nothing more eafie and common then for the most ungodly to say they are all for a godly life and God forbid that any should be against it when yet they hate and reject it indeed when it comes to the practice of those particular duties in which it doth consist It is not godliness that they hate and reproach but it is fervent prayer holy conference meditation self-denyal mortification of the desires of the flesh heavenly mindedness c. In general they will say that Gods Law must be
and therefore no wonder if he would deceive you He is cast out of heaven himself and would not have you possess the room that he hath lost He is a wicked lying spirit and therefore is not to be believed He is a murderer from the beginning and therefore will not speak for your salvation Joh. 8. 44. If the Devil be to be believed then none are wiser then the ungodly sensual worldly men and none are in a worse condition then those that are despised by the world for Holiness and that suffer all things for a Life unseen But the enmity that is planted in your very natures against the Devil I hope will help you to confess that he must not be the Judge 2. And truly Ignorant ungodly men are unmeet Judges And it is they that bawle against Religion and speak against they know not what 1. They are Blind by nature and more blind by customary sin And must a Blind man be your Judge or witness in a case of everlasting moment 2. They are unexperienced in the ways of God How can they judge of a state that they were never in and of a way that they never went They never tryed the work of the new birth nor never tryed the holy exercise of faith or Love or any Grace and therefore you may as well take the Judgement of a simple man concerning another countrey that was never there or concerning Navigation that never was at sea or concerning Learning that never read a book or concerning Musick that never toucht an Instrument as the Judgement of an unsanctified man concerning Holinesâ— and Communion with God unless it be those that have a common convincing light that causeth them to approve of that which they neglect themselves 3. And certainly your own sâ—…y and fleshly miâ—dâ— are unfit Judges of the case For they also are Blind and unexperienced They are not suited unto spiritual things To which I may add 3. That they and all ungodly men are Partial in the case and 〈…〉 unfit to be witnesses or Judges All the Scripture speaks against the Devil and the wicked and the lusts of the flesh and therefore they are a party even the party that is to be ejected 4. Yea they are enemies and therefore their testimony or judgement is not to be regarded And what else will speak a word against a Holy life but the Devil the flesh and wicked men Not any And therefore let it be concluded that these are incompetent Judges in the case But who then shall be Judge Let God be Judge let Christ be Judge Who can who dare refuse this Judge Refuse him not for none but he is fit and competent Refuse him not for he will be Judge whether you will or no and therefore your refusal will be vain 1. He is most wise and knoweth all things and therefore cannot be deceived 2. He is Infinitely Good and therefore cannot do any wrong He is impartial and respecteth not the persons of the greatest He is most just and therefore cannot pass an unjust sentence 3. He only is the Judge that hath full authority to make a final decision of the case 4. And in a word he is so absolutely perfect that he is lyable to no just exceptions nor can men or Devils have any thing to say against his judgement Are you agreed then that God shall be your Judge Will you take that for the better part which he calls better If so the controversie is at an end The living God hath given us his judgement long ago If you ask me Where I le tell you anon when I have examined some of the witnesses of the case And though I am resolved to own no proper final Judge but God yet under him there are many witnesses that are worth the hearing Indeed I am content to refer the cause to any one that doth but know what he saith and is not unfaithful reserving to God the final judgement And 1. Go to the wisest men on earth and let them be witnesses What think you of all the Prophets and Apostles and of all the antient Fathers of the Church Were not these men wiser then you or then the sottish scorners that revile the wayâ— which they never went and speak evil of that which they understand not Iâ— Prophets and Apostles were not for Holiness 〈…〉 a fleshly worldly life then I will be of your mind But if they all as with one heart and mouth do cry down sin and cry up Holiness why should you then refuse their Testimony Are you wiser then all these 2. What think you of all the godly able Ministers of Christ that are now alive or ever were Are they not wiser then you and a few drunkards that have scarce wit enough to do the Devils service without such sottishness as shames his cause Have none of Christs Ministers that spend their days in studying and searching after knowledge more wit even in the matters of God then a carnal Gentleman or ignorant malicious wretch that never used the means for Knowledge as these have done In any other matter you will allow men that have made it the study of their lives to know more then you If you want counsel for your states you 'l go to one that hath studied the Law If you are sick you will sooner seek advice of one that hath made it the business of his life to understand diseases and remedies then to one that never studied it You 'l sooner take the judgement of every tradeseman in his trade then your own or anothers that never learned it Allow but those men to be competent witnesses that have bent their thoughts and prayers and cares this way and the controversie is resolved For what is it that all our Sermons plead for but Holiness in order to Everlasting Happiness What is it that so many thousand Books are written for but for Holiness Open the Books of the wisest men and see which side it is that they are on Go to the wisest ablest Ministers and aske them which is the better part 3. If Wisdom suffice not let the best and honestest men be witnesses Who better then Christ then his Apostles then all the holy Martyrs and Confessors of the Church and all the Doctors and faithful Ministers of Christ which side think you were they on that laid down their lives for the cause of Christ sure they that would rather burn at a stake or suffer all the scorns and torments of the world then forsake a Holy heavenly life did take it to be better then all the pleasures or profits of the world Sure all the holy Doctors and Pastors of the Church that lived so Holy lives themselves and spent their days in Praying and watching and meditating and preparing for the life to come contemning all the vanities of the world did think that this was the Better part which they followed after with so much diligence and patience as they did Hear me a few words
life to come where some are happy and some are miserable and they commonly profess that all men should obey their Maker and make it their chiefest care and labour in this life to be happy in the next Heathens will confess this And yet I suppose you will easily confess that these men are none of the fittest Judges The way to Life by Jesus Christ they do not understand But that the world is vanity and nothing to be preferred before our happiness in the world to come this they will commonly acknowledge And if the lives of the most of them contradict this profession yet still they are forced to confess the truth and truth is not the less truth because they that confess it will not obey it Nay what greater testimony can you wish to silence your unbelieving thoughts then the witnesses of the enemies of the truth who as they condemn themselves by bearing witness to that which they refuse to practise so shall their witness aggravate your condemnation if you will live below it What are you Christians and yet refuse to come up in your choice and lives to the doctrine of Heathens and Infidels 7. I know you will think at least that those Hereticks that are daily here bawling against us will not be partial on our side â—f you think that this Doctrine is contrived by us for any ends and interests of our own hearken then to our enemies These railing Quakers that can scarce tell how to speak a word of the Ministers of Christ but what is the spawn of venemous fiery bitter malice do for all this cry up Holiness of life Though they corrupt the doctrine of Christ so odiously and speak like Heathens in many of their extasies and writings yet do they openly cry down your sensual worldly wayes Do you not hear how they rail at us for your sakes that are vicious and ungodly and tell us that you are the fruit and shame of our Ministry Though these words be the fruit and shame of their malicious Heresie for all the world may know that it is our daily work to procure your Conversion and that you keep your sins and refuse a holy heavenly life in despight of us yet I must tell you that these wretches shall condemn you The streets and Congregations have heard them cry out against your ungodly lives and yet you will not turn to God Must good and bad must Ministers and raging Hereticks give in their testimony against you and yet will you not be satisfied and come in 8. If yet you know not the better part to whom will you appeal Will you go to the Multitude and put it to the vote not only among Christians but throughout the world Truly there is no great reason for this when most men are so blind and wicked but yet if you should they would go against you twenty if not an hundred to One. I know well enough that when it comes to practice they will not live a holy Life and shew thereby a root of bitterness But if you ask them what their judgement is Whether God or the world whether Heaven or earth whether Holiness or sin be best and to be chosen most men are against you and would give it you as their judgement under their hands that God and everlasting life should be first sought Though by this Confession they condemn themselves yet is it their Confession As I told you before the Jews are for this doctrine the Turks and other Mahometans are for it most of the Heathen world is for it doctrinally though they will not practice it Only there are three sorts against it in the world that ever I heard of One sort are the Cannibals that eat mens flesh and go naked and live like beasts and never heard of another life and some such savages as they Another sort is a few of the Heathen Philosophers and and their followers that differ in this from all the rest A third sort is here and there a debauched apostate that by the righteous judgement of God are so far forsaken by his Grace for their pride and falshood against the truth that they have lost the belief of a Life to come and live under the visible plagues of God upon their souls as men that have sinned wilfully against the truth and have no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgement and fire that shall devour the adversary Heb. 6. 6 7. 10. 26. and are near the state of the Devils themselves that are reserved in the chains of spiritual darkness to the judgement of the great day Jude 6. Job 21. 30. And will you take the judgement of here and there a forlorn wretch a deplorate apostate an Epicure or a Countrey of inhumane Cannibals before the judgement of the most wise and godly and of almost all the world What excellency hath the understanding of these singular men that it should be so valued above all others You know partly in this place who they be that are of this Opinion And is their Number or Wisdom or Conversation such as should move you to be of their Opinion Shall half a dozen desperate apostates of ungodly lives seem wiser to you then all the world And yet I am perswaded that if you go to any even of these few apostates whatever they think they will confess that a Holy life is best And yet have you not witness enough against you 9. Who then shall be the Judge Shall we appeal to the very Things themselves and to the daily experience of the world You see that worldlings labour for the wind You see that all their care and pains will not avoid the stroak of death that turneth the proudest flesh into a clod and maketh dirt of the greatest Prince You see that wealth and honour do but mock men and leave them in the grave to darkness and corruption And when you are sure that this will be the upshot of all your fleshly pleasure and worldly gains are you not satisfied past all doubt that the smallest hopes or possibility of another life should be sought with far more care then this 10. If none of these witnesses be regarded by thee I know not whom to appeal to but thy self And wilt thou needs thy self decide the case Hast thou knowledge and experience honesty and impartiality enough to fit thee to be judge If thou hadst thou wouldst make no doubt of it but have been resolved for Heaven and Holiness ere this Thy unresolvedness proves thee blind and partial and very much forsaken by the spirit of light And should such a one be judge But go to I will much referre thy case to thy self reserving still the final judgement to the Lord upon these just and resonable conditions 1. Wilt thou first thy self but use those necessary means for knowledge in Reading Fasting Praying Watching Meditation Conference with the wise and such like as all those do that come to ripe and saving
