cause were it possible to cancel and blot our every day of his Life each day having been only spent in treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of God's righteous Judgment Rom. ii 5. R. 10. By such a holy improvement of the short and troublesom days of time we shall secure to our selves an happy being thorowout the long and endless days oâ— Eternity If we sow to the Spirit we shall of the Spirit reap Life Everlasting Gal. vi 7 8. If we suffer with Christ we shall reign with him 2 Tim. ii 12. The good and faithful Servant shall enter into the joy of his Lord Mat. xxv 21. Wherefore my beloved Brethren be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. xv 58. God suffereth none of his faithful Servants to be losers by him or any thing they do for his honour and glory Our light afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen for the things that are seen are Temporal but the things that are not seen are Eternal 2 Cor. iv 17 18. Surely if we believe an eternity of happiness for holy Souls we shall not think any pains in duty or any patience in suffering too much for it Our discouraging apprehensions of the difficulty of duty proceed much from the Wavering and Weakness of our Faith concerning the Reality and Excellency of the heavenly glory If we lived as seeing him who is invisible Heb. xi 27. And as foreseeing that glory which is eternal we should lead other manner of lives both in respect of grace and comfort than now we do Who would not Watch and Pray Toil and Labour Suffer and Wait that did soundly apprehend and firmly believe that the result of all would be the Souls being for ever with the Lord 1 Thes iv 17. Oh the glory purchased with the redeemers blood and which he hath as our forerunner taken possession of what will it not excite and enable us to undertake and perform Did we believe that the fervent effectual Prayer of a righteous man availeth much Jam. v. 16. to the gaining of Eternal blessedness we should not so often omit nor so lazily perform that duty as we do Did Faith enliven our Meditations of Heaven we should be oftner in them and continue at them longer and with more delight Did we look upon every alms given by us to the poor as a laying up treasure in Heaven we should labour to be rich in good Works Did we reckon that the more of the sufferings of Christ are fulfilled in us now the more of the glory of Christ shall be revealed in us hereafter we should even be ambitious of Martyrdom and esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Heb. xi 26. But alas we think Heaven may be had with less ado or else we think so poorly of it as if it were scarce worth having So that there is too much cause to take up concerning us the complaint of one of the Ancients Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut nos non sumus Evangelici either this that we have in our Bibles is not the Gospel or we are not the Gospellers so wide is the difference between the Gospel of Christ and the Lives of Christians But be assured my friends we must bring our hearts and lives to the Gospel and make that the Rule of them if ever we will be happy For Christ will never bring down his Gospel to our hearts and lives If we will be saved it must be in his way and on his Terms and he hath said Without holiness no man shall see the Lord Heb. xii 14. And the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. vi 9. For without are Dogs c. Rev. xxii 15. Consider therefore whether you will live a life of present ease and be hereafter cast out into eternal Torments or you will now painfully exercise your selves unto godliness and approve your selves Christ's Servants that you may hereafter be for ever with him and behold his glory John xvii 24. and share in that Rest that remaineth for the People of God Heb. iv 9. Having now shewn you what it is to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long and given you the Reasons which oblige every one of us to take care that we daily be so III. It remains that I point out to you those Inferences and practical Conclusions that follow upon and flow from the Truths we have hitherto been discoursing Inference I. Must we as you have heard be in the fear of the Lord all the day long What then shall we think of them that have no fear of God before their eyes that are so far from making Religion their daily business that they live every day as without God in the World Eph. ii 12. They say unto God Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Job xxi 14. If it be so necessary to our present peace and future happiness as hath been shewn to walk with God continually what a condition are they in that never took one step in Heavens way or so much as once set their faces Sion-ward Jer. L. 5. What shall we think of the Atheistical Crew that call in question God's Being and boldly deny his Providence The Infidel-scoffers that deny Jesus to be the Son of God and ridicule the sacred Records of Eternal Life that deride all pretensions to the assistance of the Holy Spirit and hold the intercourse and communion of Souls with the Father of Spirits to be no better than meer fancy and delusion How are we to account of the Hypocritical Race of pretenders to that Religion they never felt the power of upon their hearts who oft turn Infidels themselves and draw others into the same condemnation The malignant Enemies of practical Religion who profess to love God while they hate their Brethren to the very death for no other reason but because they indeed love him The lovers of this World Mammons Idolatrous Worshippers who know no godliness but gain 1 Tim. vi 5. and who have no end of living but to be rich and to compass that will deny God damn themselves and destroy their Brethren The sond admirers of ease and pleasure that are dead while they live 1 Tim. v. 6. and are willing to purchase a dying Life with eternal Death and exchange Angels fare for that of Swine lovers of Pleasures more than lovers of God 2 Tim. iii. 4. The eager hunters after applause that value themselves by what others think of them without staying to consider what they ought to think of themselves Those who seldom worship God so much as in outward appearance and never in spirit and truth
