In your Baptism you renounced the world with its pomps and vanity and now do you deifie what you then defied § 36. Temp. 18. Another Temptation is to draw on the sinner into such a custom in sin and long Tempt 18. neglect of the means of his Recovery till his Heart is utterly Hardened § 37. Direct 18. Against this read after Chap. 4. Part. 2. against Hardness of Heart Direct 18. Tempt 19. § 38. Temp. 19. Another Temptation is to Delay Repentance and purpose to do it hereafter § 39. Direct 19. Of this I entreat you to read the many Reasons which I have given to shame and Direct 19. waken delayers in my Book of Directions for a sound Conversion § 40. Tempt 20. The worst of all is to tempt them to flat unbelief of Scripture and the life Tempt 20. to come § 41. Direct 20. Against this read here Chap. 3. Dir. 1. Chap. 4. Part. 1. and my Treatise against Direct 20. Infidelity § 42. Temp. 21. If they will needs looks after Grace he will do all he can to deceive them with counterfeits Tempt 21. and make them take a seeming half conversion for a saving change § 43. Direct 21. Of this read my Directions for sound Conversion and the Formal Hypocrite and Direct 21. Saints Rest Part. 3. c. 10. § 44. Temp. 22. If he cannot make them flat Infidels he will tempt them to question and contradict Tempt 22. the sense of all those Texts of Scripture which are used to convince them and all those doctrines which grate most upon their galled consciences as of the Necessity of Regeneration the fewness of them that are saved the difficulty of salvation the torments of Hell the necessity of mortification and the sinfulness of all particular sins They will hearken what Cavillers can say for any sin and against any part of Godliness and with this they wilfully delude themselves § 45. Direct 22. But if men are resolved to joyn with the Devil and shut their eyes and â—avil Direct 22. against all that God speaketh to them to prevent their misery and know not because they will not know what remedy is left or who can save men against their wills This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 19 20. In Scripture some things are hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. Of particulars read the end of my Treatise of Conversion § 46. Temp. 23. Yea Satan will do his worst to make them Hereticks and teach them some doctrine Tempt 23. of licentiousness suitable is their lusts It s hard being wicked still against Conscience in the open light This is kicking against the pricks too smarting work to be easily born Therefore the Devil will make them a Religion which shall please them and do their sins no haâ—m Either a Religion made up of loose Opinions like the Familists Ranters Libertines and Antinomians and the Jesuites too much or else made up of trifling formalities and a great deal of bodily exercise and Stage-actings and complement as much of the Popish devotion is And a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine It s easier to get such a new Religion than a new heart And then the Devil tells them that now they are in the right way and therefore they shall be saved A great part of the world think their case is good because they are of such or such a Sect or Party and of that which they are told by their Leaders is the true Church and way § 47. Direct 23. But remember that what ever Law you make to your selves God will judge Direct 23. you by his own Law Falsifying the Kings Coyn is no good way to pay a debt but an addition of Treason to your former misery It is a new and a holy heart and life and not a new Creed or a new Church or Sect that is necessary to your salvation It will never save you to be in the soundest Church on earth if you be unsound in it your selves and are but the dust in the Temple that must be swept ouâ— Much less will it save you to make your selves a Rule because Gods Rule doth seem too strict § 48. Tempt 24. Another way of the Tempter is to draw men to take up with meer Convictions Tempt 24. instead of true Conversion when they have but learnt that it is Necessary to salvation to be Regenerate and have the Spirit of Christ they are as quiet as if this were indeed to be regenerate and to have the Spirit As some think they have attained to perfection when they have but received the opinion that perfection may here be had so abundance think they have sanctification and forgiveness because now they see that they must be had and without sanctification there is no salvation And thus the knowledge of all Grace and Duty shall go with them for the grace and duty it self and their judgement of the thing instead of the possession of it and instead of having grace they force themselves to believe that they have it § 49. Direct 24. But remember God will not be mocked He knoweth a convinced head from Direct 24. a holy heart To think you are Rich will not make you rich To believe that you are well or to know the remedy is not enough to make you well You may dream that you eat and yet awake hungry Isa. 29. 8. All the Land or money which you see is not therefore your own To know that you should be holy maketh your unholiness to have no excuse Ahab did not scape by believing that he should return in peace Self-flattery in so great and weighty a case is the greatest folly If you know these things happy are ye if you do them John 13. 17. § 50. Tempt 25. Another great Temptation is by hiding from men the intrinsick evil and odiousness Tempt 25. of â—in What harm saith the Drunkard and Adulterer and voluptuous Sensualists is there in all this that Preachers make so great ado against it What hurt is this to God or man that they would make us believe we must be damned for it and that Christ dyed for it and that the Holy Ghost must mortifie it Wherefore say the Iews Ier. 16. 10. hath God pronounced all this great evil against us or what is our iniquity or what is our sin that we have committed He that knoweth not God knoweth not what sin against God is especially when the Love of it and Delight in it blindeth them § 51. Direct 25. Against this I intreat you to ponder on those forty intrinsecal evils in sin which Direct 25. I have after
carrieth thee to the place No one forceth thee to sin If thou do it it is because thou wilt do it and lovest it If thou be in good earnest with God and wilt be saved indeed and art not content to part with Heaven for thy cups and company away with them presently without delay § 4. Hast thou lived in wantonness fornication uncleanness gluttony gaming pastimes sensuality to the pleasing of thy flesh while thou hast displeased God O bless the Patience and Mercy of the Lord that thou wast not cut off all this while and damned for thy sin before thou didst repent And as thou lovest thy soul delay no longer but make a stand and go no further not one step further in the way which thou knowest leads to Hell If thou knowest that this is the way to thy damnation and yet wilt go on what pity dost thou deserve from God or man § 5. If thou have been a Covetous Wordling or an Ambitious seeker of honour or preferment in the world so that thy gain or rising or reputation hath been the game which thou hast followed and hath taken thee up instead of God and life eternal away now with these known deceits and hunt not after Vanity and Vexation Thou knowest before hand what it will prove when thou hast overtaken it and hast enjoyed all that it can yield thee and how useless it will be as to thy comfort or happiness at last § 6. Surely if men were willing they are able to forbear such sins and to make a stand and look before them to prevent their misery Therefore God thus pleadeth with them Isa. 1. 16 17 18. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well c. Isa. 55 2 3. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you V. 6 7. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found Call ye upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Christ supposeth that the foresight of judgement may restrain men from sin when he saith Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee John 5. 14. 8. 11. Can the presence of men restrain a Fornicator and the presence of the Judge restrain a Thief yea or the foresight of the Assizes And shall not the presence of God with the foresight of judgement and damnation restrain thee Remember that impenitent sin and damnation are conjoyned If you will cause one God will cause the other Choose one and you shall not choose whether you will have the other If you will have the Serpent you shall have the sting Direction 15. IF thou have sincerely given up thy self to God and consented to his Covenant shew it Direct 15. by turning the face of thy endeavours and conversation quite another way and by seeking Heaven more fervently and diligently than ever thou soughtest the world or fleshly pleasures § 1. Holiness consisteth not in a meer forbearance of a sensual life but principally in living unto God The principle or heart of Holiness is within and consisteth in the Love of God and of his Word and Wayes and Servants and Honour and Interest in the world and in the souls delight in God and the Word and Wayes of God and in its inclination towards him and desire after him and care to please him and lothness to offend him The expression of it in our lives consisteth in the constant diligent exercise of this internal life according to the directions of the Word of God If thou be a believer and hast subjected thy self to God as thy absolute Soveraign King and Judge it will then be thy work to obey and please him as a Child his Father or a Servant his Master Mal. 1. 6. Do you think that God will have Servants and have nothing for them to do Will one of you commend or reward your servant for doing nothing and take it at the years end for a satisfactory answer or account if he say I have done no harm God calleth you not only to do no harm but to love and serve him with all your heart and soul and might If you have a better Master than you had before Aâ—osta faith that the Iâ—aiaâ—s are so addicted to their Idolatry and unwearied in it that he knoweth not what words can sufficiently declare how totally their minds are transformed into it no Whâ—re monger having so mad a love to his Whore as they to their Ido's so that neither in their idleness or their business neither in publick or in private will they do any thing till they have first used their Superstition to their Idols They will neither rejoyce at Weddings or mourn at Funerals neither make a Feast or partake of it not so much as move a foot out of doors or a hand to any work without this Heathemsh Sacriledge And all this they do with the greatest secrefie lest the Christians should know it Lib. 5. c. 8. p. 467. See here how nature teacheth all men that there is a Deity to be worshipped with all possible love and industry And shall the Worshippers of the true God then think it unnecessary preciseness to be as diligent and hearty in his service you should do more work than you did before Will you not serve God more zealoussy than you served the Devil Will you not labour harder to save your souls than you did to damn them Will you not be more zealous in good than you were in evil What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed For the end of those things is death Rom. 6. 21 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life If you are true Behâ—vers you have now laid up your hopes in Heaven and therefore will set yourselves to seek it as worldlings set themselves to seek the world And a sluggish wish with heartless lazy dull endeavours is no fit seeking of eternal joyes A creeping pace beseemeth not a man that is in the way to Heaven especially who went faster in the way to Hell This is not running as for our lives You may well be diligent and make haste where you have so great encouragement and help and where you may expect so good an end and where you are sure you shall never in life or death have cause to repent of any of your just endeavours and where every step of your way is pure and
had not first taken away the sins of the world and reconciled them so far to God as to procure and tender them the pardon and salvation contained in his Covenant there had been no place for your Repentance nor faith nor prayers nor endeavours as to any hope of your salvation Your Believing would not have saved you nor indeed had any justifying object if he had not purchased you the promise and gift of pardon and salvation to all Believers § 2. Objection But perhaps you 'l say That if we had Loved God without a Saviour we should have been saved for God cannot hate and damn those that Love him To which I answer You could not have Loved God as God without a Saviour To have Loved him as the giver of your worldly prosperity with a Love subordinate to the Love of sin and your carnal selves and to Love him as one that you imagine so unholy and unjust as to give you leave to sin against him and prefer every Vanity before him this is not to Love God but to Love an Image of your own fantasie nor will it at all procure your salvation But to Love him as your God and Happiness with a superlative Love you could never have done without a Saviour For 1. Objectively God being not your Reconciled Father but your enemy engaged in Justice to damn you for ever you could not Love him as thus related to you because he could not seem amiable to you and therefore the damned hate him as their destroyer as the Thief or Murderer hates the Judge 2. And as to the Efficiency your blinded minds and depraved wills could never have been restored so far to their rectitude as to have Loved God as God without the teaching of Christ and the renewing sanctifying work of his Spirit And without a Saviour you could never have expected this gift of the Holy Ghost So that your supposition it self is groundless § 3. Indeed Conversion is your implanting into Christ and your uniting to him and marriage with him that he may be your life and help and hope He is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14. 6. God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 11 12. He is the Vine and we are the branches As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine so neither can we except we abide in him He that abideth not in Christ is cast forth as a branch and withered to be burned John 15. 4 5 6. All your life and help is in him and from him Without Christ you cannot Believe in the Father as in one that will shew you any saving Mercy but only as the Devils that believe him Just and tremble at his Justice without Christ you cannot Love God nor have any lively apprehensions of his Love Without Christ you can have no Hope of Heaven and therefore no endeavours for it Without him you cannot come near to God in prayer as having no confidence because no admittance acceptance or hope Without him how terrible are the thoughts of death which in him we may see as a conquered thing and when we remember that he was dead and is now alive and the Lord of life and hath the Keyes of Death and Hell with what boldness may we lay down this flesh and suffer death to undress our souls It is only in Christ that we can comfortably think of the world to come when we remember that he must be our Judge and that in our Nature glorified he is now in the Highest Lord of all and that he is preparing a place for us and will come again to take us to himself that where he is there we may be also John 14. 3. Alas without Christ we know not how to live an hour nor can have hope or peace in any thing we have or do nor look with comfort either upward or downward to God or the Creature nor think without terrors of our sins of God or of the life to come Resolve therefore that as true Converts you are wholly to Live upon Jesus Christ and to do all that you do by his Spirit and strength and to expect all your acceptance with God upon his account when other men are reputed Philosophers or Wise for some unsatisfactory knowledge of these transitory things do you desire to know nothing but a crucified and glorified Christ study him and take him objectively for your Wisdom When other men have confidence in the flesh and in their shew of Wisdom in Will-worship and Humility after the Commandments and Doctrines of men Col. 2. 20 21 22 23. and would establish their own righteousness do you rejoice in Christ your Righteousness And set continually before your eyes his Doctrine and Example as your Rule Look still to Iesus the Author and finisher of you faith who contemned all the Glory of the world and trampled upon its Vanity and subjected himself to a life of suffering and made himself of no reputation but for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and underwent the contradiction of sinners against himself Live so that you may truly say as Paul Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me § 4. HAving given you these Directions I most earnestly beseech you to peruse and practise them that my labour may not rise up as a witness against you which I intend for your Conversion and Salvation Think on it Whether this be an Unreasonable course or an unpleasant life or a thing unnecessary and what is Reasonable necessary and pleasant if this be not And if you meet with any of those distracted sinners that would deride you from Christ and your Every one is not a Thief that a Dog barks at nor an hypocrite◠that hypocrites call so salvation and say this is the way to make men mad or this is more ado than needs I will not stand here to manifest their bruitishness and wickedness having largely done it already in my Book called A Saint or a Bruite and Now or Never and in the third Part of the Saints Rest But only I desire thee as a full defensative against all the pratings of the Enemies of a holy Heavenly life to take good notice but of these three things § 5. 1. Mark well the language of the holy Scriptures and see whether it speak not contrary to these men And bethink thee whether God or they be wiser and whether God or they must be thy Iudge § 6. 2. Mark whether these men do not change their minds and turn their tongues when they come to