Knowledge If I referr my health to thee as my Physicion thou must not refuse to try my pulse and see my urine and use the means to find out the disease Wouldst thou be my Lawyer and refuse to read my Evidences and study my case And wilt thou needs be judge thy self of the matters of thine own felicity or misery and yet refuse to read and hear and pray and meditate and use the necessary means of understanding Wilt thou lie in bed and work out thy salvation Wilt thou make use of no ones eyes but thy own and yet wilt thou wink or draw the Curtains or shut the windows and cast away thy spectacles and neither come into the sunshine nor use a candle This is but to say I will willfully condemn my soul and none shall hinder me 2. But yet another condition I must propose If thou wilt but as I said before of others a while make Tryal of a holy life and try in thy self what Faith and Hope and Charity are and try what selfdenyal is I will then referr the matter to thy self Go back from God if thou find any Reason for it and turn from Christ and Heaven and Holiness if thou do not like them But if thou wilt needs be the judge and wilt not be perswaded to try the thing thou art a partial self-deceiving judge 3. But it this much cannot be obtained at least be Considerate in thy judging If thou wilt but take thy self aside from the noise of wordly vanities and deceits and commune seriously with thy heart and bethink thee as before the Lord and as one that knows he must shortly dye Whether Heaven or Earth should be sought most carefully and Whether God or thy flesh should be served most resolvedly and diligently and if thou wilt but dwell so long upon these manlike thoughts till they are digested and Truth have time to shew its face I dare then leave the question to thy self The next time that the Sermon or any affliction comes near thee and awakeneth thy Conscience do but withdraw thy self into secret and soberly bethink thee of the matter what hopes thou hast from the world and what thou 〈◊〉 have from God what Time is and what Eternity is and give â—â—â— Conscience leave to speak and then I will venture the issue upon thy Conscience For thee I mean though I must stick to a better judge my self Doth not Conscience sometime tell thee that the Holyest persons are the wisest and that thy labour is liker at last to be lost and repented of than theirs Doth not Conscience sometime make thee wish that thou wert but in as safe a case as they and that thou mightest but die the death of the Righteous and that thy last end might be as theirs 4. But if all this will not serve the turn thou shalt be Judge thy self but it shall be when thou art more capable of judging If God by Grace shall Change thy heart I will stand to thy Judgement If he do not when thy graceless guilty soul shall pass out of thy pampered dirty flesh and appear before the dreadful God I will then leave the case to thy Conscience to judge of To all Eternity it shall be partly left to the judgement of thy Conscience whether sin or Holiness be better and whether Saints or careless sinners were the wiser and whether it had not been be ter sor thee to have spent that life in preparing for thy Endless life which thou spentst in slighting it and caring for the world and flesh Then thou shalt be Judge thy self of these matters but under a more severe and righteous judge And so as shall make thy tearing heart to wish with many a thousand groans that thou hadst judged wiselier in time But because that Judgement will be to desperation and too late for hope or any help let Conscience speak when thou lyest sick and seest that thou art a dying man Then judge thy self whether a Holy or a worldly life be better and whether it had not been thy wiser course to have sowed to the spirit that so thou maist reap everlasting life then to have sowed to the flesh from which thou now lookst to reap no better then corruption Be not deceived God is not mocked whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap Gal. 6. 6 7. But because it will be very late to stay till thy own Death draw so neer thee go but to thy neighbours that lie in sickness looking for the stroak of death Yea to thy companions in sin and folly and ask them then which way is better Ask them then which is the better part Whether now they had rather be the Holyest Saints or such as they have been Whether now they had not rather they had spent their time in the most careful seeking for Everlasting life then in doing as they have done Say to thy old companion now Brother I see you are near your end the mortal stroak of death is coming you are now leaving all the pleasures of this world I pray you tell me now your Judgement whether mirth and sport and feasting and drinking and wealth and honour be more to be sought then life eternal and whether Hearing and Reading the word of God and Praying and meditating and flying from sin be as bad or as needless a thing as we have formerly taken it to be Had you rather appear before the Lord in the case of those that we derided as Puritans and too precise for making such a doe about salvation or in the case that you and I have lived in Ask but this Question to thy old companions and try whether the Consciences of almost all that approach their end do not bear witness against ungodliness and do not justifie the holy diligence of the Saints It is but two days since a poor drunkard of a neighbour Parish being ready to pass out of this world did send hither and to other Parishes in the terrours of his soul to desire our Congregations to take warning by him and to strive with God if possible for some mercy for his soul that was passing in terrours into another world because of the guilt of his odious sin Well sirs I have gone along with you to all the creatures in this world that have any fitness to judge in this case and if all these will not serve we must go to another world for Judgement or stay till you come there 11. And really do you think if we could speak with Angels or departed Souls that they would not consent with God and all Believers in their Testimony O how they would rebuke their madness that make any doubt of so great so plain so sure a truth as this of the necessity and the excellency of a Holy life None are so fully resolved of this question as they that have tasted the End of both and past the righteous judgement of the Lord. They that are feeling the anguish of their
which the Gospel worketh as well as small 3. That good which they had was wrought only by some â—eraps or parcels of the same holy Truth that is contained in the Scriptures And therefore even so much Truth among the Heathens as proficed them to any Reformation was the word of God and owned by him Quer. 6. Do you believe that Jesus Christ did rise again from the dead or not and that he and his Disciples did work those many uncontrolled Miracles or not If you do believe it then what need you further testimony to prove the doctrine to be of God or to prove that there is a Life to come Shall the Captain of our Salvation himself Rise from the dead and conquer death and ascend up into Heaven to shew us that there is a Life to come and yet will you not believe it Or would God lend to any man his Power to confirm a false doctrine to the world If so then 1. It would be God himself that should mislead us For it is he that worketh the Miracles or granteth special Power to the instrument to do it 2. Man should be unavoidably misled For if a man rise from the Dead and raise others and give to thousands the guifts of Languages healing and the like and all this have no greater contrary evidence from God of some contradiction or controllment I am unavoidably deceived and neither my greatest innocency or diligence or any other help from men could possibly relieve me And he that can believe that the Infinitely Powerful Wise and Good is either necessitated or disposed to deceive the world and Rule them by deceit and falshood and to lend his power to confirm a doctrine that he hateth and is against himself this man indeed believeth not that there is any God 3. Even the Brutists themselves and all the Infidels with whom we talk will confess that if they should see Christ Rise or see such Miracles they would believe and therefore they do confess that they are cogent Evidence to those that know of them Obj. Did not the sorcerrers in Egypt work Miracles Ans 1. Wonders they did but not Miracles 2. They were controlled and shamed and disowned by God by Moses his contradictory conqueting Miracles Obj. But some might have dyed between the Magicians wonders and Moses controlment and so have been unavoidably lost Answ 1. The time was neer and that not likely of those that knew of them 2. At the first wonder of the Magicians Aarons Rod swallowed up their Rods Exod. 7. 12. and therefore the conquest obliged them to suspend belief of the other 3. The Miracles of Moses were not to reveal a new doctrine of salvation that could not otherwise be known but partly to convince Pharaoh that the Lord was God and partly to cause him to let go the Israelites The peoples salvation lay not on the later and the former they had abundant means to know by the works and light of Nature it self And the Magicians wonders were not to reveal a New false doctrine any further then to contend againg Moses Miracles and if they had yet being against the doctrine of the whole Creation that revealeth the Creator no man could be excusable for believing them because God hath given so full a testimony before against them so that this objection is plainly but an impertinent cavil But I doubt not but you will say that you are not sure that Christ rose again and that ever such Miracles were done I Ask therefore Quer. 7. Whether it be possible that so many and so wise and godly men as their writings prove them should give up their lives and all that they had and could have hoped for in this world to perswade the world that they saw Christ Risen if it were false and to draw them to believe a falshood that tended to the worldly ruine of them all Quer. 8. And is it possible that if they had been so bad and mad that so many thousands would have believed them when their own frequent Miracles Language c. were the witness of their fidelity to which they openly appealed and this in the very age and place where all these things might easily be confuted if untrue If I should pretend to convince the world by Languages not learned and by other Miracles and guifts which I never had would countreys or any sober persons believe me or should I not be the common scorn Would the Churches of the world have been planted by pretended Miracles that never were would they all have given up estates and lives upon an evident lye It was easie for them all to see and hear whether these things were done or not And therefore he that seeth those Churches which were the proper effects of Miracles may know the Cause A real effect had a real cause Quer. 9. Was it possible that so many hundred or thousand persons dispersed about the world on a sudden could without coming neer each other agree both upon one and the same false doctrine throughout and on the same practices to deceive the world Quer. 10. Is it possible that among so many thousands that torments or death or common ingennity would not have forced some to have repented and opened the deceits of all the rest Quer. 11. Is it possible that so many Hereticks that did fall from them and set against the true Aposles would none of them have disclosed the deceit if really the Miracles had not been done Quer. 12. Is it possible that none of the Jews their bitter Enemies nor any of the Learned Romans of that age would have discovered the fraud and by writing confuted the matters of fact being publik and if false so easily confuted Where are the Books that ever any one of them wrote to disprove any of these Miracles If you say The Christians burnt them give us the least proof of it if you can When did any Jew complain of such a thing Nay how could the dispersed persecuted Christians destroy the writings of their reigning enemies The writings of Jews and Romans then written remain to this day and had fuller humane advantages of preservation then any that are against them No Jews or Romans complained or to do this day complain of such a thing nor tell us of any such writings of theirs that ever were in the world Quer. 13. Nay the Jews confessed the Miracles themselves and had no shift left for their unbelief but by Blaspheming the Holy Ghost and saying that they were done by the Power of the devil Quer. 14. All the dispersed Churches and Christians of the world have universally concurred in delivering us down these matters of fact and the Writings that contain them and this as a thing that they grounded all their hope of Salvation on and for which they contemned this present world And the Enemies that gainsaid their doctrine did not gainsay these matters of fact Could this be feigned Quer. 15. Have I not fully manifested in my
but while their power can enforce them They are subject to errour and injustice and are not the same in one Countrey as in another or in one age as in the former and their Rewards and punishments are but temporal and therefore though under the Laws of God they are necessary for the Government of Common-wealths yet without Gods Laws they would be utterly insufficient 6. The way of Holiness is contrary to all Evil whatsoever and therefore hath nothing to disturb a Common-wealth It is true we cannot say so of the persons because they are but imperfectly sanctified Were they in all things such as their Lord and Rule and Religion do require they would have nothing that might be injurious to any But surely as a sick man or a lame is better then a dead corps and as a man of mean understanding is better then an ideot and a mean Schollar better then the illiterate so a man imperfectly sanctified is better in a Common-wealth then the ungodly You blame not the Laws of this Land because that Thieves and Murderers break them The Laws are Good if they oblige men to nothing but what is Good though bad men break them The Rules of Christian Religion are most perfect and direct or command men nothing that is evil There may be faults in us but there is none in the holy Laws which we desire and endeavour to obey Religion therefore is the way to the perfecting and securing of all Societies and the want of it subverteth them 7. Holiness doth not only tell men of a right way and shew them their duty but also effectually Disposeth their very minds to the performance of it and causeth them to walk therein The nature of it is to be the very Right Disposition of the heart and right ordering of the life The truly gracious soul is habitually an enemy to all known sin and addicted to obey in all known Duties And surely persons thus habituated are liker to live according to their Dispositions then others to live well that hate the good in their hearts which they should practise Mens Laws can command good but cannot give men good hearts to practise it as God doth by his servants If you cannot tell whether wicked men that love sin or godly men that hate it are better members of a Common-wealth you know not what Societies are for 8. Holiness destroyeth the root of iniquity and teacheth men to hate even secret sins which are in the heart or which none can see but God alone The Laws of men restrain the Subjects but from open injuries but Holiness restraineth men from doing the most secret wrong to others or once thinking speaking or contriving any evil against them It reacheth the conscience it cleanseth the heart from whence all evil doth proceed 2 Sam. 12. 