rather of vice against nature There is a common Grace of God that goeth along with common Truths and according to the measure of their obedience to the Truth such was the change it wrought which was done by common Truths and common Grace together but not by their false mixtures at all But God hath annexed his special Grace only to the special Truths of the Gospel or Christian-Religion If therefore God do by common Grace work a great change on a Heathen by the means of common Truths and do by his special Grace work a greater and special change on you by the means of the special truths of the Gospel have you any reason hereupon to suspect your condition or should you not rather both admire that providence and common Grace which is manifested without the Church and humbly rejoycingly and thankfully embrace that special saving Grace which is manifested to your self above them 2. And for that which you speak of Education you have as much cause to doubt of your conversion because it was wrought by publike preaching as because it was wrought by Education For 1. Both are by the Gospel For it is the Gospel that your Parents taught you as well as which the Preacher teacheth you 2 I have shewed you that if Parents did not shamefully neglect their duties the Word Publikely preached would not be the ordinary instrument of Regeneration to the Children of true Christians but would onely build them up and direct them in the faith and in obedience The proof is very plain If we should speak nothing of the Interest of our Infants in the Covenant-Grace upon the Conditional force of their Parents faith nor of their Baptism yet Deut. 6. Eph. 6. and oft in the Proverbs you may finde that it is Gods strict Command that Parents should teach Gods word to their Children and bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord yea with a prediction or half promise that if we train up a childe in the way he should go when he is old he shall not depart from it Prov. 22.6 Now its certain that God will usually bless that which he appointeth to be the usual means if it be rightly used For he hath appointed no means to be used in vain I hope therefore by this time you see that instead of being troubled that the work was done on your soul by the means of Education 1. You had more Reason to be troubled if it had been done first by the publike Preaching of the word For it should grieve you at the heart to think 1. That you lived in an unregenerate state so long and spent your childehood in vanity and sin and thought not seriously on God and your salvation for so many years together 2. And that you or your Parents sin should provoke God so long to withdraw his Spirit deny you his Grace 2. You may see also what unconceiveable thanks you owe to God who made Education the means of your early change 1. In that he prevented so many and grievous sins which else you would have been guilty of And you may read in Davids and Manasses case that even pardoned sins have oft-times very sad effects left behinde them 2. That you have enjoyed Gods Spirit and Love so much longer then else you would have done 3. That iniquity took not so deep rooting in you as by custom it would have done 4. That the Devil cannot Glory of that service which you did him as else he might and that the Church is not so much the worse as else it might have been by the mischief you would have done and that you need not all your days look back with so much trouble as else you must upon the effects of your ill doing nor with Paul to think of one Stephen yea many Saints in whose blood you first embrued your hands and to cry out I was born out of due time I am not worthy to be called a Christian because I persecuted the Church of God I was mad against them and persecuted them into several Cities I was sometime foolish disobedient serving divers lusts and pleasures Would you rather that God had permitted you to do this 5. And me thinks it should be a comfort to you that your own Father was the Instrument of your spiritual Good that he that was the means of your Generation was the means of your Regeneration both because it will be a double comfort to your Parents and because it will endear and engage you to them in a double bond For my part I know not what God did secretly in my heart before I had the use of memory and reason but the first good that ever I felt on my soul was from the Counsels and teachings of my own father in my childehood and I take it now for a double mercy being gladder that he was the Instrument to do me Good then if it had been the best Preacher in the world How foul an oversight is it then that you should be troubled at one of the choicest mercies of your life yea that your life was capable of and for which you owe to God such abundant thanks DOUBT IV. BVt my great fear is that the life of Grace is not yet within me because I am so void of spiritual sense and feeling Me thinks I am in spiritual things as Dead as a block and my heart as hard as a Rock or the nether Mill-stone Grace is a principle of new Life and Life is a principle of sense and motion it causeth vigour and Activity such should I have in Duty if I had the Life of Grace But I feel the great curse of a dead heart within me God seems to withdraw his quickening Spirit and to forsake me and to give me up to the hardness of my heart If I were in Covenant with him I should feel the blessing of the Covenant within me The hard heart would be taken out of my body and a heart of flesh a soft heart would be given to me But I cannot weep one tear for my sins I can think on the blood of Christ and of my bloody sins that caused it and all will not wring one tear from mine eyes And therefore I fear that my soul is yet destitute of the life of Grace ANSWER 1. A Soft heart consisteth in two things 1. That the Will be perswadable tractable and yielding to God and plyable to his will 2. That the Affections or Passions be somewhat moved herewithal about spiritual things Some degree more or less of the latter doth concur with the former but I have told you that it is the former wherein the heart and life of Grace doth lie and that the latter is very various and uncertain to try by Many do much overlook the Scripture-meaning of the word Hard-heartedness Mark it up and down concerning the Israelites who are so oft charged by Moses David Isaiah Jeremiah and other Prophets to be hard-hearted or to