thus you must do The eye maketh an easier and deeper impression on the imagination and mind than the ear doth Therefore Christs example should be much preached and studied It will be a very great help to us to have still upon our minds the Image of the Holy Life of Christ that we be affected as if we always saw him doing the holy actions which once he did Paul calls the Galathians foolish and bewitched that obeyed not the truth when Christ had been set forth as crucified among them evidently before their eyes Gal. 3. 1. Papists think that Images serve well for this turn But the Records of Scripture and the living Images of Christ whom they persecute and kill are farr more useful How much example is more operative than doctrine alone you may perceive by the enemies of Christ who can bear his holy doctrine when they cannot bear his holy Servants that practise that doctrine before their eyes And that which most stirs up their enmity hath the advantage for exciting the believers piety Let the Image of Christ in all his holy examples be allways lively written upon your minds 1. Let the great ones of the world remember that their Lord was not born of such as bore rule or were in worldly pomp and dignity but of persons that lived but meanly in the world however they were of the royal line How he was not born in a pallace but a stable and laid in a manger without the attendance or accommodations of the rich 2. Remember how he subjected himself unto his reputed Father and his Mother to teach all Children Luke â— 51. subjection and obedience 3. And how he condescended to labour at a Trade and mean imployment in the world to teach us that our Bodies as well as our Minds must express their obedience and have their ordinary imployment and to teach men to labour and live in a calling and to comfort poor labourers with assurance that God accepteth them in the meanest work and that Christ himself lived so before them and chose their kind of life and not the life of Princes and Nobles that live in Pomp and Ease and Pleasure 4. Remember how he refused not to submit to all the ordinances of God and to fullfil all righteousness and to be initiated into the solemn administration of his office by the Baptism of Iohn Mat. 3. 15 1â— 17. which God appoved by sending down upon him the Holy Ghost To teach us all to expect his Spirit in the use of his ordinances 5. Remember how he voluntarily begun his work with an encounter with the Tempter in the Wilderness upon his fasting and suffered the Tempter to proceed till he moved him to the most odious sin even to worship the Devil himself To teach us that God loveth tryed Servants and expecteth that we be not turned from him by temptations especially those that enter upon a publick ministry must be tryed men that have overcome the Tempter and to comfort tempted Christians who may remember that their Saviour himself was most blasphemously tempted to as odious sins as ever they were and that to be greatly tempted without consenting or yielding to the sin is so farr from being a sin in it self that it is the greatest honour of our obedience and that the Devil who molesteth and haunteth us with his temptations is a conquered enemy whom our Lord in person hath overcome 6. Remember how earnestly and constantly he preached not stories or jingles or subtile controversies but Repentance and faith and self-denial and obedience So great was his Love to souls that when he had auditors he preached not only in the Temple and Synagogues but in mountains and in a ship and any other convenient place and no fury of the Rulers or Pharises could silence him till his hour was come having his Fathers Commission And even to particular persons he vouchsafed by conference to open the Mysteries of Salvation To teach us to love and attend to John 3. 4. the plain and powerful preaching of the Gospel and not to forbear any necessary means for the honour of God and the saving of souls because of the enmity or opposition of malitious men but to work while it is day seeing the night is coming when none can work John 9. 4. 7. Remember how compassionate he was to mens bodys as well as to their souls going up and down with unwearied diligence doing good healing the blind and lame and deaf and sick and possessed and how all his miracles were done in charity to do good and none of them to do hurt So that he was but living walking LOVE and MERCY To teach us to know God in his Love and Mercy and to abound in Love and Mercy to our brethren and to hate the spirit of hurtfulness persecution and uncharitableness and to lay out our selves in doing good and to exercise our compassion to the bodys of men as well as to their souls according to our power 8. Remember how his Zeal and Love endured the reproach and resisted the opposition of his friends who went to lay hold on him as if he had been besides himself And â—ow he bid Peter Get Mat 3. 20 21 Mat. 16. 22 23. behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things of God but those of men when in caâ—nal Love and wisdom he rebuked him for resolving to lay down his life saying Be it farr from thee this shall not be unto thee To teach us to expect that carnal Love and Wisdom in our nearest friends will rise up against us in the work of God to discourage us both from duty and from sufferings and that all are to be shaken off and counted as the instruments of Satan that would tempt us to be unfaithful to our trust and duty and to savour our selves by a sinâ—ul avoiding of the sufferings which God doth call us to undergo 9. Remember how through all his life he despised the Riches of the world and chose a life of poverty and was a companion of the meanest neither possessing nor seeking sumptuous houses or great attendance or spacious lands or a large estate He lived in a visible contempt of all the wealth and splendor and greatness of the world To teach us how little these little things are to be esteemed â—nd that they are none of the treasure and portion of a Saint and what a folly it is to be fond of â—â—â—â—h snares and diversions and temptations which make the way to Heaven to be to us as a needlâ—â—s â—yâ— 10. Observe how little he regarded the honour and applause of men how he made himself of no 〈…〉 6. 15 refutation 〈◊〉 took upon him the form of a Servant refusing to be made a King or to have a Kingdom of this â—â—â—â—ld Though he told malignant Blasphemers how greatly they sinned in dishonouring him yet did he not seek the honour of the world To teach
to fight against his cause and work which is by fighting against the World and the Flesh and for the glory of God § 13. In opening to you this holy War I shall 1. Shew you what we must do on the Offensive part The Mâ—â—â—â—d 2. What on the Defensive part And here I shall shew you I. What it is that the Tempter aimeth at as his End II. What matter or ground he worketh upon III. What are his Succours and Assistants IV. What kind of Officers and Instruments he useth V. What are his Methods and actual Temptations 1. To actual sin 2. Against our duty to God § 14. 1. Our offensive arms are to be used 1. Against the power of sin within us and all its advantages and helps For while Satan ruleth and possesseth us within we shall never well oppose him without 2. Against sin in others as far as we have opportunity 3. Against the credit and honour of sin in the world As the Devils Servants would bring Light and Holiness into disgrace so Christs Servants must câ—si disgrace and shame upon sin and darkness 4. Against all the Reasonings of sinners and their subtile fallacies whereby they would deceive 5. Against the passions and violent lusts which are the causes of mens other sins 6. Against the holds and helps of sin as false Teachers prophane Râ—vilers ignorance and dâ—câ—it Only take heed that on this pretence we step not out of our ranks and places to pull down the powers of the world by rebellions For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal 2 Cor. 10. 4. § 15. 2. As to our Defence I. The ends of the Tempter which must be perceived are these 1. In general his aâ—m is at our utter ruine and damnation and to draw us here to dishonour God as much as he can But especially his aim is to strengthen the great heart-sins which are most mortal and are the root and life and spawners of the rest Especially these 1. Ignorance which is the friend and cloke to all the rest 2. Error which will justific them 3. Unbelief which keeps off all that should oppose them 4. Atheism prophaneness unhâ—liness which are the defiance of God and all his Armies 5. Presumption which emboldneth them and hides the danger 6. Hardness of heart which fortifieth them against all the batteries of Grace 7. Hypocrisie which maketh them serve him as Spies and Intelligencers in the Army of Christ. 8. Disaffection to God and his wayes and servants which is the Devils colours 9. Unthankfulness which tends to make them unreconcileable and unrecoverable 10. Pride which commandeth many Regiments of lesser sins 11. Worldliness or love of money and wealth which keepeth his Armies in pay 12. Sensuality Voluptuousness or flesh-pleasing Animi molles aetate fluxâ— doâ—â—s hâ—ud dâ—fficulter câ—pâ—untur which is the great Commander of all the rest For selfishness is the Devils Lieutenant General which consisteth chiefly in the three last named but especially in Pride and Sensuality Some think that it is outward sins that bring all the danger but these twelve heart-sins which I have named to you are the twelve Gates of the infernal City which Satan loveth above all the rest § 16. II. The Matter and Grounds of his Temptations are these 1. The Devil first worketh upon the outward sense and so upon the sensitive appetite He sheweth the Cup to the Drunkards eye and the bait of filthy lust to the fornicator and the riches and pomp of the world to the covetous and proud The Glutton tasteth the sweetness of the dish which he loveth Stage-playes and tempting sports and proud attire and sumptuous buildings and all such sensual things are the baits by which the Devil angleth for souls Thus Eve first saw the fruit and then tasted and then did eat Thus Noah and Lot and David sinned Thus Achan saith Josh. 7. 21. I saw the Garments Silver and Gold I coveted them and I took them The sense is the door of sin § 17. 2. The Tempter next worketh on the Fantasie or Imagination and prints upon it the loveliest image of his bait that possibly he can and engageth the sinner to Think on it and to rowl it over and over in his mind even as God commandeth us to Meditate on his Precepts § 18. 3. Next he worketh by these upon the Passions or affections which fantasie having enflamed they violently urge the Will and Reason and this according to the nature of the passion whether fear or hope sorrow or joy love or hatred desire or aversation but by none doth he work so dangerously as by Delight and Love and Desire of things sensual § 19. 4. Hence he proceedeth to infect the Will upon the simple apprehension of the understanding to make it inordinately cleave to the temporal good and to neglect its duty in commanding the understanding to meditate on preserving objects and to call off the Thoughts from the forbidden thing It neglecteth to rule the Thoughts and Passions according to its office and natural power § 20. 5. And so he corrupteth the understanding it self first to omit its duty and then to entertain deceit and to approve of evil And so the servant is put into the Government and the commanding powers do but serve it Reason is blinded by sensuality and passion and becomes their servant and pleads their cause § 21. By all this it appeareth 1. That Satans first bait is ordinarily some sensible or imaginary good set up against true spiritual good 2. That his first assault of the Reason and Will is to tempt them into a sluggish neglect and neutrality to omit that restraint of Sense Thought and Passion which was their duty 3. And that lastly he tempteth them into actual complyance and committing of the sin And herein 1. The bait which he useth with the understanding is still some seeming Truth And therefore his art and work is to colour falshood and make it seem Truth For this is the deceiving of the mind And therefore for a sinner to plead his mistake for his excuse and say I thought it had been so or so I thought it had been no sin or no duty this is but to confess and not to excuse It is but as much as to say my Understanding sinned with my Will and was deceived by the Tempter and overcome 2. And the bait which he useth with the Will is alwayes some appearing good And self-love and love of good is the principle which he abuseth and maketh his ground to work upon as God also useth it in drawing us to good § 22. III. The Succours and Auxiliaries of the Devil and his principal means are these 1. He doth what he can to get an ill tempered Body on his side For as sin did let in bodily distempers so do they much befriend the sin that caused them A cholerick temper will much help him to draw men to passion malice murder cruelty and revenge A sanguine and bilious
observest thy danger Nor perceivest that this very desire to have the Power to do evil sheweth a degree of the evil in thy heart and that thou art not yet sâ—t so far from it as thou must be if thou wouldst be safe Contrive thy self if thou be wise and love thy self into the greatest difficulties of sinning that thou canst Make it Impossible if it may be done The Power is for the act Desire not to be able to sin if thou wouldst not sin Not that Natural power to do goâ—d should be destroyed because it is also a power to do evil but cast as many blâ—cks in the way of thy sinning as thou canst till it amount to a moral impossibility Desire the strictest Laws and Gâ—vernâ—rs and to be still in the eye of others and contrive it that thou maist Psal 101. 3. have no hope of secrecie Contrive it so that it may be utter shame and lâ—ss to thee if thou sin If thou be tempted to fornication never be private with hâ—r or him that is thy snare If thou be tempted to deceive and rob those that trust thee avoid the trust or if ever thou have done it restore and confess that shame may preserve thee § 37. Tempt 7. Next the Tempter importunately soliciteth ouâ— Thoughts or fantasies to feed upon Tempt 7. the tempting thing That the lustful person may be thinking on the objects of his lusts and the ambitious man thinking on his desired honour and the coveteous man of his desired wealth his house or lands or gainful bargains and the malitious man be thinking of all the real or imaginary wrongs which kindle malice § 38. Direct 7. Keep a continual watch upon your thoughts Remember that this is the common Direct 7. entrance of the greatest sins And if they go no further the searcher of hearts will judge thee for the adultery murder and other sins of thy heart But especially see that your thoughts be so employed on better things that sin may never find them vacant § 39. Tempt 8. The Tempter also is diligent to keep the end from the sinners eye and to perswade Tempt 8. him that there is no danger in it and that it will be as good at last as at first He cannot endure a thought a word of death or judgement unless he can first fortifie the sinner by some presumptuous hope that his sons are pardoned and his case is good either he will make them believe him that there is no such danger to the soul as should deterr them or else he keepeth them from thinking of that danger He is loth a sinner should so much as look into a grave or go to the house of mâ—urning and see the end of all the living lest he should lay it to heart and thence perceive what worldly pleasure wealth and greatness is by seeing where it leaveth sinners If one do but talk of death or judgement and the life to come the Devil will stir up some scorn or weariness or opposition against such dâ—scourse If a sinner do but bethink himself in secret what will become of him after death the Devil will either allure him or trouble him and never let him rest till he have cast away all such thoughts as tend to his salvation He cannot endure when you see the pomp and pleasure of the world that you should think or ask How long will this endure And what will it prove in the latter end § 40. Direct 8. Go to the holy Scriptures and see what they foretel concerning the end of Direct 8. Psal. 1. 15. Mat. 25. Godliness and sin God knoweth better than the Devil and is more to be believed You may see in the word of God what will come of Saints and sinners Godly and ungodly at the last and what they will think and say when they review their present life and what Christ will say to them and how he will judge them and what will be their reward for ever This is the infallible Prognostication where you may foresee your endless state In this glass continually foresee the end Never judge of any thing by the present gust alone Ask not only how it tasteth but how it worketh and what will be the effects Remember that Gods Law hath inseparably conjoyned Holiness and Heaven and sin unrepented of and Hell and seeing these cannot be separated indeed let them never be separated from each other in your thoughts Otherwise you will never understand Christ or Satan When Christ saith wilt thou deny thy self and take up the Cross and follow me his meaning is shall I â—eal thy carnal worldly heart and life and bring thee by grace to the sight of God in endless Glory You will never understand what prayer and obedience and holy living mean if you see not the End even Heaven conjoyned to them When the Devil saith to the Glutton eat also of this pleasant dish and to the Drunkard take the other cup and to the Fornicator take thy pleasure in the dark and to the Voluptuous go to the Play-house or the Gaming-house come play at Cards or Dice his meaning is Come venture upon sin and fear not Gods threatnings and refuse his word and spirit and grace that I may have thy company among the Damned in the fire which never shall be quenched This is the true English of every temptation Open thy ears then and when ever the Devil or any sinner tempteth thee to sin hear him as if he said I pray thee leap into the flames of Hell § 41. Tempt 9. If the Tempter cannot quickly draw men to the sin he will move them at least to Tempt 9. abate their resolution against it and to deliberate about it and hear what can be said and enter into a dispute with Satan or some of his instruments telling them that it is a sign of falshood which will not indure the trial and that we must prove all things And while the sinner is deliberating and disputing the vâ—â—â—â—me is working it self into his veins and sense is secretly undermining and betraying him and deceiving his mind brâ—bing his reason and seducing his will Iust as an enemy will treat with those that keep a Garrison that during the treaty he may send in spies and find out their weakness and corrupt the souldiers So doth the Devil with the sinner § 42. Direct 9. Remember that it is Christ and not Satan that you are to hear Truth is strong and Direct 9. can bear the tryal before any competent judge but you are weak and not so able to judge as you may imagine Ignorant unskilful and unsetled persons are easily deceived be the cause never so clear If it be a cause untryed by you it is not untryed by all the godly nor unknown to him that gave you the holy Scriptures If it be fit to be called in questim and disputed take the help of able godly Teachers or friends and hear what they
basest of the people whose poverty might tempt them to discontent nor set thee upon the pinnacle of worldly honour where giddiness might have been thy ruine and where temptations to pride and lust and luxury and enmity to a holy life are so violent that few escape them He hath not set thee out upon a Sea of cares and vexations worldly businesses and encumberances but fed thee with food convenient for thee and given thee leisure to walk with God He hath not chained thee to an unprofitable profession nor used thee as those that live like their beasts to eat and drink and sleep and play or live to live But he hath called thee to the noblest and sweetest work when that hath been thy business which others were glad to taste of as a recreation and repast He hath allowed thee to converse with Books and with the best and wisest men and to spend thy dayes in sucking in delightful knowledge And this not only for thy pleasure but thy use and not only for thy self but many others O how many sweet and precious truths hath he allowed thee to feed on all the day when others are diverted and commonly look at them sometimes a far off O how many precious hours hath he granted me in his holy Assemblies and in his honourable and most pleasant work How oft hath his Day and his holy uncorrupted Ordinances and the communion of his Saints and the mentioning of his Name and Kingdom and the pleading of his cause with sinners and the celebrating of his praise been my delight O how many hundreds that he hath sent have wanted the abundant encouragement which I have had When he hath seen the disease of my despondent mind he hath not tryed me by denying me success nor suffered me with Ionas according to my inclination to overrun his work but hath ticed me on by continued encouragements and strowed all the way with mercies But his mercies to me in the souls of others have been so great that I shall secretly acknowledge them rather than here record them where I must have respect to those usual mercies of believers which lye in the common road to Heaven And how endless would it be to mention all All the good that friends and enemies have done me All the wise and gracious disposals of his providence in every condition and change of life and change of times and in every place whereever he brought me His every dayes renewed merciâ—s His support under all my languishings and weakness his plentiful supplies his gracious helps his daily pardons and the Glorious Hopes of a blessed Immortality which his Son hath purchased and his Covenant and Spirit sealed to me O the mercies that are in One Christ one Holy Spirit one Holy Scripture and in the Blessed God himself These I have mentioned unthankful heart to shame thee for thy want of Love to God And these I will leave upon record to be a witness for God against thy ingratitude and to confound thee with shame if thou deny thy Love to such a God Every one of all these mercies and multitudes more will rise up against thee and shame thee before God and all the world as a monster of unkindness if thou Love not him that hath used thee thus Here also consider what God is for your future good as well as what he hath been hitherto How all sufficient how powerful merciful and good But of this more anon § 24. Direct 7. Improve the vanity and vexation of the Creature and all thy disappointments and Direct 7. injuries and afflictions to the promoting of thy Love to God And this by a double advantage First By observing that there is nothing meet to divert thy Love or rob God of it unless thou wilt Love thy trouble and distress Secondly That thy Love to God is the comfort by which thou must be supported under the injuries and troubles which thou meetest with in the world And therefore to neglect it is but to give up thy self to misery Is it for nothing O my soul that God hath turned loose the world against thee That Devils rage against thee and wicked men do reproach and slander thee and seek thy ruine and friends prove insufficient and as broken Reeds It had been as easie to God to have prospered thee in the world and suited all things to thy own desires and have strawed thy way with the flowers of worldly comforts and delights But he knew thy proneness to undo thy self by carnal loves and how easily thy heart is enticed from thy God And therefore he hath wisely and mercifully ordered it that thy temptations shall not be too strong and no creature shall appear to thee in an over-amiable tempting dress Therefore he hath suffered them to become thy enemies And wilt thou love an enemy better than thy God What! an envious and malicious world A world of cares and grief and pains a weary restless empty world How deep and piercing are its injuries How superficial and deceitful is its friendship How serious are its sorrows What toyish shews and dreams are its delights How constant are its cares and labours How seldome and short are its flattering smiles Its comforts are disgraced by the certain expectation of succeeding sorrows Its sorrows are heightned by the expectations of more In the midst of its flatteries I hear something within me saying Thou must dye This is but the way to rottenness and dust I see a Winding-sheet and a Grave still before me I foresee how I must lye in pains and groans and then become a lothesome corpse And is this a world to be more delighted in than God What have I left me for my support and solace in the midst of all this Vanity and Vexation but to look to him that is the All-sufficient sure never failing good I must love him or I have nothing to love but enmity or deceit And is this the worst of Gods design in permitting and causing my pains and disappointments here Is it but to drive my foolish heart unto himself that I may have the solid delights and happiness of his Love O then let his blessed will be done Come home my soul my wandering tired grieved soul Love where thy love shall not be lost Love him that will not reject thee nor deceive thee nor requite thee as the world doth with injuries and abuse Despair not of entertainment though the world deny it thee The peaceable region is above In the world thou must have trouble that in Christ thou maist have peace Retire to the harbour if thou wouldst be free from storms God will receive thee when the world doth cast thee off if thou heartily cast off the world for him O what a solace is it to the soul to be driven clearly from the world to God and there to be exercised in that sacred Love which will accompany us to the world of Love § 25. Direct 8. Labour for the truest
