A SUPPLEMENT TO THE Morning-Exercise At CRIPPLEGATE: OR, Several more Cases of Conscience Practically Resolved by sundry Ministers. The Second Edition. Our rejoicing is this, the Testimony of our Conscience, that in simplicity and Godly sincerity, not with fleshly Wisdom, but by the Grace of God, we have had our conversation in the World, 2 Cor. 1.12. Conscientia— est nescio quid divinum & nunquam perit, officium nostrum nobis semper ad memoriam revocat. Doroth. Bibl. Pat. T. 4. p. 769. Quaerimus, quomodo animus semper aequalis, secundoque cursu eat, & propitius sibi sit, & sua laetus adspiciat: & hoc gaudium non interrumpat, sed placido statu maneat, nec attollens se unquam, nec deprimens. Seneca de Tranq. anim. p. 678. LONDON, Printed for Thomas Cockerill, at the Sign of the Atlas in Cornhill, near the Royal-Exchange. MDCLXXVI. To that part of Christ's Flock to which I am more specially related, Grace, Mercy and Peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. Beloved Christians, AS I called in a Contribution of Help for the composing of a Legacy for others, before my Civil Death; so I now tender you A Supplement to that Exercise, for your better liveliness of Spiritual Life. I shall say nothing to commend these Sermons to you; my Brethren are all herein unanimous, to seek the Church's Profit, not their own Applause; only this I must say, to prevent mistake, viz. If any curious Reader shall find matter of Exception (besides the Errors of Printing, which I confess are too many) the blame must be Personal, because this joynt-work is no otherwise Social, than as single Pearls strung together make one Necklace. I easily grant here's not yet a stating of all important Cases, yet be this known to you, whoever shall follow these Directions, shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the work of the Lord, nor miss of an abundant entrance into his Everlasting Kingdom. Live up to what you have attained, and you may be confident that what is further wanting, God will, as you want it, supply it. Be assured of this, that you will get more skill and strength for all necessary Graces and Duties by an humble, serious, constant Course of Godliness, than you possibly can do by captious Criticisms, and wrangling Contentions about lesser things, in which too many spend their Lives. I herein appeal to your Consciences, should not these Sermons answer expectation, but according to your judgement, either the Cases are ill chose, or not well stated; in that the Matter is either defective or redundant, the Language too curious or too careless, the Directions too common or too singular: I appeal from your Passions to your Consciences, and downright charge you in the Name of my Master, who must be your Judge, that you read with other Spectacles. These are not calculated to humour you, but to better you. These are not Duties to be caviled at, but to be practised. O that you may be effectually persuaded, 1. That your Love to God Sermon 1 must be predominant, and growing, or you degrade yourselves below the Beasts. 2. That your Love to Man must be universal, and spiritual, Sermon 2 Sermon 3 or you can't evidence your Love to God. 3. That your Love to the World must truckle under both, be subservient to both, and never be otherwise; for if the World master you, 'twill ●●in you. Oh that your awakened Sermon 4 Consciences may now alarm you, 4. To catch at Salvation while it is Sermon 5 offered, lest you perish for ever. Though 'tis a vexed Problem, 5. What Knowledge is necessary to Salvation, yet can you satisfy your Consciences, without diligent Endeavours to proportion your Knowledge to the Means you enjoy? And to bring forth Fruits every day, as those that in some Sermon 6 measure feel; 6. What 'tis to be in the Spirit on the Lord's Day; and Sermon 7, 8. that the Word 7. Preached, and 8. Read, may be so impressed upon Heart and Life, that it may be an infallible Evidence you are taught of God; And when through weakness of the Flesh your Duties may prove Sermon 9 wearisome, 9 Learn to refresh yourselves with the Songs of Zion. But would you have more particular Directions? They are before you. Sermon 10 Here you may learn true Christianity, 10. In the daily Improvement of Sermon 11 your Baptism. Here you may learn, 11. How to propagate Religion to Posterity, by riveting Truth upon your own Hearts, and teaching it to Sermon 12 others; but while you are giving Milk to Babes, 12. Excuse not yourselves upon any account whatsoever from frequent and hungry feeding upon stronger Meat. Be you as willing to seal to the Conditions of the Covenant, as you are desirous God should seal to the Promises of it. But who is sufficient for these things? Pour out your Hearts therefore, and Sermon 13 list up your Souls to God in all manner of Prayer. 13. Let extraordinary Sermon 14 Prayer answer that title, 14. Your secret Prayer speak secret Communion Sermon 15 with God. 15. Let your Family prayer bring down Blessings upon your Family, that you be neither Holy nor Happy alone, but that when your Family-relations shall cease, they may bless God to Eternity that ever there were such Relations between you. Now therefore, Sermon 16 16. Let Husbands and Wives be the liveliest Emblems in the World of Sermon 17 Christ and his Church. 17. Let Parents and Children be the Evidences and Pledges of God's special presence with this, and the next Sermon 18 Generation. 18. Let Masters and Servants adorn the Gospel by their exemplary Faithfulness to their Heavenly Master. Thus doing, Sermon 19 19 Your Thoughts will be cured, and in them you'll enjoy God. Sermon 20 20. Your Tongues will in some sense be God's glory as well as yours. But Sermon 21 then, 21. You must cautiously avoid the catching Canker of Detraction: Sermon 22 22. So you sha●l by your Conversations convince the World, there's an Excellency in Christianity. And that all this may be as well acceptable Sermon 23 to God as approved of Men, 23. Do all in the Name of Christ; and Sermon 24 while you thus embark with Christ, 24. He'll steer you safe between Presumption and Despair, those Rocks upon one of which most perish. Hereby also, 25. You'll make your Port with the cheering Joys of an Sermon 25 Heroic Faith; 26. And keep above all Vexing Discontents with your Sermon 26 Worldly Condition. 27. And what Afflictions God's wise Love shall Sermon 27 inflict, you'll be able to bear them with more than a Roman Courage. 28. And though reproachful Reproofs may bear hard upon you, you'll not Sermon 28 fret, but welcome them as a precious Balm. But when you have done your best, yet through the Remainders of Corruption, Gild will be contracted, 29. You can't but be restless till it be removed. 30. Then you Sermon 29, 30. may rather hope for, than fear Death, and 31. Grace thus in Exercise, Sermon 31 is but one degree from Glory. Now Christians, though there are many particular Cases wherein you'll need Direction, yet let me close with this Request: Try your utmost, what the practical Transcript of these Directions into your Hearts and Lives will produce, ere you complain for more. That these may be useful to you (whoever else censures them as useless) shall be the hearty Prayer of June 19 1674. Your worthless Servant, Samuel Annesley. The CONTENTS. Dr. Annesley Serm. 1 HOw may we attain to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds? Mat. 22.37, 38. Mr. Milward Serm. 2 How ought we to love our Neighbour as ourselves? Mat. 22.39. Mr. Gale Serm. 3 Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God? 1 Joh. 2.15. Mr. Jenkyn Serm. 4 How may we improve the present season of grace? 2 Cor. 6.1, 2. Mr. Veal Serm. 5 What spiritual knowledge they ought to seek for, that desire to be saved. etc. Isa. 27.11. Mr. Case Serm. 6 How ought the Sabbath to be sanctified? Isa. 58.13, 14. Mr. Senior Serm. 7 How may we hear the Word with profit? James 1.21. Mr. Watson Serm. 8 How may we read the Scriptures with most spiritual profit? Deut. 17.19. Mr. Wells Serm. 9 How may we make melody in our hearts with singing of Psalms? Eph. 5.19. Dr. Manton Serm. 10 How ought we to improve our Baptism? Acts 2.38. Mr. Lie Serm. 11 By what spiritual rules may catechising be best managed? Prov. 22.6. Mr. Wadsworth Serm. 12 How may it appear to be every Christian's indispensable duty to partake of the Lord's Supper? 1 Cor. 11.24. Mr. Barker Serm. 13 A Religious fast. Mark 2.20. Mr. Lee Serm. 14 How to manage secret Prayer, that it may be prevalent with God to the comfort, and satisfaction of our Souls. Mat. 6.6. Mr. Doolitle Serm. 15 How may the Duty of Family-prayer be best managed? Josh. 24.15. Mr. Steel Serm. 16 What are the Duties of Husbands, and Wives towards each other? Eph. 5.33. Mr. Adam's Serm. 17 What are the Duties of Parents, and Children, Coloss. 3.20, 21. Mr. Janeway Serm. 18 What are the Duties of Masters and Servants? Eph. 6.5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Mr. S. C. Serm. 19 The sinfulness and cure of thoughts. Gen. 6.5. Mr. West Serm. 20 How must we govern our tongues? Eph. 4.29. Mr. Poole Serm. 21 How may detraction be best prevented, or cured? Psal. 15.3. Mr. Baxter Serm. 22 What is that light, which must shine before men in the works of Christ's Disciples? Matth. 5.16. Dr. Wilkinson Serm. 23 How must we do all in the Name of Christ? Col. 3.17. Mr. Cole Serm. 24 How may we steer an even course between Presumption, and Despair? Luke 3.5, 6. Mr. Fowler Serm. 25 How Christians may get such a faith, as may not only be saving at last, but comfortable and joyful at the present. 2 Pet. 1.8. Dr. Jacomb Serm. 26 How Christians may learn in every state to be content. Phil. 4.11. Dr. G. Serm. 27 How we may so bear afflictions, as neither to despise them, nor faint under them. Heb. 12.5. Dr. Owen Serm. 28 How may we bring our Hearts to receive Reproofs? Psal. 141.5. Mr. T. Vincent Serm. 29 Wherein doth appear the blessedness of forgiveness, and how it may be attained? Psal. 32.1. Mr. Silvester Serm. 30 How may we overcome the inordinate love of Life, and fear of Death? Acts 20.24. Mr. Hook Serm. 31 What gifts of Grace are chief to be exercised in order to an actual preparation for the coming of Christ by Death, and Judgement. Mat. 25.10. Quest. How may we attain to love God with all our Hearts, Souls, and Minds? Serm. I. Matth. 22.37, 38. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great Commandment. IT is fit this Exercise should begin with a general Introduction, that may indifferently serve every Sermon that shall be Preached. I should be much mistaken, and so would you too, should we think this Text unsuitable: let's therefore, not only in the fear, but also in the love of God, address ourselves to the management of it. This Command you have in Deut. 6.5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. This Command is not found in Exodus, nor in Leviticus, but only in Deuteronomy, i. e. the second Law of Moses, which as some express it, bore a Type of the second Law, viz. the Evangelical, to which this Command is proper; for the Old Law was a Law of fear tending to bondage, and therefore Moses mentions the incussion of terror in the giving of it, which when he hath dispatched, he gins the following Chapter with Love, noting, that the Holy Ghost will cause the Law of Love, to succeed the Law of Fear. And 'tis observable that the Jews read this place with the highest observation: and their Scribes writ the first and last words of the Preface to it with greater Letters than ordinary, to amplify the sense, and to note that this is the beginning and the end of the Divine Law; and they read this Scripture morning and evening with great * Jansen. Harmon. The Occasion Religion. The occasion of Christ's pressing this command upon them at this time was this; when the Pharisees heard how he had baffled the Sadduces, and stopped their mouths, with so proper and fit an answer, that they had no more to say, they consult how they may show their acumen and sharpness of wit, to diminish Christ's credit concerning his Doctrine, and Skill in Scripture; and therefore they choose out one of their most accomplished Interpreters of the Law, captiously to propose an excellent question. They call him Master, whose Disciples they will not be: they inquire after the Great Commandment, who will not duly observe the least: they thought Christ could not return such an answer, but that they might very plausibly except against it. * Cartw. Harm. Auth. imperfect. op. If Christ should have named any one command to be the greatest, their exception was ready, why not another as great as that? but Christ's wisdom shames their subtlety; Christ doth not call any command Great, with the lessening of the rest; but he repeats the sum of the whole Law, and distinguisheth it into two Great Commands, according to the subordination of their Objects. Thou shalt love, etc. Though the excellency of the subject calls for the enlargement of your hearts, yet the copiousness of it requires the contracting of my discourse. To save time therefore, let me open my Text, and Case both together. The Case is this. The Case. What is it to love God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind; and how may we be able to do it? In short, we must love God, as near as it is possible, infinitely. For directions in this Case, I shall follow this method, 1. Show you, what it is to love God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind. 2. I shall endeavour to demonstrate, that it is our unquestionable, and indispensable duty so to love God. 3. I shall acquaint you what Abilities are requisite for the well-discharging of this duty, and how to attain them. 4. I shall give you directions how to improve and augment all the abilities we can get, that we may have a growing love to God. 5. I shall close with the best persuasives I can think of, that you would be graciously ambitious of such qualifications, and vigorously diligent in such duties. 1. What is it to love God with all the heart, soul, and mind? We must not be too curious in distinguishing these words: the same thing is meant, when the words are used singly; as a 1 King. 14.8. David is said to follow God with all his heart: and doubly; b 2 King. 23.3. Josiah made his people (as well as himself) to covenant to walk after the Lord with all their heart, and all their soul: and where three words are used; as c Deut. 6 5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: and when four words are used; as d Mark 12.30. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. Love to God must go through, and possess our whole nature and all the powers of it. The mind must think of God: the will must delight in God; in short, e Bucer. our whole strength must be employed to please him. We must love nothing more than God, nothing equal with God; we must love God above all, and that for himself; but all other things in God, and for God. We must be willing to lose all; yea, life itself, rather than to admit any thing contrary to the love of God. * Gerhard Harm. All these expressions denote the intenseness of our affections, the unexpressibleness of our obligation, and the contemptibleness of every thing that shall challenge a share in our love. All these expressions admonish us of our infirmity, provoke us to humility, and set us a longing after a better life. 'Tis a notable expression of one g Auth. impers. operis. The love of the heart is not understood, but felt; the love of the soul is not felt, but understood; because the love of the soul is its judgement: He that loves God as he is here commanded, believes that all good is in God, and that God is all that is good; and that without God there is no good: he believes that God is All Power, and Wisdom; and that without God there's neither Power, nor Wisdom, etc. But notwithstanding all that hath been spoken, no doubt but there is a singular emphasis in the words; and the Holy Ghost intends a more full declaration of the manner of our love, by these several expressions. Though to be over-critical in the distinguishing of these words, will rather intricate, than explicate this great command; yet to follow a plain Scriptural interpretation will give light into the duty. Let's inquire therefore, 1. What it is to love. 2. What it is to love God. 3. What it is to love God in that manner here expressed. 1. What is love? Love is an affection of union, whereby we desire, What love is. or enjoy perpetual union with the thing loved h Mar. L. It is not a carnal love I am now to speak of; the Philosopher could observe, that there can be no true love among wicked men. It is not a natural love, for that may as well be brutish, as rational; and divine love is transcendently rational. It is not a (merely) moral love, for that consists in a mean, but divine love is always in an extreme. Divine love is a compound of all the former, but it adds infinitely more to them, than it borrows of them. Divine love is supernaturally natural; it turns Moral virtues into Spiritual graces. It engageth men to attempt as much for the glorifying of God, as all the creatures besides, from the highest Angel to the most insensible Stone. 2. What it is love to God? Methinks a lax description best suits my design. This Divine love, 'tis the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God: What it is to love God. 'tis the ecstasy and ravishment of the heart in God; 'tis the Soul's losing its self in God: 'tis the continual working of the heart towards God: every faculty of the Soul is actually engaged: The Mind is musing and plodding how to please God, and enjoy him; the Will is graciously obstinate, the policy of hell cannot charm it off its object; the Affections are all Passions in their eager motions towards God; the Conscience is a busybody necessitating the whole man to a jealous watch. I said this love 'tis the enlargement of the heart towards God; when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, 'tis as the breaking of a Ball of lightning, it sets all on a flame immediately. It is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God; the highest Rhetoric is too flat to express it, as is obvious in that Song of Songs, that Song of loves. I have no way to set this out unto you, but by words, the plainest and most intelligible expressions I can give you, shall be by several similitudes, which I shall pursue till they leave me to admiration: I shall borrow Metaphors from things without life, from Plants, from sensitive Creatures, from Man. 1. The Soul's love to God may be a little shadowed forth, Metaphors to illustrate what it is to love God. by the love of the Iron to the Loadstone, which ariseth from a hidden quality (though to say so, is but the hiding of our ignorance) the motion of the Iron toward the Loadstone is slow while at a distance; but quick, when near: and when it but touches it, it clings so fast, that unless forced, 'twill never part; and when it is parted, 'twill to the farthest part of the World retain the virtue of its touch: so the soul while at a distance from God it moves slowly, but as the Father draws, it runs; and when once it comes to be graciously united, the Apostle asks i Rom. 8.35. Who shall separate us from the love of God? (not only who shall hinder us from partaking of God's love, but who can take us off from our loving of God?) Christ gives the answer k John 10.28.29. , their union with God, their enjoyment of God is inseparable; and though they may (as sometimes they will in their imperfect state) have some warping on their parts, and some withdrawing on God's, yet their love to God, (in the lowest ebb) tremblingly hankers after him, the soul cannot forget its alone restingplace l Psal. 116.7. 2. Our Love to God is like the love of the Flower of the Sun to the Sun. It springs of a very little seed: it is not only our Faith but our Love, that is at first like a grain of mustardseed; it grows the fastest of any Flower whatsoever: It is not only Faith, but Love that grows exceedingly m 2 Thes. 1.3. . It always turns and bows itself towards the Sun: our Love to God is always bowing, and admiring; always turning to, and following after God. It opens and shuts with the Suns rising and setting: our Love (when it is what it should be) opens itself to God, and closes itself against all other Objects. It brings forth seed enough for abundance of other Flowers; love to God is the most fruitful Grace, that when it blossoms and buds, it fills the face of the World with fruit n Isa. 27.6. 3. Our Love to God is like the love of the Turtle to her Mate; God's People are his Turtle o Psal. 74.19. . I grant, they most properly resemble Brotherly Love, but why not our Love to God? they never associate with other Birds; the loving soul keeps fellowship with God, and (out of choice) with him only, and those that bear his Image. The Turtle never sings and flies abroad for recreation as other birds, but they have a peculiar note for each other; the soul that loves God, flutters not about for worldly vanities; no recreation so sweet as Communion with God; the Soul's converse with God is peculiar. When one dies, the other droops till it dies, so that they do (as it were) live and die in the Embraces of each other: so the soul that loves God, his loving kindness is better than life p Psal. 63.3. , and there's nothing makes a Saint more impatient of living, than that he cannot while he lives have a full Enjoyment of God. 4. Our Love to God should be like (though exceed) jacob's love to Benjamin q Gen. 42.38. . He'll starve rather than part with Benjamin; and when hunger forced him from him, and he was like to be by a wile kept from him, Judah offers to purchase his liberty with his own, because his Father's life was bound up in the Lads life r Gen. 44.30. ; so the Soul that loves God is not able to bear the thoughts of parting with him, his life is bound up in enjoying the presence of God. I have been too long, but oh that I could affect your Hearts as well as inform your Judgements, What it is to love God with the heart. what it is to love God. Now then let's reassume the Enquiry; what it is to love the Lord our God with all our Heart? some refer this to the thoughts s A●g. , some to the vegetative Soul t Creg. Nys. , some to the Understanding that it may be free from error u Anselm. , others, q.d. Lay up all these things in your hearts w Origen. : but the other words will take in most of these; and therefore according to Scripture we must understand the Will and Affections, and so the word is taken Josh. 22.5. Moses the servant of the Lord charged you to love the Lord your God— with all your heart. As out of the heart proceeds life, so from the Will proceeds all Operations, the Will ought to be carried towards God with its whole force, all the Affections of a pure and holy heart are directed to the only Love of God x Gerhard. Harm. c. 156. . Love riseth from the Will; now there's a twofold Act of the y Elici us & in peratus. Will, that which is immediately drawn forth of the Will itself, the Will own Act, and such an Act the Will exerts in loving God; and then there is the commanded Act of the Will, which is the Act of some other power moved to that Act by the Will; where the will is filled with the love of God, it moves the understanding to meditate of God whom we love, and to inquire after the excellency of the Object loved. We must not love God only with the heart, but with the whole heart; What it is to love God with the whole heart. pray mark this, perfect Hatred and perfect Love knows no such thing as the world calls z Judicium rerum non c●gnoscit. Aut. imper. operis. Prudence, if you perfectly hate any one, all things about him displease you; whatever he says or does, though it be never so good, it seems to you to be evil; so if you perfectly love any one, all things about him please you. Some expound this totality by this distinction, we are to love God with the whole heart Positively and Negatively: Positively, where all Powers of the will are set to love God, and this we cannot perfectly do while we are travellers, till we come to our heavenly Country; but Negatively, thou shalt so love God, that nothing contrary to the love of God shall be entertained in thy heart; and this we may attain to a pretty tolerable perfection of in this life a Cajetan. . The whole heart is opposed either to a divided and dispersed heart; or to a remiss and a sluggish heart: God doth as much abominate a partnership in our love, as a husband or wife abhor any such thing in their Conjugal Relation, we must love nothing but God, or that which may please God: He that loves God with his heart, and not with his whole heart, loves something else, and not God. As the whole heart is opposed to a remiss and sluggish heart, the meaning is this, the care of our heart should be set upon nothing so much, as upon the loving and pleasing of God; we must prefer God alone before all other Objects of our love, and there must be an ardency of affection: whatever we do, it must be for his sake, and according to his will b Chemnit. Harm. c. 105. etc. . 2. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Soul. I forbear to mention the different conjectures of those that try the acuteness of their parts to produce some peculiar Interpretation which others have not. By comparing Scripture with Scripture, the sensitive life, or the sensitive Appetite is here meant. Thus c Gen. 34.3. Deut. 12.20. , his soul clavae unto Dinah, and he loved the Damsel; again, thy d thy sensual a fections. soul longeth to eat flesh. And because the Soul is in many places taken for Life, as Exod. 4.19. all the men are dead that sought thy life, Heb. thy soul; so Exod. 21.23. Thou shalt give life for life, Heb. soul for soul; and so we may take it here intensively for the sensitive Appetite, and extensively for the Life. The soul is here taken for the Animal life, which comprehends both the Vegetative and Sensitive part. To love God with the soul is to subject all those works that pertain to an Animal life, unto the love of God. Plainly and in short, it is not enough to love God in our Will, but we must not admit any thing contrary to the Love of God in our sensual delights. Whatsoever sensualists do for the gratifying of their lusts and desires, let those things be drained from the dregs of sin, and consecrate them all unto God. Whatever use wicked men make of their souls, in a way of hatred of God, we must make the contrary use in a way of loving of God. And then, Thou must love God with all thy Soul; What it is to love God with all the soul. we must be ready to lay down our lives for God d Origen. : if any one should be asked what in all the world was most dear unto him, he would answer his life; for life-sake tender Mothers have cast off the sense of Nature, and fed upon their own children. It is Life that affords us being, sense, motion, understanding, riches, dominions. If a man had the Empire of the World, he could enjoy it no longer than he hath his soul in his body, when that is gone, he presently becomes a horrid Carcase, or rather a loathsome dunghill. Now than if a man love his Life so much, why should he not love God more, by whom he lives, and from whom he expects greater things than this Life? God is the soul of our soul, and the life of our life, he is nearer to us than our very souls e Acts 17.28. ; in him we live, and move, and have our being. He that doth but indifferently weigh these things, will acknowledge that it is no rashness to call that man a Monster that loves not God; how then can we think of it without grief, that the whole world is full of these Monsters; almost all men prefer their Money, or Pleasures, or their Honours, or their lusts before God. So oft as you willingly break any Law of God to raise your Credit or Estate, you prefer the dirt and dust of the world before God: Alas! what use does a wicked man make of his soul, but to serve his body? whereas both soul and body should be wholly taken up with, not only the service, but the love of God. Then may you be said to love God with all your souls, when your whole Life is filled with the love of God, when your worldly business truckles under the love of God; the love of the dearest Relations should be but hatred, when compared with your love to God. When you eat and drink to the glory of God, sleep no more than may make you serviceable unto God; when your solitary muse are about the engaging your souls to God, when your social Conference is about the things of God; when all acts of Worship endear God to you; when all your Duties bring you nearer to God; when the love of God is the sweetness of your Mercies, and your Cordial under Afflictions, when you can love God under amazing Providences, as well as under refreshing Deliverances; than you may be said to love God with all your Souls. What it is to love God with the mind. 3. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Mind; though Anselm take this for the Memory, that we should remember nothing whereby we are hindered in our thinking of God: yet generally this is taken for the understanding, and so the Evangelist Mark expressly interprets it, when he renders this Command in these words f Mark 12 33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. with all thy understanding; to love God with our Minds, is to have the understanding moved and commanded by the love of God, to assent unto those things that are to be believed, and to admit nothing into the understanding which is contrary to the love of God g Cajetan. h Origen. nihil cogitantes, vel proferentes nisi ea que Dei sunt. . The Mind should let nothing go in or out, but what pays tribute of love to God; there's one interprets the word by the Etymology of the word Mind from Measuring i Mens dicitur a metiendo, etc. Avendan. . The Mind must be so full of love to God, that love must measure all our works k 1 Cor. 10, 31. . When we eat, we should think how hateful it is to God that we should indulge our , and thence shun Gluttony: when we drink, we should think how abominable Drunkenness is in the sight of God, and thence drink temperately l Rom. 14.8. : so that whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords; our Life and our Death must be measured by our Love to God. We must love God with all our Mind; What it is to love God with all our mind. we must always converse with God in our Minds, and thoughts, our thoughts must kindle our affections of love. Love to God makes the hardest Commands easy, while our thoughts are immersed in love to God, love to Enemies will be an easy Command; the keeping under of our Bodies by Mortification will be an easy work; Persecution for Righteousness will be a welcome Trial; love will change Death itself into Life. There's another word added by Mark, which indeed is in Deut. 6.5. whence this is taken, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Strength; now because this word doth not express any other species or power of the Soul, but only notes the highest and most intense degree of Love that flows from all the Faculties of the Soul, I will close this Enquiry with a Word of this. We are to love God with all the Powers of our Soul, with all the members of our Bodies. Our understandings, wills, inward and outward Senses, appetite, speech, whatever we have, whatever we are, must be all directed into the Love of God, and into Obedience flowing from Love, You commonly hear that of Bernard, the cause of loving God is God himself, and the only measure is to love him without measure. We must love God strongly, because with all our strength: our love to God must get above Interruptions; no threaten, calamities or discommodities whatsoever, must pull us away from God, but that all the Powers of Soul and Body must be taken up into his service; that our Eyes beholding the wonderful works of God, the Sun, Moon and Stars, the clear evidences of his Divinity, we may be in love with him: that our Ears piously harkening to his Instructions, may be in love with him: that our Mouth may love to praise him; our Hands to act for him: that our Feet may be swift to run the way of his Commandments; that our Affections may be withdrawn from Earthly things and delivered over to the love of God: that whatever is within us, it may be bound over to the service of God m Idomne Deo obsequio mancip●t●e, Chem. etc. . He that thus loves God, need not trouble himself how to order and dispose the several words here used; his Heart, Soul, Mind, Will; whatever he is, hath, knows, understands, obtains, is all due to God: neither is there any thing in the whole world to be valued before God; and thus I have given you a lame account, what it is to love God, etc. The Third thing I undertook was, demonstratively to prove, that it is our indispensible Duty thus to love God. It is our indispensible duty thus to love God. To love God is our great Natural duty. Man would more Naturally love God than himself, were it not for Sin. Neither Angels nor Men were at first commanded to love God; Nature wanted no spur to this Duty. The Law of Love was implanted in Nature. Thou hast made me, O Lord, (saith Aug.) and my heart is unquiet till it come to thee. O my heart (saith he) every Creature expels thee from them, and that not without shame, that thou mayest go to God: they do as it were say, O miserable wretch why dost thou adhere to me, I am not the good which thou requirest. O my Soul, why dost thou go thirsting among the Creatures to beg some drops that will rather provoke than quench thy thirst? why dost thou leave that everlasting Fountain, where thou mayst be perfectly satisfied? What canst thou desire that is not fully and perfectly to be had in God n Stella de amore ●ei. . I shall at present urge no other Demonstration, than Christ's Reason in the following verse; This is the first and the great Commandment: This is the great Command. not that any Command of God is small; the Commands in Scripture are like the Stars in the Firmament, which though to ignorant Persons they are but like twinkling Candles, yet are greater than the whole Earth: so these Commands that careless persons overlook as inconsiderable, are such as without respect unto them there is no salvation. I grant there is a difference in the Commands, e. g. o Deut. 21.12. and 5.7. The Command about paring the Nails is of lesser moment than that of having no other God; nay in the same kind Christ threatens the Scribes and Pharisees for their Hypocrisy p Mat. 23.23. , that they were so exact in tything their Gardens, and so remiss in looking to their Hearts: but among the Commands and the diversity of them, Christ tells us this is the greatest. The Jews some of them counted the Command about Sacrifice to be the greatest, as is hinted in the Scribe's saying q Mark 12.33. ; this Command of loving God is more than all whole Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices; others counted that of Circumcision to be the the greatest; others that of the Sabbath r Engl. Annot. . Origen observes, 'tis well that Christ decides the controversy; though the truth is, he that willingly breaks the least Commandment, will not stick to break the greatest. While only one sin makes us to forbear another (for men's lusts cross one another) when occasion serves that sin will be ventured upon that is now forborn. But this upon a manifold account is, The great Command. Ratione obj●cti. 1. In respect of the Object, it is God, the chiefest Being, the first and chiefest Good; What am I, Lord, (saith Augustine) that thou commandest me to love thee, and threatnest me with misery if I do not love thee. This is no small aggravation of the Devil's torments, that he cannot love God. God may require many things of us, but he requires nothing like this of our Love, because this is the only thing wherein we can answer God s Et vicem licet non ex aequo reddere. , in other things we cannot, or we may not render God like for like. God created us, and gave us our Being, but we can do nothing like this for God; God preserves us in safety, and daily confers innumerable Benefits upon us; God delivers from innumerable dangers both of Soul and Body: there's none of all this to be done for God; God is infinitely above all such Returns; and there are other things wherein we may not render God like for like. If God be angry with us, we may not be angry with him: if he reprove us, we must not quarrel with him: if God judge us, we must not censure him: But now God loves us, and through Grace we are able to love him again; and he loves us, and God commands us to love him again. 'Tis true, there's no equality between God's loving of us, and our loving of God. God's Love does infinitely overcome ours t Raymundus. : but yet our love to God speaks Interest and Union, the thing loved gives the name to the love: Love is but an indifferent Passion, till it be united to the thing loved, and then it gets a denomination; e. g. If the Object be earthly, it is an earthly love; if sensual, it is a brutish love; if it be man, 'tis an humane love; if God, 'tis a Divine love; so that by our love we are changed and transformed into a thing more noble, or more vile; we therefore debase ourselves in loving any thing but God, there's nothing else worthy of our love; whatsoever we love, we give it a kind of dominion over us, so that the will loseth its dignity and excellency when it loves inferior things: we are as it were married to that we love. Suppose (saith Raymundus) a poor man of mean stock, and no reputation, have six daughters; they are all equal by birth, as to reputation and esteem, but they are all differenced by their marriage; the eldest marries a Farmer, the next a Citizen, the third a Knight, the fourth a Duke, the fifth a King, the sixth at Emperor; by these marriages there's a very great inequality: So here, by the Object of your love you are dignified or debased. But there is more yet in God's being the Object of our Love: thou shalt love the Lord [thy God] thy God, and therefore thou must love him. Give me leave to enlarge a little on this, and I will be the briefer in the other Considerations, how this is the great Command, thou shalt love the Lord Thy God. Those things that are ours, though they are not always lovely, yet we love them; our own Children, whether of our Bodies or our Minds, our own Estates: we are more troubled at the loss of any thing wherein our own Propriety is concerned, than in all the World besides; a small thing of our own is a thousand times more to us, than a thousand times as much of another's: we are more concerned for the cutting off our own Finger, than the cutting off another man's Head: Propriety doth exceedingly heighten Love. But then when there is a specialty upon the Propriety, that it is impossible to have the want repaired, e. g. my Child, and mine only Child. Whatever you say of God, you may put an only to it: God so loves every gracious Soul, as if he had no other Person to bestow his Love upon, therefore thou must so love God, as if there were nothing else in the world to bestow thy love upon. Alas! what's thine to day as to outward things, may be none of thine to morrow: thou canst not say so of God; God once thine, and for ever thine. But perhaps you will say, Were God mine, you should need to say no more to inflame my heart to love him. Propriety in God could I attain this, I had enough. This is it I wait for, I pray for; I think nothing too much for it; I only fear I shall never attain it; the very comforts of my Life are imbittered for want of it. To this I answer, we cannot shake off God's Sovereignty over us nor Propriety in us, this you will grant: God is and will be, Thy God, Thy Lord, thy Sovereign, Thy Commander, let thy carriage be what it will; the vilest wretches in the World, cannot sin themselves from under God's dominion. But there's no comfort in this: Well then, I will therefore add, thou that mournest after propriety in God, God is thy God; thy gracious God, and Father; thy God in Covenant; thy God in mercy; and loving kindness. Dost thou unfeignedly desire to love God? then thou may'st be sure God loves thee, for God loves first u 1 Joh. 4.19. . Dost thou not out of choice prefer the Service of God before all other Service, than you shall abide in the love of God w Joh. 15.10. . Brethren, Love God as if he were peculiarly yours, and you'll thereby have an evidence, that he is peculiarly yours. It is reported of one that continued a whole night in Prayer, and said nothing but this x Deus meus & omnia mea. Avend. p. 382. ; My God, and my All, or God is Mine, and all is Mine; repeating this a thousand times over. Let this be the constant breathing of thy Soul to God; My God, my All. 2 Ratione ordinis & dignitatis. 2. This is the first and great command in respect of order and dignity. This is the great command because we must place this before all others in the very y In intimo cordis. Anselm. yelk of the heart, as the only foundation of piety; whatsoever is taught in the Law, and in the Prophets flows from this, as from a fountain; grows upon this as upon a root z ● use. . If I forget not, this is somewhere Augustin's Metaphor, this is to the other commands as the needle to the thread, it draws all after it. 3 Ratione debiti. 3. This is the first and great command, in respect of obligation. To love God is so indispensable, that let me with Reverence say, God cannot dispense with it. As God first bestows his love upon us, before any other gift, and then whatever he gives afterwards, he gives it in love; So God requires that we first give him our hearts, our love, and then do all we do out of love to God. Sometimes God will have mercy, and not sacrifice; divine duties shall give place to humane; nay, sometimes duties to God must give way to duties to a beast a Luk. 14.5. ; but however duties to God and Men may be justled to and fro; yet there is not any duty can warrant the intermitting of any love to God so much as one moment. 4 Ratione materiae 4. This is the first and great command, in respect of the matter of it. Love to God is the most excellent of all graces b 1 Cor 13.13. , love among the graces is like the Sun among the Stars, which not only inlightens the lower world, but communicates light to all the Stars in the Firmament: So love to God does not only its own office, but the offices of all other Graces. The Apostle names four graces that are necessary to government, which love doth all their offices, e. g. beareth all c 1 Cor. 13.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, candour, lenitas, patientia. Melanc. in loc. things, i. e. love parteth with something of its right, beareth the weaknesses of friends to preserve concord; believeth all things, i. e. candidly makes the best interpretation of all things; is not distrustful or suspicious upon light and frivolous occasions; hopeth all things, that is, gently waits for the amendment of that which is faulty; endureth all things, that is, patiently bears injuries, etc. If you except, this is spoken of love to men, I readily answer, that surely love to God, for whose Image in men, and command concerning men, we love them, will do greater things. 5 Ratione amplitudinis. 5. This is the first and great command in respect of the largeness of it. This requires the whole man, the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind, the whole strength; whatever else we entertain, some other room may be good enough for it, let the heart be kept for God's peculiar presence Chamber. God requires the whole Soul, all the inferior powers of the Soul, our whole life must be spent in the love of God. This command reaches the whole mind, God expects that we should in Judgement reason down every thing into contempt that should pretend a loveliness to justle out God. 6. This is the first and great command in respect of its capacity, 6 Ratione capacitate. because it contains all commands, no man can love his Neighbour, unless he love God, and no man can love God, but he must observe all his Commandments. Origen makes enquiry, how the Commands about legal purification may be reduced to the love of God? every command of God hath its peculiar obligation, but this Law of love hath a super-ingagement over them all. e. g. Men may accept and commend several duties to them, that have not one drop of love in them, e. g. If I give bread to one that is ready to famish, or Physic to one that is dangerously sick; these things do good according to their own Natures, and not according to the good will of the giver: Alas! Man needs relief, and catcheth at it, and never examines the heart, or and, whence it comes; but now God is infinitely above needing any thing from us, it is his gracious condescension to receive any thing from us, and therefore God never accepts of any thing we do, but what is done out of love to him. 7. This is the first and great command, in respect of the difficulties of it, 7 Ratione difficultatis. because through our infirmities (not to mention worse) we cannot presently love God, the prime difficulty is, the spirituality of it. This wisdom (d) Prov. 24.7. is too high for foolish Sinners. Though it is most rational, yet it is the most spiritual; and consequently the most difficult part of Religion. Some commands may be observed without special grace, as all the outside of Religion. Yea, some commands may be observed without so much as common grace, as duties merely moral, but this must have a great measure of the spirit, it speaks much acquaintance with God through experience of his ways; and much conformity to Christ in a well composed conversation; in short, it includes the highest perfection possibly attainable in this life; yet let not this difficulty fright you, for through Christ our sincere love (though weak) is accepted; and our imperfect love (because growing) shall not be despised. 8. This is the first and great command, in respect of the End. 8 Ratione finis. All the commands of God are referred to this as their end and last scope, which was first in the mind of the Lawgiver. 9 This is the first and great command, in respect of the lastingness of it. 9 Ratione perperuitatis. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, it is not only spoken after the Hebrew (e) Futurum pro imperativo. way of commanding, but it notes singular perseverance. Most of the other commands expire with the world, as all or most of the commands of the second table; but this remains and flourishes more than ever. When Repentance and Mortification, which now take up half our life; when Faith which is now (as it were) Mother and Nurse to most of our Graces; when Hope which now upholds weak faith in its languors, when all these (shall as it were) die in travail, perfection of grace being then in the birth: love to God shall then be more lively than ever. That love which (as it were) passed between God and the Soul in letters and tokens; shall then be perfected in a full enjoyment. Our love was divided among several objects, that cut the banks, and weakened the stream; henceforth it shall have but one current. Our love is now mixed with fear (fear of missing, or losing what we love) but that fear shall be banished. There shall never be any distance, never any thing to provoke jealousy, never any thing to procure cloying, never any thing more to be desired than is actually enjoyed. Is not this then the first and great Commandment? is it not our privilege and happiness to be swallowed up in it? this may suffice to evidence it to be our duty; But then, What abilities are requisite for the well performance of this duty, and how we may obtain those abilities. 3. What Abilities are requisite to the performance of this duty, and how may we attain those Abilities? This we must be experimentally acquainted with, or all I can say, will at best seem babbling; and therefore let me at first tell you plainly, nothing on this side Regeneration can capacitate you to love God: and it is God alone that giveth, worketh, infuseth, impresseth the gracious habit of Divine Love in the Souls of his people. Our love to God is nothing else but the echo of God's love to us. Through the corruption of our Nature we hate God. God implanted in our Nature an inclination to love God above all things amiable, but by the fall, we have an headlong inclination to departed from God, and run away from him: and there is in every one of us a natural impotency, and inability of turning unto God. The grace of love is no Flower of Nature's Garden, but a Foreign p Non secundum bona naturalia, sed secundum dona grat●ita. Aquin. plant. We may possibly do something for the merely rational inflaming of our hearts with love to God; e. g. God may be represented as most amiable, we may be convinced of the unsatisfyingness of the Creature, we may understand something of the worth of our Souls, and what a folly it is to expect that any thing but God can fill them; and yet this will be (at the utmost) but like a solid proof of the truth of the Christian Religion, which may Nonplus our cavils, but not make us Christians. This may make love to God appear a rational duty, but it will not of itself beget in us this spiritual Grace. It is the immediate work of God to make us love him; I do not mean immediate in opposition to the use of means, but immediate in regard of the necessary efficacy of his Spirit, beyond what all means in the world, without his powerful influence can amount unto. 'Tis the Lord alone that can direct our hearts into the love of God q 2. Thes. 3.5. Exoplat a Leo quod non ambigit posse praestari. Ambros. ; God is pleased in a wonderful, and unexpressible manner to draw up the heart in love to him. God makes use of Exhortations, and Counsels, and Reproofs, but though he works by them, and with them, he works above them and beyond them r Deut. 30.6, 19, 20. . The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou may'st live. And again, I call heaven and earth to record this day against thee, that I have set before thee life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou may'st love the Lord thy God, and that thou may'st obey his voice, and that thou may'st cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days. He is thy life, i. e. effectively, and that by love (saith Aquinas.) it is reported s Sales of the love of God, p. 63. that it often happens among Partridges, that one steals away another's eggs, but the young one that is hatched under the wing of a stranger, at her true Mother's first call, who laid the egg whence she was hatched, she renders herself to her true Mother, and puts herself into her Covey. 'Tis thus with our hearts, though we are born and bred up among terrene and base things, under the wing of corrupted Nature; yet at (and not before) God's first quickening call, we receive an inclination to love him; and upon his drawing t Cant. 1.4. we run after him. God works a principle of love in us, and we love God by that habit of love he hath implanted; hence the Act of love is formally and properly attributed to man as the particular cause u Psal. 18.1. & 116.1, V●●tius. . I will love thee O Lord my strength, and I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice; the Soul works together with God in his powerful working; the Will being Acted of God Acteth. It is a known saying of w Non ideo bene currit ut rotunda sit, sed quia rotunda est. Augustine, The wheel doth not run that it may be round, but because 'tis round. The Spirit of God enables us to love God, but 'tis we that love God with a created love, 'tis we that acquiesce in God in a gracious manner. What God doth in the Soul doth not hurt the liberty of the will, but strengthens it, insweetly and powerfully drawing it into conformity with the will of God, which is the highest liberty; where the x 2 Cor. 3.17. spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. It is a poor liberty that consists in an indifferency. Do not the Saints in heaven love God freely? yet they cannot but love him. As the only Efficient cause of our loving God, is God himself, so the only procuring cause of our loving God, is Jesus Christ; that Son of the Father's love, who by his Spirit implants and actuates this grace of love, which he hath merited for us. Christ hath a Col. 1.20. made peace through the blood of his Cross. Christ hath as well merited this grace of love for us, as he hath merited the reward of glory for us. Plead therefore (Dear Christians) the merit of Christ for the inflaming your hearts with the love of God, that when I shall direct to rules and means how you may come to love God, you may as well address yourselves to Christ for the grace of love, as for the pardon of your want of love hitherto. Bespeak Christ in some such (but far more) pressing language, Lord thou hast purchased the grace of love for those that want and crave it; my love to God is i'll, do thou warm it; my love is divided, Lord do thou unite it; I cannot love God as he deserves, O that thou wouldst help me to love him more than I can desire. Lord make me sick of love, and then cure me; Lord make me in this as comfortable to thyself, as 'tis possible for an adopted Son to be like the Natural, that I may be a Son of God's love, both actively and passively, and both as near as it is possible infinitely. Let's therefore address ourselves to the use of all those means and helps, whereby love to God is b Fovetur, augetur, excitatur, & exeritur. nourished, increased, excited, and exerted. I will begin with removing the impediments, we must clear away the rubbish, we can so much as lay the Foundation. Impediment 1. Self-love, Impediments of our love to God. this the Apostle names as Captain general of the Devil's Army, whereby titular Christians manage their enmity against God, in the dregs of the last days, this will make the times dangerous, Men shall be lovers of their own c 2 Tim. 3.1▪ 2. selves. When men over-esteem themselves, their own endowments of either body or mind; when they have a secret reserve for self in all they do, self-applause, or self-profit, this is like an error in the first concoction, get your hearts discharged of it, or you can never be spiritually healthful; the best of you are too prone to this; I would therefore commend it to you, to be jealous of yourselves in this particular, for as conjugal-jealousie is the bane of conjugal love, so self-jealousy will be the bane of self-love. Be suspicious of every thing that may steal away, or divert your love from God. Imped. 2. Love of the world, this is so great an obstruction that the most loving and best beloved Disciple that Christ had, said (d) 1 Joh. 2.15. love not the world, nor the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; and the Apostle James makes use of a Metaphor, (e) Jam. 4.4. calling them Adulterers and Adulteresses that keep not their conjugal love to God tied from leaking out toward the world, he chargeth them, as if they knew nothing in Religion, if they knew not this, that the friendship with the world is enmity with God, and 'tis an universal truth, without so much as one exception, that whosoever will be a friend of the world, must needs upon that very account be God's enemy; the Apostle Paul adds more weight to those that are even pressed to Hell already (f) 1 Tim. 6.9, 10, 11. , They that will be rich fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish, and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition; for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves thorough with many sorrows; but thou O man of God, flee these things, etc. when men will be somebody in the world, they will have Estates, and they will have honours, and they will have pleasures, what variety of vexatious distractions do unavoidably hinder our love to God; when our hearts are hurried with hopes and fears about worldly things, and the world hath not wherewithal to satisfy us; how doth the heart fret under its disappointments, and how can it do otherwise? we would have happiness here; Sirs, I'll offer you fair, name me but one man that ever found a complete happiness in the world, and I dare promise, you shall be the second; but if you will flatter yourself with dreams of impossibilities, this your way will be your folly, though 'tis like your posterity will approve your say (g) Psal. 49.13. , and try experiments while they live as you have done, but where's your love to God all this while? 'tis excluded; by what Law? by the Law of Sin and Death; by the love of the world, and destruction; for Christ tells us, all that hate him love death (h) Prov. 8.36. Imped. 3. Spiritual sloth, and carelessness of Spirit, when men do not trouble themselves about Religion, nor any thing that is serious. Love is a busy passion, a busy grace; love among the passions, is like Fire among the Elements; Love among the Graces, is like the Heart among the Members; now that which is most contrary to the nature of love, must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it; the truth is, a careless frame of Spirit, is fit for nothing; a sluggish, lazy, slothful, careless person never attains to any excellency in any kind; what is it you would intrust a lazy person about? let me say this, and pray think on't twice, you censure it once; Spiritual sloth doth Christians more mischief, than scandalous relapses. I grant their grosser falls may be worse as to others, the grieving of the Godly, and the hardening of the wicked, and the Reproach to Religion must needs be so great, as may make a gracious heart tremble at the thought of falling; but yet as to themselves a slothful temper is far more prejudicial, e. g. those gracious persons that fall into any open sin, 'tis but once, or seldom in their whole life; and their repentance is ordinarily as notorious as their sin, and they walk more humbly, and more watchfully ever after; whereas Spiritual sloth runs through the whole course of our life, to the marring of every duty, to the strengthening of every sin, and to the weakening of every grace. Sloth (I may rather call it unspiritual sloth) is a soft moth in our spiritual wardrobe; a corroding rust in our spiritual Armoury; an enfeebling consumption in the very vitals of Religion. Sloth and carelessness without an Epithet, bare sloth without any thing to aggravate it, ordinarily doth the Soul more hurt, than all the Devils in hell, yea, than all its other sins. Shake off this, and then you will be more than Conquerors over all other difficulties; shake off this, and there is but one sin (that I can think of at present) that you'll be in danger of, and that's spiritual pride. You'll thrive so fast in all grace, you'll grow up into so much communion with God, that unless God sometimes withdraw to keep you humble, you will have a very Heaven upon Earth. Imped. 4. The love of any sin whatsoever; the love of God, and the love of any Sin, can no more mix together than Iron and Clay; every Sin strikes at the being of God (i) Deicidium. . The very best of Saints may possibly fall into the very worst of pardonable Sins, but the least of Saints get above the love of the least of Sins; we are ready to question God's love unto us, as Dalilah did Sampson's love to her, if he do not gratify us in all we have a mind to: but how could Dalilah pretend love to Samson, while she complied with his mortal enemy against him? how can you pretend to love God, while you hid Sin, his enemy in your hearts? as it was with the grandchild of Athaliah (k) 2 King. 11.1. 2, etc. stolen from among those that were slain, and hidden, though unable at present to disturb her, e'er long procures her ruin: so any Sin (as it were) stolen from the other Sins to be preserved from Mortification, will certainly procure the ruin of that Soul that hides it; can you hid your Sin from the search of the Word, and forbear your Sin, while under the smart of affliction, and seem to fall out with Sin, when under gripes of Conscience, and return to Sin as soon as the storm is over? never pretend to love God, God sees through your pretences, and abhors your hypocrisy (l) Job 34.21, 22. , His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seethe all his go; there's no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hid themselves. Come Sirs, let me deal plainly with you; you are shameful strangers to your own heart, if you do not know which is your darling Sin, or Sins; and you are Traitors to your own Souls, if you do not endeavour a through Mortification; and you are wilful Rebels against God, if you do in the least indulge it; never boggle at the Psalmist's counsel (m) Psal. 97.10. , ye that love the Lord, hate evil. Imped. 5. Inordinate love of things lawful, and in some respect here's our greatest danger; here persons have Scripture to plead for their love to several persons, and things; that it is a duty to bestow some love upon them, and the mere stones are not so plainly set, as easily to discern the utmost bounds of what is lawful, and the first step into what is sinful, and here having some plausible pretences for the parcelling out of their love, they plead not guilty, though they love not God with all their hearts, souls, and minds, whereas they should consider that the best of the world is not for enjoyment but use; not our end, but means conducing to our chief end. Here's our sin, and our misery, our foolish transplacing of end, and means: Men make it their end to eat, and drink, and get estates, and enjoy their delights, and what respect they have to God (I know not whether to call love or Service) they show it but as means to flatter God, to gratify them in their pitiful ends. Having warned you of some of the chief Impediments, I shall propose some means to engage your hearts in love to God, which you may confidently expect to be effectual through the operation of the Holy Ghost, and you may likewise expect the operation of the Spirit in the use of such means. The means are either Directing, Promoting, or Conserving. Means to attain love to God. 1. Directing, and that is Spiritual Knowledge, this is beyond what can be spoken in its commendation: A clear and distinct knowledge of the love and loveliness of God in the amazing, yet ravishing methods of its manifestations, and the clear understanding of the heavenly privilege of having our hearts inflamed with love to God, this will do— (I would fain persuade you to try,) I am not able to say how much, to direct you in this case; plainly get, and exercise this twofold knowledge. 1. The knowledge of Spiritual things; did we but perfectly know the Nature of the most contemptible insect; nay, did we but know the Nature of Atoms, this would lead us to admire and love God; but then to know those things that no graceless person in the world cares for the knowledge of, e. g. the inward workings of Original Sin, and how to undermine it; the powerful workings of the Spirit of grace, and how to improve it; what are the joys of the Holy Ghost, and how to obtain them; would not such things insinuate the love of God into you? add then, 2. The knowledge of ordinary things in a Spiritual manner, so as to make the knowledge of Natural things serve Heavenly designs. Thus Christ in all the Metaphors, in all the Parables he used. To value no knowledge any further than it is reducible to such an use, this would lead us into the loving of God. Thus I name but one directing means, promoting means are various, not but that Spiritual knowledge doth singularly promote the love of God, but it's proper work lies in directing. The several things I shall name for inward means, your way of managing must make them so. 1. Self-denial, this is so necessary, that no other grace can supply the want of it. It is among the graces of the Soul, as among the members of the Body, one member may supply the want of another, the defect of the Lungs may be supplied by other parts. The want of prudence may be supplied with Gospel-simplicity, which looks like quite another thing; but nothing can supply our want of love to God; nor can any thing supply our want of Self-denial in order to our loving of God. We can never have n Fo● fotidissimus suo, 〈◊〉 horribilissimum stercus, & vermis nequis simus. Bonavent stimul. Amor. p 153. too low thoughts of ourselves, provided we do not neglect our duty, and let go our hold of Christ. Those very things that not only we may love, but we must love, 'tis our duty to love them, and our sin not to love them; yet all these must be denied, when they dare to stand in competition with our love to God o Luk. 14.26. . If any man come to me, and hate not his Father, and Mother, and Wife, and Brethren, and Sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my Disciple: Christ would have us count what Religion will cost us, before we meddle with it. 2. Contempt of the world. As love of the world is a great impediment, so contempt of the world is a great promoter of our love to God; may not our contempt of the world be best expressed by our worldly diffidence? we have no confidence in it, no expectation of happiness from it. I take both the understanding and will to be the seat of Faith; now to have both these against the world, is to have our understanding satisfied, that the world cannot satisfy us; to look upon the world as an empty Drum, that makes a great noise, but hath nothing in it; and therefore the will doth not hanker after it, hath no kindness for it. That person is a good proficient in divine love, that can make the world serviceable to devotion; by drawing arguments from his worldly condition, be it what it will, to promote piety, e. g. Have I any thing considerable in the world? I will manage it as a Steward, blessed be God he hath entrusted me with any thing, whereby I may show my love to him, in my love to his. Have I nothing in the world? Blessed be God for my freedom from worldly snares; God knows I need food and raiment, and I am of Jacob's mind p Gen. 28.20, 21. , if God will give me no more, he shall be my God, and I will be content whatever my condition be in the world, 'tis better than Christ's was; and Oh that I could love God as Christ did! 3. Observation of God's benefits to us, 'tis goodness and beneficence that draws out love; God is our infinite Benefactor, the very brutes love their Benefactors q Isa. 1.3. Qui beneficia invenit, compedes invenit. Sen. . The Ox knoweth his owner, and the Ass his Master's crib, but my people doth not consider. Who can reckon up the benefits he receives from God? the commonest of our mercy deserves a return of love, how much more our Spiritual merces? those very mercies that are troublesome to us, deserve our love, e. g. Trouble for Sin though to a degree of horror; hungering after Christ, though unto languishing; disappointments in the world, though without satisfaction any where else; lamenting after God, though with fear we shall never enjoy him: Such like throws of anguish make way for spiritual joy, and comfort; and the Soul that goes through such exercises, grows in love to God every day. As for other kinds of Benefits, I'll say but this, God doth more for us every hour of our lives, than all our dearest Friends, or Relations on Earth, than all the Saints and Angels in Heaven can do, so much as once, should they do their utmost: and can you do less than love him? 4. Watchfulness over our own hearts. When we love God, we are to remember that we love a jealous God. This will restrain the straggling of our affections: we should keep as careful a watch over our own hearts, as we should over a rich Heiress, committed to our Guardianship; we reckon she's undone, and we shall never be able to look God or Man in the face, if she be unworthily matched through our default. Christians, your hearts through the condesension of God, and Blood and Spirit of Christ, are a match for the King of Glory: several inferior objects not worth the naming, are earnest suitors; we are undone if any but God have our Supreme love; if you be not severely watchful, this heart of yours will be stolen away: be persuaded therefore to examine every thing that you have cause to suspect: call your selves often to an account; be jealous of your hearts, and of every thing whereby you may be endangered. 5. Prayer. All manner of Prayer is singularly useful to inflame the heart with love to God. Those that pray best, love God best: mistake me not, I do not say those that can pray with the most florid expressions; or those that can pray with the most general applause; but they that most feel every word they speak, and every thought they think in Prayer: they whose apprehensions of God are most over-whelming; whose affections to God are most Spiritually passionate; whose Prayers are most wrestling, and graciously impudent, this is the man that prays best, and loves God best. I grant these are the Prayers of a great proficient in the love of God, but you may pray for this frame when you cannot pray with it. The Soul never falls sick of divine love in Prayer, but Christ presently gives it an extraordinary visit (r) Cant. 2.5, 6. , so soon as ever Christ's Spouse says, she is sick of love, the next words she speaks are, that his left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. Compare that with those words (s) Cant. 6 5: , Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: Christ speaks as of being overcome and conquered. Rouse up yourselves therefore, give yourselves unto Prayer, Pray for a more Spiritual discovery of God's amiableness, did you know God better, you could not but love him more; and none can discover God to us, as he discovers himself, so spiritually, so powerfully; take no denial, God will never be angry with your being importunate for hearts to love him. Bradward. de causa dei. l. 1. p. 118, 119. O my God, it is thyself I love above all things; 'tis for thyself, in thee my desires are terminated; and therefore what wilt thou give me? if thou wilt not give me thyself, thou wilt give me nothing. If I find thee not, I find nothing; thou dost not at all reward me, but vehemently torment me: heretofore when I sought thee finally, for thyself, I hoped that I should quickly find thee, and keep thee, and with this sweet hope I comforted myself in all my labours; but now if thou deny me thyself, what wilt thou give me? shall I be for ever disappointed of so great a hope? shall I always languish in my love? shall I mourn in my languishment? shall I grieve in my mourning? shall I weep and wail in my grief? shall I always be empty? shall I always disconsolately sorrow? incessantly complain, and be endlessly tormented? O my most good, most powerful, most merciful, and most loving God, thou dost not use so unfriendly and like an enemy to despise, refuse, wound and torment those that love thee with all their heart, soul, and strength; that hope for full happiness in thee. Thou art the God of truth, the beginning and end of those that love thee, thou dost at last give thyself to those that love thee, to be their perfect and complete happiness. Therefore O my most good God, grant that I may in this present life love thee for thyself above all things, seek thee in all things, and in the life to come find thee, and hold thee to eternity. 6. Meditation. A duty as much talked of, and as little practised as any duty of Christianity. Did you but once a day [In that time of the day, which upon experience you find to be fittest for such a work] solemnly place yourselves in God's presence; beg of him the fixing and the flowing of your thoughts, that your thoughts might be graciously fixed, yet as graciously enlarged; let the subject matter of them be something Spiritual, endeavour to fill your heads, and affect your hearts with holy muse, till you come to some resolution, which resolution close with Prayer, and follow with endeavours. O how would this (even you are ware) engage your Souls to love God, though you cannot methodise your Meditations to your mind, yet inure yourselves to an holy thoughtfulness about things above. Endeavour as you are able, to tie your thoughts together, and so fasten them that they may not be lost, that your musing time may not be reckoned among your lost time. I distinguish between Meditation and Study: Study is for knowledge, Meditation is for Grace: Study leaves every thing as we find it; Meditation leaves a Spiritual impress upon every thing it meddles with. Though I will not assert, I may inquire, whether Meditation be not one of those duties of which the very constant performance speaks the Soul to be gracious, i. e. though I dare not say, they are not gracious, that do not every day solemnly meditate, yet whether may I not say, they are gracious that do. Try therefore, whether you may not say with the Psalmist (t) Psal. 39.3. , whilst I was musing, the fire burned; whether while you are musing, your heart may not be inflamed with love to God. 7. Choice of friends. I dare appeal to all experienced Christians, whether ever they met with lively Christians, that carried it like Christians without some warming of their hearts with love to God, and Godliness; the truth is, Christian-conference hath the most speedy and effectual efficacy, of any Ordinance of God whatsoever. Do therefore in Religion as you do in other things, e.g. If you meet with a Physician, all your discourse shall be something about your health. If you meet with a Traveller, you are presently inquisitive about the places he hath seen. Why should not Christians when they meet, converse like Christians, and presently fall into a Heavenly Dialogue. Christians, this you know, there must be a forsaking of all wicked company, you can pretend the least love to Christ, (mistake me not) I do not mean that the bonds of Family-relations must presently be broken, that Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children, Masters and Covenant-servants must presently separate, if one of them be ungodly; No, where the relation is such, as cannot be dissolved without sin; then those that are Godly, must converse with the ungodly, as Physicians with their sick patients. But this is it I say, you must not willingly and out of choice make Gods Enemies your familiar Friends. Those that are always speaking well of God, insensibly draw out their hearts in love to him. When Christ's Spouse (u) Cant 5.9. &c 6.1. had told the Daughters of Jerusalem what Christ was more than others, they presently offer themselves to seek him with her; as evil communication (w) 1 Cor. 15.33. corrupts good manners, so good communication corrects evil manners. In short, you cannot but observe, that none is able to hear any one spoken against whom they love; and that every one delights to speak and hear of whom they love; so that here you have a means to inflame, an employ to exercise, and a touchstone to try your love to God. 8. Thanksgiving. That person that makes conscience of thanksgiving, will thereby grow in love to God; that person that takes every thing kindly, and thankfully from God cannot but love him; and Christians, if we be not basely wanting to ourselves, we may by thankfulness make every thing a help to promote divine love. e.g. I hear a man swear, and curse, and blaspheme God; O what cause have I to love God, that he hath not left me to do so. I am under the rebukes of God, I feel his anger in such a providence; O what cause have I to love God, that he will take any pains with me, and give me medicinal correction, not giving me up to my own hearts lusts till I perish; Alas! I am not so spiritual as to make such Inferences: yet blessed be God, I really value it as a privilege to be able to put a good interpretation on all Gods deal. O that I could love God for the very means, and helps, and encouragements to love him! I shall name no more (though I might many) promoting means. But, 3. Sustaining and Conserving Means. Here several Graces are singularly useful. I shall name only three. 1. Faith, whereby we are persuaded that what God hath spoken is true, and good (x) Mark 9.23. , If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Now then, take some Particular Promise, Why not that which hath already affected thy heart? you can't press a Promise as you squeeze an Orange, to extract all that is in it; no, 'tis called drawing water (y) Isa. 12.3. out of a Fountain, though you draw out never so much, there's no less behind. Well then, take that promise (z) Prov. 8.17. , I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me. I may here by my love to God, make out God's love to me, and so by these clasp of love, have my love inflamed and preserved. But Christians be sure to remember this, whenever you lay one hand on a Promise, lay the other on Christ, you will thereby get your Objections answered, and your Fears removed; e. g. I am unworthy of Divine Love, but so is not Christ. I know not how to come to God, our access is by Christ. Though I come I know not how to believe, Joh. 6.37. thy coming is believing. Oh, for more acquaintance with the Life of Faith: it is mostly with us in spirituals, according to our Faith. 2. Hope; whereby we expect a future good. Hope is the daughter of Faith. Many a time the weak Mother leans upon the Daughter; Hope (at least to our apprehensions) hath not so many Obstructions and hindrances as Faith. I dare say, I hope, what I dare not say, I believe. Though I must tell you, That which the over-modest Christian calls a weak Hope, God often calls a strong Faith. Remember (a) Psal. 119.49. the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope: There's a prayer of Hope, and here's a Promise-answer to Faith, Thou (b) Isa. 26.3. wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee, etc. So that in a word, as to the present Case, though I yet cannot love God as I would, I hope God will help me, that my Love shall be always growing. 3. Patience (c) Jam. 1.4. Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. And do but with Patience go on with your work, and no necessary Grace shall be wanting unto you. Look that you be patiented in waiting, and patiented in bearing. Do not misinterpret God's deal with you. There are two passages I would have you take special notice of, that Ground that brought such Fruit as answered expectation (d) Luk. 8.15. , was an honest and good heart, which kept the Word, and brought forth fruit with patience. The other is, in your patience possess your souls; patience contributes much to both Fruitfulness and Comfort. Let's make an Essay, Thou wouldst have God manifest his Love to thee in a more ravishing manner; stay a while, thou wantest another kind of dispensation first, and most, viz. to feel more of the evil of sin, that thou mayst be more watchful and more holy. So soon as a trial comes, thou wouldst have it removed; stay a while, it hath not done the work for which God sent it. God in kindness binds on the Plaster, till he hath effected the Cure. Thou art at a loss, thou knowest not what God will do with thee: be it so, it is not fit thou shouldest, God doth not use to tell his Children beforehand what he will do with them: God expects we should gather up our Duty from the Precepts of his Word, and from the hints of his Providence. We read (e) 2 King. 13.17, 18, 19 , that when the Prophet Elisha had given King Joash a Promise, and a sign of deliverance from Syria, God expected that his own reason and faith should prompt him so to improve a second sign, as to pursue the victory to a conquest; but he understood it not, and so miscarried. Do you learn to hold on in the use of all Means for the engaging of your hearts more to God. We (f) Heb. 6.11.12, 13. desire that every one of you do show the same diligence, to the full Assurance of Hope unto the end: that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises. Not expecting to obtain the Promise till you have patiently endured: and the same Apostle in the same Epistle tells us (g) Heb. 10.36. , that you have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the Promise. Thus much for the inward Means of loving God. Outward Means for engaging our Hearts to love God, are either Directing or Exemplary. I. Directing. The only directing Means is the Word of God, but seeing you shall in the following Sermons have particular directions about both Hearing and Reading of the Word, I shall only hint these few things. 1. Prise the Word. Though our estimation of it will be exceedingly heightened by a further acquaintance with it, yet you will find it singularly advantageous to the enflaming of your hearts, to get your hearts (as it were) graciously forestalled with the valuation of the Word. When we can count the Word sweeter than Honey to the taste; better than Gold for a treasure; more necessary than Food for our sustenance (i) Job 23.12. : how can the Soul choose but love God, whose love indicted it? Shall filthy books provoke carnal love, and shall not the Book of God provoke Divine love? endeavour to get but as spiritual a sense and relish of Divine Truths, answerable to men's carnal gusts and feeling of other things: do but dwell upon Truths till they affect you. Only here observe this necessary Caution: Dwell not so upon difficulties as to hinder your further enquiry into things more easily understood, but wait in a course of diligence, and you will be able to master those difficulties, which 'tis next to impossible suddenly to fathom. Do but steer an even course between a careless neglect, and an anxious perplexity, about what you read or hear, and you will certainly attain a deep knowledge of the things of God, and a high measure of love to God. 2. Set immediately upon the practice of those things which you shall be convinced to be your Duty. Let not your Affections cool upon any duty pressed upon you. Do something like that of (k) Dan. 2.8, etc. Nabuchadnezzar; God revealed to him something of moment; he had lost the matter, and understood not the meaning; but was (as others thought) unreasonably importunate to recover both, and that presently, before the impression wore off, and the heat went over. So my brethren, fix the Word by speedy practice. Though the seed of the Word is long in growing to perfection, yet it presently takes root in order to growth. Were I therefore now exhorting you to Repentance, and could bring you to no nearer a resolution, than to repent to morrow, my Exhortation were lost; So now, while I press you to love God, and demonstrate from Scripture, that it is your Duty; offer you Scripture-helps that may be effectual; provoke you with Scripture encouragements that may be overcoming; if you now put off all this till a fit time; 'tis a thousand to one, you put it off for ever. Read this over again, and then think, why should not I now believe this; and how can I say, I now believe it, if I do not now put it in practice? and how can I say I practise it, if I omit any one Direction? II. Exemplary Means. And here I shall give you as short a touch as may be, of Men, Angels, and Christ himself. We are much drawn by Examples Examples they are not only Arguments but Wings. They give us a demonstration, that Precepts are practicable. 1. Men. Why should not we love God as well as ever Abraham did? God gives the word (k) Gen. 22, 2.3. , Abraham, take now thy Son, thy only Son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-offering. And Abraham risen up early in the morning, etc. Had he not loved God, so far as the Creature can love God, infinitely, every word would have been as a dagger to his heart. q. d. Abraham] I gave thee that Name, from thy being a Father of many People, but now be thou the death of that seed which I intended to multiply (God seemed to change his Name to Abraham, as Solomon named his Son Rehoboam, an Enlarger of the People, who enlarged them from twelve tribes to two.) Take now] no time to demur upon it. Thy Son] so many years prayed for, and waited for. Thine only Son] all the rest of thy children are not worth thy owning. Isaac] the Son of thy Laughter, now the Son of thy Sorrow. Whom thou lovest] more than ever Father loved a child, and that upon several justifiable accounts. And get thee into the land of Moriah] though no time to deliberate before thou resolvest, yet time enough for repentance before thou executest thy resolutions. And offer him there for a burnt-offering] 'tis not enough to give him up to be sacrificed by another, but thou thyself must be the Priest to kill thy lovely child, and then to burn him to ashes. And Abraham risen up early, etc.] he quarrels not with God, What doth God mean to give me such a command, as never to any one else in this world? He consults not his Wife, Oh what will Sarah say? He sticks not at what might expose Religion, What will the Heathen say? You may well suppose great struggle between Nature and Grace, but God seemed to press upon him with this Question; Whether dost thou love me or thy child most? Abraham doth as it were answer, Nay Lord, if that be the question, it shall soon be decided, how, and where thou pleasest. Another instance we have in Moses (k) Exod. 3.13. and 33.15.18. , if you will compare two or three Scriptures; Moses at first he inquires of God, as we do of a stranger, what is his Name; upon God's further discovery he begs more of his special presence, and upon God's granting of that, his Love grows bold, and he said, I beseech thee show me thy Glory; upon his finding God propitious, he begs that God would remove the cloud, and show him as much of his Glory as he was possibly able to bear the sight of. Take one instance more, and that is of Paul, who thinking God might have more glory by saving of many than by saving of him, was willing to quit the happiness of salvation (for not the least Grace, much less grace in the height of it, could possibly choose a necessity of hating and blaspheming God, which is the venom of Damnation, but) his Love to God is greater than his love to himself; and so he'll reckon himself happy without Glory, provided God may be more glorified. And thus I have produced three Examples, of one before the Law, one under the Law, and one under the Gospel. How will you receive it, if I shall venture to say, We have in some respect more cause to love God than any, than all these Persons put together? What singular gleams of warm Love from God they had more than we, are in some respects exceeded by the noonday light, and heat of Gospel-love that we have more than they. What love-visits God was pleased to give them, are excelled by Christ's (as to them) extraordinary presence among us. What was to them a Banquet, is to us our daily bread. God opens the windows of heaven to us. God opens his very heart to us. We may read more of the Love of God to us in one day, than they could in their whole Life. 2. Angels, that unweariedly behold the face of God (l) Mat. 18.10. ; they refuse nothing that may evidence their love to God. 'Tis ordinarily the Devils work to be the Executioners of God's wrath: it is said (m) Psal. 78.49. , he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil Angels among them; but the good Angels will not stick at it when God requires it (n) 2 King. 19.35. . The Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the Camp of the Assyrians 185000. But now we have more cause to love God than the Angels; God hath expressed greater Love to us in Christ than he hath to them. He took no hold of Angels, etc. (o) Heb. 2.16. not any one of them received so much as the pardon of any one sin. God would not bear with them in so much as the least tittle. So soon as they ceased to love God with a perfect love, God hated them with a perfect hatred. And for the blessed Angels (p) Heb. 1.14: , are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? but none of the Saints are to minister to the Angels in any thing. How should we love such a Master? but I have a Pattern to commend to you above the Angels. 3. Christ; and oh that the mention of Christ's Love to his Father might transport us; though Christ did nothing but (q) Joh. 8.29. what pleased his Father, Christ suffered every thing that might please him ( ) Phil. 2.8. . Christ obeyed every Command, endured every Threatening that it was possible to endure, and that to the intensive extent of them, yet God dealt more hardly with Christ, than ever he doth with any of us (s) Isa. 53.10. . It pleased the Father to bruise him, and to put him to grief; whereas the Church in the midst of her Lamentations must acknowledge (t) Lam. 3.33. , he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the Children of men, yet Christ prayed (u) Joh 17.23. that the world may know that thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Should not we then pray, and strive to love God, as near as it is possible, as Christ loved him? Christ had not one hard thought of God's severe Justice, no, not when he endured what was equivalent to the eternal torments of the Damned; and shall our love shrink at God's fatherly Chastisements? Christ's love to God did not abate, while God poured out his Wrath: and shall ours abate under Medicinal Providences? whatever our outward condition is in this World, 'tis better than Christ's. Thus I have endeavoured to acquaint you what Abilities are requisite, and how to attain them, that you may love God, etc. How to improve and augment our love to God. 4. How to improve and augment all our possible abilities to love God, with all our Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength; and for this I shall give you one general (yet singular) direction (though I must inform, direct, and press several things under it,) and that is, set yourselves to love God. Set upon it as you are able; do for the engaging of your love to God, as you would do for engaging your hearts in love to a person commended to you for marriage. Here's a person commended to you which you never saw, nor before heard of. All the report you can hear, speaks a great suitableness in the person, and consequently happiness in the match, you thereupon entertain the motion, and a treaty, to see whether reports be true and affections feasible, though at first you find no affection on either side; yet if you meet with no discouragements, you continue converse, till by a more intimate acquaintance, there ariseth a more endearedness of affection; at length a non-such love becomes mutual. Do something like this in spirituals. I now solemnly bespeak your highest love for God. Perhaps God and thy soul are yet strangers: thou hast not yet met with him in his ordinances, nor savingly heard of him by his spirit: Don't slight the overture, for from thy first entertainment of it, thou wilt be infinitely happy. Every thing of Religion is at first uncouth, the work of mortification is harsh, and the work of hol●ness difficult, but practice will facilitate them, and make thee in love with them, so the more thou acquaintest thyself with God, the more thou canst not but love him, especially considering, that God is as importunate with thee for thy love, as if his own happiness was concerned, whereas he is infinitely above receiving benefit from us, but seeing he is so earnest with thee for thy love, Beg it of him, for him; God is more willing to give every grace than thou canst be to receive it. Acquaint (w) Job. 22.21, 26. thyself therefore with God,— and thou shalt have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee. What though thou beginnest at the lowest step of Divine love, thou mayst, through grace, mount up to the highest pinnacle. I willingly wave so much as mentioning the several methods proposed, and shall from a modern Author commend to you these five steps or degrees of love to God. Degrees of love to God. Psal 31.23. 1. Degree, is to love God for those good things, which we do (or hope to) receive from him, to love God as our Benefactor. O love the Lord, all ye his saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful. Though I name this as the lowest degree of our loving of God, yet the highest degree of our loving God is never separated from the loving of God as our benefactor. It is mentioned in Moses' (a) Heb. 11.26. commendation of that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of reward. To love God for hopes of heaven is not a mercenary kind of love, it is not only lawful that we may, but it is our duty that we must, love God for the glory that is laid up for us. Where is the man that will own the name of Christian, who dare charge Christ with any defect of love to God, while the Scripture saith expressly (b) Heb. 12.2 , that for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God. Is it not (not question but it is) an infinite kindness of God to make promises? and is it not grossly absurd to say it is a sin to believe them? when our love shall be perfected in heaven, shall we then love God? and shall not we then love God, as well for our perfect freedom from sin, for our perfection of grace, for the society of Saints and Angels, as for himself? If you question this, surely you will startle more at what I shall farther assert, viz. To love God for temporal benefits, does infallibly evidence us eminently spiritual, nay further yet, I shall commend to the consideration of the most considerate Christian, Whether our loving of God for the good things of this life, doth not evidence a greater measure of love to God, than to love God only for the gracious communication of himself unto the soul? (I speak of truly loving God, not of bare saying you love him) now I evidence it thus. God's gracious communications of himself naturally tend to the engaging of the soul to love him, but the things of the world do not so. God's gracious communications of himself, speak special love on God's part, and that draws out love again: but alas, common mercies speak no such thing. Now then, that soul that is so graciously ingenuous, as to love God for those lower kinds of mercies, that do not of themselves speak any love from God to us, that love of God looks something like (though it is infinitely short of it, for it is impossible to prevent God in his loving of us, but it looks somewhat like) our being beforehand with God in the way of Special love. To love God spiritually for temporal mercies, how excellent is this love, though to love a Benefactor may be but the love of a brute, yet to love God Thus, as our Benefactor, cannot but be the love of a Saint, you see therefore that though you begin your love to God at below what is rational, it may insensibly grow up to what is little less than Angelical. 2. The second step of our love to God, is to love God for himself, because he is the most excellent good; you may abstract the consideration of his beneficence to us from his excellency in himself, and then when the Soul can rise thus, Lord though I should never have a smile from thee while I live, and should be cast off by thee when I die, yet I love thee. Alas! why is this named as the second step, surely there are but few can rise so high? Pray christian's mind this, There's many a gracious Soul loves God for himself, who dare scarce own it, that he loves God at all, e. g. when the Soul is in perplexing darkness, and cannot discern any Covenant-interest in God; but as the Church bemoans herself, God hath (c) Lam. 3.8.15, 18, etc. filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood,— My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayers, etc. In short, 'tis the case every Soul that is under sore temptations, or long desertions; yet mark you, while they thus walk in darkness, and see no light: yet than a discerning Christian may see his love to God (like Moses' face) shine to others observation, though not their own, as may be particularly thus evidenced; when God smites them, they love him; for they are still searching what sin it is, that he contends for, that they may get rid of it (not hide it, nor excuse it) when they fear God will damn them, than they love him; for they then keep in the way of holiness (which is the way of Salvation) yea, they will not be drawn out of it, though carnal Friends like Job's Wife, bid them curse God, and die; though Satan tell them they strive in vain, though their discouragements are multiplied, and their diligence is disappointed; yet they are resolved like Job, who said (d) Job 27.2, 5, 6, 10. Though God hath taken away my judgement, and the Almighty hath vexed my soul— I will not remove my integrity from me, my righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live, q. d. I will delight in the Almighty, or nothing; I will always call upon God, though he should never regard me. Or though the Soul under trouble will not own so much goodness in itself, as to say thus, yet the conversation of such Christians speaks it plainly, and can such a frame proceed from any thing but love to God? doth not grace work in the Soul like Physic in the Body? the Mother gives her Child Physic, the Physic (in its working) makes the Child Sick, the Child when sick instead of being angry with the Mother for the Physic, makes all its moan to the Mother, hangs about her, lays its head in her bosom: Is not this love to the Mother, though she gave this Sick-physick? So my Brethren, God deals with his Children; what though some of his deal makes them heartsick, yet they cling to him, fearing nothing but Sin, and can bear any thing but his displeasure. Is not here love? and do not these love God for himself? 'tis true, God's love to them all this while is great, but they perceive it not. 3. The third step is, to love nothing but for God's sake, in him, and for him, and to him. It is said to be Teresia's Maxim [All that is not God is nothing] indeed the very word that Solomon uses for (o) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vanitas, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n●n Deu●, Merc. Pagn. vanity, which he indorseth upon the best of Creature-happiness in the very notion of it, proclaims it, It is not God, therefore it is vanity; 'tis a noble employment to try experiments upon every lovely object, to reduce our love to them to the love of God. To be still musing upon spiritual cases, still supplying of spiritual wants, still longing for spiritual enjoyments, that I may not only love others things in subordination to God, but to love nothing, but for God, e. g. In all outward enjoyments, have I an estate? I will honour God with my substance, because I love him. Have I any thing pleasant or delightful in this world? I'll run it up to the fountain, O how pure and satisfying are the loving Soul's delights in God? Have I any esteem in the world? I am no way fond of it, but so far as it may make my attempts for the honour of God more successful, I'll improve it, and upon all other accounts decline it. Nearer yet, My Relations are dear unto me; I truly love them, but yet my love to God shall animate my love to them, e.g. I truly love my friend: but this shall be my love's exercise, to persuade him to love God. I dearly love my Parents; but Oh, no Father like God, my Soul is overcome with that expression of Christ's (p) Mat. 12.50. , whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the same is my Brother, and Sister, and Mother. My conjugal relation is dearest to me, but my heart is passionately set upon this, that we may both be infallibly espoused unto Christ; my heart yearns towards my children, but I had rather have them God's Children than mine. Nearer yet; as to inward qualifications, e. g. for natural parts, I bless God that I am not an Idiot, that I have any capacity of understanding; but I am resolved to the utmost of my capacity, to endeavour the convincing of all I converse with, that to love and enjoy God is most highly rational, and most eminently our interest. Have I any acquired endowments of Learning or Wisdom? I bless God for them: but I count all Wisdom, folly; and all Learning, dotage without the knowledge of God in Christ (q) 1 Cor. 8.2, 3. , If any man thinks that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet, as he ought to know: but if any man love God, the same is known of him. Higher yet, for gracious qualifications that capacitate me for glory. I love grace the best of any creature, wherever I see it: but 'tis for the sake of the God of all grace, without whom my grace is inconsiderable. Once more, higher yet, and higher than this I think we cannot go: To love those things that are not lovely, merely for God's sake, or out of love to God, e.g. How many have you heard complain for want of afflictions? for fear God does not love them? (though by the way those betray their weakness who thus complain, for did they but observe their want of evidence of divine love, and did they more sympathise with the Church of Christ under the Cross, they would find they need not complain for want of afflictions) But be it so, complain they do, and that for want of afflictions; Afflictions are no way lovely, we are no where bid to pray for them; but 'tis our duty to pray for preventing and removing them, and yet the gracious Soul is through love to God, (in some respect) in love with them: Here's a notable degree of divine love, that the Soul would upon any terms experiment the love of God; and engage the heart in love to God again, and to love nothing but for God. 4. The fourth step of our love to God is, for our highest love of every thing to be hatred in comparison of our love to God. The truth is, we can never so plainly know to what a degree we love God, as by weighing it against whatever stands in competition with it. Why should I so far debase my love to God as to weigh it in the same balance with love to sin? but alas! why do besotted Sinners so dote upon sin, as if love to God were not worthy to be compared with it? Methinks I may a little more than allude to that passage of Isaiah (h) Isa. 46.6. , they lavish Gold out of the bag, and weigh Silver in the balance, and hire a Goldsmith, and he maketh it a God, etc. they give out their Gold by handfuls, without weighing, for matter of their Idols, but they will be good Husbands in their expenses about the workmanship of them. Man cares not at what rate he loves his Idols, those lusts upon which they bestow their affections due to God alone; though in all other things they are wary enough. But why should I wast time in speaking to these? they have not yet gone one step towards the love of God; and therefore are so far behind, that they are not within learning of what is spoken to good proficients in the love of God. Let me only leave with them this parting word, From a person's first sincere and ardent love to God, he can neither speak, nor think of sin without abhorrency. From the first infusion of grace, there's a graciously natural antipathy against sin. Sin receives its death's wound, 'tis too true, it may struggle for life, and seem to be upon recovery, but grace will wear it out, and will never leave the conflict till it has obtained the conquest. But this is not the thing I intended to speak to in this particular; it is other-guess things than Sin, that the Soul that loves God is afraid to spill his love upon: he prizeth those Ordinances wherein he meets with Communion with God, but is afraid his love should terminate there: he values them but as Windows to let in the light: though something excellent may be written there, as with the point of a Diamond, yet it is neither writing, nor window is prized, but the light; when that's gone, shut up the window as if it were a dead wall, that's not more regarded till the light returns. 'Tis the light of God's countenance that is better than life itself. Perhaps you'll say this comes not up to what I asserted; that our highest love to every thing, is to be hatred in comparison of our love to God. Well, let this be warily considered: one whose love to God is at this height, is exactly curious in the management of his graces, and while he is so, he is as curiously jealous, lest grace should warp to rob God of his glory. He loves inherent grace hearty, Oh (saith he) that my Soul were more enriched with it; but yet while he is breathing after perfection in grace, he admiringly prefers God's wise love in saving him by Christ, before Salvation by inherent grace; he utterly renounceth the best of his graces, when pride would have them justle with Christ for the procuring of acceptation. In short, a Soul that is overcome with God's method of Salvation, is unable to bear any thing that darkens it. Would God have me to be as watchful against sin, as if there were no Christ to pardon it? (i) 1 Joh. 2.1. My little Children these things I writ unto you, that you sin not. Our first care must be not to sin. Oh that I could perfectly comply with God in this; but alas, I cannot! Would God have me to rest as entirely upon Christ after my utmost attainments, as that wretch who pretends to venture his Soul with him out or an ill-spent life? O Lord! I trust no more to my good works, than he can to his bad ones for his meriting of Salvation k Let not this be mistaken, as if I made no difference between good works and evil. The Apostle hath taught me better, Tit. 3.8. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will, that thou affirm constantly, that they that have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works: These things are good and profitable unto men, and ver. 14. Let us also learn to maintain good works, for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful. Good works they are genuine fruits, though not meritorious causes of Justification. ; as I would not ungratefully overlook any thing the Spirit hath done in me, so I would not have any thing which I have almost marred in the Spirits doing of it, to draw a curtain whereby Christ should be less looked on. 5. The most eminent degree of our love to God, is Ecstasy and Ravishment; we need not go down to the Legends of the Philistines to sharpen our incentives to the love of God. I could over-match what can be said with truth of Ignatius, and Xaverius, with several (whom many of you knew) whose unparallelled humility hide them from observation; whose communion with God was often overwhelming; but I forbear. Take a Scripture instance of this kind of love, compare but these three passages in the Song of Songs, Cant. 2 5. I am sick of love; This is upon Christ's first overcoming discovery of himself. Cant. 5.8. I charge you O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick of love. This charge is from her spiritual languishment, through earnest desire of reconciliation, after some negligence and carelessness in duty. Cant. 8.6. This is when she hath had the highest communion with God, that an imperfect state affords, when she was as it were, upon the threshold of glory; and then she saith, love is strong as death, q.d. I shall die unless thou grant my desire, or let me die that my desire may be granted; Jealousy is cruel as the grave; that as the grave is never satisfied, so neither will my love without the utmost enjoyments of thyself: The coals thereof are coals of fire, which have a most vehement heat; my love burns up my corruptions, shines in holiness, and mounts upwards in heavenly-mindedness; many waters cannot quench it: the waters of afflictions are but as Oil to the fire. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. She scorns all things that would force, or flatter her, out of her love to Christ. Now if you except against this as spoken of love to Christ, and not of love to God essentially, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I readily answer, we cannot see God lovely but in Christ. If any will be so curious as to assert they look upon Christ himself as but a means to bring them to God, it is God Essentially, Father, Son, and Holy-Ghost, when Christ shall have given up his Mediatory Kingdom (l) 1 Cor. 15.28. , that must be their complete happiness; the means is not to be rested in, in comparison of the end (m) Rev. 5.2, 3. . This may well be compared to a Sea of Glass slippery standing. O that I could but discover what my Soul should long for, viz. how to look beyond Christ to God, in whom alone is my complete happiness, and then to look (in some respect) beyond God to Christ, to give the Lamb his peculiar honour, when I shall be with the Almighty, and with the Lamb as in a Temple (n) Rev 21.22, 23. ; when the glory of God, and of the Lamb shall be the light, whereby I shall see that God (o) 1 Tim. 6.16. who dwelleth in such light, as no mortal eye can behold; That will be a blessed vision indeed (p) 1 Cor. 13.10, etc. , when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. We have yet but childish apprehensions of these things, to what we shall have when (q) Ep. 4.13. we come to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now we see darkly, through the glass of ordinances, but then we shall see face to face. Now we know but in part, but then we shall know God (according to our measure) as God knows us; and then the greatest grace will be love, perfect love, that will cast out all fear; fear of not-attaining, and fear of losing that Joy of our Lord into which we are taken. But alas all I can say in this matter is rather the restless fluttering of the soul towards God, than the quiet resting of the Soul in God. Bradward. de causa Dei, l. z. c. 24. ●. 627, 628, 629, siarsim. Let me close the Paragraph with that (I call a) rapture of profound Bradwardine. O Lord my God, thou art the Good of every good, Good above all good things, a Good most infinitely infinite; How therefore should I love thee? How shall I proportionably love thee infinitely? O that I could! But how can I that am so very little and finite, love thee infinitely? and how otherwise will there be any proportion between thy loveliness and my loves? my God thou art super-amiable, thou infinitely exceedest all other things that are lovely. Perhaps Lord, I should love thee infinitely as to the Manner, when I cannot as to the Act. It pertains to the manner of loving, to love thee finally for thyself; and no other good finally for itself, but for thee, who art the chiefest good, and the beginning and end of all good things. But perhaps I may in some sort, love thee infinitely, as to the Act both intensively, and extensively: intensively, in loving thee more intensely, more firmly, more strongly than any finite good, and when I love nothing but for thy sake: extensively, when I compare thee Lord, with all other great and good things, and had rather they, and myself also had no being, than once to offend my good God. But yet most loving Lord when I consider a proportion of love, I am greatly troubled. If love should be according to the worth of the Object; by how much thou art better than I am, and more profitable to me, than I am to myself; I should love thee more than thou lovest me: but that I never can. O Lord I beseech thee, how much dost thou love me? is it weakly, and remissly according to my goodness? that be far from thee Lord. Thou lovest thine incomparably more, than thou art loved of them; as thou art incomparably greater, and better than they. But O great, and good God, that fillest heaven and earth, yea the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. Why dost thou not fill my poor little soul? O my soul, why dost thou not open all thy little doors? why dost not thou extend thy utmost capacity, that thou may'st be wholly possessed, wholly satiated, wholly de-ebriated with the sweetness of so great love; especially when though thou art so little, yet thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any lesser good. Many questions might be proposed to expostulate my soul into a flame of love. But I see Lord, 'tis easy to speak and write these things, but 'tis hard to do, and perfect them in effect. Thou therefore most good and Almighty Lord to whom nothing is difficult, grant I pray thee, that I may more easily do these things with my heart, than profess them with my mouth, etc. And thus having after my poor manner put you upon practice, and pointed you the way from the lowest to the highest step of divine love, I am sensible that both good and bad have their exceptions ready against what I have delivered. The humble trembling Christian, he fears that if the lowest degree of love to God, hath such heights in it, he shall never be able to reach it; and he is grieved whom God would not have made sad. On the other hand, those that call themselves Christians (though there's no reason for their usurping that title) without any consideration of either the duty, or themselves, will bear you down, that they love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds; and that they have always done so; and they are unworthy to live that do not love God; and if you inquire into any particulars whatsoever about their love to God, they'll rather quarrel with you than give you any satisfying answer. If I could therefore propose any thing that would apply itself, i. e. by its own evidence work itself into the conscience, I might hope to dissolve their self-flatteries, I cannot at present think of a more compendious way of undeceiving both these, and of further perswasively urging the love of God, than by plainly naming the infallible Properties, and constant Effects of this love hereby those that despondingly fear they want it, will find they have it; and those that groundlessly boast of it, will find they want it, and both be instructed what must be done to evidence and exert it. I shall begin with the properties of our love to God. Properties of love to God. And here (as in all the rest) I must study contraction, and therefore dare not particularly mention Gerson's fifty properties of Divine Love. I shall rather follow Voetius' method, who ranks the properties of Divine Love thus. They are partly Negative and Privative: partly Positive and Absolute: partly Comparative and Transcendent. I shall speak briefly of each of these (your Consciences may manage it as if it were a Use of Examination.) Negative Properties or Adjuncts are such as these, and these may prevent the mistakes of drooping Christians; and alas! a great part of Christ's Family are such upon one account or other. 1. This Divine Love is not at all in the unregenerate, unless only in show and imitation; that Soul that is solicitous about loving of God, that Soul loves him. This is proper and peculiar to all those, and only those that are born of God, that are the adopted Children of God. Let it be considered, whether the Devil can counterfeit Love to God, as he can other Graces: their Faith works by Fear, not by Love (a) Jam. 2.19. . The Devils believe and tremble. 'Tis true, he doth not only suffer but (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promote an hypocritical Divine Love in some, and he may appear in a Love-mask (c) Luva amoris. to others, as to Adam in Paradise (d) Gen. 3.5. , God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, than your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods. He pretends he hath more kindness for them, than God himself, and the like to Christ (e) Mat. 4.3, etc. , but did he himself ever pretend so much as to love God? I grant, wicked men pretend to love God, but the ridiculousness of their Discourse plainly evidences, they neither understand what they say, nor whereof they affirm. And whereas thou complainest that thou fearest thy Love is not sincere, because 'tis selfish; be not discouraged, while thou studyest to please God, fearest to offend him, prizest his presence, mournest for his absence; thy love to God is infallibly sincere, though there be an ingredient of self in it: nay, let me say more, it could not be sincere, if thou didst not mind thyself: as in the very quintessence of Conjugal Love, 'tis impossible to abstract it from self-love; so the more we love God, the more we cannot but love ourselves, yea even then when we most deny ourselves out of love to God. 2. This Divine Love is far from perfection, 'tis subject to more sensible languishments and infirmities than any other grace; though it can never be totally and finally extinguished. What though sometimes to thy own Apprehension, thou canst not tell whether thou lovest God at all? and what though at all times thou complainest of fickleness and inconstancy? what though the time of thy Fear be longer than the time of thy Love, yet while thine heart can say, 'tis unquiet in this temper, and it is thy restless desire to love God more perfectly. These very complaints speak Love; we never complain of want of Love to those persons whom we do not already love. This as well as other graces is here but in part (f) 1 Cor. 13.10. , while we are in this lower World, our very Graces will have their Nepe as well as their Spring-Tides. We cannot yet be so wise as to foresee all our hindrances, nor so watchful as to avoid all Satan's Ambushes, nor so perfect as to maintain a spiritual frame of heart. Though this Grace is always in motion, yet it doth not always nor equally go forward. 3. Our love to God shall never be abolished g Non quoad formam, nec quoad modum tend●nd in objectam. 1 Cor. 13.8. Voet. ibid. : Love never faileth; the same kind of love, the same Numerical love that was in gracious Persons on Earth, shall be continued in Heaven, and receive its perfection presently after its delivery from the Body of Death. There will be a greater change in all our Graces than in our Love: A great part of our Life is taken up in the Exercise of those Graces, that (I may in some respect say) die with us. The one half of our Life is (or should be) spent in Mortification: The whole of our time needs the exercise of our Patience: Our Life at best, is but a Life of Faith: much of our sweet Communion with God is fetched in by secret Prayer: But now in Heaven there shall be no sin to be mortified; nothing grievous to be endured; Faith shall be swallowed up in Enjoyment; and your Petitions shall be all answered. So that now Christians set yourselves to love God, and you shall no way lose your labour. Other Graces are but as Physic to the Soul, desirable for something else, which when obtained they are useless; but Love to God is the healthful Constitution of the Soul, there's never any thing of it in any sense useless. Most of the Graces of the Spirit do by our Souls as our Friends by our Bodies, who accompany them to the Grave, and there leave them: But now love to God is the alone Grace, that is to our Souls the same that a good Conscience, our best Friend in both Worlds. 4. This Divine Love is so unknown to the World, that when they behold the Effects and flames of it, in those that love God in an extraordinary manner, they are ready to explode it as mere Vanity, Folly, Madness, Ostentation and Hypocrisy. When Paul managed his Audience more like a Sermon than a Defence, Festus cries out upon him as mad (h) Acts 26.24. . Yea when Christ himself in love to God and Souls, is more hungry after Converts than Food; his nearest Relations think him crazed: and the multitude cometh together again, Mark 3.20, 21, 32. so that they could not so much as eat bread: and when his Friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him; for they said he is beside himself. But were they any other but his carnal and graceless Relations that did this? See, behold, thy Mother and thy Brethren without seek for thee (i) 1 John 3.13. . No marvel then, that Enemy's reproach you, Friend forsake you, Relations slight you, and the World hate you. Christ tells us (k) Joh. 15.18, 23. , if the World hate you, ye know that it hated me, before it hated you. But how can the World hate Christ, who in love to it came to die for it? Christ tells his Hearers the true Reason (l) Joh. 5.40, 42. : I know you (this is no groundless surmise, nor censorious rashness, but I know you) that you have not the love of God in you. Let what will appear at the top, this lies at the bottom. And therefore judge I pray you, who more fanatic, those that hate God, when they pretend to love him; or those that are counted frantic for their serious Love to God? I shall neither name more, nor enlarge further on this first rank of Characters, but be brief also in the second. The Absolute Properties of Love to God are among many, some of them such as these. 1. It is the most ingenious of all Graces. In poor inconsiderable Loves, not worth the mentioning, how do persons contrive ways for the expressing and exciting of Love; and there's no way to prevent it: Oh how much more, when the Soul loves God? there's nothing meliorates the parts like Grace; Divine Love makes the best improvement of Wit, Parts, Time; when a Person loves to pray, though he can scarce speak sense to men, he can strenuously plead with God; a person that loves to meditate, though he knows not how to make his thoughts hang together in other things, they multiply on his hand with a spiritual and profitable consistency. In short, to do any thing that may engage the Heart to God, what gracious stratagems doth Love abound with? That (m) Nieremberg. de art. Vol. p. 114. as he that beholds his Face in a Glass, makes the Face which he sees; his very look is the Pencil, the Colour, the Art; so he that loves God, sees such a Reflection of God's love to him, that a proud person doth not more please herself in her own fancied beauty, than this gracious Soul is graciously delighted in the mutual dartings of Divine Love. Keep from Will-worship and humane Inventions in the things of God, especially from imposing upon others your Prudentials of Devotion: and then I will commend it to you, to try all the Experiments which the Scripture will warrant, to increase the flame of your Divine love. 2. Love to God is the most bold, strong, constant, and daring Grace, of all the Graces of the Spirit of God (n) Cant. 8.6. . Love is strong as Death: every one knows what work Death makes in the World. It is not the Power of Potentates, nor the Reverence of Age, nor the usefulness of Grace, can prevent its stroke, it conquers all. So doth love to God. Nothing can stand before it: what dare not love to God attempt? It designs impossibilities, viz. Perfection, and is restless for the want of it. I may in some sense say, it would fain have contradictions true, viz. to be without the Body, while in it; (the Body's being a clog is so wearisome.) Love to God not only baffles Satan, but through God's gracious condescension, it even prevails with God himself, that God will deny nothing to the Soul that loves him. 3. Love to God is the only self-emptying, and satisfying Grace (o) Nieremb. p. 322, etc. spa●si●. Love, 'tis self's egress, 'tis a kind of Pilgrimage from self: he that loves is absent from himself, thinks not of himself, provides not for himself. But oh how great is the gain of renouncing ourselves, and thereby receiving God and ourselves! we are as it were dead to ourselves, and live to God; nay more, by love we live in God (p) 1 John 4.16. ; God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. By Faith we live upon God; by Obedience we live to God; but by Love we live in God. It is herein alone that we can give something like a carnal (though 'tis indeed an highly spiritual) answer to Nicodemus his question (q) Joh. 3.4. , How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's Womb, and be born? We have our Soul● immediately from the Father of Spirits; by Regeneration we return to God again, from whom by Sin we are estranged; and by love we live in him in some little resemblance to the Child's living in the Mother's womb: what the mother loves, the child loves; what the mother longs for, the child longs for; in the mother's health, the child is well; the child lives there in a far different manner, from how it lives in the world; though it can't stir out of its enclosure, yet it never cries nor complains of its Imprisonment: So the Soul that entirely loves God, hates what God hates, and loves what God loves; its life is far above the life of others, and it desires no greater liberty than to be (as it were) imprisoned in God; to have no will of its own, no one motion but what God graciously concurs in; yet 'tis so far from esteeming this a restraint, that it counts it the highest happiness of its imperfect state; he feels a sweetness in that, beyond what the Heathen that spoke it, ever thought of, in God we live, move, and have our being. 4. The love of God makes us anxiously weary of Life itself: in this love there's one Death and two Resurrections (r) Gal. 2.20. . I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Christ lives, and the Soul lives, and both by Love. I must acknowledge, all manner of love is apt to be extravagant and irregular; our very love to God is in this blind, when it comes to any considerable height; 'tis apt to overlook (not in a way of Neglect, but Ecstasy) what is to be done and suffered, and would fain be at the enjoyment of God in Heaven. By the way, let not doubting Christians be discouraged, because it is not thus with them. Though these Properties be but in the bud, they may in time be full blown; therefore believe and wait: heights of grace are ordinarily as well the work of time, as of the Spirit of God; Besides, you know there's nothing more common than for Lovers to dissemble their love; so here, 'tis too common for gracious persons rather to belly the Spirit of God, than thankfully to own their love to God: because they are afraid of being mistaken, and they are afraid of boasting of a false Gift; and here, though Love when 'tis perfect, it casteth out Fear, yet while it is imperfect Fear proveth our Love. Thus much of the Positive Properties, I'll be very brief in the transcendent properties of our love to God. 1. Love to God is the great General directing Grace, containing all other particular Graces in it, and most intimately goes through the Acts of all of them (s) V●et. ibid. 1 Cor. 13. . Love in the Soul is as the Pilot in the Ship, who steers the Ship and all its Passengers. Love steers the Soul and all its Operations. Love is the Needle in the Compass that's still trembling towards its Divine Loadstone. Euseb. Nieremb. compares other Graces to Bullion uncoyned, which though it have an intrinsic value, yet 'tis not that Money that answers all things: what shall I say, find out a thousand transcendent Metaphors, love will answer them all? 2. It is in a singular manner infinite. Among all the Faculties of the Soul, there's none but the Will that can in any sound sense be said to be infinite; all the other Faculties are more bounded than the Will; now love is the natural Act of the will, and love to God is the supernaturally natural Act of the renewed Will. Its desires (which is the love of desires) are to be united unto God, the Fountain of all Blessedness. And here, those that love God least, (so it be sincerely) their desires are infinite, e. g. Desires are the feet of the Soul, their love will creep when it cannot go; Desires are the wings of the Soul, love will flutter when it cannot fly; Desires are the breathe of the Soul, love will pant, and groan, and gasp, where it can do no more. Again, the contentment and satisfaction of the Will (which is the love of complacency) is infinite (in as large a sense as that word can be ascribed to Creatures,) desires are the motion and exercise of love; delight is the quiet and repose of it. My beloved, to have the heart to delight in God, or to ache and tingle with the discourse of the love of God, through reflection upon the want of it, as unable to stand under his own thoughts, this infallibly shows great love; and this Soul's satisfaction in God is in some sort infinite. Effects of love to God, they relate either to God himself, or to ourselves, or they are mutual; I'll speak briefly of each. Effects that relate to God, Effects of love to God. are such as these; I do not only say these, but these, and such as these. 1. Hatred of, and flight from all that is evil. Joseph may be our instance, his mistress would have inveigled him into sin, but though (t) Gen. 39.10. she spoke to him day by day, yet he harkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her; he that fears sin will get as far as he can out of the reach of a temptation. Hatred of sin always holds proportion with our love to God: our inward hatred of sin with our inward love of God; our return to sin with the decay of our love to God. The renewing of our repentance answers the reviving of our love to God. Every one that doth not love God, loves sin, plain downright sin, sin without any excuse, e.g. either some moral wickedness, or a resting in their own righteousness. 2. The fear of God. A reverential tenderness of Conscience, lest we sin against God. It is not only fear of hell, but fear of God's goodness (u) Hos. 3 5. , they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. The soul that loves God, is troubled that he either does, or omits any thing for fear of hell, and that he is no more affected with love-arguments. Though, pray, take notice by the way, That all fear of hell doth not presently argue a spirit of bondage; Hopes and Fears poise the Soul while in this World. I would therefore leave this charge upon you, viz. Be sure that you love God better than the blessed Apostle loved him, before you censure any for want of love, who are diligent in duty upon this motive, lest they be at last castaways (w) 1 Cor. 9.27. . But to return, Though God's gracious condescension be so great as to allow those that love him a non such familiarity, yet that never breeds the least contempt. Sense of distance between God and the Soul, between the holy God, and a sinful Soul, between the faithful God, and the fickle Soul: O this causeth holy tremble, and humble Apologies in our most familiar plead with God. The Father of the faithful, whom God honoured with the title of his friend, (of whose love to God you have already heard) when he pleaded with Christ face to face in so familiar a way, never any like him; see how he then prefaceth his prayer (y) Gen. 18.27.30, , Behold now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes. Again, O let not the Lord be angry and I will speak (z) Psal. 89.7. , God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. Methinks that passage of Christ to his Disciples, with the circumstance of time, when he spoke it, just upon the most servile action of his life, may for ever keep an awe upon our hearts (a) Joh. 13, 12, 13. , Know ye what I have done unto you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. When God deals most familiarly with us as with friends, let us carry it reverently as becomes servants. 3. Obedience to the commands of God, and to those commands which would never be obeyed but out of love to God (b) 1 Joh. 5.3. . For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous, e. g. to obey those commands that are unpleasing and troublesome. Those commands that thwart our carnal reason, and so part with things present for the hopes of that we never saw, 1 Joh. 2.5. nor any man living that told us of them. Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby we know that we are in him. Once more hear what Christ saith, He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him. Joh. 14.21, 23 And again, if any man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 4. Resignation of ourselves to God; whereby we devote ourselves wholly to God, to be wholly his (e) quoad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & quoad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , to be every way disposed of as he pleaseth. (f) 2 Cor. 5.14, 15. The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge; that if one died for all, then were all dead. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, etc. This resignation is like that in the conjugal relation, it debars so much as treating with any other; it (as it were) proclaims an irreconcilable hatred to any that would partake of any such love. God doth not deal with us as with slaves, but takes us into that relation, which speaks most delight and happiness; and we are never more our own, than when we are most absolutely his. 5. Adhesion and cleaving unto God, in every case, and in every condition; (g) Psal. 63.7, 8. in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice, my soul followeth hard after thee. Methinks we may say of the law concerning (h) Deut. 22.6. birds, what the Apostle saith of the law concerning oxen, doth God take care of birds? for our sakes no doubt 'tis written to instruct us against cruelty; but may we not learn a further lesson, the bird was safe while on her nest; our only safety is with God. Now to cleave to God in all conditions, not only when we fly to him as our only refuge in our pressures, but in our highest prosperity, and outward happiness, when we have many things to take to, whence the world expects happiness, this is a fruit of great and humble love, this demonstrates an undervaluing of the world, and a voluntary choosing of God; this is somewhat like heavenly love. 6. Tears and sighs through desires and joys; when the spiritual lovesick soul, would in some such, but an unexpressable manner, breath out its sorrows and joys into the bosom of God. Lord, why thus loving to me, and why is my heart no more overcome with divine love? those that never received so much from thee, love thee more. O I am weary of my want of love! O I am weary of my distance from God O I am weary of my unspiritual frame! we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life (i). Here when the heart is ready to die away through excess of love, 2 Cor, 5.4. 'tis passionately complaining of defects. Dear Lord what shall I say? what shall I do? what shall I render? O for more endearing communications of Divine love! O for more answerable returns of love to God Thus much of effects as to God. The only effect I shall name as to us, is, a seeking of heaven and things above, with contempt of the world, and all worldly excellencies. One that loves God thinks he can never do enough in heavenly employments. A person that abounds in love to God is too apt to neglect secondary duties, which are in their places necessary: they are apt to justle out one duty with another, e.g. those duties wherein they have most sensible communion with God, bear down lesser duties before them: whereas could we keep within Scripture-bounds, and mind every duty according to its moment, than this is an excellent effect of divine love, e. g. to be afraid of worldly enjoyments, lest they should steal the heart from God; yet at the same time not to dare to omit any worldly duty, lest I should prove partial in the work of Christianity. To make conscience of the least duties, because no sin is little, but to be proportionably careful of the greatest duties, lest I should prove an hypocrite: such a carriage is an excellent effect of divine love, this is fruit that none who are not planted near the tree of life can bear. Mutual effects are these, and such like as these. 1. Union with God. Union is the foundation of communion, and communion is the exercise of union. The Spirit of God is the immediate efficient cause of this union, and faith is the internal instrument on our part, but love is the internal instrument both on God's part, and ours (k) Eph. 3.17. , Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, we being rooted and grounded in love. This union is most immediately with Christ, and through him with the Father, and Holy Ghost. It is an amazing and comfortable truth, that our union with Christ does much resemble the personal union of the two natures in Christ. (I grant 'tis unlike it in more considerations, because of the transcendency of the mystery, but yet there's some resemblance) e. g. the Humane Nature in Christ is destitute of its subsistence and personality, by its union with, and its assumption to the divine: so the gracious soul hath no kind of denomination, but what it hath from its union with Christ: It's gracious being is bound up in its union with Christ. Other men can live without Christ, but so cannot the gracious soul. Again, in Christ there's a communication of properties, that is, th●t which is proper to the divine nature is attributed to the humane; and contrarily, that which is proper to the humane nature, is attributed to the divine: so here in the soul's union with Christ; Christ is made sin for us, and dealt with, as if he were a sinner; we are made the righteousness of God in him, and privileged as righteous persons. Christ's riches are ours, and our poverty his: yea more, the offices of Christ, are attributed to Believers; (l) 1 Pet. 2.5, they are an holy and a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; and Christ hath made (m) Rev. 1.6. us Kings and Priests unto his father, Christ hath a stock of created grace, 'twas for us (n) Joh. 1.16. 2 Tim. 2.1. of his fullness have we all received and grace for grace. The Apostle bids us be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What shall I say? is Christ the natural Son of God: they are the adopted. Is Christ the beloved Son of God? Believers (in their measure) are so too. They are dead with Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, sit together in heavenly places with Christ, fellow-heirs with Christ. In short, as there never was such another union in the world, as the union of the two natures in Christ, So there never was, nor ever can be, such another union in the world, as between Christ and the believer. It is beyond what any metaphors from art or nature can fully express. That of a Foundation and Building; of a Vine and Branches; of Head and Members; of Soul and Body; are but dark shadows of this union. But I must not enlarge. 2. Communion with God; Communion consists in communication, (o) Cum res unius sit alterius. when there is a kind of community of propriety. I might run over the former particulars, and enlarge them, but the subject is not so barren, that I need name one thing twice. Christians I beg of you that you would be careful of receiving, because I can be but brief in delivering a few hints of the communication of divine love between God and us, e. g. (p) 2 Pet. 1.4. God communicates the divine Nature to us through his fulfilling exceeding great and precious promises: We make returns as those that are born of God in obeying his commands. Because God loves us, he communicates unto us his communicable properties, of holiness, wisdom, goodness. Seeing we have nothing to return, we prostrate ourselves at his feet, ingenuously acknowledge our unholiness, folly, and badness. God and the Soul holds communication in all gracious actions: God communicates strength to the doing of those things which he cannot do (q) Through his perfection, not defect. , but we must; to repent, believe, obey God; these are our actions through his strength. Again, we exercise our graces upon God for those his actions which we cannot do, but (we may through his covenant engagement, with humble thankfulness say) he must, e. g. for the pardon of sin, speaking peace to the Conscience, giving out of gracious influences, etc. for these we admire God, we praise him, rejoice in him. Once more, in those things wherein we can make no return to God, but may to others for God's sake; our love to God necessitates us to do it, e. g. God pities us, is merciful and kind to us; God is infinitely above all such returns: Ay, but so are not the Members of Christ, who are the best visible Image of God in the world: I'll give them not only my alms, but my very bowels, etc. In short, in this communication, God and the gracious Soul have the same interest, drive on the same design (the advancement of Christ and the Gospel) have the same friends, and the same enemies. They communicate secrets to each other; none but the loving Soul knows the secrets of divine love, and none but God hears all the secrets of the Soul without a reserve. Among the dearest friends in the world, there's some reserve: Some things we'll rather speak to a stranger, than to our dearest bosom-friend; we think them not fit to mention, or we are loath to trouble them; but there's none of this between God and the Soul: God tells us all that may benefit, not overcharge us: we tell God all the very worst of our own hearts, which we are ashamed to mention to those that most love us. God deals with us according to our capacities, our bottles would break should God overfill them; but we deal with God according to the utmost of our active graces: God is both compassionate to pity and pardon what's no way acceptable, and even incredibly condescending to accept of what none but his infinite grace would accept. 3. Familiar love-visits. When God makes sad visits to the disquieting of Conscience, and the breaking of our peace; yet even then the Soul, under trouble of Conscience, would not change its spiritual trouble for the best of the world's peace, no not for its former peace, with which 'twas so well pleased before conversion; the Soul that loves God cannot construe that to be a visit which others count so. The Soul never goes to God as we go to visit those we care not for, that we are glad at their being from home, so the visit be but paid, we care not. Pray compare some passages in that Song of loves; one while you have the Spouse enquiring of Christ (r) Cant. 1.7. ; Tell me (O thou whom my soul loveth) where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy Companions, q. d. Tell me, O Lord, my love and life, where I may have both instruction, and protection in an hour of trouble; lest through thy absence I be seduced by those that only pretend to love thee. Christ gives a present answer, and quickly after returns an invitation. O my dove (s) Cant. 2.14. that art in the clefts of the Rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely, q. d. O my mourning dove, that darest not stir out of thy secret place, stir up thy faith, hold up thy face with comfort, let me hear thy prayers and praises; though others censure them, I esteem them; though others count thee deformed, thou art in my eyes beautiful. Here's something of affection, but see more (t) Cant. 4.16. , Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits, q. d. O my Lord, what I have from thee, I return to thee; accept I beseech thee the fruits of obedience, and praise. Christ presently accepts the invitation (u) Cant. 5.1. , I am come into my Garden, my Sister, my Spouse, I have gathered my Myrrh, with my Spices, I have eaten my Honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk up my Wine with my Milk: eat O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved. q. d. Thou shalt no sooner ask, than be answered; I accept thy graces, and duties, thy bitter repentance, and thy fragrant holiness, they are most sweet to me, notwithstanding their imperfections; and ye, O my Friends, whether blessed Angels, or gracious Souls, do you cheer yourselves with the same spiritual dainties, wherewith I am refreshed. This is much, but there is more in the next expression I shall name (w) Cant. 6.5. . Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me, q. d. I am ravished and vanquished by thy fixed eye of faith; in short, see the Spouse's closing request (y) Cant. 8.14. : Make hast my beloved, and be thou like to a Roe, or a young Hart upon the mountains of Spices; q. d. as I began this Song my dearest Saviour, with passionate desires of thy first coming by the Preaching of the Gospel; so though I thankfully praise thee for all the communion I have had with thee, yet I cannot (my Lord) but more passionately long for thy glorious coming, to take me with thee from these bottoms of death, and valleys of tears, to those eternal heights where nothing springs but life and glory; that instead of this Song I may sing a new one to the Lamb, and to him that sits upon the Throne unto all eternity. Thus (but in a far more Seraphic manner than I am able to express) the Soul-loving God, as the God-loving Soul (z) Zeph. 3.17. are rejoicing in each other with joy, till they rest in each other's love. In short, the Soul that loves God is never so well, as when most immediately with him, and while there's any distance, many a love-glance passeth between God and the Soul, even in the greatest crowd of business and diversions. 4. A putting a love-interpretation upon all things. God looks upon the very miscarriages of those whom he loves as their infirmities, and puts a better interpretation upon them, than they dare do themselves (a) Mark 14 37, ●8, 40. . The Disciples slept when Christ bade them watch, they witted not what to answer him: Christ himself excuseth it better than they could, in saying, the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. And the loving Soul is as loath to take any thing ill at the hands of God; when 'tis never so bad with the Soul, he blesseth God that it is no worse. God and the loving Soul do those things towards each other, which nothing but love can put a good interpretation upon; the truth is, without love 'twere intolerable, e. g. God requires that Service of the gracious Soul, that he requires of no other; viz. to bless God when persecuted, to rejoice in tribulations, to hope against hope, etc. God puts the Soul that loves him, upon those trials that he puts upon no other, viz. Those chastisements from himself, those reproaches from men, those buffet from Satan, which are peculiar to Saints; but the Soul hearty loveth God under all these. Again, the Soul grows upon God in prayer, and the more it receives from God, the more insatiable it is, and God loves the Soul the better for it. When afflictions are extreme, those that love God put the affliction upon the account of God's faithfulness: On the other hand, when the poor Soul is foil d, and Satan runs with the tidings of it to set God against him; God pities the Soul, Zech. 3.1, 2. etc. and rates the Accuser. And he shown me Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him; and the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments— take away the filthy garments from him, etc. Here's Joshua the High Priest, while executing his Office in offering Sacrifices and Prayers for the people, Satan arraigns' him as a Prisoner at the Bar, and the accusation being true and vehement, Satan takes the upper hand; but now, Jesus Christ, as well the Patron as the Judge of Saints, cuts him short with a vehement reproof, and tells him, those sins could not make void that choice, which they could not at first hinder; and farther Christ as it were tells him they had been severely punished, half burnt and wasted by the heat of God's displeasure; and would he now re-kindle that fire? No Satan, thy charge is, as it were, thrown out of the Court, his sins shall be pardoned, his graces multiplied, and upon the well-discharging of his office, he shall have places to walk among them that stand by; Alluding to the walks and galleries about the Temple, q. d. Thou shalt walk with these glorious Angels, they shall be thy Companions and Guardians, where Satan hath no place. So that Christ loves a Soul the more, not the less, for Satan's accusations. To all these effects add these Concomitants, or those things that have agreement with, or are near of kin to Divine Love; which do not really differ from it, only express some part, or manner of it. In short, 'tis love under some other form or notion. I shall only mention two Concomitants. 1. Devotion, which is an absolute delivering up of ourselves to God's Worship and Service, so as by no flatteries or dangers to be diverted (e) 1 Tim. 4.15. . Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Herein lies the strength of Religion, and the spiritual pleasure of it, herein the Soul can say with some kind of triumph (f) Isa. 12.2, 3. , Behold God is my Salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength, and Song, he also is become my Salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of Salvation. Christians, we must not only be barely frequent in religious actions; but we must act as those that are given up to God, we must mind the fervour of Religion. We must be exceeding watchful over out thoughts to keep them from vanity, and over our affections to keep them from entanglement. I would therefore commend it to you, to single out every morning some short passages of Scripture, or some encouraging promise that hath affected you, to roll in your minds, or to lie upon your hearts all day to maintain this holy fervour; nothing works and keeps such an impression upon the heart as Scripture. 2. The other concomitant is Zeal, which is the most intense degree of desire and endeavour to please, and honour God. 'Tis the boiling up of the affections to the greatest heat; this must be the companion of every grace; now Zeal is expressed against sin, or in duty. In the exercise of Zeal against sin, I beg of you to observe this Rule, viz. Whatever act of Zeal you express towards others, double it first upon yourselves: whatever evil you reprove, or would reform in others, be doubly strict against it in yourselves. This is Christ's counsel, Cast out the beam out of thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote out of thy Brother's eye; Math. 7.5. Mine eye is not capable of having a beam in it, but a mote in mine own eye, should be to me as a beam, in comparison of what it is in another's. Take a few Scripture instances (for this had need to be inculcated in the present age) in case of dishonour done to God and yourselves, compare Moses his carriage (g) Numb. 12.2. , Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? and the Lord heard it, but Moses was as if he heard it not, for he was very meek above all men that were upon the face of the earth: He was so indeed, but it was only in his own cause; when the glory of God is concerned, you'll find him of another temper. As soon as he saw the Calf, and the Dancing, Moses' anger waxed hot— and he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, Exod. 32.19, 20, 22, 27. and strewed it upon the water, and made the Children of Israel drink of it— And Moses stood up in the gate of the Camp, and said, who is on the Lords s de, let him come unto me— and he said, put every man his Sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour, etc. Here is one ice-cold in his own cause, fire-hot in God's. Take another instance of Paul (h) Gal. 4.12. , Brethren I beseech you be as I am, for I am as ye are; you have not injured me at all, q, d. the wrong you have done me, I count as nothing: but to Elimas' that would hinder the entertainment of the Gospel, he saith, thou Child of the Devil, thou Enemy of all Righteousness, Acts 13.10. etc. and he strikes him blind. I instance in these now, because I mentioned them before, as singularly eminent for their love to God. For Zeal about duties I commend unto you this rule, In every duty you take in hand, endeavour to do it above your strength, not only to the uttermost of your strength, but above it. I bottom this rule upon the commendation given to the Churches of Macedonia (i) 2 Cor. 8.3. . For to their power (I bear record) yea, and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves. My Brethren, It becomes us in every thing of Piety to pant after the utmost perfection attainable (k) Phil. 3.12, 13, 14. . Not as though I were already perfect: but I labour after, forgetting those things that are behind, & reaching forth to those things which are before, etc. And David saith (l) Psal. 69.9. , The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. In a word, we must not only be sometimes zealous under pangs of Conscience, but always in the whole frame of our conversation (m) Gal. 4.18. . It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when a Minister or some other is present who may commend you. The last thing I first proposed was, to urge some persuasives to be graciously ambitious of such qualifications, and as graciously diligent in such exercises. And here I must pass by more arguments, than I can so much as mention. For the truth is, you can name nothing in the world, but it may be an Argument to promote our love to God. 1. Consider, God is our great Benefactor. I mention this twice, that it may be often in your thoughts: Who can reckon up the benefits we receive from God? If love be to be recompensed with love, greater love was never shown than this, that God hath given his Son to die for his Enemies? If love be to be purchased at any rate, who can give more for it than eternal life? If love be to be bestowed gratis, who more worthy of it than God? and canst thou then do less than love him? It is commended as an expedient to overcome the worst of our enemies (p) Rom. 12.20. : If thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Oh what hearts have we, that mercies will not melt them? Reflect a little upon yourselves, we use to indent with little Children for their love; if we give them but an apple, or a plumb, we presently ask, will you love me? and if they promise to love us, we then inquire, where will you love me? Oh dear Christians, turn in upon your own hearts a little: O how many, how great mercies do you receive from God (q) Prov. 17 8. ? Solomon tells us, that a gift whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth, shall God's gifts be the only exception to that Proverbial Maxim? For shame Christians let us strive who shall be first in crying, O come let us worship, and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker (r) Psal. 95.6. ; Know ye that the Lord is God (s) Psal. 100.3. . It is he that made us, and not we ourselves; we are his People, and the sheep of his pasture. (t) Psal. 31.23. O love the Lord all ye his Saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful. God is pleased to give us in actual possession of what his wise love thinks fittest for us: and God is pleased to give us promises suitable to every condition we can be in, in this world, e. g. In case of want (u) Mat. 6.31, 32, 33. , Take no thought, saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed; surely, if we may be solicitous about any worldly concern, it is about food and raiment; but Christ chargeth us upon our Christianity, not to be thoughtful about them. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. But if we do not take care for food and raiment, we may starve. Christ doth as it were say, nay; there's no danger of that, for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Were this believed, men would lay aside their Callings: No warrant for that, Christ layeth down a rule for our practice, as the condition of the promise, Seek ye first (not only, but first) the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and then (in a way of diligence, not negligence) all these things shall be added to you; This in respect of want. Take another in case of danger. The name of the Lord is a (w) Prov. 18.10. strong Tower; the Righteous runneth into it, and is safe. O how safe is that person that is as it were garrisoned in the divine Attributes! in case of suffering (x) Mark 10.29, 30. , Verily I say unto you, there's no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake and the Gospel; but that he shall receive an hundred fold; Now in this time, an hundred fold more comfort in parting with all for Christ, than he could have had in keeping all, and denying of him. But why should I name particulars? there's enough in one Scripture, whence to form many incentives to love God: (y) Rom. 8.28. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose. Pray mark this place, We] 'Tis not only the Apostle, but all Believers. Know] 'tis not we only Think, or Hope, but we Know, that all things] all those afflicting providences which are most grievous to be born, all those dark providences which we know not what to make of, work together] though we cannot presently anatomize every particular providence, yet in their contexture we can't but say they are gracious, and for good] for the spiritual and eternal good of all them that love God.] O but here I stick, I cannot say I love God. Read on, the next clause is the best Interpreter of this, To them that are the called according to his purpose] that is plainly, to those that obey Christ's call in his Word, to all that are converted, to all that are willing to be taught, and ruled by Jesus Christ. And though thou darest not own thy conversion, yet thou darest not deny this evidence of it, viz. That thou wouldst fain comply with Christ in every thing. 2. Love to God ennobles all other graces. I will not meddle with the controversy about faith's being informed by love, or love being as it were the Soul of faith. The Scripture tells that faith works by love (z) Gal 5.6. , and 'tis by loving nothing so much as God. Love is the most ingenuous grace, the most heavenly grace, the most Godlike grace; all other graces are more or less excellent, as they are enlivened with love to God. Sales (a) Sales of the love of God p 670, etc. Spa●sim. illustrates it thus, The General of an Army having gained some renowned victory, will have all the glory of it, for he ordered the Battle, and led them on; we name the Services of the several parts of the Army, both the Vanguard, the Body, the Wings, the Rear. So here, some Christians are singular for Faith, others for Alms deeds; some for Prayer, others for Humility; but Love to God commands all these: Love commands Patience to bear, and Hope to wait, and Faith to believe. Elsewhere he compares love to Scarlet, which is a Royal cloth, not for the wool, but for the dye; so a Soul, (as it were) double dipped in love to God, is the most excellent Christian. 3. Love to God rectifieth all other loves, and keeps them in due bounds. The same Author hath this other illustration, viz. I may love my servant, but if I do not love my child better than I love my Servant, I am defective in my love. Well then, I must love my child, but if I do not love my wife better than I love my child, I am defective in my love. Well then, I must love my wife, but if I do not love God infinitely more than I love my wife, I am defective in my love. You shall see (saith he) a Mother so busy about her child, as if she had no love for any one else, as if her Eyes were for nothing else but to look upon it, and her Mouth for nothing else but to kiss it: But now if she must lose her child or her husband, her love to her Husband is so great, as if she had no love for her child at all. So when God and those we most dearly love, stand in competition; you may soon see the subordination of our love. Though let me add this for your encouragement, God never calls for the hating of other things for love to himself, but he doth most singularly make up in himself whatever any one parts with for him; when God requires the banishment of other Objects, it is to communicate himself more fully, more clearly, more sweetly. Look over what Martyrology you please, I think you will scarce find so much as One, dying for Christ any other way than Triumphing; whereas many of as eminent Graces as they, die in their Beds, little less than despairing. What encouragement may this be for the worst of times? 4. Our love to God doth more sensibly quiet our hearts, than God's love to us; for though God's love to us be infinitely greater than our love to God, yet till his love to us have drawn out our love to him, we do more abuse his kindness than other persons do whom he doth not so love. This is most evident in a person just upon the borders of conversion, but yet unconverted; God is abundant in his love of Benevolence, he is now engaged upon the making of means effectual for his through-regeneration; but now in this work there are several things to be done, which though they speak greater love on God's part, than ever he before shown him; yet while God is at work, the person quarrels with God more than about any former providences of his Life. God to tame him, brings him under great Afflictions, upon which he either flies in his face, or lies sullen at his feet, and thinks he may well do so; well, but God will not thus leave him, God follows him with terrors of Conscience, the arrows of God stick fast in him, and the poison thereof drinketh up his spirits, but he will not yet yield, he holds fast his iniquity, which he's as loath to part with as his life, and rather hates than loves God for all this kindness: so that till he is brought to love God, God's love to him doth no way quiet him; by which you may plainly see, that let Gods love to us be never so great, we misinterpret all, till we love God again, and then let God do what he will, Da mihi Domine Sanctum amorem tuum, & mitte me si vis in ignem inferni, Stell. de amore dei, p. 314, etc. he is quiet, let his sufferings be next to Hell torments, he'll not allow one hard thought of God. Therefore be persuaded to get, increase, and exercise this Love to God with all your hearts, souls and minds. I have been too long already, and therefore will be as brief as may be in answering these two Complaints. 1. Complaint. All that hath been said, makes me fear I have no true love to God at all; I cannot say I love God more than the Creature, I feel my heart more sensibly warping towards the World in the Service of God, than springing towards God in my worldly affairs. To this I answer by these Distinctions. Distinction 1. We must distinguish between the Estimation of our love, and the Commotion of it; the Commotion may be greater, where the Estimation is less: One whose love is fixed upon God, though he is so far from forsaking God, that he will forsake all things for God, yet he may till he recollect himself, be more moved with some petty loss. In short, he may have some violent Gust of Affection after other things, but the constant breathe of his Soul is after God. 2. We must distinguish between the solidity of our Love, and the flashiness of it, between a superficial, and a lasting Joy; e. g. A Covetous man may laugh more when he is tickled, than when you give him a thousand pound, but he is a thousand times more joyful of his thousand pound than of his being tickled. The Souls love to God is Well rooted (b) Eph. 3.18 . As a sick man is pleased with one that will sit with him, and alleviate his pains by diversion; but he is more pleased with that man that shall cure him. While our Souls are in a sickly frame, we are pleased a little with variety of Diversions, but we soon see their emptiness, and charge our Souls to return unto God for a perfect cure. 3. We must distinguish between our spiritual love and our sensible love: while we live in this world, such is our weakness through the remainders of Sin, and imperfection of Grace, that our Animal and Vital spirits are more affected with sensible things, than with spiritual. The things of the World are near to us, and we cannot live without them; but yet he that loves God, never says upon the Enjoyment of them (c) Luk. 12. i9. , Soul take thine ease; Oh no, he is angry, and grieved that he is at all pleased about such things. 2. Complaint. I hope I am not wholly destitute of this excellent Grace, yet I am afraid to own that I have it. Is it impossible to get my Heart above this uncomfortable uncertainty? O that my heart were more raised and fixed above this anxious temper! I'll close all with an Essay to answer this Complaint; only premise, Let not any thing that shall or can be spoken, be wrested to give the least encouragement imaginable to any thing of Sin; take heed you do not upon any account gratify your sloth, or indifferency of spirit, or any sins of Omission; keep off this Rock, and then thy solicitude about thy fickleness, gives thee grounds of hope to get above it. Take therefore these short Directions, how to get and keep the most certain, constant, comfortable, spiritual frame of Divine love that is to be had upon Earth. 1. Keep a severe Watch against all sins: yet give not way to drooping Fears, because of unavoidable infirmities (d) Psal. 130, 3, 4. . If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. 2. Observe your own temper, what it is that most draws out your love to any person or thing in this world, and improve that very inducement to love God (e) Cant. 5.16. . He is altogether lovely; that is, Imagine or name any thing that is most desirable, most worthy to be loved and admired, and that's he. 3. Endeavour to love God out of Duty, when (to your own apprehension) you cannot love him out of Grace: I would commend this to you for all your gracious carriage towards God, and for all the kindness you would receive from God; e. g. Repent as 'tis a duty, even while you fear you want the Grace of Repentance. Believe as 'tis a duty, while you think you cannot act Faith as a Grace. So justify God (i. e. acknowledge God to be Righteous, though he condemn you,) when you fear God will not justify you. Sanctify God, (i. e. celebrate God's Holiness) when you fear he'll not sanctify you, i. e. not make you holy. So set yourselves to love God, i. e. take heed you do not offend him, do all you can to please him, take up with nothing on this side himself. In short, Let God find you in a way of Duty, and you'll find God in a way of Grace. 4. Study Christ. What Divine love we either receive or return, 'tis through Christ. You may look for encouragement from Christ for every thing but Sin. In every thing have recourse to Christ (f) Col. 2.10. , for the performance of every Duty, for the attaining of every Grace; when you fear Grace is withering, Christ will revive it (g) Cant. 3.10. . In a word, pray and strive that you may feel what it is for Christ to be all in all. Christians, practically mind these four Directions, and they will be as the Wheels of Christ's Chariot that's paved with Love, to bring his Beloved to Glory. How ought we to love our Neighbours as ourselves? Serm. II. Math. 22.39. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. THE Apostle bids us consider Christ, Heb. 12 3. who endured (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emphati 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 posuit: declarans magnitudinem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aretius. such (that is, so great) contradiction of sinners against himself: It was from a great spirit of this kind, that his adversaries used to propose so many captious questions to him. We find him no less than three times opposed in this one chapter: First, by the disciples of the Pharisees, and the (b) Forsitan in populo tunc qui dicebant oportere dare tributum Caesari, vocabantur Herodianis, ab his qui hoc facere recusabant. Vide Drus. come. ad voces N. T. L. De Dieu. Herodians, about the lawfulness of giving tribute unto Caesar: again, the same day by the Sadduces, with a question about the resurrection, which they denied. When he had so well acquitted himself of both these, that the first marvelled and left him, and the last were put to silence; behold he is again set upon by the Pharisees, who seem to have chosen out one of their number to oppose him with a question: Then one of them, which was a Lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, ver. 35. The same person is by another Evangelist called a Scribe, Mark 12.28. One of the Scribes came, etc. There were two sorts of Scribes among the Jews, viz. Scribes of the People, who were Actuaries in and about matters of public concernment; and Scribes of the Law, whose business was to read, and interpret the Law of God unto them: such a one was Ezra, who is said to be a ready Scribe in the Law of Moses, Ezra 7.6. and upon this account they are said to sit in Moses' seat: of this last sort was the person in the Text, Math. 23.2. as plainly appears by joining both Evangelists together: Mark says he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one of the Scribes; Matthew says he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Lawyer; if we put them both together, they say he was a Scribe of the Law. And the question that he tempted Christ with, is concerning the Law: Master, Luke 2.46.47. which is the great Commandment in the Law? v. 36. He who was able at twelve years of age to dispute with the Doctors, in such a manner as that all that heard him marvelled at his understanding, and answers; was not like, at this time, to go far to seek for an answer to such a question: we have him therefore speaking roundly and directly to it, ver. 37.38.39. Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; this is the first and great Commandment; and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. The latter part of this answer falls under our present consideration: thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. This is said to be like unto the first, i. e. a great commandment; because as that comprehends all the duty we own to God immediately, so this includes all that duty we own to man. The (c) Hillel Senex. Lex nostra uno pede continetur; Diliges proximum tuum tanquam teipsum. Uno pede, hoc est, uno Capite, quod vocant universale magnum. Drus. Apophtheg. Ebrae. lib. 1. John 15.14. Phil. 4.8. Jewish Doctors were wont to call it, the Universal great precept: sometimes again the Head: sometimes the foot of the Law; alluding possibly to the total sum in accounts. For as in adding many particulars together, if you begin below, and go upward, the total sum is set above, and called the Head of the account: if above, and proceed downward, it is set below, and called the Foot of the account, containing in it as much as all the rest: so if you begin at Moses, and go down to the Prophets; or at the Prophets, and go up to Moses; of all that is spoken by any, or all of them, about our duty to man, this is the sum; Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. When Christ commanded his Disciples to love one another, he charged them with many things in that one thing: These things I command you, that you love one another: and who can tell how many things are required of us in this one thing? whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; all these whatsoevers are required in it; yea, whatsoever else that is good and virtuous; if there be any virtue, any praise, it is (d) Decalogus continet doctrinam tam copiosam & sublimem, ut nunquam satis perspici, nunquam exhauri●i postit. Melancthon. Isa. 40.12. Eph. 3.18.19. Psal. 119.96. comprehended in this one command; love one another, and also in this saying, Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. It cannot be expected, that, in so short a time as is allotted to this exercise, we should speak of all things contained in these words; we can but take up a few drops out of the Ocean, or a handful of sand from the shore. It is only he, that measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, and comprehendeth the dust of the Earth in a measure, that is able to give us the true dimensions of them: as there is height and depth, a length and a breadth in the Love, so also in the Law of God, which passeth knowledge. This David acknowledged when he said; I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad. Neither is it our scope to speak of the words in the way of a treatise: we shall therefore give ye the Doctrine, and proceed with as much speed as well we may to the Query, the resolution of which is our main business at this time. Doct. It is the duty of every man to love his Neighbour as himself. When God says, Thou shalt; he intends thee and me, and every man else of what rank, state, or condition soever he be. Before we propound the Quaery it will be requisite, 1. That we show who is our Neighbour. 2. That we speak something of the lawfulness of a man's loving himself. 3. That we lay down some conclusions, which are to be taken along with us, as a thread that must run through the whole contexture of our ensuing discourse. 1. Who is our Neighbour? Our Neighbour is, not only he who lives near to our habitation, in the same street, or City; nor he only that is of the same Country, or nation that we are of; but every man, of what place, or nation soever he be; whether he be one of our acquaintance, or a stranger; a friend, or an enemy. Luke 10.29, 30. You find this question put somewhere to Christ himself, by a certain Lawyer, (whether he were the same we have here in this Chapter, it matters not) and there you have Christ answering him by a parable, to this effect. A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among theives, which stripped him, and wounded him, and left him half dead: there came a Priest that way, and saw him, and passed by on the other side; after him, a Levite in like manner: but a Samaritan, seeing him, had compassion on him, bound up his wounds, and brought him to his Inn, etc. Now which of these three was Neighbour to him? he answers: he that shown mercy on him. What says Christ? go thou, and do likewise. As if he should have said; Thou art a Jew, and as such, hast little or no dealing with a Samaritan, or indeed with any man of another nation; there is a partition-wall between you and them; so that you look on them as strangers, if not enemies, and none of your Neighbours; (e) Ipse enim est proximus, quem non solum conformis natura conjunxerit, sed etiam misericordia copulaverit. Amb●os. de poenit. lib 1. cap. 5. Levit. 19.33, and 34. Math. 5.43. but I tell thee, a Samaritan, or a man of any other nation, whatever he be, is one of thy Neighbours; and therefore if he be in misery, and come within thy reach, be sure thou show mercy to him. This God required of the Jewish nation of old: If a stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex him; but the stranger that dwelleth with you, shall be as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. Yea; although he be an enemy, the case is the same, for so Christ resolves it: ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy Neighbour, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies. Ye have heard: the Scribes and Pharisees might have taught them thus, blotting the text with their false interpretation; but Christ better informs them, and wiping away their blots with his sponge, restores the Law to its primitive beauty and perfection: I say unto you, love your enemies. And doth not the Law say the same also? we find a very fair text in the Law to this purpose; If thou meet thine enemy's Ox, or his Ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again: Exod. 23.4, 5. If thou see the Ass of him that hateth thee, lying under his burden, and wouldst forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him. Doth God take care for Oxen? for man's sake doubtless this is written; and so it appears plainly in the text, Thou shalt surely help with him: thou shalt bring it back again to him; it was to be done, not only in mercy to the beast; but in love to the man. Besides, how can we think that God would require us to bring back a straying Ox, and to relieve an Ass oppressed with his burden, and lay no duty on us to a Man in such a condition? doubtless if we are bound to bring back an Ox that goeth astray, we are much more obliged to bring back a Man, when we find him going astray from God: and if we are to help an Ass, that lieth under his burden, much more a Man, when we see him oppressed with His. We see then whom we are to account our Neighbour, any man whomsoever; Friend, or Enemy; that lives nigh to us, or at a greater distance from us. 2. We come now to speak of the second thing propounded, and that is, the lawfulness of a man's loving himself. Every man may; yea, it is a Duty lying on every man to love himself. This may seem strange, when we see self-love every where branded in the Scripture; so that there is hardly any sin described in so black a character as this. It is a sin indeed, that includes many others in the bowels of it; we may say of it, James 3.6.8. as the Apostle James doth of the tongue, It is a fire, a world of iniquity, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Unbelief and self-love are the immediate parents of all the mischiefs and abominations that are in the world; and therefore we have this set in the front of all the evils that make the last times perilous: 2 Tim. 3.1.2.3. In the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God, etc. And if you can find a larger catalogue of abominations than you have here set down to your hand, self-love is the mother of them all: it is this, that makes all the stir that is in the world: It is this, that disturbs Families, Churches, Cities, Kingdoms: in a word, this is the grand Idol, that is set up to be worshipped all the world over, greater by far than Diana of the Ephesians, Act. 19.27. whom yet all Asia and the world were said to worship. It is that Idol, which every man must endeavour to take down, for until that be done, we shall find little peace within ourselves, or quietness among men. Notwithstanding this; we must say, that it is lawful, and a duty incumbent on every man to love himself. There is a twofold self, 1. A natural Self. 2. A sinful Self. This is to be hated, the other loved. We cannot hate sinful self too much though it be to the destruction of it; this is that which we are bound to kill, mortify, and utterly destroy: Christ came into the world, purposely to help and assist us in the destruction of it; 1 John 3.8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. But we may lawfully love natural self, soul and body; because these are the works of God, and therefore good. He that came to destroy the works of the Devil, came to save the soul and body, Luke 19.10. the works of God. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. 1. A man may love his own body, and is bound to preserve the life of it; no man ever yet hated his own flesh. Eph. 5.29. Mark 5.5. 1 Kings 18.28. We read indeed of one out of the tombs, who was day and night in the Mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones: and of the Idolatrous Baalites, (who sacrificed to the Devil, and not to God,) that they cut themselves, after their manner, with knives, and lancers, till the blood gushed out upon them: but who in his right wits ever did such a thing? or where did God require it at any man's hands? The Lord forbids the Israelites to make such barbarous cuttings and mangling of their flesh (after the manner of the heathen) because they were his servants. Leu. 19.28. A man may sin against his own body many ways; as by excessive labour, neglecting to take necessary food, or physic; intemperance, and the like: He that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body. 2. A man may and ought chief to love his own Soul. Every man's care should be that it may be well with his better part, both here and hereafter. And to this purpose it is every one's great concern (1). To get into Christ, who is that ark in which only Souls can be safe. They who after all the calls, invitations and beseechings of God in the Gospel, will persist and go on in impenitency and unbelief, are murderers of their own Souls, and their blood will be upon their own heads: He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul; Prov. 8.36. all they that hate me, love death. (2. John 15.4. Prov. 19.8. ) He that hath closed with Christ must endeavour to abide in him, by putting forth fresh and renewed acts of Faith: He must feed daily on the promises, which are the food of his Soul; and look to it, that he keep alive the grace which is wrought in his heart. The new nature, or spiritual self, is the best self we have; and should be most of all loved by us. They that have the charge of others Souls, are a Part of their own charge: Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock. Act. 20.28. They who are under the inspection of others, must look to themselves also; so John chargeth that Elect Lady and her Children, Rom. 14.12. to whom he wrote his second epistle, ver. 8. look to yourselves. As Pastors must give an account of their flock, so every sheep of the flock must give an account of himself: Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. Quest. If love to ourselves be not only lawful, but a duty; why is there no direct and express command for it it in the Scripture? 1. Answ. (f) Nunquid est ullus hominum, qui non omnia quae facit, vel salutis suae vel certe militatis gratiam fac●at? Omnes enim ad affectum a que apperitum utilitatis suae, naturae ipsius magisterio atque impulsione ducuntur. S●lvi●nus contra Avar. lib. 2. Prov. 22.3. Heb. 11.7. Mar. 3.6.7. Joh. 8.59. There is no such need of an express command for this. Though the Law of Nature, since the fall, be very much defaced and obscured, that much of that which is our duty, is hardly discerned by us; yet there is no man whom the light of nature doth not move to love himself: we find a Law of self Preservation stamped upon the whole creation of God: it is plainly to be seen in all the Creatures, whether animate or inanimate; and in man in a special manner. To this end God hath placed affections in man's Soul, that he might use them as feet, to carry him forth readily to that which is good, and from that which is evil or hurtful to him. Hence it is that when any thing is represented as good, there is not only an inclination to it, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pursuing of it: when evil and destructive, there is not only an aversation, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a flight from it. It is said of the prudent man, that he forseeth the evil and hideth himself, and of Noah, that being moved with fear, he prepared an ark; And even Christ himself, who was altogether void of sin, when they sought to destroy him, withdrew himself; as he did hid himself at another time, when they took up stones to cast at him; thus he did, till the hour was come, John 10.18. when he was to lay down his life, according to a command that he had received from the Father. 2. Although there be no direct and express command saying, Thou shalt love thyself; yet all the Commands of God do virtually, and implicitly enjoin it. No man can comply with that first and great command, of loving God with all his heart (g) Diligere De●m est diligere se ergo cum precipitur ut Deum dilig●mus praecipitur eidem operà ut no metipsos dil●●●mus, Davenantius. Psal. 19.11. , but in so doing he loves himself; because in the fruition of God is a man's greatest happiness. The like may be said of every other commandment in proportion; for as it is good in itself, so it will be found to be good for us: David had experience of it, when he said, that in the keeping of them, there was great reward; And when he prayed, that as God was good, and did good, he would teach him his statutes. Yea, all the promises and threaten in the book of God do suppose, that man May, and Should love himself: in the Promises God showeth us something that is good for us, and so draweth us to himself, by the cords of a man: when he Threatens, he shows us something that is evil, and bids us fly from present wrath, or wrath to come: whether he threatens, or promiseth, it is, that we choose the good, and refuse the evil. I have set before you life and death, Deut. 30.19. blessing and Cursing; therefore choose life. It is the will of God, that every man should make the (h) Non tam Lex tibi ô homo, q●àm tu Legi ad●ersaris; ●●ò 〈◊〉 p o 〈◊〉 est, tu con●ra illam, ●ec contra illam tantùm, ●ed e●iam count a re. Salu. de Guber Dei lib. 4. Luk 18.19. best choice for himself, and every man doth so, when he is regulated in it by the will of God; the sum which is this, that we love him above all, and our neighbour as ourselves. 3. We come now, in the third place, to lay down four short conclusions about our love to God, our Neighbour, and ourselves. 1. Conclu. The first is this; that as God is to be loved above all things else, so he is to be loved for himself. There is none good but one, that is, God: None originally, independently, essentially and immutably good but he; and therefore he only is to be loved for himself. It was well said by one of the Ancients (i) Bernardus. , Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est: modus, sine modo diligere. The cause of loving God, is God himself: The measure, is to love him without measure. 2. Conclu. That Creatures may be loved according to that degree of goodness which God hath communicated to them, not for themselves, but for God, Prov. 16.4. who made all things for himself. As all waters come from the Sea, and go through many places and countries, not resting any where till they return to the Sea again: So our love, if it be right, hath its rise in God, acts towards several Creatures, in due manner and measure, but rests in God at last, bringing into him all the Glory of that goodness, which he hath derived to the Creatures, 1 Cor. 10.31. Whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. We may neither love ourselves, nor our neighbours, for our, or themselves (k) Amor fruendi quibuscunque crea uris, sine amore C●eatoris, non est à Deo. August. contra. Jul. lib. 4. , but for God; that God in all things may be glorified. I do not say, that in every act of love we put forth, it is necessary that we actually mind the glory of God; but that our hearts be habitually disposed and framed to glorify God in all. 3. Conclu. No man can love himself, or his neighbour aright, while he remains in a state of sin: until a man come to himself, he cannot love himself, or any other man as he ought: the reason is manifest from what was said before l Amor Dei, quo pervenitur ad Deum, non est nisi à Deo Patre, per Jesum Christum, eum Spiritu Sancto. August. contr. Jul. lib. 4. Gal. 5.22. Eph. 6.23. ; He doth not, he cannot love either, in God and for God: when the Prodigal came to himself, and not till then, he said, I will return to my Father. Love is a fruit of the Spirit, and therefore is never found in any who are destitute of the Spirit. The grace of Love flows from Faith, and therefore the Apostle prayed for the Ephesians, that they might have faith and love, from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. 4. Conclu. The most gracious souls on earth, though they may, and do love God, themselves, and their Neighbours truly and sincerely; yet, by reason of the relics of corruption in their hearts, there are many m Qualis est fidei habitus, talis est & charitatis; si fideihabitus esset perfectus, Charitatis habitus esset etiam perfectus. Camero. 1 Thess. 3.10. defects in their love to God, and much inordinacy in their love to themselves, and to their Neighbour. As there is always something lacking in our Faith, so also in our love. We come now to the Question. How ought we to love our Neighbour as ourselves? For the resolution of this question, we shall, (first) lay down these two general propositions. 1. In the same things, wherein we show love to ourselves, we ought to show love to our Neighbour. 2. After the same manner that we love ourselves, we ought to love our Neighbour. First, In and by the things that we do, and may show love to ourselves, we ought to show love to others: It is not possible to enumerate all the particular instances, wherein we show love to ourselves; It shall suffice therefore that we speak of such things as are inducive of many more: We shall reduce them to these Four heads. 1. Our thoughts of, and the judgement we pass upon ourselves. 2. Our speeches concerning ourselves. 3. Our desires after that which is good for ourselves. 4. Our Actual endeavours, that it may be well with us. 1. Let us consider what thoughts we have of, and what judgements we pass upon ourselves. We do not ordinarily, nor ought we at any time to censure ourselves with too much rigour, and severity: We are indeed required, 1 Cor. 11.31. again and again, to judge ourselves, and it is our duty to do it strictly and severely: yet we ought not, without cause, Luk. 6.41 42. to judge or condemn ourselves for any thing, nor are we very forward so to do. Our love to our neighbour should be exercised in this matter; if he doth, or speaketh any thing, that is (n) De sactis mediis, quae possunt bono, vel malo animo fieri, temerati●m est judicate, maximè ut condem●emus. August. 1 Cor. 13.5. Heb. 4.13. 1 Cor. 2.11. capable of a double sense and interpretation, let us take it as done or spoken in the best sense it is capable of, unless the contrary doth manifestly appear, by some very convincing circumstances; for it is the property of Charity to think no evil. We may be much more bold to judge ourselves than others; we are privy to our own principles, from whence our words and actions flow, and to our own intentions in all we speak or do: But the case is otherwise, when we take upon us to judge others; their principles and intentions are known only to themselves, until they some way or other declare them: the heart, being the hidden Man, is known only to God, before whom all things are naked and open, and to a man's self: What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him? Moreover, inordinate self-love hath often too great an influence on the judgement we pass upon ourselves; and the corruption of our wills and affections, on the judgement we pass upon other men, that we seldom judge aright. As he that hath the jaundice, be the object never so white, judgeth it yellow, his eye being ill disposed: so the eye of the mind, being affected with the corruption of the heart, puts another colour upon that, which is most candidly spoken or done. Were our hearts principled with true love to others, we should be as cautious about the judgement which we pass on them, as about that we pass upon ourselves: and there is great reason we should be more, from the 〈◊〉 mentioned considerations. 2. We show our love to ourselves, in and by our speeches concerning ourselves, and it is our duty so to do. As we ought not to pass too severe a judgement on ourselves, in our own minds; so we may not speak that which is false, of ourselves: and it is seldom known, that any man's tongue falls foul upon himself. Yea, our love to ourselves, is, and aught to be such, as not to suffer our tongue to blab, and send abroad all the evil we certainly know by ourselves. It is our duty then in the same matter to show our love to others: Our tongue, which is apt to speak the best of ourselves, should not frame itself to speak the worst we can of our Brethren. The Apostle chargeth Titus Titus. 3.2 to put Christians in mind of this, among other duties; to speak evil of no man. There are several ways and degrees of evil speaking: 1. The first, and most notorious, is, when men are spoken against as evil doers, for doing that which is their duty to do; When they are condemned for that, for which they ought to be commended: Thus was Jeremiah dealt with in his time, when he faithfully declared the mind of God to the people; Jer. 18.18. Come (say they) and let us smite him with the tongue: The same lot had John from Diotrephes, who prated against him with Malicious words, because he had wrote to have the brethren received, a work of Christian love and Charity, which he had no heart unto. To speak evil of others for that which is their duty, is a common thing among men; and too ordinary among some professors; If they be told of a truth, or exhorted to a duty, that doth not agree with their private opinion, and Comport with their carnal interest, how do their hearts rise, and their mouths begin to open against such as declare it to them! We may well conceive, that the Apostle Paul observed some such thing in his days, when we find him beseeching Christians to suffer the word of exhortation: Heb. 13.22. 1 Pet. 2.1. and the Apostle Peter also, by his charging them (in hearing) to lay aside, all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil-speakings. 2. A second way of evil speaking, and a great sin against love and Charity, is, when men raise up false reports of others, or set them forward when others have maliciously raised them. To offend in this kind is a great breach of a Christians good behaviour, as the Apostle intimates, Titus 2.3. when he saith; That they be in behaviour as becometh Holiness (o) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ; not false accusers. It doth not at all become the profession of a Christian, whose master is the God of truth, to speak that which is false of any man whatsoever: And therefore these false accusers are called [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] by a name which is usually given to the father of lies. Joh. 8.44. 3. There may be evil speaking, in speaking of such evils as others are really guilty of, as, 1. First, when a man doth industriously (p) Facilius est unicuique nostrum, aliena curiose inquirere, quam propria nostra inspicere. search out such things as are evil in others, for this very purpose, that he may have something to say against them. Of this David complains, Psal. 64. ver. 6. They search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search. It is a sign that Malice boils up to a great height in men's hearts, when they are so active, to find matter against their neighbours. Love would rather (q) Qui bene vult vitam peragere, neque videre multa, neque audire studear. Just. Martyr. De vita Christ. ad Zenam Ep. Luke 11.53. not seen or hear of others failings; or, if it doth and must, busieth itself in healing and reforming them to its power. 2. They also are Guilty, and more guilty of evil speaking than the former, who endeavour to bring others into sin, rather than they will want matter against them: Thus the malicious Pharisees did their utmost to cause Christ himself (had it been possible) to offend, urging him vehemently, and provoking him to speak of many things, seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him. 3. A man may be guilty of evil speaking, and offend against the law of love, when he makes a fault greater than it is; when he represents a molehill as big as a mountain (r) Vix centesimus reperietur, qui aliorum famae ità clementer pa●eat ut S by cup at, etiam in manife●tis vitiis, ignosci. Calvinus in Deut 5.10. , thinking that he can never aggravate another's fault too much. You may have seen how Boys, by continual blowing with a reed in their nutshells, have raised a little bubble to the bigness of a small globe, which yet was but a drop of water stuffed with a vapour; even so do some men blow up others faults, till they seem very great; but if you examine them, you will find, that, that which made them so, was only this, that they were filled up with the others malice. Some may think themselves excusable in this, as if they (s) Obtrectario zeli ac Severitatis praetextu saepe la●da●ur; H nc sit ut sanctis q●oque se iasin●et hoe vi ium atque obrepat, virtutis nomine. Calvinus. shown thereby their zeal against sin; but let them look more narrowly into themselves, and possibly they may find more malice, than true zeal lying in the bottom. 4. We may offend in speaking of the faults of others, if we be not duly affected in speaking of them: It is too (t) Equidem permul os novi, qui propter conscientiae & animor●m impuri●arem p●oximor●m delectis gaude● Jest. Mart. de vi●. Christ. common a thing to speak of others sins in mirth, and with some kind of rejoicing, as if we were tickled with it: all such rejoicing is evil. If Christ should step into your company, as † Luke 24. ●7. 1 Co. 5 2. he did into the disciples, while they were walking sadly one with another; and say unto you, while you are speaking of other men's sins, to make yourselves merry; What manner of communication have you here? Can you approve yourselves to him in this matter? It was a fault among some of the Corinthians, that when they heard of the great sin of the incestuous person, they were puffed up, when they should have rather mourned. 5. A man may be guilty of evil speaking, when he speaks of others faults, if his end be not good; as when he doth it to please another's humour, or satisfy his own (u) Observamus p oximo●um pecca●a, non ut lugeamus, ●ed ut exprob●emus: non ut cu●emu●, sed ut perculiamus. Naz●anz. , or to lay the person spoken of open to contempt, or the like. Our end in speaking of others faults, if it be not the reforming of the persons themselves, nor the securing, and safe-guarding others from being hurt by them, or ensnared in them, is not like to be good. 3. The third thing, by which we show our love to ourselves, is, by our desires, which are always after something that is good, or conceived to be good for us: Every man wisheth himself well: Should we go through the congregation, and ask every man severally what he would have; every one's desire would be after something that is good, or thought to be so (w) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. . Then, this is that by which we should manifest our love to others, even by desiring their good in all things as our own; that all things temporal and spiritual may prosper and succeed well with them, as with ourselves, to the glory of God, and their eternal happiness: That they may thrive in their estates, bodies, souls, as well as we in ours. Mat. 5.44. Thus it ought to be with us, even in reference to such as do not bear the same good will to us: It is (x) Queen s p●o ini●● ici suis ista quae Deu● jussi●, non dico vo●is, sed verbis saltem, agere dignetur? A●t etiam siqu●s se cogit ut facial, facit tamen ore non ment. Salvian. de gub. dei lib. 3. Luke 23.31. Act. 7.60. our Lords Command, that we should pray for them that despitefully use us, and persecute us; And herein he has left us an excellent example: When his enemies were about that black piece of work, busying themselves in taking away his life, some piercing him, others blaspheming him, he breathes out this request for them; Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. The like copy is set before us in Stephen the Protomartyr, while his adversaries were throwing stones thick about his ears, he kneeled down and prayed for them; Lord lay not this sin to their charge. How contrary is the spirit of (y) In omni animo ●m iud●gnantium mo●u. vo●s mali● pro a●mi utim●r; unde unu●quiq●e eviden●●sli ●è probal, quicq odd sie●i adversariis suis op tat, totum le sace●e velle, si possit. Salvian. de Guberna●. Dei li●. 3. Act. 26.29. many that profess Christianity, to the spirit that appeared in Christ, and the primitive Christians; who upon every provocation can be ready to desire the utmost evil to such as do offend them! Were not the Jews Paul's greatest enemies wherever he came? Who so cruel to him as his own Countrymen? Yet see what desires were in his heart for them; Brethren, my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved: So when he stood at the Bar, before a heathen judge, surrounded with many enemies; what are his wishes for them? He desires that they might all participate in the good he enjoyed, but not in the evil he endured: I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. 4. Our love to ourselves doth appear by our endeavours; we do not content ourselves with wish and woulding, but we do actually and industriously endeavour, that it may be well with us: If a man be hungry, and his stomach calls for meat; or if he be pinched with cold, and his back calls for clothing, his hand is ready in all good ways to procure it; and so it is in all things else. By this therefore ought we to manifest our love to others, even by our (z) Habuit Christus in co●de c●● itatem, quam nobis oper e●h buit. ut exhi●itionis for●a nos ad diligendum instrueret. Lombardus. l. 3. dist. 17. endeavours, in our capacity, and according to our ability, to do them good, supplying their wants spiritual and bodily. God hath disposed men into several ranks, He hath set some to move in a higher, some in a lower Orb; He hath dispensed his talents, to some more, to some fewer: They that are in a higher place and have More talents, may and aught to do More than others; They that stand in a lower place, and have fewer talents, may and aught to do Something for the good of others. Every man as he hath received the gift (in what kind or degree soever it be) so he must minister the same to the souls and bodies of others. 1 Pet. 4.10. Jam. 2.15.16. 1 Joh. ●. 13. If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, he you warmed and filled: notwithstanding you give them not the things that are needful to the body, what doth it profit? A man would find little profit in it himself, if he should feed himself only with good words and wishes. True love is not in Word and Tongue only, but in Deed and in Truth. Contrary to this endeavouring others good, is to stand up in the way and stop the passage wherein good should flow in upon them, and to be (a) Invidentia est aeg i●udo, iuscepta p opter alterius res secundas, quae nihil nocent invidenti. Cic. Tu●t. qu. l. 4. envious at the prosperity of others, if they be able, without our help to attain it. Many men think themselves not well, unless it be ill with others (b) Novum ac inaestimabile nunc in plutimis malum est: parum alicui est, si ipse sit felix. nisi alter sec in infelix. Salvianus de Gub. Dei. : it is not enough for them to be happy, unless they see their brethren miserable. 2. We have seen now in what things we do and may show love to ourselves: we come now to speak of the manner of loving ourselves, and to show that after the same manner we ought to love others also. 1. We do, or should love ourselves holily, i. e. in and for God: we may not have a divided interest from God; though God allows us to love ourselves, it must be in order to him, and to his Glory. Our love to ourselves, as it must be regulated by the will of God, and extended or restrained according to that; So God must be our utmost end in it, whether it be exercised about the obtaining things temporal or spiritual, for body or soul: Salvation itself, although it be our end, must not be our last or utmost end: but that God by it, as by all things else may be glorified. Therefore in this manner we must love others, as God hath an interest in them, and is, or may be glorified by them: and there is no man in the world, but God is or may be glorified by him. Every man is a creature, upon whose Soul there is, in a sort, the Image of God, and doth him some service in the place wherein he stands. Isa. 44.28. and 45.1. God calleth Cyrus a heathen, his Shepherd, and his Anointed, and he did him eminent service in his generation. The same may be said of every other man, in some degree and proportion: God hath given him some gifts, whereby he is and may be serviceable to him, at least in the affairs of his providential kingdom. Besides; all men, having immortal souls within them, are capable of blessedness with God for ever in the kingdom of Glory: they who are at present enemies to God may be reconciled and made friends: what was the most glorious Saint now in heaven, but an enemy to God once, when here on earth? We ourselves (saith the Apostle) were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived, Tit. 33.4. serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another: but after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared; not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Obj. How could David then say, do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am I not grieved with these that rise up against thee? Psal. 139.21.22. I hate them with a perfect hatred. He says, that he hated them perfectly, and approves himself to God in the thing; Do not I hate them, O Lord? Ans. There is a twofold hatred, Odium simplex, & Odium redundans in personam, as the Schools speak; a simple hatred, and a hatred redounding to the person: A simple hatred, which is of the Sin of any man, is our duty; Psal. 97.10. ye that love the Lord hate evil; but to hate the Person of the sinner would be our sin: as we are to abhor that which is evil, Rom. 12.9. so we must cleave to that which is good. David, who was a man after Gods own heart, knew how to distinguish between the sin, and the person; See how he expresseth himself elsewhere: I hate the work of them that turn aside; not them, but the work of them; Psal. 101.3. he hated their sin; saying, it shall not cleave to me. Hear him again; I hate every false way; this shows us plainly, Psal. 119.104. that he hated sin perfectly: he hated sin so, as that it should not cleave to him: he hated it where ever he found it; Every false way. For what is perfect hatred? Austin describes it very well: He est perfecto odio odisse, ut nec homines propter vitia oderis, nec vitia propter homines diligas: This is to hate with perfect hatred, not to hate men for their Sins sake, nor to love the sin for the men's sake. This is one manner how we ought to love our Neighbour as ourselves; it must be holily. 2. Our love to ourselves is, or should be orderly: we must first and chief love our souls, and then our bodies. The Soul is of far greater worth than the body. A world of things for the body will stand a man in no stead if his soul be lost; and where the soul goes, either to a place of bliss, or torment, the body must follow after: and therefore when we are charged to take heed to ourselves, we are charged to keep our souls diligently; only take heed to thyself, Deut. 4 9 and keep thy soul diligently: if the soul be safe, all is safe; if the soul be lost, all is lost. In like manner we ought to love our Neighbour, we must desire and endeavour that it may be well with him in every respect, both as to his body and outward estate, but chief that his Soul may prosper; and his outward concerns, as they may be consistent with that third Epistle John, ver. 2. I wish above all things that thou mayst prosper, and be in health, as thy soul prospereth. 1. We must seek the conversion of those that are unconverted, lest their souls be lost for ever. If we can be instrumental in this, we show the greatest love imaginable: to give a man bread when he is hungry, or clothing when he is naked, is something; but to convert a soul to God, is a greater kindness by much. Brethren, Jam. 5, 19.20. if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know, that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death: He speaks of it as a great thing, when he says, Let him know, that he shall save a soul from death. 2. We should show our love to the souls of others, by seeking and endeavouring the increase of their Faith, Holiness and comfort: as we should not be content to go to heaven alone, but carry along with us as many as we can, so we should not satisfy ourselves to see them creep lamely thither, but gird up the loins of their minds for them, that they may more strenuously, and with the more cheerfulness and comfort walk thither. Thus John endeavoured to bring the Saints to higher degrees of fellowship with God: 1 John 1.3. That which we have seen (said he) and heard, declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ: they had this fellowship before, in measure, and degree; but he would bring them to higher degrees of it, as doth appear by what follows: These things I writ unto you, that your joy might be full. 3. Our love to ourselves goes out freely: what we have at hand, we are ready to take, Eccle. 3.13. Eccl. 5.19. when we stand in need of it. The wise man observed it to be a Gift which God ordinarily gives the Children of men, to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the fruit of all his labour, that he taketh under the Sun, all the days of his life. In the like manner, we should go forth to others: (c) Quomodo in quotidiana prece unquii diximus: dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut & nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris: animo discrepante cum verbis, o●atione dissiden●e cum sactis? Hieron. ad Castorinam. If our Neighbour stands in need of forgiveness, we should forgive freely, as we expect that God or man should forgive us: if he need a gift from us, we should give freely, and open our hearts readily to supply his wants according to the ability God hath given us, as we expect that God or man should give to us, if we were in the like necessity. The Apostle commends the Macedonians for this, that when their brethren stood in need of their Charity, to their power, yea and beyond their power, 2 Cor. 8 3. they were willing of themselves. To (d) Multum detrahit beneficio, qui nolentem tribuisse se ipsa Cunctatione testatus est; ac non tam dedisse quam non retinuiste. Sen. de Ben. 1 Tim. 6.18. Psal. 5.6. give freely, and readily, adds much to the goodness of a good work: the way to be rich in good works, is to be ready to distribute, willing to communicate. 4. We love ourselves unfeignedly, no man useth to dissemble with himself, or endeavours to feed himself with good words only, but is very real and cordial to himself in all things. And thus it is required we should be to others: God desireth truth in the inward parts; he would have us true to him, and true to one another, 1 John 3.18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth, Rom. 12.9. Let love be without dissimulation. Outward and dissembled love is little better than inward and real hatred: If blessing be only in the mouth, cursing is not like to be far from the heart; Psal. 2.4. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Such a blessing with the mouth had Christ from the Pharisees in this chapter, Master we know thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, ver. 16. neither carest thou for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men: very well said; but Jesus perceived their wickedness. ver. 18. They came with words of love and respect to cover the wickedness of their hearts, and wanted that inward affection, that Titus is commended for toward the Corinthians, 2 Cor. 7.15. 5. We do not only love ourselves truly and sincerely, but with some fervency: there is always some heat, as well as heart, in love to ourselves: you may observe it ordinarily, that when self is concerned in any thing, that affection which is moved about it, hath some heat in it; if it be anger, there is heat in anger; if it be love, there is heat in love. Indeed all men are very apt to exceed, and go much beyond their bounds when self is concerned, as if they were to love themselves with all their hearts, with all their soul, 1 Sam. 18.1. and with all their mind: however, it is allowable that a man be warm in love to himself, especially to his soul which is the best part of himself. Well then, our love to others must not be cold; when the matter of love is good, it is good to be zealously affected in it. 2 Cor. 7.7. Gal. 4.18. When Paul understood the fervent mind of the Corinthians towards him, as he was a servant of Christ for the good of their souls, it did affect him with great joy. Let our love to others be first pure, and then it is not like to be too fervent, 1 Pet. 1.22. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. 6. We love ourselves very tenderly. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, Eph. 4.29. but nourisheth it and cherisheth it. If the body be wounded, or pained, how tender are we of it? the eye will look to it very carefully, and it may be weep over it; the hand will diligently keep off any thing that might hurt or offend it, and is ready to apply any thing to it, for the cure of it, with the greatest tenderness that may be. After the same manner we ought to express our love to others; it is required of us, that we be kind one to another, Eph. 4 32. tenderhearted. (1). When others are under sufferings, we should be so tender as to have a quick sense of them in ourselves. Rom. 12.15. Heb. 13.3. Others sufferings should work compassion, and cause a fellow-feeling in us, so as to make us weep with them that weep, and to be bound with them that are in bonds. When Nehemiah heard of the affliction of his people, though he himself was in a better condition, he sat down and wept, Neh. 1.4. and mourned certain days. We see that Beasts themselves are touched with the sufferings of any of their kind; if one of the herd make an outcry, or declare his sufferings by his moaning, how sensible are the rest of it! How do they come about him, and show their readiness to yield him help if it were in their power! How much more should humanity cause men to show what a tender regard they have of the sufferings and afflictions of other men! (2) We should be tenderly affected towards others when they are overtaken in a fault, and not be too (e) Solemus propriorum clementes esse judices, alienorum verò stricti inquisitores. Greg. Nezianz. Gal. 6.1. rigid and severe in dealing with them; and the more tender we ought to be, the more afflicted they are with it themselves; We should consider, how we would desire to be dealt with ourselves, if we should be found in the same, or the like fault, and accordingly behave ourselves towards them: If any man be overtaken with a fault, ye which are spiritual (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. nitimini eum quasi luxatum it embrum suo loco reponere. Beza. Job 30.25. Isa. 58.10. restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself. (3) We should show ourselves tenderly affected towards others in their wants and necessities, and yield them relief with a feeling of their wants ourselves. Job, when he was in a full and plentiful condition and estate himself, was deeply affected with the necessitous condition of other men; Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? The way to get this tenderness towards others is, to put ourselves in this or that man's case, (hungry, thirsty, naked) until we find our hearts to grow soft and tender towards them, and we are able to draw out our own (g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Septuag. souls to them, in giving them bread, or what else they need. But the greatest tenderness is to be exercised toward such persons as labour under soul troubles and necessities, because the soul is of a quick sense, and more capable of feeling than the body. Christ's greatest sufferings were in his Soul; so all men spiritually distressed, as under some temptation, or soul-affliction, are deeply distressed: Therefore as they stand in need of counsel, or comfort, our souls should go forth in administering it to them; 1 Thes. 2.8. As Paul was ready to have imparted, not only the Gospel of God, but his own Soul to them who were dear unto him. You have seen in what things, and after what manner, we may, and aught to love ourselves; and that it is our duty to show our love to others in the same things, and in like manner. It may be requisite that we speak something also about the degrees of love; which we shall do in answering two questions. Qu. 1. Whether it be our duty to love our Neighbour as much as ourselves? Ans. The command to love our Neighbour as ourselves, doth not require that our love should be every way as much to our Neighbour as ourselves: The word, As, in the Commandment, doth not denote a Parity, but a Similitude; It is not as much as, but like as (h) Priùs & intensius unusquisque Dei fruitionem sibi oprat quam alteri; ita ut si non possit pluribus dari, malit unus quisque sibi quam quilibet alii, illam à deo communicari. Davenantius. . It is indeed our duty to desire and endeavour that others may be blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity, which is as much as we can desire for ourselves; but every man more intensely desireth this happiness to himself than to another. If that grace which any man hath received of God would save another man; and he could communicate it to him, he were not bound to part with it to that end and purpose. When the foolish Virgins said to the wise, Give us of your oil; they answered, Mat. 25 9 Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you; but go ye rather, to them that sell, and buy for yourselves: So it is in reference to temporal things. We are charged with this as a duty, to communicate to others in need (i) Ordo Charitatis postulat ut primùm necessitati propriae, deinde, de non necessariis, etiam necessitati provideatur alienae. Estius. lib. 3. dist. 29. Sect. 2. Luke 3.11. , but if our own necessities be, (really and not in pretence,) so great, that we should not have enough for our own subsistence, if we did impart to them, we are not bound, in that case, to yield it to them. When the multitude asked John the Baptist, what they should do; He answered, He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat let him do likewise: By which he gave them to understand, that it was their duty to impart to others in extreme necessity, if they had any more than was necessary for themselves. Notwithstanding what hath been said, there are several cases in which a man is bound to exercise his love to another, more than to himself. 