sad a thing is it that we should thus add to our own Afflictions and the heavier we judge the burden the more we lay on As if God had not done enough or would not sufficiently afflict us We may more comfortably bear that which God layeth on us then that which we immediately lay upon our selves Crosses are not great or small according to the bulk of the matter but according chiefly to the minde of the sufferer Or else how could holy men rejoyce in Tribulation and be exceeding glad that they are accounted worthy to suffer for Christ Reproaches wrongs losses are all without you unless you open them the door wilfully your self they cannot come in to the heart God hath not put the Joy or Grief of your Heart in any other mans power but in your own It is you therefore that do your selves the greatest mischief God afflicts your body or men wrong you in your state of name a small hurt if it go on further and therefore you will afflict your soul But a sadder thing yet is it to consider of that men fearing God should so highly value the things of the world They who in their Convenants with Christ are engaged to renounce the world the flesh and the devil They that have taken God in Christ for their Portion for their All and have resigned themselves and all that they have to Christs dispose whose very business in this world and their Christian life consisteth so much in resisting the devil mortifying the flesh and overcoming the world and it is Gods business in his inward works of Grace and his outward teachings and sharp afflictions and examples of others to convince them of the vanity and vexation of the world and throughly to wean them from it And yet that it should be so high in their estimation and sit so close to their hearts that they cannot bear the loss of it without such discontent disquiet and distraction of minde Yea though when all is gone they have their God left them they have their Christ still whom they took for their Treasure they have opportunities for their souls they have the sure promise of Glory yea and a promise that all things shall work together for their good yea and for that one thing that is taken from them they have yet a hundred outward Mercies remaining that yet even Believers should have so much unbelief and have their Faith to seek when they should use it and live by it and that God should seem so small in their eyes as not to satisfie or quit them unless they have the world with him and that the world should still seem so Amiable when God hath done so much to bring it into contempt Truly this and more shews that the work of Mortification is very imperfect in professors and that we bend not the force of our daily strivings and endeavours that way If Christians did bestow but as much time and pains in Mortifying the flesh and getting down the Interest of it in the soul that Christs Interest may be advanced as they do about Controversies external duties formalities tasks of devotion and self tormenting fears O what excellent Christians should we then be and how happily would most of our disquiet be removed Alas if we are so unfit to part with one outward comfort now upon the disposal of our fathers providence how should we forsake all for Christ or what shall we do at death when all must be parted with As ever therefore you would live in true Christian Peace set more by Christ and less by the world and all things in it and hold all that you possess so loosely that it may not be grievous to you when you must leave them So much for the Troubles that arise from your Body and outward state All the rest shall be directed for the Curing of those Troubles that arise immediatly from more Spiritual Causes DIRECTION III. 3. Be sure that you first lay sound apprehensions of Gods nature in your understanding and lay them deeply THis is the first Article of your Creed and the first part of Life Eternal to know God! His substance is quite past humane understanding therefore never make any attempt to reach the knowledge of it or to have any positive conceivings of it for they will be all but Idols or false conceptions but his Attributes are manifested to our understandings Well consider that even under the terrible Law when God proclaims to Moses his own Name and therein his Nature Exod. 34.6 7. the first and greatest part is The Lord God Mercifull and Gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And he hath sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner but rather that he return and live Think not therefore of Gods Mercifulness with diminishing extenuating thoughts nor limit it by the bounds of our frail understandings for the heavens are not so far above the earth as his thoughts and wayes are above ours Still remember that you must have no low thoughts