But the misery is that few of the ignorant and weak have knowledge and humility enough â—o pâ—rceive their ignorance and weakness but they think they speak as wisely as the best and are offended if their words be not reverenced accordingly As a Minister should study and labour for a skill and ability to preach because it is his work so every Christian should study for skill to discourse with wisdom and meet expressions about holy things because this is his work And as unfit expressions and behaviour in a Minister do cause contempt instead of edifying so do they in discourse § 31. Direct 10. When ever Gods holy Name or Word is blasphemed or used in levity or jeast Direct 10. or a holy life is made a scorn or God is notoriously abused or dishonoured be ready to reprove it with gravity where you can and where you cannot at least let your detestation of it be conveniently manifested Of Prayer I have spoken aâ—terwaâ—d Among those to whom you may freely speak lay open the greatness of their sin Or if you are unable for long or accurate discourse at least tell them who hath said Thou shalt Tom. 2. c. not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And where your speech is unmeet as to some Superiours or is like to do more harm than good let your departing the room or your looks or rather your tears shew your dislike Directions for the glorifying God in our Lives § 32. Direct 1. Our Lives then glorifie God when they are such as his Excellencies most appear in Direct 1. And that is when they are most Divine or Holy when they are so managed that the world may see that Turâ—issimum est Philosopho secus docere quam viviâ— Paul Scaligâ—r p. 728. it is God that we have chiefly respect unto and that HOLINESS TO THE LORD is written upon all our faculties and affairs So much of GOD as appeareth in our lives so much they are truly venerable and advanced above the rank of fleshly worldly lives God only is the real glory of every person and every thing and every word or action of our lives And the natural conscience of the world which in despight of their Atheism is forced to confess and reverence a Deity will be forced even when they are hated and persecuted to reverence the appearance of God in his holy ones Let it appear therefore 1. That Gods Authority commandeth you above all the powers of the earth and against all the power of fleshly lusts 2. That it is the Glory and Nam illa quae de regno calorum commâ—mâ—rantur à nâ—bâ—â— dâ—que praesentâ—um reâ—um contâ—mpâ—u vel non caâ—â—unt vel non â—aâ—â—le sibi peâ—suadeâ—t cum sâ—rmo factis evertitur Interest of God that you live for and look after principally in the world and not your own carnal interest and glory And that it is his work that you are doing and not your own and his cause and not your own that you are engaged in 3. That it is his Word and Law that is your Rule 4. And the example of his Son that is your pattern 5. And that your hearts and lives are moved and acted in the world by motives fetcht from the Rewards which he hath promised and the punishments which he hath threatned in the world to come 6. And that it is a supernatural powerful principle sent from God into your hearts even the Holy Ghost by which you are inclined and actuated in the tenor of your lives 7. And that your daily converse is with God and that men and other creatures are comparatively nothing to you but are made to stand by while God is preferred and honoured and served by you and that all your business is with him or for him in the world Acâ—staâ—l 4. c. 18. p. 418. § 33. Direct 2. The more of Heaven appeareth in your Lives the more your Lives do glorifie God Worldly and carnal men are conscious that their glory is a vanishing glory and their pleasure but a transitory dream and that all their honour and wealth will shortly leave them in the dust And Direct 2. therefore they are forced in despight of their sensuality to bear some reverence to the life to come And though they have not hearts themselves to deny the pleasures and profits of the world and to spend their dayes in preparing for eternity and in laying up a treasure in Heaven yet they are convinced that those that do so are the best and wisest men and they could wish that they might dye the death of the righteous and that their last end might be like his As Heaven exceedeth Earth even in the reverent acknowledgement of the World though not in their practical esteem and choice so Heavenly Christians have a reverent acknowledgement from them when malice doth not hide their Heavenliness by slanders though they will not be such themselves Let it appear in your lives that really you seek a higher happiness than this world affordeth and that you verily look to live with Christ and that as Honour and Wealth and Pleasure command the lives of the ungodly so the hope of Heaven commandeth yours Let it appear that this is your design and business in the world and that your Hearts and conversation are above and that whatever you do or suffer is for this and not for any lower end and this is a life that God is glorified by § 34. Direct 3. It glorifieth God by shewing the excellency of faith when we contemn the riches Direct 3. and honours of the world and live above the worldlings life accounting that a despicable thing which he accounts his happiness and loseth his soul for As men despise the toyes of children so a believer must take the transitory vanities of this world for matters so inconsiderable as not to be worthy his regard save only as they are the matter of his duty to God or as they relate to him or the life to come Saith Paul 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen they are not worth our observing or looking at but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal The world is under a believers feet while his eye is fixed on the coelestial world He travelleth through it to his home and he will be thankful if his way be fair and if he have his daily bread but it is not his home nor doth he make any great matter whether his usage in it be kind or unkind or whether his Inn be well adorned or not He is almost indifferent whether for so short a time he be rich or poor in a high or in a low condition further than as it tendeth to his Masters service Let men see that you
senâ—lis Quid â—nâ—m absurdâ—us quam quo mi 〈…〉 viae 〈…〉 stat eo plus vâ—atici 〈…〉 ere â—i 〈…〉 â—at Maâ— thou hast provided So is every one that layeth up Riches for himself and is not Rich towards God If If thou be rich to day and be in another world tomorrow had not poverty been as good Distracted soul Dost thou make so great a matter of it whether thou have much or little for so short a time and takest no more care either where thou shalt be or what thou shalt have to all eternity Dost thou say thou wilt cast this care on God I tell thee he will make thee care thy self and care again before he will save thee And why canst thou not cast the care of smaller matters on him when he commandeth thee Is it any great matter whether thou be Rich or poor that art going so fast unto another world where these are things of no signification Tell me if thou were sure that thou must die tomorrow yea or the next month or year wouldst thou not be more indifferent whether thou be Rich or Poor And look more after greater things Then thou wouldst be of the Apostles mind 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Our eye of faith should be so fixed on invisible eternal things that we should scarce have leisure or mind to look at or once regard the things that are visible and temporal A man that is going to execution scarce looks at all the bussle or business that is done in Streets and Shops as he passeth by because these little concern him in his departing case And how little do the wealth and honours of the world concern a soul that is going into another world and knows not but it may be this night Then keep thy wealth or take it with thee if thou canst § 25. Direct 4. Labour to feel thy greatest wants which worldly wealth will not supply Thou Direct 4. hast sinned against God and money will not buy thy pardon Thou hast incurred his displeasure and money will not reconcile him to thee Thou art condemned to everlasting misery by the Law Prov. 11. 4. Riches 〈…〉 fiâ— not in the â—ay of wâ—ath and money will not pay thy ransom Thou art dead in sin and polluted and captivated by the flesh and money will sooner encrease thy bondage than deliver thee Thy Conscience is ready to tear thy heart for thy willful folly and contempt of grace and money will not bribe it to be quiet Iudas brought back his money and hanged himself when Conscience was but once awaked Money will not enlighten a blinded mind nor soften a hard heart nor humble a proud heart nor justifie a guilty soul. It will not keep off a Feavor or Consumption nor ease the Gowt or Stone or Tooth-ache It will not keep off ghastly death but dye thou must if thou have all the world Look up to God and remember that thou art wholly in his hands and think whether he will love or favour thee for thy wealth Look unto the day of Judgement and think whether money will there bring thee off or the Rich speed better than the poor § 26. Direct 5. Be often with those that are sick and dying and mark what all their Riches will Direct 5. do for them and what esteem they have then of the world and mark how it useth all at last Then you shall see that it forsaketh all men in the hour of their greatest necessity and distress when they Jer. 17. 11. would cry to friends and wealth and honour if they had any hopes If ever you will help me let it be now If ever you will do any thing for me O save me from death and the wrath of God Jam. 5. 1 2 3. But alas such cryes would be all in vain Then O then one drop of mercy one spark of grace the smallest well gâ—ounded hope of Heaven would be worth more than the Empire of Caesar or Alexander Is not this true sinner Dost thou not know it to be true And yet wilt thou cheat and betray thy soul Is not that best now which will be best then And is not that of little value now which will be then so little set by Dost thou not think that men are wiser then than now Wilt thou do so much and pay so dear for that which will do thee no more good and which thou wilt set no more by when thou hast it Doth not all the world cry out at last of the deceitfulness of riches and the vanity of pleasure and prosperity on Earth and the perniciousness of all worldly cares And doth not thy conscience tell thee that when thou comest to dye thou art like to have the same thoughts Chilon in Laâ—rt p. 43. Damnum potius quam â—uâ—pe lucrum eligendum nam id semel tantum dolori esse hâ—c semper thy self And yet wilt thou not be warned in time Then all the content and pleasure of thy plenty and prosperity will be past And when its past it s nothing And wilt thou venture on everlasting wo and cast away everlasting joy for that which is to day a dream and shadow and to morrow or very shortly will be nothing The poorest then will be equal with thee And will honest poverty or over-loved wealth be sweeter at the last How glad then wouldst thou be to have been without thy wealth so thou mightst have been without the sin and guilt How glad then wouldst thou be to dye the death of the poorest Saint Do you think that Poverty or Riches are liker to make a man loth to dye or are usually more troublesome to the Conscience of a dying man O look to the end and live as you dye and set most by that and seek that now which you know you shall set most by at last when full experience hath made you wiser § 27. Direct 6. Remember that Riches do make it much harder for a man to be saved and the love Direct 6. of this world is the commonest cause of mens damnation This is certainly true for all that Poverty also hath its temptations and for all that the poor are far more â—umerous than the rich For even Socrates dixit Opes nobiâ—itates non solum nihil in se habere honestatis verum omne malum ex eis oboâ—iâ—i Laâ—rt in Socrat the poor may be undone by the love of that wealth and plenty which they never get and those may perish for over-loving the world that yet never prospered in the world And if thou believe Christ the point is out of Controversie For he saith Luke 18. 24 25 26 27. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God For it is easier for a Camel to go
and let them find that thou art not to be spoken with nor at leisure to do nothing but wilt rather seem uncivil and morose than be undone And wouldst thou do thus for a transitory prosperity or life and doth not life eternal require much more will thy weighty business in the world resolve thee to put by thy friends thy play-fellows and sports and to shake off thy idleness and should not the business of thy salvation do it I would desire no more to confute the distracted Time-wasters when they are disputing for their idle sports and vanities and asking what harm is in Cards and Dice and stage-plays or tedious feasts or complementing adorning idleness than if I could help them to one sight of Heaven and Hell and make them well know what greater business they have to do which is staying for them while they sleep or play If I were just now in disputing the case with an idle Lady or a sensual belly-slave or gamester and he were asking me scornfully what hurt is in all this if one did but knock at his door and tell him The King is at the door and calls for you it would make him cast away his game and his dispute Or if the house were on fire or a Child faln into fire or water or Thieves breaking in upon them it would make the Ladies cast by the other Lace or Ribband Or if there were but a good bargain or a Lordship to be got they could be up and going though sports and game and gawdery were cast off And yet the foresight of Heaven and Hell though one of them is even at the door will not do as much with them Because Heaven is as nothing to an unbeliever or an inconsiderate sensless wretch And as it is nothing to them when it should move them it shall be nothing to them when they would enjoy it Say not Recreation must be used in its season I know that necessary whetting is no letting But God and thy own Conscience shall tell thee shortly whether thy Recreation feastings long dressings and idleness were a necessary whetting or refreshment of thy Body to fit it for that work which thou wast born and livest for or whether they were the Pastimes of a voluptuous fleshly bruit that lived in these pleasures for the love of pleasure Verily if I lookt but on this one unreasonable sin of Time-wasting it would help me to understand the meaning of Luk. 15. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Prodigal is said to Come to himself and that conversion is the bringing a man to his wits § 9. Direct 2. Be not a stranger to the condition of thy own soul but look home till thou art acquainted Direct 2. what state it is in and what it is in danger of and what it wanteth and how far thou art behind hand in thy provisions for immortality and then be an idle Time-waster if thou canst Could I but go down with thee into that dungeon Heart of thine and shew thee by the light of truth what is there could I but let in one convincing beam from Heaven which might fully shew thee what a condition thou art in and what thou hast to do with thy remaining Time I should have no need to dispute thee out of thy childish fooleries nor to bid thee be up and doing for thy soul no more than to bid thee stir if a Bear were at thy back or the house in a flame about thy ears Alas our ordinary Time-wasters are such as are yet unconverted carnal wretches and are all the while in the power of the Devil who is the chief master of the sport and the greatest gainer They are such as are utter strangers to the regenerating sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost and are yet unjustified and under the guilt of all their sins and certain to be with Devils in Hell for ever if they die thus before they are converted This is true sinner and thou wilt shortly find it so by grace or vengeance though thy blind and hardened heart now rise against the mention of it And is this a case for a man to sit at cards and dice in or to sport and swagger in The Lord have mercy on thee and open thy eyes before it is too late or else thy Conscience will tell thee for ever in another manner than I am telling thee now that thou hadst need to have better improved thy Time and hadst greater things to have spent it in What for a man in thy case in an unrenewed unsanctified unpardoned state to be thus casting away that little Time which all his hopes lie on and in which if ever he must be recovered and saved O Lord have mercy on such sensless souls and bring them to themselves be fore it be too late I tell thee man an enlightened person that understandeth what it is and hath escaped it would not for all the Kingdoms of the world be a week or a day in thy condition for fear lest death cut off his hopes and shut him up in Hell that very day He durst not sleep quietly in thy condition a night lest death should snatch him away to Hell and canst thou sport and play in it and live securely in a sensual course O what a thing it is to be hoodwinkt in misery and to be led asleep to Hell who could perswade men to live thus awake and go dancing to Hell with their eyes open O if we should but imagine a Peter or a Paul or any of the blessed to be again brought into such a case as one of these unsanctified sinners and yet to know what now they know what would they do would they feast and game and play and trifle away their time in it or would they not rather suddenly bewail their former mispent time and all their sins and cry day and night to God for mercy and fly to Christ and spend all their time in Holiness and obedience to God! Alas poor sinner do but look into thy heart and see there what thou hast yet to do of greater weight than trimming and playing I almost tremble to think and write what a case thou art in and what thou hast to do while thou livest as if thou hadst Time to spare If thou know not I will tell thee and the Lord make thee know it Thou hast a hardened heart to be yet softened and an unbelieving heart to be brought to a lively powerful Belief of the word of God and the unseen world Thou hast an unholy Heart and life to be made Holy if ever thou wilt see the face of God Heb. 12. 14. Matth. 18. 3. Ioh. 3. 3 5 6. Thou hast a Heart-full of sins to be mortified and subdued and an unreformed life to be reformed And what abundance of particulars do these Generals contain Thou hast a pardon to procure through Jesus Christ for all the sins that ever thou didst commit and all the duties which ever thou