1. A man is bound to hazard his own Life, 1 Sam. 19.1.2. chap. 20.30.33. to save the Life of another who would certainly perish, if he did not hazard himself in his behalf. 2. Upon the same reason that a man is bound to prefer the (k) Consulet aurem pro se quisque utilitati communiter omnium. Justin Martyr. de vita Christ. Omnis Praesidentiae ille debet esse finis, ubique prae aliorum utilitate commodum suum despicere, Greg. 2 Sam. 18.3. 2 Cor. 11.28. Rom. 16.4. Rom. 5.7. public advantage of a community before his own private, he is bound to seek the safety of a public person, in whom the welfare of the Community is bound up, more than his own safety. One man of public capacity may be of more value than thousands of other men: So said the people of David, Thou art worth ten thousand of us. Priscilla and Aquila thought the life of such an Apostle as Paul was, upon whom lay the care of all the Churches, to be of greater concernment than theirs; and therefore for his life, they laid down their own necks; for which they had the thanks of all the Gentile Churches. A man also that is of a public spirit, and lays out himself in doing much good, in the place and Country where he lives; although he be of a private capacity, is worth many other men, For a good man one would even dare to die. We might instance in many other cases; but let it suffice that we say in General, That when the glory of God is more concerned in another than in ourselves, we ought to show a greater love to him than ourselves; upon the principle laid down above, that we ought to love ourselves and our neighbour, in and for God: And when there is a competition, between an incomparably greater good to our neighbour, (especially if many be concerned in it,) and a less to ourselves; it is evident, that our love to ourselves must yield to the love of our neighbour. Qu. 2. Whether ought we to love every other man with the same degree of love? Ans. 1. All men, good and bad, should thus far be loved equally by us, in that we should desire (l) Diligit Christianus inimicum, ut hoc ei velit perverire quod sibi; hoc est, ut ad regnum coelorum correctus renovatusque perveniat Aug. lib. 1. de Serm. Dom. in monte. , that both the one and the other, might come to perfect blessedness in the enjoyment of God for ever: the first, by persevering in faith and holiness to the end; the last, by being brought through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and repontance from dead works to the same blessed communion. (2). Goodness, which is the object of love, being more or less, in this or that subject; we may and aught to love (m) Ille justè & sanctè vivit qui idoneus rerum aestimator est August. Jam. 1.17. , more or less, according to the degrees wherein every one excels another. God is the giver of every good and perfect gift; as there are divers kinds of good gifts, so divers degrees of them. 1. There are natural gifts and abilities, as Wisdom and Understanding in several matters, which are very beneficial to mankind; and therefore God threatens it as a judgement, that he will take away the Honourable Man, and the Councillor, Isa. 3.3. and the Cunning Artificer, and the Eloquent Orator. Such persons as are qualified with gifts of this kind, are to be loved according to the degree in which they excel. 2. There are also moral endowments, by which men do become more fit for humane Society, and nigher to the kingdom of God than other men: these virtuous dispositions are very lovely things in any man; and the more he excels in them, Mar. 10.21. the more we are to love him: Christ himself, who never misplaced his affections, looking on such a person, is said to have loved him. 3. There are gracious and holy qualifications of the soul, from a more than common work of the spirit upon the hearts of men: These are the best gifts, and for these we ought more especially to love men; and that, according to the degree wherein they excel: as David was wont to let out his love to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent. Psal. 16.3. (n) Ego dico me neque esse Zuinglianum, neque Lutheranum, neque Calvinianum, neque Bucerianum; sed Christianum: Lutherum quidem atque Zuinglium, Bucerum & Calvinum, Bullingerum, & Martyrem, tanquam egregia Spiritûs Sancti organa veneror, atque suspicio, etc. Zanchius. Tom. 7. pag. (mihi) 262. Although a man be not so like us, in this or that point of opinion, or practice, yet if he be more like God than such as are, we should give him the pre-eminence in our love. (3). As to the signs and effects of our love, in bestowing temporal good things, although the general rule must be observed by us (o) In omnibus communiter naturam diligamus, quam Deus fecit. Lombardus. Gal. 6.10. Mat. 25 34, 35, 36. 1 Tim. 5.8. to do good to all; yet there are some specialties in the case, which must also be observed by us. (1). They that are oppressed with the greatest and extremest necessity, are to be considered by us before such as are not so deeply distressed: if one man be so poor, that he cannot subsist unless he be relieved by us, we ought to extend our charity to him before another, who, although he be poor, is not in that degree of poverty. (2). Though we ought to do good to all, yet the poor members of Jesus Christ ought in a special manner to be regarded by us. As Christ expects this at the hands of all that bear his name; so he takes particular notice of what is done to them, as done to himself; and will greatly reward the kindness that is shown to the least of his Brethren, with a Come ye blessed, another day. (3). They (p) Vult cognatos viduarumad monendos officii, ut illas ad Ecclesiam non amandent, Bez▪ of our own house, and such as are near to us in blood, are, caeteris paribus, to taste the effects of our love in this kind before others: and in proportion to these, they that are our near Neighbours, and our own Countrymen. (4). Although they who are enemies to God and us, cannot well expect that we should, and though we be not bound to show our love to them, in doing good to them Equally with others, who are God's friends and servants; yet there is more due to them, by the will of God, than we are ordinarily willing to allow, or some think we are bound to bestow upon them: for I cannot assent to them, who would restrain the duty of doing good to our enemies, to cases of (q) In articulo necessitatis Aquin. 2.2. Quest. 25. Art. 8. Luke 6.35. Act. 14.17. Rom. 2.4. Rom. 12.21. Prov. 25.21. extreme necessity; as if we were bound only to keep them from perishing. Christ proposeth God's example to us, who is kind to the unthankful and the evil: so kind, as not only to give them rain, but fruitful seasons thereby, filling their hearts with food and gladness; and therefore his goodness to them is called, the riches of his goodness. And we may be well assured, that when the Apostle charged the Romans, not to be overcome of evil; but to overcome evil with good (r) Per panem & aquam intellige omne victûs genus, ut alias inscriptura, & omne beneficii genus quo eum juvare poteris. Mercerus. in locum. 1 John. 2.3. 1 John 3.14. 1 John 4.20. Isa. 58.3, 4, 5. Mar. 12.33. Hos. 11.4. ; he intended that they should spend greater store of that kind of ammunition in order thereunto, than some of them then, I fear, than most of us now, are willing to allow. We have now seen a little, and but a little, of the duty that is required of us in this great commandment; yet enough to convince us, that in many things we offend all. Let us humble ourselves that we have been so little in observing of it, and endeavour to come up to a more full and exact performance of the duties therein required: this will be a good evidence of our love to God, which we cannot so well make out to ourselves or others to be sincere, by any other way or means, as by this; If we love not our brethren, whom we have seen, how shall we think we can love God, whom we have not seen? without this all our external performances in Religion will signify nothing with God. All our hearing, praying, fasting, and whatever else it be, will be of little or no account with him. The Apostle calls the way of love, an excellent way; it is an excellent way to overcome enemies, and make them friends. This was the way God took to overcome us; he drew us with the cords of a man, with bonds of love: and he prescribes the same way to us. O let us try and see, whether more may not be done in this, than any other way (s) Vincit malos pertinax bonitas, nec quisquam tam duri infestique adversus diligenda animi est, ut etiam vi tractus bonos non amet. Sen. de Benef. lib 7. Eph. 4.16. Col. 2.2. ! This hath been an approved way; the primitive Christians tried it, and found it a good way. What made way for the Gospel through the world? how came Christians to make such large conquests in the first times? look, and you will find, that it was Faciendo bonum, & patiendo malum; by doing well, and suffering evil. What made for the restoring the Gospel to England, but the patience of the Saints of God under their sufferings, and their fervent Charity, whereby they prayed ardently for their enemies, in the midst of the fire? this convinced many, and turned them to the profession of the truth. The way of Love is an excellent way to edify the Church, which edifies itself in love: there is nothing to be done without it: this is the (t) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est res arte compingere ut nexu in dissolubili colaereant. Arctius. cement and mortar that holds the stones of the building together. To conclude, It is an excellent way, to unite all that is good in the world, to promote the interest of God in the world: if we did but observe, what good is to be found in any sort of men, and not only acknowledge it, but make use of it for God as we ought; we should quickly see another face of things in the world. Love (saith one) is that which reconciles the jarring principles of the world, and makes them all chime together: How pleasing would this be to God? and how delightful to all good men? I shall say no more, 1 Thess. 3 12. but desire that God would make us to increase and abound in love to one another, and towards all men. Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God. Serm. III. 1 John 2.15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world: If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ●ct. 1. The explication of the ●●xt. NOt to detain you with the Connexion of these words which are in themselves complete and entire. The better to understand their Theologick sense, it will be necessary, that we a little inquire into their Gramatick and Logic sense. As for the Gramatick sense of the words, we may take notice in the general, that John the Divine, who is generally reputed to be the Author of this Epistle, has a peculiar Phraseology, Idiom, or manner of writing, as it will appear to any that diligently considers his writings, and particularly this text. The first term, that occurs, and aught to be more diligently inquired into, is the Affection and Act prohibited, Love not, The Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 admits of a double sense. (1). It is taken in a more large and general notion, for a simple Act of Love, without regard to the measure or degree thereof; and so it is of the same import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (2). It is taken in a more strict and confined sense, for such an Act of Love as proceedeth from a plenitude of will, or full Bend of heart, and so carries the whole soul with it, either in the Prosecution of some chief good, when absent; or in the fruition of, and satisfaction in the same when present. For love, in this strict notion, has two main acts: (1). An active vigorous prosecution of its chiefest good, when absent. In which regard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) is derived, by the Greek Etymologist, and Phavorinus out of him, from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implies the Force and Activity of love, in the pursuit after its chiefest good. (2). Love in this strict notion implies also an Acquiescence, repose and satisfaction in its chiefest Good, when present, and enjoyed. In which regard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is made to be the same with, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, greatly to acquiesce, or rest satisfied in its best beloved, when enjoyed, which they explicate by, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to rest contented, and satisfied in any object, so as not to seek out for any thing more, in point of happiness. In this strict and peculiar notion, considered as to both its branches, we must understand Love here, both as to the world and the Father. And so the love of the world, and the love of the Father are perfectly opposite, and therefore inconsistent each with other, in this strict notion, wherein John takes them. This is farther evident from that great Aphorism of our Lord, Mat. 6.24. No man can serve two masters: For either he will hate the one and Love the other, etc. Where we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the same strict notion, and confined either to God, or the world, so as both cannot share therein. Thence our Lord instructs us, that love, in this proper limited sense, belongs to God alone, Mat. 22.37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, etc. Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou shalt love, is taken, by our Lord in this strict notion, and explicated by what follows, with all thine heart, etc. i. e. with the plenitude or Bend of thy will; which in moral estimation passeth for the whole Heart. So that when John saith, love not the world, it must be understood in this proper notion of love, as it includes a predominant and prevalent degree; and carries with it the Bend and force of the will, either in a way of active prosecution of the world if absent, or delightful complacential Acquiescence therein if enjoyed. Such a love to the world is no other than Concupiscence, or lust, and so altogether inconsistent with the love of the Father, as John argueth. All this will be more evident, when we come to explicate the things contained under these terms, namely Love to God, and the World. The next thing to be explicated by us, is the Object of this prohibition; which is the World, and the things therein. The Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was as it is said, first given to the World, by Pythagoras, from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to adorn: it being, as it were, an house, hung with all manner of rich and beautiful ornaments, of Divine Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, Rom. 1.20. and in this regard the World is, in its kind and measure, amiable and loveworthy, But John seems to take the World here in a more limited and narrow sense, as it is the fuel of Lust, and repugnant to, and incoherent with the Father. For as I before premised, it is usual with John to make use of notions, which are of a lax and general import, in a more strict and confined sense. Thus 1 John 3.9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Which must be understood in a strict confined sense, i. e. with a plenitude of will, as wicked men do. So in our text, love not, i. e. in a strict sense, with a plenitude, and Bend of heart. The world, i. e. for itself, as the fuel of lust, and contrary to God. There is a regular and lawful love of the world, when it is in an inferior degree, and in subordination to God; but that which John here prohibits, is an irregular and inordinate love to the world for itself, in competition with, or opposition to the love of the Father, as v. 16. Hence it follows: neither the things that are in the World. (1). Here we are again to take notice of another peculiar Idiom frequent with John, both in his Gospel and Epistles, namely, to reiterate the same thing under different expressions, partly by way of Exegesis, and partly to give an Emphatic plenitude. It might have sufficed, that he had said, love not the world: But the more fully to explicate his mind, as also to give an Emphase, and Accent to what he had said, he adds, neither the things that are in the world. He contents not himself with Generals, but descends to Particulars; which he more fully specifies, v. 16. (2). By things that are in the world, we may, in a more strict and confined notion, understand those things, which worldly men do most magnify and Idolise: Mundane Grandeur, Pomp, Glory, Riches, Pleasures, Honours, Friends, whatever else may Captivate the hearts of degenerate men. In sum, by the world, and the things that are in the world, must be understood, all sensible, natural, civil, yea mental Goods, or whatever is inferior to God, so far as it may stand in Opposition to, or Competition with him; and so prove matter of abuse, and fuel for Lust, as ver. 16. It follows: If any man love the world. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, If, here is causal and rational, signifying as much as, For, or Because if: and so it points out, and ushers in the main Cause or Reason, why we are not to love the world, namely, because he that Loves the world hath not the love of the Father in him. As if he had said: Alas! are not the World, and the Father perfectly opposite? Do they not both require the whole Heart, yea, the whole man, as Mat. 6.24? Is it possible then, that he who loves the world at such a rate, can love the Father? Or we may take the words thus: If any man Love the world, etc. i. e. so far as any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And in this sense it will reach all, both Saints and Sinners. Though I take the words chief to be understood of predominant love to the world, which is altogether inconsistent with love to God. Lastly, there lies something peculiar in that phrase, The Love of the Father is not in him. (1) Here we find another Idiom, or manner of speech proper to John, who frequently makes use of Antitheses, and that both of Things, Words, and Sentences, for Illustration, and Confirmation; whereof many Instances might be given, as John 1.5, 13, 17, 20, etc. So here he opposeth the Father to the World: And then the Love of the Father, to the Love of the world; which gives great Illustration and Demonstration to his discourse: For opposites illustrate and demonstrate each other. (2) Another thing to be considered herein is the object, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of the Father. Where the Article THE, deserves a peculiar regard: and so in deed do the various Articles in this text, The world, the Things, etc. For albeit these Articles sometimes, in other parts of Scripture, are not significative or emphatic, yet here they seem to give some emphase. So that The Father is here mentioned to specify both the proper Object, and Formal Reason of Evangelick Love, as distinct from that Natural Love, which Adam in Paradise had towards God, as Creator. First by the Father here is specified the proper object of Evangelick love, namely that it must terminate on God, as a gracious Father in and through Christ; whereas Adam's natural love in Innocence terminated on God only as Creator. Secondly by the Father also the formal Reason of Evangelick Love is specified, namely that God's love towards us in Christ ought to be the formal reason, or proper motive of our love to him. (3) As for the Act, the love, it may be taken either passively and Octjectively, for the Father's Love shed abroad in the heart, as Rom. 5.5. or else subjectively, and actively, for our Love to the Father. This latter I take to be primarily intended. The words thus explicated admit this Logic Division. We find in them first a prohibition; and then the reason thereof annexed. In the prohibition we have. (1). The Act Love not. (2). The Object, and this. (1). In the General, the World. (2). In its Particularities. neither the things that are in the world. The chief whereof are specified, v. 16. As for the reason of the prohibition, it is wrapped up in an Hypothetick proposition, which is easily reduced to a Catagorick Syllogism thus: two loves perfectly opposite cannot consist together in one and the same heart: but love to the world, and love to the Father are perfectly opposite: therefore he that loves the world hath not the love of the Father in him. What love in its general Idea imports? Sect. 2. A general Character of Love. The words thus explicated, contain in them this great Truth, That a prevalent predominant Love to the World is altogether inconsistent with the Love of God. Hence also there is offered to us this practic case of Conscience, wherein the love of the World is inconsisent with the love of God? The resolution of this so weighty a case, depends much on the explication of its parts; which we shall endeavour to examine, and open under these three Questions. 1. What Love in its general Idea, or nature doth import? 2. What it is to Love the world? 3. What it is to love God? these questions being explicated the resolution of our case will be facile and obvious. 1. Quest. What Love in its general Idea or Nature doth import? this question being more Philosophic than Theologick, we shall not much insist thereon. But to clear up our way to the following questions, we may take up this concise Character, or Idea of Love, as abstracted from this or that subject. Love is the most vigorous, potent, imperious and sovereign affection of the humane soul; which has its Royal seat in the Will, or rather in the soul as willing what is Good. For albeit I cannot conceive how the Will and Understanding may be really distinguished, more than by their formal Objects and Acts; yet I can easily grant, the soul, as willing what is good, to be the proper Subject and seat of Love. Not but that there is also passion of Love, or something analogous to Love, in the sensitive soul, or Animal part. But this is more Passionate, that in the humane soul more Rational: this more rash; that more deliberate: this more superficial and transient; that more rooted and fixed: this more confused and difform; that more uniform and equal: this more carnal; that more spiritual: in its objects and motions: this more brutish and servile; that more humane and voluntary, specially if regular. Now love thus seated in the will, or soul, as willing, governs the whole soul, with all the faculties, or rather Acts, thereof. As the will governs all inferior faculties, so is she governed by her love; which renders her what she is, as to good or evil. What the Love is, that the man is: and where the love is, there the man is. If thy love be in Heaven, there thou art; and if thy love be in Hell, thou art there. For where the Treasure is, there the love, heart, and man is, Math. 6.21. And as Love governs the whole soul in general, so has she a more particular influence or the Affections, both rational and passionate. Love indeed is not only the prime, but also the original source and spring of all humane affections; which own their Being, Life, and Motion thereto. What are all Affections but the several forms and shape of Love? whence have they their tincture and colour but from it? for look o'th' object beloved is affected with this or that circumstance; so is Love proportionably invested with this or that form. If the object beloved be absent, love goes forth to meet it by Desire; if present, love solaceth itself therein by Fruition and Delight; if it be under hazards, love waxeth pale with Fear; if the enjoyment thereof be impeded or obstructed by others, Love grows angry; if it be lost, Love clotheth herself with black sorrow; if there be a probability or but possibility sometimes of enjoying it, love moves towards it by Hope. Thus love puts on sundry forms, and Aspects, which we call affections, according to the sundry postures of its beloved. In short, look as the wife changeth her condition into that of her husband, and becomes noble or ignoble, according to his condition; so love changeth her condition according to that of the object she doth espouse: if love espouse God for her husband, then doth she become spiritual, Noble, and Divine, according to the quality of God; but if she Elect and adhere to the world, then doth she become carnal, base, and worldly. So much for the general Idea of Love, of which more in what follows. Sect. 3. What it is to love the World. 2. Quest. What it is to love the World? Love to the world may be considered as Predominant, and so altogether inconsistent with the very being and existence of love to God; or else as infirm and in part subdued. We shall here treat of it in the former respect only, which seems chief intended by John. And so love to the world may be described. A certain habitual pondus or weight of concupiscence, and Lust, whereby the soul is strongly impelled and inclined towards the fruition of, and satisfaction in the world, as its last end, and chiefest Good. In this description of love to the world, we find its Object, subject, end, principle, Act and measure; which will all fall under a more particular consideration in the following propositions. The Object of predominant love to the world. 1. Prop. To love the world is to affect some private, particular inferior. Good, for itself, as the chiefest Good, and last end. This proposition states and specifies the proper formal Object of worldly love; which is some private, particular inferior good, loved for itself, as the chiefest supreme good, and last end. Now the world may be constituted the chiefest good, and last end two ways. (1). Positively, when it is loved for itself as a total supreme good, unto which all things are referred. (2). Negatively, when, though it be loved only as a partial good, yet it is loved for itself, and not referred to God, either actually or habitually, as the supreme good. Such is the cursed love of many worldly professors, who love the world only as a partial good, yet so, as they refer it not to God the supreme good; and therefore may be said to love it for itself, as their last end and chiefest good, negatively, though not positively. This love to the world for itself, as the last end, and chiefest good, is fully described by John in the verse following our text, 1 John 2.16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but it is of the world. These words give much light and evidence to our text and present subject; wherefore we shall a little insist on the explication of them. And (1) We are to consider their rational connexion with the words precedent, included in the particle For: which gives us the genuine reason and cause, why the love of the world is inconsistent with the Love of God; namely, because all that is in the world, whether sensible, Civil, or Mental Goods, so far as they are the fuel of Lusts, are not of the Father, but of the world. (2) We are to observe here, that John discoursing of worldly goods, as the fuel of our Lust, expresseth the things themselves by the lust in us. He saith not Pleasures, Riches, Honours, though these be the things he means; but the Lust of these things; because the poison and evil of these things comes not from the things themselves, but from our lusts, that run into, and live upon them, as our last end and choicest good. And in this sense, saith John, they are not of the Father, but of the World. i. e. God never made or appointed these inferior goods to be our last end, chiefest Good, or matter of fruition and satisfaction; no, it is the Lusts of worldly men that have put this Crown upon the Heads of Pleasures, profits, preferments, etc. Hence it naturally follows that all love to these lower goods, for themselves, as our Last end and chiefest Good, is but Concupiscence or inordinate Lust. For indeed what is Lust, but desire to, or fruition of the Creature for itself? (3) We are to consider likewise the Distribution, which John here makes, of all that is in the world, into the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the eyes, and the pride of Life. This, as they say, is the worldly man's Trinity which he doth so much Idolise and Adore. (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Philo in Decalog. Philo the Jew, who was greatly versed as well in the Grecian as Judaic learning, makes all evil to consist, in the Lust of Pleasures, Riches, or Glory, which seems to answer to John's Distribution hear. For by the Lust of the flesh is usually understood Pleasures, By the Lust of the Eyes, Riches; and by the Pride of Life, Vain Glory, or Honours. We shall treat concisely of each, as the Fuel of Worldly Love. (1) To love the world, is to Lust after the pleasures of the flesh, as our last end, or sovereign Good, and so amiable for themselves. And, O! wh●t a brutish piece of Lust is this? And yet, Lo! how common, even among those, who would be accounted generous and noble? Yea, how many great Professors come under this condemnation? For by the Lusts of the flesh we must understand all inordinate love to, and delight in sensual pleasures of any kind, be it in eating, drinking, recreations, or unclean objects. What (b) La●rtius in Empedoc. Empedocles said of the Agragantines, holds too true of many now adays: They give themselves to Luxury, as though they would die tomorrow; and yet they build houses, as if they were to live for ever. O! how happy would it be for England, if those Sumptuary Laws, commended by Plato (c) Plato Repub. 3. in his Commonwealth, were established amongst us, for regulating our excesses in feasts, Habits, Houses, and other sensual pleasures? O! what seeds and causes of sorrow are there in sensual pleasures? How is the Love of sensual Sinners inveigled with the world's Golden Pleasures! Such there were in the Apostles times, even in the Churches. So Jam. 5.5. Ye have lived in Pleasures, i. e. as the Fish liveth in the water: Pleasures have been your Element, the food of your sensual life: your hearts have been steeped, immersed, drowned in them, as the spring of your life, and happiness. Thence it follows. Ye have nourished your hearts, as in the day of slaughter. Or we may by a metonomy read it, as in the day of Feasting. So the Syriack, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which answers to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, may be rendered. And so it alludes to the Solemn Feasts after Sacrifices, so common among the (d) See court of the Gent. part 1. Book 2. c. 9 Sect. 10. Gentiles as well as Jews. Their great days both of slaughter, and Feasting: For when the sacrifice was slain and offered, they Feasted on part, thereby to denote their communion with the God, they sacrificed unto. And so the sense is this: you nourish your sensual Appetites daily with Feasting, as those that feast on part of the Sacrifice, in the day of slaughter. O! how much doth this pampering of the flesh tend to the starving of the soul? And what is this but to make pleasures our God? So Phil. 3.19. whose belly is their God, and 2 Tim. 3.4. lovers of pleasures more than of God. Which refers to sensual professors in these last perilous days. Unto which also our Lord seems to refer, Matth. 24.38, 39 (2) To love the world is to lust after Riches for themselves, as our Last end and choicest Good. This John includes under the Lust of the Eyes, which is well interpreted by that Character which Solomon gives of the avaricious man Eccle. 4.8. neither is his eye satisfied with Riches. O! how greedy is the covetous man's eye after gold and silver, and other Riches? and what Complacence doth he take in the view thereof? It's true, Riches do not immediately affect or pamper the flesh, yet are they the Caterers of the flesh; they lay in provision for it. For money is the measure of all things. And albeit Riches are remote as to the flesh, yet are they the proper object of the eyes lusting, which takes in things remote. (3) To love the World, is to lust after, or pride ourselves in any worldly Grandeur, or Finite Excellencc, as our Last end and best good. So much the pride of life denotes. Aristoteles Rhet. l. 2. describeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When any boast what they have, and rashly promise great things of themselves, arrogating to themselves the deeds of others. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 primarily signifies a vain gloriation or boasting of having or doing great things; from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Boaster; which Grammarians derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wand'ring, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 liver. Such as your Mountebanks and Vagabonds are, who go from place to place, boasting what great things they can do. It here signifies a vainglorious affecting or assuming to ourselves some created excellence, as the chief matter of our happiness. This is the great lust of more elevated, refined, generous Spirits; who peradventure scorn to defile themselves with sensual pleasures or Riches, yet are not without violent, and impetuous lustings after some worldly Grandeur, or humane Excellence. Under this pride of life we may comprehend also the mind's lusting after Knowledge or any other Mental perfection, for itself as our last end; Jans. August. Tom. 2. l. 2. c. 8. fol. 132. which is the grand lust of Philosophers, Schoolmen, and other great wits of the world. This Jansenius rangeth under the former particular, the lust of the eye. 2. Prop. Predominant Love to the world, in regard of its subject, consists in an habitual pondus, weight, or violent Bent of heart toward some inferior good, for itself. Look as in nature there is a Centre of Gravity, unto which all ponderous weighty bodies, by their Gravity and weight, naturally tend; So in corrupt Nature, Love to the world, or Concupiscence is that lustful Pondus, or weight whereby the heart is violently impelled and inclined towards the world, as its centre of Gravity. This seems lively expressed Hebr. 12.1. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us. This verse, with the three following, are wholly agonistick, alluding to the Grecian games, as it appears by the several terms. They, who ran in the race, were to lay aside every thing, that might burden or hinder them therein. Thence saith the Apostle, let us lay aside every weight: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies a ponderous, weighty, gross, heavy, body; and it is here applied, as (e) Grotius and Hammond out of him. the learned conceive, to the love of the world; which, as a great pondus or weight, presseth down the heart towards the earth, as its centre of gravity; and so hinders its Christian race heaven-ward. O! what an infinite weight is love to this dirty world? with what an impetuous and violent force doth it press the heart downward, even unto Hell? this also is well expressed by a Bent, Hos. 11.7. And my people are bend to back-bsliding from me. i e. Their heart stands strongly bend towards their beloved Idols, and worldly allies. Their hearts were in suspense, as to God, (so the word signifies) but strongly bend towards the world. How doth the voluptuous man's heart stand bend towards his pleasures; the avaricious man's heart towards his riches; the ambitious man's heart towards his honours, as his God? this bend of the heart towards the world discovers itself, in an insatiable infinite thirst after worldly good, for itself. This we find greatly exemplified in profane Esau, Hebr. 12.16. Or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. What birthright was it that Esau sold? why, it was his birthright to the promised land, Canaan in the type, but Heaven in the Antitype. And for what did he sell Canaan and Heaven? for a morsel of meat, or a poor sensible pleasure, which his greedy lust thirsted after. You find the story at large, Gen. 25.30.34. v. 30. And Esau said unto Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage. It is in the original, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that red, that red, namely pottage: note here, that the repetition of the adjective signifies Esau's insatiable and greedy appetite after Jacob's red pottage. The like also is implied in his omitting the word pottage; which notes the haste and greediness of his lust, increased by the red colour; whence he was called Edom. And what was it that Esau's insatiable lust thus longs for? that follows, v. 34. pottage of Lentiles: Which were a kind of pulse, much like to Vetches, or small Pease, very course food, such as men in their sorrow and mourning were wont to eat. O! what a vile profane wretch was Esau, to part with his celestial birthright and dignity, for a mess of such course pottage? well might Moses conclude: thus Esau despised his birthright. An insatiable greedy thirst after any inferior good argues a predominant love to the world. 3. Prop. To love the World is to have the heart bound up in, and made one with the world. All love tends to Union: and to have the Heart planted in, and incorporated with the World argues a predominant love thereto. Thus in our text, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, love not the world, i. e. Let not your hearts be implanted, glued, or nailed to the world: let not your thoughts and affections run so deep into the world, as to become one with it. The more any love the world, the more their hearts are united to, and incorporated with it. The Alligation and adherence of the heart to the Creature is the natural effect of predominant love thereto. Love to the world is the nail or glue, whereby the heart is fastened to it. Thus Hos. 4.17. Ephraim is joined to Idols. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is fastened or glued, so as to become one therewith. Whereby the prophet teacheth us that Israel's heart was bound fast by indissoluble bonds to his Idols, so that it could not be plucked thence. 4. Prop. To have the heart under the Dominion of the World argues predominant love thereto. Such is the nature of Love, that it subjects the Lover to the thing beloved; specially if it be loved for itself. It's true, love to God gives us a Dominion over all things beneath us; but love to the world brings the heart into subjection to it. O! what an imperious tyrannic Sovereignty has the world over those that love it? what slaves are worldlings to the world through love to it? whatever the heart inordinately cleaves unto, it is under the dominion of, so Hos. 4.11. whoredom, and wine, and new wine take away the heart. There is a great emphase in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, will take away; which notes first a contest or conflict, and then the conquest, which these sensual objects make over the heart, that adheres to them. 5. Prop. To spend the best of our time, thoughts, studies, care, and endeavours for the procuring, or conserving worldly goods, denotes predominant love to the world. This seems to be the case of some carnal Jews, after the return from Babylon, Hag. 1.4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sieled houses, and this house lie waste? In your sieled houses, or houses curiously wainscotted, and adorned, not only for use, but luxury and pleasure. Whence it is aptly rendered, by the LXX. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. As if he had said: is this time a time for you, O ye sensualists, to spend so much time, study, care, cost and other expenses, in trimming and adorning your stately houses, not only for use, but delight and luxury; whiles the house of the Lord lies waste? this piece of Love to the world our Lord cautions professors of these last days against, Luke 21.34. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life; and so that day come upon you unawares. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overcharge, answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to harden, as it appears by the LXX on Exod. 8.15.32. which is also rendered by, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Exod. 10.1. so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies such an overcharging of the heart, with complacential thoughts and amusements about worldly things, as takes away all sense of Divine concerns: thence it follows, with surfeiting and drunkenness. These two denote all sensual pleasures. Then follows, and cares of this life: hereby is signified all distracting, distrustful, anxious cares, about provision for this life; which are elsewhere styled the cares of this world, as Mat. 13.22. this part of predominant Love to the world is termed, Rom. 8.5. minding the things of the flesh; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mind, according to Paul's Phrascologie, doth not so much regard the simple act of the mind, as the complacential thoughts, studious contrivements and solicitous cares of the heart; such as naturally follow a carnal constitution or frame of heart, and bespeak the man to be under the Dominion of predominant love to the world. For when all a man's thoughts, inclinations, affections, studies, and cares pay tribute to the flesh, what is he but a slave to the flesh? thence it follows, ver. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the complacential amusement, contrivement, study, and care of the flesh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gen. 6.5. the figment or contrivement of the heart. These carnal world-minders, are well described by Paul, Phil. 3.19. who mind earthly things, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, i. e. They amuse themselves in the the complacential thoughts, and study of terrene things: they have no gust, savour or relish, but of such; they are under the serpent's curse, to lick the dust. 6. Prop. Another branch of predominant love to the world, is to make the Creature the object or matter, not only of our use, but also of our supreme fruition, complacence, and satisfaction. So much is implied in our text, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, make not the world the object of your entire contentment, acquiescence, and satisfaction, draw not your choicest comforts and delights from terrene goods. There is some kind of contentment and complacence in worldly goods, which may consist with the love of God; but when the heart makes any worldly good the entire, or main object of its fruition and satisfaction, this denotes predominant love to the world. For Divine Wisdom hath put this Law or Order into things; that all Creatures are to be the object of our Use; but God himself the supreme object of our fruition and satisfaction, whence, to make any Creature the chief matter of our fruition and satisfaction, what is it, but to violate and pervert the order of the Creation, and set up the Creature in the place of the Creator? and doth not this bespeak predominant love to the Creatures? This our Lord elegantly describes in that parable of the rich glutton, Luke 12.15.19. you have the scope of the parable, v. 15. beware of Covetousness. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here, as elsewhere, signifies an avaricious greedy humour, or desire of having abundance, not only for use, but to pamper lust. The Metaphor being taken from the plethora or excess of any humour in the body. And our Lord adds the reason of this caution, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. The sense seems this: all these lower things, which man's covetous heart doth so much lust after, are not the matter of our fruition and satisfaction, but Use only; therefore our life doth not consist in the abundance of them; but in an ordinate love to, and moderate use of them: to use them in that measure, and with that mediocrity as becomes them: whence they who make them the chief matter of their fruition and satisfaction, are possessed with a predominant love unto them. This is exemplified in the following parable of the rich man, specially v. 18. all my fruit and my goods. He calls them his goods, as they were the main object of his complacence and delight, so v. 19 I will say to my soul, i. e. I will then recreate and satiate mine heart, with mine acquired goods: whence it follows: take thine ease, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, recreate, refresh thine heart acquiesce in them. Poor man! he had felt sufficient anxiety, solicitude and vexation in the acquirement of his Goods, but now he hopes the fruition will crown all with sweet repose, rest, and satisfaction. Thence he adds: eat, drink, and be merry. The last term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be merry seems to refer to all manner of sensual pleasures, in which voluptuous luxurious persons take so much complacence and delight; this fruition of, and complacence in worldly goods, our Lord doth express in plain naked terms, in the reddition of the Parable, v. 21. so is he that layeth up treasure for himself, [i. e. in worldly goods, which he makes the main object of his satisfaction] and is not rich towards God, i. e. and doth not make God his treasure, and chief matter of fruition, Complacence, and satisfaction. And what is this, but rank predominant love to the world? 7. Prop. To be afflicted and troubled for the loss of any Creature-comfort more than for the loss of God, and things spiritual, denotes predominant love to the world. As our love is, such is our sorrow for the loss of what we love: Immoderate Affliction for the loss of any worldly thing argues Inordinate Affection to it, when enjoyed: and if the heart be more afflicted and troubled for the loss of the creature than for the loss of God, it is a sure sign, that the enjoyment of it did more affect and please the heart, than the enjoyment of God. This was Israel's case Isa. 17.10, 11. Where the prophet compares the state of Israel, in her Apostasy, to a curious Lady, that delighteth in beautiful flowers, choice fruits, and pleasant plants. But he concludeth, the harvest should be an heap, in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow. Now this desperate sorrow, or deadly pain, [as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importeth] for the loss of her pleasant Idols, argues predominant love to them. This also was the case of the young man, Luk. 18.23. And when he heard this [i. e. v. 22, that he must part with all his riches for a treasure in heaven] he was very sorrowful. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he was sorrowful in a superlative degree; for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in Composition signifies, which is not (as some conceive) a preposition, but Adverb intending the sense. And what filled him with this extreme desperate sorrow? Why surely thoughts of parting with his goodly treasure, which he valued and loved, more than treasures in Heaven. They that cannot support themselves under the privation of any temporal good God calls for, but choose rather to part with Heaven, than with their beloved Idol, are under predominant love to the world. But here, to obviate mistakes, we must distinguish, (1) between a predominant Principle or Habit, and a prevalent Act of love to the world; as (2) between a Rational and Passionate love or Sorrow. 1. One that loves God may, under a fit of Temptation, be under a prevalent Act, though not under a predominant Principle or Habit of love to the world. 2. Hence his passionate love to, and sorrow for the loss of some temporal good, may be greater, under some distemper of heart, when his rational love to, and sorrow for the loss of God, and things spiritual is greater, at least in the root and habit, if not in the Act. 3. Qu. What it is to love God? Sect. 4. What it is to love God? This Question receives much Evidence and Light from what precedes, touching Love to the world: For Contraries illustrate each other: and love to God moves in the same manner as love to the world moves. So that to love God, is to transfer the Actions and Passions of our Love from the world to God, as our last end and chiefest Good. In short, the love of God implies a superlative preference of God above all lower Goods, Luke 14.26. A Divine Weight or Bent of heart towards God, as our Centre, Deut. 6.5. It's proper Acts are chief two (1) An amorous vehement direct motion towards God, (2) a complacential fruition of and Repose in God as its Best Beloved, Psal. 116.7. As for the Adjuncts of this Divine Love, it must be 1. Sincere and Cordial, Eph. 6.24. 2. Judicious and Rational, Psal. 16.7. 3. Intimate and Passionate. 4. Pure and Virgin, Cant. 5.3. 5. Regular and Uniform. 6. Generous and noble. 7. Permanent and Abiding. 8. Vigorous and Active. 9 Infinite and Boundless. Divine Love thus qualified brings the soul into (1) An inviolable Adherence unto, and amorous union with God, Eph. 5, 31, 32. (2) It works the heart to an amorous Resignation of all concerns unto God. (3) It commands the whole Soul into the Obedience of God, John 14.21.23. (4) It is exceeding submissive unto God's Providential afflictive will, Leu. 10, 3. (5) It is extreme vigilant, cheerful and diligent in the service of God, Luk. 7.37, 47. O how officious is love to God (6) It useth all things in subordination to God, Mat. 6.33.34. (7) It winds up the soul to a Divine life: It transforms the lover into the Image, and imitation of God, whom he loves. Eph. 5.1. These particulars I intended to have handled more fully, but understanding that this case, touching the Love of God, is the proper task of another, I shall refer thee to the Resolution of that Reverend Divine's Case. 4. Qu. Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the Love of God? Sect. 5. Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God. Having explicated the sundry Parts of our Case, we now come to the Connexion of the whole, namely, to demonstrate the Inconsistence of Love to the world, with the Love of God. What love it is, that is inconsistent with the Love of God, we have already fully opened, in the second Question, touching predominant love to the world: Wherefore the only thing at present incumbent on us is to show, wherein predominant Love to the world is inconsistent with the Love of God. 1. Prop. Predominant love to the world is contrary to, and therefore inconsistent with the love of God. This seems evidently implied in our text: If any man love the world, etc. John brings this as a reason of his prohibition, namely, that predominant love to the world, and love to God are perfectly opposite, and therefore, by the rule of contraries, incoherent, and inconsistent. The like Mat. 6.24. No man can serve two Masters: For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other: Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. These words are a good Comment on our text, and clearly demonstrate the Inconsistence of Love to the world with the Love of God: I shall therefore a little insist on them. The design of our Lord here is the same with that of John in our text, namely, to take off professors from inordinate predominant love to the world, and bring them to a Divine Affection unto, and living on God, as their portion, and treasure, as v. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. And v. 24. he shows the inconsistence of love to the world with love to God, in that the world and God are contrary Lords, who require each the whole heart and man. This will more fully appear if we examine the particulars. He saith, No man can serve. It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, have, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, serve. (q) Intelligendum est hoc prove●bium de D●minis Solidum; quomodo & Juris cons●lri dicunt non posse duos esse Dominos ejusdem rei. Grot. Now to serve another, according to the laws and customs of those times and Nations, was to have no power or right to dispose of himself, or any thing that belonged to him; but to live and depend merely on the Pleasure of his Master. Such a service could not be given to God and the world. Why? (1) Because they are two Masters; i. e. in Solidum, each of which require the whole heart and man. (1) Because they are two (r) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. contrary Masters, which commands us to esteem, love, and endeavour after worldly treasures, more than heavenly: God commands us to esteem, love, and endeavour after heavenly treasures, more than earthly. The world commands you to engage no farther in matters of Religion, than may consist with its Interest: But Christ commands you to part with all worldly Interest for himself. The world commands you to take your fill of the creature; to suck out the sweets thereof, and feed your hearts therewith: But Christ commands you to use this world as if you used it not; 1 Cor. 7.31. to affect an universal privation of these lower goods, even whilst you enjoy them; to give perishing things, perishing thoughts, esteem, and desires; to bid farewell to all things, so far as they are a snare to you, or a sacrifice that God calls for. Again, the world commands you to endeavour the greatning of your names and reputation: But Christ commands you to glory in nothing but his Cross; to account abasement for Christ your greatest Honour. Lastly the world commandeth you not to be scrupulous about small sins; but to take your liberry, and latitude: But Christ commandeth you to dread the least sin more than the greatest suffering. Now, how contrary and Inconsistent are these Masters in their Commands? Is it possible then, that we should be Masters of such contrary Loves? O! how doth love to the world eat out love to God? (2) Predominant Love to the world is inconsistent with the Love of God, in that it robs God of that Love and Honour, which is due to him as the Sovereign Chiefest Good. according to what measure the heart turns to the world and its concerns, in the same measure it turns from God and his concerns. When the heart is full of the world, how soon is all sense of, and love to God choked? how is the Mind bemisted, an Will charmed with the painted heart-bewitching shadows of the World? This was Israel's Case, Hos. 10.1. Israel is an empty vine, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Expositors have variety of Conceptions on these words; but the most simple sense seems this Israel: is (s) vitis evacuans. an evacuant luxuriant Vine, which seems to bring forth such abundance of fruit, as if she would empty herself of all her juice and fruits at once; so richly laden with fruit doth she seem to be. Ay, but what fruit is it? Surely fruit unto herself, rotten corrupt fruit: her heart and love is not bestowed on God, but on her Idols. So it follows, v. 2. Their heart is divided. i e. This beloved Idol hath one part, that another: and thus God is rob of that esteem and love which is due to him. (3) Love to the World breeds Confidence in the World, whereby the heart is turned off from its Dependence on God, as its first cause. And O! how inconsistent is this with the love of God? God, as he is our Last End in point of Fruition, so also our first principle, or Cause in point of Dependence. Now love to the world turns the heart from God to the World, not only as the last end, but also as the First Cause. They that love the world cast the weight of their souls, and chiefest concerns on the World; and so bid Adieu to God. This Confidence in worldly things is inconsistent with Salvation, and so with the Love of God; as Mark 10.24. How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God? This Rhetoric Interrogation implies a Logic negation, namely, that it is impossible for one, that in a prevalent degree trusteth in his riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God. So Psal. 52.7. Lo this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened, (or fortified) himself in his wickedness (or substance.) The like Prov. 11.28. Ezek. 16.15. 1 Tim. 6.17. (4). Love to the world is flat idolatry, and herein also inconsistent with the Love of God. So Eph. 5.5. nor Covetous man, who is an Idolater. The same Col. 3.5. and covetousness, which is idolatry. Covetousness is, in a peculiar manner, branded with this black mark of Idolatry, in that it doth expressly proclaim a love to the world as its last end, and confidence in it as its first cause. So Paul saith of voluptuous persons, that they make their belly their God, Phil. 3.19. because they love pleasures more than God, 2 Tim. 3.4. And indeed every lover of the world is a God-maker: so many lusts as men have, so many Gods. The lust of the flesh makes pleasures its God; the lust of the eye worships Riches as its God; and the lust of pride exalts some created excellence in the place of God. O! how do worldlings lose the true God in the crowd of false Gods? (5). Love to the world is spiritual Adultery; and thence incoherent with the Love of God. The jealousy of God will not admit of any corrival in the bent of the heart: but Oh! how doth love to this world run a whoring after other Lovers,? so Ezek. 16.17, 18, 38. and 23.5, 11. and Aholah played the harlot when she mas mine, etc. The like James 4.4. Ye adulterers, and adulteresses, know ye not, that the friendsh; p of the world is enmity with God? Which implies, that love to, and friendship with this whorish world, is spiritual Adultery, and so hatred against God. O! how soon are those that love the world killed by its adulterous embraces? hence, (6). Love to the world is a deliberate contrived lust, and so habitual enmity and rebellion against God. Acts of lust, which arise from sudden passions, though violent, may consist with the love of God; but a deliberate Bent of heart towards the world, as our supreme interest, cannot. The single act of a gross sin, arising from some prevalent Temptation, speaketh not such an inveterate bitter root of enmity against God, as predominant love to the world, James 4.4. whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God. Oh! how much of contempt, rebellion, and enmity against God, is there in friendship and love to the world? (7) Love to the world forms our profession into a subservience unto our worldly interest, and so makes Religion to stoop unto, yea truckle under lust. Now what can be more inconsistent with the Love of God, than this? This was the case of the carnal Jews, Ezech. 33.31. With their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. They show much love in profession; but O; how little have they of sincere affection? and why? because their avaricious hearts made the whole of their profession to conform to their worldly interest? Thus also it was with unbelieving Jews in our Lord's time, John 5.42. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I know you. There lies a great emphase in that, you; you, who profess so much, and yet have so little love in you. They had much love to God in their mouth, but none in their heart: this appeareth by v. 43, 44. where our Lord tells them in plain terms, that their worldly honour, and interest was the only measure of their profession. This also was the measure of Judas' Religion, John 12.5, 6. where he pretends much love to the poor, but really intends nothing, but the gratifying his avaricious humour. The like, Hos. 10.11. Ephraim loveth to tread out the Corn, etc. because there was profit, liberty, and pleasure in that, but Ephaim loved not ploughing work; because that brought her under a yoke, and brought in no advantage to her. Love to the world brings us under subjection to it, and so takes us off from the service of God. What we inordinately love and cleave unto, we are soon overcome by. Now subjection to the world, and subjection to God are inconsistent, Mat. 6.24. (8). Love to the world is the root of all sin; and therefore what more inconsistent with the love of God? To love God is to hate evil, Psal. 97.10. therefore to love evil, either in the cause or effect, is to hate God. Now love to the world has not only a love for, but also a causal influence on all sin. And that, (1) As it exposeth men to the violent incursion and assaults of every tentation, so 1 Tim. 6.9. But they that will be rich. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they that have their wills biased with a violent bent, or vehement weight of carnal love towards riches. This Solomon expresseth, Prov. 28.22. By hasting to be rich. What befalls such? why, saith Paul, such fall into tentation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in perdition and destruction: and then he gives the reason and cause of it, v. 10. For the love of money is the root of all evil, etc. i. e. There is no sin, but may call the love of money Father: whence Philo calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Metropolis of evil. (2). Love to the world is the cause of all sin, in that it blinds and darkens the mind, which opens the door to all sin. It is an observation of the prudent moralist (t) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plutarch. , that every lover is blind about that he loves, which he himself interprets, of love to lower goods. And oh! how true is this of those that love the world? what a black veil of darkness is there on their minds, as to what they love? hence Paul calls such men's love, 1 Tim. 6.9. foolish lusts. They are indeed foolish, not only eventually, but causally, as they make men fools and sots. (3). Love to the world stifles all convictions, breaks all chains and bars of restraining grace, and so opens a more effectual door to all sin. We find a prodigious example hereof in Balaam, Numb. 22.22, 40. where you see at large, how his predominant love to the wages of unrighteousness, 2 Pet. 2.15. stifled all those powerful convictions of, and resolutions against sin he lay under. (4). Love to the world is the disease and death of the soul, and therefore the life of sin, 1 Tim. 5.6. she that liveth in pleasure is dead, while she liveth, (5). Love to the world (u) Amor est quidam ingressus animi in rem amatam, quae, si fuerit ipso amante ignobilior, polluit Dignitatem ejus Jansen. August. pollutes our whole Being. Animal passions defile the soul: inordinate lustings after things lawful pollute the most of professors, more or less. (6). Love to the world puts the whole soul, yea world, into Wars, Confusion, and Disorders, so James 4.1. From whence come wars, and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your Members? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of your pleasures, i. e. by a Metonymy, from your lusts after pleasures and superfluous things, that war in your members. Hence note, that all extern wars and confusions come from the wars and confusions of intern lust in the heart. Now all intern wars and disorders are inconsistent with the love of God, which is peaceable and orderly. In these regards love to the world impedes and hinders the love of God. (9). Love to the world is inconsistent with the love of God, in that it causeth Apostasy from God. The Conversion of the heart to the Creature, always implies its Aversion from God: He that cannot part with the World, will soon part with God. The world draws Men from God at Pleasure; because it doth engross your best Time, Thoughts, Affections and Strength in its service. How many professors, by being bewitched with love to the World, have lost many hopeful blossoms and beginnings of love to God? How little do Spiritual Suavities savour with Carnal Hearts? Yea, do not the Flesh-pleasing sweets of this World make all the Delices of Heaven seem bitter to a Sensual Worldling? What makes the heart poorer, as to things Divine, than the love of worldly Riches? How is the Honour of Christ and Religion degraded in that heart, which affects worldly Honours? what more powerfully stains the Glory of a Christian Profession, than an ambitious affectation of Mundane Glory? Where is that professor, who has his heart engaged in the world without being defiled by it, if not drowned in it? The world is filled with such a contagious air, as that our love is soon poisoned and infected by it. Love to the world is the Devil's Throne, where he lords it; the Helm of the Ship, where he sits and steers the Soul Helwards. This was the bitter root of Lot's wife her Apostasy from God. So Gen. 19.26. But his wife looked back from behind him. She had left her heart in Sodom; and thence she looks back after it, contrary to God's Command, v. 17. And what was the Issue of her Apostasy? She became a pillar of Salt. i. e. She partaked of Sodom's Plague, which was brimstone and and salt, Deut. 29.23. the storm which fell on Sodom overtook her, and turned her into a Pillar of Salt, as a standing Monument of God's Justice on Apostates, who love the world more than God. Whence saith our Lord, Luk. 17.32. Remember Lot's wife. What made Judas and Demas Apostatise, but love to the world? As man at first fell from God, by loving the world more than God: so he is more and more engaged in this Apostasy by love to the world. (10) Love to the world transforms a man into the spirit and humour of the world, which is inconsistent with the love of God. Love makes us like to, and so one with what we love. For all love aims at Unity; and if it Comes short thereof, yet it leaves Similitude which is imperfect Unity: Whence by love to the World men become like to, and one with it (w) si terram amas, terra es, Aug. . He that loves the earth is earthly. A worldly Man is called, Rom. 8.8, 9, a fleshly man; because his very soul becomes fleshly: His heart is drowned in, and incorporated with the world: his Spirit becomes incarnate with the flesh. (11). Yea Love to the world transforms a Man into a Beast, and so makes him altogether incapable of Love to God. So Psal. 49.20. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the Beasts that perish. This verse is an Epiphonema to the Psalm, with which he concludes, that a man, though never so great in the world, yet, if his heart cleave unto it, he is no better than a Beast; albeit he be a man by Nature, yet he is a Beast by Affection and Operation Yea, what shall I say? Love to the world transforms a man into worse than a Beast. For it is better to be a Beast, than like to a Beast. As love to God, the Best Good, makes us better than the best on other men; so Love to the world, which is the worst evil, makes men worse than the worst of Beasts. Love to the world is extatick, as well as love to God: and the more the heart cleaves to the the world, the less power has it to return to God, or itself. The Application. Sect. 6. The Application of the Subject. Having Stated and explicated the Case before us, we now descend to the several Improvements, that may be made thereof, both by Doctrinal Corollaries; and practic Uses. I. As for the Doctrinal Corollaries 1. Doctrinal Corollaries. or Inferences, that may be deduced from the precedent Discourse, they are various and weighty: I shall only mention such as more immediately and naturally flow there from. 1. By Comparing the Love of God with the Love of the World in their Universal Ideas and Characters, we learn, How much the love of God doth Excel and transcend the Love of the world. Our love is by so much the more perfect, by how much the more noble and spiritual its Object is; and by how much the more eminent degree it obtains in the subject. The greatness of the Object intendeth the Affection; And oh! how much doth this raise the value of Love to God above worldly Love? Is not God, the most absolutely necessary Simple Being, very Being, yea Being itself; and therefore most perfect? whence is he not also our Last End, our Choicest Good, every way for himself? Then O! what an excellent thing is love to God, who is so amiable? But as for this world what a dirty whore, what an heart-ensnaring thing is it? and thence, how much is our Love abased by terminating thereon? The Love of God is pure and unspotted, But O! how filthy and polluted is love to the World? What more cordial and sincere than love to God? But alas! how artificial, painted and hypocritick is love to this deceitful world? O! how judicious, wise and discreet, is love to God? what abundance of solid, deep, and spiritual reason has it in its bowels? But oh! what a brutish, sottish passion is love to the world? How foolish are all its lusts? 1 Tim. 6.9. What a generous and noble Affection is love to God? But what more sordid and base than love to this vile world? Love to God is Regular and Uniform: But O! what Irregularities and Confusions attend love to the World? How Masculine, puissant and potent, is love to God? But alas! how Effeminate, impotent, and feeble, is love to the World? What more solid and Substantial, than love to God? and what more vain and empty, than love to the World? It deserves not the name of Love but Lust: Worldly-minded men have a world of Lusts; but what have they to fill them, save a bag of empty wind, and vexatious vanities? Love to God is most temperate, natural, and so beautiful: But ah! what preternatural, excessive, and prodigious heats are there in Love to the World? How is the Mind clarified and brightened by Love to God? But oh! how is it bemisted, and darkened by Love to the World? Divine love is the Best Philosopher, and master of Wisdom. The love of God amplifies and widens the Heart: But the Love of the world doth confine and narrow it. By Love to God we become Lords over all things beneath ourselves: But love to the world brings us into subjection to the most base of persons and things. Worldly minded men can neither obey nor command their Lusts: they cannot obey them, because they are infinite, and oft contrary: they cannot command them by reason of their own feebleness. Love to God is tranquil, and serene: but love to the world, tempestuous and turbulent. Love to God gives repose and quiet to the soul: but love to the world fills it with perpetual agitations, inquietude, and restless motions, without end. Worldly love is a laesive passion, but Divine love perfective of him that loves. In sum, love to God is of the same nature with God, and therefore the most express Character of the Image of God; the firstborn of Faith, the soul of other graces; the Rule of our actions, a summary of the Law; an Angelic life; a prelibation of Heaven; a lively mark of a child of God: for we may read God's Love to us in our love to him. But O! how opposite and black are the characters of Love to the world? nothing deserves the name of Love, but that to God. 2. Hence also infer, that Love to God, and Love to the world, divide all mankind. There is no middle state between these two opposites; neither can they ever consist together in their perfect degrees. If thou art a lover of the world, in John's sense, thou art a hater of God: and if thou lovest God thou art an hater of the world. Hereby than thou mayest make a judgement of thy state, whether thou art a Saint or a sinner; a Godly, or worldly man. And remember this, that to love any worldly good more than God, is in the Scripture's sense, to hate God, Mat. 6.24. 3. This also instructs us, that all natural irregenerate men's Love, is but concupiscence or Lust. Do not all men in their natural state prefer the creature before the Creator? are not the pleasures, profits, and Honours of this world, the worldly man's Trinity, which he adoreth, and sacrificeth unto? Have not all men by nature a violent impetuous bent of heart towards some one or other worldly Idol? are not their souls bound up in something below God? Do not all men naturally esteem, love, use, and enjoy the creature for itself, without referring it to God? and what is this but Lust? 4. We are hence likewise taught, that a regular and ordinate love to, and use of this world's goods, is very difficult and rare; Alas! how soon doth our love to creatures grow inordinate, either as to its Substance, Quantity, Quality, or Mode? yea, how oft, and how soon doth our love to things lawful grow irregular and unlawful? what an excess are most men guilty of in their love to, and use of things indifferent? how few are there, who in using this world do not abuse it, as 1 Cor. 7.31? where is that person that can say with Paul, Phil. 4.12. Every where, and in all things I am instructed both to abound and suffer want? 5. This also informs us, that where predominant Love to the world is notorious, visible, and manifest, we cannot, by any rule of judicious Charity, count such a Godly man. It was a Canon, common among the Jews, mentioned by Rabbi Salome, that (x) Populus terrae non vocatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hasid. the people of the earth are not called Godly, i. e. the Lovers of the world may not be called Saints. And, Oh! how many worldly professors are cut off from the number of visible Saints, hereby? It is to me a dismal contemplation, to consider, how many follow Christ in profession, and yet have the black mark of worldlings on there foreheads. O! how much love to the world lies hid under the mask and vizard of professed love to God? It is not the having or possessing of the world's goods, but the overloving of them, that bespeaks you worldlings. It's true, a Saint may fall under many preternatural heats, yea fevers of Love to the world; yet in time love to God, as a sttonger fire, expels such violent heats, and noxious humours. 6. Hence in like manner we may collect, That worldly minded professors are composed of a world of Contradictions and Inconsistences. Such Love God in profession, but hate him in truth and Affection: Their tongues are tipped with Heaven, but their hearts are drenched in the Earth: They pretend to serve God, but they intent nothing, but to serve their Lusts: They make a show of confidence in God, but place their real confidence in the world. They make mention of God in Name, but exalt the world in Heart: They Conform to the Laws of God in outward show, but Conform to, yea are transformed into the world in Spirit: Finally, they hate sin and love God in appearance; but they hate God and love sin in reality, Ezech. 33.31. 7. This also instructs thus, That for professors of love to God to be deeply engaged in the love of this world is a sin of deep Aggravation. O! what a peculiar Malignity is there in this sin? How much Light and Love do such sin against? What a reproach and disparagement is cast on God hereby? Are not profane worldlings justified in their earthly-mindedness by the worldly love of Professors? Yea, do they not hereby take occasion to blaspheme the holy Name of God? Lo! say they, these are your professors, who are as covetous, as overreaching in their deal, as much buried in the Earth, as any other. And is not God hereby greatly dishonoured? Do not such worldly professors live below their principles, profession, convictions, covenant-Obligations, and the practice of former Professors? 8. This gives us the genuine Reason, and Cause, Why the word of God, and all the good things contained therein, find so little room in the Hearts of many great Professors. It is to me a prodigious thing to consider, among the crowd of notional Professors, and Hearers of God's Word, how few entertain the same in an honest heart. And where lies the main bitter root of this cursed Infidelity, but in love to the world? So Mark 4.18, 19 And these are they, which are sown among thorns: Such as hear the Word; and the cares of this world, and the Deceitfulness of Riches, and the Lusts of other things entering in, choke the word and it becometh unfruitful. It deserves a particular remark, that the Thorny-ground hearers here characterised are ranked in the highest form of notional Hearers, as much surpassing the Highway-ground, or Stony-ground Hearers: For in these thorny-ground Hearers the word takes some root, yea with some depth; and so springs up into a blade, and green ears; and so endures a cold winter, yea a scorching summer's heat: and yet after all it is choked. How so? why, by the cares of this world. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the amorous, distracting, anxious cares, and the deceitfulness of Riches. O! what Deceitful things are Riches! how soon do they choke the word? and the Lusts of other things: Namely Pleasures, which deserve not to be named: (y) Solenne fuit Hebraeis uti voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alius, quoties cunque rem abominandam tacitè innuunt. Horting. Thesaur. Philolog. p. 51. For so the Hebrews were wont to express vile abominable things, by other things. Thence they termed Swine, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other things. 9 Hence also conclude, That such as love the world hate God and their own souls. That predominant Love to the world, in its proper notion, includes the hatred of God, is evident, from the whole of our discourse: That it implies also hatred of ourselves, is manifest, because the hatred of God includes love to death, and so by Consequence the hatred of our own souls, as Prov. 8.36. All they that hate me, Love death, i. e. in its Causes. Oh! how cursed are such as cry up the world, and cry down Christ? 10. Lastly, this Case, as before stated, is a good Key to open some dark and hard say in Scripture: As that, Mat. 19.24. It is easier for a camel to go thorough an eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. Which is a proverbial speech, denoting how difficult a thing it is for any rich man, but how impossible it is for him that has a predominant love to his riches, and so confidence in them, to enter into the Kingdom of God, as Mark 10.24. 2. But to close up this discourse with a few Practic Improvements and Uses. Practic Uses. 1. This Case, as before stated, serves for the Conviction and Condemnation of such, who profess love to God, and yet love the world more than God. Our Apostle saith Love not the world: and yet what do these love but the world? where is the Love which these own to God? And what hopes can such have of God's Love to them? Alas! how poor and narrow is the love of most Professors to God? If they have some good liking to him, yet how far short do they come of fervent love to him? perhaps their Light and Profession is broad; but O! how narrow is their Love to Christ? And do not such as want love for Christ fall under the most dreadful curse that ever was, even an Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. 16.22. which was the formule of the highest Excommunication among the Jews, mentioned in Enoch's prophecy, Jud. 14. and imports a binding over to the great day of Judgement at the coming of our Lord. And Oh! how soon will Christ meet such in a way of Judgement, who will not now meet him in a way of love? Alas! what an hungry paradise have they whose love feeds not on Christ but the things of time? Is there not a sting in every creature our love dotes on? O! what abundance of Ingratitude and Injustice lies wrapped up in this Love to the world? Can there be greater ingratitude than this, to spend our choicest love on love-tokens, conferred on us by God to wind up our hearts to the love of himself? Is it not also the greatest Injustice to give that measure of Affection to the creature, which is due to none but the creator? Having so fair an opportunity I cannot but enter this solemn Protestation against all such, as under a Profession of Love to God, conceal an adulterous Affection to this world. O! think how soon this world will hug you to death in its arms, if your hearts attend to its bewitching charms. Alas! why should sick dreams run away with your hearts? What are all those things your hearts lust after, but the Scum, Froth, Dross, and Refuse of the Creation? Ah, poor fools! why are your hearts so much bewitched with the night-visions, whorish Idols, or Cursed nothings of time? Remember how dear you pay for your Beloved Idols, how much they are salted with the curse of God. 2. Here is matter of doleful Lamentation, that in days of so much Light, and Profession of love to God, Men should so much abuse themselves and the world, by over loving of it. O that painted shadows, and dirty clay should run a way with our love! is it not a deplorable case, that the golden pleasures of this Idol world should find so much room in our hearts? yea, what matter of humiliation is this, that professors of Love to God should lavish away so much time, study, care and affection on this perishing world? Would it not make any serious heart to bleed, when it considers, how much the professors of this age are conformable to the fashions, humours, and lusts of this world? O! what an abominable thing is it, that professors should fall down and worship this great Idol the world? that the sons of God should commit folly with this old Whore, which the sons of men have lusted after so many thousand years? alas! what chains and fetters are there in the world's blandishments? what real miseries? in all her seeming felicities? what do all her allurements serve for, but to hid Satan's baits? who are they that are most in love with the world, but those that least know it? Alas! how little can this world add to, or take from out happiness? what hath this world to feed our Love, but smoke and wind? 3. Here is also a word of caution for professors, to take heed how they make Religion and the concerns thereof subservient to worldly interest. O! what a curse and plague is this, to make the highest excellence subserve the vilest lusts? and yet how common is it? I tremble to think how far many professors will be found guilty hereof at the last day. 4. But that which I mostly design as the close of this Discourse, is some few words of Exhortation and Direction unto Christians. (1). To labour after an holy contempt of this dirty soul-polluting world. O! what an essential obligation do we all lie under, to contemn the Grandeur and sunburnt glory of this fading world? What is there in this world you can call yours? can you be content to have your Heaven made of such base metal as mire and clay? O what a transient thing is all the glory of this perishing world! consider the argument which our Apostle useth in the words following our text, 1 John 2.17. and the world. (i. e. all the splendour, pomp, beauty, pleasures, and grandeur of the world) passeth away, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as a scene, whereon men acted their parts, and then passed away, as 1 Cor. 7.31. alas! were the world guilty of no other defect but this, that it passeth away, what a strong argument is this for the contempt thereof? again, remember this world is but your prison and place of pilgrimage: and oh! how scornful and disdainful is the pilgrim's eye? with how much scorn doth he behold other Countries? and ought not Christians with a more generous disdain cry out fie, fie, this dirty world is not like my celestial Canaan? Alas! what have we here to rejoice in but fetters and chains? how soon doth the fashion of this world pass away, 1 Cor. 7.31. i e. the pageant or scene of worldly glory? (2). As for you, who are rich in this world, consider seriously the exhortation of Paul, 1 Tim. 6.17, 18, 19 where having closed his Epistle he has this Divine Inspiration injected by the Spirit. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they he not highminded, nor trust in uncertain tiches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. That they do good, that they be rich in good works, etc. There were many rich Merchants at Ephesus, where Timothy was, who needed this exhortation, as I think many among us. (3). Here is a more particular word for Merchants, Tradesmen, and all such as are much engaged in the affairs of this world, That they would take diligent heed that the world do not insinuate and wind itself into their hearts. O! I beseech you, keep your hearts far from the walls of this pest-house, this love-polluting world: keep your love in Heaven while your persons are engaged in the world. Let not your hearts smell of the smoke of this lower house, but of Heaven: beware that your love do not make its nest in this world, but let it take wing, and rest not where short of Heaven, where its Treasure is. Fellow not the guises of this soul-polluting world: Let this Idol world be nothing to you; but God be all in all. Take heed that the multiplicity of worldly affairs choke not the sense of God: remember your best riches consist in the poverty of your desires. Make use of prosperity to prepare you for afflictions: know the dearest things must be parted with when God calls for them; and therefore keep your hearts lose from them: bring your natural desires into a narrow compass, but let your hearts be enlarged towards God: amuse not your hearts as children at the glistering outside of things; but fear a snare in every comfort: feed much on Spiritual delights, and that will kill carnal pleasures. Let your hearts be as the Mother-pearl; which, they say, receives no water but what comes from Heaven: let your hearts be open towards Heaven, but shut against the world: let not this great Idol enter into God's Temple. (4). Lastly, let us all be exhorted, to be in nothing more curious, than about the right placing of our Love; that it be fixed on its right Object, and in a right Manner. Let us get a stamp of Grace on all our love, and then it will become Divine. Let us love nothing greatly, but what we shall love for ever. It was the saying of a serious Jansenist: I would never begin to love that, which one day I must cease to love. Let us labour after the highest strain of love to God, which is, to love God for himself, and to love ourselves in God. Our best Being lies in God, and therefore our best love, is to love ourselves in God. As one extreme heat burns out another; so let our love to God burn out our love to the World. Now is the time. OR, Instructions for the present improving the season of Grace. Serm. IU. 2 Cor. 6.1, 2. We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also, that you receive not the Grace of God in vain; for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of Salvation have I succoured thee: behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of Salvation. Sect. 1 PAul's Epistles excel both in matter and in method. Their matter is principally reconciliation through Christ. What subject so sweet, so profitable? Their method is by way of Doctrine and use: a method, which if it be despised, Paul's writings cannot be duly valued. In the foregoing verse, the last words of it, he positively asserted the great doctrine of Reconciliation through Christ, and doctrinally propounded it in these words; He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him: This was his Doctrine. In these two verses immediately following he applieth the doctrine, We then, as workers together with him, beseech you, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain: for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, etc. In which two verses, there are contained these three parts. 1. The first is an exhortation, that they would not receive the Grace of God in vain, or a caution against their receiving it in vain. 2. Secondly, the reasons that the Apostle produceth to back the exhortation. Those reasons are two, The first is the reason of his propounding this exhortation, that is, because, he was a worker together with God. The second is the reason of their embracing this exhortation, and that is in the 2 verse, For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of Salvation have I succoured thee, as it is in Isa. 49.8. 3. Thirdly, you have here the accommodation, or the application of this second reason unto the present state of the Corinthians; behold now (saith the Apostle) is the accepted time, now is the day of Salvation, that God of old promised unto Christ. Ye enjoy it, ye live under it; and therefore you must now improve it to the best advantage of your souls. Now we shall go over these three parts in the way of explication, that so we may the more profitably handle that part, which I principally design to insist upon. 1. We shall explain the exhortation, or the caution that he layeth down, which is, Not to receive the Grace of God in vain. Here we shall explain two hangs. 1. We shall show you, what is meant by the grace of God. 2. What is meant by receiving, or not receiving the grace of God in vain. First, what is meant by the Grace of God. You are here to understand by grace the Doctrine of the Gospel, frequently Sect. 2 and fitly in the Scripture called grace, as in Eph. 3.2, Col. 1.6. Act. 20.32. Tit. 2.11. and in sundry other Scriptures the doctrine of the Gospel is called grace. And it is called by that name, for these three reasons. 1. Because it is graciously and out of the free favour of God bestowed. Why it is bestowed at all, 'tis from grace: why it is bestowed upon one age or place rather than other, 'tis only from God's free grace and favour, Rom. 16.25, 26. It is there said to be a mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest. And that in Isa. 65.1. I said, Behold me, to a nation that was not called by my name. To these God was pleased by the gospel to say, Behold me. He was found of those that sought him not. God 's argument to bestow the gospel of life upon a person, or a family, or a place, is merely from his own free good will. 2. The gospel is called grace, because the subject matter of the gospel is grace. Whatever it is the gospel promiseth, whatever privilege or saving benefit is contained in the gospel, is all from grace, we are justified freely by his grace, Rom. 3.24. Forgiveness of sin, it is said to be from his rich grace, Eph. 1.7. Eternal life, it is the free gift of God. Effectual vocation, saving conversion is merely from grace. We are called according to his purpose, and grace; not according to our works, 2 Tim. 1.9. To you it is given to believe, Phil. 1.29. God giveth repentance, 2 Tim. 2.25. he called me by his grace, Gal. 3.15. 1 Pet. 3.7. the Saints are heirs of grace. Christ himself, that obtained all the privileges of the gospel for us, was sent as a token of free grace, free favour, through the tender mercy of God, Luk 1.7.8. Joh 3.16. whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us. So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. Christ's whole work was to love, and his whole love was free. We purchase nothing without leaving of our money behind us. All his saved one's have nothing of their own but impotency and antipathy, nothing of their own to move God to save them. The Law discovers God's will, and the gospel discovers his good will. 3. The gospel is called grace; because it is the instrument under the Spirit of God of bestowing the benefits of free grace upon us. It is an invitation to the benefits of free grace: and it is our warrant of receiving those benefits, and of applying them. The Gospel is not only a story to tell us what is done, and what is obtained for believers; but it is a Testament to cause and to show unto us our interest in them by Faith. We shall lay hold upon it, when he who Ordained the Gospel doth accompany it. The Gospel brings Salvation, Tit. 2.11. Therefore the Gospel is called the Ministration of Righteousness, and the Ministration of the Spirit. 2 Cor. 3.8, 9 The Instrument made use of by the Spirit of God for enabling us to apply the Righteousness of Christ, and all the benefits of Free Grace contained in it. And so I have opened the first thing in the Exhortation, and shown what we are to understand by the Grace of God, even the Doctrine of the Gospel. Sect. 3 2. The second particular in the Exhortation to be opened is, The receiving thereof in vain. How is the Doctrine of the Gospel said to be received in vain? In the Greek it is [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] The word signifies to receive it emptily, unfruitfully, unprofitably; and indeed so it is too often received. It is true the Gospel is to be received, and it cannot save us unless it be received; and therefore you read several times in the Scripture of receiving it, Mat. 13.23. The receiving of the seed into good ground: Act. 22.41. They received the word of God gladly: And in Act. 11.1. The Gentiles received the word: And in Act. 17.11. They received the word with all cheerfulness. So in 1 Thes. 1.6. They received the word in much affliction. But as the Gospel must be received, so it may be received unprofitably, ineffectually, and in vain. And for the opening of this, the Gospel may be said to be received in vain in two respects, I. In regard of the manner of receiving. II. In regard of the Event, or the Issue of receiving it. First, It is received in vain in regard of the manner of receiving it. And that is, When we receive the Gospel; but not with an Empty hand. When the grace of the Gospel is not so received, as to be empty of the the opinion of our own works and righteousness: This is a vain empty reception; for the Rich are sent Empty away. 2. It is received in vain when it is not received with the highest Estimation and Valuation; ● Tim. 1.15. When it is not looked upon to be worthy of all acceptation as the Apostle expresseth it; When it is not received as a Pearl, as a Jewel of greatest price; If all be not sold for it, soon will it be left for any thing. 3. When it is not received with the greatest ardency of desire, with hungering and thirsting after the benefits contained in it. All the inclinations of our souls towards all Earthly objects we own to the benefits of the Gospel; which if we pursue not ardently, we shall never procure successfully. 4. When we do not receive it with a particular fiducial application of Jesus Christ upon the warrant of the Infallible Gospel; but only by a general assent. When we receive in into our Heads by Light; but do not receive it into our Hearts by Faith. When we do not believe with the Heart; but only assent with the head. When we receive it only into our Ears, and into our lips, and into our Professions; but dot receive it as the good seed, which is to be laid up in the furrows and the soil of the soul. Thus the Gospel is received in vain in regard of the manner of receiving it. Secondly, It is received in vain in regard of the Issue, the Event of receiving it, and that several ways. 1. When it is not received so as to purify the heart, as to kill corruption: when this grace of God doth not teach us effectually to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts: when men will have an Angelical Gospel, but will live Diabolical lives: when they are not thrown into the mould of the Gospel, and have not Hearts and practices suitable to it. 2. When it doth not quicken us to new obedience: when there is a receiving without returning, without any activity for God in holy walking: where there is no Delight in the Law of God: when his commandments are grievous: when the law doth only compel, but the Spirit of the Gospel doth not incline our wills to the obedience of the Gospel: when by the receiving of the Gospel we are not made a willing people, to give up ourselves to God in the ways of duty: when faith is not made incarnate (as Luther speaks) by maintaining good works, Tit. 3.8. 3. When we so receive grace, as that it doth not sustain us in our troubles, nor bear us up in our sufferings, when it is not a word of patience, as it is called, Rev. 3.10. Thou hast kept the word of my patience. The Gospel duly received, as to the Issue of its reception, maketh us patiented to bear whatever is displeasing and ungrateful unto sense. When we see that the Justice of God is satisfied, we can easily bear the injustice of men. When we see that God's wrath is appeased towards us, we shall look upon the wrath of man, yea all outward troubles, to be cold and feeble. 4. When we so receive grace as not to impart it, and communicate it unto others. If we be living we shall be lively Christians; If we have the life of Grace in us, we shall warm others. If we do no good, it is a sign we have got no good. If there be a Spiritual Life bestowed upon us by the Gospel, there is always a Seminal virtue, an inclination to disseminate and to scatter Grace among others. 5. And lastly, grace is received in vain as to the Issue of our receiving of it; when it is so received, as that thereby we do not obtain salvation. It is the Gospel of Salvation; but a mere visible owning of the Gospel saveth none. The receiving of it into your houses, into your heads, into your mouths, brings not any to Heaven. Christ will profess to those that are empty Professors, and only have externally, and as to the outward privileges of Grace received the Gospel, I never knew you, depart from me, Mat. 7.23. We are not only to received the privileges of Grace, but Grace by the privilege, if we expect Glory. Thus I have shown what is meant by the Grace of God, and whar by the receiving of it in vain. And this shall serve for explaining the Exhortation (the first part) Receive not the Grace of God in vain. The second part to be opened, is that which contains the reasons of this Exhortation: Sect. 4 and they are these two, 1. The First is the reason of the Apostles giving this Exhortation or caution against the receiving of the Grace of God in vain: namely, because we are (saith he) workers together. We read it workers together with him: but in the greek 'tis only workers together, not with him. And there are several expositions given of this expression (workers together) Calvin thinks that this (working together) doth intent the working together with the doctrine delivered by the Apostle: As if the Apostle intended, that it was his duty, not only to deliver the Truths and the Doctrines of the gospel; but to work together with those Truths and Doctrines, by way of urging, and exhorting, or by urging those Doctrines with Exhortations to make them effectual, and therefore, saith he, Non satis est docere nisi urgeas: It is not enough Doctrinally to inform people what is the Truth; but we must Urge it upon them with motives, inducements, and persuasions, that may make the Doctrine embraced. And the Syriack seems to favour this Exposition, which renders the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (working together) promoventes hoc negotium; as if the work of Doctrinal information were to be promoted by arguments and incitements to the embracing of the Truth. Others conceive that this (working together) is to be referred to the common mutual endeavours of Ministers, who are to be fellow-helpers one with another; as if the Apostle had said, All we Ministers, working together to further our Master's work in the conversion and Salvation of your Souls, beseech you, etc. chrysostom refers this (working together) to the mutual endeavours of Ministers and People, as if Paul had said, We Apostles work together with you, to whom we preach, in this work of your receiving the grace of God, by our exhortations to incite you to comply with the duties propounded in the gospel. Our English interpreters by putting in these words (with him) understand the Apostle to intent a working together with God; and indeed Ministers are called Labourers with God. 1 Cor. 3.9. I see no reason why we should reject this exposition, if we take it with these two cautions, 1. First, Ministers in this working with God must be looked upon so to use their abilities, as not implanted in them by nature, but bestowed on them by grace, that so they may be made apt and fit instruments by the grace of God to work. Therefore the Apostle saith, 2 Cor 3.6. Who also hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament. And so in 1 Cor. 15.10. By the grace of God (saith he) I am what I am, and I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I; but the grace of God which was in me. His power and ability to work he attributes merely to the grace of God. And all our sufficiency is of God. 2. Secondly, If you take this to be the meaning of it, that we are fellow-workers with God; you must understand, that what is the main and principal in this work, which is the bestowing of spiritual life and growth, must be looked upon as only the work of God, and to come from him; and that therein man had no share at all, nor is a co-worker with God in it. And as Beza well notes on 1 Cor. 3.9. we must always observe carefully a difference between causes Subordinate, and causes . Ministers are to be considered as purely in subordination to God, and as those whom God is pleased to make use of in the way of his appointment: not in the way of effectual concurrence with God, as if they could communicate any power or strength to the working of Grace by the preaching of the word. Subordinate causes Ministers are to, not causes with, God in the great work of producing of our Salvation, which God only hath in his own hand, both as to the internal working of grace in the Soul, and the Eternal bestowing of glory upon us in the life to come. There is the first reason opened; that is, the reason why the Apostle doth here give them his exhortation, namely, We are workers together with God. The second is, the reason why the Apostle doth put them upon this great Sect. 5 duty of not receiving the Grace of God in vain, And that is taken from that text in Isa. 49.8. where there is this promise made unto Christ, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee. These are the words of the promise that God the Father maketh unto Christ as Mediator; which is, that in his discharging of the great work of saving his Church God the Father will answer and secure him, as the Head of the Church, and show it by granting him a day and a time for the bestowing of efficacious Grace upon his Members, by making the means of Grace effectual for their Salvation; which time is here called an accepted time, and a Day of Salvation: because this time, and this day, is the time, and the day of God's free favour, in which he will so accept of sinners, as to show his Gracious good will unto them in accepting of them to life, and in working by his Son Jesus Christ Salvation and deliverance for them. Now this is a very forcible Argument and reason against the receiving of the Grace of God in vain; namely, because there was such a rich treasure and measure of saving and efficacious Grace in the time of the Gospel to be dispensed to the Church; therefore they should labour to have their share in it, and not receive the Gospel of Grace vainly and unprofitably, as they would approve themselves to be the Members of Christ, and those for whom Christ hath prayed unto the Father that they might have saving Grace bestowed upon them. And this shall serve for opening the second part of this text; namely, the reason of the Apostle's laying down this exhortation, both in regard of himself, because he was a worker with God, and in regard of the Corinthians, it was because God the Father had made a promise to Christ the Head of the Church, that Grace should be bestowed, saving effectual Grace; not Grace in vain, but Grace bringing Salvation should be afforded in an accepted time, and in a day of Salvation by the Administration of the Gospel. The third part (which is that which I intent to insist upon) is the Apostle's Sect. 6 accommodation, or his application of the foregoing reason, taken out of Isa. 49.8. unto the present state and time of the Corinthians, by giving them this quickening Counsel; that since the present season of Grace which they enjoyed now was the accepted time and the day of Salvation promised unto Christ for his people, they should therefore now regard, and for the present improve it profitably. The sum of the Apostle's application is this; since God hath in the foregoing reason assigned a certain time and day for the exhibition and the bestowment of his Grace, it followeth, that all times and all days are not fitted for that purpose, but only the time and the day foretold by the Prophet, in which God would freely accept of sinners and bring them to Salvation; and therefore Paul putteth the Corinthians upon the present improvement of the season of Grace, because God had now bestowed upon them that accepted time and the day of Salvation foretold in the foregoing reason, which they could not neglect without hazarding the loss of Divine acceptation, and their own eternal Salvation. All that I have further to do is to handle this third part, which is the Apostle's accommodation, or application of the former reason taken out of the Prophet Isaiah, unto the present state of the Corinthians, by giving them this quickening counsel; namely, to improve this present season of Grace, which the Prophet foretold of old should be bestowed upon the Church in the days of the Gospel, Behold now is the accepted time: Behold now is the day of Salvation. Now this quickening counsel hath two parts. 1. An awakening incitement to improve the present season of Grace. This awakening incitement is contained in the repeated note thereof, Behold, Behold. The present season of Grace is intended in the repeated note thereof, Now, now. 2. A double Argument to convince us of the fitness and necessity of this duty, Now, for the present, to improve the season of Grace. The first Argument is taken from the fitness of the season for working in it, and so 'tis called the time, the day. The second Argument is taken from the advantageousness of the present season to the worker, and so 'tis called the time accepted and the day of Salvation. Now all that I shall further do, shall be to handle these two Arguments: and in the handling of them I shall only endeavour these two things. 1. To open the sense and meaning of these two Arguments. 2. To show the force and strength of both these Arguments to engage us to improve the present season of Grace. 1. I shall explain the sense of these first two Arguments in their order: and first, the sense of the first Argument taken from the fitness of the season for working, as 'tis called the time and the day. And herein first, I shall explain the word Time, secondly, the word Day. Sect. 7 1. By [Time] is not here meant the flux, succession, or continuation of Time by minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, which we call the space of Time; but by Time according to the signification of the word in the greek, I understand the tempestivity, or opportunity of time: For in the greek 'tis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which signifies season or opportunity, a time accommodated and fitted to employment; in which we may undertake our Heavenly business with hope of success. When time and means meet together in conjunction, than they produce opportunity. This seasonableness, or tempestivity of time, is therefore not unfitly called by some the Grace of time, the flower of time, and that to time which the flower is to the stalk, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) which cream is to the milk, which lustre is to the metal. In civil undertake, as trading, ploughing, and sowing, opportunity is (as one saith) the Grace of time; but in Spiritual undertake, Opportunity is the time of Grace, the time fitted and suited by God for the benefiting of our Souls by the means of Grace. It is as the Angel's stirring in the water, into which he that stepped first was healed. It is as the day of a Prince his audience for the answering of petitions. It is as the opening of Heaven-gates unto them that strive for entrance. It is as the Spiritual market-day for the procuring of saving provisions for our Souls, upon which we are to live for ever. Sect. 8 2. Secondly, The season of Grace is called a Day. For the opening of this, the word [Day] in Scripture is sometimes taken for the Natural Day, consisting of 24 hours, including also the night; and so it is taken in Christ's Directory for prayer, which we commonly call the Lord's prayer, (Directory (I say) for I conceive (with learned Grotius) Christ doth not command verba recitari, the words thereof to be repeated, but he commands us only to draw all the matter of our prayers out of it, materiam precum hinc promi praecipit:) wherein when we pray for our daily bread day by day, doubtless we pray for what is needful for the night too as well as the day; (for sleep is the bread of the night.) therefore by day there must be meant the whole natural day, consisting of 24 hours. Sometimes the word day is taken for an Artificial day distinguished from the night, Gen. 41.40. In the day the drought, and in the night the frost consumed me. Sometimes the word day is taken improperly and figuratively in the Scriptures; and so sometimes it is taken for an age, and for a year. Sometimes for a fit occasion or season of doing any thing; as in John 9.4. I must do the work of him that sent me while it is day. And so the season of receiving good, as well as doing good, is called a day; Luke 19.41, 42. If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that concern thy peace: that is, in the season, wherein they have been manifested unto thee by me. So here by day I understand the fit season of procuring Salvation by improving the means for obtaining thereof. This briefly for the opening of the first Argument, which is the fitness of the present season of Grace for our working: it is called the time, the day. 2. Secondly, To open the second Argument, and that is the advantageousness Sect. 9 of the present season to the worker, and it is called the accepted time first, and secondly the day of Salvation. I shall open both these in their order, and, 1. First, This time is called accepted. The word for [accepted,] in the greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in this its composition imports a wellpleasing: Yea, a very much accepted time. The Hebrew word Ratson, from whence it is taken, signifies the time of free Grace, free favour, or free good will: it is taken out of Isa. 49.8. and the seventy Interpreters they render it in Psal. 69.13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. a time of free favour, free good will; and Symmachus renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a time of reconciliation, that is, a time wherein God will graciously accept sinners out of free Grace to be reconciled unto them. For when time is said here to be accepted, and an accepted time, 'tis to be understood figuratively, as intending the time wherein God will by free Grace accept of man, or wherein God is pleased out of his free good will to show himself benevolentem hominibus (as Grotius expresseth it) gracious and favourable to man, in that way of accepting him through Christ. 2. The season of Grace is called the day of Salvation, further to show the Sect. 10 advantageousness of this season unto the improvers thereof. We must not take Salvation here so largely as for deliverance from any evil, or danger, or the preservation from any trouble or distress; nor must we take Salvation here so strictly and narrowly as to import only eternal Salvation in Heaven; as it is taken, Rom. 13.11. Now is your Salvation nearer, than when you believed; and heirs of Salvation, Heb. 11.14. Nor must you take it so strictly as to import only the means of Salvation, as it doth often in the Scripture, Act. 28.28. Salvation is of the Gentiles: but Salvation in this place comprehends both that happiness which is perfect and complete in Heaven, and also the entrance into it, and the beginning of it in this life; fitness for Salvation here, and the fullness of Salvation hereafter; in which sense the Gospel is called the Gospel of Salvation, in Eph. 1.13. and the word of Salvation, in Act. 13.29. and the Long-suffering of God is to be accounted Salvation, in 2 Pet. by Salvation in these places being meant a fitness for Eternal Salvation by receiving the Gospel and improving the Long-suffering of God and the means of Grace, and our being brought to the full Fruition of it in Glory. So in this place the day of Salvation is that season wherein God bestows an entrance into Salvation here, followed with a full perfection of it hereafter. And so I have opened the sense of these two arguments, whereby the Apostle urgeth us to the present improvement of the season Grace, both as this is a season of fitness for working, and so called a Time, a Day, and as 'tis a Season of advantageousness to the worker, and so called an accepted time, wherein God accepts of sinners to be reconciled to them, and a day of Salvation, by the improving whereof God will certainly bring his People to the Fruition and the perfect Participation of Life and Salvation in Heaven. Now having thus explained and opened the Sense of these two Arguments, I shall only in the second place, 2. Show you the force and strength of them both distinctly, to engage us to a present improvement of the season of Grace. 1. And First I shall show you the force of the first Argument, and that is the fitness of this present season of Grace for our working and employment. It is (saith the Apostle) 1. The Time, 2. The Day. Sect. 11 1. It is the Time. I shown you in the explaining, of the sense of the first Argument the meaning of the word Time. I told you it did clearly import tempestivity, opportunity, the flower, the cream, the lustre, the beauty of time. But how doth this consideration, that the present Season of Grace is the time of opportunity, urge and enforce the duty of a present improving of the season of Grace? In answer whereunto I offer these following considerations. 1. The First is this: The time of opportunity is that which we may easily let slip. It is tempus labile, a time that may easily slip between our fingers, especially in Spiritual concernments. It is needful therefore now, instantly, to lay hold upon it. Opportunity is hardly embraced. The learned Pharisees could not discern their opportunity by discerning the signs of Christ's coming, as you have it in Mat. 16. and the beginning. Nor could the Jews know their opportunity; it was hidden from their eyes, Luk. 19.42. Who is as the wise man? (saith Solomon in Eccl. 8.) that is, how rarely is the wise man to be found? Where is he to be found? But why so? The wise man (saith he) discerneth time and judgement, that is, he is able to judge when things are to be done; and therefore 'tis rare to find such a wise man. Embracing of opportunity is a wisdom that God alone must teach us, by considering the shortness of our time, to be so wise as to improve it, Psal. 90.12. And God concealeth the season, the nick, the juncture of time, wherein he will bestow Grace upon us; because he would have us always watchful, and dependent upon him, humble and serious in regarding every season. It is easy to know seasons for civil affairs, easy to know the season of a trade, to sow, to reap, to buy, to sell; But in those affairs that concern our Souls it is hard to find out when they are to he performed. Opportunity is so very short and sudden, and men are so blinded with avocations, pleasures, prejudices and vain hopes, that sometimes these make the season of regarding their Souls appear too soon; sometimes they are so blinded with fear and discouragements, by dangers and difficulties, and seeming impossibilities, that they think it too late: So that indeed between sinful hope and fear it is hard to pitch upon the right season and nick of time for the saving of our Souls. In every business, but especially saving business, the most difficult part of the work is the due limiting of it. In our voyage to Heaven it is hard to save our tide: not one of a thousand, but lets it slip. 2. Secondly, Opportunity must be presently embraced and improved; because the improving of it is a man's greatest wisdom. They are called wise, who so consider their latter end, as that they pursue the present season of duty Deut. 32.29. They are the wise that discern time and judgement, Eccl. 8.5. that is, that discern the opportunity so as to have judgement for the embracing of it. Therefore in Eccl. 10.2. The wise man's heart is said to be in his right hand, that is, the wisdom of his heart teacheth him to dispatch his affairs judiciously and dextrously both for manner and season. The want of this wisdom discerning the season maketh a man like unto a beast, Psal. 49.20. It is worse to be like a beast than to be a beast. To be a beast is no sin, and comparatively no punishment: But to be like a beast is both in a high degree. Yea, the very brute Creatures, they are far wiser than is he that neglects his opportunity of Grace. The Stork, the Turtle, the Crane, the Swallow observe their seasons of coming into several Countries, Jer. 8.7, 8. They know their appointed season; but my people know not the judgement of the Lord; not discern the course, or manner of God's deal, so as to embrace duty and avoid danger. It is called a fool's property to want a heart, when he hath a price, that is, an opportunity put into his hand to get wisdom, Prov. 17.16. And therefore the 5 Virgins even for this piece of folly are called foolish even to a Proverb; because they were not so wise as to know their opportunity. And let a man be never so prudent for the world, if he knoweth not the season of Grace, he is a mere Scripture-fool, and will appear so to himself and others too to all eternity. And when he comes to die he shall be compelled to say, Never was I wise, who was wise for every thing, but to save my Soul. 3. Thirdly, Opportunity urgeth us to the present improvement of it; because it facilitates and maketh easy every action and employment, making a work come off sweetly, smoothly, and with facility. It is as the laying of the knife upon the joint, when we would divide the bone. It is wind and tide to the Oars of industry. It is as when blowing and rowing go together. God in an opportunity offereth to work with us. That which is done with another's help is easily done; when both parties join in the doing of it. Two men lifting at a burden make the lifting more easy. The less of opportunity in our transactions, always the more of difficulty. The top of time is flower; but the deeper you go, the further you depart from opportunity, there is the more of bran, the more of dregs. 'Twas observed by Seneca in this very case, Non tantum minimum in imo, sed pessimum. There is not only the Least, but the Worst in the bottom of opportunity; And the best of opportunity is at the top. 4. Opportunity must presently be embraced, because it maketh every action look beautiful. It makes all our performances look with a lovely aspect, and with a grace. God hath made every thing beautiful in its time, or in his time, Eccl. 3.11. Fruit brought forth in Season is the pleasantest fruit. The wine of grapes gathered in their vintage and Season, how grateful and generous is it to the taste! but if the grapes be rotten, and hang beyond their Season, their liquor loseth its gratefulness and delightfulness. Esau's tears after the season of giving the blessing was past, were nothing worth: They were as the juice of grapes that were rotten. A word spoken in season is a word upon the wheel, it cometh readily and acceptably unto the ear. To seek after God and the good of our Souls in the Season of Grace, Oh how lovely is it! When Season is gone, our endeavours are unpleasant to God, as well as unprofitable unto us, 5. Opportunity must be presently improved; because we are deeply accountable for every opportunity: Not only for the actions we do are we countable, but for the time which he had to do them in. Jezabel was plagued for her neglecting the time of repenting, in Rev. 2.21. I gave her space of Repentance, and she repent not. For the neglecting youthful seasons the young man must be brought to judgement, Eccl. 11.9. If you must give an account for every idle word, surely for every idle Sermon, for every idle Sabbath, for every idle ordinance, I mean under which you have been idle. If for every idle word you speak, much more for every unprofitable Sermon you make the Minister preach. 6. Opportunity must be presently improved; For the neglecting of opportunity destroys the most. All our Salvation dependeth upon Christ, as to the meriting of it; but it dependeth upon opportunity as to the obtaining of it. The neglecting of opportunity is the greatest destroyer in the world. It is not so much the being bad, as the delaying to be good, that undoeth the most. It was not riotousness, but sleepiness, that excluded the foolish Virgins. The misery of man is therefore great upon the earth; because he doth not understand judiciously his time required to every purpose. Eccl. 8.6. It is not flat denial, but foolish delay that ruin Christians. All that the Devil pretends to desire is your now, your present opportunity; he will offer God thy to morrow. He seemeth to be mannerly and modest in bringing men to damnation, Da mihi quod nunc, & Deo futurum, Let me have but the present time, and give God all the future. We miss of Heaven by saying to God (as Felix did to Paul) Go thy way for this time, Act. 24.25. Few deny, but most delay to be saved; And hereby Satan doth his work both plausibly and effectually. Delays put the likeliest and the handsomest cheat in the world upon a Sinner. Most are damned by delaying to be saved. And because every age hopes to live that which is to come, it liveth not that which is now present. 7. Opportunity must be presently improved for the Soul, because it is embraced by all in Lowest concernments for the body. The Husbandman, the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Seaman, they all mind their opportunity, their season. Yea for the very cutting of Trees we observe our times. Yea the fittest seasons are embraced for sinful undertake: the Thief observeth the removal of the Watch, the sleepiness of the inhabitant: the harlot like the Owl flieth abroad in the twilight: yea the Devil makes use of the shortness of his time to increase his rage. And shall opportunities for our Salvation be only neglected? what Christians only fools for our Souls? I have read a story in an old Author concerning a devout man, who, after the sun was some hours up, went to the Chamber door of an old Bishop, and the Bishop being asleep in his bed, the good man knocked at his door using these words, the Sparrows are awaked and a chirping, and is it fit for Bishops to be sleeping? and may not I rather say, the men of the world, persons of all employments, and trades, yea the sons of violence, they embrace their season, they are up betimes, and shall the people of God, shall Professors than be asleep, when these are awake and active? 2. The season of Grace is called a day; and as 'tis here so called, it eminently Sect. 12 engageth us to the present improving of the season of Grace: and that in two regards. 1. In regard of the nature of the season, it is here called a day. 2. In regard of those who are or should be workers in that day. 1. In the regard of the nature of the season, it is called a day. And this urgeth us to the present improving of it: For, 1. It is a day, and it is but a day; and that is but a short time. It is not called a Year, a Month. It doth not last long. It is but for a while. Had Jonah prophesied to the Ninevite●, that within forty years Nineveh should be destroyed; if the Ninevites had not derided him, yet 'tis very probable, they would have delayed their repentance: but when he told them yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed, this startled and quickened them unto a present repentance. Our season is here expressed by the term of a day, one day: Yea, our day is but a short one. We have indeed a smmer's day for clearness; but it is a winter's day for shortness. While it is called to day, saith the Apostle, Heb. 3.13. exhort one another. We have not so much time that you should be prodigal of it. He that is profuse of a minute in this day (poor prodigal!) spendeth above his estate. Time in the whole compass of it is but short, 1 Cor. 7.29. The time of particular persons is shorter, and the time of season and present opportunity is the shortest of all. Our present season, our day it is but like the few sands in the little middle hole of the hourglass. The sand in the upper glass is uncertain whether ever to run one sand more, or no, that's the time to come: That in the lower glass is as the time spent and passed: but the few sands in the narrow middle hole are as the present season, and only ours. Non tam liberale nobis dedit tempus Natura, ut aliquid ex eo liceat perdere, saith Seneca: Nature hath not dealt so liberally with us, as that it doth allow us to misspend any of the little time it hath given us. We are prodigal of time, though covetous of a penny. We are more profuse of our time, cujus unius honesta est avaritia, of which alone there is an honest covetousness. You may have many pieces of gold together in your hand, but you can have but one day of Grace at once, 'tis but one day. 2. It is a day; and therefore that which cannot be recalled when it is spent and done. The loss of a day is an irrecoverable loss. Who can restore the loss of a day? nec cursum supprimit, nec revocat, tempus: Time doth neither suppress its course, nor recall it; neither doth it slack it, nor revoke it. As time stops not, so time returns not. If thy House be burnt, or thy goods stolen, or thy Lands forfeited, Friends can make a supply of those losses: but if all thy Friends, nay Creatures in Heaven and in Earth, should conspire to make thee happy, they cannot with all their combined industry and united forces restore thee to one of those good hours in the day of Grace that thou hast foolishly misspent. Esau lost his day and he could not recall it with tears. The knocking of the foolish Virgins could not break open the shut door of Heaven. When thy sun is set and thy day completely ended, thy sun will never rise more. I have heard of one that wantonly threw a Jewel into the Sea; and they say the Jewel was brought to him in the belly of a fish that was served up to his table. I know not how true this is; but who, or what shall ever bring back to thee the Jewel of thy lost day? none shall ever bring back this Jewel to thy table, if thou wilt throw it away by wantonness and negligence. God will not turn thy glass when it is once out. What the fall was to Angels, that is death to man. 3. It is a day: and this should put us upon the present improving of it; for it is a clear day, a lightsome day. The sun of Righteousness is risen. The day-sping from on high hath visited our Horizon with the light of the Gospel. Now a lightsome, a sun-shiny day, is to be regarded, improved, for the present. 'Tis a dark day indeed compared with Heaven; but it is light compared with the shadows of Judaisme, or the fogs of Popery. Work, work; work apace, you that have the sunshine of the Gospel. I wish I could not say, I see a Cloud far bigger than a man's hand, and I hear a noise of much rain. Now you have sunshine: cock your Hay; shock your Corn a pace; wanton not away your Summer, lest you beg in Winter. God by giving of you so fair a day, showeth not that your Sun will always shine: but that now thou shouldst work. Slumber not away a sun-shiny day in harvest. The day, and such a day is surely intended for working. Man goeth forth to his work till the evening: the night is for sleep, but the day, especially a sun-shiny day, a clear day for working. 4. It is a day: and therefore puts us upon the present improving of it; because it is a wasting day, a day that passeth and runneth apace. We usually say the day is far spent. The day goeth, whether you sit still or no: the sun runs, yea like a Giant, like a strong man, though thou creepest like a cripple. Though the passenger sleeps in the Ship, the Ship carrieth him apace towards his Haven: thou art idle, but time hurrieth thee to the grave. Time is winged: thy hourglass needs no jogging: there is no stopping the stream of time. It was a notable speech of one once to a person that was in a fit of anger; Sir (saith he) Domine, sol ad occasum: the sun is going down: this is my caution to every lazy Christian, if the sun must not go down upon your wrath, surely it must much less go down upon your loitering. If the sun in the Heavens must not go down upon your Wrath, the sun of your life should not be suffered to go down upon your Laziness. Cum celeritate temporis utendi velocitate certandum est, saith Seneca: Our swiftness in work must contend with the swiftness of the time in which we work. Thou dost not see thy time going; but shortly thou wilt see it gone: like the insensible moving hand of a dial, which, though thou dost not see it moving, yet thou seest it hath moved. 5. It is a day: and therefore puts us upon the present improving of it; For it is possible yet, that in this thy day, thy work may be done, before sun set, if thou be'st speedy. Despair not; for then industry will be frozen. The bridge of mercy is not yet drawn: there is yet a possibility for thee to get over to a blessed eternity. 'Tis bad to say It is too soon, though most have said so too often: but it is worse to say It is too late. I confess thy morning was thy golden hour, and had been far the fittest for thy employment; but the evening time is better than no time. I dare not write despair upon any man's forehead. If God will help us, much work may be done in a little time; but yet God must step in with a Miracle almost, if thou shouldst run back the misspent age of 40 or 50 years in an hour or two; surely, you must fly rather than run. 6. It is a day, and for ought you know, It may be your last day: and therefore improve that present day. You have no assurance of another: from the upper glass of the hourglass, thou canst not be assured of one sand more. Often say thou therefore to the day wherein thou livest, art thou my last, or may I look for another? Though thou art young, it may prove thy last day: Death taketh us not by Seniority. The new pitcher may be as easily broken as the old. And (which is a more severe consideration) the Spirit of God possibly may never knock at the door of thy heart again, never strive in thee, never strive with thee. Death may knock next, and remember, he will easily break into thy body, though thy Minister could not get into thy Soul. Death never cometh without a warrant; yet it often comes without a warning. We do not live by patent, but we live at pleasure. How knowest thou that the candle of the Ministry shall shine one Sabbath longer? The message shall always live, but the messenger is always dying. The clods of the Earth may soon stop that mouth, that so frequently and unfruitfully hath given thee the word of life. He, the light now of his place and of his people, may be blown out by violence as well as burnt out by death. Thou canst not say, but God may soon make that ear of thine deaf, that now thou stoppest: God may soon blind those eyes, which now thou shutest. It is a peradventure whether God will ever give repentance or no. God hath made many promises to repentance; but he hath made none of repentance. If to day thou sayest thou wilt not, to morrow thou mayst say thou canst not pray. It is just with God, that he who while he liveth forgets God, when he dies should forget himself. I have heard of a profane miscreant, that being put upon speedy repentance and turning to God, scoffingly answered; if I do but say three words when I come to die, (Miserere mei Domine: Lord have mercy upon me,) I am sure to be happy. This miserable wretch shortly after, falling from his horse, and receiving thereby a deadly wound, had indeed time to speak three words (as the relation informed me,) but those three words were these, Diabolus capiat omnia, Let the Devil take all. Thou dost not know what thy last words shall be: the very motions of thy tongue and of thy heart are all in the hands of that God, whose grace thou hast despised. 7. It is a day: That requireth present improvement; because it is followed with a night, a night that is dark as pitch. The night cometh wherein no man can work. (So saith our Lord Joh. 9.4.) There is neither work nor invention in the grave. In the dark thou mayest see to bewail thy not working in the light; but in the dark there is no working. Sorrow then will not help thee, couldst thou make hell to swim with thy tears. Thy tears are only of worth in time. Put not off your working, till the time wherein you must leave work. It is perfect madness, not to think of beginning to work till the time of working is at an end. Nemo finitis nundin●s exercet mercaturam. What man after the fair will go then to buy and sell? There is no negotiation, but in the time of the fair, the season of grace. The spiritual manna of grace is only to be gathered in the six days of thy life. The time after this is a time of rest, wherein there is no more work to be done to procure Salvation. If this be the day of thy death, tomorrow cannot be the day of thy repentance. It is miserable to have that to do for lack of time, which is to do for loss of time. Thus I have shown you, how we are put upon present improving the season of Grace, As 'tis here termed a day or in respect of the nature of the Season. Sect. 13 2. Secondly, In regard of the workers in this day, we are urged from hence to a present improving of the season of grace. 1. How little have we wrought in this day of grace? What a pitiful account (and yet an account must be given) of this Day can we give unto God, of thousands of Sabbaths, and repetitions of ordinances, and opportunities of life, that we have enjoyed? You have been perhaps long in the world and under the means of grace; but can you say, you have lived long? 'Tis one thing for passengers in a ship to be a great while tossed in the Sea, and another thing for them to sail a great way. You have been long in the world tossed up and down with many temptations, and impetuous corruptions, and violent affections; but which of you have sailed much, or gone forward in your course to Heaven with any considerable progress? Little is to be seen in the copies of your lives, besides blots and empty spaces. Much paper hath been spent with wide lines. Had you not need now towards the end of the side to write the closer, to redeem the time, as the Apostle expresseth it? Eph. 5.16. We should redeem our time out of the hands of those that have taken it captive, out of the clutches of those vain employments, that have so often taken it captive. Now in all redemptions there is the laying down a price for the party that is redeemed: But what is that price you are to lay down for your time, when it is to be redeemed? I will tell you, Id quod perdis pretium est, (saith Augustin) That which you lose in your worldly employments, in your idle recreations, in your vain visits, in your exorbitant eatings and drink, that time that you take from these to give to God and your Souls, that is the price that you lay down for the redeeming of seasons for your Souls. It is miserable for our work to be undone for want of time when we are dying, when it is undone for the loss of time while we are living. 2. How great is the woe of those, whose Day is done, and yet their work is not done, but still to do? You have seen their end upon Earth; but you have not heard their cries, and their self-bewailings in hell. How many have been cut off before your eyes, who ceased to be, before they began to live? Improve examples lest you become examples. Your Schooling is cheap, when it is at the cost of another. Let the lashes of Divine severity that have fallen upon others, quicken thee in thy Spiritual pace and travelling towards Heaven. Why should God stay for you rather than for them? Thou canst not misspend thy time at so cheap a rate as they did, by whom God hath warned thee. Hell is not so full of Souls, as it is of delayed purposes. What would not lost Souls give for a crumb of that time of which now in this world they make Orts? If the foresight of their tears for neglecting the Day of grace fetched tears from Christ, Luk. 19.41.42. How great shall the feeling be of the Eternal effects of their inexcusable folly? How Exuberant, but unfruitful, shall be the flood of their own tears for their former slothfulness, never enough to be bewailed, because never at all to be repaired? Surely a small loss could not draw tears from so great a Person, as the Son of God. 3. Many by beginning betimes in the morning of their day have done more work than thou a delayer canst now accomplish. They should provoke thee to a holy jealousy. They setting forth for Heaven in the morning, have traveled further in that morning, than thou hast done in that long Summer's day wherein thou hast been slothful. What a shame is it that some should be green-headed Saints, and thou a gray-headed Sinner? Julius Caesar (as Suetonius reports) reading that Alexander had conquered the world in his youthful age, professed his shame, that he, who was so much older than Alexander, should come so far behind him in obtaining victorious glory: This fired Caesar with noble Emulation to exceed him. Envy is ever bad; but Emulation may be holy. Envy is a trouble for another's Eminency, but Emulation is a troubling of ourselves for not arriving to another's commendable excellency. 4. In this thy day of working, and in thy working, thou art but a slow worker. Thou hast a great journey, and art a slow sluggish passenger. Thou hast a load of Corruption that presseth thee down. Thou Sailest against the tide of corrupt nature. Thou hast an encumbring body of death that will hinder thee from doing even what thou art a doing; a long garment that hindereth and hampereth thee, when thou endeavourest to be speediest in thy course for Heaven. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, so that thou canst not do the thing that thou wouldst. There are many Thiefs in thy Candle of time, which daily wast it; Sleeping, Eating, Drinking, Visiting, being visited, and a great many other worldly avocations, employments, enjoyments, that must be regarded together with thy Soul: These are as so many places, at which we must call in, as we are in our journey; and the dispatching of every errand in every one of these places will take us up much time. Hard it is for our hearts to be preserved from too deep en engagement in them; the world more frequently bewitching from God, than admonishing us of God; too often proving as birdlime to the wings of our affections to hinder their slight Heaven-ward. And many also are the retarding discouragements that all the people of God must meet with all in their course to Heaven: As they have the tide of nature against them, so they have the wound of opposition from men and devils against them. Earliness and eagerness in the ways of God are the two things principally opposed by the god, and men of this world. 'Tis the galloping passenger at whom the dogs of the town most bark, and whom they most pursue. All that travel Heavenward have the wind in their faces, though the happiness of their journey's end infinitely more than countervails for the greatest both industry and opposition. 5. The longer thou delayest thy working in this day, the harder it will be for thee to begin. Sin is as deceitful to detain, as 'tis to draw. Every moment thou delayest to leave it, it tieth a knot on the cord wherewith it holdeth thee, making thereby thy freedom from it the more difficult. Lust and delay know no measure: and delay knows no measure, because lust knows none. The further you go on, the harder it is, and the more unwilling will you be to go back. The deeper the engagement, the more difficult is the retreat. By delay sin is the more strengthened, the Devil the more emboldened, and God the more provoked. That which in thee to day is Regardlesness, tomorrow may be Unwillingness, and the next day Obstinateness. Dum consuetudini non resistitur sit necessitas: Custom in sin will at length turn into necessity of sinning. Venenata non patiuntur inducias: Antidotes against poisons must not be delayed. The longer a bad Tenant forbears payment of his Rent, the harder it will be for him te get it up. A nail driven into wood is with more difficulty drawn out, when it is driven up to the head, than when with a few blows it is weakly fastened. The longer the wood lieth soaking in the water, with the greater difficulty doth it burn. The longer Satan's possession hath been, the more difficult will his ejection be. Every delay makes thy return to God look more like to an impossibility. Goliath must be smitten in the forehead, and Satan opposed betimes. Old age is aetas indisciplinabilis, an indisciplinable age. Childhood is the age of Learning. Old age is the time, wherein men desire more to teach than be taught. 6. As to thy working in this day; the sooner thou beginnest and the faster thou workest in this day of Grace, the sweeter will thy sleep be in the evening, when thy day is consummate. After thou viewest thy early, and thy earnest working for God, in the end of thy life, thou wilt have a Sabbath in thy thoughts. None ever repent them, either of early beginnings, or constant proceed in the ways of holiness. It was an humbling to Paul, that Christ appeared last of all to him 1. Cor. 15. and that Andronicus and Junia were in Christ before him; that they were his Seniors in the faith, Rom. 16.7. How sweet is it in age to feed upon the comforts of a well spent youth and manhood! Never put that off to the last, that cannot be done too soon. Early beginnings in Godliness make an easy deathbed: And acquaintance with God betimes makes thee the more confident to go to him. God will never forget thee in the end, who remember'st him in the beginning of thy life. Should you at length look Heavenward, yet how will it grieve you that you did not make a more early beginning? The better thou art when thou diest, the more it will trouble thee thou wert holy so late. Early Holiness spareth abundance of deathbed trouble. That man, who puts off his repentance to his end, dies at the best with little comfort. Incertus moritur, qui in fine paenitet: If he should repent at last, yet he dies uncertainly, as to future happiness. He rarely knows whither he is going. 'Tis comfortable for a man to be able to say to God when he dies, as one did, Paenitentiam egi quando peccare potui: Lord, thou knowest, I then repent of Sin, when I had strength and time and ability and opportunities to sin. Thus I have shown you the strength and the force of the first Argument, whereby the Apostle engageth us to a present improvement of the season of Grace; as 'tis, for its fitness for working, the Time, the Day. 2. Briefly now, in the second place to show you the force of the second Argument, Sect. 14 taken from the Advantageousness of improving the present season of Grace to the Worker and improver of it, it being here called 1. The time of acceptation: 2. The day of Salvation. The first shows the freeness; The second the fullness. The first shows how cheap the commodity is, that we get by working, and the second how rich it is. The First shows how costless it is, the second how costly it is: Both contained in this golden expression, the accepted time, and the day of Salvation. 1. It is the accepted time; that is, the time of God's free Grace and good will in accepting of sinners: not so much the accepting of time, as the accepting of sinners in such a time. This expression of God's free goodwill in accepting sinners in the season of Grace doth notably instruct us to a present improvement of it; and that especially for these two reasons, 1. Because, it being the accepted time, or time of freegrace and good will, we must for the present improve it upon the account of gratitude and ingenuity. 2. Because, it being the accepted time, and the day of God's freegrace in accepting of sinners, we must presently improve it upon the account of real self-interest. 1. Upon the account of ingenuous gratitude. The terms upon which reconciliation is bestowed are all free; 'tis free not only in respect of the persons upon whom 'tis bestowed, who are weak and unworthy and polluted and opposite to God; but in respect of the terms on which it is bestowed. The terms are free terms. The old friendship between God and man was kept up by Doing; but restoring to friendship, or reconciliation, is bestowed in the way of believing. We do not buy the favour of God. 'Tis not afforded Secundum pretium, but Secundum pactum. It is not by laying down any valuable consideration for the meriting and purchasing of it; but it is in the way of doing that which God appoints, and by his free grace is pleased to condescend unto, and that is humble and thankful acceptation. If we buy it, it is with another's purse. Jesus Christ only bought it. We part with nothing for the favour of God, but what is our bane, if we keep it. We may keep all, but what will kill and damn us. Nor doth our obedience to God, when we accept of reconciliation with him through Christ, make our reconciliation less free; For the pardon of a Traitor may be free, though it be under the condition of future Loyalty. Now than what is more suitable to ingenuous gratitude, than to embrace the season of God's bestowing so free a favour? Surely, the least we can do is, to accept of that God that accepteth of us, to accept of him that is so full of loveliness and rewards, we having nothing to bring him but deformity and beggary. Not to accept his favour presently argues the height of proud ingratitude; concerning which God may say, have I this for my good will? for my free grace? what not so much as accept of my favour that shall cost thee nothing? surely the least spark of holy ingenuity would prompt us to say with him in a case of infinitely lower concernment, Lord, we accept it always, with all thankfulness; what thou offerest freely I accept it readily. What beggar doth not accept of a free alms without delay, or disputation? 2. As the season of Grace is the accepted time, or the time of God's free acceptation of sinners, it engageth us to a present improvement of this season of grace upon the account of self-interest: for the neglecting of free grace makes the divine vengeance, 1. Vnavoidable: and secondly, Insupportable. 1. Neglecting of free of grace makes vengeance unavoidable: If grace be neglected, what shall save you? if grace shall not save thee, works cannot save thee. The neglecter of grace concludes himself under a necessity of damnation: He rendeth the book of mercy: He throweth away the remedy, the cordial that serveth for his reviving. He that accepts not of life and Salvation by free gift, must have it by earning, must have it by working; and earn it we cannot. Thou canst not obtain reconciliation with God upon easier terms for thyself, than Christ obtained it for believers; and what terms were those, but even perfect, and to thee impossible obedience? You cannot dig: perfect doing is impossible: you are lost, if ashamed to beg at the door of free grace for the dole of mercy. 2. The neglecting of free grace makes Divine vengeance insupportable. It discovereth the malignity of the heart against that which by free grace is bestowed; for if we cannot dislike the price, which is to bring neither money nor price, you must then dislike the wares, which are Heaven with holiness. And how great a scorn do we then put upon the Lord Jesus, the purchaser of free grace? It was Christ's payment that made all free to us. Who can excuse the contempt of such both love and cost at once? there is no liquor that scalds so tormentingly in hell, as the Oil of mercy. Grace turned into fury is the most kill Enemy. Freeness invites all worldly customers. Who loveth not costly things that cost him nothing? who shuneth an interest in a thousand pounds a year to be had for taking up at the Court? and why alone, my Brethren, should Jesus Christ want customers? are there any commodities so rich as his? are there any commodities to us so cheap as his? Why should they alone be slow that go to take the favour and love of God through him? especially considering, that they have paid so dear for that which is not bread, yea for that which is their bane? Free grace tendered and neglected is condemnation heightened. You cannot have the favour of God by doing: what will you not have it for receiving neither? you will not then have it at all. It is that hell of hells that free grace is despised, hath been neglected. Thus much for the first branch of the second Argument: the season of grace is a time of acceptation, and therefore in respect of that advantage it requires our present improving thereof. For the second branch of this second Argument: The season of grace is also called Sect. 16 the day of Salvation. But why doth this second branch put us upon the present improving of the season of grace? For answer, take these considerations. 1. It is a day of Salvation; and Salvation is a work that must be regarded: 'tis a matter of absolute necessity. Other things are may-be s, at the best matters of mere conveniency; but Salvation is a business of peremptory and indispedsible necessity. A fair day is convenient to ride in; but the journey itself being of life and death is absolutely necessary. You may be excused at the day of judgement for leaving any thing in the world undone besides the getting of Salvation. You may be excused, if you never had time to get the riches or honours of the world, or great endowments, or employments: but what shall excuse you, if you have not looked after Eternal life? Can you say we had another employment more, or as necessary? can you say we were taken up about something more needful, more useful? no you cannot. Now remember, that which must be done, should be most done and first done. First attend necessaries, and then look after circumstantials, first seek the Kingdom of God. Here 'tis no measuring cast whether you should obtain Salvation: it is a must-be, Tempus perdimus dum aeternitatem non ●quaerimus: You lose all that time that is not spent in looking after a happy Eternity: First get bread for thy starving Children, and then, if thou hast time, look after rattles for them. A work of necessity must not be put off to a time of uncertainty. If thou delayest, delay in looking after riches and honour, and the vanities of the World; Oh! but now, now, now pursue Salvation. It is a must-be, and if the present time be gone, you may be undone for ever. 2. Salvation is that which imports rest and satisfaction. Salvation, it is the Soul's quietation and ease. Heaven is that centre of the Soul: you are never at rest till you come there. Now the object of rest is speedily to be pursued. How doth every thing hasten to its rest, its centre? how doth the stone with eagerness hasten to the Earth, when thrown from the top of an high steeple? how swiftly doth the fire fly upwards to its rest, to its centre? with what a rapid motion, with what a fierce career, do the Rivers run into the Sea? they are going to their place, the place of waters. Is Heaven thy rest? is Heaven thy centre? why is thy tendency to it so sluggish? You own unto life Eternal all those propensions and all those inclinations, wherewith all the things of the World are carried to the centres. The speed that the wicked make in getting to Hell, proclaims that Hell is their proper place and centre; though not for rest, but restlessness. Shall every thing hasten to rest, but thy Soul? it was the speech of Naomi to her Daughter: my Daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee? Oh that every one would say unto his Soul, my Soul, shall I not look after rest for thee in the bosom of God and the eternal fruition of himself? the little Infant that cries for sleep will rise up in judgement against a sinner that doth not look after the rest of his Soul. That little Infant that cries for sleep out-goeth thee in wisdom. 3. It is a day of Salvation; and the pursuing of Salvation is Opus grande, a great work, a vast employment: many things are required to accomplish it, many lusts to be subdued, many duties to be discharged, many temptations to be resisted, many relations to be filled. Now a great work must be begun betimes. If you had but a little to do in the day, you might lie in bed a great while in the morning: but you have a vast work to do; and therefore get up early. Some poor Creatures will rise up early to washing; a pitiful work to the cleansing of thy Soul: a far greater work surely than to wash clothes. If you had a thousand Souls, they might all be employed for the obtaining of Salvation. If every singer were a hand, they might all be employed in getting of Salvation. He that hath many Children to look after and a small Estate, many to feed and cloth, he saith, I must rise early and sit up late. None have so much business as a Christian. The work of Christianity is never at an end. The art of Religion is never learned. There is still an etc. still something remaining to be done. Blessed Paul thought himself far from perfection: I do not look upon myself as having attained: the best have much more to be done, than they have already done. I have read of a famous Limner, who when he had wrought his picture in the best and most curious manner, would never write at the bottom feci, but faciebam, I did it, not I have done it; because he judged he had never wrought any picture so well, but he might work it better, and add something more of art to it. A Christian's art is never complete while he liveth in this world, nor ever did a Saint think himself a complete Artist. How exceeding large are the commands of God how little is our most, and how bad is our best, compared with the rule! 4. This delaying in the pursuit of Salvation is a delaying to be freed from the greatest evil. What is that? the wrath of God, guilt, damnation, hell. Delaying to be freed from extreme miseries is confuted by constant experience: what condemned Malefactor will delay to get free from his chains, from his dungeon, from the sentence of death? what tormented person upon the rack will say, I must consider before I accept of ease? and when ease and riddance from the rack are offered, if instantly he will accept thereof, will say; I will consider of it, I will give answer of it hereafter? if a dust fly into the eye, thou hastest to get it out, and wilt thou not hast to ease thy soul? who ever deliberated, whether he would come out of the fire or no? 'tis more mad to deliberate whether thou wilt be saved or no, and get out of the state of damnation. Here is no place for deliberation; 'tis no measuring cast. 5. Salvation it is our Own concern, it is Opus proprium, our own business it is not fewer. It may be a slothful apprentice will be backward to rise in the morning, when he is to do his Master's business: but when he sets up for himself, and is to gather an Estate for himself, he will go about his business speedily. Salvation is a work for yourselves, the gain thereof is your own gain. Whatever you get here goes into your own purse. Here if you are wise, you are wise for yourselves, Prov. 9.12. Oh that we had more true self-love! the common self-love in the world is employed about our bodily self, the shell, the sheath of the true self, which is the body. Few men truly love their true self: 'tis a common proverb, interest will not lie; yet the Soul that delays Salvation, his interest lies. He walks contrary to it, and neglects that wherein all his blessedness doth consist, make sorts of his own Salvation. 6. It is a day of Salvation: and Salvation recompenses for all earliness and earnestness. Salvation maketh amends for all the sufferings and services of time. How poor, how short and slight is our work compared with our wages? If there could be any trouble in Heaven, it would be this, that we have laboured for it no more and no sooner upon Earth. Thou hast no more to live on to Eternity, than what thou layest up here. As our obedience is small compared with our rule prescribed; so it is very small compared with our recompense promised. Though nothing can recompense for the neglect of Salvation; yet Salvation can recompense for the neglecting of all other things. Nor only doth it recompense for our neglecting of all things, but for our being neglected of all persons, and for all our reproaches for our early pursuing it: all which will easily be confuted with this answer, 'tis better to be reproached and derided for being too speedy, than damned for being too slow in entering into Heaven's way: 'tis more easy to bear the scorns of the World, than the scourges of Conscience. I conclude, We can never regard Salvation too soon; for we can never either enjoy it, or think we can enjoy it too long. What Spiritual knowledge they ought to seek for that desire to be saved, and by what means they may attain it. Serm. V. Isaiah 27.11. For it is a People of no understanding, therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that form them will show them no favour. IN this and the precedent verse we have a dreadful denunciation of judgement upon either the oppressors and Enemies of God's People, or upon obstinate and incorrigible sinners among God's People; together with the reason of that denunciation, or cause of that judgement threatened. 1. The judgement denounced is, 1. Great desolation, as to their outward state; verse 10. and former part of the 11. v. 2. Utter destruction, final ruin; v. 11. He that made them will not have mercy on them. James 2.13. It is the highest severity, where no Saviour is to be found, where judgement is executed without mercy: And this is amplified by the consideration, 1. Partly of the Inflicter of the judgement; it is God himself, He that made them. They were not to fall into the hands merely of men like themselves, their fellow Creatures; but into the hands of the living God. Heb. 10.13. 2. Partly of kindness formerly received from him: He that made them, He that form them, i. e. He that created them, gave them their being, (if we understand it of the Enemies of God's People.) or he that not only made them as his Creatures, but form them to be his Servants, form them into a state, and into a Church, (if we understand the words as spoken of God's People themselves.) and so had given them their being, not only a natural one, but a civil and Ecclesiastical one: he that had formerly done so much for them, vouchsafed them such choice mercies, yet now would renounce all kindness to them, have no mercy on them, show them no favour. II. The cause of the judgement to be inflicted: it is a People of no understanding, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not a People of Understanding; as much as to say, It is not a people of any understanding, or as we read it, It is a people of no understanding; It is a sottish, ignorant people, such as take no notice of any thing, know not God, observe not his works, understand not their duty. Other sins, no doubt, they were chargeable with; but the Lord takes notice especially of their ignorance, and it is for that they are here threatened. Hence we take notice, that, Obs. 1. Ignorance of God, his truths or ways is no security against his judgements. Jer. 10.25. Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee not, etc. Obs. 2. The knowledge of the will and ways of God is necessary for them, that expect to find favour with God. They that desire God would save them, must labour to know him. That some knowledge of the will of God is needful to all those that expect to be saved, (for we set aside the case of Infants.) I suppose is clear in itself. But when you hear this Doctrine, you may be ready to ask, What is that knowledge, which they who would be saved should seek after? And when that is answered, you may again inquire, What means you are to use for the obtaining of it. And so the case to be spoken to is this, What Spiritual knowledge, or knowledge of the things of God, (for other knowledge at present we take no notice of, however commendable in itself, or secondarily useful to higher ends.) they ought to seek for, who desire to be saved; and how such knowledge may be attained. Of this Case Case. there be two parts. I shall speak distinctly to each: and so first show, what is that knowledge we are to seek after; and then give directions for the attaining of it. I. What knowledge they are to labour after, who expect to be saved. In answer to which I must promise something by way of distinction, something by way of Concession, and then add other things by way of proposition for the fuller determining the case in hand. Distinct. 1. We must distinguish between that knowledge which is simply and absolutely necessary to the Salvation of all men, so that no man can be saved without it, but whosoever falls short of it must certainly perish for lack of it; such knowledge the want of which is always actually damning, and that even in them that have not the means of obtaining it, as Heathens who have no revealed light; for in them it is the occasion of their perishing: as a man's not knowing the only Medicine in the World that could cure him when sick, would be the occasion of his death, and so would be his undoing, though not his fault. 2. And that knowledge, which though it be not simply necessary to Salvation, necessitate medii, yet is Secondarily necessary to be in those that would be Saved, or necessary in some respects, and upon some suppositions, as, 1. On the account of the circumstances wherein men are, and the capacity they are in for the gaining of knowledge, whereby they are brought under the obligation of a command to labour after it, and so they have the necessity of Duty to seek that knowledge, though that knowledge itself have not the necessity of a Mean. 2. Necessary, though not absolutely to the very Esse or Being of a Christian, and his Salvation, yet to his bene esse, his well being, as a Christian, his better and more comfortable management of the affairs of his Salvation. The want of this knowledge, if it be not always actually damning, as when God giveth men repentance; yet proceeding in those that are in condition to obtain it not from want of means or capacity, but from gross negligence, or contempt of the truth, it must needs be in itself damnable. 2. By way of Concession. It is a difficult thing to determine just how much knowledge is absolutely necessary to Salvation, to define the Minimum quod sic (so to speak) of Divine knowledge, so as to say that whoever falls one degree short of it cannot be saved. That there be certain prime fundamental Doctrines of Religion, which are so necessary to Salvation, that men cannot in an ordinary way be saved without the knowledge of them, is, I think, confessed by the generality of those that pretend to Christian Religion, or to any hopes of Salvation: But which in particular those fundamentals are, and how many, is not alike clear. A controversy it is, which I shall not need to touch upon, not only as being a tender point, but as not being concerned in my present design, as will further appear in the following Propositions: It will little avail us in our present circumstances, amidst such plentiful means of knowledge, and so much truth as is revealed to us, to know just how much knowledge is absolutely needful to Salvation; as suppose, how much would have been sufficient for the Salvation of a believing Jew before our Saviour's coming in the flesh, or what knowledge might be sufficient for the Salvation of, and consistent with truth of Grace in, some poor Christian in the darker corners of the Earth, as among the Indians, or Abyssines. But our business is to see what knowledge we ourselves, considering our condition, (dismissing others in differing circumstances) are to labour after in obedience to God's command, and for our more holy and comfortable walking with God, and carrying on the affairs of our Salvation. And therefore though my text lead me directly enough to the former, yet I shall confine myself to the latter, making it my business rather to press men to labour after much knowledge, than trouble myself or others with unedifying distinctions about, or uncertain catalogues of fundamentals, or truths absolutely needful to be known; which I suppose few in the World be so Magisterial as Peremptorily to define. And for my part, if I could certainly determine which those truths are, I should take heed to whom I told them, lest I should encourage men, slothful enough of themselves, to rest satisfied in a lesser measure of Spiritual knowledge, when a greater might be gotten. 3. These things premised, I come to answer the case in some propositions; of which the first shall be this, Prop. 1. That supposing it were certainly defined, how much knowledge, and the knowledge of what truths, were sufficient to Salvation; Yet no man, that is in a capacity of getting more knowledge, aught to acquiesce in just so much. Luk. 12.48. To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required. For the more full understanding of this proposition, take these following rules. Rule. 1. By how much the better means men have for the getting of knowledge, so much the more they ought to know. There is more knowledge required in them that have more means, than in them that have less. Every servant's improvement is to be according to his talon; and the gain of one is not sufficient for him that hath received five, nor the gain of five for him that hath received ten. According to the means men have, so their duty is to be judged of, and their accounts will be expected. I suppose it can scarce be doubted but that, 1. They that live under the Gospel since Christ's coming in the flesh, aught to abound more in Spiritual knowledge, than they that lived before his coming, and that for this very reason, because the means of knowledge have been greater since his coming, than before it, not only as to the extensiveness of them in the publication of the truth in those places, where it was not heard before, but as to the efficacy of the means themselves, and the more clear revelation of the will of God in some things, which were formerly, but less clearly, revealed. The pouring out of the Spirit was not only for the further spreading of the truth, but for the more plain and full manifestation of it. The great mysteries of Religion, which under the Old Testament dispensation were more obscure, (as being wrapped up in types and figures, which were, though a shadowing of them out, yet a kind of covering to them) are now under the Gospel more clearly set forth without those veils in their native lustre and brightness. What was then future, is now come to pass; What then was Prophecy, is now become History: So that there being, as to the means, more advantages for our knowledge, than there was for theirs who lived in those ages, we are engaged to labour after more. And excepting Prophecies and immediate Revelations, I see no reason, why vulgar Saints may not now know more than Patriarches did then; And if they may, I dare say they should. 2. They that live in the Reformed World in this age of Light, should abound more in knowledge, than they that lived before the Reformation in the darkness of Popery. A little knowledge might have gone further then, than a great deal more now: The means of knowledge are now much greater, than 3 or 4 hundred years ago they were. There is not only more humane learning abroad in the World, than then there was; but the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written, are better known. The Word is more sound and powerfully preached, Controversies in Religion are more throughly discussed, more good books are written, more cases stated, more errors detected, and in a word, many truths, (which though always to be found in Scripture, yet were almost lost in the World in the Ignorance of those ages) are anew discovered. 3. They who live under better means of Instruction now, should ordinarily be more knowing than such as have not the like means. They that have the word preached to them more plainly, powerfully, frequently, should know more, than they who sit under an idle ignorant Ministry. They that may hear a Sermon every day, if they will, than they that can scarce hear one Sermon in many months. And so should they likewise, who live in Religious Families, where God is daily worshipped, Children and Servants daily instructed, know more than they who live under profane, or ignorant Masters or Parents. Rule. 2: They that have more time for the gaining of knowledge, are concerned to know more than they that have less time. Not only by how much the longer men enjoy such means, the more they should know, (and more than such as have lived a less season under them: Upon which account the Apostle blames the Hebrews, Ch. 5.12. because, when for the time they ought to be Teachers, they had need that one should again teach them, which were the first Principles of the Oracles of God; And 2 Tim. 3.7. He speaks of some that were ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.) But likewise, by how much more leisure men have for studying the Scriptures, and attending on the means of Grace, while they do enjoy them, so much the more proportionably they should know. They that have plentiful Estates, easy employments, few avocations, may, and therefore aught to seek after a greater measure of knowledge, than they, who by reason of more burdensome callings, a lower condition in the World, and the necessity of providing for themselves and their Families, are not in a capacity of spending so much time in attending on those means, whereby a greater proportion of knowledge might be gained. They that have their time lying on their hands, and know not how to fill it up, but with enquiring after News and Fashions, studying Pleasures and diversions, how much knowledge might they arrive unto, if they spent but half that time in studying the truth, and enquiring after the things of God? Rule. 3. By how much the better capacities men have for the receiving of knowledge, so much the more (caeteris paribus) they are to know. They that have riper parts, quicker apprehensions, stronger memories, a deeper reach, should know more, than they that are naturally more weak, and less capable of learning. Although I suppose there be none that have the use of their reason, but they are capable of understanding so much of the things of God, as is absolutely needful to Salvation, and may be sufficient for the Salvation of them, in their circumstances; yet there is a vast difference between the abilities of several persons: and therefore men are not to take their measures for their inquiries after Spiritual things merely by the necessariness of the things themselves, but likewise by the abilities God hath given them. So that upon the whole, the better means and advantages in any kind men have for the gaining of knowledge, so much the more knowledge is required to be in them. Rule. 4. By how much the more use men have for their knowledge, and by how much the more good they may do with it, so much the more knowledge will be expected of them. That knowledge which might do well in a private Christian, yet is not ordinarily sufficient for a Minister. That which would be much in the one, might be but little in the other. And that which might do well in a Child, would not be sufficient in a Parent or Master of a Family. They, that are to instruct others in the knowledge of God, ought themselves to be more abounding in it. Prop. 2. Men should in their seeking knowledge first study those truths, which are most confessedly necessary to Salvation, and before those which are apparently less necessary; and so Principles before Controversies; things essential before such as are only Circumstantial. And indeed by how much the nearer any truth is to the foundation, so much the more they should labour after the knowledge of it: as for instance, men should acquaint themselves, 1. With the Being and Attributes of God, as the foundation of all service yielded to him, and expectations of rewards from him. Psal. 14.4. Heb. 11.6. He that knows not God to be holy, how can he know that God requires holiness? and then how can he himself be holy? how can a man trust God, if he know him not to be wise, powerful, faithful; or love him, if he know him not to be good; or fear him, if he know him not to be just? and it will easily follow, that he who knows not God, as he can never worship him while he lives, so he can never expect that he should save him when he dies. 2. With the Doctrine of the Trinity; three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Spirit, John 1.5 7. John 14.16. John 15.26. each Person having his proper part in the Salvation of sinners. The Father as the Original and Fountain of it; the Son as the Manager; and the Holy Ghost as the Applier. 3. With their own natural state, and condition, their being by nature in a state of sin and misery; as having sinned against this Holy, Righteous, Eph. 2.1, 2, 3. John 16.8. Powerful God, and thereby exposed themselves to his wrath and curse. They that would be delivered from the curse, must know themselves to be obnoxious to it. They that would not perish, must know themselves to be in danger of it. Men are not like to enjoy God's favour, unless they know that they have lost it. 4. With the Doctrine of a Redeemer; and that both, 1. As to the Person, Who he is: That the Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity is the Redeemer of sinners, Math. 20.28. and the only one, Act. 4.12. That God hath not left all mankind to perish in their sin and misery; but hath out of his abundant Mercy, and free Grace, found out a ransom for them, a Saviour to deliver them; and that the Lord Jesus Christ is he, and none besides him: so that it is in vain to seek for Salvation in any else, seeing he alone hath the words of Eternal life, John 6.6.8. He that knows nothing of a Saviour, knows nothing savingly; nor can any man partake of Redemption without some knowledge of the Redeemer. They can never come to God, that know not by whom to come. 2. And as to the way of his working that Redemption. 1. That he did, in order to the Salvation of sinners, John 1.14. and 3.13. take the nature of man upon him, was both God and Man in one person, and still continues so to be. He had those natures united in himself, which he was to reconcile to each other. 2. That not only he was able as being God, fit as being man, Rom. 3.24, 25, 26. Rom. 5.10. 1 Tim. 2.6. to satisfy Divine justice for the injury sin had done it; but that by his obedience and death he did it to the full. He that knows God to be infinitely just, and himself to be a sinner, had need know something of a Sacrifice for sin, or he can never have any well-grounded hopes of escaping the hands of such a God. 3. That Christ being raised from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, sits at the Father's right hand, Rom. 8.34. Mark 16.19. and by his intercession there is now making application of the redemption he wrought on Earth. He ever lives to make intercession, Heb. 7.25. Men would be in an ill condition if redemption were wrought, and there were none to apply it; if Christ had died for them and left them to intercede for themselves. 5. Men should acquaint themselves with the Doctrine of Justification by Christ: that sinners must be justified by the Righteousness of the Lord Jesus imputed to them, if ever they be justified at all. He is the Lord their Righteousness, Jer. 23.6. They are accepted in the beloved, Eph. 1.6. Found in Christ, not having their own Righteousness, etc. but that which is through the faith of Christ, the Righteousness which is of God by faith, Phil. 3.9. All their own Righteousness inherent in them, and wrought by them, even after regeneration, and by the help of the Spirit of grace, being finite imperfect, short of the Law, and due to it. 6. With the way of their being made partakers of this Righteousness: that it should be received by Faith alone, as the means God hath appointed for their being interested in it. God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, Rom. 3.25. and therefore they that are justified, must be justified by Faith, Rom. 5.1. All the holiness any Saint could ever arrive unto in this life, would never entitle him to Christ's Righteousness, if faith were wanting. 7. With the nature, properties, and fruit of that faith: that it must be an effectual lively Faith, not only an assent of their minds to the truth of the Scripture, Jam. 2.17. John 1.12. but the consent of their hearts to the terms of the Covenant; a receiving whole Christ, with an eye to all the good things he offers there, and for all those holy ends and purposes for which he is propounded to them. In a word, they are to look upon Faith as the Principle of their Obedience and walking with God, according to that rule of Righteousness God hath given them. 8. With the Doctrine of sanctification: that God is wont to fit and frame men's hearts at first to the duties of Obedience he requires of them by the work of the Spirit upon their hearts, changing them, regenerating them, and causing old things to pass away, and all things in them to become new, 2 Cor. 5.17. and further to increase that fitness for, and readiness to Spiritual things, by his guiding, assisting and quickening them, in those holy ways into which he hath brought them, and by those ordinary means (the Word and Ordinances) which he hath appointed for the working and improving of their Graces. 9 With the reward God promiseth to their Faith and Obedience in the blessedness of their Souls at the end of this life, and of their whole man after the Resurrection in their being for ever with the Lord, 1 Thes. 4.17. when the unbelief and disobedience of others, will be punished with everlasting torments inflicted by him. In a word, whoever comes to God, Heb. 11.6. must believe not only that he is, but that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him. Men ought in the beginning of Religion to look to the end of it; have some sight of the goal, when they enter upon their race; know their wages, when they set about their work. The Doctrine of rewards furnisheth men with the greatest incentives to holiness; ignorance or unbelief of future recompense must needs make men negligent of present service; take away the knowledge of Heaven and Hell, and ye take away all ●are and thoughts of Religion. These things I lay not down as an enumeration o● Fundamentals, or complete scheme of Religion; it is sufficient for 〈…〉 that they are some of the most necessary and substantial truths, wherein the generality of Christians are concerned; which they are therefore especially and in the first place to acquaint themselves with, and before those things which are less necessary to Salvation, as being further from the Foundation. And indeed, this is the very method of Nature; Men usually seek those things first, which are most necessary; and other things afterward: they first lay their Foundation, and then set up their Superstructures: Principles must be known, before Conclusions can be drawn from them. Those Doctrines of Religion must be first known from whence others are to be deduced, and without the knowledge of which others can be but confusedly and darkly known. This seems to have been the Apostle's Method, Heb. 6.1. where he speaks of some Truths (which they are in paticular, I stand not to dispute;) which were Principles, and first learned; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. others as conducing to the perfection of the Saints, unto the knowledge of which he would therefore have them go on. He that knows not those things which must be known, knows nothing yet to any purpose. Prop. 3. Men should Labour after such a knowledge of the Truth, as that they may be able to give a Reason of the hope that is in them, 1 Pet. 3.15. To show on what Ground they stand, what is the Foundation of their Faith, and Hope; that the Religion they profess, is indeed the true Religion, and that the Doctrines they own, are really Founded upon the Scripture of Truth; Dan. 16.2. and in a word, they should be able to give a Reason why they believe rather thus, than otherwise, and hold such Doctrines rather than the contrary. They should Labour after such a Grounded knowledge of the Truths of the Gospel, as that they may be able to say of them, as well as of the Duties of it, that they are fully persuaded in their own Minds, and do not take up things upon trust, Rom. 14.15. or believe the Truth upon the Credit of others. It is a shame for Professors to be merely Believers upon Tradition, to see with other men's Eyes, or be like the Heathen Idols, that have Eyes and see not. They are Men and have reasonable Powers, and aught to make use of them, even in the things of God, so far as they are Revealed and Subjected to their Judgement. The Spiritual Man Judgeth all things, even the deep things of God, 1 Cor. 2.10.15. Though they are to submit their understandings to God, yet they are not to resign them to Men. They that will judge for themselves in the things of this life, should no less do in the things of the other. That Man that will not trust another with his Estate, or Purse, should much less do it with his Conscience, and Salvation. Prop. 4. Men should especially give themselves to the study, and labour after the knowledge of the present truths, 2 Pet. 1.12. I mean those truths which are the special truths of the Times and Ages and Places in which Men live. We shall find, if we observe it, that God, who delivers hls Mind and Will to Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by several parts and degrees, doth in some Ages make more clear discoveries of some truths, in others of other truths; and though the whole will of God, and all those truths, which we are any way concerned to know in order to our Salvation, be sufficiently laid down in the Scripture, yet there is sometimes more knowledge of one truth stirring in the World, sometimes of some other. Sometimes God calls his Servants more especially to Preach up, and bear Witness to such or such a particular Truth, which either was less known and understood before, or is more opposed at present. Immediately after Christ's resurrection, the great truth of that time, the then present truth was, that Jesus was the Christ, that very Messiah, whom God had promised to the Fathers, and the Jews themselves did expect. This the Apostles did first of all Preach, confirming it especially by his Resurrection from the dead. Thus Act. 2.36. God hath made the same Jesus both Lord and Christ, Act. 5.31. Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. So Philip to the Eunuch, Act. 8.35. And Paul, so soon as he was converted, and sent to Preach, presently declares that Jesus was the Christ, Acts 9.22. And Peter to Cornelius, Acts 10.42.43. And Apollo's in Achaia, ch. 18.28. And afterwards we find that the Jews, and Judaizing Christians pertinaciously adhering to the Law of Moses, gave occasion to the more full Preaching of the Doctrine of free Grace and Justification by Christ alone, and the abolishing of the legal Ceremonies, as we may see in the Epistle to the Romans, Galatians, Colossians and Hebrews. And after towards the end of the Apostles times, the Heresy of Cerinthus gave occasion to the more full vindicating the Doctrines of Christ's Godhead, Hieronym. in Catal. Script. Ecclesiast. as we see in the Gospel of John. And some hundreds of years after that, the Pelagian Heresy gave occasion for the renewed publication of the Doctrine of free Grace by Austin, Prosper and others. And in the beginning of the reformation of Religion, in the last age, the first truths God called those Worthies that then lived to the Preaching of, were those especially which concern the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prophetical and Priestly offices, such as the Authority, Perfection, etc. of the Scripture, and the Sufficiency of Christ's satisfaction and intercession. And to come nearer to ourselves, one great truth which hath been more clearly known and published in our age is, the Doctrine of Chist's Kingly office and legislative power in relation to his Church, in opposition to the usurpations and impositions of Men. Now then we say, that Men are called at such times especially to study such truths; because God doth then give them the best means and advantages for the knowing of them, or they may then do him best service in maintaining them and bearing testimony to them, when the Devil and his instruments do most oppose them It is a shame for Professors not to see, when the World is so full of light, not to have the knowledge of those truths in the minds, the talk of which is in every Man's mouth. Prop. 5. Men should labour for such knowledge as may defend them from the errors of the times, and places in which they live. This I add to second the former Proposition, from whence it follows. Thus Paul labours to establish the Saints, to whom he writes, chief the Churches before mentioned, against the then prevailing errors of those, whether Jews, or false Brethren among themselves, who endeavoured to bring in the Ceremonial Law upon the Professors of the Gospel; and therefore bids the Galatians, ch. 5.1. stand fast in their liberty, etc. Doctrinal error tends to the corruption of worship. And the Apostle John in his Epistles gives caution against those seducing Spirits, and Antichrists, that were even then among the Churches, 1 John 4. beginning. We find by experience, that as there be some Doctrines more especially known, and published in their respective times, and ages: so likewise several ages (and many times places) have their peculiar errors, either new ones first forged, or old ones new burnished. The Devil makes it his business, and even sets his wits upon the tenters to furnish the World with variety of lies, suitable to the various humours and Interests of Men; and when one error is detected, gins to smell rank, and go out of date, through the power and prevalency of the truth, he carefully provides another to succeed it; and if a new one be not at hand, as if his invention failed him, he many times conjures up some old dead one, and makes it walk about in a new dress, and pass for some new or newly revived truth, when indeed it is but the Apparition of a long since buried error. As Merchants are want to observe what commodities please most in such and such places, and at such and such times, and accordingly take care to supply the markets: So the Devil looks what wares will vend best in such a Country, at such a season, what will be most grateful to the lusts and interests of Men, and then will be sure to supply them with those most, which he sees take most. Diseases have their times and seasons, and are then most dangerous when they prevail most, and spread farthest. Errors have their times and seasons too, Rev. 3.10. (there is an hour of these as well as other temptations) when they are most infectious and dangerous; and therefore, as when diseases are epedemical every one almost will be taking Antidotes: So when Errors are Epidemical, it is the wisdom of every Christian to fence himself against them. And though we do not say, that every private Believer is bound to be a School-divine, to be exact in all the niceties and Controversies which may arise about matters of Religion; (a Man may be saved that never read Aquinas, nor Scotus) yet sure every one that is capable of it should labour so to understand the Doctrine of Religion, as to be able to know what is Truth, and what is Error; and to be so established in the belief of the truth, as that, though he cannot answer all the Quirks, and Captions of a wrangling Sophister, yet he may see a reason (as before) for what he believes, and for his firmly adhering to it. As if a subtle disputer should bring an Argument to prove that the Sun is not up at noon day, though a Man were not able presently to discover the fallacy, yet he would not lightly believe a thing so contrary to his very sense. It is good (I am sure) for Christians to be so established against reigning errors, as that though an Angel from Heaven should labour to propagate them, yet to be pertinacious, and graciously obstinate in rejecting them. Prop. 6. Men should seek especially for such knowledge, and study such truths, as have the greatest influence upon practice, and so may make them most useful in their places, and may further them most in the universal exercise of powerful Godliness. Indeed the whole Doctrine of the Gospel is called the truth which is according to Godliness, 1 Tim. 6.3. There is no one truth revealed by God to us, but may have its use in our conversations, and influence on our practice; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Th●●d. But yet some truths more directly and immediately than others; and such as those we should especially study. We should labour to know not only what we must believe, but what we must do; not only what thoughts we are to have of God, but what affections towards him, that so not only our minds may be established, but our conversations rightly ordered. We must not rest in the bare knowledge even of the greatest truths; nor labour to know merely that we may know, or that we may talk, but that we may act suitably to our knowledge. Discamus non opinioni sed vitae. We should learn, not merely that we may be able to maintain an Opinion, but that we may know how to guide our Lives and Govern our Actions. The knowledge of the most excellent Truths may be unprofitable to us, if we know not our duty too. It is best for us to know those things which may make us best: Such as may further our Graces rather than heighten our Reputation, make us rather useful than Famous, and serviceable to God, rather than admired by Men. It is a vain thing to know what to hold, and not know what to do; to understand Controversy and be Ignorant of Duties. Ne quaere (saith one) in scientiâ oblectamentum animae, sed remedium: We should not Labour to know these things merely which may delight our Minds, but such as may heal our Souls; to know our distemper and our Medicines, our Wander and our Way, our Defects and our Duties: And not only those things neither which concern us as Christians in the General, but in such Ranks Orders and Relations as God hath set us in; and so that which is every Man's special duty, should be every Man's special study. As Ministers should know how to behave themselves in the House of God 1 Tim. 3.15. So should Magistrates, how they are to behave themselves in the Commonwealth, Masters in their Families, Husbands towards their Wives, Wives toward their Husbands, both toward their Children, and they again toward their Parents. In a word, Men are to study those things which are most profitable; such as will better their condition, and not only improve their understanding. You know a sick Man had rather have a good Medicine than fine Clothes, he minds more the easing of his Pain, than the dressing up of his Body; That which will make you spruce, will not always make you well; Fine trappings will not Cure a lame Horse, nor the Painting of the Face heal the Diseases of the Spleen or Liver; That knowledge, which adorns your Mind, yet may not always mend your Heart; To conclude this, Men must labour to know the truth as it is in Jesus, Eph. 4.21. So to know it as to feel it, and be under the influence of it; or to know the truth to that end, for which Christ teacheth it; that is, that Men may be better, as well as wiser, more ready to do their Master's will, as well as know it. Men know the truth as they should, and as Christ would have them, when their knowledge puts them upon the great duties of Mortification, and Sanctification; v. 22. That ye put off as to your former Conversation the Old man; and v. 23, 24. Be renewed in the Spirit of your Mind; and put on the New man. Prop. 7. Every Man should labour to get as much Spiritual knowledge as he can, by the means of the knowledge he hath, and as he can get, without the neglect of other necessary duties. It is not for nothing that the Apostle prays for the Collossians Ch. 1.9. that they might be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all Wisdom and Spiritual understanding: and exhorts the Corinthians Epist. 1.14.20. though in Malice they were Children, yet in understanding to be Men. If Christians ought to grow in every Grace, why not in knowledge, which is itself a Grace, and helpful to all other Graces? We are to be accountable for the means we have of getting our knowledge increased, and therefore sure are to labour that we may get it increased. And though a less measure of knowledge might serve turn to bring a Man to Heaven, yet 1. It is contrary to that Spirit of Ingenuity, that largeness of Heart towards the things of God, which is supposed to be in Believers, to stint themselves in the knowledge of the truth, and to be content to know only just so much as may carry them to Heaven. That were to study Spiritual truths, not so much because they love them, as because they cannot want them; and so not of choice but necessity. 2. Even where a less measure of knowledge might save a Man, yet a greater should be endeavoured after; because it might be otherwise so useful: For, 1. It might make his work more easy; Clearness of knowledge takes off much from the Difficulty of Duty: The better a Man sees his work, the more easily he may do it. The most skilful Artist may sumble when he works by a dim light. That Man is like to go on most readily in his way, who not only knows the right one, but the wrong ones too, those turn and by-paths which might misled him, and seeing the Monuments of others mistakes may be warned by their wander. 2. More knowledge might make his way more pleasant. The more delectable Objects a Man hath to entertain his Eyes, the more delight he may take in Travelling; When Night-journeys, as they have more of Danger, so have less of Pleasure. A clear sight of Spiritual things may help a Christian in his way, not only as a Direction, but as a Delight. 3, It might make himself more useful, more helpful to others. Nec in hoc tantùm te accerso ut proficias, sed ut prosis, Sen. Epist. Though less knowledge might suffice us for ourselves, as to our general Duties; yet more will make us helpful to others, and enable us better for the performance of relative Duties. The more knowledge we have, the more we may communicate. Those that understand most themselves, may best instruct and direct others. They that are well skilled in their own duties, are most sit to teach others theirs; Rom. 15.14. Filled with knowledge, able also to admonish one another. And thus we see in these propositions, what knowledge we are to labour after in order to Salvation. Only I add two Cautions against two ordinary vices, which Men are very liable to in their enquiring after knowledge. Nihil igitur certius est quàm alterum Angelicae cognitionis genus, quo post Deum, & quae in Deo sunt, reliqua intelligunt, non ita perfectum esse, quin in hoc cognitionis genere quotidie proficere possint, novi Semper aliquid discendo ac novo modo cognoscendo. Zanch. de dei . ib. Caut. 1. Take heed of curiosity, which is the itch of the mind: It is not a kindly appetite, but a fond longing, or an ambitious vain affectation of knowing those things which we are least concerned, or not at all concerned to know; and which, if known, would do us little good. It is a lust, and therefore not to be indulged in ourselves, but mortified. It appears, 1. In making inquiries into these things which God hath not revealed; Deut. 29.29. Secret things belong to the Lord our God; but things that are revealed; unto us and to our Children, etc. This curiosity our Saviour checks in his Disciples, Act. 1.6. Wilt thou (say they) at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel? Our Saviour replies, It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. God hath revealed enough to us in his Word for our use and furtherance in Faith and Holiness, and to desire to know more, is to desire to be wiser than God would have us. We must not pry into those things which it is only God's Prerogative to know. The Angels themselves know not some things, and we should be content, as well as they, not to be omniscient. It is dangerous peeping into God's Ark: you know who smarted for it, 1 Sam. 6.19. If knowing what God hath revealed do not save us, I am sure searching into what he hath not revealed, will not. God hath told us so much of his mind in the word, as may take up our whole Man in the study of it; and we cannot busy ourselves in enquiring into his secrets without neglecting the study of those things, which are revealed, and are most useful for us. 2. Curiosity appears in enquiring into the reason of God's will. If Rulers in the World will not have their Laws disputed: If volumus & jubemus be their stile, and though they do not give the reason of their Commands, yet they count their Commands reason enough for their Subject's obedience; Sure we should allow God as much, as we do his Creatures. We should reckon God's will is never unreasonable. His Commands are as wise, as holy; and if he hath not revealed to us the reason of his will, it is because he would exercise our humility, and have us own his Sovereignty in our obedience, and acknowledge him to be the supreme Judge, as well as Author of our duty. 3. The same we may say of men's enquiring into those things which concern others rather than themselves: When Men are Learned in other men's duties, but ignorant of their own; can spy motes in other men's eyes, and not see beams in their own; Mat. 7 3. Can criticise upon little faults in their Neighbours, and yet overlook much greater in themselves. 4. Men are curious, when they study things rather difficult and nice, than useful and edifying; such as are more fine than substantial, new or rare, instead of great and weighty: Such seem to have been those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vain babble, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Theophyl. against which the Apostle cautions Timothy, Eph. 1.6.20. great words of little signification, a noise of something worth just nothing: And such those questions and strifes of words about which some doted, v. 4. The vainest emptiest persons amongst us, are not more fantastical in their garb or diet, than some others are in their studies and inquiries: They are for that knowledge which is most fashionable; Their very minds must be in the mode; Their notions must be the neatest and newest; They disdain what is common, though never so profitable; What they like must have newness and variety, or else abstruseness and difficulty to commend it; something be sure besides usefulness: They have sick Queasy stomaches, distempered palates; cannot eat their Spiritual food; unless it be minced, nor relish the most wholesome truths, unless set off with a Philosophical gust: In a word, they are rather for odd things than good; such as may gratify their wanton fancies, rather than bring any saving benefit to their Souls. Caut. 2. Take heed of Pride, which, we may say, is a worm very apt to breed out of the Tree of Knowledge; 1 Cor. 8.1. Knowledge puffs up. It is a hard thing for Men to know much, and not know that they do so. Many that have great knowledge of other things, yet know too little of themselves of their own infirmites', of their own follies; and those things in themselves, which might keep them humble. This brings me to the second part of the case propounded, viz. II. What means we should use for the obtaining such knowledge as is needful for us. 1. Here the first thing we should direct to is Humility. He that would be truly wise must labour to be humble: Homo Sapiens est quamdiu quaerit sapientiam, ubi autem se putat ad ejus culmen pervenisse, desipit, Sap. Arab. apud Drusium. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theodor. de curand. Graec. affest. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod●ret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just. Mart. in Exp. sid. Tu disputa, ego credo. Job 22. 2●. He that would ever arrive at any height of knowledge, let him get low thoughts of himself. Pride, and a conceit of a Man's own knowledge is one of the greatest hindrances of his knowing, 1 Cor. 8.2. If any Man think he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet, as he ought to know, Prov. 26.12. There is more hope of a fool than a Man that is wise in his own conceit. Humility makes Men teachable, sense of ignorance makes them willing to learn, and God promiseth to teach them, Psal. 25.9. The meek will he guide in judgement, the meek will he teach his way. 2. We must deny ourselves in our carnal reasonings, Subject our understandings to the Authority of God, leave something for faith to do, and not think to be such absolute Masters of all divine mysteries, as to receive no more of them than our own reason can comprehend, when it is the highest reason in the World to believe what ever God speaks, though our reason cannot reach it; Our wisdom in Spiritual things must begin in our being fools in the World's account, 1 Cor. 3.18. If any Man among you seemeth to be wise in this World, let him become a fool that he may be wise. Though we must use our reason in the search of Spiritual truths, yet not reason only: many things purely are the objects of our faith, and of them reason is no competent judge. 3. We must be diligent in the reading and studying of the Scriptures, as the repository, the fountain of Spiritual knowledge: Search the Scripture, saith our Saviour Christ, John 5.39. O how I love thy Law! it is my meditation all the day, saith David, Ps. 119.97. Give attendance to reading, saith Paul, 1 Tim. 4.13. I have heard of a Cardinal, that either acknowledged or boasted that he never read the Bible but once in his life. Reading other Books, Sententiaries, and Canonists, might make him wise enough to be a Cardinal, but not wise enough to be a Christian. Where should we seek for knowledge but in the Fountain of knowledge? how should we better understand God's Law, than by receiving it at his mouth? 4. Yet we are not so confined to the Scripture alone, as that we may not make use of other good books, the labours of such faithful servants of God as have best studied his word, and best understood his mind. How doth this age and place abound with good and sound▪ and profitable books? and well it were, that it abounded with none else; however we have our choice, and that too in our own Tongue. Private Christians need not the learned Languages to make them learned in the Scriptures. Expositors we have to help us to understand the meaning of the word; Practical writers and casuists to quicken our affections, and apply truths to our Consciences; Controversial ones to discover errors, and arm us against them; and Systematical, and Catechetical ones to methodise our knowledge, and order what we know, and show the connexion of Spiritual truths among themselves, and their dependence upon each other, that so we may have a map of the way to Heaven before us, a full prospect of our whole Religion at one view. And were it not well if some would spare a little time from their shop-books for such books as these? if when they cannot be getting money, they would get knowledge? when they cannot be dealing with good Customers, they would deal with good Authors, such as might make them more wise, when not more rich? 5. We should be diligent and regular in attending on the word preached. As it is the duty of Ministers to be instant, and Preach the word in season, and out of season, 2 Tim. 4.2. So it is duty of people to hear it. Reading the Scriptures and good Books is not sufficient for those that are in a capacity to hear: The Preaching of the Word is the great Ordinance appointed by God, for the Instruction, Edification, and Conversion of those that are to be saved; and it is that which God doth usually accompany with most life and power. As it is in other cases, so it is for the most part here; you are commonly more affected with what you hear Men speak, than with what they writ. Ministers may write or print their Sermons, but not their Affections, not that Power and Spirit of the word, which themselves feel, and you perceive in them. You are most like to be warmed by the word, when you hear it coming out of a hot heart. When you see your Teachers affected with the truths they deliver, and speaking like those that feel what they speak, you are most like to be affected too. Though indeed the great reason of hearing is, because it is God's Ordinance, and he hath not only taken care that the word should be written, that so all may read it; but hath appointed Officers too purposely to Preach it, that so all may hear it. But withal be sure to be regular in your hearing. Take heed how you hear, Luke 8.18. and take heed what you hear, Mark 4.28. and from both will follow, that you must take heed who you hear too. Hear those that are most knowing, and best able to instruct you, those that are most sound and least like to misled you. Do not choose to put your Souls under the conduct of blind-guides. Seek for the Law at their mouths, whose lips do best preserve knowledge. And when you have found such, keep close to them. Settle yourselves under the guidance of some faithful Pastor, upon whose Ministry you may ordinarily attend. That running to and from, which is usual among us, is quite another than what Daniel speaks of, ch. 12.4. and I am sure is not the way to increase knowledge. Rolling stones gather no moss. Such rovers seldom hit upon the right way. Such wand'ring Stars may be soon bemisted. They that thus run from one Minister to another, may soon run from one opinion to another, and from one error to another. I dare safely say, you may get more sound knowledge of the things of God by constant attendance upon the Ministry of one of less abilities, than by rambling up and down to hear many, though of the greatest gifts. It is a great advantage to your gaining knowledge to hear a Minister's whole discourse, and be able to take up the full design of his work, and not merely to hear in transitu, by snatches, to pick up here a notion, and there a notion, or hear one Man's Doctrine in the Morning, and another's Application in the Afternoon. It is no wonder if Men that run to and fro, Eph. 4. be tossed to and fro: They that are so light of hearing may easily be carried about with every wind of Doctrine; the word of Christ seldom dwells in such vagabond hearers. 1. Pray earnestly for knowledge. We are to cry after wisdom, and lift up our voice for understanding, Prov. 2.3. Ask it of God, Jam. 1.5. Especially address we ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Apostle of our profession, Heb. 3.1. The great Prophet and Doctor of the Church, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col. 2.3. Who of God is made unto us Wisdom, 1 Cor. 1.30. Who liveth in the bosom of the Father and declares him to us, John 1.18. He that was his Father's Counsellor in making his Laws, and his Messenger in publishing them, is best able to make us understand them. As it is our duty to Hear him, so it is his business to instruct us: Only beside the use of all other means, we must look to him for his teaching. He only can make all means effectual, and none learn as they should, but they that learn of him. There is no learning like that we get upon our knees; that is the only saving knowledge, which we fetch from Heaven. If you put your Children to a Trade, you will have them learn it of such as are most skilful in it. If you would yourselves understand any art well, you seek for the best Artist you can to instruct you. Who can teach you all things like him that knows all things? who can enlighten you like him who is the true light? John 1.9. Men when they teach their Scholars oftentimes complain of their dulness, they can but propound their notions to them, not beget an understanding in them. And Ministers complain of their hearers, as the Apostle did of the Hebrews ch. 5.11., that they are dull of hearing. Quod ●aev à in parte mamillae Nil a lit Arcadico juveni. Juven. They spend their strength upon them, but cannot work the truth into them. But the Lord Jesus Christ is such a Teacher, as is beyond all Teachers: He can give the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, as it is called, Eph. 1.17. and promiseth to do it, John 14.26. He can give inward light as well as outward, eyes as well as objects, understandings to receive the truth, as well as truths to employ your understandings. 7. Take sit time for the getting knowledge. You have a great deal to learn, you had need be early up, that you may have the most time, and the best time. Begin young, before your minds be corrupted with errors, or possessed with prejudices; before you have learned too much of those things which must be unlearned, if ever you would learn the things of God. It is a great advantage in this case, when Men are instructed in the Scriptures from their childhood, 2 Tim. 3.15 when the first thing they learn is to know God and Christ and themselves, their own condition, their duty, their hopes. The time of youth is the best time for getting knowledge, as of other things, so of Spiritual things. Qui legem discit in puerit â similis est ei qui scribit in char●à nouâ, qui in senecture, similis est ei qui scribit in charta vetere. R. Eliaz. apud Dr●●. There is then lest within to keep knowledge out, and what is then received, usually enters most deeply, and proves to be most durable, The more pliable the wax is, the deeper the impression, and the deeper the impression is, the more like it is to last. Train up a Child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not departed from it, Prov. 22.6. It is I am sure a preposterous course, to learn other things before you learn what is most necessary: to get a Trade, before you have a Religion: to learn to know the World, before you know God. 8. If you say this concerns your Children, rather than yourselves, I add, be much in teaching others the things of God: that is the way to learn them more fully yourselves. The communicating your knowledge is the way to increase it. You will get more than you give, and while you impart it, you will best retain it. While you instruct others, God will instruct you, and you may come to see more in his truths when you teach them others, than ever you did when you learned them first yourselves: not that every professor of the Gospel is to be a public Preacher of the Gospel; Private persons are not to invade an office to which God never called them: but yet private Christians may be a kind of private teachers, they may read the Scriptures in their houses, who yet may not take upon them to explain it in the public; they may catechise, and as Abraham, Gen. 18.19. teach their Children and their households to know the way of the Lord, who yet are not to instruct congregations; they may exhort one another and admonish one another, and teach one another, in Godly discourse and conference, communicating each others experiences, and solving each others doubts, who yet are not to usurp a work into their hands, for which Christ hath appointed a particular Office in his Church. 9 Be sure to practise what you know, and live up to what you have learned. Doing duty is the way to gain knowledge. Ordinarily the more holy you are, the more really wise you are, or are like to be. The better your hearts are, the clearer your heads will be, as to the knowledge of those Spiritual things you are most concerned to know. You will most easily learn to know, what you love most to do. Though the receiving the truths of God be the immediate office of the understanding, yet the affections, where they are right, Cupiditas hostis intelli●●●ae. will help the understanding in its work. The purifying of the heart will rid it of those lusts, which are wont to steam and vapour up into the head, and darken the eyes o● the mind, and hinder it from a right receiving of Spiritual truths. Where sanctification is promoted in heart and life, knowledge will certainly be increased too. They that exercise themselves unto Godliness, and thereby show their love to God's Law, shall not want for the knowledge of it. They that love his ways shall not want for a guide. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will teach them his covenant, Psal. 25.9. If any Man do his will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, etc. John 1.17. Use. 1. This doctrine informs us, 1. How miserable they are that are without knowledge, poor ignorant blind sinners, that know nothing of God and Christ and the mysteries of the Gospel, and the way of duty: but especially they that enjoy the means of knowledge, and are in a capacity of obtaining it. Woe be to them that are ignorant in an Age of knowledge, blind in a land of light, see so little even in a valley of vision; that are ignorant in England, ignorant in London; that are ignorant because they will be ignorant, are in the dark because they love darkness. We may even wonder at many, what shift they make to maintain their ignorance, when so much knowledge is abroad, but that they draw the curtains and close their eyes, and wink away the light, and instead of looking for saving knowledge, they hope to be excused by their ignorance. What though such as are under an invincible ignorance of revealed truths, may not be damned for not believing what they have not heard, or for not doing what they have not known? they are miserable enough in not knowing what might save them, as well as in their not practising the little they do know, which though it be not sufficient to make them happy, yet is sufficient to make them inexcusable. And what is this to those that are so deeply ignorant under the means of knowledge? who is there among us, but might come to know so much as is needful to his Salvation? who is there but might hear good Ministers, or hath some good Relations, or might converse with some good people, or read some good book? Who is there but hath, or may have a Bible, and a Catechism? and so long as Men have the Bible in their hands, they can never be excused, if they perish in their ignorance. So long as Christ is the Prophet of his Church, and promiseth his Spirit to them that ask him, and offereth so freely to instruct them; the case of those that are among, and converse with God's people, and yet remain ignorant, must needs be desperate. Is it so great a matter to hear the word, to read the Scriptures, and to pray to God for an understanding of them? who will pity a man that perisheth for thirst, and yet sits by a fountain? or that starves for hunger, and yet may come every day to a full granary? 2. How foolish are they that cry down knowledge, and consequently cry up ignorance? Make that the mother of devotion, which is indeed the Parent of irreligion? as if they were like to do most, who know least, as if they were the best servants, who were least acquainted with their Master's will; or might be wise to Salvation and yet ignorant of the truth. Others there are too, who under the name of Head-knowledg do upon the matter cry down all knowledge, at lest which themselves have not reached, and care not for seeking after. Because some men have only a notional knowledge, floating in their heads, these persons are ready to condemn all knowledge under that notion. They have got a fine word by the end, and are resolved to make much of it. A form of speech they have taken up, as a way of excusing their own sloth and ignorance, by declaiming against those that are better taught. Heart-knowledg without Head-knowledg is nonsense in divinity as well as reason: it is but fire without light, and so at the best but that which the Apostle ascribes to the Jews, Rom. 10.2. A zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3. How wicked are they? how great is their sin, that keep others from knowledge? Some there be that would persuade men from labouring after it; tell them private persons need not be so knowing; they may be saved with less learning, and less teaching; a little knowledge will carry them to Heaven, if they do but live honestly and do their duty. And is it possible for a man to live honestly without knowledge, or do his duty without understanding his duty, (I add) to believe as he should, without knowing what to believe? can you be religious by instinct? or do the will of God by guess, though you never inquire after it? why do they not as well tell men, that they may be rich enough, if they do but keep to their shops, and sell their goods, though they do not understand their trade? or that they may maintain their health, if they do but eat and drink, though they cannot distinguish between meat and poison? others there be, who, if they cannot persuade men against knowledge, will do their best to hinder them from the means of obtaining it. Such are the Popish Clergy, that keep the people from reading the Scriptures; would have God's revealed will kept secret; or known to none but themselves, who never intent to do it; at least, no more of it known, than pleaseth Holy Church, i. e. no more than is for the interest of the Pope's pride, and the Priest's paunches. Knowledge hath already done them no small mischief, and how can that choose but be too much light, which endangers the ruin of the kingdom of darkness? thus those Scribes, or Jewish Lawyers, Luk. 11.52. Took away the key of knowledge; they entered not in themselves into the Kingdom of Heaven, and them that were entering they hindered, and 1 Thes. 2.16. The Jews forbade the Apostles to preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved. And how great a sin is it to grudge others the grace of Christ, and the Kingdom of God? to drive a design for the damnation of Souls? It is a wretched thing for Men to build their greatness upon the ruin of others, and rather to let thousands of Souls be damned, than their stakes should not be saved. Doubtless if they considered how little comfort they are like to have in Hell in the society of those they have brought thither, they would at least be content to perish alone. Use 2. What a Reproof is here for ignorant Souls? They that are ignorant, not because they want the means of knowledge; but either because they hate it, or because they are too busy, or too lazy, or too proud to learn? I would be-speak such but even in their own Language, Why should you be wiser than your forefathers, and wiser than your teachers? They that lived before you or I were born, were fond of the truth, studied the Scriptures, inquired into God's will, made his Law their meditation, their delight, their counsellor: So did David, Psal. 119.24, 97. Such a one was Daniel, ch. 9.2. And such were other Prophets, 1 Pet. 1.11, 12. And such were the Apostles; it was their glory to have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. 2.16. And such were the primitive Christians. The Beraeans were commended for searching the Scriptures, Act. 17.11. And such the Martyrs: They would have made much of any single leaf of the Bible. And why then should you be wiser than they? Why should you think to be saved without knowledge, when they could not? Have you found out any newer, or nearer, or better way to Heaven, than they knew of? Will God be more favourable to you than to them? Will he dispense with your ignorance, and would not with theirs? And so, Why must you needs be wiser than your teachers? They are fain to study the Scriptures, and labour to know the will of God, and spend their time and strength in the search of truth, and count it their wisdom so to do, both that they may save themselves and them that hear them; And what need they go so far about, if there were a shorter cut to Heaven? What need they seek so much knowledge, if less would serve their turn? What need they weaken their bodies, and waste their Spirits, and shorten their days that they may teach you the good knowledge of the Lord, and instruct you in the things that concern your peace, if you may be saved without knowing them? If ignorance were so innocent a thing as many think it, Ministers might save their breath and strength for better purposes, than the teaching of those that have no need of it. Is it not a great shame that there is so much ignorance among those that profess to be enlightened? Alas! How few be there that can give any tolerable account of the Principles they own? How few have any faith, but an implicit one? any Religion but a Traditional one? How many are themselves guilty of what they blame in Papists? Papists believe as the Church (suppose a Council or Pope) believes, and how many Protestants believe as their Parents, or as their Ministers believe; And so their faith stands not in the power of God, but the wisdom, or gifts, or parts, or Authority of Man, 1 Cor. 2.5. Use 3. For Exhortation. Let every one that desires to be saved labour after such knowledge in Spiritual things, as is most conducing to so high an end. Labour for the knowledge of the best things, and for as much of it as you can get. Do not be afraid of too much wisdom, of being overcharged with Spiritual knowledge. There is no danger that this learning should make you mad. To enforce force the duty, Consider, 1. How useful this knowledge is, Prov. 15.2. That the Soul be without knowledge is not good. Knowledge in the mind is as necessary and useful, as eyes in a guide. What a Leader is to his followers, The mind is commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So Hierocles: . or a Driver to a Chariot, that the mind is to the Man. He had need of eyes that is to be an Inspector or leader of others. As the eye is the overseer of the body, so the understanding is of the whole, and therefore knowledge is as useful in the one, as light in the other. And as the knowledge of natural things is useful to a Man, as a Man, so is the knowledge of Spiritual things most useful to him as a Christian; and that, 1. In the exercise of holiness, the guidance of his will and affections, and ordering of his actions in relation to his highest end. The Will is of itself caeca facultas, a blind faculty, and the affections are no better. The will can command, but cannot judge. It hath authority over the inferior powers; but such as must be regulated by the discretion of the understanding. And the affections are as it were the legs of the Soul: They can go this way and that way, but they must have the eye of the mind to superintend their motion, like a blind Man carrying a lame one on his shoulder, who lends his own legs, — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Anthel. Graec. and borrows the other's eyes. So that though the understanding's work be only to discern, consider, judge; yet without its performing that work, the will and affections can never rightly do theirs. You can never love or hate, choose or refuse as you should, such objects as are presented to you, unless you first pass a right judgement upon those objects, and the understanding determine of their being good or evil; And the understanding cannot judge aright, if it be not informed aright. It cannot lead you, if it be not itself enlightened. You can never love God supremely, if your understandings do not judge him to be supremely lovely. If ever you would duly prosecute your true interest, you must be first acquainted with it, and have it rightly stated. If you would do your duty, you must first know it. You must of necessity either neglect or mis-perform it, if you know not the rule of your doing it. Where holiness is your work, knowledge must be your director. And the more knowledge you have, the more fit you will be for the practice of holiness. The clearer your light and the better your eyes, the more circumspectly you will walk. The more you see the nature, the beauty, the benefit of holiness, the more holy you may be. 2. Knowledge will be most useful for the Avoiding of sin. The more knowledge you have of the nature of sin, the abundance of it in yourselves, its offensiveness to God: The more knowledge you have of the rule, the exactness, the purity, the Spirituality and extent of the Law: and so the better able you are to judge what sin is, and what its consequences are: the better you may escape it. The clearer your knowledge, and the stronger your convictions are of the evil of sin, the more Arguments you are furnished with to persuade your hearts against it. A good treasure of Spiritual knowledge will best help you to maintain your Spiritual warfare. When you know not only your Leader and your weapons, and your reward; but your Enemies too, and their stratagems and way of lighting: you are like then to be most courageous in your combat 3. Knowledge will be greatly useful to you for your Profiting by ordinances. The better you understand the nature and use and ends of them, the more good you are like to get by them. The more you know of the word, the more you will still learn by it. If the foundation of Spiritual knowledge be well laid, Ordinances will more easily build you up. Not only the work of Ministers would be more easy; if their hearers were better Catechised, there would not be such danger of missing the mark, by shooting over people's heads, they would not lose so much labour nor spend so much strength in vain, they should not need so much to study plainness, and be inculcating principles, and lisping out the first rudiments of Religion as to those that are but babes in knowledge: But hearers likewise would receive the word with more profit; they would more easily be brought down under convictions, feel the power of Exhortations, be quickened to duties, yield to reproofs, entertain admonitions, and taste the sweetness of God's consolations, and so more easily obtain the end of their hearing. To conclude, if your understandings were more enlightened, your affections would either be sooner warmed, or their heat be more regular; if more truth were known, more duty would be done; if our doctrine were better understood, our application would be more effectual. 2. Spiritual knowledge is most delightful, Prov. 24.13, 14. The knowledge of wisdom is said to be to the soul, as the honey and hony-comb to the taste. The knowledge of truth which is the proper object of the understanding doth usually carry something of pleasure in it, and the more excellency there appears in any truth, the more delectable a thing it is to know it. But there be no truths so excellent as Spiritual ones, such as concern God and Christ and the mysteries of Salvation, and therefore the knowledge of none is so delightful. What high and refined delights doth the contemplation of God in all his holy attributes and excellencies afford to glorious Angels, and the Spirits of just men made perfect? How do those Heavenly creatures despise the gross and feculent pleasures of the sensual World? And though Saints here upon Earth cannot rise so high in their delights, because not so high in their knowledge, yet they may find incomparably more pleasure in knowing the things of God, even according to their present capacity, than the greatest voluptuaries can in the enjoyment of the creature. If a Philosopher can take more pleasure in the study of nature, or a Mathematician in his demonstrations than a sensualist can in his feasts and treatments; if lines and angles can do more for the mind of the one, than meats and drinks for the of the other, How far then do the delights a gracious soul finds in the study and search of Divine truths transcend both? And this pleasure is yet more heightened by the Interest Saints have in the truths they know; when they are not only excellent in themselves, but of the greatest consequence to them. To know God, and that as their God, to know Christ, and that he is a Christ for them, to know the Saints privileges, and that they belong to them, to know the promises, and that they have a share in them, to know there is a Heaven, a state of future glory and blessedness, and that themselves are concerned in it, this must needs be a delightful knowledge. You can take some pleasure in seeing a rich country, and pleasant seat, and fine houses, but much more if you see them as they that are to inherit them. If a natural man may take some pleasure in the mere notion of divine truths; how much more may he do it that is concerned in them? 3. This knowledge doth greatly adorn and beautify the Soul. It is a considerable part of the soul's perfection, Col. 3.10. The Image of God is said to consist as in righteousness and true holiness, so likewise in knowledge. How full of it was Adam in Paridise? And how full of it are Angels in Heaven? The more men know of God, the more like they are to him; and the more they resemble him, the more beautiful and perfect they are. You count a clear eye not only useful to the body, but a piece of beauty in it. Light in the mind is an ornament to the Soul, as well as a help. Saints in Heaven that are most perfect, are most knowing; and the fullness of their knowledge is a great part of their perfection. 4. It is a most becoming thing, most suitable to you as Christians, suitable to your new nature, your new state, your Spiritual relations and Spiritual privileges. It ill becomes them, who are called into God's marvellous light, 1 Pet. 2.9. Who are the children of Light, Eph. 5.8. and the children of him who is the Father of Lights, Jam. 1.17. they that are said to be in the Light, 1. Joh. 2.9. nay to be Light, Eph. 5.8. yet to he without light. An ignorant Saint is as great a Soloecism in Christianity, as a Graceless Saint, and that is such a Saint as is no Saint. 5. Consider the mischief and danger of ignorance. 1. It exposeth you to errors and delusions, Math. 22.29. Who so apt to be misled as he that hath no eyes? He that knows not which is the right way, may easily be drawn into a wrong one. He that walks in darkness knows not whither he goes, Joh. 12.35. Affection is a good follower, but a bad leader; It is too blind to be a guide: It embraces its object and yet knows it not. It must be beholden to the eye of the mind, light in the understanding, or else all its motions will be but wander. It will be sure to rove, where it is not led. It is an egregious paralogism of them that argue against the translation of the Scriptures into vulgar languages, that that is the way to increase errors, and divisions among Christians; For that multitude of errors which is among us, is not the effect of too much knowledge, but too little: as men's losing their way by daylight is not the effect of their having eyes, but either of their not having them, or not using them. Men do not run into errors because they know the truth, but because they do not know it, or are not established in it, or are not able to prove it. Not only pride and obstinacy, but ignorance too hath a hand in Heresies. That which is Heresy at last, may be but a simple error at the first; and that too men may embrace, not so much, or not only, because they hate the truth, but because they do not know it. Perverse dispute of men of corrupt minds proceed from them as being destitute of the truth, 1 Tim. 6.5. In other places we see by experience, that where men have ordinarily more knowledge, they have fewer errors; where they are better catechised, they are less unsound. It is scarce to be imagined, that so many absurd and ridiculous opinions should pass currant among us for greater truths, were it not for ignorance, as well as interest. And I doubt not, but many of the greatest patrons of errors, if throughly examined, would be found guilty of the deepest ignorance; and while they pretend to know more than others, they know much less than is needful for themselves. When Men walk the rounds in Religion, it is a sign that it is night with them. It is darkness that fills them with so many fancies and whimsies. men's heads are most apt to be giddy, when their eyes are closed. 2. It exposeth them to wickedness too. When the mind is dark, no wonder if the mind be impure. When there is no light coming in at the window, the House may well be dirty. He that cannot judge what is good, and what is evil, may easily refuse the good and choose the evil. He that is ignorant of duty, may soon come to be prejudiced against it, and then disaffected to it, and then to embrace the contrary. Crooked steps are but the ordinary consequents of blind eyes; and none more ready to walk after the course of this World, than he that is unacquainted with the ways of God's Commandments; or (to invert the Apostle's words, 1 Cor. 14.20.) None are more like to be Men in malice and wickedness, than they that are Children in understanding. That the Heathen, Eph. 4.18. were alienated from the life of God, it was because of the ignorance that was in them. I shall never wonder to see a Conscience not informed to be debauched; to see him that knows not God, to neglect God; him that knows not duty; neglect duty, or him that is ignorant of sin, live in sin. And though the beginning of sin be out of ignorance; yet men's progress in it may be out of affection. If at first they commit it, because they know not the evil and bitterness of it; yet they may afterward love it, when they have tasted sweetness in it. They that have no knowledge to do good, may the sooner learn to be wise in doing evil. men's lusts do then especially rule over them, when they are themselves under the power of ignorance, 1 Pet. 1.14. Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in your ignorance. 3. It exposeth them to Apostasy, even from what good they professed to have. How soon are their leaves shaken off from them by the storms of temptation? how soon are they withered by the hot Sun of persecution, who are not well rooted in Spiritual knowledge? Men will never hearty love the truth, if they see not its beauty; and never adhere to it, if they do not love it. An unsettled judgement will make unconstant affections. I have heard of a Martyr that could not dispute for Christ, and yet could burn for Christ; but I never heard of any that could burn for him, and yet did not know him. They that do not know the truth, the excellency, and power, and preciousness of it, cannot see reason enough for their laying down their lives for it. They that know not the riches and glory of the other World, those great things which may deserve their perseverance, and encourage their resolution and constancy, will hardly be induced to secure the hope of they know not what, by the loss of what they see and enjoy. We may certainly say, that ignorance of God's truths and ways is one main root of Apostasy from them; and had m●ny of them, who in these declining times have forsaken either, seen as much in them as others see, they might have found as good reason for their adhering to them, as others have found; So that to conclude this, ignorance is a sin which exposeth Men to temptations of all kinds: the Devil can scarce desire fit matter to work upon, than ignorant persons. To whom should he put off his wares but to those that are so dim sighted, Eph. 6.12. that they cannot perceive the falseness of them? where should the Ruler of the darkness of this world set up his Throne, erect his Kingdom of darkness, but in dark souls? where should the Devil reign, but where ignorance reigns? none more obedient Vassals to him, than they that know not the Laws of their true Sovereign. 4. Lastly, Ignorance exposeth men to God's judgements, as well as any other sin doth, and those not only temporal, Isaiah 5.13. but eternal too, 2 Thess. 1.8. Christ when he comes to judgement will execute vengeance on them that know not God. Those that God will love, he will have them come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim. 2.4. And even the servant that knows not his masters will, shall have his share of stripes, Luke 12.48. Men may perish not only for lack of that knowledge, which is absolutely necessary to salvation, but for lack of that which they were bound, according to their opportunities to have gained. I have heard it as the saying of a learned man, that a Papist might be saved, but a Recusant could not; as having sufficient means for conviction, and information. I am not concerned to dispute the truth of the former, but see no reason to question the certainty of the latter. And might it not be said of many Protestants, that they might be saved in another Country, but cannot be saved here, and that for the same reason, because here they have means of getting more knowledge? alas! how many ignorant souls are in Hell already, and how many more are posting after them? when they die there goes not only dust to dust, but darkness to darkness; the darkness of ignorance to the darkness of Hell. They will at last find themselves greatly deceived, that think they shall be saved because they are poor ignorant creatures, and know no better: that is, that they shall be saved because they know not the way to salvation; they shall be healed because they know not wh●t will cure them. And however they may for a time flatter themselves, upon the account of any external privileges, that they are Christians, Protestants, Professors, yet they may read their doom in the Text, which will one day be made good upon them; and if they will not know what else they should, yet let them know this, that Because they are a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them, will not have mercy on them, and he that form them, will show them no favour. Of Sabbath Sanctification. Serm. VI. Isaiah 58.13, 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy Father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. THese two verses contain a model of Sabbath Sanctification. The 13. v. contains the Duties enjoined. The 14. v. contains the privileges annexed. The Duties are set forth unto us 1. Negatively. 2. Affirmatively. The Negatively Duties are expressed 1. Generally and Comprehensively. 2. More particularly and distinctly. The General in these words. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day. Wherein there are three things. 1. The thing forbidden, i. e. The doing of our pleasures on the Sabbath. God never appointed a Sabbath for the satisfaction of corrupt nature. 2. The manner of doing or forbearing it; and that is by turning away our foot from the Sabbath. The meaning of which phrase may be (1.) Either a turning away of our mind and affections from each objects to which corrupt will do strongly incline us. The Affections are the feet of our souls. (Secondly,) Or an awful fear of trespassing upon the Sabbath, for the satisfying of our carnal desires. As men that are afraid of trespassing upon some great man's freehold, withdraw their foot, and turn another way, etc. The Sabbath is God's of which God saith as once to Moses, put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. When we are tempted to any thing unworthy of the Sabbath, we should make a stop and turn away, that we may not transgress. 3. The third thing in the General is the reason, why we should be so afraid of encroaching upon Sabbath-time, implied in this clause, upon my holy day. Wherein are two considerations. 1. It is holy time. 2. It is God's time. To take holy time, and bestow it upon our own lusts, it is profaneness. To take God's time, and bestow it upon the uses of the flesh, it is sacrilege. It is not fit to make sacred time to serve any but sacred uses. This is the general inhibition. Secondly, The more particular and distinct inhibition followeth in the end of the verse. Wherein, Three things forbidden in the particular. 1. We are forbidden the doing of our own ways. It is an Hebraism as much as (in our English) going our own ways, i. e. following our carnal and sinful courses, pursuing our own corrupt and sensual inclination. 2. We are forbidden the finding of our own pleasure: which is the same forbidden in the General, ut supra, only with this difference, that there (as I conceive) [pleasure] is taken more largely: so, whatsoever is pleasing to unregenerate nature and inclinations, whether they be bodily labour or Carnal recreations, profit, or pleasures, sports, or the works of our Callings, we must not find them; that is, we must be so far from making provision for the satisfying of the sensual Appetite, that we must not so much as own them, when we meet them, we must not suffer ourselves to be tempted, or ensnared by them; we must be to them [when we meet them] as if we had neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet, we must not desire them, or have any thing to do with them. 3. We are forbidden the speaking of our own words, that is, our own impertinent discourses, worldly contrivances, or in the Apostles language, All filthiness, Eph. 5.4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and foolish talking and jesting, or any thing, that is not convenient: Christians should not only consult what is lawful; but what is decent, and ornamental to the Sabbath. None of these things must be so much as named on our days, much less on God's days. Christians look to it, you may profane the Sabbath by your Words as well as your Works, and by vain words as well as by vile words. But there is one thing further observable, that is, the note of appropriation, viz. thine own, thine own ways, thine own pleasure, thine own words; thine own? what is that? Answ. In opposition to God's ways, Gods pleasures, Gods words, thereby utterly excluding not only wicked ways, and sinful pleasures, and profane words whatsoever, which are unlawful at all times, but even all such ways, pleasures, words, and thoughts also (which are the words of the mind) which relate to our own private concernments, whether personal or domestical, of a worldly and secular nature, which though they may be lawful upon other days (duly circumstantiated) yet by no means to be allowed of on God's day; unless they fall under the general exception of Gods own indulgence, namely Necessity and Charity, of which I shall speak more largely hereafter. In a word, Nothing may be done or spoken, but what is of a divine or Sabbath nature and tendency, upon pain of forfeiting our part in the blessed privileges following verse 14. and so much for the negative part of Sabbath Sanctification. I come to the Affirmative. And shalt call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, Honourable and shalt honour him. In these words also there be four branches or duties. (1.) We must call the Sabbath a delight. (2.) We must call it holy, or the holy of the Lord. (3.) We must call it honourable or glorious. (4.) We must not only call it honourable, but must actually and really honour It or Him by a suitable deportment. 1. If we would sanctify the Sabbath acceptably, we must call the Sabbath a delight. Call] i. e. account it so; calling] it is an act of the judgement, or appreciative faculty, a Delight, or (as some render it) thy delights, we must reckon the Sabbath inter Delicias, as is said of Jerusalem, Lam. 1.7. she remembered all her pleasant things, surely her Sabbaths were some of those pleasant things; it is said Her enemies did mock at her Sabbaths, I, but she did mourn. They were her delightful things, whereupon her heart was: And so they must be to us. But we must also remember to take in with the Day, all the Ordinances and religious services and Duties of the day. They must not only be done spiritualy, holily and universally, but they must be done with delight and complacency, we must prefer them to our chiefest joy; yea the very approach of the Sabbath should be our delight: so have all the Saints and servants of God in all ages of the Church done; they have been to them the very joy and life of their souls, Psal. 122.1. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord; our feet shall stand within thy gates O Jerusalem, I never was ●●re affected with joy and gladness in all my life, then when I was wont to hear the people encouraging one another to assemble themselves to the public worship of God, in the house of God, on God's day; O it did my heart good to hear with what alacrity and rejoicing they did provoke one another, come let us go to the house of the Lord, notably prophesied of in words at length, Isa. 2.2, 3. verses, many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. In the loss of Ordinances and Sabbaths they have been dead in the nest, like Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not; And in the recovery and enjoyment of them they have rejoiced as men rejoice that divide the spoil, see Psal. 3. Psal. 42. & 43. & 84. per totum. Christians, we must write after this copy, and count the Sabbath not our Duty only, but our Delight and privilege. 2. Affirmative duty. The Holy of the Lord. We must call it, i. e. (ut sup.) count it, keep it, as Lichdosh, Jehovah, sanctum Domini. One of the titles of Jesus Christ, The Holy one of God: we must observe the Sabbath as Holy time. Holy, yet not by constitution, not essentially holy as Christ is holy; nor inherently as the Saints are holy, but holy by institution, by sanction, relatively holy: the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it, i. e. he set it apart for holy uses, Deut. 5.12. keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it. Nothing but holy things must be done in this holy time, praying, reading, hearing, singing of Psalms, etc. as Psal. 92. (which is both a precept and platform for Sabbath-sanctification) meditation, rejoicing in God, and Thanksgiving, as you may read at large. Thirdly, We must call it (i. e. count it) honourable or the glorious day of God: Glorious upon several accounts. 1. For God's glorious resting upon that day. God's rest that is a glorious rest, rest of God. [As things of God in scripture are great and glorious things.] 2. Glorious or Honourable by a glorious sanction. Coin with the King's stamp upon it is counted Royal, not for the metal so much, though it be of Silver or Gold, but for the Image, superscription and impression it beareth. Every day in the week is Honourable because it is God's Creation, but the Sabbath is glorious for the inscription, Jehovah hath set his Image upon it. He did sanctify it. It hath God's sanction upon it and that is glorious. 3. It is Honourable for those glorious ends for which it was set apart, and they are three. 1. That God might sanctify his people, Ezekiel 20.12. moreover I gave them my Sabbaths for a sign between me and them; not a ceremonial sign as some would dwindle it, that have no more Religion in them than an old rotten Ceremony cometh to, but a moral sign, i. e. a Testimony, Pledge, or Covenant, whereby it might appear that they were God's people, sanctified to his service and honour. So it follows, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth them. The Sabbath is God's Medium to raise up to himself an holy people. 2. That God's people might sanctify him: so ver. 41. I will be sanctified in you: so Levit. 10.3. I will be sanctified in them that draw nigh me; God sanctifieth us when he makes us holy, we sanctify God when we acknowledge him to be holy. God sanctifieth us when he makes us what we are not, we sanctify him when we acknowledge him to be what he is. These be glorious ends; but, 3. Another glorious end for which God made the Sabbath, was, that the Sabbath on Earth might be a type and figure of the Sabbath in Heaven. That in this initial and imperfect Sabbath on earth, we might see (though in a glass darkly) what the Saints and Angels are doing in Heaven without ceasing; that we might peep into Heaven before we come thither, and long and wait for that eternal Sabbath. A day wherein God bows the Heaven and comes down, and offers himself in ways of sweet and friendly Communion with his people, Exod. 20. v. 23. Fourth Duty is, As we must call and count it glorious, so we must actually honour it or him, (it may be rendered both) and indeed when we honour this day we glorify God, and we glorify God when we make him our end in honouring his day. Without both these we do take God's Name in vain, and do but mock God, rather in pretending to keep a Sabbath, than glorify him. We must set up God in his own day and in his own Institution. And thus I have done with the opening of this blessed Model in the Duties of it. I should come now to the Privileges annexed, but sufficient to the day is the travel thereof. For the Improvement of this doctrinal Exposition, I shall do these two Things. (1.) I shall endeavour the stating of some Cases of Conscience concerning the Sabbath. (2.) I shall raise some observations instead of more distinct Uses and application. Case 1 If it be inquired what Sabbath it is that is here spoken of? we shall not need to stick long upon the solution. Some indeed of the Antisabbatical Doctors, who love neither the Name nor Thing, will needs expound it of the yearly Sabbath, the day of the strictest rest among the Jews in their solemn convention for Humiliation and Atonement, of which we read Levit. 16.31. and 23.27.31. But surely it is an unreasonable straitning of the text to confine it to this, especially since the Prophet had sufficiently insisted upon that subject, both by way of reproof and Exhortation in the former part of the chapter. Here therefore I conceive we are to understand the Weekly Sabbath, not only the seventh day Sabbath which was yet in being, but the First day Sabbath also, which was to succeed, the Prophet being an Evangelical Prophet (as one calls him the Evangelist Isaiah) speaks of the Evangelical Sabbath, which was to continue to the end of the world. Rules drawn from the Negative part of this model. Rules. 1. Note in the first place, that from the Creation of the world to this day God never suffered his Church to be without a Sabbath. As soon as ever there was a Church (though it was but in its infancy and confined within the narrow limits of a single-family, and few souls therein) God did immediately institute a Sabbath for it. Gen. 2.3, And on the seventh day God ended all his works which he had made, and rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. This some learned Divines suppose to have been by way of Anticipation only; to be a Sabbath in Deck (as it were) until the Church should have need of it; Others as eminent and learned as they, do assert it to have been by way of institution; a notion of a far more easy understanding than the former and more useful. This Sabbath rested (it seems) sometimes in silence: Save only that we may possibly spell it out in some imperfect Characters in their offerings and sacrifices before ever the Law was given, (which were originally proper Sabbath work) until at length we may read of it in words at length Exod. 16.22, 23. and Moses spoke to the people, this is that which the Lord hath said, to morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath. And this some conceive to be a second and renewed Institution; but with little probability. Moses rather speaks of it as a thing notoriously known to the Israelites in the Wilderness, it being of a more ancient Original than the Miracle of the Manna: yet it may serve as a testimony unto the Sabbath, and of use unto our purpose. From thence therefore we must step on as far as Mount Sinai, for a new institution, and there we may find it standing in the midst of the 10 Moral precepts, the fourth whereof it makes in number. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day, etc. Exod. 20.8, 9, 10, 11. Then was that command which before was given by word of mouth and continued by tradition, now written in words at length, engraven in stone by the immediate finger of God; and there it stands during all the time of Moses and the Prophets on its own basis, until the Messiah came, who put upon it his own Sanction, Mat. 5.17. to the end. And under that Sanction did the seventh day Sabbath continue, until upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that sun of Righteousness, and by his Command to his Apostles, Acts 1.2. the Sabbath was translated to the First day of the week, and that continued by Apostolical practice, and by the practice of succeeding ages of the Evangelical Church, the Gospel Sabbath, or Lords Day even to this present generation. Such I say hath been the care and love of God to his Church to this day, Lam. 2.6. that it never was without a Sabbath, unless it were when the want of a Sabbath was the Punishment of sinful neglect and obstinate violation of the Sabbath. And this care God used upon a twofold account. 1. Upon the account of his own Sovereignty. Sc. that by reserving one day in seven for his own immediate worship he might be actually acknowledged as the great Sovereign Lord of ourselves and of our time. The Sabbath is as the first fruits among the Jews; whereby we do not only entitle God to the whole harvest, but whereby the whole lump and mass is sanctified to us. 2. A Second Account is God's pity and compassion to his Creatures, Eccles. 3.11. God saw the heart of man since the Fall so fixed to the world, and immersed in the Pleasures and Profits thereof, that had he left man to himself, he would not have spared for Divine worship one day in seven weeks, not possibly in seven months, or in the whole year, but he would have even drudged himself and the irrational Creature to death in the pursuit of worldly fruitions. And therefore God hath enjoined him the severe observation of one day in seven, that he might lay upon him the necessity of minding and seeking the things of eternity, and whilst the rational creature did enjoy a spiritual rest for the soul, the irrational creature might have natural rest for self-preservation. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. 2. Observe, Rule or N te● this day God was pleased to honour with the title of a Sabbath as both here, and in the fourth Commandment, which signifies rest, because on this day, both God the Father and God the Son respectively, Gen. 2.2. did rest from their own proper work: and by their precept and pattern command it and commend it for a stated rest to the Church of God for ever. What the reason therefore is why some learned men of our generation should be so exceedingly offended at that name [Sabbath] that they cannot so much as hear it with patience, is to me a wonder even to astonishment; And while they are so much offended at the name, the vulgar sort of Christians, are (thereby I am afraid) as much offended at the thing. As to the first of these, I have heard some say they like it not, because it is Jewish; but to that we reply, 1. Not the Jews, but the God of the Jews gave it that name here and elsewhere, and 2. The notion of a Sabbath signifies no more but Rest; and is Rest Jewish? Oh that men would look into their hearts to see whether the reason of this disgust is not more latent there. 3. And were it a Jewish name (indeed) is not the Jewish name [Sabbath] better than the Heathenish-name [Sunday]? The name which Heathenish Idolaters gave it in their Dedication of that day to the Created Sun? Notwithstanding consult their Calendars, Writings and Languages, and you can meet with no other name or notion, but Sunday all over. At this we have more cause to be offended, than they have at the notion of a Sabbath. As for the vulgar sort of people; it is the thing which offends them more than the name; not the Rest so much as the Nature of the Rest, is that which they dislike; were it a Carding Rest, a Gaming Rest, a Dancing Rest, such an one as the Israelites once celebrated in the wilderness, wherein they did eat and drink, and risen up to play: (such an one for all the world as the Popish Devotion celebrates) after Mass and Even Song, (as they call it) pipe and dance, and then to the Alehouse or Tavern; such a Rest would gratify the sensual world of carnal Christians: but for an holy rest, a rest to be spent in Public, Domestic, and Secret duties of Religion; Reading the Scriptures, praying, singing of Psalms, Hearing the word preached, repeating at home what they heard in public, Catechising their families, Meditation, etc. These things do not please the unregenerate part, but men are ready to murmur, as they did of old, what a weariness is it, and when will the Sabbath be over, Amos 8 5. & c.? This is a lamentation, etc. Rule 3 From these words [my holy day] take a third Rule. We must look upon the Sabbath as a day of Divine Institution; not of an humane ordination: the Sabbath hath a jus divinum written upon it, more authentic than theirs that decry it: My holy day, and the holy of the Lord, twice in this 13. verse, and this not in reference only to the seventh day but in reference to the first day of the week, which this Evangelical Prophet had then (by divine revelation) in his eye. How much more doth it concern us, who are reserved to this glorious Administration under the Gospel, to own the Divine right of the Evangelical Sabbath? Surely it is the voice of the glorious Trinity that calls it, my holy day; God the Father by Creation, God the Son by Redemption, and God the Holy Ghost by Sanctification, sending down a rich and plentiful effusion of Gifts and Graces upon the Apostles, for the enabling them to go forth and convert the Gentiles, by the preaching of the Gospel. To deny God his own right is Sacrilege and Atheism. We learn from hence that we must give God the whole Entire day, my day saith God: a few hours, or the forenoon will not serve Gods turn: but he challengeth the whole time, as his own peculiar. There is a great dispute amongst Divines, when the Sabbath gins, and when it ends? the text determineth the controversy, saith God all is mine. The whole 24 hours is Sabbath: look how many hours we reckon to our days, so many hours we must reckon to God's days also, if we will be ingenuous. Obj. But who is able to spend the whole 24 hours in religious duties without any intermission? Answ. None, neither is it required, for neither do we ourselves on our days, spend the whole 24 hours in the employments of our particular places and callings, but we allow ourselves a sleeping time, and a time for preparing our food, and a time for eating and drinking, and other refreshments of nature, both for ourselves and our relations; and so doth God also, provided always, 1. That we be not overlavish and prodigal in our indulgences to the flesh, and the concernments of the outward man, that we exceed not our limits of Christian sobriety and moderation. 2. Provided that we do not those things with common spirits; we must eat and drink and sleep, as part of the Sabbath-work, with heavenly minds, and Sabbath affections. The occasional Sabbaths amongst the Jews gave them a greater latitude: no more time of those days being counted holy, than was spent in the public service of the day; which continued but from nine of the clock in the morning when the morning sacrifice was to be offered; and ended at three of the clock in the afternoon, at evening sacrifice. But the weekly Sabbath was holy in the whole extent of it: not indeed by constitution but by institution and consecration; God blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it, i. e. set it apart for divine and holy uses, of which more infra. In our sanctifying of the Sabbath, Rule or Note. we must have an equal respect to the negative prohibition, as to the affirmative injunction: i. e. to what is forbidden, as well as what is commanded, & è contra. And this is a rule which holds in the exposition of all the Commandments of the Law, and of the Gospel. Cease to do evil, and learn to do good. The negative and affirmative precept have such a mutual relation one to another, that one doth infer the other, and take away one and you destroy the other. It is impossible to do what is commanded without due care of avoiding what is prohibited: neither can that man rationally pretend to keep the Sabbath, that lieth a bed all day, because he doth not work; not he that followeth his servile labour, because possibly he may perform some religious duties. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Carnal sports and pleasures are as great a profanation of the Sabbath, as the most servile labour and drudgery in the world. Dicing and carding, do as much violate the Law of the Sabbath, as digging and carting; playing as much as ploughing; dancing and morrice-games, as much as working in the smiths-forge, Bowling and shooting, as well as hewing of wood and drawing of water. The reasons are clear; for 1. Sports and pleasures are as expressly forbidden, as bodily labour in our ordinary vocation; for he that said thou shalt do no manner of work, said also, thou shalt not find thine own pleasures, etc. 2. Sports and pleasures are as inconsistent with a Sabbath frame of spirit, as the grossest labour in our calling: yea i'll undertake that a man in his particular calling may more easily get good thoughts of God and of eternal life, etc. than a person that is drenched and immersed in vain delights and sports. In such cases men are usually so intent upon their sports and pastimes, that it is not easy to edge in a good serious thought in the midst of sensual delights. Tota in toto, & tota in quâli●et parte. A man in his carnal pleasures is like the soul in the body. All in all; and all in every part of their pleasing vanities; pleasures do fox and intoxicate the brain, when as labour is apt to make them serious and considerate. 3. Reason, Pleasures are as great diversions from the duty of a Sabbath, as labours. It is conceived Adam should have had a Sabbath in Paradise had he persisted in innocence, why? not because his dressing of the garden would have wearied him, (for weariness is the fruit of sin) but his dressing of the garden would have been a diversion from attending his Creator in the Ordinances of a Sabbath. 4. Carnal pleasures leave a defilement on the spirits, and so do totally unfit the soul for communion with God. That Character, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, how fully doth it agree to such kind of profaners of the Sabbath? Pleasures draw off the mind from God, and justly cause God to withdraw from the soul; how totally doth this indispose to Sabbath work! In heaven they cease not day and night saying, holy, holy, holy, etc. Oh Christians never think of reconciling carnal pleasure and Communion with God together: it is impossible. 7th Obs. [Not speaking thine own words.] The Sabbath is polluted by words as well as by works. Christ will judge men in the great day for their words: and by them will he either justify thee for sanctifying the Sabbath, or condemn thee for profaning of it. I am afraid it is the great controversy God hath with this nation: not only profane, but even professors, are all guilty of not sanctifying the name and Day of God in their talk and discourses upon the Sabbath Day. If Jesus Christ should join himself to our Tables, Luke 24.15, 16, 17. or lesser companies, as he did with the two Disciples going to Emaus, and ask us, what manner of communications are these which ye have one with another; how might the question fill our faces with paleness and strike us speechless? Alas who can tell what day it is by men's discourses and conferences one with another! how vain, foolish, unprofitable and unsavoury is most men's speech all the day! no jest so idle, no story so common and fruitless, but will pass at our tables and in our private conference. Many spend the best of their time no better than the Idolatrous Athenians did their worst, in nothing else but either telling or hearing some new thing. What news? is the most innocent question, wherewith (I would I could not say) most men fill up the vacancies of a Sabbath. And is that sinful will you say? was it not in Nehemiah's question, Nehem. 1.2. Hananis one of my brethren came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were of the Captivity, and concerning Jerusalem, etc. presently what news? And why may not Christians ask the same question? yes, they may, when they ask it with Nehemiah's spirit, to Nehemiah's end, sc. that we may get our hearts suitably affected with the miseries or prosperity of the Church of God abroad or at home: see what a gracious use he makes of his news in that and in the following chapter at your leisure: go ye, and do likewise, and it shall be your honour. But to tell news, and to inquire after news merely for novelty sake, and to fill up time for want of better discourse: is a miserable idling out of precious time, which might be spent to mutual edification; whereas by ordinary and unsavoury discourses which are usually heard amongst us, people do edify one another indeed, but it is Ad Gehennam, they edify one another to hell. You that pretend to be the Lords people be more jealous for the Lords day and honour. The Lord takes pleasure in his people. Oh let the Saints be joyful in glory. Psal. 149.4, 5. Let your speech be always seasoned with salt, especially on God's day, that you may season your children and servants, which otherwise will be corrupted by such rotten communication. O let your prayer be all times, (but especially on the Sabbath day) that o holy David; set a watch O Lord before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips: the sabbath is God's glory, let your tongues be so too. The like caution we ought to use about our thoughts (by the rule of proportion) they being the language of our hearts, 8th Rule. and as audible in the ears of God as our words are to men's; yea whereas men understand our hearts by our words, God understand our words by our hearts. Moses did set bounds about the mount that neither man nor beast might break in, whatsoever touched the mountain must die: Exod. 19 12. (19 so must we set bounds about our heart, that neither humane, nor brutish distractions may break in. There is death or life in it, and therefore of all keep, keep thy heart, Prov. 4 23. for out of it are the issues of life. The heart indeed is not so fenceable as the mountain; but the more open it lieth, the stronger-guard had we need to set upon it, and to pray for a guard from heaven, (as David) Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, Psal. 19 ult. be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. If vain or vile thoughts break in upon thee, do as the ravished virgin was to do (in the Law) cry out, to God, and thou shalt not be held guilty. Deut. 22.27. Christians, this caution is of a special concern to you. O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayst be saved; Jerem. 4.14. how long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee? Resolve the Text into its integrals, and it will afford you some such observables. 1. Thoughts will defile the heart, as well as deeds. Wash thy heart. 2. This defilement will damn the soul, wash that thou mayst be saved. 3. The reason is implied: they are wickedness; wash thine heart from wickedness. 4. All this evil is (even) in vain thoughts as well as in vile thoughts, how long shall thy vain thoughts, etc. 5. Therefore we must wash our hearts from vain thoughts as well as from wicked and blasphemous thoughts. Hence I infer, 6. If this should be the work of a Christian every day, how much more on God's day? the purer the paper the fouler the stain and blot. Christians look to your hearts. Further take notice of the appropriation; Thy own ways: Thy own pleasure● thy own words. Object. And are not holy ways, and holy pleasures, and holy words our own, as well as such as are carnal and sensual? yes they are: but God speaks here according to our sense and apprehension, from whence Note how brutish and sensual lapsed man is in his notions and apprehensions of things; that he can call nothing his own but what relateth to the flesh. H●se● 8.13. I have written to him (saith God) the great things of my law, but they were accounted a strange thing: Alienum, foreign, and of no concernment to himself at all. And let this also serve for a tenth rule. In our sanctifying of the Sabbath we must be specially careful to distinguish, what is Gods, and what is our own. Indeed we must distinguish between what is Satan's. Our own. and Gods. There be sinful, wicked pleasures, ways, words, thoughts; I say wicked and sinful (in themselves;) and these are properly the Devils pleasures, the Devils ways, the Devils words and thoughts, and these are lawful at no time, much less on God's time; God's day and the Devil's employment do not well agree. And there are our own pleasures, ways, words and thoughts, such as concern the present life, relating to the body and outward man. These may be lawful on our days; six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but are not lawful on the Sabbath day: In it thou shalt do no manner of work, etc. save what is of necessity or Charity. And then there are God's pleasures ways, words and thoughts, i. e. of God's command, and such as lie in a direct tendency to the worship and service of God in public, private, or secret; and these only we may and must do, and mind upon the Sabbath; if we mix any of the Devils, or our own pleasures and profits with Gods, we pollute the holy things of God, and profane his Sabbath. This is the sum of what time will give me leave to say upon the Negative part of this Model: only before I dismiss it, let me add this short note of observation, that if what hath been spoken even on this negative part be the mind and will of God concerning the sanctifying of the Sabbath, then may the generality of Christians lie down in the dust, and smiting upon their thigh, with brinish tears upon their cheeks, confess (with a Pious Honourable Lady upon her dying Bed) O I never kept a Sabbath in all my life. The Lord teach us so to lay this sin to heart that God may never lay it to our charge. Having thus briefly dispatched the Negative part of Sabbath-Sanctification contained in this model; I come now to the Positive and Affirmative part. There, we saw what we are forbidden, as that whereby the Sabbath is polluted. Here we are informed what we are commanded, as that whereby the Sabbath is sanctified, i. e. kept holy to the Lord; as we are enjoined, keep the Sabbath-day t● sanctify it, etc. in these words following; [And shalt call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour Him, etc.] In this Positive model are contained four great comprehensive branches or Duties, wherein the sanctification of the Sabbath doth consist, sc. 1. We must call it our delight. 2. We must call it Holy, or the Holy of the Lord. 3. We must call it Honourable or Glorious. 4. We must not only call the day an honourable day, but we must really and actually honour God, or honour the day. The Heads are few, but they are very comprehensive, and such as will afford us (in the opening of them) much matter for our use and direction in the sanctification of the Sabbath, although I intent in this exercise but briefly to touch upon some few particular heads or rules, reserving the more full and ample enlargement thereof to some other opportunity. The first is, we must call the Sabbath a Delight, or (the pronoun supplied) thy Delight. Call it so, we are not to account the Sabbath as an ordinary and common thing, but to put a very high and precious valuation upon it, as, delightful, the holy of the Lord, and of honourable renown. A delight, thy delight, we must call it so, account it so, or make it so. The Sabbath must be a delectable thing to us; a nest of sweetnesses, the delight of our eyes, the joy and rejoicing of our hearts; a day, wherein all our comforts and pleasures do concentre, all our fresh springs must be in it. And this I humbly conceive the Holy Ghost doth most significantly oppose unto the pleasures forbidden before in this same verse. If thou turn away thy foot from doing thy pleasure, etc. q.d. must we be excluded and shut out from all pleasures and delights upon the Sabbath. No, saith the Holy Ghost, sanctify the Sabbath of Jehovah, and thou shalt not need to fear the want of pleasure, neither shalt thou need to be beholden to the flesh or the world for delights. The Sabbath itself will be incomparably more sweet and delectable to thee, than all the sensual and luscious contentments and satisfactions which this whole sublunary world can afford. Make the Sabbath thy delight, and thou shalt need to knock at no other door for pleasurable entertainments. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, call my Sabbath thy Delight, he would make his day unto thee a spring of sweetness, that shall always be flowing out to eternal life: a day well spent with God will fill the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Qu. But what shall we do that we may make the Sabbath our Delight? or, When may we be said to call it so, or make it so. 1. We then call the Sabbath our delight, Rules or signs of making the Sabbath a delight. when we can rejoice in the approach of the Sabbath. See how holy David doth solace his soul in the joyful expectation of Communion with God, when his banishment from the Ordinances did approach, Psal. 43.4. Then shall I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. Heb. the gladness of my joy. 2. Our early stirring up of ourselves to bid the Sabbath welcome to our hearts and habitations. Psal. 63.1. So the holy Prophet, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. The earliness of his devotions, shows the delight that he took in them; truly the great indulgence that most Christians allow themselves in their bed on the Lord's day, is an infallible argument how little delight they take in God's day, or in the Ordinances thereof. 3. Then we may be said to call the Sabbath our delight, when we are universally careful to sanctify God in all the institutions of the day, both public, private and secret: And are solicitous so to Methodise and time them that they may not justle out or interfere with one another; that is to say, to be so early in our closet-devotion, that the closet may not exclude or straighten the duties of the Family; and so to perform the Domestic Duties that they may not trespass upon our attendance on the more solemn public worship of God. An universal respect to all the institutions of a Sabbath, is an evident demonstration that we call the Sabbath our delight. Psal. 119.6: As David evidenceth to his own soul the sincerity of his Obedience, Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect to all thy commandments. 4. When we are angry with, or impatient of any diversions from, or disturbance in any duty or services of the day. To be glad of a diversion argueth little love to, or delight in the Sabbath. I esteemed, saith Job, the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Job 23.12. Heb. appointed food. 5. And lastly, Then we call the Sabbath a Delight, when the bare having of a Sabbath, without the presence of God in the Sabbath, and the Ordinances thereof, will not satisfy us. Psal. 16. ult. Delight springs principally from the presence of God. In thy presence is fullness of joy. This delight is promised as a reward in the verse following, Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. There is a Delight of Duty and there's a Delight of dispensation, and this is the reward of that; that is Our work, this is God's work: when a gracious heart sets itself to delight in a Sabbath and in the Ordinances thereof, then often God is pleased graciously to come in, and to fill the Ordinances, and by it the soul with his own presence. His Convincing presence. Enlightening presence. Converting presence. Quickening presence. Strengthening presence. Comforting presence. And when the soul cannot be satisfied unless it be in some measure sensible of God's presence in some of these blessed respects or other; then doth it really call the Sabbath a Delight. Psal. 63.1. Thus doth the holy Psalmist, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee; why, what would he have? it follows v. 2. to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in thy sanctuary. It is not the sanctuary of God only, but Communion with God in the sanctuary which david's soul thirsted after. This is to call the Sabbath a delight. I come to the second duty. We must call the Sabbath, the holy of Jehovah; Sanctum Domini; Lichdosh Jehovah. This title is very significant. We must not only count the Sabbath holy, but the holy of the Lord. It is (as it were) one of the Titles ascribed to the Son of God: for so he is called, thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption, Acts 2.27. & 3.14. etc. Ye denied the Holy One, etc. And well it may, for it is the holy day of the holy Son of God: yea God the Father and God the Son have put off their own holiness upon it. Not essentially, for that is incommunicable. Nor is it an Inherent holiness which they have Communicated to it, 2 Pet. 1.4. as the Saints of God have, who are made holy by a supernatural change of their natures. But the Sabbath is holy by divine Institution, by special dedication and consecration, God having hallowed this day above all other days in the week, by separating it from common and civil uses, and consecrating it to holy and religious ends and purposes, viz. to be a Sabbath of holy rest. But now The Question Question. is, How may we thus call the Sabbath holy? or When may we be said truly to make it holy? 1. When we make Gods hallowing and sanctifying this day our Motive and Argument to sanctify it, by a holy Observation of it, Answer. when that which God hath called holy by his divine sanction, we dare not call it common and profane by prostituting of it to unsuitable actions, words, or thoughts. There is a real calling it unholy, as well as vocal; He or She that spends the day or any part of it in doing evil, or in doing nothing, or in doing nothing to the purpose, he proclaimeth to the world, what he calleth the day, although he speak not a word; he speaks his heart by interpretation; and when all is done, our works are more credible Interpreters of our hearts, than our words or profession. Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say. Then we believe it holy, when we keep it holy. 2. Then we call the Sabbath holy, when we sanctify ourselves for the Sabbath, and for the Ordinances of the Sabbath. If we have no care what frame of spirit we bring with us into the day, nor with what frame we drive through it, we are far from calling the Sabbath, the holy of the Lord. For their sakes (saith our Lord) I Sanctify myself; John 17.17. I Sanctify myself, i. e. I separate myself wholly for the work of a Redeemer. If the Lord Jesus separated himself for our sakes, should not we much more separate ourselves for his. Then we believe Christ to be our holy Redeemer, when we labour to be an holy people, Holy as he is holy; and then we have high venerable thoughts of the holiness of the Sabbath, when we labour to be holy as the day is holy, an unsuitable spirit is a profanation of the Sabbath. The Day holy, but we unholy, what a reproach is this? Holiness becomes thy house for ever, q. d. Psal. 93.5, Ceremonies were to continue but for a time, but holiness is the standing qualification of thy day, and of thy worshippers for ever. 3. When we make holiness in the beginning and increase of it our design in our sanctifying of the day, and of our attendance upon the Ordinances; When we make holiness our business; It is the great end for which God hath ordained a Sabbath. Exod. 31.13. Ezek. 20.12. Verily, my Sabbath ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord that do sanctify you. Not a Ceremonial sign but a Moral sign, a Covenant sign, a kind of a Sacramental sign, a Medium to effect what is promised in the Covenant, 1 Cor. 11.23, 25. as water in Baptism, and bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. Oh when God's design and man's design meets, when God makes a Sabbath for a Medium to make his people holy; and they keep a Sabbath that they may be holy, this is excellent, this is to call the Sabbath The Holy of the Lord. When we labour to bring as much holiness as we can into a Sabbath, and to bring more holiness out of a Sabbath, to come out of God's day more holy than we came into it. This is to sanctify a Sabbath indeed. 4. Then we call it holy, when the more pure and holy the Sabbath is kept, and the more purely and holily the Ordinances are dispensed, the more our souls do love them; the more beauty and glory we do see in them. As David expresseth his affection to the word, Thy word is very pure, therefore doth thy servant love it. It is very sad when the more purely and the more holily the word is dispensed, the more people dislike it, and pick quarrels with it; as that vile people did, who cried to their Prophets, prophesy not. Or if you will be prophesying, prophesy smooth things, Jer. 30 10, 11. Sermons that will go down pleasantly, discourses of peace, that will not trouble our Consciences, nor cross our corruptions, but cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us. It was the Holy one of Israel, etc. the title which the prophets used in their Sermons: but their ears were so tender they could not bear it; if the Prophets would prophesy of the Merciful One of Israel, and of the Bountiful One, The Omnipotent One, etc. let them go on; but they cared not so much for holiness and strictness, as they pressed upon them from day to day, this did not please their palate. So when it is with a people in reference to other Ordinances, Prayer, and the Sacraments, the more corrupted they be with the mixtures of men, and of humane inventions, the more acceptance and applause they find; this argues that men seek not Jesum propter Jesum, Christ for Christ his sake, nor Ordinances for their purity, nor Sabbaths because they be, Holy days of an Holy God. When to get holiness and to grow in holiness is our design Sanctifying Sabbaths; John 17.17. When we sanctify Sabbaths that God may sanctify us by his Sabbaths and by his truth, as our Lord prayeth; then we do call and account the Sabbath indeed Sanctum Domini, The Holy of the Lord. 5. We do truly count the Sabbath the holy of the Lord when we come out of Sabbaths, as Moses came down from the Mount, With our faces shining. When we bring with us the savour of Christ, Psal. 45.8. his sweet ointments upon our garments. When they with whom we converse may take notice that we have been with Jesus. Acts 4 13. It is sad when men come out of a Sabbath just such as they came in, as vain and lose, as proud, worldly, wanton, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, in a word, as fit for sin as they were before. They sanctify the Sabbath (indeed) who can (in truth) say with the Apostle, 2 Cor. 4.18. We all with open face beholding as in a Glass (or mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed (or Metamorphosed) into the same image as by the spirit of the Lord. When the Sabbath leaves its Image and Impress upon us (in some measure) than we do count it and keep it holy. Surely the Sabbath is the very spring upon which the holy conversation of the whole week is turned and moved. And therefore it is observable that the Sabbath stands as it were betwixt the two Tables, the last precept of the first Table, and the Preface to the Second, To show us, that it is the Bond of union between both Tables: that without a severe sanctification of the Sabbath, the Duties of both Tables will fall to the ground; Whence in the Primitive times of Christianity, the strict observation of the Sabbath was accounted the principal character of a true Saint. And so it is even at this day: there are such Christians, for exemplary holiness, as those which are taken notice of to make most conscience of sanctifying the Sabbath. But so much for the second duty. I come now to the Third Branch, or Duty of Duties, wherein sabbath-sanctification consists, Sc. Honourable. If thou call it, or make it, or keep it as an Honourable day, Heb. Mecubbar, which signifieth honourable or glorious. The Duty implied is, we must keep the Sabbath, as the Honourable, Glorious Day of Jehovah. Truly glorious things are spoken of this Honourable Day. The Jews were wont to call it the Queen of Days; the weekdays they called profane days, but the Sabbath after God's example here they called Holy: My Holy Day saith God, it's God's peculiar. One of ours (now translated into his glorious rest) honours it thus, calling it, The Map of heaven, the golden spot of the week, Vide Mr. Gee. Swinnock in his good wish to the Lords day. the market-day of the soul, the daybreak of eternal brightness, the Queen of days, the blessed amongst days, the cream of time, the Epitome of eternity, Heaven in a glass, the first-fruits of an everlasting and blessed Harvest, and much more to that purpose. The weekdays are (as it were) the backparts of the week, made to carry burdens; a mere Servant or Slave made to do the drudgery of the humane life. The Sabbath is the face, the seat of Majesty which God hath made to look upward, and to contemplate the glory of the Heavens and of the maker thereof. The weekdays are like the Terrestrial Globe, wherein are painted to us the Earth with the inferior and more ignoble creatures. The Sabbath is the Celestial Globe, Heb. 12.22, 23, 24. wherein we have the prospect of Mount Zion, the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and of an innumerable company of Angels, of the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, and of God the Judge of all, and of the spirits of just men made perfect, and of Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, etc. The beholding of these glorious visions (truly beatifical) are the work of a Sabbath. Moreover to discover to you the glory of a Sabbath, consider we another excellent passage in our quoted Author (ut sup.) speaking of the Sabbath. All the grace's triumph in Thee, All the Ordinances conspire to enrich Thee, The Father ruleth Thee: The Son risen upon Thee: The Spirit hath overshadowed Thee: Thus it is done to the Day which the Lord delighteth to honour, on Thee light was created, the Holy Ghost descended, Life hath been restored, Satan subdued, the Grave, Death and Hell conquered, etc. Much more might be added, but rather The Question Question. is, When do we make the Sabbath, or how may we make it (to us) an Honourable, Glorious day? Answer 1 Then we call the Sabbath Honourable, when we make Honourable preparation for it. To which purpose it is useful to mind seriously that word which stands as a watchman at the door of the fourth Commandment, Remember, the Sabbath to keep it holy. Remember: It is like the Baptist, the voice of one crying, prepare ye the way of the Lord: or that Eccl. 5.1. keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, etc. It calls for solemn preparation for a Sabbath, and the ordinances of a Sabbath, a duty woefully neglected amongst Christians: some little preparation people make for a Sacrament, and it is to be feared there is more of superstition in it than Evangelical affection to the day, consisting rather in a Ceremonial abstinence from meat and drinks, than a serious separation of the heart and affections for communion with God. But as to the Sabbath, there is rarely any thing to separate between the drudgery of the week and the solemnities of the sabbath, but a little sleep; and that (usually) less than any other night is allowed; people loading the Saturday-night with so many worldly affairs, that the Lords-day-morning is too little to satisfy their sluggish indulgences of the flesh: and there is not time either for closet or domestic devotion, they cannot force themselves out of their bed time enough to join with the Congregation, until half the public worship be finished. The Jews shall rise up against this generation and shall condemn them, of whom it is reported, they were so severe in their parascueves or preparations for the Sabbath, which were precisely to begin at three of the clock in the afternoon, Buxtorf. that if the servants in the Family were cast behind in dispatching the servile labour of the Family, the Master of the house though he were a Nobleman would not refuse to set his hand to the lowest drudgery, that they might observe the punctual time of preparation: this argued an honourable estimation of the Sabbath. 2. Then we call it honourable when we give it honourable entertainment. When we awaken ourselves in such good time (yet so as we may not indispose nature for the service of the day) as David did, Psal. 108.2. awake my Psaltery and Harp, I myself will awake right early; I say, to get up early in the morning, Ma●h. 28.1. to meet our blessed Lord and Bridegroom coming from his Sepulchre to visit us. That which is but fancied of the natural Sun, its dancing upon Easter-day in the morning for joy of the Lords Resurrection, I have known reallized by some excellent Christians, whose hearts have not only leapt in them, but themselves have hasted out of their beds and have leapt and skipped up and down in their chamber, when the morning light of the Sabbath hath shined on them, in remembrance of the Sun of Righteousness arising from the grave with healing under his wings. Such extraordinary impulses and ravishments are not every Christians attainment, and must not be imitated to the prejudice of the Body, the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak: but certainly every Christian that hath the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart will be careful to abate himself somewhat of his wont indulgences on that morning which was his redeemers Birthday, that he may have time to get on his wedding Garment by meditation, Psal 2.7. reading and prayer, that he may go forth to meet him whom his soul loveth in the public solemnities of the Sabbath: and bring him home with him into the chamber of her that conceived him. Cant. 3. This is to call the day Honourable. Thirdly, Then we call it Honourable, when we have a precious esteem of every moment of Sabbath-time, and jealous lest any drop of it should run waste; even the filings of Gold and the dust of Diamonds are precious. No man can call the Sabbath Glorious that sets light by an hour, or minute, or moment of so Divine a creation. Time is a ring of Gold, but the Sabbath is the rich sparkling Diamond in it. David's heart smote him for cutting off but a lap of saul's Royal coat. So should ours for profaning, or unprofitably wasting any part of Christ's day. It is like his seamless coat, and cannot be divided without sacrilege. Fourthly, The day is honourable when we have a singular esteem of all the Institutions and Ordinances of the day. When Prayer is precious, and the word Read, Preached, is precious, when singing of Psalms is precious, the Sacraments precious: when every one in its time and order is observed with such due regard that none do justle out or exclude the other, but one doth catch in the other, as the links in a chain of Gold. Fifthly, When it is the grief of our souls that we can keep Sabbaths no better, and strive cordially and conscientiously to keep the next better than we did the last. Sixthly, and lastly, when we are careful that all ours as well as ourselves keep Sabbaths: this is a main clause in our obedience to the 4th commandment. Thou, thy Son and thy Daughter, thy manservant, and thy maid-servant, etc. Every one in their several capacities must keep the Sabbath. To be strict ourselves in the duties of a Sabbath, and careless what the rest of our Families do (whether our children or servants) steep or be idle, dance or play at cards, sing idle songs, or take God's name in vain, etc. This is not to call the Sabbath Honourable. Deut. 5.14. Gen. 8.19. I know Abraham that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord. And shalt honour him, or glorify him. From Cabad honorare. The verb in the Hebrew Vecibbactto, may be rendered It or Him; but the sense seems to incline to the latter [Him] rather than It: the day having had its title of veneration put upon it before, [honourable] this may more properperly belong to God, even to the whole blessed and glorious Trinity; requiring at the hands of every one that enjoyeth this blessed privilege of a Sabbath, that they ascribe the honour and glory of it unto God: and that is done, 1. When we make divine Authority the sole ground of our separating and sanctifying the whole day to his peculiar Service and Worship, without alienating any part or parcel of that holy time to our own carnal uses and purposes. Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it: [there's the duty] as the Lord thy God commanded thee, [there's the Authority.] 2. When, (as we make Gods command our ground, so) we make God's glory our end. When we make it our design to set up God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in all his glorious and infinite perfections, in our Adorations and Admirations upon that his holy day. And that is done in a special manner when we make it the great business of a Sabbath, To ascribe to each glorious Person in the Trinity the glory of his proper work and operation, whereby he challengeth a title to, and interest in the Sabbath. ex. gra. 1. When we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the stupendious work of Creation: and that is done by a due contemplation of all his glorious Attributes, shining forth in this beautiful structure of heaven and earth, celebrated by the Royal Psalmist in Psal. 19 v. 1. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament showeth his handy work; the transcendent excellencies of the glorious Jehovah are conspicuous and illustrious in this admirable Theatre of the world, that is to say, 1. His Power. 1. In creating all things out of nothing. 2. And that by a word of his mouth. 2. His Wisdom, In making all things in such a beautiful and exact manner and order. Galen l. de usu partium. As the great Physician said of the body of man, no man can come after God and say, this might have been better: so in the Fabric of Heaven and Earth, neither man nor Angels can say, here is a Defect, and there is a redundancy: it had been better there had been more Suns, and fewer stars, more land and less Sea, etc. No, when the divine prophet had stood, and in his most serious contemplation looked through the Creation, he could spy out nothing that could have been otherwise, but breaks out in admiration, O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: he could see nothing from one end of the Universe to the other, but what speaks infinite perfection; In wisdom hast thou made them all! and as the Omnipotency and wisdom of God is magnified in the Creation, so also, 3. His bounty, in bestowing all this visible creation upon man for his use and benefit: (as one saith) God made man last that he might bring him (as a father brings his son) into an house ready furnished. This is one branch of our honouring God, when we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the work of Creation. Secondly, When we ascribe to God the Son the glory of his most glorious work of Redemption: wherein these particulars are wonderful. 1. His inessable incarnation. 1 Tim. 3.16. Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, i. e. The invisible God made visible in a b●dy of flesh. This was a Mystery indeed, A Son in Heaven without a Mother. Gal 4.4. And a Son on Earth without a Father. Secondly, Christ his stupendious being made under the Law. Behold he that made the Law, was made under the Law; under the Ceremonial Law, that he might abolish it: under the Moral Law, The preceptive power of it, that he might fulfil it, that so every believer might have a Righteousness which he may call his own, Rom. 10.4. The maledictive power of it, that he might take it away. Gal. 3.13. 3. Christ his work of Redemption was principally transacted by his death and passion: for therein he laid down pretium Redemptionis, Acts 20.28: the price of Redemption, which was his own precious blood, 1 Pet. 1.18, 19, 20. 4. This great work and mystery of our Redemption was perfectly consummated in Christ his glorious Resurrection, Col. 2.15, wherein he spoilt principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; some render it, in it, and would refer it to his Cross: but [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] is to be understood here in the masculine gender, not in the neuter; and so to be translanted in himself: Christ rising from the dead like a conqueror, lead death, and the grave, and Hell, and the Devil in chains after him, as conquerors in war were wont to lead their vanquished enemies whom they had taken prisoners, in chains of Captivity after them, exposing them to the public scorn of all spectators. Thus we are to ascribe the glory of the work of Redemption to Jesus Christ the Son of God; and thereby do honour God in our sanctifying of his holy Sabbath. Thirdly, We likewise glorify the Holy Ghost, when we ascribe to Him the honour of the work of Sanctification. Whether we look upon it, in that first miraculous effusion of the spirit, which our Lord Jesus, as the King and Head of his Church, did first purchase by the blood of his cross, and afterward ascended into heaven, and obtained of his Father when he took possession of his Kingdom, and lastly, did abundantly pour down upon the Apostles, and other officers and members of his Evangelical Church in the day of Pentecost, Acts 2.1. Which was (as it were) the Sanctification of the whole Gospel-Church at once in the first-fruits. Or whether we understand that work of sanctification, which successively is wrought by the Holy Ghost in every individual elect Child of God; happily begun in their first conversion, and mightily upheld and carried on in the s●ul to the dying day. This is a glorious work consisting in these two glorious branches of it, mortification of corruption, which before the Holy Ghost hath done, shall end in the total annihilation of the body of sin (that blessed privilege groaned for so much by the blessed Apostle, Rom. 7.24.) and the erecting of a beautiful fabric of grace, holiness in the soul, which is the very Image of God, Heb. 1. 3● (an erection of more transcendent wonder and glory than the six days workmanship) which the Holy Ghost doth uphold and will perfect unto the day of Christ. And this is the great end and design of the Sabbath and of the Ordinances of the Gospel, according to the word which the great maker and appointer of Sabbaths speaketh, I give them my sabbath, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth them. Here then is the third branch of our sanctifying the Sabbath, namely, the ascribing to God the Holy Ghost the glory of the work of sanctification. And this is proper work for Christians in the intervals and void spaces between the public Ordinances, to sit down, and first seriously and impartially to examine the work of grace in our souls. 1. For the truth of it. 2. For the growth of it. And then if we can give God and our own Consciences some Scriptural account concerning this matter, humbly to fall down, and to put the Crown of praise upon the head of Freegrace, which hath made a difference where it found none. And so much for this Text at this time. How we may hear the Word with profit. Serm. VII. Jam. 1.21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness, and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. THese Jews to whom the Apostle writes, were guilty of many foul, and scandalous sins; but their master sin was the love of this world, c. 4. ver. 4. (a) Ye adulterers, and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. and from this sin arose many other Evils wherewith they are charged in this Epistle, as 1. Their tickling joy in hopes to get gain, ch. 4.13. (b) Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a City, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain. 2. Their Hoarding up of riches, ch. 5.3. (c) Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire, ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. 3. withholding the pay of the labouring man, chap. 5.4. (d) Behold, the hire of the labourers, which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cryeth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. 4. Their fightings and Contentions one with the other, yea their kill one the other to get their Estates, ch. 4.1, 2. (e) From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not even from your lusts that war in your members? ye lust and have not▪ ye kill and desire to have & cannot obtain. their desiring to have, made them kill one the other, as Ahab did Naboth. 5. Their Admiring the rich and vilifying the poor, ch. 2.3. (f) If there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment. And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing. and lastly to name no more, Hence arose their unprofitable hearing of the word, ch. 1.22. (g) But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. They heard, they had the best places at meetings, but they were hearers only, they did nothing, for Riches, as Christ tells us, Choke the word, Luke 8.14. (h) And that which fell among thorns, are they which when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches. . And as they were guilty of these moral vices, so erroneous in the Doctrine of faith, especially in that main Article of Justification: Holding an empty and inefficatious faith, sufficient to interest a man in Christ, ch. 2.14. (i) What doth it profit my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, & have not works, can faith save him? can such a faith save him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can that faith save him, can such a faith save him? that Faith that saves is always fruitful, and that faith which is not fruitful is no true Faith, the Apostle doth not deny that we are justified by Faith, by Faith only, but he denies that faith without works is a true faith, it's only an empty and airy notion, and such a faith cannot justify nor save a man. Well then, this being the case and condition of the people, it was impossible they should be quiet and patiented hearers of the word, but must needs fret and fume against it as that which contradicts their Lusts, Errors and Delusions. The Apostle therefore to take them off from this bitter and untoward spirit in Hearing the word, gives them this wholesome counsel and advice from God, Wherefore laying apart all filthiness, etc. All filthiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I'll not restrain it to covetousness, nor to scurrilous and reproachful speeches, but take it in its utmost Latitude, as denoting sin in the General: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifies the filth of the flesh, 1 Pet. 3.21. (k) Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is applied to filthy garments, Zach. 3.3. (l) And Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so it may be taken, Jam. 2.2. (m) A poor man in vile raiment. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hence we learn, that sin is a filthy thing, sin is called filthiness, Prov. 30.12. (n) There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. and therefore when God calls us from sin, he bids us wash ourselves, Isai. 1.16. (o) Wash ye make you clean. 2 Cor. 7.1. (p) Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. and we read of this as that they are ashamed of their sins, and loathe themselves for them, and abhor themselves because of sin, and cast them away as a polluted and menstruous cloth, all these expositions denote the filthiness of sin. And superfluity of naughtiness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often taken in the Scripture for malice, 1 Cor. 5.8. (q) Therefore let us keep the truth, not with old leaven, not with leaven of malice, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. but because it hath here no article, and because it often signifies all manner of sin, I'll give it rope without any limitation. The Apostle then by superfluity of naughtiness, means the redundancy and overflowing of sin amongst those professors. There is a Chaos of sin in all of us, but it was very spreading and luxuriant in these professors, and no marvel, for they loved money, which is the root of all evil. Laying apart, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or laying down, Acts 7.58. (r) The witnesses laid down their clothes. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it signifies the rejection, Casting off, or Putting away of sin, put ye off all these things, saith Paul, and again, put off the old man, and so Peter, 1 Pet. 2.1. (s) Wherefore laying aside all malice, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . Receive with meekness, receive, that is, hear it, entertain it, give it entrance and admission. With meekness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it is the moderation or rebatement of sinful Anger, for then when the Apostle saith Receive the word with meekness, his meaning is, do not shut out the word by a peevish, froward, stormy, and Angry spirit, but take it in with calmness, mildness and submission. The engrafted word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; though it be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word used for engrafting, Rom. 11. yet since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies graftings and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to graft, the translation is warrantable; but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may respect the planting or the sowing of the word, and may be read the word planted, or the word sown, that is, sown in your hearts by the hand of Christ's Ministers, see Mark 4.15. (t) But when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. . Which is able to save your souls, that is, from hell and damnation, there is this power in the word, but it is mutuatitious, and borrowed, it is the power of God to salvation, Rom. 1.16. (u) I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation. the word of itself saves not, but God by the word, 1 Cor. 1.21. (x) It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. . The words thus opened, the Case I am to speak to is this. How we may hear the Word so as to profit by it. For the resolution of this question, I shall first tell you what we mean by the word. Secondly, what by profiting. And thirdly, how we shall profit by the hearing of it. 1. By the Word I understand the Word of God, which Word of God may be considered either as it is written in the Scripture, or as it is preached, that is, expounded and applied by the Ministers of Christ. The question is concerning the word preached, How we may hear it so as to profit by it. Ministers are to preach the word, 2 Tim. 4.2. (y) Preach the word. preach the word, what is that? that is, open and unfold the Scripture with a suitable application of them to the estate and the condition of the hearers, Reprove from them, Rebuke from them, Exhort from them. This was Christ's preaching, Luk. 4.17. (z) He found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, etc. and then be expounds it v. 21. This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. Luk. 24.27. this was Peter Preaching, Act. 2.2. (a) And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, be expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself. in this Sermon he chief insists upon two Scriptures and expounds them both, and then applies all to their Consciences, v. 36. (b) Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. and this was Paul's Preaching, Act. 28.23. (c) There came many to his Lodging, to whom be expounded, and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening. and for the Levites before Christ who taught the People the good knowledge of the Law, they Preached after this manner, Nehem. 8.7, 8. (d) So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. and that was the manner in the Synagogues after Christ, Act. 13.15. (e) And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them, saying, ye men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Moses was not only read but preached, Act. 15.21. (f) Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him. and Paul prescribes the way of Preaching to Timothy, 1 Tim. 4.13. (g) Give attendance to Reading, to Exhortation to Doctrine. I understand it of public reading the Scriptures in the Church with the application of them by way of Doctrine and Exhortation, well then, by [the word] we understand the word Preached, which is the opening and unfolding the Scriptures, by the Ministers of Christ. 2. What is meant by profiting, or what is it to profit by the word. I answer, we profit by the word, when we get that good and spiritual Advantage from it, for which it was appointed and designed by God. Now God hath appointed his word, I. For Learning and Instruction, 1 Cor. 14.31. (h) For you may all Prophesy one by one, that all may learn, ●nd all may be comforted. the Colossians learned by the Ministry of the word, (i) As you also learned of Epaphras. Col. 1. 7. and the Philippians learned by Paul, Phil. 4.9. (k) Those things which you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do. the things that are to be heard by the Ministry are matters of Faith, and matters of Practice, and if by hearing the Word, we g●t a good understanding in things that are to be believed by us, and the things that are to be done by us, than we profit by it; But if we remain ignorant as to these things after mercy received, than we hear the Word without profit. II. For Conversion, God hath appointed his Word, Act. 26.18. (l) To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light. and the Angel speaking of John Baptists ministry, saith Luke 1.16. (m) And many of the Children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. now the Word turns man unto God. 1. As it discovers sin. If the Scripture be dextrously handled, they will search into the very secrets of men's hearts, 1 Cor. 14.24, 25. (n) And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest. the Baptists preaching discovered to the Jews their carnal security in trusting to Abram, Mat. 3.9. (o) And thi●k not to say within your s●lves, we have Abraham to our Father. their want of charity, their covetous and humorous disposition, Luk. 3.11. (p) He that hath two Coats, Let him impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat let him do likewise. it discovered the Publicans exactings, v. 13. (q) And he saith to them, exact no more than that which is appointed you. and the soldier's violence, v. 14. (r) And he said unto them, do violence to no man. . 2. As it brings people to the confession of sins, the Baptists Preaching brought his hearers to confess their sins, Math. 3.6. and so did Paul's, Act. 19.18. (t) And many that believed came and confessed and shown their deeds. . 3. As it works a kindly mourning and sorrow for sin. Upon Peter's sermon the Jews were pricked at the heart, (s) And they were baptised of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. Act. 2.37. the people wept when they heard the word of the Lord. Nehem. 8.9. After the children of Israel had heard these words, they wept for the perverseness of their nature, Jer. 3.21. the word which they heard was, v. 20. surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her Husband, so have you dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord. 4. As it works amendment and reformation, the Word turns people from their sins, 1 Thess. 1.9. (u) They themselves show of us what manner of entrance in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from Idols, to serve the living and the true God. and makes them fruitful toward God, Col. 1.5, 6. (w) Which is come unto you as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit. now then if the Word converts you to God, if it discovers your sins, if it causes you to confess them, to mourn for them, and to leave them, than you profit by the word. But if under Hearing you do not see the sins that reign in you, as pride covetousness, passion, if you do not confess them hearty before God, if you do not mourn kindly for them, nor leave them, you hear without profit. III. God hath appointed his Word for the building up of those that are called, converted and sanctified, Act. 20.32. (x) I commend you to God and the word of his Grace, which is able to build you up. Apollo's by his Preaching helped them that had believed through grace, Act. 18.17. (y) And he went over all the Country of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening the Disciples. the Word doth not only serve for the implantation of grace, but it excites, strengthens and draws out the graces of Petitioners, Paul's Preaching strengthened the Disciples, Act. 18.23. God's Word is compared to meat, Luke 12.42. (z) Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his Household, to give them their portion of meat in due season. and meat strengthens and nourishes the body, and so the Word of God, 1 Tim. 4.6. Well then, if by the hearing of the Word, you are built up, and grown by it, (a) Thou shalt be a Good Minister, nourished up in the words of Faith and good Doctrine. if your Faith grow exceedingly, if your Love abound, if you bring forth much fruit; than you profit by it, but if your sins grow not weaker, and your graces stronger, than you hear it without profit. 4. And lastly to name no more, the Word was appointed for Consolation, 1 Cor. 14.31. (b) You may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all be comforted. the Samaritans rejoiced at Philip's Preaching, Act. 8, 5.8. (c) Then Philip went down to the City of Samaria, and preached Christ to them, and there was great joy in that City. and so did the Eunuch, v. 29. and so did the Jailor at Paul's preaching, Act. 16.34. (d) And they spoke unto him the word of the Lord, and he rejoiced believing in God, with all his house. now the Word comforts as it opens Gods Attributes, such as his Mercy, Wisdom, Faithfulness and Power; Secondly, As it discovers Christ, the Promises, and Privileges of the Saints; Thirdly, As it discovers and reveals the marks and Characters of God's Children; Fourthly, As it answers the doubts and fears of Saints, well then, if in hearing the Word you find that it supports, strengtheners, and revives your hearts like a Cordial, than you profit by it. But if you find nothing sweet, nor refreshing in it, you hear it without profit. I come now to the third thing, how we shall profit by hearing of the Word, that is, how shall we attain the benefit from the Word of God for which it was appointed. It was appointed for instruction, conversion, edification, consolation. How may we hear it so that we may obtain these things by it? I shall give you four directions, and conclude. 1. First, Hear it attentively, Christ in the beginning of his Sermons, calls upon his auditors to hearken, Mark 4.3. (e) And he said unto them in his doctrine hearken. and so doth Paul, Acts 13.16. (f) Men of Israel and ye that fear God, give audience. and Rev. 2.7. (g) He that h●th an ear, let him hear what the spirit saith to the Churches. and you read Luke 19.48. all the people were very attentive to hear him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they hung upon him hearing, that is, they hung their ears upon his mouth, that they might receive every word and miss nothing: This phrase is common in Greek Authors, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and in the Latin, warrantis conjux pendet ab ore viri, and Augustine speaking of his hearing Ambrose, saith, verbi ejus sus●endebar intentus, and one promising to hear attentively, saith, incipe suspensis auribus, ista bibam, now this attentive hearing is a diligent heeding of the things that are spoken by the Ministers of Christ, so as not to let any thing pass without notice and observation, this was the attention of the Samaritans to Philip's preaching, Acts 8.6. (h) And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spoke and the attention of Lydia to Paul's preaching, Acts 16.14. (i) Whose heart the Lord opened, that the attended to the things spoken of Paul that were spoken by Paul, that is to all of them, what saith Cornelius, Act. 10.33. (k) Now therefore are we all here present before God, etc. so that our attention must be catholic, and universal, we must listen to all that is spoken to us in the name of Christ the Lord, but yet in preaching, some things are more especially to be attended to. 1. If any Scripture be clearly opened, attend to that. 2. If any doubt of Conscience be fully resolved, attend to that. 3. If any sin of yours be particularly discovered, attend to that. Lastly, if any thing be spoken by the Minister with a more than ordinary warmth and fervency, attend to that, there is some divine signature with it, and it calls for our special observation, that's the first; we are to hear the word attentively. I'll only mention two hindrances of attention, and proceed. 1. Wand'ring thoughts, thoughts that are foreign and Heterogeneous to the duty in hand, these thoughts employ the mind and hinder the hearing of the word. Now these thoughts are various according to the employments, inclinations and circumstances of men; wanton people have filthy thoughts; finical people are thinking of their attires and ornaments, worldly people of their Trades and Callings. 2. Drowsiness and sleepiness, when the head nods and the eyes begin to swim, the Sermon is like to be heard well, but yet this is too common a practice, and that amongst Professors, whereby they vilify the ordinance of Preaching, they give an ill example to others, and render their uprightness and integrity suspected by sober Christians, and I wish that those Professors who use it customarily and indulge themselves in it, would put off their livery and tell us plainly they are none of the Lords family. 2. Direction, Hear and receive the word with meekness, this is the direction of the text, wherefore lay aside all filthiness, and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, etc. we must not be angry at the word, if so it will do us no good, people are very apt to be angry at the word, see Luke 4.28. (l) And all they in the Synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. Matth. 15.12. (m) Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Acts 5.33. (n) When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them. Jerem. 26.8, 9 (o) Now it came to pass when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him, he sp●ke unto all the people, that the Priests and the Prophets and all the people took him, saying thou shalt surely die. 2 Chron. 25.15, 16. (p) Wherefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Azariah, and he sent unto him a Prophet, which said unto him, why hast thou sought after the Gods of the people which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? And the King said unto him, art thou made of the King's Council? forbear, why shouldest thou be smitten. 2 Chron. 16.8, 9, 10. (q) Then Asa was wroth with the Seer, and put him in a prison house, for he was in a rage with him, because of this thing. this is a notable instance. 1. Because this anger is great, a rage, and such a rage as put the Prophet in prison. 2. It is expressly said that this rage was against the word, ver. 10.3. This rage was found in a good and holy man, whose heart was perfect with the Lord his God, now from this instance we may learn what part of the word it is that men are most angry at. 1. The word which discovers their sins, and charges them home upon their Consciences, as the Seer charged Asa home: thou hast relied on the King of Syria, and not on the Lord thy God, and this vexed him. 2. That word that reproaches them for their sins, ver. 9 herein thou hast done foolishly. Men cannot endure to have their actions charged with folly. 3. That word that threatens them for their sins, ver. 9 henceforth thou shalt have wars: people cannot bear it to be threatened, this was the great quarrel that the Jews had with Jeremiah, he came so often with a burden of the Lord and threatened them, see Jer. 26.9. (r) Why hast thou prohesied in the name of the Lord, saying, this house shall be like Shiloh, and this City shall be desolate without an inhabitant. when Christ threatened the Scribes and Pharisees, they could bear no longer, Math. 12.12. (s) And they sought to lay hold on him, for they knew that he had spoken that parable against them. Thus you see people are apt to be angry at the hearing of the Word, but what kind of people are most apt to be angry. First, They that are great in the world, Luke 19.47. (t) And he taught daily in the Temple, but the chief of the people sought to destroy him. It was Jeh●jakim the King that cut Jeremiahs' roll in pieces, and it was Herod that thrust John into prison for reproving him. Secondly, proud men, Jerem. 43.12. (u) When Jeremi●h had made an end of speaking, etc. Then spoke all the proud men saying unto Jeremiah, th●u spe●kest falsely. proud men cannot endure a check either by the public ministry, or by a private admonition. Thirdly, Guilty persons, why was Cain so touchy when God asked him about Abel? because he was guilty of his blood. Guilty persons are like galled horses, they kick if you touch their sores, nothing hinders us from receiving the word with meekness, like the Conscience of sin; wherefore when the Apostle bids us receive the word with meekness, he bids us lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, if the heart be surfeited with sin, it will rise and boak against the Word, when Christ preached against Covetousness, the Pharisees that were Covetous, were vexed at him, and expressed their vexation by sneering at him, Luke 16.13, 14. (w) And the Pharisees which were covetous heard all these things, and they derided him. 3. Direct. Hear the Word with a good and honest heart, Luke 8.15. (x) But that on the good ground, are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it. this is a comprehensive head, and takes in all particulars that concern the right manner of hearing, but I shall contract it and reduce it, 1. to an understanding heart. 2. A believing heart. 3. A loving heart. 1. Then hear the Word with an understanding heart. The way-side hearers hear but do not understand, Mat. 13.19. (y) When any one heareth the word and understandeth it not: this is he that receiveth the seed by the ways side. but they that receive it into good ground, that is, into an honest heart, understand it, v. 23. (z) But he that received seed into the good ground: is he that heareth the word and understandeth it. Jesus Christ calls upon his auditors to hear and understand, Mar. 7.14. (a) Harken unto me every one of you, and understand. and blames them that do not understand, v. 18. (b) And he saith unto them, are ye so without understanding also? and it was his manner after preaching to ask if they understood him, Math. 13.51. (c) Jesus saith unto them; have ye understood all these things? the generality of hearers are without understanding; they neither understand doctrinal nor experimental truths, not the one for lack of knowledge, nor the other for lack of feeling; and hence it is that they remember so little of the Word, and that they are so little affected with the Word. 2. With a believing heart, Mar. 1.15. (d) Believe the Gospel. 2 Chron. 20.20. (e) Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established, believe his Prophets, so shall ye prosper. Two things especially we are to mingle our faith with; the threaten and the promises. With the threaten, so the people of Nineveh, Jonah 3.5. (f) So the people of Nineveh believed God. With the promises, Exod. 4.31. (g) And the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel: they bowed their heads and worshipped. Were the threaten and promises which are constantly preached, fully understood, throughly believed, and brought home to your Consciences by spiritual application, this would quickly put an end to sin, for the threaten would scare you from sin, & the promises would allure you to duty. 3. With a loving heart, 1 Pet. 2.2. (h) As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word. as new born babes love the breast. David was a great lover of the Word of God, Psal. 119.140. (i) Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. He loved it exceedingly, 167 (k) My soul hath kept thy testimonies▪ and I love them exceedingly. his longing after the word was so vehement that it almost consumed him, v. 20. he loved it far better than gold, 127. but how far he loved it he could not tell, 97. and therefore leaves it with God to judge his love to it. 159. (l) Consider how I love thy Precepts. Brethren, had there been such a love in the people of England to the word, the mouths of so many Minister's had never been stopped: and whereas we judge that such and such are the causes of it▪ pray let us remember that no man living can take the word from us, unless they be first empowered by our disaffection to it. 4. And last Direct. If you would profit by hearing of the word, keep what you hear of it, Luke 8.15. Having heard the word keep it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is to hold fast the word that it slip not from us, 1 Thess. 5.21. Luke 4.42. 1 Cor. 15.2. you know if the seed be not kept in the ground, it is sown to no purpose, so if the Word be not kept in the memory, and in the heart, it will come to nothing, keep therefore the Word in your hearts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hold it fast lest the Devil snatch it from you; for look as the fowls of the air follow the seedsman to pick up the corn as soon as he hath scattered it, so the prince of the air, the devil, is at hand to take the Word out of our hearts, Mar. 4.15. (n) But when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. Immediately as soon as we have heard the Word, the Devil is at hand to take the Word out of our hearts. He taketh the Word out of our hearts; in Matthew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he snatcheth it, and if you would know why the Devil is so hasty to snatch away the Word; Christ tells you, Luk. 8.12. (o) Then cometh the Devil and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But how shall we keep the Word? 1. Repeat it in your families, the Bereans conned over Paul's Sermons, and examined his proofs and allegations, Act. 17.11. (p) They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scripttures daily, whether those things were so. . 2. Talk of it as you go from hearing, Jesus Christ's hearers talked of the Word by the way, Luke 24.32. (q) Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures. after Paul had preached, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning amongst themselves, Act. 28.29. (r) And when he had said these words the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves. . 3. Pray to the Lord, that he would preserve the Word in your hearts by his spirit, the Devil would snatch away the Word of God from us if there were not a stronger to guard it, and that is the Holy Ghost, 2 Tim. 1.14. (s) That good thing which was committed to thee keep, by the holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. pray then after the Word as David, 1 Chron. 29.18. (t) The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel our fathers, keep these for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the hearts of thy people. and such a prayer coming from an honest heart shall secure the word, so that it shall abide with you, and it shall come after to your minds; it shall come seasonably in the very nick and stress of exigency, and it shall come with efficacy and power. Thus much shall serve for the resolution of the question, how to hear the word so as to profit by it: only this I add and conclude, that if God sh●ll bless these directions, and give us thus to hear his word, it will be an excellent sign that God will continue the preaching of it to us, and that his Ministers shall teach these things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding them. How we may Read the Scriptures with most Spiritual Profit. Serm. VIII. Deuteronomy 17.19. And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the Words of this Law, and these Statutes, to do them. WHat Cicero said of Aristotle's Politics, may not unfitly be said of this Book of Deuteronomy, it is full of golden eloquence. In this Chapter God instructs the People of the Jews about setting a King over them. And there are two things specified in order to their King. His 1. Election. 2. Religion. 1. His Election, v. 15. Thou shalt in any wise set him over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. Good reason God should have the choice of their King, seeing by him Kings reign, Prov. 8.15. 2. His Religion, v. 18. When he sitteth upon the Throne of his Kingdom, he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book, out of that which is before the Priests * Levitici Sacerdotes in atrio templi volumen legis quod erat primariae authoritatis custodiebant. P. Fagius. . Here was a good beginning of a King's reign; the first thing he did after he sat upon the Throne, was to Copy out the Word of God in a Book. And in the Text: It shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the Words of this Law, and these Statutes, to do them. It shall be with him] The Book of the Law shall be his Vade mecum, or daily Companion. Charles the Great used to set his Crown upon the Bible. Indeed THE BIBLE is the best Supporter of the Crown. And he shall read * Legere debuit, & sibi privatim, & in templo ut sciret populus neminem à lege excipi. Grotius. therein] It is not below the Majesty of a Prince to peruse the Oracles of Heaven; in them are comprised sacred Apothegms. Prov. 8.6. I will speak of excellent things. In the Septuagint, it is (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Grave things; in the Hebrew, Princely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (b) things: such as are fit for a God to speak, and a King to read. Nor must the King only read the Book of the Law at his first instalment into his Kingdom, but he shall read in it all the days of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life.] He must not leave off reading till he lest off reigning. And the reasons why he must be conversant in the Law of God, are in the subsequent words: 1. That he may learn to fear the Lord his God. Reading of the Word is the best means to usher in the fear of the Lord. 2. That he may keep all the words of this Law to do them. 3. That he may prolong his days in his Kingdom. I shall now confine myself to these words; He shall read in it (i. e. the Book of the Law) all the days of his life. The holy Scripture is (as Austin saith) a (d) Queen d est sacra Scriptu●a, nisi quaed●m epis●ola Omni potentis Dei ad creaturam, i● qua verba Dei s●nant, & cor Dei discitur. Aug. in Psal. Golden Epistle sent to us from God. This is to be read diligently; ignorance of Scripture is the mother of error, not devotion. Matth. 22.29. ye err, not knowing the Scriptures. We are commanded to search the Scriptures, John 5.39. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to search as for a Vein of Silver. How diligently doth a Child read over his Father's Will and Testament! and a Citizen peruse his Charter! with the like (e) Quaerit Scriptura lect●rem vigilantem, desidi●sum resivit. Rivet Isag. ●d scripture. c. 13. diligence should we read God's Word, which is our Magna Charta for Heaven: 'Tis a mercy the Bible is not prohibited. Trajan the Emperor forbade the Jews to read in the Book of the Law. Let us inquire at this sacred Oracle. Apollo's was mighty in the Scriptures, Acts 18.24. Melancthon (f) Melch. Adam. in vita Melancth. when he was young, sucked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the sincere Milk of the Word. Alphonsus' King of Arragon read over the Bible fourteen times. That Roman Lady Cecilia, had by much reading of the Word, made her Breast Bibliothecam Christi; the Library of Christ, as (g) Si Alexander Homerum ita amplexus est, & Scipio Afric. Zenophontis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vix è manibus d posuit, quid nes in sicro codic● agere oportet? Quistorp. vide Chytraei praelect in Jos. & Mornaeum. Hierom speaks. Were the Scriptures only in their Original Tongue, many would plead excuse for not reading; but when this sword of the spirit is unsheathed, and the Word is made plain to us by being translated, what should hinder us from a diligent search into these holy Mysteries? Adam was forbid upon pain of death to taste of the Tree of Knowledge, Gen. 3.17. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt s●rely die. But there is no danger of touching this Tree of holy Scriptures; if we do not eat of this Tree of Knowledge, we shall surely die. What will become of them who are strangers to Scripture? Hosea 8.12. I have written to him the great things of my Law, but they were counted as a strange thing. Many lay aside Scripture as rusty Armour, Jer. 8.9. they are better read in Romances than in St. Paul, they spend many hours inter pectinem & speculum, between the Comb and the Glass, but their eyes begin to be sore when they look upon a Bible. The very Turks will rise up in judgement against these Christians; they reverence the Books of Moses; and if they find but a leaf wherein any thing of the Pentateuch is written, they take it up and kiss it. They who slight the Word written, slight God himself whose stamp it bears. To slight the King's Edict, is an affront offered to the Person of the King. Scripture-vilifiers (h) Dei eloquia rejicientes, multis se exi●ialibus l●qu is involvunt. Calvin. are in a damnable state. Prov. 13.13. Whoso despiseth the Word, shall be destroyed. Nor is it enough to read the Word of God, but it should be our care to get some spiritual emolument and profit by it, that our Souls may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nourished up in the words of faith, 1 Tim. 4.6. Why else was the Scripture written, but that it might profit us? God did not give us his Word only as a Landscape to look upon, but he delivered it to us as a Father delivers a stock of Money to his Son, to improve. 'Tis sad not to profit by the Word; Quest. to be like a body in an atrophy that doth not thrive: Men would be loath to trade and get no profit. The grand Question I am to speak to, is this, How we may read the Scriptures with most spiritual profit? Resp. 'Tis a momentous Question, and of daily use. R. For the resolution of this Question, I shall lay down several Rules or Directions about reading of Scripture. 1. If you would profit by reading, remove those things which will hinder Direct. 1 your profiting. That the Body may thrive, obstructions must be removed. There are three obstructions must be removed if you would profit by Scripture. 1. Remove the love of every (i) Pla●imi peccata radunt non eradic●nt. Bern. Sin. Let a Physician prescribe never so good Receipts, if the Patient takes Poison, it will hinder the virtue and operation of the Physic. The Scripture prescribes excellent Receipts, but sin lived in Poisons all. The Body cannot thrive in a Fever; nor can the Soul under the feverish heat of Lust. Plato calls the love of Sin Magnus' Daemon, a Great Devil. As the Rose is destroyed by the Canker which breeds in it, so are the Souls of men by those Sins they live in. 2. Take heed of the Thorns which will choke the Word read: These Thorns our Saviour expounds to be the Cares of this World, Matth. 13.22. By Cares is meant (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Covetousness. A Covetous man is a Pluralist; he hath such diversity of secular employments, that he can scarce find time to read; or if he doth, what solecisms doth he commit in reading? while his eye is upon the Bible, his heart is upon the World; it is not the Writings of the Apostles he is so much taken with, as the Writings in his Account-Book; is this man like to profit? you may as soon extract Oils and Syrups out of a Flint, as he any real benefit out of Scripture. 3. Take heed of Jesting with Scripture; this is playing with fire. Some cannot be merry unless they make bold with God; when they are sad they bring forth the Scripture as their Harp to drive away the evil (l) Procul hinc, procul esse profani. Ovid. Spirit: As that Drunkard, who having drunk off his Cups, called to his Fellows, Give us of your Oil, for our Lamps are gone out. In the fear of God beware of this. (m) Quos Deus vult perdere iis permittit ludere cum sacris Scriptures. Luth. King Edward the Fourth would not endure to have his Crown jested with, but caused him to be executed, who said, He would make his Son Heir to the Crown; (n) Speeds Chron. meaning, the sign of the Crown: Much less will God endure to have his WORD jested with. Eusebius relates of one who took a piece of Scripture to jest with, God struck him with frenzy. The Lord may justly give over such persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to a reprobate (o) Rom. 1.28. mind. 2. If you would profit, prepare your hearts to the reading of the Word; the heart is an instrument needs putting in tune. 1 Sam. 7.3. Prepare your Direct. 2 hearts to the Lord. The Heathens (as (p) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Plut. Plutarch notes) thought it indecent to be too hasty or rash in the service of their supposed Deities. This preparation to reading consists in two things: 1. In summoning our Thoughts together to attend that solemn Work we are going about; the Thoughts are stragglers, therefore rally them together. 2. In purging out those unclean affections which do indispose us to reading. The Serpent before he drinks casts up his Poison; in this we should be wise as Serpents; before we come to these Waters of Life, cast away the Poison of Impure Affections. Many come rashly to the reading of the Word, and no wonder, if they come without preparation, they go away without profit. 3. Read the Scripture with reverence; think every line you read God Direct. 3 is speaking to you. The Ark, wherein the Law was put, was overlaid with pure Gold, and was carried on Bars, that the Levites might not touch it, Exod. 25. Why was this, but to breed in the people reverence to the Law? When Ehud told Eglon he had a message to him from God, he arose from his Throne, Judg. 3.20. The Word written is a message to us from JEHOVAH; with what veneration should we receive it? Direct. 4 Read the Books of Scripture in order. Though occurrences may sometimes divert our method; yet for a constant course it is best to observe an order in reading. Order is an help to memory; we do not begin to read a Friends Letter in the middle. Direct. 5 Get a right understanding of Scripture. Psal. 119.73. Give me understanding, that I may learn thy Commandments. Though there are some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, knots in Scripture, which are not easily untied; yet things essential to salvation, the Holy Ghost hath plainly pointed out to us: The knowledge of the sense of Scripture is the first step to profiting. In the Law Aaron was first to light the Lamps, and then to burn the Incense; the Lamp of the understanding must be first lighted, before the Affections can be inflamed. Get what knowledge you can by comparing Scriptures, by conferring with others, by using the best Annotators. Without knowledge the Scripture is a sealed Book, every line is too high for us; and if the Word shoot above our head, it can never hit our heart. Direct. 6 Read the Word with seriousness. If one go over the Scripture cursorily, (saith Erasmus) there is little good to be got by it; but if he be serious in reading of it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is the savour of life: and well may we be serious, if we consider the importance of those Truths which are bound up in this sacred Volume. Deut. 32.47. It is not a (q) Non est verbum inane quod contemni debeat à vobis. Pagnin. vain thing for you, for it is your life. If a Letter were to be broken open and read, wherein a man's whole Estate were concerned, how serious would he be in reading of it? In the Scripture our Salvation is concerned; it treats of the Love of (r) Tit. 3.4. Christ, a serious subject. Christ hath loved Mankind more than the Angels that fell, Heb. 2.6. The Loadstone, despising the Gold and Pearl, draws the Iron to it; thus Christ passed by the Angels, who were of a more noble extract, and drew Mankind to him. Christ loved us more than his own Life; nay, though we had a hand in his Death, yet that he should not leave us out of his Will, this is a Love (s) Eph. 3.9. passeth knowledge; who can read this without seriousness? The Scripture speaks of the Mystery of Faith, the Eternal Recompenses, the Paucity of them that shall be Saved. Matth. 20.16. Few Chosen. One saith, (t) Flavius. V●piscus. The Names of all the good Emperors of Rome might be engraven in a little Ring: There are but few Names in the Book of Life. The Scripture speaks of (u) Tanquam pro vita & morte luctitandum. Corn. á ●ap. striving for Heaven as in an Agony, Luke 13.24. it cautions us of falling short of the promised Rest, Heb. 4.1. it describes the horror of the Infernal (x) Sic morientur damnati ut semper vivant, & sic vivent ut semper moriantur. Bern. Torments; the Worm and the Fire, Mark 9.44. Who can read this, and not be serious? Some have light feathery Spirits, they run over the most weighty Truths in haste; (like Israel, who eat the Passeover in haste) and they are not benefited by the Word. Read with a solemn composed spirit. Seriousness is the Christian's ballast, which keeps him from being overturned with vanity. Labour to remember what you read. Satan would (y) Mat. 13.4. steal the Word out Direct. 7 of our mind; not that he intends to make use of it himself, but lest we should make use of it. The memory should be like the Chest in the Ark, where the Law was put. Psalm 119.52. I have remembered thy judgements of old. (z) Memoria est intui scriba. Hierom writes of that Religious Lady Paula, she had got most of the Scriptures by heart; we are bid to have the word dwell in us; (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, i. e. h●ud memorià excidat. Col. 3.16. The Word is a Jewel, adorns the hidden man, and shall we not remember it? Can a Maid forget her Ornaments? Jer. 2.32. such as have a disease they call Lienteria, the Meat comes up as fast as they eat it, and stays not in the Stomach, are not nourished by it; If the Word stays not in the memory, it cannot profit; some can better remember a piece of News than a line of Scripture; their memories are like those ponds, where the Frogs live, but the Fish die. Meditate upon what you read, Psal. 119.15. I will meditate in thy Precepts. Direct. 8 The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. word to Meditate, signifies to be intense in the mind; in Meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object, Luke 2.19. The Virgin Mary pondered those things, etc. Meditation is the Concoction of Scripture; Reading brings a Truth into our head, Meditation brings it into our heart; Reading and Meditation must, like Castor and Pollux, appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading without Meditation is barren: the Bee sucks the flower, then works it in the Hive, and so turns it to Honey: by Reading we suck the flower of the Word, by Meditation we work it in the Hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affections, Psal. 39.3. While I was musing the fire burned: The Reason we come away so cold from Reading the Word, is, because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of Meditation. Come to the reading of Scripture with humble hearts, acknowledge how Direct. 9 unworthy you are that God should reveal himself in his Word to you. God's secrets are with the humble: Pride is an Enemy to profiting. It is observed the ground on which the Peacock sits is barren; that heart where Pride sits is barren: an arrogant Person disdains the Counsels of the Word, and hates the reproofs, is he like to profit? Jam. 4.6. God giveth grace to the humble. The eminentest Saints have been but of low stature in their own eyes; like the Sun in the Zenith, they shown least when they were at the highest. David had more understanding than all bis Teachers. Psal. 119.99. but how humble was he? Psal. 22.6. I am a worm and no (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Greg. Nazianz. man. David in the Arabic Tongue signifies a worm. Give Credence to the Word written; believe it to be of God; see Direct. 10 the Name of God in every line. The Romans, that they might gain Credit to their Laws, reported that they were inspired by the Gods at Rome. Believe the Scripture to be Coelo missa, divinely inspired. 2 Tim. 3.16. All Scripture is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of Divine inspiration. Who but God could reveal the great Doctrines of the Trinity, the Hypostatical Union, the Resurrection? Whence should the Scripture come, if not from God? 1. Sinners could not be the Authors of Scripture; would they indite such holy lines? or inveigh so fiercely against those sins which they love? 2. Saints could not be the Authors of Scripture; how could it stand with their Sanctity to counterfeit God's Name, and put Thus saith the Lord to a Book of their own devising? 3. Angel's could not be the Authors of Scripture. What Angel in Heaven durst personate God, and say, I am the Lord? Believe the Pedigree of Scripture to be Sacred, and to come from the (d) Jam. 1.17. father of lights. The Scriptures Antiquity speaks its Divinity. No humane Histories extant reach further than Noah's Flood, but the Scripture writes of things (e) Id verum, quod primum. Tertul. before time. Besides, the Majesty, Profundity, Purity, Harmony of Scripture, show it could be breathed from none but God himself. Add to this the (f) Cum animum tangit, est sicut fulmen. Luth. Efficacy the Word written hath had upon men's Consciences; by reading Scripture they have been turned into other men, as might be instanced in St. Austin, Junius, and others. If you should set a Seal upon a piece of Marble, and it should leave a Print behind, you would say there were a strange virtue in that Seal; so, that the Word written should leave a Heavenly Print of Grace upon the heart, it argues it to be of Direct. 11 Divine Authority: If you would profit by the Word, believe it to be of God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some Sceptics question the Verity of Scripture; though they have the Articles of Religion in their Creed, yet not in their belief, Isa. 53.1. Who hath believed our Report? Unbelief enervates the Virtue of the Word, and makes it abortive; who will (g) Vbi male creditur, ibi nec bene vivitur. Hierom. obey those truths he doth not believe? Heb. 4.1. The Word did not profit them, not being mixed with Faith. 11. Highly prise the Scriptures, Psal. 119.72. The Law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of Gold and Silver. Can he make a proficiency in any Art, who doth slight and depreciate it? Prise this Book of God above all other Books. Saint Gregory calls the Bible the Heart and Soul of God. The Rabbins say, that there is a Mountain of sense hangs upon every Apex and tittle of Scripture. Psal. 19.7. The Law of the Lord is perfect. (h) In illa continentur omnia quae ad perfectam pietatem pertinent. Musculus. Camero. The Scripture is the Library of the Holy Ghost; it is a Pandect of Divine knowledge; an exact model and Platform of Religion. (i) Adoro plenitudinem Scripturae. Tertul. The Scripture contains in it the Credenda, the things which we are to believe, and the Agenda, the things which we are to practice, it is able to make us wise to Salvation. 2 Tim. 3.15. The Scripture is the (k) Regula & mensura veritatis. Rivet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Irenaeus. Isa. 8.20. Standard of Truth, the Judge of Controversies; it is the (l) Animarum Cynosura. Quistorp. Polestar to direct us to Heaven. Prov. 6.23. The Commandment is a (m) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Alex. Lamp. The Scripture is the Compass by which the Rudder of our Will is to be steered; it is the Field in which Christ the Pearl of price is hid; it is a Rock of Diamonds; it is a sacred Collyrium, or Eyesalve; it mends their eyes that look upon it; it is a spiritual Opti●k-glass in which the glory of God is Resplendent; it is the Panary or (n) Vitae pharmacum. Quistorpius. universal Medicine for the Soul. The leaves of Scripture are like the leaves of the Tree of life, for healing of the Nations. Rev. 22.2. The Scripture is both the Breeder and (o) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Athanas. Feeder of Grace; how is the Convert born, but by the Word of Truth? Jam. 1.18. how doth he grow, but by the sincere Milk of the Word? 1 Pet. 2.2. The Word written is the Book out of which our Evidences for Heaven are fetched; it is the which shows us the Rocks of Sin to avoid; it is the Antidote against Error and Apostasy; the two-edged Sword which wounds the old Serpent. It is our Bulwark to withstand the force of Lust: like the Capitol of Rome which was a place of strength and ammunition. The Scripture is the (p) Cant. 4.4. Tower of David, whereon the Shields of our Faith hang. Take away the Word and you deprive us of the Sun, said (q) Si verbum Dei auferas Solem è Mundo sustulisti. Luth. Luther. The Word written is above an Angelical Embassy, or voice from Heaven. 2 Pet. 1.18. This voice which came from Heaven we heard, we have also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a more sure Word. O prise the Word written, prising is the way to profiting. If Caesar so valued his Commentaries, that for preserving them he lost his Purple Robe, how should we estimate the Sacred Oracles of God? Job 23.12. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. King Edward the Sixth on the day of his Coronation, had presented before him three Swords, signifying that he was Monarch of three Kingdoms, the King said there was one Sword wanting, being asked what Direct. 12 that was, answered, The Holy Bible, which is the Sword of the Spirit, and is to be preferred before these Ensigns of Royalty. Robert King of Sicily did so prize God's Word, that speaking to his Friend Petrarcha, he said, I protest the Scriptures are dearer to me than my Kingdom; (r) Juro tibi, Petrarcha, multo mihi chariores esse sacras Scripturas, quàm regnum, etc. Corn. à Lap. and if I must be deprived of one of them, I had rather lose my Diadem than the Scriptures. 12. Get an ardent love to the Word; Prising relates to the judgement; Love to the affections. Psal. 119.159. Consider how I love thy (s) Rom. 7. 22● precepts. He is likely to grow rich who delights in his Trade; he who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; a Lover of Learning will be a Scholar. St. Austin tells us, before his Conversion he took no pleasure in the Scriptures, but afterwards they were his chaste (t) Sint castae delitiae m●ae scripturae. Aug. delights. David tasted the Word sweeter than the Honey which drops from the Comb, (u) Quod sp●nte ex favo stillat, mellis medulla vocatur; plus autem melleae dulcedinis ab uberibus Scripturae sugitur. Psal. 19.10. Thomas a Kempis used to say, He found no content but to be in angulo cum libello, in a Corner with the Book of God in his hand. Did Alphonsus' King of Sicily recover of a fit of Sickness with that great pleasure he took in reading of Quintus Curtius? What infinite pleasure should we take in reading the Book of Life? There is enough in the Word to breed holy complacency and delight; it is a specimen and demonstration of God's Love to us. The Spirit is God's Love-Token, the Word his Love-Letter; How doth one delight to read over his Friend's Letter? The Word written is a Divine Treasury, or (x) Pietatis gaz●● hylacium. Quistorp. Storehouse; in it are scattered Truths as Pearls, to adorn the hidden man of the heart. The Word written is the true Manna which hath all sorts of sweet taste in (z) Manna cujuslibet Saporis. it; it is a sovereign Elixir, it gives wine to them of an heavy heart. I have read of an ancient Rabbi, who in a great concourse of people made Proclamation of a sovereign Cordial he had to sell; many resorting to him, and ask him to show it, he opened the Bible, and directed them to several places of Comfort in it. Holy David drank of this Cordial, Psal. 119.50. This is my comfort in my affliction, thy Word hath quickened me, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— St. Chrysostom compares the Scripture to a (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Chrys. Hom. in Psal. 44. Garden; every line in it is a fragrant Flower, which we should wear, not in our bosom, but our heart. Delight in the Word causeth profit: and we must not only love the comforts of the Word, but the reproofs. Myrrh is bitter to the Palate, but good for the Stomach. Direct. 13 Come to the reading of the Word with honest hearts. Christ speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ the honest heart, Luke. 8.15. Quest. Question. What is it to read the Word with an honest Heart? Answ. 1. Answ. 1 To come with an Heart willing to know the whole counsel of God; a good Heart would not have any Truth concealed; but saith as Job, What I see not, teach thou (b) Job 34.32. me. When men pick and choose in Religion, they will do some things the Word enjoins them, but not others; these are unsound Hearts, and are not benefited by holy Writ. These are like a Patient, who having a bitter Pill prescribed, and a Julip, he will take the Julip, but refuseth the Pill. 2. To read the Word with an honest Heart, is to read it that we may be made better by (c) Cor integrum, i. e. quod prorsas desideret proficere. Brugensis. it. The Word is quoad se, the Medium and Organ of Sanctity; and we come to it not only to Illuminate us, but Consecrate us. John 17.17. Sanctify them through thy Truth. Some go to the Bible, as one goes to the Garden to pick Flowers, i. e. fine Notions. Austin confesseth, that before his Conversion he went to hear Ambrose more for the elegancy of Speech, and quaintness of Notion, than the spirituality of the Matter. This is like a Woman that paints her Face, but neglects her health. But this is to have an honest Heart, when we come to the Scriptures as Naaman to the Waters of Jordan, to be healed of our Leprosy. Oh! saith the Soul, That this Sword of the Spirit may pierce the Rock of my Heart; that this blessed Word may have such a virtue in it, as the water of jealousy, to kill and make (d) Num. 5.27. fruitful; that it may kill my Sin, and make me fruitful in Grace. Direct. 14 Learn to apply Scripture; take every word as spoken to yourselves. When the Word thunders against Sin, think thus, God means my Sins; when it presseth any Duty, God intends me in this. Many put off Scripture from themselves, as if it only concerned those, who lived in the time when it was written; but if you intent to profit by the Word, bring it home to yourselves; a Medicine will do no good, unless it be applied. The Saints of old took the Word, as if it had been spoken to them by Name. When King Josiah heard the threatening which was written in the Book of God, he applied it to himself; he rend his clothes, and humbled his Soul before the Lord, 2 Kings 22.13. Direct. 15 Observe the preceptive part of the Word, as well as the promissive; the Precepts carry Duty in them, like the Veins which carry the Blood; the Promises carry Comfort in them, like the Arteries which carry the Spirits. Make use as well of the Precepts to direct you, as the Promises to comfort you. Such as cast their eye upon the Promise, with a neglect of the Command, are not edified by Scripture; they look more after Comfort than Duty. They mistake their Comforts, as Apollo embraced the Laurel-tree instead of Daphne. The Body may be swelled with wind as well as flesh; a man may be filled with false comfort, as well as that which is genuine and real. Let your thoughts dwell upon the most Material passages of Scripture. The Direct. 16 Bee fastens on those Flowers where she may suck most sweetness; though the whole contexture of Scripture is excellent, yet some parts of it may have a greater Emphasis, and be more quick and pungent: Reading the names of the Tribes, or the Genealogies of the Patriarches, is not of the same importance as Faith and the new Creature. Mind the magnalia Legis, the weighty things of the Law, Hos. 8.12. They who read only to satisfy their curiosity, do rather busy than profit themselves. The searching too far into Christ's Temporal Reign, hath I fear weakened his Spiritual Reign in some men's hearts. Compare yourselves with the Word. See how the Scripture and your Direct. 17 hearts agree, how your Dial goes with this Sun. Are your hearts as it were a Transcript and counterpane of Scripture? is the Word copied out into your hearts? the Word calls for humility, are you not only humbled but humble? the Word calls for regeneration, John 3.7. Have you the signature and engraving of the Holy Ghost upon you? have you a change of heart? not only a partial and moral change, but a Spiritual? is there such a change wrought in you as if another Soul did live in the same body? 1 Cor. 6.11. Such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, (e) Similia habet Nazianz. orat. sunebri in laudem Cypriani, ubi enarrat mirabilem ejus post gratiae adventum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. The Word calls for love to the Saints, 1 Pet. 1: 22. Do you love grace where you see it? (f) I 'em est motus animi in imaginem & rem. do you love grace in a poor man as well as in a rich? a Son loves to see his Father's Picture, though hung in a mean frame: do you love grace though mixed with some failings? as we love Gold though it be in the Oar: the bringing the rule of the Word and our hearts together, to see how they agree, would prove very advantageous to us. Hereby we come to know the true complexion and state of our Souls, and see what Evidences and Certificates we have for Heaven. Take Special notice of those Scriptures which speak to your particular Case, were a consumptive person to read Galen or Hypocrates, he would chief observe Direct. 18 what they writ about a Consumption. Great regard is to be had to those Paragraphs of Scripture, which are most apposite to one's present case. I shall instance only in three cases. 1. Affliction. 2. Desertion. 3. Sin. 1 Case. First Affliction. Hath God made your chain heavy? Consult these Scriptures, Heb. 12.7. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as Sons, (g) Job 36.8. Deut. 8.15. 1 King. 11.39. Psal. 89.30. Heb. 12.10, 11. Psal. 37.39. Rom. 8.28. 1 Pet. 1.6. 2 Chron. 33.11, 12. Rev. 3.19. 2 Cor. 4.16. Job 5.17. Micah 6.9. Isa. 27.9. By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his Sin. (h) Flagellis domini lasciva caro atteritur, anima pennis virtutum ad coelestia sublevatur. Bern. Ser. 10. de Coen. d. John 16.22. Your sorrow shall be turned into joy. The French have a berry which they call uve de Spine; the grape of a thorn. God gives joy out of sorrow, here is the grape of a thorn. 2 Cor. 4.17. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory. The Limner lays his Gold upon dark colours, God first lays the dark colour of Affliction, and then the Golden colour of Glory. 2 Case. Secondly Desertion. Are your spiritual comforts eclipsed? see (i) Lam. 3.31. Psal. 106.6, 9 & 103.9. Mark 15 34. Isa 8.17, 49. ch. 15.50. ch. 10.54. 2 Cor. 7.6. Isa. 54.8. In a little wrath I hide my face from thee, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee. The Sun may hid itself in a cloud, but it is not out of the Firmament, God may hid his face, but he is not out of Covenant, Isa. 57.16. I will not be always wroth, for the Spirits should fail before me, and the Souls which I have made. God is like the Musician, he will not stretch the strings of his Lute too hard lest they break, Psal. 97.11. Light is sown for the Righteous. A Saints comfort may be hid as seed under the clods, but at last it will spring up into an harvest of Joy. 3 Case. Thirdly Sin. 1. Are you drawn away with lust? read Galat. 5.24. Jam. 1.15. 1 Pet. 2.11. Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your Souls. (k) Pravae cupiditates sunt portae inferni, per quas homines descen●unt ad inferos, Lust kills with embracing. Prov. 7.10, 22, 23. There met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, he goeth after her as an Ox goeth to the Slaughter, till a dart strike through his liver, (l) Plato in Hepate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ponit. etc. Prov. 22.14. The mouth of a strange Woman is a deep Pit, he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein. Go to the waters of the Sanctuary to quench the fire of lust. 2. Are you under the power of Unbelief? read Isa, 26.3. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, (m) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Mr. Bolton speaks of a distressed Soul who found much comfort from this Scripture on his sick bed. (n) Zeph. 3.12. Psal. 34.22.55.22.32.10. Mark 9.23. 1 Pet 5.7. 2 Sam. 22.31. The Word of the Lord is tried, he is a buckler to all that trust in him. John 3.15. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Unbelief is a God-affronting Sin. 1 John 5.10. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar: it is a Soul murdering Sin. John 3.36. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Thus in reading observe those Scriptures which do rem acu tangere, touch upon your particular case. Although all the Bible must be Read, yet those Texts, which point most directly to your condition, be sure to put a special Star upon. Take special notice of the examples in Scripture; (o) Praecepta docent, exempla movent. make the examples of others living Sermons to you. 1. Observe the examples of God's Judgements upon Sinners. They have been hanged up in Chains in terrorem. How severely hath God punished proud men? Direct. 19 Nabuchadnezzar was turned to grass, Herod eat up with Vermin; How hath God plagued Idolaters? Numb. 25.3, 4, 9 1 Kings 14.9, 10. What a swift witness hath he been against liars? Act. 5.5, 10. These examples are set up as Sea-marks to avoid. 1 Cor. 10.11. Judas ver. 7. 2. Observe the examples of God's mercy to Saints. Jeremy was preserved in the Dungeon, the three Children in the Furnace, Daniel in the Lion's den. These examples are props to Faith, spurs to Holiness. Direct. 20 Leave not off reading in the Bible till you find your hearts warmed. Psal. 119.93. I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened me. Read the Word, not only as an History, but labour to be affected with it. Let it not only inform you, but inflame you. Jer. 23.29. Is not my Word like as a fire saith the Lord? Go not from the Word till you can say as those Disciples, Luk. 24.32. Did not our hearts burn within us? Set upon the practice of what you read. (p) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Chrys. Psal. 119.66. I have done thy Direct. 21 Commandments. A student in Physic doth not satisfy himself to read over a system or body of Physic, but he falls upon practising Physic: the life-blood of Religion lies in the practic part. So in the Text, He shall read in the Book of the Law all the days of his life, that he may learn to keep all the Words of this Law, and these Statutes to do (q) Tantum scimus quantum operamu●. them. Christian's should be walking Bibles. Zenophon said many read Lycurgus his Laws, but few observed them. The Word written is not only a rule of knowledge, but a rule of obedience; * Bis memin ● legis qui memor est ●peris. Bill. Autholog. it is not only to mend our sight, but to mend our pace. David calls God's Word a lamp to his feet, Psal. 119.105. It was not only a light to his eyes to see by, but to his feet to walk by; by practice we trade the talon of knowledge, and turn it to profit. This is a blessed reading of Scripture, when we fly from the Sins which the Word forbids, and espouse the duties which the Word commands; reading without practice will be but a torch to light men to Hell. Make use of Christ's Prophetical Office. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Direct. 22 to whom it is given to open the Book of God, and lose the seals (r) A canorum Dei revelator. Pa●eus. thereof. Rev. 5.5. Christ doth so teach as he doth quicken. John 8.12. I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall have lumen vitae, the light of life. The Philosopher saith, light and heat increase together: (s) Calor & lux concr●scunt. 'tis true here, where Christ comes into the Soul with his light, there is the heat of Spiritual life going along with it. Christ gives us Spiritualem gustum, a taste of the Word, Psal. 119.102, 103. Thou hast taught me, how sweet are thy words to my taste! it is one thing to read a promise, another thing to taste it. Such as would be Scripture-Proficients, let them get Christ to be their Teacher, Luke 24.45. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. Christ did not only open the Scriptures, but opened their understanding (t) Cathedram habet in caelo qui corda docet in termed. Aug. . Tread often upon the threshold of the Sanctuary. Wait diligently on a rightly constituted Ministry, Prov. 8.34. Blessed is the man that heareth me, waiting diligently at my Gates. Ministers are God's Interpreters, it is their work to expound and open dark places of Scripture. We read of Pitchers and Direct. 23 Lamps within the Pitchers, Judg. 7.16. Ministers are earthen Pitchers, 2 Cor. 4.7. But these Pitchers have Lamps within them to light Souls in the dark. Pray that God will make you profit. Isa. 47.18. I am the Lord thy God Direct. 24 which teacheth thee to profit; make David's prayer, Psal. 119.18. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law. Pray to God to take off the vail on the Scripture, that you may understand it, and the vail on your heart, that you may believe it. Pray that God will not only give you his Word as a rule of Holiness, but his Grace as a principle of Holiness. Implore the guidance of God's Spirit, Nehem. 9.10. Thou gavest them thy Good spirit to instruct (u) Christu● sedens ad d xtram Dei misit Vicariam Vim spiritus sancti. Tertul. them. Though the Ship hath a Compass to Sail by, and store of Tackling, yet without a gale of wind it cannot sail; though we have the Word written as our Compass to sail by, and make use of our endeavours as the tackling, yet unless the Spirit of God blow upon us we cannot sail with profit. When the Almighty is as due unto us, than we grow as the Lily, and our beauty is as the Olive-tree, Hos. 45.6. Beg the anointing of the Holy (x) 1 John 2.20. Ghost One may see the figures on a Dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes unless the Sun shine: we may read many Truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly till God's Spirit shine in our Souls. 2 Cor. 4.6. The Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation. Ephes. 1.17. When Philip joined himself to the Eunuches Chariot, than he understood Scripture. Acts 8.35. When God's Spirit joins himself to the Word, than it will be effectual to Salvation. These rules observed, the Word written would through God's blessing be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an ingraffed Word, Jam. 1.22. A good Cyens grafted into a bad stock changeth the nature of it, and makes it bear sweet and generous fruit: So when the Word is graffed savingly into men's hearts, it doth sanctify them, and make them bring forth the sweet fruits of Righteousness, Phil. 1.11. Thus I have answered this question, how we may read the Scriptures with most Spiritual profit. I shall conclude all with two Corollaries. 1. Content not yourselves with the bare reading of Scripture, but labour to find some spiritual increment and profit. Get the Word transcribed into your hearts, Psal. 37.31. The Law of God is in his heart. Never leave till you are assimilated into the Word. Such as profit by reading of the Book of God are the best Christians alive; they answer God's cost, they credit Religion, they save their Souls. 2. You who have profited by reading the Holy Scriptures, adore God's distinguishing grace. Bless God that he hath not only brought the light to you, but opened your eyes to see it; that he hath unlocked his hid Treasure, and enriched you with saving knowledge. Some perish by not having Scripture, and others by not improving it. That God should pass by Millions in the World, and the Lot of his Electing Love should fall upon you; that the Scripture like the pillar of Cloud should have a dark-side to others, but a light-side to you; that to others it should be a dead letter, but to you the Savour of Life; that Christ should not only be revealed to you but in you, Gal. 1.16. How should you be in an holy ecstasy of wonder, and wish that you had hearts of Seraphims burning in love to God, and the voices of Angels to make Heaven ring with God's Praises? Object. But some of the Godly may say, they fear they do not profit by the Word they read. Resp. As in the body, when there is a Lipothymy or Fainting of the vital Spirits, Cordials are applied: so let me apply a few Divine cordials to such as are ready to faint under the fear of nonproficiency. 1. You may profit by reading the Word, though you come short of others. The ground which brought forth but thirty fold was good Ground. Mat. 13.8. Say not you are Non-proficients, because you do not go in Equipage with other eminent Saints; those were counted strong men among David's Worthies, though they did not attain to the honour of the first three, 2 Sam. 23.19. 2. You may profit by reading the Word, though you are not of so quick apprehension. Some impeach themselves of Nonproficiency, because they are but slow of understanding. When our blessed Saviour foretold his sufferings, the Apostles themselves understood not, and it was Hid from them, Luke 9.45. The Author to the Hebrews speaks of some who were, Segnes auribus, dull of hearing, Heb. 5.11. Yet they belonged to the Election. Such as have weaker judgements may have stronger affections. Leah was tender-eyed, yet fruitful. A Christian's intellectuals may be less quick and penetrating, yet that little knowledge he hath of Scripture keeps him from Sin; as a man that hath but weak sight, yet it keeps him from falling into the water. 3. You may profit by reading Scripture, though you have not so excellent memories. Many complain their memories leak. Nec retinent patulae commissa sidelitèr (y) H●●. aures.— Christian-art thou grieved thou canst remember no more? then for thy comfort, 1. Thou mayst have a good heart, though thou hast not so good a memory. 2. Though thou canst not remember all thou readest, yet thou remember'st that which is most material, and which thou hast most need of: At a Feast we do not eat of every dish, but we take so much as nourisheth. 'Tis with a Good Christian's memory as it is with a lamp; though the lamp be not full of oil, yet it hath so much oil as makes the lamp burn: though thy memory be not full of Scripture, yet thou retainest so much as makes thy love to God burn. Then be of good comfort, thou dost profit by what thou readest, and take notice of that encouraging Scripture, John 14.26. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, he shall bring all things to your remembrance. How we may make Melody in our Hearts to God in Singing of Psalms. Serm. IX. Ephes. 5.19. Speaking to ourselves in Psalms, Hymns, and spiritual Songs, and making Melody in your Hearts to the Lord. IN the former part of this Chapter, especially in the fourth Verse, we have the Apostle checking carnal Mirth, and accounting that a Sin, which the Heathen Philosophers (especially Aristotle in his Ethics) made a Virtue; viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of jesting which they supposed was an ornament to their speech, and a specimen of their ingenuity: But in this Verse, where the Text is, we have the Apostle commending spiritual Mirth, which he approves as a Duty, which the Heathens, especially in the primitive times, accounted a Crime. In the Verse going before the Text, we have the Apostle condemning a Vice universally reputed so both by Christians and Heathens, viz. Intemperance; which doth usually frolic it in putidos sermons, into foolish speeches, fond gestures, E vini 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oritur laetitia quaedam, sed impura, quae tuming stibus, tum inputidis sermoni●us se prodit. Bod. impure Songs, wanton Sonnets, as Bodius observes. But here in the Text the Apostle teacheth us a more refined way of rejoicing, viz. To tune the heart in Psalms, to raise the heart in Hymns, and to vent the heart in spiritual Songs; nay, to make the heart a Choir where spiritual Music may be chanted. In the Text we have five parts remarkable; viz. 1. The Singers, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Christians; especially those who dwelled in the City of Ephesus. Christians understand how to rejoice in God; their hearts can so set the Tune, that God shall hear the Music. Zanchy well observes, that the Apostle doth here make the Comparison between the Mirth which is made ex ubertate Vini, from abundance of Wine, and that which is made ex ubertate Spiritus, from abundance of the Spirit. The Drunkard's Song, how toyish! but the Saints singing, how triumphal! how confused the one! how sweet the other! how empty the one, even to the very Companions of their Cups and Mirth! but how melodious the other, even to the Lord himself! And he gravely takes notice, that gaudent pii, sed garriunt ebrii; Saints rejoice, but Intemperate persons drivel in their chat. 2. The Song itself; and here the Apostle runs division, Cantio sacra est vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Bod. Psalmi propriè ad locum Ethicum pertinent: In Hymnis Dei beneficia & facta miramur. Qui vero concordiam & consensum mundi contemplatur, ille spirituali ●anticum canit. Hier. diversifying Songs into three species; which according to the descants of Learned men may be thus understood. And here Hierom gives us a dextrous Interpretation. 1. Psalms (saith he) may belong to moral things, what we ought to put in use and practise. 2. Hymns may belong to sacred things, what we ought to meditate on and to contemplate, as the Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Majesty of God. 3. Odes, or spiritual Songs, may belong to natural things, what we ought to debate, discuss; viz. The Race, Order, Harmony, and Continuance of the World, and God's infinite Wisdom manifested in it. 2. Some distinguish these according to the Authors of them. 1. Psalms; they are the Composures of holy David. 2. Hymns; they are the Songs of some other excellent men recorded in Scripture, as Moses, Heman, Asaph, etc. 3. Spiritual Songs; they are Odes of some other holy and good men not mentioned in Scripture, as the Song of Ambrose, Nepos, and others. 3. Some aver that these several speeches mentioned in the Text, answer the Hebrew distinction of Psalms: Among them there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mizmorim, which treated of various and different Subjects. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which only mentioned the Praises of the most High. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were Songs more artificially and musically composed; and some Divines observe, were sung with the help of a musical Instrument. But I may add, Are not all these several species mentioned, to prefigure the Plenty and the Joy which is reserved for the Saints within the Veil, when they shall join in consort with the glorious Angels in singing their perpetual Hallelujahs to their glorious Creator? 3: The manner of Singing. Our Text saith, with Melody; with inward joy and tripudlation of Soul: If the Tongue make the Pause, the Heart must make the Elevation. The Apostle saith to the Colossians, Colos. 3.16. We must sing with grace; which is as some expound it, 1. Cum gratiarum actione; with giving of thanks. And indeed thankfulness is the very Selah of this duty; that which puts an accent upon the Music and sweetness of the Voice; and then we sing melodiously when we warble out the Praises of the Lord. 2. With gracefulness; with a becoming and graceful dexterity. And this brings both profit and pleasure to the Hearers, as Davenant observes. Psalms are not the Comedies of Venus, or the jocular Celebrations of a wanton Adonis; but they are the Spiritual ebullitions of a composed Soul to the incomprehensible Jehovah with real grace. God's Spirit must breathe in this service; Et prodess● veliat & d●lect●re. Dau. Cantemus cum gratia à Spiri●u S●ncto donata. Chrysost. Hoc quod praecinitur sine gratià D●i impleri non potest. Oec●m. Sine corde nulla est modalatio. Bod. here we must act our joy, our confidence, our delight. Singing is the triumph of a gracious Soul; the Child joying in the praises of his Father. In singing of Psalms, the gracious heart takes wings, and mounts up to God, to join with the Celestial Quire. It is grace which sits the heart for, and sweetens the heart in this duty. And where this qualification is wanting, this service is rather an hurry than a duty; it is rather a disturbance than any obedience. 4. The Master of the Chore, the Preceptor, that is, the Heart. We must look to the Heart in singing, that it be purged by the Spirit, and that it be replete with spiritual Affection. He plays the Hypocrite who brings not the heart to this Duty. One observes, There is no Tune without the Heart; Singing takes its proper rise from the Heart; the Voice is only the further progress. And indeed God is the Creator of the whole man; and therefore he will be praised not only with our Tongues, but with our Hearts. The Apostle tells us, He will sing with the spirit, 1 Cor. 14.15. And David informs us, his heart was ready to sing and give praise, N●n vox, sed votum, non musica cerdula, sed cor. Aug. De modo benè vivendi. Bern. Psal. 57.7, 8. & 108.1. Augustine admonisheth us, It is not a Musical-string, but a Working-heart is harmonious. The Virgin Mary sings her Magnificat with her heart, Luke 14.47. And Bernard tells us in a Tract of his, That when we sing Psalms, let us take heed that we have the same thing in our Mind, that we warble forth in our Tongue; and that our Song and our Heart do not run several ways. If we in singing only offer the Calves of our Lips, it will too much resemble a Carnal and a Jewish service. 5. The End of the Duty; To the Lord. So saith the Text, viz. To Jesus Christ, who is here principally meant. Our singing must not serve our Gain, or our Luxury, or our Fancy, but our Christ, our Lord, and dear Redeemer. In this Duty it is his Praises we must mainly and chief celebrate. And most deservedly we magnify the true God by Psalms and Singing, when the Heathens celebrate their false and dung-hill-Gods, Jupiter, Neptune, and Apollo, with Songs and Hymns. One well observes, Singing of Psalms is part of Divine Worship, Deus est canendi Vnicus Scopus. Bod. and of our Homage and Service due to the great Jehovah. Bodius takes notice, that God is the true and only scope of all our singing. And truly if the Spirit of God be in us, he will be steadily aimed at by us. Thus Deborah and Barak sang their Triumphal Song to the Lord, Judges 5.3. The several parts of the Text being thus opened, they may be set together again in this Divine and Excellent Truth. Doct. Non franges vocem, sed frange voluntatem, non serves tantùm Consonantiam Vocum, sed concordium Mother 'em. Bern. Aug. In the Ordinance of Singing, we must not make Noise, but Music; and the Heart must make Melody to the Lord. So the Text. Augustine complained of some in his time, That they minded more the Tune than the Truth; more the Manner than the Matter; more the Governing of the Voice, than the Raisedness of the Mind: And this was a great offence to him. Singing of Psalms must only be the joyous breathing of a raised Soul; and here the cleanness of the Heart is more considerable than the clearness of the Voice. In this Service we must study more to act the Christian than the Musician. Many in singing of Psalms are like the Organs, whose Pipes are filled only with Wind. The Apostle, Col. 3.16. tells us, we must sing with our Heart. We must sing David's Psalms with David's Spirit. One tells us, God is a Spirit; and he will be worshipped in Spirit even in this duty. Now to traverse the Truth. 1. We will show the Divine Authority of this Ordinance. 2. We will show the Sweetness of it. 3. The Universal Practice of it. 4. We shall show the Honour's God hath put upon this Ordinance. 5. And then come to the main Case. 6. And make Application. For the first, We shall show the Divine Authority of this Ordinance. 1. By Scripture-Command. 2. By Scripture-Argument. 3. By Scripture-Pattern. 4. By scripture-prophecy. 1. From Scripture-Precept: And here we have divers commands laid upon us, both in the Old and New Testament. David, who among his honourable Titles obtains this, to be called the Sweet Singer of Israel, 2 Sam. 23.1. he frequently calls upon himself, Psal. 7.17. I will sing Praise to the Name of the Lord most High. And sometimes he calls upon others, 1 Chron. 16.9. Sing unto him, sing Psalms unto him, and tell of his wondrous Works. Nay, sometimes he summons the whole Earth to join in this duty, 1 Chron. 16.23. Psalm 68.32. Sing unto the Lord all the Earth, show forth from day to day his Salvation. And holy Hezekiah, he propagated this service, 2 Chron. 29.30. Nay, in their times when the Royal Majesty was lodged in Judah, Singers were a peculiar Office enjoined constantly to sing the Praises of the Lord, 1 Kings 10.12. And Jehosaphat appointed Singers, 2 Chron. 20.21. Nay, and Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and Ethan, men eminent and holy, were employed in this holy service, 2 Chron. 5.12. But why should I light a Candle at Noonday? Thus this harmonious service was most usual, and most acceptable in the times of the Law. And I need not straggle from my Text to bring in Gospel-Precept for this sweet Ordinance: And the Apostle takes care to acquaint other Churches with the same injunction. So Colos. 3.16. Col. 3.16. Teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns, and spiritual Songs; singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And so firmly the Apostle states this Musical Service, this exhilarating Ordinance, that he himself act; his own injunction, though fettered in a Prison, and makes Barnabas a Companion of his Song as well as of his Sorrows, Acts 16.25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. They Hymned God, (i.e.) they celebrated his Praises with a Hymn; and as Bede saith, Lorinus. Bede. with singing. 2. From Scripture-Argument: And I shall only take out one shaft out of the whole Quiver. I shall use one Argument among many, which is this, viz. We always find this duty of singing Psalms linked to and joined with other Moral Duties. Thus the Psalmist joins Singing and Prayer together, Psal. 95.1, 6. O come, let us sing unto the Lord, Psal. 95.1.6. in the first Verse. O come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker, in the sixth Verse. There is Prayer and Singing connexed; sing being supposed to be of equal necessity and authority with other Ordinances. And so the Apostle James, Jam. 5.3. joins these two together; Is any among you afflicted? let him pray: Is any merry? let him sing Psalms. So you may observe, both these Services are equally calculated for man's necessity. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Just. Mart. 119. Quad Orthodox. Thus Paul and Silas join them in their practice, Acts 16.25. And so Justin Martyr in his 117. Question ad Orthodoxos tells us, that in his time They Sang, and sent up Prayers to God, the Primitive Church confirming David's Injunction, and the Apostolical Command. So that by these instances we may observe, That the duty of Praying and Singing have walked in the same equipage, and lay claim to an equal Authority from Divine Writ; the Scripture jointly favouring both. 3. From Scripture-Pattern. Moses both pens a Psalm, viz. the Ninetieth, and sings a Holy Song, and the 15th of Exodus, Is the record of it. So David tripudiates in the practice of this delightful service, Psal. 104.33. Psal. 104.33. Nay David composeth Psalms and Hezekiah appoints them to be Sung, 2 Chron. 29.30. So David, and Asaph, Hezekiah, and the Levites, all join to Sing forth the praises of the Lord. Nay our dearest Jesus, the King of Saints, and the Redeemer of Mankind practiseth this sweet duty, and calls in his blessed Apostles to make up the Choir, Mat. 26.30. Rev. 15.3. Mat. 26.30. And when they had Sung an Hymn, they went up into the Mount of Olives. Our blessed Saviour honours this Ordinance with his own practice; and this he did a little before his death, so to seal this Ordinance with his blood as well as to consecrate it with his lips. Thus this Celestial Choir of Christ and his Apostles six this sweet Ordinance in the Church for future successions. 4. From scripture-prophecy; And here I may speak of Singing as Paul speaks of Timothy's Ordination, 1 Tim. 4.14. It was given by Prophecy. There are divers Prophecies in the Old Testament concerning this Ordinance in the New. So in Psal. 108.2. Upon which Mollerus Mollerus. observes, That in that Text David pours forth ardent Prayers and wishes for the Kingdom of Christ. And so Divines observe that the Psalm 100.1, 2. are Prophetical. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye Lands, serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with Singing. To which may be added that pregnant prophecy recorded in Isa. 52.8. Isa. 52 8. Speculatores simul jubilabunt; opinare quantum sit gaudium futurum ob Redemptionem ad eptamper Christum. Musc. My watchmen shall lift up their voice, with their voice together shall they sing; which clearly prognosticates this Musical Ordinance in Gospel times. And Musculus much favours this Interpretation, when he saith, These watchmen shall Jubilee when they shall consider the great joy approaching for the Redemption obtained by Christ. And there are two things which not only establish, but sweeten and honour an Ordinance, 1. Promises, 2. Prophecies. Christ himself was the fruit and issue of both. Secondly, we may take notice of the sweetness of this Duty: sing is the Soul's Jubilee; Our Spiritual recreation; The shout of the heart; Our tuning of our Hallelujahs; The sweetest solace of a Sanctified Soul. David was in a kind of rapture, when he cries out, I will Sing praise to the Lord while I have my being, Psal. 104.33. Psal. 104.33. One well observes of Singing, There is a dilating of the sound, and a drawing out of the voice which gives more tïme for the fixing of the heart upon that which is Sung, and so puts the Soul upon a sweeter Meditation, Psal. 10.4, 34. Psal. 104.34. And we may animadvert it, That when we Sing Psalms, there is more than ordinary raising and lifting up of the Soul, there is an elevation to a higher degree of Communion with God. It is the Soul's high Mount towards Heaven, the Saint flies higher towards the Element and Sphere of joy; Then we are fledged for sublime things. One asserts, There is not a greater resemblance of Heaven upon Earth, than a company of God's people Singing a Psalm together; Then the Soul rejoiceth in Divine goodness, and exults in Divine excellencies, meditates on Divine promises. And whatever we make the matter of our Singing it will much affect the heart. 1. If we Sing of God, Of his goodness, It inflames our heart to love; Of his Wisdom, It raiseth our heart to admiration, Rom. 11.33. Of his Power, It engageth the heart to Faith and Confidence; Nay of his Judgements, It over-awes the heart to a due and reverential Fear. 2. If we Sing of any thing concerning ourselves, If for the diversion of a trouble, It fills the heart with humility: If for the obtaining of a mercy, It boils up the heart in Desire. 3. If we Sing of our Enemies, This likewise draws the heart to a just indignation, Zeal and Compassion. The very matter we Sing doth abundantly sweeten this Duty. Nay further, 1. Singing is the music of Nature. The Scriptures tell us, the Mountains Sing, Jer. 44.23. The valleys Sing, Psal. 65.13. The trees of the wood Sing, 1 Chron. 16.33. Nay the Air is the Bird's Music room, where they chant their musical notes. 2. Singing is the Music of Ordinances. Augustin reports of himself, Aug lib. 3. conf. cap. 6. B●za, That when he came to Milan and heard the people Sing, he wept for joy in the Church to hear that pleasing Melody. And Beza confesses, That at his first entrance into the Congregation and hearing them sing the 91 Psalms, he felt himself exceedingly comforted, and did retain the sound of it afterwards upon his heart. The Rabbis tell us, That the Jews after the feast of the Passeover was celebrated, they sang the 111 Psalms and the five following Psalms; and our Saviour and his Apostles sang an HYMN immediately after the Blessed Supper, Mat. 26.30. Mat. 26.30. 3. Singing is the Music of Saints. 1. They have performed this duty in their greatest numbers, Psal. 149.2. 2. In their greatest straits, Isa. 26.19. 3. In their greatest flight, Isa. 42.10, 11 4. In their greatest deliverances. 5. In their greatest plenties. Isa. 65.14. In all these changes Singing hath been their stated duty and delight. And indeed it is meet that the Saints and servants of God should Sing forth their joys and praises to the Lord Almighty: Every Attribute of him can set both their Song and their Tune. 4. Singing is the Music of Angels: Job tells us, The Morning Stars Sang together, Job 38.7. Now these Morning Stars, as Pineda Pineda comment in Job. tells us, are the Angels; to which the Chaldee Paraphrase accords, naming these Morning Stars, Aciem Angelorum, an host of Angels: nay when this heavenly Host was sent to proclaim the Birth of our dearest Jesus, they deliver their message in this raised way of duty, Luke 2.13. They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, delivering their messages in a laudatory sing, the whole Company of Angels making a Musical Quire. Nay in Heaven, there is the Angels joyous Music, Creaturarum Psalmus est Stella. they there sing Hallelujahs to the most High, and to the Lamb who sits upon the Throne, Rev. 5.11. 5. Singing is the Music of Heaven; The glorious Saints and Angels accent their praises this way, and make one harmony in their state of blessedness; Ibi nil nisi laus Dei, nisi amor Dei. Aug. and this is the Music of the Bride-Chamber, Rev. 15.3. The Saints who were tuning here their Psalms, are now Singing there Hallelujahs in a louder strain, and articulating their joys, which here they could not express to their perfect satisfaction; here they laboured with drowsy Hearts, and faltering Tongues: But in glory these impediments are removed, and nothing is left to jar their joyous celebrations. Now thirdly, we come to show the Universal practice of this Duty: Singing Psalms and Spiritual Songs to God is not more sweet than Ecumenical; It hath been always the way of Saints thus to express their joy in the lord— This Duty hath been practised: 1. By all varieties of Persons. 1. By Christ and his Apostles (as hath been shown) Mat. 26.30. The glorious Sun and Stars have shined in favour upon this joyous Service, and left their practice of it upon Record; The Supernal and upper Orders of the World have not been too high for this Spiritual Harmony. 2. Godly Princes have glorified God in this Duty, 2 Chron. 29.30. Their Thrones have not raised them above this Spiritual service. King Jehoshaphat assaults his enemies not only with the brandishing of his Sword, but with the Singing of his Song, 2 Chron. 20.21. Princes who have swayed regal Sceptres, have sang Spiritual Songs, and have minded the Choir as well as the Crown. David not only takes the Sceptre into his hand to rule the people, but takes the Harp into his hand to sing the praises of the Lord. 3. Worthy Governors. Nehemiah takes care, that as soon as the wall of Jerusalem was set up, Singers should be appointed to perform this part of God's Worship, Nehem. 7.1. These Eminent Magistrates held not only the reins of Government, but lifted up those hands which held them with the voices in Singing the Praises of God. Magistracy is a spur, not a curb to Duty. I need not mention Ethan, Heman, and Asaph, Eminent and Worthy Men, engaged in this pleasing service, 2 Chron. 5.12. 4. Holy Prophets. They did not only prophesy of things to come, but they practised Duties for the present, more especially this. And as David pens Prophetical, so he sings Musical Psalms, and professes his dying and his singing Air should both expire together, Psal. 146.2. Psal. 146.2. This Duty should lie by him on his Deathbed; and as Moses in the 32 Chapter of Deuteronomy, he will close up his life with a Swanlike, with a Saintlike Song. So the 22 Chapter of the second of Samuel was a song of Thanksgiving for manifold mercies, a little before his death. 5. The body of the People. As Singing is not too low for Kings, so not too choice for Subjects; the whole multitude sometimes engaged in the harmony. Then Israel Sang this Song, Numb. 21.17. The People's voice may make melody, as the lesser birds contribute to the Music of the Grove, their chirping notes filling up the harmony. 6. Eminent Fathers: Basil Basil. August. lib. 9 Conf. cap 6. Non discumbitur priusquam Oratio ad Deum sit, etc. Tertul. calls the Singing of Psalms, Spiritual incense: Augustine was highly commendatory of this service, and assures us Ambrose and Athanasius were coincident with him in this particular. 7. Primitive Christians; and here I shall only mention what Tertullian relates of the practice of those times he lived in; When we come to a feast (saith he) we do not sit down before there is Prayer; and after the meal is past, one cometh forth, and either out of the Holy Scriptures, or else from some composure of his own, gins a Spiritual Song. 2. In all Ages. This service of Singing to God was soon started in the World; Moses the first Penman of Scripture, he both Sung a Song, and Penned a Psalm, as we hinted before. In the Judge's time, Deborah and Barak Sang a Triumphant Song, Judg. 5.1, 2, etc. During the time of the Kings of Judah, the Levites sang the praises of God in the Sanctuary. A little before the Captivity we find the Church praising God in Singing, Isa. 35.2. In the time of the Captivity, Israel did not forget the Songs of Zion, though they were in Babylon, Psal. 126.2. After their return from Captivity, we soon find them return to this joyous Service, Neh. 7.1. their long Exile had not banished this Duty. Towards the close of their Prophets prophesying, the Church is again engaged in this part of God's Worship, Zeph. 3.15, 17. In the beginning of the Christian Aera, when the Gospel first made the World happy with its glorious shine, we find the primitive Christians much taken up in this Duty; Cyprian in his Epistle to Donatus, Nec est hora Convivii Caelestis gratiae immunis, Sonnet Psalmis convivium Sobrium. Cypr. adviseth, That there may not be an hour of feasting without some Heavenly grace, and let every sober feast be accompanied with Singing of Psalms. And chrysostom in his Commentary on the 41th Psalm admonishes all persons, Countrymen, Marrines, Weavers, etc. to sing Psalms and spiritual Songs. Estius cries out, Take notice of the custom of the Primitive Christians, who did not only sing Psalms and Hymns in their public Assemblies, but in their private Families. Eusebius relates, That Plinius Secundus in an Epistle he wrote to Trajan the Emperor makes mention, that the Christians of those times being gathered together before day, Sang Hymns and Praises to Christ, as to a God. This was about the year 98 after the birth of our Saviour: Those early and more pure times rejoiced in this Duty. Nicephorus tells us, that chrysostom caused Psalms to be Sung for the suppression of the Arrian Heresy. And Ruffin witnesseth, That Basil commanded the people to meet for the pouring out of their prayers to God, and for singing of Psalms to the Most High. The worthy Junius informs us, That the Eastern Church from the time the Sun of Righteousness arose in the East did propagate the practice of Singing of Psalms to successive Generations. And Paulinus testifies, Per omnes penè Occidentis provincias manasse refert. Paulin. That this practice overspread every Province of the Western Church. Holy Ambrose so zealously pressed this Duty of Singing Psalms, that he would not allow times of persecution to be a sufficient excuse for the neglect of it; But the Empress Justina raging against Ambrose, He commanded the Common people to lie in the Church, and there Sing Psalms and Hymns according to the practice of the Oriental Christians, that they might not be sensible of their sorrows or tediousness. And this Custom prevailed in after times, and was scattered in other places, the Churches in other parts imitating this Worthy Practice. This than was the Genius of the primitive Times. In the middle times of the Church, Rabanus Maurus, and Gregory the Great, mention this service with great approbation, and speak liberally of the practice of it. But since the Reformation, the universal practice of the Reformed Churches give free suffrage to the Duty of Singing Psalms; and I need not cite Zanchy, etc. to give in their testimony, our judgements being best discovered by our practices. 3. In all places. Moses praiseth God by singing in the Wilderness, throughout the 15th Chapter of Exodus. David practices this Duty in the Tabernacle, Psal. 47.6. Solomon in the Temple, Psal. 10.12. Jehosaphat in the Camp, 2 Chron. 20.21. Christ and his Apostles in a particular Chamber, Mat. 26.30. And Paul and Silas in an uncomfortable Prison, Act. 19.25. We may say of Singing, as the Apostle speaks of Prayer, 1 Tim. 2.8. I will (saith he) that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands; Thus every place is now Commodious for lifting up pure voices and pure hearts to the Most High. Where devout Christians meet in any convenient place to sing praises to the Lord, they make up a Heavenly Quire. 4. In all Conditions. 1. In a time of cheerfulness and inward joy. The Apostle James commands us then to take the advantage of singing Psalms, Jam. 5.13. Holy sing is the best Exertion of inward rejoicing; Joy may excite, must not stifle this Duty. A dilated heart is fittest for a raised voice. 2. In a time of affliction. Paul and Silas sang in Prison, a place of sorrow and confinement, Acts 16.25. A chain might bind their feet, but not their tongue; while others sleep, they sing, and turn their Dungeon into a Chapel. Holy singing can nobilitate every Duty, and raise it to a better Notion. 3. In a time of Fear. When some would press Luther with the dangers the Church was in, and what a black Cloud hung over Zion, he would presently call for the 46th Psalm to be sung, and he thought that Psalm was a charm against all fears whatsoever. And since, Quemadmodum est emnium Deus, olim uterque Sexus ad●ibebatur ad laudes Dei canendas. Rivet. Importunas in Ecclesia l●quacitates Apostoli Domini in Ecclesiis & Magistri med stiae & gravitatis reprimore students, ut mulieres in ipsis Ca●erent sepien in co●cilio permiserunt. Isid. Pelus. this Psalm is called Luther's Psalm, his sacred spell against invading Fears. 5. By all Sexes. Miriam sings a Song to God, Exod. 15.21. as well as Moses. Rivet well observes, God is the Lord of both Sexes, and therefore both may sing his praises. Every Sex may tune their hearts to proclaim their Thanksgivings to God. And so Deborah may sing her song as well as Barak, Judg. 5.1. Holy singing befits the Female, as well as the Masculine Tongue; though Women may not speak, yet they may sing in the Church; there is no silence imposed on them in this particular. Rivet here takes notice, Women are not to be driven from joining in Divine praises, when the Apostle enjoins singing of Psalms and Hymns upon all believers, Col. 13.16. And here Isidore Polusiota well interposes, Although the holy Apostles, those masters of modesty, will not permit women's loquacity, and the loudness of their Tongues; yet in the greatness of their Wisdom they do permit the loudness of their Voices in singing forth the praises of the Almighty. Thus Herald Women though they are removed by Apostical command from the Desk or Pulpit, yet they are not debarred the Choir, to join in that Harmony, where God's praises are elevated. And now we come to speak of that Honour which God hath put upon this Heavenly Duty. And this will appear in three things, viz. 1. God hath Honoured this duty with glorious appearances. This we find upon record in 2 Chron. 5.13. And it came to pass, as the Trumpeters and Singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lift up their voice with Trumpets, and Cymbals, and Instruments of Music, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever. Then the House was filled with a Cloud, even the House of the Lord. The Cloud was a certain sign of Divine presence in those times. A Cloud to rain blessings; a Cloud, because Divine brightness would overpower human sight; a Cloud, not to darken Service, but to denote the certainty of God's approach. 2. With Eminent Victories. This we find upon record, 2 Chron. 20.21, 22. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed Singers unto the Lord, that they should praise the Beauty of Holiness, as they went out before the Army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever: And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the Children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which came against Israel, and they were smitten. Israel's success follows Israel's singing. If the people of Israel will look to their Duty, God will look to their Enemy, and lay that Ambush which shall ensnare and overthrow their power. 3. With Evident Miracles. This we find upon Record, Acts 16.25, 26. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them, and suddenly there was a great Earthquake, so that the Foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately the doors were opened, and every one's hands were loosed. Behold here an eminent Miracle! Prisons saluting the Prisoner's Liberty: Paul and Silas singing set God on working; and if their Tongues were loosed in Duty, their hands shall be loosed for Liberty; Singing, like praying, can work wonders. Lorinus observes, Angelicà peculiari ●pe●d S●l●tio Vinculorum accidit, Lorin. Case. that the prisoners Chains were taken off, and their bands loosed by the peculiar power and work of Angels. And now I come to the main Case, How we may make melody in our hearts to God in Singing of Psalms. Answ. 1. We must sing with understanding. We must not be guided by the Tune, but the Words of the Psalm; we must mind the Matter more than the Music; and consider what we sing, as well as how we sing; The Tune may affect the fancy, but it is the Matter affects the heart, and that God principally eyes. The Psalmist adviseth us in this particular, Psalm 47.7. and so doth the Apostle, 1 Cor. 14.15. Otherwise this sweet Duty would be more the work of a Chorister than of a Christian; and we should be more delighted in an Anthem of the Musician's making, then in a Psalm of the Spirit's making. A Lapide observes, that in the Text 1 Cor. 14.15. the word understanding is Maschil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profound judgement: We must sing wisely, if we will sing gratefully; we must relish what we sing. In a word, we must sing as we must pray; now the most rude Petitioner will understand what he prays; 1 Cor. 14.15. If we do not understand what we sing, it argues carelessness of Spirit, or hardness of Heart; and this makes the Service impertinent. Upon this the worthy Davenant cries out, Facessunt Boatus Papistarum, qui Psalmos in Templis reboant, sed linguà non intellectu. Dau. Non clamans, sed amans cantat in aure Dei. Aug. Adieu to the bellowing of the Papists, who sing in an unknown Tongue. God will not understand us in this Service, which we understand not ourselves. One of the first Pieces of the Creation was Light, and this must break out in every Duty. 2. We must sing with affection. Love is the fulfilling of this Law. It is a notable saying of Augustine; It is not Crying, but Loving, sounds in the Ears of God. In Isa. 5.1. It is said, I will sing to my Beloved. The pretty Child sings a mean Song, but it delights the Mother, because there is love on both sides. It is love, not skill, makes the Music and the Service most pleasing. When we go about this Work, we must lay our Book before us; a heart full of love. The Primitive Christians sang Hymns to Christ, whom they entirely loved. Love indeed is that ingredient which sweetens and indulcorates every Service. 3. We must sing with real Grace. This the Apostle admonishes us, Col. 3.16. It is Grace, not Nature, sweetens the Voice to sing. We must draw out our Spices, our Graces, in this Duty. The Hundred forty four thousand, which were Elected and Glorified Saints, sang the New song, Rev. 14.3. Singing is the tripudiating of a gracious Soul. Gratia est devotionis radix. Gorran. Gorran well notes, That Grace is the Root of true Devotion. Wicked men only make a noise, they do not sing; they are like cracked Strings of a Lute or a Viol, they spoil, they do not make Music. The Righteous rejoice in the Lord, Psal. 33.1. The Raven croaks, the Nightingale sings the Tune. As God will not hear Sinners when they pray, so neither when they sing; the singing of Wicked men is disturbance, not obedience. Indeed the Saints singing is a more solemn Ovation, Praising Him who causeth them to triumph in Christ, 2 Cor. 2.14. The Saints above sing their Hallelujahs in Glory, and the Saints below must sing their Psalms with Grace. Fashion Puppets as you please, they cannot sing; it is the alive Bird can chirrup that pleasing noise. 4. We must sing with excited Grace. Not only with Grace habitual, but with excited and actual; the Musical Instrument delights not but when it is played upon. In this Duty we must follow Paul's advice to Timothy, 1 Tim. 4.14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stir up the Grace that is in us; and cry out as David, Psalm 57.8. Awake Love, awake Delight. The Clock must be plucked up before it can guide our Time; the Bird pleaseth not in her Nest, but in her Notes; the Chimes only make Music while they are going: Let us therefore beg the Spirit to blow upon our Garden, that the Spices thereof may flow out, when we set upon this Joyous Service. Cant. 5.16. God loves active Grace in Duty; that the Soul should be ready trimmed, when it presents itself to Christ in any Worship. 5. We must sing with spiritual joy. Indeed singing only makes joy articulate; it is only the turning of Bullion into Coin; as the Prophet speaks to this purpose, Isa. 65.14. Isa. 65 14. Singing is only the triumphant gladness of a gracious heart, a softer Rapture. We must sing as David danced before the Ark, 2 Sam. 6.15. with shouting and rejoicing in God. We sing to Christ. And Dr. Bound observes, There is no joy comparable to that we have in him: this is joy unspeakable and full of glory. Joy must be the Selah of this Duty. 6. We must sing with Faith. This grace only puts a pleasingness upon every service; if we hear, the Word must be mixed with Faith, Heb. 4.2. if we pray, it must be the prayer of Faith, Jam. 5.15. We must bring Faith to Christ's Table, or else, as Austin saith, Dormit Christus, si dormit Fides; Dormit Christus, si dormit Fides. Aug. if Faith sleeps, Christ is likewise asleep: and so Faith must carry on this Ordinance of Singing: especially there must be a credence in the Hallelujahs above; we must believe that the Saints here are only tuning their Instruments, and the louder Music will be above; that in glory there will be such pleasing sounds, which the Apostle tells us, 1 Cor. 2.9. No Ear ever heard. 7. We must sing in the Spirit. As we must pray in the Spirit, Judas v. 20. so we must sing in the Spirit; the Spirit must breathe, as well as Grace act, or the Voice sound in this Duty. Davenant well observes, they are called spiritual Songs, ratione Originis; in point of their Original: Spiritu Sanct. impellente & excitante. Dau. the Spirit excites and impels the Soul to this holy Service; and he observes, that the Spirit is the prime Artificer in this work. Thus in the foregoing Verse to the Text, Ephes. 5.18. the Apostle adviseth us to be filled with the Spirit; and in the Text itself, he calls us to be singing of Psalms and Hymns, etc. When the Spirit fell upon the Apostles, Acts 2.1. than they spoke those glorious things recorded; and so must we sing, being sublimated and raised with the Spirit. This Wind, as the Spirit is called, John 3.8. must fill our Organ, In Psalmis canendis praecipua Christianorum cura esse debet ut cor ritè afficiatur. Dau. Quatuor sunt conditiones rectè canendi. 1. Vocis abieritas. 2. Operis conformitas. 3. Cordis attentio. 4. Pia rectitudo. Gor. Cantas ut placeas populo, non Deo; francis vocem, etc. Bern. before we can make any Music. 8. And what Davenant suggests, is very pertinent here; In singing of Psalms, our principal care must be of our Hearts, and to follow the Wise man's counsel, Prov. 4.23. to keep our Hearts with all diligence. And this Learned man gives us a good reason; For they who neglect their Hearts, may please men with the artificial suavity of their Voice; but they will displease God with the odious Impurity of their Hearts. And we must watch our Hearts; for vain and sinful Thoughts will fly-blow this Duty as well as others. Gorran well observes, There are four Conditions of right Singing: There must be, 1. The Alacrity of the Voice. 2. The Conformity of the Work. 3. The Attention of the Heart. 4. A Rectitude towards God. And holy Bernard draws up an Indictment against Offenders in this kind: Thou singest (saith he) to please the people more than God; thou breakest thy voice musically, break thy Will morally; thou keepest a Consonancy in thy Voice, keep a Concord and Harm my in thy Manners. A holy heart and life make them that sing to chant melodiously. First purify, than thou wilt tune thy Heart. 9 Neglect not Preparatory Prayer. Prayer prepares for singing as well as other Ordinances. Indeed Jehovah est Archimusicus, the great Harmonist who must put every heart in tune: he must screw up every peg of affection, and strain every string of meditation in this Ordinance. The Wise man observes, Prov. 16.1. The preparations of the heart are from God. Preparations in the plural number, preparation to Hearing, Preparation to Praying, Preparation to receiving of the Holy Supper, and so preparation to Singing: Our singing must needs be melody to the Lord, if it be assisted by the Lord: God will surely hear the melody he himself makes in a gracious heart engaged in this duty— Thus the Case may be answered. Use 1 This checks those who despise this Ordinance. Who look upon it as Noise, but not singing, as the crackling of thorns, but not the Music of Hearts.— But these do not consider, 1. The Holy Ends of this Duty, viz. S●ientiam quam comp●ravimus ex ser●pturis exprominus ad fratrem aedificandum. In est appetitus piis gen randi p●●s & fideles. Clem. Alex. 1. Psalms are sung for Instruction. We instruct one another in this service; this duty is for Spiritual and mutual Edification: As a Learned man well observes, That knowledge we acquire from the Scriptures, we draw out in this duty for our brother's edification: We edify our brother by singing as well as by speaking; by warbling forth the Word in Holy Singing, as well as by urging and pressing the Word in Holy Discourse: A Proclamation is never the less authentical because it is proclaimed by sound of Trumpet; the Tune only accents the Matter. Clemens Alexandrinus well observes, There is an appetite in good persons to strengthen their brethren; and this may be done in singing as well as in other Ordinances. 2. Psalms are sung for Admonition. This the Apostle expressly intimates, Col. 3.16. Teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns; we may reprove a sin in singing of a Psalm, as well as in the quoting of a Text; and encourage Virtue as well by lifting up our voice, as by giving of our praise. Thus David, Psal. 51.13. We may truly be Satirists in this very Ordinance; When we sing a Psalms of Judgement, we may awaken sinners; and when we sing Psalms of Mercy and lovingkindness, we may encourage Saints. 3. Psalms are sung for Praise and Thanksgiving. Then as the Psalmist speaks, Psal. 17.8. We awake our Glory, which Interpreters call the Tongue, an excellent instrument for praising God. sing of Psalms is only the Echo of Praise, the rebound of a joyous heart in a laudatory Speech; Praise loudly and Musically proclaimed, that men may hear our Thanksgivings, and bear testimony to our gratulatory enlargements; as the passenger bears witness to the Music of a Grove; there the pleasant birds sit and sing. Now do such consider the rare effects of this Duty, viz. of singing to the Lord: and they are, 1. Singing can sweeten a Prison. Thus Paul and Silas indulcorated their bondage by this service, Ne sit hora gratiae immunis gaudio; Conventus nostri sonent Psalmos. Cypr-Hoc genus delectationis est animae nostrae valdè cognatum; Deus Psalmos institui●, ut ab iis simul caperetu utilitas & Voluptas. Chrysost. Acts 16.25. As prayer can shed a perfume, so singing can cast a delight on the most displicent dungeon; this truly Divine Service can turn a prison into a paradise; a place of restraint into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. As Cyprian used to triumph; Our Conventions sing our Psalms. 2. Singing can prepare us for sufferings. When Christ was ready to be offered up, he sang an Hymn with his Disciples; Christ sups, and sings, then dies. Joy in the Lord (whereof singing is only the rebound) arms against the dint of suffering. It is a good saying of chrysostom, Hoc genus delectationis, etc. This kind of delight is most natural to the Soul; God appointed Psalms, that from thence profit and pleasure may flow together. Singing raises the heart above the discouragement of suffering; nor can we so well muse upon our pains, while we are so sedulously tuning our praises. 3. Singing lightens and exhilarates the Soul. We may say of this duty, as Tremelius speaks of David's harp, that by the Music of it, the storms of Saul's Spirit were allayed, and he was composed and serene; Singing both reveals and amplifies our joy; It is not only a discovery, but an improvement, Psalmis nos oblectemus, & ex hisce hilaritatem nostram promanare annotandum est. As a learned man well takes notice, Let us delight ourselves in singing Psalms, and from them let us draw our Cheerfulness and Delight. Let all our sweet Waters gush from this spring. Nor do such consider the sweet allurements, which draw us to this duty; And if we inquire what it is that puts us upon rejoicing in God by Singing.— I shall tell you; 1. The Good Spirit. That Heavenly principle both leads us to this duty and helps us in it: this is one of the good motions of the blessed Spirit to put us upon singing the praises of the Lord. Wine tempts us to vain and wanton Songs, but the Spirit excites us to Holy and Heavenly Hymns; the Spirit first sets the Tune, and Christ is the burden of the Song. 2. The joyous heart. Holy sing is both the Sign and Vent of joy. The little Child is pained, and then it cries; the Saint is surprised with joy, and then it breaks out into singing. Smothers will turn into Flames; and the heart overcharged with complacency, will discharge itself in this Holy Exultation. In the Churches triumph recorded by the Prophet Isaiah, Isa. 35.2. Singing follows joy as its proper and genuine product and birth. 3. A sense of Obedience. To sing praises to the Lord is a duty, which the Saints know not how to wave or respite. The Apostle James joins praying and singing together, Jam. 5.13. and the Believer knows not how to neglect the one no more than the other. Sometimes God calls us to the Cross, and then we must be calm and patiented; and sometimes he calls us to the Choir, and then we must be pleasant and delightful. This checks those who scruple this Ordinance; surely this must proceed Use 2 from the Evil one, turning himself into an Angel of Light. It was a serious moan which sometimes many Ministers in New England made, even in this Case; The singing of Psalms, (say they) though it breath forth nothing but Heavenly harmony, and sweet melody, yet such is the subtlety of the Enemy, and the Enmity of our Nature against God, and the ways of God, that our hearts can find matter of discord in this Harmony, and Crotchets of division in this holy Melody. And hence arise so many questions about singing of Psalms.— But I shall only touch upon three Objections. How can a serious Christian sing in a mixed Congregation? The presence Object. 1 of the wicked will surely jar the Music, and give a very just Occasion of Offence. Many who forbear singing in the Congregation, will not forbear it in their Answ. 1 families: And is there no Cham, no Judas, no withered branch? Are all the Son● of Zion? Are all the Friends of the Bride-Chamber? This is not an usual Happiness. 2. And are there not mixtures when we pray, and when we hear? and this scruple may be leveled against these as well as against singing. There is as much purity, and so ought to be in Petitioners and Hearers as in Singers. And why then are we not as curious in these duties as in Singing? which if we were, few would join with us in these solemn approaches. Let us not (Dear Christians) consult fancy, but reason and Scripture-proof. 3. Singing may be sanctified for Conviction of sinners; Moses penned a Song, and God commands the people to sing it, Deut. 31.30. And this Song was to convince the sinful Israelites of their obstinacy and Apostasy. 4. And if we are thus shy and scrupulous, with whom at last shall we join? Our Saviour himself had but 12 Apostles, and there was a Judas among them; what Constellation shall we aim at, where there is no blazing Comet or falling Star? Let us at last avoid that Language, stand further off I am holier than thee. It was but a Pharisaical boast to say, I am not as this Publican, Luke 18.11. 5. If singing be a duty, (as most certainly it is) thou art bound to perform it in the best manner thou canst, and then others presence will not enfeeble thy comfort, nor invalidate thy service, thou shalt have peace in thy own Soul. Heathenish spectators (for so are wicked men at an Ordinance) did not eclipse the glory of the Martyrs; their stakes were hung with Laurel notwithstanding.— But it is Observed by a Worthy and Learned man, That all these Objections arise from the Ignorance of the Nature, Use and Ends of this Blessed Duty. Object. 2 But some are ready to object, There are many passages in the Psalms which are not so accommodate to their condition: As how can they sing the sixth Psalm when they are in prosperity? or the 38th Psalm when they are in health? or the 51th Psalm, when they know no notorious scandal hath lately fallen on them? and they must not lie before the Lord. Answ. 1 Every passage in the Psalms is matter for Meditation; a gracious Spirit may spring sweet Contemplation from it. In the 51th Psalm we may meditate on the grievous nature of Sin; and in the 6th Psalm we may meditate on the mournful effects of sin, and that it will surely be bitterness in the latter end. 2. What is not now, may afterwards be thy condition; thou mayest fall, and then the 51th Psalm is accommodated to thee; thou mayest be under distempers, and then the 38th Psalm is not incongruous to the; thou mayest be penitentially inclined, and then the 6th Psalm is well calculated for thy Condition. Object. 3 But why must we be confined to David's Psalms? Answ. Why? What more comprehensive and suitable to every condition? They are the Bible Epitomised; How full of sweet counsels, Divine raptures, humble complaints, hearty expressions of Love to God? Sometimes we may find David swimming in his tears, Psal. 6.6. Sometimes ravished with his joys, Psal. 43.4. Sometimes eclipsed with distrust, Psal. 77.7. Sometimes raised with confidences, Psal. 30.7. The Psalms are a Christian's choicest Oracle to fly to in times of distress; And was not the holy Psalmist guided by an infallible Spirit? How often are the Psalms quoted by Christ? Luke 20.42. & ch. 24.44. and so by the Apostles, Acts 1.20. as Divine Authority to establish Truth. Let us therefore not disturb ourselves with these groundless Objections, but let us pursue and embrace this Holy duty, which is the very Suburbs of Heaven; and let us observe what a reverend person notes upon this Occasion; I observe, (saith he) they never thrive well who neglect or scruple singing of Psalms; they commonly begin at this Omission, but they do not end there, but at last they come to be above all Ordinances, and so indeed without them, whose sad condition is not sufficiently to be deplored. And another Learned and Reverend Divine yet living, hath observed fatal and judicial proceed of God against those who have turned their backs upon this joyous and sweet Ordinance; but let the Lord lead us into all understanding: the wise Christian will pause and consider. Let this check those, who suspend and neglect this Heavenly Ordinance; and Use 3 this is an evil much to be deplored in our times. We may now walk in the streets on God's Holy day, and not hear the least noise of a Psalm, or sound of a spiritual Song. It was, not long since, the wont of the Puritans, which were the most precious Christians, to Echo forth the praises of the great Jehovah in this Duty, especially upon the Lord's Day: Then was there a holy Choir in their houses; their Children were the little birds to sing the praises of the Creator; the Servants likewise joining in the harmony to make up a fuller Music. But alas! Now the voice of the Bride, singing to her Beloved, is not heard in the places of our abode; there is silence instead of singing, and prating instead of praising, frivolous discourses instead of joyous praises. It might behoove us to ponder, how much of Heaven do we lose in neglecting this Service? In singing Psalms we begin the work of Heaven. In Heaven we read of the Song of Moses, and of the Lamb, Rev. 15.3. And of a new Song, Rev. 14.3. And the Angels though they have not Tongues, yet they have voices to sing the praises of the Most High; and therefore that this Heavenly service is so neglected and unexercised is a lamentation, and shall be for a Lamentation, Ezek. 19.14. This likewise checks those who formalize in this Duty, who Act a Part, not a Use 4 Duty; they make a noise and not Music, and more provoke the Eyes, than please the Ears of God. Hierome pathetically Exclaims against those Formalists; We must not (saith he) Act as Players, who stretch their throats to accommodate their Tongues to the matter in hand, but we must sing Psalms as Saints, praising God not only with our Voice, but with our Heart, not only with a sweet voice, but with a melting heart. Bernard makes two conditions of grateful singing. 1. We must sing purely, minding what we sing, nor must we act or think any thing besides; there must be no vain or vagrant thoughts; no dissonancy between the Mind and the Tongue. 2. We must sing strenuously, not idly, not sleepily or perfunctorily; we must sing ex animo, most hearty and Energetically. Use 5 Let us get an interest in Christ. If we are not in Christ, we are certainly out of tune. The singing of a sinner is natural, like the singing of a Bird. But the singing of a Saint is musical, like the singing of a Child; Saints in singing perform a grateful duty: But sinners offer a vain oblation, Isa. 1.13. It is Christ must put an acceptation upon this service, as well as others; Here the Altar must sanctify the gift. Christ perfumes the prayers of the Saints, Rev. 5.8. And he must articulate the singing of the Saints. Indeed he alone can turn our tune into melody; and though in ourselves we have Esau's garments, yet he can give us jacobs' voice; We are accepted in Christ in this offer of love. Therefore let us get into Christ, he can raise our voice in singing to a pleasing Elevation. Let us be in him, and then our steps shall be metrical, our pauses musical, and our very Cadencies shall be Seraphical; Our singing of Psalms shall be the music of the Spheres. Use 6 Let us sometimes raise our hearts in holy Contemplation; Let us think of the Music of the Bride-Chamber: There shall be no cracked strings, displeasing sounds, harsh voices, nothing to abate or remit our melody; there shall be no willows to hang up our harps upon, Psal. 137.2. In the Bride-Chamber, there shall be no sorrow to interfere, when we sing the song of the Lamb, Rev. 21.3. No grief to jar our harmony. These pleasing Meditations should sometimes possess and sweeten our Spirits, that while we are walking in the galleries, Cant. 7.5. we may be nearer to the Palace of the great King, Psal. 45.15. How ought We to Improve our Baptism? Serm. X. Acts 2.38. Be Baptised every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the Remission of Sins. THis Chapter gives us an account of the pouring out of the Spirit according to the promise presently after Christ's Ascension; as soon as the Spirit was poured out, the Apostles were enabled to speak in various Languages to the astonishment and wonder of the Hearers:. This was for the Glory of God, the Confirmation of the Gospel, and to authorise them as Special Messengers sent by Christ. At the sight of this Miracle some wonder, others mock, as if this speaking with divers Tongues had been a confused jabber, that proceeded from the fumes of Wine, rather than the gift and operation of the Holy Spirit. To satisfy both, Peter declares in a Sermon the effect and intent of the Miracle; proving Jesus, whom they had Crucified, to be Lord and Christ. When they heard this, many of the most obstinate among them were pricked at the heart, and relented. An happy Sermon it was that Peter preached: it brought in thousands of Souls to Christ; the first handsel of the power of the Spirit, and success of the Gospel. 