of Gods Goodness but apprehend it as bearing proportion with his Power As it is blasphemy to limit his Power so it is to limit his Goodness The advantages that your soul will get by this right knowledge and estimation of Gods Goodness will be these 1. This will make God appear more Amiable in your eyes and then you will Love him more readily and abundantly And Love 1. Is effectually consolatory in the very working so much Love usually so much Comfort I mean this Love of Complacency for a Love of Desire there may be without comfort 2. It will breed perswasions of Gods Love to you again and so Comfort 3. It will be an unquestionable evidence of true Grace and so Comfort The Affections follow the Understandings conceptions If you think of God as one that is glad of all advantages against you and delighteth in his Creatures misery it is impossible you should Love him The Love of our selves is so deeply rooted in nature that we cannot lay it by nor Love any thing that is Absolutely and directly against us We conceive of the devil as an Absolute Enemy to God and man and one that seeks our destruction and therefore we cannot Love him And the great Cause why troubled souls do Love God no more is because they represent him to themselves in an ugly odious shape To think of God as one that seeks and delighteth in mans ruine is to make him as the devil and then what wonder if in stead of Loving him and Delighting in him you tremble at the thoughts of him and fly from him As I have observed Children when they have seen the devil painted on a wall in an ugly shape they have partly feared and partly hated it If you do so by God in your fancy it is not putting the Name of God on him when you have done that will reconcile your Affections
love and admire your wise Physician Little do you know now what he hath been doing for you Nor shall you ever fully know it in this life but hereafter you shall know it when your sanctification and consolation and his praises shall be perfected together 4. If you should for the time to come expect or desire that God should set you out of all apprehension of danger you know not what it is that you desire It were to desire your own undoing Only see that you apprehend not your danger to be greater then it is nor so apprehend it as to increase it by driving you from Christ but as to prevent it by driving you to him Entertain not fancies and dreams of danger in stead of right apprehensions Apprehend your happiness and grounds of hope and comfort and safety in Christ and let these quite exceed your apprehensions of the danger Look not on it as a remediless danger or as greater then the remedy Do not conclude that you shall perish in it and it will swallow you up But only let it make you hold fast on Christ and keep close to him in obedience Shall I lay open all the matter expressed in this section by a familiar comparison A King having many Subjects and Sons which are all beyond Sea or beyond some River they must needs be brought over to him before they can live or reign with him The River is frozen over at the sides till it come almost to the middle The foolish children are all playing on the Ice where a deceiving enemy enticeth them to play on till they come to the deep where they drop in one by one and perish The eldest Son who is with the Father on the other side undertaketh to cast himself into the water and swim to the further side and break the Ice and swim back with them all that will come with him and hold by him The Father bids him Bring all my Subjects with you if they will come and hold by you but be sure you fail not to bring my Sons This is resolved on The Prince casteth himself in the water and swimmeth to the further side He maketh a way through the Ice and offereth all of them his safe carriage if they will Accept him to be their bearer and helper and will trust themselves on him and hold fast by him till they come to the further side Some refuse his help and think he would deceive them and lead them into the deep and there leave them to perish Some had rather play on the Ice and will not hearken to him Some dare not venture through the streams or will not endure the coldness of the water Some waveringly agree to him and hold faintly by his skirt and when they feel the cold water or are near the deep or are weary of holding they lose him either turning back or perishing suddenly in the gulf The children are of the same minde with the rest but he is resolved to lose none of them and therefore he chargeth them to come with him and tels them fully what a welcome they shall have with their Father and ceaseth not his importunity till he perswade them to consent Some of them say How shall we ever get over the River we shall be drowned by the way He tels them I will carry you safe over so you will but hold fast by me Never fear I warrant you They all lay hold on him and venture in with him When they are in the midst some are afraid and cry out We shall be drowned There he encourageth and bids them trust him hold fast and fear not Others when they hear these words that they need not fear they grow so bold and utterly secure as to lose their hold To these he speâ—keth in other language and chargeth them to hold fast by him for if they lose their hold they will fall into the bottom and if they stick not to him they will be drowned Some of them upon this warning hold fast others are so boldly confident of his skill and good-will and promise that they forget or value not his warning and threatning but lose their hold Some through laziness and weariness do the