the lice or worms from eating him alive God useth to pour contempt upon Princes when they will not know and submit to the everlasting King He taketh himself as engaged to break down all that would usurp his honour and tumble down the Idols of the world therefore hath he alway so abhorred the two grand abominations Pride and Idolatry above other sins For he will not give his glory to another He will not with patience hear it spoken of an Idol These are thy Gods O Israel that brought thee out of Egypt The first Commandment is not meerly a precept for some particular act of obedience as are the rest but it is the fundamentall Law of God establishing the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject And as this is the first and great command and that which virtually containeth all Thou shalt have no other Gods before me or Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart So he that breaketh this is guilty of all When the Parent of the world would needs become as God he made himself the slave of the Devil You see then I hope sufficient reason why the world must be abhorred and crucified when it is made an Idol and would become our God and why this Crucifixion of it is of absolute indispensable necessity to salvation If it had kept its place and distance and would have been only a stream from the infinite power and wisdom and goodness and a Messenger to bring us the report of his excellencies and a book in which we might read his name and a glass in which we might see his face then might we have esteemed and magnified it But when the Devil and the flesh will make it their bait to draw away our hearts from God and to steal that love desire and care which is due to him and begin to tell us of Rest or Satisfaction or Felicity here its time to cry out Crucifie it crucifie it When it would insinuate it self into our bosom and get next our hearts and have our most delightfull and frequent thoughts and become so dear to us that we cannot be without it when it is the very thing that our minds are bent upon and that lifts us up when we have it and casts us down when we want it and thus disposeth of our affections and endeavours its time to lay such an Idol in the dust and to cast out such a Traytor with the greatest detestation As we our selves shall be exalted if we humble our selves and brought low if we exalt our selves so must we cast down the world when it would exalt it self in our esteem and the right exaltation of it is by the lowest subjecting of it unto God For whoever hath to deal with Infinite Power must think of no other way of exaltation 3. The world must be abhorred and crucified by us as it standeth at enmity to God and his holy waies It is become through mans corruption the great seducer and an impediment to our entertainment of heavenly Doctrine and a means of keeping the soul from God Yea it is become the Interest of the flesh and is set in fullest opposition to our spiritual Interest In what degree soever the world would turn your hearts from God or stop your ears against his word or take you off from the duty which he prescribeth you in that measure must you seek to crucifie it to your selves If Father or Mother would draw us away from Christ though as parents they must be honoured still yet as enemies to Christ they must be contemned When your honours would hinder you from honouring God and your credit doth contend against your conscience and your worldly business contradicteth your heavenly business and your gain is pleaded against your obedience it is time then to use the world as an enemy and to vilifie those honours and businesses and commodities A tender conscience that is acquainted with a course of universall obedience will take notice when these worldly interpositions and a vocations would interrupt his course and a soul acquainted with an holy dependance upon God and Communion can feel when these enticing and deluding things would interrupt his Communion and turn his eye from the face of God and therefore he can feel by the advantage of his holy experience when the world becomes his enemy and calleth him to the conflict 4. The world is to be crucified as it is the matter of our flesh-pleasing or the food of our carnal affections and the fuel of our concupiscence The grand Idol that is exalted against the Lord is Carnal Self This is the God of all the unregenerate This hath their hearts their care their labours The pleasing of this flesh is the end of the unsanctified and therefore the summary capital sin which virtually containeth all the rest Even as the Pleasing of God is the End of every Saint and therefore the summary capital duty which virtually containeth all other duties The world is an Idol subservient to the flesh as being the matter of its delight and the means by which its End is attained as in the contrary state the Mediator is subservient to the Father as being the matter of his delight in whom he is well-pleased and the means by whom he obtaineth his Ends in making his people also well-pleasing in his eyes The Devil also is an Idol of the ungodly but that is in a suberviency to the world and to the flesh as by the bait of worldly things he pleaseth the flesh as in the contrary state the Holy Ghost is in office subordinate to the Son and to the Father in that he bringeth us to Christ by whom we must have access to the Father In the Carnal Trinity then you may see that as the flesh is the Principall and Ultimate End and hath the first place so the world is the nearest means to that End and hath the second place and as there is no coming to the Father or Pleasing him but by the Son so is there no way of Pleasing the flesh but by the world So that by this you may perceive in what relation we stand to the sensual seducing world and on what grounds and how far it is necessary that we crucifie it The fixed determination of our Soveraign is that if we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live Rom. 8. 13. To live after the flesh is by loving the world and enjoying it as our felicity and to mortifie the deeds of it by the Spirit is by withdrawing this fuel and food that doth maintain them and by crucifying and killing the world as to such ends Our work is to put on the Lord Iesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 14. It is the world that is this provision for the fulfilling of our fleshly lusts So far therefore as the flesh must be mortified the
was on the Cross in their eye that must the world be esteemed in our eyes To take it in order 1. The predictions of the Prophets before Christs coming were not regarded by the unbelieving Jews but the Prophets themselves persecuted So those that would perswade us of the felicity of any worldly enjoyments by extolling sensual pleasures or profits or honors would draw our hearts to them should be despised esteemed as deceivers by us No man is more serviceable to the Devil for our destruction then they that applaud any sensual vanity and would make us believe what great matters are to be expected from the world and so would be the Pandors of it to entice us to its unchast embracements Remember this when any would perswade you what a fine thing it is to be rich and great and somebody in the world what a merry life it is to drink and sport away your time These are the Prophets and Apostles of the Devil and the world and let them be regarded by you accordingly 2. As soon as Christ was born into the world his best place of entertainment was a common Inn and there he could have room but in a stable and in a manger the world would allow him no better accomodation and this was the welcome that it first afforded him Here you have two notable directions for your usage of the world 1. Begin to renounce it betime as it did Christ. As the world rejected Christ an Infant so we in our Infancy must reject the world This is to be solemnly performed in Baptism where as we are engaged to the saving Trinity and Baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost so must we solemnly Renounce the damning Trinity even the flesh the world and the Devil For so the Church hath ever done and the nature of the thing doth manifestly require it for the motus must have its Terminus à quo as well as ad quem It s a sad thing that so many well-meaning men should deny our Infant-capacity of this engagement but much sadder that they should do it with such violent Church dividing zeal as if the Kingdom of God lay in the exclusion of the seed of Believers out of it If it be true that all our Infant-seed are excluded from the Church I am sure it is so sad a truth that me thinks men should not so eagerly lay hold of it before they have better evidence to evince it It was once a mercy for Infants to be in Covenant with God and members of his Church and I do not think that it is now a mercy to be out or that the Kingdom of the Devil is the more desirable state and all men are in one of these Sure I am they were once members of the Church by Gods appointment and they that say they are cast out must prove it and better then any that yet have attempted it if they would have judicious considerate impartial men believe them Whoever cast them out sure Christ would not that did so much to enlarge the Church and better its state and manifest more abundant mercy and chide his Disciples that kept such from him and proclaimed that his Kingdom was of such I am not easily perswaded to believe that the Head and King of the Church hath actually gathered a Society of a false Constitution so long and that he that is so tender of his Church and hath bought it so dearly and ruled it so faithfully had never a true constituted visible Church till about two hundred years ago among a few such as I have no mind to describe and that we must now have a new and true Church-frame to begin when the world is almost at an end and that this glory reserved for our last daies consisteth in casting out our Infant-seed and leaving them in the visible Kingdom of the Devil till they come to age I am more out of doubt then ever I was that God would have our Infants renounce the world and be Dedicated unto him as the world did renounce Christ an Infant If an Infant-Christ must be the Head of the Church I know not why an Infant-sinner may not be a member of it And as the world without reason through malice rejected our Infant Head so God will find both Reason and Love to receive and entertain his Infant-members And as long as we have Gods express approbation in his Word for parents entring their children into his Covenant and have the examples of all Nations by the Law of Nature allowing parents to enter their children into Covenants which are apparently for their good and to put their names into their Leases with their own we shall not think our Infants uncapable of Covenanting with God nor of making this early Abrenunciation of the world 2. From hence also you may learn what room it is that the world should be allowed by you even the stable and the manger as it allowed Christ. This is a point of most necessary consideration The soul of man hath its several faculties As vegitative it hath its natural parts and spirits and powers and a naturall Appetite after the creature This is the stable and the manger where the creature as a natural good may be entertained It hath also as sensitive its power of sensation and sensitive Appetite This also may entertain the creature but not for it self nor by its own conduct but under the guidance of Reason to an higher end But the high and noble faculty of Reason and the Rationall Appetite may not allow it the least entertainment in its separated capacity as we are now discoursing of it It belongeth not to the Naturall or sensitive Powers to see and Love God in the creature and therefore it cannot be required of them and therefore they may receive their objects moderated by reason upon lower terms But it s the office of Reason as to moderate the senses so to behold God in all the objects of sense and no otherwise should it have to do with sensual objects of which more anon 3. It was not long that Christ had been in the world before Herod sought his Life and caused him to flie into AEgypt And as soon as we are capable of assaulting the world we must actually fall upon it and seek the extirpation of all its Interest from our hearts where Christ sets up his throne It was for fear of losing his Crown that Herod sought the death of Christ. It must be for fear lest Christ should be dethroned in our hearts and lose his regal Interest and lest we should lose the Crown of glory that we must endeavour the crucifying of the world When Angels and wise men did worship Christ yet Herod did seek his death and the more seek it because of their acclamations as being brought into jealousies of him by the Titles which they gave him So when the Princes and great ones of the earth do extoll the world and magnifie its
But I should rather refer it to the later though in sense the difference is small because the one is implyed in the other The further explication of the Nature of this Crucifixion and the influence that Christ and his Cross have thereinto and how they are the Causes of it must be further spoke to in the handling of the Doctrines which are as followeth SECT II. Doct. 1. THE carnall Glorying of worldly professors is a thing detested and renounced by the Saints Doct. 2. A Crucified Christ or Christ and his Cross is the Glorying of the Saints Doct. 3. The world is Crucified to the Saints and they to the world Doct. 4. It is by a Crucified Christ or by Christ and his Cross that this is done But because our limited time will not allow us to handle each of these distinctly I shall reduce them all to one Generall Doctrine which is the sense of the Text. Doct. THE world is Crucified to the Saints and the Saints are Crucified to the world by the Cross of Christ and therefore in it alone must they Glory abhorring the Glorying of carnall men THE Method which I shall observe as fittest for your Edification in handling this Doctrine is this 1. I shall more fully shew you Negatively what it is not and Affirmatively what it is to have the world Crucified to us and to be Crucified to the world 2. I shall shew you How this is wrought by the Cross of Christ. 3. I shall give you the Reasons which prove that so it is 4. I shall give you the Reasons why it must be so 5. I shall make application of this first part of the Doctrine And then handle the latter part as time shall permit I. THere are few Doctrines of faith or waies of holiness but have their extreams which men will reel into from side to side when few will consist in the Sacred mean The purblind world cannot cut by so small a thred as the word of God directeth them to do and as all must do that will be conducted into Truth We have much ado to take men off these vanities but yet when many of them are convinced and see that the world must be cast aside they mistake the nature of holy mortification and embrace instead of it some superstitious and cynicall conceits in which they are as fast bemired almost as they were before I shall therefore first tell you what is not the Crucifixion which we are to treate of 1. It is not to think that the world is indeed Nothing and that in a proper sense our life is but a dream Nor yet sceptically to take the being and modes of all things as uncertain Nor to imagine that sense is so far fallible that a man of sound sense and understanding may not be sure of the objects conveniently presented to his sense There still remaineth one Argument which the Scepticks were never able to confute but will make them at any time to yield the cause Even to scourge them as fools till they are sure they feel it But we have few of these to deal with the Scepticism of our times being restrained to those things which closelyer concern the matter of salvation 2. Nor is it any part of the meaning of this Text that we should entertain a low and base esteem of the world or any thing therein as in its Natural state considered it is the work of God For though man be eminently created in his image yet all his works are like him in their measure and therefore have all an excellency to be admired It cannot be that infinite wisdom can make any thing which shall not have some impressions and demonstrations thereof Nor can Goodness make any thing but what is Good And never did the Almighty make any thing that is absolutely contemptible Nor any thing so mean which can be done by any other without him so far unimitable is he in the smallest of his works Nor did he ever make any thing in vain but those things which seem small and useless to us have an unsearchable excellency and usefulness which we know not of If the unskilful have the modesty to believe that the smallest string in an Instrument of Musick and the smallest pin in a Watch have their use though he know not of it we have great reason to think as modestly of the frame of all the works of God And those things that in themselves considered are small yet respectively and virtually may be very great The heart may do more to the preservation of life then a part much bigger and the eye may see more then all the rest of the body besides And the order location and respects of several parts doth give them such an admirable usefulness and excellency which none can know that seeth not the whole frame Yea our own selves souls or bodies considered as the workmanship of God must not be thought or spoke contemptibly of For so by all that we say against the work we do but reproach and dishonour the work-man In all our self-accusations and condemnations we must take heed of accusing or condemning our Creator Our Naturals therefore must be honoured while our Corrupt Morals are vilified We must disgrace nothing that is of God but only that which may be truly called our own Nor in the accusation of our Own must we by reflexions and consequences accuse that which is Gods as if the fault in the Original were his By giving us our Natural free-will which is a self-determining power he made us capable of having somewhat in Morality which we may too justly call our own And our loss and want of Moral freedom which is but our right Dispositions and Inclinations were not to be charged ultimately on our selves if the foresaid Natural freedom did not make us capable of such a culpability It s a strange way that some men have devised of magnifying the Creator by vâ—â—ifying his works and it s a strange conceit that all the praise that is given to the creature is taken from God They would not do so by man The praise of an House is taken to be no dishonour to the Carpenter Nor the commendation of a watch a dishonour to the watch-maker God did not dishonour himself when he said his works in the beginning were all Good He would never have been a Creator if all the Good which he made and Communicated had been to his dishonour When there was nothing but himself in being there was nothing but himself to be commended but doubtless God intended his Glory by his Works and all that is in them proceeding from himself the praise of them redoundeth to himself In a word we must be very careful of Gods interest in his creatures and take heed of any such contempt or vilifying of them which may reflect upon himself 3. The Crucifying of the world to us doth not consist in our looking upon it as an useless thing or laying it aside as