12. Deut. 27. 24. Psalm 90. 8. Eccles 12. 14. A man fearing God as such dare not deceive or wrong another though he were sure that it would never be known on earth For he knoweth that the Lord is the avenger of such things 1 Thes 4. 6. 9. Holiness cementeth the members of all Societies with the strongest cement of endeared Love It bindeth them together in the bond of Charity He is not Godly that Loveth not all men even his enemies with that common Love that is due to humanity and that Loveth not all that Fear the Lord with a special Love Psalm 15. 4. Joh. 13. 34 35. 15. 12 17. 1 Joh. 3. 14 23. 4. 7 11 12 20. Luke 6. 27. 10. Holiness maketh Princes and Rulers a double blessing to their people It maketh them the more Divine and bear the more excellent Image of God How precious is the name of a David an Hezekiah a Josiah a Constantine a Theodosius though they had all their falls in comparison of the name of a Saul a Jeroboam an Ahab a Nero a Julian O how sweet is the name of a Godly King in the Subjects mouthes Even those that are enemies to Godliness as in themselves because they cannot endure to be curbed and troubled with it do yet use to admire and honour it in their Kings and Governours Authority and Holiness conjunct are two such rayes of the Heavenly Majesty and Goodness as place man in the state of highest excellency on earth and make him so much to resemble his Creator as hath given such the highest place in the esteem and honour of the world of any mortals And it is not easie for a people to value such Holy and Pious Princes and Governours too highly or to be sufficiently thankful for them unto God 1. Holiness effectually teacheth Governours to Rule for God To set him highest and make it their work to seek his Glory and to avoid all selfish contradictory interests and to own nothing that stands at enmity with his honour but to judge that they have most happily attained the ends of their Government and lives if they have promoted the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ and the work of Holiness in the world 2. Holiness will cause Rulers to preferr Gods Laws before their own and to be examples to their Subjects of obedience to God and to desire that all men should stand in far greater awe of God then of them It will make them careful to form all their Laws and Government to the pleasing of God and promoting mens obedience to his Laws and to take heed that there be nothing in them injurious to Christ or contrary to his Will It will teach them with David to enquire of God and make him their Counsellour And with Josiah to search the Book of the Law and humble themselves when they have violated it And with Joshua Not to suffer it to depart out of their mouthes but to meditate in iâ— day and night that they may observe to do according to all that is written therein And then God hath promised to make their way prosperous and to give them good success Josh 1. 8. 3. Holiness will cause the Rulers of the world to Love those that are Holy and to promote the Communion of Saints and to be Nursing Fathers to the Church even that part of the Holy Catholick Church which they are entrusted with and to protect them from the violence of men It will keep them from the sins of Jeroboam that corrupted Gods worship and put forth his hand against the Prophet that spoke against it Whereby God will be engaged to be their Protector in Peace and War When Princes and people that fall out with Holiness and take part with the flesh and set themselves against the servants the worship and the wayes of Christ do put themselves from under his protection and put themselves under the battering and piercing stroakes of his displeasure And wo to him that striveth with his Maker and that kicks against the pricks of his severity Isa 45. 9. Acts 9. 5. 26. 14. The fatal ruine of the Kingdoms of the world or at least the
secureth every Society and interesteth them in the most impregnable defence even in the Love and favour of the Lord and in his many sure and precious promises He hath engaged his Almightiness and Fidelity for such and rendreth them as the apple of his eye and hath promised that he will be their defence Zech. 2. 8. Psalm 5. 11. 7. 10. 59. 9 16 17. 62. 2. whereas the ungodly are under his curse Psalm 1. 6. 37. And which of these Societies is liker to be happy 18. Godliness is the surest way to furnish every Society with all the blessings that are truly good for them For they have the favour and promise of him that is the giver of them all Rom. 8. 28. Psalm 34. 10. 84. 11. 23. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. 6. 6. Mat. 6. 33. But wickedness is the certain way to ruine Even one sinner destroyeth much good Eccl. 9. 18. and one godly man hindreth much evil as the case of Joseph Moses Daniel and many others tells you 19 Moreover it is Godliness that is the honour of all Societies Without this their wisdom is meer folly and their Riches are but the â—etters of their slavery and canker to gnaw them and testifie against them and their greatest victories may be but murders which shall damn them and their splendour in the world is but the sign of their misery in the eyes of all fore-seeing men Prov. 14. 34 Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people What Glory can be equal to the Glory of our interest in God and of our being his people and doing his work and having his presence 20. Lastly How can that be worst on earth that is so good in Heaven The perfection of Holiness hereafter with the Holy Love and Praises and Enjoyments of the Saints will be their Glory If you think this worst in your Societies on earth what do you but renounce it If Heaven be worst for you come not thither If the participation of that which is the felicity of the glorified be not the felicity of all Societies I desire none of their felicity What if Saints from Heaven would come down and dwell among you here on earth I beseech you as men of reason answer me these two Questions 1. Whether you do not know or verily believe that they would be more Holy and Pure and Exact and strict and more averse to all sin then any of those are that now you dislike as too precise 2. Whether you would therefore call them Puritanes and hate them and cast them out or imprison them or take them for the troublers of your Countries or rather for the honour and blessing of your Countries What you would do by them that do by those that come nearest to them among you CHAP. V. Times of Holiness are the Best Times AND now I have given you all this Evidence I dare leave it to the judgement of any man that is fit to judge Whether it be the godly or ungodly that are the Better Magistrates or Better Pastors of the Churches or Better Members of the Common-wealth or of any Society Judge now whether the Places and Times are not Best that are most Godly And whether it be the Godly or the Ungodly that are the Troublers of the world And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men to charge it upon them that Fear the Lord that all the troubles of the world are long of them We were all quiet say they before this Religion and preciseness troubled us and this is it that since it came among us hath set us all together by the ears But if these men be yet reasonable I desire them to consider 1. That this hath alwayes been the old complaint of the most wicked men which God himself hath testified against When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites to forbear a villany not to be named Gen. 19. 7 8 9. I pray you Brethren do not so wickedly What said they to him and how did they take it Why they said stand back and they said again This One fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge Now will we deal worse with thee then with them Is not this the case between us now How are we unpeaceable Because we are against sin If we would hinder men from wronging God and from condemning their own souls and others then forsooth we are their troublers and we judge them and we disturb their Peace Just like the Sodomites These precise fellows say they will neede be our Judges and we must be ruled by them before they came among us we had none of this ado But did not God think you decide the controversie aright He first took Lot and his family away that the Sodomites might be troubled with that precise and busie fellow no more and then he sent fire from Heaven on Sodom and consumed them all making them an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Or as it is fully set forth by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 2. 6 7 8 9. Turning the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes he condemned them with an overthrow making them an example to those that after should live ungodly Mark this And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust to the day of Judgement to be punished And now who is it that was troublesom and the cause of evil Was it Lot or was it Sodom Take heed lest God take the Lots that trouble you from among you and when you are rejoycing that you are rid of them he serve you worse then he served Sodom In the daies of Noah no question but that Preacher of Righteousness seemed to the world a singular and a self-conceited fellow But did not God decide the controversie whether it were Noah or they that were the troublers of the world Saith Peter 2 Pet. 2 5. God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly When Israel â—ell before the men of Ai it was a doubt who it was that was the cause of that calamity but God proved it to be Achan who is stoned upon this sentence of Joshua Josh 7. 25. Why hast thou troubled us the Lord shall trouble thee this day 2. And consider I pray you What a Quietness it is that you have before you are troubled by the Godly It is a Quietness in the high way to Hell You had the priviledge of damning your souls without disturbance from these precise controllers Hath not
Christ told us that the Devil is thus like a strong man armed that while he keepeth his Palace his goods are in Peace but when a stronger then he shall come upon him and overcome him he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted and divideth the spoils Luke 11. 21 22. The hearts and the Nations that are not conquered by Christ are the Devils Garrisons and possessions Do you think that it is best that he possess them still in Peace Or that the Preachers of Christ that plant his Ordinance against them and batter them till they are forced to yield are therefore busie troublesom fellows What is it for but for your deliverance that are Satans captives at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. 3. And might you not on this ground also account Christ himself the troubler of the world as much and a thousand times more then us For be doth more to disturb men in their sins then any of we and be doth more for Holiness then all the world besides And in this sense he confesseth and fore-tells us that he came not to send Peace but division into the world into Towns and Countries and Families Luke 12. 51 52 53. If we can have no Peace with you unless we will disobey our Lord and serve the Devil and the flesh and damn our own souls and suffer you to do the like then keep your Peace among your selves we will none of that Peace we have no mind to buy your friendship and good words at such a rate If your peace will stand with our peace with God and peace of Conscience we will gladly accept of it If it will not we can be without it Your souls are like sores that may not be searched or a broken bone that must not be set for fear of hurting you You are like men that must have that which would kill them or like children that will cry if they be but taken out of their dung or kept from fire or from knives If we do but cross you in the way to Hell we trouble you and we break the peace Yea and if we will not cast away our souls everlastingly for company And is this the case Is this the breaking of your Peace The Lord will shortly be a Righteous Judge between you and us and tell you who it was that was the Troubler of the Towns and Countries and of the world You find Ahab and Elijah at this contest Ahab takes him for the Troubler of Israel when a heavy famine was among them Elijah saith No but it was Ahab and his Fathers house that had troubled Israelâ— by their wickedness 1 Kings 18. 17 18. And which think you was in the right the Prophet or the King Why Sirs What is it that Godliness doth that it should be taken for the Troubler of the world when ungodliness is taken for your peace Is it our perswading or hindring you from sin that troubleth you And will not the everlasting fruit of it trouble you more Then even say that washing you or sweeping your houses or curing your sores or sickness or perswading you not to kill your selves is a troubling of you Or is it as the Lord hath told us it will be Matth. 5. 10 11. John 15. 18 19. 1 Pet. 4. 4 5. because we are not such as you and will not do as you do and be of your opinion and forsake our Lord to keep you company Is it not with good reason When we know you cannot save us harmless and will not answer for us before the Lord We know that every man must answer for himself and therefore we durst not trust you if you would promise us to bring us off It is best for you to study better how to answer for your selves But if you are resolved on it that ungodly you will be and that you will venture on Hell to scape a holy life why should not you give us leave to pitty you and to forbear your folly and to save our selves Will it do you any harm that others should be saved Or that others should be Godly Your own sanctification indeed cannot stand with your lusts and fleshly pleasures but another mans may It will take none of your vain-glory or wealth or sensual delights from you that another man is sanctified or devoted unto God And therefore be not angry with us if we obey the Holy Ghost that calleth to us Acts 2. 