like Whereupon he lets them sink till they are almost drowned and cry out for help Save us or we perish and think they are all lost and then he laieth hold of them and fetcheth them up again and chideth them for their bold folly and biddeth them look better to themselves and hold faster by him hereafter if they love themselves Some at last through meer weariness and weakness before they can reach the bank cry out O I am tired I faint I shall never hold fast till I reach the shore I shall be drowned These he comforteth and gives them cordials and holdeth them by the hand and bids them Despair not do your best Hold fast and I will help you And so he brings them all safe to the Haven This King is God Heaven is his habitation The Subjects are all men The Sons who are part of the Subjects are the Elect The rest are the Non-Elect The River or Sea is the passage of this life The further side is all mens natural sinfull distance and separation from God and happiness The Ice that bears them is this frail life of Pleasures Profits and Honours which delight the flesh The depth unfrozen is hell He that ticeth them thither is the devil The eldest Son that is sent to bring them over is Jesus Christ His Commission and undertaking is to help all over that refuse not his Help and to see that the Elect be infallibly Recovered and Saved Do I need to go over the other particulars I know you see my meaning in them all Specially that which I aim at is this that as Paul had a promise of the life of all that were with him in the ship and yet when some would have gone out he told them Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved Act. 27.31 so that he makes their apprehension of danger in a Possibility of being drowned to be the means of detaining them in the ship till they came all safe to land so Jesus Christ who will infallibly save all his Elect they being given him by his Father to be infallibly saved will do it by causing them to hold fast by him through all the troubles and labours and temptations of this tumultuous tempestuous world and that till they came to land and the apprehension of their danger shall be his means to make them hold fast Yet is not their safety principally in themselves but in him Nor is it their holding fast by him that is the chief cause of their difference from those that perish but that is his love and resolution to save them And therefore when they do let go their hold he will not so lose them but will fetch them up again Only he will not bring them through this sea of danger as
little of it then in rich men that have more to tempt them though dangerous in both Nor doth it lye only in coveting that which is anothers or in seeking to get by unlawfull means but also in over-valuing and over-loving the wealth of the world though lawfully gotten He that loveth the world that is above Christ and holiness the love of the Father is not in him that is savingly and sincerely 1 Joh. 2.15 He that loveth house or lands better then Christ cannot be his Disciple I beseech you therefore when God hides his face search diligently and search again and again least the world should encroach on Christs interest in your heart If it should be so can you wonder if Christ seem to withdraw when you begin to set so light by him as to value dung and earth in any comparison with himself May not he well say to you If you set so much by the world take it and see what it will do for you If you can spare me better then your wealth you shall be without me Must not the Lord Jesus needs take it exceeding unkindly that after all his love and bloodshed and pains with your heart and seals of his kindness and discoveries of his Amiableness and the Treasures of his Kingdom you should now so much forget and slight him to set up the world in any comparison with him and to give such loving entertainment to his enemy and look so kindly on a competitor Is his glory worth no more then so and hath he deserved no better at your hands Again therefore do I beseech you to be afraid lest you should be guilty of this sin Examine whether the thoughts of the world grow not sweeter to you and the thoughts of God and glory more unwelcome and unpleasing whether you have not an eagerness after a fuller estate and too keen an edge upon your desires after riches or at least after a fuller portion and provision for your children or after better accommodations and contentments in House Goods or other worldly things Do not worldly hopes delight you too much and much more your worldly possessions Are you not too busily contriving how to be richer forgetting Gods words 1 Tim. 6.8 9 17. Doth not the world eat out the life of your duties that when you should be serious with God you have left your heart behinde you and drowned your affections in things below Doth not your soul stick so fast in this mud and clay that you can scarce stirre it Godward in Prayer or heavenly Meditation Do not you cut short duties in your family and in secret if not frequently omit them that so you may be again at your worldly business Or do you not customarily hurry them over because the world will not allow you leasure to be serious and so you have no time to deal in good earnest with Christ or your soul Do not your very speeches of Christ and heaven grow few and strange because the world must first be served When you see your brother have need do you not shut up the bowels of your compassions from him Doth not the love of the world make you hard to your servants hard to those you buy and sell with And doth it not incroach much on the Lords own day