the men on earth with all their power and all their wit are not able to recall one minute that is gone All the riches in this world cannot redeem it by reversing one of those hours or moments which you so prodigally cast away for nothing If you would cry and call after it till you tear your hearts it will not return Many a thousand have tryed this by sad experience and have cryed out too late O that we had now that Time again which we made so light of But none of them did ever attain their wish No more will you Take it therefore while you have it It is now as liberal to the poorest beggar as to the greatest Prince Time is as much yours as his Though in your youth and folly you spend as out of the full heap as if Time would never have an end you shall find it is not like the widdows oyl or the loaves and fishes multiplyed by a Miracle But the hour is at hand when you will wish you had gathered the fragments and the smallest crums that nothing of so precious a commodity had been lost even the little minutes which you thought you might neglect and be no losers Try whether you can stop the present moment or recall that which is gone by already before you vilifie or loiter away any more lest you repent too late § 17. Direct 10. Think also how exceeding little Time thou hast and how near thou allway standest Direct 10. to eternity Job 7. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth Are not his days also like the Ex ipsà vitâ discedimus tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo Commorandi enim nobis natura diversorium non habitandi domum dedit Cic. i◠Cat. Maj. days of an hireling Job 14. 1 2. Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Job 9. 25 26. Now my days are swifter than a post they flee away they see no good they are passed away as the swift ships as the Eagle that hasteth to the prey O what is this inch of hasty Time How quickly will it all be gone Look back on all the Time that 's past If thou have lived threescore or fourscore years what is it now Doth it not seem as yesterday since thou wast a child Do not days and nights wheel on apase O man how short is thy abode on earth How small a Time will leave thee in eternity What a small and hasty moment will bring thee to the state in which thou must remain for ever Every night is as the death or end of one of the few that are here allotted thee How little a while is it till thy mortal sickness Till thou must lie under languishing decays and pain Till thy vital powers shall give up their office and thy pulse shall cease and thy soul shall take its silent undiscerned flight and leave thy body to be hid in darkness and carried by thy friends to the common earth How short a Time is it betwixt this and the digging of thy grave Betwixt thy pleasures in the flesh and thy sad farewel when thou must say of all thy pleasures They are gone Betwixt thy cares and businesses for this world and thy entrance into another world where all these vanities are of no esteem How short is the Time between thy sin and thy account in judgement Between the pleasure and the pain And between the patient holiness of the Godly and their full reward of endless joys And can you spare any part of so short a life Hath God allotted you so little Time and can you spare the Devil any of that little Is it not all little enough for so great a work as is necessary to your safe and comfortable death O remember when sloth or pleasure would have any how little you have in all And out of how small a stock you spend How little you have for the one thing necessary The providing for eternal life And how unseasonable it is to be playing away time so neer the entrance into the endless world § 18. Direct 11. Remember also how uncertain that little Time is which you must have As you Direct 11. know it will be short so you know not how short You never yet saw the day or hour in which you were sure to see another And is it a thing becoming the Reason of a man to slug or cast away that day or hour which for ought he knows may be his last You think that though you are not certain yet you are likely to have more But nothing that is hazardous should be admitted in a business of such moment Yea when the longest life is short and when so frail a body liable to so many hundred maladies and casualties and so sinful a soul do make it probable as well as possible that the thred thy of life should be cut off ere long even much before thy natural period When so many score at younger years do come to the grave for one that arriveth at the ripeness of old age is not then the uncertainty of thy Time a great aggravation of the sinfullness of thy not-redeeming it If you were sure you had but one year to live it would perhaps make you so wise as to see that you had no Time to spare And yet do you wast it when you know not that you shall live another day Many a one is this week trifling away their Time who will be dead the next week who yet would have spent it better if they had thought but to have dyed the next year O man what if death come before thou hast made thy necessary preparation Where art thou then When Time is uncertain as well as short hast thou not work enough of weight to spend it on If Christ had set thee to attend and follow him in greatest holiness a thousand years shouldst thou not have gladly done it And yet canst thou not hold out for so short a life Canst thou not watch with him one hour He himself was provoked by the nearness of his death to a speedy dispatch of the works of his life And should not we Matth. 26. 18. He sendeth to prepare his last communion feast with his Disciples thus My time is at hand I will keep the passover at thy house with my Disciples And Luke 22. 15. With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer So should you rather say My time is short my death is at hand and therefore it concerneth me to live in the knowledge and communion of God before I go hence into his presence especially when as Eccles. 9. 12. Man knoweth not his time Many thousands would have don◠better in their preparations if they had known the period of their time Matth. 24. 43. But know this
that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up Therefore be ye also ready For in such an hour as ye think not the son of man cometh Mar. 13. 33. Take ye heed watch and pray for ye know not when the time is § 19. Direct 12. Never forget what attendance thou hast while thou art idling or sinning away thy Direct 12. Time How the patience and mercy of God are staying for thee And how Sun and Moon and all the creatures are all the while attending on thee And must God stand by while thou art yet a little longer abusing and offending him Must God stay till thy Cards and Dice and Pride and worldly unnecessary cares will dismiss thee and spare thee for his service Must he wait on the Devil and the world and the flesh to take their leavings and stay till they have done with thee Canst thou marvel if he make thee pay for this If he turn away and leave thee to spend thy time in as much vanity and idleness as thou desirest Must God and all his creatures wait on a careless sinner while he is at his fleshly pleasures Must life and time be continued to him while he is doing nothing that is worthy of his Life and time The long suffering of God did wait on the disobedient in the days of Noah 1 Pet. 3. 20. But how dear did they pay for the contempt of this forbearance § 20. Direct 13. Consider soberly of the ends for which thy life and Time are given thee by God Direct 13. God made not such a creature as man for nothing He never gave thee an hours Time for nothing The life and time of bruits and plants is given them to be serviceable to thee But what is thine for Dost thou think in thy Conscience that any of thy Time is given thee in vain When thou art sluging or idling or playing it away dost thou think in thy Conscience that thou art wisely and honestly answering the ends of thy Creation and Redemption and hourly preservation Dost thou think that God is so unwise or disregardful of thy Time and thee as to give thee more than thou hast need of Thou wilt blame thy Tailor if he cut out more cloath than will make thy garments meet for thee and agreeable to thy use And thou wilt blame thy Shoomaker if he make thy shoos too big for thee And dost thou think that God is so lavish of Time or so unskillful in his works of providence as to cut thee out more Time than the work which he hath cut thee out requireth He that will call thee to a reckoning for all hath certainly given thee none in vain If thou canst find an hour that thou hast â—othing to do with and must give no account for let that be the hour of thy pastime But if thou knewest thy need thy danger thy hopes and thy work thou wouldst never dream of having Time to spare For my own part I must tell thee if thou have Time to spare thy case is very much different from mine It is the daily trouble and burden of my mind to see how slowly my work goes on and how hastily my Time and how much I am like to leave undone which I would fain dispatch How great and important businesses are to be done and how short that life is like to be in which they must be done if ever Methinks if every day were as long as ten it were not too long for the work which is every day before me though not incumbent on me as my present duty for God requireth not impossibilities yet exceeding desirable to be done It is the Work that makes the Time a mercy The Time is for the Work If my work were done which the good of the Church and my soul requireth what cause had I to be glad of the ending â—â— my Time and to say with Simeon Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Remember then that God never gave thee one minute to spend in vain but thy very ease and rest and recreations must be but such and so much as fit thee for thy work and as helps it on and do not hinder it He redeemed and preserveth us that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of our lives Luke 1. 74 75. § 21. Direct 14. Remember still that the Time of this short uncertain life is all that ever you shall Direct 14. have for your preparation for your endless life When this is spent whether well or ill you shall have no more God will not try those with another life on earth that have cast away and mispent See mâ— Book called Now or Never this There is no returning hither from the dead to mend that which here you did amiss What good you will do must Now be done And what Grace you would get must Now be got And what preparation for Eternity you will ever make must Now be made 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time Behold now is the day of salvation Heb. 3. 7 13. Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts But exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned by the deceitfulness of sin Have you but one life here to live and will you lose that one or any part of it Your Time is already measured out The glass is turned upon you Rev. 10. 5 6. And the Angel lifted up his hand to Heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever that Time should be no longer Therefore whatever thy â—and findeth to do do it with thy might for there is no work nor devise nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest Eccles. 9. 10. What then remaineth but that the Time being short and the fashion of these things passing away you use the world as if you used it not and redeem this Time for your eternal happiness 1 Cor. 7. 29. § 22. Direct 15. Remember still that sin and Satan will lose no time and therefore it concerneth Direct 15. you to lose none The Devil your adversary goeth about like a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour 1 Pet. 5. 8. Be sober therefore and vigilant to resist him V. 7 9. If he be busie and you be idle if he be at work in spreading his Nets and laying his snares for you and you be at play and do not mind him it is easie to fore-tell you what will be the issue If your enemies be fighting while you sit still or sleep it is easie to prognosticate who will have the Victory The weeds of corruption are continually growing sin like a constant spring is still running The world is still enticing and the flesh is still inclining to it
not be sollicitous for pins or fool-gawds And the hopes of a Lordship or a Kingdom will cure the desire of little things A man that needeth a Physicion for the Dropsie or Consumption will scarce long for Childrens balls or tops And methinks a man that is going to Heaven or Hell should have somewhat greater than worldly things to long for O what a vain and doting thing is a carnal mind that hath pardon and grace and Christ and Heaven and God to think of and that with speed before it be too late and can forget them all or not regard them and eagerly long for some little inconsiderable trifle as if they said I must needs taste of such a dish before I dye I must needs have such a house or a Child or friend before I go to another world O study what need thy distressed soul hath of a Christ and of peace with God and preparation for Eternity and what need thy darkened mind hath of more knowledge and thy dead and carnal heart of more life and tenderness and Love to God and communion with him Feel these as thou hast cause and the eagerness of thy carnal Desires will be gone § 4. Direct 2. Remember how much your carnal Desires do aggravate the weakness of your spiritual Direct 2. Desires and make the sin more odious and unexcusable Are you so eager for a Husband a Wife a Child for wealth for preferment or such things while you are so cold and indifferent in your Desires after God and grace and glory Your desires after these are not so earnest They make you not so importunate and restless They take not up your thoughts both day and night They set you not so much on contrivances and endeavours You can live as quietly without more grace or assurance of salvation or communion with God as if you were indifferent in the business But you must needs have that which you desire in the world or there is no quiet with you Do you consider what a horrible contempt of God and grace and Heaven is manifested by this Either you are Regenerate or unregenerate If you are Regenerate all your instructions and all your experiences of the worth of spiritual things and the vanity of things temporal do make it a heynous sin in you to be now so eager for those things which you have so often called vanity while you are so cold towards God whose Goodness you have had so great experience of Do you know no better yet the difference between the creature and the Creator Do you yet no better understand your necessities and interest and what it is that you live upon and must trust to for your everlasting blessedness and content If you are unregenerate as all are that Love any thing better than God what a madness is it for one that is condemned in Law to endless torments and shall be quickly there if he be not regenerate and justified by Christ to be thirsting so eagerly for this or that thing or person upon earth when he should presently bestir him with all his might to save his soul from endless misery How incongruous are these Desires to the good and bad § 5. Direct 3. Let every sinful Desire humble you for the worldliness and fleshliness which it discocovereth Direct 3. to be yet unmortified in you and turn your Desires to the mortifying of that flesh and concupiscence which is the cause If you did not yet love the world and the things that are in the world you would not 1 Ioh. 2. 15. be so eager for them If you were not too carnal and did not mind too much the things of the flesh you would not be so earnest for them as you are It should be a grievous thing to your hearts to consider what worldliness and fleshliness this sheweth to be yet there That you should set so much by the creature as to be unable to bear the want of it Is this renouncing the world and flesh The thing you need is not that which you so much desire but a better heart to know the Vanity of the Creature to be dead to the world and to be able to bear the want or loss of any thing in it and a fuller mortification of the flesh mortifying and not satisfying it is your work § 6. Direct 4. Ask your hearts seriously whether God in Christ be enough for them or not If Direct 4. they say no they renounce him and all their hope of Heaven For no man takes God for his God that takes him not for his portion and as enough for him If they say yea then you have enough to stop the mouth of your fleshly desires while your hearts confess that they have enough in God Should that soul that hath a filial interest in God and an inheritance in eternal life be eager for any conveniences and contentments to the flesh If God be not enough for you you will never have enough Turn to him more and know him better if you would have a satisfied mind § 7. Direct 5. Remember that every sinful Desire is a rebelling of your wills against the will of Direct 5. God and that it is his will that must govern and dispose of all and your wills must be conform to his yea that you must take pleasure and rest in the will of God Reason the case with your hearts and say who is it that is the Governour of the World and who is to rule me and dispose of my affairs Is it I or God whose will is it that must lead and whose must follow whose will is better guided Gods or mine either it is his will that I shall have what I desire or not If it be I need not be so eager for I shall have it in his time and way If it be not his will is it fit for me to murmur and strive against him Remember that your discontents and carnal desires are so many accusations brought in against God As if you said Thou hast not dealt well or wisely or mercifully by me I must have it better I will not stand to thy will and government I must have it as I will and have the disposal of my self § 8. Direct 6. Observe how your eager Desires are condemned by your selves in your daily prayers Direct 6. or else they make your prayers themselves condemnable If you pray that the will of God may be done why do your wills rebell against it and your desires contradict your prayers And if you ask no more than your daily bread why thirst you after more But if you pray as you desire Lord let my will be done and my self ish carnal desire be fulfilled for I must needs have this or that then what an abominable Prayer is this Desire as you must Pray § 9. Direct 7. Remember what Covenant you have made with God that you renounced the world Direct 7. and the flesh and took him