40. Save your selves from this untoward generation Object O but saith the ungodly crew it was never a good world since there was so much Religion and preaching and preciseness and so much ado about serving God! It was a better world when we had but a short Service read on Sundaies and played and merrily talkt together the rest of the day There was more Love and good neighbourhood then amongst men then there is now There was not then so much deceit and consening and oppressing and covetousness in the world There was more peace and plenty and a better world it was then now Matters of peace and plenty change often in the same age And certainly you have as little hinderance now from being as good as you have a mind to be as ever your fore-fathers had Two things I have to say to your Objection 1. If this be true that the world is so bad which part is it of the world that you mean Is it all or some Not all sure that were too horrible censoriousness to say Then God would presently destroy the world Sodome had one Lot and his family in it Well it is but some then that are so bad And which part is it Is it the Godly or the Ungodly If Godliness be naught then Heaven is naught where there is nothing else And then take it not ill to be shut out If it be the Ungodly that are naught that 's it that I am saying It is time then to leave it and to turn to God Is it not you your selves that make the complaint that are the men that make the world so bad Is is not you that are so Covetous and worldly that you have nothing for the poor and no time to spare for the work that you were made for nor scarce any room to think or speak of the life to come Is it not you that have so little Charity that you even hate men for Loving and serving God and seeking diligently to save their souls It s true that there was never greater wickedness in the world then since there hath been so much Preaching But What is that wickedness and in whom It is the despising and disobeying the calls of God and the hating and neglecting of a holy life Those that are saved by the Gospel may say that it was a happy messageunto them but those that slight it and willfully sin in the openest light may well say that it is a bad world with them and worse it is and will be for ever if they be not converted
then if they had never heard the Gospel It is you and such as you that despise the mercies of the Lord that make it a bad world and then you impudently complain of it and charge it on them that will not be as bad as your selves and take away the candle and shut the windows that the light may not trouble you 2. Well! but say you the world was better when there was less preaching and less ado about the serving of God and our salvation I do not believe you and I will tell you why yea Why I am certain that your words are false 1. Because you contradict the Lord. God saith those times are best when there is most of the Light of the Gospel and most helps for our salvation and when the people are most Holy The increase of Light and Holiness is a principal part of the Glory of the Kingdom of Christ and of the Promises to the Gospel Church as you may see Isa 9. 2. 36. 26. 42. 6. 60. 3. Mat. 4. 16. Luk. 2. 32. Joh. 3. 19 20. The word of God is the greatest blessing under heaven together with a heart to obey and practise it Luk. 11. 28. Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Psal 106. 3. 119. 1 2. 1. 1 2. God himself pronounceth them blessed that meditate day and night in his Law and that make it their whole delight and because of the increase of Light and Holiness extolleth the times of the Gospel far above those of the Law affirming the least in this Kingdom of God to be greater as to the honour and priviledge of his station then the Prophets or John Baptist Matth. 11. 11 12. And would you wish me to believe such ignorant men as you before the God of Heaven that contradicteth you 2. I will not believe you because your objection is nothing but a Blasphemous accusation of the Living God If it were true that Preaching is bad it is Christ then that is bad that doth command it But I am sure that Christ is not bad and that such as Blaspheme him do it to their cost It is he that hath laid a Necessity on us and woe be unto us if we preach not the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 16. and that chargeth us to feed the flock of God 1 Pet. 5. 2. Yea the spirit chargeth us before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom that we preach the word and be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine If any one be to be blamed for all this preaching and stir for heaven it is Christ that chargeth it so strictly upon us And if thou dare lay the blame upon the Lord speak out and stand to it at judgement 3. I know it is false that you say that the world is the worse for all this preachig and Godliness because it is against the very office of Christ and of the Holy Ghost Christ was a diligent preacher himself and dare you accuse him for it He came into the world to bring us the Light of heavenly Truth and dare you say that it were better be without it It is the work of the Holy Ghost to illuminate and sanctifie men and do you think that he doth us hurt Christ dyed to wash and purifie by the word and Spirit the Church which is his Body that he might present it spotless to the Father Eph. 5. 26. 27. And darest thou say that Christ came to do us harm By this thy despising of his benefits thou shewest that thou hast yet no part in him or in his saving benefits but art in the gall of bitterness and bond of thy iniquities and thy heart is not right in the sight of God 4. Moreover you are not to be belived because you speak against the experience of all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ David had rather be a door keeper in the house of God then dwell in the tents of wickedness and judged a day in his Courts to be better then a thousand Psal 84. 10. and accounted them the blessed men that might even dwell in the house of God and be daily taken up in holy praise and worship Psal 65. 4. 92. 13. 23. 6. When he was forced from the house and publick worship of God it was his daily lamentation and he fainteth and panteth and longeth after the house and worship of God again Psal 42. 84. 2 3 4 5. How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord My bea rt aad my flesh cryeth out for the living God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are the ways of them The Prophet Isaiah saith In the way of thy judgements O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee with my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early This was the mind of all the Prophets and Apostles and God hath told us that it is the practice of all blessed men to Meditate in Gods word day night Psal 1. 2. And yet will you say that it was a better world when there was less of this O self-condemning Hypocrites Why do you so much profess to honour the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs of Christ if you think that they were the troublers of the world and that their doctrine and practice makes us worse Why do you honour them with the name of Saints and yet despise both their doctrine and practice in those that do but endeavour seriously to imitate them Why keep you Holy days in remembrance of the dead Saints and say that the world in the worse for the living Saints O horrible hypocrisie to honour their names and hate their doctrine and course of life and say that the world was never good since it was troubled with such as they Do we trouble you with our Preaching and praying and our stir for heaven How would Christ and his Apostles have troubled you that went so far beyond us in all these and made a greater stir then we and turned the world as their enemies charged them up side down Act. 17. 6. so busie wâ—s Christ in preaching and doing the work of God that he neglected to eat his meat for it Joh. 4. 34. and his fleshly kindred would have laid hands on him as if he had been beside himself Mark 3. 21. It seems if you had then lived you would have been among the wicked enemies of Christ and of his Disciples and have said It was never a good world since these busie fellows made so much a doe with their Religion 5. Moreover you speak against the inward feeling and
more terrible executions And yet wilt thou say that its long of God or Scripture or Religion that the world is naught If thou stay a little longer impenitently in thy blasphemy till death have but given thee the mortal stroak and it s hard at hand thou shalt then be answered in another manner and God will easily justifie himself and stop all such vile and arrogant months and confute thee with an everlasting Vengeance Remember that thou wast forewarned 9. Yea furthermore you are confuted and shamed by your own complaints What is it that you quarrel with the Law of God for is it not because it is so strict and forbiddeth sin and threatneth damnation for it Is it not because it requireth so much goodness and telleth you that none of the unconverted ungodly shall be saved And what is it that you quarrel with the godly for Is it not for serving God and because they will not be as bad as others And yet the same tongues dare blaspheme the Laws of God and say the world is the worse for them And the same tongue dares revile the godly as the cause that the world is so bad What should one say to such unreasonable men that will at the same time murmur at the Holy word and wayes of God because they contradict the wickedness of the world and threaten them with Hell fire because they repent not and yet say it is long of this very word and the preaching and obeying of it in a holy life that the world grows worse O impudent mouths that at once revile the servants of Christ because they will not be as bad as others and yet say that its they that make the world so bad God will very shortly stop such unreasonable mouths 10. And if your words were true then it would follow that all Gods greatest Mercies are worth nothing yea that they are a hurt to us and curses rather then blessings What is the Gospel worth if the reading and preaching and practising of it do make the world worse and only trouble men What are all Gods Ordinances worth if this be the fruit of them And why hath he appointed Pastors and Teachers for his Church if this be all the good they do Nay what is Christ himself worth to the world if those are the worst men that most obey him and study his word and diligently seek him O unworthy souls is this all your thanks to God for a Christ when you are lost by sin and for the Gospel that offereth you everlasting life and for the Ministry of your Pastors that would teach you the way of life May we not take up the Prophets exclamation Isa 1. 2. Hear O heavens and give ear O earth I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me The Ox knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Masters crib but this people doth not know the Lord nor Consider Your beast doth not take his provender to be naught for him and rather choose to be without it And you are worse then beasts in your dealing with the Lord and when he hath provided you a Christ a Gospel Teachers and holy Ordinances even the preciousest things in the world you unthankfully refuse them yea and reproach them and take them to be naught for you and say that it is long of them that the world is so bad O horrid ingratitude when miserable souls are in the captivity of sin and Satan and within a few steps of everlasting fire the God of Mercy sends his Son his Word and Ministers to help them out and set them free and save them from Hell before it be too late and what entertainment have they They are reviled by these wretches as if they came to make them worse and do them a mischief and not to save them Righteous is the Lord that condemneth such as would not be saved and as took salvation for an injury And just were God if he should take away the Gospel and his Ministers and his people from so unthankful and unworthy a generation as this that are weary of them and say they are the troublers of the world and think that they do them more hurt then Good and as the Gadarens by Christ desire him to depart out of their coasts Matth. 8. 34. Be content a while unworthy souls You shall not long be troubled with a Christ or with the Gospel or with Preaching or with Praying or with the company of these precise people that you so much dislike Sleep on but a few nights more and pass on but a few dayes further and you shall come to a place before you look for it where you shall never have their company more and where you shall be out of the reach of Preaching and Praying and Holiness and of Hope And in the mean time were it not for the sakes of those whom God will convert and save this troublesome Gospel and Holy people should be taken from you and given to a people that will be more thankful and more fruitful because you put it from you and have judged your selves unworthy of everlasting life Acts 13. 46. Matth. 21. 41. No thanks to you that England is not like the Indians and as miserable as you would have it 11. And why should we believe you when we see that you judge clean contrarily for your bodies then you do for your souls I have never heard any of you say It was never good world since our land was fruitfull and since so much corn came to the the market It was a better world when men had nothing but roots to feed on And yet would you be believed when you say that it was better when men had not so much of the Scripture and of Christ and holiness the food the life the health of souls 12. And I the less believe you because I find that this hath been the common speech of others in all former ages They that lived in the dayes of your fathers said so of the former times It was formerly a better world then now And if you had lived in those dayes of your fathers fore-fathers you would have heard them say the same It s common with men to feel the evil that 's present and to praise the days that are past whose evil they felt not or have forgotten But hear what God saith Eccles 7. 10. Say not thou What is the Cause that the former dayes were better then these for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this Eccles 1. 9. The thing that hath been it is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the Sun 13. And little cause have we to believe you when we have present experience that your words are false We see that those are the best that are most Godly He is blind that seeth not an exceeding difference betwixt them and such as you that speak against them Do not we