'Tis good to observe what course they took for ease and relief, after this piercing and brokenness of heart; they said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, Men and Brethren, what shall we do? This is the usual Question of men under a sound and thorough Conviction. To their serious Question Peter makes a seasonable Answer, v. 38. 'Tis the part of a good Physician, not only to discover the Disease, but also to prescribe a Remedy; especially should spiritual Physicians be tender of Sinners, and willing and ready to give them Counsel. In Peter's Direction and Counsel to them observe first, What he persuades them to do. Secondly, By what Motive and Argument; what they should do, and what they should receive. In the Advice he persuades them to Repentance, and to be Baptised in the Name of Christ: The latter we are upon. For Explaining it, we may inquire, First, Why is Baptism mentioned rather than Faith, and other things more internal and necessary to Salvation? I answer, Certainly Faith is implied; for Mark 16.16. He that Believeth, and is Baptised, shall be Saved. Baptism is an open and real Profession of Christ Crucified: So that Be Baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ, is as much as Be Baptised, Believing on the Name of the Lord Jesus, for the Remission of Sins. Secondly, Baptism is mentioned because it was the visible Rite of receiving Proselytes to Christ. Now it imported them who were convinced as Persecutors to turn Professors, if they would have ease for their Consciences; and therefore not only to Believe with the Heart, but to make open Profession of Faith in Christ, Rom. 10.10. Quest. 2. Why in the Name of Christ only? the Father and the Holy Ghost is not mentioned according to the Prescript-form, Mat. 28.19. I answer, he speaks not of the Form of Baptism, but the use and end thereof. Now the great use of Baptism is, that we may have benefit by the Mystery of Redemption by Christ, therefore elsewhere we are said to be Baptised into Jesus Christ, Rom. 5.3. And to put on Christ, Gal. 3.27. He is the Head of the Church, and by Baptism we are planted into his Mystical Body. This being premised, my work shall be to show, what use and respect Baptism has unto this benefit of obtaining remission of Sins by Jesus Christ. I shall do it in these considerations. 1. First, that God hath ever delighted to deal with his Creatures in the way of a Covenant, that we might know what to expect from him, and might look upon ourselves as under the firmer Bonds of obedience to his blessed Majesty. In a Covenant which is the most solemn transaction between Man and Man, both parties are engaged, God to us, and we to God: It is not meet that one party should be bound, and the other free; therefore both are bound to each other, God to Bless, and we to Obey. Indeed in the first Covenant the debitum poenae is only mentioned, because that only took place, Gen. 2.17. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. But the other part is implied, and it doth in effect speak thus much, Do and Live, Sin and Dye. 2. Secondly, because the first Covenant was broken on our part, God was pleased to enter into a second, wherein he would manifest the glory of his Redeeming grace, and pardoning Mercy to fallen Man; this was brought about in Christ, 2 Cor. 5.19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and therefore this second Covenant is called a Covenant of Peace, as being made with us after the breach, and when Man was obnoxious to the wrath of God, Isa. 54.10. The Covenant of my Peace shall not be removed. Man needeth such a Covenant, and God appeased by Christ offereth it to us. 3. Thirdly, In this Covenant of Peace, the Privileges and Duties are suited to the State in which man was, when God invited him into Covenant with himself. Man was fallen from his Duty, and obnoxious to the wrath and displeasure of God, and therefore the new Covenant is a Doctrine of Repentance and Remission of Sins. What is Preach the Gospel to every Creature, Mark 16.16. is in Luk. 24.47. That Repentance and Remission of sins should be Preached in his Name among all Nations; for that is the Gospel, or the new Remedial Law of our Lord Jesus; Repentance to heal us and set us in joint again, as to our Duty: Remission of Sins, to recover us into God's favour; both these benefits we have by the Redeemer, Acts 5.31. Him hath God exalted to give Repentance and Remission of Sins to Israel; he giveth the one simply, and both giveth and requireth the other; so that by the New Covenant, Remission of Sins is conveyed to all true Penitents. Fourthly, More distinctly to understand the tenor of this New and second Covenant, we must consider both the Duties and the Privileges thereof; for in every Covenant there is ratio dati & accepti, there is something promised and given, and something required; and usually the Promise consists of somewhat which the Party is willing of, and the Duty or Condition required of that to which he is more backward and loath to submit; so in the Covenant of Grace, in the Promise God respects man's want, in the Duty his own Honour. Every man would have pardon, and be saved from Hell, but God will have subjection; even corrupt Nature is not against desires of Happiness; these God makes use of to gain us to Holiness. All men readily catch at Felicity, and would have Impunity, Peace, Comfort, Glory, but are unwilling to deny the Flesh, to renounce the credit, profit, or pleasure of Sin; or to grow dead to the World and worldly things. Now God promiseth what we desire, on condition that we will submit to those things that we are against; as we sweeten bitter Pills to Children, that they may swallow them the better; they love the Sugar, though they loathe the Aloes; so doth God invite us to our Duty by our Interest. Therefore whosoever would enter into the Gospel-state, must resolve to take the Blessings and Benefits offered for his Happiness, and the Duties required for his Work. Indeed, accepting of the Benefits is a part of the Condition, because we treat with an invisible God about a happiness that lieth in another World; but 'tis but part, there are other terms, and therefore we must draw nigh with a true heart, in full assurance of Faith, Heb. 10.22. With a true heart, resolving upon the Duties of the Covenant; in full assurance of Faith, depending upon God's Word, that he will give us the blessings. Fifthly, The Privileges are two, Pardon and Life; these are the great Blessings offered in the New Covenant; you have them both together, Acts 26.18. To turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified by Faith. These two Benefits are most necessary, the one to allay the Fears of the guilty Creature, and the other to gratify Desires of Happiness which are natural to us; the one to remedy the misery incurred by Sin and the Fall of Man, the other to establish our true and proper Felicity in the everlasting enjoyment of God; the one to ease our Consciences, and support us against troubles of mind, the other to comfort us against the outward troubles and afflictions which sin hath introduced into the World. In short, the one to free us from deserved Punishment, the other to assure us of undeserved Blessedness; the one importeth Deliverance from Eternal Death, and the other Entrance into Eternal Life. Sixthly, The Duties thereof do either concern our first entrance into the Christian state, or our Progress therein. Our Lord representeth it under the Notions of the Gate, and the Way, Mat. 7.14. Straight is the Gate, and narrow is the Way which leadeth into Life. Other Scriptures deliver it under the notions of making Covenant, and keeping Covenant with God: making Covenant, Psal. 50.5. keeping Covenant, Psal. 25.10. Psal. 103.18. The Covenant must not only be made, but kept. I. As to entering into Covenant with God, there is required true Repentance and Faith, Mark. 1.15. Repent, and believe the Gospel. Repentance respects God as our end; Faith respects Christ as the great means, or way to the Father, Acts 20.21. Repentance towards God, and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our end, for Christ died to bring us to God; 1 Pet. 3.18. and Christ is our way, John 14.6. and whole Christiany is a coming to God by Christ, Heb. 7.25. Now in our first entrance, Faith and Repentance are both mixed, and it is hard to sever them, and show what belongs to the one, and what to the other; at least it would perplex the Discourse. Both together imply, that a man be turned from a life of Sin to God by Faith in Christ; or a renouncing the Devil, the World, and the Flesh; and devoting and dedicating ourselves to God. 1. A Renouncing of the Devil, the World, and the Flesh; for these are the three great Enemies of God and our Salvation, Eph. 2.2, 3. In time past ye walked according to the Course of this World, after the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that works now in the children of disobedience, among whom also we had our conversation in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. There all our Enemies appear abreast: the Devil as the Grand deceiver and principal of all wickedness the World with its Pleasures, Honours and Profits, as the Bait by which it doth deceive us, and steal away our hearts from God; and pervert and divert us, that we should not look after the one thing necessary; the Flesh is that Corrupt Inclination in us, which entertains and closeth with these Temptations to the neglect of God, and the wrong of our own Souls; this is very importtnate to be pleased, and is the proper internal cause of all our mischief, for James 1.14. Every man is enticed and drawn away by his own lust. These must be renounced before we can return to God, for till we put away our Idols, we cannot incline our hearts to the true God, Josuah 24.23. And these are the great Idols by which our hearts are estranged from him. When God is laid aside, self interposeth as the next Heir, and that which we count self is the flesh. Many wrong their own Souls, but never any man hated his own flesh. That which feeds the flesh, is the World, and the Devil by proposing the Bait, irritateth and stirreth up our affections. Therefore we must be turned from Satan to God; we must be delivered from the present evil World; we must abstain from fleshly Lusts, for God will have no Copartners and Competitors in our hearts. 2. A devoting and giving up ourselves to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as our God, 2 Cor. 8.3. and Rom. 6.13. As our owner by Creation, Psal. 100.3. And by Redemption, 1 Cor. 6.19, 20. As our Sovereign Lord, Jer. 24.8. Isa. 26.13. Other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us, etc. As the fountain of our life and blessedness, Psal. 31.14. I trusted in the Lord, I said, thou art my God, Lam. 3.24. The Lord is my portion, saith my Soul, therefore will I hope in him, Psal. 119.57. I have said thou art my Potion, therefore I will keep thy Precepts. II. As to our Progress and Perseverance, which is our walking in the narrow way, and shows the sincerity and heartiness of our consent in making the Covenant. And besides, this is not the work of a Day, but of our whole Lives; we have continual need of coming to God by Christ. Here three things are required. 1. As to the Enemies of God and our Souls, there must be a forsaking as well as a renouncing; the Devil must be forsaken, we must be no more of his party and confederacy; we must resist, stand out against all his batteries and assaults, 1 Pet. 5.8, 9 the World must be overcome, 1 John 5.4, 5. and the flesh must be subdued and mortified, Gal. 5.24. that we be no more governed by the desires thereof; and if we be sometimes foiled, we must not go back again, but renew our Resolutions; and the drift of our lives must still be for God and Heaven. 2. As to God, to whom we have devoted ourselves, we must love and please and serve him all our days, Luke 1.75. we must make it our work to love him, and count it our happiness to be beloved by him, and carefully apply ourselves to seek his favour, and cherish a fresh sense of it upon our hearts, and continue with patience in well-doing, Rom. 2.7. till we come to the complete sight and love of him in Heaven, 1 John 3.2. 3. You must always live in the hope of the coming of Christ, and everlasting glory, Tit. 2.3. looking for the blessed hope; and Judas v. 21. looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus unto eternal life. As we did at first thankfully accept of our recovery by Christ, and at first consent to renounce the Devil, the World, and the Flesh, and resolve to follow God's counsel and direction; we must still persevere in this mind, and use his appointed means in order to our final happiness. The sum then of our Christianity is, that we should by true Repentance and Faith, forsake the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and give up ourselves to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that he may take us for his reconciled Children, and for Christ's sake forgive all our sins; and by his Spirit give us grace to persevere in those Resolutions, till our full and final happiness come in hand. Seventhly, This Covenant, consisting of such Duties and Privileges, God hath confirmed by certain visible Ordinances, commonly called Sacraments, as Baptism and the Lord's Supper; both which, but in a different manner, respect the whole tenor of the Covenant: For as the Covenant bindeth mutually on God's part and ours, so these Duties have a mutual Aspect or Respect to what God does, and what we must do: on God's part they are a Sign and a Seal: on our part they are a Badge and a Bond. 1. On God's part they are sealing or confirming Signs; as Circumcision is called a sign or seal of the righteousness which is by faith, Rom. 4.11. that is, of the grace offered to us in Christ; so is Baptism, which came in the Room of Circumcision, Col. 2.11, 12. In whom ye are circumcised, buried with him in Baptism. Surely the Gospel-Ordinances signify as much grace as the Ordinances of the legal Covenant; if Circumcision was a Sign and Seal of the Righteousness which is by Faith, a or pledge of God's good will to us in Christ, so is Baptism, so is the Lord's Supper; they are a Sign to signify, and a Seal to confirm; to represent the Grace, and assure the grant of Pardon and Life. As for instance, Baptism signifies Pardon and Life, so does the Lord's Supper, Matth. 26.28, 29. That for our growth and nourishment, this for our imitation. Baptism is under our consideration at present; that it hath respect to remission of Sins, the Text is clear for it, and so are many other Scriptures. It was Ananias his Advice to Paul, Acts 22.16. Arise and be Baptised, and wash away thy sins, and call on the Name of the Lord. So Ephes. 5.26. That he might sanctify and cleanse us by the washing of water through the Word. The washing represents the washing away the guilt and filth of sin; it signifies also our Resurrection to a blessed and eternal Life: Baptism saveth by the Resurrection of Christ, 1 Pet. 3.21. Well then, it is a sealing Sign. When God promised longer life to Hezekiah, 2 Kings 20.8. he said, What shall he the sign that the Lord will heal me? So when he promiseth pardon and life to us, What shall be the sign that the Lord will do this for us? Baptism is this sign; a witness between us and God, Gen. 31.48. This heap is a witness between thee and me. 2. On our part they are a Badge and a Bond to oblige us to the Duties of the Covenant: a Badge of the profession, and a Bond to engage us to the Duties which that Profession calls for. As the Apostle speaks of Circumcision, That whosoever is circumcised, is a debtor to the whole Law, Gal. 5.3. binds himself to the observances of Moses. So a Christian by being baptised becomes a Debtor, not to the Flesh, to live after the flesh, etc. Rom. 8.12. And 'tis called an Answer towards God, 1 Pet. 3.21. the answer supposes the demands of the Covenant, and so 'tis an undertaking faithfully to perform the Conditions required of us; a Vow or an Obligation whereby we reckon ourselves bound to die unto Sin, and to live unto Righteousness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. 6.11. It bindeth us chief to the Duties that belong to our entrance, as the Lord's Supper doth more directly to the Duties which belong to our progress; it bindeth us to a true belief of the Gospel, or an acceptance of Christ, and consent to the Covenant of Grace; to renounce the Devil, the World, and the Flesh, and to give up ourselves unto God; and therefore the Baptismal Covenant, by which we are initiated into Christianity, is expressed by our being Baptised in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Matth. 28.19. which implies a giving up ourselves to them in their distinct personal Relations: To the Father, that we may return to him, and obey him as our rightful Lord; that we may love him, and depend upon him, as the Fountain of all our good and all-sufficient happiness; and prefer his favour before all the sensual pleasures of the World. We are Baptised in the Name of Christ, that we may believe in him, accept him as our Saviour and Redeemer; expecting to be saved by his Merits, Righteousness, and Intercession, from the Wrath of God, and Gild of Sin and eternal Death. To the Holy Ghost as our Guide, Sanctifier, and Comforter; that he may free us from Sin, change us into the image and likeness of Christ, and lead us into all truth and godliness, and comfort us with the sense of our present interest in God's love, and the hopes of future glory. Eighthly, These visible confirming Ordinances give us great advantages above the Word and bare proposal of the Covenant. 1. As these sealing Signs are an expression of God's earnest and sincere respect to our Salvation. God hath opened his mind in his Word concerning his love and good will to Sinners in Christ; and he hath also added his Seal, that the Charter of his Grace might be more valid and authentic. It argueth the goodness and communicativeness of God to give notice in his Word; but his solicitousness and anxious care for our good, to give visible assurance in the Sacraments, as being willing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, over and above to satisfy the Heirs of Promise. If a man be more than ordinarily cautious to make all sure, it is a sign his heart is upon the thing. Surely 'tis a great condescension that God would dispose his grace into a Covenant-form; but 'tis a further condescension that he would add Seals, which needed not on his part; but he added them to give us the more strong consolation. Nudum pactum, a naked Promise is not so valid and authentic, as when Articles of Agreement are put into a formal Instrument and Deed of Law, and that signed and sealed, and interchangeably delivered; this breeds more confidence and security on both sides. God's Word certifieth us of his good will; but when he is pleased to make a formal Indenture of it, and to sign it, and seal it, it doth breed more assurance in our minds, that his Promises are made with a real intent to perform them; and bindeth us the more firmly to God, when besides our naked Promise, there is a kind of Vow and Oath on our part solemnly entered into by Baptism. 2. There is this Advantage in the Sacraments above the Word, that they are a closer Application. The Word speaks to all promiscuously, as inviting; the Sacraments to every one in particular, as obliging. By the Word none are excluded from the Grace offered upon God's terms, Go preach the Gospel to every Creature; but by the Sacraments, every one is expressly admonished of his Duty. The Object revealed in the Word is like the Brazen Serpent, which without difference was exposed to the Eye of all, that whosoever looked upon it might be healed; but the same Object offered in the Sacraments is like the blood sprinkled on the Door-posts, that every man might be assured that his Family should be in safety. Now the reason of this difference is, because things propounded in the Word are like a Treaty between God and us; or an offer and a debating of matters till the parties do agree: But Sacraments are not of use till both sides have agreed upon the Conditions of the Covenant. In Adults at least the Word conduceth to the making of the Covenant, but Sacraments suppose it made; therefore the Word universally propoundeth that which in the Seals is particularly applied. Now those things do not affect us so much which are spoken indifferently to all, as those that are particularly applied to ourselves, because they stir us up to a more accurate care and endeavour to fulfil the Duty incumbent upon us. The Conditions are propounded in the Word, Repent and believe, and I will pardon, and give thee eternal life: But the Sacraments suppose an Actual consent, that thou hast done, or undertaken so to do; and than God comes and saith, Take this as an undoubted pledge, that thou shalt have what I have promised; which doth more increase our Hope, and persuade our Duty. 3. By these Sealing Signs we are solemnly invested into a right to the things promised, as when we are put in possession of what we have bargained for by due formalities of Law: This is my Body; that is our solemn Investiture into the Privileges purchased by Christ's Crucified Body. A Believer receiveth Christ in the Word, John 1.12. and he receiveth Christ in the Lord's Supper. What's the difference? There his right is solemnly owned and confirmed in the way which God hath appointed. As soon as a man consents to a Bargain, he hath an Interest in the thing bargained for, but the right is made more explicit when 'tis delivered to him by some formalities of Law, as an House by a Key, a Field by a Turf or Twig; in such delivery we say, This Key is my House; this Turf or Twig is my Field. So are we put in possession of Christ by these words, This is my Body. Every peninent and believing Sinner hath a right to Christ and Pardon, but his solemn Enfeoffment is by the Sacraments: Repent, and be Baptised every one of you for the Remission of Sins; or as it is Acts 22.14. Arise and be Baptised for the washing away of thy Sins. God gave Abraham the Land of Promise by word of mouth; but Gen. 13. he bids him go through the Land and view it, and build an Altar, and offer Sacrifice there; then was he actually invested in the Gift. God gave Israel a grant of Canaan, but the Clusters of Eschol were as it were the Livery and Seisin of it. Though the Gift be sufficiently made over by the Promise, yet 'tis further ratified, and more solemnly conveyed and delivered by the Sacraments. 4. This is one Advantage more, That the great Mysteries of godliness are laid before our Eyes in some visible Rites, and so have greater force to excite the mind to serious Consideration. When God will condescend to give us help against our Infirmities, it must be by the Senses, by which all knowledge comes into the Soul: Now Feeling, Smelling, Tasting, seem not so fit for this; as being more gross, and conducing to the welfare of the Body; but Seeing and Hearing convey Objects to the Understanding, and therefore are called the Senses of Discipline and Learning. Now the Covenant is made by words, which strike the Ear; but the Seals by visible things set it before our Eyes, and as the Apostle saith, Christ is Crucified among us, and evidently set forth, Gal. 3.1. The sight doth in a more lively manner stir up the mind than the bare Hearing. Washing from Sin doth fitly represent to us, and raise thoughts in us about the Sanctification of the Spirit; and so in a lively manner excite us to expect this benefit. Use. Let us not be slight in the use and improvement of Baptism; for itimplieth a solemn covenanting with God, that we may obtain Remission of Sins and eternal Life. John the Baptist calleth it Mark 1.4. The Baptism of Repentance for the Remission of Sins. Therefore let us reflect upon ourselves; We are all Baptised, but what are we the better? have we the more confidence of the pardon of our Sins, and a greater sense of our Covenant-Vow, to die unto Sin, and live unto God? we cannot have the former without the latter; both must be regarded by us. Volateranus reporteth of Lucian, that scoffing Atheist, that when he revolted from the Profession of Christianity, he scoffed at his Baptism, saying, Se nihil ex eo consecutum, quam quod nomen ipsius esset corruptum ex Lucio, Lucianus factum. That he got nothing by his Baptism but a syllable to his Name, it being changed from Lucius to Lucianus. Alas! what do most get by their Baptism but a Name? It should not be so with you; you may have great advantage by it, if you improve it to the ends for which it was appointed. To quicken you, consider; 1. Baptism is a perpetual Bond upon us, obliging us to Repentance, and an holy life, Rom. 6.4. therefore the Scripture often reasoneth from it, as Rom. 6.2. How shall we that are dead to Sin live any longer therein? He argueth not ab impossibili, but ab incongruo; not from what is impossible, but what will misbecome our renewed estate, which we profess to enter into by Baptism; which is a Vowed Death to Sin, and a Bond wherewith we bind our Souls to New Obedience. So elsewhere, Col. 3.1. Ye are risen with Christ, (in the import and signification of Baptism) therefore seek the things which are above. And again, Ye are dead, therefore mortify, etc. verse 3, 5. Once more, verse 8, 9 Put off all these, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds. And in many other places the Apostle argueth from the Baptismal Engagement to the effect intended and signified thereby. 2. The Improvement of Baptism is the best Preparation for the Lord's Supper. John 13.8. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. That washing had a spiritual meaning; and presently after it the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood was instituted, to the participation of which this spiritual washing was necessary. In the Supposition, If I wash thee not, is implied Baptism; in the Commination, thou hast no part with me, is implied the Lord's Supper, which Christ was then about to institute. In foro Ecclesiae, before the Church, none but Baptised Persons have a right to the Lord's Table, in foro Coeli, before God: none but those who have the fruit of Baptism have right to the benefits thereof; they that are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ have only right to the Benefits purchased by his Blood. Our Lord would mind his Disciples of this, before he would admit them to his Table. 3. If we improve it not, our Baptism will be a Witness to solicit Vengeance against us; as the Gospel itself is preached, either for a Witness to us, Matth. 24.14. or for a Witness against us, if we obey it not, Mark 14.9. So Baptism, instead of being a Witness to us, will be a Witness against us, if we mind it not, and in the Judgement we shall far no better than the Heathen; for all the difference between us is, that they are uncircumcised in flesh, and we in heart, Jer. 9.25, 26. they are not washed in Water, and we are not cleansed from our sins. I remember a passage in Victor Vticensis concerning one Elpidophorus, who had revolted from Catholicism to the Vandal Arrians; the Deacon who had Baptised him, shown him the Stole, or Linen Clothes, in which he was Baptised, saying, Hae te accusabunt cum Majestas venerit Judicantis, etc. O Elpidophorus, these shall be a Witness against thee to all eternity for thy just perdition, when the Judge cometh: what wilt thou do, Wretch, when the people of God shall be admitted to the Joys of Heaven, and thyself thrust out? etc. If we have been Baptised, and lived directly contrary to our Baptismal Vow, as if we were in Covenant with the Devil, the World, and the Flesh, rather than with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what will become of us in the Judgement? But how shall we improve it? First, We must personally and solemnly own the Covenant made with God in Infancy; every one of us should choose the Lord for our Sovereign Lord and Portion; and Christ Jesus for our Redeemer and Saviour; and the Holy Ghost for our Guide, Sanctifier, and Comforter. Every one must personally thus engage himself to God; 'tis not enough that Christ engage for us as the common surety of all the Elect, Heb. 7.22. Something he did for us, and in our Names, but every one must take a Bond upon himself, before he can have the benefit of it; You must yield up yourselves to the Lord, 2 Chron. 30.8. 'Tis not enough that the Church engage for us, as a visible Political Body, or a Community and Society of men, who are in visible Covenant with God and Christ, Ezek. 16.8. Thou enterdst into Covenant with me, and becamest mine, meaning it of the Body of the Church; but every individual person must also enter into Covenant with God, and become his, Ezek. 20.37. I will cause you to pass under the Rod, and I will bring you into the Bond of the Covenant: Where there is an Allusion to the Sheep's passing out of the Fold, when they were to be Tithed for God, Levit. 27.32. they were to be told with a Rod, one, two, three, etc. and the Tenth was the Lords. God will not covenant with us in the lump and body, but every one was to be particularly minded of his Duty: 'tis not enough that our Parents did engage for us in Baptism, as the Israelites in the Name of their little ones did avouch God to be their God, Dent. 29.10, 11, 12. No man can savingly transact this Work for another; we must ratify the Covenant in our own Persons, and make our own professed subjection to the Gospel of Christ, 2 Cor. 9.13. This Work cannot be done by a Proxy or Assigns; our Parent's Dedication will not profit us, without some personal Act of our own, if we live to years of discretion: Once more, this must be done not only in words, or visible external Rites, which may signify so much as personal Covenanting with God, but a Man must engage his heart to God, Jer. 30.21. yea, this is a business that must be done between God and our own Souls, where no outward witnesses are conscious to it. God speaketh to the Soul in this transaction, Psal. 35.3. Say unto my Soul, I am thy Salvation; and the Soul speaketh to God, Lam. 3.24. thou art my Portion, saith my soul; and Psal. 16.2. O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my God: thus the Covenant is carried on in Soul-Language. Now upon this Personal inward Covenanting with God our right to all the privileges doth depend. 2. Renew often the sense of your Obligation to God, and keep a constant reckoning how you lay out yourselves for him, Acts 27.23. His I am, and him I serve, Phil. 1.21. To me to Live is Christ. Some few Renegadoes renounce their Baptism, but most Christians forget their Baptism, 2 Pet. 1.9. He is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was washed from his old sins; therefore we should be continually exciting ourselves both to obedience and dependence, that the sincerity of our first Vow and Consent may be verified by a real and constant performance of it. 3. You should use frequent self-reflection, that you may come to know whether you are indeed washed from the guilt and silth of sin, 1 Cor. 6.11. Such were some of you, but now ye are sanctified, but now ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God. You should observe what further sense you have of the pardon of sin, how you get ground upon your bondage of Spirit, and grow up into some rejoicing of Faith, for by these signs God intended our strong consolation, Heb. 6.18. And the Eunuch when he was Baptised, went his way rejoicing, Acts 8.39. Hath God applied his Covenant to me? Taken me into the Family? Planted me into the Mystical Body of Christ? and shall not I be glad and rejoice in his Salvation? So for Sanctification, see whether God's Interest doth prevail in you, or the Interest of the Flesh; what Power and strength of Will you get against Corruption easily, Gal. 5.16, 17. whether sin be more subdued, and you can govern your Passions and Appetites better, Gal. 5.24. They that are Christ's should find something of this in themselves, otherwise their Baptism is but an empty formality. Fourthly and Lastly, You must use it as a great help in all Temptations; as when you are tempted to sin, either by the delights of Sense: a Christian hath his Answer ready, I am no Debtor to the Flesh, or I am Baptised, and dedicated to God in the way of Mortification and Holiness to obtain pardon and Life, 1 Cor. 6.15. Shall I take the Members of Christ, etc. this Soul, this Body, this Time, this Strength is Christ's, not to please the Flesh, but the Lord: Or by the terrors of Sense. Dionysia comforted her Son Majoricus, an African Martyr, when he was going to suffer for owning the Godhead of Christ, with this Speech, Memento, Fili, Baptizatum esse in nomine Patris, Filii, & Spiritus Sancti, Remember, my Son, that thou art Baptised in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and be constant. So when you are tempted by the Devil, taking advantage of your Melancholy, and grievous afflictions, to question God's Love and Mercy to Penitent Believers. Remember the Covenant Sealed in Baptism, that you may keep up your Faith in God through Christ, which pardoneth all your sins, and hath begotten us to a lively hope. We must expect to be Tempted: the Devil tempted Christ after his Baptism to question his filiation so solemnly attested. Compare Mat. 3.17. with Mat. 4.16. Luther saith of himself, that when the Devil tempted him to despair, or to any doubts and fears about the Love of God or his Mercy to Sinners, he would always Answer, Ecce ego Baptizatus sum, & credo in Christum Crucifixum, Behold, I am Baptised and Believe in Christ Crucified. And he telleth us of an Holy Virgin, who gave this reply when the Devil abused her Solitudes, and injected any despairing thoughts into her mind, Baptizata sum, I am Baptised, and entered into God's Covenant, and will expect the pardon of my sins by Jesus Christ. Thus should we all the days of our Life improve our Baptism, till we have the full of that Holy and Happy estate, for which we were first purified and washed in God's Laver. By what Scriptural Rules may Catechising be be so managed, as that it may become most universally Profitable? Serm. XI. Proverbs 22.6. Train up (or Catechise) a Child in the way he should go, (or in his way) and when he is old, he will not departed from it. THIS most Excellent Book of Sacred Aphorisins, or Divine Proverbs, is by some not unfitly compared to a costly Chain of Orient Pearls: among which, though there be a fair Connexion, yet there is little or no Coherence. I shall therefore immediately enter on the words themselves; and in them I observe a Precept and a Promise; an important Duty, and a persuasive Motive. 1. A grand, important, necessary Duty enjoined.— Train up, or Catechise a Child in the way he should go. In which words we have 1. The Act or Duty prescribed; Train up, or Catechise.— Piously and prudently instruct and educate. 2. The Object or Person that is to be trained up, a Child. By a Synecdoche, all such Younger ones and Inferiors as are committed to the care and conduct of their Superiors. 3. The Subject-matter wherein these Inferiors are thus to be trained up, In the way he should go.— In that way or manner of life which most suits and becomes him, that makes most for God's Glory and his own temporal, spiritual, and eternal good. 2. Quo semel est in buta recens servabit odrem testa diu. A● plurimum. So. Observation. 2. A Cogent Argument or prevalent Motive to excite and quicken to the faithful discharge of this important Duty.— And when he is old he will not departed from it; i. e. not easily, not ordinarily departed from it: He will be the better for it as long as he lives. Hildersham. From the first of these, viz. the Precept that enjoins the Duty, I infer: That it is the great and indispensable Duty, and therefore aught to be the serious and constant care of Superiors, prudently and piously to train up or Catechise, to instruct and educate all such Inferiors as are committed to their care and conduct. In the pursuing of this Momentous Truth, I shall tread in this Method, laying before you these five things. 1. What it is to train up or Catechise. 2. What is meant by That Way, wherein persons are to be trained up. 3. Who they are, that are to be trained up or Catechised. 4. Who they are, that are to train up or Catechise, and why. 5. How the whole Affair may be so prudently, piously, spiritually managed, as that it may be Crowned with such a blessed success, as to become most universally profitable. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 initia, primum imbue institue, instrue, dedica. Buxtorf. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instructos, expeditos, incipientes suos pueros, fidos, initiatos, quos domi nu●riverat & quos art bellied & lege Divina instruxerat. Whether by way of Question and Answer. Vid pag. 7. 1. What it is to train up or Catechise. Sol. The word in the Text is very pregnant, and greatly significant: Primum imbue; give the first dip, die, tincture, seasoning. Hence by a Metaphor the word is diversely translated. Initia, so Ar-Mout. Begin, or give the first instruction; lay the groundwork, foundation, or first stone. Deduc. So Chald. Paraph. Verse. Instrue. Set in order or array, arm, train up, instruct. Thus Abraham armed, or led forth his trained or instructed servants, Gen. 14.14. The word is also translated Dedicavit, Consecravit; i. e. to set a person or thing apart, and to devote it to the true God in a right manner, for holy uses and ends, with solemn prayer and praise. Thus the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used Deut. 20.5. Psal. 30. title. 1 Kings 9.7. 2 Cbron. 7.5. 1 Kings 13.13. 1 Chron. 18.11. The Greeks render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A word of a peculiar signification, and imports a plain and familiar teaching and instructing of the ignorant by word of mouth, in the first grounds and Fundamental Principles of the true, and, in the strictest sense, the Christian Religion. Thus the word is used Luke 1.4. Acts 18.25. 1 Cor. 14.19. Gal. 6.6. Hence it may be supposed it was that our Translators in the Margin render the word Catechise, as being prompted thereunto by the Jewish Rabbins, who stile their form of Catechism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Book of first instruction. 2. What is meant by that way wherein persons are to be trained up, or Catechised and initiated. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Juxta viam suam, i. e. juxta vitae genu, quod ipsum sequi velis. Sol. In the way he should go.— In the way or manner of his life, Gen. 43.7. in via sua, in his way, in his kind, and according to his capacity and measure, and suitably to the weakness and tenderness of his years, in the sound knowledge and practice of those truths and principles which may fit him for the service of his God and Generation here, and for the eternal enjoyment of his God hereafter. Let Paul interpret Solomon in his way: 1. In the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Eph. 6.4. i e. in all profitable instruction, suitable to a Child's age and state, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the framing and moulding of him by knowledge unto a commendable and virtuous carriage, and for the doing of greater good in humane Society, when he comes to write himself Man: but especially in Religious instruction, The first Principles of the Oracles of God and of the Doctrine of Christ. Heb. 5.12. & 6.1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in instruction in righteousness, 2 Tim. 3.16. In the words of Faith and of good doctrine, 1 Tim. 4.6. There is something more yet in the words,— ad os, supra os, Ar-Mont. upon the mouth of his way: A form of speaking frequently used in Scripture to note the suitableness or proportion of the thing, Exod. 16.21. according to the mouth of his eating, i. e. according to the measure of his eating. So Num. 7.5. To every Levite according to the mouth, i. e. the condition and degree of his service. Thus here; Train up a Child upon the mouth of his way, i. e. in such a way as is not only good and honest in itself, Pro captu ingenii ejus infirmioris, ut non eum plus oneres, quàm aetas fert. but most proper and suitable to the spirit, disposition, end and capacity of the Child.— As Children are to be fed with such meat, so they are to be taught in such a manner as they can most easily and profitably digest. Teach them but thus upon the mouth, and then out of their mouth shall come praise, Psal. 8.3. 3. Who they are that are thus to be trained up or Catechised, and why. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Excussit: puerum, puerulum, infantem ex utero nuperrimè excussum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ità hodiè Rabbini puerum 5. annotum ad Biblia, 10 ad mischna seu Textum Talmudium 13. ad Precept. 15. ad Talmud. Jer. 1.6. 2 Chr. 13.7. Isa. 5.3. Sol. All younger ones and Inferiors that are committed by God or men to the care and conduct of Superiors; all included in the name Child. The Original word admits of several significations: An Infant newly born, Judg. 13.7. of three months old, Exod. 26. A Child as soon as he gins to speak and exert his reason. Thus it runs parallel with the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: And so we find Timothy instructed from a Child, a Babe, a Suckling, 2 Tim. 1.5. with 3.15. It takes in Boys also and Girls, Sons and Daughters of somewhat riper age, youths as Shechem, Gen. 34.19. Damosels, and those marriageable, Deut. 22.19. The word is also applied to Abraham's Man-servants, Gen. 22.3. and to Booz Maidservants, Ruth. 2.22. Est. 4.4. To such, as though they may be men in years, are children in understanding. These all, and every one of these come within the List of those that Solomon and his God would have trained up and Catechised: Nay, let me add, there is not a younger Son of the Prophets, not one that sits at the feet of those Learned Gamaliels, those truly Reverend Elijahs, that can justly plead exemption from this seeming task, shall I say, or real honour, of being clearly taught in, and firmly fixed upon those Everlasting Foundations, the first principles of the Oracles of God, Heb. 5.12. & 6.1. 4. Who they are that are thus to train up or Catechise these Inferiors and younger ones. Sol. All their respective Superiors in Church or Family. 1. Superiors in the Church. These, under what Name or Title soever the Scripture presents them, are all bound to Catechise, that is, in a most plain and sound manner, publicly to instruct the most ignorant of their charge in the first principles of the Christian Religion. This duty so peculiarly belongs to them, that their whole work and office is set down under the name of Catechising. Let him that is taught, in the Greek it is Catechised, Gal. 6.6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. communicate unto him that teacheth; in the Greek, that Catechiseth. But to speak closely. 1. Was not Paul a great Apostle, yea the Grand Doctor of the Gentiles? and yet he professeth himself a Catechist. Paul's work was to plant, as well as to water; and to beget, as well as to bring up, 1 Cor. 6.7. and 4.15. Paul compares himself to a Nurse, 1 Thess. 2.7. the Saints to Babes, such as had need of Milk, and not of stronger meat, 1 Cor. 3.1. Heb. 5.12, 13. Paul professeth himself to be one of God's Stewards, 1 Cor. 4.1, 2. and, if faithful, he will see that the meanest the weakest in the Family hath his due allowance. In a word, Paul styles himself a Master-builder, 1 Cor. 3.10. And wherein lies the Art and Honour of a Master-builder so much, as in solidly laying the Foundation-stone, lest for want of it the building totter, Mat. 7.26, 27. 2. Was not Peter a great Officer in the Church? and yet sure I am, that whatever Dispensation Peter's pretended Successor, or any of his Allies may boast and crack of, Peter himself stands charged with feeding Lambs as well as Sheep, John 21.15. In the Church there are not only adult and perfect Fathers, and strong in Faith, but Infants and Babes, weak in Faith, such as are ignorant of the word of Righteousness, Is. 40.11. Lambs to be carried in the bosom. 3. The great dulness, incapacity, and slowness of heart, that is in the people to understand by any other way of teaching, calls aloud for this Elementary way of teaching. By this means those that in vain do hear those Elaborate labours of the Learned in a more full and copious dilating on the Articles of Faith, are by these little morsels of Catechising, as it were chewed for them, nourished up unto Salvation. This manner of teaching the Prophet hints, Is 28.10, 13. like a discreet Schoolmaster, not to pour in his Precepts all at once; for then, like water poured on narrow-mouthed Vessels, 'twould mostly run over: but instill drop by drop. It becomes Pastors to be frequent in Preaching, to be accurate in their Sermons; but yet they may by no means forget the shallow, Laterem lavat. serpendum humi, & cum suis quasi balbutiendum. indocible, intractable temper of their hearers. 'Tis in vain to give great Gobbets of meat to an infant; so far from feeding of him, that is a ready way to choke him. That Ministry usually proves the most effectual that drops as the Rain, and distils as the Dew, Deut. 32.2. Ezek. 20.26. 4. Want and neglect of Catechism confessed to be one of the principal causes of all those desperate defections that have been made from the Faith in this our English Africa, and of those insolent Invasions that have been made upon it by lose tongues and lewder Pens. What blasphemous Disputes against the infinite Merit and Deity of our Saviour, as if we intended to justify the Jews in condemning him to the Cross, for avouching himself the Coessential and Coeternal Son of God? Joh. 19.7. Biddle 's Lat. How audaciously have they proceeded in the like sacrilegious attempts against the Holy Ghost! What proud brags of the purity of man's Nature, and the sufficiency of his power to save himself! How daring have men been to decry the Scriptures, the Lord's Day, and all the Ordinances of God's Institution! to despise the Sacraments, as if they were as beggarly Elements as the Jewish Ceremonies! to deride singing of Psalms, as if David's Harp were out of tune! to reject Prayer, as if they were raised to such a plentiful measure of Spiritual Riches, that it were a shame for them to crave any further supply. In a word, scarce any Article of the Christian Religion which hath not received many a desperate Stab under its fifth Rib, and that from the Hand of those whose hearts did erewhile seem ready to expose their heads to the greatest hazard, for the least title of sacred Truth. And whence all this, but from Ignorance of Truth? Had Truth been clearly understrod, it could never have been so unworthily undervalved, much less so treacherously undermined, and least of all so impudently affronted, as woe is us, we behold it, both to our grief and horror. And whence this Barbarous Ignorance, but from want of due Catechising? Hinc illae lachrymae. Ob. 1. True, The laying of Foundations, Instructions in the first Principles of Religion, a most useful, necessary work, but what ground is there in the Holy Scriptures for that Form or manner of Catechising as is now in use, viz. By way of Question and Answer? Sol. 1. There are several Texts of Scripture from which the Learned conclude that this Mode of Catechising was used in the Apostles days, and by the Apostles themselves, and their immediate Successors; and this in imitation of the Jews, Rom. 2.20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. who had A Form of Knowledge and of the Truth in the Law, out of which they Instructed the Ignorant, and taught Babes: Thus Rom. 6.17. the Apostle had given the Romans A Form of Doctrine: and to Timothy, A Form of sound words, 2 Tim. 1.13. A Form of sound words, which contained the principles of the Doctrine of Christ, and the first principles of the Oracles of God, six whereof are distinctly mentioned Heb. 5.12. with 6.1, 2. To these plain and fundamental Rules, as to their Standard, the Apostles would have all Doctrines that were Preached to be brought and tried, and so far to be allowed of as they held proportion with them. This is that which the Apostle calls Prophesying according to the proportion of Faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Rom. 12.6. Thus the Magdeburg. from these Scriptures assert, That there was a Catechism delivered by the Apostles, in which they had drawn the Doctrine of the Gospel into short heads, for instructing of the Children of the Church. Eusebius saith, That there was one set apart on purpose for this Office in the primitive Church, called the Catechist, qui Catechismum docebat, and others called Catechumeni, that learned the Catechism; and these were of two sorts. 1. Jews and Heathens, that offered themselves to be listed among the Christians, and were not as yet sufficiently seen in the great fundamentals of the Christian Religion. 2. The Children of believing Parents that had been Baptised. Both these were put under the careful institution of the Catechist, and by him to be so far instructed, till they had attained so much knowledge in the Principles of the Christian Religion, as that the Heathens might be admitted to Baptism, and the Christian Children to the Lord's Supper. To this custom some of the Learned judge that Peter alludes in 1 Pet. 3.21. not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the Answer of a good Conscience towards God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1 Pet. 3.15 A●lusio fact● ad mor●m veterem Catechistarum ir●e rogantium Catec●umenos, a daltoes ante B●ptis●um, 〈◊〉 qui ad Christianismum, vel gentilitate vocati, Credis? Credo. Abrenuntias? Abrenuntio. Cujus origo in exemplo Eunuchi. Ac. 8.37 Spant. dub. Evang. Pars 3. p. 97. Trap. in Mat. 13.51. Bowles Pastor Evaag. l. 2. c. 5. by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. True, the main thing is the Answer of a good Conscience in a man's own self, yet there was a good Answer in his mouth to the Catechist, who was to ask them a reason of the hope that was in them. 3. The Primitive Fathers, that trod on the Heels of the Apostles, and were most likely to be best acquainted with the Apostles practice, highly esteemed this way of teaching, and constantly used it. Cyprian, saith Optatus, used it at Carthage, Origen at Alexandria: Hence Clemens Alexander his paedagogus. Cyril Mystagog. Lactantius his Institutions. Athanasius his Synopsis. Augustine his Enchirid. Liber de Doct. Christianâ & de Catechiz. rudibus. Fulgentius de fide. 4. Many of the Ancient Councils made Decrees and Canons for Catechising. Council Neocaes. Can. 6.7. Council Tolet. Can. 24. In this consent all the Reformed Churches uno ore. Nay, which is more, the Papists themselves that were assembled in the Council of Trent (observing that in the later Spring of the Gospel, the use of Catechising in the Reformed Churches was one of the special means of withdrawing People from the darkness of Popery to the light of the Gospel, and of so firmly grounding professors in the true Religion, as nothing could withdraw them from the same; and so the Heretics, as they were pleased to style them, had got much ground) strongly moved the Council, that there might be a Catechism compiled of the Principles of the Romish Religion, as that that was most likely to give check to that deluge of Heresy, which through the Heretics Catechising was breaking in upon them. 5. This manner of Teaching by way of Catechising, viz. By propounding the Question, and putting the child to Answer it, as the Echo doth the Voice, is a most ready way to make any Instruction to take. Whence it is that in all Schools of Learning this course is taken, viz. The Teacher propounds his Questions, and requires Answers from those that are instructed: whereas if you speak never so well, or so long, yea the longer the worse, in a set and continued Speech, it useth to vanish in the Air, without any observable notice, or after fruit. 2. Superiors in the Family, and these are Parents, and Family Governors: to whom we may adjoin Schoolmasters and Tutors. These all are concerned in this great duty of Training up and Catechising those that are committed to their Charge and Conduct. 1. How deeply Parents are obliged to this Duty, is written as it were with a Sunbeam in the Scriptures, where we find Precepts, Precedents, Arguments, more than many to evince it. Ex. 10.2. Ex. 12.24, 26, 27, with 13.8, 14, 15. Josh. 4.6, 7, 21, 22, 24. Deut. 4.9, 10. Ainsw. in Deut. 6 6, 7. 1. Precepts. The Israelites are bound to tell in the ears of their sons, and of their sons sons, what things the Lord had wrought in Egypt, that they also might know Jehovah to be the Lord. The Parents are bound to be Expositors of that great Rite of the Paschal Lamb, and of the Stones set up in the midst of Jordan. Bound also to teach their Children the words which they heard from the Lord their God in Horeb, even the Ten Commandments. How doth this Duty sparkle with a Radiant Lustre in that great Text, Deut. 6.6, 7? These words which I Command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy Children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine House, and when thou walkest by the way, Ainsw. in Deut. 6.6, 7. and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. It is the Eternal God that here gives forth his strict Command to Parents. These words, all these words, Precepts, Promises, Threaten, shall be in thy heart, not in thy head only, so as to know, but in thy Heart to affect. An Heart inflamed with the Love of God and his Truth, Joel 1.3. Deut. 11.19. God knew was one of the most effectual means to engage the Tongue to make known his Truth; but not only in their Heart, but Houses too. Thou shalt teach them thy Children; nor was this a Ceremonial Precept, or a Command given peculiarly to the Jews, for their assistance in their Remembrance of the Law of God, as their Phylacteries and fringes, etc. Exod. 13.9. Deut. 6.8, 9 but was and is a Moral, perpetual, standing Precept, binding us in Gospel-times as well as them: The same things we find in this Text, we find also in the New Testament. The word of Christ must dwell richly in us, all one with this here, Let it be in thine heart, Col. 3.16. and in our Houses also: we must teach and admonish others, Eph. 6.4. we are to bring up our Children in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. 2. Branches in this Precept. 1. Parents warned not to abuse their Authority by provoking their Children. In the best of Parents there is not only Natural affection, but also Natural corruption, by reason whereof, if they watch not well, they will be very prone, not only to be rash, but furious with their Children, that their Will may be fulfilled. Therefore is this bridling Caution needful, provoke not. 2. Parents are here commanded not to neglect to lay out and improve their Authority in instructing their Children. This also is necessary, because Parents are too too apt to be fond indulgent, and on that account careless to bring up their Children in such courses as are necessary for knowing and doing the Will of God. Both therefore are of special use. Do not provoke, but instruct. Yea in instructing take care that you do not provoke; and so instructing, you will not, at least you shall not have cause to provoke: for a well instructed Child is in God's way to be an Obedient Child, and very tractable to instructing Parents, so that there will be no occasion of provocation from him, or being provoked against him. Bring them up therefore we must, but in what? In the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in all profitable knowledge, Vid Zanch. & Musc. in Loc. suitable to a Child's Age and State: for the composing and framing of him by this his knowledge unto a commendable and virtuous carriage, for the doing of greater good in humane Society for the time to come: but more especially in Religious Nurture, instruction in Righteousness, 2 Tim. 3.16. and as it follows, in the admonition of the Lord: In the best and highest kind of Nurture, that which is drawn and fetched from the Word of the Lord, and so will be most accepted of him, and most profitable to Children. Not only in Arts and Sciences, to make them Worldly wise and Learned; nor only in the Mysteries of Trading and Worldly employment, to make them Rich: nor only in matters of Morality and Civil honesty, to make them Sober and virtuous; but in the mysteries of true Religion, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, 1 Tim. 4.6. in the words of Faith and good Doctrine, to make them truly happy. 2. Precedents. It was the constant practice of the Saints of old carefully to instruct their children in the things of God: And that 1. In the Truths and Worship of the true God. Thus Divines conclude that Adam instructed his Sons, Gen. 4.3, 4. Cain and Abel, to bring their Offerings to the Lord: And from Adam down along to Moses, for the space of two thousand years, how was the true Religion communicated, but by Oral Tradition from Parents to their Children? Gen. 18.19. I know Abraham, that he will command his Children, and his Household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do Justice and Judgement, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. In this Text we have Abraham's Testimonial subscribed by God himself: Wherein God 1. Asserts what Abraham was for the present; a man of integrity, a man greatly beloved of God: I know Abraham, I know his judgement, I know his heart, I am well acquainted with the frame of his spirit, the inclination of his Will, the bent of his Affections; and I know him so well, that I cannot but highly approve, and dearly love him, and will trust him with an Arcanum, make him as it were of my Privy Council, in imparting to him my great design concerning wicked Sodom. 2. Foretells for the future. 1. What Abraham would do for God: viz. That he would endeavour to bring all that were under his Command to be at God's Command. Abraham will not leave his children and servants to their own Genius, counsels, lusts, ignorance, idleness, superstition, idolatry, but command them to keep the way of Jehovah. Abraham will endeavour to set up God in his Family, to instruct it in that way of Faith, Worship, and Obedience, which God requireth. 2. What God will do for Abraham, viz. fulfil his Promise, keep his Word. Holy Job, that Non pareil of the World, none like him in the Earth, Job 1.8. that perfect, that upright man, Job sends and sanctifies his children; i e. says that late burning and shining Light, sent a Message to them, to command them to prepare and fit themselves for the holy duty of Sacrificing. This preparation to holy Duties is often called Sanctifying, Exod. 19.20. 1 Sam. 6.5. Job 11.55. Job 1.5. Jos●ph Caryl on Job 1.5. Job's main and special care was for the Souls of his children. Job's Message to his children was not to ask them how they did after their Feasting, whether they had surfeited, how the reckoning was inflamed: No, his eye and heart mostly fixed on this, that they might be sanctified: His holy Soul struck a perfect light to Paul's desire before Agrippa, Acts 26.29. I would to God, that not only thou, but all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am: And to John's joy, John Ep. 3.4. I have no greater joy, than to hear that thy children walk in the truth. Thus David, that man after God's own heart, Psal. 34.11. Come ye children, harken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. But more especially, I would commend to your most accurate view that lovely Prospect presented to us in Prov. 4.3, 4. Behold there a great and glorious King, descending from his Imperial Throne, laying aside his Golden Crown and Royal Sceptre, and sitting down on a lower seat with a Child, a Solomon at his knee. So that the King is now humbled into a Tutor, the Prince into a Pupil. A brief account of the Lecture the Text gives us: I was my Father's Son; i. e. I was so my Father's Son, as that I was also his Jedidiah; so beloved, as if I had been his only Son. He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words, keep my Commandments and live. Thus we have seen the practice of godly Fathers; but what have godly Mothers done? have they been so cruelly forgetful of their children, as not to have compassion on the Sons of their Womb? What! worse than Sea-Monsters, who draw out their breasts, and give suck to their young ones? No, Lam. 4.3. no, those true Daughters of Sarah have been more spiritually kind and benign. 1. In the Front of these stands our Mother, the Spouse of Christ: Can. 8.2. Ass. Annot in Cant. 8.2. I would lead thee and bring thee into my Mother's House; i. e. into mine own House or Mansion; as is usual with us to call our own Houses the Houses of our Fathers. The Church, in her Universal Latitude, is the Mother of all her Members,— who would or doth instruct me. The Church, John 6.45. who is the Pillar and ground of truth in this respect, that she presenteth and holdeth forth that truth outwardly, which only Christ bringeth to the heart and makes effectual. 2. Upon her right hand stands David's Royal Consort Queen Bathsheba, whom we find laying the Law before King Lemuel; i. e. her Son Solomon: called Lemuel, i. e. of God, because God had ordained him to be King over Israel, rather than any of his Elder Brethren, 1 Kings 2.15, 22. The words of King Lemuel; the Prophecy. Doctrine, or Instruction that his Mother taught him. 2. What my Son! and what the Son of my Womb! Prov. 31.1, 2. and what the Son of my Vows! 3. Upon her left hand let the hoary-headed holy Grand mother Lois, and the tender, discreet, pious Mother Eunice be placed, who even from the Dug, as it were, instructed their hopeful Timothy in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 2 Tim. 1.5. & 3.15, 16, 11. which were able to make him wise unto Salvation. 2. In the ways and works of God's Providence. Thus Gideon gives testimony to his Forefathers, that they had told their Children of all the Miracles which the Lord had done; saying, did not the Lord bring us from Egypt? Jud. 6.13. Thus the Psalmist, Psal. 44.1, 2. We have heard with our ears, O God, Psal. 44.1, etc. our Fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. And again, Psal. 78.3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Say of old, which we have heard, and known, and our Fathers have told us. 4. We will not hid them from their Children, showing to the Generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful work that he hath done. Deut. 4 9 & 6.7. 5. For he established a Testimony in Jacob, and appointed a Law in Israel, which he commanded our Fathers that they should make them known to their children. 6. That the Generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. 7. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God. Thus Hezekiah upon his recovery from death, Isa. 38.19. The living, the living he shall praise thee as I do this day; the Father to the Children shall make known thy truth.— They that survive, they alone can, and each of them should praise the Lord; this being the principal end to which men should live, and for which they should desire life, Psal. 80.18. The Father to the Children shall make known thy truth; i. e. they shall transmit the memory of thy faithfulness in the performance of thy promises to Posterity, Psal. 145.4. 3. Arguments. 1. The Souls of Children, as well as their Bodies, are committed to the care and trust of Parents by the Lord, to whom they must give a strict account. 'Tis a grand mistake to think that the care of Souls belongs only to Ministers: True indeed, it eminently belongs to our Spiritual Pastors, Ezek. 3.18, 19 If they warn not the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will God require at the negligent Pastor's hand. Omnia, quae deliquerint filii, à parentibus requirentur; qui non erudierint filios suos. Orig. And no less doth God bespeak Parents in the same language that we find 1 Kings 20.39. Keep this man, this child, if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life. If he be lost, and miscarry through thy neglect, thy life, thy Soul shall go for his. As therefore Parents dread the guilt of Soul murder of their children, they ought to be careful of their pious Education, Psal. 51.5. 2. The state of poor children's Souls calls aloud on Parents for the discharge of this duty. Alas poor Creatures! conceived in sin, brought forth in iniquity; those whom we fond miscall Innocent Babes, come into the World with an Indictment on their Foreheads, with ropes about their necks, full of guilt, full of filth, bloody, loathsome Creatures, Gen. 8.21. Job 14.4. Prov. 22.15. Eph. 2.3. Children of wrath, nothing in them by nature that is good, Rom. 7.18. An averseness from all good, Psal. 58.3. Eph. 4.18. A proneness to all evil: These young Lion's prone to cruelty; they are Serpents in the very Egg, and Cockatrices in the very shell, Isa. 59.5. And whence comes all this guilt and filth, but from the hole of the Pit out of which they are digid, from that unhappy Rock out of which they are hewn, their unhappy Parents? Job 14.1, 4. & 15.14. Isa. 51.5. sinful Parents, having utterly lost God's Image, like Adam, beget children in their own, Gen. 5.3. Nay Abraham himself, though a circumcised Saint, as a Natural Father, begets an uncircumcised Isaac: The Vine they spring from is a Vine of Sodom; and therefore the Children are the Grapes of Gomorrah. Bloody Parents are we to our Children; Exod. 21.19. how much than doth it concern Parents, even in common Justice, to endeavour to cure those wounds that they themselves have given and to preserve their Little Ones from perishing by that Leprosy, infection, poison, which they by Nature convey into them? And here what Topics do not offer themselves to convince the judgements of Rational Parents. 1. There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a natural love and affection in Parents to their Children. Nature gives bowels of pity to them that are in misery, specially to children, Isa. 49.15. Psal. 103.13. Will Parents then prove unnatural? nay, worse than beasts; for even the Sea-monsters draw out their breasts, and give suck to their young ones, Lam. 4.3. Charity edifies, saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 8.1. 1 Cor. 8.1. David's and Bathsheba's tender love to their Solomon, put them upon careful instructing of him: wherein they shown their love to his Soul as well as his Body. 2. Parents either do, or should principally aim at the Spiritual and Eternal good of their poor Children: And what more profitable and effectual way to promote this, than pious instruction and education? The Earth often proves according to the seeds cast into it: The Vessel usually retains a smack and tincture of that with which it was first seasoned. What Blessings might Parents prove to their Children? What excellent things might be effected by them, if they did but take the advantage of their tender years, and then resolvedly set themselves to bring them in to God. 3. Parentt cannot but love themselves, their own peace, their own comforts, their own delights; and what more probable means to advance these than the pious education of their children? which fully appears by this Dilemma, either their conscientious endeavours prove successful or not? 1. If not. If after all care, pains, prayer, faithfulness, the Crop should not answer the Seed, why this may relieve and support, Liberavit animam suam. that it is not through the Parent's default. The Child dies, but not by the Father's hand: He hath discharged his duty, and thereby in the sight of God, delivered his own Soul from guilt, though he could not deliver his Child's Soul from ruin. Where God sees such a willing mind, backed with sincere, utmost, constant endeavours, 2 Cor. 8.12. God accepts the faithful Parent according to that he hath, and not according to that he hath not. But 2. If the Lord please to smile on endeavours, into what a transport and ecstasy of joy will it raise the serious Parent, to see the corruption of his Child's Nature healed, to see saving grace wrought in his heart. If such a sight be so pleasing to Spiritual Fathers, to Paul, 1 Thess. 2.10. to John: John 3. Ep. v 4. how ravishing must it needs be to Natural Parents, Prov. 10.1. and 23, 24 25. But especially when this is wrought by their own means. 4. When this grace is wrought in the hearts of children, and that especially by their Parents, this cannot but inflame the hearts of children with dearest love of, and engage them to the highest duty to their Parents; they must of necessity be far more loving and dutiful than otherwise they could or would be. A wise Son maketh a glad Father: But how? Prov. 15.20. viz. by a dutiful and respectful carriage. 5. By this means Parents shall do unspeakable good to their Families and Posterity. Hereby even many Ages after they are dead, like Abel, Deut. 4.9. they shall yet speak, and Posterity hearing the voice of their Ancestors, coming as it were from the dead, they will be more apt to credit and believe. By pious Education the true Religion is kept up in the world, and propagated from Age to Age. The care of the two Tribes and an half of propagating the true Religion to their Posterity, is very notable in that famous Scripture, Josh. 22.24, 25. They built an Altar of Testimony, v. 10. At this their Brethren the Israelites are highly offended, but received full satisfaction, when they were assured that this was done for the sake of Posterity, lest they should be made to cease from fearing the Lord. 6. Parents have many and great advantages above all others, for the successful instructing and educating of their children. 1. Children are more confident of their Parents love than any others. Whether Ministers and strangers speak to them in love, they are uncertain, but of their Parents love they are well assured. Now nothing takes so much with any one, as that which is believed to proceed from love, specially by one that loves. This instruction, saith the loving Child, comes not only from my dear Father's lip or head, but from his affectionate heart; and therefore I will readily receive it, and lodge it in my own. 2. Parents have their children in hand betimes, before they are flyblown with any false Opinions, or leven'd with bad impressions; before they have any other sin than that which was born with them. Parents therefore have an opportunity of making the first impressions on them, even while they are most docile, tender, flexible, and least apt to make resistance against instruction. But now when they come to their Minister, Instructor, Tutor, they are as a Paper Printed before, and therefore unapt to receive another Impression. They have much to be untaught before they can be taught: fraught with self conceitedness and proud objections, more apt to strive against and resist Instruction, than humbly and readily to receive it. 3. To wind up this Argument on the closest Bottom. Children wholly depend on Parents for their present maintenance and their future Portions, and they know 'tis their interest to hearken and obey. Parent's Authority over their Children is most unquestionable. They dare not open their mouths against it, as they will adventure to do against Ministers. Parents have the Power of the Rod to back Instruction, Prov. 22.15. They best know the peculiar Diseases and temperatures of their Children, and so best know how to choose and apply the most proper Remedy. Parents are nearest their Children, and can best discern all their faults in time; and have opportunity of speaking to them in the most familiar manner, that may best be understood, and after this to inculcate their Instructions, and drive them home, that what is not done at one time may be done at another. By all these advantages it appears that God hath furnished Parents above all others, to be Instruments of their children's good, and the first and greatest promoters of their Salvation. Object. 1 But methinks I hear some Parents muttering, To instruct Children is the grand Duty of our Ministers. 'Tis they that are to take the great charge of the Souls of these our Lambs. 1. And do you indeed give up these your Lambs to be fed, to be instructed by them? 2. Suppose you did, (as Heaven knows thousands of Parents do not, as they ought) yet know— That every Parent is as deeply charged with the souls of his Children, as any Pastor is with the souls of his Flock, and more deeply too. 1. You are as oft and as expressly charged to use the means to save your children's souls, and to breed Grace in them, as any Minister is. Read, consider, remember Exod. 13.18. Thou shalt show thy Son the meaning, end, use of the Sacrament, Deut. 6.6, 7. Psal. 78.5. Eph. 6.4. Show me any Text of Scripture more express and peremptory for any Ministers Instructing of his Flock. 2. Parents stand obliged to their Children by more and stronger Bonds than any Pastor can be to his Flock, Bonds of Nature, as well as Grace. 3. Parents have more means and opportunities to prevail with their Children, than any Pastor living can have to do good on his Flock. What a surpassing Interest have Parents in the esteem, love, affection of their Children! What Advantage may they take of their children's tender years! What continual Converse with them! What an awful Authority over them! What strict Obligations upon them, which no Minister can so much as pretend unto. The truth is, none upon Earth have such fair opportunities to instruct and bring others to goodness, as Parents have. This was that that holy Hezekiah meant in his Prayer, Isa. 38.18, 19 The Living, Deut. 4 10. the Living he shall praise thee, and who among all the Living, The Father he shall do it chief, principally, but how? by making known Thy truth to their Children: q. d. Parents by deriving Religion to their Posterity, may greatly honour God above others. Obj. 2. But to what end should we teach Children? Alas, they do not understand what they say. They do but Act the Parot, know not what it is they do repeat, and so, whilst we pretend to advance the fear and service, we do but make our Children to profane the Name of God, or to take it in vain. Sol. 1. Our carnal Reasonings ought not to countermand Divine injunctions▪ The Text is express, Train up a Child, Deut. 6.7. Thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children, or whet and sharpen my Law upon them. Timothy's Instruction, and that from a little sucking Child, is commended by the Apostle as a fair precedent to the whole Christian World. 2 Tim. 3.15. We know not who are under God's Election, nor the appointed time of his effectual Calling, and therefore must use the means to all, especially to Children that are under the federal stipulation; such are commanded to Remember their Creator in the days of their Youth. Eccl. 12.1. And who should endeavour to make deep impressions of God upon their Hearts, Eph. 6.4. but those that are over them by Divine appointment, who ought to bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. 2. If this fear and jealousy must hinder Catechising of Children, who knows how long it will be hindered for even Children well grown up, being not before Catechised, are not likely at their first Teaching so to understand what is said to them, as to repeat it with due reverence. Do we not find Christ himself instructing Nicodemus in the great Mystery of Regeneration. when he was able to return him no more than that childish Answer, How can a Man be born again when he is old? John 3.4. Can he enter the second time into his Mother's Womb? We find our Saviour delivering a Divine Truth to those that were known to be his Disciples, who still accompanied him, and repeated themselves what he spoke to them, in the very same words wherein he delivered it, and yet when all was done confessed they could not tell what he said. Joh. 16.16, 17, 18. May we therefore say, that by reason of their Ignorance they took that Name of God, his Word, in vain? No, this was not a vain business, for in this way they understood the words of Christ at last, the meaning whereof they knew not at first. 3. Catechising may be considered under a double notion. 1. In regard of the present Action. 2. As it is an Introduction and preparation to the future and further knowledge of God. Now though little ones do not at first so understand as to use with due reverence the Name and things of God, yet it follows not that they take God's Name in vain, because they repeat good things in order to, and for the gaining of such a knowledge of God and of those Holy things, as whereby they afterwards come to use them more reverently. And therein the first use of them, though not so reverend, hath a part, as being preparatory to it, and having an influence into it, and working as a good means for the begetting of it. Do not we teach little Ones their Letters by signs, and certain petty devised sayings and resemblances, which put them in mind of their Letters. And this is not a vanity, but a way suited to their narrow capacities, to make them learn them the sooner. So in this and the like cases; the first Rudiments are still to be taken and judged of, not in a way of disjunction from what follows after, but as a preparation to it, and being so taken, they are not vain, but material things, because they serve to very considerable ends. It is neither vanity nor Hypocrisy, saith a reverend Author, to help Children first to understand words and signs, Baxter's Christian Directory, p. 582. in order to their early understanding of the matter and signification. Otherwise no Man may teach them any Language, or to read any words that be good, because they must first understand the words before the meaning.— If a Child learn to read in a Bible, it is not taking God's Name or Word in vain, though he understand it not, for it is in order to his learning to understand it. And it is not vain, which is to so good a use. Thus for Parents. 2. Nor are Christian Ministers and Governors of Families, together with School-Instructors and Tutors less obliged to take care of the Religious Instruction and Education of their respective Servants and Pupils: which clearly appears from hence. 1. The Lord commands it, and expects it at the hands of Masters. When others intrust Masters with the bodies of Servants, God entrusts them with their Souls, commands them to take care of them, as for which they must and shall give a strict account. Lo here, saith God, is a poor mean Servant, but he hath a precious and an immortal Soul. A Soul purchased with the same Blood of God-Man, that his Master's was: and himself, though never so vile in the eye of sense, Col. 3.11. yet capable of being made a Co-heir with Christ in Heaven. Take this Man, and take care of him, as thou wilt answer it at the great Day. If this Soul perish through thy default, thy Life shall go for his. Look to it therefore Masters, give to your Servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven. Do not use them as Slaves, as Beasts, but rather as Fellow-servants of the same Lord, Col. 4.1. In this Text we may observe a Divine Precept, and a persuasive Argument to back that Precept. 1. The Precept. Ye Masters give unto your Servants, 1. That which is just; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Oecon. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. whatever is due to them by any positive contract, legality or obligation. Aristotle names three things as due to Servants; Work, Food, Correction. To which, since our Servants are usually such as are not so by conquest, but by compact, we may add a fourth, viz. Wages.— Moderate Work, convenient Food, due Correction, proportionable Wages. 2. Not only that which is just, but that which is equal too. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dau. in Col. 4.1. And this refers not to the works themselves of Servants and Masters, but to the mind and manner of doing, which ought to bear a due proportion in both: v. gr. Col. 3.22. Servants are commanded to obey their Masters in all things, not with eye-service, but in singleness of heart, fearing God, and as serving the Lord Christ. And Masters are required to return them that which is equal, when they rule them piously and religiously. That is just which the Law of Nature or Nations requires; that is equal which true Christian Charity and meekness requires, and which is due to servants by a moral obligation. 2. The Argument. Knowing, i. e. holding this for an undoubted principle, believing it, and constantly remembering, that Masters on Earth have a Superior Master in Heaven. As Servants, if gracious, are God's Sons, and thereby may be comforted; so Masters are God's Servants, and thereby may be cautioned. Are Masters eyes on their servants to see whether they do their duties faithfully; so God's eye watcheth them much more, to observe whether they carry themselves in their Relation conscientiously. Holy Job Job 31. 13● stood in awe of this great Master, and acted accordingly; Eph. 6.5. to 8. Servants must be obedient unto their Masters as unto Christ, as serving the Lord Christ; and the Masters must instruct and command in Christ. Mr. Dod, that great Servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, from Exod. 20.10. gravely observes from those words, Thou, nor thy Son, nor thy Daughter, nor thy Manservant, nor thy Maidservant, etc. That it belongs to all Family-Governours to see that their servants, and all inferiors under their charge, holily observe and keep the Lord's Day. 2. I argue from those many and great benefits which accrue from the holy instruction of Servants and other Family inferiors. 1. The Church is in an immediate capacity to receive benefit by it. If Mistresses of Families did their parts, and sent such polished materials to the Churches as they ought to do, the work and life of the Pastors of the Church would unspeakably be more easy and delightful: What a reviving of heart would it be to us to Preach to such an Auditory; to Catechise, instruct, examine, and watch over them who are so prepared by a wise and holy education, and understand and love the Doctrine which they hear. How teachable and tractable will such be! How successfully the labours of their Pastors laid out upon them! How comely and beautiful the Churches be, which are composed of such persons! and how pure and comfortable will their Communion be! The Orchard is according to what the Nursery is: So Churches are according to what Families are; Good Families make good Churches, and good Education makes good Families. 2. Not only the Church but State would receive much good by this: Towns, Cities, Counties, Kingdoms would gain by it: and it must needs be so; for what are they, but the whole made up of these parts? And the whole must needs be such as the parts are of which it consists. Families are but like the Book in lose sheets, and Kingdoms like the Book bound up: The one but like letters that are single and apart; the other like letters joined together. Now if the sheets be not good, or the letters not good, the book or writing cannot possibly be good. Give us the best Magistrates, let them Enact the best Laws, and back them with the strictest Exccution, yet Societies will be naught, whilst Governors of Families neglect their duty in Religious Education. 3. With what a Cloud of Witnesses do the Holy Scriptures present us of Governors of Families, that have been greatly conscientious in their faithful discharge of this duty. Josh. 24.15. We told you before of Abraham's Trained, Instructed, Catechised servants, Gen. 18.19. After him Joshua, who resolves that whatever others might do, he and his household would serve the Lord: though others should forsake the Lord, yet he like Noah and Lot, just in his Generation. Joshua doth not only choose to be saved by Jehovah, but to serve Jehovah: But more especially observe the latitude and circumference of his choice; I and my House: Not himself without his Family, much less his Family without himself; but himself and his Family; and first himself, and then his Family: We will serve the Lord. Lo here the firmness and stability of Joshua's choice: We will serve the Lord; not only we desire to do it, but we are fully resolved to do it. Hear what David promises, and pre-ingages, when ever he came to sway the Royal Sceptre; viz. to be a singular example, both as a Prince, and as a Master of a Family, Psal. 101. In which respect this Psalm should be often read and ruminated on by such, that their Houses may be as the House of David, Zech. 12.8. And as Melancthon attests concerning the Palace of George Prince of Anhalt, that it was at once Ecclesiastica, Academica, & Curia, a Royal Court, a Learned Academy, and an Holy Church. Act and Mor. 1559. fol. Mr. Fox reports, that Bishop Ridley often read and expounded this Psalm to his household, hiring them with money to get it by heart. Well, what says David here? v. 2. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way, I will beg●n the intended Reformation at myself, and then set things to rights in my Family. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart; and then see what work he makes, how conscientiously he demeans himself towards those under his Family-charge, from v. 3. to 8. Good Governors of Families are like that Nobleman, who had for his impress two bundles of Millet bound together, with this Motto, Servare & servari, meum est: for the Nature of Millet is to guard itself from all corruption, and all those things that lie near it. 'Tis a rare Elegy that is given the late Reverend and Religious Dr. Chatterton, that he was an Housekeeper 53 years, yet in all that time never kept any of his Servants from Church to dress his Meat, saying, Clark's lives. that he desired as much to have his Servants know God as himself. In short, observe the strain and current of the whole Scriptures, Dr. Jacom ● Dom. Deo Jun. ●07. and you shall find very few or none of those Family-Governours, that were really converted themselves, but they gave this excellent testimony of the Truth, and soundness of the Grace of God in them, viz. in being careful and solicitous to beget and breed it in the hearts of those that were under their roof and charge. If Esther fasts, so shall her Maids too, Esth. 4.16. And in the New Testament we find the Master's interest and duty taken to be so great for the Conversion of the rest, that as he was not to content himself with his own Conversion, but to labour presently that his household should join with him, that so the whole Family at once might be devoted to God. So God did bless his own Order and Ordinance to that end. And where he imposed duty on Masters, he usually gave such success that commonly the whole Family was converted and baptised with the Ruler of the Family. So we read Act. 10.2. Cornelius a Centurion, a godly Captain, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house: to whom the Angel promised that Peter should tell him words whereby he and all his household should be saved, Acts 11.14. Doth the Lord open Lydia's heart to attend to the things spoken by Paul? It follows instantly, she was baptised, and her household. Doth the Gaoler believe on the Lord Jesus? Paul assuxes him that he shall be saved, and his house; and so it was, for he, and all his, were baptised straightway, for he believed in God with all his house, Acts 16.32, 33, 34. Christ no sooner comes to Zacheus his Soul, but Salvation comes to Zacheus house, Luke 19.9. Crispus believes on the Lord with all his house, Acts 18.8. The Noble man himself believed and his whole house, John 4.53. These Family-Governours, it seems, took special care of the welfare of their Servants Souls; did not act like Turks, who mind nothing about their Slaves but their doing their own work. These judged that if it were cruelty not to allow their servants bodily food, much more savage and bloody to starve their Souls: And therefore it might well be said of those happy Servants whom Providence fixed under their Conduct, as the Queen of Sheba of Solomon's Servants, 1 Kings 10.8. Happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Obj. But there are some Masters whose weakness and delusion I cannot but pity that are apt to object thus. True, 'tis good to teach our ignorant Servants, but we must question, yea in our Consciences doubt, whether we may require and command them to learn. Will not this encroach on the Liberty of their Consciences which ought to be left free. Sol. 1. I cannot but wonder at this depth of Satan, who so strangely inveigles men to tolerate all things by mere scrupling of them, and to let the Reins lose purely out of strictness: To think it a sin in themselves to press a duty on others; and no less than a breach of God's Holy Laws to enjoin the keeping of them. 2. Tell me how comes it to pass that Masters who can allow themselves to be severe enough to their Servants for loitering in their Shops, cannot find in their hearts to rebuke them for neglect of their Souls; that they who hold themselves bound in Conscience to inform their Servants in all the secrets of their Trade, should think themselves as much tied up from pressing them to learn the Mysteries of Religion. 3. There is but too much cause of fear, lest they who use not all the means they can to bring their own Servants to the Faith, be themselves brought at last to an unprofitable Repentance. Sure I am, they that have not learned their duty to God, will never rightly perform their duty to men. I hearty wish, that proud, saucy, debauched behaviour, and lame quarrels, be not too sad proofs of this unhappy Truth. I have done with the fourth, I now proceed to the fifth and last Enquiry, viz. How the whole affair may be so prudently, piously, Scripturally managed, as that it may become most universally profitable. And here I shall first address myself to my Superiors, and then close all with directions to Inferiors. 1. Then for Superiors; and among these Oeconomical ones. 1. Let Parents begin betimes with their children, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as soon as ever they find them to have any use of Reason, as soon as ever their understandings begin to bud and blossom. The discreet Gardener gins to graft as soon as ever the Sap gins to arise, and the Stock to swell. In the Old Law we find more Lambs, Kids, young Turtles, First-fruits, and green Corn required, than other Elder Sacrifices, Levit. 2.14. Sow thy Seed in the Morn, Eccl. 11.9. Begin I say betimes, the sooner the better; according to that of the Prophet, Isa. 28.9. To whom shall I teach knowledge? and whom shall I make to understand Doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the Breasts. Old men, nay indeed, and too many young men, think themselves too wise as well as too old to learn. Indeed Childhood and Youth are the fittest times to learn in. Vdum, & molle lutum e●z nunc, nunc pr●pirand●s, & a●ri●ingendus sine sinc rota. 'Tis b●st drawing a fair Picture on a Rasa Tabula: The most legible Characters are best written on the whitest Paper before it be soiled and slured: The Twig whilst young, is most easily twisted: The Ground best sown when soft and mollified. Hence that of the Royal Preacher, Eccl. 72.7. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth. Little ones have not as yet imbibed such false Principles and Nations, nor are they drenched with such evil habits as Elder ones are too too frequently died with. He hath a very difficult Province, whose task it is to wash out the spots of a Leopard, or to whiten an Aethiopian: And little less work hath he that undertakes to teach the Truth to one that hath been brought up in, and is now as it were Naturalised to Err: For those false notions must first be wholly rooted up, before Truth can profitably be implanted. Such must be untaught much, before they can well be taught, though but a little. 2. Labour as much as in you lies, to entertain their tender attention with such ●ruths as mostly affect their senses and fancies, and are most easily conveyed to their little understandings. To wit: 1. Such Truths, the sparks whereof are most alive in their corrupt nature, u.g. To know God that made the whole World, and them in particular: That this God is to be worshipped: That their Parents are to be honoured: That no lie is to be told: That they must love others as themselves: That they must certainly die, and after Death be judged to an Eternal state. Begin to season them with the sense of God's Majesty and Mercy. 2. Deal as much in Similitudes and plain and easy Resemblances as you can, taking your Rise from the Creatures they see and hear, always greatly respecting their weak capacity. Are you sitting in your Houses, you may thus bespeak them: Oh my dear Child, is this an handsome dwelling, this house made with Stones and Timber? O how much desirable is that House above with God, that House not made with hands, but eternal in the Heavens? When they awake out of sleep, mind them of their Duty, Psal. 139. Eph. 5.14. of giving their first thoughts to God, and of awaking out of sin unto righteousness, and of their awaking the last day out of the Grave by the sound of the Trumpet, 1 Thess. 4.16. Do they see the light of the day shining into their eyes? Ask them. Is it indeed a pleasant thing to behold the Sun; O how excellent then is God's goodness in causing the Sun of Righteousness to arise upon us with healing in his wings? Mal 4.2. Are you putting on their ? O my Child, think on sin, which was the cause of your Soul's nakedness, and of your Bodies need of apparel. Be not proud of your which are given to hid your shame: Never rest satisfied till your Soul be arrayed with the Robes of Christ's Righteousness. When at the fire, tell them of that Lake of fire and brimstone that burneth for ever, into which all those that live and die in sin shall be cast. At Table, how easy is it, how profitable, how delightful will it be, out of every Creature there to extract spiritual food for our Souls? The Bread minds them of the Bread of Eternal Life; their hunger, of hungering after Christ's Righteousness. By a River's side, how easy is it to mind them of the Water of Life, and of those Rivers of pleasure at God's right hand for evermore. Thus may you, Psal. 16.11. Hos. 12.10. Assimilavi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 property ●●enim multis rebus Deum compararunt, Patri, Pastori, am●e●, le●ni●. Pools Synops. without the least taedium or disgust, teach those little Bees to such spiritual Honey out of every Flower. By these similitudes, as by so many golden Links, you may draw Truths into their heads and memories. Thus it pleased the Lord to teach his people of old, by using Similitudes, Isa. 5.1. Ezek. 16.3. Hos. 1.2. Thus the Great Bishop of our Souls taught his Disciples by Parables, Mat. 13.38. 3. Teach them the most useful, delightful, affectionate stories you can find in the Word of God. u.gr. The Creation of Man. Man's Fall. The Deluge. Isaac Sacrificed. Lot and Sodom. Joseph. The Golden Calf. David and Goliath. Three Children in the Fiery Furnace. Daniel in the Lions Den. Jonah in the Whale's Belly. The Children devoured by Bears. 4. Betimes acquaint them with the practice of Religious Duties. Read the Word, Pray, give Thanks, sing Psalms in their presence. 'Tis conceived by the Learned, that the little Children learned to sing Hosanna to the praise of Christ, by hearing their Parents sing the 118th Psalm, out of which that Hosanna is taken. 5. Endeavour to restrain them from all evil, and to breed in them a Conscience of sin, even from the very breast. No playing, no idle and vain chat on the Lord's Day. Exod. 20.10. Ezek. 4.14. Ezekiel from his youth and infancy had not eaten any thing forbidden in the Law. Made Conscience of meals, when the Appetite was most unruly. One fault amended by a Child out of Conscience that it is a sin, is worth amending an hundred out of fear of the Rod, or hope of reward only. 6. Bring them to the public Ordinances as soon as they can come to be there and kept there without the disturbance of the Church, Exod. 20.9, 10. The Parent is to take care that the Child Sanctifies the Sabbath day. Joshua read all the words that Moses commanded before all the Congregation of Israel, Josh. 8.35. Joel 2.15, 16. Jon. 3.5. Omnes sine ullo discrimine, ne infantibus exceptis. Drusius. Mark 10.13. Luk. 18.15. Patres, & majores natu in illis perspicerent quid essent meriti, & magis exhorrerent scolerasua pr●pter quae nou sibi solum, sed et liberis suis imminebat interitus. Calv. Deut 66. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et exacues ea, accuratè & commodissimè m●●lcabis. ●●no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Proverbium, quod in ore sit, & inculcetur. Act. 17.11, 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of better descent. Non per civilem dignitatem, sed per spiritualem dignationem. Trap. with the women and the little ones. And Deut. 29.11. not only Captains, and Elders, and Officers, with all the men of Israel, but their little ones also stood before the Lord, to enter into Covenant with him, Mat. 19.13, 14. There were brought unto Christ little Children, that he should put his hands on them and pray, but the Disciples rebuked them. But our Saviour gives check to their rebukes, and commands them to suffer little children, and forbidden them not to come unto him: and that on a weighty reason, because of such is the Kingdom of Heaven: and those little ones enjoyed the benefit and blessing of Christ's hand and prayer. Sanctify a Fast, call a Solemn Assembly, gather the children and those that suck the breast, Joel 2.15, 16. Isa, 17.5. 7. After their return from the public, be sure to call them to an account according to their capacity: Examine, and try how they profit, how they understand and remember anything at all that they have heard: Repeat it, and make it still more and more plain to them; and in repeating it, apply it also to their Consciences This is that which some Divines understand by that whetting or sharpening of the Word on our Children; i. e. teach them by way of repetition, going over and over again, as men do with knives when they whet them; that so, as knives by such whetting are more keen and fit to cut, so the Truths of God by often turning and returning them on the ears and tongues of children, may pierce more deeply into their hearts & consciences, for their better understanding and affecting of them. This was our Saviour's practice, to call his Disciples to an account, and to know of them what they remembered and understood of what they heard, Mat. 13.51. Jesus saith unto them, have ye understood all these things? and Mark. 4.34. when they were alone he expounded all things to his Disciples. How careful will the child or servant be heedfully to mark what he hears, if he knows he shall be examined when he comes home? How much will this course help and confirm your children and servants, yea yourselves also to understand, believe, and practice that which hath been taught you. When those Noble Bereans had publicly received the Word with all readiness of mind, i. e. took the heads of Paul's Sermon truly, they privately searched the Scriptures daily, to see whether things were so: and finding on their search, that the Truths delivered were consonant to the Scriptures; 'tis said, therefore, i. e. for that very reason many of them believed; and not your understandings only, but your memories also, This way with your Family, will make you the Governors of it better able to retain. This is clearly inferred from Deut. 4.9. Take heed to thyself, and keep thy Soul diligently, lest thou forget the things, etc. But how shall this forgetfulness be prevented? Why, by teaching them thy Sons, and thy Sons Sons. 2 Pet. 1 13. And this refreshing of your memories will not a little conduce to the stirring up of your affections, and to work in you greater sense and deeper feeling of the Truths you have heard. 8. In all your instructions most carefully avoid all tedious prolixity. Nothing more disgusts a Child's spirit, than long and tedious discourses. Make up the shortness of your discourse by frequency? a little now, and a little then, not all at once: Drop by drop, as you pour liquor into narrow-mouthed Bottles. As you do when you first begin to feed their Bodies with a Spoon, so must you do when you first begin to feed their Souls with instruction. Long Speeches burden their small memories too much; and through men's imprudence may unhappily occasion them to loath spiritual Manna. As Physicians therefore in their Diuretic Precepts prescribe to children little and often, so must we. Young Plants may quickly be even over-glutted with rich manuring, and rotten with too much watering. Weak eyes newly opened from sleep, at the first can hardly bear the glaze of a Candle. Line upon line therefore, and Precept upon Precept, here a little, and there a little. Isa. 28.10. Gen. 33.13. You must drive the little ones towards Heaven, as Jacob did his towards Canaan very gently. Fair and soft goes far. 9 Having thus far seasoned your little ones, Dr. Jacomb Dom. Deo 167. and their understandings being somewhat grown with their years, now is the fittest time to put a Catechism into their hands, i. e. a platform of sound words, 2 Tim. 1.13. by way of Question and Answer, in a short compendious Method; whose terms being clear and distinct, Morn. Exercise at Cripplegate, p. 196. should be phrased, as near as may be, out of the Holy Scripture, and fitted to their capacities by a very plain and solid stile, and to their memories by brief expressions. And here I would humbly offer this advice; make use of a double Catechism, a shorter and a larger. A shorter, to be learned by those that have weak memories and capacities: A larger, to be got by heart by those that have more years, greater parts, and larger capacities. Nou. 30. 1618. Sess. 17. Lib. 2. Cap. 2. Thus I find the Synod of Dort prescribing in their Act for Catechising. In this we agree with that burning and shining Light, Mr. Crook of Winton in Somerset, and that acute, grave, and pious Pastor of Sutton in Bedfordshire, Mr. Bowls in his Pastor Evangelicus; and especially we find it done to our hands by the late Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminster, in their lesser and larger Catechism: And that upon this solid reason, lest on the one hand whilst we impose a burden on such weak shoulders as are not able to sustain it, they should despond and sink: and on the other hand, when we require of others that which is much beneath their supposed ability, they should pass it by with neglect at least, if not throw it off with scorn. But what are the Forms of Catechising I would propose? I answer. 1. For the youngest and lowest Rank, I suppose the Articles of the Christian Faith, contained in that very Ancient Creed, commonly called the Apostles Creed; The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments; the Lord's Prayer, and the Institution of the two Sacraments of the New Testament. But here, as indeed in all Religious instruction, remember that you are not to teach Parrots but Christians; persons, though for the present ignorant, yet capable of understanding both words and things. Be not therefore satisfied in the Child's bare repeating of the words, Bowls Past. Evang. l. 2. c 5. as a thick-skuled Papist is taught to mumble over his Pater noster or Ave Maria, which he no more understands than that sottish Priest did his Mumpsimus, but first unlock the Cabinet, that is, open to the Child the true meaning of the words, and then present him with the Jewels, that is, the Truths contained in those words: Remember it as an undoubted Maxim. It is impossible clearly to apprehend Truths, unless we rightly understand those words in which Truths are wrapped up. 2. For others that are of a larger capacity. I shall not presume to dedicate among those more than scores of excellent Catechisms that are extant, and may be of singular use both in Families and Churches, which to pitch upon, with the slighting of any of the rest. I bless the Lord for the common Catechism of our Church, and for Doctor Hills improvement of it, in which I was initiated when a Child. God hath signally owned Mr. Perkins his Six Principles, and no less Mr. Bali's Catechism, Crook's Guide is highly esteemed by the Learned judicious and godly; and I judge not unworthily, if for nothing else than this its great harmony with the sum and substance of Christian Religion, composed by that great Master in our English Israel. These Catechisms, I say, to me, with many, many more, sparkle like so many precious Diamonds in my eyes; but it pleased the Lord, in the beginning of my Ministry, to direct me to the use of those Catechisms that were composed by the late Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster. Catechisms which I then found greatly approved, not only by the godly and judicious at home, but also by several of the Reformed Churches abroad; and such as have this peculiar Excellency beyond most that I have seen, that every Answer in them is an entire Proposition of itself, without relation to the Question preceding. These Catechisms I have made use of, both in my Congregation and Family, now near thirty years; and I desire to speak it with all humility and thankfulness, if ever the Lord smiled on my poor Labours, it hath been whilst I have been busied in this great, useful, necessary work of Catechising, and that out of these Catechisms. How these Excellent Catechisms may be used to the best advantage by Parents and Governors of Families, I have long since given directions, which may be had at Mr. Parkhurst's at the Bible and three Crowns near Mercer's Chapel: 2. Ecclesiastical Superiors. And as to my dear and Reverend Brethren of the Ministry, that would at the Great Day be publicly owned as Pastors after God's own Heart, such as have minded the Flock more than the Fleece, and in that Flock the Lambs as well as the Sheep: To these my Brethren, though I dare not presume to give advice, (what can my Taper do to their Sun, my d●op to their stream?) yet they will give me leave to be their Remembrancer. Dear Brethren, who are to me as my own Soul, our great and good God hath been pleased to honour us so far, as to set us up as Stewards in his house, to give every one his proper portion in due seas●n; and of all others, you know our Master's will is, that young ones be especially provided for: The Duty therefore that we owe to God, the love we bear to Truth, and to Souls that are not capable of being saved without the knowledge of Truth; to the Souls of younger ones especially, who if they be not taught the Truth in their greener years, will more difficultly be brought to learn it when they are grown older: Nay, the love we own to our own souls, who must give a just account for every poor Soul committed to our charge, we knowing how great a Price the least Lamb of our Flock hath cost, how rich a Prey Satan hath ever reckoned on in the poorest Soul, how industrious he is in hunting, how many nimble Beagles he hath that rejoice to do their best in the worst service he lists to employ them, how great advantages they have at this time by the many sad and fatal breaches made in all our hedges: Surely, in the serious consideration of these, and many more particulars, we shall, in the strength of our God, arise and be doing, and revive that most necessary exercise of Catechising in the midst of us. But how? 1. For advice at large, and such as you will have cause to bless God for ever for, if you please to follow it, I refer you to that faithful and skilful Workman Mr. Baxter his Christian Directory, fol. pag. 498. 509. 512. 515. 543. 582. and fourth Part. 44. 2. More particularly. 1. Whatever you do in this work, you will do it sound and purely. If ever a Pastor will in Doctrine show incorruptness, gravity, sincerity, let him do it in Catechising. Tit. 2.7, 8. Sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may not be ashamed. Give to Babes the sincere Milk, 1 Pet. 2. 2● not sophisticated Wine. 2. Do it plainly: so plainly, that he that runs may read and understand; so plainly, that none may excuse themselves at the Day of Judgement, and say, Lord, we would have learned thy saving truths, but they were too high, too hard, too difficult for us. Remember, the generality of people are very dull of hearing, and such as have need of Milk, Heb. 5.11, 12. and not of strong Meat: Speak we therefore so, as that our Discourse may rise to the Conviction of the wisest, but yet at the same time sink and condescend to the capacity of the meanest. I am apt to fear, that even then, Dr. Wilkins. when we aim lowest, we yet at that very time shoot above, not only the hearts, but heads of our people: Let our main care therefore be to open the understandings of our Catechumeni. This is that which the Lord had in his eye, when he did not only command the Levites to instruct the children of Israel in the meaning of all his Statutes; Leu. 10.11. but he laid this charge also upon every Parent to teach the Children the meaning of every Law and Ordinance of God, Exod. 12.26, 27. and 13, 14. Dent. 6.20. If God required this under the Law, much more now under the Gospel, Isa. 11.9. Neh. 8.2, 3 when 'tis promised that the Earth should be filled with the knowledge of God. The only service that is now acceptable unto God, is our reasonable service, Rom. 12.1. i e. such service as is done unto him with reason and understanding. Act. 8.30. The Word read profits not unless understood: Understandest thou what thou readest, said Philip to the Noble Eunuch, q. d. To what purpose readest thou, if thou be not careful to understand what thou readest? The Word Preached either by Pastor or Teacher; the Truth delivered in a way of Catechising will do us no good, unless we hear with understanding. Harken unto me every one of you, and understand, Mark 7.14. saith the greatest Preacher: and have ye understood all these things? Matth. 13.51. Dear Brethren, as I know you desire not to sow your seed on the highway, Mat. 13 19 so as that the Fowls of that Prince of the Air should come and pick it up, so be careful to make poor Creatures to understand what they are taught. Now for the opening of the Truths laid down in the Assemblies Catechism, I cannot but commend those four Books which I have found so exceeding useful for the younger ones among our people, viz. Dr. Wallis, Mr. Jos. Alleyn, Mr. Tho. Vincent, and Mr. Tho. Dolittle, their excellent Explanations. 3. You will be sure to act very wisely, very discreetly. You know in Catechising you have to do with different Sexes, Ages, Tempers, Capacities; some are less capable and more bashful: these must not be exposed to the scorn and contempt of those that have, it may be, more glib tougues and brazen foreheads, but worse hearts. You know when and how to encourage the willing, to praise the forward, to check the presumptuous, to admonish the unruly, patiently to bear with all. You know what it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Soul Nurses, 1 Thess. 2.7, 8. how to impart with all dearness those Fundamental Truths which make for their spiritual and eternal good and growth: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And shall I take leave, in your names, to assure younger one's that you will have a tender eye to the slowness of apprehension in some of them, to the slipperiness of memory in others, to the bashfulness of most, to the reputation of them all: That you will opportunely prevent their grosser mistakes, and candidly palliate their lesser ones; that you will give the best sense to the worst of their Answers, and put some necessary words into their mouths, the better to facilitate the expression of their thoughts; that you will so wisely manage the whole business, as that it may make for their reputation as well as instruction, and that they may find favour both with God and men. 4. What you do, do it resolvedly, and that in God's strength, not in your own. Expect opposition from within, from without. From within, a proud heart, apt to mutter: 'tis a low, mean piece of drudgery. No, but rather the most Doctor-like part of our work, and such as cannot accurately be performed, without a clear insight into the greatest depths of Religion, and a proportionable gift of ready Exposition: The lowest Principles of Religion are the highest Mysteries. Again, the tender shoulder that shrugs, and enters its Plea against the burden, as being too troublesome a weight to be added to the Load of our other Lords-day-labours. Neither will this prevail with you, Brethren; we are confident you are not only able, 2 Tim. 2.14. 2 Cor. 12.15. but apt to teach. 'Tis your joy to spend yourselves, and be spent in the utmost service of your God and his Church. You will not be much concerned in the consuming of your Oil, so you may lend your Light. To such gracious Souls as yours, there is, there can be no greater burden than the sense you have of the heaviness of your people in hearing. But from without, the general averseness of young ones is pleaded; as a grand obstruction. As to that, you are so well seen in spiritual Logic, as to fetch meat out of this Eater, and will easily conclude, that this averseness in young ones from this exercise of Catechising, is not the least Argument of its singular usefulness. The more unwilling the Patient is to have his Wound opened, searched, plastered and bound, the more eager the compassionate Chirurgeon is to give relief. The more unwilling they are to present themselves to be Catechised, the more reason have we to press them to it by the greatest violence of persuasion .. Lastly, let not want of success discourage: Your Heavenly Master you know hath assured you that your labour is not, 1 Cor. 15. last. shall not be in vain in the Lord. God takes the measures of his servants, not from their success, which is his sole work, but from their sedulous and faithful endeavours, which is their duty. Go you on to plant and water, let the great Lord of the Vineyard alone to give the increase. And know, 2 Cor. 8.12. 1 Cor. 3.6, 7. 2 Cor. 2.15. you are a sweet savour unto God; and though Israel be not gathered, but you seem to have spent your strength in vain, yet surely your judgement is with the Lord, and your work and wages with your God, Isa. 49.4. I have now done with the particular directions; there remain yet some more general ones, which being observed, may, with God's Blessing, much promote the success of this whole work. And so 1. To spiritual instruction, add holy admonition, exhortation, good advice and counsel. Do not only let them know by instruction what their duty is, but press, urge, enforce this duty upon them by admonition and good counsel. O my Child, you see your Duty, you know what you ought to do, O do according to what you know. What a strong, powerful, prevailing influence hath good counsel when duly applied. Only see, 1. That you back your counsel with the clearest Scripture, and most convincing Arguments you can possibly: Good advice without these is but a Bullet without Powder, and Arrow without a Feather. Argue with them about the Excellency of God, Christ, the Spirit, Grace, the vanity of the Creature, the folly and sinfulness of sin. See how Job handles the matter with his Wife about murmuring and impatience against God, Job 2.10. What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not evil? Hear what Bathsheba saith to Solomon, Prov. 31.2, 3, 4. What my Son, and what the Son of my Womb, etc. It is not for Kings, O Lemuel, it is not for Kings, etc. Show them the beauty of Christ, draw aside the Curtain, let them behold the Image of that blessed Saviour portrayed in Scripture. Do to them as the Spouse did to the Daughters of Jerusalem; run over all the Excellencies of Christ to them, and then conclude, He is altogether lovely; This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend, Can. 5.16. O Daughters of Jerusalem. 2. Labour as much as possible to insinuate yourselves into their affections. Having cleared your way into their heads, labour to wind and screw yourselves into their hearts. Let them know that you have no design upon them but to make them happy; no private end, only their everlasting good. This done, thou hast done all thy work: when all jealousies of any sinister ends are blown away, than Exhortations and Counsels go down glibly. When persons are fully satisfied that in all our Addresses to them, we study only their benefit and profit, this opens an effectual door to all the means that we shall use. Thus Paul accosts the Romans, I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, Rom. 1.10, 11. Thus he smooths his way to the Philippians, Phil. 1.8. God is my Record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. Labour then to get their love, their good esteem, and the work will thrive beyond expectation. Love is like the oiling of the Key, which makes it to open the lock more easily, love greaseth the nail, and makes it enter with more facility. 2. To holy, hearty, serious, affectionate, frequent admonition, add an exemplary Conversation. Inferiors are apt to be led rather by example than rule, and are more prone to imitate Practices than to learn Principles. They are more mindful of what we do, than of what we say, and they will be very prone to suspect, that we are not in good earnest, when they see that we command them one thing, and do another ourselves. When we teach them well, and do amiss ourselves, we do but pull down with one hand, what we build with the other: Like a man, that at the same time sings a lovely Song, and drowns the melody of it by playing an ugly Tune. When the Father is immodest, the Child that sees it soon grows impudent: and therefore the Ancients thought themselves concerned to be very reserved and cautelous before their children. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. Psal. 101.2. N●l faedum dictu, vis●que ea limina ●angat, intra quae pura est. P●il. 1.4. Col. 1 3. Rom. 10.1. Walk as David therefore in thy house with a perfect heart. Let thy children and servants behold nothing in thy deportment, which if followed, may prove sinful. 3. To an exemplary conversation add faithful, fervent, humble, constant supplication. Paul without ceasing makes mention of his heart's desire, and his prayer to God for Israel was, that they might be saved. Ministers, like spiritual Priests, should not fail to offer their daily Sacrifices for their people, confess their iniquities, bewail their misery, and cry mightily to God for his mercy. All our instructions without prayer will do no good: Go to God to sanctify all. By prayer carry thy children, servants, to the blessed Jesus in the Arms of Faith, and beseech him to bless them, by laying on his hands on them, as Isaac did, The accustomed Ceremony used in Blessing. Beza in Mat. 19 Impositio manuum Symbolum fuit apud Judaeos familiar, quoties sol●nnis erat precatio, vel benedict●. Mat. 15.22. Gen. 27.1. and 48.9, 14. with Matth. 19.13. and Mark 10.16. How pathetically did Abraham plead with God for Ishmael? Oh that Ishmael might live before thee, Gen. 17.18. Bathsheba calls for Solomon the Son of her Vows, Prov. 31.2. Austin the Child of Monica's prayers and tears. O pray then, pray earnestly, O that this my Son, Daughter, Servant, might not die for ever. Thou Lord art the Prince and Lord of Life; O speak powerfully to their poor Souls, that these pieces of my bowels, that are now dead in trespasses and sins, may hear thy voice and live. Cry out to God with that poor man in the Gospel, Lord have mercy on my Son, Matth. 17.15. If a Mother, do as the Woman of Canaan did, Have mercy on me, O Lord, my Daughter is grievously vexed with a Devil. If he seem not to hear, and to be silent, go nearer to him by Faith, and cry, Lord help me, Lord help me: If his Answer seem to be a repulse, do not thou desist, but rather gather Arguments from his denial as she did; and conclude, that if he once open his mouth, he will not shut his hand: and if importunity may prevail with an unrighteous man, then much more it will obtain with a gracious God. Never leave him therefore, till by laying hold on his own strength thou hast overcome him. At last thou mayst hear that ravishing voice, O Woman, be it unto thee even as thou wilt, and see thy Daughter made whole from that very hour. 4. Lastly, To fervent supplication add wary inspection. Keep a strict hand, Dr. Jacomb Dem. D●c 83. and a watchful eye continually over those that are committed to your charge; your utmost care and vigilancy in this will be found little enough. How soon will those Gardens, that now look like a Paradise, be overgrown with weeds, if the Keepers thereof do not look to them daily? How soon is Childhood and Youth tainted with sin, if it be not narrowly watched? Be thou diligent therefore to know the state of thy Flock, and look well to thy Herds. Carefully observe the natural temper of your inferiors, you will by this the better know how to apply yourselves to them in advice, reproof, correction. Observe the first sprouts and buds of what is either good or evil in them: encourage, commend, reward them in the one; kerb, restrain, and prevent the further growth of the other. Do they begin to take God's Name in vain? Do they nibble at a lie? Doth Pride in apparel peep forth? Be sure to kill this Serpent in the very egg, to crush this Cockatrice in the Shell. 2. Thus of Superiors. A word to Inferiors, and I have done. Dear Lambs, the Searcher of Hearts knows how greatly I long after you all in the Bowels of Jesus Christ. Shall I prevail with you to remember this, when I am laid with my Fathers? viz. That 'tis no less your Duty to make Religion your business in the relation of Children and Servants, than 'tis ours in the relation of Parents and Masters. Oh what a credit, what a glory is it to drink in the Dews of Godliness in the morning of your lives? What a lovely sight to behold those Trees blossoming with the fruits of the Spirit in the Spring of their Age? Better is a poor and a wise Child, than an old and a foolish King, Eccl. 4.13. What a Garland of Honour doth the Holy Ghost put on the head of an holy Child? How profitable is early Piety? Some Fruits ripe early in the year are worth triple the price of latter Fruits. Godliness at any time brings in much gain; but he that comes first to the Market is like to make the best price of his Ware. On the other side, how dangerous are delays? Remember Children, late Repentance like untimely fruits seldom comes to any thing. Your lives are very uncertain. As young as you are, you may be old enough for a Grave: Oh then seek your God, 1 Tim. 6.6. We read of one that truly repent at his last gasp, that so none might despair; but 'tis of but one, that none might presume. and seek him when and whiles he may be found, Isa. 55.5. If thou refuse him now, he may refuse thee hereafter. I have heard of one that deferring Repentance to his old age, and then going about it, heard a voice, des illi furfurem, cui dedisti farinam; give him the Bran to whom thou hast given the Flour. Every day renders you more and more indisposed. The longer sin and Satan possess the Forts of your hearts, the more they will fortify and strengthen them against God and Holiness, Jer. 13.23. your God deserves your youth. The best God deserves the best of days. Briefly, your God will call you to an account for your youth, Eccles. 11.9. Here is a cooler for the high-flown Youngster's courage. The words after an Ironical concession thunder out a most dreadful commination. Well then, be persuaded truly to Reverence and honour your Parents, Masters, Ministers. Even Lambs will kneel to their Dams. Mal. 1.6. Eph. 6 2. Levit. 19.3. Reverence them inwardly in your hearts with an awful fear: outwardly in your lives, in language and in carriage, Gen. 4.12. 1 Kings 2.19. Obey your Superiors, Eph. 6.1. In a word, read Prov. 2.1. to 6th. 1. My Son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hid my Commandments with thee. 2. So that thou incline thine ear unto Wisdom, and apply thine heart unto Understanding. 3. Yea, if thou criest after Knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding. 4. If thou seekest her as Silver, and searchest after her as for hid Treasures. 5. Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. Up therefore and be doing, and the Blessing of him that dwelled in the Bush shall be with you. How may it appear to be every Christian's indispensable Duty to partake of the Lord's Supper? Serm. XII. 1 Cor. 11.24. This do in Remembrance of me. THese words are a Command of the Lord Jesus, received (through revelation) by the Apostle Paul, and by him as Christ's Herald proclaimed to the Church, that not only this particular Church of Corinth, but that the whole Catholic Church of Christ (in their successive Generations until his second coming) might take notice thereof, and yield obedience thereto, as to a command of that nature, wherein very much of the glory of their once crucified Redeemer, and their own spiritual joy and consolation is concerned: this will further appear in the following explication of the words. In the words you have four parts, two of which are expressed, and the other two implied. 1. A duty; this do. 2. The end for which: in remembrance of me. 3. The Obligation to the duty, Christ's command, this is implied. 4. The persons under the Obligation: the whole Church Catholic militant, so far as they are Scripturally capacitated thereto; this likewise is implied. But of these in their order. 1. The duty; this do. What is this to be done? the Apostle tells you in the beginng of this verse, and in the following verse: and it is this. This broken bread take and eat, This Cup take and drink. Here is a Duty, my brethren, so plain, so easy, of whose obscurity or difficulty certainly we have no cause to complain. For what can be less obscure than a command so evidently expressed, and what more easy than to eat and drink and call to mind the greatest and best of friends that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood? Rev. 1.5. and surely then a neglect herein must needs prove a sin that will admit of no excuse. But if any of you be offended at the outward meanness of the Ordinance and be thereby tempted to neglect the observance; I wish you to remember, who they were that stumbled at Christ himself because of the poverty of his Parents, is not this (say they) the Carpenter's Son? Mat. 13.55. This was the introduction to their rejecting of Christ, and to that great plague that followed, viz. their being rejected of Christ. Certainly as the meanness of his Parents ought not to have prejudiced the glory of his person to those infidels: so ought not the seeming poverty of these elements of bread and wine any ways abate of the glory of that mystery of our Redemption that is shadowed out by them. I know our carnal reasonings are apt to suggest, that since Christ intended to leave behind him a monument of the greatness of his person, and of his gracious undertaking in redeeming a Church to himself by his blood, that it would have been more suitable to the honour of such an undertaking, if the monument had been more magnificent; as if he had given in charge to his Disciples to have erected his Statue of beaten gold, and set it up in the places of their solemn Assemblies, as the Roman Senate used to do for the honour of their excellent men, whose Statues they erected In their Capitols; or as the London Senate doth in honour of their Kings, they give them their Statues in their Royal Exchange. To this I say, that certainly Christ is wiser than man, and that this memorial of himself, which is already appointed by him, is more suitable to the end intended, than what our vain thoughts have or can propose. For to what end should he have caused such golden statues to have been erected to his memory, when he was so acquainted with the nature of man, and with his propensities to Idolatry, and therefore could not but foresee, that at least they would probably make no better use of them, than the Israelites did of the Brazen Serpent, to whom they most unworthily paid that honour that was only due to God himself? And that this is no vain conjecture, I only desire you to call to mind, that, though the wisdom of our Saviour pitched upon bread and wine, that of all things seem most unfit to make Idols of, yet what bad use men have made thereof; and how foolishly their vain minds have transubstantiated them into God, I need not tell those that know there are Papists in the World, and have heard of their Idolatrous doctrine of Transubstantiation. But peradventure some may yet further urge, that since it pleased our Saviour to choose, to appoint a feast for his remembrance, it had been meet this feast should have been more magnificent, and consequently more significant of the Majesty and riches of that Lord, whose Table it is; but to have only a piece of broken bread & a cup of wine, what poor man could have made a meaner entertainment? This also is easily answered, I say therefore, that such a pompous feast you talk of had not so well comported with his principal end in the institution: for Christ did not in this Supper intent the filling of your bellies, but the refreshing of your souls: it was not instituted for that end as the Feast of first-fruits among the Jews, for the remembrance of God's blessing of the earth and giving them full harvests, but for the remembrance of things of a higher nature, of things invisible, spiritual and eternal, as the saving you from sin, the law, from the grave and hell, which were all procured by the breaking of Christ's body, and the pouring out his blood for you; now your magnificent feasts were not so fitted for such a Commemoration, for they rather would have tended to have clogged your spirits, made them dull and stupid, and far less apt to have contemplated such Divine and Heavenly things as those now named are: And therefore that this Supper is so mean as it is, it is far better, than if it were so great and royal as you conceive. There are others are well enough satisfied with the wisdom of their Lord, and in the nature of the things appointed for the remembrance of him, which yet may be, and aught to be inquisitive as to the reason of them; Which I shall reduce to these 4 Questions. 1. Why did the Lord appoint bread rather than any other kind of food? 2. Why must it be broken bread? 3. Why must it be taken and eaten? 4. Why wine as well as bread? and why Wine rather than any other drink? 1. To the first I say, he appointed bread as most apt to signify the thing thereby to be presented to our Faith, and that is himself, as he is bread of life to our Souls, for so he calleth himself, Joh. 6.33. The bread of God is he which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world. And 35. Jesus said, I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger. This is evident that man's natural life doth not more depend on the virtue of the bread that perisheth, than the Soul's life of Grace and Glory depends on that virtue that proceedeth from a suffering Jesus; I live (saith the Apostle Paul) yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; all that life of Faith, all the indwellings of Grace in our hearts, comes from, and is maintained by the virtues and influences of Jesus Christ this bread of life: and so likewise doth our eternal life depend on him, as he likewise tells us, v. 27. Labour for the meat that endureth to eternal life, which the Son of man shall give you: this meat is the Lord himself, who by his sufferings made our peace, and purchased the life of grace and glory for us. And indeed no other meat, as bread, could so aptly set forth this Mystery; because no food is so suitable to man's nature, none for a constancy so pleasant, none so strengthening; a man can better subsist with bread without other meats, than with any other meats without bread: thereby the Mystery of conveying Soul-l●fe to the sinner is excellently set forth; for as there is other meat for the body besides bread, so there is another way of giving life to the Soul besides that of a Saviour, and that is an exact obedience to the Law of God; but alas! the sinner through the weakness of the flesh can never digest that strong meat, and so cannot live by it: But for a poor, weak, infirm sinner to be maintained in a life of grace and acceptance with an offended God in and by a Saviour, is a way of living so suitable to a sinner, that Men and Angels could never have thought of one so suitable; and therefore nothing, as bread, was so fit to set forth this Mystery. 2. But why must it be broken bread? Christ himself acquaints us with the mystical reason thereof in the verse of the Text, it is to set forth the breaking of the body of Christ; by breaking his body must be taken to comprehend all the sufferings of his Humane nature as united with the Divine, as all his soul-sufferings, (of which there are 3 Phrases used by the Evangelists very emphatically, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which all signify those dolours of mind he underwent through the dereliction of God) and likewise all other sufferings of his body, which are by Isaiah set forth with great variety of Phrase, speaking of Christ, he saith, He was despised and rejected of men, Isaiah 53. a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and v. 4. He hath born our griefs, and carried our sorrows, and v. 5. He was wounded for our transgressions, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed, and v. 7. he was oppressed and he was afflicted. Now all these sufferings were consummated in his Crucifixion, 1 Pet. 2.24. Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree. These are those sufferings that made that one sacrifice of himself by which he put away sin, and hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, Heb. 9.26. Heb. 10.14. Upon this account it is that the bread of this Supper must be broken before it be taken and eaten, the broken bread that is the sign, and Christ's sufferings that is the mystery signified by it, as I have showed. 3. Why must this broken bread be taken and eaten? This is not without its Mystery, for thereby is meant that these Breaking's, Bruising, Wound of Christ's Soul and Body, was not for any sin of his own, for he was a lamb without spot; 1 Pet. 1.19. but it was for our sins and for our benefit. Our dear Jesus sows in tears, and we reap the harvest of his tears in joy; he by the meritorious extraction of his bloody sweat and agony in the Garden, by his tremendious dolours of Soul and Body on the Cross, prepares a Cordial, and perfects it by his death; which prepared Cordial we by Faith drink up, and from a state of sin and death revive: he offered himself as good wheat to be ground by the law and justice of God, that thereby he might be made bread of life for us by Faith to feed on, that we may live for ever. So that Christ's breaking and giving the bread (in this Sacrament) to his Church doth mystically declare that the sole intentions of all his sufferings was for us, and therefore he saith, this is the bread that was broken for you: and likewise taking and eating it doth further signify that we do profess to believe in him for life, and do rely wholly on him for acceptance with God, and for the salvation of our souls. 4. But why did he add wine also to this supper, and commanded us to drink thereof in remembrance of him? I Answer, this addition was for a very good reason, for thereby a further mystery of our Salvation by his bloody death is explained. 1. As first, if you consider that man's natural life is not maintained by eating only, except he drink also, for we may die as well by thirst as by hunger: Christ therefore by giving us his blood to drink, which is signified by the Cup, as well as his body to eat, doth thereby declare that his suffering of Death for us is every way complete and sufficient for the spiritual and eternal life of our souls. So that as he that hath bread and drink, wants nothing for the sustaining his natural life, so he that hath by Faith an interest in a broken bleeding Christ, wants nothing to the upholding the Soul in a state of acceptance with God, or in a condition of spiritual life, that is the forerunner and earnest of a life of glory. 2. But again, if you consider the nature of the drink which he hath appointed, it is wine and not water: By it may be signified thus much; that as there is no sort of drink so grateful to the palate, so reviving and strengthening to the spirits, so that spiritual life that the Soul is raised to by the Death of Christ, is a life of the greatest pleasure and joy that is conceivable; for as no liquor like Wine doth cheer a sad drooping spirit, so nothing doth so glad and cheer the Soul as Faith in a Crucified Christ, according to that of the Apostle Peter, in whom, though we have not seen, 1 Pet. 1.8. yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Thus much for the Duty, this do. 2. The end of the Duty, and that is, in remembrance of me. Here are two things to be inquired into. I. What reason was there for the instituting an Ordinance for his remembrance? II. Why of all the acts and expressions of his love to sinners above all he would be remembered in his sufferings for us, which is the special signification of this Supper? (1) To the first I say, you must call to mind, that the time of instituting this supper was the night before that day he died. Now the consequent of his Death was to be this, that he should be taken from Earth to Heaven, there to be personally present till the day of judgement: Now that his Church on Earth might not forget him in this long absence, he therefore appointed this supper for a frequent quickening them to the remembrance of him till he came again. (2) To the other Question I Answer: That the reasons why Jesus would have this act of his love to be especially remembered above all other, may be these. 1. Because his dying for his Church was the greatest act of love he ever shown his Church. Greater love (saith Christ) hath no man than this, John 15.13. 1 John 3.16. that a man lay down his life for his friends. Again saith the Apostle, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. If a man should part with his liberty, and suffer bonds, or lay down his estate and become poor, or leave his Country, and become an exile for his friend, these were all expressions of great love; but none of them are comparable to laying down life and shedding one's blood for a friend. This last is that wherein Christ hath eminently demonstrated his love to his Church, this he glorieth in, and this is that which he would never have his Church forget, but frequently remember in this supper. 2. Because that though he gave and still doth give very great testimonies of his love to us, as in his Resurrection, Ascension, Intercession, preparing Glory, and lastly in his coming again to raise us, justify us, and to take us to himself to behold and enjoy that Glory that he had with the Father before the World was; yet this Ordinance is rather for the remembrance of his bloody Death for us, than for the remembrance of any of the other blessings, and why? Because that all these other depend on this; Christ could never have risen to our justification, had he not died for the satisfaction of the Law and his Father's Justice. Nor would he have been admitted as an Intercessor, nor have been allowed one mansion in Glory for any of us, nor would his Father have suffered him to have returned again to take any one of us to himself, if he had not by his death made our peace, opened the new way into the Holy of Holies, and purchased a glorious Resurrection, and an Ascension to the Heavenly and eternal glory for us: So that since all his other acts of love to his Church depend on this of his dying, no wonder if he appointed this Supper for the remembrance of his death rather than any thing else he either did or promised to do for us. The Conclusion is, that since that the end of this Ordinance is so glorious, and that is the remembrance of the greatest love that ever God the Father or Son showed to us, it cannot but cast a Lustre and Glory upon the duty of coming, to this Supper, and engage us to a cheerful participation thereof. 3. The Obligation to this duty: and that is Christ's Command, this is implied in the Text but expressed in the foregoing verse: what saith the Apostle Paul, I have received of the Lord that which also I declare unto you. The Apostle doth but declare, the Command is Christ's, he is the Author of it. It is Christ not Paul that said, This do in remembrance of me. Christ's Commands are the bonds by which we are tied up to Obedience, if we break his bonds we are transgressors. Remember who they were that conspired together saying, Let us break his bonds asunder, and cast away his cords from us; they were such that the Lord hath in derision, to whom he will one day speak in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. The commands of superiors set out all duty to inferiors, and punish for neglect; and the higher or greater the superior is, the more authority hath the command, and the greater punishment will be inflicted on the disobedient. If disobedience to the word spoken by Angels received a just recompense of reward, of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy that disobey the command of Jesus Christ. If a Child's disobedience deserves the rod, or a Servants the cudgel, or a Subjects the axe or halter, what doth disobedience to the Lord Jesus deserve that is greater than Father, or Master, or any earthly Sovereign whatever: Take heed then (my brethren) of being found guilty of neglect of this duty that is bound upon you by the command of so great an authority as this of the Lord Jesus that hath said, This do in remembrance of me. 4. In the next place is to be considered the persons obliged: and those are the Church of Christ, so far as by Scriptural Qualifications they are capacitated to a participation thereof, who are, 1. Those that can discern the Lord's body in this supper, the want of this the Apostle gives as the reason of unworthy receiving it, 1 Cor. 10.29. and tells us, they eat damnation to themselves. Now there are two ways wherein the Lord's body may be said to be discerned in this supper. 1. When the Understanding is spiritually enlightened to perceive the true nature and ends of this supper, and thereby is enabled to see a greater difference between this and our ordinary meals; for he that shall for want of knowledge therein come to this Table with no better preparations, or to no other intents than when he goes to his own Table, he doth certainly pervert the ends of the institution, and profanes the Ordinance, and therefore cannot choose but incur the great displeasure of God for so doing. 2. But there is another way of discerning the Lord's body in this supper, and that is by a spiritual taste and relish, for the palate hath not a greater ability of discerning the different relish in the variety of meats man feeds on, than the soul of man (that hath its spiritual senses exercised) hath in tasting the things of God and of judging the different sweets thereof. This is that spiritual faculty that Jesus Christ speaks of when he tells Peter that he savoured of the things of man, Math. 16.43: but not of the things that be of God. Now this you must well observe, you that do partake of this Supper, whether you do relish the love of the Lord Jesus in his dying for sinners and for you in particular: is this great love of Christ sweet to your souls, sweeter than honey or the honey comb? can you admire the heights and depths of this love, and wonder that the Son of God should take a body to be bruised, wounded, slain for the vilest of sinners, among which you reckon yourself as one? do you find this love of his to you draw your hearts to a love of him, and a delight in him, and a readiness to part with all for him? this is indeed to discern the Lord's body in this supper: and by this you are enabled to see a vast difference betwixt this supper and all the feasts of fat things that ever you were at in all your lives. If it be so with you, then are you qualified for this supper, and are by Christ's command obliged to partake thereof. 2. Those that have fellowship with God in Christ, they are those Christ hath obliged by his command to partake of this supper. This is another qualification the Apostle gives us in 1 Cor. 10.18, 20, 21. where discoursing of the nature of Divine and likewise of Diabolical sacrifices, & of the reason of the Priests and People's eating some part thereof, he also shows the reason of our partaking of the Lord's Table, which (though it is not properly a sacrifice that is there offered, yet it) holds some resemblance unto the sacrifices of the Law and to the People's eating thereof, inasmuch as it is a Commemoration of that one sacrifice Christ offered up to the Father for our sins, of the benefits of which one sacrifice, those that communicate at the Lord's Table do as effectually partake, as if Christ was offered up as often as you there do eat and drink. Now saith the Apostle of the Legal sacrifices, v. 18. they which eat thereof are partakers of the Altar; that is, are partakers of the blessings of that God to whom that altar is erected, and to whom those sacrifices are offered. And not only so, but there is yet a further meaning, which is, that those that eat of the Altar do thereby declare that they take the God of that Altar to be their God, from whom they expect all that good they are capable of in this life, and that which is to come, and likewise they thereby declare that him, and him only will they worship and serve. Now this engagement of themselves to God signified by eating of the sacrifice, is that fellowship spoken of v. 20. where the Apostle further tells you that there is the very same intendment in those sacrifices that are offered to Devils, and the people's eating of those feasts that attended those sacrifices; they thereby did signify that they took those Devils to be their Gods, and resolved for the future to worship and serve them as Gods, which is the proper meaning of that 20 v. But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils, i.e. I would that you would not associate with devils, or enter into a confederacy with them to serve and worship them, as the Idol-feasts do signify. Now if the Idol-feasts signified the confederacy betwixt the Devils and their worshippers, so also did the feast that attended the Jewish sacrifice signify a fellowship betwixt the true God and his worshippers, whereby the true God was acknowledged as their God, and that they would worship and serve him only. Thus the Apostle having illustrated the meaning of eating of the Jewish and also of the Gentile sacrifice, he proceeds to accommodate those notions to that of the Lord's Table, v. 21. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of Devils: ye cannot be partakes of the Lord's Table, and of the table of devils. The meaning is this; you cannot serve two such contrary Masters as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, and devils also: for if you eat of Idols feasts, you thereby declare you own devils as Gods, and then coming to the Lord's Table, you thereby declare you only acknowledge the true God to be your God in and through Jesus Christ your Sacrifice and Mediator, which practices are very absurd and contradictory. The Conclusion is this, that those that partake of the Lord's Table, are such that from the heart do take the God of that Christ whose death is remembered in that Supper, to be their God, and that do believe that God is really reconciled to them by that sacrifice, and they declare likewise hereby they will worship and serve this God in this Christ, and him only: now if any of you are thus engaged to God in Spirit, you have fellowship with him, and you are those that have right to partake of this Supper. Having thus opened the words of the Text, I shall now give you that chief point I would have you observe, which is this. Doct. That it is the indispensable duty of all such members of Jesus Christ (that can discern the Lord's body in this Lord's Supper, and have fellowship with the Father by this crucified Jesus) to come to this Supper, and to partake thereof. There is not any thing in the Doctrine I shall insist on, except this one, which is to prove it is your duty to partake of it, and that it is therefore indispensable, because the neglect of it is a very great sin. Which I prove by this one argument: Jesus Christ who instituted it, he hath commanded you to remember him in it; and therefore if you do it not, you break his command, and what is that but to sin against him? for what else is sin, but either to do what your God and Saviour forbids, or not to do what he commands? this is so plain that it were but to waste time to use more words for the clearing thereof. What I have therefore more to say is to show you those many things that accompany this sin, that tend to aggravate it, that, when you understand not only that the neglect of this duty is a sin, but a very great one, you may be deterred from continuing any longer in it. 1. I beseech you consider whose command it is you break: it is the command of the Lord Jesus; to remember him in this Supper is a debt you owe to him your Saviour, Lord, and head; it is a command that bears the superscription of the most supreme Authority in Heaven or Earth, and if by the sentence of Christ it was but just to pay the tribute-money to Caesar, because it bore his superscription, it is much more just for you to pay the tribute of obedience to this command, that bears the superscription of an Authority greater than all the Caesars that ever were. What's the name of Caesar in compare to the name and title of the Son of God? which is a title that speaks him greater than all Angels or Arch-Angels in Heaven; for to which of his Angels said he at any time, thou art my Son, Heb. 1.5. this day have I begotten thee: this is he whom the Prophet Isaiah calleth Wonderful, Is. 9.6. Counsellor, the mighty God, the Prince of peace, on whose shoulders it hath pleased the Everlasting Father to lay the government, this is he whose Kingdom is an Everlasting Kingdom, Dan. 4.3. and of whose dominion there will be no end, of whom David speaketh, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a Sceptre of Righteousness is the Sceptre of thy Kingdom; Psal. 45.6. all power (my brethren) God hath given into his hands, and hath given him to bear this royal title, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, Rev. 19.16. and it is he only that is head of his Church, it is this great Lord that hath said, this do in remembrance of me; how then dare you disobey him? believe it, if he hath so great authority to command, he hath as great a power to punish, if he find you presumptuously disobedient: he that could strike some sick and others dead for profaning this Supper, he can do as much to you for not observing it; and that he doth not, is not because he wants power, but because he is gracious, long suffering, not willing you should perish for your neglect, but that you may be drawn to repentance, and so to obedience; but if you be obstinate after you are told throughly of your fault, take heed, it will be a horrible thing for you to fall into the hands of consuming fire. 2. Consider your neglect of this Ordinance is a sin against the command, not only of the greatest, but of the best Prince in Heaven and Earth, he is not only Maximus but Optimus also, this is a further aggravation of your sin. Who ever thought but that Absalom's taking up arms against David was treason? but he that shall consider that the rebellion was against David the man after God's own heart: against David the holiest of men, and the justest of Princes, and besides all this, against David his Father: cannot but judge it an act of the highest treason imaginable. My brethren, in your disobeying this command, you sin against Jesus the just, and Jesus the gracious, against him that is by place your head; in love your Father; in openness of heart your Friend; against him that emptied himself that he might fill you, that became poor that he might enrich you, that became an exile from his Throne and Father's Kingdom, that he might bring you home to your Father's house, that became a curse that you might be blessed, that hung on a tree for you, that you might sit on Thrones with him, who called you and washed you from your sins in his blood; and after all this, when he shall leave such a command as this, to remember him in this Supper, for all this his love: how inexcusable must your neglect be? let your Conscience be judge, with whom I leave it. 3. If you consider what relation you that are believers stand in to this Jesus that left this command with you; ye are the Elect of the Father who committed you to his Son to Redeem, and effectually call you, that he might save you from sin, wrath, the grave, Hell, and to bring you to everlasting glory. Why are you called believers but from that faith whereby you acknowledge this Jesus as your Lord and your God, whereby you trust in him, and in what he hath done and suffered for you, for the making your peace, procuring your pardon, and opening a new and living way into your Father's Kingdom and glory: it is by this faith that you love him, cleave to him, and are therefore called his friends, his children, his brethren, his subjects, servants, followers, witnesses; and shall such as you be found disobedient to him? shall you carelessly forget to remember him in a supper appointed by himself for the remembrance of the greatest act of his love, that is, his dying for you? I tell you Christ will take it worse of you than of any others: how heinously did David take a contempt from his friend, Psal. 41.9. Yea mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lift up his heel against me, ye are those that he hath chosen out of the world, brought into his Father's family, and for you to turn the heel upon him and refuse to eat at his Table, this is a contempt that cannot but grieve and anger him: when Christ had been teaching that they who did not eat his flesh and drink his blood, had no life in them, at this multitudes were offended and forsaken him, but (saith he) to his Disciples, will ye go also, implying, that if they should forsake him, it would be matter of greater trouble than that of the multitudes leaving him. John 6.53.67. That the profane world comes not nigh his Table; that comes not so nigh his heart, but that ye believers should withdraw, this is that which he must needs take ill from you. Oh do not as you tender the good pleasure of your Lord, do not grieve him by absenting yourselves from his table. 4. If you consider the command itself as it is easy, pleasant, honourable, your neglect must needs receive further aggravation. What is more easy than to eat and drink, or more pleasant than to come to a feast, or more honourable than to feast with the King of Kings. Christ puts you not upon the painful duty of circumcising your flesh, nor on the troublesome duty of washing yourselves every time you touch a dead carcase, or what is ceremonially unclean, nor on the costly duties of sacrificing your Lambs, Goats or Oxen; nor on the costly and toilsome duties of travelling scores of miles every year to feast before the Lord at Jerusalem, to which the Church of the Jews were bound; he hath eased you of all these burdens, and made your task far easier, instead of all these he hath instituted but two duties like them, the one of Baptism, the trouble of which you are to undergo but once in all your lives, and the other of this Supper, which you may have without travelling far for, and which costs you next to nothing. But further, it is a duty not less pleasant than easy, what is more pleasant than a feast? and this of all feasts is the sweetest, if the perishing Manna in the wilderness were so delicious as that the taste of it was like wafers made with honey, Exod. 16.31. how much more delicious must this celestial Manna, this bread of eternal life be which is spread before you in this Supper? it is a feast of love, of the love of the Father and of the Son; there is a voice in every morsel of bread you there eat, and in every draught of wine you there drink, saying, behold O sinners how you are beloved of the Father and Son; had not the Father loved you he would never have parted with his Son, and if the Son had not loved you, he would never have parted with his life for you. Oh therefore come ye to this Supper, come eat and drink ye beloved of the Lord, and remembes his love more than wine; let all the redeemed of the Lord come hither and praise him. Nor is it a duty less honourable than pleasant: it is a pleasant thing to feast, but it is honourable to feast with a King, most honourable with the King of Kings and Lord of the whole earth. How did Haman glory that he was invited to the banquet with the King? he reckoned not of it as his task but his privilege, not as his work but his reward. And shall a feast with an earthly mortal King be more valued than a feast with the heavenly and immortal God? this Supper is the Lord's Supper, it is the great God hath made the provision, and it is his eternal Son that hath made the invitation. Oh take heed of excuses, for though you make them, God will not take them; make therefore yourselves ready, put on your wedding-garments and come away; let not a Table so well furnished want its guests, lest Christ lose the honour and you the comfort of the entertainment. But if you will still draw back, know this, that you do not only sin, but that your sin is great because against a command that is so easy, sweet, and honourable as I have shown you this is. 5. There is one circumstance more in the command which should quicken you to the observance, and that is the time when this command was given. It was the very night in which he was betrayed, the very last night he lived on the earth, the night before that day in which he offered up himself a sacrifice to justice for us. Then it was he said do this in remembrance of me. As if he had said, my friends, I am now to leave you and to be taken out of your sight, but oh! let me not be out of your mind, to morrow you shall see how I love you, when you see me scorned of men, deserted of God, praying, groaning, bleeding, dying for you, oh let not that love of mine be forgotten: and lest it should, I therefore institute this supper, charging you with my whole Church till I come again, that so often as they eat this bread and drink this cup they remember me. This is the charge of our dying Lord, and surely if we have any love for him we should not dare but observe it. When Jacob was dying, he gave in charge as some of his last words, that Joseph should forgive the unkindness of his brethren; and when he was dead, the brethren thought it a good argument to move Joseph to take pity on them: they therefore sent messengers to Joseph, saying, thy Father did command before he died, Gen 50.16, 17, 18. saying, forgive I pray thee, the trespass of thy brethren: this argument broke joseph's heart, it is said he wept when they spoke unto him, and said fear not: oh how did the words of his dying Father move and melt him! methinks I hear him say, was this the desire of my dying Father? I cannot then but yield; would my Father have me forgive? I freely do it. Now (my brethren) why should you not do as much for your dying Jesus, as Joseph for his dying Jacob? was Jacob his Father? Jesus is our Saviour; did Jacob love Joseph? but he did not die for him as Jesus did for us; and shall we find a heart to deny our Lord in his dying request, when Joseph could not find one to deny his Father? oh then as Joseph forgave, so let us. This do in remembrance of him, which will be an instance of that great love and honour we do keep for his memory. 6. In the next place, I desire you would think of the contempt you throw upon this Ordinance by your neglect. What is it but that you have slight thoughts of the Authority of the Institutor, and very mean thoughts of the institution itself? and is not this to proclaim to the world that there is (in your judgement) a command of the Lord Christ, and a duty in the Christian Religion that is frivolous and childish, not worth the observance? believe it, the World will judge of it by your practice and not by your profession. The Rechabites would drink no wine because Jonadab the son of Rechab did forbid them; nor will the Turks drink wine because that Impostor Mahomet forbade them; thus the one honoured their Father, and the other their false Prophet: and will you that are Christians let these men rise up in judgement against you? shall error be more prevalent with them, than truth with you? and will you let the Turks outdo you, in honouring a false prophet more than you do the true? is Mahomet dearer and his institutions more sacred to his followers, than Jesus Christ and his institution are to you? Christ bids you drink of this cup in remembrance of him and you will not, but Mahomet forbids them wine and they obey him: judge you now who gives the greatest honour, they to Mahomet, or you to Christ? methinks you should blush to think of it: Oh Christians for shame amend, and give no more occasion to Christ's Ministers to reprove you for so gross a sin. 7. I have not yet done. Think once more with what hypocrisy this neglect is accompanied. What is hypocrisy, but to endeavour to seem better than indeed we are? to seem zealous for Christ and his Ordinances, when in truth we are lukewarm and indifferent? Ye are Protestants by profession, your Fathers were so before you, and ye seem ready to plead their Cause: Oh that ye would look back and consider the Age past. With what zeal was this Ordinance pleaded for in King Henry the 8th and Queen Mary's days? The Papists would give you the bread only, but you would have the Cup also; they would have you adore the bread as a God, ye would not commit so great Idolatry; for which cause how many were exiled, how many imprisoned, racked, hanged, burned? and after all these heats, Oh gross Hypocrisy! you will neither have bread nor wine, nor will you take it in the Gospel-way without the encumbrances of Superstition and Idolatry. Ye talk of Popery returning, and truly not without ground: for when I consider how slight we make of this Ordinance rescued from the Papists with the expense of so much blood, methinks it is but a righteous thing with God to bring us under their iron yoke again: and if it once comes to that, than you would be glad of this Ordinance if you could get it; than you will be brought into this straight, either you must take it in the Popish way, and be damned for your Idolatry; or in the Gospel way, and be burnt at a stake for opposing Antichrist. Oh repent in time, renew your first love, strengthen your zeal that is ready to die: Come to the Lord's Table as you are invited, take it in his way, that is, with Knowledge, Faith, Love, Thankfulness, lest you provoke the Lord by your neglect to take it quite away from you, as he is like to do if he suffer Popery to return. 8. Consider again, how scandalous you are in this neglect. There are not a few about this Kingdom, that are Ancient Christians, that have a long time had the reputation of wisdom, sobriety, and godliness in their lives, that yet are notoriously guilty in this matter. I beseech such to consider their scandal herein. What is it (my brethren) to scandalise weak brethren, but to lay stumbling-blocks in the way of such over which they may fall; and if not ruin themselves, yet they may at least wound their peace. When weak Christians see such as you live in the neglect of this Ordinance, what do they but by your Example take encouragement to neglect it also? for thus it is likely they reason, if there were any necessity of partaking of that Supper, why do not such and such do it? they are godly wise men, sure if they thought it a sin they would not persevere in this neglect, and so are the weak emboldened to sin also though against their light: for it is scarce possible that they should read or hear of so plain a command as this, This do in remembrance of me, and not be in some measure awakened to the sense of their duty, which light yet they stifle because of your example. I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God and love of the Lord Jesus, and the bowels you ought to have to your weak brethren, that you would not give such a manifest occasion of their falls, their soul-wounds if not their destruction. 9 Once again let me entreat you to lay to heart, how unworthily hereby you cast contempt upon the practice of the Churches of Christ in all Ages past. Tell me if you can, what Church of Christians for 1600 years but have made conscience of this duty. In Justin Martyr's time, by what we can gather from his writings, it seems the Church always closed their solemn public meetings with this supper. And Austin tells us, there were Christians in his days that were for taking it every day of the week; and though he himself thought such daily participation thereof was not needful, yet he persuaded to partake thereof every Lord's day. Quotidie (inquit) Eucharistiae communionem percipere nec laudo nec vitupero; omnibus tamen Dominicis diebus communicandum suadeo. Now though Christ hath not expressly tied us to such a frequency, yet he hath intimated to us, he would have himself remembered herein very often, when he saith, so often as you eat this bread: But for you to live in a perpetual neglect, is very far from taking it often. It was a saying of Asaph, Psal. 73.15. If I speak thus, I should offend against the generation of thy children. Oh that you would consider that so long as you continue this neglect, you offend against the children of God in many generations, even from the time of the institution. 10. Lastly, do but think how unmerciful you are to your own souls in denying them this Ordinance. What do you but withhold their proper and necessary food from them? you call upon them to exercise their graces, and you find them faint and languid; you then complain of them, Oh what a dead and listless heart have I to God and duty? Alas man! it is thy own fault, thou like an Egyptian taskmaster callest for the tale of brick and deniest straw, thou callest to thy soul to do her work, and wilt not give her the bread to refresh her which her Saviour hath allowed. Bring thy soul to this Supper, feed her, satisfy her with a crucified Jesus that is there presented, and then tell me whether her Faith will not strengthen, her love increase, her joys and consolations multiply. Ask your brethren what tastes and relishes, what sweet refreshments they have received from the Lord in this Ordinance? they will cry unto you, Oh come taste and see how gracious God is to us at this Feast. It was a saying of Bernard, Cum defecerit virtus mea non conturbor, non diffido, Scio quid faciam, Calicem salutarem accipiam, that is, when my strength faileth me, I am not troubled, I do not despond, I know a remedy, I will go to the Table of the Lord, there I will drink and recover my decayed strength: and I dare say, that good man experienced no more but what ten thousands of the Lord's people do frequently experience. Where would you have Christ give you his loves, but in his garden of spices, in his wine cellar, where his banner over you is love? Here it is he broaches his side and let's out his heart blood to you, which is more sweet to a believing sinner than the most delicious banquet to the most hungry appetite; and if it proves not so to all that come, it is because of their own indispositions, and not because of any deficiency in the Ordinance itself. And now I had done, were it not that I understand there are some Objections to be removed, which I shall propose and answer, and then leave you to the blessing of the Lord for to give you a full satisfaction in the whole matter. Object. 1. But some may say, All that you have been hitherto pleading for is but a Ceremony, and sure God will not be so much concerned with a failure in so small a punctilio as a Ceremony? Answ. True, it is a Ceremony, but it is such an one that beareth the stamp of the Authority of the Lord Jesus; if he appoints it, will you slight it, and say it is but a Ceremony? But again, if it be a Ceremony it is the most glorious one that ever was appointed, in as much as it is designed to set forth the Redemption of the world as it was completed and perfected by the death of Jesus Christ. Yet again, it is but a Ceremony, but you are greatly mistaken if you think that therefore there is no danger to neglect it: what was the tree of knowledge of good and evil but a Ceremony? yet for disobedience in eating thereof do you not know and feel what wrath it hath brought on the whole race of mankind? and tell me, was Circumcision any more than a Ceremony? Exod. 24.25. yet it had almost cost Moses his life for neglecting to circumcise his son for the Angel stood ready with his sword to slay him, if he had not prevented it by his obedience. 1 Cor. 11.30. So for the Lord's Supper, as much a Ceremony as it is, yet for the abuse of it, some of the Church were sick and weak, others fell asleep, that is, died. And if God did so severely punish the abuse, how think you to escape, that presumptuously neglect the use thereof? Object. 2. But if I am regenerate and become a New Creature, I am sure I shall be saved, I do not fear that God will cast me away for the disuse of a Ceremony. Ans. Is this the reasoning of one regenerate? surely thou dost not understand what regeneration meaneth; is it not the same with being born of God? and is not he that is born of God, a Child of God? and what is it to be obedient to the Father, but to do as he commandeth? and hath he not commanded you by his Son to remember your Saviour in this supper? when you have considered this, then tell me what you think of this kind of reasoning: I am a child of God therefore I will presume to disobey him; he bids me remember Jesus in this supper, and I will not, methinks thou blushest at the very mentioning of it, and what if he should not cast thee quite off for this neglect, yet thou hast no reason to think but that either outwardly or inwardly or both, he will scourge thee for this sin before thou diest: and do thou examine whether the languor of thy graces and poverty of thy consolations be not the lashes of your Heavenly Father for this sin. 3. Object. But I remember a crucified Saviour in the Word read and preached, I see him there lifted up and dying for me, and I (bless God) to my great comfort. How needless a thing than is it to remember him in this supper so? Ans. Vain man would be wiser than Christ, who is the Wisdom of his Father. Jesus Christ hath thought fit not only to command that himself should be Preached to his Church, but also remembered in this supper. But thou dost say, (oh presumption!) that the first was sufficient, the latter is needless and impertinent. Wilt thou undertake to give counsel to the Son of God, or advise him in the affairs of his Kingdom? shall the Holy Ghost say, Heb. 3.5. He was faithful in his house as a Son, and wilt thou argue him of weakness in his Administrations; Job 40.2. He that reproveth the Son of God, let him answer it. But why shouldest thou say this Supper is needless because Christ is remembered in the Word? may not truth in some cases be more effectually conveyed to the soul by the eye than ear? do you not find yourselves more moved to See the execution of a man, to See one hanged or beheaded, than barely to hear the story of it? Jesus Christ in this Ordinance is as it were crucified before your eyes, in a manner more affecting than when you only hear of his crucifixion by the Word. But further, this Supper hath further ends than the Word preached, for Christ and the Covenant of Grace founded in his blood, is preached to the intent that you may Believe, and enter into this Covenant with God; but the Supper is instituted as an outward sign to Ratify this Covenant betwixt God and you, after it hath been once entered into by Faith, you do not think it enough in marriage to take one another's word, but you complete it by a solemn vow in the presence of witnesses. I tell you Christ hath not thought it enough to take your word, but he will have it confirmed solemnly by this Ordinance, and this he will have often repeated, for he knows us too well as to our proneness to backsliding, which by this supper he would prevent. But yet further, who is it dare presume to give Christ his measures, how, and where, and by what means he should manifest himself and his love to his believers? what if he hath reserved some peculiar degrees of light and strength and comfort to convey to his people by this Supper, that he thinks not fit ordinarily to do by his Word? and if it be so, Luke 24. who shall say to him why dost thou thus? I remember what is recorded of the two Disciples travelling to Emaus, by their discourse it appeared that they doubted whether Jesus was the Christ, Christ meeting with them and perceiving that their Faith staggered, took this method, first he endeavoured to settle them in their Faith, that notwithstanding he had been crucified and buried, that yet he was the true Christ, which he did by expounding Moses and the Prophets, from whence he proved that it was necessary that Christ must suffer; and this was with good effect upon their hearts, for they said, did not our hearts burn within us when we heard him? but yet he reserved a fuller manifestation of himself to them, until he came to break bread with them at their house; than it is said, their eyes were opened and they knew that it was he. I do not say that breaking of bread in that place was the Lord's Supper in the sense I speak of it; but it will serve me so far as to illustrate what I intent, which is this: That it may be the pleasure of Christ to entail peculiar manifestations of himself to his people upon several ordinances; he will beget faith by the preaching of the word, and set your hearts in a flame of love to him from what you hear there, and yet may reserve the confirmation of your faith and establishment of your love to him, to be wrought by this of the Lord's Supper, which is that which many of his people have experienced. And therefore it cannot be said to be in vain to have Christ presented to you in the Lord's Supper, as well as in the Lord's word preached; and this I conceive abundantly enough to silence this objection. 4th Objection. But I am not prepared worthily to receive, and therefore I dare not come to this Table, lest I eat and drink damnation to myself. Answer, Whose fault is that? what hast thou been doing all thy life? if thou hast not been working out thy salvation with fear and trembling, thou hast done nothing. Repentance hath been preached, why hath not thy heart been broken? Christ hath been offered, why hast thou not received him by faith? This Supper hath been explained, why hast thou not understood it? if thou hadst but repent of thy sins, and believed in the Lord Jesus, and understood the meaning of this Supper, thou hadst been prepared for a worthy receiving of it: but if it be not thus with thee it is thy own fault, get thee therefore into thy closet, humble thyself mightily before the Lord for this long abuse of the means of grace; and pray him to give thee that repentance, faith and knowledge that may make thee worthy: and be assured that God is merciful, Jam. 1. Mat. 7. and giveth liberally to those that ask, and upbraideth no man: ask and you shall have, seek and you shall find. But if you will not be at this pains, thy unworthiness is voluntary, and thy complaint of unfitness is mere hypocrisy: and then remember the many woes denounced against Hypocrites. Yet there may be some children of God that are prepared, but yet dare not come, because they do not understand that they are prepared. To these I say, if through ignorance of your own state you be kept off, why do you not come to such Ministers that you judge faithful to help you? you will carry your evidences to men skilful in the Law to judge of your title to an earthly inheritance; and if your body be under some distemper, you will ask your Physician what he thinks of you; and why will you not then go to some able Minister, and ask his judgement of you, and desire his directions? I dare say this course would set many a weak Christian at liberty from his doubts and perplexities, which have and may so entangle him, that as he yet hath not seen his right to his privileges, so he may go on in this darkness (for aught I know) to his death. Be therefore persuaded to take advice. The Conclusion is this, I would that all of you whose consciences bear you witness that you are the Lord's people, and that you have given yourselves up to Christ, would take up a resolution to be obedient to the Lord in coming to this Supper as he hath commanded; and as you have heard this morning, take heed of sinning against light, with your eyes wide open upon it; sins of ignorance God may wink at, but when you sin presumptuously, though it be against the least command, and persevere in it, I question whether it be consistent with salvation; but if it be, doubtless it will be a Salvation through the fire. The Lord give you understanding. A Religious Fast. The duty whereof is asserted, described, persuaded, in a brief exercise upon Mark 2.20. But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they Fast in those days. THose words are an answer to a question, or rather a reply to an objection made by the Disciples of John and the Pharisees against Christ concerning Fasting, v. 18. And the Disciples of John and the Pharisees used to fast, and they come and say unto him, why do the Disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but thy Disciples fast not. Christ returns his answer by a fit parable (as that was his usual way of teaching) v. 19 Can the Children of the Bride-chamber fast while the Bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the Bridegroom with them they cannot fast. And so the duty was not now in season. We have the same story recorded by two other Evangelists, Math. 9 Luke 5. only with this difference. In Matthew we read it was only the Disciples of John that made the objection, but in Mark and Luke is added the Disciples of John and the Pharisees. Again, Matthew and Mark mention only fasting, Luke addeth why do the Disciples of John fast often and make prayers: he means it of the prayers used by them upon their fast days Luke also addeth but eat and drink: here was the objection. Wherein we shall first consider the occasion of it, and then the persons that made it, and then the reply that Christ maketh to it, which will bring me to the Text. The occasion of it was First, That which is mentioned by all these Evangelists, Christ's entering the house of Levi the Publican, who had made him a great feast, and there was a great company of Publicans and others present, and Christ and his Disciples sat down and did eat and drink with them. Now this was one ground of the objection, That Christ and his Disciples did not use that austerity and abstinence in meat and drinks as they ought, but did too much indulge their sensual appetite, as elsewhere he was accused as a wine-bibber and gluttonous, Math. 11.19. especially seeing he did eat and drink with Publicans and sinners. Secondly, The Disciples of John and the Pharisees used several fasts besides the Annual fast enjoined by the Law upon the seventh month and the tenth day of the month for the whole congregation of Israel. As we read of their often fasting, Math. 9.14. Luke 5.33. And the Pharisee mentioned Luke 18.12. pleads, I fast twice in the week, and Chemnitius in his Harmony conjectures they did still observe the fasts of the fourth month, and fifth month, seventh and tenth month that the Jews observed in the 70 years' captivity mentioned Zach. 8.19. As also that which was observed by Esther and her Maidens, Mordecai, and the Jews in Shushan, before her going into the King, to speak for the lives of her people, Esther 4.16. to preserve the solemn remembrance of the calamities of those times, he thinks they kept still those fasts; but besides, they observed many Fasts devised and appointed by themselves, which may be reckoned among the Traditions of the Pharisees imposed upon their Disciples. Now Christ and his Disciples not fasting as they fasted, was another ground of the objection, as is expressly mentioned by the Evangelist. Next we may consider the persons that make the objection, whereby we may see yet further ground of it. It was the Disciples of the Pharisees and John. These Pharisees were the chief Ringleaders upon all occasions in any opposition against Christ; one while they object against him and his Disciples for not observing the Sabbath. Another while for not washing before they did eat, and sometimes for his too much familiarity with Publicans and sinners, etc. And here for not fasting. And now they engaged the Disciples of John with them that they might make their objection and opposition the more plausible, for John was in great reputation with the people. Wherein John's Disciples were justly to be blamed for joining with the Pharisees in an opposition to Christ, who were his inveterate adversaries. But John their Master being now in Prison, they were the more easily drawn in with them, for had he been with them he would not have suffered such a thing: (his great errand and business being to raise up the reputation of Christ among the people, to remove prejudices against him, to prepare the way for him, and to turn the hearts of the people to him.) A pregnant instance whereof we have John 3.26, 27, 28. where John's Disciples came with a story to their Master, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all come to him, but John answered, A man can receive nothing, except it be given from above, ye yourselves bear me witness that I said I was not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom, etc. he must increase, but I must decrease; John would not suffer any envy or prejudice to remain in the hearts of his Disciples against Christ upon his account, but seeks to check it presently. But he being now not present with them, the Pharisees more easily engaged them in this opposition and objection against Christ about Fasting, to join with them therein. And the zeal that John's Disciples had for the reputation of their Master might somewhat incline them also to it; for they saw the people following Christ: which they thought might be some eclipse to it, and consequently to their own, as they were his Disciples. And besides they knowing the austerity and abstinence that was practised by John, (his meat being locusts and wild honey, such food as he found in the wilderness) they might be more easily offended at that greater liberty that was taken by Christ and his Disciples about eating and drinking. Especially at this time when their Master was in Prison, they thought fasting might be more seasonable than going to a feast, as Christ and his Disciples did at the house of Levi, as Grotius observes upon the place. Next we have Christ's reply to the Objection, and he presents it in a parable, as I said; the parable of a Bridegroom, who at his wedding hath his Bridemen and Bridemaids attending him in the wedding chamber, who according to the Hebrew Dialect are here called the Children of the Bride-chamber. And is it then a proper season for their fasting, while they are in the wedding-chamber, and the Bridegroom with them. Wherein Christ doth represent himself as a Bridegroom, and his Disciples as the Children of the Bride-chamber. And he doth now represent himself thus, the rather to put these Disciples of John in remembrance of their Master's speech when he called Christ the Bridegroom. As we read John 3.29. He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom. And should then his Disciples fast and mourn while Christ the Bridegroom was with them? And their Master John he professed that he was the friend of this Bridegroom, and rejoiced greatly to hear his voice, John 3.29. And therefore why should they be offended at his Disciples that they did not fast and mourn, when their Master John rejoiced, and had his joy fulfilled in hearing his voice; as we read John 3.29. And herein Christ doth intimate to them, that if they were indeed his Disciples, and the children of the Bride-chamber, they would not fast neither; for the children of the Bride-chamber cannot fast while the Bridegroom is with them. But he adds; The days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. And so I come to the Text. Wherein we may observe by the way 1. That Christ doth exempt his Disciples from observing those fasts that the Pharisees and John's Disciples were in the practice of. Chemnitiu Harm. in loco. And the rather because they were observed, especially on the Pharisees part, Ex simulato pietatis study, out of ostentation of piety, and for self-justification. As he did exempt them from their other traditions, so also from their fasts. 2. That the Bridegroom was to be taken away, which is to be understood of Christ's fleshly presence, for his spiritual presence never was, nor never will be taken away from his Church. And this presence discontinues till his coming to judge the world, and then the cry will be heard at Midnight, Behold the Bridegroom cometh. Mat. 25.6. The Bridegroom that was once visibly present on earth with his Disciples, is so taken away that he will not be in that manner present with them again till his return from heaven. And his taking away doth either respect the acts of men, who by cruel hands took him from prison, and from judgement, and nailed him upon the cross, Isa. 53 8. and took him out of the Land of the living. Or else it respects the act of his Father, who took him up into heaven after he had finished his work here upon earth, as it is said 1 Tim. 3. ult. Received up into glory, which is the more probable, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though there is nothing in the original word to determine it to either sense. 3. He also declares what the practice of his Disciples would be after his taking away. Then shall they fast in those days, so that he doth not deny the practice of Fasting to his Disciples, but rather commends it, only it was not at present seasonable, as it afterwards would be. Qu. But why should they fast after he was taken away? Ans. 1. Some say, because till then the Holy Ghost was not given in such a degree as might fit them for such extraordinary duties. Chrysost. As Christ seems to intimate, when upon this occasion he excuseth his Disciples, as being not yet fit for such spiritual services. No man putteth a piece of new Cloth into an old garment, nor new wine into old bottles, Mark 2.22. It's true they might be able to keep fast days as the Pharisees did; but Christ that values our duties by the frame of spirit exerted in them, would not have them put upon extraordinary duties till they had a suitable measure of the spirit to enable them thereunto. 2. Others (and I think more properly) understand the words of Christ with respect to the afflictions and persecutions that would come upon the Church after his ascension into heaven; which would give them great occasions of prayer and extraordinary supplications, and which would reduce them to such great sorrows and distresses, whereby fasting would be not only seasonable, but that principle of grace that would act them in other duties, would also naturally lead them to it. Not to take up again the practice of these Pharisaical Fasts, (as the Montanists would hence infer) but the duty of Fasting as suited to Gospel times. And these persecutions began early. First by the Jews, and then the Arrians, and then the Heathen persecutions under the Dragon in the Roman Empire, and then under the Beast with the seven heads and ten horns, to whom the Dragon gave his seat and great power, Rev. 13.2. And Christ foretold this to his Disciples before he was taken away, That they that killed them would think they did God good service, John 16.1. And that Nation should rise against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom, and there should be Famine, Pestilence and Earthquakes, Mat. 14.7. Now in these days should his Disciples fast. Not that in these words Christ doth give an institution for fasting, but declares what eventually would come to pass. Neither doth he determine any particular days and times for fasting, but only general during the absence of the Bridegroom they should fast in those days. And indeed as soon as the Bridegroom was gone they began to have cause of mourning: his absence itself was one great cause, as when he foretold them of it, sorrow filled their hearts. And so upon several other causes of sadness that should fall out afterwards, there would be great occasion of fasting and mourning till his coming again. Thus much for explication: And because my subject is about fasting, I shall not consider Christ in the relation of a Bridegroom as he is here styled, of which might be made a long discourse, which would rather lead me to speak of Christian Festivals and spiritual joy, than a religious Fast, which is the subject I must attend unto. Neither need I make any logical division of the Text. But instead thereof shall propose these three observations. Obs. 1. There are some times that are more particular seasons for Fasting. Obs. 2. That Christians ought wisely to observe what is the proper duty of the times, and especially when they are called to the great duty of a Fast. Obs. 3. That fasting is a duty to be practised in the days of the New Testament, even all the time of the Bridegroom's absence. So that it is not a duty that was peculiar to the times of the Old Testament and the Mosaic poedagogy, but is to be practised in the Gospel times. The last I shall only insist upon, and touch upon the other in the handling of it, wherein I shall take notice, That Fasting may be considered either as, 1. Merely natural. 2. Civil. 3. Religious. 1. As merely natural, which is only an abstinence from food. As the Greek word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Fast, Grammatically imports no more but a not eating. Which may arise sometimes from necessity and want of food, as when the people followed Christ in the wilderness, and continued three days there, and had nothing to eat; and hereupon Christ wrought a miracle to feed them, because he would not send them away fasting, and they faint in the way, Mat. 15.32. So when Paul was in his Voyage to Rome, for want of provision he and his company fasted fourteen days, Act. 27.33. Or else this natural fast is through want of appetite, though food is present. There may be an Atrophy upon Nature, and man fasts only because he cannot eat. Now this fasting is of no avail with God; if a man eats not, he is nothing the better, and if he eats, he is no whit the worse. Bodily exercise profiteth nothing of itself. As the Kingdom of God is not meats and drinks, so neither is it abstinence from meats and drinks, especially such abstinence as this that is not voluntary, but upon necessity. 2. Civil, when there is a fasting upon a civil account, with respect to some civil end. As when the Magistrate doth impose abstinence from meats for a while for some civil good. As Saul imposed it upon the people in his pursuit of the Philistines, 1 Sam. 14. that his victory might not be hindered. And such fasting sometimes may be imposed for the increase of provision, and for the public health. 3. Religious. When fasting is attended with duties of religion, and is to some religious end. For the end doth in such things as these specify and denominate the Action. And to give a particular Account of it, take it thus. A Religious Fast is the devotion of the whole man to solemn extraordinary attendance upon God in a particular time separated for that end, for the deprecating his displeasure, and for the supplicating of his favour, joined with an abstinence from bodily food, and other bodily delights, and from secular affairs. So that he that fasteth doth for that time separate himself to God, and doth voluntarily dedicate a part of time to his more solemn service; and doth put himself (as it were) under a Religious vow to abide solemnly with God in the duties of the fast he is engaged in. Now this Religious fast is either public or private. 1. Public. As when a whole City fasts, as in the case of Nineveh; or a whole Nation, as in Jehoshaphats case, 2 Chron. 20.3. who proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And the Prophet Joel calls to such a fast, Joel 1.14. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn Assembly, gather the Elders, and all the Inhabitants of the Land into the House of the Lord, etc. when the occasion is public, so ought the fast to be. 2. Private. Which is either of a particular person, of which Christ speaks, Mat. 6.17, 18. But thou when thou faste●, anoint thy head, wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father in se ret, and thy Father which seethe in secret shall reward thee openly. And of this private fast, Anna is an instance, of whom it is said, Luke 2.37. That she served God in the temple with fastings and prayers night and day: And Daniel another, who tells us, in three whole weeks he was mourning, did eat no pleasant bread, neither came flesh and wine into my mouth, Dan. 10.2, 3. And Cornelius is another, Act. 10.30. And the occasion for private fasting is more peculiarly some private concerns, unless the person that fasts be a public person, and then a private personal fasting may be upon a public account as daniel's was. Or of a particular family, which the Apostle seems to speak of, 1 Cor. 7.5. Where husband and wife, being of the same family, are advised by the Apostle not to defraud one another, but by consent for a time to give themselves to fasting and prayer. And when the Prophet Zachary speaks of families mourning apart, Zach. 12.13, 14. It may probably be meant of fasting joined with mourning: And though the word family may be understood patronimically, and extend further than to a particular house, yet it may by Analogy be applied to particular houses and the inhabitants therein. Again, a Religious fast is either stated or occasional. 1. Stated, as the fast of the seventh month, and the tenth day of the month was a stated fast to Israel every year, and the fasts the Jews observed in Babylon of the fourth, fifth, seventh, tenth month, mentioned Zach. 8.19. were stated fasts, and the Pharisee in the Gospel boasted of his stated fasting; I fast twice in the week, Luke 19.12. Against which stated fasts, I have nothing to speak, or to censure any men's practice herein, if the occasion still continues, and it do not degenerate into formality. 2. Occasional, of which we have frequent instances, as the fast observed by Esther and her Maidens, and the Jews in Shushan was occasional. And so that which I mentioned of Jehoshaphat was occasional. And the fast in Nehemiah's time mentioned ch. 9.1. was occasional. These fasts did not pass into any Stated course of observation. Having premised these distinctions, I shall discourse of this religious fast. 1. In the Sanction of it. 2. The Manner of Observation. 3. The occasion that requires and calls for it. 4. The concern that abstinence from food hath in the right Observation of it. 5. The abuse of the Ordinance in the wrong managing of it. 1. First, for the Sanction of it. 1. It seems partly to be dictated by the light of nature, for the heathen observed it, especially when any fore calamity was either felt or feared by them. As in the case of Nineveh, when Jonah denounced destruction to the City, they presently betook themselves to fasting, both King, Nobles, and People, yea, the very Beasts must be concerned in it, Jonah 3.7, 8. So when they would make their prayers more prevalent, in such cases they would join fasting with their prayers. As Baal's Priests, when they cried to their God Baal to hear them. The Text saith, they cried all day until the evening sacrifice, 1 Kings 18.19. So that they did not only pray, but fast also. As they used lustrations, sacrifices, festivals in their religious rites and worship of their Gods, so sometimes they had their Jejunia, and religious fasts. As we have some account of this in Tertullian in his Book adversus Phychicos. By which they thought to make some satisfaction for their sin, and to reconcile to themselves the Deity they had offended, or to obtain some special favour they had need of. 2. It is a duty by Institution, and that both in the Old and New Testament, the fast of the seventh month was by direct institution in the Old Testament. And at other times God called them to it. Sanctify a fast, call an Assembly (said the Prophet Joel) chap. 1.14. And God is said to choose it, Isa. 58. Is not this the fast that I have chosen? And God's declaring there in that Chapter the right way of observing it, doth prove the duty itself to be of his own appointment. And the New Testament requires it also, for the duty is of a Moral nature, and therefore the obligation of it remains, only with this difference. 1. We are not to use those rites and outward expressions of sorrow that were practised in those times; which belonged to the rigour of that legal ministration As Rending the garment, Joel 2.13. putting on of sackcloth, Neh. 9.1. covering with Ashes, Dan. 9.3. bowing down the head, Isa. 58.5. Putting earth upon their head, Neh. 9.1. and sometimes putting off their sandal, or shoes, and plucking off the hair, Ezra 9.3. and making themselves bald, Isa. 22.12. And the Pharisees used disfiguring of their faces, Mat. 6. But saith Christ to his Disciples, when thou fastest anoint thy head, wash thy face, which in their fasting the Jews should forbear, though used at other times, as appears by daniel's fasting, chap. 10.3. I eaten no pleasant bread, neither did I anoint myself at all. But saith Christ, do not ye do so, but anoint thy head, and wash thy face, etc. and so use not such visible signs of sorrow, that thou may'st not appear to men to fast. 2. We ought not to fast with that legal frame of spirit which was upon the Jews in those days, for every duty in the days of the New Testament is to be managed with a spirit suiting the Gospel ministration. 3. As to its sanction, there may be also the addition of humane authority in the appointing of fasts, especially public fasts, when the public state of affairs may require it, the duty in general being of God's institution, and the voice of Providence calling people to it, the Magistrate in this case may determine the time, if it be general to a Nation. Or the Pastors and guides of the Church with respect to the several Churches over which they preside. For where a duty is required of God, and the circumstance of time not determined, there Christian prudence in Magistrates or Churches is to be the rule for determination. As the particular times for Baptism and the Lord's Supper are left to Christian prudence to determine. 2. The manner how a religious fast is to be observed. And that both with respect to the outward and inward man. And if some cannot hear a total abstinence, some courser food may be used, as in Tertullian's time they had their Xerophagiae, so called from a dry kind of food used by them. Tertullian de jejun. adv Psithicos. 1. With respect to the outward man. 1. Abstinence from food is requisite and necessary so far as may consist with mercy to the body. For the very name of a fast implies this abstinence, and not only the Jews but the very Heathen in their fasts did enjoin this abstinence upon themselves and others, as appears by that of Nineveh, Jonah 2.7. 2. As also meaner apparel than what may be used at other times, though not to put on Sackcloth, yet to lay aside ornaments and richer dresses upon such a day. When the Israelites would express their sorrow for the sad tidings of God's refusing to go before them. It is said, they laid aside their Ornaments, Exodus 33.4. Though they had a command for it, yet nature itself did teach it them. As it did the King of Nineveh who laid aside his robe when he fasted and mourned. Purple and scarlet and shining apparel are not suitable to such a duty, nature itself being judge. Non est conveniens luctibus ille colour. And verily those gay and gaudy dresses which multitudes garb themselves with at this day, are no whit suitable to the sad times upon which God hath cast us. 3. Yea, and humble gestures also, which may best express a solemn serious mind. Though no particular gesture is absolutely commanded, yet nothing ought to be discovered either in the countenance or any actions and gestures of the body that may be unsuitable to the nature of the day, and the solemn duties thereof; wherein partly the light of nature, and the custom of the place may direct and regulate us. The Jews had three sorts of gestures that were used in worship. The one was bowing the head, called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other was bending the knee, called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The third was prostration of the body, called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But where there is no particular gesture determined there Christians are left to their liberty, only it is to be guided by a due respect to the greatest advantage of the duty, and with caution against any just offence. 4. Abstinence from secular affairs is requisite, for a fast is a solemn devoting a certain part of time to God, and to an extraordinary attendance upon him. And if meats and drinks are to be forborn, for to give advantage to the duties of the day, so also bodily labours and secular business upon the same account. The Jewish fasts were reckoned among their Sabbaths, and so they were days of rest from bodily labours. And there was a severe punishment to be inflicted upon the men that did any work upon their solemn fasts of the tenth day of the seventh month, as we read Levit. 23.30. The same soul will I destroy from among his people. Though the rigour of that legal ministration is abated under the Gospel, yet it holds still in the moral and equitable part of it, that whatever may hinder the managing of any duty in that manner that is suitable and necessary thereunto ought to be laid aside; but 5. To these I shall here add the external duties of religion, and sacred ordinances to be used in the discharge of the work of the day. 1. Is confession of sin, a fast day is for atonement, and therefore confession of sin is necessary. As we read of Ezra when he heard of the sin of the Jews in their making affinity with the people of the Land, he rend his garment and sat astonished till the evening sacrifice, and made confession of their sin, Ezra 9.7, 8, 9, 10. So in Nehem. 9.1, 2. we read the Children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and they stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their Fathers. And so Daniel in his solemn fast, which he set himself to in the behalf of the Captivity now almost expired, he makes an ample confession of sin, as we read Dan 9.4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And as a fast is an extraordinary duty, so confession of sin ought to be more than ordinary in such a day, and what may suffice at another time, may not be sufficient then. It ought to be more extensive with respect to the several kinds and acts of sin, with respect to the aggravations of sin, and with respect to the persons that are under guilt, and with respect to the inward principles of sin in the heart, out of which all actual sins do spring. As daniel's confession of sin extended to the kinds of it, the several aggravations of it, and to the persons that were concerned in it, as their Kings, Princes, Fathers, people of the Land, those that were near, and those that were far off, as we find in that chapter. And this confession of sin is requisite to the deeper humiliation of the soul, to the condemnation of ourselves; and to the justifying of God, whereby he may have the greater glory. 2. Is supplication, which is the imploring mercy from God, either with respect to the pardon of sin committed, or the preventing those judgements that are impending, or the removing such as are inflicted. As we find Daniel in the time of his fasting, after his confession, made earnest supplications for forgivenesses of sin, v. 9 for the turning away God's anger and fury, v. 16. for the shining of his face upon his sanctuary, v. 17. for the repairing the desolations of their City called by his name, v. 18. and for the people in general, ibid. And therefore fasting and prayer are frequently mentioned together in Scripture, Luke 2.37. Acts 10.30. Acts 14.23, 24. 1 Cor. 7.5. though prayer in general comprehends confession and thanksgiving in it, as well as supplication, yet in a stricter acceptation, petition for mercy doth most properly express the import of the word and the main matter of the duty. And this the King of Nineveh enjoined in the fast appointed by him, Jonah 2.8. Let man and beat be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God. So that supplication and crying to God is another great part of the duty of the day. 3. Hearing the word, for the word is necessary both for the discovery of sin for our present humiliation, and for the discovery of our duty with respect to future reformation, both which are necessary to an acceptable fast. And the word of the Gospel sets before men a door of hope, that their sin may be pardoned, and judgement removed. It presents God not only as reconcileable, but delighting in mercy; It sets before men many instances of God's hearing prayer, and the prevalency of repentance and humiliation with him. And particularly what acceptance solemn fasting hath found with him in several ages. And all this mightily tends to the furthering the great duties of the day. And it is observed of the fast kept by the children of Israel, Nehem. 9.3. that they read in the book of the Law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day, and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped; if repentance, spiritual mourning, and soul humiliation be necessary to the day, as I shall show presently, than the hearing the word may be of great use thereunto: As when Josiah heard the words of the Law, he rend his and humbled himself, 2 Chron. 34.27. and Ahab upon the like occasion humbled himself, though not in the like manner; and we read how God appointed Jeremiah, and Jeremiah Baruch to read the roll that was written from the mouth of God, in the ears of the people upon their fasting day, Jer. 36.6. and what was the cause of Ninevehs repentance and humiliation, was it not Jonah's preaching? as our Saviour speaks of it, Math. 12.41. They repent at the preaching of Jonah, though his preaching was only this, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed. The word is effectual through Christ to bring the impenitent to repentance, and to renew the exercise of repentance in those that have already repent; which is a proper work for a fast day. 4. Renewing our Covenant with God, which in private fasts is to be done betwixt God and a man's own soul, and in public fasts by the mouth of the preacher, and the people's consent thereunto. And this Covenant is either the general Covenant that we renew, or else a particular Covenant, with respect to some particular duties that we engage ourselves unto: Or else both together. As in the public fast observed by the children of Israel in Nehem. 9 both Princes and Nobles and people renewed their general Covenant to walk in God's Law, which was given by Moses the servant of the Lord, and particularly they covenanted not to give their Daughters to the people of the Land, nor take their Daughters for their Sons, as we read Nehemiah Chap. 10. ver. 19, 20. and the Covenant being written, their Princes, Levites and Priests did seal to it. So if a Church or people have contracted guilt upon themselves by the omitting of some duties, or the committing of any sins, for which the Lord may have a controversy with them. It is a proper work upon a day of fasting to engage themselves to a reformation by a solemn renewing their Covenant with God. And though we have not a particular Instance of this in the New Testament, yet the Law of saith that requires men now to take hold of God's Covenant, and in all cases to make use of it, so in some special cases to renew it also. Not that it needs renewing as to the substance or sanction of it on God's part, but we are on our part to renew it with God, by laying new engagements and obligations upon ourselves to carry it in all things according to the Law of this covenant in the restipulating part of it. 5. The next duty of the day is Thanksgiving. Though this seems not the proper duty of the day, yet is not to be omitted, for the due consideration of God's mercy tends to the aggravation of sin, and so to make men's confessions and humiliations more affectionate and evangelical. As in that fast I mentioned before, Neh. 9 The Levites did stand up among the people, and begin the day with blessing God. Blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise, ver. 5. and so they proceed to recite a catalogue of God's mercies, even from the first call of Abraham, to their settlement in the Land of Canaan, which reacheth to ver. 25. And all this was to bring in the Nevertheless mentioned v. 26. with the greater Emphasis to their humiliation, Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy Law behind their backs, and show thy Prophets, etc. and the same we may observe in Ezra, chap. 9 He takes notice of the reviving God had given them in their bondage, and the Nail in his holy place, and the Wall in Judah and Jerusalem, ver. 8, 9 the more to aggravate the people's sin in doing according to the abominations of the Canaanites, and mingling themselves with the people of the Land, ver. 1, 2. The goodness of God is said to lead men to Repentance, Rom. 2. And therefore mention is to be made of it upon a day when the exercise of Repentance is specially in season. Yea, Thanksgiving also is requisite as an attendant of supplication, for the giving thanks for mercy received is an effectual way to obtain New mercy: According to that known saying, Efficacissimum genus rogandi est gratias agere. Giving thanks for mercy received, is the most effectual way to obtain new mercy. Thanksgiving carries supplication in the spirit of it. And if according to the Apostle, Phil. 4. We are in every thing to make known our request with supplication and thanksgiving, then when ever we come to God with Supplications, we are to couple them with thanksgiving. 6. The last duty I mention, which is the Appendix to the rest, is that of Alms-deeds, for when we come to beg mercy from God we should not forget to show it to men. And he that stops his ear to the cry of the poor, Prov. 21.13. he may cry but shall not be heard; yea, his prayers are so far from coming up as incense before God, that they are an abomination. Cornelius that was a man much in prayer and fasting also, as is noted of him, Act. 10.30. was full also of Alms-deeds, Act. 10.31. and both together came up as a memorial before God. Alms-deeds as they are not to be confined to a fast day, so surely are not to be excluded. He that will on such a day shut up his purse, let him take heed lest God shut up against him his ear his heart and his hand. The People complain, Isa. 53.8. Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not? God tells them they fasted, but shown not mercy; and therefore fasted not aright: and then tells them what was the fast that he had chosen, ver. 7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and when thou seest the naked that thou cover them, etc. Certainly those duties that ought to follow our fasting, or else it avails nothing with God, ought not to be shut out of the duties of such a day, if there be call and opportunity thereunto. Thus I have shown the duties of a fast day, which are external, with respect to the outward performance. And next I shall show what frame of spirit is requisite to such a day, without which all these duties may be externally performed, and yet the fast not accepted. Rom. 2. ult. For as the Apostle saith of Circumcision, It is that of the heart, and of the spirit, so is that fasting that is well pleasing to God. There may be confession, supplication, renewing the Covenant, Thanksgiving, Alms-deeds, and yet if there be wanting a suitable frame of heart, all this may be but as a body without the soul, or matter without form, that may have praise with men, but none with God. Now this frame of soul consists in, 1. Self-debasement. 2. Godly sorrow. 3. Filial fear. 4. Ingenuous shame. 5. Inward purity. 6. Evangelical faith and hope. I shall speak briefly to them all. 1. Is self-debasement. God complains of the Jews fasting, Isa. 58.5. they did hang down their heads like a bulrush, but their souls did not bow down within them. We call a fast day a day of humiliation, but we have the name but not the thing, if the soul be not humbled: What is it for the body to wear sackcloth, if Pride cover the heart; or to spread ashes under us, if the soul lie not down in the dust, or to fast from bodily food, if the soul be not emptied of self-fulness. 