now abroad in the world Of the millions of Heathens and Mahometanes and other strangers or enemies to Christ Of the obstinate Jews of the dark corrupted lamentable state of the Greek Armenian Ethiopian and Roman Churches where Religion is so wofully obscured and dishonoured by ignorance error superstition and prophaneness Of the Papal tyranny and usurpation and of the divided state of all the Churches and the prophaness and persecution and uncharitableness and contentions and mutual reproaches and revilings which make havock for the Devil among the members of Christ. Tit. 5. Directions against sinful Hopes HOPE is nothing but a Desirous expectation Therefore the Directions given before against sinful Dâ—â—h any man doubt that if there were taken out of mens minds vain opinions flattering hopes false valuations imaginations c. but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things full of melancholy and indisposition and uncomfortable to themselves Lord Bacoâ— Essay of Lâ—es Love and Desire may suffice also against sinful Hopes save only for the expecting part Hope is sinful 1. When it is placed ultimately upon a forbidden object as to Hope for some evil to your selves which you mistakingly think is good To hope for felicity in the creature or to hope for more from it than it can afford you To hope for the hurt of other men for the ruine of your enemies for the hindrance of the Gospel and injury to the Church of Christ. 2. When you hope for a Good thing by evil means as to Hope to please God or to come to Heaven by persecuting his servants or by ignorance or superstition or schism or Heresie or any sin 3. To Hope ungroundedly for that from God which he never promised 4. To Hope deceitfully for that from God which he hath declared he will never give All these are sinful Hopes But it is not these last that I shall here say much to because I have said so much already of them in many other writings § 2. Direct 1. Hope for nothing from God against faith or without faith that is for nothing Direct 1. which he hath said he will not give nor for any thing which he hath not promised to give or given you some reason to expect To hope for that which God hath told us he will not give or that which is against the Holiness and Iustice of God to give this is but to Hope that God will prove a lyer or unholy or unjust which are wicked and blaspheaming hopes Such are the Hâ—pes which abundance of ignorant and ungodly persons have who hope to be saved without regeneration and without true Holiness of heart or life and hope to be saved in their willful impenitence and beloved sins who hope that God forgiveth them those sins which they hate not nor will not be perswaded to forsake And hope that the saying over some words of prayer or doing something which they call a good work shall save them though they have not the spirit of Christ Or that hope to be saved though they are unsanctified because they are not so bad as some others and live not in any notorious disgraceful sin All these believe the Devil who tells them that an unholy person may be saved and believe that the Gospel is false which saith without Holiness none shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. and they Hope that God will prove unholy unjust and false to save them and yet this they call a Hoping in God Hope for that which God hath promised and spare not but not for that which he hath said he will not do yea protested cannot be Iohn 3. 3 5. § 3. Direct 2. When thou Hopest for any evil to others or thy self remember what a monstrous thing Direct 2. it is to make evil the object of thy Hope and how those Hopes are but thy hastning unto chosen misery and contradict themselves For thou Hopest for it as Good and to be greedy for evil on supposition that its good doth shew thy folly that wilt try no better the objects of thy Hopes Like a sick man that longs and hopeth for that which if he take it will be his death Thus sinners hope for the poysoned bait § 4. Direct 3. Understand how much of the root of worldliness consisteth in your worldly Hopes Direct 3. Poor worldlings have little in possession to delight in but they keep up a Hope of more within them Many a covetous or ambitious wretch that never reacheth that which he desireth yet liveth upon the Hopes of it And Hope is it that setteth and keepeth men at work in the service of the world the flesh and the Devil as Divine Hope doth set and keep men at work for Heaven for their souls and for Jesus Christ. And many an Hypocrite that loseth much upon the account of his Religion yet sheweth his rottenness by keeping up his worldly hopes and going no further than will stand with those § 5. Direct 4. Hath not the world deceived all that have hoped in it unto this day Consider what is Direct 4. become of them and of their Hopes What hath it done for them and where hath it left them And wilt thou place thy Hopes in that which hath deceived so many generations of men already § 6. Direct 5. Remember that thy worldly Hopes are a sin so fully condemned by natural demonstration Direct 5. that thou art utterly left without excuse Thou art certain before-hand that thou must die Thou knowest how vain the world will be then to thee and how little it can do for thee And yet art thou Hoping for more of the world § 7. Direct 6. Consider that the world declareth its vanity in the very Hopes of worldlings In that it Direct 6. is still drawing them by Hopes and never giveth them satisfaction and content Almost all the life of a worldlings pleasure is in his Hopes The very thing which he hopeth for doth not prove so sweet to him in the possession as it was in his hopes A Hoping and Hoping still for that which they never shall attain is the worldlings life § 8. Direct 7. O turn your souls to those blessed Hopes of life eternal which are sent you from Heaven Direct 7. by Iesus Christ and set before you in the holy Scriptures and proclaimed to you by the messengers of grace Doth God offer you sure well-grounded hopes of living for ever in his Ioy and Glory And do you neglect them and lie hoping for that felicity in the world which cannot be attained and which will give no content when you have attained it This is more foolish than to toyl and impoverish your selves in Hope to find the Philosophers stone and refuse a Kingdom freely offered Tit. 6. Directions against sinful Hatred Aversation or Backwardness towards Of Hatred to men I shall speak anon God § 1. THe hatred to God and backwardness to his service which is
once got in If it have but tainted your very fantasie or memory as tempting sights will almost unavoidably do it hath there spawned the matter for a swarm of vain and sinful thoughts It is almost impossible to rule the Thoughts without ruling the eye And then the passions are presently tainted and the cittadel of the Heart is taken before you are aware You little know when a lustful look or a covetous look beginneth the game to how sad a period it tendeth Many a horrid adultery and murther and robbery and wickedness hath begun but with a Look A Look hath begun that which hath brought many a thousand to the gallows and many millions to Hell § 9. Direct 9. Keep both eye and mind employed in continual duty and let them not be idle and have Direct 9. leisure to wander upon vanity Idleness and neglect of spiritual and corporal duty is the beginner and the nurse of much sensuality Let your spiritual work and your lawful bodily-labours take up your time and thoughts and command and keep your senses in their services § 10. Direct 10. Beg daily of God the preserving assistance of his Grace and providence Of his inward Direct 10. grace to confirm you and assist you in your resolutions and watch and of his providence and gracious disposals of you and objects to keep the Temptations from before your eyes And when others will run and go on purpose to gaze on vain or tempting shews or to admire like children the vanities of the playful pompous world do you go to God with Davids prayer Psalm 119. 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken me in thy way And imitate him vers 148. Mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word And make every look a passage to thy mind to carry it up to God and pray Psal. 119. 18. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law Observe these with the General Directions fore named PART III. Directions for the Government of the Ear. § 1. Direct 1. IMploy your ears in the dutys which they were made for and to that end understand Direct 1. Gen. 49 2. Exod. 19. 9. Deut. 1. 16. 4. 10 5. 1 25 27. 31. 13. Prov. 1. 8. 19. 20 27. 22. 17. Ec 5. 1. 7. 5. Jam. 1. 19. Isa. 66. 4. 65. 12. 30. 9. Ezek. 12. 2. Mal. 2. 2. Act. 3 23. Lev. ◠1. Deut. 13. 12. those dutys Which are as followeth 1. To be the organe of reception of such communications from others as is necessary for our converse in the world and the dutys of our several relations and vocations 2. To hear the word of God delivered publickly by his appointed Teachers of the Church 3. To hear the counsel of those that privately advize us for our good and the reproofs of those that tell us of our sin and danger 4. To hear the Praises of God set forth by his Church in publick and particular servants in private 5. To hear from our ancestors and the learned in historie what hath been done in the times before us 6. To hear the complaints and petitions of the poor and needy and distressed that we may compassionate them and endeavour their relief 7. To be the passage for grief and hatred to our hearts by the sinful words which we hear unwillingly § 2. Direct 2. Know which are the sins of the ear that you may avoid them And they are such as follow 1. A careless ear which heareth the word of God and the private exhortations of his servants as if it heard them not 2. A sottish sleepy ear that heareth the word of God but as a confused sound and understandeth not nor feeleth what is heard 3. A scornful ear which despiseth the message of God and the reproofs and counsel of men and scorneth to be reproved or taught 4. An obstinate stubborn ear which regardeth not advice or will not yield 5. A prophane and impious Direct 2. ear which loveth to hear oaths and curses and prophane and blasphemous expressions 6. A carnal ear which loveth to hear of fleshly things but savoureth not the words which favour of holiness 7. An airy hypocritical ear which loveth more the musick and melody than the sense and spiritual elevation of the soul to God and regardeth more the numbers and composure and tone than the matter of preaching prayer or other such dutys and serveth God with the ear when the heart is far from him 8. A curious ear which nauseateth the most profitable sermons prayers or discourses if they be not accurately ordered and expressed and sleighteth or loseth the offered benefit for a modal imperfection in the offer or the instrument and casteth away all the gold because a piece or two did catch a little rust And perhaps quarrelleth with the style of the sacred Scriptures as not exact or fine enough for its expectations 9. An itching ear which runs after novelties and a heap of Teachers and liketh something extraordinary better than things necessary 10. A selfish ear which loveth to hear all that tends to the confirmation of its own conceits and to be flattered or smoothed up by others and can endure nothing that is cross to its opinions 11. A proud ear which loveth its own applause and is much pleased with its own praises and hateth all that speak of him with mean undervaluing words 12. A pievish impatient ear which is netled with almost all it heareth and can endure none but silken words which are oyled and sugared and fitted by flattery or the lowest submission to their froward minds and is so hard to be pleased that none but graduates in the art of pleasing can perform it 13. A bold presumptuous ear which will hear false Teachers and deceivers in a proud conceit and confidence of their own abilities to discern what is true and what is false 14. An ungodly ear that can easily hear the reproach of holiness and scorns at the servants and ways of Christ. 15. A neutral indifferent ear that heareth either good or evil without much love or hatred but with a dull and cold indifferencie 16. A dissembling temporizing ear which can complyingly hear one side speak for holiness and the other speak against it and suit it self to the company and discourse it meets with 17. An uncharitable ear which can willingly hear the censures backbitings slanders revilings that are used against others yea against the best 18. An unnatural ear which can easily and willingly hear the dishonour of their parents or other near relations if any carnal interest do but engage them against their honour 19. A rebellious disobedient ear which hearkneth not to the just commands of Magistrates Parents Masters and other Governours but hearkneth with more pleasure to the words of seditious persons that dishonour them 20. A filthy unclean adulterous ear which loveth to hear filthy ribbald speeches
holy things should be preferred as on the Lords day or at the time of publick worship or when the company occasion or opportunity call for holy speeches Worldlings are talking as Saul of their Asses when they should talk of a Kingdom 1 Sam. 9. 10. To speak about your Callings and common affairs is lawful so it be moderately and in season But when you talk all of the world and vanity and never have done and will scarce have any other talk in your mouths and even on Gods day will speak your own words Isa. 58. 13. this is prophane and sinful speaking § 23. 12. Another common sin of the Tongue is a tempting and perswading others to sin enticing them to gluttony drunkenness wantonness sornication or any other crime as men that not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1. 32. This is to be the instruments and servants of the Devil and most directly to do his work in the world The same I may say of unjust excusing extenuating or defending the sins of others or commanding alluring affrighting or encouraging them thereto § 24. 13. Another is a carnal manner of handling the sacred things of God as when it is done with lightness or with unsuitable curiosity of words or in a ludicrous toyish manner especially by the Preachers of the Gospel themselves and not with a style that 's grave and serious agreeable to the weight and majesty of the truth § 25. 14. Another is an imprudent rash and slovenly handling of holy things when they are spoken Didy 〈…〉 on 〈◊〉 3. of 〈◊〉 the Toâ—gue saith Non putandum est de peccato prolativi sermonis quae solaecismos barbatismos quidam vocant haec fuisse dicta of so ignorantly unskilfully disorderly or passionately as tendeth to dishonour them and frustrate the desired good success § 26. 15. Another sin of the tongue is the reviling or dishonouring of superiours When Children speak unreverently and dishonourably to or of their Parents or Subjects of their Governours or servants of their Masters either to their faces or behind their backs 2 Pet. 2. 10. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities Jud. 8. § 27. 16. Another is the imperious contempt of inferiours insulting over them provoking and discouraging them Ephes. 6. 4. Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath § 28. 17. Another sin of the Tongue is Idle talk and multitude of useless words a babling loquacity or unprofitableness of speech when it is speech that tendeth to no edification nor any good use for mind or body or affairs § 29. 18. Another sin is Foolish talk or jeasting in levity and folly which tendeth to possess the minds of the hearers with a disposition of levity and folly like the speakers Ephes. 5. 4. Foolish talking and jeasting are things not convenient Honest mirth is lawful and that is the best which is most sanctified as being from a holy principle and about a holy matter or to a holy end as Rejoycing in the Lord always Phil. 4. 4. If any be merry let him sing Psalms Jam. 5. 13. But such a light and frothy jeasting as is but the vent of habitual levity by idle words is not allowable But especially those persons do most odiously abuse their tongues and Reason who counterfeit ideots or fools and use their wit to cover their jeasts with a seeming folly to make them the more ridiculous and make it their very profession to be the jeasters of great men They make a trade of heynous sin § 30. 19. Another sin is Filthy speaking Ephes. 5. 4. Obscene and ribbald talk which the Apostle calls corrupt or rotten communication Ephes. 4. 29. when wanton filthy minds do make themselves merry with wanton filthy speeches This is the Devils preparative to whoredom and all abominable uncleanness For when the tongue is first taught to make a sport of such filthy sins and the ear to be delighted in it or be indifferent to it there remaineth but a small step to actual filthiness § 31. 20. Another sin of the tongue is cursing when men wish some mischief causlesly or unwarrantably to others If you speak but in passion or jeast and desire not to them in your hearts the hurt which you name it is nevertheless a sin of the tongue as it is to speak blasphemy or treason in a passion or in jeast The tongue must be ruled as well as the heart But if really you desire the hurt which you wish them it is so much the worse But it is worst of all when passionate factious men will turn their very prayers into cursings calling for fire from Heaven and praying for other mens destruction or hurt and pretending Scripture examples for it as if they might do it unwarrantably which others have done in other cases in a warrantable manner § 32. 21. Slandering is another sin of the tongue when out of malice and ill will men speak evil falsly of others to make them odious or do them hurt Or else through uncharitable credulity do easily believe a false report and so report it again to others or through rashness and unruliness of tongue divulge it before they try it or receive either just proof or any warrantable call to mention it 5. 33. 22. Another sin is Backbiting and venting ill reports behind mens backs without any warrant Be the matter true or false as long as you either know it not to be true or if you do yet vent it to make the person less respected or at least without a sufficient cause it is a sin against God and a wrong to men § 34. 23. Another sin is rash censuring when you speak that evil of another which you have but Existimant loquacitatem esse facundiam maledicere omnibus bonae conscientiae signum arbritrantur Hieron Cont. Helâ—id an uncharitable surmise of and take that to be probable which is but possible or that to be certain which is but probable against another § 35. 24. Another sin is Railing reviling or passionate provoking words which tend to the diminution of charity and the breach of peace and the stirring up of discord and of a return of railing words from others contrary to the Love and patience and meekness and gentleness which becometh Saints § 36. 25. Another sin is cheating deceiving over-reaching words when men use their tongues to defraud their Neighbours in bargaining for their own gain § 37. 26. Another sin of the tongue is false witness-bearing and false accusing a sin which crys to God for vengeance who is the justifier of the innocent § 38. 27. Another sin of the tongue is the passing an unrighteous sentence in judgement when Rulers absolve the guilty or condemn the just and call evil good and good evil and say to the Righteous Thou art wicked Prov. 24. 24. § 39. 28. Another sin of the Tongue is Flattery which is the more heynous by how much more hurtful And it
help to overcome their sensual inclinations and give reason the mastery of their lives and you will under God do as much as any one thing can do to help them to a healthful temper of body which will be a very great mercy to them and fit them for their duty all their lives § 11. Direct 11. For sports and recreations let them be such and so much as may be needful to Direct 10. their health and cheerfulness but not so much as may carry away their minds from better things and draw them from their Books or other duties nor such as may tempt them to gaming or covetousness Children must have convenient spâ—rt for the health of the body and alacrity of the mind such as well exerciseth their bodies is best and not such as little stirreth them Cards and Dice and such idle sporâ—s are every way most unfit as tending to hurt both body and mind Their time also must be limited them that their play may not be their work As soon as ever they have the use of any reason and speech they should be taught some better things and not left till they are five or six years of age to do nothing but get a custome of wasting all their time in play Children are very early capable of learning something which may prepare them for more § 12. Direct 12. Use all your wisdom and diligence to root out the sin of Pride And to that end Direct 12. dâ— not as is usual with foolish Parents that please them with making them fine and then by telling them how fine they are But use to commend humility and plainness to them and speak disgracefully of Pride and fineness to breed an aversness to it in their minds Cause them to learn such Texts of Scripture as speak of Gods abhorring and resisting the proud and of his loving and honouring the humble When they see other Children that are finely cloathed speak of it to them as their shame that they may not desire to be like them Speak against boasting and every other way of Pride which they are lyable to And yet give them the Praise of all that 's well for that is but their due encouragement § 13. Direct 13. Speak to them disgracefully of the Gallantry and pomp and Riches of the world Direct 13. and of the sin of selfishness and covâ—tousness and diligently watch against it and all that may tempt them tâ— it When they see great houses and attendance and gallantry tell them that these are the Devils baits to â—ice poor sinners to love this world that they may lose their souls and the world to come Tell them how much Heaven excelleth all this and that the lovers of the world must never come thither but the humble and meek and poor in spirit Tell them of the Rich Glutton in Luk. 16. that was thus cloathed in purple and silk and fared deliciously every day but when he came to Hâ—ll could not get a drop of Water to cool his tongue when Lazarus was in the joyes of Paradice Do not as the wicked that entice their Children to worldliness and covetousness by giving them money and letting them game and play for money and promising them to make them fine or rich and speaking highly of all that are rich and great in the world But tell them how much happier a poor believer is and withdraw all that may tempt their minds to Covetousness Teach them how good it is to love their brethren as themselves and to give them part of what they have and praise them for it and dispraise them when they are greedy to keep or heap up all to themselves And all will be little enough to cure this pernicious sin Teach them such Texts as Psal. 10. 3. They bless the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth § 14. Direct 14. Narrowly watch their tongues especially against Lying railing ribbald talk Direct 14. and taking the name of God in vain And pardon them many lighter faults about common matters sooner than one such sin against God Tell them of the odiousness of all these sins and teach them such Texts as most expresly condemn them and never pass it by or make light of it when you find them guilty § 15. Direct 15. Keep them as much as may be from ill company especially of ungodly play-fellows Direct 14. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of Children in the world especially when they are sent to common Schools For there is scarce any of those schools so good but hath many rude and ungodly ill-taught Children in it that will speak prophanely and filthily and make their ribbald and railing speeches a matter of boasting besides fighting and gaming and scorning and neglecting their lessons and they will make a scorn of him that will not do as they if not beat and abuse him And there is such tinder in nature for these sparks to catch upon that there are very few Children but when they hear others take Gods name in vain or sing wanton songs or talk filthy words or call one another by reproachful names do quickly imitate them And when you have watched over them at home as narrowly as you can they are infected abroad with such beastly vices as they are hardly ever after cured of Therefore let those that are able either educate their Children most at home or in private and well ordered Schools and those that cannot do so must be the more exceeding watchful over them and charge them to associate with the best and speak to them of the odiousness of these practises and the wickedness of those that use them and speak very disgracefully of such ungodly Children and when all 's done it 's a great mercy of God if they be not undone by the force of the contagion notwithstanding all your antidotes Those therefore that venture their Children into the rudest Schools and company and after that to Rome and other prophane or Popish Countries to learn the fashions and customes of the world upon pretence that else they will be ignorant of the course of the world and ill bred and not like others of their rank may think of themselves and their own reasonings as well as they please for my part I had rather make a Chimney Sweeper of my Son if I had any than be guilty of doing so much to sell or betray him to the Devil Quest. But is it not lawful for a man to send his son to travel Answ. Yes in these cases 1. In case he be a ripe confirmed Christian that is not in danger of being perverted but able to resist the enemies of the truth and to Preach the Gospel or do good to others and withall have sufficient business to invite him 2. Or if he go in the company of wise and godly persons and such be his companions and the probability of his gain be greater than of his loss and danger 3. Or if he go only into