see that they are sober when some of you are drunken and that they are seeking heaven when you are seeking the world and that they are providing for their souls and pleasing God and imployed in the most sweet and heavenly works while you are pampering the flesh or making provision to satisfie its lusts Do we not hear their speeches are of God and their salvation and things that edifie while you curse or swear or talk filthily or idly and unprofitably like dreaming or distracted men And yet would you make us believe that you are as good as they and that Religion makes men worse But you say that for all this they are secretly as bad as others Foolish malice If it be secret how do you know it If you know it how is it secret and its marvail that you do not make it known Is it not easie to say so by a Job or a Samuel or by Christ himself if saying so may serve turn and a wicked tongue may pass for proof You may say that in secret I commit all the sins imaginable and how can I disprove you when I have no witness but only by desiring you to prove it if you can But O happy are the servants of the Lord that are even in secret alwayes in the presence of their Judge who will bear witness for them and justifie them against malignant tongues But you say that they are as covetous as other men though they are more Religious But this is as shameful a falshood as the former Do we not see the contrary in the open fruits Covetous men are the forwardest to call others Covetous because they would have no body hinder or cross them in their Covetous desires or designs And then they are saying O such a professor used me thus and such a one did thus and usually they partially relate the case as their own Covetous hearts encline them passionately to judge it And perhaps they may meet with a worldly hypocrite that seemeth Religious which is no more to the disgrace of Religion then Cham was in the Family of Noah or Absolom in the house of David or Judas in the Family of Christ Do not you call your selves Christians your selves And yet Christianity is never the worse because you are wicked that profess it But sure I am that the servants of Christ are not comparable to you in Coveteousness For as I find God describing them in his Word to be a people dead to the world whose conversation is in heaven so I see that they can spare time from worldly business while they and their housholds serve the Lord and so cannot you They are seeking Heaven when you are seeking earth And we may know what a man loveth if we know what he seeketh And again I must bear witness from my own experience that in this place where I live I have reason to believe that where other men of their ability give a penny to the poor for charitable uses those that you call precise and think too Religious do give six if not twice six and some of them much more then I will express There are few weeks but we have occasion to try it by voluntary collections for some needy persons or charitable uses and therefore we have much opportunity to know besides contributions at Sacraments and other publick occasions But you say that in former times there was more Love among neighbours then is now Then there was more familiarity and kindness and less hatred and malice and contention then now I answer Am I not sure by constant experience that there is far more love among the godly then among you Do I not see how dear they are to one another and how sweetly and familiarly they converse together and joyn in prayer and holy exercises and conferr about their everlasting state Do I not see that they are ten times more liberal to relieve each other in distress then you are Many and many a time I have seen them give ten or twenty shillings in collections to relieve godly people in distress when those of you that are richer give but two pence or a groat to your companions in the like Collections And what makes them be so much together if there be not Love among them I profess to you I never yet saw any thing that is worthy the name of Love and Peace among any other sort of men But perhaps you will say that there are contentions and differences among them about Religion which the world was never troubled with before To which I answer 1. What differences or contentions do you see among them in this Town or Parish Among five hundred people that you count Precise what one is there among us that is either Anabaptist or Separatist or Antinomian or Arminian or of any other sect What one that separateth from any Ordinance of publick Worship What differences do you know among us Is there here any more Churches then one Do you hear any contendings Do you see any thing like a difference among us all For my part I know of none Nor but of one in the Parish that is turned from us which is a simple ignorant harmless man that turned Anabaptist For as for the Apostate Infidels that joyn with you that are ungodly we have nothing to do with them but lament their misery 14. Another thing that hindreth our Belief of you is that we see that it is only ignorant or wicked men that are of this opinion and say that the world is the worse for Godliness or the Preaching of the Gospel Not a man saith so that knoweth what he saith and that ever felt the power and sweetness of the Gospel upon his soul But only those that are blinded by the world and serve the flesh and are drowned in lust and know not what they speak against And shall we regard the judgement of such men 15. And moreover when you say that the world was better when there was less Godliness and Teaching you contradict all history and therefore are not to be believed You know not well what is before you much less do you know what hath been in your fore-fathers dayes Be it known to you we have as full advantage to know that as you have Many and many a large Volume have I read concerning the state of the world before us which tell us of far greater wickedness in our fore-fathers daies then are in these If you will not believe me I will shew it to any of you that can read and understand at any time when you will come to me I will shew you the words of the Chroniclers and Historians of those ages that make more lamentable complaints of the vices of those times and tell us of far more evil then and of a far greater scarcity of good then can be truly spoken concerning us And are you that never saw those daies to be believed before them that saw them 16. And I am sure also that
you speak falsly because you make the most barbarous Heathens to be most happy and the worst of men to be the best If it be best where there is least Religion and least Teaching or meddling with holy things then are the naked Indians the best and the Cannibals that live on the flesh of men These be they that are least troubled with Preaching and Religion And if you think that these miserable souls are best and happyest I pray you go to them and be happy with them And by my consent the Magistrate shall promote your happiness and send you thither 17. And would you have us believe you when you contradict your selves Out of your own mouthes will we silence or condemn you It is Christ that teacheth us to be Holy And do you not pretend your selves to believe in Christ That which you dislike as a troublesom or needless thing is nothing but serious Christianity it self And do you not say your selves that you are Christians Do not you profess the Articles of the Christian Belief And what do we but practice that which you profess We do but obey that God whom you say you believe in as the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and all things We do but love the Lord our Saviour whom you say you believe in as your Saviour We do but obey the Holy-Ghost that sanctifieth all that God will save whom you also profess to believe in your selves We practise that Communion of Saints which you deride and yet profess that you believe We seek after the remission of sin and that life everlasting which you take on you to believe your selves And will you profess to Believe these things and yet say they are naught or that it was never a good world since they were regarded and practised And do you not profess to take the ten Commandments for the Law of God which all men should obey And what do we but endeavour to obey them All that which you hate as too much preciseness is nothing but the obeying of these ten Commandments And O that we could do it better And do you not use in the saying of the Lords Prayer to pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed and his Kingdom come and his Will be done yea even as it is done in Heaven And yet 〈◊〉 you say with the same mouth that it was never a good world since Gods name was Hallowed and since his Kingdom was â—â—vanced and his Laws so much regarded and his Will obeyed O hypocrites Is this your praying and do you look such prayers should be accepted which you hate and speak against your selves You pray that you may not be led into Temptation but delivered from evil and yet you run into temptation and take that Evil to be Good How oft have I heard men when the Commandments have been repeated which require us to take the Lord only for our God and not to take his Name in vain and to Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day to joyn to it as their prayer Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and when they come home revile those people that are willing to keep it and that will not take Gods Name in vain and forbear the keeping holy of his day as they do themselves Either give over professing the Christian Belief and using the Lords Prayer and praying that you may keep the Commandments of God or else give over reviling those that do it Either say plainly that you are Heathens and no Christians or else never say that a Christian Life is hurtful to the world nor make it the matter of your reproach 18. And I must needs say that I am the more assured that your words against Religion are false because I know that they please the Devil who is the Father of lyes and are just such as he would have you speak and would speak himself if he had but liberty and his appearance would not marr hâ—â— cause When thou art railing at Godliness and saying that this Religion is the trouble of the world and that the servants of Christ are but a company of busie hypocrites just so would the Devil have thee speak I can prove it fully from the Scriptures and from his Nature and designs You could not speak more agreeably to his mind If he had hired you and written down every word which he would have you speak you could not more punctually obey him Do you plead against Holiness and for a careless and ungodly life Do you despise the righteous and justifie the wicked Just so would the Devil have you do If he stood by you and prompted you as indeed he doth though you do not know it those are the very words that he would have you say Indeed when he is compelled the Devil himself speaketh better then you as in Acts 16. 17. he saith These men are the servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation These are better words then yours But when he is left to himself and speaketh of his own he speaketh just as you do and shall we believe you when the Devil sets you on and you speak the words of the lying spirit 19. And I the less believe you when you say that the world is the worse for Preaching and Religiousness because I know from whence this comes You take that to be the best that is the worst and that to be the worst that is indeed the best You judge after the flesh and take those for the best times when you have most prosperity and may sin with least contradiction and molestation and be least troubled in your sensual course These are your good daies which wise men know to be your slavery and misery It is never a good world with you when your consciences are troubled and your sores are lanced and Satan cannot keep his garrison in peace and when you cannot be permitted to drink and swear and game and revell without controll And if this be your good world I had rather have a prison or a pair of stocks with Christ and the Gospel which you despise and with the means and hopes of the world to come then to have your good world which is but thee quietest passage to damnation You are not yet to be believed stay till you see the end and what comes of it and then tell us which was the good world 20. Lastly if all this will not serve I will silence you and shame you if you have any shame left If Religion and so much serving of God do make the world worse and those be the worst times where there is most of these then Heaven would be worse then Earth or Hell even the worst place in all the world For no place hath so much Holiness as Heaven Nowhere is there so much ado about the Praise and Service of God as there is in Heaven There they do nothing else but that which