to all spiritual improvement No so far is this from being any part of our duty that it is none of the least of our sins The creature was the first book that ever God did make for us in which we might read his blessed perfections And the perverting it to another use with the neglect of this was mans first sin As it was the great work of the Redeemer to bring us back to God that made us and restore us to his favour so also to restore us to a capacity of serving him even in that imployment which he appointed to us in our innocency which was to see God in the face of his creatures and then to love and honour him and by them to serve him Though this be not our highest felicity yet is it the way thereto Till we come to see face to face we must be glad to see the face of God in the glass of his works But of this we have more to say anon in the application 4. Our Crucifying of or to the world requireth not any secession from the world nor a withdrawing our selves from the society of men nor the casting away the propriety or possession of the necessaries which we possess It is an easier thing to throw away our Masters Talents then faithfully to improve them The Papists glory in the holiness of their Church because they have many among them that have vowed never to marry and have no propriety in Lands or Houses and have separated themselves into a Monasticall society Aâ—â—high commendation to their Church when men must be Sainted with them if they will do no mischief though they make themselves useless to the rest of the world The servant that hid his Talent in a Napkin was condemned by Christ as wicked and sloathful and shall he be commended by us for extraordinarily devout Will you reward that servant that will lock up himself in his chamber or hide his head in a hole when he should be busie at your work Or will you reward that souldier that will withdraw from the Army into a corner when he should be fighting The world swarms on every side with multitudes of ignorant and impenitent sinners whose miserable condition cryeth loud for some relief to all that are any way able to relieve them And these Religious Monks make haste from among them and leave them to themselves to sink or swim and they think this cruelty to be the top of piety Unworthy is that man to live on the earth that liveth only to himself and communicateth not the gifts of God to others And yet do these idle unprofitable droans esteem their course the life of perfection When we must charge through the thickest of our enemies and bear all the unthankfull requitals of the world and undergo their scorns and persecutions these wary souldiers can look to their skin and get out of the reach of such encounters and when they have done imagine that they have got the victory To live to our selves were it never so spiritually is far unlike the life of a Christian A good man is a common good and compassionate to the miserable and desirous to bring others to the participation of his felicity To withdraw from the world to do God service is to get out of the Vineyard or Shop that we may do our Masters work If you have riches it is not casting them away that shall excuse you instead of an holy improving them for God If you have possessions it is not a renouncing of propriety that shall excuse you from the prudent and charitable use of them The same I say also of Relations of Offices in the Church and Common-wealth God calleth you not to renounce them To crucifie the world is not to disclaim all the relations possessions or honours of the world These are not yours but Gods And as he put them into your hands and commanded you faithfully to use them as his Stewards so you must do it and not think it a good account of your Stewardship â—o tell God that you threw away the talents that he trusted you with because they were temptations to you or because he was austere I should have no great need to speak of this were there not such a multitude of deluded souls that have lately received the Popish dotages herein It s one thing to creep into a Monks Cell or an Anchorets Cave or an Hermits Wilderness or Diogenes Tub and another thing truly to be Crucified to the world and in the midst of the creatures to live above them unto God as we are anon to shew 5. To be Crucified to the world is not to forbear our lawfull trades and labours in the world He that bids us eat our bread in the sweat of our brows and would not have him eat that will not labour Gen. 3. 19. 2 Thes. 3. 6 10 12. did never call men to be begging Fryers nor licentious Prodigals nor idle Gentlemen nor lazy unprofitable burdens of the earth All idleness that 's wilfull is sinful but that which is cloaked with the pretence of Religion is a double sin When some servants grow lazy they will pretend piety for it and accuse their Masters of worldliness for setting them to work And some that have families will neglect their duty for them and all upon pretences of a contempt of the world But he that bid us use the world as not abusing it 1 Cor. 7. 31. did never mean to forbid us the use of it While such Hypocrites will needs be more then Christians they become in Pauls judgement worse then Infidels 1 Tim. 5. 8. They should not labour with a desire to be rich yet must they labour to give to him that needeth Eph. 4. 28. Idleness is not Mortification 6. To be crucified to the world or the world to us containeth not an unthankfull undervaluing of our Mercies It will not warrant us to say Health and Riches and Honours are contemptible and therefore I owe God but little thanks for them nor will it excuse any ingratefull insensibility of our deliverances 7. To Crucifie the world is not to take away the lives of the men of the world nor actually to use them as they used Christ. Though the Magistrate must bring a false Prophet to Capital Punishment that sought to turn the People from God yet every one might not do so nor is that any part of the sense of this Text nor was it thus that Paul did crucifie the world 8. Much less may it encourage any poor Melancholly tempted souls to be weary of their lives and to seek to make away themselves This horrid sin is far from the duty here required To be crucified to the world is not to rid our selves out of the world nor to do that to our selves which were so hainous a sin if we did it to another as not here to be lightlyer punished then with death And thus I have shewed you Negatively What it is not to have the
and their living without God in the world But when faith hath opened a mans eyes and shewed him God in every creature who was hid from him before then is the creature who was before his All annihilated to him in that separated sense and God becomes his All again and this annihilation of the creature is indeed its restauration objectively to its primitive nature and use and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now So that sensual men by making the creature an imaginary God or chiefest Good or All do make it indeed objectively to become Nothing and so their All their God their felicity is Nothing and so all their life is a Nothing When as the faithfull by Crucifying or Annihilating the creature as it would appear a felicity to us or any Good as separated from God do restore it to its true objective being and use by returning to God who is truly All and in whom the creature is a Derived Imperfect something and out of whom it is indeed a Nothing I will further illustrate it by one other similitude God gave the Ceremonial Law by Moses to the Israelites to be an obscure Gospell and to lead them unto Christ. The sacrifices and other typicall Ceremonies were the Letters of the Law and Christ was the sense The true Believers thus understood and used them but the Carnal Jews lookt only on the letter and lost the sense and thus separating the bare Letter from the sense that is the Legall works from Christ they thought to be justified by those works and by the Law in that separated sense But the Apostle Paul doth plead against thiâ— errour and tells them that Christ is the end of the Law to all Believers and that he is the fulfilling of it and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and that by the deeâ—s of the Law in this separated sense no flesh can be justified and that the Letter separated from the sense of it killeth but Christ by his Spirit who is the sense of it giveth life If these Jews had taken and used the Law as God intended it and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter and had understood that Christ was the very life and end and all of the Law Paul would never have cryed down the Law nor Justification by it in this sense for that had been to cry down Justification by Christ. But it was Justification by the Letter or the Law as separated from Christ who was the meaning of it So is it in our present case The creature is the letter and God the sense and Carnal men do understand only the Letter of the creature and fall in love with it and thus God cryeth down the world and vilifieth and speaketh contemptuously of the world When as if it had not been for the separation he would never have cryed it down nor spoken an hard word of it As the Law had never been so hardly spoken of if the mis-understanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called Vanity and a Lie and Nothing and a Dream and that which is not bread and that which profiteth not a Shadow a Deceiver with abundance of the like contemptuous terms if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God And thus I have shewed you in what Respects the World must be Crucified AND let me add in the Conclusion as most necessary for your observation that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the foresaid abuse and therefore when we have done all that we can in Crucifying and sublimating it we must never imagine that we can make it so wholsom or harmless a thing as that we may feed upon it without great caution and suspition or ever return to friendship with it again till fire have refined it and grace hath perfectly refined us And yet this is not long of the creature without us but of us and the tempter The world is in it self Good as being the work of God and it cannot be the proper efficient culpable cause of our sin For it hath no sin in it self I mean the world as distinct from the men of the world and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin But yet there is that in it which is apt to be the Matter of our temptation and so apt as that all that perish do perish by the world As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity Conjunct who have each person his several office for our recovery so there is no damnation but by the whole Infernal Trinity the flesh the world and the Devil Even to Innocent Adam the world must be the bait and Satan found somewhat in it that made it apt for such an office though nothing but what was very good But now that the flesh is become the Predominant part and power in us as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it the case is much worse and the world is incomparably a more dangerous enemy then to Adam it could be For though still the creature is good in it self yet we are so bad that the better the creature is the worse it becomes to us For we are naturally propense to it in its separated capacity and all men till regeneration are fond of it as their felicity and hug it as their dearest good and Sacrifice to it as their Idol So that an enemy it is and an enemy it will be when we have done our best as long as we are on earth For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased by that which God forbiddeth and there is a Devil to offer us the bait and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing the world which is the bait will still be the matter and occasion of our danger The consideration of this may cut the throat of licentious principles and hence we may answer the most of their vain pretended reasons who under the Cloak of Christian liberty would again indulge the flesh and be reconciled to the world But certainly it will never lay by its enmity till we lay by our flesh and therefore there is no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more but we must be killing it and dying to it to the last SECT IV. HAving thus shewed you in what Respect the world must be Crucified and so resolved the question as to the Object I am next to resolve it as to the Act and shew you wherein the Crucifying it doth consist The Apostle followeth on the Allegory which he took occasion of from the mention of the Cross of Christ. From thence therefore we must also fetch the proper sense As the world did use Christ or would have used him so we must use the world Not actually murder the sons of death as they did murder the Lord of Life but what Christ