2. Godly sorrow. A fast day is for afflicting the soul, and how is the soul afflicted without true sorrow? The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies a fast, is derived from a root that signifies to afflict, so essential is the afflicting the soul to the day. It was a charge against the Jews, Isa. 58.2. Behold in the day of your fast ye find pleasure. What kind of pleasure it was, is not there mentioned, but it was some sinful pleasure that was not congruous to the day. Daniel speaks of his fast, ch. 10.3. I sat full three week's mourning. As at our funerals, many enter the house of mourning and wear black, but there is no mourning within, nor no garment of heaviness covers their soul. So do many enter the day and duty of fasting, but no godly sorrow enters with them into it, or attends them in it. Every thing is beautiful in its season, Eccl. 3.11. A fast day wants its beauty if no true sorrow attends it. We make confession of sin, but if there be no sorrow, we feel not what is spoken, and what will words of confession avail? Ephraim is said to bemoan himself, Jer. 31.18. And God is said to hear it, and he bemoaned him also; But how can we think God's heart should be affected with our confessions, when our own are not. The Jews upon their solemn days had their solemn sacrifices. A fast day is a solemn day, and it is not to be without its sacrifices, and the great Sacrifice or Sacrifices of the day, is a broken and contrite spirit. psal. 51. 3. Filial fear. Natural fear hath sometimes brought a people to the duty, and a filial fear is to be exercised in the performance of it, as Jehoshaphat feared, and then proclaimed a Fast, 2 Chron. 20.3. And so did the King of Nineveh, Jonah 2. when God's judgements are abroad we ought to fear, and this fear should lead us to meet him in the ways of his judgement by prayer and fasting, for all our serving God is to be coupled with fear, Psal. 2.11. our rejoicing is to be with trembling, much more our mourning. In a fast day we especially deprecate God's wrath, and therefore we ought to have such a sense of it, as may cause sacred fear. There is no affection of the soul but aught to be sanctified to the service and honour of God, and so fear among the rest, and is then to be exercised when we draw nigh to God, especially in the solemn duties of a fast. 4. Ingenuous shame. Sin is in itself a shameful thing, and therefore when it is confessed upon a solemn day, it ought to be with shame. As Ezra hearing of the sin of Israel after their return from their captivity, he sat astonished until the Evening, and then riseth up, and rends the mantle, and speaks to God: O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my faee unto thee, Ezra 9.5. And to us belongeth confusion of face, said Daniel in his fasting, Dan. 9.8. Two things cause shame. One is to act contrary to our own reason, an I the other is, to act unsuitably to another's kindness. The one is absurd, and the other is disingenuous, and both may cause shame. And there are both these in sin, especially when committed with allowance, for right reason doth condemn it, and it is a high violation of the law of kindness, to return evil where we receive all our good. 5. Inward purity, by which I mean not a total freedom from sin, but a freedom from a corrupt end, and the secret allowance of sin in our fasting. Either of these will spoil the fast. 1. A corrupt end; As the Pharisees who fasted to appear religious before men. And the Jews in Babylon who fasted, but did ye fast to me, even to me? saith the Lord, Zach. 7.5. their end was not right. 2. A secret allowance of sin, this made the Jews fasting of no avail with God, Jer. 14.10. They have loved to wander. There is their allowance of sin, And when they fast I will not hear their cry, ver. 12. There their fast turns to no account. It is said of Ahab, he rend his , put on sackcloth and fasted, 1 Kings 21.27. But still he kept fast his sin, and so not accepted. As when the Jews came to inquire of God, Ezek. 14. God tells them, he well not be enquired of by them. And why? because they set up Idols in their heart v. 7. so if men come to God by fasting and prayer, and have in their hearts an allowance of sin, (which God the searcher of hearts can know,) they bring an Idol along with them in their hearts, and their prayer and fasting are rejected of him. David well knew this, when he saith, If I regard iniquity in mine heart, God will not hear my prayer: Though men while they are fasting and praying are not visibly acting sin, yet God seethe the aspect of the soul, if that be looking towards sin with pleasure and delight (as that Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there imports) the prayer is rejected. Si j'eusse pentè quelque malice, etc. Or if we read the words as the French Translation (I think more properly) renders them. If I had regarded some wickedness in my heart, God would not have heard my prayer; the sense is the same to my present purpose. 6. Evangelical Faith and Hope in God. All our confessions and humiliations and supplications ought to be joined with faith in Christ, and hope in God's mercies, or else they want the great Ingredients of their acceptableness with God. As in Ezra's fast, Shechaniah stands up and saith to him, we have trespassed against our God, and taken strange wives, etc. Yet there is hope in Israel concerning this thing, Ezra 10.2. And to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, said Daniel in his fasting, Dan. 9.9. God's mercy and Christ's merits should bear up our faith and hope, while our sin is casting us down with sorrow. As Samuel endeavoured to bring the people, first to a sense of their sin in their choosing a King, and then bears up their faith and hope, by telling them God will not forsake his people for his name sake, 1 Sam. 22.22. and David while he was confessing his sins of adultery and murder, Psal. 51. yet styleth God the God of his Salvation, ver. 14. and whiles he was crying to God out of the depths, as he speaks, and making his supplication, Psal. 130.1, 2. yet he joins therewith faith and hope in God's mercy, ver. 4. But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. All our duties, even our fasting and humiliations ought to be performed Evangelically, which cannot be except faith and hope do accompany the performance of them. 3. I next proceed to speak of the special occasions that call us to this religious fast. 1. Is the affliction and distress of the Church. When the Jews were in great distress, than Esther appointed Mordecai and the Jews to fast, Esther 4.16. When the Ammonites and Moabites invaded Judah with a great Army, than Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast, 2 Chron. 20.3. When a great famine was upon the land of Israel, then said the Prophet Joel, ch. 1.14. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. And when the Jews were in Babylon, than they kept their fast of the 4th 5th 7th and 10th month, all the time of their captivity though the several months had respect to some particular calamities that befell them in those months. Sympathy and sorrow are naturally expressed by fasting; and are spiritually to be expressed with respect to the Church's distress by a Religious fasting. 2. Upon the occasion of extraordinary sin: If in a particular family it may be a just occasion for a fast in the family, if in a particular Church, or in a Nation, it may be an occasion of a more public fast. As the fast of Ezra chap. 9 and of Nehemiah chap. 9 was upon the occasion of the sin of Israel in making marriages with the people of the Land. And Hezekiah rend his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord upon the occasion of Rabshakehs reproaching and blaspheming God, as well as the distress that was upon himself and the people by Senacheribs invasion, as we read Isa. 37. beginning. We should mourn over the dishonour done to God, as well as any distress and trouble that may come upon ourselves, and we read of the Congregation of Israel weeping before the door of the Tabernacle, upon the account of the whoredom committed by many of them with the Daughters of Moab, and bowing down to their Gods, Numbers 25.6. 3. For the obtaining some eminent mercy, or for success in any great undertake and erterprises. As Esther Esther 4.11. before she went in to the King to beg for the lives of her People, she required her Maidens, Mordecai and the Jews to fast. And Ezra proclaimed a fast to seek a right way from God, for themselves, their little ones and all their substance, when they were coming out of the Captivity to settle in their own Land, Ezra 8.21. When Paul and Barnabas were sent forth to their more public Ministry, certain Prophets fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, and sent them away, Act. 13.3. and when they ordained Elders for the Churches, they commended them to the Lord with prayer and fasting, Acts 14.23. 4. For Conquest over some eminent Temptation. This may be the occasion of a private fast, when a private person lies under it, or of a more public fast, if the temptation reacheth further. As Christ speaks of some kind of Devils that are not cast out but by Fasting and Prayer: And the Rule may reach to Soul-temptations, as well as bodily possessions, whereof our Saviour there speaks. But I hasten. 4. I shall next speak of the concern that abstinence from food hath in the duties of a fast. 1. That hereby the soul may be more fit for its operations; Jejunium purgat mentem, s●blevat sensum, carnem spiritui subjicit, concupiscentiae nebulas dispergit; as Austin speaks of it. Tom. 10. Ser. 230. de Temp. the pampering and feeding the body is usually injurious to the free exercise of the soul. And therefore the chastening it with due fasting may befriend the soul therein, especially in such exercises wherein the soul is to have least communion with the body. As the body ought not to be rob for the serving of God of that which is necessary for it; for God hates robbery for sacrifice, so by undue providing for it, we may rob the soul, and rob God of that service which it ought to perform unto him. The body is called by Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or bruta pars hominis, the brute part of man. And a brute is not so fit for man's service, if he be kept either at too high or too low a rate, nec suprà negotium, nec infrâ negotium, sed par negotio, is a good rule for the body to be treated by; and as Aquinas speaks, abstinence from food upon a solemn fast is requisite ob elevationem mentis, for the elevation of the mind, that it may get lose from the sensitive part, and so more freely ascend to things above. As the Apostle kept his body in subjection, that he might with more freedom run the race to obtain the Crown that is incorruptible, 1 Cor. 9.26, 27. Severity to the body may in some cases be mercy to the soul. As David chastened his soul with fasting, Psal. 69.10. It was its sensitive part he immediately chastened, that the rational and intellectual part might be more vigorous and active. 2. In this bodily abstinence there is something of a self-judging in it: for by abstaining for a while we judge ourselves unworthy of returning to such refresh and comforts of nature at all. We are by abstaining from food to reckon ourselves unworthy of it. 3. By it we also express our sympathy with the Church's sufferings, I mean in those fasts that are kept upon that account. And nature seems to teach men this: as when David would have had Vriah go to his own house when he was come from the Camp; 2 Sam. 11.11. he answered, The Ark and Israel and Judah are encamped in the open field, shall I thou go to my house, and eat and drink, etc. As by eating and drinking we express our gladness, so by abstaining we properly express our sorrow and sympathy with others suffering. Whiles David's child lay sick, he fasted and would eat nothing, but when the child was dead, 2 Sam. 12.20. he then would declare his shaking off his sorrow by calling for food and eating. 5. Lastly, I shall speak of the abuse of a religious fast. And this great Ordinance is several ways abused. 1. There is a Pharisaical abuse of it by ostentation. When men fast to put on a disguise of extraordinary devotion and sanctity, as the Pharisees did thus; and by disfiguring their faces and counterfeiting a solemn and dejected countenance, and by mortified habits, etc. did seek to gain the reputation of extraordinary holiness among the people. As the Pharisee in the parable among other things boasted of his often fasting, I fast twice a week. Strict piety hath such a real value in it, that some that have it not, yet will pretend to it, as thinking to advance their reputation by it. 1 Kings 21. 2. There is a mischievous abuse of it, (if I may so express it) when men's hearts are full of malice, mischief and cruelty, and will hid it under the disguise of a religious fast. As Jezebel when she was designing against Naboth's vineyard, and life also, she proclaims a fast; and those Jews that are reproved, Isaiah 58. they fasted and fasted, but it was for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. They oppressed the poor, laid heavy yokes upon their necks, and ruined them by their cruelties, and yet were very zealous fasters, as our Saviour speaks of the Pharisees, who made long prayers for a pretence while they were devouring widows houses, Math. 23.14. 3. There is a formal abuse of it, when men have not such sinful ends as I mentioned, but yet rest in the externals of the day, and care not to reach the spiritual part of the duty. They go along with the several duties of the day; but deest aliquid intùs: there is that wanting within that is the proper work of the day. They sit before God as his people, as if they were humbling themselves before him, 1 Cor. 11. but there is nothing in their hearts that answers before God to the outward show they make before men. Religious duties according to Scripture-language are not done, if not done aright: so that as the Apostle tells the Corinthians, This is not to eat the Lord's supper, because they did not eat aright, so when men are formal in fasting, this is not keeping a fast. 4. There is a Popish abuse of it, 1. By groundless fasting, as on the vespers of their Saints days, and their Quadragesima's, fasting the holy time of Lent, in imitation of Christ's fasting in the wilderness which was miraculous, and so not imitable. 2. By making fasting meritorious, and that which is part of satisfactory penance for the expiation of sin, as Aquinas speaks expressly, fasting is to be used ad satisfaciendum pro peccatis, to make satisfaction for sin. 3. By their prohibition of certain meats which God hath commanded to be received with thanksgiving, and yet allowing others in their room, Aquin. 22. Q. 147. Art. 1. They forbidden Carnes, ova & lacticinia, but all sorts of fish and other viands and junkets are allowed. Aquin. 22. Q. 148. Art. 8. which are as inconsistent with the abstinence of a true fast; as those that their Church prohibits, but yet they have the salve of a dispensation in such cases, and if men will open their purses, they may gratify their palates. 5. Lastly, fasting may be abused by too frequent use, especially public fasts. It is an extraordinary duty, and therefore not to be practised upon ordinary occasions. The too ordinary use of it may take off from the reverence and solemnity of the duty. We find the several public fasts upon record in Scripture were taken up upon some eminent occasions. And besides it may make Religion burdensome; and weak converts may be discouraged that are already brought in: And those that are without, may be prejudiced and hindered. We should not make Christ's yoke heavier than he would have it. Christ did not impose the rigour of the legal ministration upon his Disciples, nor the burdensome traditions of the Pharisees: nor did himself practise the austerity used by John the Baptist, nor imposed it upon his Disciples. Thus I have run through the five particulars I proposed to discourse this subject in. And upon the whole shall make some practical use. Use 1. It reproves such who instead of prayer and fasting when required of them, give up themselves to all excess of riot, who make their belly their God, so far they are from denying it for the service of God, who practise as it was said of Israel in case of the golden Calf, The people sat down to eat and to drink, and risen up to play: And say according to this licentious Proverb quoted by the Apostle out of Isaiah 22.13. Let us eat and drink for to morrow we must die. Though God be visiting the world with his judgements, dashing the nations like potter's vessels, one against another: yet they care for none of these things; they are loath so far to own God as to fast and pray under his rebukes; and their spirits are too high to stoop to the humbling duties of such a day, because fasting and praying have been abused, it may be by some in hypocrisy, they are glad of that excuse to lay it quite aside. The Book of Ecclesiastes they value above all Scripture because of two or three verses they find therein, that they can interpret to gratify a sensual life, chap. 2.24. There is no better thing than that a man should eat and drink and that he should make his soul enjoy good of his labour, and to the same purpose in ch. 3.13. and ch. 5.18, 19 But they should consider that Solomon only speaks of the good of man with respect to this life, and the end that God giveth man the good things of this life for, which is to use them for the outward comfort of his life, which he speaks of in opposition to such to whom God hath given wealth and riches and honour, yet hath not given him power to eat thereof, Eccl. 6.2. Sure there is a Medium betwixt sordid sparing, and luxurious spending, betwixt using meats and drinks to the due comfort of nature, and the abusing them to the great injury of the soul. And though due feasting is lawful, yet still with respect to the proper season, and not to be killing sheep, and slaying oxen, and drinking wine in bowls when God calls to fasting, and baldness, and girding on of sackcloth, as the Prophet complains, Isa. 21.12, 13. and who can reckon the manifold evils that arise from this sensual course of life. The Schoolmen speaking of the sin of gluttony, assign to it five Daughters: Inepta Laetitia, Scurrilitas, immunditia, multiloquium, and hebetudo mentis circa intelligentiam. That is, foolish Mirth, Scurrility, Uncleanness, Talkativeness, and dulness of mind. And Solomon gives an account of the offspring of sensual and inordinate drinking, Prov. 23, 29. Who hath w●? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? they that tarry long at the wine, etc. And as men are hereby injurious to themselves, not only as Christians, but as men, so they walk contrary to God in the present course of his Providence among us. Use 2. We may hence take notice that God sometimes calls us to extraordinary duties, as this of Fasting is, and in such cases we are not to satisfy ourselves with Ordinary. Christian's should, like those men of Issachar, be wise in discerning the times, and the proper duties that belong to them. Christ would not have his Disciples fast while he was with them, but when he was departed the duty would come in season. So that if we meet with matter of sorrow and mourning, let us not be discouraged or offended, it will be so until the Bridegroom's return. Now therefore let us take a view of the present face of the times, and consider whether this Extraordinary Duty of Fasting be not now in season. If we consider the several occasions which call for this duty, are they not all found at this day amongst us? 1. Is the abounding of sin an occasion? Pray consider whether wickedness is not grown up to a greater height and impudence than in former ages in this Nation? what shameful, and yet shameless whoredom and drunkenness are among us, and Oaths that our Fathers knew not. How many of these fools have we amongst us, which Solomon speaks of, that make a mock of sin, Prov. 14.9. and mock at Religion as Fanaticisin, deny Providence, and dispute against a Deity. That now it becomes necessary with respect to many, instead of leading them to the higher points of Religion, to convince their reasons of the Being of God, and to awake the innate notices of a Deity in their hearts, which are even extinguished by a course of sin. What endeavours are used by many to debauch men into wickedness, and then to glory in what they have done? And the more to take off the scandal of sin they seek to propagate it and make it common, and if it was possible to make piety scandalous and wickedness noble and honourable. Now ought there not to be fasting and mourning, when religion is thus despised, the great God dishonoured, and his Laws made void; was not this practised by David, who said, Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy Law, Psal. 119.136. What we cannot reform, let us mourn over, and mourn the rather, because those that can and aught to do it, so little concern themselves in it. And hath not the Temptation of the times overtaken many that have formerly made great profession, and drawn them to many unworthy compliances for secular advantages, and who have thereby laid up matter to themselves for future repentance and sorrow? and are become to others objects of sorrow also. As the Apostle blames the Corinthians about the incestuous person, why have ye not rather mourned, 1 Cor. 5.3. and was it not to have been wished that all that fear God in the Nation should have been better united by this time both in Principles and practice, that we might no longer defame and persecute one another until the Net be thrown over us all, and it be then too late to relieve ourselves, though not to repent. When many are at work to let in Popery as a torrent upon us, we should sure endeavour to stern the Tide both by fasting and praying unto God, and unity amongst ourselves. 2. Is the distress of the Church of God an occasion for it? Look abroad, and look at home, and you may behold such a sad face upon it, that may reflect sadness upon all your hearts, where hath God a people, especially in these European parts of the world, but there is a distress upon them? whether ye look into France, Germany, upper or lower Hungaria, Silesia, Polonia, etc. And doth not all this make fasting a duty in season; when Nehemiah heard from certain that came from Judah, that the Remnant left of the Captivity were in great affliction and that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, etc. he sat down, mourned, fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, Nehem. 1.4. and this he did, though he himself was in a good Office in the Persian Court. Was our Condition ever so good at home, yet we should lay to heart the afflictions of our brethren abroad. For as we are to rejoice with them that rejoice, so to weep with them that weep, and what further calamities may yet break forth we know not, but the sky looks still red and lowering, and pourtends bad weather, and it is our wisdom so to discern the face of the sky, as to betake ourselves to the proper duty of the times. And thus to observe and serve the times is good Christian policy. 3. Is the agitation of great affairs in the world an occasion for fasting? this also requires it of us at this day. Are not the Nations embroiled in Wars both by Land and Sea? are there not also some negotiations of peace on foot? Is not the great Council of the Land to meet here at home? and do not these extraordinary affairs call us to extraordinary duties, that they may be all superintended and guided to an happy issue in the end. 4. Is there not a strange stupidity and security upon the hearts of most men? that they will not see the hand of God, though they feel it, and though God walks contrary to them, yet they observe it not, but rather walk contrary to him in a course of sin, than meet him by repentance in the way of his judgements. Now the less others are affected, the more should we endeavour to affect our own hearts; and to fast the more because they fast not at all, and the more others are widening the breach, to stand so much the more in the gap, Ezek. 22.20. Now if we have these calls from God to this great duty of fasting and prayer, let us not fail God herein, and though we should obtain nothing for others, yet we may deliver our own souls; and we know the respect God had to those that sighed and mourned in Jerusalem, that the Prophet was bid to set a peculiar mark upon them, Ezek. 9.4. 2 Chron. 20. And I shall only add this further word of encouragement, i. e. That this extraordinary duty of Fasting hath been often answered with extraordinary success, as esther's fast when she went in to the King, and Jehoshaphats Fast, when the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites invaded him, and Ezra's fast, ch. 8.23. and upon Daniel's fasting he had the Angel Gabriel dispatched to him to give him understanding in the things he sought, ch. 9.22. and again upon his fasting in ch. 10. he saw a vision, wherein a man appeared to him, and told him that he was a man greatly beloved, and from the first day that he set himself to understand and chasten himself before God, his prayers were heard, and sometimes where ordinary prayer hath not prevailed, extraordinary hath had success, which Christ intimates in saying, This kind cannot be cast out but by fasting and prayer, Mat. 17.21. Those that now fast and mourn in the Bridegroom's absence shall rejoice with him for ever at his return, than they shall feast, but fast no more, and the days of their mourning shall be ended, as Christ said to his Disciples, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you, John 16.21. Though their present fasting and mourning hath a good in it beyond the world's feasting and rejoicing, yet the consequent of it makes it incomparably better. The Bridegroom was once upon earth with his Church, but departed and so gave her occasion of fasting and mourning, but when he comes again, he and his Church shall never fast, and therefore fasting will than never come into season again, as the fast of the 4th 5th 7th 10th month was to the house of Judah joy and gladness, Zach. 8. so all the fasts kept by the people of God here on earth will be (and that incomparably) more joy and gladness to them in heaven, and that for ever. But to conclude all, take these two Rules. 1. Fasting being an extraordinary duty, aught to be managed with an extraordinary exercise of grace, Christ would have his Disciples endued with a greater measure of grace, before he would put them upon this duty; This new wine must be put into new bottles, so that as Christ asked James and John concerned his Baptism, are ye able to be baptised with my baptism? so may we ask Christians now concerning fasting, are ye able to keep a fast. 2. Fasting aught to be followed with sincere and universal reformation, elso it avails nothing. The Jews fasting mentioned Isa. 58. was rejected upon this account. They went from their fasts to Strife, Debate, Oppression, Covetousness, and no wonder then that they complain and say, why have we fasted, and thou takest no notice. Nay this reformation is so necessary, that the denomination of a fast is attributed to it, Isa. 58.6, 7. Is not this the Fast that I have chosen, to lose the bands of wickedness, to deal thy bread to the hungry, etc. If moral duties be neglected, the practice of the strictest Institutions is unacceptable to God. Quest. How to manage secret Prayer, that it may be prevalent with God to the comfort and satisfaction of the Soul? Serm. XIV. Math. 6.6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father who seethe in secret, shall reward thee openly. WE have here our blessed Lord's instruction for the management of secret prayer, the Crown and glory of a child of God: wherein observe, 1. The direction prescribed for our deportment in secret duty, in three things. 1. Enter thy closet, the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesychius glosses by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a secret or recluse habitation, and Suidas by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a hiding place for treasures, by a Metonymy. The LXX (such as we have it) turn the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so frequently by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that we need inquire no further, as Gen. 43.30. Exod. 8.3. 2 Sam. 13.10. 1 Kings 1.15. and otherwhere for a chamber, a parlour, a bedchamber. Sometimes the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foramen, caverna, a hole, cleft or cavern in a rock, as Isaiah 42.22. which they render also by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rima. The Etymon of the word being derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from holes, pits, caves cut out in rocks, shows that it notes secret places for retirements or repositories. It's accordingly rendered by secret chambers, Math. 24.26. and by closerts, Luke 12.3. 2. Shut the door or lock it, as the word insinuates, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a key is deduced, and are both put together, as appears by Rev. 3.7. and 20.1, 3. implying that we must bar or bolt it. 3. Pray to thy Father in secret. [Father] which is pietatis & potestatis appellatio, as Tertullian notes, a name hinting both piety and power, [to thy Father, De Orat. ] noting both propriety and intimacy. 2. A gracious promise, which may be branched into three parts. 1. For thy Father sees thee in secret, his eye is upon thee with a gracious aspect, when thou art withdrawn from all the world. 2. He will reward thee, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, retribuet, reponet, or as Ambrose reads it, redder; so the word is sometimes translated by rendering, De Cain and Abel. Math. 22.21. Rom. 2.6. & 13.7. by delivering, Math. 27.58. Luke 9.42. by yielding or affording, Heb. 12.11. Rev. 22.2. All which comes to this, he will return thy prayers or thy requests amply and abundantly into thy bosom. 3. He will do it openly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, perspicuously and manifestly before the world sometimes, and most plentifully and exuberantly before men and Angels at the great day, secret prayers shall have open and public answers. 3. Here's a demonstration of sincerity, from the right performance of this duty, set forth by the Antithesis: But thou shalt not be as the hypocrites, verse 5. When] i. e. as often as thou prayest by thyself, enter not thy house only, thy hall or thy common chamber, but thy closet, the most secret and retired privacy. Shut the door] that others may neither discern thee, nor rush in suddenly upon thee. He shall reward thee] i. e. he shall answer thee and perform thy request as a gracious return to thy secret sincerity. God is pleased by promise to make himself a debtor to secret prayer. It brings nothing to God but empty hands and naked hearts: to show that reward in Scripture sense does not slow in upon the streams of merit but grace. It's monkish divinity to assert otherwise, for what merit strictly taken can there be in prayer: the mere ask of mercy cannot merit it at the hands of God, who out of our most sincere petitions (being at best impregnated with sinful mixtures) might take up matter enough to sling as the dung of our sacrifices in our faces. Mal. 2.3. We halt like Jacob both in and after our choicest and strongest wrestle. But such is the grace of our heavenly Father, who spies that little sincerity of our hearts in secret, that he is pleased to accept us in his beloved, and to smell a favour of rest in the fragrant perfumes and odours of his intercession. Hence though I might draw forth several notes, yet shall treat but of one, containing the marrow and nerves of the Text. Obs. That secret prayer duly managed is the mark of a sincere heart, and hath the promise of a gracious return. Prayer is the soul's colloquy with God, and secret prayer is a conference with God, upon admission into the privy chamber of heaven. When thou hast shut thine own closet, when God and thy soul are alone: with this key thou openest the chambers of paradise and interest the closet of divine love. When thou art immured as in a curious Labyrinth from the tumultuous world, and entered into that garden of Lebanon in the midst of thy closet: thy soul like a spiritual Daedalus takes to itself the wings of faith and prayer and flies into the midst of heaven among the Cherubims. I may term secret prayer the invisible flight of the soul into the bosom of God, out of this heavenly closet rises jacob's ladder whose rounds are all of light, its foot stands upon the basis of the covenant in thy heart; its top reaches the throne of grace. When thy reins have instructed thee in the night season with holy petitions, when thy soul hath desired him in the night, then with thy spirit within thee wilt thou seek him early. Psal. 16 7. Isa. 26.9. When the door of thy heart is shut and the windows of thine eyes sealed up from all vain and worldly objects, Zach. 3.7. up thou mountest and hast a place given thee to walk among Angels that stand by the throne of God; in secret prayer the soul like Moses is in the backside of the desert and talks with the Angel of the Covenant in the fiery bush. Exod. 3.1. Gen. 24.63. 1 Kings 19.4. v. 12. Here's Isaac in the field at eventide meditating and praying to the God of his Father Abraham. Here's Elijah under the Juniper-tree at Rithmah in the wilderness, and anon in the cave harkening to the still small voice of God. Here's Christ and the Spouse alone in the wine cellar, and the banner of love over her: Cant. 2.4. Gers●n. Eph. 5.18. John 1.48. where she utters verba dimidiata, ubi bibit ebriam Sobrietatem spiritus, but half words, having drunk of the sober excess of the spirit. Here we find Nathaniel under the figtree though it may be at secret prayer, yet under a beam of the eye of Christ. There sits Austin in the garden alone, sighing with the Psalmist usque quo Domine, Confess. 1. l. 8. c 12. how long O Lord, and listening to the voice of God, tolle lege, take up the Bible and read. It's true, hypocrites may pray, and pray alone, and pray long, and receive their reward, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from such whose observation they desire, but take no true delight in secret devotion, Mat. 23 14. Chrysost. in loc. Cant. 2.14. they have no spring of affection to God. But O my dove, says Christ, that art in the clefts of the rock, let me hoar thy voice for the melody thereof is sweet. A weeping countenance, and a wounded spirit, are most beautiful prospects to the eye of heaven, when a broken heart powers out repentant tears like streams from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses law in the hand of a Mediator. Oh how amiable in the sight of God, Psa. 130.1. out of the depths have I cried to thee, as Chrysostom glosses [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,] draw sighs from the furrows of thy heart, è sulco pectoris. Let thy prayer become a hidden mystery of divine secrets, like good Hezekiah upon the bed with his face to the wall, Isa. 38.2, 5. that none might observe him; or like our blessed Lord, that grand example, who retired into solitudes and mountains apart, and saw by night the Illustrious face of his heavenly Father in prayer: the reasons follow. 1. Because a sincere heart busies itself about heart-work, to mortify sin, to quicken grace, to observe and resist temptations, to secure and advance his evidences; and therefore is so much conversant in secret prayer. The glory of the King's daughter shines within, Psal. 45.13. arrayed with clothes of gold: but they are the spangled and glittering hang of the closet of her heart, when she entertains communion with her Lord. The more a Saint converses with his own heart, the more he searches his spiritual wants and feels his spiritual joys. 2. Because a sincere heart aims at the eye of God, he knows that God being a spirit loves to converse with our spirits, and to speak to the heart more than the outward ear. Hos. 2.14. He labours to walk before God, as being always in his sight, but especially when he presents himself at the footstool of mercy: Because God is invisible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. An invisible God is delighted with invisible prayers, Chrysost. when no eye sees but his, he takes most pleasure in the secret glances of a holy heart. Therefore a gracious soul prays in secret with the same diligence and care, nay sometimes more, when in a holy frame, that he may reap the comfort of his sincerity before the eyes of God. Job 31.33. But no more of this, let's descend to the question deducible from the words, a question of no less importance than daily use, and of peculiar concernment to the growth of every Christian. Quest. Quest. How to manage secret prayer, that it may be prevalent with God to the comfort and satisfaction of the soul? For methods sake I shall divide it into two branches. 1. How to manage secret prayer that it may prevail with God? 2. How to discern and discover answers to secret prayer, that the soul may acquiesce and be satisfied that it hath prevailed with God? Before I handle these, I would briefly prove the duty and its usefulness, leaving some cases about its attendants and circumstances towards the close. As to the duty itself, the text is plain and distinct in the point: yet further observe in Solomon's prayer, that if any man besides the community of the people of Israel shall present his supplication to God, 1 Kings 8 38, v. 39 2 Chron. 6.29, 30. 2 Chron. 7.1. he there prays for a gracious and particular answer, and we know Solomon's prayer was answered by fire, and therefore hence we may learn a promise given forth to personal prayer. Besides the many special and particular injunctions unto individual persons in the case, as Job. 22.27. and 33.26. Psal. 32.6. and 50.15. etc. wives as well as husbands are to pray apart, Zech. 12.14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solitary, alone by themselves, and Jam. 5.13. We may argue this point from the constant practice of the holy Saints of God in all ages, but especially of our blessed Lord, and 'tis our wisdom to walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous, Prov. 2.20. what should I speak of Abraham, Eliezar, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Hannah, Hezekiah, David and Daniel. The time would fail me to bring in the cloud of Witnesses, our Lord we find sometimes in a Desert, in a Mountain, in a Garden at prayer, Cornelius in his house, and Peter upon the house top in secret supplications to God. The experience of God's gracious presence and answers sent in upon secret prayer, as in the stories of Eliezer, Jabez, Nehemiah, Zechariah, 2 Chron. 4.10. Nehem. 2.4. Psal. 32.6. Cornelius and Paul, etc. For this cause, because David was heard, shall every one that is godly prey unto him. I might urge the usefulness, nay in some cases the necessities of secret applications to God. 1. Are we not guilty of secret sins in the light of God's countenance, that cannot, ought not to be confessed with or before others, insomuch that near relations are exhorted to secret and solitary duties, Zechariah 12.12. 1 Cor. 7.4. 2. Are there not personal wants that we would prefer to God alone. 3. Are there not some special mercies and deliverances that concern our own persons more peculiarly, which should engage to commune with our own hearts and offer the sacrifices of righteousness to God. Psal. 4.45. 4. May there not be found some requests to be poured out more particularly in secret as to other persons and as to affairs of the Church of God, which may not commodiously be insisted upon in common. 5. Do not sometimes emergent and urgent passions spring out of the soul in secret, that are not comely in society. 6. To argue from the text, may not the souls secret addresses about inward sorrows and joys, Prov. 14.10. 2 Sam. 18. 3●. be a sweet testimony of the sincerity and integrity of the heart, when the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddles not with his joy, perhaps a man has an Ishmael, an Absalon, a Rehoboam to weep for, Job 16.19, 20. and therefore gets into an inward chamber: where, behold his witness is in heaven, and his record on high, and when others may scorn or pity, his eye poureth out tears unto God. To end this, when a holy soul is close in secret, what complacency does it take when it has bolted out the world, and retired to a place that none knows of, to be free from the disturbances and distractions that often violate family communion: when 'tis in the secret of the face of God, in the hidden place of the most high, Psal. 31.20.91.1. Job 29.4. and in the shadow of the Almighty, oh how safe, how comfortable. These and the like I pass by, neither can I insist upon secret prayer under the variety of mental and vocal; nor enlarge upon it as sudden, occasional or ejaculatory, referring somewhat of this toward the end. Let's address then to the first question, in answer whereto I must preface that some things which aptly belong to secret prayer, yet being in some measure coincident with all prayer, public, private, and secret, it's congruous to treat of such as are of great use as to the management of our present duty, and therefore must refer to a double head. 1. Quest. How to manage secret prayer, as 'tis coincident with prayer in general, so that it may prevail? 1. Use some preparation before it, rush not suddenly into the awful presence of God. Sanctuary preparation is necessary to sanctuary communion. Such suitable preparatory frames of the heart come down from God. Thou wilt prepare the heart and cause thine ear to hear. 'Twas a good saying of one [intime & devotè nunquam mens orat, quae se, etc. praemeditationibus priùs non excitat] He never prays ardently, Psal. 10.17. Richard. de S. Vict. de erud. hom. in't. l. 1. c. 7. Dan. 9.3. 2 Chron. 20.3. Isa. 26.9. that does not premeditate savourly; Daniel when he made that famous prayer, it's said he set his face to seek the Lord. Jehoshaphat also set himself to seek the Lord. The Church in her soul desires the Lord in the night, and then with her spirit seeks him early. Desires blown by meditation are the sparks that set prayer in a light flame. The work of preparation may be cast under five heads, when we apply to solemn and set prayer. 1. The consideration of some attributes in God that are proper to the intended petitions. 2. A digestion of some peculiar and special promises that concern the affair. 3. Meditation on suitable arguments. 4. Ejaculations for assistance. 5. An engagement of the heart to a holy frame of reverence and keeping to the point in hand. Cypr. de Orat. p. 106. 6. edit. [Nec quicquam tunc animus quam solum cogitet, quod precatur] was serious advice from Cyprian, let the soul think upon nothing but what it is to pray for, and adds that therefore the ministers of old prepared the minds of the people with sursum corda, let your hearts be above. For how can we expect to be heard of God when we do not hear ourselves, when the heart does not watch while the tongue utters. The tongue must be like the pen of a ready writer, Psal. 45.1. to set down the good matter which the heart indites, take heed of ramblings to preach or tell pious stories, while praying to the great and holy God is a branch of irreverence and a careless frame of spirit, Heb. 12.28. 2. Humble confession of such sins as concern and refer principally to the work in hand. Our filthy garments must be taken away, when we appear before the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem. Look upon my afflictions, Zech. 3.4. Psal. 25.18. Psal. 39.8.12. Psal. 103.3. cries David, and forgive all my sins. There are certain sins that often relate to afflictions. First, deliver me from my transgressions, then hear my prayer O Lord: for this is the heavenly method, he first forgiveth all our iniquities and then healeth all our diseases. A forgiven soul is a healed soul, while a man is sick at heart with the qualms of sin unpardoned, it keeps the soul under deliquiums and swooning fits, that it cannot cry strongly unto God, and therefore in holy groans must discharge himself of particular sins, and pour out his soul before God. Thus did David in that great penitential Psalm. Psal. 51.4. Isa. 59.2. Ezra 9.6. For sin like a thick cloud hides the face of God that our prayers cannot enter. We must blush with Ezra, and our faces look red with the flushings of conscience, if we expect any smiles of mercy. Our crimson sins must die our confessions; and the blood of our sacrifices must sprinkle the horns of the golden altar, before we receive an answer of peace from the golden mercy seat. When our persons are pardoned, our suits are accepted, and our petitions crowned with the Olive-branch of peace. 3. An arguing and pleading Spirit in prayer. This is properly wrestling with God, humble, yet earnest expostulations about his mind towards us, Psal. 74.1. Isa. 64.9. Why hast thou cast us off for ever, why doth thine anger smoke? Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, remember not iniquity for ever, see we beseech thee, we are thy people. If so, why is it thus? as frighted Rebekah flies out into prayer. An arguing frame in prayer cures and appease● (f) Psal. 34.4. Gen. 25.22. Psal. 27.4. Psal. 22.1, 21. Psal. 80 4. Jer. 14 8 9 the frights of spirit, and then inquires of God. The Temple of prayer is called the souls enquiring place. Why is God so far from the voice of my roaring? Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Art thou angry with the prayers of thy people? and how long? turn us again and cause thy face to shine upon us. O hope of Israel, why like a wayfaring man, like a man astonished? O Lord thou art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name, leave us not. I must refer to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, Joshuah, David and Daniel: how they urged arguments with God. Sometimes from (a) Ps 5 7. & 6 4 & 31 16. the multitudes of God's mercies, from (b) Psal. 4.1. & 6.9. & 22.4, 21. & 31. 2, 3, 7. & 140.7. the experience of former answers, from the Name of God: from (c) Psal 9.10. & 16.1. their trust and reliance upon him, (d) Psal. 17.1. from the equity of God, (e) Psal 31.17 & 34.1. from the shame and confusion of face that God will put his people to, if not answered, and that others will be driven away from God, and lastly from (f) Psal. 20.5. & 35 18. the promise of peace. These and many like plead we find in Scripture, for patterns in prayer; which being suggested by the spirit, kindled from the altar and perfumed with Christ's incense, rise up like memorial pillars before the oracle. Let's observe one or two particular prayers what instant arguments holy men have used and pressed in their perplexities. 2 Chron. 20.10, etc. Jehoshaphat what a working prayer did he make taking pleas from God's Covenant, dominion and powerful strength, from his gift of the Land of Canaan, and driving out the old inhabitants, ancient mercies! from his Sanctuary and his promise to Solomon, from the ingratitude and ill requital of the enemies, with an appeal to God's equity in the case, and a humble confession of their own impotency, and yet that in their anxiety, their eyes are sixth upon God. You know how gloriously it prevailed when he had set ambushments round about the Court of Heaven, v. 8. and the Lord turned his arguments into ambushments against the children of Edom, etc. Yea, this is set as an instance (g) Joel 3.2. how God will deal against the Enemies of his Church in the latter days. Another is that admirable prayer of the Angel of the Covenant to God for the restauration of Jerusalem, Zech. 1.12. wherein he pleads from the length of time and the duration of his indignation for threescore and ten years, from promised mercies and the expiration of Prophecies: and behold an answer of good and comfortable words from the Lord, and pray observe, that when arguments in prayer are very cogent upon a sanctified heart: such being drawn from the divine attributes, from precious promises and sweet experiments of God's former love: it's a rare sign of a prevailing prayer. 'Twas an ingenious passage of Chrysostom concerning the woman of Canaan, Chrys. in Mat. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the poor distressed creature was turned an acute Philosopher with Christ, and disputed the mercy from him. O 'tis a blessed thing to attain to this heavenly Philosophy of prayer, to argue blessings out of the hand of God. Here's a spacious field. I have given but a small prospect, where the soul like Jacob does in arenam descendere, enter the lists with omnipotency and by holy force obtain the blessing. 4. Ardent affections in prayer betokening a heart deeply sensible, are greatly prevalent. Exod. 14 15. A crying prayer pierces the depths of heaven. We read not a word that Moses spoke, but God was moved by his cry. I mean not an obstreperous noise, but melting moans of heart. Yet sometimes the sore and pinching necessities and distresses of spirit extort even vocal cries not displeasant to the inclined ears of God. I cried to the Lord with my voice, says David, Psal. 3.4. Psal. 5.2. Psal. 39.12. Psal. 142.1.5, 6, 7. and he heard me out of his holy hill, and this encourages to a fresh onset: harken to the voice of my cry, my King and my God. Give ear to my cry, hold not thy peace at my tears, another time he makes the Cave Echo with his cries: I cried, I cried, attend to my cry, for I am brought very low, and what's the issue, Fath gets courage by crying: his tears watered his faith that it grew into confidence, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coronabunt. and so concludes, thou shalt deal bountifully with me, and the righteous shall crown me for conqueror. Plentiful tears bring bountiful mercies, and a crying suitor proves a triumphant praiser. Holy Jacob was just such another at the fords of Jabbok he prevailed with the Angel, for he wept, Hos. 12.4. 1 Kings 20.5. Jer. 31.18. and made supplications to him. Hezekiah may bring up the rear for the Lord told him he had heard his prayer, for he had seen his tears. Such precedents may well encourage backsliding Ephraim to return and bemoan himself, and then the bowels of God are troubled for him. Nay, we have a holy woman likewise weeping sore before the Lord in Shiloh, 1 Sam. 1.10. & 2.1. and then rejoicing in his salvation. The cries of Saints are like vocal music joined with the instrumental of prayer; they make heavenly melody in the ears of God. The bridegroom calls to his mourning dove, let me hear thy voice, for that's pleasant. Cant. 2.14. Gers. Tom. 2. Fol. 77. ●. What Gerson says of the sores of Lazarus, Quot vulnera tot linguas habuit, as many wounds, so many tongues; we may say of sighs, cries and groans in prayer, so many eloquent orators at the throne of God. 5. Importunity and assiduity in prayer is highly prevalent. Ambrose de Cain & Abel. l. 1. c. 9 Mat. 5.7. Epiphan. haeres. 30. Luke 18.1. 1 Thess 5.17. Num. 28.4, 6. 2 Sam 9.7. [Non ut fastidiosa continuetur oratio, sed ut assidua frequenter effundatur,] not that we should lengthen out prayer with tedious and vain repetitions, as the Heathen did of old, or as the Euchitae in Constantius his time, that did little else but pray; but that we should be frequent and continue instant in prayer. Whereas our Lord bids us to pray always, and the Apostle Paul to pray without ceasing, we are to understand it of Constancy at times every day. As the morning and evening Sacrifice at the Temple is called the Continual burnt-offering. As Mephibosheth is said to eat bread Continually at David's table, and Solomon's Servants to stand Continually before him, i. e. at the set and appointed times: So 'tis required of us to be constant and assiduous at prayer, and to follow our lawful requests with perseverance. Thus Hannah is said to multiply prayer, 1 Sam. 1.12. and received multiplied answers; expressly indeed she prayed but for one Son, but she had six children returned in upon prayer. When the soul perseveres in prayer, 'tis a sign of a persevering faith, and such may have (b) John 16.23 1 Kings 18.43 what they will at the hand of God, when praying according to prescript. Nay, urgent prayer is the token of a mercy at hand: When Elijah prayed seven times one after another for rain, Isa. 45.11. the clouds presently march up out of the sea at the command of prayer. Ask of me things to come, saith the Lord, and concerning the works of my hands, command ye me. When we put forth our utmost strength in prayer, and will as it were receive no nay from heaven, our prayers must be like the Continual blowing of the silver Trumpets over the sacrifices for a memorial before the Lord; Num 10.10. Like the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, which never hold their peace day nor night, Isaiah 62.6, 7 64 7 are commanded not to keep silence nor to give him rest. Nay, God seems offended at another time, that they did not lay hands upon him, that they might not be consumed in their iniquities. Such prayers are as it were a holy molestation to the throne of grace. It's said of the man that risen at midnight to give out three loaves to his friend, he did it not for friendship's sake, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luke 11.8 because he was impudent, so importunately to trouble him at such a season as 12 a clock at night. Our Lord applies the parable to instant prayers. The like we find of the success of the widow with the unjust judge because she did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luke 18 5 vex and molest him with her solicitations. But of all, the pattern of the woman of Canaan is most admirable, Mat. 15 23 when the Disciples desired her to be dismissed because she troubled them by crying after them, and yet she persists. May I say it reverently, Christ delights in such a troublesome person. Though as an Ancient observes by comparing both Evangelists, that first (a) Mat. 15.22. she cried after Christ in the streets, but our Lord taking (b) Mark 7.23. house, she follows him thither and falls down at his feet, but as yet (c) Mat. 15.23. Augustin de consensu Evangelist. l. 2. p 447. Tom. 4 edit. B●●. 1569. Jam. 5. Rhet. Divin. p. 353. he answered her not a word, [In eo silentio egressum fuisse Jesum de domo illa] then our Lord going out of the house again, she follows with stronger importunity and argues the mercy into her bosom, and Christ ascribes it to the greatness of her faith; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as another terms it: a laudable and praiseworthy immodesty, as in the former case to knock so rudely at midnight is deemed no incivility at the gate of heaven. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Parisiensis reads it, deprecatio justi assidua. An assiduous prayer is the way to become an efficacious prayer. It's ill taken, if not importunate. Cold petitioners must have cool answers. If the matter of prayer be right and the promise of God fervently urged, thou art like to prevail like princely Israel that held the Angel by the Collar (to speak with reverence) and would not let him go until he had blest him. Gen. 32.26. v. 24. But 'twas hot work most of the night even to break of day: to show that in some cases of extremity we must hold out in prayers. For our Lord in the next verse to the Text does not forbid the length of prayer: for he himself upon occasion continues a whole night in prayer. Luke 6.12. But such as are filled with impertinent multiplications of vain words, and have neither holy reasonings nor spiritual and warm affections, and yet think to be heard for their much speaking. Qu. But can God be moved by our arguments, or affected with our troubles? He is the unchangeable God and dwells in the inaccessible light; James 1.17. There's no variableness or shadow of turning. A metaphor from the fixed stars, which admit no parallax, Kepler Astron. l. 4. p. 495. Fran. 1635, etc. Argol. Tab. p. 72. and therefore Astronomers cannot demonstrate their magnitude: for our eyes or instruments can yet give no intelligence of any increase or diminution of their diameter or light. Ans. Those holy motions upon the hearts of Saints in prayer are the fruits of the unchangeable decrees of his love to them and the appointed ushers of mercy. God graciously determines to give a praying, arguing, warm, affectionate frame, as the prodromus and forerunner of a decreed mercy. That's the reason that carnal men can enjoy no such mercies, because they pour out no such prayers. Jer. 29 10, 12. Isa. 45.1, 2, 4.11, 19 The spirit of prayer prognosticates mercy ensuing. Wherefore when the Lord by Jeremy foretold the end of the Captivity, he also pre-signifies the prayers that should open the gates of Babylon. Cyrus was prophesied of to do his work for Jacob his servant's sake and Israel his elect; but yet they must ask him concerning those things to come and they should not seek him in vain. The glory of the latter days in the return of Israel is foretold by Ezekiel; Ezek. 36.24, 37 Rev. 21.12, 17, 20. but yet then the Lord will be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. The Coming of Christ is promised by himself: but yet the Spirit and bride say come, and he that heareth must say come, and when Christ says he will come quickly: Even so come Lord Jesus. Divine grace kindles these ardent affections when the mercies promised are upon the wing. Gerson T. 2. K K. 3, 6. Prayer is that intelligible chain, as Dionysius calls it, that draws the souls up to God and the mercy down to us, or like the Cable that draws the ship to land, though the shore itself remain unmoveable. Prayer has its kindle from heaven, 2 Chron. 7.1. like the ancient sacrifices that were inflamed with celestial fire. 6. Submission to the allwise and holy Will of God. This is the great benefit of a Saints communion with the spirit, that he maketh intercession for them according to the Will of God. Rom. 8.27. When promised mercies are revealed in more absolute terms; the sanctified Will concenters with the Will of God. When we pray for holiness, there's a concurrence with the Divine Will. 1 Thess. 4.3. Rom. 12.1, 2. For this is the Will of God, even your sanctification. When we pray that our bodies may be presented a living sacrifice acceptable to God: we then prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect Will of God. But I speak here as to outward mercies and enjoyments, and the gradualities or degrees of graces, and spiritual mercies. But as to substance of spiritual mercies, the pomises in such cases run freely, as if in any place there seem to lie any limitations or conditions, those very conditions are otherwhere graciously promised to be wrought in us. In the Covenant of grace, God does his part and ours too. As when God commands us to pray in one place: he promises in another place (a) Zec. 20.10. to pour out upon us a Spirit of grace and supplication. God commands us to repent and (b) Ezek 14.6. turn unto him. In another place, (c) Lam. 5.21. Jer. 31.18. Turn thou me and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God; and again, turn thou us unto thee O Lord, and we shall be turned, (d) Ezr. 18.31 make you a new heart and a new spirit: otherwhere (e) Ezek. 36.26, 27. A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, etc. and cause you to walk in my statutes, that (f) Col. 1.9, 10. ye might walk unto all pleasing, says Paul, for this cause I cease not to pray for you, etc. that he would (g) Heb. 11.21. work in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight. Work out your salvation, (h) Phil. 2.12, 13. for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Precepts, promises and prayer are connext like so many golden links to excite, encourage and assist the soul in spiritual duties. But in other cases as to temporal and temporary mercies, let all thy desires in prayer be form with submission, guided by his counsel, and prostrate at his feet, and acted by a faith suitable to the promises of outward blessings, and then it shall be unto thee (i) Mat. 15 28. Gerson T. 2. even as thou wilt. He said well, cardo desideriorum sit voluntas Dei, exaudiat pete cardinem. Let all thy desires as to temporals turn upon the hinge of the divine good pleasure. That man shall have his own Will that resolves to make God's Will his. God will certainly bestow that which is for the good of his people, Psal. 34.18. and 84.11. Math. 7.11. Rom. 8.28. One great point of our mortification lies in this, to have our Wills melted into God's, and 'tis a great token of spiritual growth, when not only content but joyful to see our Wills crossed that his may be done. We pray that his Kingdom may come, let it appear by sincere prayer that his Will may be done. When our Wills are sacrificed in the flames of holy prayer, we many times receive choicer things than we ask expressly. 'Twas a good saying [non dat quod volumus, ut det quod malimus] God many times grants not what we will in the present prayers that he may bestow what we had rather have, when we have the prayer more graciously answered than we petitioned, we know not how to pray as we ought; but the spirit helps us out with groans that secretly hint a correction of our wills and spirit in prayer. Rom. 8.26. In great anxieties and pinching troubles, nature dictates strong groans for relief; but sustaining grace, Heb. 12.10. and participation of divine holiness, mortification from earthly comforts, excitation of the soul to long for heaven, being gradually weaned from the Wormwood-breasts of these sublunary transient and unsatisfying pleasures, and the timeing of our hearts for the seasons, wherein God will time his deliverances; are sweeter mercies than the present return of a prayer for an outward good into our bosoms. What truly holy person would lose that light of God's countenance, Psal 4.6, 7. which he enjoyed by glimpses in a cloudy day for a little corn and wine? Thou hast put more gladness into my heart, says David. Nay in many cases open denials of prayer prove the most excellent answers, and God's not hearing us is the most signal audience. Therefore at the foot of every prayer subscribe fiat voluntas tua, and thou shalt enjoy preventing mercies that thou never soughtest, and converting mercies to change all for the best, resting confident in this, that having asked according to his will he heareth thee. 1 John 5.14. 7. Lastly, present all into the hands of Christ. This was signified of old by praying towards the Temple, 1 Kings 8.33. Heb. 8.3. because the golden mercy-seat typifying Christ was there; he is ordained of God to offer gifts and sacrifices, and therefore 'tis of necessity that he should have something from us to offer, being (a) Heb. 10.21. the high priest over the house of God. What does Christ on our behalf at the throne of grace? Put some Petition into the hands of Christ, he waits f●r our offerings at the door of the oracle; leave the sighs and groans of thy heart with this compassionate intercessor, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, Heb. 4 15. who sympathizes with our weaknesses. He that lies in the Father's bosom and hath (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. John 1.18. expounded the Will of God to us, adds (c) Rev. 8.3. much incense to the prayers of all Saints before the throne of God, and explains our Wills to God; (d) Psal. 141.2 so that our prayers perfumed by his, are set forth as incense before him. He is the (e) Job 9.33. days-man, the heavens-man betwixt God and us. Whatever we ask in his name, he puts into his golden censer (f) John 15 16 and 16.23. , that the Father may give it to us. When the sweet smoke of the incense of Christ's prayer ascends before the Father, our prayers become sweet and amiable and cause a savour of rest with God. This I take to be one reason why the prevalency of prayer is so often assigned to the time of the evening sacrifice, pointing at the death of Christ, about (g) Mat. 27.46 Act. 3.1.10.30 the 9th hour of the day, near the time of the evening oblation. Hence it was that Abraham's sacrifice received a gracious answer, being offered (h) Gen. 15.12 24 63. about the going down of the Sun. Isaac went out to pray at eventide. Elijah at mount Carmel prays and offers at (i) 1 Kings 18.36. the time of the evening sacrifice. Ezra fell upon his knees and spread out his hands (k) Ezr. 9.5. at the evening sacrifice. David begs that his prayer may be virtual in the power of the (l) Psal. 141.2 evening sacrifice. Daniel at prayer was touched by the angel about the time of the (m) Dan. 9.21 evening oblation. All to show the prevalency of our access to the throne of grace by the virtuous merit of the intercession of Christ, the acceptable evening sacrifice. Yea and therefore we are taught in our Lord's prayer to begin with the title of a Father: in him we are adopted to children, and to use that prevalent relation as an argument in prayer. There are some other particulars in respect to prayer in general, as it may be connext and coincident with secret prayer, as stability of spirit, freedom from distraction by wand'ring thoughts, the actings of faith, the aids of the spirit, etc. which I pass by and come to the second branch. Directions special and peculiar to secret prayer. 1. Be sure of intimate acquaintance with God. Can we presume that are but dust and ashes to go up into heaven and boldly to enter the presence-chamber and have no fellowship with the Father, or with the Son? (a) Job 22. 2●, 26, 27. Acquaint thyself witb him and be at peace, etc. Then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty and lift up tby face unto God▪ thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee. (b) v. 28. The decrees of thy heart shall be established to thee, and the light shall shine upon thy ways. First (c) Job 29.3, 4. Dan. 9.3. shining acquaintance, and then shining answers. Canst thou set thy face unto the Lord God, than thou mayest seek him by prayer. First Daniel sets and shows his face to God, and then seeks him by prayer and supplications. Does God know your face in prayer? do you often converse in your closerts with him? Believe it, it must be the fruit of intimate acquaintance with God, to meet him in secret with delight. Can ye come familiarly as a child to a father, considering its own vileness, meanness, or unworthiness in comparison with his divine love, the love and bowels of a heavenly father? Such a father, the father of fathers, and the father of mercies. 2 Cor. 1.2, 3. How sweetly does the Apostle join it, God is our Father because the Father of our Lord, and because his Father and so our Father, therefore the Father of mercies. Oh what generations of mercies flow from this paternity! But plead we must to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that manuduction and access to this father through Christ by the spirit. We must be gradually acquainted with all three. Eph. 2.18. Gal. 4.6. Eph. 1.4. First with the spirit, then with Christ, and last with the father; first God sends the spirit of his son into our hearts, and then through the son we cry Abba father. The bowels of mercy first wrought in the father to us, he chose us in Christ and then sends his spirit to draw us to Christ, and by Christ to himself. Have ye this access to God by the spirit, bosom-communion flows from bosom-affection. If your souls are truly in love with God, he will graciously say to your petitions, be it unto you according to your love. Times of finding God. A godly man prays in finding seasons. 2. Obser. When God's heart and ear are inclined to audience, when God is said to (a) Psal. 31.2. Isa 55.6. Psal. 32.6. Cant. 2.9.5.2. bow down his ear unto us. There are special seasons of drawing nigh to him, when he draws nigh to us, times when he may be found. When thy beloved looks forth at the window, and shows himself through the lattess. That's a time of grace when he knocks at the door of thy heart by his spirit. Motions upon the heart are like the Doves of the East sent with letters about their necks. As he said of Bernard [Ex motu cordis spiritus Sancti praesentiam agnoscebat] he knew when the holy spirit was present with him, by the motion of his heart. Gerson T. 2. 27. a. 2 ●am. 7.27. Psal. 27.4, 8. When God reveals himself to the heart, he opens the ears of his Servants for some gracious message. When God bids us seek his face, than the soul must answer one thing have I desired, that will I seek after. First holy desires warm the heart, and they s●t the soul on seeking. They are ●ik● m●ssengers sent from heaven to bring us into his pr●s●. T●ke heed then of quenching the Spirit of God. He that is 〈…〉 knows the sound, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, John 3.8. the voice of the spirit. When th● 〈…〉 word, or softened by afflictions, or feels some holy groans and sighs excited by the spirit; that's a warm time for prayer: Rom. 8.27. then we enjoy the sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the intimations of the spirit of God, or when prophecies are nigh to expire, than there are great workings and search of heart in Daniel, Zechary, Simeon and Anna, or when some promise comes with applying power. Therefore hath thy Servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee, 2 Sam. 7.27, 28. Cant. 7.9. for thou hast promised this goodness unto thy Servant. When we find promises dropped into the soul like wine, it causes the lips of them that were asleep to speak. 3. Keep Conscience tender of, and clean from, secret sins. With what face can we go to a friend to whom we have given any secret affronts, and will ye be so bold as to come before the God of heaven, when he knows ye maintain some secret lust in your heart. De Orat. p. 213. Prov. 28.9. Darest thou to bring a Dalilah with thee into this sacred closet. True is that of Tertullian, Quantum à praeceptis, tantum ab auribus Dei longè sumus. He that turns his ear from God's precepts, must stop his mouth in the dust, if God turn his holy ears from his cries. When our secret sins are in the light of his countenance, we may rather expect to be consumed by his anger and troubled by his wrath. Psal. 90.7, 8. Object. But than who may presume and venture into Secret Communion. Ans. True, if God should strictly mark what we do amiss, who can stand? David was sensible of this objection, Psal. 130.3, 4. but he answers it humbly: There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. If we come with holy purposes to leave all sin, he hath promised to pardon abundantly. His thoughts and ways are not as ours, Isa. 55.7. guilt makes us fly his presence: but proclamation of pardoning grace to a wounded soul that comes for strength from heaven to subdue its iniquities, Mic. 7.19. sweetly draws the soul to lie at his foot for mercy. Though we cannot as yet be so free as formerly, while under the wounding sense of guilt, Psal. 51.12. Psal 69.5. yet when he restores to us the joy of his salvation, he will again uphold us with his free spirit. Yet take heed of Scars upon the soul. God knows our foolishness and our guiltinesses are not hid from him, yet we come for purging and cleansing mercy. A godly man may be under the sense of divine displeasure, for some iniquity that himself knoweth, as the Lord spoke of Eli, yet the way to be cured, 1 Sam. 3.13. Mark 5.23. is not to run from God, but like the distressed woman, come fearing and trembling and fall at his feet and tell him all the truth. But if prayer have cured thee, sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee. For if we regard iniquity in our heart, Psal. 66.18. the Lord will not hear us, but the guilt may stare conscience in the face with great amazement. As 'tis storied of one that secretly had stolen a sheep, it ran before his eyes in prayer that he could have no rest. How strangely will memory ring the bell in the ears of conscience! If we have any secret sin in deliciis, if we look but a squint with desires and secret thoughts (after our peace-offerings) to meet our beloved lusts again, this is dangerous, Prov. 7.14. God may justly give up such to cast off that which is good, to cleave to their Idols and let them alone. Hos. 4 17. & 6.3. Gerson T. 2. p. 76.6. But if the face of the heart be not knowingly and willingly spotted with any sin or lust (bating infirmities which he mourns under) than thy countenance through Christ will be comely in the eye of God and thy voice sweet in his ears, and as he said Qui benè vivit semper orat: a holy life will be a walking continual prayer, his very life is a constant petition before God. 4. Own thy personal interest with God, and plead it humbly. Consider whom thou goest to in secret, pray to thy father who seethe in secret. Canst thou prove thyself to be in Covenant, what thou canst prove thou mayest plead, Psal. 50.15, 16. and have it successfully issued. In prayer we take God's Covenant into our mouths, but without a real interest the Lord expostulates with such, what have they to do with it. God never graciously hears but 'tis upon interest. This argument Solomon presses in prayer, for they be thy people and thine inheritance: 1 Kings 8 51. Thus David pleads, (a) Ps 140.6. Thou art my God, hear the voice of my supplication, (b) 119 94. I am thine, Lord save me. (c) 116.16. Truly I am thy servant, I am thy servant; Arias turns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by obsecro, quaeso, I beseech thee O Lord, I am thy servant. God will avenge his elect when they cry unto him, I was cast upon thee from the womb, Luke 18.7. Psal. 22.10. thou art my God from my mother's belly. Therefore Asa turns the contest heavenward, O Lord thou art our God, let not mortal man prevail against thee. 2 Chron. 14.11. Psal. 119.176. Thou takest me for the sheep of thy fold, and the servant of thy household, therefore seek me. When Israel shall be refined as silver and tried as gold, they shall call on his name and he will hear them. I will say it is my people, my tried, refined, golden people, and they shall say the Lord is my God. Zech. 13.9. When thou canst discern the print of the broad seal of the Covenant upon thy heart, and the privy seal of the spirit upon thy prayers, and canst look upon the Son of God in a sacerdotal relation to thee, thou may'st (a) Heb 5.16. come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need. 5. Be very particular in secret prayer, both as to sins, wants and mercies. (b) Psal. 32.5.51.9. Hid none of thy transgressions if thou expect a pardon. Be not ashamed to open all thy necessities. David argues (c) Psal. 40.17 70.5.86.1.109.22. because he is poor and needy; four several times he presses his wants and exigences before God, like an earnest but holy beggar, and (d) Psal. 142.2 Job 23.4. shown before him his trouble, from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coram, presents before him his ragged condition, and spreads open his secret wounds, as Job said, he would order his cause before him, from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disponerem instruerem, marshal every case as a battle in rank and file. There we may speak out our minds fully, and name the persons that afflict, affront, and troubles us, and woe to them that a child of God upon a mature judgement names in prayer, I find not that such a prayer in Scripture returned empty. Jacob in a great strait, Deliver me from the hand of my brother, Gen. 32.11. from the hand of Esau. David in the ascent of Mount Olivet, O Lord I pray thee turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. 2 Sam 15.31. 2 Chron. 20.10. Prayer twisted the rope for him at Giloh. Thus Jehoshaphat in his prayer names Ammon, Moab and Edom conspiring against him. Thus Hezekiah spreads the railing letter before the Lord, Isa 37.14. Psal. 83.6. etc. Act 4 27. Joseph. l. 18. c. 9 Euseb. Chron. l. 2. p. 159. Eph. 3.14. Luke 17.5. 2 Cor. 12.8. and the Psalmist takes them all in a round Catalogue that consulted against Israel. Thus the Church in her prayer names Herod-Antipas, and Pontius Pilate, whereof the first was sent into perpetual banishment, and the latter slew himself. It's of great use in prayer to attend to some special case or single request with arguments and affections suitable. For this cause (says Paul) I bow the knee. Suppose a grace deficient in its strength: Lord increase our faith; or a temptation urgent: For this I prayed to the Lord thrice. A great reason why we reap so little benefit by prayer, because we rest too much in generals, and if we have success 'tis but dark, that often we cannot tell what to make of the issues of prayer. Besides, to be particular in our petitions would keep the spirit much from wand'ring: when we are intent upon a weighty case, and the progress of the soul in grace would manifest its gradual success in prayer. 6. Holy and humble appeals before the Lord in secret, when the soul can submissively and thankfully expose itself to divine searching about some measures of holiness and grace wrought in the heart. Psal. 139.23. Tertal. de orat. p. 213. The soul cannot bide by the presence of God under flashings of defilement, [neque agnosci poterit à spiritu sancto spiritus inquinatus,] neither will the holy spirit own a defiled soul. But when a person can humbly, modestly and reverently say, search me and try my reins, and if there be any way of wickedness in me, lead me in the everlasting way; it will be the means of the ebullitions and boilings up of joyful affections and meek confidence at the footstool of grace, especially in pleas of deliverance from wicked and proud enemies. When David can plead in comparison with, and in the case stated between his enemies and himself: For I am holy: Psal. 86.2, 14, 17. It shows him a token for good: or when we plead against the assaults of Satan, can we be conscious, that we have watched and prayed against entering into temptation. When in the main we can wash our hands in Innocency, Psal. 26 6. Psal. 18.20.7.3. we may then comfortably compass God's altar about. In case of opposition and injustice. He rewarded me (says David in the point of Saul) according to my righteousness and the cleanness of my hands before him. Or about the truth of the love that is in the heart to God. Thou that knowest all things, John 21.17. Neh. 14.14, 22 Isa. 38.3. Isa. 26.8. says Peter, knowest that I love thee. As to zeal for the Worship and Ordinances of God, so did Nehemiah. As to the integrity of a well-spent life, so did Hezekiah: or if we cannot rise so high, yet as the Church did, The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. Or lastly, when we can unfeignedly plead the usefulness of a mercy entreated, in order to the divine glory. As when a minister, or the Church of Christ for him, prays for such gifts and graces, Eph. 6.19. Col. 4 3. such knowledge and utterance that he may win souls to Christ, and can appeal that it is his principal aim; this is glorious. 7. Pray for the spirit, that ye may pray in and by the spirit. Awaken the North and the South to blow upon thy garden that the spices thereof may flow forth. Cant 4.16. Then thou mayest invite Christ, Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits; that the soul may enjoy him and hold sweet communion with him. All successful prayer is from the breathing of the spirit of God, when he inspires and indites, when he directs the heart as to matter, and governs the tongue as to utteranee. 1 Cor. 2.10. Rom. 8.27. Psal. 147.18. Ezek. 47.1. Gerson T. 2. K. K. 4. 49. Zech. 12.10. God graciously hears the sighs of his own Spirit form in us. He sent forth his spirit and the waters flow. That I may allude: the waters of contrition flow upon the breathing of the spirit and the soul is as it were all afloat before the throne of grace, when these living waters issue from under the threshold of the sanctuary. Sequitur lachrymosa devotio flante spiritu sancto. Devout tears drop down from the spirit's influences. Melting supplications follow the infusions of grace by the spirit. Then they shall mourn for piercing of Christ, says the Prophet, and be in bitterness as for a firstborn: like the mourning at the town of Hadadrimmon where Josiah was slain. Then (a) 13.1, 2, 4 & 14.8. Isa. 66.12. Rich. de S●ult. p. 321. in that day what inundations of mercy shall refresh the Church, when the Lord will extend her peace like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: great things to the Church, and gracious things to the soul. Inter orationem suspiria cognoscit, holy sighs in prayer give intelligence of great mercies to follow. Nay to withstand powerfully all the wiles of Satan: one means is, Eph. 6.18. to consecrate every part of the spiritual armour by prayer in the Spirit. 8. Apply special promises to special cases in prayer. For God hath and will magnify his word of promise above all his name, Psal. 138.2. John 12.28. when we are under the word of command for a duty: we must seek for a word of promise and unite them in prayer. When a promise of aid suits to the precept, it renders prayer victorious and obedience pleasant, when we come with God's own words into his presence: when we take his words with us that he would take away all iniquity, he'll receive us graciously. Hos 14 2. Gen. 32.9. 1 Kings 8.24. Jacob urged that God had bid him return from his Country and kindred. Solomon urges the word of promise to David. Jehoshaphat urges the a 2 Chron. 20.8, 9 word of promise to Solomon. Daniel fills his mouth (b) Dan. 9.2, 3 with the promise given to Jeremiah, he reads and then applies it in prayer. First, search the Bible and look for a promise, and when found, open it before the Lord. Paul teaches us to take the (c) Heb. 13.5, 6. promise given to Joshua and then to say boldly, the Lord is our helper, etc. For the special ground of the answer of prayer lies in the (d) Psal. 50.15.65.24. performance of a promise, Simeon lived upon a promise, and (e) Luke 2.29. expired sweetly in the arms of a promise in the breathe of a prayer. Sometimes the soul depends for an answer by virtue of the Covenant in general, as of that, (f) Gen. 17.7. I will be thy God: sometimes by the great (g) Joh. 14.26. remembrancer, draws water out of some (h) Isa. 12.3. well of salvation: but in both, God's faithfulness is the soul's surety. Hence it is that David in prayer does so often argue upon the veracity and truth of God, and the Church in Micah is so confident that the (i) Mic. 7.20. mercy promised to Abraham, and confirmed in truth to Jacob, should be plentifully performed to his people Israel. 9 Sober and serious resolutions before God in prayer, the 119 Psalm is full of these, (k) Psal. 119.6. I will keep thy statutes, (l) v. 32. I will run the way of thy commandments, (m) v. 46. I will speak of thy testimonies before Kings, (o) v. 106. I have sworn and will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgements, and other where (p) Psal. 80.18 quicken us and we will call upon thy name, and again, (q) Psal. 101.2 O when wilt thou come unto me, I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. Visit me with answers of mercy to prayer, and then the soul makes holy stipulations and compacts of obedience to God. Thus Jacob (r) Gen. 28.22 if God will be with me, then shall the Lord be my God; and resolves upon a house for God, and reserving the tenth of all his estate to his service and worship, where the particle (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 si, if) is not to be taken for a single conditional, as if God should not bestow what he promised, he should not be his God, Rivet in loc. p. 489. that were a great wickedness, but 'tis a rational particle, or of order and time. Because or since God is graciously pleased to promise, I will acknowledge him to be the God, whom I adore by erecting a Temple and paying tithes to maintain his worship. But whatever it is that the soul in distress does offer to God in promise, be not slack to perform, Gen. 35.3. 〈◊〉 ●. 4. for many times answers of prayer m●y delay till we have performed our promises, (a) Psal. 96.13, 19 David professes to pay what his lips had uttered in trouble, for God had heard him. If we break our words to God, no wonder if we feel what the Lord threatened to Israel, that they should know (b) Num. 14.34. his breach of promise. 10. A waiting frame of spirit in prayer. I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined to me and heard my cry, Psal. 40.1. Psal. 38.15. Psal. 123.2.130.6.143.8. Mich. 7.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. I expected with expectation, he walked up and down in the gallery of prayer. This is set forth by hope till God hear, In thee O Lord do I hope, thou wilt hear O Lord my God, our eyes must wait upon the Lord our God, till he have mercy upon us, more than those which watch for the morning, and persist praying: cause us to hear thy loving kindness in the morning, for in thee do we trust, and say with Micah, I will look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation, my God will hear me. Hoping, expecting, trusting, living upon the promise, and looking for an answer of peace, as he said of prayer [sagitta movetur post quietem sagittantis, & navis quiescentibus nautis. Gerson. ] When an archer shoots an arrow, he looks after it with his glass, to see how it hits the mark. So says the soul, I'll attend and watch how my prayer flies towards the bosom of God, and what messages return from heaven. As the seaman when he has set sail, goes to the helm and the compass, and sits still and observes the Sun, or the polestars, and how the ship works, and how the landmarks form themselves aright according to his chart. So do you, when you have been at prayer: mark your ship how it makes the port, and what rich goods are laden back again from heaven. Most men lose their prayers in the mists and fogs of non-observation, and thus we arrive at the second question. 2. Quest. How to discover and discern answers to secret prayer, that the soul may be satisfied, that it hath prevailed with God? Let us now consider the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rendition or reply to prayer, in the text, he will return it into your bosoms, and as to this in general, when the mercy sought for is speedily and particularly cast into your arms: Psal. 104.28.147.9. Like the irrational creatures in their natural cries, seek their meat from God and gather what he gives them and are filled with good. When God openly returns to his children, there is no further dispute: for the worst of men will acknowledge the divine bounty, Acts 14.17. when he fills their hearts with food and gladness. But when cases are a little dubious. 1. Observe. The frame and temper of thy spirit in prayer, how the heart works and steers its course in several particulars. 2 Cor. 1.17. 1. A holy liberty of spirit is commonly an excellent sign of answers, a copious spirit of fluentness to pour out requests as out of a fountain. As God shuts up opportunities, so he shuts up hearts, when he is not inclined to hear. The heart's sometimes locked up that it cannot pray; or if it does and will press on, it finds a straitness as if the Lord had spoken, as once to Moses, Speak no more to me of this matter; Deut. 3.26. Ezek. 14.14. & 7.2, 7, 11. or as God spoke to Ezekiel, though Noah, Daniel and Job should entreat for a Nation, when the time of a land is come, there is no salvation but for their own souls. When God intends to take away near relations or any of his Saints unto himself: many times neither the Church of God nor dear friends have either apt seasons or hearts to enlarge. The bow of prayer does not abide in strength: God took away gracious Josiah suddenly: 2 Chron. 35.25. the Church had time to write a book of Lamentations and to make it an ordinance in Israel, but no time for deprecation of the divine displeasure in it: but in Hezekiah's case there was both a season and a heart enlarged in prayer, and the prophet crying for a sign of the mercy. Holy James might be quickly dispatched by the sword of Herod-Agrippa, 2 Kings 20.11. Act. 12.2, 12. but the Church had time for supplication in behalf of Peter. When the Lord is pleased graciously to grant space of time and enlargement of heart, 'tis a notable sign of success, Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress, says David, Psal. 4.1. though it be meant of deliverance: yet it may be applied to prayer as the holy Prophet seems to do, Psal. 18.6. yea though the soul may be under some sense of displeasure and in extremities, yet lifts up a cry: when conscience stops the mouth of hypocrites, that they eat and fly the presence of God. 2. A blessed serenity and quiet calmness of spirit in time of prayer, especially when the soul comes troubled and clouded at first, whiles it pours out its complaints before the Lord: but at length, nescio quid serenius emicat, Jer●m. etc. the Sun shines forth brightly, and the heavens look serenely and cheerfully upon the soul in prayer; 'tis said of Hannah, she was no more sad, Heb. her countenance was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ille ulterius, any longer in the old hue, cast down and sorrowful because of her rival. Thus the Lord dealt with David, though not yet fully answered, yet filled with holy (a) 1 Sam. 1.18. fortitude of spirit, and revived in the midst of his trouble. Prayer dispels (b) Psal. 138.3, 7. anxious solicitude, and chases away black thoughts from the heart, (c) Phil. 4.6, 7 it cases conscience and fills the soul with the peace of God. 3. A joyful frame of Spirit, God sometime makes his people not only peaceful but (d) Isa. 56.7. joyful in his house of prayer. Thus sped Hezekiah, when his Crane-like chatterings (e) Isa. 38.14, 20. were turned into Swanlike songs, and his mournful elegies into glorious praises, Hab. 3.16, 19 2 Chron. 7.1, 10. upon ten-stringed instruments in the house of the Lord, the lips of Habakkuk quivered and his belly trembled, but before he finished, his voice was voluble in holy songs, and his fingers nimble upon the harp. Thus at Solomon's prayer, when the fire came down, the people were warmed at worship, and went away glad, and merry at heart. David's (h) Psal. 43.4, 5. experience of this, sent him often to the house of God for comfort, and thus chides his soul when cast down at any time, [I am going to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy: why art thou disquieted within me] his old harp that had cured Saul of his malignant dumps: being played upon with Temple songs, now cures his own spiritual sadness. When we look upon God with an eye of faith in prayers it enlightens (i) Psal. 34.5. our faces with Heavenly joy, when Moses came out of the mount, from communion with God: how illustrious was his face from that Heavenly vision, wherefore prayer for divine mercy and comfort sometimes exhibits its self in this language, Psal. 80.3. make thy face to shine upon us and we shall be saved, on this wise the Priests of old were to bless the children of Israel: Numb. 6.25. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee: these and the like expressions in Scripture import that sometimes the Lord was pleased to give forth a shining glory from the Oracle and thereby made known his presence unto his people, Exod. 4●. 34. Leu. 9.23. Num. 16.19, 42. & 20.6. 1 Kings 8.11. and filled them with awful impressions of his majesty and mercy. This joyful light of God's countenance is like the Sun rising upon the face of the earth: it chaseth away the dark fears and discouragements of the night, such heavenly joy shows the strength of faith in prayer, and the radiant appearances of God, yea to this end all prayer should be directed, (b) John 16.24. that (d) our joy may be full. 4. A sweetness of affection to God, when the soul has gracious sentiments of God in prayer, clouds of Jealousies and suspicions of the divine mercy, as if God were a hard master, are marvellous unbecoming a soul that should go to God as to a Father: and hence from such unsuitable thoughts of infinite mercy to hid the talon of prayer, is greatly provoking. Whereas the apprehension of God's excellent goodness, should work the heart into lovely thoughts of God. (c) Parisiens. p. 376. Man, but especially a Saint, is acervus beneficiorum dei, an accumulated heap of divine favours; and if nothing but the gifts of mercy should attract our hearts, yet herein we are every moment laden with his numerous benefits. But when the soul comes to perceive that all flows from the fountain of his eternal love, it makes prayer to be res amorosa, to be filled with holy delights and joys: the ecstasies of love often rise upon the soul in secret, and such divine affection as (d) Gers. Tom. 2. k. k. 4. Gerson said 'tis res extatica, it carries the soul beyond itself: let the profane World say what they will, when spiritual ardours like so many fragrant spices flow out of the soul. I love the Lord, says David (e) Psal. 116.1. , for he hath heard my supplications. As answers of prayer flow from (f) John 16.27. the love of the Father: so suitable workings of holy affections flow from the hearts of children. When the soul is filled with gracious intimations, like those of the Angelical voice to Daniel, O Daniel greatly beloved, O man of desires, Dan. 9.23. Luke 1.28. to stand before the King of Saints, or like that to the holy Virgin, Hail thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: how greatly does it inflame the heart to God. 5. Inward encouragements sometimes spring in upon the heart in prayer from remembrance of former experiments, which mightily animate the soul with fervency. When Moses calls to mind that God had forgiven, and delivered from Egypt until then, Numb 14.19. v. 20 Psal. 77.5, 6.7.9.10. immediately follows a sweet intimation of mercy: I have pardoned according to thy word. When the soul considers the days of old, the years of ancient times, and calls to remembrance its former songs in the night, he draws an argument out of the quiver of experience, will God be favourable no more? can he forget to be gracious, can he in anger shut up his tender mercies? The soul concludes this thought to flow from its own infirmity, for when God once hears a prayer, as coming from a child of his in Covenant, prove our filial interest, and we may sweetly rest assured in all things according to his Will, to be always heard. 6. A ready heart for thankfulness and service, the heart is brim full and ready to flow over in grateful memorial of his mercy. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me. Psal. 116.12. As of old at Temple-sacrifices there was Music, so it ought to be now, while the mercy is praying for, the heart must be winding up and tuning for praise. Rev. 5 8. Psal. 108.1. The vials full of the odours of prayer are joined with harps for heavenly melody; when the heart is fixed or prepared, then follows song and praise. This streams from the sense of divine love: and love is the fountain of thankfulness and of all sprightly and vigorous services, that prayer that does not end in cheerful obedience, is called by Cyprian, ●e Orat. p. ●7. oratio sterilis and preces nudae, barren and unfruitful, naked and without ornament, and so we may glance upon the expression of holy James, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Jam. 5.16, a working prayer within will be working without and demonstrate the labour of love. 2. Obs. The principal subject-matter of prayer, the mark, the white that the arrow of prayer is shot at, the scope it aims at, there's usually some special sin unconquered, some untamed corruption, some defect, some pressing strait that drives the soul to prayer and is the main burden of the spirit, take notice how such a sin withers or such a grace flourishes, or such a need supplied upon the opening our hearts in prayer. Watch unto prayer, Eph. 6.18. watch to perform it and then to expound the voice of the divine oracle, and to know that ye are successful. Cry to thy soul by way of holy soliloquy: Watchman, Isa. 21.11. what of the night. 3. Obs. Ensuing providences. Set a vigilant eye upon succeeding passages, examine them as they pass before thee, set a wakeful centinel at the posts of wisdom. His name is near, his wondrous works declare. His name of truth, Psal. 75 1. his glorious title of hearing prayers. When prayer is gone up by the help of the spirit; mark how all things work together for good, Rom. 8.28. v. 27. Isa. 58.9, 11. and note the connexion there: the working of things together, follows the intercession of the Spirit for all Saints. God is pleased often to speak so clearly by his works, as if he said; here I am, I will guide thee continually, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, whose waters fail not. Secret promises animate prayer, and open providences expound it. Isa. 45 4, 11, 19 Cyrus was promised to come against Babylon for the Church's sake. But Israel must ask it of God, and they had a word for it, that they should not seek his face in vain, Psal. 107.19, 20. and then follows Babylon's fall in the succeeding chapters. When we cry unto the Lord in trouble, he sends his word of command and heals us. There's a set time of mercy, a time of life, when Abraham had prayed for a son, the Lord told him, Gen. 15.2, 18.10.14. Esth 4.16. & 6.1. Psal. 3.4.5. Eliezer. Gen. 24.15. at the time appointed i'll return. In a great extremity, after the solemn fast of three days by the Jews in Shushan, and the Queen in her Palace, on the fourth day at night the King could not sleep, and must hear the Chronicles of Persia read, and then follows Haman's ruin. Prayer has a strange virtue to give quiet sleep, sometimes to a David, and sometimes a waking pillow for the good of the Church. When Jacob had done wrestling and the Angel gone, at the springing of the morning: then the good man saw the Angel of God's presence in the face of Esau. Sometimes providence is not so quick, Rev 6.11. the Martyr's prayer as to complete answer is deferred for a season, but long white robes are given to every one, a triumphant frame of spirit, and told they should wait but a little season till divine justice should work out the issue of prayer, the thunder upon God's enemies comes out of the temple, the judgements roar out of Zion, Rev. 11.19. Joel 3.16. the place of divine audience, but the means, and methods, and times of God's working are various, such as we little forethink: Submit all to his infinite wisdom, prescribe not, but observe the Embroidery of Providence, its difficult to spell its characters sometimes, but 'tis rare employment. (d) Isa. 64.5 Psal. 111. 2●. Eccl. 3.11. 2 Sam. 23.4. His works are searched into by such as delight in his providences, for all things are beautiful in his season. 4. Mark thy following communion with God. Inward answers make the soul veget and lively; like plants after the shining of the Sun upon rain, lift up their heads and shoot forth their flowers. A Saint in favour does all with delight. Isa. 61.3. Answer of prayer is like oil to the spirits, and beauty for ashes. The sackcloth of mournful fasting is turned to a wedding garment. He grows more free and yet humbly familiar with heaven. This is one I would wish you to pick acquaintance with, that can come and have what (h) Joh. 16 23. Gen. 20.7. he will at Court. As the Lord once told a King by night, that Abraham was a Prophet and would pray for him, he was acquainted with the King of heaven, O blessed person! I hope there's many such among you, whose life is a continued prayer: Psal. 109.4. As David that gave himself to prayer. Heb. But I prayer, he's all over prayer, prays at rising, prays at lying down, prays as he walks, he's always ready for prayer, like a prime favourite at Court that has the golden key to the privy stairs and can wake his Prince by night. Christians, there are such (whatever the besotted profane world dreams) who are ready for spiritual ascents at all seasons, besides the frequency of set communions. His wings never weary: his willing spirit is flying continually, and makes God the rock of his dwelling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into which he may upon all assaults have holy retirements. Psal. 71.3. But so much for the main Question with its branches. There be many particular queries of some weight that may attend the princpal subject, and such I shall briefly reply to, as Cue, 1. What's the proper time for secret prayer? Ans. Various providences, different temperaments and frames of spirit, motions from heaven, opportunities dictate variously. Some find it best at even, others in the night, when all is silent, others at morning, when the spirits are freshest. I think with respect to others, that conscientious prudence must guide in such cases, when others are retired and the spirit in the best frame for communion. Qu. 2. How often should we pray in secret? Ans. If we consult Scripture-president, we find David at prayer in the morning our blessed Lord early before day in the morning. Psal. 5.3. Mark. 1.35. Chrys. in Psal. 5. p. 542 Etim. Mat. 14 23. Gen. 24.63. Psal 55.17. D●n 6 10. Psal. 119.164. Chrysostom advises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. wash thy soul before thy body, for as the face and hands are cleansed by water, so is the soul by prayer. At another time our Lord went to secret prayer in the even, and Isaac went to prayer in the eventide, David and Daniel prayed three times a day, and once 'tis mentioned that David said seven times a day will I praise thee, that is, very often. Such cases may happen that may require frequent accesses to the throne of grace in a day: But I humbly think at the least once a day, which seems to be imported by that passage in our Lord's prayer, give us this day our daily bread. Since after our Lord's appointment of secret prayer in the text, he gives us this prayer as a pattern to his Disciples. Qu. 3. When persons are under temptations or disturbance by passions, is it expedient then to pray? 1 Tim. 2.8. Ans. Since we are enjoined to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting, I judge it not so proper to run immediately to prayer: but with some foregoing ejaculations for pardon and strength against such exorbitances, and when in some measure cooled and composed, then speed to prayer, and take heed that the Sun go not down upon your wrath, without holy purgation by prayer: Eph 4.26. though I must confess, a Christian should always endeavour to keep his course and heart in such a frame as not to be unfit for prayer upon small warnings. The very consideration of our frequent communion with God should be a great bar to immoderate and exuberant passions. Qu. 4. Whether may we pray in secret, when others must needs take notice of our retirement? Ans. I must confess in a straight house, and when a person can many times find no seasons but such as will fall under observation, I think he ought not to neglect secret duty, (if his heart be right before God) for fear of others notice: we must prevent it as much as may be, and especially watch our hearts against spiritual pride, and God may graciously turn it to a testimony, and for example to others. Qu. 5. Whether we may be vocal in secret prayer, if we can't so well raise or keep up affection or preserve the heart from wandering without it? Ans. No doubt; but yet there must be used a great deal of wise caution about extending the voice. De Orat. That of Tertullian counselling persons at prayer [ne ipsis quidem manibus sublimius elatis, etc. Ne vultu quidem in audaciam erecto: Sonos etiam vocis subjecios esse oportet, aut quantis arteriis opus est, si pro sono audiamur, etc. qui clarius adorant, proximis obstrepunt imò prodendo orationes suas quid minùs faciunt quam si in publico orent.] Advises that both hands and countenance and voice should be ordered with great reverence and humility: What arteries need we, if we think to be heard for noise! and what else do we by discovering our prayers, than if we prayed in public? yet surely if we can obtain some very private place, or when others are from home, and the extension of the voice be found to some persons by long experience to be of use: such may lawfully improve it to their private benefit. Q. 6. How to keep the heart from wand'ring thoughts in prayer? Ans. Although it be exceeding difficult to attain so excellent a frame, yet by frequent reflecting upon, and remembering the eye of God in secret, by endeavouring to fix the heart with all possible watchfulness upon the main scope of prayer in hand: by being very sensible of our wants and indigencies, by not studying of impertinent length, but rather being more frequent and short, considering God is in heaven and we upon earth, and by exercise of holy communion: as we may through the implored assistance of the spirit attain some sweetness and freedom, Eccl. 5.22. so likewise some more fixedness of spirit in our addresses before the Lord. Qu. 7. What if present answers seem not to correspond to our Petitions? Ans. We must not conclude it by and by to be a token of displeasure, and say with Job, Job 10.2. show me wherefore thou contendest with me: but acknowledge the sovereignty of divine wisdom and love in things that seem contrary to us in petitions for temporal mercies, and submit to the counsel of Elihu, 33.13. since he giveth no account of any of his matters, neither can we find out the unsearchable methods of his holy ways to any perfection. 11.7. There be other cases and scruples that might be treated of, as about prescript words in secret prayers, to which I need say but little: since such as are truly converted (d) Gal. 4 6. Rom. 8.26. Zech. 1●. 10. Acts 9.11. have the promise of the spirit of God to assist and enable them, and they need not drink of another's bucket that have the fountain: nor use stilts and crutches that have spiritual strength, neither are words and phrases, but faith and holy groans the nerves of prayer. Yet for some help to young beginners doubtless it's of use to observe the style of the spirit, as well as the heavenly matter of several prayers in the holy Scriptures. Psal. 23.6 & 139.17.18. Neither need I to press frequency to a holy heart that is saln in love with spiritual communion for he delights to be continually with him, the thoughts of God are so precious to him, his soul is even sick of affection and prays to be stayed with more of the flagous' and comforted with the apples in greater abundance. Cant. 2.5. To some (though I fear how few) how far it is lawful and expedient to withdraw for the necessity of the frail body in this vale of tears. It may be replied (g) Jam. 5.11. Hos. 6.6. that the Lord is very pitiful and gracious to our frailties that he had rather have mercy than sacrifice in some cases. Though I doubt these Phoenixes are but rare that are in danger of expiring in prayer, as martyrs of divine love as Gerson expresses. Gers. T. 2. kk. 5. Having now finished with what brevity I could the foregoing queries, I should treat about short, sudden occasional prayers, commonly called ejaculations, but indeed that requires a set and just discourse, yet because of a promise above recited, I shall give a few tastes of it and then conclude with some application. Ejaculatory Prayer Is a sudden short breathing of the soul towards Heaven upon instant and surprising emergencies. In holy persons it's quick and lively, rising from a vehement ardour of spirit. swifter than the flight of eagles and keeps pace with a flash of lightning. It flies upon the wings of a holy thought into the third Heavens in the twinkling of an eye, and fetches auxiliary forces in times of straits. There are many precedents recorded in sacred page upon great and notable occasions, with strange success. When good magistrates are busy in the work of reformation, Neh. 13.14.22 let them imitate Nehemiah when redressing the profanation of the Sabbath, Remember me O my God concerning this, etc. When Generals and Captains go forth to war, Josh. 1.17. observe Israel's apprecation to God, rather than acclamations to men, The Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses. In time of battles or pursuit of the enemy, valiant Joshuah darts up such a prayer as this, O that the Lord would lengthen this triumphant day, and the (c) Jos. 10.12. Lord heard his voice. The tribes beyond Jordan in a (d) 2 Chr. 5 23. battle with the Hagarites, Jehoshaphat in a sore strait (e) 18.31. at Ramoth Gilead, Samson ready to perish at Lehi (f) Judg. 15.18, 16, 28. with thirst, and when blind, exposed to contempt in the Temple of Dagon. David near (g) 1 Sam. 30.6. stoning at Ziglag, and when flying from Absalon in the ascent of (h) 2 Sam. 15.31. Mount Olivet. Elisha at Dothan compassed with a Syrian host (i) 2 King. 6.17. Lord open the young man's eyes. In the midst of lawful and laborious callings, Boaz to the reapers, (k) Ruth. 2.4. the Lord be with you, we may pray that our Oxen (l) Psal. 129.8. may be strong to labour; no breaking in or going out, nor no complaining in our streets. It sanctifies the plough as Jerom said of the fields of Bethlehem [quocunque te verteris, Psal. 144.14. ad Marcellum p. 129 T. 1. arator stivam teneus, Alleluja decantat, etc. The tilers of the field and the dressers of vineyards, sang David's psalms, it keeps the shop and inclines the hearts of customers, it bars the doors, it quenches fire, it blesseth thy children (m) Psal. 147.13. within thee, it preserves thy going out and coming in (n) 128.1. . Jacob found it to rest upon his children going a journey (a) Gen. 43.14. to Egypt, it closes the eyes with (b) Psal. 3.5.4 8. sweet sleep, it (c) Job 3●. 10. Psal. 139.18. given Songs in the night and wakens the soul in the arms of mercy. It sits at the helm when a (d) Psal. 107.28. Jon. 1.6. storm rises at sea it gives strength to Anchors in roads and prosperous gales to the venturous Merchant. When in the palace at dinner Nehemiah presents the cup to his prince, he presents also a Michtam a golden (e) Neh 3.4. 2 Chro. 34 27 Luke 17.5. Gen. 49.18. 2 Chron. 2 4. Act. 7 60. prayer to the King of Heaven, at the reading of the law Josiah was heard as to some secret cries to Heaven. At a holy conference in a journey the Disciples occasionally pray, Lord increase our faith. Jacob on his dying pillow predicting future events to his children, falls into a holy rapture, I have waited for thy salvation O Lord. At sacred death in martyrdom Zechariah cries out, the Lord look upon it and require it, and Stephen under a shower of stones, melts in prayers for the stony hearts that slung them, Lord lay not this sin unto their chage: and our blessed Saviour in his greatest agonies makes a tender hearted prayer. Father forgive them, they know not what they do, Luke 23 34. 1 Sam. 1.17. and lastly in the distresses of others, Eli puts a sudden petition for Hannah, the God of Israel grant thee thy petition. In these and many like cases, the holy word stores us with patterns for ejaculation in all extremities, which I cannot now digest and improve, only in a few words lets take a view of the usefulness of such a sudden flight of the soul to Heaven. 1. It helps us to a speedy preparative for all duties, Lam. 3 4●. with such an ejaculation let's lift our hearts with our hands to God in the Heavens. 2. It is a guard against secret sins in the first rise, and the first assaults of temptation. 3. It suffers not divine mercies to slip by unobserved in a wakeful Christian: and proves a fruitful mother of gratitude and praise. 4. It sanctifies all our worldly employments, 1 Tim 4. ●, 5. it fastens the stakes in the hedge of divine protection, and turns every thing to a blessing. 5. It's a Saints buckler against sudden accidents, a present antidote against frights and evil tidings. It's good at all occasions and consecrates to us not only our meals, but every gasp of air, etc. 6. It's a sweet companion, that the severest enemies can't abridge us of. Outward ordinances and closet duties they may cut off: the little (a) Ezr. 9 8. nail in the holy place they may pluck out. But no labyrinth, no prison, not the worst of company can hinder this, coelo restat iter: in the very face of adversaries we may lift our souls to God. No more of this, let's briefly conclude with some uses. Use. Use. Cant. 4 12. To convince such of their dangerous state that neglect sacred duties: that have no heart-communion, that draw no water out of this sealed fountain. But all they do, is in public only: it's a suspicious token of hypocrisy, since the kernel and soul of religion lies so much in the heart and closet; mark the phrase in the text, how it varies: thy Father that is in secret, be sees in secret. God's eye is open upon thee in the closet, and if thy eye be open upon his, thou mayst see a glorious beauty. The excellency of grace lies in making conscience of secret sins and secret duties. 2. To examine such as perform secret duty, but not from a sincere principle; like Amaziah, 2 Chron. 25.2 that prays, but not with a perfect heart; like Ahab, they mourn, but with Crocodile tears: such as do it only because they find precept or example for it and therefore to quiet conscience will into secret; but converse only in the shell and trunk of a duty: that rest in the naked performance, but matter not whether they taste of the sweet streams that flow in from heaven in the golden pipe of an ordinance; what account can such render that go into their closerts but like Domitian to catch flies only, Sueton. in Domit. c. 3. and when the doors are shut to the world, their hearts are shut to heaven and communion with God? He that sees in secret beholds the evil frame of such a heart, and will one day openly punish it. 3. To excite and awaken all to this excellent duty, and to manage it in an excellent manner. Would ye live delightfully? would ye translate heaven to earth? then keep up communion in secret prayer, to know him, to discern his face, to behold the lustre of his eye that shines in secret. Remember the glorious person that meets in your closerts: all the world yields not such a glittering beauty as a gracious person sees, when he is in a happy frame at secret prayer. Shut your eyes when ye come out: for all other objects are but vile and fordid and not worth the glances of a noble soul. O the sweetness, the hidden manna that the soul tastes when in lively communion with God Psal. 31.19. Part of that which is laid up for Saints in glory, let us a little relish our spirits with it. 1. Consider what amorous agonies the soul delights to conflict with in serret, fears that raise confidence, humility that exalts, tremble that embolden, bright clouds that shine upon our Israelites in the night, and darkness that inlightens, solitudes full of heavenly company, and tears brim-ful of joy, and holy sighs like a cooling wind in harvest, sweats of love, and sick fits that are symptoms of health, and holy faintings that are the soul's cordials, a weariness to the flesh that is the healthful exercise of, and vigour to the spirit, and a continual motion that never tires it. Ge●s. T. 2. K. K. 4. As Austin said of divine love [illò feror, quocunque feror; pondus meum, amor meus,] it's the weight of my soul, it carries me up and down in all that I speak, and all that I act. Quae major voluptas, quam fastidium ipsius voluptatis? Tertul. Eccl. 2.2. c. 7.6, 4. Cant. 5.10.2.3. Rev. 2.7. 1 Sam. 14.26. 2. Its ecstasies and heavenly raptures: which allure and draw the heart from earthly vanities, when the soul shuts its eyes to worldly delights, and says of laughter with Solomon, it is mad, and of mirth what dost thou? can't warm its thoughts at the crackling of thorns under a pot, nor be joyful in the house of fools. 'Tis the soul's pleasure to loath pleasure itself; none so beautiful to him as Christ, the chiefest of ten thousand; no sweetness like that of the tree in the midst of the Wood, the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, he sits under it with great delight, while it drops sweeter than honey into his closet. 3. It's admirable prophecies: Prayer stands upon mount Zion with a divining, presaging spirit: It foretells great things to the Church's joy and its enemy's terror (f) 1 King 19.6. Elijah at prayer in Horeb receives answer of the ruin of the house of Ahab, and bid to go and anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi King over Israel. The two witnesses under the (g) Rev. 11. Romish defection, have power to smite the earth with plagues as oft as they will, consonant to what Tertullian said of old (h) de orat. [votum Christianorum confusio nationum,] the prayers of Christians confounded the nations; and so it will shortly prove; the doom of Babylon comes out of the Temple. When the sanctuary is full of the smoke of the incense of prayer, Rev. 15.7.8.16, 1. the seven Angels come out with the seven last vials full of the wrath of God, to pour them out upon the Antichristian world. Prayer calculates and hastens the ruin of Rome. When the spirit of prayer (a) Joel 2.21, 32.3.1, 2. is once poured out, it brings deliverance to mount Zion, and gathers the nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat unto judgement. Let's never be discouraged, if prayer fall to work, and awaken Christ in the ship (b) Luk. 8.24. of the Church, her storms will cease in a halcyon calm. 4. Its comforting evidences: Secret prayer duly managed is a notable evidence of adoption; pray to thy Father who is, and sees in secret, who knows the secrets of thy heart, thy groan are not hid from him. Psal. 44.21.38, 9 None but a child of promise has this sweet freedom with God as a Father. 5. Its rewards and revenues: Nothing revives and cheers the spirit so much, as answers of love and mercy from Heaven. As it feasts the conscience with the royal dainties of sincerity: so it sets a lustre upon every mercy as being the child of prayer; our closerts influence upon our shops, our ships, our fields and all we enjoy, that they smell of divine blessing; as David said of precepts, Psal. 119.56. the soul may say, this I have because I urged the promises. Use 4. To pity the miserable blind world, that know not where true comfort, Use 4 joy and strength is to be found, that see no beauty in the ways of God, Gen. 27.27. and feel no sweetness in communion with him, that find no pleasure in closerts, but playhouses, which Tertullian called the Devil's Churches, that cry out with Esau, they have enough. Alas! what enough can be in the Creature, Gen. 33.9. Tertul. de spect. c. 25.26. unless of dunghills, rattles and vanities? Oh how ignorant of Heavenly treasures, of that fountain of mercies, whereof prayer drinks and resreshes the spirit of a Saint! That know not that blessed enough whereof Jacob speaks, Gen. 33.11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mibi omnia. that Ocean of all things to be found in God. Now Europe's in flames, and the ark in danger: he cares not though the one be burnt, and the other in ashes, so he be safe. But if his concerns catch fire, he knows not to repair but (f) 1 Sam. 28.7. 2 King. 1.2. to Endor or Ekron. Such have no acquaintance with, no help from God, no interest in the keeper of souls. The world's a deplorable hospital, the great Lazarhouse of sick, lame and impotent persons, as Gerson terms it, Gers. To. 2.76, 6. that have no face nor heart to go to the physician of souls. But ah! most lamentable is the state of some prostitute wretches of our age, that are (I fear almost) incurably gone with spiritual ulcers in their lungs, and eating putrid cancers in their tongues, that breath nothing but venom, and openly spit out their rotten Atheistical jeers against the spirit of prayer, and make a mock at communion with God. That scoff at what God hath promised as one of the choicest tokens of his love to the Church, Zech. 12.10. Joel 2.28, 32. Rom. 10.13. Joh. 7.39. and symptoms of the glory of the latter times, when God will turn such ishmael's, into the desert, Amos 8.10. Job 30.31. and their drunken Songs shall expire in dreadful howl. Profaner than many heathens, that in the Primitive times had some reverence for Christian worship, though they persecuted. But those of this adulterous Romish age, 2 Pet. 2.12. like brute beasts speak evil of what they are ignorant, and are in danger to perish utterly in their own corruption: pity such, if there be yet hope, and commend their condition to God's mercy and penitent sorrow: that they may weep here, where tears prick; not in hell, where they scauld and burn, and swell that river of brimstone. Gerson T. 2. 49. KK. 3. In the mean time, O ye that fear the Lord, be diligent to observe and interpret messages after secret prayer; for the life and joy of a Christian is improved by it. God has declared himself graciously pleased with secret prayer, Dan. 9.21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V●lans in lassitudine. so as to send an Angel, that glorious creature, to fly into Daniel's chamber, and he weary with flying; he moved so swiftly, [volans in lassitudine] as the original text expresses it. What a high expression is this, that even Angels are represented weary with hasty flights to bring Saints their answers: and of what great account does the Lord esteem his praying people, that Angels are expressed to be tired in bringing tidings of mercy. 6. Meditate on the glory of heaven, where all our prayers shall be turned into praises. When every sigh below, shall be an accent to the heavenly music above, and the tears of the valley shall be turned into orient gems in the diadem of glory. Here we groan under wants and desires, empty within; and live on the craving hand: But there palms in the hand, white robes, and everlasting joys upon the heads and hearts of Saints. How may the duty of of daily Family Prayer be best managed for the spiritual benefit of every one in the Family? Serm. XV. Joshua 24.15. latter part. — But as for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord. JOshua being old and stricken in age, and desirous before his departure out of the world, solemnly to engage the people of Israel to adhere to God, and his holy worship, gathered all their Tribes to Shechem, called for the chief of them that were Governors, and Representatives of the whole body of the People, (a) Quatuor crant in qualibet urbe gradus officioram. (1.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Senes, vel S●natus (2) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capira ●at●um, singularum tribuum primotes, primi & eminen●to●● in urbe, 〈◊〉 (3.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judices 〈…〉 veram & 〈…〉 (4.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apparitores 〈◊〉 res judicates exequebantur, & ●●culo & l●ro p pulum corebant ad observantiam praeceptorum. Schind. Lexic. Pentag. namely for the Elders of Israel, or the Senate, that did chief manage the affairs of Church and State; for their Heads, the most eminent of each Tribe, and prime Rulers thereof; for their Judges, that sat in Courts to hear Causes and execute judgement betwixt man and man, and such Magistrates that ruled over them for their peace and welfare; and for their Officers, who did see to the execution of the sentences and judgements of Superior Magistrates. All these being present, Joshua makes a brief historical narrative of God's signal providences and singular benefits to them and their Fathers, in this order. First, His calling of Abraham from Idolatry to the knowledge of the true God, and profession of true Religion, ver. 2, 3. Secondly, His multiplying of his Seed, ver. 3, 4. Thirdly, His delivering them out of Egypt, and making a way for them through the Red-sea, which returning, destroyed the Egyptians that did pursue them, ver. 5, 6, 7. Fourthly, His preserving them in the Wilderness, ver. 7. Fifthly, The Victories that he gave them over the Amorites when they fought against them, ver. 8. Sixthly, His defending them against Balak the Son of Zippor King of Moab, and restraining Balaam from cursing of them, ver. 9, 10. Seventhly, His miraculous providence in drying up the waters of Jordan, that they might pass over, ver. 11. Eighthly, His delivering the men of Jericho, and their several enemies into their hands, ver. 11. Ninthly, That it was not by their own Sword, nor by their own Bow, that they subdued the Nations, but God by weak and contemptible Creatures (as Hornets) drove them out from before them, ver. 12. Tenth, His giving them the possession of such Cities which they had not built, and to eat of the Vine-yards and Olive-yards which they had not planted: thus he brings to their remembrance the great and wonderful things that God had done for them. A capite bona vale●udo, inde omnia v●geta sunt, atque erecta, aut languore demissa; prout animus eorum viget, aut marcet. Et erunt Cives, erunt Socii digni hac bonitate: & in totum orbem rectimores revertentur. Se●ec. de Clement. lib 2. cap. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & ego & domus mea. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usurpantur. 1. Pro domicilio. The mercies of God to man being strong enforcements of man's duty to God, upon these moral grounds and reasons, Joshua in the 14th verse, earnestly exhorts them to fear the Lord, and to serve him in sincerity, with a pure heart, without hypocrisy; and in truth, without false pretences, and counterfeit shows of godliness, as becometh such as worship the most Holy, the most Wise, and glorious God; and declareth his own fixed resolution, That he and his house would serve the Lord: as if he should say; I have given you a Catalogue of the great and many mercies of God vouchsafed to you, and I have exhorted and charged you all in the Name of the Great and Eternal God, to fear and serve him; but if ye will not, I do here declare, profess, and publish my purpose and resolution in the ears of all you, the Elders, Heads, Judges and Officers, and all others, that I and my house will serve the Lord; be it known unto you, that I will not only serve and worship God myself, but will also set up his worship in my house: and both I and mine will serve the Lord. The original words in Old and New Testament, translated [House] have various significations; amongst the rest these, 1. For an earthly habitation properly taken; this house cannot serve the Lord, but the Inhabitants in this house must serve the Lord. 2. Pro Sepulchro. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dupert. Eheu fugaces— Labuntur anni nec pietas morum, rugis & instanti Senectae, afferet, indomitaeque morti. Hor. lib. 2. Od. 14. Dum loquimur fugerit invida aetas, carp diem, quam minimum credula postero. Idem. l. 1. Od. xi. 2. For the grave, where we must all shortly take up our Lodgings, and be carried on men's backs from our now dwelling houses to this sleeping house: We that are now alive shall be in a little time housed in the earth: while we live, we dwell in several houses; one house can contain or entertain but a few; but what a large capacious house is the Grave, that shall hold all the living: Job 30.23. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. There is no praying to, or praising of God in this house: in the houses where you now dwell, you may, you ought; but in this you are going to (and oh how quickly might you or I be in it) you will be past praying, and past hearing, and calling upon God, when death and dust have stopped your mouth's and tied your tongues. Eccles. 9.10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. Sirs, you are going, you are going every day, every hour, every moment, to this house, whether you are eating, or drinking, or sleeping; whether you pray, or not pray in your houses where now you dwell, you are going to this house where you can never pray. Therefore pray NOW or NEVER: serve God and pray unto him now where you dwell, or you must hold your peace for ever, except you cry and roar and lament your negligence and folly in a Lake of burning brimstone, because you did not pray in your houses upon earth. Psal. 6.5. For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave who shall give thee thanks? Isa. 38.18. For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 3. Pro re familiari. 3. For earthly riches, possessions and goods, Mat. 23.14. These cannot serve God, but with these men might serve and honour God, by laying them out, when, and as God commands, Prov. 3.9. 4. For our weak and frail body, in which our souls do dwell in a state of sin and imperfection, 2 Cor. 5.1. 4. Pro corpore naturali. This house must serve the Lord, though the Soul be the principal part which God requires, Rom. 12.1. 5. For the state and place and glory of the blessed. 5. Pro sede seu statu beatorum. Reliquorum sententiae spem afferunt; si te fortè hoc d lectat, posse animos, cum è co●poribus excesserint, in coelum, qu si in domicilium suum pervenire. Cicero Tusc. Quest. And blessed are they that are in this house; for sure I am, they in this house are still praising God, loving him, and delighting in him, 2 Cor. 5.1.— an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. This is called an house, (1.) Because there the Saints do dwell with God, as children in their father's house. (2.) Because there they have clear distinct knowledge of, and perfect love to God their Father. (3.) Because there they are safe from all their enemies, and from all dangers, as houses are our castles of defence. (4.) Because there all God's children shall be gathered together, and called home, and live in love for ever. (5.) Because of the excellent beauty of that state and place, as houses of Kings and Nobles are set forth with rich and costly furniture: what is that then of the King of Kings, the place of the glorious God 6. For persons belonging to the house or family. And thus it is taken either (1) Deo; adorando & venerando: adoravit, veneratus est, religio●è coluit. More generally, for a People, or whole Nation. 6. Pro domesticis. Ezek. 2.3. the children of Israel are called a rebellious nation, ver. 5. a rebellious house. Ezek. 3.1. Speak to the house of Israel: ver. 4. go, get thee to the house of Israel: ver. 7. but the house of Israel will not hearken— for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted: or (2) Homini; operando, vel opera & officiis subjectus fuit. More strictly, for a stock or tribe. So the house of Benjamin is taken for the tribe of Benjamin, 2 Sam. 3.19. Or (3) Terrae l●borande, arando, sementem praeparande, aravit, coluit, exercuit. Schind. Lexic. Pentag. Most strictly, for an household or persons living together in one proper house. The whole people of the Jews did consist of several Tribes, a tribe of several Families, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Serviit Deo, homini, terrae. a family of several households, an household of several persons. Josh. 7.14. In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord taketh, shall come according to the families thereof, and the family which the Lord shall take, shall come by households, and the household which the Lord shall take, shall come man by man. In this place I take it strictly for an household properly, at least necessarily included, of which more in the first Argument to prove the Question before us. [Will serve the Lord] The original word is used concerning God, concerning Men, concerning the Earth. The first is only to our present purpose, and signifieth the Religious worship which we owe to God, Deut. 6.13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and him shalt thou serve. Psal. 2.11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Serve the Lord with fear. Of this more also in the first Argument to the Question, which I am limited to: which is well enough grounded upon the Text; as will appear in the proof drawn from it. The Question is this; How might the duty of daily Family Prayer be best managed to the spiritual benefit of every one in the Family? For the more distinct proceeding in this Question, I shall inquire after these five things, 1. Q. How it will appear, or be proved, that it is a duty incumbent upon proper Families, jointly to pray to God? 2. Q. Whether it be the duty of proper Families, or those that live together in one house, under the government of the Master of the Family, to pray daily to God together? or what are the reasons for the daily performing of it? 3. Q. How these daily Family Prayers should be so performed and managed, that every one in the Family might be benefited thereby? 4. Q. With what Arguments Masters of Families might be urged, and they press their own hearts withal, to a conscientious, serious, and constant performance of Family Prayer? 5. Q. What are the common pleas and excuses ordinarily alleged to stop the mouth of Conscience, or to shift off the guilt from themselves in the neglect of it? and how they may be made appear to be frivolous and vain? In the first I shall speak of the duty itself: In the second, of the time and frequency of it: In the third, to the manner of it: In the fourth, to the motives to it: In the last, to the Objections against it. Question First. Q. 1 Whether it be the duty of proper Families or Households to pray to God together? Aff. Argument 1. That it is the duty of those that live together under the government of the Master of the Family to pray together, will appear and be proved from this chapter, whereof the Text is a part, by making good these four propositions: 1. That by Joshua his house is meant, or at least necessarily included, Joshua his household or proper family. 2. That serving of God (taken generally as here it is) doth comprehend and include prayer, as one way whereby Joshua and his house together would serve the Lord. 3. That Joshua made this resolution, as he was guided by the Holy Ghost. 4. That Joshua in the name of God, and by Authority received from him, doth exhort all the Families of Israel to do the same in their houses, which he doth promise and resolve for himself and his house; and this upon moral grounds and reasons, for which all Families are obliged to do the like. Proposition 1. By Joshua 's house is meant, or at least included, 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Instrumento veteri non simpliciter pro aedificio capitur, sed pro ipsa familia, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, continens pro contento. Pro quaque familia, nempe mi ore, & in una domo degente. Pisc. t. in loc. Domus patris pro domo in qua est paterfamilias. Oleaster. Mariana. his household or proper family. That this is a frequent acceptation of the original words translated [house] in the Scripture, for a proper family consult these places: Gen. 7.1. Come thou and all thy house into the Ark, Gen. 18.19. and 30.30. and 31.41. Exod. 12.3. A Lamb for an house, ver. 4. and if the household, Hebrew [house] be too little for the Lamb— ver. 21.— take ye a Lamb according to your families, and kill the Passeover; It was said an house before, now families, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to your families; both house and family here are taken strictly and properly; for the Passeover was to be eaten in every household, if there were ten persons in it (for according to some, there were never less than ten in number, nor more than twenty. * Joseph. de bell. Jud. l. 7. c. 17. Prout numerosa fuerit familia ita sibi magnam v l parvam familiam ad. junget. Vatab. in loc. Eodem modo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Instrumento novo. , at the eating of one Lamb at the Passeover) if the household were too little for the Lamb, they were to take the next neighbours in, according to the number of persons; and the blood of the Lamb was to be sticken on the two side-posts, and upon the upper door post of the houses, where they did eat it, which was for a token upon such several houses, that they should not be destroyed. Deut. 11.6. and swallowed them up and their households: In the Hebrew [their houses] 1 Sam. 1.21. and 2.36. 2 Kings 10.21. Psal. 101.2, 7. So in the New Testament, Luke 19.9. John 4.53, Acts 10.2. and 11.14. and 16.15, 31, 34. and 18.8. 1 Cor. 1.16. Phil. 4.22. 2 Tim. 1.16. and 4.19. Tit. 1.11. Heb. 11.7. 1 Tim. 3.4. ruling well his own house, i. e. Wife, Children, and Servants. By which it is manifest that frequently by house is understood the persons dwelling together in one house, constituting one particular proper family. And it must be taken in a limited sense in the Text; as distinguished from all the rest of the families of all the people of Israel; for to all the rest Joshua doth declare, That though they all should forsake the Lord, yet he and his household would serve the Lord: and if any would extend it beyond his own proper family to his kindred, yet his own house and family strictly taken, cannot with any colour of reason be excluded: for can it be imagined that Joshua should be so zealously resolute, that his tribe or kindred should worship God, and yet take no care of those that were nearest to him, in his own house or proper family? or would this be suitable to the spirit of a man so holy, wise, and zealous as Joshua was, so to do? Proposition 2. 2. Graeci Interpretos indifferenter hoc verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verterunt, modò verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, modò verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Serving of God comprehendeth and includeth under it praying unto God. This being put for the whole worship of God, prayer that is a most eminent part thereof cannot be excluded. That serving God is so comprehensive as to take in the whole worship of God, these Scriptures make manifest: Exod. 3.12. and 4.23. and 7.16. and 8.1, 20. and 9.1, 13. and 10.3, 7, 8, 11, 24.26. and 12.31. Deut. 6.13. and 10.10.20. and 13.14. and 28.47. 1 Sam. 7.3. and 12.10. Psal. 2. ● 1. Jer. 30.9. Mat. 4.10. and 6.24. Luke 1.74. and 2.37. and 4.8. Acts 7.7. and 26.7. and 27.23. Rom. 14.18. 1 Thess. 1.9. 2. Tim. 1.3. Precatio omnium fermè bonorùm operum Complexu● quidam est, & compendium; nam● in ea se exerit cordis fides, agnitio, timor amor & fidu cia in deum— omnium hominis virium quies & cessatio ab omni alia occupa●tione— Sic & Legitima dile ctis nostrae & proximi salutis per omnes ferè virtutum classes piis precibus exercetur— imò totius doctrinae theologicae in oratione praxis est. Croc. Syntag. de precat. The Septuagint translate the Text, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but I and my house will worship the Lord. So it is translated Phil. 3.3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which worship God in the Spirit. Calling upon God is such an eminent part of worship, and such a principal way of serving the Lord, that it is frequently put for the whole worship of God, according to these Scriptures: Gen. 4.26. and 12.7, 8. and 13.4. and 21.33. and 26.25. Psal. 79.6. Isa. 43.22. Jer. 10.25. Joel. 2.32. Math. 21.13. Acts 2.21. and 9.14, 21. Rom. 10.12, 13, 14. 1 Cor. 1.2. ● Tim. 2.22. Can prayer then be excluded? can any be said to be devoted to the service of God in general; that never call upon God, or pray unto him? can a particular person be accounted a servant of God, that never prayeth to t'him? or can a family as such be said to serve the Lord, that as such doth not call upon him? Are God's Servants prayerless Servants? or are not such more worthy of the name of Atheists, since they are described by not calling upon the name of the Lord, Psal. 14.4. Proposition 3. 3. Superstitio est, quà Deo cultus indebitus exhibetur. Ames. Med. Cultus ab hominibus extra Dei revelationem, pro arbitrio confictus, uno nomine appellatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, qua non honoratur Deus, neque obedientiae habet rationem, quae esse non potest, ubi mandatum non est. Wind. Theolog. lib. 2. Joshua being guided by the Spirit of God, doth thus resolve and promise, That he and his house would serve the Lord. Was this good or evil that he declareth he and his would do? was he bound to do it, or was he not? was this cultus Deo indebitus, worship not due to God? If it were due upon moral reasons, then upon the same reasons it is due from other families as well as it was from his; if not, it was but Joshua's Superstition to serve God in his house; but was he ever blamed for Superstition in this thing? Was it obedience to God that Joshua served God in his house? If it was, it must be founded upon some Law, and it must be conformity to some Rule; for what is no way commanded by God, though done, cannot be obedience to him. Besides this, add, that in his preface to his Speech, of which the Text is a part, he declares that what he said to them he had it from the Lord, ver. 2. Proposition 4. Joshua in the name of God, and by Authority from him, 4. Suo & familiae suae exemplo ad perseverantiam in vero cultu hortatur. Par in loc. Interea ut puderem ipsis ineutiat se in Dei cultu cum domo sua perseveraturum testatur. Calv. in loc. Efficacissimunt argumentum erat exemplum Imperatoris, praesertim p●udentissimi, sanctissimi, & foelic●ssimis exemplum hic proponitur gubernandae familiae nostrae. Masius in loc. exhorteth all the rest of the Families of Israel to the same duties which he promised and resolved upon before them all, that is, that they in their houses should serve the Lord. That his Exhortation was in the name of God, and by Authority from him, is evident; for he protesteth that he was to say the Lords words to them, ver. 2. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. That he exhorted them in the name of the Lord to serve God with their families is also manifest. Doth he engage that he will serve the Lord? So he exhorteth them to do also, ver. 14. Now therefore fear ye the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth.— And again, Serve ye the Lord: the matter of the duty than is the same, expressed in the same words. That this exhortation of serving the Lord reached to their families also, is apparent from the Argument that he useth to enforce it, namely, his own example in his house; else the strength and reason of it would be lost. Would you have it run thus, When I do so earnestly persuade, counsel, and command you to serve the Lord, I would not have you to understand me, as if this reached to your houses and proper families, that ye should there set up conjunct religious duties; but I and my house will serve the Lord? would not this destroy the very sense and strength of his reasoning? But if you take it on the contrary, When I persuade you and command you in the name of God, to serve him, I would have you understand that my meaning is, that both you and your houses should be engaged conjunctly to serve God, and I exhort you to no more than what I do declare before you all, that I will do in my house: And so the sense is goo● 〈◊〉 argument strong to move them to it, when he dot● 〈…〉 to the * A Lare incipe, i. e. à domesticis ac familiaribus initium sumito, rectè dicitur in magistratus & alienae vi●ae censores: quorum o●●icium est ut in primis suos suorúmque vitam corrigant. Erasm. Adag. Proverb, Begin at home; and by his own, ●●●mple influence them into the same practice: it being an effectual way to back an exhortation by ones own example, doing what we persuade others to do. Sic agitur censura & sic exempla parantur Cum judex, alios quod monet ipse facit. Ovid. Fast. lib. 6. In his resolution he doth not only show his zeal in glorifying God by doing him faithful service, though all others should forsake him— But also and chief like a prudent Governor, draweth them on to imitate him, Beneficioru●● praedictorum commemorationis scopus est, ut osten lat extrenae ingratitudinis esse pro tot tantísque heneficiis non vicissim Deum colere & s qui. Par. in loc. of whom they had justly so great an opinion for his wisdom and piety. Eng. Annot. The sum of all this affordeth this Argument for Family Prayer, Arg. 1. If Joshua, guided by the Spirit of God, and upon moral grounds and reasons, did promise and resolve that he and his house would jointly serve the Lord, which includeth prayer also; and doth upon the same moral grounds and reasons, and in the name of God, exhort and command all the Heads and the Governors in Israel, and all the people to do the same in their Houses, than the same moral grounds and reasons still continuing, it is the Duty of all Families jointly to serve the Lord, including prayer also. But all the parts of the Antecedent are true: Therefore it is the Duty of all Families jointly to serve the Lord, including prayer also. Argument 2. Quod si homines ab injuria poena, non natura arcere debet, quaenam solicitude vexaret impios, sublato supplici●rum metu? Quod si poena, si metus supplicii, non ipsa turpitudo deterres ab injuriosa facinero aque vita, nemo est injustus, ac inc●u●i potiùs hubendi sunt improbi: tum autem qui non ipso honesto movesimus, ●e●oni viri aliquâ atque fructu, callidi sumus non boni. Nam quid faciet is homo in tenebris, qui nihil timet nisi testem & judicem? quid in deserto loco, nactus quem multo auro spoliare possit imbecillum atque solum?— Si negabit se illi vitam erepturum, & aurum ablaturum, nunquam ob eam causam negabit, quòd id natura turpe judicet, sed quod meinat, ne emanet, id est, ne malum habeat. O rem dignam! in qua non modò docti, vetùm etiam agrestes crubescant. Cicero de Leg. lib. 1. The Second Topick or Head from whence Family Prayer might be proved to be our duty, shall be taken from the Law of Nature. In this I shall proceed also by laying down several Propositions, by which, as by so many steps, we might come up to the Argument that will determine it. 1. Proposition. Man being made by God a rational creature, and a voluntary Agent, is obliged to take God for his Governor and Ruler: the actual existence of a Creature doth necessarily and immediately infer his relation to a Creator, as the being of a Son doth the relation of a Father: actual creation is the fundamentum or ground of this relation: and as it is an absurdity in nature, that a Son should be a Son, having his being by his Parents under God, and should not be obliged to be thankful to them, to 〈…〉 them, love them, and obey them; so it is much more absurd, that man 〈…〉 a rational being from God, and not be obliged to take him for his Gove●●●●● by how much God is greater than our Parents, and the first cause of our being. And this man is obliged unto, antecedently to his own consent; yea, though he should never consent unto it; as a Son is bound to obey his Parents, though he should never consent thereto. Though to take God for our Ruler in order to salvation, our own consent is necessary; for God saveth no man against his will, nor without his own consent, but by his powerful Spirit maketh them willingly consent; but as our consent was not necessary (nor possible) to our own creation, so it is not necessary to our obligation and subjection unto God; yet if man doth not consent to take God for his Governor, he is a Rebel against his Maker, and though he do it not, he stands bound to do it; else obedience to God were not man's duty, nor disobedience his sin, and then man might act as he list, and do what he please, and never have any accusation from his own Conscience, nor reason to be ashamed of, nor afraid of any thing he doth, if he can by policy or power escape punishment from men, and if they should come to any harm by what they do, it would be rather for their silliness and unwariness, then for their wickedness; or if they do good, moved thereunto by their own profit, and not by obligation of obedience to God their Governor, it would be attributed to their craftiness, rather than their goodness. 2. Proposition. Man being made by God a rational creature it governed in a way suitable to the nature of such a creature, that is, by a Law, and not merely by Physical motion, nor natural necessity, or objects proposed to his sense only, Lex est ratio summa insita in natura, quae jubet ea quae fucienda sunt, prohibet contraria: seu, regula & mensura actuum agendorum, vel omittendorum: seu, neque hominum ingeniis excogitata, nec sanctum aliquod populorum, sed eternum quiddam, quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi, prohibendique sapientia. Altenst. Lex. Theolog. Si natura confirmatum jus non erit, virtutes omnes tolluntur— neque silum in homines obsequia, sed etiam in Deos ceremoniae religionésque tolluntur— jus esset latrocinari, jus adulterare, jus testamenta falsa supponere, si haec suffragiis, aut scitis multitudinis probarentur: quae si tanta est potentia siultorum sententiis atque jussis, ut eorum suff●agiis rerum natura vertatur, cur non sanciunt ut quae mala perniciosáque sunt, habeantur pro bonis & salutaribus, etc. Cicero de leg. lib. 1. as bruits and inanimate creatures are, if we consider the nature of man, we shall discern a necessity and an aptitude in him to be governed by a Law: a necessity, because in his first estate, mutable, in his fallen estate, corrupt; an aptitude, because he is rational, acting for some end, to be attained by such means as are conducible to the same, and both end and means to be discerned by reason: whereas bruits that neither know the end, sub ratione finis, nor the means, sub ratione mediorum, are not capable of moral Government. But it is suitable to the nature of man, being an understanding and voluntary agent to be ruled by a Law constituting his [debitum officii, praemii, & poenae] duty unto God, his reward, if he be obedient, his punishment, if he walk contrary to that Law prescribing his duty to him. Such a Law God hath made for the government of men; else no man could be guilty of sin, because there would be no such thing as sin, for where there is no Law there is no transgression; else there would be no such thing as virtue and vice, and no such difference of men as good and bad; else there would be no need of repentance for any man, no need of reproofs and exhortations; else there would be no rewards and punishments; to be short, there would be no Religion in the world. 3. Proposition. Though all men for some time were without the written Law of God, Est quaedam non scripta, sed nata Lex; quam non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, v●●ùm ex natura ipsa art ipuimus, h●●simus, expressimus; ad quam non d●cti, sed f●cti, non instituti, sed imbuti sumus. Cicero. Orat. pro Milo. which is full and sufficient to salvation, and many are without it still, yet all men have a law written in their hearts, showing them that good is to be embraced, and evil to be shunned, and is sufficient to leave them without excuse. Besides what is said before, the Apostle proveth this, Rom. 2.14. by a twofold argument or testimony; the first external, from the lives of many of the more sober Heathen, who did many things contained in, and commanded by the Law of God, for when the Gentiles which have not the Law, do by nature the things contained in the Law, these having not the Law, are a Law unto themselves: The second is an internal testimony, v. 15. which show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing one another. The very Heathen have been filled with fears of punishment after they have committed sin: but what need that, unless they knew they had transgressed some Law? Quae lex est ipsa ratio imperandi & prohib●ndi, qu●m qui ignorat, is est injustus, sive est illa scripta uspiam, sive nusquam. Cicero. de leg. l●●. Promulgatio Legis na●u●ae est ex hoc ipso, quod Deus eam mentibus hominum inseruit naturaliter cognoscendam. Aquin. prim. secundae Q. 90. Jus naturale est dictamen rectae rationis, indicans actui alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disc●nvenientia cum ipsa natura rationali, inesse moralem tu● pitudinem ●ut necessitatem moralem, ac consequenter ab auctore na urae Deo, talem actum aut vetari, aut praecipi. Grot. de jur. bell. p. 3. Lex natu ae est lumen & d ctamen rationis, divinitus inditum in intellectu, hominem communibus notionibus ad justi & injusti, honesti & turpis discretionem informans, ut quid faciendum sit vel fugiendum intelligat, Croc. Syntag. What Law then? Not the written Law of God; for that they had not: Therefore a Law of Nature; being for such evils for which they were not exposed to punishment by the Laws of men. It is not essential to this Law that it be either spoken or written, but it is sufficient that it be some fit signification of the Will of God to man, authoritatively instituting what shall be due to God from man, and declaring what benefit and good shall redound to him, if he do obey, and what evil of punishment shall be inflicted upon him, if he doth transgress. And yet this Will of God is signified and promulged in that God hath engraven such a Law on all men's hearts, and imprinted it in their very natures, that doth discover such a deformity in some evils, that it is to be abhorred, and such a beauty in some good, that it dictates it is to be embraced. There are certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, common notions, innate or natural principles known to all men; such light and dictates of reason by which, when they come to understanding, they may see a plain difference betwixt good and evil in some things, and conclude that one is commanded by God, and the other forbidden, and consequently that they are bound to do the one, and to avoid the other: and withal, doth dictate to them that it shall be well with them that embrace good, and punishment shall be inflicted on them that do evil, and this signification of the Will of God concerning duty, rewards, and punishments is the Law of Nature, as it is common to all men. Lex naturalis est significatio divinae voluntatis, quam Deus ipse nostris mentibus inserit. Val. Philosop. Sacr. 279. though described something otherwise by others. 4. Proposition. Quae est enim gens, aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat, sine doctrina, anticipationem quandam Decrum? cum enim non instituto aliquo, aut more aut leg● sit opi●io constituta, man● atque ad unum omnium firma consensio, intelligi necesse est, esse Deos, quoniam insitas corum val pollù Innetas' cognitiones habemus; de quo autem omnium natura consentit, id verum esse necesse est, esse igitur Deos confitendum est: quod quoniam ferè constat inter omnes, non Philosophos s lùm sed etiam Indect s. fateamur constare illud etiam, hanc nos habere, sive anticipationem ut an e dixi, sive praenotionem D●e●um. Cicero de nat. deorum. lib. 1. By this Light and Law of Nature all men might know that there is a God. The knowledge we have of God in this life is either natural or by revelation; by the Book of Nature, or by the Book of Scripture: the Book of Nature is either External, the works of God's Creation, which declare and show 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some things that might thereby be known of God, Rom. 1.19, 20. and this is acquired or objective knowledge of God; or else Internal, to which is referred those natural, common principles, the relics of the Image of God in man lying in his rubbish after the fall, and the inward testimony of Conscience, which is innate, subjective knowledge of God; not that there is any actual knowledge born with man, but by these we might at years of understanding draw as certain a conclusion that there is a God, as that we are, or that any thing is that we behold with our eyes. For when we see the Earth and Heavens, etc. Light of Nature tells us that they had some cause by which they were produced; because nothing could make itself, because it would have been before it was, which Reason tells us is impossible: therefore things made must be made by something that is and was never made. Reason tells us that if any thing be possible, there is something that is necessary; if any thing may be, something must be: that which is possible to be, must have something to bring it into actual being. Reason telleth us, that if there had been one instant, in which nothing was, nothing could have ever been; for nothing can make nothing. All these four Propositions do but make way for that which is chief to our present purpose, which is that which follows. 5. Proposition. The Light and Law of Nature doth dictate that it is man's duty to pray to God, and that not only severally, but conjunctly; and that not only in public Assemblies, but in private Families. For the clearing of this I shall lay down several Positions, including certain truths; and fetch the proof of them from the light of Nature and the testimony of Heathens themselves, and then gather up the Argument from the whole. Position 1. That the Light of Nature doth dictate that the souls of men are Immortal, Maximum verò argumentum est, naturam ipsam de Immortalitate animorum tacitam judicare, quòd omnibus curae sunt & maximae quidem, quae post mortem futura sunt. Cicero. Tusc. Quest. Nihil animis admixtum, nihil concretum, nihil copulatum, nihil duplex; quod cùm ità sit, certè nec secerni, n●c dividi, nec discerpi, nec distrahi potest, nec in●erire igitur: est enim interitus quasi discessus & secretio ac diremptus earum partium, quae ante interitum junctione aliqua teneban●ur. Cicero. Tuscul. Quest. Sed nescio quo modo inhaeret in mentibus quasi seculorum quoddam augurium fu●urorum: idèmque in maximis ingenii, altissimisque unimis & existit maximè, & apparet facillimè Cicero, Tusc, Q. lib. 1. and do not die when the body dieth. This the Heathen did gather from the great care that there is naturally in all men, at least that do improve their natural light, and hearken to the voice of sober reason, what shall become of them after death. Though all men do not seriously provide for the soul after its separation from the body, and the light of nature cannot direct us in this matter; yet such cares and fears that there be in men about their state after death, even in such as never had a Bible, is a certain evidence that they believed the Soul's immortality. Reason gathers also the immortality of the Soul from the simplicity and immateriality of its nature, that it is not compounded of material parts, as the Body is, nor hath such contrary qualities combating one with another, as the Body hath, to cause its dissolution or cessation of being; for the destruction of a thing is the tearing asunder those parts, which before such destruction were joined together, the Soul therefore that is not so compounded, hath nothing in its own nature that should cause it to cease to be, nor render it liable to be destroyed by any creature, though it might be annihilated by Divine Power. Position 2. Socrates, supremo vitae die de hoc ipso multa disseruit, & cum penè in manuj●m mortiferum illud peculum teneret, locutus est ità, ut non in mortem trudi, verùm in calu●n videretur ascendere, ita enim censebat; itaque disseruit duas esse vias, duplicésque cursus animorum è corpore excedentium: nam qui se humanis vitiis contaminassent, & se totos libidinibus, dedidissent, quibus caecati velut domesticis vitiis atque flagitiis se inquinassent— iis devium quoddam iter esse seclusum à concilio Deorum; qui autem se integ●os castósque servassent; quibúsque fuisset minima cum corporibus contagio, seséque ab his semper se vocassent, esséntque in corporibus humanis vitam imitati Deorum, his ad illos, à quibus essent profecti, reditum facilem patere. In Cicerone, Tusc. Quaest. lib. 1. The Light of Nature tells us, that the immortal Souls of men must be happy or miserable after their separation from the Body, and that there is a life of Retribution after this. Heathens have plainly taught that there are two ways that the Souls of men do go, after they are loosed from the Body, according as their lives were in this world, that such as have wallowed in sin, and given themselves to gratify their lusts, that these Souls are shut out from God, and shut up in extremity and eternity of torment. Hence Heathens mention Tityus, who being cast down to Hell, had a Vulture that came every day, and did gnaw his Liver, and in the night it was repaired and made up again, that what was torn by the Vulture one while, again did grow, that his punishment might be perpetual; and some that are punished by being put to labour in rolling huge Stones, and racked upon Wheels, and to be there in this misery for ever. Saxum ingens volvunt alii, radiisque rotarum Districti pendent: sedet, eternúmque sedebit Infoelix Thoseus— Virgil. Aeneid. 6. Some roll huge Stones, and stretched on Wheels do lie; Damned Theseus sits there to eternity. Thus they make mention of Pluto, by whom those that were most vicious, were most tormented; and of Charon's Boat, whom they imagined was Ferryman of Hell; of Radamunthus the Judge; of Tantalus thirsting in the midst of waters; of the Stygian and other Infernal Lakes, of Cerberus, a Dog with three heads, Porter in Hell: and give descriptions of the place of torments. Spelunca alta fuit, vastóque immanis hiatu Scrupea, tuta Lacu nigro, nemorúmque tenebris, Quam super haud ullae poteraut impunè volantes Tendere iter pennis: talis sese halitus atris Faucibus effundens, supera ad convexa ferebat; Vnde locum Graij dixerunt nomine Avernum. Virg. Aeneid. 6 There was a deep Cave, with a mighty Gulf With black Lakes moted, and a horrid Grove, O'er which not safely swiftest wings could move, Such were the vapours from these foul jaws came, This place the Grecians did Avernus name. And as they set forth the eternity of their hellish torments, so they did acknowledge the variety of them to be more than could be expressed. Non mihi si linguae centum sint, oráque centum, Ferrea vox, omnes scelerum comprendere formas Omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possem. Virg. Aeneid. 6. Had I an hundred mouths, as many tongues, A voice of Iron, to these add brazen Lungs, Their crimes and tortures ne'er could be displayed. Take the Testimony of another, that you may see what a common received opinion this was among the Heathen, of misery of many in Hell. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesiod. Theogon. The sense take thus. God Mighty ones in chains of darkness bound, And cast them down to Hell; which under ground (So deep and black) so far remote doth lie As th'earth is distant from the Starry sky. Yet (bear with me) once more: Another of them brings in God threatening the disobedient with Hell torments, where he useth the same word for Hell as the Apostle doth, 2 Pet. 2.4. describing Hell to be a place far remote from Heaven, a great gulf or deep pit, whose gates are of Iron, and whose pavement is of Brass, a place of utter darkness, in sense so near the former, that I shall not need any further to translate, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Homer. Iliad. 8. All these testimonies of the Heathens (and there are many more) do plainly manifest that the Light of Nature doth discover a place of punishment, where wicked men after this life shall be sorely tormented. I might bring as many of them also that by the Light of Nature did determine of a place of happiness for good men in another world, but that I would not be too tedious in this point. The use of these, and how they make to our present business in hand, will appear in the following Positions. Position 3. Nemo sibi nascitur. Non nobis solùm nati sumus, sed ortus nostri partem patria, pa●tem parents vindicant, partem amici: atque quae in terris gignuntur, ad usum hominum omnia creantur, homines autem hominum causa generantur, ut ipsi inter se alii aliis prodesse possent; In hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi, & communes utili●ates in medium afferre, mutatione officiorum, dando, accipiendo, tum artibus, tum opera, tum facultatibus devincire hominum inter homines societatem. Cicero de Offio. lib. 1. Quae est melior in hominum genere natura quam eorum, qui se natos ad homines juvandos, tutandos, conservandos arbitrantur? Cicero Tuscul. Quaest. lib. 1. As the Light of Nature tells us all this, so also it doth dictate to us that no man is born for himself, to mind only his own good, and to escape evil and punishment himself; but to our utmost power in the places and societies of which we are heads or members to endeavour the good of that Society, and every member thereof. He that will help no other, who should help him? or with what reason can he expect it? He that is so selfish, is unprofitable to any Society, and good for nothing. Man being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nature hath inclined him to a sociable life, not only for his own, but also for the good of others; which whoso doth neglect, sins against that Society. Come then you Parents and Masters of Families, see now why I alleged before what the Light of Nature doth dictate concerning the Soul's immortality, and the state of Souls in another world, even that you may do your utmost to save the precious Souls in your houses from this place of torment, and to help them to prepare for an everlasting state. The Law of Charity firmly binds you to it: If your children were fallen into a pit, would not nature tell you you are to help them out? If any of your house were falling into the fire, would not nature tell you you should prevent it if you can? or snatch them out with haste and speed? Doth nature tell you (as hath been showed) that there is a place of torment where sinful Souls must suffer, and do you see any in your houses in danger of falling into it, and will you sit still and do nothing to endeavour to prevent their everlasting misery? If they were sick, or had drunk down poison, doth not nature tell you you should use means for their recovery, to prevent their death? And doth not nature tell you that their Souls are more precious than their Bodies, and more to be regarded? It doth: Certainly it doth. Are not their Souls sick and diseased, and poisoned with the venom of sin, and doth not nature tell you there is charity to be shown to their Souls, as well as to their Bodies, and much more? Certainly these are the dictates of nature; if I suppose you have not one spark of grace, the light of reason will tell you all this. Position 4. All these things being suggested by the Light of Nature, let me add, that Reason tells you that for you to pray with them in your Family, rendeth to their good, and the neglect there if to their detriment and damage. Let reason be heard, and it will dictate to you, that conjunct Prayer with them is a likely means for the good of their souls. Will it not tell thee that to pray to God for them, and to bring them to pray with thee, may be for their benefit to escape the misery of another world, and obtain happiness in the life to come? Enter into thine own heart, and debate this with thyself, and judge impartially, as thou wouldst do if thou wast a dying man; and then tell me, if the light that is within thee doth not prompt thee to all this? Prayer is a part of natural worship, which is due to God from all, and would it not tend to the profit of their Souls to give God his due? And shouldst not thou that art a Parent or a Master, whom nature hath set over them and committed them to thy trust, and requireth thy help to the utmost power for their good, assist them herein, and see that they do it? and use thy gifts and parts and knowledge in praying with them, that they also by thy example might be induced to this duty, and by hearing thee pray in their company, may learn to pray also? Light of Nature did dictate to the heathen Mariners (Jon. 1.) that prayer to God was a means to save them in the storm; therefore the Master of the Ship, the Head of that Society, called Jonah from sleep to Prayers, and this they did not only severally, but conjunctly, v. 14. they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, We beseech thee, etc. and shall the Heathen Master of the Ship do more in that Society whereof he was chief, than a Christian Master of a Family in that Household Society whereof he is head? Moreover, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Lores, Penates, Dii domestici, qui domi coluntur. Ego Deos Penates hinc salutatum domum devortar. Ter. Phorm. Vestae vis ad arras & focos pertinet, itaque in ea dea, quae est rerum Custos intimarum, omnis & precatio & sacrificatio extrema est; nec longè absunt ab hac vi d●i penates, sive à penu ducto nomine, sive ab eo quod penitùs incident. Cic. de nat. Deor. l. 2. that the Light of Nature doth dictate that there should be conjunct worshipping of God in men's houses, the practice of the Heathen makes manifest: they had their household gods, so called, because they thought they had the rule over them and their Households, and the keeping and preserving of their Families; though indeed they could not defend themselves, nor them that did in their houses worship them, as Juno in her speech to Aeolus: Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat aequor, Ilium in Italiam portans, victósque penates. Yet these Gods they served in their houses, and sacrificed to them; in which Sacrifice their custom * Godw. Rom. Ant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Videntur fuisse dii penates, qui ad tuendam rem domesticam colerentur. De Dieu. in Gen. 31.19. was to eat up all that was left at the Offering, thinking it an heinous matter to send any of that Sacrifice abroad to their friends, or to the poor. Of this sort were the Teraphim, an Idol or Image made for men's private use in their own houses: Laban had such household Gods, Gen. 31.19, 30. Why hast thou stolen away my Gods? By this you see that the Light of Nature doth dictate household worship to be given to God, and the Heathens did it to their false Gods: And if you, called Christians, will not in your houses jointly pray unto the true God, let the Heathens stand up as witnesses against you. However take this Argument containing the sum of the five foregoing Propositions. 2. Arg. If all men are bound to take God for their Ruler, governing them by a Law written in their hearts, which doth dictate to them that there is a God, and jointly to be prayed unto in men's Families, than it is their duty so to do. (The reason of this is, because if they be bound to do it, and do it not, they sin.) But all men are bound to take God for their Ruler (as in the first Proposition is shown) governing them by a Law (as in the (second) written in their hearts (as in the third) which doth dictate to them that God is (as in the fourth) and to be jointly prayed to in their Families (as in the fifth). Therefore it is their duty so to do. For the proof of the last part of the minor Proposition, viz. That the Light of Nature doth dictate that Men or Masters of Families ought to pray conjunctly with the Members of their Families: consider this; Seeing Societies as such are totally dependent upon God and men's gifts are communicative and solemnities are operative, nature teacheth us that God ought to be solemnly acknowledged, worshipped and honoured both in families and in more solemn appointed assemblies. Mr. Baxter, Reasons of Christ, Rel. part 1. p. 74. If the Light or Law of Nature doth dictate that Masters of Families ought to use all means to prevent the damnation of the immortal Souls in that Domestic Society of which they are Heads and Governors, and to further their eternal happiness, having opportunities so to do; than it doth dictate that they ought to pray conjunctly with them. The reason of this is because Prayer is a means (made together with them) which the Light of Nature doth dictate, profitable to prevent their misery, and further their happiness (as in the fourth Position before laid down) and they have opportunities for this means. But the Light or Law of Nature doth dictate that Masters of Families ought to use all means to prevent the damnation of the immortal Souls in that Domestic Society whereof they are Heads and Governors, and to further their eternal happiness, having opportunities so to do. For if the Light of Nature doth dictate they ought to take care of their bodies that are mortal, it doth tell them they are much more to take care of their Souls which are immortal, and must for ever live in happiness or misery, (as in Position first, second, and third.) Therefore the Light or Law of Nature doth dictate that it is their duty to pray conjunctly with their Families: and if the Law of Nature doth, the Law of God doth, because the Law of Nature is God's Law. Argument 3. The third seat or head of Argument shall be taken from what God is to Families as such, in these four Propositions, God is the founder of all Families (as such:) therefore Families as such should pray unto him. 1. Familia est inter plures pirsonas quae sunt sub unius potestate, & vel naturâ, vel jure subjectae; vel societas constituta secundùm naturam, quotidiani usus gratia: Estque conjugalis, patria, & Herilis. Liebent. Col. Polit. The household Society usually is of these three Combinations, Husband and Wife, Parents and Children, Masters or Servants: though there may be a Family where all these are not, yet take it in its latitude, and all these Combinations are from God. The Institution of Husband and Wife is from God, Gen. 2.21, 22, 23, 24. and of Parents and Children, and Masters and Servants, and the authority of one over the other, and the subjection of the one to the other is instituted by God, and founded in the Law of Nature, which is God's Law. The persons singly considered have not their beings only from God; but the very being of this Society as such is also from him: and as a single person is therefore bound to devote himself to the service of God, and pray unto him, so an household Society is therefore bound jointly, as such, to do the same; because as such a Society, it is from God; utriusque est par ratio. And hath God appointed this Society only for the mutual comfort of the Members thereof, or of the whole, and not also for his own glory, Patres secundum haec temporalia bona, filiorum sortem à servorum conditione distinguerent; ad Deum autem colendum omnibus domus suae membris pari dilectione consulerent; qued naturalis ordo ita praescripsit, ut nomen patrum-familias hinc exortum sit— Qui autem veri patres-familias sunt, omnibus in f milia sua tanquam filiis ad colendum & promerendum Deum consulant. Aug. de Civit. Dei. lib. 9 cap. 16. even from the whole? and doth that household Society as such live to God's glory, that do not as such serve him, and pray unto him? Hath God given authority to the one to command and rule, and the other a a charge to obey, only in reference to worldly things, and not at all to spiritual? only in things pertaining to the world, and in nothing to things pertaining to God? Can the comfort of the Creature be God's ultimate end? no, it is his own glory. Is one by authority from God and order of Nature Pater-familiâs, the Master of the Family, so called in reference to his Servants, as well as to his Children, because of the care he should take of the Souls of Servants, and of their worshipping God with him, as well as of his Children, and should he not improve this power that God hath given him over them all for God and the welfare of all their Souls, in calling them jointly to worship God, and pray unto him? Let Reason and Religion judge. Proposition 2. God is the OWNER of our Families as such; therefore as such they should pray unto him. God being our absolute OWNER and Proprietor, not only ratione 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentiae suae, by reason of the supereminency of his Nature, sed etiam jure creationis, giving us our being, and all we have, We ourselves, and all that is Ours (We and Ours being more His than our Own) are unquestionably bound to lay out ourselves for God, wherein we might be most useful for our OWNERS interest and glory. Besides the title of Creation, God is the OWNER of our Families by right of conservation and redemption: For hath God a right to and propriety in the persons in a Family, or the particular Members of it, and not of the whole? Whose are your Families, if not God's OWN? Will you disclaim God as your OWNER? If you should; yet in some sense you are HIS still, though not by resignation and wholly devoting of yourselves to him. Whose would you have your Families to be, God's OWN, or the Devil's OWN? Hath the Devil any title to your Families, and shall your Families serve the Devil that hath no title to you, neither of Creation, Preservation or Redemption, and will you not serve God, that by all this hath a title to you, and an absolute, full propriety in you! If you will say your Families are the Devils, then serve him, but if you say they are God's, then serve him. Or will you say we are Gods, but we will serve the Devil? If you do not say so, yet if you do so, is it not as bad? Why are you not ashamed to do that, that you are ashamed to speak out, and tell the world what you do? Speak then in the fear of God; If your Families as such be God's own, is it not reasonable, that as such you should serve him, and pray unto him? for do not you expect honour and obedience from your Children, because they be your own? and work and labour and service from your own Servants, because they be your own? and whatever you are OWNERS of, would you not have it for your Use? and will you require these things from yours, because they are yours, and shall not God require service from His? and if he do, shall he not have it? especially when God's title of Propriety in you is infinitely greater than any title you have to any thing you have or call your own? Take heed lest your demands and expectations from yours, be not a condemnation of yourselves in denying that to God, which is his due from you, because you are his. Proposition 3. God is the Master and Governor of your Families; therefore as such they should serve him in praying to him. If he be your OWNER, he is your Ruler too, and doth he not give you Laws to walk by and obey, not only as you are particular persons, but as you are a combined Society? Eph. 5.25. to the end, and 6.1. to v. 10. Col. 3.19. to the end, and 4.1. Is God then the Master of your Family as such, and should not then your Family as such serve him? Do not Subjects as such owe obedience to their Governors? Mal. 1.6. A Son honoureth his Father, and a Servant his Master: if I then be a Father, where is mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is my fear? Where indeed? Not in prayerless ungodly Families. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Anton. l. 1. Sect. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Idem. Proposition 4. God is the Benefactor of your Families as such; therefore as such they should serve God, in praying to him, and praising of him. God doth not do you good and give you mercies only as individual persons, but also as a conjunct Society. Is not the continuance of the Master of the Family, not only a mercy to himself, but to the whole Family also? if he be not he is not over good. Is not the continuance of the Mother, Children, Servants, in life, health and being, a mercy to the Family? that you have an house to dwell together, and food to eat together, do not you call these Family-mercies? and do not these call aloud in your ears and to your consciences, to give praises to your bountiful Benefactor together, and to pray together for the continuance of these, and the grant of more, as you shall need them? It would be endless to declare how many ways God is a Benefactor to your Families conjunctly, and you are shameless if you do not conjunctly praise him for his bounty. Such an house is rather a sty for Swine, than a dwelling house for rational Creatures. May not God call out to such prayerless Families, as to them, Jer. 2. 31. O generation, see ye the word of the Lord: Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness? Wherefore say my people we are Lords, we will come no more unto thee: Hath God been forgetful of you? Speak, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Idem ibid. ye ungodly, prayerless Families: Hath God been forgetful of you? No? every morsel of bread you eat, tells you God doth not forget you, every time you see your Table spread, and food set on, you see God doth not forget you: Why then, saith God, Will not this Family come at ME? when you have food to put into your children's mouths that they do not cry for bread, and you constrained to say, I would my poor hungry child, I would, but I have it not. Why then, will you not come at me? live together and eat together at my cost and care and charge, and yet be whole months and never come at Me! and that your children have reason, raiment, limbs, not born blind, nor of a monstrous birth, (which things Heathens have been affected with) and a thousand ways besides have I done you good, may God say, Why then, will you live whole years together, and never together come at me? Have you found one more able, or more willing to do you good? that you never can. Why then are you so unthankful as not to come at me? After the like manner the Lord expostulates with his People to whom he had been a bountiful Benefactor, and yet they answered not his bounty, nor served him their Benefactor, for which he calls to the Heavens to be astonished, and the Earth to be horribly afraid, Jer. 2.5. Thus saith the Lord, Mercies do engage to duties. We should have him for our God for ever, and serve him that always doth us good. So the Poet. O Melibaec, Devo. nobis haec otia fecit Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus, illius aram Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus. Virg. Eclog. 1. Officia etiam saerae sentiunt, nec ullum tam immansuetum animal est, quod non cura mitiget, & in amorem sui. vertat. Leonum ora à magistris impunè tractantur. Eliphantorum feritatem usque in servile obsequium demeretur cibus; adeo etiam quae extra intellectum atque aestimationem bemeficii sunt posita, assiduitas tamen meriti pertinacis evincit. Ingratus est adversus unum beneficium? adversus alterum non erit. Duorum obliru est? tertium etiam corum quae excideru●t, memoriam reducet— Qui instat & onerat priora sequentibus, etiam ex duto & Immemori pectore gratiam extundat. N●o audebit adversus multa ocu●c● allollere, Senec. de benef. c. 3. what iniquity have your Fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me— 6. Neither said they, where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt.— Should such a people forsake such a God, and go far from him that did them so much good? yet they did: ver. 13. Be astonished at this, oh ye heavens— You see when God is a Benefactor to a People (and there is the same reason for Families) and they do not serve him, what monstrous wickedness it is! God hath kept you all safe in the night, and yet in the morning you do not say, Where is the Lord that did preserve us, come, o come, Let us give joint praises to him! God hath done you and your Families good so many years, and yet you do not say where is the Lord that hath done such great things for us, come let us acknowledge his mercy together. God hath carried you through affliction and sickness in the Family, the Plague hath been in the house, and yet you live, the Small pox and burning Favours have been in your houses, and yet you are alive, your conjugal companion hath been sick, and recovered, children nigh to death, and yet restored, and for all this you do not say, Where is the Lord that kept us from the Grave, and saved us from the Pit? that we are not rotten among the dead, and yet you do not pray to, nor pra se this your wonderful Benefactor together. Let the very walls within which these ungrateful wretches live be astonished at this! Let the very beams and pillars of their houses tremble! and let the very girders of the floors on which they tread and walk be horribly afraid! that such as dwell in such an House together, go to bed before they go to Prayer together. Let the earth be amazed, that the Families which the Lord doth nourish and maintain are rebellious and unthankful! Being worse than the very Ox that knoweth his Owner, and of less understanding than the very Ass, Isa. 1.2, 3. There is such validity in the consequence from God's being our Benefactor to our duty to him in serving of him, that Joshua builds his exhortation to the Heads and People of Israel to fear and worship God, upon this very foundation, as appeareth plainly to any that read the Chapter where the Text lieth. From what hath been said I reason in this manner. 3. Arg. If God be the Founder, Owner, Governor, and Benefactor of Families as such, than Families as such are jointly to worship God and pray unto him. (This cannot be denied.) But God is the Founder, Owner, Governor and Benefactor of Families as such. (Neither can this be denied.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Aristot. Moral.— Nunc adhibe puro Pectore verba puer, nunc te melioribus affer: Quo semel est imbuta recens● servabit odorem Testa diu— Horat. Ep. l. 12.— adeo in teneris consuescere mul●um est. Virg Geor l. 2. Therefore Families as such are jointly to worship God, and pray unto him. Argument 4. Masters of Families ought to read the Scripture to their Families, teach and instruct their Children and Servants in the matters and doctrines of Salvation: therefore they are to pray in and with their Families. No man that will not deny the Scripture can deny the unquestionable duty of reading the Scripture in our houses, Governors of Families teaching and instructing them out of the Word of God. Amongst a multitude of express Scriptures, look into these, Exod. 12.26. And it shall come to pass when your Children shall say unto you, what mean you by this service? 27. Ye shall say, it is the Sacrifice of the Lord's Passeover, who passed over the houses of the Children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses— And there is as much reason that Christian Parents should explain to their Children the Sacraments of the New Testament, to instruct them in the nature, use, and ends of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Deut. 6.6. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. 7. v. And thou shalt teach * Crebris admonitionum quasi ictibus haec mea praecepta infiges & optabis, sicut repetitis mallei ictibus f●rram aptatur. Lud. de Dieu. Et dentabis ea; i. e. inter dentes versabis, assidue lo queris, vel dentibus mandes, praemansa in os ingeres filiis tuis Malvend. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 [whet or sharpen] them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest in the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, i. e. morning and evening. Deut. 11.18, 19 Ephes. 6.4. And ye Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And God was pleased with this in Abraham; Gen. 18.19. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord. This then is undeniable, if the Word is to be believed, received as our Rule, and obedience to be yielded thereunto. And the Heathens taught a necessity of instructing youth betimes. The reason of this consequence from Family reading and instructions, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Justin. dialog. cum Tryph 173. Scriptura sacra est (1) DEI cathedra, ex qua ad nos loquitur. (2) Dei Schola, in qua nos erudit & informat. (3) Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & spiritualis rerum medicarum officina. (4) Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & armamentarium, in quo ●unit & armat nos contra omnis generis hosts. (5) Dei manus, qua nos per semitas fidei & justitiae ducit ad vitam aeternam. Gerhar. loc. come. Tom. 1. p. 141. to Family praying; is evident (we need to beg of God the illumination of his Spirit, the opening of the eyes of every one in the Family, the blessing of God upon our endeavours, without which it will be to no saving benefit) and will be more manifest, if we consider and lay together these things following. First, Whose Word it is that is to be read in the Family together: the Word of the eternal, blessed, glorious God. And doth this call for and require preceding Prayer no more than if you were to read the Book of some mortal man? The Word of God is that out of which God speaketh to us, it is that by which he doth instruct us and inform us in the highest and weightiest concernments of our Souls, it is that from which we must fetch remedies for the cure of our spiritual maladies, it is that from whence we must have weapons of defence against our spiritual enemies that do assault our Souls, and be directed in the paths of life: and is not Prayer together needful then, that God would prepare all their hearts to receive and obey what shall be read to them of the mind of God? Is all the Family so serious and so sensible of the Glory, Holiness, and Majesty of that God that speaketh to them in his Word, that Prayer is not needful that they may be so? And if it be needful, should it not first be done? And when it hath been read, and the threaten, commands, and promises of the glorious God been heard, and your sins discovered, and God's wrath against them, and duties enjoined, and precious privileges opened, and promises of a faithful God, both great and precious promises made to such as do repent, believe and turn to God with all their hearts unfeignedly; have you not all need together to fall down upon your knees, to beg and cry and call to God for pardon of those sins that by this Word you are convinced you are guilty of, and to lament them before the Lord, and that, when your duty is discovered, you might have all hearts to practise and obey, and that you might unfeignedly repent and turn to God, that so you may apply those promises to yourselves, and be partaker of those privileges? From this then there is great reason, when you read together, you should also pray together. Scriptures sacris incumbat Christianus fidelis, ibi inveniet condigna fidei spectacula— spectabit mundum in delictis suis, Piocum praemia, Impiorum supplicia, religione superatas feras & in mansuetudinem c●nversas intu●bitur & animas ab ipsa morte revocatas— & in his omnibus jam majus videbit spectaculum, diabolum illum, qui totum triumpharet mundum, sub pedibus Christi jacentem: quàm hoc decorum spectaculum fratres! quam jucundum! quam necessarium!— Cyprian. 416. Secondly, Consider what great and deep mysterious things are contained in the Word of God which you are to read together, and there will appear a necessity of praying together also. Is there not in this Word the Doctrine concerning God, how he might be known, loved, obeyed, worshipped and delighted in? concerning Christ, God-man, a mystery that the Angels wonder at, and no man fully understands, or can express and fully unfold? concerning the Offices of Christ, Prophet, Priest and King? the example and the life of Christ, the miracles of Christ, the temptations of Christ, the sufferings of Christ, his death, the victories of Christ, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Intercession of Christ, and his coming to Judgement? Is there not in the Scripture the Doctrine of the Trinity, of the misery of man by sin, and his remedy by Christ? of the Covenant of Grace, the Conditions of this Covenant, and the Seals thereof? the many precious, glorious privileges that we have by Christ, reconciliation with God, justification, sanctification and adoption; the several graces to be got, and duties to be done, and of men's everlasting state in Heaven or Hell? are these and such like contained in the Word of God that you ought to read daily in your houses, and yet do not you see the need of Prayer before and after your reading of it? Weigh them well, and you will. Thirdly, Consider how much all the Family are concerned to know and understand these things so necessary to Salvation. If they are ignorant of them, they are undone: If they know not God, how shall they love him? Invisa possunt amari, incognita nequaquam: Things unseen may be loved, but things unknown cannot. We might love an unseen God, and an unseen Christ, 1 Pet. 1.8. But not an unknown God. If they in your Family know not Christ, how shall they believe on him? and yet they must perish and be damned if they do not. They must for ever lose God, and Christ and Heaven and their Souls, if they do not repent, believe, and be converted, and yet when that Book is read, Petit se doceri divinitus, ut doctrinam rectè intelligat— ex antithesi verò monet, omnium hominum mentes esse coecas, nec intelligere doctrinam quamdiu non illuminantur à Spiritu sancto— monet igi●ur quasi velamen esse obductum oculis nostrae mentis, vel volumen legis seu doctrinae clausum & convolutum esse, ut legi & intelligi non possit, nisi spiritu detrahente velamen oculis nostris, & evolvente volumen, ut oculis nostris subjiciatur— ideóque assiduè petendum esse significat, ut hic d●ctor mittatur in corda nostra, qui ea illuminet & sapientia coelesti imbuat. Moller. in Psal. 119.18. by which they should understand the nature of true saving Grace, is not Prayer needful? especially when many have the Bible and read it, yet do not understand the things that do concern their peace. Fourthly, Consider further, The blindness of their minds, and their inability without the teachings of God's Spirit, to know and understand these things, and yet is not Prayer needful? Fifthly, Consider yet further, The backwardness of their hearts to hearken to these weighty, necessary truths of God, and their unwillingness naturally to learn, shows Prayer to be necessary that God would make them able and willing to receive them. Sixthly, Once more consider, That Prayer is a special means to obtain knowledge from God, and a blessing upon the teachings and instructions of the Master of the Family. David prayed that God would open his eyes, that he may behold wondrous things out of God's Law, Psal. 119.18. There are wondrous things in the Word of God; that fallen man should be recovered is a wondrous thing, that a holy God should be reconciled to sinful man, is a wondrous thing, that the Son of God should take upon him the nature of man, and God be manifested in the flesh, and a believer justified by the righteousness of another, these are WONDROUS things. But there is darkness upon our minds, and a vail over our eyes, and the Scripture a clasped, closed Book, that we cannot savingly understand these great wonderful things, to have our love chief upon them, and our delight in them, except the Spirit of God take away the vail, and remove our ignorance, and enlighten our minds; and this wisdom is to be sought from God by fervent Prayer. You that are Masters of Families, would you have your Children and Servants know these things, and be affected with them? Would you have impressions made upon their minds and hearts of the great concernments of their Souls? and therefore you do instruct them; but can you reach their hearts? Can you awaken their Consciences? Can you not? and yet doth it not become you to pray to God with them, that he would do it? While you are a praying jointly with them, God may be secretly disposing and powerfully preparing their hearts to receive his Word, and your instructions from it. From all this I argue thus for Family Prayer. Arg. 4. If it be the duty of Families as such to read and hear the Word of God together read, than it is the duty of Families as such to pray together: (this is shown by the six things last mentioned.) But it is the duty of Families as such to read the Word of God, and to hear it together real: (this was proved from Scripture before.) Therefore it is the duty of Families as such to pray together. Argument 5. Christian Families are or aught to be as so many domestic Churches: Magnificum elogium, quum u●i familiae nomen Ecclesiae tribuitur; & tamen sic institutas esse convenit singulas piorum familias, ut totidem sint Ecclesiolae: quod autem Erasmo congregationis nomen magis placuit, alienum est à ment Pauli— honorificè de Christiana oeconomia voluit loqui. Calv. 1 Cor. 16.19. Erasmus in Annotationibus vertendum potius dicit, congregatione, qua in re ab eo dissentio, apparet enim Apostolorum commendare Aquilae & Priscillae familiam quasi sit Ecclesiola quaedam, alioquin dixisset 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Beza.— Privatam familiam Ecclesiam vocat— Estius. Vel de Ecclesiae membris, vel de domesticis tantum ipsius Nymphae ad dominum conversis— Laudans hunc virum— quod oeconomiam suam— Christianè admodum rexerit & instituerit. Pareus. Erat igitur tota familia pia & bene & Christianè instituta, sicut solent esse Ecclesiae, quia ibi legebatur verbum Dei— & preces habebantur, & canebantur Psalmi— discamus ità regere familias ut sint verae Ecclesiae. Piscator. Adjungit etiam familiam ejus, quam honorifico nomine vocat Ecclesiam: quod ipsum quoque ad Philemonis laudem pertinet ut qui in familia educanda fidelis patris famili●, efficio fungatur, Piscator. in Phil. 2. therefore they ought to pray together. In a Church conjunct Prayers are made to God; but what kind of Church would that be in which there is never no joint praying. There are three Families in the Scripture renowned with the name of a Church, and have this honourable title put upon them by God himself; as (1) The Family of Aquila and Priscilla, Rom. 16.5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the Church in their house. So 1 Cor. 16.19. The (2) Family of Nymphas, Col. 4.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Nymphas and the Church in his house. (3) The Family of Philemon, v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and to the Church in thy house. Erasmus renders it the Congregation in their house, but this is disliked by Calvin and by Beza too. Pareus interprets these Texts either for the company of Christians that were wont to assemble in their houses to hear the Word, and to worship God; or else of their proper Families, of which these were the Heads and Governors, whose houses were called Churches, because of the religious duties there performed, as reading of the Scripture, praying unto God together, and singing of Psalms. Aquila and Priscilla by occupation were Tent-makers, Act. 18.3. yet though they laboured in this Calling, and worked with their hands, they found time for Family worship and joint religious duties, and were eminent and exemplary therein, and stand in Scripture upon record for a pattern worthy of all Christian Families imitation: Here is a plain proof. So did the godly Families in the primitive times, and they are approved by God; for what they did in their houses and Families was pleasing unto God, having this honourable name of a Church by God's holy Spirit put upon them. And they will afford us this Argument: Arg. 5. Those Families, that are or aught to be houshold-Churches, aught to serve God together therein, and pray jointly to him: (for the Worship and Prayers of a Church as such are conjunct, and from such religious duties these Families were so called.) But Christian Families are or aught to be houshold-Churches: (And they will be such Churches, or Synagogues of Satan.) Therefore Christian Families ought jointly to pray to God. Argument 6. That God is to be served and called upon conjunctly in proper Families will appear from the practice of holy men in the first Age of the world. Conjunct worship was first performed in Families, before it could be given to God from more public Assemblies: the Domestic Society being the first, and the foundation and original of all other. God's Church was first in Adam's Family, and for some time only there; therefore God was there worshipped and called upon, or else God had a Church from which he had no conjunct worship at all. That there was such Religious Worship in the first Families, I offer these two things for confirmation thereof. God appointed Adam after his Fall to offer Sacrifice to him, and declared to him the use and signification thereof, and commanded him to teach his children to do the same. Which will be manifest by these two things, 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deo tributum, significat respicere cum gratia & favore. Par. Q.d. placuit Domino Fag requievit in Abel. Oleast. Igne de coelo consumpsit, & sic grata esse probavit. Lyra. Pisc. Ainsworth. Cultus modum & mensuram homines ex se ignorant, quem à revelatione divina expectare debent, neque corde se tantopere praesumere oportet, ut modum quo Deus religiosè coli debet, ipsi sibi pro libitu & arbitrio praescribant; non enim Deus hominum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delectatur: aequum est, non quo nos volumus ipsi, sed quo ipse vult modo eum colamus & veneremur. Thes. Salmur. That Abel did Sacrifice, and thereby pleased God. Gen. 4.4. the Lord had respect unto Abel and his Offering; i. e. God accepted Abel and his Offering. It is not said what outward testimony it was, whereby God did declare this respect and acceptance of Abel's Offering, whereby Cain did perceive that Abel and his Offering was pleasing unto God, when himself and his Offering were both rejected: It is conceived that fire came down from Heaven and consumed Abel's Sacrifice, but not Cain's Offering; and by this sign God did discover his acceptance of the Sacrifices in following Ages, Leu. 9.24. 1 Kings 18.38. 1 Chron. 21.26. 2 Chron. 27.1. But if this had not been by God's own appointment, it would not have pleased him; for will-worship God is not delighted in: if it had not been commanded by God, it had not been obedience in Abel, and if it had not been obedience, it would not have been pleasing to God; for hath the Lord as great delight in Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than Sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of Rams, 1 Sam. 15.22. Abel did by faith what he did in sacrificing unto God. Heb. 11.4. 2. Fide oblata fuerunt sacrificiis ab initio, sunt autem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in religione fides & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Haec enim habet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, illa autem nititur divinae revelatione voluntatis, ut qui cultus Deo ex fide praestatur sit obedientia. Cloppenburgh. Sacrific. Scholar But faith must be bottomed upon some signification of the Will of God, and must be done by virtue of some command, if done in faith; else there is no ground nor reason to believe that what is done will be pleasing unto God. That there was religious worship in Adam's Family, 2. A non scripto ad non factum non valet consequentia. Inter primam promissionem de ventura semine mulieris & primum sacrificium, non relinquimus ullum temporis intervallum— Munit hanc sententiam nostram Apostolus docens vetus foedus absque sanguine dedicatum non fuisse, & absque sanguinis effusione non fieri remissionem, Heb. 9.18, 22. Hinc enim consequens est, vel cum promissione illa de venturo semine mulieris nullam factam esse foederis Dei cum bomine spiritualis instaurationem, qua peccato um remissionem speraret & crederet, vel non esse factum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui est sacrificiorum character. Cloppenburgh. Sacrif. Scholar and so handed down from his to others, appears in that Adam did yield obedience to the command of God given to him concerning Sacrifices and other duties belonging to it, and did educate his children in the same. Though we do not read that Adam did sacrifice and pray to God, yet it doth not follow that he did not. The great wickedness of Cain, and the martyrdom of Abel gave occasion to this first mention of their offering; but it is not likely that this was the first offering made to God; for do you think that Adam and Eve had so many Sabbaths before Cain and Abel were born and brought up, that they kept none of them? No, not one? Or that they spent their time and days in the matters of the World, in the total neglecting of God and their own Souls? If any be so uncharitable, let them consider these three things. 1. Had not Adam and Eve sad experience of the difference of being under God's favour and his frowns, of being filled with the sense of his love, and fears of his wrath? Were there ever any in the world that knew both these as our first Parents did? the one in the state of Innocency, the other after their Apostasy? When God himself came to look after these transgressors of his Law, and to arraign them at his Bar, and convince them of the evil they had done, and pronounce sentence upon them for the same, and cursed the one and the other, and the earth for their sakes, and drove them out in anger from that delightful, pleasant Paradise in which at first they were placed by God, were they not terrified now by the anger of the Lord, as they were before delighted in his love? Adamus cum totius generis humani esset pater familias & promissionem seminis victricis posteris omnibus praedicandam acceperit, illius officii nexu, & naturae & positivi praecepti juris virtute tenebatur. Officio isti cum non de fuisse, plurima sunt quae suadent. Munere enim mandato ut sedulò fungeretur, effecerunt sine dubio beneficum à Deo maximum recèns acceptum, sui generis amor & misericordia, a●que in quem sta●um per peccatum redegisset miseres posteros sensu●● tenerrimus. Tota itaque illius familia, ipso curante & regente, hoc est totum in universum humanum genus, nemine excepto, dei erat ecclesia, in qua fides observantia, & cultus religiosus viguerunt. Doct. Owen de nat. ortu, etc. Theol. lib. 2. cap. 2. 2. Then add to this and consider, Did not God after this out of his abundant grace and mercy towards them lying in this misery, preach recovering grace by and through his own Son? Gen. 3.15. q. d. Adam thou art a lost man, Yes Lord I see I am: Thou art exposed to my wrath, and to the death that I did threaten, if thou didst disobey, Yes Lord so I am: Adam and Eve, you two have undone yourselves and all the world, and plunged yourselves and them into the depth of misery, and are exposed to my wrath and justice for ever, Yes Lord so it is, so it is, woe unto us, so it is. Well, but yet out of my mere mercy and free grace I will help you out of this condition, I have a remedy for you, I have kindness for you Sinners, for you Rebels, and such that all the Angels in Heaven could not have thought of, for you poor Sinners, and that is, my own Son shall be your Surety, shall become a man and suffer in your nature, and bear the punishment of your sin, he shall die and you shall live, he shall suffer and you shall be saved, if you will yet consent to the terms of a new Covenant, after you have violated the former, and this shall come to pass at the time that I have appointed; in the mean while you shall offer such Sacrifices to me, and pray unto me for your pardon and my grace, and these Sacrifices shall be Types of this promised Saviour, and it shall be through him, but not for these that I will have mercy on you. Do you not think that these glad tidings did wonderfully affect their hearts? Do you not think that this grace and kindness in their sad condition, at the first manifesting of it, did strongly oblige them to yield obedience to what God should reveal to them to be his Will? Or do you think that neither the sense of their before desperate condition, when they saw no way of help or hope, nor the sense of this grace and mercy did stir them up to hearken to the commands that God would give them? Is it likely that they did not go together and praise God for such love as this? Do but consider what they did enjoy before they fell, and what their fears were after; and then how much must this first tidings of mercy needs affect their hearts, and engage them to obedience. 3. That our first Parents had religious Worship in their Family, appears by the religious education of their Children. Do you think that when they had undone their children, and yet God had discovered a way of salvation to them, that they did not timely tell their children of this? Had they exposed their children's souls to Hell and to damnation, and yet not tell them and teach them God's gracious deal with them, by which it might be prevented? Do you think that they did not pray with them, that themselves and theirs might be indeed partakers of this mercy? Is it likely that Adam and Eve did not acquaint their children how God did make them in a blessed condition, and how they lost it, and how God himself had been with them after they had so offended, and made known a way of salvation to them? Would not their natural affection to their children, and the sense of God's mercy, put them on to instruct them in these things, and praise God with them for his love, and pray for the certain fruits and benefits of it? Obj. This might make it probable, Vnde ha●uerunt Cain & Abel quod sacrificiis Deum honorarent? à patre suo qui eos instituit. Fag. Lyra. Ex Dei instinctu aut verbo primi parentes obtulerunt. Oleast. Constat cultum aliquem externum Majestati divinae fuisse institutum, & à patre Adamo de eo fuisse instructos Cainem & Ab●lem. Rivet. Cain obtulit non fide, sed pro consuetudine paternae institutionis. Musculus. Deus d cuit Adam cultum divinum, quo ejus benevolentiam recuperaret, quam per peccatum amiserat, ipsumque docuisse filios suos dare Deo decimas & primitias. but there is nothing in Scripture from whence you can conclude it. Ans. But there is. The express mention of Cain's and Abel's offering doth plainly prove that they were thus brought up in the worship of God: Cain though he had no grace, yet did make a profession of Religion. And that they were instructed in the things before expressed is the Judgement of learned men, who conclude that Adam received instructions from God, and Cain and Abel from their Father Adam. And Abel's Sacrifice being accepted, doth fully prove that he did understand the fall and recovering grace by Messiah then to come; for was God pleased with the Sacrifice itself and for itself, that Abel did bring? There never was any thing in them to reconcile God to Sinners, but they were types and shadows of good things to come, and they pointed unto Christ: Abel then must understand this. Besides, Abel did offer by faith; in whom? in Christ to come; then he was instructed in the Doctrine of Redemption by Christ, and this doth suppose a lost estate. Moreover it is said Heb. 11.4. That by this faith Abel obtained a testimony that he was righteous: What? By the Works he did? By the Sacrifice itself that he offered? Is any Sinner justified from the condemning sentence of the Law by Works of his own? No, but Abel was justified by faith in Christ, signified by the Sacrifice which he did offer; for without a Mediator there is no peace with God, no pardon from God, no justification before God, no acceptance with him for any sinful man. There were then religious duties in Adam's Family and that by God's command and appointment. Obj. But this was offering of Sacrifice; what is this to Prayer, or to us, when the way of Sacrificing is abolished? Ans. 1. Do you think they did Sacrifice and not pray when they did so? Poné●que manum, etc. quo protestebatur se dignum qui pro peccato, jugularetur. Oleast. in loc. Quae lex instituit oblationem sacrificiorum, eadem praecipit quoque orationes Deo fieri, quia absque orationibus illa peragi nequeunt. Hoornbeck. Socin. confu. tom. 2. p 431. The offerer laid his two hands between the horns of the Sacrifice, and confessed his sin over a sin-Offering— in this wise, I have sinned, I have done Perversely I have rebelled, and done thus and thus; but I return by repentance before thee, and let this be my expiation. Lightfoot. Temp. Service, c. 8. Did they not confess their sin when Sacrifice was offered? and acknowledge that they deserved to die for their sins, and this was signified by a man's laying his hand upon the head of the burnt-Offering, Leu. 1.4. Prayer then usually accompanying Sacrificing, Heb. 10.3. the one doth infer the other. Luke 1.10. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. If such Sacrifices are ended, yet there are Sacrifices for Christians to offer up to God; your selves, your hearts, your prayers and praises, Rom. 12.1. Heb. 13.15. And there are the same moral grounds and reasons why you should serve God in your Families, in the way prescribed by God since the coming of Christ, as there was why they should serve God in their Families, in the way of Worship appointed by God before the coming of Christ. Ans. 2. And this was not practised only in Adam's Family, but by godly Families after too. So Enoch walked with God, Gen. 5.24. and Noah, Gen. 6.9. which implies their universal sincere obedience, at home as well as abroad; and that this implies their worshipping God in their Families, I think for this reason, because if a man be never so great a Professor abroad, if he totally and constantly neglect God's worship at home, nay if it be not constantly done (except in some cases that might fall out) he shall not be accounted to be one that walketh with God. I judge that man cannot be said to walk with God, that in his house with his Family doth not Kneel before him. Besides Abraham's duty was comprehended in this phrase, Walk before me, Gen. 15.1. but Abraham in his walk took his Household along with him. Gen. 18.19. He will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord: the way in which his household should walk; and by the way of the Lord, is often understood the worship of God. One place more I would have considered for conjunct Prayer of a domestic combination, which is concerning Isaac, Gen. 25.21. We read it, And Isaac entreated the Lord for his Wife. Heb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two words especially make for our purpose: Ea praesente & unà cum illa. Junius. Simul cum uxore, cum qua communicabat preces. Fagi. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 orare quidem significat, sed non simpliciter, quia assiduitatem & importunitatem simul connotat, & precum multiplicationem— Res convenit, non enim dubium est, tam longo tempore, Isaacum saepi●●s interpellasse Deum, fretum spe promissionum. Rivet. in loc. That which is translated [for his Wife] might be read with his Wife, in the presence of his Wife, being with him and joining with him in this duty, He prayed for and before his Wife; it was then conjunct Prayer, Isaac praying with his Wife. The other word translated [entreated] signifieth to multiply powerful words in Prayer, to pour out words in abundance, and denoteth, (1.) The multiplying of his Prayers; it was not only once, but frequently that he prayed with his Wife. (2.) The earnestness of his Prayer. (3.) The continuance and their perseverance therein, till they had the mercy prayed for; as follows, and the Lord was entreated of him. Isaac had been married near twenty years with Rebekah, and so long without a child; so that it seems they had been exercised in this duty for many years upon this account, that Rebekah had no child for so long time, for which they did unanimously and constantly offer up prayers to God: and if they prayed together for issue, should not you for the favour of God, pardon of sin, interest in Christ, and eternal life? By all you see, that there was Family conjunct worship and praying to God by God's command and appointment, and approved by God's acceptance of it. Now let any one show where God hath taken off this obligation; if God hath any where said, though I did appoint Adam to worship me in his Family, and did accept of Abel 's offering, that did as I commanded, and did hear Isaac- praying together with his wife, yet now I will be prayed to in Families no more, show it if you can, What book, chapter and verse is it? Obj. Will you say that the reason of their worshipping God in their Families at first was, because there was no other to worship him with: but when men did multiply, and there were public Assemblies, men were not bound to do it? Ans. 1 Show that. Which is the Text that tells you that God's instituting of Public Worship hath disobliged men from praying to God in their Families? Ans. 2 When men were multiplied, Godly men did serve God in their Families: Abraham did, and Isaac did, and Job did, and Joshua did, and Cornelius did. Did they do it, and were they not bound to do it? What will you make of all the Worship and Prayers which these did give and offer up to God in their Houses? If there was no obligation upon them, they had not sinned if they had omitted it, and it was no obedience, when they did so. Will you say either of these? What! Were they Works of Supererogation? No surely. But when Aaron 's Priesthood was instituted, Object. than the obligation on Families ceased, and after that the Israelites did not pray in their Houses. Why will you speak without Book? Show me this either. Answ. I have proved an obligation by God's institution; show me where it is nulled and made void, even after the Aaronical Priesthood was instituted. But I say they did pray in their houses after this; for after the institution of Aaron's Priesthood, the Israelites celebrated the Passeover in their own Houses, and that was not done without Prayer. For though after the Priesthood was settled, the Priests killed the Lamb, yet after the Lamb was killed, the Master of the house caused it to be brought back to his own house, and did eat it with his Family, Luke 22.7, 8.9, 10. And the Cup that was used at the Passeover (whether it were Sacramental or no is controverted) was blessed by the Master of the Family; Weemes. so that there was Prayer and Praise attending this celebration in their Houses conjunctly after the Priesthood was settled: in which service they had also the explication of it, why they kept it, what was the meaning of the bitter herbs, and why eaten with unleavened bread, done in form of Catechising: Godw. Jew. Antiq. and in their Feasts the Master of the House prayed before and after; after he gave thanks (1) For their present food. (2) For their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. (3) For the Covenant of Circumcision. (4) For the Law given by the ministry of Moses: then he prayed that God would have mercy (1) On his People Israel. (2) On his own City Jerusalem. (3) On Zion the Tabernacle of his Glory. (4) On the Kingdom of the House of David his anointed. (5) That he would send Elias the Prophet. (6) That he would make them worthy of the days of the Messiah, and of the life of the World to come. Do you not call this conjunct Prayer and Praise, thus done by the Master of the Family? May we not now with confidence of the truth from all, under this last Topick or Head of Argument, frame this manner of reasoning? Arg. 6. If serving of God and praying conjunctly to him in proper Families, was commanded and appointed by God, and never yet revoked; then it is the duty of proper Families so to do. But serving of God and praying to him conjunctly in proper Families was commanded and appointed by God, and never yet revoked. Therefore it is the duty of proper Families so to do. Pareus Deorum cultor & infrequem, Insanientis dum sapientiae Consultus erro, nunc retrorsum vela dare, atque iterare cursus cogor relictos. Horat. lib. 1. Od. 34. So much for the first Question. Question Second. Whether it be the duty of Families jointly to pray to God daily? Aff. Some that are convinced that Family Prayer is a duty, will sometimes practise it, and yet but seldom; some upon the Lord's Day, and yet but once then, in the Evening, and that serves for all the week, till the evening of the Lord's day next doth come: Others pray once a day through the week, but omit it in the morning, when yet the very same reasons which should move them to do it at all should be cogent for more frequent performance of it, and are so. Though it be not determined expressly in the Scripture that Christian Families should pray together morning and evening every day, yet in the general it is required that we should continue in Prayer, Col. 4.2. which seems to be meant of Family Prayer: For the Apostle had been speaking to Family relations, Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children, Masters and Servants, and treating of Family relative duties, carrying on his speech still to the same persons, saith, continue in Prayer; but such as make such great gaps, as from one Lord's day to another, cannot be said to continue therein. Praceptum est generale, ut serviamus Deo cunctis vi●e nostr●e diebus. Luk. 1.75. Ille igitur cultus, qui commodè possit quotidie frequenta●i, non debet ullo die omitti. Sed oratio [etiam cum domesii. is] est talis: Ergò. Ames. Cas. Conscience. We have general precepts to serve God all the days of our lives, Luke 1.75. So that that worship for which we have opportunity every day, should no day be omitted; but Families have, or may have such opportunities every day, if they be well ordered, and wisely governed as they ought to be: particulars are commanded under generals; God hath commanded us to preserve our own lives and the lives of others, and therein is included food and physic, etc. yet God hath not expressly commanded, that we shall eat once or twice or thrice a day, nor how often we shall take physic, yet we do these as often as we find we need them. Know yourselves, feel your own spiritual wants, and do so as to Prayer, and we need to say no more upon this subject. But because we are not so sensible of the wants of our Souls, as of our Bodies, and are not so easily brought with frequency to our knees in our Families together, as to sit down at our Tables together, Quoad dispesitionem & preparationem cordis ad orandum, debemus perpetuò illam retinere: quoad actum orationis, debemus occasionem omnem capere & captare illius exercendi. Similis phraesis 2 Sam. 9.13. Mephibosheth semper comedebat in mensa regis. Ames Cas. Cons. Cum fenestras suas aperiret versus Jerusalem, hoc symbolo & sibi & domesticis suis ostendere voluit, se perseverare in sp. & fiducia promissae redemptionis. Calv. in loc. something must be said to show the reasonableness, usefulness, and necessity of daily praying to God in our Houses. We are commanded 1 Thess. 5.17. to pray without ceasing. Eph. 6.18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance. We should always be habitually disposed to pray, and should actually be engaged in it, as we have occasion and opportunity, and watch for such praying seasons. Phil. 4.6. Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God: but can such be said to answer these commands, that do not pray at all? Is praying always, and not at all, all one? or is continually and seldom all one and the same? or doth praying without ceasing, and ceasing to pray all the week long, import and signify the same thing? nothing less. Frequency then is expressly commanded. Set before you the example of Daniel: Dan. 6.10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his House, and his windows being open in his Chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Where may be observed, (1) The place, He prayed in his own house, and why not with his household? for if it had been in secret alone, Daniel might have found out in so large an house, as such a great man as he was had, some retired Closet, where the Nobles that waited to accuse him, might not have known that he did pray. Mane orandum est— recedente item sole, ac die cessante, necessariò rursus orandum est. Cyprian. in Orat. Dominic. (2.) The circumstance of time, three times a day; in the morning before he went to his employments, at noon, when he came home to eat meat, and at night, before he went to sleep. These three times a day David observed for Prayer also: Psal. 55.17. Evening and morning and noon will I pray, and he shall hear my voice. (3.) The danger he was in, if he prayed, of being cast into the Lion's Den, and yet he prayed thrice a day, even in hazard of his life. (4.) That this was his usual practice; for he did thus afore-time. (5.) From the event we might gather how pleasing this was to God, who did so miraculously deliver and save him by stopping of the Lion's mouths. The Jews had their daily Sacrifices morning and evening. Num. 28.3. Thou shalt say unto them, this is the Offering made by fire, which ye shall offer unto the Lord: two Lambs of the first year without spot day by day, for a continual Burnt-offering: v. 4. The one Lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other Lamb thou shalt offer at even. By this daily Sacrifice they shown their thankfulness to God, and expected from him a blessing upon themselves, upon their labours and their rest. And is there not as much reason that Christians under the Gospel should worship God morning and evening, and pray unto him? Take these reasons for it, Reason 1. Because we receive every day Family mercies from the hand of God. 1. (1) Alorationem statam quotidi: hibendam à Deo viriis beneficiis invitamur. Commoda, quibus utimur, Lucé●que qua fruimur, spiritú nque quem ducimus, ab co [Deo] nobis dari atque impertiri vidimus. Cicero. pro Ros. Ameri. Ante omnes actus seculi debemus actus habere pictatis, qui nos quiescentes & dormientes in l●ctulis custodivit: quis enim nisi Deus dormientem custodit hominem? qui ita resolutus in s●mnum, & oblitus sui vigoris humani, à se alienus efficitur, ut ne sciat quid ipse sit, ubinam demoretur, adesse sibi ipsi certè non posset. Necessarius igitur Deus adest dormientibus, quia do mientes sibi adess● non possunt; & à nectu●nis insidiis genus hominum ipse custodit; quia id temporis ad custodiendum alter nemo pervigilat: debeo ergo illi gratiam▪ quia, ut ego securus dormiam, lie pe●vigilat— Sed & cum vespera diem claudit, ipsi debemus per Psalteriam laudem dicere, & gloriam ejus modulata voce concinere. Ambros. lib. Serm. Serm. 23. He loads us daily with his benefits, Psal. 68.19. When you wake in the morning, and find your dwelling safe, not consumed with fire, not broke through by thiefs, is not this a Family mercy? When you wake and find none dead in their beds, that news is not brought you in the morning, there is one Child dead in one bed, and another in another, and there is not a lodging room in the house, but the last night one or other died in it; but on the contrary, you find all well in the morning, and refreshed by the rest and sleep of the night; are not these, and many more such mercies to the Family, that when you rise, you should call them altogether jointly to bless God for? If it had been otherwise, Master or Mistress dead, Children or Servants dead, would not the rest say, It would have been a mercy to us all if God had spared him, her, or them? if your house had been consumed by flames, and God had turned you all out of doors before morning, would you not have said, It would have been a mercy if God had safely preserved us and our dwellings? and caused us to rest and sleep and rise in safety? Why Sirs, will you not acknowledge mercies to be mercies, till God hath taken them away from you? and if you do, should you not give the praise daily unto God? Was it not God himself that watched over you, while you did sleep, and could not, did not, watch yourselves? When you all did sleep, you knew not where you were, nor what dangers you were exposed unto, nor how you might prevent them, but God then was good unto you; and should you not conjunctly acknowledge this when you do wake and rise and see that God hath kept you, and do enjoy the comfort and the benefit of his watchful Providence over you? Psal. 127.1.— Except the Lord keep, the City, the Watchman waketh but in vain. 2.— for so he giveth his beloved sleep. And as you have had many Family mercies in the night to bless God for in the morning; so you have many Family mercies in the day, to give thanks to God for at night before you go to bed. If you see not cause to acknowledge God's goodness towards you, you are blind, if you do and have not hearts, you are worse. Methinks you should not quietly sleep till you have been together on your knees, lest God should say, this Family that hath not acknowledged my mercy to them this day, nor given me the glory of those benefits, of which to them I gave the comfort, shall never see the light of another day, nor have the mercies of one day more to bless me for: When sleep doth close their eyes, so shall death too: they shall live no longer, and rise no more: this night they shall go to their beds, and the day or two after shall be carried to their graves. I wonder Sirs, that you do not dream of an angry God, because thus slighted by you: I wonder that you do not dream of some sore judgement or other that might overtake you before the Sun doth rise. What if God should say unto you when you are laid down in your beds, THIS NIGHT your Souls shall be required of you, you that went to bed before you had given me the praise of the mercies that I had given unto you all the day, and before you had prayed for my protection over you in the night? and should send some sudden sickness to make you feel that he is offended with you for this neglect? might not God say, shall I keep and preserve that Family till the morning, that would not so much as ask me so to do? and if I do, will not acknowledge it to be a mercy or a kindness to them? Take heed, though God be patiented, do not provoke him. Reason 2. You should pray to God daily in your Families, because there are sins committed every day in your Families. 2. (2.) Ad candem à defectibus nostris excitamur. Do you indeed sin together, and will you not pray together, what if you should be damned all together? Doth not every member of your Family commit many sins every day? How great is the number then of all, when considered or put together? What! so many sins every day under your roof, within your walls, committed against the glorious, blessed God, and not one Prayer? one sin should be lamented with a thousand tears, but you have not one tear shed by one, and another by another, in Prayer together for a thousand sins? Is this to repent daily, when you do not confess them daily? Would you have God to pardon all the sins of your Family? say, would you or no? If you would not, God might justly let you go to your Graves and Hell too, with the guilt of sin upon your Souls. If you would, is not pardon worth ask for? Would you have it, and not beg it at the hands of God? would not all judge that man worthy of death, that being justly condemned, might yet have life for ask for, and will not? How do you, how can you quietly go to your beds, and sleep with the guilt of so many sins upon your Souls? and have not prayed to have them blotted out? What do you take to make you sleep? What is your pillow made of, that your heads can rest upon it, under the weight and load of so much guilt? Is indeed your bed so soft, or your heart so hard, that you can rest and sleep, when to all the sins of commission in the day, you add this sin of omission in the evening? Lay to heart your daily Family sins, and you will feel a reason why you should pray to God in your Families daily. Reason 3. 3. You should pray in your Families daily unto God, (3.) Ad eandem plerisque tum cerporaelium, tum spiritualium bonorum indigentiis premimur. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Indiget vir viro, sed omnes Deo, etiam Hercules. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Homer. Od. lib. 8. Omne bonum Dei donum. because you have many daily Family wants, which none can supply but God. God wants not your Prayers, but you and yours want God's mercies, and if you will have them, should you not pray for them? Can you supply your Families wants? If they want health, can you give it them? If they want bread can you give it them, except God first give it unto you? Why then did Christ direct us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread? If they want grace, can you work it in them? or do you not care though they die without it? Is not God the giver of every good gift? Jam. 1.17. Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights— Mercies are above, and good things are from above, and prayer is a means appointed by God to fetch them down. Jam. 1.5. If any man want wisdom, let him ask it of God. Do you think you do not want wisdom to discharge your duties to God and man? that you do not want wisdom to manage your family for their temporal, spiritual, and eternal good? If you think so, you are fools, and if you think you want it not, by those very thoughts you may discern your want of it. If you think you have enough, it is plain that you have none, and should you not ask it of God if you would have it? If you and yours want health in your Family, should you not ask it of God? Can you live without dependence upon God, or can you say you have no need of God's help to supply your wants? then you speak contradictions; for to be under wants, and not to be dependent beings is a contradiction; to think you do not live in dependence upon God, is to think you are not men, nor creatures: and if you do depend on him, and want his help to supply your wants, your own indigency should bring you upon your knees, to pray to him, as the Heathen Poet's Verse (which Melancthon said was the best Verse in all Homer) doth express. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hom. Od. l. 3. All men need God, therefore should Prayers use. Reason 4. 4. You should pray in your Families DAILY, because of your Families daily employments and labours. (4) Ad candem q o ●dianis operibus promovendis permovemur. Every one that puts his hand to work, his head to contrive, should set his heart to pray: for will not your trading be in vain, and your labouring and working, your carking and projecting for the world, be to no purpose without the blessing of God? Will you be convinced if God himself doth tell you? Then read Psal. 127.1. Except the Lord build the house, Panis multis laboribus, cu●ísque conquisitus. Geierus. Panis plenus aerumnarum, & maximis molestiis par●u. Vatablus. Nec ita fidendum industriae, ut divinam opem negligamus; nec ita rursum pendendum ab illa, ut nostrum praetermittam●● officium. Erasmus. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hierocles in aureo comment. in aurea Pythagor. carmina, p. 233. etc. they labour in vain that build it— v. 2. It is in vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows— Bread of sorrows! What bread is that? Bread gotten with much care and labour and toil, is bread of sorrows. Without God you labour to get bread for yourselves and Families in vain; you might miss of it after all your labours: and without God's blessing, if you eat it when you have got it with much toil and care, you eat it in vain; for without him it cannot nourish your Bodies: And yet is it not necessary to pray to God to prosper and succeed you in your Callings? Prayer and labour should both promote what you aim at: To pray and not to do the works of your Callings would be to expect supplies While you are negligent; to labour and trade and not to pray, would be to hope for increase and provision without God. Religion, that puts you upon holy duties, doth not teach you to neglect your Callings, nor yet to trust to your own endeavours without praying unto God; but both are to keep their place and have a share of your time. Prayer is a middle thing betwixt God's giving and our getting. How can you receive if God do not give? And why do you expect that God will give, if you do not ask? Jam. 4. Ye have not because ye ask not. What ye work for, pray f●r, and what ye pray for, work and labour for; and this is the true conjunction of labour and prayer. Or will you be like to them the Apostle speaks to, Jam. 4.13. Go to now ye that say, to day or to morrow we will go into such a City, and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain: You will; but will you not ask leave from God whether you shall or no? You will go: What! though God cast you upon a bed of sickness, or into your graves? do if you can. You will continue there a year: What! if death drag you out as soon as you come there? if death fetch your bodies to the dust and grave, and Devils fetch your souls to Hell, after this will you continue in such a City for a year? If one part of you be in the grave, and the other part in Hell, what is left of you to continue in the City? You will buy and sell, will you? What if God give you neither money nor credit? With whom I wonder? And you will get gain, you are resolved upon it, you will thrive and prosper and grow rich. What if God curse your endeavours and say you shall not? You will all this, and you would have your Will, but your power is not equal to your Will. Here is much Will but not a word of Prayer: A Heathen will teach you a better lesson, and that is, that you should not go unto your work, nor to your Shops and Callings, till you have first prayed unto God. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Pythagoras. Nullius est foelix conatus & utilis unquam Consilium si non détque juuétque Deus. Reason 5. You should pray to God in your Families daily, (5.) Ad candem ab hostibus animarum nostrarum, diabolique insidiis urgemur. because you are all every day liable to temptations. As soon as you wake the Devil will be striving for your first thoughts, and when you are risen, he will be urgent with you to do him the first service, and attend you all the day to draw you into some heinous sin before night: and is the Devil a subtle, watchful, powerful enemy, and unwearied, and do you not all need to get together in the morning, that Satan might not prevail against any of you before night, till you come to God together again? How many temptations might you meet with in your Callings, and your company, which without God you will not be able to resist? And how might you fall and dishonour God, discredit your profession, defile your souls, disturb your peace, and wound your consciences? This Origen bewailed in his lamentation, for that day he omitted prayer he heinously sinned.— But I, O unhappy creature, skipping out of my bed at the dawning of the day, could not finish my wont devotion, neither accomplish my usual prayer— folded and wrapped myself in the snares of the Devil. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 1. Reason 6. 6. You should pray in your Families daily, (6.) Ad candem variis casibus imminentibus instigamur. because all in your Families are liable to daily hazards, casualties and afflictions; and prayer might prevent them, or obtain strength to bear them, and prepare you for them. Do you know what affliction might befall your Family in a days time, or in a night's time? either in regard of sickness, death, or outward losses in your estate? Might not you hear of one man's breaking in your debt, and gone away with so much, and another gone away with so much: and are you indeed so weaned from the World, that this shall not put you into a passion, and cause you to sin against God, or that you can bear it without murmuring and discontent, that you need not pray for a composed frame of heart, if such things befall you? Do you know if you go abroad yourself, or send a Son or Servant, that you or they may return alive again? though you go out alive, you may be brought back again dead: had you not then need to pray to God in the morning that he would keep you in your go forth and come in? and bless him together in the evening, if he do? How many evils is man exposed to, whether he be at home or abroad? Anacreon lost his life by the kernel of a Raisin going wrong down his throat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nihil firmum, nihil tutum, nec murus ahenc●●, nec arx Adam●n●ina. Fabius a Senator of Rome, in a draught of Milk swallowing a small hair, was strangled. Plin. nat. hist. Do not your daily sins cry aloud for daily punishments, and should you not in daily Prayer cry as loud that God in mercy would prevent them, or if they come upon you to sanctify them for your good, or remove them, or if they remain, to support you under them? Know indeed that you are not where safe without God's protection, night or day; If your houses were built upon foundations of stone, and the Walls were made of brass or adamant, and the doors of Iron, yet you would be no longer safe than God protects you from all dangers: Pray then. Reason 7. 7. You must pray to God in your Families daily, (7) Ad candem Ethnicorum exemplis provocamur. or the very heathen will rise up against you Christians, and condemn you. Those that never had the means of Grace, as you have had, nor a Bible to direct and teach them, as you have, nor Ministers sent to them, as you have had in abundance, do shame many that are called Christians, and go for great Professors too. When I have read the say of some Heathen, showing what they were wont to do, and consider and know the practice and negligence of many Christians in their Families, I have been ready to conclude, the heathen to be the better men. It was their manner to sacrifice to their God's morning and evening, that they might have the favour of them, and be successful in their outward estates, as you may learn from their Poets. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesiod. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l. 1. Which I render thus, With all thy might to God immortal bring Holy and pure the best Burnt-offering, That he appeased might be by Sacrifice When thou liest down, and when the Sun doth rise. In him to thee a pleased heart shall dwell, And thou shalt purchase, when shall others sell. Another, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homer. Odies. l. 3. Do not the Heathens shame many of you? they were wont to say, now we have sacrificed, let us go to bed; you say, now we have supped let us go to bed; or let us play a game or two at cards and go to bed. Are you men, or swine in the shape of men? Mr. Perkins likened such to swine that live without Prayer in their Families, which are always feeding upon the mast with greediness, but never look up to the hand that beats it down, nor to the tree from whence it falleth. Christian oecono. So much for the second Question. Question III. How Family Prayer might be so managed, that it might be for the spiritual benefit of every one in the Family? For answer to this, 1. Something must be considered in reference to the Master of the Family, that is the mouth of the rest to God: or Rules concerning this duty. 2. Something in reference to those who are to join: or Rules for them. 3. Something in reference to Governors and Governed conjunctly; or Rules common to both for the better performance of Family Prayer, that it might be for the good and benefit of all. The directions that chief concern the Master of the Family are these. Direction I. 1. Let the Master of the Family exercise his Authority in the good Government of his household. He is to be the foreman in the worship of God in the Family. Mr. Perkins writes thus, That the Master of the Family hath the proper government of the whole household, and he comes not to it by election— but by the Ordinance of God, settled even in the order of nature— and by the light of nature hath the principality and sovereignty therein; he is Pater-Familias, the father and chief head of the Family— and aught therefore to bear the chief stroke, and to be the principal agent, director and furtherer of the worship of God in his Family, and to keep order, and to exercise discipline in his house. Let him improve his Authority in commanding and causing every one in his house under his charge to be present, and to attend upon God in Family Prayer: God and Nature have made him the head of all the rest; and the head is to govern, rule, direct, and influence the whole Body. Let him also take care to purge his house from sin, and to his utmost power endeavour that none in his house live in gross sins, that there be no swearers, drunkards, and openly profane sinners under his roof. Thus Jacob purged his house, when he was with them to worship God. Family-Reformation tendeth much to the better and more profitable managing of Family Prayer, Gen. 35.1. And God said unto Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, and make there an Altar unto God. v. 2. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, put away the strange Gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your Garments. Ver. 3. And let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an Altar unto God, This Text speaks of conjunct Prayer. Allequitur quidem Petrus ma●num & uxorem, dum jubet concordes esse, ut simul Deum uno animo precentur— Haec ratio domesticas omnes turbas & jurgia debet componere, ut in singulis familiis invocetur Deus. Calvin in 1 Pet. 3.7. Rex est pater-familias (pater patriae) in suo regno, & pater-familias est rex in sua domo. — 4. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange Gods that were in their hand—. So David, Psal. 101.6. He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. v. 7. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell with in my house, and he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. Family disorders hinder Family Prayer, 1 Pet. 3.7. where the Apostle giveth directions to Family relations that their conjunct Prayers might not be hindered, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: the same word is used Matth. 3.10. and is translated, Hewn down, speaking of a tree that bringeth not forth good fruit; and in the same sense, Matth. 7.19. Luke 3.9. It signifieth also to be cut off, Rom. 11.22. Unsuitable walking in our houses strikes at the very root of Family Prayer; Family wickedness is hewing at this duty, and if not remedied, will cut them short, if it do not cut them quite down, quite cut them off. Now this Family reformation lieth much on the care of the Master of the Family, who is to rule as King in his own house. Esther 1.22. Ahasuerus made a Law, that every man should bear rule in his own house: and God hath appointed the Master of the Family to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ruler of his own house. King's are Fathers of their own Countries, and Fathers are Kings in their own houses, in respect of their rule and authority over them. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— Homer. Odies. lib. 1. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— Idem Odies. 9 Direction II. N c sibi, nec aliis utilis. Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet, quanto, qui peccat, major habetur. Juven. Sat. 8. 2. That Prayer be managed to the spiritual benefit of the Family, the Master thereof should make it his business to be accomplished with gifts and knowledge suitable to the place where God hath set him. Ignorance in a Master of a Family renders him uncapable of the discharge of the duties of his place, and is worse than in a Child or Servant. Such a Family is like a body that hath a head without eyes. It is a shame to see what little knowledge many Governors of Families have in matters of Religion, that when they should instruct and catechise their children and servants, need to be catechised themselves. The Apostle requireth this qualification in Masters of Families, that they should be knowing men; so some interpret this place, 1 Pet. 3.7. as becomes knowing men. Naturally men are endued with greater powers to understand than women are, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Viri similite● unà versentur ut scientes decet. Beza. Piscat. Quid est stultius, quam, quia diu non didiceri●, non discere? Omnis aetatis homines schola admittit. Tamdu● d●scendum est, quamdiu nescias, Sen. Epist. 76. and a Master of a Family hath had more time to get knowledge than Children and Servants have, and if he hath not attained to more, it is his shame and reproach, and renders him more contemptible in the eyes of those that are subjected to him, who have not that reverend awe of him and his authority as they would have, if authority were accompanied with knowledge; study then (you Masters) the Scripture more, and the grounds of Religion more, that you might be able to manage this duty to the greater profit of all in your Families. Direction III. 3. It is necessary also to this purpose, that the Master of the Family instruct each member of his house in the principles of Religion, that they may be able to understand the matter of the Prayers that are put up to God. For if the Governor have knowledge how to ask, and those that kneel down with him, know not the meaning of his words (though commonly used, and plain to them that have been instructed) how shall they concur in such requests or confessions, or say Amen to what they do not understand? Or what spiritual profit can they get? When you lament Original Sin, which you and they were guilty of, and defiled with, if they know not what this means, nor how they are corrupted even from their birth, how shall they in Prayer be humbled for it? If you pray that you may be justified, sanctified, or have the Image of God engraven on your hearts, that you may have Faith in Christ, repentance for sin, be converted, etc. how shall they join with you, if they have no knowledge of these things? when they are ignorant what is meant by the Image of God, by faith, repentance, conversion, etc. and what benefit can they have by such Prayers, as to their own concurrence with you, to make these things their own desire? when yet they are the things you must daily beg of God. That Prayer than might be performed to their spiritual edification, lay first the foundation, be knowing yourselves, and make them so too; and Prayer will be more advantageously done to you and them. Nisi priùs in nob●s ejusm●di● affectus exsuscitamus, quos altorum animis impressos volumus, frustrà erit quicquld conamur. Bowl. past. Evang. Direction IU. 4. That Prayer be managed to the spiritual profit of those in the Family, the Master of the Family should get his own heart in good frame, and get his own affections warmed in the duty. Do you come to Prayer with a lively heart, and quickened affections yourselves; your heat might warm them, Quod enim minister Ecclesiae est in templo, id pius pater-familias esi indomo; ille publico docendi munere fungitur, hic privatim suam instituit familiam, & ad pietatem ac ho●●statem d●mesticos suos format. Gerhard. lo. come. de Conjug. and your earnest importunity might stir them up unto the same: let them see you are in good earnest by your fervent praying, as becomes men, that are begging for such things as the life of their souls, the pardon of their sin, the favour of God, deliverance from hell, and for everlasting happiness. Whereas if you come to the duty with flat, dull and cold affections, this will make them so too. As you find it with yourselves when you are under a dull and lukewarm Preacher, you have little workings of affections; so your Family will find it under your Prayers, if they be such: for as a Minister should get lively workings in his own breast of those affections, which he would raise in the People; so should you in Family duties get those workings of love, joy and sorrow for sin, which you would desire should be in those that join, with you; for what a Minister is in the Church, that you are (proportionably) in your house. Direction V. Orationis Lex, ut non aliter quàm eos decet, qui ad Dei colloquium in grediuntur, ment animóque compositi simu●. Calv. Inst. l. 3. cap. 20. 5. When you are to set actually on the duty, prepare your Family by some short advice to carry themselves as becomes those that are going to speak to the great eternal God: at least sometimes, and the oftener the better. Do not rashly rush out of your worldly callings into the presence of the glorious God, say to them to this, or the like purpose, The God we are going to pray unto, is a holy, just, omniscient God, that looks into all our hearts, that sees and knows the frame of our spirits, that will not be mocked, and cannot be deceived: All we are sinful Creatures, that have broke his righteous Laws, and thereby have deserved hell and everlasting torments; yet this gracious God holds forth his golden Sceptre, and gives us leave to approach his presence, to beg for pardon, and for Christ, and grace, and heaven; Our wants are great and many too, and yet our mercies are great and many too, come then, O come, let us with a holy fear of God put up our joint Petitions, that God would supply our wants, especially of our souls, and make joint confessions of our sins to God with humble, broken, penitent hearts, and jointly bless him for the mercies we are all partakers of; but let us do all, as those that would please God, while we pray unto him, and not by our carelessness and sloth provoke him while we kneel before him. Thus Job prepared his household, Solennis erat apud Ethnicos mos l●vandi manus ante sacrificandum ●ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idem ac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud quosdam significet. when he with them did sacrifice to God, Job 1.5. Job sent and sanctified them, and risen up early in the morning, and offered Burnt-offerings according to the number of them all— thus did Job continually. Can Job sanctify his Children? could Job give them grace? Parents might give their Children portions, but can they give them holiness too? they might put money into their purses, but can they put goodness into their hearts? yea, they may advise and exhort them to get grace, but can they work it too? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad. l. 6. Is not this bestowed by God, the Author of all Grace? How then did Job sanctify his children? The meaning is, that Job did what he could to prepare and dispose them for the religious duties they were entering upon: So the word Sanctify is often used, Exod. 19.22. Let the Priests sanctify themselves: 2 Chron. 30.25.— and the Priests and Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves— 17.— many that were not sanctified: all is explained by Hezekiah's prayer, v. 18. The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the Sanctuary. Direction VI. 6. It will be useful to this purpose, Cui aliis in precando praecunáum, sedulò perquirat, quae apud suos obtinent peccata; quibus maximè indigent, gratiae; quibus exercentur, tentationes; quae illos cujuscu que generis premunt, gr●vamina; quae illis imminent judicia, quae in illos indies confert Deus beneficia haud aliter suis se inter orandum accomodabit qui non haec omnia in numerato habet. Bowl. past. Evan. that the Master of the Family understand the spiritual condition of every one in the Family, that he may put up requests suitable to their condition. Let him get a particular knowledge of their wants, doubts, fears, temptations, afflictions of soul, of their sins, as far as is convenient, and the mercies of God towards them: for as it is for the spiritual benefit of a people, that their Minister understand the state of his flock, that so he might study for them, and preach to them, pray for them, and with them, according as their case requires; so it will be for the benefit of a Family to have their particular cases spread before the Lord in Prayer. Direction VII. 7. Keep seasonable hours for Family Prayer, and take the fittest time when all might be most free from distraction and disturbance. In the morning put it not off too long, lest by worldly occasions it be put quite by. Be not too late at night, when the Family, after weariness by their Callings all the day, will be more fit to sleep than to pray: Late Prayers are too commonly sleepy Prayers; one asleep in one place, and another in another, and it may be the Master of the Family himself prays between sleeping and waking. Be not clubbing abroad when you should be praying at home; This is in the power of the Governor of the house to remedy, the other being to be at the hour appointed by him. Direction VIII. 8. Spend so much time in Family Prayer, that those that join might be affected; but not so much as to be wearied with the duty. Be not too short, nor yet too tedious: Not too short, for the heart is not easily tuned, nor the affections warmed, nor the mind brought into frame; our wants are many, and our sins are many, and some time must be spent to get the heart sensible of them, and of God's mercies to us: To rise up from your knees, before these can be probably done, is to come away no better than you went unto it. This overhasty brevity argues but little delight in the duty, and showeth you care not how soon you get out of God's special presence; I doubt such as thus slubber over Family Prayer with so much haste * canis è Nilo. , do it because they may be said to do it, to stop the mouths of others, and the mouth of their own Conscience, with the work done: And yet too much prolixity and length of the duty may have its inconveniencies also, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pos. and make it to some graceless persons in the Family, or to others that are good, but wearied in their daily Callings before, to be burdensome, and they more backward to it: But the most do not err on this hand, therefore to say little here will be enough, and leave it to the prudence of the Governor to consider the persons that join, and other concurring Circumstances, and to act accordingly. So much for the Directions for the Master of the Family. Secondly, The Directions for such as are to join in Family Prayer for their greater benefit. Let them be careful, Direction I. 1. Direct. That they be all present at the beginning of a duty, and continue till it be ended. In some Families there is great disorder in this respect; Servants, either by reason of the backwardness of their hearts, for want of love to, and delight in Prayer, or by not wisely forecasting their business, come when the Prayer is half over, or else go out before it is ended, or if at the beginning and end, yet to look after one thing or other, make breaches and interruptions in the Prayer, by going out and coming in once or twice or more in the Prayer-time, which, if possible, should be carefully avoided: for Family Prayer being ordinarily not very long, to lose any part of it cannot but be to the detriment and disadvantage of such persons; for when their affections begin to be warmed, by these interruptions they are cooled and damped again. You should be more willing to go to your Prayer than to your meat when hungry, by how much your Souls are better than your bodies, and serving God better than feeding of the body. If business come when we are eating at our Table, we commonly let it stay till we have done; what business shall wait upon you in that case, let it do so also in the other, that you might not lose the benefit of the Prayer. Numa Pompilius made a Law amongst the Romans, that men should not serve the Gods as they passed by, or were in haste, or did any other business; but that they should worship and pray to them, when they had time and leisure, and all other business set apart. Plutarch. Direction II. 2. Direct. When you are present at Family Prayer, give diligent attention, and mind what confessions of sins are made, what petitions are put up, and what praises are returned to God for mercies received. The Devil will be striving that you may be absent in Prayer, when you are * Cum isto milite praesens absens ut si●s. Ter. Eu. present at Prayer; absent in mind when present in body. God is not pleased with the prostrating of the body, when your hearts join not in the work. Do not so dissemble on your knees with God and man. Are you then desiring the mercies prayed for, whether pardon of sin, strength against sin, love to God, repentance for sin, an interest in Christ, and evidences thereof, when your minds and thoughts are wandering about other things? Which if they do, let Conscience call to thee to mind the * vivas igitur, vigila, HOC AGE. Hor. l. 2. Sat. 3. work thou art about; for is not this to sin against God, when you pretend to be serving of him? and to be provoking of him, when you should be praying to him to be reconciled unto you, and turn away his anger from you? Conjunct Prayer should be made with one mouth, and with one mind: Acts 1.14. They prayed together with one accord * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qui rectè orare cupit, debet necessario in se esse collectus, von distractus, aut sensibus dissipatus, aut vagus. Ames. Cas. Cons. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est vox musica, significat concentum (concentus autem à cantu eo differt, quod cantus unius sit, concentus non nisi plurium) hic vero concentum animorum significat. Camer. prael. Verbo Graeco elegans subest metaphora: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de musico vocum concentu, harmonicóque sono dicitur, tanquam si diceretur, non minùs gratam esse Deo concordem pluriu● erationem, quàm concentus musicus hominum curibus sit gratus. Novar. in loc. ex Crit. Sac. : which word is translated Rom. 15.6. one mind; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God:— but where your thoughts are wandering in Family Prayer, though there be but one mouth, there be many minds: these persons do not accord in Prayer, which is great discord before God. There should be a sympathy and agreement of hearts in conjunct Prayer: Matth. 16: 19 If two of you shall agree on Earth as touching any thing they shall ask— A harmony of hearts should be in Prayer: the word is borrowed from Musicians, when several playing together do make an accord in Music, a consent of many voices in one; thence translated to the mind, denotes a consent of more hearts in one: such Prayers make sweet harmony in the ears of God. Keep your minds fixed then, else though you do agree to go together into one Room to pray, there will not be an agreement of hearts when you pray. Direction III. 3. Direct. Those that join should not only attend, but also assent to the matter of the Prayer, so far as it is agreeable to the Word of God. When the corruption of the heart is acknowledged, believe that this is true: the misery of an unregenerate state lamented, believe it to be true: when Grace is prayed for as necessary to your salvation, and that you are undone without it, believe this as a most certain truth; for if these things be spoken by him that prayeth, and heard by you that join, and not believed, your hearts will not be humbled when sin is confessed, nor earnest after Grace when it is prayed for, and so you will lose the benefit of that Prayer. Direction IU. 4. Direct. Do not only believe these things in Prayer, but make particular application thereof unto yourselves: When original sin is acknowledged, think and say in your own hearts, Lord, this is my condition, my heart is thus corrupt, loathsome and vile. When wants are expressed, and supplies begged, go along with what is said, and apply it particularly to yourselves, Lord, this is my want; the want of Christ is my want, O that he may be given to me! the want of love to God and delight in him is my want, O that I might love thee! O that I could love thee! and so in other things, this is my sin, and these are my doubts and my fears, this is my burden, and this is my temptation, according as these are insisted on in prayer; and this will make the duty to be for your spiritual benefit and profit. These are the Directions for them that are to join with him that is your mouth to God. The Directions more common to all, that prayer might be managed to spiritual profit, are these following. Direction 1. Sciamus non alios ritè probèque se accingere ad orandum, nisi quos afficit Dei Majestas. Calv. Inst. Speculator adstat desuper, Qui n●s diebus omnibus, Actú●que nostros prospicit, A luce prima in vesperam, Hic testis, hic est arbit r, Hic intuetur quicquid est Humana quod mens concipit: Hunc nemo fallit Judicem. Aur. Prud. Cathemer. Hym. 2. For further direction in this point, how you should do all in the Name of Christ, see the Serm. on Col. 3.17. 1. Direct. Get and keep upon all your hearts awful, lively impressions of the perfection of that God that you pray unto. Take heed of coming with low, irreverent, unsuitable thoughts of God; but conceive of him, and believe, and work, and press it upon your hearts, that the God you kneel before is most holy, most wise, most gracious and merciful, most just, eternal, unchangeable, all-sufficient, true in his threaten, righteous in his commands, faithful in his promises, every where present and knowing all things, that he observeth all your words and ways, and looks into your hearts and thoughts, that this God you cannot deceive, though you should deceive yourselves and one another: Consider and believe, that this God is present among you, and doth know your ends, your desires, and what you are, as well as who you are: Then think, is this that God that we are to speak unto, to kneel before, and shall we not so manage this duty that we might please this God? and if you do, you shall find it shall be for your spiritual benefit. Direction 2. 2. Direct. Put up your prayers to this great and glorious God in the name of Jesus Christ. There is no access for sinners to God but by and through a Mediator. You shall reap no benefit by praying, except you go in the name of Christ. Joseph told his Brethren they should not see his face, except they brought Benjamin with them, Gen. 43.5. nor we the face of God without Christ, Eph. 3, 12. Heb. 7.25. Col. 3.17. Heb. 13.15. This praying in the name of Christ doth not consist in the bare mentioning of his Name with our tongues, but to pray in obedience to his command, in his strength, for his Glory, trusting his promises, resting on his merits, expecting audience and acceptance only for his sake. Direction 3. Quid odiosius aut etiam Deo magis execrandum putamus hac fictione, ubi quis veniam peccatorum postulat, interim aut se peccatorem non esse cogitans, aut certè peccatorem esse non cogitans? quia Deus ludibrio habetur— rogando semper inopiam nostram verè sentiamus, ac seriò cogitantes, omnibus, que petimus, nos indigere— Generalis quidem & confusus necessitatis suae affectus illuc eos ducit: sed non eos sollicitat, quasi in re praesenti ut egestatis suae le vamen petant. Calv. Inst. 3. Direct. Get and keep upon your hearts a true, real, lively sense of your sins and wants and mercies. Hereby shall every part of prayer, confession, petition and thanksgiving be more profitably managed, and you better disposed for the work you have to do upon your knees. Know your sin in the malignity of it, the vileness of it in its own nature, as it is sin; Know it also and understand it as to the dreadful consequents of it, in its several kinds, acts, and aggravations of them. Get also a sense of your wants, and of the necessity of the things you are to pray for. If you want grace, know that you want it, and are undone without it; and pray accordingly. Pray as persons that believe you must be damned, if you are not sanctified, that you must perish if you do not repent, and pray as men that do believe it. And if you have grace already in truth, know how much you want of it in respect of growth; that you love God but a little, which is your shame, and Oh what a blessed thing were it to love him more! Pray as those that would get at least one degree of love to God more by every prayer you make. Think seriously what a little grace you have, (1.) to what you may have, (2.) to what you might have had, (3.) to what you ought to have, (4.) to what others have, (5.) to what you need: And that (1.) to fight against such strong corruptions, (2.) to resist such strong temptations, (3.) to bear such afflictions that might befall you, (4.) to perform such duties as are required from you, (5.) that you die at last with peace, comfort and joy. Know also your mercies: personal, to body, to soul: relative, what mercy you have one in another, by being made mercies one to another: Mercies for this life, and the life to come; think how many, how great, how precious, how suitable, how durable, how sufficient, how satisfying good, God hath given you; himself, Son, Spirit, promises, privileges, much in hand, and more in hope, and all undeserved. A real abiding sense of these things will make you think and say, Why me? Lord, why me? and will wind up your hearts to lively praises (too much neglected in Family duties) so that you shall find the benefit and sweetness of drawing near to God in prayer. Direction 4. 4. Direct. Realize invisible things to yourselves, Istuc est sapere, non quod ante pedes modò est videre, sed etiam illa quae futura su●t prospicere. Ter. Adelph. Act. 3. by believing of them as certainly as if you saw them with your eyes. When you are going to pray, look into the unseen world: stand and take a view of departed souls, and seriously think what is their state, and what they are enjoying or suffering, that are already gone into eternity, and from thence fetch arguments to quicken your hearts when dull, and to be laborious when slothful, and lively and fervent in your duty. O how would a believing view of souls in Heaven and Hell help you to pray in prayer! Suppose than you saw the glorious Saints in Heaven, and the happiness they there enjoy, in that they shall sin no more, and suffer no more, and be tempted no more, and sigh and sob, nor weep nor sorrow any more for ever: all sin is expelled from those glorious souls, and all tears are wiped from their eyes, and now are full of love to God, solacing themselves in the perfect, perpetual and immediate suition of the chiefest good; and then think, this is the state that I am hoping for, and looking, longing, waiting for, and that now I am going to beg and pray I may be fitted and prepared for, and hereafter be possessed of: and then pray as becometh such that unfeignedly desire to be partakers of their joy and felicity. Again stand and take a view of poor damned Souls, and suppose you saw them with your eyes rolling in a lake of burning Brimstone, full of the fury of the Lord: Suppose you heard their direful execrations, their doleful outcries, their hideous roar, and bitter lamentations ringing in your ears, saying, Woe and alas, that ever we were born! that are come to this place of torment, to this place of torment, Oh! it is, it is a place of torment: In scipsos furenter exordescent damnati, & assiduè sibi ipsis iugubrem hanc ca●tilenam occinent: O tempus rerum omnium preci●sissimum! O dici! O horae plusquam aurcae! quò evanuistis, aeterium non redi●urae! nos coeci & excordes, obstructis oculis & auribus, libidine furebamus, & mutuis nosmet exemplis trahebamus ad enteritum— post longissima annorum spatia, nihil de poenis nostris accisum erit, sed iterum quasi ab initio pati tormenta incipiemus, a●que ilà sine interruptione, sine fine, sine m●do, volvetur assiduè nostrorum torment●rum rota— ibi erit calor ignis, & rigour frigoris: erunt ibi perpetuae t●nebrae, e●it ibi fumus & perpetuae lachrymae, erit ibi aspectus terrificus daemonum, erit clamor in perpetuum— O aeternitas interminabilis! O aeternitas nullis temporum spatiis mensurablìs!— Quam grave est in mollissimo lectu per triginta annos immobilem ●●cere? quid erit in sulphureo isto lacu triginta millia millium annorum ardere? O aeternitas, aeternitas! tu sola ultra omnem modum supplicia damnatorum exaggeras.— Mor, erit sine morte, finis erit sine fine, defectus sine defectu, quia mors semper vivit, finis semper incipit, & defectus deficere nescit. Quid gravius quam semper velle quod nunquam erit, & semper n●llo quod nunquam non erit? In aeternum damnati non assequen●ur quod volunt: & quod nolunt in aeternum pati cogentur. Gerhard. Meditat. [sparsim.] Once we had praying time and hearing time, but we did not improve it for our good, else we had not been now in this extremity of pain; no we had not, no we had not. We did pray, but we did but trifle in our prayers, and did but dally with that God, whom now we find and feel to be to us consuming fire, and yet we burn and are not consumed: we were not in good earnest in those prayers we were at, but now we suffer in good earnest, and are damned in good earnest. Oh! this place is hot, it is hot, it is exceeding hot. Will not God pity us? will not God have mercy on us? we once thought he would, but we did flatter and deceive ourselves, and thought it would be well because we lived in a praying Family, and were frequent at the duty; but we did not pray as they should do, that were to pray for the escaping of such dreadful torments; we did sleep often in our prayers, but there is no sleeping here no ease, no resting here. O that God would try us once more, once more, were it but for a month or two, and set us out, and send us to a praying life again. O that we were in time again, in time again, and in the same circumstances again, as once we were, and had the same possibility, yea probability of escaping those restless torments. But this cannot be, this must not be, this will not be; time is gone, is gone, and we must pray no more for ever. O time, how didst thou slip away! How swift was thy motion! O that this eternity would hasten as fast as time did hasten. When we had lived twenty years, our life was so much nearer expiration; but here we have been a thousand years, and yet as far from an end as the first moment we came into this dreadful place and dark and doleful dungeon: This than addeth to our misery, that here we are, and must be here for ever, here we are, woe be to us that here we are, and that without all hopes of recovery, and possibility of redemption and deliverance. Had our pain been extreme, yet if it had not been eternal, it might, have been the better born; or if it were to be eternal, if it had not been extreme, it might have been more easily endured; but to FEEL it is EXTREME, and to THINK it is ETERNAL, makes our misery unexpressible. What! O what! extreme and eternal too! extreme and eternal too! Cannot we die? cannot we dig into our own bowels, and take away our own beings? but must we live in pain and torment extreme and eternal too? O miserable Caitiffs that we are! those creatures that were Toads and Serpents feel none of this; as they are not happy, so they are not miserable; but we are not happy: no, no, there is no happiness here; misery is our portion. Oh cursed wretches! Oh foolish sinners that we were! that prayed with no life to escape eternal death. Damnation is a dreadful things we find, we feel, to our own confusion, that damnation is a dreadful thing. Thus realize the happiness and the misery of souls in the unseen world, and take a believing view of them beyond this life; and try whether you shall not find much benefit by such prayers, that after such a sight are put up unto God. Direction 5. 5. Direct. Then next consider, Quemadmodum ●ovem mensibus no● tenet maternus uterus, & praepara●, non sibi, sed illi loco, in quem videmur emuti, jam idonei Spiritum trahere & in ap●rto durare; sic per hoc spotium, quod ab infantia patet in s●n●ctutem, in alium naturae sumimur partum; alia erigo nos expectat, alius rerum status— detrahetur tibi haec circumjecta, novissimum vehimentum tui, cu●is: detrahetur care, & suffusus sanguis, discurrensque per totum: detrahentur essa, nervique sirmamenta flu●dorum & labentium: dies iste, quem tanquam extremum reformidas aeterni natalis est. Senec. Epist. p. 816, 817. Vigilandum est, nisi preperamus, relinquimur; agit nos, agitur velex dies. Inscii rapimur: omnia in futurum disponimus, & inter praecipitia lenti sumus,— fugit des, fugere currendi genus concitatissimum est— quid ergo c●ssamus nos ipsi concitare, ut velocitatem rapid ssurae rei possia ●s aequare? Idem. Epist. p. 834. that one of these two places you must shortly, very shortly be in. When you are going to prayer, look behind you, and you shall see death hastening after you, that death is at your backs; and look forward, and you shall see Heaven and Hell before you, yourselves standing upon the very brink of time, and the next step might be into eternity of joy or sorrow; where you did but now by faith see others were, there you yourselves must quickly really be, where you shall rejoice with them, or suffer and sorrow with them: Do but look a little, before you fall down upon your knees, and you might see yourselves cast down upon a bed of sickness, your friends weeping and fearing you will die, the Physicians are puzzled and at a loss, giving you over for the grave, and yourself gasping for life, and breathing out your last. Look but a little before you, and you might as it were hear your friends saying, he is dead, he is dead, he is gone, he is departed, and then (as it were) you might see them haling you out of your bed, and wrapping you in your winding sheet, and nailing you up in your Coffin, you might see your Grave a digging, and men hired to carry you on their shoulders from your house to your grave, Relations and Neighbours following after to see you lodged in the dust, to lie and rot among the dead. Then think, before all this can be done unto your body, your Soul hath taken its flight into eternity, where it is, without change and alteration for ever, to be with God or Devils. Work it on your hearts that you must quickly (and O how quickly will it be that you must!) be in Heaven or Hell, that when you die, Heaven must be won or lost for ever, and everlasting torments escaped or endured for ever. Try whether such believing thoughts as these will not stir you up to manage all your praying together (as well as apart) in that manner, that you shall find great benefit thereby. Direction 6. Id ago, ut mihi instar totius vitae sit dies, nec mehercule tanquam ultimum rapie, sed sic illum aspici● tanquam esse vel ultimus possit: hoc animo tibi hanc Epistolam scribo, tanquam cum maxime scribentem mor● ea o●atura sit. Son. Epist. p. 634, 6, 5. 6. Direct. Since this is so, consider next that you do not know, but now you are going to make your last Family Prayer together. You do not know, but God and death might seize upon some of you before the next time of prayer do come again, that God might single out the Master or Mistress of the house, this Child or that Servant, and every one think, I might be the first, that you may never pray all together again: Pray then as if you were to pray no more, and see if you shall not find real spiritual benefit by such a Prayer. A Heathen writing a Letter to his Friend did say, I writ unto you, not knowing but death might call me away, whilst the pen is in my hand; and should not Christians pray as such as do not know but death might seize upon them with their prayers in their mouths? Direction 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anton. lib. 2. §. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Vehementer & assiduè incumbere rei alicui difficili & labori●sae, donec eum ad oplatum finem perduxeris & quasi victoriam obtinueris [significat] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 igitur haec duo involvit, & vehementem quandam animi intentionem, & quasi pugnam, dum ve●satur in actu orandi, & assiduam frequentationem orationis. Davenant. in loc. 7. Direct. Be laborious and importunate in your prayers. If your thoughts do wander call them in, if your thoughts be dull stir them up. An Heathen advised to do as becomes a man, like a Roman; and should not you pray as becomes Christians to do? but that is not in a dull and sluggish manner. Labour at your prayers together, as you use to do at your worldly work together, and more too; for in this you are concerned more. Strive and wrestle with joint fervency and faith, as becomes a society to do that are all a praying for their lives, for their souls, for the pardon of their sin, for the favour and the love of God, as becometh those that are praying against everlasting flames and for eternal happiness. Pray together as persons desirous that you may live in Heaven all together, and praise God in Heaven for his love and mercy to you all together. But pray not coldly and lukewarmly together, lest you be damned and hereafter lie in scorching flames all together. You must be instant in this work: You will meet with opposition from the Devil, and the world, and your own hearts: You must then strive, and tug, and labour hard, or else your prayer will be spoiled, Col. 4.2. the word there is very significant: Be present at your work in heart as well as body, attend your work and stand to it, continue in prayer, not only with continuance of time, but of earnest importunity, till you prevail with God, and get the victory over sin and Satan. Let me therefore warn praying Families, as you love your Souls, Defunctiorè multi preces ex formula recitant, ac si pensum Deo solverent— apparet hoc officio ipsos defungi ex more, quia interim frigent animi, neque expendant, quid postulent. Galv. Inst. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ignat. ad Magnes. as you would have God incline his ear to what you say, take heed of customariness and formalities. Do not rest in the work done, in pouring our words before God. This is your great danger. It must be a fervent Prayer that pleaseth God and profits you, Jam. 5.16. Be praying Christians indeed, and do not seem only to be so, that you might all be happy indeed, and saved indeed, and not only to be thought to be so. And because we are apt to slide into such formality and lukewarmness (when we use constant Family Prayer) which eats out the very heart and life thereof, and hinders our benefit thereby, I shall propose twenty five Questions, some of which at one time, and some at another, you may put unto yourselves to make you lively in your duty. But I shall, I must but name them, because I would not willingly take up more paper than comes unto my share, as also that lying close together, you may the better have them in your eye. When thou art called to Family Prayer, put some of these Questions to thyself. WHAT AM I? A sinful Sinner, Dust, Ashes, Guilty. Oh how should Q. 1 a guilty person going to the dust pray for pardon! WHERE AM I? In whose presence do I kneel? is it not before God? Q. 2 and doth not he know whether I trifle or am serious? Where might I NOW have been? In Hell among Devils and damned Q. 3 Souls, and shall I not pray indeed with all my might, that I never may be cast into that place or company? Whither am I going? To eternity. Where shall I shortly be? In eternity; Q. 4 and shall I trifle in my way? What am I come about? What is now my business? About the highest Q. 5 matters that concern my Soul. What if this were to be my last Prayer before I die? Should I then fall Q. 6 asleep upon my knees? What if my everlasting state should be determined according to my sincerity Q. 7 or hypocrisy in this duty I am now going to? Should I dally then with God? What if God should tell me, if I trifle with his Majesty, he would strike Q. 8 me sick, or dead, or blind, or deaf and dumb, upon my knees? Should I not then watch my heart in Prayer? What if I were to speak to an earthly King? or were to see some glorious Q. 9 Angel? Should I not be filled with fear and reverence? and is not God infinitely above these? What if I were to give an account to God immediately how I pray, and Q. 10 should appear at his Bar as soon as I rise from off my knees? Should I then be formal and lukewarm? Am I come to have communion with God? to pray down my sin? to please Q. 11 God and profit my Soul? Will careless praying do it? What if those that join in Prayer with me could look into my heart, and Q. 12 see how I do discharge my duty? Should I not be ashamed of many of my thoughts, and of the deadness of my heart? and is not the eye of God ten thousand times more to awe my heart than the knowledge of a fellow Creature? Q. 13 Will dead and careless praying yield me comfort, when I review it when I come to die? Or should I not so pray now, that I might have comfort then? Q. 14 Should I cousin and deceive myself in matters of the greatest weight? Shall I crawl to Hell upon my knees? What! pray now and be damned hereafter! Awake my heart, and mind thy business. Q. 15 Will God be mocked? And is not heartless praying a mocking of God? Q. 16 Should I not do more than Hypocrites do? Or shall I not be damned if I do not? But may not an Hypocrite pray at that rate, as I have too often done? Q. 17 Doth not the same God that commands me to pray, command me also to give him my heart in Prayer? and to do it with life and fervency? Do I obey him in the one, and shall I not in the other? in the lesser, and not in the greater? and if I do not, do I not rebel upon my knees? Q. 18 If dead and dull and formal praying stops the mouth of my Conscience now, will it do so at the Bar of God? And should I not endeavour now, to have the witness of my Conscience for me then? Q. 19 Will it do me any good to have a name to live among men, if I be dead in the sight of God? and if others think and say when I am dead, my Soul is gone to Heaven, but is indeed cast down to Hell? Will it lessen my torments, that I was applauded die men, and condemned by God? Will it ease my pain to be an applauded damned man? Q. 20 Should I so pray as to make Prayer a burden to me? Liveless, heartless Prayer is a burden, when lively Prayer is delightful, and hath its sweetness in it. Q. 21 Have I not sinned indeed? hath not my heart been in my sins? are not my sins really sins? And shall I not now pray indeed? shall not my heart be in duty? and my Prayers be really Prayers? What! real sinning and counterfeit praying? and is not counterfeit praying real sinning? Awake, o my Soul, unto thy work. Q. 22 Are not my wants real wants? Do I not want grace indeed, or at least really want more of it? And should not my Prayers be as real as my wants? Q. 23 Would I have God to put me off with seeming mercy? Should I then put God off with seeming duty? Q. 24 Are not my temptations real temptations? and strong and powerful? And should not then my Prayers be so too? Q. 25 Am I not real and lively in my worldly business? am I not in good earnest in my Shop, in the Market, and at the Exchange? And should I not be so in the matters of another world? in the business of my Soul? Thus take some of these Questions, lay them warm unto your hearts, and propose them to yourselves in the fear of God, and they will heat you when you are cold, and quicken you when you are dull, if God set them home upon your hearts, that you shall manage your Family Prayers to your spiritual benefit; which was the third part of my work to direct you in. The fourth follows, Question 4. With what considerations may Masters of Families be urged to the constant performance of Family Prayer? Notwithstanding it be a certain duty to pray in your Families, yet I doubt, when death shall come to drag you out of your houses, it will find some of you guilty of neglecting of it to your dying day; but yet I hope some may be Prevailed with. What! have you neglected it? and will you all do so still? God forbidden. When you sin, you act like men; but when you go on in sin, you act like Devils * Humanum est errare, perseverare diabolicum. . I shall propound a few considerations to urge you to it; and I entreat you in the name of the great eternal God, before whom you and I must shortly stand, and be judged, to weigh them seriously, and if you find there is no reason in them, throw them by, and look for, and inquire after, better; but if there be, resolve in the fear of God to buckle to your duty. It is time † — fecimus & nos Haec juvenes, esto, desisti, nempe nec ulira Fovisti errorem; breve sit quod turpiter cud●s. Quaedam cum prima resecen ur crimina barba. Juven. Sat. 8. , it is high time to reform. Did you sin when you were young? and will you go on in riper years? What do you come to Sermons for? to hear what Ministers can say upon such a Question? to discern their parts? or to mend your own hearts and lives? Do you come to hear, that you may hear? So you may, and go to Hell when you have done; or do you come to hear, that you may practise and obey? so you must, if you are men for Heaven. I charge you therefore here before the Lord, and by Jesus Christ that shall shortly judge both you and me, that your Families be no longer prayerless Families. If I put you upon work that God doth not require from you, then tell me so when you and I shall meet and stand at God's Judgement Bar: But if it be no more than what you own to God, neglect it at your peril. Sirs, the day is coming, and it hastens, when you will, you must be serious. If thou diest within a week or two, within a day or two, or whenever thou shalt leave this world, if the next hour after thou art not of this mind * Res ipsa fidem dictis dabit. Serò sapiunt ●h●yges. , that thou shouldst have prayed in thy Family, then say I did needlessly call thee to it; but if thou shalt then see it was thy duty, thou shalt also see (when it is too late) that thou didst befool thyself, and make thyself guilty before God in thy neglecting of it. Be wise therefore, before it be too late, and mind this work while thou hast time and opportunity. To this purpose, press your backward hearts with these things following. MOTIVE I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1. Consider, The Souls that live in your Families are precious and immortal Souls. The Soul of the meanest Servant in your house is more precious than all the silks and wares in your Shop, than all the Gold in your bags, yea, than all the riches in the world, Mat. 16.26. And as they be of great worth, so they be immortal too, that must be damned or saved for ever. And are these the Souls that you do not pray with, that you thus neglect and slight? must they live for ever? and will not you call them to pray with you, that they may live happily for ever? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Phocylid. MOTIVE II. Quomodo ed nos pertinet in Ecclesia loqui vobis, s●c ad vos pertinet in d●mibus v●stris agere, ut bonam rationem reddatis de his, qui vebis sunt subditi. Aug. in Psal. 50. Cum diserta mentio fiat librorum, servorum— ex eo c●lligitur à parentibus patribus-familias— exigi, ut non ipsi solùm sabbatum sanctificent, sed etiam à filiis, servis— curae ac fides su e commissis illud sanctificari curent. Gerhar. loc. come. de decalog. Damnati seipsos, omnésque sceleris socios assiduis execrationibus devovebunt, parentem filius, matrem filia execrabitur. 2. These precious and immortal Souls in your Families are committed to your charge and care. You Masters of Families have a charge of Souls as well as Ministers. When you have a child born and continued to you, there is one immortal Soul that God entrusts you with to bring up for him and Heaven. When you take a Servant into your Family, there is another Soul committed to your care. Do you question this? Study well the meaning of the fourth Commandment, and you shall see that this is true. And is it so? And shall not the blood of those that go to Hell out of your Families, through your neglect, be required at your hands? Have you done your duty, when a Servant that hath served you seven years, and you make him free, can truly say, My Master taught me my trade, but he taught me not to serve God; he often called me up unto my work, but he never called me to Prayer? Are you not afraid that your very Children and Servants will rise up in judgement against you, and accuse you at the Bar of God? Lord, my Father, saith the Son, no nor my Master, saith the Servant, never prayed with us, and we both Children and Servants being so brought up, and having such Examples before us, did not mind thy service neither, Lord, we are jastly condemned; but yet we perish much through our Parents and Masters neglect. There stands my Father, saith the Son, and there stands my Master, saith the Servant, that never prayed with us; we do accuse them, they never did, and they cannot say they did. Will you not then wish you had never been Parents to such Children, nor Masters to such Servants? As you would avoid this, be faithful to your trust, and mindful of your duty, lest thou wish O utinam coelebs mansissem, ac prole carerem. MOTIVE III. 3. Consider, You have but a little time before you for the performance of this trust. You and your Families shall live together but a while, and if once you are parted by death, it will be too late, whether you die first, or some of them. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoc. S●es est in vivis, non est spes ulla sepulti●. 1. Suppose some of them die before you, if your Conscience be not feared, and your hearts past feeling, will you not be almost distracted, when you follow them to their Graves, to reflect and consider, here is one dead out of my house with whom I never prayed; we did dwell together, and eat together, and work together many years, but we never prayed together: Oh! what if his Soul be gone to Hell through my neglect? What if he be damned, and I be found guilty of his damnation? Prayer was a means appointed by God to have done him good, but I did not do it; who knows, if I had called him to Prayer, and I had been confessing sin, but God might have broke his heart for sin, and given him repentance, of which I saw no sign before he died? And now, Oh! what now, if there be one Soul the less in my house, and one the more in Hell? Oh! this is that which wounds my Soul, this is that for which my Conscience now doth sting me, that when I had him with me, I did not do my duty, and now he is gone, he is gone, and now it is too late: O my child, my child, whither art thou gone? whither art thou gone? O that he may live with me again, were it but for a year or two, a month or two, that we might do together our before neglected duty! If you be wise, timely prevent such uncomfortable reviews. 2. Suppose you die before them; for if they do not die and leave you, you must die and leave them: and can you die, without trembling for anguish of your heart, without terrors in your Souls, and fearful gripes in your Consciences, more bitter than the pangs of Death, to consider, you leave a wicked, prayerless Family behind you, through your own neglect? Would it not trouble you to leave them poor, Wife and Children nothing to live upon, if this hath been through your sloth? and will it not, should it not, much more trouble you to leave an ignorant Wife, Children and Servants, unacquainted with God, unaccustomed to prayer, and all through your neglect? Might you not then say, if I had left them poor, yet if I had left them good, and fearing God, and given to prayer by my example, I could now have died with joy, and left them all with comfort; but now I lie a dying, it is the wounding of my Soul to take so sad a farewell of my Family. If I do live, it shall be otherwise, if I recover, and God trust me with life, and time yet further, I will hereafter do it: but my heart is sick, my Spirits fail me, and I perceive the symptoms of death are upon me, and though I am loath to take my leave of my Wife and Children, because I have been no more careful of the good of their Souls; yet I see I must, I must bid farewell unto them. Come then, dear Wife, farewel, — Gemitúquo haec addidit alio: Non alias hinc ad lacrymas— — Fata vocant: Salve aeternum— — aeternúmque v●le— Virg. Aeneid. l. xi. farewel, I shall now be no longer thine, and thou shalt be no longer mine: but this had been no matter, if I and thou had both been his, whom we should have prayed unto together, but we did not: Woe is me poor dying man that we did not! Farewell dear Children, now farewell, adieu, adieu for ever: but oh! how shall I take my leave of you, with whom I have not done what God required? But yet I must, whether I will or no, I must now leave you. But let me give among you what I have gotten for you: Therefore to you my Wife I give so much, and to this Child so much, and to that so much. But when I think I worked for you, but never prayed with you, this doth trouble me; Oh! this doth trouble my departing Soul. However, you will have my Goods, the grave and worms shall have my body; but who, oh! who must now have my Soul? This will be a sad parting, when ever it shall come; and yet this parting hour is a coming: Pray now with them, and in that manner too, that then you may be comforted. On the contrary, if you discharge your duty faithfully and unfeignedly, whether your Family be good or bad, when you shall die, you might take comfort that you did your duty. So Mr. Bolton, that was abundant in conjunct Prayers in his Family, could comfort himself, and did say on his Deathbed to his Children, I think verily none of you dare think to meet me at the great Tribunal in an unregenerate condition. MOTIVE IU. 4. The love that you should bear unto your Families should engage you often to pray together with them. Diligatur Proles, non ut nascatur tantum, verumetiam ut renascatur: nascitur enim ad paenam, nisi renascatur ad vitam. Aug. de nupt. & conc. l. 1. cap. 17 Ipsae ferae, saevae & immanes bestiae prolem nutrire solent— at non tantùm curare debent parentes ut liberi sui vivant, sed etiam ut Deo benè vivant. Ames. Cas. Cons. Will you show your love unto your Children in providing Portions for them, that they may live in credit in this life? and will you not so much as pray with them, that they may live in glory in the life to come? Will you do much for their Bodies, and nothing for their Souls? You that are fondest Husbands and Fathers, never love Wife and Children as you ought, till you love their Souls. The Soul is the best and more noble part, and love to the Soul is the best and more noble Love: But to love the Body and neglect the Soul is but cruel brutish Love. What do you more for your young ones, than the birds and beasts do for theirs? Do you feed their bodies? do not birds and beasts do the same for theirs? Love your Wife, Children and Servants as you ought, and this will provok you to pray together with them. MOTIVE V. Oeconomia est veluti paradisus, in quo plantantur arbores, quarum fructus odour & dulcore suo imbuunt omnes vitae ordines. Alsted. Qualis est enjús. quo domus, talis est universa civitas. 5. Consider that Family Reformation is a necessary means to public Reformation, and to hand down Religion from one generation to another. Reformation gins with Persons, thence is carried on to Families, thence to Parishes, thence to Towns, and so to Cities and to Kingdoms; but when these consist of Families, how can there be a reformation of Cities and Kingdoms without a Reformation of Persons and Families? You complain of the badness of the times and age in which you live, and that no more care is taken to mend what is amiss, why do you not reform your own houses? Why do you not amend what is amiss in your own Families? If you have not power to reform a Parish, City, or Kingdom, yet you have a power to reform your own houses. If Religion die in Families, will it not die in Cities too, and in Kingdoms too? Will not you do your utmost to keep Religion alive? to recover it, when decaying? or shall it be extinguished with this Generation? God forbidden. Or do you see nothing amiss in your houses to be reform? what! no praying there, and yet nothing amiss there? Certainly there is. Let yours then have a pattern and example of Family-Prayer from you, to do the same in their houses, and their Children from them, and so let it pass from one age to another. An effectual way to keep the City clean will be for every house to sweep before their own door. MOTIVE VI. 6. If Religious Duties are not set up in your Families, Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris. Horat. Sermo. lib. 1. Satyr. 3. there will be the more sinning there, and wickedness abounding in them. How much cursing is there in many Families, where there is no praying? The field that is not dressed and manured is full of weeds and thorns. Where God is not served, the Devil is. If in your houses God hath not a Church, the Devil will have a Chapel: What hopes will the Devil have, Da mihi, quaeso, animas, caetera sume tibi. that he shall have Souls out of those Families, where there is much sinning and not praying? And if he might have their Souls, he will be content that you may have all the rest: If your houses be not nurseries for Heaven, they will be breeding places for Hell. If Souls under your roof are not prepared for Salvation, they will there be fitted for Damnation; and is this nothing to you? Awake, arise you drowsy Governors of Families to your work and duty. MOTIVE VII. 7. It would be an effectual way and means to make those in your Families more obedient and better towards you, if you would call on them to serve the Lord, and you were more in Prayer with them. You cry out of stubborn ann disobedient Children: They grieve and break my heart saith one; I have a Child that is my daily wound and sorrow, saith another; and Servants never worse, is your often complaint: Who is all this long of? do not you read your sin in your punishment. If you had taught them better their duty towards God, they would have made more Conscience of their duty towards you; if you had prayed with them, God might have bowed their hearts, as a return to your Prayers, to have walked more suitable to their relative duties. I have read of a young man going to the Gallows desired to speak with his Mother in her ear, who bitten off her ear with his teeth, crying out against her as the cause of his death; by your negligence, saith he, I am come to this woeful end: If you are alike careless of your Families, if you do not lose your ears by your own Children, yet you might lose something that is better. MOTIVE VIII. 8. If you make profession of Religion, Aliud in titulo, aliud in ptxide. Pelliculam veterem retines, & front politus Astutam rapido servas sub pectore vulpem. Pers. Sat. 5. and yet do not pray in your Families, it is base and cursed hypocrisy. When you hear with God's people, and pray with them, and receive with them, and seem to be devout abroad, and do not pray with your Families at home, is not this to make others believe you are what you are not? Do you not profess, by your joint duties with God's people in all Ordinances, that you are devoted unto God? and doth not he that sincerely devotes himself to God, devote also all he hath to him? but is your Family devoted to God, when there is no worship there? It would be well if you were found out, that you were denied the Supper of the Lord for want of a sufficient credibility of a sound Profession. But is it your way to be zealous abroad and negligent at home? Let your house speak for you, Sed videt hunc omnis domus— Introsum turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ. MOTIVE IX. Plus valet humanis viribus ira Dei. Ovid. Trist. Anno 1584. terra motu mons quidam in ditione Bernatum ultra alios montes violenter latus. pagum qu●ndam nonaginta familias habentem contexit totum, dimidia domo excepta, in qua pater-familias cum uxore & liberis in genua provolutus Deum invocabat. Polan. Syntagm. de terrae mot. 9 The neglect of calling upon God in your Families, will bring the curse of God upon them. Jer. 10.25. Pour out thy fury upon the— Families that call not upon thy Name: (1.) The persons threatened, are Families: which if in this Text comprehendeth many households, or yet more largely taken, yet there is the same parity of reason to a proper Family: (2.) Their crime is, not calling upon the name of God: (3.) The thing threatened, the fury of the Lord; fury is fervent anger, anger in its height and rage: (4.) The abundance of it; it shall not fall drop by drop upon prayerless Families, but pour down in great showers upon them. Whereas the way to have God's blessing and protection over you and your household is to set up the worship of God therein. There is a passage in a worthy Divine of a remarkable Providence of God to this purpose, concerning a Town consisting of ninety houses, that was in the year 1584. destroyed by an Earthquake, except the half of one house, where the Master of the Family was earnestly praying with his Wife and Children upon their bended knees to God. Obj. But we see no such thing, we perceive not but those Families prosper, that have no Prayer in them, as much as those that do. Answ. God is often angry, when he doth not strike and punish presently the Offender: but his wrath hangs over your house, and you are never safe in your greatest prosperity. N n est quare cuiquam, quem dignum poena putaveris, optes, ut infestos habeat Deos; habet, inquam, etiamsi videtur eorum favore produci. Senec. Epist. An Heathen could say, If a wicked man prosper, you need not wish that God were angry with him; for he is angry with him, though for the present he do prosper: but when it comes, it will be the heavier: The Poet gives a full answer to this Objection, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The sense I give thus, Though wicked men feel not th'almighty's blow Forthwith; his wrath is sure, when it is slow. At length his plagues in greater loads shall lie On them, their Wives, and all their Progeny. Question The last thing only now remains (wherein I must be short) What excuses are often brought for the non-performance of Family Prayer; How answered. Obj. All this while you do not give us any one express Scripture in so many words: show that, and we will do it. Answ. This is objected, either by openly profane, or more sober men. To the first I answer, 1. Wilt thou do nothing but what thou hast an express command for in so many syllables? Why then art thou so often drunk? and dost thou so often swear and lie and take Gods Name in vain? Where is thy command? Nay, is not all this against express command? 2. Why dost thou not do that for which thou hast express commands? Wilt thou repent, be holy and believe in Christ, and forsake thy sin, if I can show express commands from God for these? Then read Ezek. 18.30, 31. Acts 2.38. and 17.30. 1 Joh. 3.23. Go thy way now, and do these things sincerely, and I shall not doubt but thou wilt see reason from what hath been said to set up Prayer in thy Family, nor question but thou wilt do it. But if thou wilt not repent, and leave thy manifest and apparent sins, when thou art expressly commanded to do so, why should any man think thou wouldst do this, if this were showed to thee? Yet know, there is enough said to render thee inexcusable, if thou wilt not do it. Secondly, to the more sober I answer, Dum scripturam dicimus perf ctam, non intelligimus, ac si ad literam omnia quae ad salutem sunt necessaria, continerentur; sed quod quaedam per certam consequentiam, ex illis quae clarè dicta sunt, deduci debeant. Maccov. distin. p. 9 Quicquid per bonam consequentiam ex scriptura deducitur, illud ipsum est scriptura— Quod elicitur ex Mose & Davide, dicuntur Moses & David dixisse. idem p 21. Scripturae ●im consistere non in verbis sed in sensu communiter dicitur— sunt autem conclusiones in scriptura, vel totidem verbis & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vel habent praemissas suas in scriptura expressas, ex quibus evidenter deducuntur; vel una tantùm posita praemissa in scriptura, addita alia ex rationis principiis, aut ex evidentia sensus, conclusio etiam eruitur necessaria, quae vim eandem habet cum propositionibus, quae totidem verbis leguntur.— juxta regulam, Quaedam in Scriptures sunt, & dicuntur; quaedam in iisdem sunt, etsi non dicuntur (nempe totidem verbis.) Rivet. Isag. ad Scrip. cap. 17. That what is drawn from the word of God by just, necessary, and immediate consequence, is the mind of God: The sense of the Scripture is God's revealed Will. And you yourselves allow some things to be a duty, that are not expressly commanded in the Word of God. I could give you instances in many particulars, but because I am straitened for room, and for plainness of the case, I will instance but in this one, which is a Woman's receiving of the Lord's Supper. Is it the duty of some Women so to do? No doubt: But where is your express command? or any express example that ever they did? Look for it, and produce it: Will you say the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used 1 Cor. 11.28. signifying both man and woman, shows the command for women's eating at the Lord's Table? but what if it be sometimes in Scripture used for the man only, and the woman excluded, as it is Joh. 7.22. ye circumcise, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a man; being taken in one place for the man only, how will you prove it is not so in the other; but by Consequence? True but where then is your express command? Consequence must be allowed in this case, and is abundantly sufficient. For validity of Scripture-consequence much may be said; but my length already commands me to forbear, seeing there is as much Scripture and firm immediate consequence for your praying in your Family, as a woman's receiving the Lord's Supper, which is an acknowledged duty. Object. 2. But I pray alone in secret, and that is sufficient. Answ. But it is not. (1.) One duty done doth not excuse you from the performance of another. It hath been proved before to be your duty; you ought then to do the one, and not to leave the other undone. (2.) But do all in thy Family pray in secret every day? dost thou watch them daily so narrowly, as thou art sure they do? every one? So they should; but yet notwithstanding conjunct Prayer is a duty also, as hath before been shown. (3.) Dost thou pray in secret? So thou mightest have done, if God had struck all thy Family dead in the night besides thyself: Take heed thou dost not hereby cause God to strip thee of thy Relations, and thy comfort in them with whom thou wilt not pray, and send thee with a witness into a corner, to pray by thyself alone. (4.) Dost thou pray alone? So thou mightest have done, if thou hadst lost thy tongue: Hast thou a tongue only to buy and sell, and talk of the world, or of religion only? and not to employ it in conjunct praying to, and praising of God, in thy Family? Read before. (5.) Dost thou pray alone? I doubt thou dost; It may be thou speakest more in that word [alone] than thou thinkest of. Infaelix & Iniqua lex amoris rerum, nolle ut ament alii, nolle ut ament alios; non ità miserum & pressum eligas amorem: superest Deo amor dilatatus; superest bonitas, ut amot & ametur; cum abest à felle ut rivales optet, Zelotypia gaudet. Hoc interest inter Zelum humani amoris & divini: Zelus amantis Deum, optat ut alii ament; Zelus a mantis hominem, ne alius amet: ille socios quaerit, iste fugit, pro qualitate nimirum amatorum. Socios ille quaerit, quia superest bonitas amato, cui amorem suum aequalem non putat; coadjutores exoptat, ut suppleat votis alienis proprium defectum; iste non admittit collegas, exiguum bonum timet, ne desit sibi, distributum etiam aliis: perinde ac qui splendidum epulum paravit, cui ipse non est satis, convivas quaerit, invitat plures, gavisus consortio epulantium: At misellus & famelicus rusticus frustulum Hordeacei panis, quia sibi non sufficit, non distribuit aliis, non palam comest, ne alius, qui appetat petat. O laetissimum affectum! O securissimum amorem Dei! quem Zelus non excruciate, quem rivalis delectat, sine absynthio, sine aloe, sine felle, totus dulcis & consentaneus cordi. Nieremb. de art. vol. p. 336, 337. Dost thou not pray alone without God? without meeting with God? Hadst thou there had thy heart inflamed with the love of God, and tasted of the sweetness in communion with God, would not this have filled thy heart with love to God, and Souls in thy house, and burning zeal that they might be partakers of the same Divine refreshments? couldst thou hold thy peace after such discoveries, while thy poor Family are without? or wouldst thou not time call them together, that they also might experience the same delights that thou hast found? As the woman of Samaria called her Neighbours, Joh. 4.28, 29. If thou hadst got some earthly Jewel, thou mightst be loath that others should share with thee in the value of it; because in earthly things participation causeth a diminution: if a sum of money be divided amongst many, the more one hath, the less will fall to the others share. Art thou indeed afraid of this? Fear it not: There is enough in God for thee, and thine too. Communication in spirituals causeth multiplication, even in him that doth communicate to others: If thou be'st an Instrument to draw thine to the Love of God, and to joy and delight in him, this would fill thee with the greater joy. Methinks then, when thou hast been alone, and God hath graciously been with thee, thou shouldest go down into thy Family with burning love to God and them, and say, Come my Wife, Children, Servants, leave your work and business for a while; There is much sweetness in communion with God: There is indeed delight which comes into the Soul by holy fervent Prayer; I would not have you feed on husks, while there is not only bread, but dainties too, in seeking God: I do not love to see you always muddling in the world, and be strangers unto God. Come then, come away, for my Soul doth long that you should taste what I have found. Thus thou wouldst think surely with thyself, if thou speakest not out to them, if thou didst meet with God in secret. When it is not so with thee, but thou canst constantly neglect Prayer in thy Family, reflect upon thyself, whether in this sense thou didst not pray alone, that thou didst not find God with thee warming of thy heart. Tell me, couldst thou be content to eat thy food constantly alone, without thy Wife and Children? and canst thou be content to pray alone only? As you eat together, so pray together also. Obj. 3. But I am ashamed to pray with others, and that hinders me. Answ. 1. Ashamed to pray! ashamed to do thy duty! The more shame for thee. Be ashamed to sin, and of this shame; for it is sinful, and is to be lamented, and prayed against, and striven against, and overcome: Wilt thou tell God at the Day of Judgement, that thou wast ashamed to pray in thy House and Family? 2. But why ashamed? when you are only with your own Family, and those you daily converse withal, and are head and chief and governor of? 3. It is for want of use: set upon the work, and you will quickly overcome this. Obj. 4. But I am not ashamed of the duty, but of my own weakness; I have not gifts and parts to manage this duty. If I were gifted as other men be, I would perform it as other men do. Answ. 1. Where do you live? in London? What! an old housekeeper in London, or where there hath been much means of Grace, and are you so ignorant, that you are not qualified to pray in your Family? This is your sin; and will one sin be pleadable to excuse you from another? One of the Ancients of the Parish, and plead ignorance! are you not ashamed? 2. It is not parts and gifts and florid expressions that God looks at, but an humble, penitent, broken, and believing heart. Have you not this neither? If you have not, get it quickly, or you must to Hell: If you have, God will accept of such a Sacrifice; bring it then. 3. Study your sins and wants, and mercies; and get a sense of all these upon your heart, and you will be able to express them in your Family, in such a manner as may be more for their profit, than the constant omission can be. If a man feel himself sick or hungry, do you think he could not find words to make his complaint, and ask for help? Study the Scripture and your own hearts, and these will be good prayer-Books to furnish you for the duty: Besides by praying you shall learn to pray. 4. Do not deceive yourself, and say, it is for want of gifts; when it is more for want of a heart and love to the duty. To discover this, Suppose a Law were made by our Governors, that every Master of a Family that doth not pray in his house with his Family, shall be cast into the Lion's Den: What would you do then? Would you rather venture your life and be torn in pieces by Lions, than set upon this duty, with that Knowledge, and those Gifts that now you have? Would you not find something to say to save your Lives? And is not the Law of God as binding as the Laws of men? and the Dungeon of Hell as dreadful as the Lion's Den? Go then, set upon your duty. Obj. 5. But there are some graceless and wicked persons in my Family, that I cannot say we desire this or that spiritual blessing, grace, Christ. etc. for I see no ground to judge they desire any such thing. Answ. 1. Have they no grace? and must they not pray that they may have some? O cruelty! Is he exempted from duty, because he is not good? or wilt thou say, that such must only pray alone? and be excluded (while such) from conjunct prayers? Whither will this carry you? Even to the shutting of all graceless or at least visibly wicked persons from all prayers in public Congregations, as well as from Family duty; But this is so gross, that I suppose you will not own it. You have no reason then for the other. 2. How do you know, when you are confessing sin and acknowledging the evil of it, but God might affect and break their hearts, and they be changed on their knees, and so be saved from damnation? and will you deny them that means that God may bless for their conversion? 3. Do you indeed use all other means to your utmost power to have them better? Do you reprove them, and show them the danger they are in? and persuade them to turn from sin to God, and this with constancy and compassion to their Souls? Or do you scruple this too? Wilt thou neither pray with them, nor speak to them, when thou oughtest to do both? I doubt, it is thy sloth, that hinders thee, or the wickedness of thy heart, and that thou pleadest the wickedness of another to cover thine own. 4. Was not Judas graceless? Did he desire truly and sincerely spiritual blessings? and did not Christ say and know he was a Devil? and yet did not Christ pray with his Disciples, when Judas was among them? Luk. 22.14, 17. 5. Your words might be so ordered, that you need not make a scruple to pray with them. 6. By kneeling down with you do they not profess to join with you? and if they do not that sincerely, which they profess to do, the sin is theirs and none of yours. 7. But be really more careful that you do not pray to God with a reigning lust in your own hearts, than fearful to pray with an unconverted person in your house. Obj. 6. But I cannot bring my Servants to the duty; they are so stubborn and unwilling to it, that all that I can do, cannot prevail with them to yield thereto; they will rather leave my house; and so I shall be left to do my work myself. Answ. 1. Are they not sometimes as backward to do what you set them about, as they be to come to prayer? but yet do you not bring them to it? and make them stoop and buckle to obedience? Deal plainly, if they did daily totally neglect your work, would you bear it at their hands? would you not make them know your power and authority over them? Can you use your power effectually to make them do your work, though backward to it; and may you not, can you not, to bring them to prayer, if you were as hearty and as in good earnest, for the glory of God and the good of their souls, as you are in your own concernments? 2. Why did you take no more care whom you did receive for Servants into your house? Why did you not make a better choice? Did you not look for one with most money you could get, rather than one well educated and likely to conform to the good government of an house? Servants inquire for places, where they might have least work, and greatest wages and vails, but not where they might have a good Master to help forward the good of their souls; and Parents put forth their Children Apprentices, where it might be most for their outward advantage, though there be no Religion in the house; a great evil: So, many Masters look for greatest profit in taking Apprentices, that have been without all education as to their souls, and then cry out, their Servants will not be brought to Family-prayer. 3. But will they not? Integer vitae mihi sit minister, Tecta non intret mea fraudulentus, Nemo mecum intra mea commoretur Limina mendax, Buchan. and are they such that you may remove and put out of your Family, after you have tried all other means you can? if they will not, you had better be without them, than without the worship of God. David would Out with them, Psal. 101.6, 7. But do you say, You must then do your work yourself? so you had better. But why so? Are young people generally so bad, that there are no better to be found? God forbidden; If they be, is it not high time, to be in good earnest, and resolved to set up God's worship in our Families, that it might be remedied, and not continue so from one age to another. Obj. 7. But I have not time to spare, Quid de rerum natura querimur? illa se benignè gessit: vita si scias uti, longa est. for myself and Family to spend time to pray twice every day; this would be a hindrance to me in my Calling. Answ. 1. Not time, man! What! not to prey! How justly might God say, Alium insatiabilis tenet avaritia; all 'em in supervacuis laboribus ope●osa sedulitas; al●us vino madet; inerti● torpet; alium mercandi praeceps cupiditas circa omnes terras, omnia maria, spe lucri ducit: nemo invenitu●, qui pecuniam suam dividere velit; vitam unusquisque quam multis distribuit: astricti sunt in continendo patrimonio; simul ad temporis j●ct●ram v●n um est, profus●ssi●i in eo cujus unius honesta avaritia est. Senec. de brev●vit. Thou shalt die this day, and thou shalt have no time to pray, no, nor to trade neither; nor to sport and game neither. Thou hast time; what dost thou do with it all? Twenty, forty years are a great deal of time, and much might be done therein; but canst thou find no time out of so many years to pray in thine house? Thou findest time to trade and work and eat and drink and sleep, yea and to sin too; and yet hast thou no time to pray? Doth God give thee and thy Family all the time that thou and they have, and shall God have none of it? Oh, ungrateful sinner! Oh, unthankful wretch! let the heavens be astonished, and the Earth amazed: the one, that they give light and influence to such a monster; and the other to bear such a burden, a man so loaden, with such impiety. 2. Why dost thou grips and grasp so much worldly business, and burden thyself and Family with so many earthly Imploymenos, and then cry out thou hast no time? If thou canst not trade so much, and pray in thy Family too; trade something less, that thou mayst have time to pray. Cannot you get food and raiment while you live, and a winding sheet and Coffin when you die, without so great a trade that you have no time to pray? Or will you say, we must mind more than food and raiment, and must you not mind Heaven too? and look after Christ and Grace and your souls too? What if you be rich while you live, and damned when you die? Is your heart so set upon the world, that you must have it, though you have Hell and damnation with it? Well might the Poet cry out and wish— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phocylid. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phocyl. Transeundum est: excutit redeuntem natura, sicut intrantem; non licet plus efferre quam intuleris; imo eti●as ex eo quod ●o vitam attulistipars magna ponenda est. Sen. Epist. 3. What will you do with those worldly riches you are so eager to obtain? or what can they do for you? Will you take them with you to your Graves? or carry them with you to another world? You know you cannot: Job. 1. latter end. Eccl. 5.15. No not so much as to fill your hand. It was a ridiculous action of a rich man, that Mr. Rogers in his Treatise of Love speaks of, that being very sick to death called for his Gold, and being brought to him took a twenty shillings piece and put it in his mouth, saying, Some are wiser than some; this I will take with me however: If some were not wiser than he, they would all be fools; for he and his gold might perish together: though it may be likely that when he was dead, his gold was taken from him, and so in his own sense he was not wiser than others. But will gold go in Heaven or in Hell? There it is nothing worth. When you have got much by your trading, which keeps you from praying, will it not make you loath to die, having laid up no better treasure elsewhere? and vex you to the heart, that for this you have lost God and Christ and Heaven and your souls, and your riches too at last? As Mr. Latimer, in a Sermon before King Edward the Sixth, relates of a rich man that was sick, and one coming to him and seeing how he was, told him, he thought he could not recover, but was a dead man; who presently flew into a rage, saying, Must I die? Send for the Physician, wounds! sides! heart! Must I die? must I die? wounds! sides! heart! Must I die, and leave all my riches? and so continued crying out in this language, till he died: and are these the things you are so earnest for, that you can find no time to pray for better? A like passage Mr. Jeremy Burroughs on Psal. 17.14. relates of one that once lived near to him, that being sick called for his bags of silver, and hugging them in his arms said, Must I leave you? must I leave you? Pray for an interest in God and Christ, and when you die, being his and he yours, you shall not leave him, but be taken into fuller enjoyment of him. Consider again, as you cannot take them with you when you die, so these things cannot comfort you in your Sickness. As the same Author mentions another, that on his sick bed called for his bags of gold, which being brought he laid to his breast as near his heart as he could, but after a while said, Here, take them again, take them again; these will not do, these will not do. What will not bags of gold do? No: they are trash and dirt to a dying man. What will they not do? They will not procure health to a sick man, nor prolong life to a dying man, nor speak peace to a troubled man, nor procure Heaven for a graceless man: No, no, it will not do, it will not do; and you shall find it will not do. And are these the things you are so bend upon, that you have no time for looking after these to pray to God for something that would do you good, while you live, when you die, and after death? Consider, and be wiser. 4. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theocrit. Epig. It is a great mistake that Prayer will hinder you in your worldly Callings: To drive a trade for Heaven, and on Earth, may both be done. You cannot love both with a predominate love, nor serve both as principal Masters; but you may work for one, and pray for the other. When you are in a Journey, doth it hinder you to stay and bait? If you were travelling far, if you bait daily, you may come there in time; but if you did not bait at all, you would never get thither. It is a true Proverb, Prayer and Provender hinder not man. Surely you forget that the success of all your labours depends upon the blessing and providence of God: Cannot God blast your endeavours, and blow upon your estates, and cause you to put it into a bag with holes? Hag. 1.6. Nothing is more likely to further you than Prayer. 5. Tell me in good earnest, and let thy Conscienee speak: Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdi●us: s●tis longa vita & in maximarum rerum consummationem largè data est, si tota bene collocaretur; sed ubi per luxum & negligentiam defluit, ubi nulli rei bonae impenditur, ultima demum necessitate cogente, quam ire non intelleximus, transisse sentimus: ità est, non accepimus brevem vitam, sed fecimus; nec inopes ejus, sed prodigi sumus. Senec de brev. vita dost thou not misspend more time every day, than this duty would take up? Art thou not longer in some impertinent company, and longer in some unnecessary business, or lingering and loitering at home, or abroad, or at some Club or other, longer than Family Prayer may be profitably performed; and yet say, thou hast no time? 6. What if God should visit thy Family with some lasting sickness, and take thee and thy Servants too from your work and callings, and make you spend that time in sickness in your beds from your labour, which you would not spend in Prayer? Must you find a time to be sick and die, and yet find no time to pray? Ab! quid respondere velit Ch●isto venturo de coelis, Cum à te poscet rationem Ob boni remissionem, Et mali commissionem? Dies illa dies irae, Quam conemur praevenire Obviá●que deo ire. 7. Wilt thou tell God so, when thou standest at his Judgement Seat? Which of you is the man (Stand forth) that shall be accused at the Bar of God, that he did not pray to God in his Family, that will now say, he will give God this answer then, Lord, I was so employed in the World and my Family too, that we had no leisure for thy Service. No? not to look after Heaven? nor to seek my favour and my love? nor to beg for pardon and salvation? Go get you gone, Go get you down to a place of torment; though you could find no time to pray to me, I will find an eternity to plague and punish you. Quantus tremor esi futurus, Quando Judex est venturus, Cuncta strictè discussuru●? Quid tum, miser, tum dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus Quam vix justus sit securus? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Epict. Enchir. cap. 66. 8. Are you the better for your riches, when you have by this labour got them? or do you work so hard, and spend your time, even all your time, for such things, that when you have them, you are no better? You account him the best man in the Parish, that hath the most riches, and is the greatest; but so doth not God, (no, the Heathens would not neither;) but he that is most holy, and loves God best, and serves him most. Those are goods indeed, that make you good indeed: but you are the worse, by how much you spend your time, more precious than all in time you get, with the neglect of your duties unto God. Nolo tollas cupiditatem, sed mutes; nolo perdas, sed lucreris: avarum cupiditas argentei nummi incitat ad cupiendum aureum; pro quo relinquit argenteum: namque ipse valor argentei est in aureo, ideo plures aereos atque argenteos pro uno commutat aureo: O locupletissimum qui ita suas cupiditates contrahit●!— Commutanda omnia pro Deo sunt, & totum gaudium nostrum latissimum in uno colligendum: Nolo aliquid nimis severum; nolo ut consumas cupiditates omnes: sed ut resumas omnes, & in una sumas. Nieremb. de art. volunt. p. 369. 9 What if thou shouldest sometime sustain some loss in thy outward estate, if it be made up with the favour of God, and true peace of Conscience in the way of duty, and with the real advantage of thy own Soul, and the Souls of all thy Family? Canst thou be willing to lose nothing for the gaining of Heaven? or hadst thou rather that thou and they should lose God and Christ and Glory and Souls and all? Surely when you come to cast up your accounts, what you have got, and what you have lost, your gains will prove your loss. 10. If God should bring back some from the Grave and Hell, and set them in this world again, dost thou think, that they would so follow the World, and run up and down after money, that they would say, they could find no time to pray that they might escape that dreadful place of Torment they had been in? If some of those that have been in Hell but a Month or two, were now in thy circumstances, dost thou think they would not let their work stand still, or rise the sooner, and sit up the later, or would deny themselves much of their eating time and sleeping time, that they might have time to pray, Lord let us not go down to Hell again: O let us not return to the place which we have found to be so restless and so dreadful? And shouldst not thou be as much and often, and as earnest with thy Family, that neither thou nor any of thine be cast into it? I durst not let this pass (though I am sensible I have taken up too much room) without endeavouring to remove this hindrance that lies in the way to keep many Families from their knees in Holy Prayer. I beg for the Lord's sake, and for your Soul's sake, that you would watch against it, and resolve against it, and that your worldly Interest shall no longer keep you from Family Prayer. In the close then of all that hath been said, Let me in the Name of God exhort you all to the practice of Family Prayer. You have heard it proved to be your duty, you have been directed how you might manage it for the good of all in your houses, you have had motives to press you to the performance of it, your pretences and excuses brought against it have been manifested to be frivolous and vain; What say you Sirs? Will you resolve upon it here in the presence of the Lord? or will you still neglect it? Shall I lose all my labour? or shall it be in vain that I have preached, and you have heard this Doctrine? I tell you to your faces, it shall not be in vain; the word of the blessed God shall convince you and reform you, or condemn you. What come we hither for, but faithfully to show you your duty, and earnestly to persuade you to obey? Do Ministers study for you, when you are sleeping in your beds, and declare the mind and will of God in the Congregation, and will you cast all our counsel behind your back? I hope you will be wiser for your own everlasting happiness. Say then, Are you convinced in this point, that it is your duty? If not, view over again what hath been said, and seriously consider it, and let me beg this at your hands, that you would think of all Now, as you would do, if you were with an awakened Conscience upon your dying bed, or if you were standing at God's Judgement bar, and when this question is put to you (whether you ought to pray in your Families?) Let Conscience say, Yes or No, according as its verdict and dictate shall be at Death and Judgement, and then I am persuaded you will say, you are convinced you ought to do it. And are you indeed? What! and yet go on in the omission of it? Will you so sin against your Consciences? will you dare so to do? You Parents, for God's sake consider in what a condition you have brought your Children into the world; are they not by nature enemies to God? dead in sin, children of wrath, unfit for Heaven, Such Parents are like the Ostrich. You, negligent Parents, read Job. 39.13. to 19 and Lam 4.3. Look your faces in that Glass: Do you not blush, Look, that you are so like to such a foolish bird? Struthio-camelus der●linquit ova sua in terra— crudelis in prolem: nihil praestupiditate, oblivione & crudelitate filiis suis timet. Vales. Phil. Sac. Sicut haec avis non curate sua ova, ita insipientes non curant instrui liberos in pietate. Franzius. The Ostrich, if it thrust her neck or head into any shrub or bush, and get that hidden, thinks herself safe, and that no man seethe her. Plin. Nat. Hist. Such fools are these ungodly Parents, that, if they get their heads under their roofs, remember not that God seethe their great neglect there. and in danger of damnation? and will you not so much as pray daily with them, that they may be delivered out of this condition, and be saved from damnation? is it nothing to you whether your Children are damned or saved? is it nothing to you whether they live with the blessed glorious God, or with cursed Devils and damned Souls? have you no pity nor compassion for them, that are flesh of your flesh? where are the earnings of your hearts? where are the workings of your bowels? if their bodies were a dying, would you not pray by their bed sides, that they may be preserved from ●he grave? and will you not, that their Souls might be saved from Hel●? Dare you not be guilty of the murder of their bodies, and dare you of their Souls? do not the Laws of men justly hang those that do the one, and will not the Laws of God righteously damn them that do the other? You Fathers, and you Mothers, can you look upon your Graceless, Christless Children, and not pity them, and weep over them, and call them to you to come and pray with you? have you not a word to say to God for them in their hearing? will you not call them to this duty, and let them be eye-witnesses of the tears that you should shed in lamenting their sinful state and misery thereby? and ear-witnesses of the requests you put up to God for their conversion? and how might this work upon their hearts, if they were? But what shall I say to you Fathers, and to you Mothers, that do neglect your duty, which God requireth for the good of your Children? the Father doth not pray, the Mother doth not persuade him, nor entreat him so to do, and by the negligence of both the Children are ungodly: Are they more wicked, or you more cruel? They are full of Impiety, and you are full of cruelty; both Father and Mother: because it is so much long of you that they are so bad. Crudelis Mater magis, an puer Improbus ille? Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque mater. Virg. Eclog. 8. Appendatur & hoc, Crudelis pater es, per te puer Improbus ille. But if the profane Parents and Masters amongst us will not reform and pray in their houses; shall I not prevail with many of you Professors, that have been shamefully guilty of this neglect? Then pluck off your vizard of Profession abroad, and tell us what you are: Do not deceive us any longer, and make the world believe you are that which you are not, but let us know what you are. What shall I say? Will nothing prevail? Then they that are for hell, are for hell, and we cannot help it. But it will be more profitable for you, and your Families, that you be really and indeed what you have with much zeal abroad professed yourselves to be. I pray you be better in your houses, and act as men resolved for Heaven, and to have all your Family with you there: However if any do miscarry, let it not be by your neglect. And as for you that have and do make conscience of this duty, go on, and the Lord be with you: go on, Sirs, hold out, it is but a little while, and your praying shall be turned into perfect praising: go on, that your Children might bless God that they had such Parents, and your Servants bless God that they had such Masters, and that ever they came under your roof, and lived within the walls of your house: you will have comfort when you come to die in the review of holy diligence, and might leave them with peace, which will be better to you than all the world; Keep fast then your resolution, That while you live, you and your house will serve the Lord. What are the Duties of Husbands and Wives towards each other? Serm. XVI. Ephes. 5.33. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his Wife as himself, and the Wife [see] that she reverence her Husband. MY business is to declare from this Scripture, What are the Duties of Husbands and Wives towards each other. A Subject of manifest Use and Need: For as this Relation is the † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hieroc. de nupt. p. 210. Foundation of all others in the world, so the right discharge of the Duties hereof doth greatly promote the like in all the rest. But here it is easier to Direct, than to Persuade; and harder to please Man than God. And (you know) We must be faithful to Him, and we must be faithful to you: and you must labour to bring your Will to the Rule, and not to bring the Rule to your Will. And your Rule is laid down in these words, Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his Wife as himself, and the Wife see that she reverence her husband. Wherein you have 1. The Connexion [Nevertheless;] that is to say, (a) So Zanch. Musc. in loc. leaving that mystery of the spiritual Marriage, let every one of you, etc. Or (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 veruntamen. Trem. Vulg. caeterùm. Gagn. notwithstanding that the Copy proposed ver. 15. of Christ's love to his Church is so superlative and above your reach, yet let every one of you so love his Wife as himself: unless we understand it illatively, and read it (c) So Dutch Annot. Bez. Ham. in loc. , So then or therefore; q. d. the sum and short of what is said, amounts to this, that (d) Non dicit verùm vos, sed verùm & vos, q.d. sicut Christus Ecclesiam suam dilexit- Zanch Musc. in loc. as Christ loved his Church, so every one of you, etc. 2. The Direction, in the rest of the verse, let every one of you, etc. Wherein you see, 1. The Universal Obligation of it, [let every one of you,] which might with some ordinary supplement to the (e) Graecis & Latinis deest aliquid hic supplendum, viz. vos singuli id praestate Gagn. So our old Translation. Greek make a sentence of itself; thus, let every one of you (though you be never so good, and though they be never (f) Sive hae formosae sint, sive deforms, sive divites, sive pauperes, sive morigerae, sive immorigerae, ad unum omnes. Zanch. Musc. in loc. so bad) look to this, do you this. 2. The particular Application of it [in particular;] what hath been determined in general, let it be applied by every one to themselves. For both these passages may well respect both Husband and Wife, and do import that each of them should study and practise their particular Duty. 3. The Summary Description of each of these their Duties. And 1. Here is the sum of every husband's Duty. [To love his Wife.] Indeed this is not All, but this is the chief of All, this will fulfil All. And to this is added an excellent Clause [as himself] which may pass both for a Rule and for a Reason. 1. For a Rule, for he that may not know How our Saviour loved his Church, yet cannot but know (g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. in loc. , how he should love himself; why, let him love his Wife as himself. 2. For a Reason; for it being certain, that a man's wife is a great part of himself, that they are but (h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. in Coloss. hom. 12. Two in One, let every one of you love his wife as himself. 2. Here is the sum of every Wife's Duty. [And the Wife see that she reverence her husband.] Where the word [see] is added in our Translation as a convenient (i) Ellipsis sub. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aut tale. Camer. in loc. supplement to the sense, though it be not in the Letter of the Greek. But the Substance of the Wife's Duty is here concluded to be Reverence (as we translate it) though most others read it (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Dutch Annot. Vulg. Beza. etc. Fear. And doubtless intends that inward Respect to the Place and Person of an husband, which inclines them to a voluntary (l) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doctrina de reverentiae cultu, quo is qui inferior est, superiorem colit. Beza in loc. Fear; i. e with respect and awe be subject to him. Dutch. Nusquam erit volunta●ia subj●ctio nisi praecedat reverentia. Calv. in loc. subjection, and an agreeable behaviour. Which Reverence or Fear is so far from excluding Love, that it both supposeth it, and is an effect of it. For when we love, we study to please, and fear to offend, And though there be no express Explication of this Duty of the Wife, as there was of the Husband's, who is charged to love his wife as himself; yet there is an implicit Direction to the Wife in her duty to her Husband, namely, to reverence him, and to be subject to him as unto her (m) She to behave herself reverently to her husband as to her Head. Ham. in loc. Head. So that our Lesson hence is plain, which is this: DOCTR. Doctr. That Every Husband should love his Wife as himself, and every Wife should reverence her Husband. This is the Dictate of our Creator both by the Light of Nature and of Scripture. This is the constant language both of the Old Testament and of the New. And is more purposely handled and pressed by the two great Apostles of the Jews and Gentiles, that so all Christians, however descended, should submit unto it. The Apostle Paul, Ephes. 5.22. etc. Col. 3.18. etc. The Apostle Peter, 1 Pet. 3.1. etc. Not that these are all their respective Duties; but these are specified either 1. (n) Mr. Byfield on Col p. 111. Because in these are the most frequent failings. Husband's too commonly being defective in their Love, and Wives most defective in their Reverence and Subjection. Or 2. Because these two are the sum of the rest, and no other Duties are either Possible or Acceptable without them. And my present Work is to digest and urge these in a solemn and impartial manner, that it may appear, Our Religion doth not only propound Rewards to make us happy in the world to come, but doth also direct the methods of settling our quiet and comfort in this present world. For certainly, it is not the Having of Husbands or Wives that brings contentment, but the mutual Discharge of both their Duties; and this makes their Lives, though never so poor, an Heaven upon Earth. But herein I can but draw up an Abstract, and send you where you may be far better provided. In the mean time, let us all in the prosecution hereof sadly reflect on our former failings, and sincerely resolve on future amendment, according to that whereof we shall be convinced by the word of Truth. And here, I shall endeavour these Four things. 1. To propound the Mutual or Common Duties of Both. 2. The special Duty of every Husband. 3. The special duty of every Wife. 4. Directions how to accomplish them, That so they may most certaily be Blessings to each other. First, let us see what are those Mutual Duties that lie common between Husband and Wife, wherein Both of them are equally (at least according to the place and power of each) concerned and obliged. And they are These following. 1. Mutual Cohabitation. For the man, he (o) Gen. 2.24. must leave father and mother, and cleave to his Wife: And the Woman, she (p) Psal. 45.10. must forget her kindred and her father's house. The Husband, (q) 1 Pet. 3.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must dwell with the Wife: and the Wife, (r) 1 Cor. 7 10. she must not departed from the Husband, though he be an Infidel. And indeed the Ends and Duties of marriage are such, as will not ordinarily dispense herewith. For Example, 1 Cor. 7.3, 4.5. Let the husband render unto the Wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud you not the one the other, except it he with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. Which plainly shows that even the sober use of the Marriagebed is such (s) The wife of Galeac. Caracciola denying this debt (upon the direction of her Confessor on pain of Excommunication) was judged a sufficient Reason of Divorce. In vita. a mutual debt, that it may not be intermitted long without Necessity and Consent. Nay in the † Deut. 24 5. Old Law, the greatest necessity should not send the husband from his wife the first year, that their affections might be throughly settled, and that he might cheer up his Wife which he hath taken. * For the man is the head, the Woman is as the body: for the head and body to be sundered it is present death to either. Gataker Serm. p. 203. Neither indeed can any of the following Duties towards each others Souls or Bodies be throughly performed, nor many grievous snares avoided, without dwelling together. And therefore neither desire of Gain; nor Fear of Trouble, no occasional Distastes, nor pretence of Religion, should separate those from Conjugal converse and (t) Alibi fluctuare sese existimet; in domo autem apud uxorem suum, tanquam in portu optat● conquiescere. Daven in Col. Cohabitation (unless with consent, and that but for a time) whom God hath joined together. 2. Mutual Love. This, though in a peculiar manner it be the Duty of the Husband. Col. 3.18. Husbands, love your Wives; yet it is required also of the Wife, Tit. 2.4. they must love their Husbands. Indeed this is the (u) First you must choose your Love, and then you must love your choice. Smith Serm. Conjugal Grace, the great Reason, and the great Comfort of Marriage. Not a sensual or doting Passion; but genuine, conjugal, and constant, out of a pure heart fervently. Not grounded on beauty, wealth, or interest; for these may soon whither and fail: nor only upon Graoe and Piety; for this may decay to the least degree, and in the opinion of both parties quite disappear: but it must be grounded upon the Command and Ordinance of God, whereby of Two they are made * una caro, non nexu amoris, nec commixtione corporum, nec procreatione liberorum, sed vinculo conjugii. Zanch. One flesh. So that though either of them be poor, deformed, froward; though unregenerate, wicked, Infidels; yet in Obedience to God, and in Conscience of the Marriage-Vow, which obligeth for better and for worse, they ought to love each other with a (x) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrys. in Eph. hom. 29. superlative Love; and when the sacred knot is once tied, every man should think his wife, and every wife her husband, the fittest for them of any in the world. And hereupon the (y) Cael. Rhodig. l. 28. p. 1575. Heathens took the Gall from their nuptial Sacrifices, and cast it behind the Altar: to intimate the removing of all bitterness from the Marriage-state; there should be nothing but Love. And this Love must be as durable and constant, as are the grounds of it, to the Persons of each other until death; and to the memory and posterity of each other, when they are dead and gone: and thus the good wife is understood (by some) to do her husband good (z) Prov. 31.12. all the days of her life, not only of his life, but, when he is dead, to his Posterity. What strange instances of this lasting love former (a) Portia the wife of Brutus. A ria the wife of Cecinna Pae us. In Valer. Max. Ages hath given, and some (b) The Bannyon Wives among the Indians burn themselves to ashes at the funeral of their husbands. Herbert in his Travels. Pagans at this day, is in History both evident and admirable. This truehearted Love will bring true Content and constant Comfort into that Condition, will make all counsels and reproofs acceptable, will keep out Jealousy, that bane of marriage comfort, will keep the thoughts fixed, and the heart chaste: for it is not the Having an Husband or Wife, but the Loving of them, that preserves from Adultery. This will prevent or soon quiet those storms within doors; as we see the Mother that dearly loves her Child, though it cry all night and disturb her quiet, yet Love to it makes them very good friends in the morning. If Love be eclipsed for a day or an hour between husband and wife, they are (c) Mr. Baxter's Direct. p. 520. like a bone out of joint, there is no ease, nor order, nor work well done, till it be restored again. 3. Mutual Fidelity, especially to the Marriagebed, and also in each others secrets. And this is directed 1 Cor. 7.2. Let every man have his [Own] wife, and let every woman have her [Own] husband. By which Rule, the thoughts, desires and actions of each of them are confined to their (d) Choose whether Adam thou wilt imitate, the Old or the New; the one hath but one Wife, the other hath but one Church. Hierome cited by Gataker. own lawful yoke-fellow, as the dearest, sweetest, and best Object in the world, and this by virtue of the Covenant of their God. The least Aberration herein (if it be not speedily and sincerely mortified) will strangely get ground and fester in the Soul, and never rest till it come to plain Adultery. (e) See of this, largely and excellently, Lud. Viu. de Christ. foemin. p. 699. And then the Comfort of their lives, the quiet of their consciences, and the credit of their families lie bleeding; and without true Repentance, their eternal happiness shipwrecked. Yea, this virtually dissolves the Bond of marriage, and (if the (f) Deut. 22.22. Divine Law were executed) brings the offender to a severe Death. And though some greater Shame and other Inconveniences do follow the unfaithfulness of the Wife; yet man and wife being One flesh, and equal power granted to them over the bodies of each other, the guilt of this sin is equal: unless the wisdom and strength of the man do make his fault the greater. And therefore all possible care must be used to avoid all occasions and incentives of wand'ring desires from home; and the rather, because he or she that is not content with one, will not be content with more; for sin is boundless, and nothing but Grace and the Grave can limit the desires of the Heart. The same Faithfulness is necessary in the wise concealment of each others secrets, whether Natural, Moral, or Civil, unless in such cases wherein a superior Obligation doth release them. For there cannot be a more unnatural treachery, than when Husband or Wife (the nearest of Friends) make one another obnoxious to shame or harm. Bad, when it is done by Inadvertence; worse, when in their Passion; worst of all, when it is through ill will and malice. 4. Mutual Helpfulness. Hence they are called Yokefollows. And of the Woman it was said at her Creation, that she should be an (g) Gen 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Help meet for him, which may be rendered, an Help like him: for they should be both of them Helps to each other. There are Three Yokes which they must jointly carry, 1. The Yoke of Cares. This all people must expect to bear in a married condition, and (for the most part) that of Labour also. And these lying always on one shoulder will overload; but when some help comes in, the husband takes care without, the wife takes care within; the husband travels abroad, the wife is busy at home, than the burden is easier. To this end, it behoves the Wife to read often the last Chapter of Proverbs, and the husband the rest of that Book, for their quickening hereunto. 2. The Yoke of Crosses and troubles. For such as are married, though they expect nothing but pleasure, yet (h) 1 Cor. 7.28. must have trouble in the flesh, losses in their estates, afflictions in their children, crosses both from friends and enemies. Now every man and woman should choose such yoke-fellows as may be Friends as well as Relations; and may comfort, support and advise each other with all faithfulness and sympathy. 3. The Yoke of Jesus Christ. For they should (i) 1 Pet. 3.7. live as heirs together of the Grace of Life. And it is the highest end of their Relation, to promote one the others everlasting happiness. The Knowledge of the husband must help the wife, and the Zeal of the wife must help the husband. When (k) Cael. Rhodig. l. 28. the Sun shines, the Moon absconds; when that is set, this appears. When the husband is at home, than it is his work to instruct and pray with his Family, and sanctify the Sabbath; but in his absence, the wife is his stated Deputy, and must look to it. And both must study both in Prudence and Conscience to be of One mind, encouraging, reproving or correcting their Inferiors; lest their Authority be weakened, their spirits distempered, and their endeavours frustrated. 5. Mutual Patience. etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quomodo probabit homo animam suam? si posset tolerare uxorem malam. Buxt. ex Miphcah Happen. This Grace we are bound to exercise towards all men, how much more to such near and dear Relations? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away, with all malice. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God doth for Christ's sake forgive us, Eph. 4.31, 32. Innumerable are the (l) Occasions that may minister Contention in the daily affairs, wherein they are concerned, and Satan is ever ready to blow the coal, and they have corrupt and froward Natures: and therefore there is a flat necessity of this blessed Grace. Alas! a civil War within doors is the most intolerable. The soul, the body, the worship of God, the affairs, the Family are all disordered by it. No good can come of it; passion reforms nothing, but (m) Magis v●remur prud●ntes, quam i acundos: plus cogit qu etum imperium, quam vehemens: imperiosior concitatione quies. Lu. Viu. de Christ Foem p. 729. patience may; the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. The married Couple therefore must study and pray for a meek and quiet spirit; mortify pride, learn self-denial, and sometimes wisely (n) Thus Albu● us lived with his Terentiana 25 years; and P. Rubrius Celer with his Ennia 44 years without a quarrel. So Mr. Smith in his Sermons tells of a choleric couple that kept the peace by each keeping silence, when the other was angry. withdraw till the storm be over; and hold their peace, to keep the peace. They must consider (as Holy Mr. Bolton saith) that two Angels are not met together, but too sinful children of Adam, from whom little can be expected but weakness and waiwardness. They must reckon the greatest worth and honour to be first in Overtures of Peace, and never suffer those unnatural heats to ferment. What honour or comfort can any one have in falling out with Himself? What prize in that Victory? Let some (o) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. de cura rei fam. l. 1. lesser faults be winked at, and let the husband spy a (p) Observanda sunt ●orro admonendi tempora. Officium extra tempus molestia est: Quum pectus illius nulla pertu●batione ●gitur, se●●sum & s●motis arbitri●, cum dexteritate & suavitate sermonis. L. Viv p. 717. season discreetly to admonish his Wife; and the wife respectfully to acquaint the husband of things amiss. And if the faulty person would conscientiously make an acknowledgement of their Error to the other, and both beg pardon of God for it, it would be a good Antidote against the like folly, and bring glory to God. This is certain, he or she that can without scruple injure the other, is not kept from wronging others by any honest Principle. And lastly, let them consider, that it is much better to give place to one another, than by nourishing anger to give place to the Devil. 6. Mutual endeavours for each others Salvation. This is clearly inferred from 1 Cor. 7.16. For what knowest thou, O Wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? O how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy Wife? q.d. This should be your chief design, and if you can attain this, though with trouble, you are Made. How Paganish, yea how brutish a thing is it, only to enjoy the comforts of marriage together, and then to go together into Hell? If you suffer one another to be damned, where is your (q) Nunquam verus & perpetuus erit amor, nisi in 'tis rebus collocetur, quae etiam sepulchro sunt superstites. Lu. Viu. de oss. marit. Love? Nay how can you lie (with comfort) with a limb of the Devil in your bosom? 'Tis true, they must not pass uncharitable Censures on one another, either in heart or in speech; nor condemn them in their everlasting estate for every deviation, nor obtrude religions matters in a distasteful manner; but they ought affectionately to inquire into the spiritual estate of each other; and, if need require, use all proper means incessantly to bring the ignorant or vicious party into the good ways of God. And that by drawing them to the means of Grace, and giving them no rest in the unsafe condition of unrenewed Nature. (r) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrys. in Ep. 5. hom. 20. Let them both go to the Church (saith Chrysostom) and afterwards at home, let the husband require of the wise, and the wife of the husband, those things which were spoken and read, or at least some part thereof. And what knowest thou, O man, but hereby thou mayst save thy wife? that is, thou knowest nothing to the contrary. Nay, there is a (s) Flavius Cl mens kinsman to Domitia, by his Wife Domitia: Clodoverus King of France by Clotilda: H●r ●ogillus King of the Goths by his Wife Jugula, etc. Cloud of witnesses to verify the blessed effects of these endeavours. And if you be both married to Christ Jesus, your work is to build up one another in your most holy faith, and in all wisdom and holiness. And to that end you ought carefully to watch over each other, lest at any time you fall into temptation. To study each others dispositions, consider each others snares, observe each others decays in zeal and piety, that you may speedily apply remedies, and exhort one another daily, lest either of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Your (t) Desinat paulatim in vobis sexus discerni, & incipite ad coelestem illam vitam prae●ud●re, in qua nullus est s●xus. Lud. Vives. de ●ff mar. Curtain-talk should often be of God, and of your eternal estate, and you should improve that Analogy which is between Jesus Christ and his Church, and the married couple, to your comfort and direction. In short, you should in both your carriages declare plainly, that you are going together to seek a Country. 7. Mutual (u) Ce●● nen●ia legem nuptiarum honorat. Tert. de monog. marriage-Chastity. For marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled, Heb. 13.4. And the great care both of husband and wife should be to be (x) Neque alibi magis quam apud uxorem maritus vereundiam adhibere debet, sentiens ci thalamum scholam esse aut modestiae aut impudicitiae. Plutarch. praec. conjug. in marriage, to abhor all wanton speeches, and unfit incentives of lust, and to be sober, seasonable, and regular in the use of the marriagebed. They should beware lest they make that Ordinance, which is the (y) qu●d sanis possit esse officium, fit aegrotis remedium. Aug. de Gen. ad lit. l. 9 c. 7. Remedy of impure affections, to be the Nurse and Exciter of them. They must not think that their Relation doth legitimate every folly which they can perpetrate, or that inordinate or immoderate pleasures can ever agree with the bed undefiled. (z) See Bolton's Gener. dir. p. 243. at large. A man may be a wicked Drunkard with his own drink, and a wretched Beast in his own marriagebed. I might here bring in Divines of late, Fathers of old, yea Philosophers themselves agreeing in their censures of these extravagances, and telling us that the pleasures of Marriage should be (a) Sapiens judicio amat conjugem, non affectu. Lomb. ex Hieron. serious, circumspect, and mixed with severity, and that an (b) Adulter est uxoris propriae amator ordentior, Sextus Pythag. intemperate man in wedlock differs little from an Adulterer. Let all married persons therefore remember, that the Holy eye of God is upon them; that their bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost; and that they must render a strict account unto the Lord of every secret thing. There is need, even in a married estate, to crucify our fleshly Lusts; and to deny our natural and lawful desires at such times as Natural Modesty or (c) Quamvis munda sint conjugia, tamen etiam à licitis abstinendum est, ut faciliùs ad effectum dedacatur eratio. Ambr. to. 5. Religion command Abstinence, and so make them unlawful. Keep therefore an inviolable Decorum in your converse together; show Reverence to God, bear reverence to one another, (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hierocl. in Car. Pyth. reverence yourselves. Be assured of this, that true love behaves not itself unseemly, and that modesty is the best preserver of nuptial Chastity. 8. Mutual care of each others Health, Wealth, Credit and Contentment. This the nature of their Relation, the Ordinance of God, and the sameness of their Interests requires from them. They ought to be tender of each others Health, and (e) Qu●d si unus estis homo. non du●: aegrotare ille non potest, quin tu aeg●otes: nec illa esse pauper, te divite: quodque inter amicos contingere non potest, quomodo in tanta amoris & animorum copula continge●? Lud. Vives de off. mar. sick in one another's sickness: The husband must improve all his skill and strength to procure a competence of estate, and the wife all hers to help and further it. The Reputation of the wife the husband must tender as the apple of his eye, and the wife must every way advance the good name of her husband. And in short, the Holy Ghost hath determined, that he that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and she that is married, careth for the things of the world, (f) Circa ejus lectum sunt sacra omnia, ibi arae, ibi Deus, ubi pax & concordia & charitas. Deum facilè tibi amicum reddes, si hominem reddideris. Lud. Viu. de Christ. foem. p. 710. how she may please her husband, 1 Cor. 7. 33, 34. This will bring honour to Religion, comfort to their lives, and a blessing on all they have. This will make them digest all the pains and troubles of that condition, seeing they find two to be better than one, and do never miss of a sweet and constant (g) Summus autem amicitiae gradus est foedus conjugale. Melan. l. c. friend in their bosom. Without this care the one will be a perpetual burden to the other, and a daily torment. When the one is unconcerned in the others trials; when the one gathers and the other scatters; when the one blasts the others reputation; when one perpetually crosseth and vexeth the other; There follows a Hell of disquiet in the mind, ordinarily a blast upon the estate, besides guilt and shame unspeakable. Think therefore often, God hath made us One; if my wife be sick, I am not half well; if my husband be poor, I cannot be rich; if he be discontent, how can I be content? we'll laugh and weep together, nothing but Death shall separate our Affections or Interests. 9 Mutual Prayer. Hence the Apostle Peter, 1 Pet. 3.7. advices, that their Prayers be not hindered; which implies that they should pray for and with one another. Thus Isaac is said, Gen. 25.21. to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (h) Verba fudit magna copia: ante, è regione, ante oculos. multiply prayers with, or before his wife, and it follows how prevalent these prayers were. This Common Debt we own to all, much more to them that are so nearly united to us. The purest love is written in Prayer. This Duty must constantly be done for, and frequently with each other. No better preservative of real love and peace, than praying together. There they must bewail their failings in their conjugal Relations, the (i) Cum vero non amor procreandae sobolis, sed volu●tas dominatur in opere commixtionis, habeant conjuges etiam de commixione sua, quod defleant. Lombard. l. 4. d. 31. pollutions that cleave to the marriagebed. There they should beg the blessing of Children, and blessings upon their Children, a blessing upon their Estates, and especially all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ upon their souls. Who knows but that God may touch the heart of the Wife, when the husband is pouring out prayers for her? Certainly they are in the discharge of their duty, to which God hath annexed a promise. And it will be the wisdom of them both to espy Fit times for their joint-prayers, if they cannot keep Pace with Holy Mr. Bolton, who prayed twice daily alone, twice with his Wife, and twice with his Family. And herein consider, what particular grace or mercy your Relation wants; what sin and temptation they are most liable to, and press God with an humble importunity in the case, till your prayer be answered. You own each other a spiritual as well as as a matrimonial love: and if you only eat and drink together, what do you more than others? do not the Beasts of the field so? If your love reach only to the body and the things of this life, do not the Publicans the same? but if you love one another's souls, and be restless after the salvation thereof, you do more than others, and your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. And thus you have heard a plain Breviate of these Common Duties, which Husbands and Wives should discharge towards each other. I follow now the Order of my Text, to declare in the Second place the special Duty of the Husband in this Position, namely, The great Duty of every Husband is to Love his own Wife. This is the foundation of all the rest, this must be mixed with all the rest, this is the Epitome of all the rest of his Duty. And hence this is expressly mentioned four times in this Chapter, vers. 25, 28, 33. as being the great wheel, which by its motion carries about all the other wheels of the affections that are within us, and the actions that are without us. Fix but this blessed Habit in the heart, and it will teach a man, yea it will enforce a man, to all that tenderness, honour, care and kindness that is required of him. These are but the beams from that Sun, they are but the fruits from that root of real Love that is within. Love suffereth long and is kind, it envies not, is not puffed up, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh none evil, beareth all things, 1 Cor. 13.4, 6. It is here as it is in Love to God, which (you know) doth both instruct and thrust a man on to the utmost of his Duty, excluding those wary fears, wherewith hypocrites abound, lest they should do too much. Even so Love to a man's Wife suggests all fit expressions thereof, and carries a man to perform the highest effects of it, when as the want of this causes him to dispute every inch of God's command, and to be jealous of every prescription. I shall trace this comprehensive Grace or Duty, 1. In its nature and property. 2. In its Pattern. 3. In its effects; which done, you will see that the greatest part, if not all the Husband's Duty, is contained in Loving his Wife as himself. 1. For the First, The Nature and Property of this Love: It is Conjugal, true aed genuine, such as is peculiar to this Relation: Not that fondness which is proper in Children, nor the brutish lust which is peculiar to Beasts; but that which is right and true. 1. For the ground of it; which is the near Relation which Gods Ordinance hath now brought him into, and his will revealed in his Word. Such was the Love of Isaac to Rebeka, Gen. 24.67. She became his Wife, and he loved her. The Ordinance of God hath made her (k) Not only by original creation, so she is part of his flesh; but by nuptial conjunction, so she is one flesh. Gatak. Serm. p. 200. One Flesh with me, and the Law of Nature obligeth me to love my own flesh; and therefore though her Beauty be decayed, her Portion spent, her Weaknesses great, and her usefulness small, yet she is a piece of myself, and here the wise God hath determined my affection. And when all is said; This is the only Sure Foundation, and holds perpetually. 2. This Love must be right for the Extent of it; I mean it reaches the whole Person, both Soul and Body. Every man should choose such an one, whose outward features and proportion he can highly esteem and affect; and it speaks the admirable Wisdom of God to frame such variety of fancies to answer the variety of persons, and there being such choice, it is sottish folly to choose where a man cannot love, and the greatest Injury possible to the wife, to ensnare her heart, and bind her to one that shall afterwards say, he cannot love her. But besides this, true Conjugal Love to a Wife reaches her Soul; So as to see an amiableness in her mind and disposition, so as to study how to polish her Soul more and more with wisdom and piety, and to endeavour that her Soul may prosper as her body prospers. 3. Right for the Degree of it. It must be transcendent, above your Love to Parents: For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his Wife, Gen. 2.24. The Husband must honour his Parents, but he must love his Wife as himself, and must (yet with all prudence) prefer her in his respects, when ever they come in Competition; and those Parents have forgotten the Relation and Duty of an husband that expect other from their Children, when they are married: And so he must prefer her in his affection before his Children, and (l) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. in Eph. 5. rather love them for her sake, than her for theirs, and before all others in the World. In short, he must so love her, as to delight in her company above all others. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love, Prov. 5.19, 20. 4. The Husband's love must be right for the Duration of it. And the last named Scripture clears that; be thou always ravished with her love. Not only kind before other folk, and then cold in private, but always: not for a week or month or the first year, but while life lasts. Yea, as he hath experience of her virtue and sweetness, his love should daily (m) Vbi uxo ●m magis fueris expertus, teneriùs est amauda— Illud verò, ubi uxore ad satietatem fueris potitu, refrigescere amorem, quem arder (ut videtur) libidivis accenderat, hominum est spurcorum & abj●ctissimorum, imò verò non hominum sed belluarum. Lud. Vives de off mar. increase: as you know we love any creature the more, by how much the longer we have had them; and nothing more betrays the baseness of a man's spirit, then to neglect his Wife, when his sensual appetite is once cloyed. For you have had her beauty and strength, why should you not also have her wrinkles and infirmities, yea and give the more respect to her tried fidelity? However this is certain, still you are one Flesh, and every man continues kind to his own flesh, how infirm and noisome soever it be. And if there be less comeliness in the body, yet usually there is more beauty in the mind, more wisdom, humility, and fear of the Lord; so that still there are sufficient Arguments in her, or Arguments in the Bible to perpetuate your conjugal Affection. 2. Let us trace the Husband's Love to his Wife in its Pattern laid down in the Scripture, and particularly in the Context and Words which I am handling. And 1. The Husband ought to love his Wife, as our Saviour Christ loveth his Church. Ver. 25. Husbands, love your Wives, even as Christ also loved his Church. He must nourish and cherish her, even as the Lord the Church, ver. 29. Now these Texts direct us to the quality of our Love, though we cannot reach to an equality with Christ herein. How then doth Jesus Christ love his Church? I shall search no farther into this Depth, than so far as it is proposed in this Context for a Pattern (surely) to all Husbands in their love. And this his Love is represented here to be. 1. Hearty, without dissimulation. Ver. 25. He loved the Church and gave himself for it. His Love was Real, for he Died of it. The Husband must write after this Copy. Not to love his wife in word and tongue only, but in deed and in truth; that if his heart were opened, her Name might be found written there. Some vain complimental persons there are, that do outstrip in their overt addresses many sincere and truehearted husbands; but neither doth God nor should a discreet wife look only at the appearance, but at the heart. 2. Free, without being prevented before, or likely to be rewarded after. For ver. 26. he gave himself that he might cleanse his Church, which implies that she was in ill plight, when he began his motions. She was no beauty; no, we loved him, because he loved us first. The Husband must precede, and by his love draw out the love of his wife; for (n) Ego tibi monstrabo amatorium sine medicamento, sine herba— Si vis amari, ama. Hec in Sen. Ep. 9 Love is the whetstone of Love. And if she appear weak, as their sex by constitution is, both in wisdom, strength, and courage, or prove unlovely, and (o) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. in Eph. 5. hom. 20. negligent of her duty; yet he must love her: For love seeketh not her own. True love doth more study to better the object beloved, than to advantage the subject that loveth. And to love a Wife only in hopes of some Advantages by her, is unworthy the heart of an Husband, and no way like the example of Christ. 3. Holy without impurity. For ver. 26. He loved his Church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that is, by the use of the Word and Sacraments. The Husband cannot have a better Copy, and is taught hereby to endeavour at any cost and pains whatsoever to further the sanctification and salvation of his wife: Of which before. 4. Great without comparison. For greater love hath no man than this, to lay down his life for his friend; and so did our Saviour, ver. 25. he (p 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Affectum indicat: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Effectum amoris demonstrat. Daven. in Col. p. 340. gave himself for his Church. He took not on him the Nature of Angels, but preferred the seed of Abraham. The Husband must herein imitate his Lord and Master by preserving a singular and superlative respect for his wife, because she is a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. But of this also before. 5. Constant without alteration; even until he present his Church a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle, ver. 27. many a weary day hath he, and many an unkind put off; yet he doth not cast her off. Here is a copy for Husbands. They must not for every fault repent their bargain, and curse the time of their meeting; they must not be meditating a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (q) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnibus rebus est permutatio, excepta uxore juventutis. Buxt. ex Sanded. change upon any dislike, but bear and forbear; and overcome evil with good. 6. His is an active and fruitful Love; for ver. 29. he nourisheth and cherisheth his Church. His poor Church is always wanting, he supplies her; she is in trouble, he protects her; she is ready to sink, but he awakes to save her. Such must be an Husbands Love. He must spare no cost, no pains to do his Wife good; she now leans only upon him, he must not fail her; she hath left all her friends for him, he must not leave her: She hath a (r) Quae molestia per singulos menses, cùm velut sentina uteri purgatur? quae praegnantium fastidia? quam praesentia enitentium discrimina? quanta enixarum jam & puerperarum? quàm illinc discedunt fractae? quot casibus & periculis obnoxiae? ut mirandum sit, sanam ullam illarum unquam vivere. Vniversa autem vita quid aliud, quam serviunt nobis, sive virgines parentibu, sive nuptae mari●is, sive liberis matres? Lud. Viu. de off. mar. succession of many infirmities; pains, and perils, he must nourish her; no Nurse like a good Husband; he must cherish her, no Cordial, or Comforter like a wise and loving Husband. Thus the Husband must love his Wife, as Christ loveth his Church. And again. 2. The husband ought to love his Wife as himself: So saith my Text. The Apostle had said ver. 28. so ought men to love their Wives as their own bodies: and lest that should not be sufficient, he goes on in my Text, and says, let every one of you in particular love his wife even as himself. And whereas it might be said; why, so we are to love all the world; thou shalt love thy Neighbour [as thyself:] now saith the Apostle, ver. 28. he that loveth his wife, he loveth [himself,] which is more than as himself. Now though this Love to a man's self is less, then that of Christ to his Church: yet it is more plain and sensible to us: for (as was said at first) he that doth not know with what manner of Love Christ doth love his Church, yet knows with what love he loves himself. And that is (besides what was last instanced in) 1. Tenderly. No one can touch or handle a man's () Innumera eveniunt cu●que nostrum à corpore suo incommoda, nemo tamen corpus suum odit aut non diligit, non indulget, quantum potest: & si aliquando illi irascitur, continuo post tamen redit cum illo in gratiam. Lud. Vives de off. mar. sores and griefs so tenderly as himself: ver. 29. No man ever yet hated his own flesh (how unlovely soever) but nourisheth and cherisheth it. Such aught the Husband's love to be towards his Wife, accompanied with the greatest tenderness. For they are like Crystal Glasses, soon broken, if not tenderly handled. Their Constitutions are such as inevitably make them liable to (t) Est etiam meticulosa, quandequidem calor animosos facu; ava●a, ●nctu ne d sit; & tacito naturae admoni●s infirmam & invalidam se esse, cui multa sint oput. Suspicax ex metu, querula, invida— I qu●ei as illis partim ex varieta e cogitationum affectionumque proficiscitur, partim ex suspitione, & m●tu. Id. ib. fears and passions and griefs innumerable; and therefore the Husband must deal as tenderly with his Wife, as a man would deal with himself. 2. Cheerfully. No man is so ready to help a man as himself. His best friends sometimes falter and are weary at length, but every man is next to himself. Let the business be never so hard or hazardous, a man will venture when it is for himself. So must the Husband most readily and cheerfully assist, comfort and help his Wife. If a cloud arise between them, yet the Husband's Love must dissolve it quickly; for no man is long angry with himself. In a word, she should need, she should use no Mediator to her Husband in any case; for he should have his ear open, his hand, his heart ready to pity, help, and gratify her, even as he is ready to help himself. 3. And this brings us to the Effects of the Husband's Love to his Wife, which is the third thing to be described. And they are 1. In Word, 2. In Deed. 1. In Word, and this more principally, 1. By diligent Instruction of his Wife, wherein she is ignorant. He ought to dwell with his Wife according to knowledge, 1 Pet. 3.7. And she ought to ask her Husband at home, when she would learn, and not speak in the Church, 1 Cor. 14.35. Yea, the (u) Plutarch. p●aec. conjug who gives this Reason out of Homer, Namque es ei pater & frater, verecundáque mater. Heathen could tell the Husband, that he must gather (like a Bee) wisdom and knowledge abroad, and then communicate it to his wife at home. For this the Husband hath excellent opportunity, and woe to him if he want will or skill. They should strive, whether she should be more ready to ask him questions, or he to offer the occasion. This is certain, if he can do her (x) Hoc maximum est veri amoris indicium, curare ut uxor unà secum ritè colat Deum in hac vita, quo unà frui Deo possint in futura. Dau. in Col. p 341. Soul good, he lays an eternal obligation upon her to love and honour him; and if he neglect his endeavours, she will be like to curse him for ever in Hell. 2. The Husband demonstrates his Love by gentle Reproof of his wife, when she doth amiss. He must indeed overlook many Infirmities, 〈◊〉 Love covereth a multitude of sins: and as he that is always using his sword, will make it dull at length; so he that is continually reproving, shall have the less regard given to his reproofs. But yet he cannot love her, if he do not, when need is, reprove her: but then, let it be with all the wisdom and tenderness imaginable. Not before strangers, and rarely before the family; not for natural defects, seldom for inadvertencies: and when he does it, let him make way for his reproof by commending in her what is good; and when he hath done, back it with a (y) Breven oportet esse mariti reprehensionem & velut ictui praeceleri simillimum: addenda & reprehensionis ratio, etc. Lud. Viu. de off. mar. Reason. He must be sure to mingle the oil of kindness with the myrrh of reproof; for if he give her this potion too hot, the operation is hindered, and his labour worse than lost. Admirable was the carriage of Job, Job 2.10. when his wife had highly offended him with her words, yet hear how mildly he rebukes her. Not thou wicked Caitiff, but thou speakest like one of the foolish women. Sooner or later (if she be not brutish) she will be thankful and amend. 3. The husband's Love must be demonstrated by ready encouragement of his wife, when she doth well. Prov. 31.28. Her Husband also, he praiseth her. He that is discreet and faithful herein, perhaps taketh the readiest way to do her good. For such is the weakness of many, that they ever think that reproof proceeds either from an ill Opinion or want of Affection in the husband; but when they shall find that he is as ready to encourage them when they do well, they are convinced and reform. 4. The husband's Love is seen by seasonable comforting his wife in affliction; whether it be in mind or body. So did Elkanah (1 Sam. 1.8.) Hannah: why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am I not better to thee then ten Sons? and this brought her to her meat, as you may see in the next verse. And generally a kind word from an husband's mouth doth good like a medicine. And that Husband is worse than a Tiger, that supports not his poor Wife at such a time. In her troubles of mind he must be her Casuist; in weakness of body he must be her Comforter. 2. The Effects of an husband's Love to his wife must be in Deed also. And that 1. By making Provision for her; both of what is necessary, and also of what is convenient for her, according to his ability. Exod. 21.10. Her food and her raiment, and her duty of marriage he shall not diminish. Not that she hath any privilege to be maintained in Idleness, or like a Drone live upon the industry of her husband without adding her helping hand. But the main care hereof must lie upon her husband. And this is probably (z) So Gataker, Hammond. concluded to be at least a part of that honour 1 Pet. 3.7. due to the wife as the weaker Vessel; the best kind of honour, to wit, maintenance: so that word is frequently (a) Matth. 15.6. 1 Tim. 5 2. taken: and the reason added carries it this way, namely, she is the weaker Vessel, not able to support herself, but depends upon her husband, who must therefore give her honour (that is, maintenance) as the weaker Vessel. She hath not that wisdom, forecast or strength for such purposes as he hath: and therefore as he hath the strongest obligation upon him, and the greatest advantages, he must lay about him by all lawful means to support and provide for her. And that not only for her maintenance while he lives; but he ought to make provision for her, as far as he is able, after his departure hence: for so did Jesus Christ for his Church. And the Husband ought to show his Love herein by the freedom and cheerfulness of his Supplies to the wants of his wife; neither doing it grudgingly nor niggardly; but rather, if he be able, intrusting her with some pittance in her own disposal, that she may have occasion to exercise her charity, and to encourage her Children or Servants in their duty. 2. This Conjugal Love is to be showed in the Tenderness of the husband towards the wife. And this Duty is incumbent on him, as he is the Head of the wife, 1 Cor. 11.3. the head of every woman is the man. And hence the husband is bound to Protect his wife from dangers, and to Sympathise with her in them. Thus Abraham was a Covering to Sarah, Gen. 20.16. not only to confine her eye, but to defend her person. And upon this account he must protect her Soul from temptation, her Body from harm, her Name from reproach, and her Person from contempt either of Children, Servants, or others: For as much as she hath forsaken all her friends, and cast herself upon his care and kindness; and it would be unpardonable cruelty in him to desert or betray her. And then he ought to sympathise with her in her troubles: but of this before. In short, his whole carriage to her should be full of tenderness, and composed of Love and Pity. 5. The husband's Love is showed to his wife, in Giving her a good Example; namely of Piety, Gravity, Charity, Wisdom, and Goodness, which will be the most constant and effectual Lecture that he can read unto her. The (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. de cura rei fam. l. 1. Philosopher could say, That a well-bred wife, as soon as she is married, accounts the way and course of her husband as a Law prescribed to her by God himself. The good or evil Example of a Magistrate, Minister, or Husband, hath a more real, though insensible, influence upon the actions of their inferiors, than all their (c) Homines amplius oculis quam auribus eredunt: longumiter est per praecepta, breve & efficax per exempla. Senec. Ep. 6. Laws and Precepts. And as for the Husband, he is called the guide of her youth, Prov. 2.17. If he be holy, quiet, and industrious; she cannot for shame, be wicked, froward, and idle. His discourses will direct hers; his prayers will teach her to pray; his justice, temperance and charity will be a law, a rule, a motive to make her just, and sober, and charitable. If he be an Atheist, an Epicure, a Pharisee, it undoes her. He is to go before her; and usually she follows him either to Hell or Heaven. 4. An husband's Love is to be showed in his yielding to the reasonable requests of his wife. So did David to Bathsheba, 1 Kings 1.28. So did Isaac to Rebeka, Gen. 28.1. So did Abraham to Sarah, Gen. 16.6. though the thing itself was grievous to him. So did Jesus Christ daily to his Church. He that loves, gives and grants, and that readily. And the Husband should rather prevent his wife, and give before she asks, than be difficult or hard to be entreated: she is to take care that her requests be reasonable, and then she needs no Intercessor for her. Famous is that instance in Story of Cleopatra, who after that her Husband Meleager his Father, Mother, Neighbours, had all in vain solicited his help to defend their City, they having disobliged him before, At length his Wife runs to him, when the enemy was entering, and cries, (d) Succurre quaeso, mi vir: occidimus, nisi succurris. Plutarch. Help, good Husband, else we are lost: And this charmed and roused him to their rescue: One word from her prevailed more with him, than the cries and arguments of all the rest. And to this may be referred, His taking her counsel in divers cases: So did (e) 1 Sam. 1: 23. Elkanah; so did (f) Gen. 21.12. Abraham. For though you may not always perceive Judgement in her Counsel, yet you may be always sure to find affection; and that her aim in shooting her bolt is right, though her arm be not always with the strongest. 5. The husband's Love is to be showed in Trusting his wife in Domestic affairs. Prov. 31.11. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. Especially she having, as she ought to have, a competent judgement to guide them. It is below the gravity of an Husband to intermeddle with managing household provisions, Maidservants, and such like affairs; but should leave them to the discretion of his wife: unless she at fit times do discreetly choose to advise with him; that so if the event should not answer his expectation, she may be free from blame. But generally, he ought to move in his own sphere, and encourage her to move in hers. He must fetch in honey, and she must work it in the hive: For seldom doth the Estate prosper, where the husband busies himself within doors, and the wife without. 6. The Effects of an husband's Love to his wife are to be seen in his Behaviour towards her, that is in the mild use of his Authority. This God hath in his Wisdom invested him withal at his (g) Gen 2.23. Creation, and not devested him at his (h) Gen. 3.16. Fall. The (i) Esth. 1.22. Light of Nature gives it to him; and the Gospel hath no where repealed, but (k) 1 Cor. 11.3. confirmed the same; And none but proud and ignorant women will ever dispute it. But herein lies an Act of the husband's Love; 1. wisely to keep; 2. mildly to use this Authority. 1. He must keep it by a religious, grave, and manly carriage; this will be his chiefest Fort and Buttress to support it. It will be hard for her (though doubtless her duty) to reverence him, who himself hath forgotten to reverence his God. If his behaviour be light, she will be apt to set lightly by him. If he be weak and effeminate, it loses him. But he ought to answer his name; to be an Head for judgement and excellency of spirit, and to be truly religious. This will maintain his Authority. But then 2. Herein shines his Love, to use the same with all sweetness, remembering that though he be Superior to his Wife, yet that their Souls are equal; that she is to be treated as his Companion; that he is not to rule her as a (l) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. i e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. de cura rei fam. l. 1. Imperare maritus mulieri debet, non ut Dominus rei quam possidet, sed ut animus corpori. Lud. Viu. de off. mar. Non es Dominus, sed maritus: non ancillam forti●us es, sed uxorem. Red study vicem, red amori gratiam. Ambros. tom. 4. p. 55. King doth his Subjects, but as the head doth the body; That though she was not taken out of Adam's head, so neither out of his foot, but out of his side near his heart. And therefore his Countenance must be friendly, his ordinary (m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrys. in Eph s hom. 20. language to her mild and sweet, his behaviour obliging, his commands sparing and respectful, and his reproofs gentle. He must neither be Abject nor Magisterial. If his Rule be too imperious, his love is destroyed; if his love be not discreetly expressed, his sceptre's lost, and then he is disabled from doing God Service, or his Family good. He should never imagine that a rude insolency or perpetual bitterness is either the way to keep or use his Authority aright. Yea, the Spirit of God expressly saith, Col. 3.19. Husbands, love your Wives, and be not bitter against them. If meekness of Wisdom will not prevail with thy wife, thou art undone in this world, and she in the world to come. And so much for the heads of the husband's Duty to his wife: I now proceed to the Third thing, namely to declare the Duty of the Wife in this Position. The great Duty of every wife is to reverence her own husband. She stands obliged to many other Duties, as you have heard, which lie common between them; but she is still signalised by this. This is her peculiar qualification as she is a wife. Let her have never so much wisdom, learning, grace; yet if she do not reverence her husband, she cannot be a good Wife. Look to her Creation; she was made after Man, he has some honour by his seniority, 1 Tim. 2.13. For Adam was first form, than Eve, She was made out of Man: he was the rock whence she was hewn. 1 Cor. 11.8. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. She was made for man, 1 Cor. 11.9. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. So that it is not Man, that hath set this Order, but God himself. Look again to the Fall, and there you hear what God saith, Gen. 3.16. Thy des●re shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. See in the New Testament, lest Christ his being made of a woman should seem to alter this inviolable Law. Coloss. 3.18. Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. 1 Pet. 3.1. Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own Husbands. Ver. 2. your chaste conversation must be coupled with fear. Ver. 5. The holy women of old adorned themselves with this subjection to their own husbands: and so in my Text. Let her be never so great, never so good; and though her husband be never so mean, and never so bad: yet this is her indispensable Duty, to reverence her husband. And this Principle must first be fixed in her heart, that she is an (n) N●n modo mores majorum & institu●a, sed leg●s omnes humanae ac divinae, ipsa etiam natura clamat, mulierem debere esse subditam viro, ac es pa ere. L. Vives. de Chr. foem p. 704. Inferior, that her husband is a degree above her; that it is neither agreeable to nature or decency to set the head below, or no higher than the Rib. And when she is resolved in this, than will she with much delight and ease go through her Duty. A wise God hath ordered it thus, and therefore it is best. Now I shall open this Duty according to my former Method, 1. In its Nature. 2. In its Pattern. 3. In its Effects. 1. For the first, The nature of this reverence: It is a true cordial and conjugal reverence, such as is peculiar to a good woman. And I conceive it is made up of 1. Estimation, 2. Love, and 3. Fear. 1. The wife ought to honour and esteem her husband. Esth. 1.19. Then all the Wives shall give to their husband's [honour] both to great and small. And to this end, she ought to contemplate all the excellencies of his Person, whether of Body or mind, and to set a due (o) Sic Cornelia irata plerísque, qui honoris gratia Scipionis cognominahant; maluit Cornelia Gracchi nominari. L. Vives. value upon them; and not to think meanly of every thing in her husband. Thus when the wife of Tigranes was asked by her husband, after a great solemnity, what she thought of Cyrus, whom every one did commend as the most excellent person in all that company, she answered roundly, (p) Ita me dii ament, ut toto convivio nunquam abs te ad alium vi u● deflexerim oculos. Truly I looked at no body there but at you my husband. And if the husband be but meanly accomplished, yet she ought highly to value the excellency of his Place, seeing the Holy Ghost hath in this very respect styled him the Image and Glory of God, 1 Cor. 11.7. So that whatever he is in himself or to others, yet to the wife he is a None-such. Such you esteemed him, when you (q) Sed horridus, & incultus est. Semel placuit. Nunquid vir fr●quenter cligendus? comparem suam & bos el●git & equus diligit, & si mutetur alius, trahere jugum nescit compar alterius, & se non totum putat. Ambr. tom. 4. p. 55. chose him, and so you ought still to esteem him. And you are to remember the sin and punishment of Michal, 2 Sam. 6.16. She despised her husband in her heart: and ver. 23. she had no child to the day of her death. The wife ought to consider, that her honour and respect among her family and neighbours doth very much rise and fall according to that which she bears to her husband; so that in honouring him she honours herself. 2. This Reverence is made up of (r) Timet virum suum & adultera, verùm non ideò quod illum amet, sed quod sibi ipsi conscia est admissi delicti: timet verum uxor virum suum fidelis & honesta, non ex mala conscientia sed ex conjugali d●lectione Musc. in loc. Love. Which though it be most pressed upon the Husband, yet is also the Duty of the Wife. Tit. 2.4. Teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. Thus Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel left Parents, Friends, and Country out of their entire love to their husbands. Thus those excellent women being besieged together with their husbands in the Castle of Winsberg, having liberty for themselves to go out and carry what they could with them, took up each their husband, and so delivered them. But above all comparisons is the Instance that L. Vives gives us of a generous (s) Si deformis est maritus, amandus animus, cui nupsisti. L. Vives, who gives a large narration hereof. p. 706. de Chr. foem. young woman, by name Clara Cerventa, well known to him, that was married to one Valdaura, that proved to be full of diseases and loathsome sores, whom yet she attended with that care, cost, and love, dressing his sores, which no body else would touch, selling all her attire and jewels to maintain him, and after ten long years of languishment, when he was dead, and her friends came rather to congratulate than condole her loss, she with great trouble told them, that she could be willing to purchase her dear Valdaura again with the loss of her five Children. It is not fond doting love, but such love as this, which begets reverence in the heart of the wife to her own husband. And indeed there is no better means to increase the husband's love than the (t) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. in Col. hom. 10. wife's reverence, and that alone will make this sweet and easy. 3. Fear is the third ingredient into the reverence which the wife owes unto her husband. And this I told you was the proper import of this (u) Quo verbo talem intelligit timorem, qui ex amore & reverentia erga mari●um pr●ficiscitur. Zanch. in loc. word in my Text. And this is required 1 Pet. 3.2. a chaste conversation coupled with fear: the one is not sufficient without the other. And this the (x) Vxor autem honesta suum virum ita ut aequum est pudicè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debet. Arist. ubi supra. Philosopher saw and acknowledged, and thereupon distinguisheth between a servile dread, and an ingenuous fear; exploding the former as unsuitable to the nearness and dearness of that Relation, and exacting the latter: which is no more than a (y) Subjecti● ista consistit in hoc, ut mulier tanquam inferior virum tanquam caput revereatur, observet, caveat ne off●ndat, sed ejus mandata laeto animo praestet. Zanch. in loc. cautious diligence to please him, and care lest she should offend him. A wife must not sit down and say, If he be pleased, so it is; if not, let him help himself how he can. No, but I will do my utmost to give my husband contentment: For though I do not fear his hand, yet I fear his frown. Better I should displease all the world, than my own husband. She ought rather to deny herself, than make her Head, her dear Head to ache. 2. And now let us trace this Reverence of the wife to her husband in its Pattern laid before her in the Context of these words. And here I affirm these two things: 1. That the wife ought to Reverence her husband, as the Church doth Jesus Christ. So ver. 22. Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord: and ver. 24. Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Examples are prevalent, especially of wise and good people; here's the example of all the wise and godly people in the world to persuade the wife to reverence her husband: and the Apostle seems to say, that it is as much a duty in the wife to be (z) Truncus est vir & planc mortuus, cujus caput non est Christus: demens & temeraria est mulier, cui vir non prae●st. L. Vives. de Chr. f. p. 704. subject to the husband, as it is in the Church to be subject to Christ. In pursuance of this I shall not expatiate, but keep near my Text. Two things proclaim the Reverence that the Church bears to Christ. 1. The Matter of her Subjection, and that is in every thing: she doth not yield in great matters, and stick at small, nor yield in small things, and deny in great: she doth not yield to him only so far as her Interest or Appetite permits her; but when he requires it, denies them both. So saith the Apostle, vers. 24. Let the wives be subject to their own husbands in [every thing] that is, in every thing that is not forbidden by an higher power, even the Law of God. Indeed, if a thing be only inconvenient, the wife may mildly reason and show the inexpediency of it; but if she cannot convince and satisfy her Husband, she must (if there be no sin in the case) submit her reason and her will to his. 2. The Manner of her subjection speaks her Reverence; and that is free, willing, cheerful. Thus the Church yields up herself to the will of her husband; insomuch as it is made a kind of proverbial pattern, Eph. 6.7. with good will, doing service as to the Lord; implying that the subjection and service that we perform to the Lord is with a good will. And such aught to be the subjection of the wife, most free and willing; so, as if there were but (a) Nam quae ita vivit, ut se ac maritum rem prorsus unam esse arbitretur, haec absolvit numeros omnes sanctae uxoris. Lu. Vives de Chr. foem. pag. 678. one will in two breasts. Thus Leah and Rachel, Gen. 31.16. followed Jacob like his shadow; when he makes a motion, they consent; if he'll go, they will follow him. And was not Sarah's Reverence (b) This submission must not be for worldly respects, or for fear of wrath, but religious, and for conscience sake. Gatak. Serm. p. 198. cordial, when within herself in her heart she called her husband Lord? Gen. 18.12. And therefore a contradicting or grudging spirit is very unsuitable to the religious wife, and ever leaves a sting in his heart and guilt in hers: For usually it is a sign of unmortified pride and self-conceit, and entails the curse of unquietness upon the Family, and writes a dangerous example to inferiors. If the husband's government be too heavy, yet it is better for you to leave him to answer for his severity, than for you to answer for your (c) She owes her Duty not only or principally to her husband but to the Lord, so that his neglect will not excuse hers. Id. p. 199. contempt. 2. The wife ought to Reverence her husband, as the Members do the Head. So vers. 23. For the husband is the head of the wife. He is an Head for influence and sympathy, that's her privilege: he is an Head for eminence and rule, that is his. And how should she expect benefit from her head, if she do not honour her head? To (d) 1 Cor. 11.4. dishonour a man's head is always ranked among unnatural sins. All the members are sensible of what use the Head is for their good. There are continual cares and projects for the sustenance and comfort of the body, and therefore they are willing to give the head its due honour. The hand will submit to a wound to save the head: If the head resolve to rise up to work or pray, the whole body is up presently; if the head design a journey, never so long, never so dangerous, the body says not nay, but obeys as long as possibly it can. Why, so should the wife show, honour to her head; she ought to honour him next unto her Maker; she must be afraid by her frowardness or sullenness to break her own head; she must not cross the purposes of her head; it is preposterous for the (e) Non secus ac miles suo imperato ri imperare si postulet, aut luna soli praeesse, aut brachium capiti. L. Vives ubi supra. head to go one way, and the rib another: She must readily follow the directions and counsels of her head; for the members must not teach the head which way to go; they support it, but they do not direct it. Indeed it is said that the virtuous woman is the crown of her husband; but yet there is more (f) Vxor coruscat radiis mariti. Justinian. worth in the head than in the crown. So that still (except always cases wherein the head is (g) The man hath government in the house except he be verbum anomalum, i. e. a fool. Luther. craz d or notoriously distempered) it will be the wisdom and duty of the wife to be subject to the husband as unto her Head. And this hath brought us to the Third thing, by which the Reverence of the Wife is described, and that is by the Effects thereof; And they also are either, 1. In word, or 2. In deed. 1. In word. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. And if there be that inward fear and respect in the heart, which God requires, it will be legible in the words of their mouths. The same Law that binds the heart in this case, doth also govern the tongue. In her tongue is the law of kindness, Prov. 31.26. And here certainly a wholesome tongue is a tree of life; whereas perverseness therein, is a breach in the spirit, Prov. 15.4. Now this Reverence in the Wife is showed. 1. In her words of her husband. Which should always be composed of respect and honour. Thus Sarah is brought in by the Apostle, 1 Pet. 3.6. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well. And this was the language of her heart, as you heard before out of Gen. 18.12. And no wife is too great or good to imitate her example in the main, by giving respectful titles and expressions of her husband; whereas on the contrary it is observed of the naughty woman, Prov. 7.19. she only affords her husband in his absence, the man (for so it is in the Hebrew) is not at home. And it were well if this were the worst title and character which many wives do give their husbands behind their backs. Whereas all the reproach and ignominy that they pour out on their husband, doth infallibly redound to their own shame; their (h) Name & vir uxoris majestatem amere & benevolentia tuetur, & wulier viri cultu & obedientia,— Nihil genus, nihil opes, nihil fortuna proderunt; honore carebis si caruerit vir. Lu. Vives ubi sup●a. honour and respect standing and falling together. 2. The words of the wife to her husband ought to be full of Reverence. And therefore she should beware, 1. Of an Excess in the quantity, not preposterously interrupting her husband while he is speaking, nor answering ten words for one. For (i) Vxorium est ornam●ntum aut cum mari o aut per maritum loqui Id. ibid. silence doth more commend the wisdom of a woman, than speech; and she that is wise spareth her words: and though she seem to be religious, yet if she do not bridle her tongue, her religion is vain. And 2. She must beware of a Defect in the quality of them, viz. of meekness and respect. For the great study of the wife should be to get a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God (yea and of man too) is of great price, 1 Pet. 3.4. When the heart is once meekened by the grace of God; then her words will savour of it, and not till then. And though they may think that this will invite and further the insolency of an unkind husband; yet they may rest assured, that that which is most pleasing to God, shall not tend to their prejudice any way. For hath not God said, that a soft tongue breaketh the bone? which is more than any virulent tongue can do, Prov. 25.15. Let every godly woman therefore so frame the matter and manner of their words to their husbands, as knowing that God stands by; to whom they must give account of every idle word, much more of every irreverent and contemptuous word, at the day of Judgement, Mat. 12.36. It will be an unspeakable comfort at Death and Judgement to reflect upon the Victories which their Patience hath gotten; and how oft their quiet silence, and mild answers have kept the peace. In conjugal contests though each should be slow to passion, and swift to peace; yet where (k) one must yield, it is most reasonably to be expected from the (l) Sin caeperit excandescere, noli contra niti, & ex uno insano duos facere, te & illum. L. Vives de Chr. f. p. 709. (l) The Wife is bound rather to seek reconcilement, as is implied in that 1 Cor. 7.11. Let her be reconciled to her Husband. Gatak. Serm. p. 188. Inferior. No woman gets honour by the last word. Some will say, Their tongue is their only weapon: But the wise do know, That their tongues are not their own; That when they (m) Jam 3.6. are set on fire of hell, they set on fire the course of nature; and that by one's very words they may be condemned. Look into the Scripture, and dress yourselves by that glass. What did Rachel get by her passionate terms, Gen. 30.1. Give me children, or else I die: and as soon as ever she had children, lo she died, chap. 34.19. Whereas on the contrary, the discreet and mild behaviour of Abigail to her husband (though he were a Churl) gained her both quiet, comfort and honour. This is certain, if meekness and respect will not prevail (n) as the Captains of Cyrus commanded their Soldiers to receive their shouting enemy with silence, and when they had ended, then to set up a shout: so husband and wife must agree not to shout together. Plutarch. Col. 3.18. anger and passion never can; if Duty work not our quiet, how should sin? 2. The Effects of a Wife's reverence to her Husband must be in Deed also. And that 1. By Obedience to his Directions and Restraints. If he be to rule over her, Gen. 3.19. than she is to obey. And the Apostle, 1 Pet. 3.6. tells us that Sarah obeyed Abraham: He bids her, Gen. 18.6. make ready quickly three measures of meal, etc. and it was done presently, though she knew not what guests her husband had brought. And the Apostle Paul saith, it must be in every thing, Eph. 5.24. which he both urges and explains by this, as it is fit in the Lord. So that the wife is bound in conscience to obey her husband in every thing that is not contrary to the will of God. Indeed, if he command her to do any thing that is sinful by the Law of God, as if he should bid her tell a lie, bear false witness, or the like; she must modestly and resolvedly refuse it. If he forbidden her to do any thing, that is by God's command made an undispensable (o) Sic placeat uxor voluntati conjugis, ut non displiceat voluntati conditoris. Daven. ex Gregor. duty unto her; as if he should absolutely forbid her to pray, to read the Scripture, to sanctify the Lord's day, or the like; then she must rather obey God than Man. But in all other cases, though she may respectfully persuade with him, yet if he insist upon it, her obedience will be her best sacrifice, and her compliance will be the means to make her yoke the more easy. If the husband will have her to stay at home, she must not run abroad without his consent; but as that good Shunamite, 2 King. 4.22. She called to her husband, and said, Send me I pray thee one of the young men, and one of the Asses, that I may run to the man of God and come again. And indeed the house is her proper place, for she is the (p) She that tarried at home, Psal. 68.8. Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decus domus beauty of the house, there her business lies, there she is safe. The Ancients painting them with a Snail under their feet, and the Egyptians denying their women (q) Egyptiae mulieres majorum instituto calceis non u●ebantur, ut domi meminissent tempus exigendum. Plutarch. precept. conjug. Shoes, and the Scythians burning the Bride's Chariot axletree at her door, when she was brought to her husband's house, and the Angel's ask Abraham where Sarah was, though he knew well enough, that it might be observed, (r) Ante tabernaculum Vir hospitum explorat adventus, intra talernaculum Sara tuetur foeminae verecundiam & opera muliebria tuto exercet pudore. Foris maritus invitat, intus Sara convivium adornat. Ambros. tom. 4. p. 180. she was in the tent, Gen. 18.9. do all intimate, that by the Law of Nature, and by the Rules of Religion, the wife ought to keep at (s) The Apostle Tit. 2.5. joineth chastity and home-keeping together. Gatak. Serm. p. 195. home, unless urgent necessity do call her abroad. When Sun and Moon both disappear, the Sky is dark; and when both husband and wife are abroad, many disorders breed at home: and you know whose Character it is, Prov. 7.11. She is loud and stubborn, her feet abide not in her house, etc. So also where the husband judges most convenient to dwell, there the wife must cheerfully consent to dwell with him, though it may be, either in respect of her friends, or of his, more uncomfortable to her. Thus when Jacob was resolved to carry his Wives from their friends to his Country, they readily yielded, Gen. 31.16. Thus when Ahasuerus sent for Vasthi, though his command seemed inconvenient; yet she had been truer to her Duty, as well as to her Interest, had she come to him: for the husband is the Head of his wife, and she must obey him. He that appoints them to love their husbands, Tit. 2.4. doth in the next verse enjoin them to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God be not blasphemed. For though even good women be put to silence, yet good works never can 2. Her Real Reverence is required and showed in ask and harkening to his Counsel, and Reproofs. The Husband hath been taught wisdom in his counsels, and mildness in his reproofs; and the Wife must be taught to express her Reverence in (t) Aequum autem, ut deinceps uxor auscultet marito, quia maritus periit auscultando uxori. Daven. in Col. p. 538. Harkening to them. In the Disposal of Children: Rebecca would not send Jacob to her Brother Laban without consulting Isaac, Gen. 27.46. So Hannah in the case of Samuel, 1 Sam. 1.11. In the disposal of a Servant: Sarah would not discard Hagar without consulting Abraham, Gen. 21.10. In entertaining Strangers: The Shunamite would not receive a Prophet into the House, without advising with her Husband, 2 King. 4.10. In disposing of her Husband's Goods, we find still the man's hand in it: the propriety is in him, and the use is to her. So that unless there be a notorious Impotency in him, or some Tacite or General Consent, or some case of present and absolute Necessity, as in the case of Abagail, she ought not to dispose her Husband's Goods. Indeed, he ought according to the general Obligation of their Relation, and according to the particular Discretion of his Wife intrust her in the ordinary affairs of her sphere, and by his Bounty enable her to do good, where there is need, and not to put her by his penuriousness upon the temptation of purloining from him: but if he do forget his duty, let not her forget hers, which is to do him good and not evil all the days of her life, Prov. 31.12. But her hardest task is in the loving and thankful bearing of Reproof, which is a bitter pill to flesh and blood, especially when there is a proud and contentious spirit. But herein she ought to consider, that she is not without infirmities; which as none hath so much opportunity to see, so none is so much obliged to represent unto her, as her Husband. And to answer him with a froward tongue, or a cloudy brow, or a careless negligence, is the greatest ingratitude and discouragement in the world. But if her heart be full of Reverence to him, and especially if she believe his heart to be full of love to her, this pill will be well digested, and by the blessing of God work a real amendment in her. 3. The Real effects of the Wife's Reverence to her Husband is seen in her Bebaviour towards him, which ought always to be cheerful and respectful. She must not allow or nourish that crossness of humour to be sullen or dumpish, when he is pleasant; or on the contrary contemptuously frolic, when he is sad: but must (u) Omnes illius vultus sumet, ridenti arrid●bit● moesto se praebebit m●stam; servata semper authoritate matronalis integritatis & virtutis: ut magis illa ex amico proveniant animo quam adulterino. L. Vives ubi supra. compose her carriage, her garments, her converse to give him content, and to increase his delight in her. For if his heart be once estranged from her, unless the fear of God withhold him, he may quickly render her condition unspeakably miserable. She ought therefore always to express Contentedness in her estate, and that will help and move him to be content in his. She must entertain him into his House with a (x) Magna amaritudo est in domo uxor tristis. Ambr. to. 5. p. 265. cheerful countenance, that he may delight to be at home: and study the arts how to pacify him, if ought have provoked him: or how to convince and reform him, if ought have ensnared him. She must observe when and how his meals, his clothes, his lodging do please him, and show the greatness of her respect in these lesser things. For even about such things arise the most frequent and sharp contests; which a discreet and godly woman will labour to prevent, not only because disquiets do (y) Nec aliquid est, quod ita alienet virum ab uxore. ut crebra rixa & uxoris lingua omarule●a Compared to a continual dropping, which drives a man out of his house. Prov. 27.15. Lu. Vives ubi supra. alienate the heart, but because she cannot live under his frown, nor eat nor sleep contentedly while he is angry. And notwithstanding the freedom and familiarity of their converse together, yet she must still behave herself with all respect towards him, and that familiarity must not beget contempt. His love must not make her to forget her (z) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. in Col. hom. 10. duty, nor his fondness her respect. The more he condescends to her, the more she must descend into her place, and thus oblige him by her demeanour. She must consider, that it's better to (a) Quae malunt fatuis imperare viris quam obtemperare prudentibus, eorum sunt similes, qui in via coecos ducere malunt, quam videntes & itineris peritos sequi. Plutarch. praec. conj. obey a wise man, than to rule a fool, as it is better to follow a skilful guide, than to lead one that's blind. Few Husbands so bad, but the discretion and respect of a Wife would reform them; and few Wives so ill-tempered, but the wisdom and affection of a Husband would make them better. And so much for their particular Duties to each other. I know that many will turn off all this by saying, We all fall short of our Duty in these things; we ever did, and ever shall: and so they neither grieve for their miscarriages past, nor seriously endeavour to reform them; and so leave the cure desperate, because the Disease is common. But a just and holy God will not be so mocked. He gives not his sacred Laws to be so lightly put off. If we make not conscience here, we make a conscience no where; yea (though the best will fail) unless we study with all our skill, and strive with all our strength to be faithful in all these things, our other Duties will be abhorred. He that regards not all, regards not at all in God's account. And if Divine Vengeance do not meet with them in this life, as it often doth; yet without doubt it waits for them in another. But I hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though I thus speak. I come at last in the Fourth place to present you with some Directions how to accomplish these Duties, that so husbands and wives may most certainly be blessings to each other. And they are these. 1. Maintain Purity in Soul and Body in Single-age. This will greatly dispose you for the Duties of a Married life; and also lay up a Blessing for it. Let every one of you know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, 1 Thess. 4.4. He that gives the reins to his vicious affections before Marriage, will find them as impetuous after Marriage. For Marriage (as (b) Mr. Whately. One well saith) is like Salt, which will keep sweet that which is untainted, but restores not that which is already unsavoury. A chaste and honest heart will (with the blessing of God) by marriage be preserved; but a filthy heart will find occasion to be naught in any condition. Beware therefore of the beginnings of Lust, flee them like poison; forbear such (c) La●aena quaedam marita juveni rem foedam roganti, Darem (inquit) si meum peteres: nam quod petis, patris erat, dum essem virgo: nunc mariti, postquam nups●. Lu. Viu. de Cr foem. p. 699. company and discourse as debauch the heart; avoid speculative uncleanness, snd keep the heart stored with religious thoughts, and the body employed in a constant calling. Consider that the greatest flames begin with a spark, and therefore tamper not with the pleasant motions of original concupiscence. Subject not the soul of a Man to the pleasures of a Brute; this is sure, that they perish in the using, and leave nothing but a sting behind: and foolish is that pleasure, where that which delights, instantly (d) Verum nimium miserandi & plangenda conditio est; ubi cito praeterit, quod delectat, & permanet sine fine quod cruciat. Id. p. 725. vanishes; and that which remains, perpetually torments. If you have been overtaken with these faults, O cleanse your hearts and hands by the merits of Christ's blood in the use of Fasting and Prayer; that God may not visit upon you your Old sins by giving you up to New ones, or by bringing some signal curse upon you, in husband, wife, or children. And get a blessed taste of those more sirm, safe, and ravishing delights, which are to be found in the favour and promises of God, in the pardon of sin, and assured hopes of life and immortality. These will sufficiently disgrace those gross and base absurdities, and make you to take no delight in the muddy stream, that have drunk of the Spring. 2. Be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (e) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 festina, eme ag. u n: expecta ducturus uxorem. Buxtorf. ex Jevam. considerate in your choice. You see how severe the Rules of that Condition are, when you are once engaged in it; And therefore, when you find that you are called to it, be sure to recommend it earnestly to God by (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 C●rys. de uxore duo. Prayer, as Abraham's servant did, Gen. 24.12. In this way be sure to acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. No business so critical, none so weighty, and therefore no business so calls for (g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. in Col. solemn and earnest Prayer. And let Reason and (h) For Fitness in special, as well as Goodness in general, must be one main ground of our choice. Gatak. Serm. p. 176. Judgement have some stroke in your choice. Do not first love, and then consider; but first consider, and then love. Chief fix your observation on the Soul of the party: many marry to lay lands to lands, or money to money; but see you that his or her (i) In the life of the lady Falkland. Soul lie well for yours. For no (k) Florem decoris singuli carpunt dies. Senec. Beauty, Friends, or (l) Quicunque ducit uxorem propter divitias, ei erunt liberi non probi. Buxt. ex Prov. in Kiddusch. Portion will settle upon you a comfortable life, if pride, passion, or any other lust predominate in the Soul. And why will ye espouse a perpetual cross for some present profit or delight? It concerns therefore the man, and especially the woman, to endeavour to marry a member of Christ, a religious person; where they may most rationally expect the conscionable discharge of their respective duties. If such be not the best husbands and wives, it is not by reason of their piety, but their defect of it. Add to this a Discovery of the (m) If thou wert to take an house, thou wouldst inquire what commodities or inconveniences, what neighbours, etc. and yet that thou mayst sell upon a dislike; how much more, etc. Chrysost. tom. 8. de uxore ducenda. natural tempers of those you mean to marry. If they be proud and imperious to others, ten to one they will be so to you; if they be choleric, sour or sullen, you will hardly find an Heaven upon Earth. And you ought to deal plainly with one another, both concerning your natural Defects, concerning your moral Dispositions, and concerning your civil Condition, that you may not give, and that Satan may not take an advantage, whereby to cause disquiet or repine afterwards. You count it a cheat to have an unfound, ill-conditioned decrepit beast put upon you, for a sound, young, and towardly one; certainly it is the greatest injury in the world to defraud one whom you pretend to love; and to wrong them in that wherein you can never make them reparation. 3. Study the Duties of Marriage before you enter into it, Leap not into this solemn condition at adventures. There are crosses to be born, there are snares to be avoided, there are Duties to be done, and do you make no provision? Hence slow the frequent miscarriages in that honourable estate; Hence that Repentance that is both too soon, and too late. The Husband knows not how to Rule; and the Wife knows not how to obey. Both ignorant, both conceited, and both miserable. And therefore Parents ought to teach their children the Duties of Wedlock, before they enter into the State of Wedlock: neither can they be ever acquitted before God, that hurry young people, ready or unready, willing or (n) Hostis uxor est, ubi invita ad virum venit. Plaut. unwilling, yea sometimes very (o) Hoc etiam sciendum est, quod pueri ante 13 annos & puellae ante 12. annos secundum leges matrimonium inire nequeunt. Quod si ante predicta tempora copulam inierint, separari possunt, quam vis assensu parentum juncti fuerunt. Lombard. lib. 4. dost. 36. children, for secular advantages into this Relation. A course that hath been signalised by infinite disastrous consequenees. And most people step into that estate merely to obtain pleasure and gain, but as ignorant of their Duty, as the Beasts that perish: and so families that should be the Nurseries of the Church and Commonwealth, prove to be the very Seed-plots of disorder and debauchery. Endeavour therefore to read over, besides the Scripture (which is the Book of all Books) Dr. Gouge his Treatise of Domestical Duties, or Mr. Bolton, or Mr. Gataker, or Mr. Whately on the same Subject; And the learned will lose no labour in reading Ludovicus Vives de officio Mariti & de Christiana foemina, from each of whose Garden I have made up this small Posy, and wherein you will find, especially in the first and last, a more full and clear stating and proving these things, then can be expected from so simple a man in so small a time. 4. Resign up yourselves both of you unfeignedly unto God, and to his will; until you be savingly regenerated and sanctified, you cannot (p) If he be pleased, he will turn thy water into wine; if he be displeased, he will turn thy wine into vinegar Gataker Serm. p. 141. please God, nor be entire blessings to one another. You may indeed live together like civil Pagans; but what's this to the life of Christians? Religion will most firmly bind you to God, Religion will most firmly bind you to one another. A good temper may do much, but a new nature superadded to it will do more. The Husband that truly, I say that truly fears God, dares not be bitter to his wife; the wife that truly fears God, dares not be cross with her husband. A Bible placed between you will take up many a difference, comfort you under many a cross and pang, guide you in many a strait, wherein flesh and blood will be confounded, and at a loss. And then in those critical cases wherein Duty and Passion strive for mastery, resolve with yourselves, that it is much better for either of you to obey God's will, than to have your own; That as there is the highest Reason in his Commands, so there is the greatest Sweetness in obeying them. Set oft before you that golden Rule, Matth. 