own words Do we devise these sayings Or do we not shew them you in the Scripture And dare you charge God with errour or encouraging Pride Do you think he knew not what he said when he spake such Honourable things of his servants Did he need you to have taught him to have endited his word and to have warned him that he make not his servants proud As if he hated not pride as much as you 6. Yea God will do more then this for his servants he will advance them to Salvation and yet he will not make them proud There is no Pride in Heaven though there be the greatest Glory The Angels are most glorious and yet least proud If you would not wish God to keep men out of Heaven lest it make them proud you should not grudge at his Honouring them on earth with the mention of their Heavenly titles upon that account 7. The Exaltation of the Saints is a spiritual exaltation which is not so apt to make men Proud as carnal exaltation is Charity puffeth not up as â—ery knowledge doth It is selfishness that is the Life of Pride which consisteth in excessive self-esteem and desire of an excessive esteem with others and to be magnified by them And nothing but Grace can subdue this selfishness and therefore nothing else candestroy Pride 8. Moreover the Honour of the Saints is the less like to make them Proud because Humility is part of the Grace that â—â— bestowed on them To be Proud and Holy is to be sick and Holy to be Light and Dark they are plain contraries No man is proud but for want of Holiness and therefore that Holiness should efficiently make men proud is impossible any more thâ—n Health can make men sick or Darkness can be caused by Light And if objectively any be Proud of his Holiness 〈…〉 but in such a measure as he is noholy Holiness doth ever 〈…〉 Pride and contain Humility and self-denyal as an essential part All Christs Disciples learn of him in their measure to be meek and lowly 9. Let experience tell you whether it be not some worldly Honour or parts and gifts that are the much commoner object of Pride then Holiness I have oft heard talk of mens being proud of their Humility and Holiness but the Temptations of my own soul have comparatively layn but little that way nor have I observed it the common case of others in any proportion with other kinds of Pride Riches and Honours and Beauty and Dignity I see people ordinarily proud of And I see many Proud of Counterfeit Graces that have none that is sincere as far as may be perceived by others to be proud of And I see many Proud of their Learning and Knowledge and nimble tâ—ngnes a hundred fold more then ever I found true Christians Proud of the Love of God and a Heavenly mind Alas we have much a doe for the most part to discern that we have any of this at all and to find so much of it in our selves as is necessary to our support and thankfulness 10. Lastly consider what abundance of Means the Lord hath adjoyned as Antidotes with his servants Honours to keep them from being puffed up with Pride and then tell me whether you dare charge God with errour or want of wisdom in this thing 1. The nature and life of Holiness consisteth in the souls retiring home to God and adhering to him and walking as before him And there is not a more powerful means in the world to keep Humble the soul then the Knowledge of God O when a poor sinner hath but any lively apprehensions of the Greatness and Glory of the Lord it amazeth him and levelleth him with the dust and abaseth him in his own esteem and maketh him say with Job 40. 4 5. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth 4 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes One glympse of God were enough to humble any soul that truly knoweth him A Godly man hath still to do with that Majesty that continually aweth him His 〈…〉 is with him His thoughts are on him his work is with him 〈…〉 his word that he readeth and heareth and discourseth of and therefore aâ— his word with reverence and Godly fear as knowing that our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. It is God that he prayeth to that he meditateth on and he praiseth and hath still to do with And therefore no wonder if he walk hambly with so holy and great a God 2. The sin and misery that once they were in while they knew not God will do much to keep humble a gracious soul as long as they live Though God so forget our sins as to forgive them yet we can scarce forgive our selves or at least can never forget them Though he see no fin in his servants as he seeth it in the world nor so as to hate and condemn them for it yet they see that once they were as bad as the world and were children of wrath as well as others They condemn themselves when God doth justifie them and set their sins before their faces which God doth cast behind his back O those dark those ungrateful and those perilous dayes will never be forgotten by the renewed soul The thoughts of them shall ever keep us humble When we look on the wicked miserable world to think that such were many of us though mercy have washed and sanctified and justified us 3. Moreover God hath so contrived the way of their salvation that they shall have all by a Redeemer and by freest Grace and none shall be justified by the works of the Law nor by any merit of his own but Boasting is excluded by the Law of faith Rom. 3. 19 27 28. and we shall have nothing but what we receive besides and contrary to our desert 4. And alas too much corruption still remaineth in us We have flesh that fighteth against the spirit Rom. 7. 24. Gal. 5. 17. We know but in part and Love God but in part and serve him with such constant weakness that these things are usually such humbling matters to a gracious soul that were it not for the Comforter they would be unable to look up O to feel how dark we are how far from God! how strange to heaven how little we believe and know and love these are humbling thought indeed to a soul that is acquainted withit self 〈…〉 â—â—verty beggery or the reproach in the world would be so humbling to them To find such remnants of that odious sin that cost them dear and had cost them dearer if it had not cost their Lord so dear this is constant matter of humiliation 5. And too often do their corruptions get advantage of them and produce some actual sin of thought word or 〈…〉 and this also must
be grievous to them 6. The very Bodily informities of Believers are a constant help to keep them humble They have all this treasure but is earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4. 7. Their souls are here so poorly lodged in corruptible Tabernacles of earth and so meanly cloathed with frail diseased mortal flesh that it is madness to be proud 7. And the many and great afflictions of the godly are medicines that are purposely given them by their Physicion to cure Pride and keep them humble Why else must their sufferings be so many and why must they daily bear the Cross but that they may be conformed to the image of Christ 8. And to the same end it is that God doth let loose upon them so many enemies All Satans temptations and the worlds allurements and vexations and all their disappointments here and all the scorns and mocks of the ungodly and the censures and slanders of wicked tongues and often bitter persescutions what are they but the bitter medicines of God permitted and ordered by him though cansed by the Devil and wicked men to save the servants of the Lord from the sin and danger of being lifted up Do you say that their Honour will make them proud Why you that thus oppose them and despise them are â—uring them of their pride and do not know it as Scullions scoure the rust off the vessels for their Masters use and as Leeches draw out the blood that causeth the disease and as the Jews by their sin promoted the Redemption of the world by the death of Christ When God seeth his servants in danger of being lifted up above measure he oft sendeth a messenger of Satan who may be an Executioner of Gods chastisements to buffet them 2 Cor. 12. 7. Sometimes by slanders sometime by reproaches sometime by imprisonments or greater sufferings and sometimes by horrid troublesom temptations 9. The very foresight of death it self is a humbling means and the last enemy Death is yet unconquered and our Bodies must corrupt in dust and darkness and be kept in the grave as common earth till the Resurrection that the soul may not grow proud that hath such a body 11. And the Day of Judgement is so described to us in the Scripture as tends to keep the soul in awe and in Humility To think of such a day and such a reckoning before such a God me 〈…〉 should humble us 11. And our Absolution and Glorification at that day is promised us now but conditionally though God will see that the condition be performed by all that he will save And therefore the poor soul is oft so far to seek about the certain sincerity of his own Faith and Repentance that most of the godly are kept in fears and doubtings to the death Yea and Humility and Self-denyal are part of this Condition And all their Honour and Glory with Christ is promised to the Humble only Humility is commanded them in the Precept Humility is it that they are exhorted to by the Ministers And Pride is threatened with everlasting wrath and described as the Devils image So that Holiness hath all the advantages against Pride that can be here expected 12. To conclude the Godly know that as they have nothing but from God so they have nothing but for God so that their own Honour is for him more then for themselves and it is essential to their Holiness to make God their end and set him highest and referr all to his Pleasure and Glory So that you see now that we may Honour them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 4. without being guilty of making them proud and that we must not deny them the Honour that God hath given them as their due for fear of their being proud of it Though this as all things else must be prudently managed to particular persons according to their various states And therefore let me here warn all you that profess the fear of God Take heed lest you be proud of any thing that God hath Honoured you with For if you be you see what an Army of Reasons and Means you sin against and consequently how great your sin will be And your consciences and the world shall be forced to justifie God and his Holy wayes and to prove against you that it was not long of them that you were proud and that none in the world was more against it then God and Holiness and that it was not because you were so Religious but because you were no more Religious And if Pride of Knowledge Gifts or whatsoever be unmortified in you it will certainly prove that you are none of the sanctified when your profession of Sanctity will never prove that Sanctity was a cause or confederate in your sin AND now I have shewed you the Honour of Godliness let us briefly and but briefly consider of your Honour that reject it and see then whether the godly or ungodly are more Honourable 1. Ungodly men have the Basest Master in the world Would you know who Let Christ be Judge John 8. 44. Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of your father you will do 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are taken captive by the Devil at his will that is to do his will It is he that stirreth you up to filthy talking to speak against Godliness to curse and swear and you do his will His will is that you should neglect a holy life and you do his will His will is that you live not after the spirit but after the flesh and you do his will O poor souls Do you think it is only Witches that expresly Covenant with him that are his miserable servants Alas it is you also if you do his will For if you will believe either God or common reason to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6. 16. The godly themselves were the servants of sin till they obeyed from the heart the doctrine of the Lord v. 17. And are you not come to fair preferment to be the Devils drudges Though he should cloath your Bodies with Purple and fine linnen and feed you sumptuously every day yet indeed you are no better as the case of that miserable man may tell you Luke 16. It is the greatest Baseness to have so Base a Master 2. And it is but an ignoble Base de sign that the ungodly carry on in the world What is it but to provide for and please their flesh It aimeth at nothing beyond this life And a beast can eat and drink and sleep and play and satisfie his lust as much as they A swine can carry a mouth full of straw to his lodging and a bird can build a nest for her young ones And what do ungodly men more in the world whether Gentlemen or Beggars the flattered Gallants or the poor day-labourers if they be not such as first seek Heaven
for ever and when the force of Love doth open our lips that our mouthes may shew forth his praise it is pleasant both to God and us The Lord himself doth put on joy as delighting in his peoples praise and when they joyn obedience with holy worship they are pleasant in his eyes Jer. 9. 24. Isa 62. 4. 42. 1. Zeph. 3. 17. He meeteth him that Rejoyceth and worketh righteousness and that remembers him in his wayes Isa 64. 5. Would you taste of the sweetest life on earth Learn then to Delight your selves in God Do you want recreation Be acquainted with his Praise Is there not a better cure for Melancholy here among the servants of the Lord then in an Ale-house or in the company of transgressors Their carnal pleasures are unwholsom for you like luscious fruits that will make you sick But the delights of Faith are safe and healthful Fleshly pleasure is windy and deceitful and weakeneth and befools the soul But the Joy of the Lord is our strength Neb. 8. 10. A little may be too much of fleshly pleasures and it is of very hard digestion and leaves that behind that spoils the sport But the further you go in the Delights of Faith the better they are and the sweeter you will find them You may quickly catch a dangerous surfet of your fleshly pleasures but of spiritual Delights the more the better For they are curing reviving and much confirm and exalt the soul Our spiritual pleasures are so heavenly and have so much of God and Glory in them that they must needs prepare the soul for heaven and be excellent helps to our salvation O therefore if you would live a Pleasant life draw near to God and by Faith behold him and by Love adhere to him and take a view of his infinite Goodness and all his perfections and behold him in his wonderous works and then break forth into his chearful praises and you shall taste such pleasures as the earth affordeth not Lanch forth into the boundless Ocean of Eternity and let your hearts and tongues expatiate in the Praise of the Heavenly Majesty and use this work and ply it close and be not too seldom or customary or careless in it and you shall find the difference between the Pleasures of Faith and of the flesh of a Holy and of a sensual life Psalm 135. 2 3. Ye that stand in the House of the Lord in the Courts of the House of our God Praise the Lord for the Lord is Good sing praises to his Name for it is pleasant Psal 71. 8. Let my mouth be filled with thy Praise and with thy honour all the day Psal 96. 2. 