that by abasing them takes the way to do them good Prov. 11. 2. 29. 23. 16. 18. § 11. 4. Falshood also and decâ—it and unjust getting tend to poverty For God doth often even in this present life thus enter into judgement with the unjust Ill-gotten wealth is like fire in the thatch and bringeth oft-times a secret curse and destruction upon all the rest The same may be said of unmercifulness to the poor which is oft cursed with poverty when the liberal are blest with plenty Prov. 11. 24 25. Isa. 32. 8. Psal. 73. 21 22 25 26 34 35. § 12. Direct 8. Be acquainted with the special temptations of the poor that you may be furnished to Direct 8. resist them Every condition hath its own temptations which persons in that condition must specially be fortified and watch against And this is much of the wisdom and safety of a Christian. § 13. Tempt 1. One Temptation of Poverty will be to draw you to think highlier of Riches and Tempt 1. Honours than you ought To make you think that the Rich are much happier than they are For the world is like all other deceivers it is most esteemed where it is least known They that never tryed a life of wealth and plenty and prosperity are apt to admire it and think it braver and better than it is And so you may be drawn as much to over-love the world by want as other men by plenty Against this remember that it is folly to admire that which you never tryed and knew and mark whether all men do not vilifie it that have tryed it to the last Dying men call it no better than vanity and deceit And it is rebellious pride in you so far to contradict the wisdom of God as to think most highly of that condition which he hath judged worst for you and to fall in Love with that which he denyeth you § 14. Tempt 2. The Poor will also be tempted to over-much care about their wants and worldly Tempt 2. matters They will think that Necessity requireth it in them and will excuse them So much care is Luke 10. 41. your duty as is needful to the right-doing of your work Take care how to discharge your own duties but be not too careful about the event which belongs to God If you will care what you should be and do God will care sufficiently what you shall have And so be it you faithfully do your business Matth. 6. 1 Pet. 5. 7. Phil. 4. 6. your other care will add nothing to the success nor make you any richer but only vex and disquiet your minds It is the poor as well as the Rich that God hath commanded to be careful for nothing and to cast all their care on him § 15. Tempt 3. Poverty also will tempt you to repining impatience and discontent and to fall out Tempt 3. with others which because it is one of the chief Temptations I will speak to by it self anon § 16. Tempt 4. Also you will be tempted to be Coveting after more Satan maketh Poverty a snare Tempt 4. to draw many needy creatures to greater Covetousness than many of the Rich are guilty of None Prov. 23. 4. thirst more eagerly after more And yet their poverty blindeth them so that they cannot see that they are covetous or else excuse it as a justifyable thing They think that they desire no more but necessaries and that it is not Covetousness if they desire not superfluities But do you not covet more than God allotteth you And are you not discontent with his allowance And doth not he know best what is necessary for you and what superfluous What then is Covetousness if this be not it § 17. Tempt 5. Also you will be tempted to Envy the Rich and to Censure them in matters where Tempt 5. you are incompetent Judges It is usual with the Poor to speak of the Rich with Envy and Censâ—riousness They call them Covetous meerly because they are Rich especially if they give them nothing when they know not what wayes of necessary expence they have nor know not how many others they are liberal to that they are unacquainted with Till you see their accounts you are unfit to censure them § 18. Tempt 6. The poor also will be tempted to use unlawful means to supply their wants Tempt 6. How many by the temptation of necessity have been tempted to comply with sinners and wound their Prov. 30. 8 9. John 6. 27. consciences and lye and flatter for favour or preferment or to cheat or steal or over-reach A dear price to buy the food that perisheth with the loss or hazard of everlasting life and lose their souls to provide for their flesh § 19. Tempt 7. Also you will be tempted to neglect your souls and omit your spiritual duties Tempt 7. and as Martha to be troubled about many things while the one thing needful is forgotten And you will think that Necessity will excuse all this Yea some think to be saved because they are poor and say God will not punish them in this life and in another too But alas you are more unexcusable than the Rich if you are ungodly and mindless of the life to come For he that will love a life of poverty and misery better than Heaven deserveth indeed to go without it much more than he that preferreth a life of plenty and prosperity before it God hath taught you by his providence to know that you must either be happy in Heaven or no where If you would be worldlings and part with Heaven for your part on Earth how poor a bargain are you like to make To love rags and toil and want and sorrow better than Eternal joy and happiness is the most unreasonable kind of Ungodliness in the world It s true that you are not called to spend so many hours of the Week-dayes in Reading and Meditation as some that have greater leisure are But you have reason to seek Heaven and set your hearts upon it as much as they And you must think of it when you are about your labour and take those opportunities for your spiritual duties which are allowed you Poverty will excuse ungodliness in none Nothing is so Necessary as the service of God and your salvation and therefore no necessity can excuse you from it Luke 10. 41 42. Read the case of Mary and Martha One would think that your hearts should be wholly set upon Heaven who have nothing else but it to trust to The poor have fewer hinderances than the rich in the way to life eternal And God will save no man because he is poor but condemn poor and rich that are ungodly § 20. Tempt 8. Another great Temptation of the poor is to neglect the holy education of their Tempt 8. children so that in most places there are none so ignorant and rude and heathenish and unwilling to learn as
the poorest people and their children They never teach them to read nor teach them any thing for the saving of their souls and they think that their poverty will be an excuse for all When reason telleth them that none should be more careful to help their children to Heaven than they that can give them nothing upon earth § 21. Direct 9. Be acquainted with the special Duties of the poor and carefully perform them Direct 9. They are these 1. Let your sufferings teach you to contemn the world It will be a happy poverty if it do but help Duty 1. to wean your affections from all things below that you set as little by the world as it deserveth 2. Be eminently Heavenly-minded The less you have or hope for in this life the more fervently Duty 2. seek a better You are at least as capable of the heavenly treasures as the greatest Princes God purposely Phil. 3. 18 20 21. 2 Cor. 5. 7 8. straitneth your condition in the world that he may force up your hearts unto himself and teach you to seek first for that which indeed is worth your seeking Matth. 6. 33 19 20 21. 3. Learn to live upon God alone Study his Goodness and faithfulness and all-sufficiency When Duty 3. you have not a place nor a friend in the world that you can comfortably betake your selves to for relief Gal. 2. 20. Psal. 73. 25. 26 27 28. 2 Cor. 1. 10. retire unto God and trust him and dwell the more with him If your poverty have but this effect it will be better to you than all the Riches in the world 4. Be laborious and diligent in your Callings Both precept and necessity call you unto this And Duty 4. if you cheerfully serve him in the labour of your hands with a heavenly and obedient mind it will Ephes 4. 28. Prov. 21. 25. 1 Sam. 15. 22. 2 Thes. 3. 8 10 be as acceptable to him as if you had spent all that time in more spiritual exercises For he had rather have Obedience than Sacrifice and all things are pure and sanctified to the pure If you cheerfully serve God in the meanest work it is the more acceptable to him by how much the more subjection and submission there is in your obedience 5. Be humble and submissive unto all A poor man proud is doubly hateful And if Poverty Duty 5. cure your Pride and help you to be truly humble it will be no small mercy to you 〈…〉 1â— 23. 〈…〉 uty 6 6. You are specially obliged to mortifie the flesh and keep your senses and appetites in subjection because you have greater helps for it than the Rich You have not so many baits of lust and wantonness and gluttony and voluptuousness as they 7. Your corporal wants must make you more sensibly remember your spiritual wants and teach Duty 7. you to value spiritual blessings Think with your selves If a hungry cold and naked body be so great a calamity how much greater is a guilty graceless soul a dead or a diseased heart If bodily food and necessaries are so desirable O how desirable is Christ and his Spirit and the Love of God and life eternal 8. You must above all men be careful Redeemers of your Time Especially of the Lords Day Duty 8. Your labours take up so much of your time that you must be the more careful to catch every opportunity for your souls Rise earlier to get half an hour for holy duty and meditate on holy things in your labours and spend the Lords Day in special diligence and be glad of such seasons and let scarcity preserve your appetites 9. Be willing to dye Seeing the world giveth you so cold entertainment be the more content to Duty 9. let it go when God shall call you For what is here to detain your hearts 10. Above all men you should be most fearless of sufferings from men and therefore true to God Duty 10. and Conscience For you have no great matter of honour or riches or pleasure to lose As you fear not a Thief when you have nothing for him to rob you of 11. Be specially careful to fit your children also for Heaven Provide them a portion which is better Duty 11. than a Kingdom For you can provide but little for them in the world 12. Be exemplary in Patience and Contentedness with your state For that grace should be the Duty 12. strongest in us which is most exercised And Poverty calleth you to the frequent exercise of this § 22. Direct 10. Be specially furnished with those Reasons which should keep you in a chearful contentedness Direct 10. with your state and may suppress every thought of anxiety and discontent As 1. Consider as aforesaid that that is the best condition for you which helpeth you best to Heaven Phil. 4. 11 12 13. Maâ—â—h â— â— 1 Sam. 2. 7. Matth. â— 2â— c. 〈…〉 8. 2◠〈…〉 14. 11. 〈…〉 16. 9. 〈…〉 3 15. 〈…〉 9 〈…〉 30 31. 〈…〉 3â— 25. 〈…〉 1â— 14. 〈…〉 5. 22. 〈…〉 9. 20. 〈…〉 4. â— 10. Rom. 8. 28. Heb. 13. 5. and God best knoweth what will do you good or hurt 2. That it is rebellion to grudge at the Will of God which must dispose of us and should be our Rest. 3. Look over the life of Christ who chose a life of poverty for your sakes and had not a place to lay his head He was not one of the Rich and voluptuous in the world and are you grieved to be conformed to him Phil. 3. 7 8 9. 4. Look to all his Apostles and most holy Servants and Martyrs Were not they as great sufferers as you 5. Consider that the Rich will shortly be all as poor as you Naked they came into the world and naked they must go out And a little time makes little difference 6. It is no more comfort to dye Rich than poor but usually much less because the pleasanter the world is to them the more it grieveth them to leave it 7. All men cry out that the world is vanity at last How little is it valued by a dying man and how sadly will it cast him off 8. The time is very short and uncertain in which you must enjoy it We have but a few dayes more to walk about and we are gone Alas of how small concernment is it whether a man be rich or poor that is ready to step into another world 9. The Love of this world drawing the heart from God is the common cause of mens damnation And is not the world liker to be over-loved when it entertaineth you with prosperity than when it useth you like an enemy Are you displeased that God thus helpeth to save you from the most damning sin and that he maketh not your way to Heaven more dangerous 10. You little know the troubles of the Rich He that hath much hath much to do with it and
sects and parties and what divisions and contentions tend to as you have done And therefore it belongeth to your gravity and experience to call them unto Unity Charity and Peace and to keep them from proving fire-brands in the Church and rashly over-running their understandings and the truth § 8. Direct 8. Of all men you must live in the greatest contempt of earthly things and least entangle Direct 8. your selves in the Love or needless troubles of the world You are like to need it and use it but a little while A little may serve one that is so neer his journeys end You have had the greatest experience of its vanity You are so near the great things of another World that methinks you should have no leisure to remember this or room for any unnecessary thoughts or speeches of it As your bodies are less able for worldly employment than others so accordingly you are allowed to retire from it more than others for your more serious thoughts of the life to come It is a sign of the bewitching power of the world and of the folly and unreasonableness of sin to see the Aged usually as Covetous as the young and men that are going out of the world to love it as fondly and scrape for it as eagerly as if they never lookt to leave it You should rather give warning to the younger sort to take heed of Covetousness and of being ensnared by the world and while they labour in it faithfully with their hands to keep their hearts entirely for God § 9. Direct 9. You should highly esteem every minute of your time and lose none in idleness or unnecessary Direct 9. things but be alwayes doing or getting some good and do what you do with all your might For you are sure now that your time will not be long How little have you left to make all the rest of your preparation in for eternity The young may die quickly but the old know that their time will be but short Though Nature decay yet grace can grow in life and strength and when your outward man perisheth the inner man may be renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4. 16. Time is a most pretious commodity to all but especially to them that have but a little more to determine the question in Whether they must live in Heaven or Hell for ever Though you cannot do your worldly businesses as heretofore yet you have variety of holy exercises to be imployed in Bodily ease may beseem you but Idleness is worse in you than in any § 10. Direct 10. When the decay of your strength or memory or parts doth make you unable to read Direct 10. or pray or meditate by your selves so much or so well as heretofore make the more use of the more lively gifts and help of others Be the more in hearing others and in joyning with them in prayer that their memory and zeal and utterance may help to lift you up and carry you on § 11. Direct 11. Take not a decay of nature and of those gifts and works which depend thereon Direct 11. for a decay of grace Though your memory and utterance and fervour of affection abate as your Natural heat abateth yet be not discouraged but remember that you may for all this grow in grace if you do but grow in holy wisdom and judgement and a higher esteem of God and holiness and a greater disesteem of all the vanities of the world and a firmer resolution to cleave to God and trust on Christ and never to turn to the world and sin This is your growth in grace § 12. Direct 12. Be patient under all the infirmities and inconveniences of old age Be not discontented Direct 12. at them nor repine not nor grow pievish and froward to those about you This is a common temptation which the Aged should carefully resist You knew at first that you had a body that must decay If you would not have had it till a decaying age why were you so unwilling to dye If you would why do you repine Bless God for the dayes of youth and strength and health and ease which you have had already and grudge not that corruptible flesh decayeth § 13. Direct 13. Understand well that passive obedience is that which God calleth you to in your Direct 13. age and weakness and in which you must serve and honour him in the conclusion of your labour When you are unfit for any great or publick works and active obedience hath not opportunity to exercise it self as heretofore it is then as acceptable to God that you honour him by patient suffering And therefore it is a great errour of them that wish for the death of all that are impotent decrepit and bed-rid as if they were utterly unserviceable to God I tell you it is no small service that they may do not only by their prayers and their secret Love to God but by being examples of faith and patience and heavenly-mindedness and confidence and joy in God to all about them Grudge not then if God will thus imploy you § 14. Direct 14. Let your thoughts of death and preparations for it be as serious as if death were Direct 14. just at hand Though all your life be little enough to prepare for death and it be a work that should be done as soon as you have the use of Reason yet age and weakness call lowder to you presently to prepare without delay Do therefore all that you would fain find done when your last sickness cometh that unreadiness to die may not make death terrible nor your age uncomfortable § 15. Direct 15. Live in the joyful expectations of your change as becometh one that is so near to Direct 15. Heaven and looketh to live with Christ for ever Let all the high and glorious things which faith apprehendeth now shew their power in the Love and joy and longings of your soul. There is nothing in which the weak and aged can more honour Christ and do good to others than in joyful expectation of their change and an earnest desire to be with Christ. This will do much to convince unbelievers that the promises are true and that Heaven is real and that a holy life is indeed the best which hath so happy an end When they see you highest in your joyes at the time when others are deepest in distress and when you rejoyce as one that is entring upon his happiness when all the happiness of the ungodly is at an end this will do more than many Sermons to perswade a sinner to a holy life I know that this is not easily attained But a thing so sweet and profitable to your selves and so useful to the good of others and so much tending to the honour of God should be laboured after with all your diligence and then you may expect Gods blessing on your labours Read to this use the fourth part of my Saints Rest. CHAP.