7.12. and calmly consider whether you behave yourself to your yoke-fellow, as you yourself would be dealt with, if you were in their condition. And though you be never so just and good other ways, yet believe that, Jam. 2.10. he or she that keeps the whole law, and yet offends knowingly (and commonly) in one point, is guilty of all. Your Righteousness abroad will not excuse your crossness at home, nor her zeal in prayer make any amends for her heat in passion. But when you are both resolved to study your own duties, and sincerely to do them, how hard soever, you will live together as heirs of the grace of life, and as heirs of the life of glory. 5. Settle your affections well at the beginning. It was a wise and true Observation (q) Plutacch prae●. conjug. , that vessels which are compacted of divers parts, or glued together of divers pieces, at first will easily with every bruise or fall be broke in pieces; but when they are strengthened by tract of time, it will be very hard, yea scarce possible, to separate them: So it is in marriage, at first the union is raw and green; an unkindness then, a cross word or look will quickly alienate, but when time and experience have consolidated this new sprung affection, than it will be much harder to dissolve it. And being once assured of a conjugal love in each other, give no way to cursed Jealousy, which very often hath no other ground, than the Weakness or Wickedness of them that are sick of it: and to be sure, when once it is admitted, all the joy and comfort of this life is gone; it is a bitter-sweet Poison, and miserable are they, that either give or take occasion for it. Stop your ears therefore, and knit your brow upon tale-bearers and whisperers, that under pretence of great love and secrecy tell you just Nothing: and remember, that Love thinketh no evil, but puts the best interpretation possible upon the doubful words, looks and carriage of a stranger, much more of so near a (r) Liberiores sunt viri, quam foeminae, vitae totius rationis, Viris curanda esse mutla, foeminis solam pudicitiam. Claudendae, aures iis, qui sinistrum quid de marito volunt defer. Lu. Vives de Chr. foem. p. 720. Relation. And this I mention here, because most commonly Jealousy takes place there, where true Affection was never fixed and rooted in the beginning. 6. Lastly (to speak all in one) Pray for Wisdom, Humility and Uprightness. 1. Wisdom; for we own many of our Domestic distempers to our weakness and indiscretion, not wisely preventing or removing things that cause offence. How easily would a wise man avoid distasting words or looks or actions? How easily might he keep his Authority, and never forfeit it, and she submit and never dispute it? wisdom would pick and choose the fittest opportunities to instruct, advise, reprove, and comfort; and would direct to the best manner and method wherein to do it. Wisdom will consider, that either party might have found the same or greater crosses in another condition, as in this, or in another person as in this; and therefore things are well in that they are not worse: and however, that marriage which is God's Ordinance must not be charged with their disquiets but themselves. And 2. Humility, that is a singular help for them both, in the discharging of their Duties. This will keep the Husband from the intemperate use of his power, and the wife in a ready subjection to her Husband: For only by pride cometh contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom, Prov. 13.10. A proud Spirit could not agree with an Angel, but the humble will agree with any body. This also will greatly help them to contentment in their Condition: For (says Humility) my Husband, my Wife is a great deal too good for such a sinful creature as I am, my condition is too good for me; these straits and troubles are great, but I deserve greater; this was a sharp reproof, but alas! I deserve hell, and what's a harsh word to hell? That man or woman will sit down quietly with great trials, that know they are not worthy the least of mercies. And besides Humility will suggest such a carriage and behaviour in word and deed, as will infallibly oblige each other, and force respect from them. And lastly Uprightness is necessary to the doing of these Duties well: For there is written a conclusive law in an upright heart to do the whole will of God, whether it appear to be with them or against them; it will teach them rather to obey than to dispute; and in obedience to do each more than their part, rather than less. In doubtful cases the upright heart will choose the safest course, though it prove the hardest; and resolves to suffer the greatest injury, rather than offer the least: An upright heart watches against sinful self, which is the great root of injuries and mischiefs in every relation, and prompts us to keep on in the way of our duty notwithstanding all discouragments. In a word; the upright Husband and Wife do chief study each their (s) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrys. in Col. Hom. 10. own Duty in their Relations, and are most severe against their own particular failings. What are the Duties of Parents and Children; and how are they to be managed according to Scripture? Serm. XVII. Colos. III. 20, 21. Children, obey your Parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your Children to anger, lest they be discouraged. MY business is not to discuss the Entity of Relations, in their foundation and terms; which the Philosopher is conversant about: but to discourse the Efficacy of the chiefest in Christian practice, Relationes etsi minimae e●titatis, sunt maximae efficaciae. i. e. to inquire into the nature and management of those reciprocal offices betwixt Parents and Children, which, if well discharged according to the sense of the Divine Oracles, do contribute most to the happiness of humane Society; and give reputation to the Communion of Saints. The Subject I know is common, and the Scriptures copious upon it, which some (who it may be are not the most accurate in their own relative station) think a very easy task to treat on; but to do it distinctly and fully, within the time allotted to this exercise, is a thing of greater difficulty to me, than such easy Undertakers are ware of: and really to perform all the Duties I am to inquire into, in a manner wellpleasing to our heavenly Father, will cost them and us all more pains than only to read or preach an hour or two upon them: which yet might lead into many important concerns of government and obedience. Believe it herein we have all need enough of serious and frequent teacbing again and again (a) Heb. 5.12. for our conduct in the Relations whereunto God hath cast us. In order then both to my preaching at present, and all our future practice, as a ground for the Resolution of this Question; Question. What are the Duties of Parents and Children; and how are they to be managed according to Scripture? I am directed to the words read. Wherein we have the mutual offices of Children and Parents required, and virtually at least prescribed, with annexed reasons to enforce them severally upon each Relatives: which afford this Proposition. That God's pleasure and children's encouragement should move Christian Children to obedience, and Parents to a moderate government, in all things. Here is a large theme, but I shall endeavour as nigh as I can to speak much in a little, hoping I shall obtain your pardon, though I let slip some considerable Particulars; if by some general anticipations and cautions I do in a Sermon decline those numerous special Cases, which in a larger Treatise on this Subject might fairly step in, and lay claim to some special satisfaction. It were an excursion for me now to speak of Children and Parents in any other than the most famous signification * Analogum per se positam stat pro famostore analogato. of the words, taken not figuratively, but properly; not for those in a political, but natural Relation: yet as under the Christian Institution, where we are ever to have regard to our blessed Lord and Master. Indeed Children comprehend both sons and daughters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen 46 29. the fruit of the body (not excluding grandchildren) of what age or quality soever, as indissolubly bound in duty to those who begot and brought them forth of both sex's Father and Mother, the Parents of their flesh (b) Heb. 12.9. , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. 23.22. from whom they were originally derived. And that the Apostle doth here direct the command to Inferiors before Superiors, as in the 18. verse and elsewhere (c) Eph 5.22.— 6.1, 5. to Children before Parents, is not that Children and their duties are first in order of nature or time (for there are offices of inbred parental love and care before they can be known or observed by children); 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. but writing chief to children come to the use of reason, he gins with them who are subject, and ought first to perform duty. The anticipation of time here connoting the honour due to Superiors, he doth in the first place put those in mind of their duty, who are to obey, as usually more defective, rather than those that have authority over them in this oeconomical conjunction: Either in that this office of obedience is less easy and pleasing to our nature than that of parental love, which is allured to exert itself readily by the right discharge of the former: or in that the subjection of children is the foundation on which the good government of Parents doth depend, and a means to make themselves ready for that authority, which else they will be unfit for: as Antoninus lays down the axiom which many of the moralists used, viz. You cannot well govern others, unless first governed * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . For my method then in answering the complicated enquiry before me, whiles I follow the Apostle in my Text, I shall need no Apology to insist on. I. The Duty of Children, with the extent thereof, urged from that which is most cogent to persuade to it, and dissuade from the neglect of it. II. The Office of Parents, enforced from the special consideration of that the Apostle suggests to move to it. III. The manner and means of managing both offices, or discharging both duties more generally and particularly, according to the mind of God in his word. The two former may be looked upon as the explication of my Text and Proposition, and an exhortation pressed with reasons or motives to the Duties: and the last as Directions to perform them. I. The Duty of Children with the extent thereof, urged from that which is most cogent to persuade to it, and dissuade from the neglect of it. This is expressed and employed in the former of the verses I have read to you: wherein we have three Particulars to be spoken to. 1. The Duty: 2. Extent or latitude of it: 3. Motive to it. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. The Duty of Children from the precept. Children obey your Parents. The word imports an humble subjection to their authority and government, with a ready performance of what they require: it being an explanation of that which in the law is engraved with God's own hand; honour (d) Exod. 20.12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing how highly they are to be valued, and not lightly esteemed. In another place it is, ye shall fear every man his mother and his father (e) Leu. 19.3, with 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , awful fear being no other than a deep veneration; both which are to be fairly read in the acts of genuine obedience: for that doth flow forth from a compound disposition of love and fear mixed in an ingenuous child, who is readily moved to obey, in contemplation of that authority and affection implanted in the Parent towards it To speak more distinctly, this obedience to Parents may contain in it these four things, 1. Reverence, 2. Obedience, 3. Pious regards, 4. Submission. The three first of these may be reducible to active, and the last to passive obedience. 1. Reverence, which is a due and awful estimation of their persons, as to this relation, placed in eminency above their children, to acknowledge them from God himself (the Supreme Parent of us all) (f) Acts 17.28. the authors, preservers, and governors of their lives: and upon that account to honour them in their hearts, speeches, and behaviours, from an honest desire to please, and filial fear to offend them, whose children they are, of what rank soever they now appear in the world: and therefore to comport themselves so in all the actions of their lives before God and men, that they render themselves acceptable to their Parents: Yea, to both of them; the law requires reverence to the Mother as well as the Father (g) Levit. 19.3. with 30. : the word which is in one verse fear, is in another translated reverence; to the claim of which the Mother there seems to be favoured with some kind of priority: because Children, who have most needed their Mothers, in their tender years are apt many times to despise them, as more subject to infirmities, and as looking for less of respect from their hands. So that really to give them honour, is a fuller evidence of cordial performance. The Lord is pleased to begin there, where the duty is most tried, Reverence thy Mother and thy Father. de leg. l. 4. Ethic. l. 9 l. 2. Spizel. de re literar. Sineas. p. 243. Both are to be had in a just veneration. Plato and Aristotle could by Nature's light teach thus: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This as the prime law of Nature, the Spartans', and generally all Nations of old did, and Chinoises at this day do maintain with admirable care. Now doing reverence to the Fathers of our flesh (h) Heb. 9.12. in Scripture may comprehend what Children own to their Parents, both with reference to their speech and behaviour: (1) With respect to their speech, that it be seasonable, and agreeable to the relation, graced with humility (i) 1 Pet. 5.5. and modesty in all converse with them in presence, and discourse of them in absence. They should give them honourable titles, as that of Father and Mother do connote dignity (k) Jer. 31.9. Gal. 4.6. : and so, Sir, or Lord (l) Mat. 21.30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; thus we have good Children in the Book of God saluting their Parents: as Isaac his Father Abraham (m) Gen. 22.11. ; Jacob Isaac (n)— 17.18. ; David Saul his Father in law (o) 1 Sam. 24.28. ; Solomon Bathsheba, my Mother (p) 1 King 2.20, 21. ; Rachel Laban, making her Apology, My Lord (q) Gen. 31.35. ; David again Saul (r) 1 Sam. 26.18. ; and that with all meekness, at a sit season, in a few words, with freedom and readiness (s) Gen. 22 7. & 27.12. , giving pleasing answers when spoken to, in a becoming civility (t) 1 Sam. 12.4, 6.18. , waiting with contentment to hear them speak first (u) Prov 4.1. , laying their hands on their mouths, and refraining to talk in their presence without just occasion (w) Job. 29.9, 10, 21.— 32.5 6. . And in their absence by speaking so of them amongst those they do converse, that by the commendable reports they make of them, or prudent apologies for them, it may be understood what venerable respects they have for their Parents. Thus 'tis said of the Children of the prudent Mother; they rise up (as those who speak pathetically) and call her blessed (x) Prov. 31.28. in that laudable discourse they have of her. Hereby Children will prove themselves to be of a virtuous temper, and not like that elder brother of the penitent Prodigal, who spoke undecently in a surly manner to his Father (y) Luk. 15, 29, 30. ; and sometime some of Jacob's sons to theirs (z) Gen. 34.31. , and such like: who by their rude and malapert prating disparage and aggrieve their parents (a)— 26.35.— 27.46. . Yet of a more untoward generation are they, whom the Wiseman took notice of, that curse their Father, and do not bless their Mother: but saith he, their lamp shall go out in obscurity (b) Prov. 20.20. . Neither can there be a better end of those who are under the Almighty's curse devoted to death (c) Leu. 20.9. Exod. 21.17. : neither can they, who do any way set light by their Father or Mother, avoid a much easier censure (d) Deut. 27: 16, Lib. 44. de Rep. , sigh by interpretation it is a dishonour to God himself. Plato in his Commonwealth order that Children should in their words through their whole life revere their Parents, there being a great punishment imminent for light and idle discourse. Further; (2) The hehaviour and carriage of Children should ever be significative and expressive of reverence to their Parents in all their addresses: the countenance so composed in their presence, as may argue awfulness and respect; the deportment lowly, rising up before those they honour for relation, as well as those venerable for age (e) Leu. 19.32. : and at meeting; thus Solomon, though a King, did to his Mother Bathsheba (f) 1 Kings 2.19. ; hasting to attend them in a lowly posture; thus Joseph, who lived as a Prince, made ready to meet, and presented himself to his Father, whom he had maintained. (g) Gen. 46.29. ; so Achsah, Caleb's daughter (who was married to her Cousin Germane) when she addressed herself to her Father, she alighted from her beast before she spoke to him (h) Judg. 1. 14.5● : and again Joseph thought it no disparagement to prostrate himself to his aged father Jacob, whose eyes were then dim, that he could not see his behaviour; when he also gave his own Children an example in praying for his Father's blessing (i) Gen. 43.12. , which Esau, though he came tardè, did passionately beg for (k)— 27.19, 34. . And though Parents now have not a Prophetic spirit as the Patriarches had, yet it seems still very equitable, that Christian Children considering their Parent's Superiority in the Lord, should frequently upon occasion in an (l) Heb. 7 7. Mar. 10.17. humble manner crave their Parents prayers for God's blessing. The rude and haughty looks, which are in many Children before their Parents, cannot comport with this duty, which discards a dogged and supercilious countenance, that betokens scorn and derision, opposite to this filial reverence. The Wise man makes a smart remark upon such odious insolent behaviour, which might deter any of understanding from it, when he saith (m) Prov. 30.17. , The eye that mocketh his Father, and despiseth to obey his Mother, the Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out; and the young Eagles shall eat it. Here is a signal retaliation to those who in speech or behaviour deride the persons, or despise the counsels of their Parents, whether yet alive or deceased. 'Twere to be wished it had been better studied by some Children in this Generation: I mean some late and present Preachers of our Age; who do not parentare manibus, but indeed upbraid the Ghosts of their reverend and pious Parents (who warmly argued the necessity of regeneration) either by reckoning them amongst the herd of Divines or with an harangue of lame sequels perch up to vent their callow notions, and bespatter their own nest in complacence with the lax humour of the times: when many for the bags cry, Hail Master, but betray the Son of Man with a kiss (n) Mat. 26.49. wic. Luk. 22.48: : yet I would hope there are but a few of this feather. I proceed to mind Children of another duty, and that is 2. Observance, whereby their Parent's pleasure with fit subjection is performed, out of a real desire to promote their honour; which is more than in countenance and ceremonies to express obedience (o) Mat. 21.30. . It is very requisite Christian Children should with an heedful circumspection observe the holy and wise prescripts and practices of their Parents by acknowledging subjection to their government. Our blessed Lord himself set a pattern herein; for he went down with his Mother and her Husband, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them (p) Luk. 2.51. Mar 6.3. Mat 13.55. Jo●. 6.42. , Quis quibus? Deus hominibus, etc. saith Bernard * Homil 1. Super missus est. . He to whom Angels are subject, whom Principalities and Powers do obey, was observant of his Mother Mary and her espoused Husband Joseph, yea most likely in the business of Joseph's calling. More particularly, this filial observance shows itself in 1. Attending to their instructions: 2. Executing their commands: 3. Depending on their counsels: And 4. Following their examples. (1.) We ought to attend seriously to our Parents instructions, and learn what they teach us for good, receiving their djctates with humility, and laying them up in our hearts; those especially of spiritual advantage, out of a love to wisdom, and our Parents joys (q) Prov. 29.3.— 〈◊〉. . Solomon bids from his own experience, My Son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother (r)— 1.10. Again, Harken unto thy father which begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. And then that Daughters might not think themselves exempted, Harken ye Children to the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding and good doctrine (s)— 4.1, 2, 3. , which if heedfully observed, makes a wise child, when the contrary bewrays folly (t)— 13.1. , which is a grief and discouragement to the father: as was that of Eli's Sons (u) 1 Sam. 2-25. , and Lot's Sons in law (w) Gen. 19.14. , who slighted their father's documents: as the Prodigal also did his, before he felt the smart of it, and came to his wits again (x) Luk. 15.2.13, 17. . Yet this is dissonant to the voice of Nature, which hath taught the very Chickens to hearken unto the clocking of the Hen; hath been ever distasteful to the wiser Heathens, and would bring a disparagement upon the Christian institution. So that Christian Children should be very heedful of their Parents teachings, especially in the concerns of their souls. Hence (2.) Children should execute their Parents commands and dispatch readily what they order them to do without whartling disputes: this is the most special duty required in my Text, (the extent of it will come under consideration anon.) They should be as those under the Centurion's authority, go and come and do at his command (y) Mat. 8 9 . Samuel came at the supposed call of his pro-Parent once and again (z) 1 Sam. 3.5. etc. . David when his Father Jesse had sent for him out of the field, he knew what it was for (a)— 16.12. , and so went as he commanded, him (b)— 17.17, 20. . So Jacob, when Isaac sent him (c) Gen. 28.5. , and Joseph, when Jacob sent him (d)— 37.14. , yea the other ten Sons also upon their Father's order (e)— 42.2, 3. . Isaac attended in carrying the wood, when the servants were free from the burden, at his Father's pleasure (f)— 22 6. . Joseph and the Rechabites are famous instances of observing faithfully the charge of their Parents, even when they were dead and gone (g)— 50.20. Jer ●5. 8. etc. , out of conscience, in a respectful manner, with reference to the divine authority. Abraham's Children walked in the way of the Lord, as their Father commanded them (h) Gen. 8.9. . Solomon did not only command his own Son (i) Prov. 6 1●. , (though he proved disobedient) but he observed his Father David's charge to walk in the Lord's statutes (k) 1 King. 2.3. and ● 3. (though drawn aside after with temptations) and to build the Temple (l) 1 C●ro. 2●. 11. 2 Chron 5, and 6. . God takes it for granted, a good Child will serve his Father (m) Mal. 3 17. , yea and when put to pain, in things not only necessary, but of no reputation, supposing, in things purely indifferent both in their nature and use, their Parents to be more judicious to determine what is expedient and decent; yet not without the use of their own discerning faculty, nor without any examination in a blind irrational obsequiousness (n) Pr●v. 14.15. Ne p●c●u● ritis s●qu●mur amecedentiam gr●●em, p●●●n●●s nonqua 〈◊〉 e●●, se● qua ●●r. Senec. , like the brutish obedience of the Jesuits Novices. For though I should grant that Parents have in some sort a power over the consciences of their Children, whiles they are as in God's stead (o) 1 Sam 2.30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , swaying their apprehensions in their tenderest years, before they come to the use of their ripened reason: yet when there is a judgement of discerning betwixt good and evil, their obedience ought to be reas ●●bl●, such as God requires to his own service, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such as is according to his Word, not merely childish, (though the obedience of Children) but acceptable * Rom. 12.1. and wellpleasing unto him, as in my Text, and in the fear of God, vers. 22. Again, (3.) Children ought to depend upon their Parents counsels, and take their good and wholesome advice, giving them the honour of being in an ordinary course, more prudent and sagacious than themselves, as having greater experience, ability, and a call to govern in affairs of importance. For to disregard them herein were to slight the paternal authority which God would have kept in reputation. He was a Prodigal, who would not be advised, till he was bitten with the ill effect of that extravagant course, which grieved his Father (p) Luk. 15.12, 13. : but the docible Child who is righteous and wise, rejoiceth the heart of both his Parents (q) Pro 23.22, 24.— 15.20. Here I might enter on particulars, to show that Children have no power, being under government, to dispose of their Parents goods without their advice or allowance (r) Gal. 4.1, 2. with Gen. 31.36, 37, with 19— 32.10. Prov 28.24.— 19 26. ; for faultiness here is aggravated by the relation: nor to choose their company disagreeable to their Parents minds (s)— 1.10, 15. 1 Cor 5.9. ; but to take their advice, and be content with that suitable dress their Parents do order them to appear in (t) Gen. 27.15.— 37.3. 2 Sam. 13 8. , and not in strange apparel * Zeph 1.8. . But I shall only suggest two more eminent instances, wherein Children are more especially to consult their Parents, and observe their advice, viz. as to a particular Calling and Marriage. [1] 'Tis fit to he advised by Parents in the choice of a Calling, or lasting course of life. Jacob and David moved and lived according to their Parent's disposal (†) Gen. 28.2. 1 Sam. 16.11, 19— 17.17. , as was hinted before; and so did Jonadab's Children (‖) Jer. 35.6, 7. . It being unfit they should carve for themselves without leave; but follow the parental conduct, unless that leads them into an unlawful Calling. The pretention of Religion in a Monastic life, which the Papists urge to cajol their Votaries into their unscriptural Orders, as the Pharisees did Corban (u) Mark 7.1, 113. , saying it is a gift devoted to God (which hypocritical allegation our Saviour disproven, because they vacated the Commandments of God for their own traditions) can be no warrant to invade the rights of Parents: for Religion towards God doth not interfere with the necessary duties of our Relation. And to do that under a notion of Religion not enjoined by God, against that too which he hath required, is impious; and to offer that to him which is another's, he likes not. He is for equity, and not for division or confusion. Charlemaign made a decree against this dishonour to Parents under the vail and disguise of Religion. [2.] In the great business of Marriage, 'tis very requisite to observe their counsel and advice. Parents certainly should sway much in this weighty matter, as they did in Isaac's matching with Rebekah (w) Gen. 24.6, 7, 63, 67. , and Jacobs with Laban's daughter (x)— 28.1, 2, 3. with 29 11, 18, 19 . Ruth, though a daughter in law, was willing to be disposed of by Naomi in the change of her condition, observing her orders in that affair (y) Ruth 2.21. and 3.1, etc. : yea, even Ishmael would take his Mother's advice for a wife (a) Gen. 21 21. : and Samson moved for his Parent's consent (b) Judg. 14 2. : Thamar's words in striving with her lustful brother, imply the gaining of her Father's consent requisite (c) 2 Sam. 13.13. : and Sechem's words to his Father, when he had wickedly deflowered Dinah (whom he met with in her idling visit) do import he was convinced it was equitable to have her Father's consent to marry her (d) Gen. 34.3, &c . For Children ought in reason to think their Parents wiser, and better able for the most part to provide for them, than they themselves are: because likely as they have more experimental knowledge, so, if Parents be not cankered with the love of this world, their affections are more governable, and not so easily biased from moving in the fairest way; as children's often are in their youthful and sprightly age, when their inward emotions are apt to be more turbulent, unless sanctified with grace, and moderated with virtue. And further, here it may be considered that Parents, who brought forth, and bred up their Children, should by no means be bereft of them without their consent: sigh they are so much their goods and possessions, that it were a kind of purloining to give themselves away without their Parents leave. The maid under the law, that had made a vow out of her Father's cognizance, could not perform it without his consent (e) Numb. 30.4, 5. Terent. . In the Comedian it was accounted a disparagement, to take a wise against the will of her Father. So that compliance with Parent's advice here is a business of great effect. As one saith ingenuously, Mr. Fuller. The Child in this case bowls best at the mark of his own contentment, who besides the aim of his own eye, is directed by his Father, who is to give the ground. To which may correspond a passage of Cyrus, who, when a match was proposed to him, said, I like the Lady, her Dowry, and her Family: but I must have these agree with my Parents, and then I will marry her. He belike thought it injurious in finally bestowing himself to neglect his Parents, and disregard their counsel, in the main business of his life. But if Children except, and say, Exception. Answer. What if after our real desires to take their counsel, they urge us to marry such as we cannot affect? I confess your circumstances may be such in this instance, as may render the case very intricate, and 'twould require a discourse by itself to give satisfaction to it. All I shall say now is, 1. Be sure your non-affection or aversion to the Person proposed be not without reason: remember you are unperienced; suspect your own judgement, and take heed lest some impotent passion, or amorous inclination to another person, discompose you from attaining to a right opinion of things: persuade yourselves, that as your Parents have experience, likely their affections lead them to be careful for your welfare. Be therefore earnest in Prayer with God (who turns the heart at his pleasure (f) Prov. 21.1. that he would incline your affection to the party proposed, all the while there is no disallowance from above, Non amo te Sabide non passum dicere quare, etc. and you can see no just cause to the contrary, having only the mere plea that you cannot love; and be importunate with him to rectify such untowardness of mind (lest you at least seem wilful) as leads you without good reason to reject an offer of his Providence to you for the promoting of your temporal welfare in an hopeful prospect of the Divine blessing. But if after this humble and unfeigned address to God, you still find your heart altogether averse; you may in a reverend way entreat your Parents not to press that match, and think of some other, wherein you may be better satisfied. For my part, I do not conceive you are obliged to marry those you cannot really affect: unless I could see how you might with a good conscience in the presence of God enter into a solemn Covenant of Love (g) Mal. 2.14. with a patty you cannot but upon deliberation at the same instant dislike. My reason is, not only because it would be an utter frustration of the end of marriage; which should be mutual satisfaction: but also the beginning of that estate, in a kind of perjury, or at least with a doubting conscience (h) Rom. 14.13, 23. . Sith as Q●intilian * Declam. 376. observed Affectus nostri nobis non serviunt, we cannot still keep our affections in a subserviency to our own, be sure not to another's reason: My wise is to dwell with me for ever, the half of my lasting joy, or my lasting sorrow, and if I do not love her, we cannot live comfortably together, etc. 2. If Parents should counsel you to join yourself to an ungodly person, and enforce you to fix there; the best Casuijis of our own † Bishop Hall, Sanderson, Tailor, Mr. Baxter. will easily resolve you, that in such a case you have a negative voice, and may humbly refuse to comply with such a motion: for though you have not a judgement of positive decision, to determine whom you would have; yet you have a judgement of discretion, and you may with all reverence to your Parents proposing refuse an unworthy person, who is like to make your life either sinful or miserable. This may be further cleared, in considering the extent of children's obedience. There is another particular yet, which concerns Children in this duty of observance, and that is (4.) To follow their good examples; we should take notice of those fair copies they have set us, and imitate whatsoever is good, commendable and virtuous in our Parents. This the Wise man gave his Son in charge, that he should with all his heart set his eyes to observe his ways (i) Prov. 23.26. i e. take him for his pattern in all those practices which were consonant to the pleasure of his Heavenly Father: we should follow them as they do our Lord and Master (k) 1 Cor. 11.1. . But not in their errors and miscarriages; for fear of Jeroboam's dreadful entail, which some choose rather than leave the crooked paths of their Progenitors (l) 1 King. 22.58. 2 Kings 3.3, 2 Chron. 22.4. , as the idolatrous Jews of old (m) Jer. 44.17. , and the Papists at this day. For Marc Antonine the Emperor (as the learned Gataker expounds him * Mr Anton. l. 4. Sect. 46. id quod Origen adv. Cels. l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ) could teach us, that we should not be so childish as to do any thing without consideration, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, upon the mere account of tradition, as we had it from our Parents. When Frederick iv Elector Palatine of the Rhine was by a certain Prince advised to follow the example of his Father Lewis, he answered well; † In Religione non paren●um, non majorum exempla sequendo, sed tantum voluntatem Dei. In the business of Religion, we must not follow the examples of Parents and Ancestors; but only as they are agreeable to the will of God. God himself stated this case to the Jewish Children in the wilderness by the Prophet Ezekiel (n) Ezek. 20.18, 19 ; and the Apostle Peter showeth Christian Children should behave themselves as those who are redeemed from a vain conversation (o) 1 Pet. 1.18. . But the good carriage of Parents in their piety towards God, righteousness and charity towards man, should have a great influence upon those that descend from them. Solomon is commended for his dutifulness so far as he walked in the good ways of David his Father (p) 1 Kings 3.3. , expressing the like good qualities and actions in that which was right (q) 2 Kings 23.2. : and so Asa (r) 1 Kings 15.11. raising up monuments of David's piety, honesty, and virtue. 'Tis reported Justin Martyr became Christian, by following the good examples of the primitive Fathers † Euseb. l. 4. c. 4. . The famous Emperor but now praised, determined when in the Empire, not to follow the Caesarian mode which then obtained at the imperial Court, but to do all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a disciple of pious Antonine * Gatak. in lib. 4. Sect. 30. , to be dressed by his Father's glass, as Julius Capitolinus notes, to act, and speak, and think, as his Father did: or as he tells us himself, to imitate his constant tenor in things well managed, his evenness of temper in all things, the cheerfulness of his countenance, his courteousness, contempt of vainglory, and studiousness to find out things. He had set before himself the virtues of both his Parents and Pro-parents, yea, his adoptive Father, and copied out the most singular things in them all ‖ l. 1. c. 1. Sect. 1. 2▪ 16. . Which may the more incite us Christians, as Paul did Timothy from the remembrance of the Faith in his Grandmother Lois, and Mother Eunice (s) 2 Tim. 1.5. , to learn that Parents good actions should make impressions on their Children; as the Seal upon the wax, that they may represent them both while living and dead. These cannot be a better resemblance of a Child to a good Father than in this observance (t) Prov. 27.11. which I have touched on in these four Particulars, hastening to the next Duty; viz. 3 Pious regards, Christian Children own their Parents both in respect of their benevolence and indigence; from a real desire of humble thankfulness (if it were possible) to make some kind of compensation unto them, by whom under God they subsist. (1.) With respect to their benevolence, a grateful resentment of their kindnesses; which ought to be manifested in an affectionate acknowledgement of their Parental love and care. This is so good and acceptable unto God, that to requite our Parents in Paul's language, is to show piety and kindness at home (u) 1 Tim. 5.4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , when by way of commutation we are solicitous to take our turn as it were, in a sort of retaliation to make some kind of retribution to those who begat us, either immediately or mediately. This ingenuous skill the Apostle would have learned, as a commendable Christian Art, by an exercise in such grateful offices, as may prove Children do delight to be much in those services (w) Mal. 3 17. with Phil. 2.22. which express the esteem they have of their Parents good will to them. Hence we should with great complacence entertain all our Parens favours, as ingenuous Servants, waiting to express the sense of our love readily and hearty (x) Eph. 6.7. Col. 3.23. : sigh our most pathetic acknowledgements of Parental love and care are but easy returns for their unvaluable kindnesses: so that without this resentment, Children cannot indeed be pious: For as Cicero † C m omnibus virtutibus me affectum esse cupiam, tum nihil est quod malim, etc. Quid est pietas nisi voluntas grata in parents, etc. pro Cn. Plancio. in an Oration argues; When I shall desire that I may be affected with all the virtues, than there is nothing I more wish, than that I may be thankful, and seem to be so: for this one virtue is not only the greatest, but the mother of all the rest. What is Piety, but a grateful will towards our Parents? etc. who of us (saith he) is liberally educated, but thinks of our Educators, etc. with a thankful remembrance? which may be, by treasuring up their good speeches and wise say of remark (y) Job 15.18. Psal. 44.1, 2.— 78.3. ; rehearsing with delight their praiseworthy acts (z) Prov. 31.28. ; expounding all they do candidly, as Ruth did Naomi's carriage, honouring all that was honourable in her, choosing her Religion, and admiring all her virtues, Thy God shall be my God, said she, and thy people my people (a) Ruth. 1.16. ; comforting them under every Providence (b)— 4 15. Gen 5.29. , and providing as much as may be for them (c) Jos. 2.13. . Hence (2.) with respect to their indigence, be it what it will, either in regard to internal or external defects, natural, moral, or providential; both living and dead, Children are to show themselves concerned: by covering, or bearing their infirmities, supplying their necessities, defending their persons and honour against the rude and injurious attaques of those who would disparage and defame them. Noah and Lot, Isaac and Jacob had their infirmities under temptations; and their Children covered them (d) Gen. 9.21, 23.— 27.12.— 28.5.— 37.10. ; so did Jonathan his Father Saul's (e) 1 Sam. 31.2. ; Mary was inconsiderate in speaking to our Lord, yet he went down with her and Joseph (f) Luke 2.51. . Love will cover many faults (g) 1 Pet. 4.8. : Isaac was blind, yet Jacob religiously paid respects to him (h) Gen. 27 1. with Leu. 19.14. : Naomi was poor, yet her daughter in law continued childlike obedience (i) Ruth 1.16, 17. : when Jacob and his Family were poor, and in straits, Joseph did support and comfort them, ministering to their necessities (k) Gen. 48.1.— 37.35.— 42.3.— 47.12. : yea, and pious Children should have a special regard to supply their Parents spiritual necessities, for the good estate of their souls; in case they are unacquainted with the great business of Religion, or negligent about the concerns of another world, then with all humility and prudence to insinuate such things, as by the influence of Heaven may be effectual to work a real change in them, by whom they themselves came into this world, or to revive that which is ready to die, will greatly adorn the part of Christian Children. Sith we are to pray for political, much more for natural Parents, because of the goodness and acceptableness of it in the sight of God and our Saviour (l) 1 Tim. 2.2. . All that the best can do, in one respect and another, will be recompense little enough for Parents care, love, and kindness. Ruth took pains to supply her mother in law's necessities (m) Ruth. 2.18. ; David in perils was solicitous for his Parent's safety (n) 1 Sam. 22.3, 4. : and if Children are taken away before their Parents, they are obliged after Christ's example in taking care of his mother, to endeavour provision may be made for them (o) Joh. 19.26, 27. ; when their Parents are dead, they should see to the honourable interment of their bodies, in a deccent Christian manner, agreeable to the port and quality of both in the world, and the laudable custom of the place (p) Acts 8.2. , as Isaac (q) Gen. 25.9. , Jacob (r)— 35.29. , and Joseph did (s)— 50.7, 8. : So to the preservation of their good name and reputation, by paying of their debts in due circumstances (especially if justly contracted for the children's sake) according to abilities, for they are the wicked who borrow and pay not again (t) Psal. 37. 2● : good Christians are charged to owe no man any thing but love (u) Rom. 13.8. ; and to the vindicating of them from unjust aspersions, yet without malice or revenge (w) Mat. 5.39. Rom. 12.17, 19 but with justice, so far as lies within the compass of the children's calls and places: so did Amaziah (x) 2 King. 14.5. : what Solomon did in this regard was only the public execution of Justice, not act of private revenge (y) 2 King. 2.8, 9 with 2 Sam. 3.39.— 19.23. . But still in paying honour to our deceased Parents, we must ever avoid the superstition of the Heathens and Papists, and take care we go on in all our Parents good ways, as did Solomon, Asa, Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah (z) 1 King 3.3. Prov. 4.3, 4.— 31.1, 2. 2 King 22 2. 1 King. 15.11. . Quite contrary hereunto was the impious practice of Cham, odious to God and man (a) Gen. 9.22.25. : So of Absolom (b) 2 Sam. 15.3.— 18 9 , Jeroboam's race (c) 2 King. 3.3. , and the greedy Pharisees (d) Mar. 7 11.13. , with others, who had no compassion, or none in proportion to their indigent Parent's necessity and superiority; when yet they are amply provided for (e) 1 Joh. 3.17. ; whereas this grateful recompense of Parents is required and celebrated amongst the Heathens of old, as appears by their proverbial expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Whence their Lex Pelargica: Because saith Philo * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. de Decal. p. 761. mihi. , The old Storks disabled to fly abroad, stay in their nest, till those of their brood do fly over sea and land, and bring food to their dams, (though possibly some may have been observed to degenerate † Neander in Franz. Hist. animal. ). And so we Birds (saith Aristophanes pleasantly) should return our Parents thanks in all offices of endearing kindness, etc. Aeneas was denominated pious, from that Heroic act of saving his decrepit Father out of flaming Troy, and the hands of raging enemies, by carrying him out on his shoulders. And the Children of Catania of old, in a sudden eruption of Aetna, for the exportation of their aged Parents were celebrated with much honour ‖ Pausanius l. 10. , (what they of the same place did in the late one, I have not heard). They who would see among the Heathens greater variety of Instances for pious regards and impious ingratitude, may consult Valerius Maximus * Lib. 5. c. 4. . I'll only mind you of two of the former sort; one (which Pliny † Nat. Hist. l. 7. counts most remarkable) of a woman giving suck, who, when her mother was condemned by the Praetor, had got from the Keeper liberty to visit her in Prison, upon daily search made to see she brought no victuals to her, whom the Keeper thought to have famished, but found alive after many days, sustained by her affectionate daughter's milk; which so affected the Governors, that they spared the Mother's life, and raised a monument of the daughter's ingenuous piety. The other of one Perns (for that seems to be her name) who in the same manner relieved her Father Cymon, and renewed his age the same way, in the same case, which it seems was so taking, that it was represented in a Picture when the Historian wrote, and that in Tiberius his time; so ancient was that Table which our modern Painter's copy. And this was the more notable, because this now old Cymon did by his own bonds purchase his Father's freedom. The Chinoises in their natural Religion do to this day pay their gratitude to their Parents with the greatest strictness, as I learn from Spizelius in a late learned Tract * De re literaria sinensium, p. 243. , wherein he shows, they persuade themselves the perfection of man doth consist in this, both with respect to the surviving Parents and the deceased, for whom they are longer in solemn mourning than any other people. Before I leave this head, I cannot pass over a prodigious Instance † Luth. l. c. come. de amore ergo paren. cum alii●. of the contrary vice, I mean monstrous ingratitude to Parents. 'Tis the unthankful Son of a more kind Father, who had made over his estate to all his Sons, with a reserve of a right by turns to come and take his diet ac their Tables. This unnatural wretch being at dinner, and having a Goose before him, espied his Father coming, and set the Goose underneath the Table till his Father, was gone again: then (as is related) going to take up the hidden Goose, found it wonderfully turned into a great Toad, which leaped upon his face, and notwithstanding all his striving could not be removed, till it had stifled him. Let Children learn hence, to take heed of being ungrateful to their Patents for fear of the dreadful consequence thereof. Thus we have seen three particulars of children's active obedience, there is yet another which is more passive, and that is, 4. Submission or subjection to Parental discipline, with all lowliness of mind (f) Phil. 2 3. , acknowledging their coercive authority: and therefore are Children obliged with patience to bear their Parents rebukes; whether verbal or real; considering in charity they design good. The ignorance, imperfection, and corrupt inclinations of Children born in sin require Parents animadversion, and the children's submission both to their Admonitions and Corrections. (1.) Their Admonitions; when in their watchful inspection they give check unto exorbitant behaviour, and lay restraints upon their Children, who should indeed stand in great awe of those reproofs and threats, which do arise from Parent's displeasure. When Jonadah's posterity were tempted to act in complaisance with others, their Father's forewarning kept them in awe, that they did not violate his appointment (g) Jos. 35.6. ; and so upon doing amiss, an ingenuous Child will amend. There should be shame upon a Father's frown and discountenance (h) Numb. 12.14. : yea, though Parents should be out in the matter, as well as manner, and be too quick in their rebukes, as it should seem Jacob was with Joseph for his dreams, not considering what signal motion of God was in them; yet the Children should bear it as Joseph did (i) Gen. 37.10. , and as Jonathan did his Father's unkind exprobration (k) 1 Sam. 20.30, etc. . It is true; Jesus took up his Mother in one instance, but it was in his Heavenly Father's cause, which he was concerned in as God-man (l) Luke 2.49. : Yet in other cases, they should not only bear, but amend upon admonition: as Moses did upon his Father in law's dislike of that task he took upon himself alone (m) Exod. 18.13, 17.24. ; whereas on the other hand Ely's Sons slighted their Father's reproof (n) 1 Sam. 2.25. ; and such others there are who scorn to be told of their faults (o) Prov. 13.1. , though they lose God's favour by it, and are accounted fools by him, who is never out in his censure: when the submiss are prudent, going on in the way of life (p)— 3.34, 35.— 15.5.— 3.23. . Many Children are impatient of just restraints in their meats, drinks, apparel, and recreations; not considering the advantage of self-denial, and patience learned betimes; when as others can say experimentally, they had been undone if they had not been early curbed. Monica, Austin's Mother ‖ Aug. Conf. l. 8. c. 9 , having in her minority been educated to temperance, when growing up, and getting from under that severer tuition, by the insinuation of a jocund companion was drawn to drink her whole draughts; till upon the upbraiding of her associate, she reformed herself, and observed her former rules of temperance. Reverend Mr. Greenham used to say, Be most moderate in those things which thine appetite liketh best, and check thy too much greediness of them. And another said well † Citante Steph. Guazi de civili convers p. 376. maluisse se infirmum, quam delicatum esse, etc. , That he had rather be infirm, than delicate; sigh weakness only can hurt the body alone: but delicacies may at once corrupt both body and mind: and more than that, may also render any one unjust; by reason they make him covetous to get that which may maintain them, and also dull and regardless of the Word of God, and the service of his friends and country. I have in my own observation seen Children prove well, who have submitted to the prudent restraints and admonitions of their watchful Parents and Guides as to these things; and others ruined, who, when they have been told of their faults, have swelled and raged against those that have loved them best, yea in a most unchristian manner: So necessary it is to submit to Parent's admonitions. So also to (2.) Their corrections or real chastisements, whether by stripes, or other punishments inflicted: sigh we should imagine Parents come to this sharp and unpleasant work, out of a principle of love (q) Prov. 13.24. , with an aim at their children's good (r)— 22.15. ; and it is looked upon in Scripture a Ruled Case, that reverence with submission is paid to the Parents of our flesh (s) Hebr. 12.9. , when under their rod, which we are to bear, and upon the feeling of it, to amend what is amiss, as some kind of satisfaction (t) Prov. 29.17. ; whereas disdain and stubbornness spoils all, and if it be persisted in, may sometimes occasion Parents to call in the posse magistratus (u) Deut. 21.18, 19, etc. . The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Epistle to the Hebrews translated, We gave them reverence, doth import that we Children, when faulty, under our Father's frowns and stripes turned our faces with shame and blushing at our unworthy acts, not able to look them in the face; as the Prodigal upon his return (w) Luke 15.21. with Tit. 2.8. , which accords (as some have noted ‖ Laws on Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ) to the Hebrew word, which is in this case to submit with humility to them in this Relation. Because, though we cannot bear that others should beat and scourge us, yet our Parents, as having power upon a just cause to punish by virtue of their Superiority, and our dependence upon them, whose end is, or should be, their children's reformation, and therefore is in mercy to prevent further sin and misery; in compliance with God's command they correct their offspring, to save it from hell: though many an inconsiderate Child, may at present conceive the Father correcting to be a severe Judge, when as to intended amendment, he is indeed a loving Father: So that though it seem to be jarring and harsh music, disagreeable to the faulty Patient, yet it will sound sweeter to the judicious ear, than the melody of a luscious and disorderly indulgence. Ingenuous Children have acknowledged the benefit of Paternal correction, especially after they have sought to God by Prayer, that God would sanctify the rod to their good. That was a good practical answer of one of Zeno's Scholars, Citante Steph. Gua2zi de civil. Convers. who to his Father, ask what wisdom he had learned by being so long abroad, said, He was able to show it at any time: which he did to the purpose not long after, when, his Father chastising him with strokes, he took it quietly and patiently; showing that he could sustain the displeasure of his Parent without any untoward repartees. In short, Children should in all these duties deport themselves with piety toward their Parents, being in that relation they bear the image of God, as Creator, Upholder, and Governor of the World. So that resistance, yea, surly and rude replies, are a token of ill behaviour under Government, and do disguise Children of the most comely structure in the world. Thus of the first general in children's duties. The second is concerning the Latitude and extent of children's obedience, in all things, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text. We cannot imagine this is so universal and absolute as Obedience to God; or that the obligation lies in any thing beside the mind of the supreme Governor of Heaven and Earth, or dissonant to the holy will of our Lord; for only that obedience is required which is wellpleasing and grateful unto him. So that the Power demanding it must have a warrant from him: unless we should embrace the horrid opinion of the daring Atheist in his Leviathan † c. 42 p. 234. , who impiously affirms, that if a Christian be commanded by his lawful Prince or Sovereign (whose authority was first paternal) to say he doth not believe in Christ, it is lawful to obey: which atheistical tenet doth either post-pone the command of God to the command of man, which is most abominable: or, without further enquiry doth account it a divine precept, which would prefer an hellish error to the Heavenly verity, overturn the whole Christian institution, and set up diabolical adoration ‖ Dr Templar Idea Theol. Levia. p. 96, 97, 251. 101, 102. . 'Twould introduce an infallible spirit in all Civil, as the Papists pretend to have in their Ecclesiastical Government, yea, quite exterminate all regards of Conscience, and raze out the common notions of good and evil: whereas all subjection which is not of faith, i. e. agrees not with the judgement of Conscience, propounding its dictates under the reason of the Divine will, is sin (x) Rom. 13.1, 4.5. with— 14.23, . God is only arbitrary and absolute Lawgiver (y) Jam 4.12. . And as Constant. the Father of Constantine the Emperor affirmed, they could not be faithful Subjects unto him, who easily contemned God and their Conscience: neither Children be truly obedient to their Parents, who do so. Our obedience then ought to be only in all things acceptable to our supreme Lord and Master. And therefore the Apostle hath elsewhere expressed the command to obey in the Lord (z) Eph. 6.1, 5, 6. , which is the same, as unto the Lord, and unto Christ, fearing God (a) Colos. 3.22, 23. in opposition to the pleasing of men. This doth moderate the commands of Parents; and regulate the obedience of Children, Wives, and Servants. 'Tis true, had Parents kept their original rectitude, their commands would never have been other than consonant to the Divine pleasure, and Law of Nature: but the fall, that disordered that harmonious and happy constitution; and now their precepts do often thwart or jar with the will of him who is Sovereign Lord, whom to please is the determination or limit, as well as motive to children's obedience. This agrees with the sense of Archbishop Anselm. † Comment, in Colos.— in his tantummodo quae pra●eptum Domini non excedunt, etc. 580 years ago expounding my Text. How it will relish now with those of his order in an Hypothesis of theirs, I determine not: But he saith, that Natural and Ecclesiastical, Carnal and Spiritual Parents are to be obeyed in all things only in the Lord: i. e. (saith he) in those things only which are not beside, or Do not exceed the precept of the Lord: because it is pleasing unto God, that in such a manner we should obey them. It should seem he held then according to truth, that if a Superior should exceed his commission by imposing any preter-evangelical Canon for Doctrine or practice, the Inferiors nonconformity thereunto was no transgression: For in obeying the commands of a subordinate power (b) Acts 4.19.— 5.29. Exod. 1.17. we are primarily to take care, that the rights of the absolute Sovereign remain inviolable: seeing God gave the Parent that Authority he hath, in requiring that which is displeasing to God he hath none. And as the Child is to obey him, so he is to obey God, without whose warrant his child is not obliged to active obedience, but passive, or submission by suffering the penalty with cheerfulness: that is pleasing to God in such a case. For the truth is, It is thankworthy, if one for Conscience towards God endure grief, suffering wrongfully (c) 1 Pet. 2.19, 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. : this is acceptable with God, whatever acceptance it find among men; there is a grace in this behaviour before God. Now the great thing Children are to look at in their obedience to Parents is, that it be wellpleasing to God (so saith my Text); and if they obey without his warrant, who can secure them they shall do what is acceptable with him? God is to have an affection predominant to that we have for our Parents (d) Mat. 10.37. Luke 14.26.9.59, 60, 61. : We must not dishonour him in pretention to honour them. In things impious or dishonest Parents have no authority; herein disobedience would be just, and obsequiousness criminal. Hence we find Acrotatus commended amongst the Ancients, because, when his Parents had required of him to do an unjust thing, he answered, I know you are willing I should do that which is just, for so you taught me to do: I will therefore do that which you desire I should, but what you bid me I will not do. A denial in this case is to be expressed in all humble language. Hierocles, though no Christian, hath notable things about the extent of children's obedience: for he arguing in this case, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. ‖ Comment. in Corm. Pytbag. p. 53, etc. If in all things we must obey our Parents, how shall we go astray from piety, and other virtues, if through the pravity of their manners they lead us into those things which are not altogether honest and commendable? If sometime their will be not consonant to the Divine Laws? He gives this answer amongst others * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. ; If indeed the Divine Law draw you to one thing, and your Parents to another, in this disagreement of wills it is more excellent to choose those things which are better, and in those only to be inobservant of the commands of Parents, wherein even they themselves obey not the Divine Laws; for it cannot be, that he, who is resolved to observe the rules of virtue, can consent to them, by whom they are neglected: but in all other things we ought as much as we can to honour our Parents; viz. in bodily observance, and a most ready & free supply of things necessary, sigh they have right to use those they have brought forth and nourished, etc. Neither will the Parent's unkindness be enough to discharge the Child from obedience, which is to be yielded in all the circumstances of their lives: And that considering, 3. The great reason to engage in the duties of children's obedience in the Lord, is undoubtedly the most cogent Motive can be urged to the performance of all generous actions, viz. because it is wellpleasing to the Lord. So 'tis express: God himself in Covenant is taken with it, with this Chain on a Child's neck (as I may allude to that of Christ to his Spouse) (e) Cant. 4.9. , because it sets forth the beauty and loveliness of a Child, as a Child. The Lord hath given it in charge to all Christian Children here in my Text, and elsewhere (f) Eph. 6.1. , as a vigorous enforcement of the fifth Commandment. The supreme authority of our Heavenly Father, who hath an uncontrollable dominion over us, makes any duties which he requires highly reasonable. But he who is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him (g) Heb. 11.6. , assures the dutiful, he takes much pleasure in these Relative duties, that they are not only pleasing, but wellpleasing to him: Certainly it should hugely raise the spirits of all ingenuous Children, to be most solicitous in filling up their Relation. Dear Children, I am hemmed in, as it were, by what I am yet to say for Parent's duties, that I cannot here dilate myself by descending into particulars to persuade the embracing of an exhortation to these duties: But if you be Christians indeed who understand your interest, I can give you the quintessence of all Motives within the bounds of my Text. Consider it well, I beseech you, 'tis this: By your accurateness in these duties you do that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wellpleasing to the Lord, to your and my Lord and Master. Do this, please the Lord, and you do all; this is right (h) Eph. 6.1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ; whether present or absent, that you may be accepted of him (i) 2 Cor. 5 9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , or well-pleasing to him, is the highest you can attain to. What can I? What need I say more? I could tell you, in pleasing of God you do that which doth, or should, please your Parents, and will be most pleasant to yourselves; and than you must needs be happy, when God and you are pleased. As in the keeping all God's Commandments there is an exceeding great reward (k) Psal. 19.11. Gen. 15.1. ; so this hath a Primacy in the Promise (l) Eph. 6.1. Prov. 4.10, 22. . Upon that account it is profitable and beneficial, yea it is honest and honourable before God (m) 1 Tim. 5.4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , every way right agreeable to God's positive Law, the Law of Nature, and the Law of Nations. It is the Parents due as in the place of God; they bear his Image in their Parental authority and relation (n) Mal, 1.6. with 1 Sam. 2.30. ; they deserve it, we own it to them as a debt: So that disobedience to Parents is against Scripture, the light of Nature, the common equity of all Nations, and renders such persons unworthy the Christian Name, and worse than Infidels and Brutes: Such were Hophni and Phineas (o) 1 Sam. 2.25.34. , Absolom (p) 2 Sam. 18.9 and Adonijah (q) 1 Kings 2.25. . Have you then, my beloved Children, any respect to God, his good pleasure, or displeasure? to your Parents their right or wrong, their blessing or cursing? to your selves, looking for recompense, or fearing vengeance? Consider then I pray you, what you have to do. 'Tis no arbitrary thing I am persuading to, but that which is required by an eternal, indispensable Law, fortified with the most signal rewards and punishments; yea even in this state, as you may find in the Annals of most Dominions. Yet further, you Christian Children are now took into a Covenant-Relation with God, as the Jewish Children were under that Pedagogy (r) Rom. 9.4. compared with Deut 4.2. Eph 6 1, 2. Mic. 7.20. Deut. 32.13, 14. 2 Chro. 1.9, 10, 11. Psal. 86.6. . Consider, I beseech you, how much you are indebted to your Parents for pleading the Covenant and Promises on your behalf (s) Psal. 112.1, 2. Prov 20.7. Gen. 49.26 Psal. 115.13, 14. . This obedience to Parents is commended in Scripture; you'll get a lasting reputation by it (t) Ruth 4.15, 16. ; God and men honour the obedient graced with this ornament (u) 1 Sam. 2.30. Prov. 1.9. & 13.18. Jer. 35.18, 19 . The examples of Sem and Japhet, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc. are in Scripture recorded to their perpetual honour. In Heathen Story, the Piety of Aenaeas to his aged Father, and the obedience of others is celebrated. This is the way to have the good things of this and a better life entailed upon posterity (w) Gen. 9.23, 26, 27. . 'Tis equity you should do, as you would have them to do to you in the like circumstances. The Philosopher † Arist. Ethic. l. 8. c. 16.14. thought none could ever give Parents honour answerable to their merit; that there is no equalizing their descending, growing love: they were the instruments of children's having affections, because of their being: They may then claim your best affections and actions. Upon which account it is that want of natural affection, as it is the most monstrous, so it is the most dreadfully punished by God (x) 1 Sam. 4.11. Deut. 21.20, 21. Senec. l. 5. contra 4. in fine. Instit. 6 de pub. judicio. . Yea and for Parricides the old Romans had a strange and unusual punishment, in culeum dejicere, to put them alive into a great leather Sack, made of an Oxhide, with a live Dog, a Cock, a Viper, and an Ape, at first it was with Serpents, (after the murderers of Parents had been made bloody with scourging) then sewed up close, and cast into Tiber, or the next River, that whiles alive they might begin to want the use of all the Elements, not having the benefit of the Heavens while they lived, nor the burial of the Earth when dead. This shows how odious this crime was in the height of it to mere Heathen men also. Be sure the beginning of it in the want of natural affection is very displeasing to God (y) Gen. 6.3. with Judg. 14, 3. ; but the obedience I have been describing is very amiable to his eye: It keeps from evil: and disposeth to reverence God himself (z) Leu. 19.4. with 2, 3. : It helps to be good Subjects, and conduceth to the welfare of our Country. God makes choice discoveries of himself to obedient ones in filial duties, as he did eminently to Jacob (a) Gen. 28.7, 10.11. , being peculiarly present with them, who do choose the things that please him, and lay hold of his Covenant (b) Isa. 56.4. , as those Children do, who obey their Parents in all things in the Lord. All encouragement lies in this; obedience is wellpleasing to the Lord. But it is more than time, now I have put Children upon their duties following the Apostle, that I come to II. My next General proposed, which is the office of Parents, enforced from the special consideration of that the Apostle suggests to move to it. I shall 1. speak to the office; and then 2. a little to the enforcement of it here. 1. Concerning the office, we may by an affection of a Trope so expound the provocation in my Text forbidden Christian Parents, 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. that in a short manner of speech the Negative doth emphatically intent more than is expressed, as including the Positive, wherein the office of Parents provident care, and well treating of their Children, being of great weight and extent, is connoted to us. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The charge which the Apostle gives here to all the Fathers of our flesh from the Father of mercies according to the original word is not to irritate their Children; which is somewhat different from the prohibition to the Ephesians (c) Eph. 6.4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , provoke not your Children to wrath, this in my Text seeming to deny more generally. So that he allows not of any kind of abuse of the paternal authority, which may justly irritate or provoke the passions of Children, an ill effect produced in their hearts, and proceeding from any maladministration of the Father's power, which in rigour is more apt to exceed its bounds than the Mothers; either in substracting a fit allowance for nourishment and nurture, not a usual fault, which yet the Apostle taxeth (d) 1 Tim. 5.8. , (and Quintilian complained of * Lib. 1. c. 2. ); or loading them with impious (e) Mat. 14 8. and inhuman commands (f) 1 Sam 20.31. without necessity, compelling to sordid and servile works not fit for ingenuous Children, but slaves; or treating them for not just hitting their humour with contumelious words, (g)— 30. , pouring forth curses out of that mouth that should bless: sigh the name of Father breathes sweetness and benignity; bitter words, and the language of a barbarous enemy, will be apt to exasperate: when upon any little enormities a Father shows himself morose and sharp, it may be beating his Children to gratify his own lust and rage, or inflicting other penalties no way proportioned to the fault, (if any) (h)— 33. compared with Deut. 25 1, 2. , chastening not with the rod of men, or the stripes of the children of men, i. e. not in a humane way with gentleness and moderation (i) 2 Sam. 7.14. , or by imperiousness for some self-respects, as worldlings impose upon their Children in the great concern of changing their condition, etc. be sure it is contrary to the prohibition, which imports that the Parents conduct should be moderated betwixt the extremes of an unwarrantable indulgence and rigour, that it may tend to their children's benefit, and their own satisfaction. They should so deport themselves in this good government, that their Children may both love and honour their presence, not being too fond, lest their Children should not fear them, nor too stern, lest they should fear them too much. The moving Principle to be premised, which influenceth Parents, and inclineth them effectually to exert a provident care in all the branches of it, is an imbred natural affection of love, which did act Abraham (k) Gen. 22.2. , Isaac, and Rebekah (l)— 25.28. , in the Old Testament, and is called forth in the New (m), (n) Tit. 2.3. Rom. 1.31. , as the fundamental requisite to sway Parents in the exercise of their authority, and a due performance of their Relative office in all the severals of it, so that they may indeed adorn the Gospel. Out of this inward Principle arise Dues from Parents to their Children more general, viz. 1. Prayer, and 2. Good Behaviour; and more particular, with respect to the 1. Birth, 2. Nourishment, 3. Education, 4. Disposal, and 5. Maintenance of their Children, and 6. their own departure from them: all according to the dictates of humane and Christian prudence. 1. The more general and previous duties, wherein Parents are concerned for the sake of their Children as well as themselves, are Prayer, and good Behaviour; which give success to all the following particular ones respectively, and without which they will not be well discharged, so as they should be, by a Christian Parent, who is obliged to rule his own house well, having his Children in subjection with all honesty, (or as we render it) with all gravity (n) 1 Tim. 3.4, 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . I know not well how to omit, yet can but touch on these. [1] Prayer. Parents are to make their requests known to God without ceasing (o) 1 Thes. 5.17. , upon all occasions, for all things, throughout the whole course of their children's lives: they are concerned to be daily Orators at the Throne of grace, that God would make their Children his Children, and confer upon them all temporal and spiritual blessings: this is requisite to the having of Children, and the having of them good. 'Tis a mercy to have them, as Isaac Hannah and others had (p) Gen 25.21. 1 Sam. 1 10. , as a return to prayer; which is also a means to have them good (q) Gen. 17.18, 20. 1 Chron. 22.12.— 29.19. Ps. 72 per. totu●. ; sigh the sincere Parent's prayer may reach his Child in every particle of its life, in the womb, as Rebekah did hers (r) Gen 25.22. ; and in the world, at the ingress with Zachariah's (s) Luke 1.64. , progress with Job's (t) Job 1.5. , and egress with David's, who made his petition more fervent with fasting (u) 2 Sam. 12.16. ; and when the Parent is leaving his Children as Isaac (w) Gen. 27.4. : all which show the benefit of paternal requests for the fruit of their bodies. Monica, Augustin's Mother, was very earnest, frequent and pathetical in her addresses to God for her Husband and Son, and she had gracious returns for both. How wicked then are those Parents, who follow their Children (yea without provocation too) with imprecations, and direful curses instead of prayers? [2.] Good Behaviour before God and man in love to their Children. To follow prayer in upright walking is the best course Parents can take to entail a blessing upon their Children, and make them good indeed. The seed of the just or merciful man, who walketh in his integrity, shall be blessed after him (x) Prov. 20.7.— 3.22. . The generation of the righteous have certainly the surest Deed of entail for inheriting of blessings that can be made (y) Psal. 112.2. Deut. 5.29.— 4.8, 9 , sigh God hath given promises thereof unto gracious persons, who really walk with him and before him according to his holy statutes (z) Gen. 17.1, 7. Acts 2.39. 1 Kings 11, 12. . 'Tis the Lord's usual way to confer his favours in this channel; so that Parents are concerned to carry themselves well upon this account: And what ifluence their good behaviour hath on their Children, as they set fair patterns to them, may be touched on afterwards. I hasten to speak to 2. The more particular duties of Parents, with their several respects, as (1.) To the birth of the Child; whiles it is yet but an Embryo, there is not only requisite Prayer, (which was presupposed) with thanksgiving, for the sanctifying the fruit of the body (a) 1 Tim. 4.4, 5. , as Jeremiah and John were (b) Jer. 1.5. Luke 1.15. , but also a tender care for the preservation of life. Both Parents are concerned in order to a better observance of the fifth Commandment, to have regard to what is employed and required in the sixth and seventh Commandment. When God hath curiously made the babe in secret, in the lower parts of the earth (c) Ps. 139.13, 15. , it is to be regarded, even before it see the light. Manaoh's wife had a positive order in this case for the safety of herself and child, when it was conceived; and her good husband was desirous (as appears by his enquiry) to be assistant to her therein (d) Judg. 13, 4, 11, 12. . The Rule given her by the Angel of the Lord r spected temperance; forbearance of wine was ordered both for her own and the child's good. Upon such an account the Philosopher * Arist. Folitic. l. 7. & de Rep. l. 8. c. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 determined in his Politic, that pregnant women should be careful as to their aliment; and elsewhere particularly commends milk, and not wine, as more fit nourishment for many bodies, wherein he conceits the latter may occasion diseases. As for nourishment, the Mother should be prudently careful; and the Father in special case of a real longing appetite should endeavour seasonable supplies: so there should be a joint care for a provision of things necessary and convenient to entertain the Babe into the world, when brought forth. Though the Virgin Mary was in a low estate, and necessitated to travel at the Emperor's command, yet she was not unprovided of swaddling clothes (e) Luke 2.7. . All this gives check to those Mothers, who without a call frisk and jantle about any how at their pleasure, and are intemperate: yea, against the Apostle's charge, and to the disparagement of their Christian Profession (f) Tit. 2.4.5. ; for he would have the Matrons by good example to teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands and their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, etc. And this is more especially requisite for Childbearing women; sigh the Romans observed that Coriolanus' Niece miscarried by being too straight laced; the Sister of Curius by much dancing; and the Sister of C. Duilius by immoderate eating of various dainties. 'Tis indeed granted, that carelessness of making provision of necessaries for clothing their newborn Infants is the fault of a few in our Age; wherein under the notion of clouts (or clothtrenchers) things of the greatest value by some of mean quality are found out to such an height of curiosity sometimes, as appears not very consonant to the simplicity and humility of the Gospel. 'Twere, I confess, Ostrich-like to suffer these sure pledges of nature to be without conveniences, or to expose them, (like some of the ancient Greeks) as they are sometimes in this great City, at the doors in the street: but to make them Peacock-like to surpass in finery above their rank can be no symptom of humility; and then too, when the Parents would have it thought, they engage them to forsake all the pomps and vanities of the world. But this may respect the next duty, viz. (2.) To give the Child nourishment, when it appears in the world, for the preservation of its natural life; and to seek that it may be spiritually alive, Parents should use the best means nature and grace do prompt to them. For the former, that breast-milk is ordinarily the most proper aliment Nature teacheth; as also for the most part that the Mother's is most agreeable: likewise that she is obliged to nurse her own Babe (whatever softnesses many delicate Dames do now cherish) the Scriptures, as well as Principles of Reason, do evince: unless she be excused in some few instances; as in case of necessity; or greater charity; namely, when the impediment to her giving suck is natural disability, a really great weakness, or an affliction with a disease, which might be transmitted with the milk, or in case of the public concerns of a Kingdom, for securing of succession in the Royal Throne: or etc. For natural instinct, which is seen in these springing fontinells, the breasts (h) Cantic. 4.5. , unto this end, for giving that food better digested unto the child when come out, with which it was fed in the womb, hath reason superadded in man. As marriage to him (especially under the Christian constitution) becomes an ordinance of God, which in the mixture of other creatures is merely natural * Dr. Jer. tailor's Great Exempl. p. 1. Sect. 3. . Now to pervert the end and designation of Nature, with the necessities thereof, is in effect to violate those reasonable inducements, which do oblige conscience in that which is comely, and not to correspond with the design of justice, charity, and sohriety. A matter certainly very inaccountable for those, who are bound seriously to think on (so as to do) whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: or if there be any other virtue (i) Phil. 4.8. . Certainly the thing can be no disparagement to them of the best quality, but a credit, only because it agrees not with the modern mode of the Italian and French; amongst whom, the great ones often suckle their Children upon vile women, and sometimes upon Strumpets, whose manners are drawn in with their milk. Chrysostom * Homil. in Psal. thought it a reproach that any women should blush to be Nurses, who were become Mothers. The Spartan law was, that the Noblest, even the King's wives should nurse the first child. Historians † Herodotus, etc. show Queens have done it. The Noblest amongst the ancient Romans and Germans did it. And one of the Caesars thought it a prodigy in those days, that a Roman Lady refused to suckle her own Infant, and yet gave suck to a Puppy, that her milk might be more artificially dried up. But I fear the wantonness and pride of some Mothers, and the ill-nature of some Fathers, who love their ease and quiet, may render this discourse unpleasing to them: yet had I time to enlarge, for that reason it would be the more necessary in the cases not excepted. However, the blessed Virgin giving Jesus milk from the bottles of his own filling, may commend it with reputation enough to any Christian Mother, who seriously desires to practise the choice lesson of Self-denial. For the Scriptures consonant to the common prinicples of right reason, do either take this Duty for granted (where no just exceptions) of Mother's nursing their own Children for a ruled case; as in the Father of the faithful's wife Sarah (k) Gen. 21.7. , who was a very honourable woman, and others (l) Psal. 22.9. Cant. 8.1. Luke 11.27. ; or else they give us examples of Mothers who were commendable patterns, as were Hannah (m) 1 Sam. 1.22. , the Virgin Mary (n) Luke 1.28. with 11 27. , David's Mother (o) Psal. 22.9. , and that affectionate one who stood before Solomon to plead for her child (p) 1 Kings 3.21. ; or afford us such Texts as by consequence do infer it, as in Jacob's blessing (q) Gen 49.25. , and a contrary curse on others (r) Hos. 9.14. , the charge to Manoah's wife to avoid things hurtful to her milk (s) Judg. 13.4. considering her constitution, and the climate she lived in: the Apostle gives it as the character of good women, that they have nursed up Children (t) 1 Tim. 5 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , as Moses his Mother did him, awaiting Providence to perform this natural office to her own child; and was not, as the weeping Prophet laments some in his time, worse than Sea-monsters, like Ostriches of the wilderness (u) Lam. 4.3. . I do not remember in holy Writ that any Mother put forth her own child to suck: and though there be mention made of Rebekah's nurse (w) Gen. 24.59.— 35.8. , and others (x) 2 Sam 4 4. 2 Kings 11.2. , yet in all probability they were common dry-nurses, or nurse-keeping women, such as had skill to be about Childbearing women, fit to advise and attend them. Be sure Rebekah had no child till about twenty years after she was married: and if she, or any, had milch-nurses, it may be their own Mothers might die in Childbed, or not be able to perform their office. But Naomi, when old and past Childbearing, became a dry-nurse unto Ruth's child, being assistant to her daughter at her lying-in (y) Ruth 4 16. with— 1.12. . When though there be some pain in suckling, (however less I suppose in following the natural way of laying the child to) yet there is also a pleasure and benefit, which may well sweeten, and usually compensate in ordinary cases. The careful Father should contribute his endeavours to promote all this, and accommodate his wife in the nursery with all convenient requisites to preserve the temporal life of the child. But then there is also a care with reference to the spiritual life of the child to attend this, which Christian Parents are obliged to by dedicating of their Infant seed unto the Lord, according to his appointment for the solemn enrolling of his Disciples (z) Mat. 28.19. Acts 21.5, 6.— 16.33.— 10 47 : which matriculation of a child should not be unseasonably delayed, but performed in a due Christian manner; sigh obedience in the Lord (a) Eph. 6 1. will be required of it, as soon as it is able to do any thing; which implies that as Hannah dedicated her Samuel to the Lord in covenant under the Old Testament dispensation (b) 1 Sam. 1.28. : so it is to be devoted to the Lord, and consecrated to his use, as he hath instituted under the New Testament dispensation, and that is a solemn enrolment by Baptism amongst Christians, who by this Rite are signally declared to be in covenant with him, his Disciples, and Members of his spiritual household (c) Gal. 3.27. Rom. 6.3, 4. 1 Cor. 12.13. Jo. 4.1, 2. Deut. 29.10, 11. Acts 16.33. , who in that relation are to yield obedience unto their Parents, in him, and as unto him. How else can we so easily imagine that Christian Children should be obliged to obey their Parents in the Lord, but as they are by their Parents (who have most right to them) devoted to his service? I confess I cannot understand. Now it is highly reasonable that they who have been instruments to bring a stain upon their Children (d) Rom. 5.12, 16, 17. Eph. 2.1, 2. , should also be as instrumental as they can, even as Believers under the Old Testament were, to bring them unto God in the use of the means he hath now prescribed, to get them washed with the blood of sprinkling, by giving them unto God in the Covenant, as they then did (e) Gen. 17.10, 11, 13. Rom. 11.17, 20. Mat. 18.13, 4.— 19.13.14. Luke 18.15. Tit. 3.5. Favores sunt ampliandi. . For undoubtedly under this gracious dispensation there is no abridgement of any privilege to the Infant-seed of Believers, which they before enjoyed, so that they should not now be brought to the Lord, that he may own and bless them; and the promises be pleaded on their behalf whose Parents are heirs (f) Gal. 3.14, 27, 29. 1 Cor. 7.14. , for as much as the Father's right to the promises gives the Children some kind of right to the same inheritance (g) Acts 2.38, 39 Mat. 28.19. ● C●r. 1.16. 〈◊〉 2.12, 13. 〈◊〉 17.10, 11, Jer. 32.39. Isa. 44.3. , yea, the promise and precept do answer each other as a deed and its counterpart. There was no need of particularising every subject to be baptised, any other than those who were discipled; it being so well known who had the Covenant-seal by the common practice of the Jews under the former dispensation of the Covenant. And now the Lord Jesus Christ in commissioning his Ministers to disciple and baptise all Nations (than all in them discipled) chief designed to instruct them, in what manner and form they should baptise those that belong to his Kingdom, viz. into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which had not been before used, but now upon the discharging of Circumcision, was every where to be observed. Thus Christian Parents are at first to contribute their endeavours toward their children's spiritual life. And for this temporal life, further they are also to provide food (h) Gen. 42 2. Exod. 13.3. Mat. 7.9, 10, 11. , and raiment (i) Gen 37.3.21.15. , and to allow fit and honest recreation for their Children (k) Zach. 8 5. to keep them in health; and physic when they are sick (l) 1 Kings 14.2. 2 Kings 4.22. Jo. 4.47. Mat. 17.15. equity and necessity oblige to it, with a solicitous care to preserve their lives from dangers, as much as may be in their power (m) Exod. 2.2, 3. , and to see according to their quality and calling, that they be accommodated with conveniencies for body and mind (n) Gen. 21.15. Deut. 1.31. . Hence another particular of Parental care is (3.) Education of their Children; which is a very comprehensive Duty, gins early, and lasts till their Children be emancipated. Our Apostle in another Epistle (o) Eph. 6.4. , reduceth this to two heads, 1. Nurture, and 2. Admonition of the Lord. Some conceive the former doth more respect manners or civility: the later Doctrine or piety: though 'tis not necessary to take them so restrictively. [1.] Christian Parents are charged to educate or bring up their Childrin in nurture, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ateneris assuesce●e multum. i. e. such a kind of domestic learning as befitteth a child, according to that of the Wise man (p) Prov. 22.6. , Train up a child in the way he should go: Sow the seed, and then expect the fruit: the first impressions are like to abide, though at the very first not understood. The Rule it seems is, Teach a child: neither can any one learn that perfectly, which he gins late to learn, said the Orator * Nec perf●ctè illud quisquim discet, quod serè discere incepit. . Parents should timely inure their Children to good behaviour, before they degenerate more; they should consult their temper, observe their ingenuity and humour, to find out their inclinations, and fit them for the service of their generation in such a particular Calling as may be found most suitable to them. And this nurturing of them is to be effected by giving them 1. Teaching examples, 2. Rules of morality, and 3. Moderate Chastisements. 1. Teaching examples; by which those who converse much with little ones may perceive, they are capable of receiving good or harm before they are able to understand other instructions. Christian Parents should be wary then, as to their own deportment, Plus docent exempla quam praecepta. before their little ones, that it may not be as a spotted, but a clear glass: When they daily observe their Parents to perform actions decently, and with a grace (q) Rom. 13.13. 1 Thes. 4.12. Phil, 4 8. , it hath a great force to form their manners. Seeing their Parents in all Family duties to express reverence by their countenance, gesture, and pronunciation, every one taking their place according to their quality and degree, this doth early instill a silent deportment, and a kind of devotion into these little ones, before they can reach the reason of it. So that really, Christian Parents are concerned for this purpose to stand in awe † Maxima reverentia debetur pucris. as much of their little Children, as of any in the world; lest, because of that love these bear to those from whom they do descend, judging what they do to be right, they should come to have their judgement perverted by their ill precedents. Hence it was, that the ancient Romans did with the greatest diligence possibly take care to manage all their affairs in the presence of their Children with all modesty and discretion. And it became a proverbial saying, that the Temperance of the Parent was the greatest precept to the Children. And indeed after, when they come to further use of Reason (I must pack up things together) good or bad examples of parents have a very powerful influence upon Children, as well as others, to breed them to a good or bad behaviour. The young Cock crows as he hears the old one. In blessing or cursing, playing and blaspheming, we may perceive Children, even before they can speak perfectly, or go strongly, forward enough to learn somewhat agreeable to what they hear and see. As Titus then was in all things to show himself a pattern of good works (r) Tit. 2.7. , so should Parents in their Families (s) 2 Tim. 1 5. 1 Tim 3 4. . We find in Scripture that a decorum in actions hath greatly affected lookers on (t) 1 Kings 10.5. Job 32.4, 6. Gen 43 33.— 23.7. , which evinceth, that in the eye of their Children Parents ought to be very cautelous, not only in refraining sinful words and actions; but also such things as are indifferent in their own nature, yet prove stumbling blocks, being in some circumstances in a tendency to sin, or such as have at least an appearance of evil in them to their children's weaker apprehensions in such a conjuncture: So likewise they should forbear the repetition of their own youthful failings with any kind of delight; and take special heed they do not so much as seem to make a mock of sin (u) Prov. 14.9. in table-talk and company: yea, and they should beware of making promises to others, or to their Children, which they never intent to perform, or at least neglect to make good in due circumstances; for let me tell you, though it be but in light and trivial matters (wherein yet a child may have as strong affections, as a plodding man to gain a great estate) it will interpretatively be a teaching them to lie, or be unfaithful, which natural pravity will easily promote. Not only speeches, but gestures, fashions, and all kind of habits are soon learned by example, because man is of all creatures the most mimical or apt to imitate, especially what affects him in those he esteems; this being a kind of adjunct to Reason: we know the little Children had learned to mock the Prophet to their cost; Go up thou Baldpate, Go up thou Baldpate (w) 2 Kings 2.23, 24, Dignoscitur socio, qui non noscitur è se. . As many men are known by their Associates they much converse with and delight in, who yet carry it so smoothly, they are not otherwise discovered; and so are the ill-manners of some Parents by some of their Children. Wherefore all should observe a good decorum, lest they should give occasion to any of their Children to say as that evil one, who told his Father ‖ Si malè feci; à te didici. , If I have done ill, I learned it of you. It much behoves Parents to do all things so, that they may not make themselves cheap and despicable (x) Tit. 2.15. , and cannot but be advantageous to a child's education, to have his Parents keep a good port in all things: which put Pliny † into that pathetic exclamation in one of his Epistles, O te beatum Adolescentum! qui cum potissimum imitandum habes, cui natura te simillimum esse voluit. Lib, 8. Epist. 13. Bod. in Eph. O! you are an happy young man, who have him above all to imitate, to whom nature would have you be most like. 2. Rules of morality, or necessary documents of civility, which teach due respect to every one. These are requisite to the formation and culture of manners, that Children may learn how to behave themselves to Domestics, to those that are elder and younger, to Ministers of the Gospel, to Schoolmasters, to Equals, Acquaintance, Friends, Strangers, in all places, on all occasions, at home, abroad, in the School, in the Church; business, recreations; company, solitude, in secret, public; in mourning, joy; under benefits, injuries, in praise, dispraise; flatteries, reproaches, jests, serious matters; various and uncertain changes of affairs, wherein special Rules cannot be prescribed to reach every case, but general precepts which may engage evermore to things lawful and honest: and instruct them with their distance and relation. For all which Humility is most to be commended to Children, as the great ornament of those in a state of subjection (y) 1 Pet. 3.1, 4, 5, 6. , though they be unacquainted with special modes and puntilios. Hence it is good to teach that Rule of our Saviour's, when he observed persons without any consideration of their own rank to choose out the chief places at entertainment; viz. Sat not down in the highest Room, lest it be the place of one more honourable (z) Luke 14.7, 8. : Agreeing with the Old Law (a) Leu. 19.32. , Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God. And those of the Wise man (b) Prov. 25.6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 20. , Stand not in the place of great men; it is better it be said to thee, come up hither, than that thou shouldst be put lower; be not contentious; disclose not secrets; speak as becometh, boast not, be temperate in diet, weary not thy neighbour with thy company; be not rude and foolish before those in mourning, be charitable, etc. to that purpose Solomon. It is expected that Parents give prudent precepts to inform their Children how to speak and act in a decent, orderly manner, with a becoming grace in their circumstances (c) 1 Cor. 14.40. ; to use words and titles of respect and honour to their Superiors and Equals; as he in the Gospel, I go Sir (d) Mat. 21.30. . And likewise a decent silence, suitable gestures, attention, modest looks, and bowing: which though they may seem trivial, yet the neglect of them will argue much rudeness, irreverence, and indecency; whereas Christian Children should learn to do all things well (e) Job 29.9, 11. Mark 7. ●7 Mat. 5.47. ; yea, and to outdo any mere moralists in such civilities as are really material, decent, and not fantastical. Parents should further give their Children such rudiments early, as are indeed instructive to prepare them for a particular vocation, or course of life agreeable to their temper and quality. Here somewhat might be said of that; sigh man is born to trouble, or labour (f) Job 5.7. Gen. 3.19. in some special service, as they in the Scriptures have done (g)— 4.2.— 37.2. Exod. 29.9.— 2.16. . But I must not stay (yet shall touch of Parents placing their Children into employments anon). The late Books about the Gentleman's Calling, and the lady's Calling, and Education, will show after, and with others*, the benefit of these for those Children of the best, as well as meanest condition, ‖ Bp. Sanderso●. Mr. Baxter's Christ. Ethic. etc. whether males or females: where it may be observed, that different Rules in some particulars for the education of Boys and Girls are to be given by discreet Parents † Guazz. de civil. conversat. . God, who is severe against idleness, expects all should employ their talents in such a professed way of life, as he will approve of. In order hereunto, and for the attaining of the best gifts (h) 1 Cor. 12.31. , great care is to be took, and ingenious devices may be used to get Children imbued with the principles of learning, and abilities to read, writ, etc. But I must haste on: Yet here I cannot but disallow the indoctrinating of Children with superstitious notions, which nuzzle them up in vulgar errors that lead unto unbelief; the affrighting of them with silly tales of Bugbears, stories of Hobgoblins and Fairies, etc. profane and old wives Fables, not tending to godliness (i) 1 Tim. 1 4.6.— 2.7. , which occasion needless and groundless fears, that afterwards, when they should have more brains, are not easily corrected, or not without great difficulty removed. And in my opinion, the teaching of Children to beat inanimate Creatures is not to be allowed; both because it disposeth their weak understandings to misapprehensions of things, and also teacheth them to inflict punishment in some instances, when ordinarily they themselves do rather in some little proportion deserve it; and than it stirs up in them a spirit of revenge; whereas God hath appropriated vengeance to himself as universal Judge (k) Deut. 32.35. Rom. 12.19. Heb. 10.30. Psal. 49.1. : And we smile at a little dog for snarling at a stone, yet see not the evil of making level and distorted conceptions in Children, which may occasion a spiteful heart (l) Ezek. 25.15. , a disposition very displeasing to God. 3. Moderate chastisements to accompany the notices of good carriage. Correction in a due manner, and also suitable rewards for well-doing, are necessary to check rudeness, and encourage an ingenuous deportment. As good documents do put in wisdom: so due corrections do drive out folly (m) P●ov. 22.15. with 6. . A child is not to be left to himself, lest he bring the Parent to shame; when a rod and reproof may give wisdom to prevent it (n)— 29.15. . Therefore God bids (o)— 17. , Correct thy Son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight to thy Soul. Elsewhere (p)— 23.13, 14. , Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beat him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his Soul from hell. Here is not only a precept, but promise of good fruit upon discharge of the duty in a right manner: but it should be sued out by Prayer (q) 2 Sam. 7.27, 28 , the rather because the neglect of this duty is very dangerous to root and branch, parent and child (r) 1 Sam. 3.13. 1 Kings 1.6. : yea, and the greater need there is of Parent's Prayer here, lest they should fall into the extreme, which my Text emphatically forbids. Christian Parents, whose Children are to obey them in the Lord, are concerned to chastise in the fear of God; and therefore to seek that this appointment of his may be sanctified (s) 1 Tim. 4.5. Mich. 6 9 , being joined with instruction, that it may be prevalent by the blessing of God in Christ, whom the Heathen Philosophers have no regard to. And here further, Parents are concerned to use much Christian prudence, that their Children may understand 1. That they are from a Principle of love for their Children amendment and welfare necessitated to this sharp work (t) Rev. 3.19. , which God hath enjoined them in just circumstances, as he himself chasteneth whom he loveth (u) Heb. 12.8. Deut. 8 5. . And therefore, if they should spare the rod through fondness, God, who knows the heart and affections best, might censure them for hating their children (w) Prov. 13.24.— 3.12. , whom they would not have been so severe with, if they could have reformed them at a cheaper rate. Hence 2. That it is their children's folly, not their own passion, which hath engaged them in this smarting exercise, wherein overmuch heat would be like an overhot medicine, that scalds rather than cures. Some Parents are apt to go beyond just measures, and to chastise for their own pleasure (x) Heb. 12.10. : but they must learn of God to aim at their children's profit, and not correct them but upon good reason. Even Plutarch could determine that punishment should never be inflicted for flesh-pleasing. Parents should not take the rod to vent their own anger, but to subdue their children's sin; which a man may not suffer upon his neighbour, without rebuke, lest he be guilty of hating him in his heart (y) Leu. 19.17. ; then certainly not upon his child, whom he is obliged, not only to admonish verbally, but chastise really: but first he should do as God did with our first Parents, convict him of his nakedness (z) Gen. 3.11, etc. , i. e. show him the evil of his lying, railing, idleness, or &c. faults, he is chargeable with, as opposite to the Word of God (a) Prov. 12.22. , and prejudicial to his own Soul (b)— 8.36. , and that he is made to smart for the cure of this evil. Which 3. Parents may let their children know, they dare not suffer to remain longer uncorrected: sigh delays may prove dangerous to the Patient, if the rod be withheld (c)— 23.13. . The festering wound may rankle, and come to a gangrene, if not lanced in due time. Parent's love is seen in chastening betimes (d)— 13.24. , both in respect of the age of the child, and of its fault. If it be not too soon for children to sin, it should not be thought too soon for Parents to correct, and that seasonably, before the sin grow strong, get head and sprout forth. The child should be taken while there is hope (e)— 19.18. . The twig may be bend whiles it is young, and the sin mortified, if nipped in the bud. God we find hath been very severe in remarking the first violations of his Statutes: as for gathering sticks on the Sabbath day (f) Numb. 15.25. , and Aaron's sons offering strange fire (g) Levit. 10.2. : so Parents should timely curb the first exorbitances of their children. Hence 4. They should let them see they are resolved after serious deliberation not to be diverted by the pullings and passions of their unhumbled children from inflicting due punishment, sith the Wise man chargeth, Let not thy Soul spare for his crying (h) Prov. 19.18. , so that they may not remain fearless: yet it must then be in compassion, that they may conceive, as the Father of Heaven is afflicted in the affliction of his (i) Isa. 63.9. , so are they in the affliction of their children; and as the Lord doth it in measure, though he will not suffer them to go unpunished (k) Jer. 30.11. , so do they. My Text bounds the correction, that it may not exceed a just proportion, to the discouraging of children, whose different tempers, as well as different faults, are to be considered, so as no more be laid upon them than they are able to bear (l) 1 Cor. 10.13. . There should therefore be a special care took, that the chastisement be no other than what is meet. Physicians endeavour to apportion the Dose they give to the strength of the Patient, and the peccant humour they would correct. There must be a rational consideration of the age, sex, and disposition of the child, the nature and circumstances of the fault, and what satisfaction is offered by the delinquent upon ingenuous confession, or possibly some interposition of another; so that the offended Parent may keep up his authority, be victorious in his chastisements, and come off with honour and good hopes of the child's amendment: For a Parent should be ever ready to forgive, and to connive often at smaller failings, wherein there is no manifest sin against God, in confidence of gaining the child's affections by tenderness and kind forbearance towards the things that are most desirable. This pleasing policy is, they say, much in request at this day in Japan ‖ Varen. Descript. Regn. Japoriae c. xv. , where Parents do educate their children with a great deal of softness, very rarely punishing them with stripes, though they follow their diligent informations with frequent admonttions. And they tell us among the Grecians, the best means the Mother used, if a Boy was stubborn in committing a fault, to persuade him to leave it, was to show him her breasts, as the most powerful motive she had † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Scholar in Scrip. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . But the Fathers, it seems, amongst them were more sharp: and therefore Prometheus in Menander is said to be tied like a Boy to the racks, where he prettily pleads his cause, as if his punishment had not been proportioned to his fault, but he had been too hardly dealt with. Be sure our Apostle, both in my Text, and to the Ephesians, is altogether against any discouraging chastisement, and requires moderation: Thus for nurture, the first branch of Education. The [2.] is in the admonition of the Lord, without which the former will not be effectually prosperous. This, according to the notation of the original word (m) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Eph 6.4. with 1 Cor. 10.11. Tit. 3.10. , is a putting of things into their children's minds, an informing of the judgement in, and pressing upon the will and affections, the principles of the Christian institution, warning them to take heed of deviating from these principles, which they are obliged to live up to, and is the principal thing in the educating of Christian Children. So that Parents are mostly concerned to get the fear of God planted in their children's tender souls, that they may know and love, trust in, and obey their Maker, Redeemer and Sanctifier, and have timely preservatives against the corruptions of an untoward generation. Under this, we may speak of Parental Instruction and Watchfulness. 1. Instruction, which is a timely instilling of conscientious principles, and seeds of Religion into Children, taking them a part, and engaging them to receive the most necessary points, as it were drop by drop, here a little, and there a little (n) Isa. 28.10. , according to their narrow capacities, in a free and familiar Conference; by putting Questions to them, and teaching them how to give Answers; and by putting them upon ask Questions, and returning short and clear Answers thereunto, not only concerning the Word, but Works of God, whose Spirit alone makes all efficacious. The Lord hath most strictly enjoined this by Moses (o) Deut. 4.9. , charging Parents to keep their souls diligently, and not to let the things God hath done to slip out of their hearts all their days, but teach their Sons, and their Sons, who in after time did thankfully acknowledge the benefit of this instruction (p) Psal. 44.1, 2. : We have heard with our ears, O God, our Fathers have told us, the works that thou didst in their days, in the times of old. And for the Words and Ordinances of God; they are commanded not only to have them in their own hearts (q) Deut. 6.6, 7.— 11.19, , but to teach them diligently unto their children, (as one who whets and sharpens a thing that is blunt) (r) Eccles. 10 10. by talking of them, when they sit down in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up, and elsewhere (s) Psal. 78.5, 6, 7. Prov. 22.6, 20, 21. ; nor only so, but by Rites (t) Exod. 12.26.— 13.14. , and setting up visible and extraordinary monuments (u) Jos. 4.6, 7, 21. whereby Children might take occasion to ask the meaning of them, and so Parents might acquaint them with the Ordinances of God (w) Deut. 6.20, 21. . No doubt but religious Parents have been careful to observe this, for the transmitting of pure Religion. Adam had taught his Sons to sacrifice, as well as trained them up to business, though one of them did not worship God in an acceptable manner (x) Gen. 4.3, 4.5, 26. Heb. 11.4. . He had acquainted them it seems with the fundamental promise concerning remission of sin, which the Apostle saith could not be without shedding of blood (y) Heb. 9.22. , represented in the instituted Sacrifice, which Cain wanted faith to offer acceptably, as Abel did, giving credit to the divine institution, and behaving himself sincerely in this solemn worship as he was instructed. Noah also taught his Children, though one of them did not observe the instructions (z) Gen. 9 8, 22. . But we have Abraham the Father of the faithful expressly commended with a special approbation of God for effectually instructing, i. e. training or catechising his children and servants after his example to keep the way of the Lord (a)— 18.19. with— 14.14. . And therefore they are called his initiated one's, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whom the Rabbins say † Alting Hist. Acad. Heb●. p. 18, 19 , he did no less instruct in the divine precepts and their observation, than train up to war. Other memorable instances we have of David (b) Prov. 4 3 4. with Psal. 7●. Titl. , who seems kindly to call Children apart, to teach them the fear of the Lord (c)— 34.11. , (which Obadiah learned from his youth) (d) 1 Kings 18.12. . So of his Wife Bathsheba (e) Prov. 31.1, 2, etc. , and those good Women in the New Testament, Lois and Eunice (f) 2 Tim. 1 5. . And other persons there were, who did catechise in all good things (g) Gal 6 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , i. e. the rudiments of the Gospel; wherein the most excellent Theophilus was catechised or instructed (h) Luke 1.4. , as the Jewish children had been catechised in the Law (i) Rom. 2.18. . But this part of Education, viz. Catechziing, being handled at this Exercise in another distinct Query by one well versed in the practic part of this necessary Duty, may fairly give me (who have so much on mine hands) a Supersedeas from enlarging now upon it. Only let it be remembered, that sigh Man is born like a wild Asse's colt (k) Job 11 12. , and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (l) Prov 1.7. with Psal. 111.10. , Parents are concerned to be industrious, and not be discouraged from teaching their offspring the words and terms of goodness, in confidence they will afterwards comprehend the sense, and practically hold fast the form of sound words (m) 2 Tim. 1.13. , (the little Bibles, as Luther used to call orthodox Catechisms) gathered up from the holy Scripture, which it seems Timothy had known from a child (n)— 3. ●5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , a little one indeed; yea and we have some late considerable examples of such little ones * Token and little Book for Children. . And therefore Parents themselves, according to their different calls and abilities, taking in convenient help, (and all to forward the Pastor's work) should not through humour, indisposition, laziness, or an over-eager minding of worldly business, neglect this affair of so great importance to the welfare of their Children; but be solicitous to get the seeds sown in their tender hearts, before the weeds of the world grow up therein, and canker the soil. Even according to Natures dictates, Diotima timely instilled such notions of prudence into Socrates, which rendered him famous. And Cato, though he kept a Tutor for his Son, yet was frequent himself in teaching and examining of him in learning, and natural Religion. Much more should Christians; as Theodosius the Great, who was diligent in catechising his Sons Arcadius and Honorius, with the assistance of Arsenius. A notable means was Catechising to propagate the Reformed Religion, notwithstanding the contagion of Popery, (as Sir Edwin Sandys well observed † Survey of Religion in Europe, 1593. pag. 113. mihi. ) and it will be so, to preserve it: Especially if Instruction be followed with a 2. particular in Education, and that is Watchfulness or Inspection, which is a daily putting children on exercise, to practise the things wherein they have been instructed, by a prudent oversight of their behaviour. This domestic Episcopacy, or Family discipline, is of singular use for the edification of children. Governors especially should watch unto all things (o) 2 Tim. 4.5. . This is the most proper means to preserve the good seed which is sown, from being stolen away, and to guard it, lest the enemy come slily and sow tares amongst the wheat, which he lays wait to do, if he can take Parents asleep or inobservant (p) Mat. 13.25. , when they should be awake in this good government (q) 1 Tim. 3.4. , and intent upon it in their household (r) P●al. 101.6, 7. ; taking special care that in practice their children be found faithful, and not chargeable with riot and unruliness (s) Tit. 1.6. . It is not enough to teach children the rudiments of faith, worship and obedience, but to bring them where the Ark is, to the acts of solemn worship, both in the Family and Congregation. Our Saviour's Parents brought him (t) Luke 2.41, 42, 48, 49. , (though he was born without sin, and had not need upon that account as others have:) much more should others, who now are not required to go so far, bring theirs to worship God, according to his appointment; see to their reverend deportment there, examine them afterward, and observe their proficiency: carry a jealous eye and hand over them, as Job did over his (u) Job 1.5. ; and take care there be no connivance at palpable faults, but a seasonable discountenancing of every sin, in the dearest of them (w) Gen 49.6. : no allowance of any practice dissonant to that which is right (x) Deut. 33.9. with— 13.6. and Exod. 32.28. Zach. 13 6. , but a solicitous care that they do not decline and apostatise, or be not seduced from the pure worship of the holy God, and the good ways they have acquainted them with (y) Jos. 22.27, etc. Gen. 24.6, 7.— 18.19. . We know Abraham that Father of blessed memory, commanded his children (as was noted before) and there was a positive Law after to command children, upon their lives, to observe and do what God enjoined (z) Deut. 32.46, 47. . This belongs to the training up of youth to a good habit, which will not easily be removed (a) Prov. 22.6. . They that handle this matter wisely, will find good (b)— 16.20. in their children; and to do it so as to avoid undue lenity and severity, is great prudence: For it requires an insinuation into their affections, to engage children to love and delight in their duties, by the sweetness of the lips, to increase their learning (c)— 21. , and encourage their honest endeavours with suitable rewards. And on the other hand, seasonable admonitions and remembrances in case of failures; a frowning on their laziness, and neglects of those offices wherein they should be employed, which will keep them in awe; though this must be done with great skill and wariness, lest it produce a slavish fear, which slothful, disingenuous and low spirits are apt to fall into, and then absurdly to plead (d) Mat. 25.24, 25, 26. ; yet of the two it is better to fail on this hand, than for a Christian Parent to omit warning of their children, because both Law and Gospel require (as was partly hinted before) we should not let sin, either of omission or commission, rest on our neighbour (e) Leu. 19.17. , but should warn a brother (f) Gal. 6.1. , much more a child, and set him in joint with a spirit of meekness. I grant this duty of daily inspection is very difficult, but it is amiable and excellent: it is of great latitude; for Parents are evermore concernnd to be eyeing of their children, to see they do that which is necessary and comely, both in religious and moral practice, according to what is really best esteemed in civil behaviour. They must continually be watching them, as to their praying, reading, hearing, eating, drinking, playing, visiting, studying, working, sleeping, etc. to see they be not vain or idle, because commonly there is but a little distance in time, betwixt doing of nothing and doing of ill. Children should be exercised with variety; taught to sing Psalms (g) Deut. 31.19, 21. Psal. 148 12, 13. , as those good children were, who made that short prayer to our Saviour, Hosanna, in Greek, out of the Psalm (h)— 118.25. , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Save O Lord I beseech thee, viz. blessed Messiah: to pray in secret sometimes by and for themselves; to be constant, timely, and revered at Family duties; to be charitable, respectful to the Ambassadors of Christ; to be attentive to the reading of Chapters, and hearing of Sermons; and thereupon to put Questions, and give some account of their understanding of things, and be not as Parrots, that chatter without knowledge; to be observant of the Lord's days, not left to themselves, to play and do what they list: for as Solomon observeth (i) Prov. 29.15. , A child left to himself bringeth his Mother to shame; she being either more indulgent in suffering him to get head, or more affected with it, when she seethe the evil of his idleness, especial on the Lord's days. But on other days, at fit seasons, such honest sports and recreations, agreeing with the children's temper, are to be allowed, as do not alienate their minds from duty, but promote health and cheerfulness, admit they be not with ungodly play-fellows, from whom ribaldry and profaneness are easily learned, but nothing that is good. The Philosopher † Arist. de Rep. l. 8. c. 17. did advise the educators of children, to take heed they did not permit them to accompany with such, of whom they would learn bad words, hear smutty fables, or be brought to look upon indecent and deformed pictures; and that they did converse as little as may be with Servants. And in eating and drinking, Parents should with discretion lay restraints upon children's appetites, both as to the quantity and quality of food, consonant to the rules of right reason, that they transgress not the wholesome Laws of Temperance, for the preservation of strength, and activity of body and mind. So for their studying and working, etc. a continued inspection is requisite, that they do not neglect their time, or misspend their talents; which that they may not do, will usually need the Parents best skill, and utmost diligence, because of inbred pravity and untractableness. Yet as one ‖ P. Du. Moul. hath well observed, there be certain handles to take hold of these little souls, in their tender years, sigh most of them are apt to be Shamefaced, Fearful, Curious and Credulous; which dispositions are to be attended by vigilant Parents with discretion, and laid hold on to lead to virtue. As on the other hand, those hindrances to good things, which soon bewray themselves in little ones, are to be watched over and curbed, such as Pride, Wilfulness, Lying, and Intemperance; that these evil inclinations may not be predominant. Shame is to be managed to dissuade from things dishonest; Fear, to keep in awe, from consideration of punishment, or loss of reward; Curiosity, to form in the mind right notions of things; and Credulity, to gain the consent to things honest and good, and to make a right tincture which may abide. Then on the other side, vicious inclinations are to be timely curbed: As Pride arising from corrupt self-love, to plant in young minds humility; Wilfulness, to engage unto teachableness; Lying, to make way for justice and fidelity; and Imtemperance, for the love of truth and sobriety, that the understanding may rule the appetite. Upon which account the same person suggests, we should not promise children Junkets, as the reward of their obedience, but honour and praise, which they should be made to love; which is the great thing they of Japan † Gloriae studium & cupiditatem teneris animis implantare consucverunt, etc. Varen. de Regn. Jap p. 102. use to implant in the tender minds of their little ones, proposing glory as the strong motive to persuade them unto obedience and good carriage. I should not have insisted so long upon this, but that I dare be bold to say, it is through default of this part of Education, I mean for want of watchfulness, that the Children of many Parents amongst us fall so much short of the instructions received: Their passions grow strong, and the things that gratify sense luscious, their Parents heed not, and so the hopeful fruit is blasted and spoiled for want of fence: or as in some gardens, where there be fine buds and fruits coming on, that have been raised with great pains and charges; they suffer Snails and Caterpillars to increase, which in a short time devour that the Master's and Gardener's eye and hand might easily at first have prevented, by taking away the Caterpillars eggs, and killing of the Snails: So you may see in some Families, where there were great hopes of children (as of the pleasant fruits on a fair tree ripening) all lost for want of Parents and Governors narrow inspection: or through a tender Mother's unlimited indulgence, where she should keep a strict watch: and through the connivance ‖ Imberbis juvenis tandem custode remoto. Gaudet equis, cani●usque, & aprici gramine campi, & Horat. , or misplaced kindnesses of some affectionate servants, who to ingratiate with their young Masters or Mistresses, take upon them to be wiser, than those that love them best, and secretly humour them with those things that may gratify their sensual appetitites, though never so prejudicial in the consequence, and in the present judgements of their Superiors, who would have their children disciplined to self-denial and temperance, which the Gospel (k) Mat. 16.24. Luke 21.34. 1 Cor. 9.25. sets a great value upon. I speak this from my own, and others certain experience of what I have seen and heard, both in Families of the Gentry (and others) in the Country, and those of the best rank in the City. Oh! what cause then have some of us with heartiest thankfulness to adore our Heavenly Father, that our dear Parents have not only taught us the rudiments of goodness, but called upon us to exercise self-denial and temperance, and to enure our selves to hardship, as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ (l) 2 Tim. 2.3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. de Rep. l. 8. c. 17. ? So the Apostle enjoined, agreeable to the Philosopher, who determined it best to accustom children in their tender years unto colds, as most advantageous to good health and warlike actions. And to bless God that they kept a watchful eye upon us in our minority, giving check to our inordinate appetites, that we can now, in this luxurious and delicate age, in the midst of fullness, kerb ourselves, and not hanker after every dainty and fine fashion we see, or repine when it passeth by us, whose Souls are made for better attainments? But I forget myself in this business of Education, being yet to speak to the remaining offices of Parents. The next of which is 4. Disposal, or elocation of children, growing up, or adult, either into some particular employment, or marriage. [1] Into some fit way of employment, or particular calling. Christian Parents are concerned not only to train up their children for business in the world, but to do what they can to provide an honest, fit, and useful calling or profession, wherein they may serve their own generation according to the will of God (m) Acts 13.36. , and the abilities he hath bestowed on them, and the inclinations he hath implanted in them, whereby they may mostly promote the Kingdom of Christ (o) Mat. 6.33. . To find out natural capacities in the obsequious part of age requires the diligent consideration of a sagacious mind: So that Parents herein have really need of the skill (were it attainable) of the boasting Spaniard▪ who (in his Trial of wits) pretended to know what complexion was fittest for every profession. For all dispositions and inclinations are not equally fit for every affair † Equolibet ligno non fit Mercurius. . Some according to the temperament of the body and culture of the mind, are for more ingenuous and liberal, others more mechanic Arts: some in a more publiik, others more private station. Upon discerning of which Parents should strain hard, proportionable to their estates, to choose such honest and advantageous Callings, as their children are fittest for, so nigh as they can judge. Daniel and his companions were for liberal Sciences (p) Dan. 1.17. , and so was Moses before them (q) Acts 7.22. , and Paul after them (r)— 22.3. . These God made use of as eminent instruments of his honour in their generation; one of them a Prophet, another a Prophet and Magistrate, the third an Apostle, and all of them witnesses to the truth. Paul doth gratefully commemorate his Parents love in educating him at the best School, and University, under the best Tutor, living far from the City of his birth; nor without reason, for God's raising up Sons unto Parents for Prophets; and placing them in the Ministry (however despised in this decrepit age) was accounted a singular privilege (s) Amos. 2.9, 10, 11. with 1 Tim. 1.12. Ephes 4.8, 11, etc. 2 Cor. 5.20. . Others in their circumstances, were disposed into other Callings, which their Parents thought them fit for. In the morning of the world, the two first children, Cain and Abel, were put into different employments (t) Gen. 4.2. ; so were Isaac's Sons into the like (u)— 25.27. ; and Samuel's Sons into another (w) 1 Sam 8.3. , though they very much misbehaved themselves in it; Jacob's Sons (x) Gen. 37.12. , Laban's and Revel's daughters were employed about (y)— 29.9. Exod. 2.16. . None should be left to live idly, but if not disabled, all should be ordinarily in some stated employ (wherein they have an Heavenly guard (z) Psal. 91.12. for the public good, and the honour of God, who, where he gives most, will not be content with the least, but requires either corporeal, or mental employment from all. And therefore Parents having consulted their children's inclinations, and considered what breeding they have given them for the bettering of their parts and improvement of their gifts, should not fail to dispose of their so, that they may be able to maintain themselves (a) 2 Thes. 3.6, 10.12. , or use what they have honestly provided for them, to the doing of good in the Church and State, and the training up of others in succeeding generations; according as God hath distributed gifts to every one for his Calling, wherein he is to abide, till more clearly called to another (b) 1 Cor. 7.17. , whether for husbandry (c) Gen. 47 6. , or handicrafts, in more substantial (d) 1 Kings 5.6. , or more curious works (e) Exod. 35.30, 35. , or yet more laudable employments (f) Jer. 17.16. , whereunto they are not to be intruded, but orderly called. All which gives check to such Parents who are negligent herein, after primaeve education; and those who either put their children into unfit Callings, or enter them not into fit ones, in a fair way, but by some indirect means. There is another disposal and placing out of children, wherein good Parents ought to be greatly concerned, and that is [2.] Into the honourable estate of marriage (g) Heb. 13.4. when at a competent age, considering the temper and inclinations of the children, upon a due expense of circumstances, in all Christian prudence, sooner, or later, to avoid temptations on one hand and another; by endeavouring to provide such matches, as they may have a good ground to hope for God's blessing upon; which they may then do, when they are in the Lord (h) 1 Cor. 7.39. with 22. : Because that's the great Canon for the Regulation of Christian marriages, and should be the principal ponderation in this greatest affair of Parents and Children, that the persons marrying be not unequally yoked (i) 2 Cor. 6.13, 14. , and that they do it in the Lord: (as the obedience of wives and children is required to be (k) Eph. 6.1. with 5 8. and to please the Lord, in my Text: yea, this of marriage is to be only in the Lord (l) Col. 3.18. . For not to please him, by marrying in him, is by consequence to incur the displeasure of him, in whom alone a blessing is to be had. Wherefore professing Parents, who are charged by the Prophet in the name of the Lord (m) Jer. 29.6. 1 Cor. 7.36. , to take wives to their sons, and give daughters to their husbands, should with a good and serious conscience, without carnal glosses, study this prime Canon, as they really design the promotion and spiritual advancement of their offspring. Thus Abraham (so famous in his parental government (n) Gen. 18.19. was very careful with respect to the Lord in covenant, for the matching of his son Isaac, that in a matter of so great importance, lest he should be tempted to a failure in his trust, he took a most solemn oath, by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, from his faithful Steward Eleazar (o)— 24.2, 4, 6, 8. , upon serious seeking of God by Prayer, that he should take a wife for him out of a religious Family, and by no means yield that Isaac should be brought into a relation, communion, and residence, with any of those who might be an occasion to alienate his affections from the service of the true God, in a true manner: which had an excellent effect, sigh Isaac and Rebekah were the most chaste pair of all those Patriarchal Worthies, their affections being entirely united. And Isaac at his wife Rebekah's motion, when almost dead for fear of an ungodly wife (p)— 27. ver. , followed his Father's example in the disposal of his son Jacob (q)— 28.2, etc. . We indeed live in an age wherein there is much complaint by many wealthy Parents, that though they like well of this grand rule, yet they know not where to have suitable matches for their children, especially of the female sex. I confess there is too much ground for this lamentation: The Lord remove it! Yet I may with submission, not being solicitous to please man, but my Lord and Master (r) Gal. 1.10. Eph. 6.6. Mr. White. put these complainants in mind of what hath been observed by another before me: That Persons of quality and estate, likely have in one respect a greater advantage than others, in that they have a greater latitude of choice amongst those who are in estate below them: So that of religious, prudent, and suitable persons, they may choose almost whom they please. But the truth is, many Parents who sit at the upper end of the world, though they profess Religion, they are too often so biased with the love of this world, that marrying to the very height of their estate, hath the casting vote, and so they bestow their pious, hopeful children, upon persons in whom they have no probable positive evidence of real godliness and sobriety; or on such who are not comparably so virtuous, as others they might have more religious, prudent, and desirable, who upon conjuncture of Estates, would be abundantly well accommodated for a comfortable and cheerful livelihood: When alas! some of them are so swayed by carnal motives, that (as one saith † Mr. Baxter pol. p. 484. ) they marry (their children to) a swine, for a golden trough; they prefer temporals to spirituals and eternals; riches and honour, or comeliness, to virtue and godliness, and take one that is at enmity with God (s) Rom. 8.7, 8. , into the nearest and strictest league of amity with those they are obliged to love best. And thence it comes to pass that in succeeding generations, by unequal mixture of the holy seed with the profane (t) Ezra. 9 2, 4. , there is such a decay of piety (as at this day) amongst those sprung (on one side) from worthy Progenitors; being much like those of the old world, who defiled the face of the earth with an unblessed generation, which so grieved the Almighty, that after he had given the inhabitants fair warning by the preacher of righteousness (u) Gen. 6.2, 4. See more. Gen. 26.34, 35.— 34 14.— 38.2, 7, 8.9, 10. , he swept them all away but eight persons, with an universal deluge. I know upon the hearing of this, some professing Parents of our Age, will be touched to the quick (though they do thereby a little shake their own title to the best inheritance) but it concerns a watchman when called, to give them warning from the Lord (w) Ezek. 3.17. to deal faithfully: Upon the remembrance of which, and an affecting apprehension of this growing epidemical distemper, I do in the name of the Lord, put all Christian Parents in mind, not too vehemently to seek after great things to themselves (x) Jer. 45.5. , in bestowing of their children richly; but labour to link them with gracious and suitable persons, where there may be mutual kindness and hearty liking of each other, and with whom they may live religiously and contentedly: For the truth is, without this mutual complacency and loving contentment each in other (which the Scripture calls for (y) Prov. 5.19. with Gen. 20.16. Ezek. 24.16, 18. upon a good foundation, there cannot be an happy match. Wherefore in this great office of Parents, which is a comfortable one for their Children, if well done; but most uncomfortable if otherwise; they are mostly concerned to look after the fear of the Lord. For the Wise man by the spirit of God hath so determined upon weighing of things, saying, (z) Prov. 31.30. with 19.23. , Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised: and so shall the man also. If things be tried at God's balance, Religion will weigh most. Houses and riches are the inheritance of Fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord (a)— 19.14. : and so is a prudent husband too. Either is to be valued as a more blessed gift, than any temporal portion left by Parents, who may, and aught to be provident: but there is a more special finger of God, who gives wisdom, and unites hearts in every happy match. Wherein good-nature or (as we now speak) good-humour doth much sweeten society in a humane way, but I pray you, what doth it in a Christian way, wherein the married couple should live, as being heirs together of the grace of life, that their prayers he not hindered (b) 1 Pet. 3.7. ? Alas! my Friends! as to this, a good nature as one saith * Mr. Thomas Couns l to married Couples. ) is but like the white of an egg, which as it offends not, so it relisheth not. There may be a tolerable conversation as to temporals on the week day, but what is pleasant in it, as to spirituals, especially on the Lord's day, and at other seasons, when the Soul hath need of quickening, direction, and comfort, or a companion in Heavenly joys? Then real grace with all its faults, will be better than refined nature (c) Eccles. 2.13. , as light than darkness. Discretion will set a lustre on Religion, and is to be looked after; else how troublesome will it be for wisdom to be subject to folly? No one can live lovingly and comfortably with a Fool. Next an ungodly, an unworthy yoke-fellow (especially if in Husbands) is to be feared. And next to a religious and prudent, a pleasing person should be chosen; amiableness helps to root and settle amity, which gains reputation by an inheritance (d)— 7.11. . But in these things, especially the last, without regard to the former, Parents should take heed of exercising Tyranny: and when God hath given them children, how they give them away: be careful herein they do not contrary to my Text discourage their dutiful children by pressing them to marry where they cannot love: Because herein one † Mr. Fuller's Holy State. characters the good Parent to be such, as draws arguments from his children's good, rather than his own authority; accounting it a style too princely, herein to will and command, he rather chooseth to will and desire: remembering the Parental power is for edification, not destruction; and should not be exerted to cast a child against its mind upon a disaffected (much less an unworthy) match. In the treaty of marriage betwixt Isaac and Rebekah, when there was a good agreement betwixt Abraham's Steward, and her Father and Brother, they would not come to a conclusion, till the Maid was called and asked as to her affection and consent (e) Gen. 24 57 Hostis est ux●● invita quae ad maritum nupta dat r. Plaut. : All was but compliment till that was gained: Parents herein are to persuade upon good reason, but 'tis too harsh to attempt the compelling of love. Some rigorous ones are apt, for their own worldly advantage, to use their awful authority, in matching to constrain their obedient children, contrary to their affections and dispositions: but they should rather learn of their Heavenly Father, who disposeth all things sweetly, and would have them to do so too: in the disposal of their children, he would have them do more with the sway of love, than power; and to be rather affectionate, than imperious in their Government. Grave and prudent Dr. Harris † In his life. condescended to his sons, saying, When you are youths, choose your Callings, when men, choose your Wives, only take me along with you, it may be old men may see further than you. Be sure then they see well, when they aim chief at piety: As an ancient Hermit relates * In Prato spirituali. in his own life, the consultation of a principal inhabitant of Constantinople with his Lady, about the disposal of their only child which was a daughter; the result whereof was not to look at greatness and riches, lest marrying her to a vicious person, they should make her miserable; but rather to one of a lower rank fearing God, who from conscience of his duty would love and make much of her, and so render her condition comfortable; in prosecution whereof, they found out and bestowed her upon the honest son of a very charitable Father, who had a small Estate, but great Virtue, with whom she lived very happily. But my discourse swells, and I must shorten what remains. (5) Maintenance is another part of the Parents office towards their children, unto whom they are to allow a competency, according to their quality and estates to live upon. A just allowance for subsistence is presupposed requisite to the right discharge of the precedent duties from Parents to Children, both in their minority, and when come to maturity, for the accommodating of them with necessaries according to their birth: The neglect of which temporal provision would argue Christian Parents worse than Infidels, who are not so enormous (f) 1 Tim. 5.8. : Sith amongst the barbarous people, they spare not cost to provide suitably for the fruit of their bodies, till at least they are able to carve for themselves. Our blessed Saviour takes for granted amongst the common notions of mankind, that Earthly Parents will give good gifts unto their needy Children, which are most proper for them (g) Mat. 7.9, 11. Luke 11.11. . But as a superaddition unto this general provision, there is also somewhat more particular which even Nature itself teacheth upon the disposal of children, and Christian institution requires and commends: namely Parents, as God hath blessed them, should lay up for their children (h) 2 Cor. 12 4. : yea so, as that when they are placed in Callings, and married, they may by some stock or competent portion be able to lay up for themselves, and be really serviceable to God's glory, and others welfare with their substance (i) Prov. 3 9— 29.3. . Abraham is commended for this devising of his Estate, and so Jacob in providing for his (k) Gen. 24.36.— 25.5, 6.— 30.30. . God did under the Law direct to a double portion, real or personal, unto the eldest, as an acknowledgement of the right of primogeniture; supposing no manifest forfeiture by disobedience (l) Deut. 21.16, 17. 1 Chron. 5.2. Gen. 49.3. Exod. 13.2. Leu. 27.26. : For in the exercise of Parental authority, there may be some special consideration and rational regards had to the most dutiful, but still according to equity. Daughters, according to that constitution were to be copartners and share as coheirs in the inheritance (m) Numb. 36.8. . And how Parents without valuable reasons, can now disinherit them, considering the prohibition in my Text, is not easy to conceive. But in laying up for, and appòrtioning their children, Parents should have a care [1.] That they be not delatory, as those who unseasonably put off the supplies of their children with that God hath given them, till they themselves be dead; or, so long till it hath occasioned an abatement of affections in their Children, which is not to be excused in them; but the Parents should not tempt them; or put them upon any sharking tricks, to supply necessities, by keeping all the patrimony in their own hands, above an handsome reserve of conveniencies for their own food and raiment: Being of a different temper from that Prince's Father † Guaz Civ. Conv: p. 390. Psal. 119.60. , who coming into his son's Closet, and seeing there all the gold and silver plate he had a long time before given to him, said, I see you have not a generous mind enough; for with all the gifts you had from me, you have not known hitherto how to make yourself one friend. Or in any other respect, by any avaricious detention of what is requisite to be bestowed on their Children, lay them under the discouragement, which Parents are in my Text obliged to avoid, as that which is displeasing to God. [2.] They should be sure they came honestly by the portions they leave their Children, that they are goods well gotten, and well used: For if they be treasures of iniquity, they will not long abide (n) Prov. 10.2. Jos. 7.24. , having a curse attending them: yea, a little ill gotten, will be as a little leaven, that will sour the whole lump: or, as the coal, which the Eagle carried with the flesh she took from the Altar, that fired all: but if they are well-gotten, then, as one said, of a small portion, they will wear like steel. And though they have been justly gained, yet if they have been niggardly hoarded up, and not put to good uses, but Parents have lived miserably and basely, only to increase riches, they will prove not good, but rusty, though lawful money, and they are kept to their owners disquiet and hurt, and to their children's disappointment (o) Eccles. 5.12, 13. in the proof: after an age likely they find nothing, or nothing with the blessing of God (p) Prov. 10.22.— 16.8. , for that is entailed not on the Miser's seed, but on his that is all the day merciful (q)— 20.7. Psal. 37.26. , when either the urgent necessities of the poor, or the interest of the Church and State require a proportion: to the defrauding of which, under a pretext of raising a portion for Children, were to cause a canker in what is raised. Thus of Parent's office whiles there be promising hopes of staying with their Children upon earth. There remains somewhat yet (3.) At their departure, when they are admonished to be thoughtful of leaving them, and have some prenotices of death approaching to arrest, and carry them to their long home, than Parents should set their house in order (r) 2 Kings 20.1. , by giving or leaving such lessons of wisdom to their Children, as by God's blessing will make a deeper impression, being uttered by dying persons (s) Gen. 15.16. : Thus did Isaac and Jacob (t)— 28.2.3, 4.— 49.1, 2. . 'Tis true, there was something of an extraordinary Prophetic spirit in some of them; but those things of ordinary use, which they gave in charge, will be sufficient proof for our purpose: as Isaac's sending Jacob to Laban with his blessing: David's advice to Solomon (u) 1 Chron. 29.9. 1 Kings 2.2, 3, etc. , and Jacobs about his funeral (w) Gen. 50.16. ; and others making a Will or Testament, bequeathing and devising their Estate (x)— 25.5. with Gal. 3.15. Leu. 25.23. 1 Kings 21.3. Hebr. 9: 16, 17. , seconding all with solemn parental warnings, and prayer to God for a blessing (y) Gen. 28.3.— 24.60.— 48.15. 1 Chron. 29.19. , and advising them after their their death to consult such friends upon emergencies, whom they have obliged to their assistance, as David did (z)— 22.17.— 28.2. . The Reverend Mr. Robert Bolton * In his life. , and others, gave notable instances of this last duty. The above mentioned Dr. Robert Harris, referred his dear Wife and Children, after several Heavenly and savoury speeches, to the advice and counsel he had annexed to his Will, made by him about 22 years before his departure. Therein he left his Children excellent instructions for their Souls, their Bodies, their Callings (both as to the choice and use of them) for their company, for their marriages, for their Children, for themselves within themselves, for their Estates, and for the Public. Things really worth the reading and observing, both by Parents and Children. In imitation of which (but not published) I have likewise with delight read very good advice left by a serious Citizen † Mr. R. B. May 9 1662. Mr. T. H. (as it should appear lying sick of a Consumption whereof he died) to be given to his only Son and Child, than a little one, when he should come to the use of his reason, which, I doubt not, but is faithfully performed by his Executor. It might be of great advantage to their posterity, if Parents would have more regard in due circumstances to this last office of theirs, which is much slighted by many in our days, who seem unconcerned what shall become of their posterity, when they are gone, as to the best of enjoyments. 'Tis true, there be on another hand, Parents over solicitous to leave great Estates to their Children, when they themselves leave the world (being loath to part with them before); they think they can never make their Children rich enough in the world, without any regard to the riches of grace, never considering that conveniency is really more eligible than abundance (a) Prov. 30.8. ; and where there is much wealth, more grace and wisdom are needful to enjoy it well: For if Children have not their hearts established with grace (b) Hebr. 13.9. , or want prudence to manage an Estate, they are but like a Ship that hath more sail than ballast, which is ready to be overset with any gust of wound. A great Estate without Virtue is but strong poison without an antidote: and earthly minded Parents in this respect do with their Children, as the Ostrich with her Eggs, leaves them in the dust, but takes no further care of them; so they leave them rich in temporals, but for their spiritual and eternal welfare, they are little or nothing concerned. That they may eat, drink, be merry, and clothed with the best, they provide by setting their nest high, and making their seed great on the earth (c) Hab 2.9, 10. ; when alas! they do but consult shame to their house, and wrong their own souls: They do but observe lying vanities, and forsake their own mercies (d) Jon. 2.8. , sigh God usually turns the wheel, and disappoints them, when the riches of the sinner are laid up for the just (e) Prov. 13.22. . Others become Masters of their children's Estate: whereas the good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children, who in after ages reap the benefit of an Estate consecrated and blessed by their pious Parents prayers, the gracious answer whereunto they are still receiving. 'Tis more than time I should speak to 2. The enforcement of these great and important offices, mentioned in my Text, which is the Father of Heaven's prohibition of provocation to the discouragement of children. Provoke not your children, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they be not discouraged. Now, as I showed the positive injunction of the Lord was a sufficient Reason to enforce the duties of children: so this inhibition or negative precept is of equal strength to move Parents unto theirs; sigh it plainly shows the Will of him who hath an uncontrollable dominion, that Parents conduct should be moderated according to those equitable positive, as well as negative precepts that have been produced in the enumeration of the foregoing particulars. And the special one in my Text carries with it a reason drawn from the end, lest the Children should be consumed with sorrows, saith the Syriack version: others, lest they become pusillanimous and dispirited, pining away with grief; which may be by any neglect or abuse of parental authority, either in defect or excess; by omitting the duties required, or committing what God hath inhibited, and so falling into either extremes. Now what can be more cogent with affectionate Parents to engage them unto the good government of those God hath put into subjection to them, than a care they be not disheartened by any maladministration of theirs? Certainly to give any just occasion of discouragement to the hopeful fruit of their own body, must needs be very evil and unnatural; this puts them in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, either such a stupid dejection of spirit, as makes them fearful, dull, and unfit for any work, so that they are like members stupefied with narcoticks, or such strong dolours of mind, as even break their hearts, which bring diseases and immature death; or else, as a sad and usual consequent, a certain desperate contumacy, when they find themselves under an incapacity, through their Parents unusual indulgence or serenity, of doing that which is right, or of pleasing in their Relation: they take the wretched boldness of doing wrong and displeasing: yea, many times they become like restive colts and winsing jades, which fling and kick; they do all the mischief they can, and make head often times to irritate their Parent's passions, which is the height of impiety in Children, who when come to this, seldom take up till they have destroyed them from whom they descended, and ruin'd themselves soul and body. 'Tis most plain, if God hath graciously given children unto his servants (f) Gen. 33.5. , you Christian Parents who profess to be such, are obliged in gratitude to his Heavenly Majesty for those favours, to do your utmost so to order and manage these his gifts as he hath directed, that they may indeed be fitted for the Donor's use and service. They are not born with Bibles in their hands, neither are the contents in their heads or hearts; neither can they put forth to Sea without Card or Compass; but you are by your Relation obliged to indoctrinate them, to acquaint them with God and themselves, to supply their wants as you can every way, and no way to discountenance them, for this is in effect to disparage the Divine favours, and trample upon the Almighty's blessings. 'Tis to expose the tokens of his bounty, and put them to the vilest uses (g) Leu. 19 29. Judges 19.23, 24. , to make them instruments of sin, and subjects of wrath, and bring shame to yourselves (h) Gen. 19.8, 33.34. . Believe it Parents, to neglect the Duties I have been insisting on, is to throw away your crown and glory (i) Prov. 17.6 , to pull down the stars in your own orb (k) Gen. 37.9, 10. , to despoil your own heritage, and burn up the olive plants about your own table; to unfeather the arrows in your own quiver (l) Psal 127.4, 5. ; to cast into the rubbish the polished stones of your own Palace (m)— 144.22. ; to rob yourselves of that should give you rest, and bereave your own souls of delight (n) Prov. 29.17. ; nay, 'tis to rob God; for your Children are more his than your own; they stand in a Foederal Relation unto him, and you may not carry yourselves towards them as you list (o) Ezek. 16.20, 21. with Mat. 28.19. . So that your own interest in them, who are part of yourselves, your interest in their virtues, God's interest in them, as well as his will and pleasure, should forcibly impel you to mind your office, and fill up your Relation; the unconscionable neglect of which will be as a bloody Dagger stuck up to the hilt in your own hearts: Wherefore I beseech you, endeavour all you can, that your conduct of your Children be just and temperate, with all gravity and prudence, that it may be like the children's obedience which the Scripture calls for, wellpleasing to the Lord, so as they, you yourselves likewise, may expect a blessed prolongation of your days (p) Deut. 32.46, 47. . I have at length dispatched, what I intent to say concerning the Duties themselves; yet there remains something to be said to the III. General proposed, in Answer to the Complex Query, viz. The manner or means of managing the duties of both Relations; and this both more Generally and Particularly, according to the mind of God in his Word. 1. More Generally, wherein that hath been already, implicitly at least, suggested, which now will require only a brief intimation. My Beloved, Many we know are apt to be solicitous enough, and too much, as to their conversation in this world, to observe the modes which obtain most at the Court. It concerns us all, certainly much more Children and Parents, to discharge their duties after that mode, which gains approbation in the Court of Heaven: and therefore to take good heed to those helps, for their direction, concerning the manner of performance, which we have in the Evangelical Institutes, recorded in his Heavenly majesty's Imperial Court, Therein both the Relatives are taught to perform the Duties I have been discoursing of from a principle of mutual love, with a design to please God, and comfort each other respectively, in such a way, as may adorn the Gospel (q) Col. 3.20. with Eph. 6.1. Phil. 1.27. Tit. 2 10. , and maintain that charity, which in this Relation should eminently proceed out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (r) 1 Tim. 15. . This charity or love the Apostle tells us in this Chapter, a little before my Text (s) Col. 3.14. Mat. 17.15. , is the bond of perfectness, or perfect bond: and here if any where, it is to meet at both ends, yea bud forth and flourish in reciprocal delights and endearments (t) Gen. 45.10.— 46.29, 30. Ez k. 24.25. Luke 15.20, 22, 32. . Christian Parents and Children, as much as may be, should still be joining in consort to keep up a mutual harmony: yea, and upon better principles endeavour to equal the most refined Moralists celebrated for this charity; as Pomponius Atticus and his Mother, who never fell out in sixty seven years (as he himself tells the story). To promote this, there should be a free and frequent communication of secrets, a giving and taking of loving warnings, (yea Parents in some circumstances should be willing to hearken to the submissive, and prudent good advice of their children (u) 1 Sam. 19, 6. Gen 11.31. with— 12.1. Jos. 24.2. , and in a daily address to the Throne of grace, a mutual pleading in faith the Covenant and Promises, for each others interests (w) 2 Chron. 1.9, 10, 11, Psal. 86.16. Rom. 9.3.— 10.1. . Thus more generally. 2. More Particularly, some things may be said to the management of these duties according to Scripture, still following the method of my Text, severally to Children; then to Parents. 1. To Children, such Directions as these following may be profitable for the well- management of their duties: viz. (1.) Be throughly sensible of the mischief of disobedience, and the benefit of obedience; and therefore really believe the severe punishment of the former, and the gracious rewards of the latter. Be sure, so much as there is of disobedience, so much is wanting in some kind of natural affection, and that usually hath monstrous attendants, which direful judgements follow (x) Rom. 2.28, etc. 2 Tim. 3.2. Deut. 21.20, 21. Lev 20.9. Exod 21.17. Deut. 27.16, etc. . On the other side, obedience qualifies for the best society, and entitles to the promises: here is the special promise of life annexed (y) Eph. 6.2. , (as was hinted above) which must needs contain some peculiar benefit, which God doth graciously confer, to show what an estimate he hath of children's obedience: that the use of a comfortable life should be lengthened out to them, who according to godliness, give due honour to them, who are under him the authors of their lives. So for the most part; and when 'tis otherwise that good children do early departed hence, being sooner ripe, they do enter into a better life. Besides we are not to take our measures of a long life in this state ‖ Bod. in Eph. from the course of times or decrepit age, but partly from the manner of living, and divine good things received in life, and partly from attaining the end of it. As if one in three months pass over as much way, as another in three years, and come to the same mark with him: length is to be reckoned from the travelling, rather than the way; and he is long-lived, to whom God by revealing his end hath brought nigh to himself. As David at seventy was said to die in good old age (z) 1 Chron. 29.28. Psal. 90.10. , as well as Isaac, who had lived an hundred and eighty. There is as much perfection in a little circle, as a larger, in David's seventy, as Lamech's seven hundred seventy seven years (a) Gen. 5.31. . 'Tis not so much from the number of days, but the filling them up, that life is to be reckoned long (b) Job 5.26. Isa. 65.20. Luke 2.25, 30. Sat vixit diu, quem nec pudet vixisse, nec piget more i. . Truly obedient children have this benefit of the promise, that (as they say of Figs and Lemons) they ne'er die, before they are ripe for salvation. Whereas the disobedient are in a sense dead; though they stay long here, they may be reckoned short-lived, when they do not answer the end of living. If Christian Children would but seriously contemplate these things, and allow God a reserve by Prerogative-royal in the performance of temporal promises, and then heedfully observe the different practices, and issues of other children in divine and humane story: take often into consideration the instances of both sorts, and mark the ends of each, as Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, yea above all the blessed Jesus himself: and on the contrary of Cham, Absolom, Adonijah, etc. they would find it a good means to perform their duties acceptably, and as he said * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , live perfecting all offices. (2.) Remove all the tendencies to the dishonour of Parents, and set a value upon their instructions. 'Tis good to be circumspect, and banish those inordinate affections which alienate the heart from duty, as self-conceitedness in Absolom, and the Prodigal, the one thought he could sway the Sceptre (c) 2 Sam. 15.3, 7. , and the other manage his Portion better than his Father (d) Luke 15.12, 13. : so likewise high thoughts of merit, which the Prodigals elder Brother had (e)— 29, 30. : also ambition, which did so swell Adonijah † 1 Kings 1.5, 6. : and curiosity, as in Solomon's young man, who followed the sight of his eyes (f) Eccles. 9.11. . Hence Children should take heed of associating with misguiding and misleading companions (g) Prov. 19.27.— 13.20. , and be afraid of whisperers, who secretly suggest things which may tend to make Parents cheap (h) Gen. 9.23, 24. . Shem and Japhet would not listen unto Cham's tale in their ears, nor see too narrowly into their Father's failings, lest this should cause a . Whereas Children should appretiate their Parents respects, be afraid of their reproofs, and set an high rate upon their good advice (i) Prov, 4.3, 4. Psal. 37.30. ; when it's right, it is then to be valued, otherwise it should not be approved (k)— 49.13. Jer. 7.18. Ezek. 18.14. , no more than Terah's Idol-worship was by his Son Abraham when called (l) Joh. 24.2. . Certainly Ahaziah sinned greatly, and so did the Daughter of Herodias, in following their Mother's counsel (m) 2 Chron. 22.3. Mat. 14.8. , for if it be evil, the circumstances may be such, that obedient children must testify against it, as Asa and Levi did (n) 1 Kings 15.13. Deut. 33.9. , yea disclose the wickedness of it, as Jonathan and Michal commendably did (o) 1 Sam. 20.3, 4.— 19.11, 12. : but yet in such a case it should (if possible) be with so much caution, as may prove there is no slighting of the Relation, but a desire to keep up the honour of that, by an hearty sorrow for the failure. The Stoics used to say, that a wise man would make it his business to perform all things rightly, even to the putting forth of the finger * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Stob. Ni tibi concessit ratio, digitum exere, peccas. Pers. Sat. 5. . Be sure Christians should be careful, that they do not so much as by an unwarrantable motion of that disparage their Parents, or despise those chosen by them to give instructions. (3.) Perform all with sincerity, and equality or impartiality to both Parents. As the great requisite to the due management of these duties, Solomon saith (p) Prov. 23.26. , My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. He would not have him look asquint, or come with by ends in a feigned observance, as Absolom (q) 2 Sam. 14.32.— 15.7, 10. ; or not real, only verbal, like him in the Gospel, who pretended to go, and went not (r) Mat. 21.28, 30. , his obedience ended in a compliment, and no more. But if Servants are to do their duties hearty in absence and presence, as unto the Lord, and not unto men, in the Verse following my Text; then much more are Children, who likewise are greatly concerned to behave themselves impartially with equal respects to both Parents, (as well as cordially) (s) Phil. 2.22. . The Law mentions Father and Mother expressly, which might have been included in one word Parent: and Jacob is commended upon record, for his obedience to his Father and Mother (t) Gen. 28.7. : Solomon many times in the Proverbs calls for obedience to both. Whatever inequality may be betwixt a man and his wife, (who is obliged to be subject to her husband) yet in relation to their children, they are both as one, and deserve equal honour: Indeed, if in a purely indifferent thing they differ in their peremptory commands, which are contrary, than the Fathers is to have the precedency; yet with a very great respect to the Mother, when in that instant the child is necessitated to decline hers; though if the Father's command were unlawful, and the Mother's lawful, than the Mother were to be obeyed (u) Leu. 19.3. : but with hearty sorrow the Father should require what God dis-allows, and he for that reason doth modestly refuse. And this sincere obedience is to be given to both, whether rich or poor in the world, whether good and gentle, or froward (w) Luke 2.51. 1 Pet. 2 18. , in all that is wellpleasing to God, whose honour is the end ingenuous Children should aim at, by just and honest means, in the exercise of their duties, keeping themselves from their iniquities (x) 1 Tim 5.22. , i. e. those which their own turbulent passions are apt to hurry them into. If we did more reverence ourselves, we should carry better towards our Superiors. Pythagoras' his advice is very wholesome * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Carmin. , Let a man be the greatest shame to himself, keep his own heart in awe, by a secret blush upon his own extravagancies in their first rise, and so he will have his Keeper every where with him: then, as he saith further, Let him follow that which is just not only in words but in deeds. He that is duly affected with shame of himself, will be careful to pay just respects in all due circumstances unto those he is mostly obliged to honour. (4.) Set about all your duties to your Parents willingly and readily, not with grudging or disdain, but with an holy warmth of heart, lifting up yourselves to, and following hard after whatever God requires (y) Judges 5.39. , in all affectionate expressions of a free and cheerful spirit, sigh all is to be in the Lord, who loves readiness (z) 2 Cor. 9.7. . This manner of performance will be the more easy, if Children timely learn the great lesson of self-denial; and do really exercise that and love; they will then without boggling, go through the most unpleasant, uneasy, and mean employments they are called unto, and concerned to manage for their Parents; as Jacob's Sons did for their Father, after as well as before their marriage (a) Gen. 30.35.— 37.13 14.— 42.1, 2, 3.— 43.15.— 47.1, 2, 3. ; and in his straits Judah expressed great readiness to comfort his Father (b)— 44.33, 34, with— 30. . Ruth, as was noted before, was very exemplary in this manner of obedience (c) Ruth 1.15, 16. ; but Isaac's readiness was the most singular (d) Gen. 22.9, 10. , till Christ himself (whom he typified) came; then saith he to his Father (e) Psal. 40.8. Ad semper velle, non ad semper agere. , I delight to do thy will, O my God, thy Law is within my heart. Believe it, Willingness puts a great acceptableness upon duties: Children are bound always to will, though not always to act; they should readily embrace all opportunities. 'Tis said, Amasiah the Son of Zichri willingly offered himself unto the Lord (f) 2 Chron. 17.16. ; and so should ingenuous Children be ever ready (as Paul was in Christ) (g) Acts 21.13. for their Parent's service. Somewhat of this was hinted before; and I shall only add what Hierocles saith in this case * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. in Pythag. Carm. p. 54 57, mihi. : It is fit we should not withdraw ourselves from performing with our own hands what our Parents require, as occasion serves; but by how much the more mean and servile the offices, by so much should Children think them the more honest and laudable; and not to he avoided because expensive, but to be done with a ready and cheerful mind for their use, and with joy we are put to those pains and expenses for their sakes (5.) Persevere in all, and be constant with diligence unto the end; whatever temptations you meet with. Let not the instructions you have received according to godliness departed from your heart all the days of your life (h) Deut. 4.9. . Be not fickle or inconstant; but hold out in all circumstances, though your Parents be aged and decayed (i) Prov. 23.22. Ru h 1.15, 16.— 4.15. , so long as they and you coexist in this world, and the Relation remains. Be like constant Ruth and holy Joseph, when advanced; he continued his obedience to the very last moment of his dear Father's life, and after (k) Gen. 46.29.— 47.31.— 48.12. : a virtue wherein, it seems Samuel's sons were defective (l) 1 Sam 8.5. , but Jonadab's were praiseworthy (m) Jer. 35.56. (as well as others after their Parent's decease) when tempted to the contrary: yea, though it was in a business unpleasing to flesh and blood. They did as Physicians prescribe to their Patients, receive their Father's documents cum debitâ custodiâ, so as not to indulge their appetites in that he forbade them, but persevere in observing his injunction. This is praiseworthy. Nay, though our Parents should not submit to the yoke of Christ, we should not withdraw our neck from their yoke, nor desist from obedience to them, so far as it hinders not our obedience to Christ; but should hold out, that none take our Crown. As Antonius said † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Lib. 8. Sect. 5. , Remember well you ought to be a good man, and that which the nature of man requires of you, this do constantly: So that which the Nature of your Relation calls for, do it with all your might, and never suffer yourself to be diverted or recalled from it. Having found the true way of obedience, go on in it, and be not turned back again, remembering what our blessed Lord and Master saith, He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved (n) Mat. 24 13. . After these Particulars to Children, I must crave leave before I shut up 2. To say somewhat in particular unto Parents, to direct and help them likewise to manage their office in an evangelical manner. 1. Be sure that you yourselves do keep up the life and power of godliness in your own domestic practice, that hereby your children may be kept from corruption in a bad air, and encouraged in an holy conversation. I have already hinted something of this, concerning the exemplariness of Parents, and in the premised general duty of their good behaviour; and therefore shall not need to enlarge much upon it here. Only suggest this, that you are to walk in your integrity, as for your own, so for your posterity's comfort, in the family exercise of Religion, by behaving yourself wisely in an upright way, and walking within your house with an upright heart (o) Psal. 101 2.— 112.2. Prov. 20.7. : showing yourselves in all things patterns of good works (p) Tit. 2.7. : And putting persons and things into their proper places, to prevent confusion, which else will arise, and much obstruct you in your most important offices. This will gain a reputation to your Government, and facilitate the management of particular duties. When your children see what a gloss you put upon holiness by your sincere, cheerful, and grave Christian deportment; they begin to discern the pleasantness of the ways of wisdom, the excellency of the life of faith, and the odiousness of flesh-pleasing courses; and so come to esteem your instructions, which are very legible and easy to be understood by such a practical commentary. The holy life of John the Baptist had some influence upon Herod's affections for a time (q) Mark 6.20. , to gain honour and respect from him. And Solomon saith, A gracious woman retaineth honour (r) Prov. 11.16. ; and a gracious man too: both of them in the Relation of Parents; where debauchery, though never so secret, and blanched with subtlety (but discerned by nearest Relations) proves as poison to the souls of their children; teaching them only with a fair outside, to imitate a politic Religion, which hath no spirit in it, but is flat and insipid, such as God will not relish: Whereas real and internal godliness, truly exercised by Parents, doth greatly quicken their children, and powerfully help both Parents and Children in all relative duties, which by their means will not be grievous, but delightful. But if Parents be insincere, and have not their hearts right with God, and carry not themselves blamelessly, having blots in their own conversation, they will find the duties I have been speaking of to be very difficult and insuccessful: as we may learn from the Apologue of the Mother Crab † Cum dixisset Mater indecens esse non recta via incedere, sed obliquos intorquere gressus: faciam (inquit ille) mea Mater, si te idem f●cientem prius videro. , who had her Son go straight forward, sigh it was indecent to crawl sideling, awry, and backwards: who answered, I will do it Mother, if I shall first see you yourself doing so before me. Unholy Parents do indeed by their unholiness contradict that hearty reverence they require from their Children, and render the means of their education unprofitable. Those Parents, who would prosper in their conduct, should, like that worthy Bishop of Antioch * Theod. III. 6. , by a good conversation commend their instructions, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, teaching with words, and confirming the words with an holy life. They themselves should, as the Elders said to Boaz (s) Ruth 4.11. , do worthily in Ephrata, and be famous in Bethlehem: put iniquity far from their hands, and let it not dwell in their tabernacle (t) Job. 11.14. ; lest, notwithstanding they otherwise be at pains for the education and maintenance of their Children, the Lord shall have no joy in them (u) Isa 9.13, 17. , and never suffer them to be removed (w)— 14.20. . And as you are to put away all iniquity; so particularly that of flattery to friends, lest the eyes of your Children should fail (x) Job 17.5. Vbi, ubi fueri, vive Deo, qui esi Dator vitae tuae; vive conscientiae, quae est vita vitae tuae; vive famae, quae est vita post vitam tuam. . Be persuaded then, Christian Parents, to take his advice, who said, Where, wheresoever thou shalt be, live to God, who is the donor of thy life: Live to thy Conscience, which is the life of thy life: Live to thy good Name, which is a life after this life; and (than I may add) will flourish most in thy Posterity. (2.) Maintain your parental authority, and assert the dignity of your Relation; yet not with lordly rigour, but still with love and mildness. 'Tis good not to lose the power God hath given you in superiority over your Children, through any neglect of using it, or by making yourself cheap in any unbecoming familiarity: but then take care that you exercise it in equity, with all gentleness and gravity: Let none despise you (y) Tit. 2.15. . Thus Abraham being in God's stead, he would command for God, and he is commended for it (z) Gen. 18.19. with 14.23, 24. (as we have heard). If a Father's honour belong to you, you should not suffer it to be trampled upon, or lightly esteemed (a) Deut. 32.46. 1 Sam. 2.30. . If you let go the reins of your Government, you cannot rule well; when the Master of the Ship let's go the helm, his Vessel is driven before the wind and tide. Those Parents who live according to the former direction, will be the better able to observe this: For justice and holiness are venerable both in man and woman, as was noted there (b) Mark 6 20. Prov. 11.16. . These will gain respects to persons in a Family, though they have not authority, to restrain others from evil, keep them in a kind of awe, and gain at least a formal approbation of virtuous actions; much more when they are eminent in those vested with Authority, as Parents are, who (as an holy man ‖ Mr. Baxter in his Cases, l. 543. lately directed) should take care their Children be neither too bold with them, nor yet too strange or fearful. They are not to be treated as servants, but as the fruits of your own bodies. Too much familiarity will over-embolden them, and too little countenance will discourage them. Endeavour to attain the good skill of upholding, and using well, the pre-eminence of your station and relation. Some Parents do not only abuse their authority in putting their Children upon things unlawful, as Laban (c) Gen. 29.23. , Saul (d) 1 Sam 25.44. , Herodias (e) Mat. 14 8. ; but also by their own disobedience to God, and their sinful indulgence (f) 2 Sam. 12.9.— 13.19. Sam. 29 30. . David himself it seems under a temptation did disparage himself, and lessen his own authority, which gave occasion to his son Absolom's rebellion against him. A virtuous management of power, with an unaffected amiable gravity, is necessary to keep a Superior from being slighted. In commanding of virtue, and restraining of vice in your Children, you are concerned to see your pleasure be executed; but then your injunctions must be founded in love, and designed for good: Hence you are obliged, as Salvian * Regimen esse non potest, nisi fuerit jugiter in Rectore judicium. De Gubern. Dei, l. 1. hath determined, to see, that what you resolve upon, be with judgement, and good discretion, as you expect good success. When your orders are thus circumstantiated, you will do well to see them performed, and not to connive at your children's disobedience, nor to please their peccant humour, lest (saith Euripides † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ) you afterwards weep, when it is too late. (3.) Sweeten all with pathetic expressions of endearing kindness, to insinuate the more into their affections; but still with Christian prudence: this will make your government much more easy and acceptable. Solomon gives us an account of the affectionateness of his Father, and the tenderness of his Mother to him, when engaging him to duty (g) Prov. 4.3, 4.— 31.1, 2, 3. . Bathsheba useth an abrupt kind of speech, which importeth abundance of affection: What my son? and what the son of my womb? and what the son of my vows? implying more of kindness than she was able to express, to stir him up, as one whom his Mother comforteth (h) Isaiah 66.13. . Nothing doth more cheer up and is more sweet and pleasing to Children, than the due commendation of the Parent ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Eurip. . So in our History of Martyrs, William Hunter's Mother cheered up her son in that great duty of bearing testimony to Jesus Christ; saying, William, I think thee as well bestowed, as ever any child that I bore in my womb. Thus Jacob did in an holy wile get as it were into Joseph's heart, by insinuating the special kindness he had for his dear Rachel, Joseph's Mother (i) Gen 48.7. . If you gain your children's hearts, than they will give ear to you, so as to observe what you would have done (k) Prov. 23.26. . Hence it is that our Heavenly Father in Scripture is so abundant in satisfying us of his love (l)— 3.12. Deut. 8.3, 4, 5. , that he may gain our hearts and affections: Your converse then with your children in all parental offices, should in all decent manner be still expressive of love; thus much is peculiarly employed in my Text, which inhibits discouragement. From love and tender bowels (m) Phil. 1.8. , if tears or compassionate expressions be mingled with instructions, this will help much to win and commend Children unto goodness. Suitable gifts and rewards prudently and seasonably bestowed will allure them: Upon which account it is that Tertullian * Gratius est nomen pietatis quam potestatis: etiam familiae magis Patres quam Domini vocantur Apol. c. 34. saith, The name of Piety is more grateful than that of power, yea, they are called Fathers, rather than Lords of the Family. Hence also Pliny † l. 5. epist. 19 was taken with a similitude of Homer's ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. , which he useth once and again, to show that a Prince should be moderate in his Government; even as a Father is gentle in ruling of his Children. So the People esteemed Joseph under Pharaoh, when he had power in Egypt, when he procured such hearty obeisance (n) Gen. 41.43. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , that some render that word tender Father (as in the Margin) which in our Translation is, bow the knee. Certainly the great friendship betwixt Parents and Children requires all expressions of endearments; as in the tongue of the prudent woman there should ever be the law of kindness (o) Prov. 31.26. . For as Maximus Tyrius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Dissert. 36. observes in another case, so here: If once the power of friendship be enervated, there is nothing but it may easily move Relatives to anger, and disturb them: even as by taking the rudder from a Ship, it is very soon tossed any way. And here I think it very advisable, that Parents who have their infirmities, should encourage their honest Children, by giving a favourable ear unto their humble and discreet monitions and good advice for their honour and spiritual welfare: even as Saul did, being convicted with reason, harken unto the voice of Jonathan his son (p) 1 Sam. 19.6. : And as Terah, upon the discovery which his son Abraham did from the Lord make to him, complied with his advice for the removing of himself and family (q) Gen. 11.31. with— 12.1. . (4.) Labour to carry it with all eavenness and impartiality to every child, according to a rational proportion, so that it may be evident, you account all that descend from you dear or beloved Children, as God himself doth his (r) Eph. 5.1. 1 Pet. 1.3. Jam. 1.18. ; for you are really concerned in all. 'Tis true, you should very distinctly observe the different carriages of your Children towards God, yourself, and others; to approve virtue, and disapprove vice: but yet you are to cherish, as near as may be, an equal desire of doing them all good alike: not hugging one, and hunching another out of some partial respect, or distorted apprehension. A good Parent, as one † Mr. Fuller. ingeniously notes, should observe a species of Gavelkind in dividing his affections to his children, to prevent envying amongst them: and if the expression thereof be different, it should be with equity and discretion, that they in their own consciences may plainly read the reasons of it. Though there is no necessity to make an equal distribution of Estate, wherein the right of Primogeniture may seem from Scripture (s) Gen. 37.4.— 49 3. Exod. 13 2. Deut. 21.15, 16. 1 Chron. 5.2. (as abovesaid) to claim a greater proportion; unless some kind of rebellion put in a demurrer. For however a prudent Parent should, like a well-drawn Picture, cast an eye equally upon all his Children, in point of affection: yet, when he makes a distribution of his Estate in point of justice, it can be no disparagement to him, to encourage the obedient with a reward; when by an equitable abatement he may suffer the disobedient justly to feel the smart of his misbehaviour: But yet he is concerned to be indifferent and impartial, the same to every child in the same circumstances. It is, I confess, rare to find a Parent indeed of this excellent temper amongst the sons of men: but a truly Christian Parent should strive to resemble God in it; sigh as every child came from his own substance, so he is to give an equal account to God of all; and therefore should labour to overcome sense with reason, and in very deed exhibit himself upon a due expense of circumstances one and the same to all. So that they, who upon by and undue respects do prefer one child to another, whiles led by a partial affection, cannot manage parental duties in a manner wellpleasing to God. 'Tis said Scipio Africanus * Dignus commiseratione magis est, cui natura faves minus. was so afraid of being unkind to his child (as too many are) for a natural defect, that he rather showed most affection to his Son that was a fool, saying, He was most worthy of commiseration, whom nature did favour least. (5.) And last of all, Advise with your faithful Pastors and spiritual Guides, especially in more intricate circumstances; yea, and study well your office. Which that you may perform acceptably, 'tis good also to get what assistance you can from others, to help you in the management thereof. As Manoah did not only seek the Lord, but consulted the Angel concerning his Son Samson, how they should order him, and how they should do unto him (t) Judges 13.8, 12. : so should Parents endeavour to inform themselves, and get the best counsel they can from those God hath set over them in the ministration of ordinances (u) EPh. 4.11, 12. , sigh now under the Gospel they are as spiritual Fathers appointed for the feeding of Christ's sheep and his lambs (w) Jo. 21.15.16, 17. , which are directed to find pasture by the shepherd's tents (x) Cant. 1.7, 8. Ezek. 47.8, 9, 10. Jer. 8.22. , and there get waters and balm for healing. Monica, Augustin's Mother † August. Conf. , repaired to them for aid to reduce her Son: and indeed theirs is, as John Baptist's Ministry was, to bring all to rights betwixt Parents and Children, according to the Prophet's prediction (z) Mal. 4 6. Mat. 17.12 , He shall turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children, and the hearts of the Children to their Fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Of so great advantage is the right and hearty discharge of these relative duties, I have been treating on, for the saving of Nations, and particular Churches from ruin and desolation: Yea, and so greatly instrumental are the Ministers of Christ, for helping them in their duties, that it concerns honest Parents, as to consult those who are holy, and able in the Ministry, for their children's good: so to commend such faithful Ministers to them, as are worthy of their respect; and to warn their Children to avoid such persons, as are likely to draw them off from goodness: yea, and particularly in disposing of their Children, especially into a Calling of public consequence, 'twill be very requisite to consult those who are most able to judge in their own profession; as in Divinity, Physic, or Law, that they may be tried by the faithful and skilful of that profession, whether qualified for that they are designed; lest you attempt that which cannot be effected (as Quintilian † Nè tentes quod effici non potest; n●c ab eo quod quis e●timè facit, in aliud cui nimis est idoneus cum transferas. observes) by putting them upon what they are unapt for; or hinder them from that they have a genius to, and wherein they would be most serviceable. And it will be good to take advice in choosing sit Educators and Tutors, according to your abilities. David had such learned ones as Tutors with his Sons, 1 Chron. 27.32. to see them instructed, as became the Princes of Israel (a). But here Parents should be very careful unto whose conduct they commit their Children, or whom they take in to assist them, that they be religious, orthodox, discreet, humble, courteous, skilful, and not covetous, nor careless, but diligent. 'Twas the great concern of reverend Claviger, to have those that feared God about him, to do what he could his Wife and Children might be such, and then he thought them well provided for. Luther kept one within his house to teach his Children, that he might see them well-principled and ordered, as well as learned. And the abovenamed Quintilian * Si quis in eligendo filii praeceptore manifesta flagitia non vitet: jam hinc sciat caetera quoque, quae ad utilitatem juventutis componere conamur, esse sibi, hac parte omissa, supervacua. l. 2. Inst. c. 2. from Nature's light could say, If any one in choosing a Tutor for his Son did not shun manifest wickedness; hence let him know that other things also, which we endeavour to compose for the profit of youth, prove useless and ineffectual, this being neglected. This Constantius † Socrat. III. 1. Sozom. II. 2. was well ware of, when he was solicitous his Cousin Julian should not have or hear Ethnic Tutors, lest considering his temper, he should decline to the abomination of Gentilism: But notwithstanding his care, Julian privately got the writings of Libanius an Heathen Philosopher; and after that of Maximus, who underhand laboured to pervert him, in hopes he would come to the Empire: and to hid this instilled poison from Constantius, Julian counterfeited for a time a monastic life; then openly in pretence read the Bible, but secretly studied in earnest the Ethnic Doctrines, which made him a most bitter enemy to the Christians, when advanced to the Empire, as the ancient Church experienced. 'Tis dangerous to commit a Lamb to to the conduct of a Wolf. On the other hand, Theodosius junior ‖ Soz. l. IX. 1. was from his Cradle by his dying Father entrusted with his excellent and pious Sister Pulcheria (then but 15 years old, and having two younger Sisters, Arcadia and Marina) who got him instructed by such Tutors, especially in the true Religion, accustoming him to prayer, and diligently to frequent the Assemblies, that he had in great esteem the faithful Ministers, and other Godly men, who were lovers of Religion, and so proved very instrumental for the Orthodox Faith, and the advancement of Piety. In our own Land, and nearer our times, we have a notable instance of Sir John Cheek, who being Tutor to King Edward the Sixth, Dr. L. in Sir John Cheek 's Life. was a special instrument of raising up and promoting the Reformed Religion amongst us: for he was not only instrumental to sow the seeds of that Doctrine in the Prince's heart, which afterwards grew up to a general Reformation, when he came to be King, but by his means the same saving truth was gently instilled into the Lady Elizabeth by those, who by his procurement were admitted to be the Guides of her younger studies. It is of great concern therefore to get good advice and assistance in the education of Children, and for their encouragement to reward those well, who are profitably employed in this work, according to the Parent's abilities, and their deserts; and for my own part, I should account it better to spare in other matters, than in this for good assistance to train up Children. Thus I have, as I could in my circumstances, dispatched what I proposed: and now I dare upon the whole matter affirm,, That I have laid down nothing in all this discourse, but what I hope is (at least for the main) agreeable to the mind of God; and what by his assistance, I myself should desire, and really endeavour to practise, either in the relation of Parent or Child, which is all the Apology I shall make for my plain dealing: But shall conclude with those precatory expressions in the Psalms, a very little varied with respect to those Parents who hearty embrace the word of exhortation. (b) Psal. 90.16, 17. Let thy work (O Lord) appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And the beauty of the Lord our God be upon them: (c)— 144.2. that their sons may be as plants grown up in their youth: that their daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a Palace. Considering what the Lord hath promised for the encouragement of his faithful servants (d)— 102.28. , viz. Their children shall continue, and their seed shall be established before him. Duties of Masters and Servants Serm. XVIII. Ephes. VI 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Servants, be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ: Not with eye-service, as men pleasers, but as the Servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye Masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven neither is there respect of persons with him. THE Question proposed to me to answer at this time is this: What are the Duties of Masters and Servants, and how both must eye their Master which is in heaven? Before I come to the direct answer to this Question, I shall make way to it by laying down a preliminary consideration or two. First, That God did in infinite wisdom make all things, though of a far different nature. Some beings he made more excellent, and endowed them with noble faculties, fitted for communion with himself: and some of these he hath placed in a higher and some in a lower orb; and yet all making the glory of infinite wisdom shine more clearly. He sets one creature higher, and another lower: one to rule, and the other to be ruled. And of the same kind he advanceth one above another, and yet with no injustice or wrong to any, but for the mutual help one of another, the beauty and harmony of the whole Universe, and the more visible displaying of his own unsearchable wisdom. Psal. 104.24. Gen. 1.31. If all the Stars were Suns, how intolerable would their heat and light be? if the whole body were eyes, how much of its use and excellency would it lose? What a Chaos and heap of confusion would the Woald be without government? and how can government be without superiority and inferiority? It was not without good reason that the Philosopher said, Hierocles in Py. Car. That there was a method of perfect wisdom in the making of all things; and it was not by chance that they are what they are, but the contrivance of the most excellent counsel. Who could have mended what God hath made? What could be better ordered, than what infinite Goodness hath done? Ar. Epist. l. 2 c. 7. Anton. ex Palat. l. 7. Ec. 3.11. and who but a fool would desire that things should be otherwise than Wisdom itself hath determined? Oh! what cause hath every one to adore God in every thing, who hath made every thing beautiful in its place and season? What cause have all to sit down content and thankful in that place where God hath fixed them? how unreasonable and blasphemous are the repine of some, that are ready to quarrel with their Maker, and to impeach him, as guilty of partiality, cruelty, and injustice, that hath not advanced them to a higher, richer, and more honourable condition than they are in. Shall the thing form say unto him that form it, why hast thou made me thus? What diabolical pride and arrogance is this for the Creature to accuse and condemn his Creator? Shall folly itself indict wisdom? must God come to his Creatures Bar? must he give thee an account of his actings? art thou able to bear his plead? and canst thou without sinking into nothing stand before his glory? what obligation didst thou lay upon God to bring thee out of nothing into something? did he stand in any need of thy being? what was there in thee that should commend thee to God, to advance thee above a toad or a dog? I could here expatiate, were it not a little besides my design: To conclude, I think it would be far better for us all, to learn of that excellent Moralist, who said, Epictetus. That though he was lame, and almost blind, and none of the richest; yet because he was partaker of Reason, he had cause to magnify the distinguishing goodness of his Maker, and could wish that all men would more adore and admire God; and as for his part, it should be his work while he had a being, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ar. Epist. l. 1. c. 16. and he did call all to join in consort to his praise, who hath made all things in so excellent an order and harmony. Did we all consider what God is, and what we are, methinks it should effectually silence discontent, and leave no room for any thing but love, praise, and gratitude. O! would to God there were a little of that order, harmony, and wisdom in our actions, that is in God's: and that we could act like them that study to imitate their Maker; O! that with Paul we could learn still to be content in whatsoever condition we are in; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. id. l. 2. c. 14. and if we have spoken or thought any thing derogatory to the infinite Wisdom, to repent and abhor ourselves in dust and ashes, and turn our murmur against God, that it is no better with us, into admiration that we are not worse: every state on this side eternal misery is advancement above what we deserve, and a mercy we can never be thankful enough for. Secondly, As God did in infinite wisdom make every thing, and placed every thing in that sphere that was most fit for it, so it is the highest excellency of the creature to shine in his orb, and be regular in his motion. I mean, It is every one's duty and excellency to fill up that place and relation, that God hath set him in, with duty. The whole World is a great Army, and God is the General of this Army, and he appoints every one their station and rank, and in keeping of it exactly is security, honour and reward. God makes one a King, another a Subject; one a Master, another a Servant; one rich, another poor; and he is really most excellent, that is so in the faithful discharge of the state and relation he is in. A good Servant is far better than a bad Master; a good Subject than a wicked Prince; he that is not relatively good is not really good. He that breaks his rank to get a higher and safe place, may be likelier to meet with destruction than promotion. Adam's loss of Paradise, and the Angel's loss of Heaven, are sufficient demonstrations of this truth. The World is a Stage, saith the Stoic, and in it every one hath his part to act, and it's our commendation and wisdom to act our part well, whether it be a Prince or a Beggar, a Father or a Child, a Master or a Servant. Psal. 101.2. This was holy David's care and resolution; He would behave himself wisely in a perfect way; and how shall that be done better than by walking before God in his house with a perfect heart? What was Abraham commended for more than his faithfulness? and was this the least act of his faithfulness to instruct bis Family, and teach them the fear of God? Joshua was a man of great gallantry and resolution, but I am ready to think he never acted both more bravely, Josh 24.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Epict. than when he said, As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Socrates laughed at them for fools, that endeavoured to persuade him to leave instructing the youth; God (saith he) hath set me in this station, and how can I leave it? O how few Christians exceed this Heathen? nay who almost comes near him, if he lived as well as he spoke? It's too true a proof, that there is but little wisdom and Religion worth calling so in the world, in that so few (blessed be God some there are) are good in their Relations. Where are Magistrates to be found that are God's Vicegerents in their places? Where are the Masters that command and direct in wisdom, so as their service is rather a privilege than a toil, a pleasure than a vassalage? Where are the Servants that obey in singleness of heart as unto Christ? Isa. 3.5. What a strange disorder and confusion is there in the world, in Kingdoms, Corporations, Jam. 4.1. and Families? and who may be thanked for it but men's lusts, and their not faithfully filling up that Relation God hath set them in? Most are governed by the Law of corrupt nature and hell; but few, too few have that respect to the Law of God which should be. Ar. Epict. 1.13. How excellently doth that Imperial Philosopher declaim against those that are unfaithful in their places, and do not willingly submit to, and order their lives according to the direction of the most good, wise, and just Lawgiver of the world? Hear his words: Antoninus' ●, 4. n. 24. & l. ●. n. 38. He is an Aposteme of the world, who being unfaithful in his place, doth as it were apostatise and separate himself from God's rational administration. O that men were wise and understood their true interest, and were faithful to it. O that every one would labour to rectify that ataxy and disorder that is in himself, and then in his Family. Then, O then how happy would our Kingdom, Cities, Families be? It was no small commendation of the Grecian Commander, Plutarch in vita Them. that he reckoned it none of the best qualifications of a man to be able to play well upon a Harp, but to be able to govern himself and others well: and if a City were put into his hands poor, dis-mantled, un-disciplined, to be able quickly to make it rich, strong, orderly. To fill up our Relations with Religion is the divine precept, our true wisdom, our peace, profit; it's honest: I had almost said, it's one of the fairest fruits of real Christianity. Would we could all as one man engage to do our best for the putting this in execution, and then holiness to the Lord might quickly be written upon our Door, our City might be called Jehovah Shammah, the Lord dwells there, and our Land Hephsibah and Beulah. For this let every honest soul pray; for this let Ministers preach: And in the prosecution of this design I shall in my poor way give you advice by resolving of this Question, which I have made way to by this Preface. What are the Duties of Masters and Servants, and how must both eye their great Master in Heaven? In the answering of this Question the more fully, I shall do these things: First, Show you what is meant by Master and Servant. Secondly, Show you how both are to eye their great Master in Heaven. Thirdly, I shall show you what is the Master's duty, exhort him to it, and give him helps for the performance of it. Fourthly, I shall show what is the duty of Servants, press them to it, and give them some helps for the performance of it. First, I shall show what is meant by Master and Servant. By Master here is meant either Master or Mistress, such a one as hath the power of himself, and upon whose government and command another dependeth. Now in an absolute and most proper sense there is none may be called Master but God; he only hath an absolute, independent, unlimited power of himself, and hath all others at his command and direction, and he alone is fit for this despotic Monarchy, being infinite in wisdom, goodness and justice. And this clears the meaning of those words of our Saviour, Call no man Father, Master, Mat. 23.8. but God, that is, look upon none as absolute, infallible Lords of the Conscience, but him. But in a more limited sense there are Masters, to which respect and honour must be paid by their Servants, and that with all readiness and cheerfulness, so far as they command nothing that is contrary to God's command. By Servant, I mean one that is not at his own disposal, but at the command of another, so far as his commands thwart not the commands of God. Remember whatever is spoken of Servants, is spoken to Maid-Servants as well as Men-Servants, Now this Relation seems in a word to rise from Nature, Law, or Contract. From Nature, in that some are of a more strong body, and weaker understanding; others of weaker bodies, but of more judgement and experience; and so one is by nature fit to rule, and the other to be ruled. That Relation that riseth from Law, is when any one by some flagitious act hath justly forfeited his liberty, and is condemned to servility either for a time, or during his life. The last and usual foundation of this Relation is by Contract, and that is, where one that is by nature free, subjects himself to another's command for a certain time, upon such and such just considerations. Now this is that Relation that I am principally concerned to show you the Duties of. Secondly, I come now to show you, how both Master and Servants are to eye their great Master in Heaven. First, they are both to have an eye to the presence of their great Master which is in Heaven. God in his Nature is a Spirit, that is infinitely immense, filling Heaven and Earth, and yet not included in either. If man did indeed lie under the lively impressions of God's omnisciency and omnipresence, what an awe would it put upon their spirits? how honest would it make them in the dark? This, this would make the Master reasonable, just and merciful; this would make the Servant faithful, diligent and constant in his obedience to his Master. What makes men to act like Devils, but this, a hope that God doth not see? Gen 17.1. Psal. 16.8. What made Abraham so upright, but his walking before God? What kept David so unmoved, but his setting the Lord always before his eyes? I am persuaded, the greatest failures in either Master or Servant have their spring here, a secret root of atheism, and disbelief of God's eye and observation. What truth in all the Bible more clear than this, and yet what almost less believed? O what do men make of God? How do they rob him of his glory, and themselves of the truest motives of fidelity, activity and cheerfulness? Sirs, Is the hundred thirty ninth Psalms canonical Scripture or no? Can any hid any thing from God's eye? Jer. 23.24. Prov. 15.3. Prov. 5.21. Psal. 94.7, 9 Ar. Epict. 2. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ar. Ep. l. 1. c. 14. 1 Cor. 10.31. Rom. 6.16. Do not his eyes behold the good and evil? Doth not he ponder the ways of men? Do you indeed believe this? What then is the meaning of falseness on all hands? It was no unjust complaint of the Moralist, when he said, that many dare not do that, the image of God being present, which they will do, God himself being present, hearing, seeing, and observing exactly all that they do. The all seeing eye of God is a good Motto; I would this were written upon our Doors, Counters, Counting Houses, Studies, over our Tables: I shall conclude this with an excellent one of Epictetus his say; When you are at home and have shut the doors, and are in the dark, remember you never say you are alone, but God is within, and he needs no Candle to see what you are doing. Secondly, both Masters and Servants must have an eye to the glory of their great Master in Heaven. There is not an action in our whole lives, but we should either habitually or actually respect God's glory in it; and it is but reasonable, that he of whom all things are, and by whom all things are preserved, and from whom are all our hopes of good here and hereafter, should have all Glory for ever and ever. Actions lose their excellency when they have not a right end: and to make any thing our end below God, Hierocles. is little less than idolatry. It was excellent advice given, more than once, by that brave Moralist, Refer all things to God, make him your centre, your end. I shall conclude with another of that noble Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus sayings; Remember always in all things thy Relation to God, for without respect to him thou wilt never perform any action aright while thou livest. Thirdly, both Masters and Servants must have an eye to the command of their great Master in Heaven. Psal. 119.6. Ask David how you shall escape a state and act of shame, and he will tell you, by having respect unto all God's commands. If men would never command any thing but what they have warrant for from the Word of God, commands would then be just, and obedience easy: then the poor Servant would never be put upon that sad Dilemma, whether he should obey his earthly or heavenly Master. Acts 5.29. The Pythagoreans were not at all out in that Doctrine of theirs; That man is under an Oath of Allegiance to God, to be obedient to his Laws, and never willingly to transgress them. If the Master consult God's commands, than he will forbear threatening, and not make his Servants to serve with rigour, and be faithful, meek, putting on bowels and pity, warning, instucting and correcting, like a Christian, in love to them, and obedience to God. If the Servant had still an eye to their great Master's commands, how singly, uprightly, diligently and cheerfully would they obey? To the Law, to the testimony; and peace will be to them that walk according to this Rule, and the whole Israel of God. Both Masters and Servants, Enchiridion. yea all men in all things should still be of Epictetus his mind, and still use his Petition; Led me O God whither thou pleasest, I will follow thee cheerfully, and if I be something unwilling, yet notwithstanding I am resolved to look to thy command, and obey it. Let God's Word be our Counsellor, and we can't do an unjust and imprudent act. Fourthly, Both Masters and Servants must have an eye to the assistance of their great Master in Heaven. Our heavenly Master is so humble and kind, that he never bids any Servant do any work, but he is willing to put his own hand to it; and to say the truth of it, the best Servant of all is so weak and foolish, that he is not able to manage the least piece of work his Master sets him about, except himself be at one end of it, and do the most of it, nay I had almost said, do all of it himself. And if God stand by, direct and assist, how wisely, John 15.4. gently and piously will Masters do their part? and how patiently, diligently and readily will Servants do theirs? then the Masters will not threaten, nor the Servants groan or complain. But I may have occasion to speak something of this nature elsewhere. Fifthly, Both Masters and Servants must have an eye to the sovereignty, power and justice of their great Master. He is higher than the highest; he hath us in his hand, as the Clay is in the hand of the Potter, and none of his ways are unequal; he will do righteously, when men do not; and the day is coming, when Masters and Servants, King and Subjects, must stand upon even ground before him, and he will do unto every one according to their works. O that Masters would remember that God is infinitely more above them, than they are above the poorest Servant: Were this well weighed, how soon would the heat of some Masters be cooled, their storms be calmed, and their fury turned into meekness? Remember man, God can easily, without doing any injury at all, make thee and thy Servant change places. O that Servants could still remember that they have a greater and a better Master that must be pleased, whosoever is displeased: the deep sense of God's sovereignty would quickly make the proudest heart stoop: this, this would pull down the stout, insolent, rebellious spirit of a wicked Servant, and make him judge obedience far more tolerable than flames; and if any thing of injury be done him by his Master, the thoughts of God's justice and righting will quiet his mind. I come now to the third thing proposed, which was to show you What is the Master's duty, and to exhort him to it. And this I shall do by giving him 1. Some cautionary Directions. 2. Positive Directions. First, I shall give you some cautionary Directions. First, Let Masters take heed of being servants to sin and Satan, and rebels to God. A bad man is not like to be a good Master. With what face can any man expect others should obey him (whose commands are usually unreasonable) whilst he disobeyeth God, whose commands are always good and equal? How can a drunken, prayerless, swearing wretch, look for better service than he gives to his Master? By sin man at first forfeited that Sovereignty that he had over the creatures; and by a constant habit of sin, especially gross sins, which the light of Nature doth condemn, a man prostitutes his reason, debaseth his authority, and looseth that majesty which else he is invested with. How can a drunken Master rebuke or punish his servant for tippling? Is an intemperate Sensualist a fit person to censure gluttony? Can an unclean person condemn wantonness? Is it likely that the Servant should be faithful, who seethe his Master cheat and lie every day? If the Master be a profuse Gamester, and given to his pleasure, is it like that his Servant should be frugal and diligent? Are not lying, and swearing, and cursing, and wickedness as soon learned of a Master, as a Trade? And is it worth the while for a man to give twenty, forty, a hundred pound to teach his child to serve the Devil, and a short cut to hell, and a sure way to ruin and misery of body and soul? Is that man fit to govern another that can't rule himself? Is he that hath drowned his reason capable of instructing one, that which requires some wisdom to understand, and learn, and more to teach? Are not Sots, that can't speak sense, in a sweet frame to speak to God in Prayer, or to read a Chapter? What have such to do to take God's name into their mouths, which hate to be reform? O that wicked Masters would consider that their wickedness doth not only hazard the damnation of a single soul, but even of all that are under their charge. Is it not enough to have your own sins to be laid to your charge? are all your oaths and lies and wickedness too little to sink you, but you must make your Servants sins yours? Is one damnation too little, but you must seek to double it? Are those flames so cool and tolerable that you are busy in adding fuel to that terrible fire to make it burn seven times hotter? What a hell must such a man's house be, in which the Name of God is scarce heard, except it be in an oath or a curse? Is there a blessing like to be in the house on which God's curse rests? Friends, I believe you would be loath your children should have Cham's curse, and be servants to a Tyrant and a Slave; Prov. 3.33. Pythagoras. a wicked man is both. Masters, if you would have your servants obey your commands, you must not break God's. If you would have them sober, you must not be drunk; if you would have them chaste, you must not be filthy; if you would have them true, you must not be false; if you would have them good, you must not be bad yourselves. Your example signifieth more to them than your precept: do not undo that by your actions and life, which you would build up by your words. O! little do wicked Masters think what a plague they are to a City, what a curse to a Family, and what inevitable ruin they expose their own and other souls, bodies and estates to, except infinite power and mercy step in quickly to prevent it. Secondly, Take heed of idleness, carelessness, and trusting your Servants too much. A master's negligence tempts the Servant to unfaithfulness. When Masters are idle abroad, usually the Servants are so at home. It can't well be expected, that when the Master is spending his time foolishly and unaccountably in the Coffeehouses, Alehouses, or Taverns, the Servant should spend his wisely in the Shop; especially where he observes that the Master never minds which end goes foremost, never examines his Books, nor calls him to any account. O this sin of idleness, that Sodomitical, soul-debasing, body-weakning, Ez. 16.49. estate-wasting sin! Have we a mind to try whether God will rain such another storm of brimstone upon us, as once he did upon them? Seneca. O how many persons are very prodigal of that commodity which will shortly be very precious? Sirs, do you never take a Bible in your hands? do you never read how much God is displeased with sloth, how oft he forbids it? Rom. 12.11. Prov. 18.19. Can you call your spending three or four hours together in an idle house in insignificant chat, redeeming the time? Is neglecting your Servants the way to make them faithful? O think of these things before it is too late. I know men have their excuses, and can easily evade what I say. But believe it, it is one thing to deal with a poor Minister, and another thing to deal with God: and a thousand of your pleas, when they are cast into his balance at the Day of Judgement, will be found light. If men must be judged for idle words, I believe they will scarce be acquitted for idle actions. I wish we that are Masters could oft speak to ourselves in that brave Emperor's language, Antoninus. l. 5. n. 1. In the morning when thou findest thyself unwilling to rise, consider with thyself presently, it is to go about a man's work, that I am stirred up: am I unwilling to do that for which I was born, and brought into this world? was I made for this, to lay me down, and make much of myself in a warm bed? O but this is pleasing. And was it for this that thou wert born, that thou mightest take thy pleasure? Was it not in truth that thou shouldest always be busy and in action? Seest thou not, how every thing is busy in its kind to perform what belongs to it in its place? etc. and you use to say, If you keep the shop, the shop will keep you. If you keep not your eye upon your servant, when you hope to find an honest man, you may meet a thief. Thirdly, Take heed who you admit into your Family. One that is born of wicked debauched Parents, and hath had nothing but bad examples, and seldom good precepts; that hath been accustomed to lying and baseness from the Cradle, that hath not been taught to read, and knows neither his duty to God nor man, that is ignorant of God, Christ, Soul, Heaven, Hell, and consequently is not capable of lying under the force of the most powerful motives to faithfulness. Psal. 101 3. David was huge cautious in this point; a liar should not dwell in his house. As good servants bring a blessing along with them into the Families where they come; Gen. 39 5. so sometimes wicked servants bring a curse with them into the house where they come. Little do Masters think how much damage a neglect in this may bring upon them, their estate may insensibly be wasted, their other Servants infected, their Children be corrupted, and provisions laid in to feed their sorrows all their days. Never talk of what thou shalt have with them; how responsable their Parents be: will this balance the hazard of your children's Souls? Sooner take a toad into your bosom, than a wicked servant into your Family. Fourthly, Take heed of putting your Servants upon too much work. It's the way to alienate their affections, to make them almost uncapable of doing their duty as they should to God, it puts them upon cries and groans to him, Exod. 2.24: that hath ever an ear open to the complaints of the oppessed: by this you make them more blockish, and less ingenuous, and consequently not so fit to carry on your business so much for your interest, as else they might do: remember how contrary this is to humanity. How would you like this in others? Were the Egyptians to be justified for their great burdens wherewith they loaded the Israelites, and the Turks to be commended for the hard vassalage they put poor Christians to? I know you readily censure both these, and how can you condemn either, when you imitate both? Is your sin less because against greater light? except you desire the curse of God and man too, take heed of this sin. You may learn more mercy from an Heathen than you ever practised: For he tells you, Seneca de Clementia. That your servants are the inferior, and poor friends, and are to be accounted next to children, and came not into the house for servitude and vassalage, but patronage. Fifthly, Take heed of letting them have too littie employment: It's of dangerous consequence to get a habit of idleness. It was none of the least commendations of that worthy woman, Prov. 31.27. that she would suffer none in her house to eat the bread of idleness. As you must give an account of your own time; so must you also of your servants too, how it is spent. When your Servants are idle, the Devil is at work. If you have nothing for them to do, remember God hath something. Set them to reading the Word, praying, and put them upon using all diligence in making their calling and election sure. It is far better to have no Servant, than to keep one to do nothing but look about him. This, this hath laid the foundation of some young men's ruin this is unfaithfulness to God and man, by this you wrong body and soul. Sixthly, Take heed of bitterness and threatening, of cruelty and injustice, of wronging them in meat, drink, clothing, or lodging; and neglecting them when they are sick, and denying them that tendance, physic, and care that is fit for them at such a time. Take heed of calling them names, and cursing them, and of correcting them with unreasonable weapons, for slight or no faults; and using them worse than a merciful man would do his beast. Are not your Servants of the same metal with yourselves? they have sense and feeling as well as you; their flesh is not iron, nor their bones brass; Would you have God give you such mercy as you give your Servants? If he should mark what you do amiss, what would soon become of you? Did you never read the woes that God denounceth against oppressors? and do you think God threatens in jest? can't he easily give life and execution to his woes? and where are you then man? What if God should curse when you curse? what if he should strike as well as you? are you able to bear the strokes that his hand can lay on? can thy heart endure, or thy back bear what he can inflict? when you are just lifting up your hand, consider a little the nature of the fault, and do as thou wouldst have God do by thee, and then be outrageous and cruel if you can. Remember your Servants are God's Servants, and you must not rule them with rigour: Leu. 25.42, 43 Deut. 24.14. Jam. 5.4. read those Scriptures which you find quoted in the Margin. Some may wonder that I insist upon this caution so long; but I wish the empty bellies, the thin checks, the black and blue skins of many poor Servants did not give me too good reason for what I say. Anton. l. 5. 