Look after this earthly vice in all these discoveries search for your enemy in each of these corners And if you finde that this is indeed your case you need not much wonder if Christ and you be stranger then heretofore If this earth get between your heart and the Sun of Life no wonder if all your Comforts are in an eclipse seeing your Light is but as the Moon 's a borrowed Light And you must be the more carefull in searching after this sinne both because it is certain that all men have too much of it and because it is of so dangerous a nature that should it prevail it would destroy For coveteousness is Idolatry And among all the hainous sinnes that the godly have fallen into look into the Scripture and tell me how many of them you finde charged with coveteousness And also because it is a blinding befooling sinne not only drawing old men and those that have no children and rich men that have no need to pursue these things as madly as others but also hiding it self from their eyes that most that are guilty of it will not know it Though alas if they were but willing it were very easie to know it But the power of the sinne doth so set awork their wits to finde excuses and fair names and titles for to cloak it that many delude others by it and more delude themselves but none can delude God The case of some Professors of Godliness that I have known is very lamentable in this point who being generally noted for a dangerous measure of worldliness by most that know them could yet never be brought to acknowledge it in themselves Nay by the excellency of their outward duties and discourse and the strength of their wits alas ill imployed and by their great ability of speech to put a fair gloss on the foulest of their actions they have gone on so smoothly and plausibly in their worldliness that though most accused them of it behinde their backs yet no man knew how to fasten any thing on them By which means they were hindered from repentance and recovery In this sad case though it be Gods course very often to let hypocrites and other enemies go on and prosper because they have their portion in this life and the reckoning is to come yet I have oft observed that for Gods own people or those that he means to make his people by their recovery God useth to cross them in their worldly desires and designes Perhaps he may let them thrive a while and congratulate the prosperity of their flesh but at last he breaks in suddenly on their wealth and scatters it abroad or addeth some cross to it that imbitters it all to them and then asketh them Where is now your Idol and then they begin to see their folly If you do dote on any thing below to the neglecting of God he will make a rod for you of that very thing you dote upon and by it will he scourge you home to himself 3. The third great heart-sinne which I would have you jealous of is Sensuality or Voluptuousness or pleasing the senses inordinately The two former are in this the more mortall sinnes in that they carry more of the Understanding and Will with them and make Reasoâ— it self to be serviceable to them in their workings whereas sensuality is more in the flesh and passion and hath oft times less assistance of Reason or Consent of the Will Yet is the Will tainted with sensual inclinations and both Reason and Will are at the best guilty of connivence and not exercising their authority over the sensual part But in this sensuality is the more dangerous vice in that it
much by over-honouring them as ever he did by persecuting and despising them And now in England when this plot is descryed and we had taken down that superâ—â—uous honour as Antichristian what doth the Devil but set in again on the other side and none is so Zealous a Reformer as he He cryes down all as Antichristian which he desireth should fall Their Tythes and Maintenance are Antichristian and oppressive O Pious Merciful Devil down with them These Church-lands were given by Papists to Popish uses to maintain Bishops and Deans and Chapters down with them These Colledge-lands these Cathedrals nay these Church-houses or Temples for so I le call them whether the Devil will or no all come from Idolaters and are abused to Idolatry down with them Nay think you but he hath taken the boldness to cry out These Priests these Ministers are all Antichristian Seducers Needless Enviers of the spirit of Prophesy and of the Gifts of their Brethren Monopolizers of Preaching down with them too So that though he yet have not what he would have the old Serpent hath done more as a Reformer by over-doing then he did in many a year as a Deformer or hinderer of Reformation Yet if he do but see that there is a Soveraign Power that can do him a Mischief he is ready to tell them They must be Merciful and not deal Cruelly with sinners Nay it belongs not to them to reform or to Judge who are Hereticks and who not or to restrain false doctrine or Church-disturbers Christ is sufficient for this himself How oâ—t hath the Devil preached thus to tye the hands of those that might wound him Would you see any further how he hath play'd this successful game of Over-doing Why he hath done as much by it in Worship and Discipline as almost in any thing When he cannot have Discipline neglected he is an over-zealous spirit in the breasts of the Clergy and he perswades them to appoint men Penance and Pilgrimages and to put the necks of Princes under their feet But if this Tyrannie must be abated he cryes down all Discipline and tels them it is all but Tyrannie and humane Inventions And this confessing sin to Ministers for Relief