and shadow of felicity the world puts off its followers with How they act their parts as Players on a stage and they that in a dream or Mask did yesterday seem Princes Lords or Conquerours to day are buryed in a darksome grave And they that yesterday seemed great and rich to day have no more of their furniture or possessions than a Coffin and a Winding-sheet and a place to hide their lothesome flesh And they that yesterday were merry and jovial and in health and honour to day lye groaning in painful misery and are leaving their dear bought beloved riches never to be delightful to them any more How little doth it concern them that must dwell in Heaven or Hell for ever whether they live in wealth or poverty in honour or shame in a Palace or a Cottage in pain or pleasure for so short a time as this transitory life which is almost at an end as soon as it is begun How many millions of dying Parents have cryed out of the world as VANITY and VEXATION and yet their besotted posterity admire it and through the love of it lose their souls and everlasting hopes They boast or rejoyce in the multitude of their Riches as if their houses would continue for ever though in their honour they abide not but are like the beasts that perish and death feedeth on them when like sheep they are laid in the grave And though this their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings and follow them by the same sin to the same Perdition Psal. 49. 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 17 19 20. And is this a world for a holy soul to be in love with Hath it merited our affections Doth it love us so much or use us so well that we should be lothe to leave it Iohn 15. 18 19 20. As it loved our Lord it will love his followers As it used him it will use us if he restrain it not Is a blinded Bedlam world a malitious cruel and ungodly world a false perfidious deceitful world a place for 1 John 2. 15. John 15. 17 18 19 20. a Saint to be lothe to leave O blessed be that Love that Blood that Grace which hath provided better for us And shall we be unwilling to go to so sweet a Feast and to partake of a happiness which cost so dear Come on then Dear Friend and faint not at the last and fear not to encounter with the King of Post illam pugnâ—m tâ—â—umphabimus Victoâ—es eâ—m nostro Signiâ—ero in vita aeterna Diu in Christum credidi Desidero jam finem fide ut non â—mplius credam in eum sed videam eum in quem credidi ut gustem quam suavis sit Dominus palpem manibus Dominum meum Deum meum Ibi vocabor Abraham qui laetatur videns diem Christi Exper us sum quod in â—âc vitâ peccatum sit omnia in omnibus Experiar etiam aliam vitam ubi est Dominus omnia in omnibus Abr. Bâ—choltze rfâ—â—â—â—ate Abr. Scâ—lâ—eto ia Cuâ—ic vitae suae pag. 15. fears It is the last enemy and it is a conquered enemy Conquer this and you have no more to conquer Lift up your head and look to your Victorious Reigning Lord Gird up the loins of your mind and let faith and patience hold out yet a little while and play well this last part and all 's your own If the Tempter now assault your faith and sinking flesh do give him any advantage abhorr his blasphemies and cry for help to him that conquered him Do you think yonder high and spacious 1. mansions are uninhabited When every part of Sea and Land hath its inhabitants Why have those blessed Angels been so long employed in ministring for you but to let you know that your souls are not so distant from them but that they are glad of familiarity with you and you may be like them Luke 20. 26. or equal with them in felicity Nature hath put you out of doubt that there is a God of Infinite Eternal Being Power Wisdom and Goodness who is the Efficient Dirigent and Final Cause of all the Creator and Governour of the world And the same Nature hath put you out of doubt that All that his Creatures have or can do is due to him from whom they have it and that so far as you are capable to Know and Love and Serve him that you should employ your faculties herein And nothing is more undenyable to you than that it is our Duty to Love and Serve our God with all our heart and soul and might And it is as clear to you that neither are these Powers given us in vain nor this Duty required of us in vain nor yet that mans Natural highest Duty is made to be the way of his misery and undoing And sure that way which turneth the mind from sensual pleasures and casteth a man on the 2. malice and cruelty of the world and engageth him in so much duty which both the flesh and the world are utter enemies to would be his misery and torment if there were no Rewards and Punishments hereafter and no future Judgement to set all strait that seemed crooked in the judgements of men If all the intrinsick evidences of credibility in the Sacred Word were not sufficient If all the cntecedent Evidences of Prophecy were too little If the concomitant Evidence of all the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles and other of his servants with his own Resurrection and Ascension did seem too distant from you yet mark what subsequent continued Evidences it hath pleased God to bring even to your very sense to assure you of the truth of his Gospel and of the life to come Whence 3. cometh that Universal unreasonable enmity which in all Generations and Nations of the world from Cain and Abel till this day is found in the Carnal against the Spiritual holy seed Even a Seneca telleth us of it among Heathens against that remnant of vertue and temperance and sobriety that was found in the better sort of men Could all mankind be thus infected and hate a Saint that never hurt them much more than those that themselves confess to be most vitious if the fall of Adam were not true Have we a whole world before our eyes that are visibly polluted with that irrational Leprosie and yet shall we doubt whether our common Father was sick of that disease And do you not see that 4 the Gospel where ever it is heartily entertained doth renew the soul and change the life and make the man to be another man not only amending some little things that were amiss but making us new creatures and turning the bent of heart and life another way Though the carnal nominal Christian that never heartily received the Gospel do differ from a Heathen but in opinion and formality yet serious Christians are other men and so transformed as that their holy desires
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell even together in unity It is like the pretious oyntment upon the head that ran down upon the heard even Aarons beard that went down to the skirts of his garment As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion for there the Lord commanded the blessing even life for evermore The Translators well put this as the Contents of this Psalm The benefit of the communion of Saints § 53. 5. The concord of Believers doth greatly conduce to the successes of the Ministery and propagation of the Gospel and the conviction of unbelievers and the conversion and salvation of ungodly souls When Christ prayeth for the Unity of his Disciples he redoubleth this argument from the effect or end that the world may believe that thou hast sent me and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them c. Joh. 17. 21 23. Would this make the world believe that Christ was sent of God Yes undoubtedly if all Christians were reduced to a Holy Concord it would do more to win the Heathen world than all other means can do without it It is the Divisions and the wickedness of professed Christians that maketh Christianity so contemned by the Mahometanes and other Infidels of the world And it is the Holy Concord of Christians that would convince and draw them home to Christ. Love and Peace and concord are such vertues as all the world is forced to applaud notwithstanding natures enmity to good When the first Christian Church were all with one accord in one place and continued daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house partook of food with gladness and singleness of heart and when the multitude of believers were of one heart and of one soul c. Act. 2. 1 46. 4. 32. then did God send upon them Act. 2. 41. Act. 4. 33. the Holy Ghost and then were three thousand converted at a Sermon And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Iesus and great grace was upon them all How our Concord would promote the Conversion of Infidels Our Concord in Religion hath all these advantages for the converting of unbelievers and ungodly men 1. It is a sign that there is a constraining evidence of truth in that Gospel which doth convince so many A concurrent satisfaction and yielding to the truth is a powerful testimony for it 2. They see then that Religion is not a matter of worldly Policy and design when so many men of contrary interests do embrace it 3. And they see it is not the fruit of a Melancholy constitutions when so many men of various temperatures entertain it 4. They may see that the Gospel hath Power to conquer that self-love and self interest which is the most potent thing in vitiated nature Otherwise it could never make so many unite in God as their common interest and end 5. They may see that the Gospel and spirit of Christ is stronger than the devil and all the allurements of the flesh and world when it can make so many agree in the renouncing of all earthly vanities for the hopes of everlasting life 6. They will see that the Design and doctrine of Christianity is Good and excellent beseeming God and desirable to man when they see that it doth produce so good effects as the Love and Unity and Concord of manking 7. And it is an exceeding great and powerful help to the Conversion of the World in this respect because it is a thing so conspicuous in their sight and so intelligible to them and so approved by them They are little wrought on by the doctrine of Christ alone because it is visible or audible but to few and understood by fewer and containeth many things which nature doth distaste But the holy Concord of Believers is a thing that they are more able to discern and judge of and do more generally approve The HOLY CONCORD of Christians must be the CONVERSION of the unbelieving world if God have so great a mercy for the world which is a consideration that should not only deter us from ☜ Divisions but make us zealously study and labour with all our interest and might for the healing of the lamentable Divisions among Christians if we have the hearts of Christians and any sense of the interest of Christ. § 54. 6. The Concord of Christians doth greatly conduce to the ease and peace of particular Believers The very exercise of Love to one another doth sweeten all our lives and duties We sail towards Heaven in a pleasant Calm with wind and tide when we live in Love and peace together How easie doth it make the work of Godliness How light a burden doth Religion seem when we are all as of one heart and soul § 55. 7. Lastly Consider whether this be not the likest state to Heaven and therefore have not in it the most of Christian excellency and perfection In Heaven there is no discord but a perfect consort of glorified spirits harmoniously loving and praising their Creator And if Heaven be desirable holy Concord on earth is next desirable § 56. III. On the contrary consider well of the Mischiefs of Divisions 1. It is the killing of The Mischiefs of Division the Church as much as lyeth in the dividers or the wounding it at least Christs Body is One and it is sensible and therefore Dividing it tendeth directly to the destroying it and at least will cause its smart and pain To Reform the Church by Dividing it is no wiser than to cut out the Liver or Spleen or Gall to cleanse them from the filth that doth obstruct them and hinder them in their office you may indeed thus cleanse them but it will be a mortal cure As he that should Divide the Kingdom into two Kingdoms dissolveth the old Kingdom or part of it at least to erect two new ones so he that would divide the Catholick Church into two must thereby destroy it if he could succeed or destroy that part which divideth it self from the rest Can a member live that is cut off from the Body or a branch that is separated from the tree § 57. Quest. O but say the Romanists why then do you cut off your selves from us The Division Quest. is made by you and we are the Church and you are dead till you return to us How will you know which part is the Church when a Division is once made Answ. Are you the Church Are you the Answ. Whether Papists or Protestants are Schismaticks only Christians in the World The Church is all Christians united in Christ their Head You traiterously set up a new usurping Head and proclaim your selves to be the whole Church and condemn all that are not subjects to your new Head We keep our station and disclaim his Usurpation and deny subjection to
see how millions are there safely landed that once were in as dangerous a station as you are Through many tribulations and temptations they arrived at the Heavenly Rest Satan once did his worst against them They were tost on the Seas of this tempestuous world But they were kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation and so may you 1 Pet. 5. 1. § 19. Direct 19. When you would duly value all your present means and mercies and see whither Direct 19. they tend look up then to the souls with Christ and see whither the like mercy hath conducted them The poorest Cottage and the hardest fare are great mercies as they tend to endless blessedness This now and Heaven after is great though the thing in it self be never so small Heaven puts the value and signification upon all your mercies The wicked make Cyphers of their greatest blessings by separating them in their esteem and use from God and Heaven which is the measure of their estimate § 20. Direct 20. When you see Divisions among believers and hear one for this party and another Direct 20. for that and hear them bitterly censuring each other look up then to the Saints with Christ and think what perfect Love and Peace and Concord i◠among them Consider how unlike our factions and Schisms are to their fervent Love and Unity And how how unlike our jarring strifes and quarrels are to their harmonious Praise of God Remember in what work it is that they are so happily united even Love and Praise uncessant to Jehovah And then think whether it would not unite the Saints on earth to lay by their contendings for the preheminence in knowledge covered with the guilded name of Zeal for the Truth of God and to employ themselves in Love and Praise and to shew their emulation here in striving who shall Love God and each other with the more pure heart and fervent Love 1 Pet. 1. 22. and who shall Praise him with the most heavenly alacrity and delight Consider whether this work of blessed souls be not like to be more desirable and excellent than the work of self-conceited wrangling Sophisters And whether there be any danger of falling into Sects and Factions or falling out by emulations or contentions while we make this work of Love and Praise the matter of our religious converse And consider whether almost all the Schisms that ever vext the Church of God did not arise either by the Pastors striving who should be the greatest Luk. 22. 24 26. or by the rising up of some Sciolist or Gnostick proudly pretending to know more than others and to vindicate or bring to light some excellent Truth which others know not or oppose And when you see the hot contendings of each party about their pretended Orthodoxness or wisdom which Iam. 3. is purposely written against remember how the concord of those blessed souls doth shame this work and should make it odious to the heirs of Heaven § 21. Direct 21. When you are afraid of Death or would find more willingness to dye look up to Direct 21. the blessed souls with Christ and think that you are but to pass that way which all those souls have gone before you and to go from a world of enmity and vanity to the company of all those blessed spirits And is not their blessed state more desirable than such a vain vexatious life as this There is no malice nor slandering nor cruel persecuting no uncharitable censures contentions or divisions no ignorance nor unbelief nor strangeness unto God nothing but Holy Amiable and Delightful Joyn your selves daily to that Coelestial Society suppose your selves spectators of their Order Purity and Glory and Auditors of their harmonious Praises of Jehovah Live by faith in a daily familiarity with them say not that you want company or are alone when you may walk in the Streets of the Heavenly Ierusalem and there converse with the Prophets and Apostles and all the glorious Hosts of Heaven Converse thus with them in your Life and it will overcome the fear of death and make you long to be there with them Like one that stands by the River side and seeth his friends on the further side in a place of pleasure while his enemies are pursuing him at his back how gladly would he be over with them And it will embolden him to venture on the passage which all they have safely past before him Thus Death will be to us as the Red Sea to pass us safe to the Land of Promise while our pursuers are there overthrown and perish We should not be so strange to the World above if we thus by faith conversed with the blessed ones § 22. Direct 22. When you are overmuch troubled for the death of your Godly friends look up to Direct 22. that world of blessed souls to which they are translated and think whether it be not better for them to be there than here and whether you are not bound by the Law of Love to rejoyce with them that are thus exalted Had we but a sight of the world that they are in and the company that they are gone to we should be less displeased with the will of God in disposing of his own into so Glorious a state § 23. All these improvements may be made by a Believer of his daily converse with the souls above This is the Communion with them which we must hold on earth Not by Praying to them which God hath never encouraged us to do nor by praying for them For though it be lawful to pray for the Resurrection of their Bodies and the perfecting of their blessedness thereby yet it being a thing of absolute certainty as the day of Judgement is we must be very cautelous in the manner of our doing this lawful act it being a thing that their happiness doth not at all depend on and a thing which will-worshippers have shewed themselves so forward to abuse by stepping further into that which is unlawful as the horrid abuses of the Names and dayes and shrines and relicts of real or supposed Saints in the Papal Kingdom sadly testifieth But the necessary part of our Communion with the Saints in Heaven being of so great importance to the Church on Earth I commend it to the due consideration of the faithful whether our forgetfulness of it is not to be much repented of and whether it be not a work to be more seriously minded for the time to come § 24. And I must confess I know not why it should be thought unlawful to celebrate the memorial of the life or martyrdome of any extraordinary servant of God by an Anniversary solemnity on a set appropriate day It is but to keep the thankful remembrance of Gods mercy to the Church and sure the life and death of such is not the smallest of the Churches mercies here on earth If it be lawful on the 5 of November to celebrate the memorial of