good is Nothing to us Let a needy soul betake himself to the world for comfort under the burden of sin for quiet and true peace to a wounded conscience and you will find it can do Nothing Seek to it for grace or strength against corruptions and temptations and you will find it can do Nothing Cry to it for succour in the depth of your affliction and at the hour of death and try whether it will present you acceptable unto God and bring your departed souls with boldness to his presence and you will find that it can do Nothing Whatever it promiseth and what ever it seemeth to deluded sinners when you look for any real good from it you will find it can do Nothing And therefore you may well take it as a meer Nothing to you 2. And in esse objectivo we may make Nothing of it by excluding it from any room in our souls as to those acts that do not belong to it 3. And as a separated being independant as to God so it is indeed Nothing for there is no such thing Much less as it is a separated Good or felicity to man Annihilate then the world to your selves When it would appear to you to be what it is not and would promise you to be what it cannot let it be as Nothing to you Conceive of it as of a shadow or a thing that seemeth to Be and is not Could you once make Nothing of it it would have no power over you nor any unhappy effects upon you You would not dote upon a known Nothing nor change your God and Glory for Nothing As Iob saith of the wicked Iob 27. 19. he openeth his eyes and he is not so we may say of the world when we open our eyes we shall see that it is not that which before seemed Nothing to us will appear to be All things and the world that seemed all things will be Nothing The summe of all that hath been said is this The opposing world must be apprehended as an enemy to God and us and so far Hated The glozing world appearing as our felicity or a competitor with God must be conceived of as Worthless and Contemned And the world as it would appear as a separated Good being any thing to us or having any thing for us out of God must be annihilated in our conceptions and taken as Nothing SECT VI. VVE are next briefly to shew you how it is that we are Crucified to the world having shewed you how the world is Crucified to us And in general the meaning is that we are as Dead or Crucified men to it in regard of those forementioned unjust respects in which the tempter would present it to us So that Crucified here is put for the absence of that Action and worldly Disposition which carnal men are guilty of So that it is a Moral and not a Natural death that is here mentioned and observably differeth from a Natural in these respects 1. A Natural death destroyeth the very Powers or Faculties of Acting But a Moral Death only destroyeth the Disposition and Action it self but not any Natural Power 2. A Natural death is Involuntary and in it self is neither a vertue nor a vice neither Morally Good or Evil. But a Moral death is principally in the Will it self and nothing is more voluntary and so it is the principal virtue or vice To be dead in sin and to God is the summe of all Evil And to be dead to sin and the world in Christ is the summe of Moral Good 3. Natural death hath no degree of life remaining saving of the separated soul. But Moral death may consist with much of the contrary life For it is denominated from the predominant habits of the soul which may stand with much of the contrary habit though subdued We cannot therefore gather that Paul was absolutely free from all sin because he was dead to it or crucified to the world For this is a Moral death consisting in a conquest of the enemy who may be said to be dead because he is overcome and consisting in the prevalent Habits of the soul which yet may have too much of the remnants of their contraries More particularly 1. If we are Crucified to the world our undue estimation of the world is Crucified We have no Idolizing over valuing regard to it in that measure as we are dead to it As the world do not Regard the works of the Lord Psal. 28. 5. Isa. 5. 12. So the Saints do not Regard the things of the world The life of faith doth so elevate their spirits that they are mounted up above the creature and look not upon the world or look upon it as a despicable thing They are above that which is the delight and imployment of others and that which the sensual call Felicity they still call Vanity And as a mans stomack abhorreth that which a dog or a swine will greedily devour so the soul of a Believer doth despise and abhor the delights of the ungodly As Pride makes the Rich look contemptuously and disregardfully upon the poor So the holy elevation of Believing souls doth make them look contemptuously and disregardfully upon all the glory of the world As faith doth bring them up to God and make him their Object and their All So doth it make them somewhat like him and minded as he is minded And as God regardeth not persons Deut. 10. 17. nor accepteth the persons of Princes nor regardeth the rich more then the poor Iob 34. 19. but is pleased more in the least of his image on the humble faithful soul then with all the glittering glory of the world so is it in their measure with his people Where they see nothing of God they feel no substance but so far as God appeareth to them in any creature or action or any means or benefit which they possess so far they perceive some substance in it As the natural man Receiveth not the things of the Spirit nor can know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. So the Spiritual man hath shut up his senses to the world and lost his perception of them because they are carnally so discerned The carnal man hath his senses quick in discerning and savouring the things of the flesh but to the things of the Spirit he is dead and sensless And contrarily the Spiritual man is dead and sensless to the things of the flesh and hath no savour in those things that are other mens delights Rom. 8. 10 5 6. He tasteth no more sweetness in their pleasures then in a chip He wonders what they can see or taste in the things of the world that they so run after it To be Rich or Poor do but little differ in his eyes To be high or low is all one to him considering these things as accomodations of the flesh though still he valueth any condition according to the respect it hath to God and so that is the
then undo you for ever and that it should buffet you then befool you out of your felicity The blows which the world giveth you do light upon it self As it Crucified it self in Crucifying Christ so doth it in Crucifying his people It killeth it self by your calamities And if it deprive you of your lives you will then begin to Live but the death which it bringeth on it self is such as hath no Resurrection If it kill you you shall live again yea live by that death but thereby it will so kill it self as never to live again in you The Cross is an happy Teacher of many excellent truths But of nothing more effectually then of the contemptibleness of the world If it turn our breath into groans we shall groan against it and groan to be delivered desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven 2 Cor. 5. 2. We shall cry to heaven against this Task-master and our cryes will come before God and procure our deliverance The world gets nothing by its hard usage of the Saints It maketh a Cross for the Crucifying of it self and turneth their hearts more effectually against it 2. And as it thus declareth it self contemptible and crucifyeth it self to us so doth it exercise us in Patience and awaken us to deeper considerations of its own Vanity and drive us to look after better things It forceth us also to seek out to God and to see that all our dependance is on him and draweth forth our holy desires and other graces And thus it doth Crucifie us also to the world It makes us go into the Sanctuary and consider of the End how the wicked are set in slippery places and that at last it will go well with the just It teacheth us to consider that while the Lord is our Portion we have ground enough of hope For he is good to them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord It is good for a man that he bear the yoak in his youth He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath born it upon him he putteth his mouth in the dust if so be there may be Hope He giveth his check to him that smiteth him he is filled full with reproach For the Lord will not cast off for ever but though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his Mercies Lam. 3. 24. to 33. And not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Rom. 5. 3 4 5. For if we suffer with Christ we shall also be glorified together and the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us And we our selves do groan within our selves waiting for the adoption the redemption of our body Rom. 8. 17 18 23. When Paul suffered for Christ the loss of all things he accounted them dung that he might win Christ. That he might know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and be made conformable to his death Phil. 3. 8 10. He rejoyced in his sufferings and filled up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church Col. 1. 24. And thus was he Crucified with Christ and yet lived yet not he but Christ lived in him and the life which he lived in the flesh he lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him Gal. 2. 20. SECT IX III. HAving thus shewed you how the Cross of Christ doth Crucifie the world to us and us to the world I am next to give you the Proofs of the point that thus it is with true Believers But because the Text it self is so plain and it is so fully proved on the by in what is said already and I have been somewhat long on the Explication I shall refer the rest of the Scripture-proofs to the Application where we shall have further occasion to produce it And I shall now only add the Argument from experience To the Saints themselves I need not prove it for they feel it in their own hearts In their several measures they feel in themselves a low esteem of all things in this world and an high esteem of God in Christ. They would count it an happy exchange to become more poor and afflicted in the world and to have more of Christ and his Spirit and of the hopes of a better world To have more of Gods savour though more of mans displeasure It is God that they secretly long for and groan after from day to day It is God that they must have or nothing will content them They can spare you all things else if they might have him And for those that never felt such a thing in themselves they may yet perceive that it is in others 1. You see that there are a people that seek more diligently after Heaven then Earth that are hearing the Word of God which instructeth them in the matters of salvation and are praying for the things of Eternal Life when you are labouring for the world You see that there are a people that seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and labour most for the food that perisheth not and are about the one thing Necessary which sheweth that they have chosen the better part 2. And you see that there is a people that can let go the things of the world when God calls for them That can be liberall according to their power to any pious or charitable uses That will rather suffer in body or estate even the loss of all then they will wilfully sin against God and hazard his favour 3. You have read or heard of multitudes that have suffered Martyrdom for Christ undergoing many kind of torments and death it self because they would not sin against him All these examples together with the frequent affirmations of the Scriptures may assure you that thus it is with true Christians The world is Crucified to them and they to the world SECT X. IV. I Am next to give you the Reasons of the Necessity of this Crucifixion the most of which also for brevity sake I shall reserve to the Application and at present only lay down these two or three briefly 1. The world is every carnal mans Idol and God cannot endure Idolatry To see his creature set up in his stead and rob him of his Esteem and Interest and be loved honoured and served before him and to see such contemptible things be taken as Gods while God himself stands by neglected he will not he cannot endure this Either Grace shall take down the Idol or Judgement and Hell shall plague the Idolator for he hath Resolved that he will not give his glory to another
thy self from danger without him Canst thou relieve or shift for thy self at death without him Darest thou tell him so to his face and stand to it But if thou must have a God what God wouldst thou have Wouldst not thou have a God that can preserve and help and save thee The world cannot do it man I shall tell thee more of this anon that the world cannot do it If thou trust to it it will deceive thee But if thou say then the Lord shall be thy God Away then with all thy Idols God will have no partner much less a superiour that is exalted above himself in thy soul. As Ioshua said to the Israelites Iosh. 24. 14. so say I to you Now therefore fear the Lord and serve hâ—m in sincerity and in truth and put away the world which hath been your God and serve ye the Lord And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord choose you this day whom ye will serve but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. And if you say as they God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods I answer you as he Away then with the world and all other Idols or else Ye cannot serve the Lord for he is an holy and a jealous God and will not forgive such transgressions and sins but if ye forsake the Lord and serve the world he will turn against you and consume you Vers. 19 20. God will not stoop to be an underling in your hearts He should have all anâ— will at last have all or none But in the mean time he will have the Best or none I do witness here to every soul of you in his name that if he have not the Soveraignty and be not nearer and dearer to your hearts then all the honours and riches and pleasures of the world he is not he will not be he cannot be your God And if he be not thy God thou wilt be Godless as thou art ungodly thou wilt be without his help as he was without thy heart Well this is the first Article of my charge against every one of you that hath not Crucified the world you are Idolators and Traytors against the God of Heaven And he that would have no God deserves to be no man and worse and shall either by Repentance wish with groans that he had never been a worldling and a neglecter of God or else in Hell with groans shall wish that he had never been a man As the first Commandment is the fundamental Law and informeth all the obligations of the particular precepts following so Idolatry which is against that Commandment is the fundamental crime and is the life of all the rest He that would overthrow the God-head would overthrow all the world 2. The next Article of my charge is this You are guilty of most perfidious Covenant-breaking with God Did you not in your Baptism solemnly by your parents Renounce the world the flesh and the Devil and promise to fight against them to the end of your life under the Banner of Christ And have you performed that vow No you have turned treacherously to the enemy that you renounced and fought for the world and the flesh against the Word and the Spirit of Christ. And if you renounce your Baptismal Covenant you renounce in effect the benefits of that Covenant And if God deal with you as with Perfidious Covenant-breakers thank your selves 3. Moreover you are guilty of debasing your humane nature and so of wronging God that made it and is the owner of it God made you not as bruits that are capable of no higher things then to eat and drink and play and die and there 's an end of them But he made you capable of an Everlasting life of Glory with himself And as he suiteth all his works to their uses and ends so did he suit the nature of man to his immortal state As we were made by God we were sitted and disposed to everlasting things And you â—â—ave turned your hearts to the vanities of this world and set your mind on them as your happiness as if you had no greater things to mind Objects do either ennoble or debase the faculties according as they are That is the vilest creature which is made for the vilest uses and ends or imployes himself in such And that is the most excellent creature which is exercised about the most excellent Objects God made you for no less then his everlasting praises before his face among his Angels and you have so far debased your own nature as to root like swine in earth and dung and to live like bruits that have not an immortal state to mind How will you answer this dishonour done to the workmanship of God That you should blot out his image and imploy your souls against his Laws and live as moles and worms in the earth He put you on earth but as travellers towards Heaven and you have taken up your home in the way and forgotten your End and Resting-place 4. The next part of your Guilt is that you have perverted the use of all the creatures and turned the Works and Mercies of God against himself He gave them all to you to lead you to himself and to furnish you for his service He made this world to be a Glass in which you might see the Maker and a Book in which you might read his Name and will And will you overlook him and forget the end and use of all What shame and pitty is it that men should live in the world and not know the use of it That they should see such a beauteous frame and not understand its principal signification That they should daily converse with so many creatures which all proclaim the name of God and with one accord declare his praise and yet that this language should be so little understood Like an illiterate man in a Library that seeth many thousand Books and knows not a word that is in any of them Or like an ignorant man in an Apothecaries shop that seeth the drugs but knoweth not what they are good for nor how to use any of them if he had the greatest need The poorest cottage and smallest pittance of these earthly things might be a greater Blessing to you if you could understand their use and meaning then all the world would be to him that understands it not Your possessions in themselves if you have not God in them are but the very corpse or carkaise of a blessing The Life of them is wanting And without the Life they will but trouble you For you have the burden without the use Your horse will carry you while he hath life and health but take away his life once and you must carry him if you will have him any further Verily it is no wiser a trick to make a stir in the world and seek the profits and pleasures of it without God or any otherwise then as