with sincerity and alacrity instead of those forced shews and that feigned Devotion that now alas too generally corrupts yea even nullifies the Christian Worship 20. Lastly Close the day as you began it with God Retire e're you be too sleepy and examine your selves how you have spent the day Look over the foregoing Rules and think how you have complied with them or wherein you have come short Thus ask what State and Condition is my Soul in Am I truly regenerate or no Did I this day awake with God What were my first Thoughts upon Have I not wasted morning hours or even minutes in needless sleep or sloth in vain imaginations or contemplative wickedness Have I not been too long in dressing my body too curious in my apparel proud of it Have I not lost that time or have I redeemed it by holy Meditations Spiritual Projects and wise fore-casting how I might best serve God the ensuing day Have I solemnly sought God in fervent and believing Prayer and diligent study of his holy Word And has not Spiritual Life been wanting in my closet-duties Was it as much and more to me that God was by than if all the World had seen me Have I looked strictly this day whatever Company I have been in both to my Thoughts and Speeches that neither were Light Vain or Wicked but Serious Spiritual Heavenly becoming my high calling and honourable profession of Christianity Especially have I carefully avoided that common and hateful sin of Tale-bearing and Pragmatical medling with other mens matters Have I been diligent in my particular calling and that not for Covetousness but Conscience towards God Have I done to others as I would be done by Have I defrauded nor over-reached none Have I been sober and temperate in the use of bodily refreshments Have I referred them to Gods glory and seasoned my use of them with the reverent mention of his name Have I medled with no recreations but what were certainly lawful and have I used them lawfully Have I neither been cast down with causeless or excessive grief nor lifted up with carnal jollity and frothy merriment Have I this day very seriously thought of my last day and how have those thoughts affected me Have I duly noticed and improved the Occurrence of Providence and the influences of Grace this day What special seasons of doing or receiving good have I had this day and how have I laid hold of them or let them slip What sense have I had of Sions sufferings what Sympathy with afflicted brethren Have I done my utmost to relieve and help those that are in want and distress Have I been careful to keep up Family Religion and conscionable in the discharge of relative duties this day Has sincerity and cheerfulness rendred Christ's Yoak easie and his burden light in all the variety of employments wherein I have this day served him Thus take Conscience to task about your daily behaviour and labour to be rightly affected with all the discoveries you make of your State Frame and Way Further examine what temper and disposition of Soul you arâ—â—ow in whether fit in some measure to draw nigh to God or not Read the Scriptures meditate on what you read or on some other heart-affecting Subject and leave not till you feel your heart suitably moved therewith then pour out your Souls again to God in Prayer and commit your Souls and Bodies with Faith and Confidence to his Love and Care As you undress you think As I now put off my Cloaths so I must ere long this Body As I now lie down in my bed so shortly must I in the Grave Think what an Image sleep is of death and how easie if God give the word the passage is from the Image to the reality and how sure the sleep of death is to be followed with the morning of the Resurrection when we shall awake never to sleep again With such Meditations close your â—yes and lock out vanity from your hearts and let your beloved Jesus Christ lie all night as a bundle of Myrrh betwixt your Breasts Cant. i. 13. Thus will there be a setled correspondence betwixt your Souls and Heaven you will be its care and it will be your hope and days so spent will not be to be repented of at last 2. Having thus opened to you what it is to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long and how Christians are to be daily taken up in the Religious employment of their whole time I now proceed to shew you Why they are so to do and what are the reasons and motives enforcing this Practice upon us We are to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long and every day to make Religion our business Reas 1. Because this is to answer the Ends and Purposes for which God hath given us Life and Time Wise agents propound to themselves valuable ends in all they do the infinite wisdom therefore cannot be thought to have made this lower World and to have placed man made after his own Image therein but upon very valuable considerations not those indeed of profit to himself the absolute and compleat perfection of his nature barring all Impotency or defect to be assisted or supplied Job xxxv 6. 