of Conscience and this open Confessing in the Congregation for a due Manifestation of Repentance and satisfaction to the Church that they may hold Communion with them it is all but Popery and Priestly Domineering And in matter of Worship worst of all When he could not perswade the world to persecute Christ and to refuse him and his Worship the Serpent will be the most zealous Worshipper and saith as Herod and with the same mind Come and tell me that I may worship him He perswades men to Do and Over-do He sets them on laying out their Revenues in sumptuous Fabricks in fighting to be Masters of the Holy Land and Sepulcher of Christ on going Pilgrimages Worshipping Saints Angels Shrines Reliques Adoring the very bread of the Sacrament as God excessive fastings choyce of meats Numbred Prayers on beads Repetitions of words so many Ave Maries Pater Nosters the name Jesus so oft Repeated in a breath so many Holy-days to Saints Canonical hours even at midnight to pray and that in Latine for greater reverence Crossings holy garments variety of prescribed gestures kneeling and worshipping before Images sacrificing Christ again to his Father in the Mass forswearing Marriage living retiredly as separate from the world multitudes of new prescribed Rules and orders of life vowing poverty begging without need creeping to the Cross Holy water and Holy bread carrying Palms kneeling at Altars bearing Candles Ashes In Baptism Crossing Conjuring out the Devil salting spittle oyl taking Pardons Indulgencies and Dispensations of the Pope praying for the Dead perambulations serving God to Merit Heaven or to ease souls in Purgatory doing Works of supererogation with multitudes the like All these hath the Devil added to Gods Worship so zealous a Worshipper of Christ is he when he takes that way Read Mr. Herberts Church Militant of Rome pag. 188 189 190. I could trace this Deceiver yet further and tell you wherein when he could not hinder Reformation in Luthers days he would needs over-do in Reforming But O how sad an example of it have we before our eyes in England Never people on earth more hot upon Reforming Never any deeper engaged for it The Devil could not hinder it by fire and sword when he sees that he will needs turn Reformer as I said before and he gets the Word and cryes down Antichrist and cryes up Reformation till he hath done what we see He hath made a Babel of our work by confounding our languages For though he will be for Reformation too yet his name is Legion he is an Enemy to the one God one Mediator and Head one Faith and one Baptism one heart and lip and one way Unity is the chief butt that he shoots at Is Baptism to be Reformed Christ is so moderate a Reformer that he onely bids Down with the Symbolical Mystical Rite of mans vain addition But the Serpent is a more Zealous Reformer He saith Out with express Covenanting Out with Children They are a corruption of the Ordinance and to others he says Out with Baptism it self We might follow him thus through other Ordinances Indeed he so Overdoes in his Reforming that he would not leave us a Gospel a Ministry a Magistraâ—y to be for Christ an Ordinance no nor a Christ though yet he would seem to own a God and the light of Nature All these with him are Antichristian By this time I hope you see that this way of Over-doing hath another Author then many zealous people do imagine and that it is the Devils common successful trade so that his Agents in State-Assemblies are taught his Policy When you have no other way of un-doing let it be by over-doing And the same way he takes with the souls of particular persons If he see them troubled for sin and he cannot keep them from the knowledge of Christ and free Grace he puts the name of free Grace and Gospel preaching upon Antinomian and Libertine errours which subvert the very Gospel and free Grace it self If he see men convinc't of this and that it is neither common nor Religious Libertinism and sensuality that will bring men to Heaven then he will labour to make Papists of them and to set them on a task of external formalities or macerating their bodies with hurtful fastings watchings and cold as if self-murther were the highest pitch of Religion and God had a pleasure to see his people Torment themselves I confess it is very few that ever I knew to have erred far in Austere usage of their bodies But some I have and especially poor Melancholy Christians that are more easily drawn to deal rigorously with their flesh then others be And such Writings as lately have been published by some English Popish Formalists I have known draw men into this snare
Loving kindeness and our dishonouring the Glorious Gospel of his Son and our seconding Satan in his contradicting of that Design which hath contrived Gods Glory in so sweet a way And now Christian Reader let me intreat thee in the name and fear of God hereafter better to understand and practise thy Duty Thy heart is better a thousand times in Godly sorrow then in Carnal mirth and by such sorrows it is often made better Eccles. 