with that which should be your food you turn your daily blessings to your bane by dropping your Poyson into the cup of Mercies which bountiful providence putteth into your hands There is not a surer way in the world to undo you then by Turning to the creature and forsaking God You cry for more of the world and you are unsatisfied till you have it and when you have it you do but destroy your souls with it by giving it your hearts which must be given only unto God What a stir do men make for temptation and destruction What cost and pains are men at to purchase them an Idol and to make provision for the flesh to satisfie its desires when they confess it to be the greatest enemy of their souls Like a man that would give all that he hath for a coal of fire to put into the thatch even such is your desires after the world and the use you make of it 8. What abundance of precious time and labour do you lose which might and should be better spent Doth not this world take up the most of your care and strength and time You are about it early and late It is first and last and almost alwaies in your thoughts It findeth you so much to do that you have scarce any time so much as to mind the God that made you or to seek to escape the everlasting misery which is near at hand It hath taken up so much of your hearts that when God should have them in any holy duty or service for his Church you are heartless When you shall see your accounts cast up to your hands as shortly you shall see it though you will not now be perswaded to do it your selves and when you shall there see how many thoughts the world had in comparison of God and how many hours were laid out upon the world when Gods service was cast by for want of time and how near the creature was to your heart while God as a stranger stood at the door And in a word how the world was your daily business while the matters of God stept in but now and then upon the by you will then confess that you laboured in vain and that your life and labour should have been better employed Hath God given you but a short uncertain life and laid your everlasting life upon it and will you cast all away upon these transitory delights How short a time have you for so great a work and shall the world have all Oh that you did but know to how much greater advantage you might have spent this time and labour in seeking God and an endless Glory One thing is needful make sure of that and waste not the rest of your daies in vanity What wise man would spend so precious a thing as Time is upon that which he knows will leave him in Repentings that ever it was so spent The world doth rob poor sinners of their time but when they see it is gone and they would fain have a little of that time again to make preparation for their everlasting state it is not all the world then that can bring them back one hour of it again Certainly such a loss of time and labour is no small aggravation of a worldlings sin 9. You are also guilty of the high contempt of the Kingdom of Glory while you prefer these transitory things before it Your hearts and lives speak that which you are ashamed to speak with your tongues You are ashamed to say that Earth is better for you then Heaven or that your sin is better for you then the favour of God but your lives speak it out If you think not your present condition better for you then heaven why do you choose and prefer it and why do you more carefully and laboriously seek the things of earth then the Heavenly Glory If your child would sell his inheritance for a cup of Ale you would think he set light by it And if he would part with father and mother for the company of a beggar or a thief you would say he had no great love to you And if you will venture your part in heaven for the pleasures of sin and will part with God for the matters of this world would you have him think that you set much by his Kingdom or his love O the unreasonableness of sin the madness of worldly fleshly men Is it indeed more desirable to prosper in their shops their fields and their pleasures for a few daies or years then everlastingly to live in the presence of the Lord Shall Christ purchase a Kingdom at the price of his blood and offer it us freely and shall we prefer the life of a bruit before it Shall God offer to advance so mean a creature to an heavenly station among his Angels and shall we choose rather to wallow in the dung of our Transgressions Take heed lest as you are guilty of Esau's folly you also meet with Esau's misery and the time should come that you shall find no place for Repentance that is for Recovery by Repentance though you seek it with tears Contempt of kindness is a provoking thing For it is the height of ingratitude And especially when it is the greatest kindness that is contemned As it will be the everlasting imployment of the Saints to enjoy that felicity and to admire and praise that infinite Love which caused them to enjoy it So will it be the everlasting misery of the damned to be deprived of that felicity and to think of their solly in the unthankful contempt of it and of the excellency of that Kingdom which thus they did contemn God sets before you Earth and Heaven If you choose earth expect no more And hereafter Remember that you had your choice 10. To make short of the rest of the aggravation of your sin and sum it up in a word Your Love of the world is the sum of all iniquity It virtually or actually containeth in it the breach of every command in the Decalogue The first Commandment which is the foundation of the Law and especially of the first Table is broken by it while you make it your Idol and give it the Esteem and Love and Service that is due to God The second third and fourth Commandments it disposeth you to break While your hearts and ends are carnal and worldly the manner of your service will be so and you will suit your Religion to the will of men and your carnal Interest and not to the will and word of God The name and holy nature of God is habitually contemned by you while you more set by your worldly matters then by him His holy daies you ordinarily violate and his Ordinances you do hypocritically abuse while your hearts are upon your covetousness or sensual delights and are far from him while you draw near him with your lips Worldlinys will make you even break the bonds of natural obligations and be
unthankful to your own Parents disobedient to your superiours unfaithful to your equals and unmerciful to your inferiours There is no trusting a worldling he will sell his friend for money He careth not to wrong you in your life your chastity estate and name for his lustful ambitious and covetous desires For he directly breaketh the tenth Commandment which is the sum of the second Table requiring us to regard the welfare of our neighbour and not to maintain a private selfish interest against it So true is that of Paul 1 Tim. 6. 10. The love of money is the root of all evil As adhering to God is the sum of all Duty and Spiritual Goodness so adhering to the creature instead of God is the sum of all wickedness and disobedience And seeing all this is so I require you here in the name of God to cast out this wickedness and cherish it no longer Bring forth that Traytor that hath dethroned God in your hearts and exalted it self and let it die the death It subverteth Common-wealths and all societies it causeth perjury perfidiousness and sedition it raiseth wars and sets the world together by the ears it overturneth all right order and strikes at the heart of Morality it self and would make every man a Woolf or Tyger to his brother It is a murderer of your own souls and the cause of cruelty both to the souls and bodies of others It is a lyar that promiseth what it cannot perform It is a cheater that would deceive you of your everlasting happiness and tice you into Hell by pretences of furthering your profitâ— and contents It causeth parents to neglect the souls of their children and children to wish the death of their parents or be weary of them or disregard them and causeth Law-suits and contentions between brother and brother and neighbour and neighbour and fills the heart with rancor and malice and turneth families and Kingdoms into confusion it maketh people hate their Teachers and too many Ministers to neglect their flocks It adulterously seeketh to vitiate the spouse of Christ and take up the heart which was reserved for himself It robbeth him of his honour of our affections and obedience and Sacrilegiously defaceth the Temple of the Holy Ghost It will not allow God one free thought nor full affection of your heart nor one hour entirely improved for his honour This is the World and thus is it used by sensual men Judge now whether it deserve not to die the death and to be cast out of your souls and wherher we have not reason to say Crucifie it Crucifie it Ask me no more What evil it hath done You see it is such an enemy to the God of heaven that if you cherish it and let it live in your hearts you are not friends to Christ or your salvation Away with it then without any more ado and use it as the world did use your Lord and as it nailed him on the Cross so go to his Cross for a nail to fasten it and for strength to Crucifie it that you may be victors and super-victors through him that loved you and overcame the world for you Choose not to be slaves when you may be free-men and triumphers Take warning by all that have gone before you serve not a Master that casteth off all his servants in distress and leaveth them all in fruitless complaints of its unprofitablness Think not to speed well where never man sped well before you nor to find content where none have found it If all the worlds followers complain of it at the parting take warning by them and foresee the end Find out one man that ever was made happy by the world in a true and durable happiness before you venture your own hopes and happiness in such hands Put not your selves and all that you have in such a leaking vessel that never yet brought man safe to shore Will neither the experience of your own lives nor the experience of all the world before you delivered in the history of so many thousand years be a sufficient warning to you to avoid the snare What will you take then for a sufficient warning Were not reason captivated one would think that a walk into the Church-yard might satisfie you The sight of a grave or of a dead body should kill and disgrace the world in your eyes Do you see where you must lie and what that flesh which you so regard must be turned to and what is the most that can be expected from the world and in how poor and despicable a case it will then leave you and yet will you doat upon it and neglect and lose the life everlasting for it Will you be wilfully seduced by the vain-glory and oftentation of blinded worldlings when you are certain before-hand that they will not be long of the mind themselves that now they are Name me one man if you can that rejoyceth in his worldly prosperity now and speaketh well of it who rejoyced in it and spoke well of it two hundred years ago It s a child indeed that would have an house builded by every fine flower that he seeth in his way and forgetteth his home his friends and his inheritance When its two to one but the flower will be withered before his house be finished and the pleasure will not answer the trouble and cost Indeed if the world were a better place then that which we are going to I could not then blame any to desire to keep it as long as they can And yet if it were so the certainty of our removall should make us less regard it and look more to the place where we must evermore remain Much more when our home doth exceed this world in worth as much as in continuance It s folly enough to set a mans heart upon the fairest Inn that is in his way but to prefer a swine-stye before a Pallace where his Father dwells and his inheritance doth lie is somewhat worse then meer folly and its meet that such be used according to their choice It s meet indeed that we be patient in our Wilderness and murmure not at God for the sufferings that it casteth us upon But to love it better then the promised Land and to think or speak hardly of our happiness it self and those that would lead us to it this is unreasonable The Israelites were never so foolish as to build Cities in the Wilderness as desiring to make it their fixed habitations but contented themselves with moveable tents What a curse were it if God should put you off with earth and give you no other treasure and felicity but what it can afford You might well then look on your Inheritance as Hiram did on his twenty Cities in Galilee 1 King 9. 11 12. and disliking it call it the Land of Cabul It is the description of miserable wicked men to have their portion in this life Psalm 17. 14. Suppose you had the most that you
can expect in the world would you be contented with this as your portion What is that you would have and which you make such a stir for Would you have larger possessions more delightful dwellings repute with men the satisfying of your lusts c. Dare you take all this for your portion if you had it Dare you quit your hopes of the life to come for such a portion You dare not say so nor do it expresly though you do it implyedly and in effect O do not that which is so horrid that your own hearts dare not own without trembling and astonishment I pray you tell me do you think that a sufficient Portion which the Devil himself would give you if he could or is willing you should have He is content that you enjoy your lusts and pleasures he is willing to let you have the honours and fulness of the world while you are on earth He knows that he can this way best deal with your consciences and please you in his service and quiet you awhile till he hath you where he would have have you He that told Christ of all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them would doubtless have given him them if it had been in his power to have obtained his desire Though you think it too dear to part with your wealth or pleasures for heaven and to be at the labour of an holy life to obtain it the Devil would not think it too dear to give you all England nor all the world if it were in his power that thereby he might keep you out of Heaven And he is willing night and day to go about such kind of work that may but attain his ends in devouring you If he were able he would make you all Kings so that he could but keep you thereby from the Heavenly Kingdom Alas he that tempteth you to set light by heaven and prefer this world before it doth better know himself to his sorrow the worth of that everlasting glory which he would deprive you of and the vanity of that which he thrusteth into your hands As our Merchants that trade with the silly Indians when they have perswaded them to take glass and pieces of broken Iron and brass and knives for Gold or Merchandize of great value they do but laugh at their folly when they have deceived them and say What silly fools be these to make such an exchange For the Merchants know the worth of things which the Indians do not And so is it between the Deceiver of souls and the souls that he deceiveth When he hath got you to exchange the love of God and the Crown of Glory for a little earthly dung and lust he knows that he hath made fools of you and undone you by it for ever Do you not think your selves that it is abominable madness in those Witches that make a Covenant with the Devil and sell their souls to him for ever on condition they may have their wills for a time I know you will say it is abominable folly And yet most of the world do in effect the very same God hath assured them that they must for sake him or the world and that they must not love the world if they will have his love nor look for a portion in this life if they will have any part in the inheritance of the Saints He offers them their choice to take the pleasures of Earth or Heaven And Satan prevaileth with them to make choice of Earth though they are told by God himself that they lose their salvation by it And here you may see what advantage Satan gets by playing his game in the dark and doing his work by other hands and keeping out of sight himself and deceiving men by plausible pretences Should he but appear himself in his own likeness and offer poor worldlings to make such a match with them how much would the most of you tremble at it and abhort it And yet now he doth the same thing in the dark you greedily embrace it If you should but see or hear him desiring you to put your hands to such a Covenant as this is I do consent to part with the love of God and all my hopes of salvation so I may have my pleasures and wealth and honour till I die Sure if you be not besides your selves you would not you durst not put your hands to it Why then will you now put both hand and heart to it when he plaies his game underboard and implicitly by his temptations doth draw you to the same consent What do the most of the world but prefer earth before heaven through the course of their lives They prefer it in their thoughts and words and deeds It hath their sweetest and freest thoughts and words and their greatest care and diligence and delight And what then do these men do but sell their salvation for the vanities of the world Believe it Sirs if you understood the Word of God and understood Satans temptations and understood your own doings you would see that you do no less then thus make sale of your precious souls And it is not your false Hopes that for all this you shall be saved when you can keep the world no longer that will undo the bargain If the Law of the Land do punish Murder and Theft with death he that ticeth you to commit the crime doth tice you to cast away your life and it will not save you to say I had hoped that I might have plaid the thief or murderer and yet be saved O Sirs if you knew but half as well what you sell and cast away as the Devil doth that tempts you to it sure you durst never make such a match nor pass away such an inheritance for a little earthly smoak and dust SECT XVIII Use of Exhortation MEN Fathers and Brethren hearken to the word of Exhortation which I have to deliver to you from the Lord. I know that this world is near you and the world to come is out of sight I know the flesh which imprisoneth those souls is so much inclined to these sensual things that it will be pleased with nothing else But yet I am to tell you from the word of the Lord that this world must be forsaken before it forsake you and that you must vilifie and set light by it and your heart and hopes must be turned quite another way and you must live as men of another world or you will undo your selves and be lost for ever If you have thought that you might serve God and Mammon and Heaven and Earth might both be your End and Portion and God and the world might both have your hearts I must acquaint you that you are dangerously mistaken Unless you have two hearts One for God and one for the world and two souls One to save and one to lose But I doubt when one soul is condemned you will not find another to be saved I