place 2. And great haste allowed me not Time to transpose them If you say that in such a work I should take time I answer You are no competent judges unless you knew me and the rest of my work and the likelyhood that my time will be but short They that had rather take my Writings with such defects which are the effects of haste than have none of them may use them and the rest are free to despise them and neglect them Two or three Questions about the Scripture I would have put nearer the beginning if I could have time But seeing I cannot it 's easie for you to transpose them in the reading III. The resolution of these Cases so much avoideth all the extreams that I look they should be displeasing to all that vast number of Christians who involve themselves in the opinions and interests of their several sects as such and that hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons But there will be still a certain number of truly Catholick impartial Readers whose favourable acceptance I confidently prognosticate and who being out of the dust and noise and passions of contending sides and parties and their interests will see a self-evidencing Light in those solutions which are put off here briefly without the pomp of formal argumentation or perswading Oratory The eternal Light reveal himself to us by Christ who is the Light of the World and by the Illumination of the spirit and word of Light that we may walk in the Light as the Children of Light till we come to the World of Glorious Everlasting Light And what other defect soever our knowledge have if any man hath knowledge enough to kindle in him the Love of God the same is known of Him and therefore is Beloved by Him and shall be Blessed with and in Him for ever 1 Cor. 8. 1 2 3. CASES OF CONSCIENCE ABOUT Matters Ecclesiastical Quest. 1. How to know which is the true Church among all pretenders that a Christians Conscience may be quiet in his Relation and Communion I HAVE written so much of this already in four Books viz. one called The Safe Religion another called A Key for Catholicks another called The Visibility of the Church another called A true Catholick and the Catholick Church described that I shall say now but a little and yet enough to an impartial considerate Reader The terms must first be opened 1. By a Church is meant a Society of Christians as such And it is sometimes taken Narrowly for the Body or Members as distinct from the Head as the word Kingdom is taken for the Subjects only as distinct from the King And sometimes more fully and properly for the whole Political Society as constituted of its Head and Body or the Pars Imperans pars Subdita 2. The word Church thus taken signifieth sometime the Universal Church called Catholick which consisteth of Christ and his Body Politick or Mystical And sometime some Part only of the Universal Church And so it is taken either for a subordinate Political Part or for a Community or a Part considered as Consociate but not Political or as many particular Political Churches Agreeing and holding Concord and Communion without any Comon Head save the Universal Head 3. Such Political Churches are either of Divine Constitution and Policy or only of Humane 2. By Christians I mean such as Profess the Essentials of the Christian Religion For we speak of the Church as Visible 3. By True may be meant either Reality of Essence opposite to that which is not really a 1 Cor. 11. 3. 1 Cor. 12 12. Eph. 1. 22 23. 1 Cor. 6 15. 1 Cor. 12. 27. Eph. 4. 4 5. Matth. 28. 19 20. Church in this univocal acception or else Sound and Orthodox in the Integrals as opposite to erroneous and defiled with much enormity And now I thus decide that question Prop. 1. The True Catholick Church consisteth of Christ the Heâ—d and all Christians as his Body or the Members As the Kingdom consisteth of the King and his Subjects Prop. 2. As all the sincere Heart-Covenanters make up the Church as regenerate and mystical or invisible so that all that are Christened that is Baptized and profess Consent to all the Essentials of the Baptismal Covenant not having Apostatized nor being by lawful Power Excommunicated are Christians and make up the Church as Visible Prop. 3. Therefore there is but One Universal Church because it containeth all Christians and so Ephes. 4 4 5. 1 Cor. 1â— 12. Mark 16 16. Rom 14. 1 6 7. 15. 1 3 4 leaveth out none to be the matter of another Prop. 4. It is not Ignorance or Error about the meer Integrals of Christianity which maketh them no Christians who hold the Essentials that is the Baptismal Covenant Prop. 5. That the Baptismal Covenant might be rightly understood and professed the Churches have still used the Creed as the explication of the Covenant in point of faith and taken it for 1 Cor. 15 1 2 c. the Symbol of the Christian Belief And no further profession of faith was or is to be required as Matth. 28. 19 20. necessary to the Being of Christianity Prop. 6. If proud Usurpers or Censurers take on them to excommunicate or unchristian or unchurch others without authority and cause this maketh them not to be no Christians or no Churches Rom. 14. 3 4. John that are so used Prop. 7. Therefore to know which is the true Catholick or Universal Church is but to know who Rom. 6 1 2 c. are Baptized-Professing-Christians Prop. 8. The Reformed Churches the Lutherans the Abassines the Copties the Syrians the Armenians Ephes. 4. 4. 5. the Jacobites the Georgians the Maronites the Greeks the Moscovites and the Romanists do all receive Baptism in all its visible Essentials and profess all the Essentials of the Christian Religion though not with the same Integrity Prop. 9. He that denyeth any one essential part in it self is so a Heretick as to be no Christian nor true member of the Church if it be justly proved or notorious that is none ought to take him Tit. 3. â—â— 3 John for a Visible Christian who know the proof of his denying that essential part of Christianity or to whom it is notorious Prop. 10. He that holdeth the Essentials primarily and with them holdeth some error which by James 3 â— Phi. 3. 15 16. Heb. 5. 1 2. unseen consequence subverteth some Essential point but holdeth the Essentials so much faster that he would forsake his error if he saw the inconsistence is a Christian notwithstanding And if the name Heretick be applicable to him it is but in such a sense as is consistent with Christianity Prop. 11. He that is judged a Heretick and no Christian justly by others must be lawfully T it 3. 10. Matth. 18. 15. cited and heard plead his Cause and be judged upon sufficient proof and not
more mercy from Christ than there is faith in Christ. 14. No man could ever be saved without Believing in God as a merciful pardoning saving God though many have been saved who knew not the person of Christ determinately For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him who is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him 12 Ps. 145. 9. 〈…〉 4. 10. Rom. 10. 20. 13 Act. 4. 12. Joh. 14. 6. 14 Heb. 11. 6. Act. 10. 35. 2 Thes. 1. 11 12. Jâ—r 10. 25. 〈…〉 10. 12 13 1â— 15. 15. All Nations on Earth that have not the Gospel are obliged by God to the use of certain means 15 Act. 14. 17. 17. 27 28 29 30. Rom. 1. 19 20 21 22. 2. 4 7 10 14 15 16 27. Isa. 55. 6 7. and improvement of certain mercies in order or tendency to their Salvation And it is their sin if they use them not 16. God hath appointed no means in vain which men must either not use or use despairingly But his Command to use any means for any end containeth though not an explicite promise yet great and comfortable encouragement to use that means in hope 17. Therefore the world is now in comparison of the Catholick Church much like what it was before Christs incarnation in comparison of the Jews Church who yet had many wayes great 16 Jonah 4. 2. 3. 10. Act. 10. 35. Mal. 3. 14. Isa. 45. 19. Deut. 32. 47. Mal. 1. 10. Prov. 1. 22 23 24. Gâ—n 4. 7. Rom. 3. Rom. 2. advantage though God was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles who had a Law written in their hearts and an accusing or excusing Conscience 18. Those over-doing Divines who pretend to be certain that all the World are damned that are not Christians do add to Gods word and are great agents for Satan to tempt men to Infidelity and â—o Athâ—ism it self and to disswade mankind from discerning the Infinite goodness of God and occasion many to deny the Immortality of the soul rather than they will believe that five parts in six of the world now and almost all before Christs incarnation have Immortal souls purposely created in thâ—m to be damned without any propounded means and possibility-natural of râ—tnedy And as I know they will pour out their bitter censure on these lines which I could avoid if I regarded it more than truth so with what measure they mete it shall be measured to them and others will dâ—mn them as confidently as they damn almost all the world And I will be bold to censure that they are UNDOERS of the Church by OVER DOING See more in my Vindication of Gods Goodness Quest. 158. Should not Christians take up with Scripture wisdom only without studying Philosophy and other Heathens humane Learning Answ. I Have already proved the usefulness of common knowledge called Humane Learning by twenty Reasons in my book called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity pag. 163. part 2. sect 23. Prov. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Psal. 92. 5 6. 104. 24 25. 113. 5 6. 107. 8 15 21. Psal. 66. 3. 4. Psal. 111. 2 3 4 5 6. 145. 7 8 9 10 11 17 18 19. Act. 2. 6 7 8 9. 21. 40. 24. 2. 1 Cor. 14. 2 4 9 13 14 19 26 27. Rev. 9. 11. 14. 16. 5. 9. Psal. 19. 1 2 3. 94. 10. 139. 6. Prov. 2. 1 2 3 4. 8. 9 10 12. 1 Cor. 15. 34. Prov. 19. 2. Job 32. 8. 38. 36. Yet I refer the Reader to my Treat of Knowledge which sheweth the Vanâ—ty of pretended Learning to which I refer the Reader And only say now 1. Grace presupposeth Nature We are men in order of nature at least before we are Saints and Reason is before supernatural Revelation 2. Common knowledge therefore is subservient unto faith We must know the Creator and his works And the Redeemer restoreth us to the due knowledge of the Creator Humane Learning in the sense in question is also Divine God is the Author of the light of nature as well as of grace We have more than Heathens but must not therefore have less and cast away the good that is common to them and us Else we must not have souls bodies reason health time meat drink cloaths c. because Heathens have them Gods works are honourable sought out of all them that have pleasure therein And physical Philosophy is nothing but the knowledge of Gods works 3. And the knowledge of Languages is necessary both for humane converse and for the understanding of the Scriptures themselves The Scriptures contain not a Greek and Hebrew Grammar to understand the language in which they are written but suppose us otherwise taught those tongues that we may interpret them 4. The use of the Gospel is not to teach us all things needful to be known but to teach us on supposition of our common knowledge how to advance higher to supernatural saving knowledge â—aith Love and practice Scripture telleth us not how to build a house to plow sow weave or make our works of art Every one that learneth his Countrey tongue of his Parents hath humane Learning of the same sort with the learning of Greek and Hebrew He that learneth not to read cannot read the Bible And he that understandeth it not in the Original tongues must trust other mens words that have Humane Learning or else remain a stranger to it But though none but proud fools will deny the need of that humane Learning which improveth Col. 2. 8 9 23. 1 Cor. 2. 1 4 5 6 13. 3. 19. 2 Cor. â— 12. â—ob 28. 28. Prov. 1. 7. 9. 10. Joh. 17. 3. Gal. 4. 9. Eph. 3. 10. 1 Joh. 2. 13 14. Col. 1. 9 27 28. Eph. 6. 19. 1 Cor. 2. 11. Col. 3. 16. nature and is subservient to our knowledge of supernatural Revelations yet well doth Paul admonish us to take heed that none deceive us by vain Philosophy and faith that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and that the knowledge of Christ Crucified is the true Christian Philosophy or Wisdom For indeed the dark Philosophers groping after the knowledge of God did frequently stumble and did introduce abundance of Logical and Physical vanities uncertainties and â—alsities under the name of Philosophy by meer niceties and high pretendings seeking for the glory of wisdom to themselves when as it is one thing to know Gods works and God in them and another thing to compose a systeme of Physicks and Metaphysicks containing abundance of errours and confusion and jumbling a few certainties with a great many uncertainties and untruths and every sect pulling down what others asserted and all of them disproving the methods and assertions of others and none proving their
for them whose cause you undertake and where God who is the Lover of Justice doth require it § 7. Direct 5. Be acquainted with the temptations which most endanger you in your place and Direct 5. go continually armed against them with the true remedies and with Christian faith and watchfulness and resolution You will keep your innocency and consequently your God if you see to it that you love nothing better than that which you should keep No man will chaffer away his commodity for any thing which he judgeth to be worse and less useful to him Know well how little friends or wealth will do for you in comparison of God and you will not hear them when they speak against God Luke 14. 26. 17. 33. When one of his friends was importunate with P. Rutilius to do him an unjust courtesie and angrily said What use have I Chilon in Laert p. 43. mihi saith Sibi non esse conscium in tota vita ingratitudinis una tamen re se modice moveri quod cum semel inter amicos illi judicandum esset neque contra jus agere aliquid vellet persuaserit amico judicium à se provocaret ut sic nimirum utrumque legem amicum servaret This was his injustice of which we repented of thy friendship if thou wilt not grant my request he answered him And what use have I of thy friendship if for thy sake I must be urged to do unjustly It is a grave saying of Plutarch Pulchrum quidem est justitia regnum adipisci pulchrum etiam regno justitiam anteponere Nam virtus alterum ita illustrem reddidit ut regno dignus judicaretur alterum ita magnum ut id contemnerit Plut. in Lycurg Numa But specially remember who hath said What shall it profit a man to win all the world and lose his soul And that Temptations surprize you not be deliberate and take time and be not too hasty in owning or opposing a cause or person till you are well informed As Seneca saith of Anger so say I here Dandum semper est tempus Veritatem enim dies aperit Potest poena dilata exigi cum non potest exacta revocari It s more than a shame to say I was mistaken when you have done another man wrong by your temerity CHAP. V. The Duty of Physicions NEither is it my purpose to give any occasion to the learned men of this honourable profession to say that I intermeddle in the mysteries or matters of their art I shall only tell them and that very briefly what God and Conscience will expect from them § 1. Direct 1. Be sure that the saving of mens lives and health be first and chiefly in your Intention Direct 1. before any gain or honour of your own I know you may lawfully have respect both to your maintenance and honour But in a second place only as a far lesser good than the lives of men If money be your Ultimate end you debase your profession which as exercised by you can be no more to your honour or comfort than your own intention carryeth it It is more the End than the Means that ennobleth or debaseth men If gain be the thing which you chiefly seek the matter is not very great to you whether you seek it by medicining men or beasts or by lower means than either of them To others indeed it may be a very great benefit whose lives you have been a means to save but to your selves it will be no greater than your intention maketh it If the honouring and pleasing God and the publick good and the saving of mens lives be really first and highest in your desires then it is God that you serve in your profession Otherwise you do but serve your selves And take heed lest you here deceive your selves by thinking that the Good of others is your end and dearer to you than your gain because your Reason telleth you it is better and ought to be preferred For God and the publick good are not every mans end that can speak highly of them and say they should be so If most of the world do practically prefer their carnal prosperity even before their souls while they speak of the World as disgracefully as others and call it Vanity how much more easily may you deceive your selves in preferring your gain before mens lives while your tongue can speak contemptuously of gain § 2. Direct 2. Be ready to help the poor as well as the rich Differencing them no further than the Direct 2. publick good requireth you to do Let not the health or lives of men be neglected because they have no money to give you Many poor people perish for want of means because they are discouraged from going to Physicions through the emptiness of their purses In such a case you must not only help them gratis but also appoint the cheapest Medicines for them § 3. Direct 3. Adventure not unnecessarily on things beyond your skill but in difficult cases perswade Direct 3. your patients to use the help of abler Physicions if there be any to be had though it be against your own commodity So far should you be from envying the greater esteem and practice of abler men and from all unworthy aspersions or detraction that you should do your best to perswade all your patients to seek their counsels when ever the danger of their lives or health requireth it For their Lives are of greater value than your gain So abstruse and conjectural is the business of your profession that it requireth very high accomplishments to be a Physicion indeed If there concur not 1. A natural strength of Reason and sagacity 2. And a great deal of study reading and acquaintance with the way of excellent men 3. And considerable experience of your own to ripen all this you have cause to be very fearful and cautelous in your practice lest you sacrifice mens lives to your ignorance and temerity And one man that hath all these accomplishments in a high degree may do As over-valuing mens own understandings in Religion is the ruine of souls and Churches so overvalluing mens â—aw unexperienced apprehensions in Physick costeth multitudes their lives I know not whether a â—ew able judicious experienced Physâ—cions cure more oâ— the rest kill more more good than a hundred smatterers And when you are conscious of a defect in any of these should not reason and conscience command you to perswade the sick to seek out to those that are abler than your selves Should mens lives be hazzarded that you may get by it a little fordid gain It is so great a doubt whether the ignorant unexperienced sort of Physicions do cure or hurt more that it hath brought the vulgar in many Countreys into a contempt of Physicions § 4. Direct 4. Depend on God for your direction and success Earnestly crave his help and blessing in Direct 4. all your undertakings Without this all
to do evil Eccles. 8. 11. § 31. Direct 15. But alas how short is the prosperity of the wicked Read Psal. 73. 37. Delay Direct 15. is no forgiveness They stay but till the Assize And will that tempt you to do as they How unthankfully do sinners deal with with God! If he should kill you and plague you that would not please you And yet if he forbear you you are emboldened by it in your sin Thus his patience is turned against him But the stroke will be the heavier when it falls Dost thou think those men will alwayes flourish Will they alway domineer and revell Will they alwayes dwell in the houses where they now dwell and possess those Lands and be honoured and served as now they are O how quickly and how dreadfully will the case be changed with them O could you but foresee now what faces they will have and what heavy hearts and with what bitter exclamations they will at last cry out against themselves for all their folly and wish that they had never been deceived by prosperity but rather had the portion of a Lozarus If you saw how they are but fatted for the slaughter and in what a dolorous misery their wealth and sport and honours will leave them you would lament their case and think so great a destruction were soon enough and not desire to be partners in their lot § 32. Tempt 16. Another temptation is their own prosperity They think God when he prospereth Tempt 16. them is not so angry with them as Preachers tell them And it is a very hard thing in health and prosperity to lay to heart either sin or threatnings and to have such serious lively thoughts of the life to come as men that are wakened by adversity have and specially men that are familiar with death Prosperity is the greatest temptation to security and delaying repentance and putting off preparation for eternity Overcome prosperity and you overcome your greatest snare § 33. Direct 16. Go into the Sanctuary yea go into the Church-yard and see the End And Direct 1◠〈…〉 judge by those Skulls and Bones and dust if you cannot judge by the fore-â—â—â—â—ings of God what prosperity is Judge by the experience of all the world Doth it not leave them â—â—â—â— in sorrow at last Wo to the man that hath his portion in this life O miserable health and wealth and honour which procureth the death and shame and utter destruction of the soul Was not he in as prosperous a case as you Luke 16. that quickly cryed out in vain for a drop of water to cool his Tongue There is none of you so sensless as not to know that you must dye And must you dye Must you certainly dye and shall that day be no better prepared for Shall present prosperity make you forget it and live as if you must live here for ever Do you make so great difference between that which is and that which will be as to make as great a matter of it as others when it comes and to make no more of it when it is but coming O man what is an inch of hasty time How quickly is it gone Thou art going hence apace and almost gone Doth God give thee the mercy of a few dayes or years of health to make all thy preparations in for eternity and doth this mercy turn to thy deceit and dost thou turn it so much contrary to the ends for which it was given thee Wilt thou surfeit on Mercy and destroy thy soul with it Sense feeleth and perceiveth what now is but thou hast Reason to foresee what will be Wilt thou play in Harvest and forget the Winter § 34. Tempt 17. Another great Temptation to hinder Conversion is the example and countenance of Tempt 17. Great Ones that are ungodly when Landlords and men in power are sensual and enemies to a holy life and speak reproachfully of it their inferiours by the reverence which they bear to worldly wealth and greatness are easily drawn to say as they Also when men reputed Learned and Wise are of another mind and especially when subtile enemies speak that reproach against it which they cannot answer § 35. Direct 17. To this I spake in the end of the first Part of this Chapter No man is so great Direct 17. and wise as God See whether he say as they do in his word The greatest that provoke him can no more save themselves from his vengeance than the poorest beggars What work made he with a Pharaâ—h and got himself a name by his hard heartedness and impenitency He can send Worms to eat an arrogant Herod when the people cry him up as a God! Where are now the Caesars and Alexanders of the world The Rulers and Pharisees believed not in Christ Iohn 7. 48. Wilt not thou therefore believe in him The Governour of the Countrey condemned him to dye and wilt thou condemn him The Kings of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed saying let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us Psal. 2. 2 3. Wilt thou therefore joyn in the Conspiracy When he that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision He will break them with an iron rod and dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel unless they be wise and kiss the Son and serve the Lord with fear before his wrath be kindled and they perish Psal. 2. 4 9 10 11 12. If thy Landlord or Great ones shall be thy God and be honoured and obeyed before God and against him trust to them and call on them in the hour of thy distress and take such a salvation as they can give thee Teach not God what choice to make and whom to reveal his mysteries to He chooseth not alwayes the Learned Scribe nor the mighty man Christ himself saith Matth. 11. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Read Mr. 〈…〉 sermon â—n 1 â—â—â—â— 1. 2â— Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight If this reason satisfie you not follow them and speed as they If they are Greater and Wiser than God let them be your Gods 1 Cor. 1. 26. You see your calling how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and 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 It is another kind of Greatness Honour and Wisdom which God bestoweth on the poorest Saints than the world can give Worldlings will shortly be aweary of their portion