6. Sing unto the Lord bless his name shew forth his salvation from day to day Honour and Majesty are before him strength and beauty are in his Sanctuary O that the Lord will but shine upon my soul with the Light of his countenance and open my heart to the entertainment of his Love and hold a gracious Communion with my soul by his holy Spirit and keep open these doors to me and continue this liberty of his House and Ordinances which we enjoy this day that I may joyn with a faithful humble people in holy Communion and in his Praise and Worship and that with a heart that is suitable to these works I shall then say with David Psal 16. 6. The lines â—â—faln to me in pleasant places I have a goodly heritage I will â—â— for no greater pleasures or honours or advancement in this world Let who will surfet on the pleasures of the flesh Here doth my soul delight to dwell Psalm 27. 4 5 6. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the daies of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his holy Temple For in the time of trouble he will hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me up upon a Rock And then shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore will I offer in his Tabernatle sacrifices of Joy I will sing yea I will sing Praises to the Lord. Till I come to the promised Everâ—… Pleasures I shall ask of God no greater Pleasures These would be as much as my soul in the prison of flesh can bear Till 〈…〉 to the Land of Promise may I but have these clusters of 〈…〉 in my present Wilderness I shall not repine My heart 〈…〉 shall be glad and my glory shall rejoyce and at death my flesh 〈…〉 in hope For as the Lord now sheweth me the path of 〈…〉 so in his presence is 〈…〉 of Joy and at his right hand are 〈…〉 for 〈…〉 Pâ—… 4. Another Pleasant Holy Duty is Our holy Communion with Christ and his Church in the Lords Supper This is a holy Feast that is purposely provided by the King of Saints for the entertainment of his family for the refreshing of the weary and the making glad the mournful soul The night before his bitter Death he instituted this Sacramental Feast He caused his Disciples to sit down with him and when they had partaked of the Passover the Sacrament of Promise and had their taste of the old wine he giveth them the New even the Sacrament of the better Covenant and of the fuller Gospel-Grace He teacheth them that his Death is Life to them and that which is his bitterest suffering is their Feast and his Sorrows are their Joyes as our sinful pleasures were his sorrows The slain Lamb of God our Passover that was sacrificed for us that taketh away the sins of the world was the pleasant food which Sacramentally he himself then delivered to them and substantially the next day offered for them The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world John 6. 33. He is the Living Bread which came down from Heaven If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever and the bread that he giveth is his flesh which he hath given for the life of the world ver 50 51. Except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood we have no life in us Whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath Eternal life and he will raise him up at the last day For his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed He that eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him As the Living Father hath sent the Son and he liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him This is that bread that came down from Heaven not as the Fathers did eat Maâ—â—â— and are dead he that eateth this bread shall live for ever I know that to an unbelieving carnal wretch the Sacrament is but a common thing For Christ himself and his Gospel is â—o better in his
eyes He discerneth not the Lords body He only quieteth and deludeth his conscience with the outward form He hath not faith to feed on Christ But to a lively faith what sweetâ— ness doth such a Feast afford We have here Communion with the blessed Trinity in thâ—… three parts of this Eucharistical Sacrament As the Father 〈…〉 both our Creator and the offended Majesty and yet he hath 〈…〉 his Son to be our Redeemer so in the first part which 〈…〉 the CONSECRATION we present to our Creator the creatures of Bread and Wine acknowledging that from him we receive them and all and we desire that upon our Dedication by his Acceptance they may be made Sacramentally and Representatively the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ In the second part of the Eucharist which is the COMMEMORATION of the sacrifice offered on the Cross we break the bread and pour forth the wine to Represent the breaking of Christs Body and shedding of his Blood for the sin of man and we beseech the Father to be Reconciled to us on his Sons account and to accept us in his Beloved and to accept all our sacrifices through him So that as Christ now in Heaven is Representing his sacrifice to the Father which he once offered on the Cross for sin so must the Minister of Christ Represent and plead to the Father the same sacrifice by way of Commemoration and such Intercession as belongeth to his Office The third part of the Eucharist is the OFFER and PARTICIPATION in which the Minister Representing Christ doth by Commission deliver his Bedy and Blood to the penitent hungry believing soul and with Christ is delivered a sealed â—â—â—don of all sin and a sealed gift of life Eternal All which are received by the true Believer An unbeliever knoweth not what transactions there are between the Lord and a holy soul in this Ordinance where the appearances are so small A bit of bread and a sup of wine are indeed small matters But so is not this Communion with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost What a comfort is it that the offended Majesty will accept a sacrifice at our hands and enter a treaty of Peace with the offendours Yea that he will provide the sacrifice himself and the preciousest in the whole world that he will signifie this his acceptance of the sacrifice and how he is pleased in his well-beloved Son and that he accepteth his Sons Intercession in the Heavens and his Ministers intercession and his Churches prayers on earth through Christ Seeing Christ 〈…〉 be glorified with his Father and not continue visible among 〈…〉 what could we desire more from him then the three fold Reâ—â—â—sentative which he hath left behind him to supply the room â—â— his Bodily presence Even the Representation of himself by 〈…〉 by his Ministers and by the Holy Ghost which is 〈…〉 substitute within for the efficacy of all O what unspeakable mysteries and treasures of mercy are here-presented to us in a Sacrament Here we have Communion with a Reconciled God and are brought into his presence by the great Reconciler Here we have Communion with our blessed Redeemer as Crucified and Glorified and offered to us as our quickning preserving strengthening Head Here we have Communion with the Holy Ghost applying to our souls the benefits of Redemption drawing us to the Son and communicating light and life and strength from him unto us increasing and actuating his graces in us Here we have Communion with the Body of Christ his sanctified people the heris of life When the Minister of Christ by his Commission Representeth a Crucified Christ to our eyes by the Bread and Wine appointed to this use we see Christ Crucified as it were before us and our Faith layeth hold on him and we perceive the Truth of the Remedy and build our souls upon this Rock When the same Minister by Christs Commission doth offer us his Body and Blood and Benefits it is as firm and valid to us as if the mouth of Christ himself had offered them And when our souls Receive him by that Faith which the Holy Ghost exciteth in us the participation is as true as that of our bodies receiving the Bread and Wine which represent him O do but ask a drooping soul that mourns under the fears of Gods displeasure how he would value a voice from Heaven to tell him that all his sins are pardoned and that he is dear to God and judge by his answer what is contained and offered in a Sacrament Ask him how he would take it if Christ should speak those words himself to him which he hath given his Minister Commission in his name to speak Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you It is the same Christ the same pardon and salvation that is offered us by the Messengers of Christ and which he personally offered himself to his Disciples When you must all appear at the Barr of God O what would you not give for a sealed pardon which in a Sacrament is given freely now to the believing soul Judge now by this whether it be a Joyous Ordinance When the poorest Christian this day receiveth that which the greatest Prince that is ungodly would then give all the world for it he had it For want of that pardon Christian which thou must now receive many thousands will tremble at the barâ— of God and be overwhelmed with his wrath for ever Ask a soul that groaneth under the languishings of his grace and the burden of any strong corruption how he would value the mortifying and quickning grace of the Holy Ghost that would break his bonds and give him light and life and strength and by his answer judge of the value of a Sacrament We have here the greatest mercies in the world brought down to us in sensible Representations that they might be very neer us and the means might be suited to the frailty and infirmity of our present state If the sealed message of Gods Reconciliation with us and a sealed pardon of all our sins and a sealed grant of Everlasting life be not more pleasant and desirable to your thoughts then all that earth and flesh can yield you it is because your are alive to sin and dead to God and want that spiritual sence and appetite by which you might be competent judges If God if Christ if grace if the foretasts of glory can afford no pleasure to the soul then Heaven it self would not be pleasant But if these are sweet the Sacrament is sweet that doth convey them Well poor stubborn carnal sinners you have been invited to this feast as well as others we are sent to call you and even compel you to come in though upon the terms and in the way of Christ but you have no great list but somewhat else doth please you better And will it prove better indeed to you at the end Well take your own choice If an Alehouse be better then the Table of the
the God of the whole earth For a small moment may he forsake us but with great mercy will he gather us In a little wrath he may hide his face from us for a moment but with everlasting kindness will he have mercy on us saith the Lord our Redeemer As he swore that the waters of Noah should no more goe over the earth so hath he sworn that he will not be wroth with his people nor rebuke them For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed but his kindness shall not depart from us nor the covenant of his peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on us Isa 54. 5 to 19. For his anger endureth but for a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Psal 30. 5. Storms may arise that may affright us but how quickly will they all be over Come my people saith the Lord Isa 26. 20. enter into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast And as the momentany sorrow of the Godly is forgotten in everlasting Joy so the Joy of the wicked is but for a moment and is drowned in everlasting sorrows Job 20. 4 5 6 7 8 9. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon earth That the triumphing of the wicked is short and the Joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung They which have seen him shall say Where is he He shall flie away as a dream and shall not be found Yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night the eye also which saw him shall see him no more neither shall his place any more behold him Job 21. 12 13. They take the Timbrell and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organs they spend their daies in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave It would grieve a considerate believer to look on a worldly sensual gallant in the midst of his vain-glory or any unsanctified man in his mirth and pleasure and to think where that man will shortly be and how the case will be altered with him and where his sport and mirth will leave him As it would sadden our hearts to see one of them struck dead in the place or to see the Devil fetch them away and spoil the game so should it grieve us to fore-see the stroak of death and the condemnation of their souls to everlasting misery And can that man much value the pleasure of ungodly men that doth fore-see this end Would you not laugh at him that were a Prince but for a day and must be the scorn of the world to morrow or that would choose one day of mirth and pleasure though he knew it would fill the rest of his life with pain and misery If folly and stupidity were any wonder it were a wonder that ungodly men can be merry when their consciences tell them that they are not sure to stay one hour out of Hell nor to hold on their mirth till the end of the game But while they are saying Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry they may suddenly be told from God Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose is thy wealth and then where is thy sport and mirth Luke 12. 19 20. As the tender flowers and Roses of the Spring do fall before the nipping Frosts and will not live in Winter storms no more will your fading mirth endure the frowns of God the face of death nor scarce a serious fore-thought of the day that you are near And such matter of horrour is continually before you while you are under the wrath and curse of God in a carnal unregenerate state that you are beholden to folly security and stupidity for that ease which hindreth your everlasting ease So that all things considered I must seriously profess that however the ungodly have some pleasant dreams and may live a while in carelesness and stupidity or fleere in the face while the beginning of hell is in their consciences yet I must judge that a life of Faith and Holiness are unspeakably sweet if it were but for this that they save the Conscience from the gripes and fears and terrible thoughts that either sometime feed on the ungodly or are ready to devour their mirth and them So sad and frightful a thing it is to be unsanctified and in a state of sin that it is an high commendation of the delights of Holiness that they so much deliver us from those grievous terrours and are so powerful an Antidote to preserve the heart from the wickeds pangs and desperation Believe it when conscience death and judgement are the messengers to declare your endless sorrows you will then wish and ten thousand times wish that you had some of the Faith and Holiness of the Saints to be a Cordial to your sinking hearts and then you would take it as a matter of unspeakable joy to be found in such a state as you now count sad and melancholy Ask but a dying man whether fleshly pleasure or Godliness be the sweeter thing Now when the delusions of prosperity are gone which do men most relish and which is it that they would own By the consent of all the wise men in the world I may well conclude that a Holy life is incomparably the most pleasant BUT I know there are many things that seem to cross all this that I have spoken which will be the matter of the Objections of ungodly men and therefore must have an answer before we pass any further And the principal Objection is from the too common case of those that fear God who walk so sadly and doubt and complain and mourn so frequently and shew so little chearfulness and joy when many of the ungodly live in mirth that you will think I speak against experience when I say that a life of Holiness is so pleasant and therefore that it is not to be believed You will say Do we not see the contrary in the sadness of their faces and hear it in their sad lamenting words To this I must give many particulars in answer which when you have laid together you may see that all this makes nothing against the Pleasantness of the waies of God And 1. You must difference between the Entrance into holiness and the Progress and between a new beginner that is but lately turned from his ungodliness and one that hath had time to try and understand the wayes of God Those that are entering or but newly come in must needs have sorrow But what is the cause of it Not their Godliness but their ungodliness I mean It is their ungodliness which they lament though it be godliness that causeth them to