for a Camel to go throw a needles eye Which though it be possible doth plainly shew some extraordinary difficulty Mat. 19. 23 24. such use to go away sorrowful when they hear of forsaking all because they are rich Luke 18. 23. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith to be heirs of the Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Iam. 2. 5. And the Holy Ghost saith not without cause that Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called 1 Cor. 1. 26. But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised hath God chosen and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his prâ—sence v. 27 28 29. It is the common case of prospering worldlings to play the fool after all Gods warnings and in their hearts to say Soul take thy rest when they know not but that night their souls may be called for Luke 12. 20. O that you would be pleased but considerately to read those two parables or histories Luke 12. 16. and Luke 16. 19. which you have so often read or heard inconsiderately I beseech you think not that we wrong such men if we rank them with the most notorious sinners The Apostle reckoneth them with the most hainous sinners that should arise in the last daies 2 Tim. 3. 2 4. Covetous and lovers of their own selves and lovers of pleasures more then God and bids us turn away from such And he reckoneth them among such as the Church must excommunicate and with whom a Christian may not eat 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. And with the notorious wicked men that shall not enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 10. Eph. 5. 5. It is a sin not to be once named among the Saints Eph. 5. 3. In a word if you are worldly or coveâ—ous you are certainly wicked and abhorred by God how highly soever you may be esteemed of men Psalm 10. 3. The wicked boasteth of his hearts desireâ— and blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth If yet you think I use you unmannerly in speaking so hardly of you hear the Holy Ghost a little further Iam. 5. 1. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your garments motheaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flâ—sh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last dates And mentioning their oppression he addeth Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter In a word If Christ called Peter himself a Satan when he would have had him favour himself and avoid suffering because he savoured not the things of God but of men Mat. 16. 22. You may see that we call you not so bad as you are I Shall now take the freedom to come a little nearer you and close with you upon the main of my business Poor worldlings I come not hither to beat the air nor to waste an hour in empty words but it is Work that I come upon An unpleasing Work to flesh and blood even to take away your profits and pleasures and honours from you to take away the world from you and all that you have therein Not out of your Hands but out of your Hearts Not against your wills for that is impossible nor by unresistible force I would I could do that but by procuring your own consent and perswading you to cast them away your selves I cannot expect the consent of your flesh and therefore I will not treate with it but if yet you have any free use of your reason in matters of this nature look back upon the Reasons that I have before laid down and tell me whether you see not sufficient cause to forsake this world and betake your selves to another course of life and look another way for your felicity This then is the upshot of all that I have been saying to you and this is the Message that I have to you from God to require you presently to renounce this world and unfeigâ—edly to despise it and proclaim war against it and to come over to him that is your rightful Lord and will be your true and durable Rest. What say you Will you be divorced from the world and the flesh this day and take up with a naked Christ alone and the Hopes of an heavenly felicity which he hath promised Will you bring forth that Traytor that hath had your hearts and lives so long and let him die the death Shall the world this day be Crucified to you and you to it I am to let you know that this is the thing that God expecteth and nothing less will serve the turn nor will any worldly kind of Religiousness bring you to salvation This world and flesh are enemies to God and you have been guilty of High Treason against his Majesty by harbouring them and serving them so long And I am moreover to let you know that God will have them down one time or other Either by his Grace or by his Judgement Had you rather that Death and Hell should make the separation then that saving grace should do it Will you still hide it as sugar under your tongue Will you obstinately cleave to it when you know its vanity and the mischief that such contempt of God will bring If you do so God will embitter it to you in the end and he will make it gall in your mouthes and torment to your hearts and you shall spit it out and be forced to confess that it is no better then you were told I do charge you therefore in the name of the Lord that you renounce this world without delay and presently and effectually Crucifie it to your selves You once did it by your parents in Baptism and you have proved false to that profession Now do it by your selves and stand to what you do If it had not been a part of Christianity you had not been called to do it then And therefore you may understand that it is but to be Christians indeed that I perswade you A Christian worldling is as meer a fiction as a Christian Infidel Enter now into your own hearts with a Reforming zeal It should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost down then with every Idol that is there erected Whip out the buyers and sellers and overthrow the money Tables and suffer it not to be made a den of thieves Down with your Diana's Though the world worship her God and his sanctified ones despise her What the ungodly say of our Zion we say of your Babel Down with it rase it even to the foundation it is a thing to be destroyed happy is
as you were to it he would never have deceived you He would havâ— received your departed souls and made you like Angels and raised your bodies to glory at the last and perpetuated that Glory Will your Riches or Pleasures or Honours do this He would have rescued you from the devouring flames which your inordinate love of the world will bring you to O miserable change to change God for the world it is to change a Crown of Glory for a Crown of thorns the love of our only friend for the smiles of deceitful enemies Life for death and Heaven for Hell O what thoughts will arise in your hearts when you are past the deceit and under the sad effects of it and shall review your folly in another world It will fill your consciences with everlasting horrour and make you your own accusers and tormentors to think what you lost and what you had for it To think that you sold God and your souls and everlasting hopes for a thing of nought More foolishly then Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottagâ— If the Sun and Moon and Stars were yours would you exchange them for a lump of clay Well sinners if God and Glory seem no more worth to you then to be slighted for a little fleshly pleasures you cannot marvail if you have no part in them SECT XIX IF Reason and Scripture-Evidence would serve turn I dare say you would by this time be convinced of the necessity of being Crucified to the world and the world to you But sensuality is unreasonable and no saying will serve with it like a child that will not let go his apple for a piece of gold But yet I shall not cease my Exhortation till I have tryed you a little further and if you will not yield to forsake the world you shall keep it to your greater cost as you keep it against the clearer light that would convince you of your duty 1. As you love God or would be thought to love him love not the world For so far as you Love it you Love not him 1 Ioh. 2. 15. As ever you would be found the friends of God see that you be enemies and not friends to the world For the friendship of the world is enmity to him Iam. 4. 4. You are used to boast that you Love God above all If you do so you will not Love the world above him And then you will not labour and care more for it then for him Your love will be seen in the bent of your lives That which you Love best you will â—eek most and be most careful and diligent to obtain As they that love money are most careful to get it so they that Love heaven will be more careful to make sure of that As they that love their drink and lust will be much in the Ale-house and among those that are the baits and fewel of their lust So they that Love the fruition of God will be much in seeking him and enquiring after him and much among those that are acquainted with such Love and can further them any way in the accomplishment of their desires If you Love God then let it be seen in the Holy Endeavours of your lives and set your affections on things above and not on the things that are on earth For that which you most look after we must think that you most Love Can you for shame commit Adultery with the world and live with it in your bosoms and yet say that you love God 2. As you Love your present peace and comfort see that you love not but Câ—ucifie the world It doth but delude you first and disquiet you afterward Like wind in your bowels which can tear and torment you but cannot nourish you And if God do love you with a special Love he will be sure to wean you from the world though to your sorrow If you do provoke him to lay wormwood on the breasts and to hedge up your forbidden way with thorns when you find the smart and bitterness you may thank your selves It is the remnant of our folly and our backsliding nature that is still looking back to the world which we have forsaken that is the cause of those successive afflictions which we undergo Did you Love the creature less it would vex you less but if you will needs set your minds upon them and be pleasing your worldly sensual desires God will turn loose those very creatures upon you and make them his scourges for the recovery of your wits the reducing of your mis-led revolting souls Are you taken up with the hopes of a more plentifull estate and think you are got into a thriving way How soon can God blast and break your expectations By the death of your cattle the decay of trading the false-dealing of those you trust the breaking and impoverishing of them by contentious neighbours vexing you with Law suits by corrupted witnesses or Lawyers that will sell you for a little gain by ill servants by unthrifty children by thieves or souldiers or the raging flames by restraining the dew of heaven and causing your land to deny its increase and make you complain that you have laboured in vain How many waies hath he in a day or an hour to scatter all the heap of wealth that you have been gathering and to shew you that by sad experience which you might have known before at easier rates At the least if he meddle not with any thing that you have yet how quickly can he lay his hand upon your selves and lay you in sickness to groan under your pain and sin together and then what comfort will you have in the world when head ake's and back ake's and nothing can ease you When pain and languishing make you weary of day and of night and weary of every place and weary of your best diet your finest cloathes your merriest companions Where then is the sweetness and beauty of the world Then if you look on house or goods or lands how little pleasure find you in any of them Especially when you know that your departure is at hand and you must stay here no longer but presently must away Oh then what a carkaise will all the glory of the world appear and how sensibly then will you read or hear or think of these things that now in your prosperity are very little moved by the hearing of them Is it your children that you set your hearts upon in inordinate Love or Care Why alas how quickly can God call them from you by death and then you will follow them to the Church-yard and lay them in the grave with so much the sadder heart by how much the more inordinately you loved them And perhaps God may leave them to be Graceless and unnatural and make that child by rebellion or unkindness to be the breaking of your heart whom you most excessively affected If it be a wife that you over-love you know not but they
that goeth believingly into the Sanctuary may see their end Surely they are set in slippery places and cast down into destruction How are they brought to desolation as in a moment and consumed with terrours Psalm 73. 12 17 18 19. And in that very day do all his thoughts perish Psalm 146. 4. Then shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices for the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Prov. 31. 32. See then that you be not eager for prosperity and if God cast it on you use it with fear And if ever you feel the creature begin to grow too sweet and delightful to you then spit it out as the poyson of the soul and presently take a mortifying antidote before you are past remedy As you feel the working of poyson by its burning or griping or other effects agreeable to its nature by which it seeketh the extingushing of life so you may feel when the world is poyson to your souls by its creeping into your affections and insinuating into your hearts with present delight or future hopes by seeming more Lovely and more Necessary then it is As soon as ever you feel it thus creep into your hearâ—s its time to rise up against it with holy fear and to cast it out if you love your souls And that which I would advise you to at present when the world hath got too deep into your hearts before you are aware is this Do something extraordinary in such a necessity for its crucifixion and your recovery Though a careful diet may serve to preserve health while you have it yet if you have lost it and sickness be upon you you must have recourse to Physick for your cure If honour or preferment or house or land or friends or gain or recreations begin to seem too sweet and dear to you and your hearts begin to hug them with delight or make out after them with keen desires you must now have recourse to extraordinary helps and in particular try these following 1. Withdraw your selves to some more frequent and serious meditation of the brevity and vanity of the world then you have been used to steep your thoughts longer in mortifying considerations till the bent of your hearts begin to change 2. Be ofter with God in secret and publick prayer and give up a larger portion of your time to holy things then ordinarily you have done that acquaintance with heaven may wean your mind from earth and the Love of God may drown your worldly Love When you have taken any extraordinary cold you will get nearer the fire then ordinary and be longer at it and drive it out by heating things And when the world hath insinuated into your affections and chilled and cooled them to God and heaven its time to draw nearer God then before and to be longer with him and to strive harder in every duty then you did till spiritual life do work more vigorously and expell that earthly distemper which had possessed you 3. And at such a season let prayer be furthered by fasting and extraordinary humiliation which may help down the flesh which causeth you so much to over-value the world Even an Aâ—ab found some ease by a common humiliation when he had taken a mortal surfeit of Naboths Vineyard and his Blood Much more may a true Christian find much help by special humiliation when he hath surfeited on any creature whatsoever 4. And I think it would be a very good course at such a time as that to be at some more cost for God then you were before When you feel your love to the world increase Give somewhat extraordinary then to the poor or to pious uses according to your ability Yea what if it were so far as might a little pinch your selves This were a real opposition to the world and you might turn a very temptation to a gain and get much good by occasion of a sin It might do much to dis-hearten and repell the tempter when he seeth that you over-shoot him in his own bow and make such use as this of his temptations as to do the more good and use your wealth the more for God and deny your selves more then you did before If you would but faithfully practise these few directions you would find it the surest way of recovery when you begin to be infected with this earthly disease Direct 10. THE last Direction that I shall give you for the Crucifying of the world is this Be sure to keep off the means of its livelihood and keep it still under the mortifying means Lay siege to it and stop up all the passages by which the worlds provision would come in and keep it still under the strokes of enmity and the influence of that which is contrary to it Some particulars I will but briefly mention 1. Keep a constant guard upon your senses for this way the world creeps in to your hearts It is by gazing on alluring objects or hearing or tasting or the like that the flames of concupiscence are kindled in the heart By gazing upon beauty or comliness of perâ—â—n the heart of the wanton is infected with lust and so incited to the damnable practises of uncleanness The sight of the cup doth set an edge on the desires of the drunkard and the sight of enticing meats doth awaken and enrage the appetite of the gluttonous and by the presence of the bait their disease is set awork as worms in the body are by some kind of food Clemens Alexandr saith of these men that their disease is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness about the throat And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness in the belly And saith of them that are given to fulness or fineness of diet for the pleasing of their bellies that they are ruled by a Belly-Devil which saith he is the worst and most pernicious of all Devils Lay siege then to this belly-Devil and starve him out It is by the sight of gawdy fashions and curious apparel that the minds of vain effeminate persons are provoked to desire the like And the sight of pomp and honours doth kindle the fire of ambition and the sight of buildings and money and lands doth help to provoke the desires of the Covetous See therefore that you alwaies keep a watch upon your eyes Let them not run up and down like a master-less dog nor roul as the eyes of the lascivious that are hunting after the prey of lust If you have cause to pray as David Psal. 119. 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity You must practise according to your prayers and endeavour your selves to turn them away Have not the best of us as much reason as Iob to make a Covenant with our eyes Iob 31. 1. What wonder if the Garrison surrender not where the besieged have free passage and continual supplies And what