7. If thou sinnest what dost thou against him or if thy transgressions be multiplied what dost thou unto him If thou be righteous what givest thou him or what receiveth he of thine hand But the complacency of his own Will in the Communications of his Beneficence to his Creatures in proportion to their capacities of receiving To enlarge therefore our receptive capacities that so we may reflect more of the lustre of the divine goodness is the great end of our being and likewise of our continuance and support therein Now by nothing are our capacities more enlarged than by such a continual being in the fear of the Lord as I have before described For by doing Gods Wâ—ll we become enlarged in Divine and Spiritual Knowledge and our understanding will and active Powers receive a joint improvement He that doth the will of my Father saith our Saviour shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak it of my self Joh vii 17. and this is Life Eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Joh. xvii 3. Knowledge is the ground-work of Holiness and Holiness advanceth Knowledge and to be thus daily improving in holy Light Life and Love is that very end for which God made us at first again new made us redeeming us when we were lost and undone and for which his providential care still continues and supports us in the World Why were we not swallowed up of Death and Damnation when we had sinned but that the dead praise not God Psal cxv 17. Wherefore are we redeemed by the blood of Christ but that we should be a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14. Why are we made
tune When Death knocks at the doors and looks in at the Windows and out at the Eyes of these brisk merry Blades these boon Companions when nature fails and their strength is gone and their departing Soul presageth irresistibly it 's everlasting duration Oh how will they then befool themselves How will their Consciences reproach them How freely will they give themselves the Lie How heartily will they retract their censures of the Godly and with that they were not only almost but altogether such as they Acts xxvi 29. And that they might die the death of the righteous and their last end be like his Numb xxiii 10. Assure your selves Sirs there is none of you that when you come to die will repent that he hath praised so much or lived so exactly or mortified his flesh and subjected his appetite to his reason with so much diligence none repenteth then of the sufferings and scorns he hath undergone for Christ and a good Conscience Men then cry out of their Gluttony and Swearing and Sabbath-breaking and Hypocrisie and not of their holiness and circumspection and sincerity but wish it had been a thousand times more than it was And what thou wilt shortly wish thou hadst been methinks if thou art wise it should be thy hearty study and chiefest care now to be R. 7. We shall thus make evil days good to us Days of abounding iniquity in the World days of sharp sufferings to our selves whether from persecuting malice or from the immediate hand of God as in one kind or other sufficient unto every day is the evil thereof Mat. vi 34. Yet whatever be the evil of the day it will be a good day to us if we be in the fear of the Lord all the day long for then we shall avoid much of the evil of the day and what of it is unavoidable God will turn it to our good for he hath said All things shall work together for good to them that love him Rom. viii 28. There is no Antidote against daily temptations like being in the fear of God nor no support or comfort under great troubles like this that they find us in the way of our duty Nothing stilleth murmuring and complaining under our sharpest trials like a holy awe of God and a sense of his presence and governing Providence He that is in the fear of God will not use sinful shifts to escape sufferings than which nothing sooner fills the Soul of any man that is not of an utterly seared Conscience with trouble and perplexity The fear of God will wean us from the Love of the World and will subdue those inordinate desires in us which since nothing that we can here compass can ever satisfie must necessarily make us a torment to our selves It will prick the bladder of pride quench our covetous thirst after the Mammon of Unrighteousness and blunt the Edge of our sensual Inclinations that we shall be so far from esteeming any of these our happiness that we shall count our selves much more happy in having grace to deny the immoderate gratifications of the animal Life than in being never so fully possessed of whatsoever might conduce to our compliance with them In a word the fear of God powerfully prevailing in our hearts would make prosperity safe and adversity easie to us it would make our worst days good and our best days better whereas he that lives and dies a stranger to this being in the fear of the Lord all the day long though he live an hundred years in prosperity yet it may be truly said he hath not had one good day R. 8. This will secure a blessing unto us and ours Religion entails a blessing upon Families upon Persons and their Posterity Blessed is every one that feareth God and that walketh in his ways Psal cxxviii 1. God blessed the house of Potiphar for Joseph's sake Gen. xxxix 5. It is a promise to the truly godly man that whatsoever he doth shall prosper Psal i. 3. Happy is the man that feareth always Prov. xxviii 14. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked But he blesseth the habitation of the just Prov. iii. 33 Read the 28th Chapter of Deuteronomy what blessings are there promised to the careful observers of God's Law Those that are truly Godly God will pour out his Spirit upon their Seed and his blessing upon their Off-spring Isa xliv 3. If we sincerely consecrate and devote our selves in the beginning of every day to God we thereby entitle him to our Persons Possessions and Performances and thereupon all of ours doth immediately become his care He is as it were in equity bound to take care of his own He never yet cast off any that sincerely cast themselves upon him And when we consider how needful his blessing is to the Success of any thing that we go about We cannot but think them happy that by taking God along with them continually are secured of that without which all humane forecast and industry is in vain and to no purpose Psal Cxxvii 1 2. Whence come the Crosses Losses Vexations and Ruines that are in many Families but from mens neglect or distrust of God When we cast him out of our thoughts it is just with him to cast us out of his care R. 9. If we live thus though we die young we shall have lived long enough and if we die Old we shall not have lived too long What an excellent thing now is Holiness and the fear of God which reduceth short Life and long to an equality He that in the time of his Life hath learned to know God and Jesus Christ to Worship God in Spirit and in Truth to secure to himself an happy being for Eternity and to serve his Generation while he is in this World hath lived much though it be in a little time Such a Child hath lived longer than he that is as Old as Methusalem and yet remains ignorant of these things I mean as to the great ends â—nd purposes of living For there are those of whom we may say as Seneca non diâ— vixit sed diu fuit Many have been long that have lived but a little while And further if he whose walk and course we have been at large describing to you if such a one I say live long he hath no cause to repent of the time he hath sojourned here though he have met with many Temptations and Afflictions he hath thereby only had an opportunity of exercising and confirming his Faith Hope Love and other Graces his patience hath had it's perfect work and he hath brought forth fruit abounding to his account A long Life well spent is a resemblance of as well as a preparative to Eternal Life Gray-hairs found in the way of righteousness are a Type and Emblem of an happy Eternity Whereas the sinner of an hundred years old is accursed and hath cause Isa 65. 20. to lament that ever he had a being he hath
purchased for them by his death and how those benefits come to be applyed to the Souls of his chosen Labour to work things down into their hearts and get them to feel what they know This is Gods work but it is to be expected in Conjunction with your endeavour and Children thus initiated betimes rarely do amiss whereas a Child left to himself causeth shame Prov. xxix 15. Dishonours God grieves his Parents and damns himself Infer VIII What great need there is for us to keep the Christian hopes in constant believing view that by them we may be encouraged to so great and difficult work The Just shall live by his Faith Hab. ii 4. Now Faith is the Substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Heb. xi 1. Moses had respect unto the recompence of reward Heb. xi 26. And our Lord himself endured the Cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set before him Heb. xii 2. Christianity were not the best Religion if it did not propound to us the best Reward and that with the fullest and clearest evidence and we are not Christians if the hope of that reward act us not in our endeavours of conformity to its blessed Precepts So widely are they out that cry down diligence in the Christian Work and Race in expectation of the Rewards of Eternal Glory as mercenary and that talk of quenching Hell and burning Heaven to prove the sincerity of their obedience God help me to obey and suffer for the joy set before me and I doubt not but I shall be for ever in that Heaven where Jesus Christ now is and let those that hope to fare better in new-fangled ways of their own devising let them I say at long run bragg as they speed Man is a creature the very frame and constitution of whose Soul shews him made to be governed by Hopes and Fears And no hopes like those of a happiness compleat and everlasting The Apostolical Canon therefore is Heb. vi 11 12. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises He that will be an Active Useful Exemplary Persevering Christian must clear and settle well his hope of Everlasting Life as that which God who cannot lye hath promised and often review it by believing Meditation nothing quickens nothing supports like this Am I lazing and slugging and moving heavily in the ways of God What a Spur is such a thought as this Do I now act as becomes a Candidate for Eternal Glory an Expectant of Heavenly Felicity Would this pace content me if I now saw Heaven open to my bodily Eyes And is it not equally certain as if I did So when sinking into discouragement when drooping and desponding when horribly afraid of suffering or the like say O my Soul doth this become a Christian a Child of God an Heir a Coheir with Christ What a Kings Son the King of Heavens Son the Heir of a Kingdom and such a Kingdom And thus lean from day to day allusion to 2 Sam. xiii 4. Oh Sirs little do we think what a vigorous Instrument of an holy Life the Christian hope in our Souls would prove were we more careful to get it firmly rooted there and then to maintain it in its lively act and powerful exercise Infer IX How much is it the concernment of all that would be Christians indeed to get right notions of Religion That our Duty is our Interest a real pleasure and advancement to our Souls 'T is wrong conceits of Religion and the nature of the work it puts us upon that scareth so many from it Men will not hear of becoming Religious because they take it to be what it really is not and have no right understanding what indeed it is Men think