2 8 9. Though the abode of the godly in the flesh is usually more needful to those about them yet to themselves their death is gain and therefore they have cause to desire to depart and be with Christ as being far better Phil. 1. 21 23 24. For sin which is the sting of death is mortified and the curse of the Law which is the strength of it is relaxed or null fied to us by the Gospel so that the Believer may triumph and say O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15. 55 56. and to give thanks to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ vers 57. Verily I would not exchange my part though alas too small or dark a part in this one priviledge of true Believers for all the wealth and dominions on earth O the face of Death will soon make the Glory of all your greatness to vanish and the beauty of your flourishing estates to wither and all that you now glory in to appear as nothing And then how glad would you be to change Portions with the holy servants of the Lord whom you now despise When once you hear Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul and whose then are all those things that thou hast provided Luke 12. 20. then in a moment you will change your minds and cry out of the world as nothing worth and wish you had busied your hearts and hands in laying up a better treasure This is one difference O â—ngodly wretch between a holy servant of God and thee Death cannot undo him but it will undo thee It cannot take his Riches from him for his God his Christ his Holiness the Promises are his Riches but it will separate thee and thy wealth for ever It will put an end to all his troubles and fears and griefs and it will put an end to all thy prosperity and to all thy mirth and hope for ever A godly man dare die or if he ignorantly fear it yet shall it be the end of all his fears but thou darest not die and yet thou must or if thou ignorantly hope of a happiness after it yet will it nevertheless end all thy hopes O what a mercy is it to be ready to die 10. But the great unspeakable Riches of the Saints is in the Life to come We have here the Hope and the fore-taste but it is only there that we shall have our Portion You see what a poor Christian is according to his outward appearance But you see not what he will be to eternity There is the Kingdom for which we hope and for which we run and wait and suffer If God be true and his Gospel true then Heaven shall be the Portion of the sanctâ—fied But if it were otherwise then we would confess their hopes are vain Heaven is our Riches or we have none There have we laid up all our Hopes and in these Hopes we will live and die as knowing they will not make us ashamed Rom. 5. 5. 9. 33. 1 John 2. 28. We believe that we shall live with Christ in glory and shine as stars in the Firmament of our Father and be made like to the Angels of God and shall see his face and praise his name and live in his everlasting Love and Joy For all this he himself hath promised us 1 Thes 4. 17. 18. Daâ— 12. 3. Mat. 13. 43. Luk. 20 36. Rev. 22. 4. Mat. 25. 21. And now poor worldling what is all your Gain and Riches in comparison of the least of these Do you think in your judgements that there is any comparison Or rather doth not sin and the world even brutifie you and make you lay by the use of your reason and live as if you knew not what you know Your Treasure is all visible when ours is unseen and therefore I may bid you bring it forth and let us see it whether indeed it be better then the Treasure of the Saints Let us see what that is that is better then God and everlasting glory What! is a little fleshly ease or mirth a little meat and drink and pleasure a little more money or space of ground to use then your neighbours have are these the things that you will change for Heaven and preser before the Lord that made you O poor miserable sinners Are you not told that you have your good things here but what will you have hereafter when this is gone Luke 16. 25. When your wealth is gone and your mirth is gone your souls are immortal and therefore your misery and horrour will continue and never be gone As the wealth of the godly is within them and above the reach of their enemies and surer then yours so is it the more durable even everlasting When all your Riches are upon the wing even ready to be gone and leave you in sorrow when you are most highly valuing them you have it now but it is gone to morrow And what is the Hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Job 27. 8 9. Let the words of Christ decide the Controversie if indeed you take him for your Judge Mat. 16. 2â— 25 26 27. If any man will come after we let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul For the Son of man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works Well sirs you that are all for Getting and for wealth judge now if you have not lost your Reason whether a Holy or unholy â— Heavenly or an Earthly life be the more Profitable way I would not draw you to any thing that you should lose by If I speak not for your Gain reject my words as contemptuously as you please But if I do then be not against your own commodity Will such silly Gain as the world affords you do so much with you as it doth and shall not the Heavenly inheritance do more shall all this stir be made in the world for that which you are ready to leave behind you and will you not lay up a Treasure in heaven where rust and moaths corrupt not and where you may live for ever Matth. 6. 20. What profit now have all those millions of souls that are gone from earth by all the wealth they here possessed Hear sinners and bethink you in the name of God You are leaving Earth and stepping into Eternity and where then should you lay up your Riches Would you rather have your Portion where you must stay but a few days then where you must
dwell for ever O Labour not for the meat that perisheth in comparison of that which endureth to everlasting life which Christ will give you if you will follow him Job 6. 27. Make you friends of this wealth that the world abuseth to unrighteousness that when all fails below you may be received into the everlasting habitations Luk. 16. 9. Make not your selves a Treasure of corruptible riches and set not your heart on Gold and Silver lest the rust of it be a witness against you and eate your flesh as it were fire and lest yee heap up another kind of treasure then you dream of against the last days How many of you have cause to weep and howl for your approaching miseries even then when you are glorying in your prosperity Jam. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Are you for Commodity Refuse not then the best Commodity Be not enemies to them or to those holy motions that make for your everlasting Profit Take but the Gainfullest 〈…〉 selves and we are pleased If you know 〈…〉 then God and Glory and any riches that will endure any longer then Eternity why do you not shew it us that we may joyn with you But if you do not why will you not hearken to the servants of the Lord and joyâ— with them Wherefore saith the Lord do you spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eate ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Encline your care come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you Isa 55. 2 3. If there be not more to be Gotten by Christ and by prayer and by the promises and a holy life then there is by sin or then there is by all your friends or lands or trades or care or labour here then take your course and turn your back on God and spare not But if you are ashamed to say so be ashamed to think so or to live so Verily sirs if the Gospel be true you must be every man of you Saints or Miserable Holiness is the only thriving way Yea the only Saving way If you forsake this way you are 〈…〉 while you are Gaining and Losing by your Gains You 〈…〉 making Achans bargain that by his Gold did purchase a â—corm of stones that dasht out his brains Josh 7. You are running after Gehezie's gains that thought he had got Riches and it proved a Leprosie You are trading with the Devil though you see him not and will not believe it even as certainly as the miserable witches that sell him their souls for a few fair promises and when they have done have the miserablest life of any You are laying up but Judas's treasures which quickly grew too hot to hold and too heavy for his conscience to bear and he would fain rid his hands of it if he knew how and because he cannot he hangs himself and rids himself out of the ashes into the flames O covet not such undoing gains which you all know as sure as you breath that you must let go Believe but your Redeemer and you shall know that there are greater and better things before you Gather not stones when you may be gathering pearls Hear me poor sinner If God and Heaven if Grace and Glory seem not better Riches then 〈…〉 world thou judgest thy self to have no part in them CHAP. IX Holiness is the most Honourable Way WE are resolved if Scripture and Reason can resolve us that Godliness is the Safest the Honestest and the Gainfullest course I shall next shew you that it is the Most Honourable course I know the world thinks otherwise of it In most places it is a matter of reproach to be but serious and diligent in Gods service And though in this place and at this time through the great mercy of God it is not so with us unless it be with here and there a sottish drunkard yet there are too few places that are so much freed from this plague And it is not yet I fear forgotten of God since the very practice of a Godly life was a matter of greater scorn and derision then to have been the prophanest swearer or drunkard If a man would not have gone to the Ale house with them nor sworn or spoke prophanely as 〈…〉 did and if he made any serious mention of the Scripture â—â—â—â— life to come if he reproved any gross offendor if he prayed and instructed his family and spent the Lords Day in holy exercises this was enough to brand him with the name of Puritan or Precisian and make him the common by-word of the town and let him be never so conformable to Bishops and Ceremonies if once he went under the name of a Puritan he was looks upon as Lot in Sodom by the open enemies of Piety who insulted over them and lived securely in open wickedness This is the chiefest sin that God hath been scourging this nation for if I am able to understand his judgements I know men are apt to interpret providences according to their own interests and conceits But I take the help of the Scripture and the experience of former ages for my interpretation and I am verily perswaded not excluding other sins that the great sin for which God hath plagued England by a sharp and bloody war was the common scorn that was cast upon his service it being made the derision of too many in the land I never came into any place where meâ—er serious diligence for salvation was not branded with the name of Puritanism and too much Preciseness and those that abstained from iniquity were as Owles among their neighbours even the very wonder and the reproach of those about them When this is made a Principle that all must hold that ever hope to be accepted with the Lord in Heb. 11 6. that he is a Rewarder of them that Diligently seek him This is the next point in our faith to the Believing that there is a God And yet among us that called our selves Christians the Diligent seeking of the Lord was so far from being thus esteemed of that it was the surest way to make a man contemptible and odious unto many The jealous God did long endure this horrible indignity but would not still endure it from us Must he make a Holy Law for the Government of the world and shall the obeying of it be derided Is he our Soveraign Lord having by Creation and Redemption the right of Ruling us and shall we scorn them that will be Ruled by him Those that will not have Christ rule over them will surely be destroyed Luk. 19. 27. and shall those escape that scorn his service Holiness is the Image of God and unholiness the Devils image And when the Image of God is made a scorn and the Devils image had in honour and that by them that call themselves Christians was it not time