nor to labour after eternal things Christ telleth them that One thing is needful and would have them choose the better part which shall not be taken from them But they believe not Christ but hearken to their flesh and it telleth them that its Another thing that is needful and perswadeth them to choose the worser part which will shortly be taken from them Christ biddeth them Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life Iohn 6. 27. But venter non habet aures the flesh understandeth not such exhortations A greedy appetite is the reason that it judgeth by An hungry belly is not filled nor quieted with arguments They must have their present wants supplyed let what will become of their immortal souls And thus the Rich have so much to look after that they cannot have while to be diligent for their souls And the Poor have so much to seek after that they cannot have while And so the world abuseth them that Have it and that Want it As if two men that had forfeited their lives were travelling to London for a pardon and the one goeth so fair a way that he forgets his business and sitteth down picking flowers in the way and the other meets with so fowl a way that he thinks he is excused because he must take heed of being wet or dirtyed O Sirs if the world be Crucified to you how can it have such power over you as to cause you to neglect your greatest Lord and your immortal souls If indeed you are Dead to it and alive to Christ let it be seen in your families and be seen in all your duties and conversation Let the greatest persons that enter into your families attend the worship of him that is Greater or let them not be attended Neglect them that will neglect the service of God Remember that the fourth Commandment requireth you to see that the Sabbath be sanctified even by the stranger that is within your gates as well as by your selves and the servants that are in your houses If you have carnal Gentlemen at your table or are at theirs do not be your selves so carnal as to be ashamed of holy discourse in their presence or to suppress any speech that may tend to edification and to the honour of your Lord. Let them all know that you have greater matters to do then to attend and humour them and that you have a Master that must be Pleased whoever be displeased Take heed also that the world do not cause you to neglect the opportunities which are before you for your own advantage Miss not a Sermon which may be profitable to you without Necessity Miss not the help of private Instructions and Conference and other edifying Sacred duties without necessity Omit not any of your secret addresses to God without Necessity And take nothing for a Necessity but that which is at that time a greater duty then that which you do Omit I know that Works of Necessity and Mercy may be done even on the Lords day and acts of Worship may be delayed on such occasions for God will then have Mercy and not Sacrifice But Mercy on our own and others souls in seeking their relief must not be neglected for lower things And look not only to the Matter but the Manner of your duties that Worldliness do not destroy the Life and Vigour of them Turn out all thoughts of earthly things when you approach the Lord in holy worship Provoke not his jealousie by presenting before him a distracted mind or lifeless carkaise O what sleepy frozen duties do many professors offer to the Lord even from week to week because their hearts are so distracted by the world that they are to seek when God should have them 5. IF you are Crucified to the world take heed that you use no unlawful means for the procurement of worldly things Stretch not your consciences for the compassing of such ends Lay still before you the Rule of Equity Do as you would be done by Put your brother with whom you deal in your own case and your selves in his and so drive on your bargains in that mind If you did thus you would not sell too dear nor buy too cheap you would not make so many words to get his goods for less then the worth nor to sell your own for more then the worth Nay you would not take more then the worth if by ignorance or necessity your brother should offer it you nor give less then the worth though through ignorance or necessity he would take it The love of money hath so blinded many that in selling they think it to be no sin to take as much for a commodity as they can get and in buying they think it no sin to get the commodity as cheap as they can have it never once asking their own hearts How would I desire to be dealt with my self iâ— it were my own case Nay Covetousness is the common cause that maketh most of the world cry out against Covetousness When men are like ravenous greedy beasts that grudge at every bit that goes besides their own mouths they will reproach all that cross their covetous desires If they cannot by words perswade a tradesman to sell his ware at such rates as he cannot live by they will defame him as a covetous griping man and all because he fitteth not their covetous desires and all that will escape their censure of being covetous must shut up their shops ere long to the defrauding of their creditors If a Physitian that hath been a means to save their lives do demand but half his due it being the calling which he liveth on they will defame him as Covetous because he contradicteth their covetous desires and would have any thing from them which is so near to their hearts Let a Minister but demand his own which was never theirs but is his by the Law of the Land and they will reproach him like Quakers as a covetous hireling and if he will not suffer every worldly miser to rob him they will defame him as if he were sick of their disease So far are they from the Primitive practise of selling all and laying down at the feet of the Apostles that they would steal from the Church those Tenths which neither they nor their Fathers before them had any propriety in any more then in the Lands of any of their neighbours as in the case of Impropriators they are forced to confess Let a man give all that he hath to the poor and he shall be defaâ—â—ed as covetous because he will not give more then all I or if he give to nineteen and have not wherewith to satisfie the twentieth he that hath nothing or less then he expected is as much unsatisfied and as forward to speak evil of him as if he had given to none at all And usually so unreasonable are these covetous expectations that you may sooner displease ten of theâ—
the word of God assuring us that the godly overcome the world and are such as have laid up their treasure in heaven And by the rest of their lives we find the characters of the godly to agree more with them then with the negligent multitude 2. We know that their Religion condemneth worldliness and they hear and read and speak against it 3. They only under God do know their own hearts and they profess themselves to be contemners of the world and heirs of a better world And we find them at least as true of their words in other things as any other men and therefore having not forfeited their credit we are bound to believe them 4. Especially when we know that you that accuse them are unacquainted with their hearts 5. And when we read in Scripture and Church History that the malignant enemies of Christ and his Church have in all ages used the same reproaches against his people from meer prejudice and the words of others and the malice of their hearts 6. And we our selves do live among them as well as you and as near them as you and we see not by them any such thing for which you accuse them As far as we can judge it is you that are the worldlings and their conversation is in heaven Phil. 3. 20 21. Excepting some hypocrites that creep in among them as they ever have done and will do into the Church till Christ at Judgement shut them out Moreover we see in the course of their lives that their speeches are more heavenly then yours and less of the world They can spare time from the world to worship God in their families instruct those that are under their charge which you cannot do We see they take pains for another world through the course of their lives which you will not do 8. To conclude we see by daily experience that where you give a penny to any good use we have many from them I have oft wondered at the impudence of blind malignant persons in this place I must needs my self bear witness that in divers collections for charitable uses we have had from those that profess Religion ten shillings and twenty shillings a man when we have had from men that are commonly supposed richer a shilling or six pence or a groat or not a penny And I can witness that among them there are frequent collections for persons in distress at home and abroad when we never mention them to the rest of the people as knowing them so worldly that it is in vain and we should get a scorn from them sooner then a groat when the persons whom they reproach as covetous will give many shillings and that frequently time after time And for collections at Fasts and Sacraments all men may see the difference I would not have mentioned any of these matters but that the impudency of Calumniators doth in a sort constrain me For when of my own knowledge we have had this many years more pounds from some of them then we could have pence from others for the relief of the poor in voluntary contributions yet do I frequently hear these worldlings crying out of the covetousness of professors as if they had brazed their fore-heads as well as wilfully shut their eyes Quest. 8. But yet I would further be informed of you To what end is it that you make this objection Is it not with a desire to have a life of holy diligence despised in the world or thought evil of or judged needless Ask your own hearts and deal sincerely And if it be so is not this the very work of the Devil which he hath been doing in all ages against the Church and by which he ticeth souls to hell Quest. 9. And I would desire you to tell me if covetousness be among them Whether you are able to charge it upon their Religion or Profession Do they not witness against it as much as any people in the world Doth not the Bible which they read cry it down and threaten damnation to it Do not the Books which they read do so too Do not the Sermons which they hear and repeat cry it down Did you ever hear us preach for covetousness say so if you can or dare There is not a greater enemy to covetousness and all other vices in the world then Christ and the Gospel and Religion which these men profess If then there should be covetous ones among them what 's this to Religion which teacheth them to abhor it Will you blame the best Physitian and remedies that men are sick when there is no cure but by those remedies Will you blame cloathing or fire that men are cold Or eating and drinking because men do consume by some disease I tell you all men naturally are worldlings and no man can be cured of that deadly disease but only those that are cured by the Religion which these men profess Quest. 10. And I pray you tell me Do you think that the works in which they differ from you are good or bad Is it good or bad to hear Sermons and repeat them for the help of memory to pray and praise God together and to live in the Communion of Saints which in your Creed you profess to believe If you have the face to say this is evil or needless you accuse God himself that hath so often commanded it If it be evil its long of God that so urgently requireth it and not of them But if you dare not say so but confess it is good why then do you not imitate them What! will you forbear Good because others do Evil Will you sin against God in one kind if they do so in another We desire you not to joyn with them in evil If they deceive or lie or oppress do not you do so But will you therefore refuse your duty to God and therefore destroy your own souls It is to God and not to them that your duty is necessary It s God that commandeth it and God you owe it to And will you abuse God and rob him because you have hard conceits of men Will you abuse him because you think they do And who is it that will have the loss of this but your selves The Lord hath witnessed that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. And will you neglect an holy life and shut your selves out of heaven and damn your own souls because you think professors are bad A wise course indeed Starve your selves because professors wear cloathes and famish your selves because they use to eat This is a wiser trick of the two then to neglect or refuse an holy diligent life because they use it Quest. 11. And if worldliness be so great a sin I would fain know of you Whether in reason you can think that their course or yours is the way to overcome it Dare you say that sitting in an Ale-house or talking of the world even on the Lords day is a better