Religion ties them up from all that is grateful and fills them continually with fear and sorrow and unhinges them for business unfits them for action and calls them to part with all that they at present count valuable and giveth them nothing or next to nothing in exchange This is the notion the World hath commonly of Religion and no wonder if in this dress it appear very terrible and be so far from alluring Lovers that it affright Spectators But I pray you Sirs you that labour under these prejudices come a little nearer and take a better prospect of Religion before you renounce her utterly It may be she is not what you take her for perhaps she hath charms you never yet discovered I hope you will not think it impossible but Solomon might be in the right when he said of Wisdom or true Religion All her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Prov. iii. 17. What if upon enquiry all your Objections against Religion prove calumnies What if upon a true opening of the case your Scruples all vanish and a little light of sober Reason dispel the mists you have endeavoured to benight her with I hope you will then come over to that side which hitherto you have so violently opposed and so malignantly derided Come then and let us reason together If Religion debar you of no true pleasure but call you to exchange sordid and perishing ones for those that are noble and durable will you then become her Votary Why so it is Religion teaches you Temperance in the use of bodily Pleasures which alone gives them their true relish and renders them safe to be enjoyed and which is of more important consideration makes their use consistent with the obtaining of those better Pleasures whereof she allows and offers you freer and fuller draughts and whereof you can never have too much and shall not finally want enough The pleasures of Knowledge and Love are ever perfecting till we come to glory immediately upon our entrance whereunto they are perfected to satisfaction though according to some see the ingenious discourse of a nameless Author called The Future State even there they are in a state of perpetual progress and advance Obj. But it may be you will say Surely Religion cannot be a state of Joy when men pass into it thorow so many fears and sorrows and when the great Author of it hath clad it in mourning saying Blessed are they that mourn Matth. v. 4. Sol. I answer Religion only calleth for so much sorrow as is consistent with or conducive to the greatest joy and debarreth us only of such joys as will end in everlasting sorrows For Religion's taking men off from business or unfitting them for it it is a vain cavil and contradicted by the Experience of all Ages For in every Age some of the most active and eminent have been jointly noted for Religion and for Wisdom Courage and Success in the management of Publick Affairs both in War and Peace as Abraham David Nehemiah and others The truth is Religion in these things changeth not mens natural Tempers and Endowments but taking them as it findeth them improves and perfects them And for what Religion obligeth us to forego it is demonstrable that it calleth us to quit nothing but what may well be spared and for what is not consistent with our happiness giveth us in exchange what is alone constituent of it And if its worst Enemies have no more to say against it but that which is so easily refutable who can wonder if notwithstanding all the scorns of profane wits heavenly Wisdom be still justified of her Children Matth. xi 19. as she will shortly more fully be by her great Author who is able to defend her against all her profane contemners and malignant opposers Infer X. Great cause there is for all such as know by experience how sweet and comfortable a thing it is to be daily taken up in the lively spiritual performance of Religious Exercises to pity and by counsel prayer and example do all they can to help the rest who are the most of Mankind yea of professed Christians that live as without God in the World having neither skill nor will to holy Employments or the due improvement of their Time It is a doleful thing to take a considerate view of the world and think what God made man and placed him upon the Earth for and what we are redeemed for and what large provision of help there is in the Gospel for lost Mankind and yet how few do in any measure answer the end of their Beings or act like persons that have any hope of saving benefit by Jesus Christ Not only the Heathen and Mahometan World and the obstinate Infidel Jews and the Idolatrous persecuting Papists but alas the generality of the Reformed Churches are a sight fit to make a sensible heart bleed abounding so with ignorance profaneness worldliness sensuality corruption in VVorship Church-tyranny Heresies Schisms Divisions Envyings and bitter Zeal that the Tares do in a manner hide the Wheat and the Faith even of good men is sometimes put to stagger at the Promise That the gates of Hell shall not prevail Mat. xvi 18. But oh that we did rather in our places all do our utmost to promote its accomplishment by personal Reformation by fervent Prayer by due instructing and calling upon others and setting them a good Example by mourning for the sins of the Times and pleading with God his Promises for the Remnant of his People If we thus hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. iii. 26. we may yet live to see the eminent returns of Prayer and the glorious accomplishment of Prophecies and Promises when Salvation shall be to God's Israel for VValls and Bulwarks Isa xxvi 1. and when Jerusalem's VValls shall be Salvation and her Gates praise Isa Lx. 18. Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen FINIS