7.2 3 4. But never take it to be Right till it be Delighting it self in God When you kneel down in prayer labour so to conceive of God and bespeak him that he may be your Delight so do in Hearing and Reading so do in all your Meditations of God So do in your feasting on the flesh and blood of Christ at his Supper Especially improve the happy opportunity of the Lords Day wherein you may wholly devote your selves to this work And I advise Ministers and all Christs Redeemed ones that they spend more of those days in Praise and Thanksgiving especially in Commemoration of the whole work of Redemption and not of Christs Resurrection alone or else they will not answer the Institution of the Lord And that they keep it as the most solemn day of Thanksgiving and be briefer on that day in their Confessions and Lamentations and larger at other times O that the Congregations of Christ through the world were so well informed and animated that the main business of their solemn Assemblies on that day might be to sound forth the high Praises of their Redeemer and to begin here the Praises of God and the Lamb which they must perfect in Heaven for ever How sweet a foretaste of Heaven would be then in these solemnities And truly let me tell you my Brethren of the Ministry you should by private Teaching and week-day Sermons so further the knowledge of your People that you might not need to spend so much of the Lords Day in Sermons as the most godly use to do but might bestow a greater part of it in Psalms and solemn Praises to our Redeemer And I could wish that the Ministers of England to that end would unanimously agree on some one Translation of the English Psalms in meeter better then that in common use and if it may be better then any yet extant not neglecting the poëtical sweetness under pretence of exact translating or at least to agree on the best now extant the London Ministers may do well to lead the way lest that blessed part of Gods solemn worship should be blemished for want either of Reformation or Uniformity And in my weak judgement if Hymns and Psalms of Praise were new invented as fit for the state of the Gospel-Church and Worship to Laud the Redeemer come in the flesh as expresly as the work of Grace is now express as Davids Psalms were fitted to the former state and infancy of the Church and more obscure revelations of the Mediator and his Grace it would be no sinful humane Invention or addition nor any more want warrant then our Inventing the form and words of every Sermon that we preach and every prayer that we make or any Catechism or Confession of faith Nay it may seem of so great usefulness as to be next to a Necessity Still provided that we force not any to the use of them that through ignorance may scruple it And if there be any Convenient parcels of the Ancient Church that are fitted to this use they should deservedly be preferred I do not think I digress all this while from the scope of my Discourse For doubtless if Gods usual solemn worship on the Lords Days were more fitted and directed to a Pleasant Delightful Praising way it would do very much to frame the spirits of Christians to Joyfulness and Thankfulness and Delight in God then which there is no greater cure for their Doubtful Pensive self-tormenting frame O try this Christians at the request of one that is moved by God to importune you to it God doth pitty you in your sorrows but he Delighteth in you when you Delight in him See Isa 58.14 compared with Zeph. 3.17 And if sin interpose and hinder your Delights believe it a Chearful Amendment and Obedience is that which will please God better then your self-tormenting fears Do not you like that servant better that will go chearfully about your work and do it as well as he can accounting it a Recreation and will endeavour to mend where he hath done amiss then him that will at every step fall a crying O I am so weak I can do nothing as I should An humble sense of failings you will like but not that your servant should sit still and complain when he should be working nor that all your service should be performed with weeping disquietness and lamentations You had rather have your servant humbly and modestly chearfull and not alway dejected for fear of displeasing you O how many poor souls are overseen in this You might easily perceive it even by the Devils opposition and temptations He will further you in your self-vexations when he cannot keep you in security and presumption but in amending he will hinder you with all his might How oft have I known poor passionate Creatures that would vex and rage in anger and break out in unseemly language to the disquieting of all about them and others that would drop into other the like sins and when they have done lament it and condemn themselves and yet would not set upon a resolute and chearful Reformation Nay if you do but reprove them for any sin they will sooner say If I be so bad God will condemn me for an Hypocrite and so lye down in disquietness and distress then they will say I see my sin and I resolve to resist it and I pray you warn me of it and help me to watch against it So that they would bring us to this pass that either we must let them alone with their sins for fear of Tormenting them or else we must cause them to lye down in terrours Alas poor mistaken souls It is neither of these that God cals for Will you do any thing save what you should do Must you needs be esteemed either Innocent or Hypocrites or such as shall be damned The thing that God would have is this That you would be glad that you see your fault and thank him that sheweth it you and resolvedly do your best to amend it and this in faith and chearful confidence in Christ flying to his Spirit for help and victory Will you please the Devil so far and so far contradict the gracious way of Christ as that you will needs either sin still or Despair Is there not a middle between these two to wit Chearful Amendment Remember that it is not your Vexation or Despair but your Obedience and Peace that God desireth That life is most Pleasing to him which is most safe and sweet to you If you say