course to overcome the world then hearing and reading the Directions of the Word of God and praying to God for assistance against the sin that they are guilty of I see them take pains to learn those Instructions that should cure them of worldliness and are glad to fasten them in their memory and I hear them warn each other to avoid it and begging of God that he would destroy all the remnants of it in their souls And I see others follow the world and live a careless life and use none of these means Which of these shall I think in reason doth take the course to conquer the world Quest. 12. Moreover if these men are as bad as you make them then sure they are none of the people of God but a pack of hypocrites then they are not Saints indeed And then the thing that I would know of you is Which be the Saints of God if these be not and where shall we find them I hope you know that God hath his Saints on earth yea that none but Saints shall be saved For it is expressed in Scripture over and over Heb. 12. 14. and in many other places As I said The Communion of the Saints is an Article of your Creed Tell us then where they are if these be not they Will you go to the Quakers or to the Papists Monks and Nuns for them Or whither will you go Or will you say that such as you are the Saints that reproach holiness and refuse to lead an holy life Is idle worldly discourse a better sign of a Saint then keeping holy the Lords day and labouring for salvation Is ignorance of the Scripture or neglecting it a greater sign of a Saint then meditating in it day and night Read the first Psalm yea all the Scripture and then judge Quest. 13. Do you think if any of them miscarry it is because they are too much Religious or rather because they are too little Surely it is the later For as I said their Religion severely condemneth covetousness and therefore if they were more Religious they would be less Covetous And he that is most godly is least worldly and ordinarily he that is most ungodly is most worldly Quest. 14. Is it not then evident that other mens sins should move you to be the more Religious and careful of your selves and not the less If you see them stumble you should look the better to your feet and not cast your selves headlong from the Rock that you should be built upon You should think with your selves If such men are so faulty for all the pains they take how much more pains must I take to escape such faults If they that run so hard shall many of them miss of the prize by coming short it is a mad conceit of you to think to win it by sitting still or doing less then they that lost it Quest. 15. Lastly I would advise you to consider Whether God that justifieth his servants will suffer you to condemn them And how you can answer the challenge Rom. 8. 32 33. And when Christ hath shed his blood to Absolve them whether is it likely that he will take it well at them that vilifie them Be it known to the faces of all their enemies that The Lord taketh pleasure in his people he will beautifie the meek with salvation Psal. 149. 4. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy Psalm 147. 11. He is nigh to all them that call upon him to them that call upon him in truth Psalm 145. 18. The Lord preserveth all them that love him but all the wicked will he destroy He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm Psalm 105. 14 15. He that toucheth them toucheth the apple of his eye Zech. 2. 8. For all their infirmities its dangerous vilifying a people so dear to the God of heaven They shall shortly hear that joyful voice Rev. 12. 10. Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ for the Accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night And then they that joyned with the Accuser in his work shall be joyned with him in the reward Mat. 25. 41 45. The very coming of the Lord to Judgement will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe 2. Thes. 1. 10. And what then will be the doom of those that vilified them whom Christ will be glorified and admired in you may read and tremble in Vers. 6 7 8 9. But again I charge you all that fear God that you learn by the accusations of malicious men and take heed as you love God your selves or others of giving them ground of such reports And though I know that the wicked are absurd and unreasonable 2 Thes. 3. 2. and that you will never be able to stop the mouthes of all such men till Grace or Judgement stop them yet see that you walk circumspectly in such evil daies and give no offence to Iews or Gentiles or the Church of God If you are Christians indeed you cannot take the Riches or Honours of the world to be matters of so much worth or weight as to be preferred before the honour of your Lord and the good of souls It will grieve you more to hear the reproaches of the ungodly against the waies and servants of God then all your wealth will do you good Doth it not go to your hearts to hear poor blinded sinners on all occasions reproaching your holy profession and saying There are none more proud and covetous and unmercifull then these Professors of so much strictness and holiness Though for the generall it be a malignant Satanicall slander yet take heed as you love the honour of God and of his holy truth and waies and the souls of men that you give not occasion of such reproach SECT XXII Vse For Consolation and further Perswasion HAving said this much to you for the Crucifying the world and the using it as a Crucified thing I shall here briefly enumerate some of the great benefits which will follow to your selves where this is done And this I shall do in order to these two ends conjunctly 1. That those to whom the world is crucified may lay to heart the greatness of the mercy be thankful to God that hath done so much for them There is the greater need of encouragement and comfort to the soul in our Crucifixion to the world because it is a state of so much suffering to the body and a work that requireth so much self-denyal and patience Who will be perswaded to cast all over-board and forsake all the pleasures and profits of this world but he that knows of somewhat to be got by it that will make him a gainer or a saver in the end
perswade you to part with it to supply his wants At least you will never be perswaded to part with all and follow Christ till the Belief of a Treasure in Heaven do perswade you to it Luke 18. 21 22. Can you say from your hearts Let all go rather then the Love of God And in a case of tryal do you certainly find that There is nothing so dear to you which you cannot part with for God and the hopes of everlasting life This is a sign of an effectual Faith For neither nature nor common grace did ever bring a soul so high 3. It is also a certain evidence of unfeigned Love For wherein is Love so clearly manifested as in the highest adventures for the person whom we Love and in the costlyest expressions of our Love when we are called to it Then it will appear that you Love God indeed when there is nothing else that you prefer before him and nothing but what you lay down at his feet When the greatest professors that love the world do shew that the love of the Father is not in them 1 Iohn 2. 15. So far as it is loved 4. To be Crucified to the world and alive to God is the very Honesty and Chastity and Iustice of the soul. This is your Fidelity to God in keeping the holy Covenant that you have made with him in Christ. This is your keeping your selves unspotted from the world and undefiled by it When the friends of it live in its Adulterous embracements Iam. 4. 4. Thus do you give the Lord his own even both the creature and your hearts when worldlings do unjustly rob him of both This is the great command and request of God Prov. 23. 26. My Son give me thy heart Give him but this and he will take it as if you gave him all For indeed the rest will follow this But if you give the world your hearts God will take all the rest as Nothing Benefit 2. THE second Benefit is this If you are truly Crucified to the world Your minds will be free for God and his service When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters or to run a race with a burden on his back But knock off his fetters and how easily will he go and take off his burden and how lightly will he run Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls and that this is it that hindereth you from duty and hindereth you in duty and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly conversation When you should chearfully go to God in secret or in your families the world is ready to pull you back Either it calleth you away by putting some other business into your hands or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections so that you have no heart to duty or no life in it or else it creepeth into your Thoughts in duty and taketh them off from the work in hand and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing And if you shake off these thoughts and drive them out of your way they are presently again before you and meet you at the next Turn But in that measure as you have Crucified the world you are freed from these disturbances The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in and after is taken in the same again Having escaped the pollution of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are again entangled therein as a beast in a snare that cannot escape or help himself So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So that you see that the world is a snare that entangleth mens souls and holdeth them as in captivity The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them and so do all the bodily mercies which they possess But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dangers and say Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers the snare is broken and we are escaped Psal. 124. 6 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances when you are once disâ—entangled from this snare Now that which formerly drew off your hearts and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead that enemy that kept your souls from God and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead As the Apostle saith of sin Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin So I may say of the world He that is dead to the world in that measure as he is dead to it is freed from the world Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and then we may run with Patience the race that is set before us Heb. 12. 1. This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity then he did before in the midst of his prosperity because though his flesh hath lost his soul hath gain'd though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had yet the world is now more Dead to him then before and so his mind is freer for God and consequently more with him How blessed a life is it to converse with God with little disturbances and interruptions A runner in a race is willing to be rid of his very cloathes that should cover him and keep him warm because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript Take away prosperity from an unmortified man and you take away the comfort of his life When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer he loseth but his burden How readily will that man obey that is dead to the world when he is commanded to do good to relieve the poor according to his power to suffer wrongs to let go his right to forgive and requite evil with good to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher as perswade an unmortified worldling to these things They think when they hear them These are hard sayings who can bear them Or at least they are duties for a Peter or a Paul and not for such as we There is a very great part of Christian obedience that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world which no man else is able to endure nor will be perswaded to submit to Benefit 3. ANother Benefit of this Crucifixion is this The
will let no other prosper under them They draw as much as they can to themselves For themselves is their care and daily labour Psal. 49. 18. They all mind their own things but not the things of Christ or their Brethren Getting and Having and Keeping is their business and as swine are seldom profitable till they die Benefit 12. THE last Benefit that I shall mention is this If you are now Dead to the world and the world to you your natural Death will be the less grievous to you when it comes It will be little oâ— no trouble to you to leave your houses or lands or goods to leave your eating and drinking and recreations to leave your employments and company in the world for you were dead to all that is worldly before Surely so far as the Heart is upon God and taken off these transitory things it can be no grief to us to leave them and go to God It is only the remnants of the unmortified flesh together with the natural evil of death that maketh death to seem grievous to Believers but so far as they are Believers and dead to the world the case is otherwise Death is not neer so dreadful to them as it is to others except as the quality of some disease or some extraordinary dissertion may change the case Or as some desparate wicked ones may be insensible of their misery How bitter is the sight of approaching death to them that laid up their treasure on earth and placed their happiness in the prosperity of their flesh To such a fool as Christ describeth Luke 12. that saith to himself Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years How sad must the tidings of death needs be to him that set his heart on earth and spent his daies in providing for the flesh and never laid up a treasure in heaven nor made him friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness nor gave not diligence in the time of his life to make his Calling and Election sure To a worldly man that sets not his heart and hopes above the face of death is unspeakably dreadful But if we could kill the world before us and be dead to it now and alive to God and with Paul die daily it would be a powerful means to abate the terrours and a certain way to take out the sting that death might be a sanctified passage into life So much of the Benefits of Mortification AND now what remains but that you that are Mortified Believers receive your Consolation and consider what the Lord hath done for your souls and give him the praise of so great a mercy Believe it it is a thousand fold better to be Crucified to the world then to be advanced to prosperity in it and to have a heart that is above the world then to be made the possessor of the world And for you that yet are strangers to this mercy O that the Lord would open your hearts to consider where you are and what you are doing and whether you are going and how the world will use you and how you are like to come off at last before you go any further that you may not make so mad a bargain as to gain the world and lose your souls O that you did but throughly believe that it is the only wise and gainful choice to deny your carnal selves and forsake all and follow Christ in hope of the heavenly treasure which he hath promised And let me tell you again as the way to this That though melancholly may make you weary of the world and stoicall precepts may restrain your lusts yet it is only the power of the Holy Ghost the Cross of Christ the belief of the promise the Love of God the Hopes of the everlasting invisible Glory that will effectually and savingly Crucifie you to the world and the world to you It is a Lesson that never was well taught by any other Master but Christ and you must Learn it from him by his Word Ministers and Spirit in his School or you will never Learn or Practise it aright The second PART Of the CHRISTIANS Glorying SECT XXIII HAving thus dispatched the first part of my subject concerning a Christians Crucifixion to the world by Christ and his Cross I come to the second Part concerning the Glorying of a Christian The Iudaizing Teachers did Glory carnally even in a carnall worship and carnall priviledges and in the carnall effects of their Doctrine on their Proselytes but Paul that had more to Glory in then they doth disclaim and renounce all such Glorying as theirs and owneth and professeth a contrary Glorying even in the Cross of Christ and his Mortification The Observation to be handled is that True Christians must with abhorrency renounce all Carnal Glorying and must Glory only in the Cross of Christ by whom the world is Crucified to them and they unto the world In handling this I shall briefly shew you 1. What is included or what we may Glory in 2. What is excluded or what we may not Glory in For the former here are two things expressed in the Text in which a Christian may and must Glory 1. The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Our Crucifixion to the world hereby So that the Positive part of the Doctrine containeth these two branches which I shall handle distinctly before I speak to the Negative part 1. True Christians that are Crucified to the world and the world to them by the Cross of Christ may and must Glory therein 2. Yet so as that their Glorying must be principally in Christ and their own Mortification must be Gloryed in but as the fruit of his Cross. For the first Part it must be understood with these necessary limitations 1. As Glorying signifieth a self-ascribing and Proud conceit of our own Mortification and is contrary to Christian self-denyal and humility and Glorying in God so we must take heed of it and abhor it 2. As Glorying signifieth any outward expression of this inward pride either by words or deeds we must also avoid it with abhorrence 3. So must we also do by all unseasonable offensive ostentation which may seem to others to savour of Pride though indeed it proceed from a better cause 4. But as Glorying signifieth the apprehension of the Good of the thing and our Benefit by it and the due Affections of Content and Joy and Exultation of mind that follow thereupon thus must a Christian Glory in his Mortification by the Cross of Christ. We commonly call this act a Blessing of our selves in the apprehension of our case As the carnal ungodly world do Bless themselves in their Possessing carnal things so may a Christian bless himself that he is Crucified to them that is he may rejoyce in it as a great blessing of God that tendeth to further blessedness 5. And when we are called to it we may express to others our Glorying herein But
you whether all must be referred and how little you are beholden for it to your selves Meet every thought of self-exalting with abhorrenceâ— and give it no other entertainment in your souls then you would give the Devil himself who is the Father of it For casting down Christ will prove the casting down of your selves and he that exalteth himself shall be abased SECT XXVII I Come now to the third and last branch of the Observatition viz. that To Glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ and our Crucifixion thereby is a thing that the soul of a Christian should abhor Here I shall shew you what it is that is not excluded from our glorying in these words And then what it is that is excluded and conclude with some Application 1. It is none of the Apostles meaning in these words that we may not Glory in God the Father For his love to the world was the cause of their Redemption And his pleasure and glory is the end of Redemption and was intended by Christ and must be intended by us As Iustine Martyr saith he would not have believed in Christ himself if he had led them to any but the true God So I may say Christ had not done the work of Christ if he had intended any End but God and had not brought up all to God 2. When it is said that we must Glory only in the Cross of Christ the meaning is not that we must not also Glory in his Incarnation and holy Life and Resurrection and Intercession and every part of his Mediatorship For the Cross is not here put as Contradistinct from these but all these are implyed in his Cross as having their share as well as it in the work of our salvation 3. Nor is it the meaning of the Apostle to forbid us to Glory in the promise that Christ hath made us and in the glad tidings of the Gospel For this brings the blessed news to our ears this is the joyful sound the voice of Love the Charter of our inheritance and therefore sweet to all the sons of Life 4. Nor is it any of the Apostles sense that we may not Glory in the Spirit of Christ as magnifying him for the work of illumination and Sanctification As it was an high sin in Ananias and Sapphira to lye to the Holy Ghost and as it is the unpardonable sin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost So it must be a great duty to honour and magnifie the Holy Ghost And therefore it should make us tremble to hear some prophane men abuse the Holy Ghost in deriding his works saying These are the Holy Brethren these are the Saints these have the Spirit 5. Nor yet are we forbidden to Glory in the effects of the Cross of Christ upon us for these you find are included in the Text even our Crucifixion to the world thereby And the other effects of it even our Justification Adoption and the rest may be Gloried in as well as this that is here named as the Apostle doth Rom. 8. 30 31 32 33. to the end yet still referring all to God in Christ. 6. Nor are we forbidden to Glory in the helps of our salvation the Ordinances of God and means of Grace so we give no more to them then their due and look at them but as the appointed means of God that can do nothing but by him 7. No nor is it unlawfull so far to Glory in our Teachers as God hath sent them and qualified them for our good and as they are the Messengers of God and instruments of the Spirit So did Cornelius glory in Peter Acts 10. and when the Apostles brought the Gospel to Samaria there was great joy in that City Acts 8. 8. And the Apostle commandeth the Churches to know them that are over them in the Lord and submit themselves and esteâ—â— them highly in love for their works sake 1 Thes. 5. 12. 8. Nay we may Glory even in honour and riches and other outward things as they are the effects of the Love of God and the blood of Christ and as they reveal God to us or furnish us for his service and the relief of his people and any way further the Ends of our holy Faith In a word we may glory in any thing that is good as it stands in its due subordination to Christ ascribing to it no more then belongs to it in the relation and not separating it in our thoughts or affections from Christ but carrying all the Glory ultimately to God and making the creature but the means thereto And thus we may not only praise the Physitian but the Medicine the Apothâ—caâ—y the handsom administration the glass that it is brought in the silver spoon in which we take it and all this without any wrong to the Physitian or danger of displeasing him if we respect every thing but as it stands in its own place So much to shew you what is not exexcluded 2. But what is it then that we may not Glory in As I told you in the beginning not in our selves or any creature as opposite to Christ or separate from him or any way pretending to be what it is not or do what it cannot But let us enter into some particulars 1. Have you dignities and honours and high places in the world Do others bow to you and have you power to crush them or exalt them at your pleasure Glory not in it as any part of your felicity A horse is stronger then a man The great Mogal and the Turkish Emperour and many another Infidel Prince is a thousand fold beyond the greatest of you in Power and earthly dignity and yet what are they but miserable wretches Your power will not conquer death nor keep off sickness nor keep the stoutest of your Carkasses from corruption When a man shall see you gasping for breath and yielding your selves prisoners to unresistible death and closing those eyes that look so haughtily then who can discern the Glory of your greatness Who then will fear you or honour or regard you further then your deserts or their interests lead them Your flatterers will then forsake you and seek them a new Master When they are winding your Carkass and laying it up for rottenness in the dust what signs of your power will then appear Will your corpse have any reverend aspect How many have been spurned when they were dead that were bowed to while they were alive There are many in Hell and there will be for ever that were greater men then you on earth The higher you clime the lower you have to fall If the breath of a thousand applaud you now perhaps a million may reproach you when you are dead However it is not the applause of men that will carry you to heaven or abate the least of your pain in Hell Glory not then in worldly honours or greatness But rather rejoyce that you have enough without all this in God How well thinks the
breasts are dry which we thought would have refreshed and satisfied us When we see that the world is an empty thing a cask a picture a dream a shadow we turn away from it and look no more after it but look for content in something else As a child that seeth a painted Apple may be eager of it till he try that it is favourless and then he careth for it no more or if a beautiful crab deceive him when he hath set his teeth in it he casteth it away So when a Christian findeth the folly of his former expectations and tasteth the vexation of the creature which he was so greedy of and withall is acquainted by a lively faith where he may be better away go all his expectations from the world and he promiseth himself no more content or satisfaction in it This is a notable part of Mortification As it is the Hopes of some Good that sets men awork in all endeavours so take down their Hopes and all the wheels of the soul stand still If it were not for Hope we say the heart would break And therefore when all our Hopes from the world are dead the very Heart of the old man is broken and all his worldly motions cease Then he saith It s as good sit still as labour for nothing I despair of ever having contentment in the creature I see it will not pacifie my conscience it will not save me from the wrath to come it will do nothing for me that is worthy my regard and therefore let it go I will follow it no further It shall have my heart no more Before he had many a promising delightful thought of the creatures which he could not reach He thought with himself If I were but thus placed and settled once if I had but this or that which I want if I were but here or there where I would be if I had but the favour of such or such an one how happy were I how well should I be I would then be content and seek no more But when faith hath mortified us to the world we see that all these were foolish dreams we knew not what it was that we Hoped for and then we give up all such Hopes for ever Such pleasing thoughts of any worldly thing while you want it or of any place or Condition which you are absent from and such promises and hopes from any worldly state or person or thing doth manifest that so far you are alive to the world and is a folly of the same nature with theirs that Idolize the world when they do enjoy it For one man to say If I had this or that I were well and for another that hath it to say Now I am well Soul take thy Rest do both shew the same Estimation and Idolatrous Love to the world in their hearts though one of them have the thing which he loves and the other hath it not And to be so pleased with the very fancy and conceits of those worldly things which they never had seems worse then to be pleased with it when they have it I pray you lay this well to heart that I say to you Despair utter Despair of ever being contented or well in the world or made happy by the world in whole or in part is the very life of Christian Mortification It is the nature of a Carnal heart to keep up his worldly Hopes as long as possibly he can If you beat him from one thing he runs to another and if he despair of that he looks after a third and thus he will wander from creature to creature till Grace convert him or Judgement condemn him If he find that one friend faileth him he hopes another will prove more faithfull and if that prove a broken reed he will rest upon a third If he have been crost in his Hopes of worldly contentment once or twice or ten times or an hundred times yet he is in Hope that some other way may hit and some more comfort he may find at last But when God hath opened a mans eyes to see that the whole world is Vanity and Vexation and that if he had it all it would do him no Good at all and that it is a meer deceitful empty thing and when a man is brought to a full and finall Desparation of ever finding in the world the Good that he expected then and not till then is he Crucified to the world and then he can let it go and care not and then he will betake himself in good earnest to look after that which will not deceive him When a worldling is in utmost poverty or in prison he may part with all his worldly contentment at the present but this is not to be Crucified to the world For still he keeps up his former estimation of it and Love to it and some Hope perhaps that yet it may be better with him Yea if he should Despair of ever being Happy in the world if this proceed not from his Disesteem of it and the change of his Affections but meerly because he would have the world but sees he cannot this is far from the nature of true mortification 4. If we are Crucified to the world our Delight in it is Crucified It seemeth not to us a matter of such worth as to be fit for our Delight Children are glad of toyes which a wise man hath no pleasure in To have too sweet contentful thoughts in the creature and to apprehend it as our Good and to be rejoyced in it is a sign that so far we are not Crucified to it It is not able to Glad a mortified heart so far as it is mortified though the Love of God that is manifested by it may make him glad And this is it that Paul disclaimeth in my Text God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ. If he were the Lord of all the honours or wealth of the world he would not Glory in them If he had all the Pleasures that the flesh can desire he would not glory in them If he had the common applause of all men and every one spoke well of him if he had all things about him suited to a carnal hearts content yet would he not glory in it No more then a grave and learned man would glory that he had found a counter or a pin Ier. 9 23. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness on the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Jer. 4. 2. The Nations shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory Isa. 41. 16. Thou shalt rejoyce in the Lord and glory in the holy one of Israel Isa. 45. 25. In the Lord shall all
the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory The world is too low to be the joy of a Believer His higher Hopes do cloud and disgrace such things And as these forementioned Passions in the Concupiscible so also their contraries in the Irascible must be Crucified E. G. 1. A man that is Dead to the world will not Hate or be much Displeased with those that hinder him from the Riches or Honours or Pleasures of the world He makes no great matter of it and taketh it for no great hurt or loss And therefore rather then study revenge he can patiently bear it when they have taken away his coat if they take away his cloak also He doth not swell with malice against them that stand in the way of his advancement or hinder his rising or riches in the world He will not envy the precedency of others nor seek the disgrace or ruine of them that keep him low No more then a wise man will hate or seek to be revenged of him that would hinder him from climbing up to the top of a steeple or that will take a stone or â— bush of thorns out of his way 2. A man that is Crucified to the world will not avoid or flie from any Duty though the performance of it cross his worldly commodity or hazard all his worldly interest He seeth not reason enough in worldly losses to draw him to the committing of sin to avoid them An unmortified man will be swayed by his worldly Interest That must be no Duty to him which casteth him upon sufferings and that is no Good to him which would deprive him of his sensual Good And that shall be no sin to him which seems to be a matter of Necessity for the securing of his hopes and happiness in the world Whatever is a mans end he puts a Must upon the obtaining it and upon all the Means without which it will not be attained I Must have God and Glory saith the Believer whatever I want and therefore I Must have Christ I Must have faith and love and obedience whatever I do And so saith the sensualist my life and credit and safety in the world Must be secured whatever I miss of and therefore I Must avoid all that would hazard or lose them and I Must do that which will preserve them whatever I do The worldling thinketh there is a Necessity of his being sensually happy or at least of preserving his life and hopes on earth But the mortified Christian seeth no Necessity of Living much less of any of the sensual provisions which to others seem such considerable things And hence it is that the same Argument from Necessity draweth one man to sin and keepeth another most effectually from sin He that hath carnal Ends doth plead a Necessity of the sinful means by which he may attain them And he that hath the Ends of a true Believer doth plead a Necessity of avoiding the same sins which the other thought he must needs commit For Heavenly Ends are as much croft by them as earthly Ends are promoted by them We find a rich man in Luke 18. 23. that had a great mind to have been a Christian And if he had lived in our daies when the door is set a little wider open then Christ did set it there are some that would not have denyed him Baptism but would have let him in But when he heateth that the world must be renounced and Christ tells him of selling all and looking for a reward in another world he goes away sorrowful for he was very rich The man would have had pardon and salvation but he must needs be Rich or at least keep something And they that are so set upon it that they must and will be rich do fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. And he that maketh hast to be rich shall not be innocent Prov. 28. 20. But the Crucified world is a dead and ineffectual thing It cannot draw a man from Christ or duty It cannot draw a man into any known sin so far as it is Crucified It is as Sampson when his hair was cut its power is gone Thousands whose hearts were changed by grace could sell all and lay the price at the Apostles seet and could forsake all and take up their Cross and follow a Crucified Christ to the death and could rejoyce in tribulation and glory that they were counted worthy to suffer though he that was unmortified do go away sorrowful Worldly Interest doth command the Religion and life of the unmortified man because it is the predominant Interest in his heart But its contrary with the mortified Believer His spiritual Interest being predominant doth Rule him as to all the matters of this world 3. If you are Crucified to the world your care for worldly things is Crucified It is not in vain that Christ expresly commandeth his Disciples Take no thought for your life What ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on Mat. 6. 25 31. And Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing And 1 Pet. 5. 7. Casting all your care on him for he careth for you I know this is a hard saying to flesh and blood and therefore they study evasions by perverting the plain Text and would null and evacuate the express commands of Christ by squaring them to that carnal interest and reason which they are purposely given to destroy But you will say Must we indeed give over caring I answer 1. You must be in care about your own duty both in matters of the first and second Table and how to manage your worldly affairs most innocently and spiritually and to attain the Ends propounded in them by God But this is none of the care that is now in Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. There is a necessary caring for the things that belong to the Lord how to please the Lord and that even in your worldly business But 2. You may not care for the creature for it self nor for the meer pleasing of the flesh As it may not be Loved for it self so neither may it be cared for for it self And 3. When you have used your utmost care or forecast to do your own duty you may not be Anxious or Careful about the issue which is Gods part to determine of As God himself appeareth in Prosperity or Adversity you may and must have regard unto the issue But for the thing it self you must not when you have done your own duty be any further careful about it God knoweth best what is good for you and how much of the creature you are fit to manage and what condition of body is most suitable to the condition of your soul And therefore to him must the whole business be committed When you have committed your seed to the ground and done your duty about it you must have