〈◊〉. & l. 6. n. 21. I shall desire such Masters to ask themselves sometimes, Whose Soul do I now properly possess, a Tyrant's, a Mad-man's, or a Beast's? Suppose your Servant is not so wise, strong, and active as you would have him, it may be for this, he more needs pity than blows or curses. But if he be really faulty, were you never so too? and when punishment is due, remember that Religion, Reason, and Humanity must always measure punishment. Think not they are in your power, and poor, and friendless, and that they have none that can or will right them. If this were a good warrant for oppressing another, how many are there who would soon crush you to pieces? Seventhly, Take heed of neglecting your Servants souls. Their souls as well as their bodies are your charge; and you must be accountable shortly for them. O! how few consider seriously of this? Are not the souls of Servants slighted, as if they were little better than the souls of Brutes? Sirs, is that which Christ thought worth his blood, not worth your care? The neglect of most Masters in this thing is horrible. How seldom do they speak a word of God to their Servants? how great a rarity is it for them to pray with them, and read the Scriptures before them, and to call upon them to mind what they read? who endeavours to convince their Servants of the corruption of their nature, and that they are born slaves of Sin and Satan? who commends Christ as the best Master, and commands his Servants to obey him? where is the Master to be found that is frequently and importunately endeavouring to convince all under his charge of the necessity of faith in Christ, repentance, and a holy life? how little are Masters concerned for God's honour and service? nay, are there not some that are so far from minding the souls of their Servants, that if once they perceive a poor Servant gins to set his face towards Heaven, how are they set against him? what scoffs and jeers shall he then have, 2 Kings 21.11. Isa. 57.24. and scarce live a quiet life after it? and there are others that put their Servants upon sin, that keep them up to work so unreasonably late upon Saturday-nights, that they lose half the Lordsday with sleeping. How many that put their Servants upon work, and serving of Goods upon the Lordsday? How many do we see keeping their Stalls open to sell Fruit? O where are our Nehemiahs?— who reproves his Servants for neglecting God's service, more than for neglecting of his own? who observes what company they keep, how the Sabbath is spent? who reproves them for lying and cheating for their profit? are there not too many that put them upon telling lies to cover their own neglect? do such Masters as these deserve the name of Christians? do they look like God's Servants? whose fault is it that moorfield's is so full of idle youths, and that the Houses and Taverns are so frequented on the Lord's-day? who may we thank for many of our disorders, judgements, and miseries, but careless Masters? whence is it that so many vile women are maintained so high, that bastards are so common, and that we hear so oft of murdered Infants? how comes it to pass that Prisons are so full, and Tyburn so fruitful? if the matter were well canvased, we should find that Masters and Parents neglect of catechising, instructing, reproving, and correcting them under their charge, is not the least cause of this and other evils. Sirs, can you prove the Bible to be a lie, and souls and invisibles to be but fancies? O! what then do you mean by your strange neglect of these affairs? Ezek. 3.18. God hath made you watchmen, and if you be asleep, or give not warning, at whose hand do you think must the blood of the Souls in your Family be required? The very Heathens have declaimed notably against this sin; Epictetus. If, saith one, a friend had but a dog under your care, you would not starve him, but in some measure proportion your care of him to the love you bear to your friend: and hath not God put souls under your care, and are they to be neglected? I have been the more large upon this Head, because this sin is so common, and of such dismal consequence, and so little care is taken for the redress of it. I come now to lay down the positive duties of Masters, and that I shall do with somewhat more brevity. 〈◊〉. First, Let all Master's endeavour to be God's Servants: True Religion and divine Principles in the heart will give a man the best measures of action: the grace of God will teach him to deny his pride, passion, sensuality, and worldly lusts, and to live holily, soberly, and righteously in this present world. Religion in its power, O how lovely doth it make a man? with what wisdom and prudence doth such an one act? with what sweetness, and love, and yet with what majesty? What a brave Master was Abraham? and what made him so, but the fear of God? Mat. 11, 28. this, this will make a man merciful, patiented, meek, heavenly minded, and yet diligent in his place: this will make him exemplary, and as much as in him lies, to act like God in his place. And what injury can such a person do? can he be cruel that hath such a Master as Christ? can he find in his heart to be unmerciful, who hath obtained mercy? if a man be very holy himself, his example will have a drawing power in it to allure to that which is so good, and be a constant check to that which is bad: Such a one is under the promise of God's blessing, and he will teach him, and give him wisdom to discharge the duty of his place: He is made partaker of the Divine Nature, 2 Pet. 1.4. Epictetus. Philem. 2● and so enabled in some measure to act in a conformity to the Divine will. It was no small commendation which Paul gave of Philemon, when he spoke of the Church in his house. When our first Parents were in their pure state, what homage did all the creatures give them, as their visible Lord? and had not man by his fall forfeited this prerogative, and by denying God's sovereignty lost their own, they had no doubt still kept their dominion over the Creatures. And now the more of holiness is in a man, and the more near God, and like him, the more likely to get, and keep a majesty and dominion in his place. Pythagoras. Surely great holiness commands respect and reverence: and rather choose to have your inferiors reverence than fear you; for admiration and love accompany reverence; but hatred, fear. O! what a noble thing were man, Hierocles. if goodness and purity did always accompany superiority and government? these are, and shall be honourable in spite of malice itself. A right worshipping of God is the captain of all virtue, and when this Divine seed is cast into the soul, Idem. it lays the foundation of brave and true honour and respect; such a one he offers himself a sacrifice to God, and makes a Temple for God in himself, and then in his family, and such a Master, who would grudge to serve? How sweet must obedience then be, when nothing is commanded but what God commands, and its interest and profit to obey? O Sirs! 1 Pet. 5 1. little do you think how much power a meek, holy, grave conversation hath: who that hath the least spark of ingenuity in him, will not be restrained, if not conquered by it? O that Masters would but try this way: and if honouring God do not more secure their honour, than severity, then let me be counted a deceiver: this, this is the most effectual way to make Servants good, 1 Sam. 1.21. to be good yourselves; this will bring them to a true relish of Religion, when it is pressed upon them by precept and example. I have known some Servants that have blessed the day that ever they saw their Master's faces. O let your excellency allure and draw those under you as the Sun doth men's eyes, A●. Epict. Anton. l. 6. n. 27. or as meat and drink doth the hungry. Secondly, Endeavour the good of the souls of those under your charge with all your might: be in travail to see Christ form in their souls. Rom. 10.1. Give them no rest till you have prevailed with them to be in good earnest for heaven: allow them time for prayer, reading of the Word, hearing of good Sermons, and for conversing with good Books: commend to them Baxter's Call to the unconverted, and Mr. Thomas Vincent's Explanation of the assembly's Catechism, etc. and observe what company they keep, and if you know a holy experienced Servant, commend their Society and example to them, keep existent watch over your Servants: remember what temptations they are exposed to; know how they spend their time; call them oft to an account, and look well to your Books, it will do them no hurt, and you much good: be oft in meekness and pity, treating with them about their everlasting concerns: and let your carriage bring full evidence along with it of your dear love to their immortal souls. Labour as well as you can to convince them of the corruption of their nature, of the evil of sin, of their lost and undone state, of their impotency and utter inability to save themselves, or to make the least satisfaction to Divine justice, or to bear that punishment that is due unto them for every sin; show them their absolute need of a Christ; and that without him there is no salvation; make them to understand what the new birth is, what kind of change it is, and how necessary; and warn them of the danger of miscarriage in conversion, and of taking up with a half work, and resting in the outward part of Religion, Mat. 5.20. Joh. 17.3. Prov. 3.17. Rom. 12.1. Mat. 11.28. & 1 Tim. 4.8. and their own righteousness: Put them upon labouring to know God in Christ; this is life eternal to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Do what you can possibly to convince their Judgements of the reasonableness, profitableness, and sweetness of Religion, where it is in its reality, vigour and constancy: take off the imputations and aspersions which the unexperienced foolish Infidel would cast upon Christianity. Cant. 5.16. Prov. 3.15. Never think you can commend Christ too much to them. O! if you could allure their souls, captivate their hearts, and make them in love with him who is altogether lovely. O! let them not alone till you see them deeply affected with these things; expostulate the case with them frequently by themselves; ask them what they think of the estate of their Souls, and leave not with their sullen silence: ask them plainly, how they can eat, or drink, or sleep, without Christ and pardon? and what they mean to be so unconcerned? Tell them that death may be nearer them than they imagine; and that as death leaveth them, judgement will find them: Tell them that their stupidity is an effect of that deadness their souls lie under; and that if they be not awakened quickly, they must be unconceivably and eternally miserable: ask them what they have to say against the ways of God, and what they have to plead for their neglecting their souls, for Sin and for Satan: tell them these things are matters of such weight, that they need not much time to determine what must be done: It's a matter of such vast importance, that it calls for the greatest speed, diligence, and care imaginable, and that you can't be satisfied till you see this work done: catechise and instruct them constantly, at least once a week: Let the Word sound daily in their ears, and pray twice a day with them; let some time be allowed them for secret duties; and put them upon the performance of them spiritually and constantly. Keep them not too long at work, or in the Shop, on Saturday-night. The Jews had their preparation for the Sabbath; and the ancient Christians did not fall short of them in their preparation for the Lordsday. Let the Sabbath be carefully spent in secret, family and public duties: and for the better direction in your duties upon that day, I refer you to that excellent piece, Mr. Wells his Practical Sabbatarian, a Book, it's pity any great Family should want. 'Cause your Servants to bear you company to hear the most powerful Preacher you can: require an account of what they hear, and let the Sermons be repeated in your Family; and ask them what it was that did most affect their hearts, and labour to press things home afresh upon their souls: and if you perceive any good inclinations in them, encourage them greatly, and improve them all you can: and if you do not see what you would presently, be not quite discouraged, and cast them off as hopeless. Exhort them daily while it is called to day; Heb. 3.13. and if you see them still dull, hardhearted, and under a spirit of slumber, be yet the more earnest; who knows but a little more patience and compassion, and zeal may prevail? But if after long using the means, you find them still refractory, stubborn, and to slight your counsel, and run on in sin, and to grow worse and worse, you must add sharp reproofs; and if they do no good, Prov. 29.19. but they make a mock at them, and endeavour to jeer their fellow-servants out of their duty too, than you must add blows to your words: Prov. 26.3. Stripes are fit for the back of a fool; and if neither exhortations, reproofs, nor corrections will prevail, but they continue still like sons of Belial, rebellious to God and you; Psal. 101. then remember your duty is to ease your house of them: consider well what danger there is of their infecting the rest of your Servants and Children; consult your own peace, honour, and profit. Let not a liar, a company-keeper, 2 Cor. 6.14. a vile person, dwell in your house, when you have used all possible means for his reclaiming; what fellowship should light have with darkness? remember that God hath made you a Prophet, a Priest, and a King in your own Family. Thirdly, Another duty of Masters is diligently and faithfully to instruct their Servants in their Calling: conceal nothing of the mystery of your Art from them (I mean of what is lawful, for if you are skilled in the Art of cheating, you must unlearn that yourselves, and never teach them that which will hazard their ruin.) Some Masters are ready to hid the most profitable and ingenious part of their trade from their Servants. Remember, Sirs, that Law and Nature, Reason and Religion, all command you to be faithful in this thing; their Parents or Friends put them to you to teach them an honest Calling, and you promised you would do it, and its dishonesty in the highest degree to fail in this. Fourthly, Be just, compassionate, and loving: be as ready to commend and encourage them for doing their duty, as to reprove them for the neglect of it: let them want nothing that is fitting for them in the place they are in: let their food be wholesome, seasonable, and sufficient; Prov. 31.15. let their clothing be warm, sweet, and decent; let their lodging be warm, and sweet, and wholesome; not too far from your eye and ear: let them have rest sufficient to recruit nature, and to fit them for God's Service and yours: And in case of sickness, let them have such tendance, physic, and diet as they need. You can't imagine what obligations you may by this lay upon your Servants to fidelity; how acceptable this is to God, and how much reputation it will get you among men. See an excellent example in the Centurion. Mat. 8.5, 6. Col. 4.1. Job 31.13. Give unto your Servants that which is just and equal. It was Job's commendation, that he did not despise the cause of his handmaid. Use your tongues to sweetness; a soft word sooner prevails than a hard blow or curse. Be punctually faithful to your contract with them; pay them their wages to the full; it's better to do more, than less than your bargain. In a word, As the Elect of God put on bowels of pity, Col. 3.12. Jam. 1.20. Eph. 4.26, and put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, cursing: remember the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. Be angry for nothing but sin. Remember a Christ-like Gospel-spirit is a spirit of love, Gal. 5.22. and peace, meekness, and faithfulness; with these things God and man are well pleased. Fifthly, Discharge your Servants with sweetness and love, and do not grudge that they should have a livelihood as well as you. Send them out of your Family with the counsel, the good will of a Father, and reckon, one that was a faithful Servant to you seven years, deserves to be esteemed next a Child ever after. To this end it would not be amiss, if you give him as good a report as he deserves, to raise his reputation and credit; and if you help him as far as you are well able in his setting up, you will not repent it upon a Deathbed, nor at the Day of Judgement. In old time God did require, That when a Servant served six years, Deut. 15 13, 14 he should not be sent away empty; but (saith the Text) thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press, and that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him. And I know not why this may not be practised still, where the Master is wealthy, and able, and the Servant poor, and deserving: Col. 5: 13. Rom. 13.9, 10 1 Thes 4.9. Neither do I know where the Gospel gives us a discharge from the works of Charity and Mercy. I come now to Exhort Masters to this work, to perform their Duty. And this I shall press with a few Motives. First, Consider what a Master God is to his Servants; he is most just and righteous in all his deal: Isa 45.21. Psal. 92.15. Jam. 6.3. Ps●l. 103.14. Mat. 3.17. Mic. 7.18. Exod. 34.6. Psal. 25.4. Job 36.22. Isa. 28.26. Rom. 8.26. Psal. 32.8. Isa. 43.2. Dan. 3.25. Psal. 23.1. Psal. 34.10. Psal. 19.11. Psal. 31.19, 20 who can accuse him of the least unrighteousness? who can say he hath done him wrong, and that be is a hard Master? Come, let any testify against God, and make good their charge if they can. Is not he full of pity, and ready to forgive? how ready to moderate his anger when he is highly provoked? It is not without good reason that the Prophet saith, Who is a God like unto our God? and he is ready to teach his servants, and to help their infirmities; and if their work be hard, he doth bear the heavier part of it: He is ready to keep them company, to secure and encourage, and comfort them; he provides all things needful for them; he delights in the prosperity of his Servants, and loves to see his Servants thrive; he gives them many a token of his love here: But, O what great things hath he laid up for them? eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive it. Their reward is exceeding great, sure, and eternal. O what harm would it do you to be like God? do not your Servants deserve more kindness from you, than you or any other doth from God? Secondly, Consider what need your Servants have of your utmost care in the particulars: They are young, unexperienced, heady, nay, naturally ignorant, proud, dead; Children of wrath, enemies to God; every moment in danger of miscarrying: and at whose hand will their blood be required, think you, if you do not your duty to warn, reprove, correct them? Thirdly, Consider how much it will be for your honour: How high an esteem will all good men have for you? how great a value must wise Magistrates set on you? what reason hath the City and Corporation to rise up and call such blessed? how great and how common a good such are, is scarce to be expressed; such shall have a good report in spite of wickedness; your Servants can't but look upon you as their Counsellor, Master, Father, and give you suitable respect and honour. Fourthly, Consider how pleasing and acceptable this is to God: Such the Lord is nigh to, his eyes behold with delight. It is not he that observes his great Sacrifices, it is not he that makes many Prayers, it is not he that makes the greatest show of Religion outwardly, that is accepted; Hierocles. Josh. 24.15. Psal. 1.3. Mat. 25.34. but it is he that gives up his heart first to God, as a warm Sacrifice full of love, and then his house unto the Lord; this, this is the man that God will visit, comfort, bless; this is he that ere long shall hear his great Master's commendation, and have a welcome to Glory. Fifthly, Consider how much profit and pleasure you shall have here: by your diligence and care you may be enriched; there's God's promise for your security: By this your Trade is like to thrive, your credit rise greatly, Prov. 28.20. Prov. 10.6. your custom increase: And when the careless Master makes haste to poverty; a wise, diligent, and faithful, is in the most likely way to get, improve, and keep an estate. I might say, what pleasure and comfort a man can't but take in his Family, when every one acts regularly in their place. Sixthly, Consider how much good your faithfulness may do others. Your Servants may, for aught that I know, call you their Spiritual Fathers, and bless God for ever for your examples, exhortations, prayers; and your Servants may instruct your Children, and be frequently instilling one good thing or other into them, and influence them more than you are ware of. You are a mighty help to poor Ministers, you help to blow up the ground, and make it fit for the Divine seed, you pull out the stones, you weed up the roots of bitterness, or at least keep them from thriving and growing up, you harrow in the good seed, you water it with your tears, and God will make it fruitful; you pluck up the darnel and the tares: Of all the persons living, we Ministers are most beholding to good Masters and good Parents: we beseech you, if you have any love for us, or our Master either, be faithful in this thing. Epict●tus. O make us glad, when so many thousands are making us sad with their wickedness. I might add, your Examples draw others, and make bad Citizens good. Seventhly, Consider the danger of your neglect, if you be unfaithful: you expose body, soul, estate, wife, children, servants, and all, to sin, ruin, shame, and the curse of God for ever, you break the rules of equity and humanity, you forfeit your reputation, you go the likeliest way to work to bring upon you dismal calamities in your life, worse at death, and worst of all after death. Mat. 25.26. Mat. 24.48, 49.50, 51. O consider this you that forget God, and your duty; and read that Scripture often you see quoted in the Margin. I shall now crave leave to expostulate the case with Masters about their duty; for I am loath to leave you, till I have prevailed with you to set to your work like Christians. Sirs, you have heard your duty, and what have you to object against it? can you prove that that which I have desired of you, is not required by God himself? Have I not proved what I have said, by plain Scriptures? and doth not reason and humanity, as well as Christianity, oblige you to the putting these duties in practice? have I not laid down many Motives to press you to your duty? have I not told you what a Master God is to his Servants? and put you upon being followers of him as dear children? Would it be any disparagement to you to follow so perfect and unerring an example? Doth not he teach, direct, help, encourage and reward his Servants? Is not he faithful to his promise, tender, pitiful, and easy to be reconciled, and ready to forgive? And are you not very well pleased with these properties in God? And if this be amiable in God, why should it not be lovely in you? God humbleth himself to look upon what is done on earth, and is it below you to look upon and take care of your Servants? What great difference is there, I pray, between you and them? Are they not of the same mould? And shortly your bones and skulls will not be distinguished. Why did you take them into your Family, if you intended to take no more care of them than of a Dog? Was it not a piece of base falsehood in you to promise and engage what you never intended to perform? Methinks I have a mind to debate this matter fairly with you, so as to leave you resolved for your duty, or without any reason or excuse for the neglect of it. Sirs, Is there any thing of dishonesty in what I have been persuading you to? Is it a dishonest thing to pray in your Families? to instruct them in the things of God? to be holy, diligent and faithful? What harm is there in all this? Would it do you or yours any injury? Would it hinder either your profit or pleasure? Can godliness, which hath the promise of this life, and that which is to come, undo you? Should that which pleaseth God displease you? Is it an unpleasant thing to see the beauty of holiness in your Family, and to have yours serving God and you faithfully? Is it an unpleasant thing to have God's commendation and peace? and to have good hopes that all yours are God's, and shall be delivered from the wrath to come, and be heirs of a Crown of glory? If you talk of pleasure, no pleasure like them that are in duty, and at the end of duty. Well now, What have you to say against your duty? You cry pish, this is the way to be a slave, a mope, a fool. Is it true indeed, that to be enlarged for God in ones place is a slavery? how come such to be so full of peace and joy? Is that the state of slaves? no body is about to debar you of moderate liberty and recreation. But will you call nothing liberty and recreation, but that which exposes you and yours to ruin? But if you take this course you shall be poor; if you and your Servants may not lie, cheat, break Sabbaths, you shall never be able to live. How then come so many honest men (that would not do any of all these things for a world) to live so well? Were Abraham, Joshua, David, Cornelius, all such poor men? If diligence, honesty, and holiness undo men, what will make them? I hope you will not say that cursing, lying, fraud, idleness, sensuality, and carelessness, are better ways of thriving. Well, once more, what have you yet to say against what I have been persuading you to? Will you now without delay bewail your former neglect? and in good earnest set to your work, like a man, that in some measure knows the power of divine precepts, the worth of souls, and the greatness of that charge that lieth upon you? O that there were in you such a heart: O that all Masters of Families were resolved for that which humanity, reason, interest, reputation, and their comfort call for; as well as the law of God and men oblige them to; What blessed Families than should we have? What noble Corporations? what glorious Cities? Might not Jehovah-Shammah be written then upon our Gates, and holiness to the Lord upon every door? O when shall it once be? Now in hopes that some honest hearts are affected with what hath been spoken, and are desirous to engage with all their might in their duties, I shall briefly add a few Helps for the better performance of their duty. First, Get a heart inflamed with love to God. This will make you much more concerned for his honour than your own; this will cause you to promote his interest with vigour, and remove whatsoever may be prejudicial to it: love will break thorough difficulties, and make duty easy; love will engage you, body, soul, estate, head, tongue, hand, heart, all for God: than you can't live without prayer, and instructing your Servants. If the love of God dwell in you, I never fear the disputing your duty. Secondly, Get a deep sense of the worth of souls upon your spirits. Remember, he that made them values them highly; he that bought them and paid dearly for them, judged them worth his heartblood; they that are wise, believe that their utmost care for them is not too much; their loss is an irreparable loss, and if they are saved and secured, all losses are tolerable, light, inconsiderable. A due sense of the worth of a soul would make you wonderful careful to prevent its miscarriage, greatly solicitous to make sure its happiness. Thirdly, Beg of God a spirit of wisdom and government, that you may know how to go in and out before your house, like a man of prudence and Religion. 1 Kings 3.9. Jam. 1.17. You know whence every good and perfect gift comes, and if any man lack wisdom, they must ask of him that is ready to answer such requests, who will give liberally, and not upbraid. Beg of God the gift and grace of prayer and utterance; beg experience and knowledge, and use and improve fruitfully what talon God hath given you already. Hierocles. A wise man instructed of God is a Priest of God, and the only man fit to do his work. Fourthly, Study the Scriptures much. Attend upon a conscientious, powerful Ministry, and read some practical Books: there you will find the most excellent precepts; there you will meet with the most commendable precedents; there you have the most powerful motives to your duty, the most successful helps: In a word, there you will meet with the assistance of God's Spirit; Psal. 119.11. by them you will be kept from any unrighteous thing. Fifthly, Do as you would be done by; remember what measure you meet to another, Mat. 7.12. shall be measured to you again. I believe David would scarce have been so ready to pass such a sentence as he did, if he had well considered who was at the bar; and it's likely a less punishment than burning might have been pronounced against Tamar, if Judah had remembered who was the Father of her Child. Sixthly, Take heed of pride, selfishness and sensuality. These are the great make-bates; these make the world so full of confusion and trouble; from hence come war and fightings; Jam 4.1. this brings such disorder, misery and sorrow unto Kingdoms, Cities, Houses: if instead of these we had humility, public-spiritedness, Prov. 3.10. temperance, the world would be quickly well mended with us. Seventhly, Think much upon your account, Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell, and Eternity. I had almost said, believe this truly, and think of it frequently, and be unfaithful if you can. I am persuaded, that every wilful omission of a known duty, and commission of known sin, hath much of atheism and unbelief in it: it is but yet a little while, and Master and Servant must be equal; death knows no difference; the worms and rottenness will seize as soon on the one as the other; and this might a little teach us humanity and moderation. Consider that account that must be given of our opportunities of service, and every talon we are entrusted with. Suppose God's Messenger were just ready to knock at your door, and you were surely to appear before God before to morrow morning, what meekness, diligence, faithfulness, would you then exercise? and how hardly brought to do any thing to hazard God's displeasure? how full of good counsel to every body? why, Luke 16.2. Heb. 9.27. Job 31.14. how knowest thou, O man, but this hour may be thy last? This was that which did not a little prevail with Job to do his duty, and not to despise the cause of his handmaid: What then, said he, should I do, when God shall rise up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Let death when he comes find you doing the best work, Ar. Epict. l. 3. c. 15. Antoninus l. 2. n. 2. and faithful in your place. I shall conclude this with the advice of that gallant Emperor; Let it be thy earnest care constantly to perform every thing thou art about with justice to every one, which you may well do, if you go about every act as your last. I am now come to the last thing which I promised to do, and that is to show, What is the Duty of Servants: and that I shall perform in the same method as I did before, 1. By giving them some cautionary Directions. 2. Some positive Directions, and pressing these with some Motives, and give them some Helps for the better performance of their Duty. 1. I shall give Servants some cautionary Directions. First, Let Servants take heed of pride. This was the sin of the Angels, this made them Devils; this was the sin of our first Parents, 1 Tim. 3.6. this made them rebellious to God. A humble heart is ready for any work or state that God in his providence calls him to; any thing but sin will down with a humble man. Remember, pride unfits for the service of God and man, makes one think himself fit to command than to be commanded: that makes one go on heavily with their work, impatient of reproof, ready to answer again, malapert, saucy, ready to commit other sins to gratify their pride. A proud Servant will scorn to be catechised, called to an account, or be kept under those bounds that reason and Religion set. Humility doth no body any harm, brings no dishonour or inconveniency, but is as good a security to reputation, comfort and profit, as any thing I know. Secondly, Take heed of disobedience to the lawful commands of your Master. Think not that your arrogance, bigness, and parentage, will bear you out. It may be you think scorn that your Master should correct you, and you say in your mind, that you will give him as good as he brings: know this, that if you have a Master that may be low-spirited, weak, or poor, and it may be such a one that is loath to deal with you as Law and Religion gives him leave; yet are you too strong for God? Is he afraid of your swelling and big looks? Will he count you innocent? Is not your rebellion and disobedience to your Master disobedience and rebellion against God? And can his purity suffer long, or his justice bear such imp●●●●y always without some signification of his displeasure? Must the great ones of the world that break his Laws feel his power, and shall such a despicable wretch as thou go unpunished? Remember, what is said of disobedience to the lawful commands of Magistrates, holds here, Whosoever resisteth, shall receive to himself damnation. Rom 13.2. Thirdly, Take heed of negligence, idleness, carelessness. By this you rob your Master of what in honesty you should and might have got for him; by this you secretly waste your Master, and answer not that trust that is put in you, and is justly expected from you; by this you give just occasion of displeasure to your Master; by this you break your promise made to your Master, and provoke God highly. Mat. 5 26. Remember what a sentence the wicked slothful Servant must shortly hear. Fourthly, Take heed of mere eye-service. Is the eye of God nothing to you? and his warnings insignificant? Col. 3.12. Doth not he in plain words forbidden this? O how many such Servants be there, that when their Master is by, are very diligent, but when his back is turned, then how lazy, how wanton, how careless! Would you be served thus yourselves, if you were Masters? Doth God take no notice at all? and if he do, how do you think he liketh such do? Is it a small matter to make light of his presence? and if it be so, you shall shortly find to your cost, that his eye was more than your Master's upon you; and if you will not believe his knowledge, observation and eye, his hand shall shortly give you such a demonstration of both, as you shall not be able to slight. Fifthly, Take heed of Lying. By a lie you deny God's knowledge; you make one fault two; you make yourself an enemy to humane society: that is a sin which is hateful to every honest man, and abominable to the Lord; the liar shall be shut out of Heaven, Prov. 6.17. Rev. 21.8. and have his portion in that Lake that burns for ever. I spare to speak how it spoils a man's credit, and feeds jealousies in a Master, and maketh him scarce believe you when you speak truth. O! little do Servants think what folly they are guilty of, by covering their faults with a lie: Little do they think how dear that sin must cost them either here by deep repentance, or hereafter by intolerable torments. Sixthly, Take heed of purloining or imbezeling any part of your Master's goods for your own use. Tit. 2.10. Luke 16.6. Meddle with nothing but what is your own, and is allowed you; you would be loath any one should call you a Thief. I pray then take care of that which will make you deserve such a name: do not consent to any that are in the least guilty in that kind; be not partners with a Thief, and make not yourself an accessary to another's wickedness by concealing any unfaithfulness of that nature in your fellow-servants, after you have roundly warned them yourself; eat not of the junkets that sensuality, wantonness and theft hath provided. If you would know what such do tend to, in a word I may tell you, they pamper lust many times, end in uncleanness, murder, a prison, a halter; and if that were all, it were not so bad in comparison; by this you wrong God and man, fear your conscience, and make way for a world of other sins, and bring speedy and sure damnation, except a thorough repentance prevent it. Seventhly, Take heed of bad companions, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. O how many hopeful youths are blasted by wicked company? I am not ignorant of the high pretences of love that such may have, and what excuses they may palliate their wickedness with: but please none, to displease God; never count him your friend, nor one that will do you a kindness, that would lead you to sin, the devil, damnation. Eighthly, Take heed of disclosing your Master's secrets: do not speak any thing that may wound his reputation; make no mention of his faults without you are called to it lawfully, and then not without deep regret and trouble, upon the account of God's honour and his soul. Some Servants make nothing of prating against their Masters and Mistresses behind their backs, little considering that this is a sin that God will not overlook: is this ingenuous? Is this like to mend him, and do him any good? Can you design God's glory by it? How do you think your Master will like it, if it should come to his ears? This is neither pleasing to God nor man. Ninthly, Take heed of murmuring, discontent, and repining: Some Servants are of such a temper, nothing will please them, their food is not dainty enough, their clothes not fine enough, and nothing contents them. The truth of it is, if you be of this proud, peevish, discontented humour; let me tell you, take it how you will, the worst bit you eat, is too good for you; your betters are thankful, and fruitful with a great deal courser diet: If your food be wholesome and sufficient; your clothing warm and decent; remember that you have reason to bless God: Consider well what you deserve, and how glad some of your betters would be of your leave; and suppose you be wronged, use lawful means for your redress: blessed be God this City hath excellent laws, and an injured Servant may be heard and helped; but if that may not be, and you be really injured, suppose you do your duty, and can't have a good word, nay, instead thereof many a heavy curse, many a causeless blow: Suppose you are beaten for that for which you should be commended; remember that patience, nay, thankfulness, Matth. 5.13. 1 Pet. 2.20, 21. would much better become you than murmuring; for if when you do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God: for even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. Lastly, Take heed of sinning to please your Master: If a Master command one thing, and God another, you need not be long a determining which you should obey. If your Master or Mistress should be so wicked as to put you upon sinning, let Joseph's answer be yours, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? If your Master put you upon telling of lies, cheating, using of false weights or measures, breaking the Sabbath, or any thing that is clearly against God's honour, and your souls, you must first with all the humility and meekness you can for your soul, plead with him, urge the commands of God, the fear that you are in of displeasing of him, and wounding your own conscience; and if you can't by such means pacify him, tell him meekly of his danger in putting you upon sin, and that, Dan 3.18. come on it what will, you neither can nor will obey him. I come now to lay down Servants duty positively. First, Honour your Masters; Labour to get and keep a true valuation of them in your hearts: To this end observe what is excellent in them, remember your relation to them, their care over you; let this put you upon praying for them, and being affectionately concerned for them: let your words be always humble, meek, and obliging; 1 Tim. 6.1. 1 Pet. 2.18. let your behaviour be with all the respect and sweetness you can. Remember what counsel the Apostle gives you in this thing, Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour; be very loath to displease them; fear to offend, lest in so doing you either offend God yourself, or cause them to do it. I have sometimes thought that carriage of Naaman's Servants towards their peevish and unreasonable Master very well worth others imitation: 2 Kings 5.13. The Text saith, His Servants came near, and spoke unto him, and said, my father, if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather than when he saith, wash and be clean? Love, fear, and honour your Master; in so doing you please God and them too. Secondly, Obey your Masters sincerely, cheerfully, universally, and constantly, as long as you stand in that relation to them: you must do what you do for your Masters, as you would do it for yourself; your Master's concerns must be looked upon as your own. Col. 3 22. Yea, whatsoever you do, you must do it hearty, as to the Lord; out of Conscience and respect to God's command and honour: a flattering outside service without the heart, love, and good will, is neither acceptable to God, or man. Let your obedience also be cheerful; go not about your work with an ill Will. Cheerfulness would not be a little helpful to yourself; your work and time would then seem nothing in comparison; Eph. 6.7. God loves a cheerful giver, a cheerful worker, a cheerful Sufferer: and I believe no Master but reckons himself better served by him that goes cheerfully and nimbly about his business, than one that doth obey but with a sour discontented look, and a heavy countenance. By this you can't but win upon your Masters, and even compel them to love you, speak well of you, and do well by you. Let your obedience also be universal, that is, in all things that God gives you leave. It is not for you to pick and choose, nor dispute and grumble. Some Servants are for easy, Col. 3.22. pleasant, and more honourable works, and here they may be commanded; but if they be at any time set about what liketh not their proud, lazy, ungodly humour, they are ready to put it off upon another; it may be to excuse it with a Lie; perhaps, like rebels, flatly to deny obedience. If a Master put him upon strict Observation of the Lord's day, upon learning his Catechism, and minding his soul, than his base heart beginneth to rise, as if his Master did undervalue him, when he put him upon the service of God; as if he judged it a liberty and privilege to serve the Devil; and as if it were an unsufferable injury to be commanded to escape the wrath to come, and a drudgery to be called upon to look diligently after the securing of holiness and happiness: Such as these look as if they were ripe for Hell, and would not be long before they would come thither: O that none of you that hear and read these lines may be found in this number: think nothing below you but sin: your disobedience can't be without sin, if your Master command not a sin. Lastly, let your obedience be constant, it must begin and end with your relation to your Master. Thirdly, Another duty of the Servant towards his Master is faithfulness. Ingenuity calls for it: Tit. 2.10. he is unworthy of trust that doth not answer it. The Master reposeth much confidence in his Servant, and that should oblige him to the greatest fidelity. You must be faithful in word and deed. Speak well of your Master behind his back, and keep up his reputation and credit; and if you can't do that without falseness to God, if you can say no good by him, say no harm, except lawfully called to it; and if you do perceive your Master's carelessness and wickedness makes him go down the wind, and neglect his duty, it may be faithfulness in you humbly to advise him in some such language as this: Sir, I entreat you give me leave in a few words to express my true affection, respect, and faithfulness to you, and for God's sake take it not unkindly at the hands of your poor Servant, if I acquaint you with that which I have with regret of heart observed too long in you; many a good Customer we lose for want of your presence in the Shop, your frequent absence makes us have little to do, your credit (to my sorrow God knows I speak it) gins to grow much lower than it was wont to be, my Mistress takes on heavily, we have but few choice wares, and no cash, and little credit to fetch more, and we can't hold long at this rate; I beseech you Sir leave off your company-keeping, and look into your Books, and consider how things be: O how loath am I to see you or yours do otherwise than well! Sir, I beseech you be not angry. I come not to teach you, but to entreat you, and humbly to desire your serious consideration of what I shall further crave leave to speak; Sir, I beseech you forget not us your poor Servants; we want your help in your Family, your instructions, your prayers, your holy examples would be no small comfort to us: In thus doing I am persuaded God would bless you, your trade and credit might soon be recovered, we should serve you with joy, and bless God for you, and you and yours far the better for ever. Now who but a mad man, or incarnate Devil, could choose but relish such sweet counsel as this, though from a Servant. Then you must be faithful in your deeds: give nothing away without your Master's leave; if you will be giving, give what is your own, give where and when God commands you, and spare not: labour to preserve and increase your Master's estate all you can by good and lawful means: For this is that which is commanded by Christ in the Parable, hath his gracious approbation and plentiful reward, Well done good and faithful Servant, thou hast been faithful in a little, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Your faithfulness must be further expressed by endeavouring all you can, the good of your Master's children: labour to instil into them good principles, encourage them in the learning their Books and Catechism, and obedience to their Parents, do what you can to prejudice them against sin, and by your sweet examples to be in love with God and godliness betimes. I might add also, Zech. 5.2, 3. Tit. 2.10. it is no small expression of faithfulness to do all the good you can for your fellow-Servants; give them good counsel, pray for them, help them all you may, and carry it so before them, that they may easily discern an excellency in you, and that you have a loving design upon them, and mean no more harm by all you speak or do, but God's glory, your Master's profit, and comfort, and their souls salvation. Fourthly, Be very diligent in your Master's business; dispatch what he sets you about with what speed and expedition you can. A slothful Servant is a wicked Servant: by idleness and carelessness you may do your Master more wrong in a day, than you may make up in a twelvemonth. Besides, you must remember your strength and time is your Master's, and all of it must be improved for him, except so much as God calls for, or your Master giveth you. I come now to exhort Servants to the performance of these duties, and that I may, if possible, prevail, I shall lay before them a few Motives to enforce this duty. Consider, if you do conscientiously perform the duties, you will bring no little honour to your great Master which is in heaven; you will show the power of his precepts, the beauty and excellency of his laws, and make Religion to be thought well of: by this you will leave a strange conviction of the worth of Grace upon the conscience of your Master. Whereas if you should be faulty in any of the particulars, if you make any kind of profession, it is ten to one, if God and Religion do not presently suffer for your fault, Is this your Saintship? and it may be all the people of God may be railed at and wounded for your sake: for God's sake be faithful in the performance of your duty, and in so doing you will put to silence those that may condemn you, and cause them to glorify your Father which is in heaven. Consult your own interest here, it will be more in your way, than you (it may be) at first imagine. I might tell you what respect and love it must needs beget in the heart of your Master, and when he hath opportunity, he cannot but speak well of you: it will bring you in a more considerable revenue of peace and content; by this you discharge your duty, and your conscience may have peace in it; you draw others eyes and love, and make you a lasting interest, which in time may signify more than at present you are ware of. Consider your time is but short. Suppose you suffer a little hardship, Seven years will not last always: yet a little while, and you must have your liberty, and then you and your Master may be Companions. Methinks the thoughts of your time being out should make you the more patiented and faithful; remember that the longest time is but short, and ere long it must be furled together, and then it will be nothing, who is Master, and who is Servant, but who is faithful. Consider that reason, honesty, and ingenuity, do all call upon you to be faithful, and perform your duty. Why should your Master give you meat, drink, clothing, wages, or a calling for nothing? doth not honesty and common justice require that there should be some proportion between what he gives you, and you him? did you not promise and engage to be a faithful Servant? do not your Indentures bind you to it? doth not ingenuity oblige you to be faithful to him, who hath been ready to take care of you in sickness and in health, and to tender you next a child? I might add, the command of God requires it; but because I hinted that in the beginning, I shall not here repeat it. Consider how great a reward you shall have in the other world; your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord; there shall be a sure reward to the righteous. Suppose your Master give you not that encouragement that your fidelity doth deserve; yet be not disheartened, you have a Master who is more ready to take notice of a little good in you, than a great deal of bad, I mean the great God. Therefore be of good cheer, Col. 3.24. knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ. Yet a little while, and he will right the wronged, recompense the diligent, reward the faithful. You shall ere long know you served a Master that was most kind, generous, and noble. Shortly you shall not be called Servants, but Friends; not Friends only, but children; not children only, but heirs, joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus: eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what wages our great Master will give to all that make it their business to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man, and that do faithfully fill up their relation to their earthly and heavenly Master with duty. Consider the danger of not performing of your duty as a Servant; by this you declare clearly that you have no true grace in your hearts: As I said in the beginning, I say again, he that is not relatively good, is not really good; a bad Servant is never a good Christian: by this you give us just reason to fear that you are Servants of the Devil. I spare to speak of your reputation, for I am ready to think, that if all other arguments and motives have lost their cogency, that can't have much power: know this, if you be not faithful to your Master, God will judge you as unfaithful to himself, and woe be to that Servant whom God himself shall call wicked and slothful, what follows, but take him, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? And now Sirs, What will you do? Are you resolved for your duty or no? Have I been all this while beating the air? Have I not showed you what the Lord your God requireth of you? Have I desired any thing of you but what I have given you Scripture-warrant for? and is Scripture nothing with you? Can you prove that I am mistaken, and lay heavier burdens than God lays upon you? why then be at the trouble to turn to the Scriptures you see quoted in the Margin. I dare not charge any thing upon you but what I have received of the Lord, and are you angry with God's commands? Dare you impeach your Maker of unjustice? What harm is there in any thing that he enjoins you? Can you mend his Laws, and make them better? Which of his prohibitions can you find fault with? Are you displeased that God forbids pride and arrogance? Would you indeed have leave to be like the Devil? Do you desire liberty to damn yourself, and bring confusion into the house where you dwell? What a sweet world should we have, if every proud fool might have his will? What should Masters do with Servants, if their commands should have no power upon them? Who but a mad man will judge idleness, carelessness and prodigality, commendable qualities in a Servant? Is it so unreasonable a thing for a Master to expect something to be done when his back is turned, as well as when he is present? What commerce could be carried on between man and man without truth? Are you desirous that God should give you leave to lie, and are you willing to have it known that you are of this mind? Is it a slavery to have your hands tied from picking and stealing? Would you have a licence to steal, and a badge of your privilege that every one might read? Are wicked profligate wretches the best companions? Can you desire their company in the other world? Is backbiting threatened by God in his Word, and shall it be excused in you? How would you like one that were always grumbling, and never content nor pleased? Is this temper hateful in another, and lovely in you? Is there any wrong done you, when God bids you have a care of hazarding your soul to get your Master a groat? Which of all the Cautions that I have given you, are really prejudicial to your true credit, pleasure, or profit? Well, Epictetus. I perceive you have nothing, nay I am sure you can have nothing justly to object against them; And dare you now venture still to be proud, disobedient, idle? Do Sinners venture on still, in spite of Master, Minister, and the divine prohibitions; but be it upon thy peril, for as sure as God lives he will call you to judgement. Will half an hours junketting make amends for the loss of a soul for ever? What is there in all the duties that are commanded that you have any thing to object against? Are you troubled that your Master must be honoured? Should we not have sweet do if Masters and Servants were fellows? If you yourself should ever live to be a Master, tell me plainly, how would you like it to be slighted by your Servant? Is Obedience a word you mislike? What is a Servant good for without obedience? What is he but a burden to the earth, worse than the dung itself? Are faithfulness and diligence displeasing to you? And I pray, who is pleased with unfaithfulness and idleness, but wicked ones, fools, and the Devil? And are such as these to be pleased rather than God, Parents, Masters? Well once more, What have you to say against your duty, why it may not be practised speedily? Have you weightier Arguments against it, than I have for it? Come, produce your strong reason, and show yourself a man. Are the precepts of the mighty God nothing? Are his injunctions of no validity at all? Are you not at all concerned for his honour? Is the gratifying a cursed lust a matter of greater importance and necessity than God's glory? So little he will take care of himself, and raise him honour out of your shame and ruin, if you regard not God. Have you no respect to yourself? Will your peace, reputation and profit, prevail nothing with you? Is the quiet of the Family, the glory of a City, the prosperity and safety of a Kingdom, a small matter with you? Why all this seems in some measure wrapped up in Servants fidelity. Have the promises and rewards of the great Master little efficacy? Is Heaven, glory and eternal happiness, worth nothing? The truth of it is, if all this be nothing, I know not what is something. But what do you think of judgement, wrath, and Hell? If the former Motives signify little, doth this so too? Then I must confess I know not what to add more; but you must take your course, and take what follows: but know this, that you were warned, and counselled, and pleaded with, till you had nothing to say, or if you had, I am sure nothing to purpose, and that shortly you will be silenced. But God forbidden that all Servants should be of this mind, some, yea many, I hope better of, though I thus speak; but the general complaint that sounds in our ears, makes us judge such reasonings as these not altogether needless. And now for the sakes of some that I hope resolve for duty, I shall add a Help or two for the performance of their duty, and so I shall conclude. First, If you would be good Servants, labour to be Christ's Freemen. Cast off the service of Satan, 1 Cor. 7.22. Rom. 6.18. and be no longer commanded by him: remember how cruel, how false, how unreasonable a Master he is; consider what can he pay his Servants in at last; and know 'tis impossible to serve two contrary Masters at once. Be not servants to your lusts; cast them off as things that will not profit, and instead thereof yield yourselves to the Lord, and serve him with all your might; and so be holy as he is holy, in all manner of conversation, and the grace of God will teach you to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live holily, righteously and soberly in this present world; that will teach you to reverence, obey, to be faithful and diligent to your earthly Master, as knowing your labours shall not be in vain in the Lord. If the fear of God be but in your hearts, it will teach you wisdom, make you hate every evil way, and to do that which is honest and just to your Master. A good Christian can't be a bad Servant. Secondly, Be not a stranger to the Bible. When others are foolishly squandring away their time, do you solace yourself with the Word of God; let that be much read by you, and labour to lie under the powerful impression of the prohibitions, precepts, promises, threaten and examples that are there, and then you can't do amiss. Epictetuc. I remember it was the advice of an excellent Moralist, that we should oft in our actions think what Socrates, Zeno, Plato, or some wise Philosopher, would do in such a case. I had rather you would think oft, what would such a one as Eliezer the Servant of Abraham do in such a case; read how he carried himself, how naturally he was concerned for his Master's interest, how diligently, faithfully and prudently he goes to work, how importunately he addresses himself to God, and how hearty he prays for prosperity and success in his Master's business, how much he advanceth his Master's credit, and how naturally concerned for his Master's Son, and with what integrity and expedition he dispatcheth his business; go you and do likewise. The example of Joseph and Obadiah, who were good in bad houses, are well worth your consideration: Mat. 8.9 I might add the example of the Centurion's Servant, whom his Master giveth this character of, That he was as ready to obey as he was to command. I shall add an example or two more, though you find them not in the Scripture, yet they are according to the Scripture; one of them I knew well: A certain Servant, that it's probable was converted by the Father, was so faithful, diligent, lively, full of spiritual discourse and importunate prayers for the children and family, that it proved a means of the conversion of some of them; here's a Servant worth gold! Another Servant I knew good for Earth and Heaven too, that after other endeavours upon a fellow-Servant, spent some time at midnight to pray for him, and being very importunate, the voice was heard into the next Chamber, where he lay, at which, out of curiosity he risen in his shirt to listen, and heard one pray for him, by which prayer he was converted. Study therefore the Scriptures, and present the examples you find there to your imitation. Thirdly, Get a strong love to your Master. Love will put you upon any work; love will set head, hand and feet a working, and tongue a going; love makes heavy things light, hard things easy; love is a mighty Engine, it can do any thing; love will make you forget length of time. In a word, love is like to make one faithful, obedient and diligent. Fourthly, Be humble, meek and patiented. The humble man thinks nothing below him which is his duty; and if to do his duty be to be vile, Mat. 18.4. 1 Pet. 1.19. he will yet be vilerstill. The humble God will guide, exalt and save. Humility displeaseth none but the Devil. Fifthly, Be much in good company, and hearken to their advice. Be constant in prayer, and beg of God to make you faithful, and be conscientious in your attendance upon a powerful faithful Ministry. In a word, live much in the thought of your great account, and in thus doing, I question not but you will find grace to be faithful to God and man, and be accepted of your Master here, and rewarded by God hereafter. Thus I have according to my poor ability set the duty of Masters and Servants before them. O that there were a general resolution in both to put these duties into practice! O then what a blessed reformation should we soon have? How soon would our great troubles cease? How soon would our complaints be silenced, and our sorrows be turned into joy? O that all sorts and degrees of men would but reform one, and fill up their particular places and relations with duty! Then O what happy times, what happy days should we yet enjoy? Christians, let's join in our prayers and utmost endeavours for the promoting this glorious work, and then our God would bless us, and we should bless him for ever. The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts. Serm. XIX. Gen. 6.5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I Know not a more lively description in the whole Book of God of the Natural corruption derived from our first Parents, than these words; Wherein you have the Ground of that grief, which lay so close to God's heart, v. 6. and the Resolve thereupon to destroy man, and whatsoever was serviceable to that ungrateful creature. That must be highly offensive, which moved God to repent of a fabric so pleasing to him at the creation: every stone in the building being at the first laying pronounced good by Him, and upon a review at the finishing the whole, He left it the same character with an Emphasis; † Gen. 1.31. very good. There was not a pin in the whole frame, but was * Eccles. 3.11. very beautiful, and being wrought by infinite * Psal. 104.24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euseb. Praeparo. Evang. wisdom, it was a very comely piece of Art. What then should provoke him to repent of so excellent a work? The wickedness of man, which was great in the earth. How came it to pass that man's wickedness should swell so high? Whence did it spring? From the imagination. Though these might be sinful imaginations, might not the superior faculty preserve itself untainted? Alas! That was defiled; The imagination of the thoughts was evil. But though running thoughts might wheel about in his mind, yet they might leave no stamp or impression upon the will and affections. Yes, they did, The imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil. Surely all could not be under such a blemish: Were there not now and then some pure slashes of the mind? No not one; Every imagination. But granting that they were evil, might there not be some fleeting good mixed with them: as a poisonous toad hath something useful? No, Only evil. Well, but there might be some intervals of thinking, and though there was no good thought, yet evil ones were not always rolling there. Yes, they were Continually; not a moment of time that man was free from them. One would scarce imagine such an inward nest of wickedness, but God hath affirmed it; and if any man should deny it, his own heart would give him the lie. Let us now consider the words by themselves. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Imagination, properly signifies figmentum, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to afflict, press or form a thing by way of compression. And thus 'tis a metaphor taken from a potters framing a vessel, and extends to whatsoever is framed inwardly in the heart, or outwardly in the work. 'Tis usually taken by the Jews for that fountain of sin within us: † Alii rect●ùs dicunt non esse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n●si in malum. Merc. in loc. Mercer tells us it is always used in an evil sense: But there are two places (if no more) wherein it is taken in a good sense, Isa. 26.3. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whose mind is stayed; and 1 Chron. 29.18. where David prays, that a disposition to offer willingly to the Lord might be preserved in the Imagination of the thoughts of the heart of the people. Indeed for the most part 'tis taken for the evil imaginations of the heart, as Deut. 31.21. Psal. 103.14. etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maimon. More Nevoch. Par. 3. c. 22. Amam. Censur. in locum. The Jews make a double figment, a good and bad; and fancy two Angels assigned to man, one bad, another good: which Maimonides interprets to be nothing else but natural corruption, and reason. This word imagination being joined with thoughts, implies not only the complete thoughts, but the first motion or formation of them, to be evil. The word Heart is taken variously in Scripture. It signifies properly that inward member, which is the seat of the vital spirits: But sometimes it signifies, 1. The understanding and mind, Psal. 12.2. With a double heart do they speak: i. e. with a double mind, Prov. 8.5. 2. For the Will, 2 Kings 10.30. All that is in my heart; i. e. in my Will and purpose. 3. For the affections; as, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart: i. e. with all thy affections. 4. For conscience, 2 Sam. 24.5. David's heart smote him: i. e. his Conscience checked him. But Heart here is used for the whole soul, because (according to Pareus his note) the soul is chief seated in the heart, especially the Will, and the affections her attendants; because when any affection stirs, the chief motion of it is felt in the heart. So that by the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart are here meant all the inward operations of the soul, which play their part principally in the heart: whether they be the acts of the understanding, the resolutions of the Will, or the blustrings of the affections. Only evil] The Vulgar mentions not the exclusive particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and so enervates the sense of the place. But our Neighbour Translations either express it as we do, Only; or to that sense, that they were Certainly, or no other than evil. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Continually] The Hebrew, All the day, or every day. Some Translations express it verbatim as the Hebrew. Not a moment of a man's life, wherein our hereditary corruption doth not belch out its froth, even from his youth, as God expounds it, Gen. 8.21. to the end of his life. Whether we shall refer the general wickedness of the heart in the Text to that age, as some of the Jesuits do; because after the Deluge God doth not seem so severely to censure it: Or rather take the exposition the learned Rivet gives of it, referring the first part of the Verse [and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth] to those times: Gen. 8.21. Rivet. in Gen. exercit. 51. and the second part to the universal corruption of man's nature, and the root of all sin in the world. The Jesuits argument will not be very valid, for the extenuation of original corruption, from Gen. 8.21. For if man's imaginations be evil from his youth, what is it but in another phrase to say they were so continually? But suppose it be understood of the iniquity of that age, may it not be applied to all ages of the world? David complains of the wickedness of his own time, Psal. 14.3. Psal. 5.9. Yet St. Paul applies it to all mankind, Rom. 3.12. Indeed it seems to be a description of man's natural pravity, by God's words after the deluge, Gen. 8.21. which are the same in sense, to show that man's nature after that destroying judgement, was no better than before. Every word is emphatical, exaggerating man's defilement; Wherein consider the Universality 1. Of the subject, Every man. 2. Of the act, Every thought. 3. Of the qualification of the act, Only evil. 4. Of the time, Continually. The words thus opened afford us this Proposition: That the thoughts, and inward operations of the souls of men, are naturally universally evil, and highly provoking. Some by cogitation mean not only the acts of the understanding, but those of the will, yea and the sense too. But indeed that which we call cogitation, or thought, is the work of the mind; imagination, of the fancy. Cartes. Princip. Philos. Part. 1. Sect. 9 'Tis not properly thought, till it be wrought by the understanding; because the fancy was not a power designed for thinking, but only to receive the images impressed upon the sense, and concoct them, that they might be fit matter for thoughts; and so 'tis the Exchequer, wherein all the acquisitions of sense are deposited, and from thence received by the intellective faculty. So that thoughts are inchoatiuè in the fancy, consummatiuè in the understanding, terminatiuè in all the other faculties. Thought first engenders opinion in the mind; thought spurs the will to consent or descent; 'tis thought also which Spirits the affections. I will not spend time to acquaint you with the methods of their generation. Every man knows he hath a thinking faculty, and some inward conceptions, which he calls thoughts, he knows that he thinks, and what he thinks; though he be not able to describe the manner of their formation in the womb, or remember it any more than the species of his own face in a glass. In this discourse let us first see what kind of thoughts are sins. 1. Negatively. A simple apprehension of sin is not sinful. Thoughts receive not a sinfulness barely from the object: That may be unlawful to be acted, which is not unlawful to be thought of. Though the will cannot will sin without guilt, yet the understanding may apprehend sin without guilt; for that doth no more contract a pollution by the bare apprehension, than the eye doth by the reception of the species of a loathsome object. Thoughts are morally evil, when they have a bad principle, want a due end, and converse with the object in a wrong manner. Angel's cannot but understand the offence which displaced the Apostate Stars from heaven; but they know not sin cognition practicâ: Glorified Saints may consider their former sins, to enhance their admirations of pardoning mercy. Christ himself must needs understand the matter of the Devil's temptation; yet Satan's suggestions to his thoughts were as the vapours of a jakes mixed with the Sunbeams, without a defilement of them. Yea God himself, who is infinite purity, knows the Object of his own acts, which are conversant about sin; as his holiness in forbidding it, wisdom in permitting, mercy in pardoning, and justice in punishing. But thoughts of sin in Christ, Angels, and glorified Saints, are accompanied with an abhorrency of it, without any combustible matter in them to be kindled by it. As our thoughts of a divine object are not gracious, unless we love and delight in it; so a bare apprehension of sin is not positively criminal, unless we delight in the object apprehended. As a sinful Object doth not render our thoughts evil, so a divine object doth not render them good; because we may think of it with undue circumstances, as unseasonably, coldly, etc. And thus there is an imperfection in the best thought a regenerate man hath; for though I will suppose he may have a sudden ejaculation without the mixture of any positive impurity, and a simple apprehension of sin with a detestation of it, yet there is a defect in each of them; because 'tis not with that raised affection to God, or intense abhorrency of sin, as is due from us to such objects, and whereof we were capable in our primitive state. 2. Positively. Our thoughts may be branched into first motions, or such that are more voluntary. 1. First motions; Those unfleched thoughts, and single threads, before a multitude of them come to be twisted and woven into a discourse: such as skip up from our natural corruption, and sink down again as fish in a river. These are sins though we consent not to them; because, though they are without our will, they are not against our nature; but spring from an inordinate frame, of a different hue from what God implanted in us. How can the first sprouts be good, if the root be evil? Not only the thought form, but the very formation, or first imagination is evil. Voluntariness is not necessary to the essence of a sin, though it be to the aggravation of it. 'Tis not my Will or Knowledge, Gen. 19.33, 35 which doth make an act sinful, but God's prohibition. Lot's incest was not ushered by any deliberate consent of his Will; yet who will deny it to be a sin, since he should have exercised a severer command over himself, than to be overtaken with drunkenness, which was the occasion of it? Original sin is not effectiuè voluntary in infants; because no act of the will is exerted in an infant about it: Yet it is voluntary subjectiuè; because it doth inhaerere voluntati. These motions may be said to be voluntary negatively, because the Will doth not set bounds to them, and exercise that sovereign dominion over the operations of the soul, which it ought to do, and wherewith it was at its first creation invested. Besides though the Will doth not immediately consent to them, yet it consents to the occasions, which administer such motions; and therefore, according to the rule, that causa causae est causa causati, may be justly charged upon our score. 2. Voluntary thoughts, which are the blossoms of these motions. Such that have no lawful object, no right end, not governed by reason, eccentrick, disorderly in their motions, and like the jarring strings of an untuned Instrument. The meanest of these floating fancies are sins; because we act not in the production of them, as rational creatures: and what we do without reason, we do against the law of our creation, which appointed reason for our guide, and the understanding to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the governing power in our souls. These may be reduced to three heads, 1. In regard of God. 2. Of ourselves. 3. Of others. I. In regard of God. 1. Cold thoughts of God; When no affection is raised in us by them. When we delight not in God the object of those thoughts, but in the thought itself, and operation of our mind about Him, consisting of some acquaint notion of God of our own conceiving. This is to delight in the act or manner of thinking, not in the object thought of; And thus these thoughts have a folly and vanity in them. They are also sinful in a regenerate man, in respect of the faintness of the understanding, not acting with that vigour, and spriteliness, nor with those raised and spiritual affections, which the worth of such an object doth require. 2. Debasing Conceptions, unworthy of God. Such are called in the Heathen Vain Imaginations * Rom. 1.21: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their reasonings about God. ; who as they glorified not God as God, so they did not think of God as God, according to the dignity of a Deity. Such a mental Idolatry may be found in us, when we dress up a God according to our own humours, humanize Him, and ascribe to Him what is grateful to us, though never so base † Psal. 50.21. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether sach an one as thy sel●. Exod. 15.11. Isai. 6.3. Psal. 89.35. . Which is a grosser degrading of the Deity, than any representation of him by material Images: because it is directly against his Holiness, which is His glory, applauded chief by the Angels; and an attribute, which He swears by, as having the greatest regard to the honour of it. Such an imagination Adam seemed to have, conceiting God to be so mean a being that he, a creature not of a days standing, could mount to an equality of knowledge with Him. 3. Accusing thoughts of God: Either of his mercy, as in despair; or of his Justice as too severe, as in Cain ‖ Gen. 4 13. . Of His providence: Adam conceited, yea and charged God's providence to be an occasion of his crime * Gen. 3 12. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me. : His posterity are no juster to God, when they accuse Him as a negligent Governor of the world, Psal. 94.11. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity. What thoughts? Injurious thoughts of His providence, v. 7. as though God were ignorant of men's actions: or, at best, but an idle Spectator of all the unrighteousness done in the world, not to regard it though He did see it. And they in the Prophet were of the same stamp, That said in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. From such kind of thoughts most of the Injuries from oppressors, and murmur in the oppressed, do arise. 4. Curious thoughts about things too high for us. 'Tis the frequent business of men's minds to flutter about things without the bounds of God's revelation. Not to be content with what God hath published is to accuse Him, Gen. 3.5. God knows that your eyes shall be opened. in the same manner as the Serpent did to our first parents, of envying us an intellectual happiness. Yet how do all Adam's posterity long after this forbidden fruit! II. In regard of ourselves; Our thoughts are proud, self-confident, self-applauding, foolish, covetous, anxious, unclean; And what not? 1. Ambitious: The aspiring thought of the first man runs in the veins of his posterity. God took notice of such Strains in the King of Babylon, when he said in his heart, I will exalt my throne above the Stars of God: I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds, I will be like the most High * Isa. 14.13, 14. . No less a charge will they stand under, that settle themselves upon their own bottom, establish their own righteousness, and will not submit to the righteousness of God's appointment † Rom. 10.3. The most forlorn beggar hath sometimes thoughts vast enough to grasp an Empire. 2. Self-confident: Edom's thoughts swelled him into a vain confidence of a perpetual prosperity. Obad. 3. That saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground. And David sometimes said in the like state, that he should never be moved. 3. Self-applauding, Either in the vain remembrances of our former prosperity, or ascribing our present happiness to the dexterity of our own wit. Such flaunting thoughts had Nabuchadnezzar at the consideration of his settling Babylon the head, and Metropolis of so great an Empire. Nothing more ordinary among men, Dan. 4.30. Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the Kingdom, etc. than overweening reflections upon their own parts, and * Rom. 12.3. thinking of themselves above what they ought to think. 4. Ungrounded Imaginations of the events of things, either present, or future: Such wild conceits, like Meteors bred of a few vapours, do often frisk in our minds. 1. Of things present: 'Tis likely Eve foolishly imagined she had brought forth the Messiah, when she brought forth a murderer, Gen. 4.1. I have gotten a man the Lord (as in the Hebrew) believing (as some interpret) that she had brought forth the promised seed. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And such a brisk conceit Lamech seems to have had of Noah † Gen. 5.29. . 2. Of things to come, either in bespeaking false hopes, or antedating improbable griefs. Such are the jolly thoughts we have of a happy Estate in reversion, which yet we may fall short of. Haman's heart leaped at the King's question, Est. 6.6. (What shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour?) phancying himself the mark of his Prince's favour, without thinking that a halter should soon choke his ambition. Or perplexing thoughts at the fear of some trouble, which is not yet fallen upon us, and perhaps never may. How did David torture his Soul by his unbelieving fears, 1 Sam. 27.1. And David said in his heart, etc. that he should one day perish by the hand of Saul? These forestall thoughts do really affect us: we often feel caprings in our Spirits upon imaginary hopes, and shiverings, upon conceited fears. These pleasing impostures, and self-afflicting suppositions are signs either of an idle, or indigent mind, that hath no will to work, or only rotten materials to work upon. 5. Immoderate thoughts about lawful things: When we exercise our minds too thick, and with a fierceness of affection above their merit: not in subserviency to God, or mixing our cares with dependencies on Him. Worldly concerns may quarter in our thoughts; but they must not possess all the room, and thrust Christ into a manger: Neither must they be of that value with us, as the law was with David, sweeter than the honey or the honey comb. III. In regard of others; All thoughts of our neighbour against the rule of charity. Such that imagine evil in their hearts, God hates * Zach. 8.17 . These principally are 1. Envious, when we torment ourselves with others fortunes. Such a thought in Cain, upon God's acceptance of his brother's sacrifice, Gen. 4.5. 1 Tim. 6.4. 2 Cor. 13.5. was the Prologue to, and foundation of, that cursed murder. 2. Censorious, stigmatising every freckle in our brother's conversation. 3. Jealous, and evil surmises contrary to charity, which thinks no evil. 4. Revengeful, Est. 5.13. Such made Haman take little content in his preferments, as long as Mordecai refused to court him. And Esau thought of the days of mourning for his father, Gen. 27 41. Esau said in his heart, etc. that he might be revenged for his brother's deceits. There is no sin committed in the world, but is hatched in one or other of these thoughts. But beside these, there are a multitude of other volatile conceits, like swarms of gnats buzzing about us, and preying upon us, and as frequent in their successions, as the curl of the water upon a small breath of wind, one following another close at the heels. The mind is no more satisfied with thoughts, than the first matter is with forms; continually shifting one for another, and many times the nobler for the base: as when upon the putrefaction of a human body part of the Matter is endued with the form of Vermin. Such changeable things are our minds, in leaving that which is good for that which is worse, when they are enveigled by an active fancy, and Bedlam affections. This madness is in the hearts of men while they live, Eccles 9.3. and starts a thousand frenzies in a day. At the best our fancy is like a Carrier's bag, stuffed with a world of Letters, having no dependence upon one another; some containing business, and others nothing but froth. In all these thoughts there is a further guilt in three respects, viz. 1. Delight, 2. Contrivance, 3. Reacting. 1. Delight in them. The very tickling of our fancy by a sinful motion, though without a formal consent, is a sin; because it is a degree of complacency in an unlawful object. When the mind is pleased with the subject of the thought, as it hath a tendency to some sensual pleasure, and not simply in the thought itself, as it may enrich the understanding with some degree of knowledge. The thought indeed of an evil thing may be without any delight in the evil of it; as Philosopher's delight in making experiments of poisonous Creatures, without delighting in the poison, as it is a noxious quality. We may delightfully think of sin without guilt, not delighting in it as sin, but as God by his wise providential ordering extracts Glory to himself, and good to his Creature. In this case, though a sinful act be the material object of this pleasure, yet 'tis not the formal object: because the delight is not terminated in the sin, but in God's ordering the event of it to his own glory. But an Inclination to a sinful motion, as it gratifies a corrupt affection, is sin: because every inclination is a malignant tincture upon the affections, including in its own nature an aversion from God, and testifying sin to be an agreeable object. And without question, there can be no inclination to any thing, without some degree of pleasure in it: because it is impossible we can incline to that, which we have a perfect abhorrency of. Hence it follows, that every inclination to a sinful motion is Consensus inchoatus, or a Consent in Embryo: though the act may prove abortive. If we think of any unlawful thing with pleasure, and imagine it either in fieri, or facto esse, it brings a guilt upon us, as if it were really acted. As when upon the consideration of such a man's being my enemy, I fancy robbers rifling his goods, and cutting his throat, and rejoice in this revengeful thought, as if it were really done, 'tis a great sin: because it testifies an approbation of such a butchery, if any man had will and opportunity to commit it. And though it be a supposition, yet the act of the mind is really the same it would be, if the sinful act I think of were performed. Or when a man conditionally thinks with himself, I would steal such a man's goods, or kill such a person, if I could escape escape the punishment attending it, it is as if he did rob and murder him: because there is no impediment in his will to the commission of it, but only in the outward circumstances. Nay though it be a mere Ens intentionale, or rationis, which is the object of the thought: yet the act of the mind is real, and as significant of the inclination of the Soul, as if the object were real too: As if a man hath an unclean motion at the sight of a picture, which is only a composition of well mixed and well ordered colours: or at the appearance of the Idea of a beauty framed in his own fancy: 'tis as much uncleanness as if it were terminated in some suitable object: the hindrance being not in the will, but in the insufficiency of the object to concur in such an act. Now as the more delight there is in any holy service, the more precious it is in itself, and more grateful to God: so the more pleasure there is in any sinful motion, the more malignity there is in it. 2. Contrivance. When the delight in the thought grows up to the contrivance of the act, (which is still the work of the thinking faculty:) When the mind doth brood upon a sinful motion, to hatch it up, and invents methods for performance: which the wise man calls artificial Inventions. So a learned man interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Mat. 15.19. Eccles. 7.29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr. Hammond on Mat. 15.9. of contrivances of murder, adultery, etc. And the word signifies properly reasonings. When men's wits play the Devils in their souls, in inventing sophistical reasons for the commission and justification of their crimes, with a mighty jollity at their own craft. Such plots are the trade of a wicked man's heart. A covetous man will be working in his inward shop from morning till night to study new methods for gain * 2 Pet. 2.14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a heart exercised in covetous practices. : and voluptuous, and ambitious persons, will draw schemes and models in their fancy, of what they would outwardly accomplish: They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepares deceit, Job. 15.35. Hence the thoughts are called the counsels † 1 Cor. 4.5. and devices * Isa. 32.7, 8. of the heart: when the heart summons the head, and all the thoughts of it, to sit in debate, as a private Junto, about a sinful motion. 3. Re-acting sin after 'tis outwardly committed. Though the individual action be transient, and cannot be committed again: yet the Idea and Image of it remaining in the memory, may by the help of an apish fancy be repeated a thousand times over with a rarified pleasure. As both the features of our friends, and the agreeable Conversations we have had with them, may with a fresh relish be represented in our fancies, though the persons were rotten many years ago. Having thus declared the nature of our thoughts, and the degrees of their guilt: the next thing is to prove that they are sins. The Jews did not acknowledge them to be sins, Kimchi in 66 Psal. as quoted by Grotius in Mat 5.20. jam servaris bene corpus; adultera mens est: Nec custodiri, ni velit, illa p test. Nec mentem servare potes, licet omnia claudas: Omnibus occlusis intus adulter erit. Ovid. Anor. l. 3. Eleg. 3. v. 5. etc. unless they were blasphemous, and immediately against God himself. Some Heathens were more Orthodox, and among the rest Ovid, whose amorous pleasures one would think should have smothered such sentiments in him. They Lord (whose knowledge is infallible) knows the thoughts of men that they are vanity, Psal. 94.11. yea, and of the wisest men too, according to the Apostle's Interpretation, 1 Cor. 3.20. And who were they that became vain in their Imaginations, but the wisest men the carnal world yielded? The Grecians the greatest Philosophers, the Egyptians their Tutors, and the Romans their Apes. The elaborate operations of an unregenerate mind are fleshly. Rom. 8.5, 7. If the whole web be so, needs must every thread. The thought of foolishness is sin * Prov. 24.9. , (i. e. a foolish thought; not objectively a thought of folly, but one formally so) yea, an abomination to God † Prov. 15.26. . As good thoughts and purposes are acts in God's account, so are bad ones. Abraham's intention to offer Isaac is accounted as an actual Sacrifice ‖ Heb. 11.17. Jam. 2.21. : that the stroke was not given, was not from any reluctance of Abraham's will, but the gracious indulgence of God. Sarab had a deriding thought, and God chargeth it as if it were an outward laughter, and a scornful word * Gen. 18.12, 15. Therefore Sarah laughed within h r self, saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in visceribus suis, Targum. Rom 7.7. I had not known lust, except the Law had said, Thou shalt not covet, . Thoughts are the words of the mind, and as real in God's account, as if they were expressed with the Tongue. There are three Reasons for the proof of this, that they are Sins. 1. They are contrary to the Law, which doth forbid the first foamings and belchings of the heart; because they arise from an habitual corruption, and testify a defect of something, which the Law requires to be in us, to correct the excursions of our minds. Doth not the Law oblige man as a rational creature? Shall it then leave that part, which doth constitute him rational, to sleeting and giddy fancies? No, it binds the soul as the principal agent, the body only as the instrument. For if it were given only for the sensitive part, without any respect to the rational, it would concern brutes as well as men, which are as capable of a rational command, and a voluntary obedience, as man without the conduct of a rational soul. It exacts a conformity of the whole man to God, and prohibits a difformity; and therefore engageth chief the inward part, which is most the man. It must then extend to all the acts of the man, consequently to his thoughts; they being more the acts of the man than the motions of the body. Holiness is the prime excellency of the Law; a title ascribed to it twice in one Verse, Rom. 7.12. Wherefore the Law is holy, and the Commandment holy, just and good. Can it be holy, if it indulged looseness in the more noble part of the creature? Can it be just, if it favoured inward unrighteousness? Can it be good, and useful to man, which did not enjoin a suitable conformity to God, wherein the creatures excellency lies? Can that deserve the title of a spiritual Law, that should only regulate the brutish part, and leave the spiritual to an unbounded licentiousness? Can perfection be ascribed to that Law, which doth countenance the unsavoury breathe of the Spirit, and lay no stricter an obligation upon us than the Laws of men? Mat. 5 28. Must not God's Laws be as suitable to his sovereignty, as men's Laws are to theirs? Must they not then be as extensive as God's Dominion, and reach even to the privatest closerts of the heart? 'Tis not for the honour of God's holiness, righteousness, goodness, to let the Spirit, which bears more flourishing characters of his Image than the body, range wildly about without a legal curb. 2. They are contrary to the order of nature, and the design of our Creation. Whatsoever is a swerving from our primitive nature is sin, or at least a consequent of it. Eccles. 7.29. God made man perfect; but they have s●ught out many inventions. But all inclinations to sin are contrary to that righteousness, wherewith man was first endued. Man was created both with a disposition, and ability for holy contemplations of God; the first glances of his soul were pure; he came every way complete out of the mint of his infinitely wise and good Creator; and when God pronounced all his Creatures good, he pronounced man very good amongst the rest. But man is not now as God created him, he is off from his end, his understanding is filled with lightness and vanity. This disorder never proceeded from the God of order; infinite goodness could never produce such an evil frame; none of these lose inventions were of God's planting, but of man's seeking. No, God never created the intellective, no, nor the sensitive part, to play Domitian's game, and sport itself in the catching of Flies. Psal. 49.20. Man that is in honour, and understands not that which he ought to understand, and thinks not that which he ought to think, is like the Beasts that perish: Gen. 3.6. he plays the beast, because he acts contrary to the nature of a rational and immortal soul. And such brutes we all naturally are, since the first woman believed her sense, her fancy, her affection, in their directions for the attainment of wisdom, without consulting God's Law, or her own reason. The fancy was bound by the right of nature to serve the understanding: 'Tis then a slighting God's wisdom to invert this order, in making that our Governor, which he made our Subject. 'Tis injustice to the dignity of our own souls, to degrade the nobler part to a sordid slavery; in making the brute have dominion over the man; as if the Horse were fittest to govern the Rider. 'Tis a falseness to God, and a breach of trust, to let our minds be imposed upon by our fancy; in giving it only feathers to dandle, and chaff to feed on, instead of those braver objects it was made to converse withal. 3. We are accountable to God, and punishable for thoughts. Nothing is the meritorious cause of God's wrath but sin. The Text tells us, that they were once the keys, which opened the floodgates of divine vengeance, and broached both the upper and nether Cisterns * Acts 8.22. If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. Prov. 12.2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man of thoughts i e. evil thoughts: the word being usually taken in an ill sense , to overflow the world. If they need a pardon, (as certainly they do) then, if mercy doth not pardon them, justice will condemn them. And 'tis absolutely said, that a man of wicked devices [or thoughts] God will condemn. 'Tis God's prerogative, often mentioned in Scripture, to search the heart. To what purpose, if the acts of it did not fall under His censure, as well as His cognizance? He weighs the Spirits, Prov. 16.2. in the balance of His Sanctuary, and by the weights of His Law, to sentence them, if they be found too light. The word doth discover, and judge them † Heb. 4.12, 13. ; It divides asunder the soul and spirit, the sensitive part the affections, and the rational the understanding and will; both which it doth dissect, and open, and judge the acts of them, even the thoughts and intents, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whatsoever is within the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and whatsoever is within the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the one referring to the Soul, the other to the Spirit: These it passeth a Judgement upon; as a Critic censures the Erratas, even to syllables, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. and Letters, in an old Manuscript. These we are to render an account of, (as the Syriack renders those words v. 13. with whom we have to do.) Of what? Of the first bubblings of the heart, the notions, and intents of it. The least Speck and Atom of dust in every chink of this little world is known and censured by God. If our thoughts be not judged, God would not be a righteous judge. He would not judge according to the merit of the cause, if outward actions were only scanned, without regarding the intents, wherein the principle and end of every action lies, which either swell or diminish the malignity of it. Actions in kind the same, may have different circumstances in the thoughts to heighten the one above the other; and if they were only judged, the most painted hypocrite might commence a blessed spirit at last, as well as the exactest Saint. 1 Cor. 4, 5. 'Tis necessary also for the Glory of God's omniscience. 'Tis hereby chief that the extensiveness of God's knowledge is discovered, and that in order to the praise, or dispraise of men, viz. To their Justification or condemnation. Those very thoughts will accuse thee before God's Tribunal, which accuse thee here before conscience, His Deputy, Rom. 2.15, 16. Their thoughts the mean while (i. e. in this life, while conscience bears witness) accusing, or excusing one another; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, i. e. and also at the day of judgement, when conscience shall give in its final Testimony, upon God's examination of the secret counsels. This place is properly meant of those reasonings concerning good and evil in men's Consciences, agreeable to the Law of nature imprinted on them, which shall excuse them, if they practise accordingly, or accuse them, if they behave themselves contrary thereunto. But it will hold in this Case; for if those inward approbations of the the notions of good and evil will accuse us for our contrary practices, they will also accuse us for our contrary thoughts. Non solum opus, sed mali operis cogitatio paenas luet. Hieron. in 1 Hos. 7. Acts 8.22. Our good thoughts will be our accusers for not observing them, and our bad thoughts will be indictments against us for complying with them. 'Tis probable the Soul may be bound over to answer chief for these at the last day; for the Apostle chargeth Simon's gilded upon his thought, not his word, and tells him, pardon must be principally granted for that. The tongue was only an Instrument to express what his heart did think, and would have been wholly innocent, had not his thoughts been first criminal. What therefore is the principal subject of pardon would be so of punishment: as the first incendiaries in a rebellion are most severely dealt with. And if (as some think) the fallen Angels were stripped of their primitive Glory, only for a conceived thought, how heinous must that be, which hath enrolled them in a remediless misery? Having proved that there is a sinfulness in our thoughts, let us now see what provocation there is in them: Which in some respects is greater than that of our actions. But we must take actions here in sensu diviso, as distinguished from the inward preparations to them. In the one there is more of scandal: in the other more of odiousness to God. God indeed doth not punish thoughts so visibly, because, as He is Governor of the world, His Judgements are shot against those sins that disturb humane society: but He hath secret and spiritual Judgements for these, suitable to the nature of the sins. Now thoughts are greater in respect, 1. Of fruitfulness. The wickedness that God saw great in the earth was the fruit of imaginations. They are the immediate causes of all sin. No Cockatrice but was first an egg. It was a thought to be as God * Gen. 3.5. 2 Cor. 11.3. , that was the first breeder of all that sin, under which the world groans at this day; For Eve's mind was first beguiled in the alteration of her thought. Since that the lake of inward malignity acts all its evil by these smoking steams. Evil thoughts lead the van in our Saviour's Catalogue, Matth. 15.19. as that which spirits all the black regiment which march behind. As good motions cherished will spring up in good actions, so lose thoughts favoured will break out in visible plague-sores, and put fire unto all that wickedness which lies habitually in the heart: 2 Tim. 2.16. as a spark may to a whole stock of Gunpowder. The vain babble of the soul, as well as those of the Tongue, will increase to more ungodliness. Being thus the cause, they include virtually in them all that is in the effect; as a seed contains in its little body the leaves, fruit, colour, scent, which afterward appear in the plant. The seed includes all, but the colour doth not virtually include the scent, or the scent the colour, or the leaves the fruit: So 'tis here, One act doth not include the formal obliquity of another: but the thought which caused it doth seminally include both the formal and final obliquity of every action; both that which is in the nature of it, and in the end to which it tends. As when a Tradesman cherisheth immoderate thoughts of gain, and in the attaining it runs into many foolish and hurtful Lusts, 1 Tim. 6 9 there is cheating, lying, swearing, to put off the commodity: all these several acts have a particular sinfulness in the nature of the acts themselves, besides the tendency they have to the satisfying an inordinate affection; all which are the spawn of those first immoderate thoughts stirring up greedy desires. 2. In respect of Quantity. Imaginations are said to be continually evil. There is an infinite variety of conceptions, as the Psalmist speaks of the Sea, wherein are all things creeping innumerable, both small and great, and a constant generation of whole shoals of them; that you may as well number the Fish in the Sea, or the Atoms in the Sunbeams, as recount them. There is a greater number in regard of the acts, and in regard of the objects. 1. In regard of the acts of the mind: 1. Antecedent acts. How many preparatory motions of the mind are there to one wicked external act? Yea, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Plutarch. Moral. p. (mihi) 500 how many sinful thoughts are twisted together to produce one deliberate sinful word? All which have a distinct guilt, and, if weighed together, would outweigh the guilt of the action abstractedly considered. How many repeated complacencies in the first motion, degrees of consent, resolved broodings, secret plottings, proposals of various methods, smothering contrary checks, vehement long, delightful hopes, and forestalled pleasures in the design? All which are but thoughts assenting, or dissenting in order to the act intended. Upon a dissection of all these secret motions by the critical power of the word, we should find a more monstrous guilt, than would be apparent in the single action, for whose sake all these spirits were raised. There may be no sin in a material act, considered in itself, when there is a provoking guilt in the mental motion. A hypocrite's religious services are materially good, but poisoned by the Imagination skulking in the heart, that gave birth unto them. Prov. 21.27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a wicked thought. Ezek. 23.3.19. Yet she multiplied he● whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth etc. v. 21. the lewdness of her youth. 'Tis the wicked mind or thought makes the sacrifice (a commanded duty) much more an abomination to the Lord. 2. Consequent acts; When a man's fancy is pregnant with the delightful remembrance of the sin that is past, he draws down a fresh guilt upon himself: as they did in the Prophet, in reviving the concurrence of the will to the act committed, making the sensual pleasure to commence spiritual, and (if ever there were an aching heart for it) revoking his former grief by a renewed approbation of his darling lust. Thus the sin of thoughts is greater in regard of duration. A man hath neither strength nor opportunity always to act, but he may always think; and imagination can supply the place of action. Or if the mind be tired with sucking one object, it can with the be presently fasten upon another. Senses are weary, till they have a new recruit of spirits: as the poor horse may sink under his burden, when the rider is as violent as ever. Thus old men may change their outward profaneness into mental wickedness; and as the Psalmist remembered his old songs * Psal. 77.5, 6. , so they their calcined sins in the night, with an equal pleasure. So that you see there may be a thousand thoughts as ushers and lackeys to one act, as numerous as the sparks of a new lighted fire. 2. In regard of the Objects the mind is conversant about. Such thoughts there are, and attended with a heavy guilt, which cannot probably, no nor possibly descend into outward acts. A man may in a complacent thought commit fornication with a woman in Spain, in a covetous thought rob another in the Indies, and in a revengeful thought stab a third in America; and that while he is in this Congregation. An unclean person may commit a mental folly with every beauty he meets. A covetous man cannot plunder a whole Kingdom; but in one twinkling of a thought he may wish himself the possessor of all the estates in it. A Timon, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot cut the throats of all the world; but like Nero, with one glance of his heart he may chop off the heads of all mankind at a blow. Ambitious men's practices are confined to a small spot of land, but with a cast of his mind he may grasp an Empire as large as the four Monarchies. A beggar cannot ascend a throne; but in his thoughts he may pass the Guards, murder his Prince and usurp the Government. Nay further, an Atheist may think there is no God, Psal. 14.1. i e. (as some interpret it) wish there were no God, and thus in thought undeify God himself; though he may sooner dash heaven and earth in pieces, than accomplish it. The body is confined to one object, and that narrow and proportionable to its nature: but the mind can wing itself to various objects in all parts of the earth. Where it finds none, it can make one; for fancy can compact several objects together, coin an image, colour a picture, and commit folly with it, when it hath done; It can nestle itself in cobwebs spun out of its own bowels. 3. In respect of Strength. Imaginations of the heart are only, i. e. purely evil. The nearer any thing is in union with the root, the more radical strength it hath. The first ebullitions of light and heat from the Sun are more vigorous, than the remoter beams: and the steams of a dunghill more noisome next that putrified body, than when they are dilated in the air. Grace is stronger in the heart-operations, than in the outward streams: and sin more soul in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart, than in the act. In the Text the outward wickedness of the world is passed over with a short expression; but the Holy Ghost dwells upon the description of the wicked imagination, because there lay the mass. Man's * Psal. 5 9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inward part is very wickednesses, a whole nest of vipers. Thoughts are the immediate spawn of the original corruption, and therefote partake more of the strength and nature of it. Acts are more distant, being the children of our thoughts, but the grandchildren of our natural pravity. Besides, they lie nearest to that wickedness in the inward part, sucking the breast of that poisonous dam that bred them. The strength of our thoughts is also reinforced by being kept in, for want of opportunity to act them: as liquors in close glasses ferment and increase their spriteliness. Musing, either carnal or spiritual, makes the † Psal. 39.3. fire burn the hotter: as the fury of fire is doubled by being penned in a furnace. Outward acts are but the sprouts; the sap and juice lies in the wicked imagination or contrivance, which hath a strength in it to produce a thousand fruits as poisonous as the former. The members are the instruments, or * Rom. 6.13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weapons, of unrighteousness; now the whole strength which doth manage the weapon lies in the arm that wields it, the weapon of itself could do no hurt without a force impressed. Let me add this too, that sin in thoughts is more simply sin. In acts there may be some occasional good to others, for a good man will make use of the sight of sin committed by others to increase his hatred of it: but in our sinful thoughts there it no occasion of good to others; they lying locked up from the view of man. 4. In respect of Alliance. In these we have the nearest communion with the Devil. The understanding of man is so tainted, that his † Jam. 3.15. wisdom, the chiefest flower in it, is not only earthly and sensual (it were well if it were no worse) but devilish too. If the flower be so rank, what are the weeds? 1 Cor. 2.11. 2 Cor. 10.5. Satan's devices and our thoughts are of the same nature, and sometimes in Scripture expressed by the same word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. As he hath his devices, so have we against the authority of God's law the power of the Gospel, and the Kingdom of Christ. The Devils are called spiritual wickednesses because they are not capable of carnal sins. Ephes. 6.12. Profaneness is an Uniformity with the world, and intellectual sins are an Uniformity with the God of it, 1 Ephes. 2.2.3. v. 3. There is a double walking, answerable to a double pattern in v. 2. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh is a walking according to the course of this world, or making the world our copy: and fulfilling the desires of the mind is a walking according to the Prince of the power of the air, or a making the Devil our pattern. In carnal sins Satan is a tempter, in mental an actor. Therefore in the one we are conformed to his will; in the other we are transformed into his likeness. In outward we evidence more of obedience to his laws; in inward more of affection to his person, as all imitations of others are. Therefore there is more of enmity to God, because more of similitude and love to the Devil; a nearer approach to the Diabolical nature implying a greater distance from the Divine. Christ never gave so black a character; as that of the Devil's children, to the profane world, but to the Pharisees, who had left the sins of men to take up those of Devils, and were most guilty of those high imaginations which ought to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 5. In respect of contrariety and odiousness to God. Imaginations were only evil; and so most directly contrary to God, who is only good. Rom. 8.7. Our natural enmity against God is seated in the mind. The sensitive part aims at its own gratification, and in men's serving their lusts they serve their pleasures; Tit. 3.3. serving divers lusts and pleasures. but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Prince in man, is possessed with principles of a more direct contrariety; whence it must follow, that all the thoughts and counsels of it are tinctured with this hatred. They are indeed a defilement of the higher part of the soul, and that which belongs more peculiarly to God. And the nearer any part doth approach to God, the more abominable is a spot upon it; as to cast dirt upon a Prince's house is not so heinous as to deface his image. The understanding, the seat of thoughts, is more excellent than the will; both because we know and judge before we will, or aught to will only so much, as the understanding thinks fit to be willed; and because God hath bestowed the highest gifts upon it, adorning it with more lively lineaments of his own image. Colos. 3.10. Renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him; implying that there was more of the image of God at the first creation bestowed upon the understanding, the seat of knowledge, than on any other part; yea than on all the bodies of men distilled together. Heb 12.9. Father of Spirits is one of God's titles: To bespatter His children, than so near a relation, the jewel that he is choice of, must needs be more heinous. He being the Father of Spirits, this spiritual wickedness of nourishing evil thoughts is a cashiering all childlike likeness to him. The traitorous acts of the mind are most offensive to God: as 'tis a greater despite for a son, to whom the father hath given the greater portion, to shut him out of his house, only to revel in it with a company of Roisters and Strumpets, than in a child, who never was so much the subject of his father's favour. And 'tis more heinous and odious, if these thoughts, which possess our souls, be at any time conversant about some Idea of our own framing. It were not altogether so bad, if we loved something of God's creating, which had a physical goodness, and a real usefulness in it to allure us: but to run wildly to embrace an Ens rationis, to prefer a thing of no existence, but what is coloured by our own imagination, of no virtue, no usefulness, a thing that God never created, nor pronounced good, is a greater enmity, and a higher slight of God. 6. In respect of Connaturalness and voluntariness. They are the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Plutarch. Moral. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 T●ales. Diog. Lacrt. and they are continually evil. They are as natural as the aestuations of the Sea, the bubblings of a fountain, or the twinkle of the stars. The more natural any motion is ordinarily the quicker it is. Time is requisite to action, but thoughts have an instantaneous motion. The body is a heavy piece of clay, but the mind can start out on every occasion. Actions have their stated times and places; but these solicit us, and are entertained by us at all seasons. Neither day nor night, street nor closet, exchange nor temple, can privilege us from them; We meet them at every turn, and they strike upon our souls as often as light upon our eyes. There is no restraint for them, The Laws of men, the constitution of the body, the interest of profit or credit, are mighty bars in the way of outward profaneness: but nothing lays the reins upon thoughts but the Law of God; and this man is not subject to, neither can be. ‖ Rom. 8.7. Besides, the natural Atheism in man is a special friend and nurse of these; few firmly believing either the omniscience of God, or his government of the world; which the Scripture speaks of frequently, as the cause of most sins among the sons of men † Isai. 29.15. Ezek. 9.9. Job 22.13, 14. . Actions are done with some reluctance, and nips of natural conscience. Conscience will start at a gross temptation, but it is not frighted at thoughts. Men may commit speculative folly, and their conscience look on, without so much as a nod against it: Men may tear out their neighbour's bowels in secret wishes, and their conscience never interpose to part the fray. Conscience indeed cannot take notice of all of them; they are too subtle in their nature, and too quick for the observation of a finite principle. They are many, † Prov. 19.21. There are many devices in a man's heart. Florus l. 2. c. 3. Mayor aliquanto●abor erat invenire, quam vincere, and they are nimble too: like the bubblings of a boiling pot, or the rising of a wave, that presently slides into its level; and as Florus saith of the Ligurians, the difficulty is more to find, than conquer them. They are secret sins, and are no more discerned than motes in the air, without a spiritual sunbeam; whence David cries out, Psal. 19.12. Cleanse me from secret sins: which some explain of sins of thoughts that were like sudden and frequent flashes of lightning, too quick for his notice, and unknown to himself, There is also more delight in them. There is less of temptation in them, and so more of election; and consequently more of the heart and pleasure in them, when they lodge with us. Acts of sin are troublesome, there is danger as well as pleasure in many of them: but there is no outward danger in thoughts; therefore the complacency is more compact, and free from distraction. The delight is more unmixed too; as intellectual pleasures are more refined than sensual. All these considerations will enhance the guilt of these inward operations. The Uses shall be two, though many Inferences might be drawn from the point, 1. Reproof. What a mass of vanity should we find in our minds, if we could bring our thoughts in the space of one day, yea but one hour, to an account? How many foolish thoughts with our wisdom, ignorant with our knowledge, worldly with our heavenliness, hypocritical with our religion, and proud with our humiliations? Our hearts would be like a Grott, furnished with monstrous and ridiculous pictures: Ezek 8.5.10. or as the wall in Ezekiel's vision portrayed with every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts; a greater abomination than the Image of jealousy at the outward gate of the Altar. Were our inwards opened, how should we stand gazing both with scorn and wonder at our being such a pack of fools? Well may we cry out with Agur, Prov. 30.2. We have not the understandings of men: we make not the use of them, as is requisite for rational creatures: because we degrade them to attendances on a brutish fancy. I make no question, but were we able to know the fancies of some irrational creatures, we should find them more noble, heroic and generous in suo genere, than the thoughts of most men; more agreeable to their natures, and suited to the law of their creation † Psal. 10 4. God is not in all his thought. . How little is God in any of our thoughts, according to His excellency? No, our shops, our rents, our backs, and bellies usurp God's room. If any thoughts of God do start up in us, how many covetous, ambitious, wanton, revengeful thoughts are jumbled together with them? Is it not a monstrous absurdity to place our friend with a crew of vipers, to lodge a King in a sty, and entertain him with the fumes of a jakes and dunghill? A wicked man's heart is little worth, Prov. 10.20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver, etc. Apud nos & cogitare peccare est. Minucius Foelix. all the peddling wares and works in his inward shop are not valuable with one silver drop from a gracious man's lips. It was an invincible argument of the primitive Christians for the purity of the Christian Religion above all others in the world, that it did prohibit evil thoughts: And is it not as unanswerable an argument that we are no Christians, if we give liberty to them? What is our moral conversation outwardly, but only a bare abstinence from sin; not a disaffection? Were we really and altogether Christians, would not that which is the chiefest purity of Christianity, be our pleasure? And would we any more wrong God in our secret hearts, than in the open streets? Is not thought a beam of the mind, and shall it be enamoured only on a dunghill? Is not the understanding the eye of the soul, and shall it behold only guilded nothings? 'Tis the flower of the spirit: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Shall we let every Caterpillar suck it? 'Tis the Queen in us: Shall every ruffian deflore it? 'Tis as the Sun in our heaven: and shall we besmear it with misty fancies? It was created surely for better purposes, Lampridius. than to catch a thousand weight of spiders (as Heliogabalus employed his Servants.) It was not intended to be made the common fewer of filthiness, or ranked among those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. Histor. animal. lib. 8. which eat not only fruit, and flesh, but flies, worms, dung, and all sorts of loathsome materials. Let not therefore our minds wallow in a sink of fantastical follies; whereby to rob God of his due, and our souls of their happiness. 2. Exhortation. We must take care for the suppression of them. All vice doth arise from imagination; Upon what stock doth ambition and revenge grow, Mirandul. de Imaginat. c 7. Isay 55.7. Let the wicked forsake his way, & the unrighteous man his thoughts, etc. but upon a false conceit of the nature of honour? What engenders covetousness, but a mistaken fancy of the excellency of wealth? Thoughts must be forsaken as well as our way; we cannot else have an evidence of a true conversion: and if we do not discard them, we are not like to have an abundant pardon; and what will the issue of that be, but an abundant punishment? Mortification must extend to these: Affections must be crucified, Gal. 5.24. and all the little brats of thoughts, which beget them, or are begotten by them. Shall we nourish that, which brought down the wrath of God upon the old world; as though there had not been already sufficient experiments of the mischief they have done? Is it not our highest excellency to be conformed to God in holiness, in as full a measure as our finite natures are capable? And is not God holy in his counsels and inward operations, as well as in his works? Hath God any thoughts but what are righteous and just? Therefore the more foolish and vain our imaginations are, Eph. 4 17, 18. the more are we alienated from the life of God. The Gentiles were so, because they walked in the vanity of their mind; and we shall be so if vanity walk and dwell in ours. As the tenth Commandment forbids all unlawful thoughts and desires: so it obligeth us to all thoughts and desires, that may make us agreeable to the divine Will, and like to God himself. We shall find great advantage by suppressing them: We can more easily resist temptations without, if we conquer motions within. Thoughts are the mutineers in the soul, which set open the gates for Satan: He hath held a secret intelligence with them (so far as he knows them) ever since the fall: and they are his spies to assist him in the execution of his devices. They prepare the tinder and the next fiery dart sets all on a flame. Can we cherish these, if we consider that Christ died for them? He shed his blood for that which put the world out of order; which was accomplished by the sinful imagination of the first man, and continued by those imaginations mentioned in the Text. He died to restore God to his right, and man to his happiness: neither of which can be perfectly attained, till those be thrown out of the possession of the heart. That we may do this, Let us consider these following directions, which may be branched into these heads: 1. For the raising good thoughts. 2. Preventing bad. 3. Ordering bad when they do intrude. 4. Ordering good when they appear in us. 1. For raising good thoughts. 1. Get renewed hearts. The fountain must be cleansed which breeds the vermin. 2 Cor. 5, 17. Jer. 4.14. Wash thy heart from wickedness, etc. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? Pure vapours can never ascend from a filthy quagmire. What issue can there be of a vain heart, but vain imaginations? Thoughts will not become new, till a man is in Christ. We must be holy, before we can think holily. Sanctification is necessary for the dislodging of vain thoughts, and the introducing of good. A sanctified reason would both discover, and shame our natural follies. As all animal operations, so all the spiritual motions of our heads, depend upon the life of our hearts * Prov. 4.23. , as the principium originis. As there is a law in our members to bring us into Captivity to the law of sin, Rom. 7.23. so there must be a law in our minds to bring our thoughts to the obedience of Christ, 2 Cor. 10.5. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds, Ephes. 4.23. in our reasonings and thoughts, which are the spirits whereby the understanding acts; as the animal spirits are the instruments of corporeal motion. Till the understanding be born of the spirit † John 3.6. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit. , it will delight in, and think of, nothing but things suitable to its fleshly original: but when 'tis spiritual, it receives new impressions, new reasonings and motions, suitable to the Holy Ghost, of whom it is born. A stone, if thrown upwards a thousand times, will fall backward; because 'tis a forced motion: but if the nature of this stone were changed into that of fire, it would mount as naturally upward, as before it sunk downward. You may force some thoughts toward heaven sometimes, but they will not be natural, till nature be changed. Grace only gives stability, † Heb. 13.9. It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace. and prevents fluctuation, by fixing the soul upon God as its chief end: and what is our end will not only be first in our intentions, but most frequent in our considerations. Hence a sanctified heart is called in Scripture a steadfast heart There must be an enmity against Satan put into our hearts, according to the first promise, before we can have an enmity against his imps, or any thing that is like him. 2. Study Scripture. Original corruption stuffs us with bad thoughts, and Scripture-knowledg would stock us with good ones; for it proposeth things in such terms, as exceedingly suit our imaginative faculty, as well as strengthen our understanding. Phil. 1.9, 1●. Judicious knowledge would make us approve things that are excellent: and where such things are approved, toys cannot be welcome. Fullness is the cause of steadfastness. The cause of an intent and piercing eye is the multitude of animal spirits. Without this skill in the word we shall have as foolish conceits of divine things, as ignorant men without the rules of art have of the Sun and Stars, or things in other countries which they never saw. The word is called a lamp to our feet, i. e. the affections: a light to our eyes, Psal. 119.105. Psal. 19.8. enlightens the eyes. i. e, the understanding. It will direct the glances of our minds, and the motions of our affections. It enlightens the eyes, and makes us have a new prospect of things: as a Scholar newly entered into Logic, and studied the predicaments, etc. looks upon every thing with a new eye, and more rational thoughts, and is mightily delighted with every thing he sees; because he eyes them as clothed with those notions he hath newly studied. The Devil had not his engines so ready to assault Christ, as Christ from his knowledge had Scripture-precepts to oppose him. As our Saviourby this means stifled thoughts offered, so by the same we may be able to smother thoughts arising in us. Lecti●ne assidua & meditatione diuturna pectus suum bibliothecam Christi fecerat. Hierom. Ep 3. Converse therefore often with the Scripture, transcribe it in your heart, and turn it in succum & sanguinem; whereby a vigour will be derived into every part of your soul, as there is by what you eat to every member of your body. Thus you will make your mind Christ's library, as Hierom speaks of Nepotianus. 3. Reflect often upon the frame of your mind at your first conversion. None have more settled, and more pleasant thoughts of divine things than new converts, when they first clasp about Christ; partly because of the novelty of their state, and partly because God puts a full stock into them; and diligent tradesmen at their first setting up have their mind's intent upon improving their stock. Endeavour to put your mind in the same posture it was then. Or if you cannot tell the time when you did first close with Christ, recollect those seasons wherein you have found your affections most fervent, your thoughts most united, and your mind most elevated; as when you renewed repentance upon any fall, or had some notable chearings from God; and consider what matter it was which carried your heart upward, what employment you were engaged in, when good thoughts did fill your soul, and try the same experiment again. Asaph would oppose God's ancient works to his murmuring thoughts: he would remember his song in the night, i. e. the matter of his song, and read over the records of God's kindness. * Psal 77.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. David too would never forget, i. e. frequently renew, the remembrance of those precepts, whereby God had particularly quickened him † Psal. 119.93. . Yea, he would reflect upon the places too, where he had formerly conversed with God, to rescue himself from dejecting thoughts; therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Missar ‖ Psal. 42.6. Some elevations surely David had felt in those places, the remembrance whereof would sweeten the sharpness of his present grief. When our former sins visit our minds, pleading to be speculatively reacted, let us remember the holy dispositions we had in our repentance for them, and the thankful frames, Luke 24.32. Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? when God pardoned them. The Disciples at Christ's second appearance reflected upon their own warm temper at his first discourse with them in a disguise, to confirm their faith, and expel their unbelieving conceits, Strive to recollect truths, precepts, promises, with the same affection which possessed your Souls, when they first appeared in their glory and sweetness to you. 4. Ballast your heart with a Love to God. David thought all the day of God's Law, as other men do of their lusts, because he unexpressibly loved it * Psal. 119.97, 113. Oh how I love thy Law! It is my meditation all the day, v. 113. I hate vain thoughts, but thy Law do I love. Aeneas oculis semper vigilantis inhaeret: Aeneam animo nóxque diésque refert. Ovid. Ep. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Lucian Dialog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. . This was the successful means he used to stifle vain thoughts, and excite his hatred of them. 'Tis the property of love to think no evil, 2 Cor. 13.5. It thinks good and delightful thoughts of God; friendly and useful thoughts of others. It fixeth the Image of our beloved object in our minds, that 'tis not in the power of other fancies to displace it. The beauty of an object will fasten a rolling eye. 'Tis difficult to divorce our hearts and thoughts from that which appears lovely and glorious in our minds, whether it be God or the world. Love will by a pleasing violence bind down our thoughts, and hunt away other affections; If it doth not establish our minds, they will be like a Cork, which with a light breath, and a short curl of water, shall be tossed up and down from its station. Scholars that love learning will be continually hammering upon some notion or other, which may further their progress, and as greedily clasp it, as the Iron will its beloved Loadstone. He that is winged with a divine love to Christ, will have frequent glances and flights towards him, and will start out from his worldly business, several times in a day, to give him a visit. Love in the very working is a settling grace; it increaseth our delight in God, partly by the sight of his amiableness, which is cleared to us in the very act of loving, and partly by the recompenses he gives to the affectionate carriage of his creature; both which will stake down the heart from vagaries, or giving entertainment to such lose companions, as evil thoughts are. Well then, if we had this heavenly affection strong in us, it would not suffer unwholesome weeds to grow up so near it; either our Love would consume those weeds, or those weeds will choke our Love. 5. Exercise faith. As the habit of faith is attended with habitual sanctification, so the acts of faith are accompanied with a progress in the degrees of it. That faith which brings Christ to dwell in our souls, will make us often think of our inmate. Faith doth realize divine things, and make absent objects as present; and so furnisheth fancy with richer streams to bathe itself in, than any other principle in the world. As there is a necessity of the use of fancy, while the soul is linked to the body, so there is also a necessity of a corrective for it. Reason doth in part regulate it, but 'tis too weak to do it perfectly, because fancy in most men is stronger than reason; Mirand. de Imaginat. cap. 11, 12. man being the highest of imaginative beings, and the lowest of intelligent; fancy is in its exaltation more than in creatures beneath him, and reason in its detriment more than in creatures above him; and therefore the imagination needs a more skilful guide than reason. Fancy is like fire, a good Servant but a bad Master; if it march under the conduct of faith it may be highly serviceable, and by putting lively colours upon divine truth may steal away our affections to it. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, viz. not by a corporeal, but intellectual eye; and so it will supply the office of sense: 'Tis the substance of things hoped for; and if hope be an attendant on faith, Psal. 42.5. Why art thou cast down, Oh my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. our thoughts will surely follow our expectations. The remedy David used, when he was almost stifled with disquieting thoughts, was to excite his soul to a hope and confidence in God, Psal. 42.5. and when they returned upon him, he useth the same diversion, v. 11. The peace of God, i. e. the reconciliation made by a Mediator between God and us believingly apprehended, will keep [or garrison] our hearts and minds [or thoughts] against all anxious assaults both from within and without † Phillip 4.6, 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . When any vain conceit creeps up in you, act faith on the intercession of Christ; and consider, Is Christ thinking of me now in Heaven, and pleading for me, and shall I squander away my thoughts on trifles, which will cost me both tears and blushes? Believingly meditate on the promises; they are a means to cleanse us from the filthiness of the spirit, as well as that of the flesh * 2 Cor 7.1. Having therefore these promises, let us cleanse ourselves, etc. If the having them be a motive, the using them will be a means to attain this end. Looking at the things that are not seen, preserves us from fainting, and renews the inward man day by day † 2 Cor. 4.16, 18. . These invisible things could not well keep our hearts from fainting, if faith did not first keep the thoughts from wand'ring from them. 6. Accustom yourself to a serious meditation every morning. Fresh airing our souls in Heaven will engender in us purer spirits, and nobler thoughts. A morning seasoning would secure us for all the day. Intus existens prohibet alienum. Though other necessary thoughts about our callings will, and must come in, yet when we have dispatched them, let us attend our morning Theme as our chief companion. As a man that is going with another about some considerable business, suppose to Westminster, though he meets with several friends in the way, and salutes some, and others with whom he hath some affairs he spends a little time, yet he quickly returns to his companion, and both together go their intended stage. Do thus in the present case. Our minds are active, and will be doing something though to little purpose, and if they be not fixed upon some noble object, they will like mad men and fools be mightily pleased in playing with straws. The thoughts of God were the first Visiters David had in the morning; Psal. 139 17, 18 God and his heart met together as soon as he was awake, and kept company all the day after. In this meditation look both to the matter and manner. 1. Look to the matter of your meditation. Let it be some truth, which will assist you in reviving some languishing grace, or fortify you against some triumphing corruption; for 'tis our darling sin which doth most envenom our thoughts † Prov. 23.7. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. . As if you have a thirst for honour, let your fancy represent the honour of being a child of God and heir of Heaven. If you are inclined to covetousness, think of the riches stored up in a Saviour, and dispensed by him. If to voluptuousness, fancy the pleasures in the ways of wisdom here, and at God's right hand hereafter. This is to deal with our hearts as Paul with his hearers, to catch them with guile. Stake your soul down to some serious and profitable mystery of Religion; as the Majesty of God, some particular Attribute, The heads of the Catechism might be taken in order, which would both increase and actuate our knowledge. Psal. 40.5. his condescension in Christ, the love of our Redeemer, the value of his sufferings, the virtue of his blood, the end of his ascension, the work of the Spirit, the excellency of the soul, beauty of holiness, certainty of death, terror of judgement, torments of Hell, and joys of Heaven. Why may not that which was the subject of God's innumerable thoughts, be the subject of ours? God's thoughts and counsels were concerning Christ, the end of his coming, his death, his precepts of holiness, and promises of life; and that not only speculatively, but with an infinite pleasure in his own glory, and the creatures good to be accomplished by him. Would it not be work enough for our thoughts all the day to travel over the length, breadth, height, and depth of the love of Christ? Would the greatness of the journey give us leisure to make any starts out of the way? Having settled the Theme for all the day, we shall find occasional assistances, even from worldly businesses; as Scholars, who have some Exercise to make, find helps in their own course of reading, though the Book hath not designed respect to their proper Theme. Thus by employing our minds about one thing chief, we shall not only hinder them from vain excursions, but make even common objects to be oil to our good thoughts, which otherwise would have been fuel for our bad. Such generous liquor would scent our minds and conversations all the day; that whatsoever motion came into our hearts, would be tinctured with this spirit, and savour of our morning thoughts: as vessels having been filled with a rich wine, communicate a relish of it to the liquors afterward put into them. We might also more steadily go about our worldly business, if we carry God in our minds; as one foot of the Compass will more regularly move about the Circumference, when the other remains firm in the Centre. 2. Look to the manner of it. 1. Let it be intent. Transitory thoughts are like the glances of the eye, soon on, and soon off; they make no clear discovery, and consequently raise no sprightly affections. Let it be one principal subject, and without flitting from it; for if our thoughts be unsteady, we shall find but little warmth: a burning glass often shifted fires nothing. We must look at the things that are not seen, as wistly as men do at a mark they shoot at. 2 Cor. 4.18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 2 Cor. 3.18. Such an intent meditation would change us into the image, and cast us into the mould of those truths we think of; it would make our minds more busy about them all the day: as a glaring upon the Sun fills our eyes for some time after with the image of it. To this purpose look upon yourselves as deeply concerned in the things you think of. Our minds dwell upon that whereof we apprehend an absolute necessity. A condemned person would scarce think of any thing but procuring a reprieve, and his earnestness for this would bar the door against other intruders. 2. Let it be affectionate and practical. Meditation should excite a spiritual delight in God, as it did in the Psalmist † Psal. 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. ; and a divine delight would keep up good thoughts, and keep out impertinencies. A bare speculation will tyre the soul, and without application, and pressing upon the will and affections, will rather i'll, than warm devotion. 'Tis only by this means, that we shall have the efficacy of truth in our wills, and the sweetness in our affections, as well as the notion of it in our understandings. The more operative any truth is in this manner upon us, the less power will other thoughts have to interrupt, and the more disdainfully will the heart look upon them, if they dare be impudent. Never therefore leave thinking of a spiritual subject, till your heart be affected with it. If you think of the evil of sin, leave not till your heart loathe it; if of God, cease not till it mount up in admirations of him. If you think of his mercy, melt for abusing it; if of his sovereignty, awe your heart into obedient resolutions; if of his presence, double your watch over yourself. If you meditate on Christ, make no end till your hearts love him; if of his death, plead the value of it for the justification of your persons, and apply the virtue of it for the sanctification of your natures. Without this practical stamp upon our affections, we shall have light spirits, while we have opportunity to converse with the most serious objects. We often hear foolish thoughts breathing out themselves in a house of mourning, in the midst of Coffins, and trophies of death, as if men were confident they should never die; whereas none are so ridiculous as to assert they shall live for ever. By this instance in a truth so certainly assented to, we may judge of the necessity of this direction in truths more doubtfully believed. 7. Draw spiritual Inferences from occasional objects. David did but wistly consider the Heavens, and he breaks out in self-abasement, Psal. 8.3, 4. and humble admirations of God. Glean matter of instruction to yourselves, and praise to your Maker, from every thing you see: It will be a degree of restoration to a state of innocency, since this was Adam's task in Paradise. Dwell not upon any created object only as a Virtuoso, to gratify your rational curiosity; but as a Christian call Religion to the feast, and make a spiritual improvement. No creature can meet our eyes, but affords us lessons worthy our thoughts; besides the general notices of the power and wisdom of the Creator. Thus may the Sheep read us a Lecture of patience, the Dove of innocence, the Ant and Bee raise blushes in us for our sluggishness, and the stupid Ox and dull Ass correct and shame our ungrateful ignorance. Isa. 1.3. And since our Saviour did set forth his own excellency in a sensible dress, the consideration of those Metaphors by an acute fancy would garnish out divine truths more deliciously, and conduct us into a more inward knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel. He whose eyes are open, cannot want an instructor, unless he wants a heart. Thus may a Tradesman spiritualise the matter he works upon, and make his commodities serve in wholesome meditations to his mind, and at once enrich both his soul and his coffers; yea, and in part restore the creatures to the happiness of answering a great end of their Creation, which man deprived them of when he subjected them to vanity. Such a view of spiritual truths in sensible pictures would clear our knowledge, purify our fancies, animate our affections, encourage our graces, disgrace our vices, and both argue and shame us into duty; and thus take away all the causes of our wild wand'ring thoughts at once. And a frequent exercise of this method would beget and support a habit of thinking well, and weaken, if not expel, a habit of thinking ill. 2. The second sort of directions are for the preventing bad thoughts. And to this purpose. 1. Exercise frequent humiliations. Pride exposeth us to impatient and disquieting thoughts: whereas humility clears up a calm and serenity in the soul. Prov. 30.32. 'Tis Agur's advice to be humbled particularly for evil thoughts. Frequent humiliations will dead the fire within, and make the sparks the fewer. The deeper the plough sinks the more the weeds are killed, and the ground fitted for good grain. Men do not easily fall into those sins, for which they have been deeply humbled. Vain conceits love to reside most in jolly hearts: but by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Eccles. 7.3, 4. There is more of wisdom, or wise consideration in a composed and graciously mournful spirit, whereas carnal mirth and sports cause the heart to evaporate into lightness and folly. The more we are humbled for them, the more our hatred of them will be fomented: and consequently, the more prepared shall we be to give them a repulse upon any bold intrusion. 2. Avoid entangling yourselves with the world. This clay will clog our minds, Lutea faelicitas. Aug. de Civ Dei. l. 10. and a dirty happiness will engender but dirty thoughts. Who were so foolish to have inward thoughts, that their houses should continue for ever, but those that trusted in their riches † Psal. 49 6, 11. ? If the world possess our souls, it will breed carking thoughts: much business meets with crosses, and then it breeds murmuring thoughts; and sometimes it is crowned with success, and then it starts proud and self-applauding thoughts. 1 Tim. 6.9 Those that will be rich fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts: Such lusts that make men fools; and one part of folly is to have wild and senseless fancies. Mists and fogs are in the lower region near the earth; but reach not that next the Heavens. Were we free from earthly affections, these gross vapours could not so easily disturb our minds; but if the World once settle in our hearts, we shall never want the sums of it to fill our heads. And as covetous desires will stuff us with foolish imaginations, so they will smother any good thought cast into us; as the thorns of worldly cares choked the good seed, and made it unfruitful, Mat. 13.22. As we are to rejoice in the world, as though we rejoiced not: so, by the same reason, we should think of the world as though we thought not. A conformity with the world in affection is inconsistent with a change of the frame of the mind. Rom. 12.2. 3. Avoid idleness. Serious callings do naturally compose men's spirits: but too much recreation makes them blaze out in vanity. Idle souls, as well as idle persons, will be ranging. As idleness in a State is both the mother and nurse of faction; and in the natural body gives birth and increase to many diseases, by enfeebling the natural heat: so it both kindles and foments many light and unprofitable imaginations in the soul; which would be sufficiently diverted, if the active mind were kept intent upon some stated work. So truly may that which was said of the servant, be applied to our nobler part, Mat. 25.26. Thou wicked and slothful servant. Mat. 13 25. that it will be wicked, if once it degenerates into slothfulness in its proper charge. As empty minds are the fittest subjects for extravagant fooleries, so vacant times are the fittest seasons. While we sleep the importunate enemy within, as well as the envious adversary without us, will have a successful opportunity to sow the tares: Whereas a constant employment frustrates the attempt, and discourageth the Devil, because he sees we are not at leisure. Therefore when any sinful motion steps in, double thy vigour about thy present business, and the foolish impertinent will sneak out of thy heart at this discountenance. So true is that in this case, which Pharaoh falsely imagined in another, that the more we labour, the less we shall regard vain words † Exod 5.9. . As Satan is prevented by diligence in our callings, so sometimes the Spirit visits us, and fills us with holy affections at such seasons; as Christ appeared to Peter and other Disciples, when they were a fishing † Joh. 21.3, 4. ; and usually manifested his grace to men, when they were engaged in their useful businesses, or religious services. But these motions (as we may observe by the way) which come from the Spirit, are not to put us out of our way, but to assist us in our walking in it, and further us both in our attendance on, and success in our duties. To this end look upon the work of your callings as the work of God, which ought to be done in obedience to Him; as He hath set you to be useful in the community. Thus a holy exercise of our callings would sanctify our minds, and by prepossessing them with solid business we should leave little room for any spider to wove its Cobwebs. 4. Awe your hearts with the thoughts of God's omniscience, especially the discovery of it at the last judgement. We are very much Atheists in the concern of this Attribute: for though it be notionally believed, yet for the most part it is practically denied. God understands all our thoughts afar off † Psal. 139.2. : as He knew every creature, which lay hid in the Chaos, and undigested lump of matter. God is in us all * Eph. 4.6, ; as much in us all, as He is above us all; yea in every creek, and chink, and point of our hearts. Not an Atom in the spirits of all men in the world, but is obvious to that allseeing eye, which knows every one of those things that come into our minds † Ezek. 11, 5. . God knows both the order and confusion of them, and can better tell their natures one by one than Adam named the creatures. Fancy then, that you hear the sound of the last Trumpet, that you see God's tribunal set, and His omniscience calling out singly all the secrets of your heart. Would not the consideration of this allay the heat of all other imaginations? If a foolish thought break in, consider, What if God, who knows this, should presently call me to judgement for this sinful glance? psal. 44 21. Say with the Church, Shall not God search this out? Is it fit either for God's glory, or our interest, that when He comes to make inquisition in us, He should find such a nasty dunghill, and swarms of Egyptian lice and frogs creeping up and down our chambers? Were our heads and hearts possessed by this substantial truth, we should be ashamed to think, what we shall be ashamed to own at the last day. 5. Keep a constant watch over your hearts. David desires God to set a watch before the door of his lips; Psal. 141.3. much more should we desire, that God would keep the door of our hearts. We should have grace stand sentinel there especially; for words have an outward bridle, they may disgrace a man, and impair his interest and credit: but thoughts are unknown, if undiscovered by words. If a man knew what time the thief would come to rob him, he would watch. We know we have thiefs within us to steal away our hearts; therefore when they are so near us, we should watch against a surprise; and the more carefully, because they are so extraordinary sudden in their rise, and quick in their motion. Our minds are like idle Schoolboys, that will be frisking from one place to another, if the Master's back be turned, and playing instead of learning. Let a strict hand be kept over our affections, those wild beasts within us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plato. because they many times force the understanding to pass a judgement according to their pleasure, not its own sentiment. Young men should be most intent upon their guard; because their fancies gather vigour from their youthful heat, which fires a world of squibs in a day; (which madmen, and those which have hot diseases are subject to, because of the excessive inflammation of their brains): and partly because they are not sprung up to a maturity of knowledge, which would breed and foster better thoughts, and discover the plausible pretences of vain affections. There are particular seasons wherein we must double our guard; as when incentives are present, that may set some inward corruption on a flame. 1 Tim. 5.2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Timothy's office was to exhort younger, as well as elder women: and the Apostle wisheth him to do it with all purity or chastity, that a temptation, lying in ambush for him, might not take his thoughts and affections unguarded. Engage thy diligence more at solitary times, and in the night; wherein freedom from business gives an opportunity to an unsanctified imagination, to conjure up a thousand evil spirits: whence perhaps it is that the Psalmist tells us, Psal. 17.3. Gen 19.30. Cellulam mearum cogitationum pertimescebam. Hieron. God had tried him in the night, and found him holy. The solitary Cave tainted Lot with incest, who had preserved himself fresh in the midst of the salt lusts of Sodom. In ill company, wherein we may be occasionally cast, there is need of an exacter observation of our hearts: lest corrupt steams, which rise from them, as vapours from lakes and minerals, being breathed in by us, may tincture our spirits; or as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which (as Physicians tell us) exhaling from consumptive persons, do by inspiration steal into our blood, and convey a contagion to us. And though above all keep and watch we are to keep and watch our hearts, Prov. 4.23. because out of them are the issues of life: yet we must walk the rounds about our senses, and members of the body, as the wise man there adviseth, v. 24. the mouth which utters wickedness; the eyes, v. 25. which are brokers to make bargains for the heart; and v. 26. the feet which are agents to run on the errands of sin. And the rather must we watch over our senses, because we are naturally more ready to follow the motions of them, as having had a longer acquaintance and familiarity with them before we grew up to the use of reason. Besides, Plotinus describes thought thus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ennead. 1. lib. Cor & oculi sunt proxenctae peccati. most of our thoughts creep in first at the windows of sense: The eye and the ear robbed Eve of original righteousness: and the eye rifled David both of his justice and chastity. If the eyes behold strange women, the heart will utter perverse things, Prov. 23.33. Perverse thoughts will sparkle from a rolling eye. Revel-rout is usual where there is a negligent government. He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls † Prov. 25.28 ; where any thiefs may go in and out at pleasure. 3. The third sort of directions are for the ordering of evil thoughts, when they do intrude, and, 1. Examine them. Look often into your heart to see what it is doing: and what thoughts you find dabbling in it, call to an account: inquire what business they have, what their errand and design is, whence they come, and whither they tend. David asked his soul the reason of its troubled thoughts; Psal. 42.11. Why art thou disquieted O my soul? so ask thy heart the reason why it entertains such ill company, and by what authority they come there, and leave not chiding, till thou hast put it to the blush. Bring every thought to the test of the Word. Asaph had envious thoughts at the prosperity of the wicked, Psal. 73.2, 3. which had almost tripped him up, and laid him on his back. And these had blown up Atheistical thoughts, that God did not much regard, whether his commands were kept or no; as though God had untied the link between duty and reward, and the breach of his laws were the readiest means to a favourable recompense; v. 13. I have cleansed my hands in vain. But when he weighed things in the balance of the sanctuary, by the holy rules of God's patience and justice, v. 17. He sees the brutishness of his former conceits; v. 22. So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee; and v. 25. he makes an improvement of them to excite his desire for God, and delight in Him. Let us compare our thoughts with Scripture-rules. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, is the way to understand them; comparing spiritual sins with spiritual commands, is the way to know them; and comparing spiritual vices with spiritual graces, is the way to loathe them. Take not then any thing upon trust from a crazy fancy: nor, without a scrutiny; believe that faculty, whereby dogs dream, and animals perform their natural exploits. 2. Check them at the first appearance. If they bear upon them a palpable mark of sin, bestow not upon them the honour of an examination. If the leprosy appear in their foreheads, thrust them as the Priests did Vzziah out of the Temple: or as David answered his wicked solicitors, Psal. 119.115. Depart from me ye evil doers: for I will keep the commandments of my God. Though we cannot hinder them from haunting us, yet we may from lodging in us. The very sparkling of an abominable motion in our hearts is as little to be looked upon; as the colour of wine in a glass by a man inclined to drunkenness. Quench them instantly, as you would do a spark of fire in a heap of straw: We must not treat with them: Paul's resolve is a good pattern not to confer with flesh and blood † Gal. 1.16. . Hic Annibal virtute non mora frangitur. . We do not debate whether we should shake a viper off our hands. If it be plainly a sinful motion, a treaty with it is a degree of disobedience; for a putting it to the question whether we should suckle it, is to question whether God should be obeyed or no. If it savour not of the things of God, hear not its reasons, and compliment it with no less indignation than our Saviour did his officious Disciple upon his carnal advice; Get thee behind me Satan, Mat. 16.22, 23. Excuse it not, because 'tis little: Small vapours may compact themselves into great clouds, and obstruct our sight of heaven: a little poison may spread its venom through a great quantity of meat. Ex hinc nota est infirmitas mea: quia multo faciliùs irruunt abominandae phantasiae quàm discedunt. Kemp. de Imit. Chr. lib. 3. cap. 20. We know not how big a small motion, like a Crocodile's egg, may grow, and how ravenous the breed may prove: it may, if entertained, force our Judgement, drag our Will, and make all our affections Bedlams. Besides, since the Fancy is that power in us upon which the Devil can immediately imprint his suggestions, and that we know not what army he hath to back any sinful motion, if once the gate be set open; let us crush the brat betimes, and fling the head over the wall to discourage the party. Well then, let us be ashamed to cherish that in our thoughts, which we should be ashamed should break out in our words or actions: therefore as soon as you perceive it base, spit it out with detestation: as you do a thing you unexpectedly find ungrateful to your palate. 3. Improve them. Poisons may be made medicinable. Let the thoughts of old sins stir up a commotion of anger and hatred. We feel shiverings in our spirits, and a motion in our blood at the very thought of a bitter Potion we have formerly taken: why may we not do that spiritually, which the very frame and constitution of our bodies doth naturally, upon the calling a loathsome thing to mind? The Romans sins were transient, but the shame was renewed every time they reflected on them † Rom. 6.21. Whereof you are now ashamed. : they reacted a detestation instead of the pleasure: so should the revivings of old sins in our memories be entertained with our sighs, rather than our joy. We should also manage the opportunity so as to promote some further degrees of our conversion * Psal. 119.59. I thought on my ways: and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. . There is not the most hellish motion, but we may strike some sparks from it, to kindle our love to God, renew our repentance, raise our thankfulness, or quicken our obedience. Is it a blasphemous motion against God? It gives you a just occasion thence to awe your heart into a deeper reverence of His Majesty. Is it a lustful thought? Open the floodgates of your godly sorrow, and groan for your original sin. Is it a remembrance of your former sin? Let it wind up your heart in the praises of him, who delivered you from it. Is it to tempt you from duty? Endeavour to be more zealous in the performance of it. Is it to set you at a distance from God? Resolve to be a light shining the clearer in that darkness, and let it excite you to a closer adherence to him. Are they envious thoughts which steal upon you? Let thankfulness be the product, that you enjoy so much as you do, and more than you deserve. Let Satan's fiery darts inflame your love rather than your Lust, and like a skilful Pilot, make use of the violence of the winds, and raging of the Sea to further you in your spiritual voyage. This is to beat the Devil and our own hearts with their own weapons; who will have little stomach to fight with those arms wherewith they see themselves wounded. There is not a remembrance of the worst objects but may be improved to humility and thankfulness; as St. Paul never thought of his old persecuting, but he sank down in humiliation, and mounted up in admirations of the riches of grace. 4. Continue your resistance, if they still importune thee, and lay not down thy weapons till they wholly shrink from thee. As the wise man speaks of a fool's words, so I may not only of our blacker, Eccl. 10.13. but our more acrial fancies, The beginning of them is foolishness, but if suffered to gather strength they may end in mischievous madness; therefore if they do continue, or reassume their arms, we must continue and reassume our shield * Eph 6.16. Above all taking the shield of faith; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, taking up again. . Resistance makes the Devil and his imps fly: but forbearance makes them impudent. In a battle when one party faints and retreats, it adds new spirits to the enemy that was almost broken before: so will these motions be the more vigorous, if they perceive we begin to flag. That encouraging command, Resist the Devil, and he will fly from you † Jam 4.7. , implies not only the beginning a fight, but continuance in it, till he doth fly. We must not leave the field, till they cease their importunity; nor increase their courage by our own cowardice. 5. Join Supplication with your opposition. Watch and pray are sometimes linked together * Mat. 26 41. . The diligence and multitude of our enemies should urge us to watch that we be not surprised; and our own weakness and proneness to presumption should make us pray, that we may be powerfully assisted. Be as frequent in soliciting God, as they are in soliciting you: as they knock at your heart for entrance, so do you knock at heaven for assistance. And take this for your comfort, As the Devil takes their parts, so Christ will take yours at his Father's Throne; he that prayed that the Devil might not winnow Peter's faith, will intercede that your own heart may not winnow yours. If the waves come upon you, and you are ready to sink, cry out with Peter. Master I perish; and you shall feel his hand raising you, and the winds and waves rebuked into obedience by him. The very motion of your heart's heaven-ward at such a time is a refusal of the thought that presseth upon you, and will be so put upon your account. When any of these buzzing flies discompose you, or more violent hurricanes shake your minds, cry out with David, Psal 86.11, 12. Unite my heart to fear thy Name; and a powerful word will soon silence these disturbing enemies, and settle your souls in a calm, and a praising posture. 4. A fourth sort of directions is concerning good motions; whether they spring naturally from a gracious principle, or are peculiarly breathed in by the spirit. There are ordinary bubblings of grace in a renewed mind, as there are of sins in an unregenerate heart; for grace is as active a principle as any; because 'tis a participation of the divine nature. But there are other thoughts darted in beyond the ordinary strain of thinking: which like the beams of the Sun, evidence both themselves and their original. And as concerning these motions joined together, take these Directions in short. 1. Welcome and entertain them. As 'tis our happiness, as well as our duty, to stifle evil motions: so 'tis our misery, as well as our sin, to extinguish heavenly. Strange fire should be presently quenched, but that which descends from heaven upon the Altar of a holy soul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Polycarp. Epist. ad Phil. terms holy persons. must be kept alive by quickening meditation. When a holy thought lights suddenly upon you, which hath no connexion with any antecedent business in your mind (provided it be not unseasonable, nor hinder you from any absolutely necessary duty either of religion, or your calling) receive it as a messenger from heaven: and the rather because 'tis a stranger. You know not but you may entertain an Angel, yea, something greater than an Angel, even the Holy Ghost. Open all the powers of your souls, like so many Organ-pipes, to receive the breath of this Spirit when he blows upon you. 'Tis a sign of an agreeableness between the heart and heaven, when we close with, and preserve spiritual motions. We need not stand long to examine them: they are evident by their holiness, sweetness, and spirituality. We may as easily discern them, as we can exotic plants from those that grow naturally in our own soil: or as a palate at the first taste can distinguish between a rich and generous wine, and a rough water. The thoughts instilled by the Spirit of adoption are not violent, tumultuous, full of perturbation: but, like himself, gentle and dovelike solicit, Gal 5 22. warm and holy impulses, and (when cherished) leave the soul in a more humble, heavenly, pure, and believing temper than they found it. 'Tis a high aggravation of sin to resist the Holy Ghost, Acts 7.51. Yet we may quench his motions by neglect, as well as by opposition, and by that means lose both the profit and pleasure, which would have attended the entertainment. Salvation came both to Zacheus his house and heart, upon embracing the first motion our Saviour was pleased to make him; Had he slighted that, 'tis uncertain whether another should have been bestowed upon him. The more such sprouts are planted and nourished in us, the less room will stinking weeds have to root themselves, and disperse their influence. And for thy own good thoughts, feed them, and keep them alive, that they may not be like a blaze of straw which takes birth, and expires the same minute. Brood upon them, and kill them not; as some birds do their young ones, Psal. 139.23. Try me, and know my thoughts. by too often flying from their nests. David kept up a staple of sound and good thoughts: he would scarce else have desired God to try, and know them, had they been only some few weak flashes at uncertain times. 2. Improve them for those ends, to which they naturally tend. 'Tis not enough to give them a bare reception, and forbear the smothering of them; but we must consider what affections are proper to be raised by them, either in the search of some truth, or performance of some duty. Those gleams, which shoot into us on the sudden, have some lesson sealed up in them, to be opened, and learned by us. When Peter upon the crowing of the cock called to mind his Master's admonition, he thought thereon and wept: † Mark 14 72. he did not only receive the spark, but kindled a suitable affection. A choice graft, though kept very carefully by us, yet if not presently set, will whither, and disappoint our expectation of the desired fruit. No man is without some secret whispers to dissuade him from some alluring and busy sin; † Job 33.14, 17. God speaks once, yea twice, that he may withdraw man from his purpose. as Cain had by an audible voice, Gen. 4.7. which had he observed to the damping the revengeful motion against his brother, he had prevented his brother's death, his own despair, and eternal ruin. Have you any motion to seek God's face, as David had? Let your heart's reply, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. * Psal. 27.8. The address will be most acceptable at such a time, when your heart is tuned by One, that searcheth the deep things of God, † 1 Cor. 2.10. and knows his mind, and what airs are most delightful to Him. Let our motion be quick in any duty which the Spirit doth suggest; and while he heaves our hearts, and oils our wheels, we shall do more in any religious service, and that more pleasantly and successfully, than at another time with all our own art and industry; for his injections are like water poured into a pump to raise up more; and as Satan's motions are not without a main body to second them, so neither do the Spirit's go unattended, without a sufficient strength to assist the entertainers of them. Well then, lie not at anchor, when a fresh gale would fill thy sails, but lay hold of the present opportunity. These seasons are often like those influences from certain conjunctions of the Planets, which if not (according to the Astrologer's opinion) presently applied, pass away, and return not again in many ages: So the Spirit's breathe are often determined, that if they be not entertained with suitable affections, the time will be unregainable, and the same gracious opportunities of a sweet intercourse may be for ever losts; for God will not have his holy Spirit dishonoured in always striving with wilful man. Gen. 6.3. When Judas neglected our Saviour's advertisement, John 13.21. the Devil quickly enters, and hurries him to the execution of his traitorous project, v. 27. and he never meets with any motion afterwards, but from his new Master, and that eternally fatal both to his body and soul. 3. Refer them, if possible, to assist your Morning meditation; that like little brooks arising from several springs, they may meet in one channel, and compose a more useful stream. What straggling good thoughts arise, though they may owe their birth to several occasions, and tend divers ways, yet list them in the service of that truth, to which you have committed the government of your mind that day: As Constables in a time of necessary business for the King take up men that are going about their honest and lawful occasions, and force them to join in one employ for the public service. Many accidental glances (as was observed before) will serve both to fix and illustrate your Morning proposition. But if it be an extraordinary injection, and cannot be referred to your standing Thesis, follow it, and let your thoughts run whither it will lead you: a Theme of the Spirit's setting is better than one of our own choosing. 4. Record the choicer of them. We may have occasion to look back upon them another time, either as grounds of comfort in some hour of temptation, or directions in some sudden emergency; but constantly as persuasive engagements to our necessary duty. Thus they may lie by us for further use, as money in our purse. Since Mary kept and pondered the short say of our Saviour in her heart, † Luke 2.17, 51. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesych. committing and fitting them as it were in her common-place book; why should not we also preserve the whispers of that Spirit, who receives from the same mouth and hand, what he both speaks and shows to us? It is pity the dust and filings of choicer metals, which may one time be melted down into a mass, should be lost in a heap of drossy thoughts. If we do not remember them, but like children are taken with their novelty, more than their substance, and like John Baptist's hearers, rejoice in their light only for a season, † Joh. 5.35. it will discourage the Spirit from sending any more; and then our hearts will be empty, and we know who stands ready to clap in his hellish swarms and legions. But howsoever we do, God will record our good thoughts as our excusers, if we improve them: as our accusers, if we reject them; and as He took notice how often He had appeared to Solomon, † 1 Kings 11.9. so He will take notice how often His Spirit hath appeared to us, and write down every motion, whereby we have been solicited, that they may be witnesses of his endeavours for our good, and our own wilfulness. 5. Back them with ejaculations. Let our hearts be ready to attend every injection from heaven with a motion to it: since 'tis ingratitude to receive a present, without returning an acknowledgement to the Benefactor. As God turns His thoughts of us into promises, so let us turn our thoughts of Him into prayers; and since his regards of us are darted in beams upon us, let them be reflected back upon Him in thankfulness for the gift, and earnestness both for the continuance and increase of such impressions; as David prayed that God would not take his holy Spirit from him, † Psal. 51.11. which had inspired him with his penitential resolutions. To what purpose doth the Holy Ghost descend upon us, but to declare to us the things which are freely given us of God? † 1 Cor. 2.12. And is it fit for us to hear such a declaration, without a quick suitable reflection? Since the Comforter is to b ●ng to our remembrance † Jo●. 14.26 what Christ both spoke and did; it must be for the same end, for which they were both spoken and acted by him, which was to bring us to a near converse with God. Therefore when the Spirit renews in our mind, a Gospel-truth, let us turn it into a present plea, and be God's remembrancers of His own promises, as the Spirit is our remembrancer of divine truths. We need not doubt some rich fruit of the application at such a season: since without question the impressions the Spirit stamps upon us, are as much according to God's will, † Rom. 8.27. as the intercessions he makes for us. Therefore when any holy thought doth advance itself in our souls, the most grateful reception we can bestow upon it, will be to suffer our hearts to be immediately fired by it, and imitate with a glowing devotion the Royal Prophet, in that form he hath drawn up to our hands; O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy servant, and prepare my heart unto thee. † 1 Chron. 29.18. This will be an encouragement to God to send more such guests into our hearts. And by an affectionate entertainment of them, we shall gain both a habit of thinking well, and a stock too. How must we govern our Tongues? Serm. XX. Ephes. 4.29. Let no corrupt Communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of Edifying, that it may minister Grace to the Hearers. IN these words is a prohibition, and admonition; every corrupt word is restrained, savoury and useful Discourse is enjoined. For exposition inquire 1. What is this corrupt speech that is forbid? Some restrain it to filthy unclean speech, others extend it to all wicked speech; I conceive it reaches also unto idle, empty, unprofitable Discourse, and to this apprehension I am led by the import of the Original word (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) which signifies rotten; and am further confirmed by the Antithesis in the latter clause of the Verse (But that which is good to the use of Edifying) where he seems to intimate, that the design of Discourse being the Edification of one another; as rotten unsound Wood, that will bear no stress, is not put into Building, so neither should sapless words, that have no heart in them, be used in our Conversing. Downright evil words may be here condemned eminently, unclean filthy words especially, but idle empty words I apprehend also included, as in Eph. 5.4. they are particularly expressed (neither filthiness nor foolish talking.) 2. What is understood by its goodness to the use of edifying? In the Original it sounds pretty harsh (to the edifying of use) which I take to be an Hebraism, and equivalent to useful Edification. Some way or other profitable our Discourse should be, to the imbettering and not worsting of ourselves, or Companions; and the goodness here spoken of, is its aptness to this end. Though our Discourse hath a higher or lower degree of goodness in it, as it promotes and refers to a greater or lesser good; That which refers to the imbettering of our Souls, is eminently good Discourse; and that which vulgarly carries the name of it: But we are not confined to this; if the Body, the Estate, the name of our Brother be industriously promoted, yea, if his mind be innocently cheered, the Discourse by this Rule seems allowed and approved. 3. What is that Grace that should be still ministered by it? Some understand it of Grace in the most noble sense, the begetting and strengthening which, by our converse we should still be endeavouring; but I cannot apprehend this singly meant, nor do I think the Apostle here speaks, of the adequate scope of our Discourse, for that he seems more generally to have laid down in the words last explained; But I conceive he points at a by end, that will result upon our eyeing the grand end, intimating that if our words are so useful, they are likely to be grateful to the hearers, and deservedly procure us grace and favour with them; Or else he here directs us, so to season our speech that it may be savoury, and have a good relish with all men; a relish of our wisdom, of our Charity, or some such like gift or Grace, that God hath bestowed upon us; And this way the Apostle seems to expound himself, Col. 4.6. (Let your speech be always with Grace, seasoned with Salt) the one is exegetical of the other if I mistake not: we should not speak as we spit, what comes next, but have that respect to matter and manner, as no man shall reasonably be disgusted at what we say, whereby he hopes we may be able to answer every one, attaining by this practice the tongue of the Learned; The Salt there advised is to prevent the putrefaction before cautioned. This grace of speech Christ was eminent in, whereon it is said of him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Psal. 45.2. Grace is poured into thy Lips. And by this as well as other Excellencies, he grew in favour with God and Man, Luke 2.52. From the various expressions in this latter clause I gather 1. That the design of our speech should be always to some good use. 2. That ordinarily we should aim at the promoting one another in grace. 3. That accordingly we should study that there be an aptness and Idoneity in our speech to these purposes. Prov. 15.2. The Tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright, but the mouth of Fools poureth, or belcheth out foolishness. But to wave particulars, I shall only pursue this general Observation. Obs. That our very Lips are under God's Laws. If we would approve ourselves universally Christians, we must look to our words, as well as hearts, and deeds. James 1.26. If any man among you seem to be Religious and bridle not his Tongue, this man's Religion is vain. The Case than I would speak to in answer to a query I may well expect from you, is, Query. How we may, and should order and govern our Tongues, that we may not by them talk away our Religion, but rather evidence, and confirm our holy profession? In handling which I would proceed by these gradations, showing, 1. That there is a great difficulty in governing the Tongue; it is noted as a very unruly Member, beyond other Members, yea, beyond every thing else, he speaks even despairingly of our mastering it, James 3.7, 8. Every kind of Beasts, and of Birds, and of Serpents, and things in the Sea is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind; but the Tongue can no man tame, it is an unruly evil. We find this by too sad Experience, persons that in their Actions are blameless, are frequently in their words very faulty, and scarce reckon themselves guilty. The double Guard that Nature hath set over it, of lips to secure and Imprison it, of Teeth as it were to punish it, suffices not to restrain it. It breaks through all the bounds of God and Nature, and hardly acknowledges any Master. Now the Tongue is so ungovernable, 1. In that it is a proud Member, being with its endowments of rational Discourse peculiar to man, whereas our other Members are generally common to Beasts; hereon we pride ourselves hugely in it, David calls it his Glory, Psal. 57.8. and it is certainly an Organ of great Excellency and Use, without which we were uncapable of Communion and Commerce, the chief advantages of humane life; all of us have on this Account a great Opinion of it, are much pleased to hear ourselves talk, promise ourselves great matters from our Tongue, that shall get us favour, that shall get us honour, when we despair in every thing, we have hope in that; That can make evil good by its plead, and that can make good evil by its reproaches, that shall revenge us on our Enemy that is otherwise too hard for us, and defend us at the Bar when aught is objected against us, you cannot imagine what confidence men have in their Tongues, and therefore no wonder they stand up so for the Liberty of them. Psal. 12.4. With our Tongues will we prevail, our lips are our own, who is Lord over us? Herein lies the impotent man's great power, and hereby he thinks to be even with every one, the hands many times are bound and can do nothing, it is a relief and pleasure that we can say what we list, if not before the face, yet behind the back, truly or falsely. The Tongue's power lies in its Liberty, which makes us so loath to have it abridged. When no way else Jeremiah's Enemies could hurt him, by this Dart they thought to wound him, Jer. 20.10. They therefore that are seeblest, and most destitute of other weapons, are loathest we should blunt or any way restrain them in the use of this. 2. In that the Tongue is an Active Member, much beyond any others; opportunity must be waited for their Actings, weariness is contracted by their Actings, but the Tongue is always ready, and never weary, that it must be continually watched. Active this Member is in itself; compared therefore to a fire, James 3.6. The Tongue is a fire, its volatility and Activity, as also its impartiality in respect of Friend or Foe, is hereby noted. Actuated also it is by many strong Springs within, that it is hard stopping its motion, or finding out sometimes whence it has its Impression. Pride, Anger, Envy, Malice, Hatred, all the wickedness of the Heart seeks its vent by the Tongue, and falls in upon it like streams on a Mill-wheel, that of itself is disposed to perpetual motion; how can it but move, and how can it regularly move, that is impelled by such various and vicious principles? The Tongue, says he, James 3.8. is full of deadly poison; all the ill humours are gathered to it, hence it is a great difficulty to cure or check the malignity of it. And yet moreover it is acted and vehemently incited from without; the Devil is still provoking of it without occasion, and by presenting occasions to show its tricks, so that there is little hope of its lying still, or acting according to God's will. What can be expected from a Member that for its own Activity is a fire, that is fed with such fuel, that is inflamed by such an Incendiary? For so the Apostle tells us, that it is set on fire of Hell, James 3.6. 3. In that it is not ware of its iniquity, what mischief it does, how guilty it is; whereon it is very hard either to prevent it or repent of it. What words did they drop, and yet how do they stand up in the defence of them, as if nothing had been said amiss? Mal. 3.13, 14, 15. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord, yet ye say, what have we spoken so much against thee? The Tongue is never in fault, if we might be Judge, and that its own Advocate; even they that are severest in censuring others words, have always something to say for their own. And the insensibleness of Tongue-sins may arise, 1. In regard of its sleight and nimbleness in its actings, especially when it Acts in an accustomed way, it vastly outruns our Observation, as in your ordinary Cursers and Swearers you may see. Not one in ten of their horrible Execrations is so much as noted by them, they patter them over, as a Parrot doth his lesson, without any present sense or after-reflection, and are ready if hastily charged, to swear they did not swear, and curse themselves if they cursed. 2. In regard of the imperceptible wound it makes, it draws no blood, it doth not immediately invade its Neighbour's Goods, and it cannot see what hurt it does, any wound it makes, it thinks it can lick it well again strait; but therein is a great deceit, it may lick its own lips and think so, and that ordinarily suffices: Alas! can they not bear one of its lashes? We did but talk, as we heard, as we thought, and that is nothing till it comes to be our own case. 3. In regard of the pleasure it takes in all it doth, that drowns all sense of evil in it, it cannot be sin that tastes so sweet. Whereas many other sins are not Acted without great pains, men draw at them like Horses, they proceed out of us, as the Devils out of the poor men, tormenting and tearing of us, that we are sensible of the evil of them: These sins of the Tongue are vented with ease, we are not wasted, nor any way wearied by them; yea, they ease us in their venting, we were big to be delivered of them, that some pleasure comes that way to us; and several things in us are mainly tickled by them; now Pride on a conceit of wit, than profaneness, in our very boldness. Again, Malice and Revenge; that it hath wreaked itself with such easiness: one Devil or other is still set on laughing in us, and thus these sins go down merrily with us, and are little suspected or censured by us, they look too pleasantly to mean any harm to us. Thus you find some tickled by those speeches, through which others were damned. 2 Pet. 2.13. Spots they are and blemishes (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) sporting themselves with their own deceive. 4. In regard of the applause it ordinarily hath. Whisperers and Tale-bearers how welcome are they to a great many for their story's sake? They procure oftentimes favour to themselves, while they are breaking the most entire Friendship. The profanest Scoffers, even at Religion itself, for some spark of wit in that their greatest folly are entertained commonly by laughter: one corruption or other in hearers cries up every thing that is ill said, and many things purely for being ill said; and these prating Fools are hardened in their sin, in that these laughing Fools make a mock of it, Prov. 14.9. Upon these Accounts than it appears no small difficulty to govern the Tongue; the more pains is to be took with it, the severer watch is to be set over it. 2. Secondly, The Tongue is a very mischievous Outlaw, no Member like it, if it get lose: what expressions has the Apostle of it? Jam. 3.6. a world of iniquity he calls it, knowing by nothing greater to set it out, and intimating all sin to be gathered together in it, Uncleanness, Injustice, Heresy, Hardheartedness, and what not? And yet as if he had not said enough, he adds, that it defiles the whole Body: It gins its mischief at home, like a recoiling Gun that lays its shooter in a shattered condition on his back, while it wounds his Brother at the heart; one cannot bespatter his Neighbour but he dirties, and daubs himself; the sin is his, and the shame shall be his, who ever may at present suffer by him. Can he charge any further mischief on the Tongue? (it setteth on fire the course of Nature) all the turbulent motions of these lower Spheres, are from the petulancy and inordinacy of this little Member, that lashes every thing out of its genuine pace; it sows Jealousies, it stirs up heats and Animosities, it foments' enmities, provokes to Injuries, it sets all the World together by the ears, that we had better been without Tongues, than that they should be without government. Yet more particularly. 1. It let's fly at every one, no body is secure from it; Majesty and Innocency, that are Fences against most evils, set none beyond the reach of the Tongue. The God of Heaven, and the greatest and Holiest men on Earth, do often suffer by it. We are told of some that should curse their King and their God. Isa. 8.21. 2 Pet. 2.10. And are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities. It is a meddlesome Member, that will let no body alone; a very Wasp that is buzzing about in every corner, if its wings be not clipped; another Ishmael, its hands are against every one; very extensive it is then in its Offence. 2. It let's fly every way; in a way of detracting, reviling, slattering, lying, etc. No Member has so many and such contrary ways of offending, that it never lacks opportunity of doing mischief, be it in good humour or in bad: either by its glozing it deceives us, or by its roving it tires us, or by its levity it deadens us, or by its Ribaldry it daubs us, or by its Insolency it affronts us. 3. No such Wounds as those that are made by it; it hits us e'en where it lists, in our Estates, in our Lives, in our Names, by false witness or privy slander, it may undo us in all that is dear to us at once, especially in a credulous uncharitable day (as this is): hence you may observe that he which bore all the evils of the World without any flinching, Psal. 69 19, 20 is something moved by what he suffered from the Tongue, that commonly touches where we be most tender, its Darts sink deepest, and its wounds heal slowest of any other; And in this respect the Tongue may be expressed not only by a Rod, Psal. 140.3. Psal. 42.10. Prov. 14 3. by a Scourge, by a Sword, but by the sting and poison of a Serpent, to note the anguish of its biting, and the difficulty of its Curing. Can we infer nothing from all this? Sure we may conclude, 1. That in all Reason and Righteousness such a Member should be strictly kept in, even as an Ox that is wont to goring; Or, 2. That if we keep it not in, God will cut it out; his Righteousness requires one, if our Righteousness fail of the other. If our Tongue must take its course, and go uncontrolled, it shall not go unpunished; the first signal Judgements in the Primitive times were for the sins of the Tongue. Ananias and Saphira for their lie are struck dead, Acts 5.3. And Herod for his vanity and vainglory in his speech is eaten up with Worms, while alive, Acts 12.23. And doth not the scorched Tongue of the Rich man in Hell tell us, Luke 16.24. that Tongue-sins shall be severely required of us? 3. That the Tongue when reduced into Order is an Excellent Subject: no Member so able, so Active as that; it is the same for good, as it was for evil; when rightly set, none is more useful or Ornamental to Religion than that. You hear what a value God sets upon it, the very hearts of others are not to be compared to it. Prov. 10.20. The Tongue of the Just is as choice silver: the Heart of the Wicked is little worth. To show particularly what a good Subject it is, such as none like it, Note, 1. That it is a faithful Intelligencer to God, and to that purpose holds a continual correspondence with him, betraying its bosom Friends that it finds Enemies to him, and discovering all plots that are against him; not a sin shall stir in our own hearts, but God shall hear of it, that he may timely suppress it; not a sinner shall tumultuate in the World, but it shall notice him thereof with a sharp Zeal for his Honour and Interest. Psal. 119.126. It is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they have made void thy Law. Psal. 74, 22, 23. Arise, O Lord, plead thine own Cause: remember how the Foolish man reproacheth thee daily: forget not the voice of thine Enemies; the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually. This Office advanceth the Tongue unto no small capacity in the Kingdom of God; not that God needs it, but he likes and requires it, and with a communication of like Secrets that concern us he ordinarily requites it. 2. It pays a continual and considerable Tribute to him of Praise and Thanksgiving; yea, it doth not only pay its own share, but would willingly Collect it of others for its great and greatly beloved Prince. Psal. 145.21. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy Name for ever and ever. It's only grudging is, that it hath so scanty an Offering, that it can speak no louder, and sing no sweeter, when it hath such a Subject as God's praises: whence is that, Psal. 51.15. O Lord open thou my Lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. 3. It busies itself in bringing in, and reconciling Rebels to him, seeks every way the enlargement of his Kingdom by making advantageous reports of him, as in the 5. Cant. 10. by beseeching Persons to lay aside their enmity to him, 2 Cor. 5.20. David promises this Service to God with some hopes of success, Psal. 51.13. I will teach Transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be Converted to thee. It is needless to tell you how Serviceable the Tongues of good men have been, and yet are, to this purpose: which work, as it is the glory of God, so of all works is the joy of Angels, Luke 15.10. 4. It is also a useful Fellow-Subject; it hath to give, and is ready to give, good advice and counsel to others, by which it is hugely helpful to them. The Tongue's Charity and Liberality is Famous; and, believe it, when it is become a good Tongue, it is, as before noted, a silver Tongue, and its gifts are beyond those of Silver and Gold. Two expressions note to this effect, Prov. 10.21. The Lips of the Righteous feed many. Their words are others Bread, and the best Bread they can get. But are they Drink too? See the 10. Prov. 11. The mouth of a Righteous man is a Well of Life; a Well for plenty, for purity; and a Well whose Waters have a singular Encomium, they are Waters of Life: to this let me further add what you find, Prov. 12.18. The Tongue of the wise is health; whence it may be called, the wholesome Tongue, Prov. 15.4. Two Inferences I would hence make. 1. That it is worth our while, to use our utmost diligence to bring our Tongues into Order, since they are such excellent Organs of God's Honour, and so eminently serviceable unto our Brethren upon their Regulation. 2. That it must needs be God's great delight to see them in Order, and observe them Acting in this their glory; now he loves to hear us speak, accordingly he provokes us to it, as if it yielded sweet Melody to him. Cant. 2.14. O my Dove, let me hear thy Voice, for thy Voice is sweet. Elsewhere what a high commendation does he give of it? Cant. 4.11. Thy Lips, O my spouse, drop as the Honeycomb, Honey and Milk are under thy Tongue. But above all we may see this in that 3. of Mal. 16, 17. where they are represented talking, God harkening, writing and resolving what he will do for them, and expressing what account he made of them; their words seemed to hang as Jewels in his Ears, and their Persons he will lay as Jewels in his Royal Closet, They shall be mine in the day that I make up my Jewels. 4. That it is the great Glory of a man to have a good government over his Tongue: the bare holding of it in makes a Fool seem wise, Prov. 17.28. Even a Fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise, and he that shutteth his Lips is, esteemed a man of understanding. And the lolling out of the Tongue both Naturally and Morally is reputed a great indication of Folly, Prov. 10.18. He that uttereth a slander is a Fool. For what can he propose to himself in it to compensate for what he ventures by it? his Brother's Credit is wasted; but his own Conscience it may be wounded, as having transgressed both Charity and Equity: and two to one, if in the like or a worse kind he be not requited, and go unpitied: Yea, should all others spare him, he is even with himself; for whatever he hath said of his Neighbour, he hath scarce given him a worse Name, than he has took to himself of a slanderer. But the right ordering of our Tongue, as to what is let out, and what is kept in, does not only speak a good man, but makes him glorious and eminent among other good men. Jam. 3.2. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to bridle the whole Body; he must have a measure of his own parts, a command of his passions, and insight into Seasons and Occasions. It is a modest expression, that he which can do this is able to command himself: indeed if we could find the man he is fit to govern the World. Whereas on the other hand he is fit for nothing that has a lose and licentious Tongue; and it is generally a token of an impotent man. Try what you can make of him, an ill Neighbour I will warrant you he will prove; he must be prattling of every thing, and every one; every thing he sees, every thing he hears, he turns into a story: one would not he should look over ones Wall, come into ones House, talk with ones Children or Servants; he is either fishing out of them, or dropping into them what is not convenient. His Eye, his Ear are still progging for fuel to that fire his Tongue is inflamed with. His humour is set out, Psal. 41.6. If he come to see me he speaketh Vanity, h●s heart gathereth Iniquity to itself, when he goeth abroad he telleth it. As bad a Neighbour as he is, he is yet a worse Friend; he trifles away our time, he tires our patience, he betrays our trusts; there can be no confidence in him, we must still be upon the Watch, one may as well make a whole Town our Friend as such a one. But yet too a much worse Relation he makes, 'tis next dwelling in a Mill, to dwell with him; his clack is always going, only not in so good tune and order as that we allude to; the wise man could not think of a Condition so intolerable, as the being yoked with such a Relation. Prov. 25.24. It is better to dwell in the Corner of an Housetop, than with a brawling Woman and in a wide House. And a brawling man is as very a trouble-house, and in some sense more intolerable, as more preternatural. In sum, a well governed Tongue is not more our glory, than an unruly one is our shame; that we are pricked on both sides by Honour and dishonour, to endeavour as much as may be the regulation of this Member, as we consult the Credit of our whole man. These things that we in general have promised may be improved as motives, and moral helps for the government of the Tongue. But more particularly, in order to its right management we must consider, 1. It's just measure. 2. It's due matter. 3. It's proper scope. 1. As to the measure; and here we must note the extremes that are to be avoided, and the mean that is to be observed. 1. The first extreme is over-silence; a rare fault, but a fault against the very intent of the Tongue, and is a burying of that Talon; it is justly chargeable with a great deal of evil, and suspicious of much more. And this in some is natural from frigidity, and excessive melancholy; they are the easiest pardoned, though not altogether excused, when otherwise duly qualified and called, Exod. 4.10, 11, 12. In some this is contracted by others iniquity: these are most to be pitied, the violent suffocation of their thoughts is not without great vexation of their hearts: as Lot might be an instance, 2 Pet. 2.2, 8. And David, Psal. 39.23. I was dumb with silence, I held my peace even from good, and my sorrow was stirred, my heart was but within me, while I mused the fire burnt. In others this is affected out of Moroseness, doggedness, or design, in these the offence is most aggravated, the silence is most sinful: but more particularly. When are we guilty of overmuch silence? 1. When Justice is obstructed by it: my Neighbour has suffered wrong, I know it, without my testimony he cannot have right, I conceal it, my secrecy involves me in the iniquity, Leu. 5.1. A pretence of peaceableness and good Neighbourhood stops the mouths of several in this case; but peace of Conscience, and the cause of Righteousness, should be preferred before all peace, and above every other consideration take place, if the matter especially be momentous. 2. When Charity is omitted, and is not like from other hands to be at least so seasonably, and advantageously administered, there is ofttimes great Charity in a word, and it is the greatest cruelty imaginable to spare that word, and it is often further heightened from the parties to which it is grudged. For instance, if we are made privy to any thing, the discovery of which is for great public good, and conceal it for private advantage, beyond what is fitting for our private capacity, and a just reward for our ingenuity; we highly transgress against public Charity, and are unworthy of the benefits of Society: this we learn from the Lepers case, themselves being Judges, 2 Kings 7.8, 9 Again, if we alone are privy to a Brother or Friend's fault, wherein he goes on, and is not like of himself to come off, bolstering himself up in the opinion of its secrecy, a word of reproof from thee might save him, and thou art the greatest Enemy he has, if thou withholdest it from him, Leu. 19.17. Further, thy own Soul is in a dark and dismal state, thy Neighbour or Friend is full of light, by one question thou mightest do much to thy own illumination, and yet thou pinest away and perishest for lack of knowledge, where is thy love to thyself in the mean time? Tongue-Charity is the cheapest of all Charity, and yet many, certainly not without great guilt, let their Countries, Friends, and own Souls starve for lack of it. 3. If our own Spirits be soured by it, words kept in are many times like humours struck in, go to the heart and offend the vital parts. Maliciousness, censoriousness, are often so fed; vent might give relief in this case, and be the only means for our Cure, if moderately and discreetly given. Many can write their probatum est to this. 4. If our Company, whom we may and aught to please so far as we can, be grieved or offended at it. Silence, where we may be free, and have wont to be free, and it is justly expected we should be free, as among Friends, Relations, etc. Speaks very cuttingly, and should not causelessly be long kept, lest it be ill interpreted; it intimates anger at them, or contempt of them, it renders you wholly insignificant to them, you had as good send your Horse among them, if you will not converse like a man with them. 5. If our Calling and Commission from God be to speak, we may not be silent, as to any one thing committed to us to speak, in this case. You know who said, Acts 4.20: We cannot but speak, woe is us if we do not; Paul no other way could clear himself of their blood, than by protesting that he had not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God, Acts 20.27. And our Saviour doth mainly comfort himself, as having hid or kept back nothing given in charge to him, Psal. 40.9, 10, 11. Lo, I have not refrained my Lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy Righteousness within my heart, I have not concealed thy loving kindness, and thy truth; withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me. 6. If the Cause and Honour of God call for a public testimony, no one in his way may innocently withhold it, however mean be his capacity; Children therefore in Christ's day were called forth to it, and justified in it, Mat. 21.15, 16. And when offence was took on a like occasion, he tells them, that if those should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Eccl. 3.7. You see then that there is a time to speak as well as keep silence: happy he that hits his time, and he that heeds it will hardly miss it, or if he does, shall the more easily be excused it. We commonly say that little said is soon amended: true, but yet for not speaking as well as not doing in some cases we may be condemned. It is therefore our duty to rouse our Tongue when it is sluggish, as well as hold it in where it is lavish, calling upon it as he, Psal. 57.8. Awake up my Glory; or as you have another instance, Judges 5.12. Awake, Awake, Deborah, Awake, Awake, utter a Song. 2. The second extreme to be avoided is Loquacity, or overmuch speaking, a fault many are incident to, through the levity of their temper, and looseness of their Tongues, and it is a very hard task for them to talk much and talk well. He is peremptory, Prov. 10.19. that in the multitude of words there wants not sin. And I suppose he speaks modestly, and that he means, that there is a great deal of sin. But let our Query be Quest. When any one may be said to talk too much? Some few of many instances take as follows. 1. When talking excludes thinking, the Tongue outruns the wit: a little of this talk is too much, as being to no purpose but to betray our folly, abuse our Brother's patience, and waste precious time. One may talk to Children at this rate to save a needless expense of sense, where there is but little; but it is an intolerable presumption upon men, to entertain them with words morecrude than our belches, that we fetch not so low as our breath, and that little differ from an Asse's braying. 2. When it will not give way to hearing, especially when wiser and better men be present. If they were inferior and weaker, it were meet they should be allowed their turns; every one may be supposed to have brought something wherewith the whole might be edified: in engrossing all the talk to thyself, thou art chargeable with unseemly vaunting, thou art in the ready way to emptying, there is no hope of thy replenishing; go hoop and hollow in the Woods, if thou wilt be answered only by thy own Echo. Proud men and passionate men are apt so to offend, they have no ears, and so are unlike to edify, and for any thing they are like to get, had as good keep out of Company. Mark advice of one that understood the government of the Tongue as well as any other, James 1.19. Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. The last direction is to make good the former. 3. When talking shuts out working either in our common or Christian Calling. Some men have got such a vein of talking, that it is their great business, and for which they neglect all business, so many hours in a day they snatch from all occasions on purpose to chat, this is more than can be justified; the Apostle blames it in the Women of his day, 1 Tim. 5.13. They learn to be idle, wand'ring about from House to House, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things they ought not. And sure it is more to be reproved; in men, that should be more stayed, and might be much better employed; but the Tongue is not only wont to take the hands off of business, but to take upon it the business of the hands, as in the great duty of distributing to the poor, that will serve them with good words, when the hands should be ministering good things, the vanity of which he upbraids, Jam. 2.15, 16. And so it is apt to run all Religious Offices into mere talk, which is like grain that hath only a stalk. 4. When the whole man is turned into Tongue, that sure is a talkative man. And such there be a great many, that cannot utter half their mind the Natural way, whether it be from the fullness of filthiness of the matter they are stuffed with you may guests; I am apt to think that they are full of filthy matter, that the Tongue is e'en ashamed to utter; or else straitened to vent fast enough, and therefore hands, and feet and eyes, must speak too for greater riddance; they talk in Characters for haste, sometimes you have signs for words, at other times words for Sentences, you must guests their meaning: for instance, He is— I'll say no more— that is their way to brand a man, leaving you to think the worst you can, and at leisure to put it in, reserving hereby a Liberty for themselves to creep out if called in Question. This is the greatest talker I know, he speaks when he says nothing, and says most when he utters: lest Hunc tu Romane caveto, look to this man, I durst almost warrant him a filthy beast, or crafty knave, though it may be he only counterfeits one— the wise man doth so represent him, Prov. 6.12, 13, 14. He walketh with his mouth, and talketh with his Feet; what a Monster is this Man? 3. The mean that lies between these two extremes is, neither to wrap this Talon up in a Napkin, nor yet lavish it away; but prudently to use it as we see opportunity to improve it, that in the latter day we may give an Account of it. Rules. In order to the observance of which mean I would give the following Directions. 1. Rest not in Ignorance; that will seal up thy mouth in silence if thou be'st sensible of it, or let lose thy Tongue with impudence if thou over-lookest it. Open thy Eyes, open thy Ears, open thy Heart to receive instruction, that thou mayst be fit for pertinent communication; lay in before thou layest out; and particularly know thyself, know whereof thou art about to speak, to whom thou dost speak, and thou shalt not be to seek how to speak, whether any thing or nothing, whether much or little, whether interrogatively or dogmatically; the knowledge of thy own measure will be a great help to keep the right measure in this whole matter. 2. Give not way to idleness: employ thy heart, employ thy hands, charge every part with something, and then this busy Member may submit to its share, and go to its burden; but if the whole man be dis-engaged, and unemployed, all the vigour of the man doth ordinarily run to his Tongue, he must be doing something though next to nothing, and falls commonly into a humour of excessive talking, as you may observe in Children that are not come to work, and old people that are passed it, unless Grace or gravity of manners check it. The Athenians were this way tainted, that nothing but News would be digested, and in gathering and spreading that, they were perpetually Exercised, Acts 17.21. But business diverts and spends the humour, and something tames and moderates this as well as other Members. 3. Avoid Drunkenness; that loosens the Reins of the whole man, and especially prevents the Government of the Tongue, and sets it on running and rambling without fear or wit. It makes men spew that were wont only to spit, it brings up all that is in our minds as well as stomaches: In vino veritas, all will out when the Wine is in, Prov. 23.13. Persons of an airy light temper may find this inconvenience forthwith, upon a sip or two of Wine or strong Drink, and for every glass of Liquor abate an Ounce of wit; they should be more cautious than other men. Wine is indeed proper for them of a sorrowful heart, to raise their dejected Spirits to a due temper; but one that for ordinary is rather touched with too much levity, is quickly overborn with it, and his Tongue soon trips, however firm his Feet may stand. 4. Watch against all passionateness; that is a degree of madness, and precipitates wise men into great Extravagancies of Speech; many can scarce hold their hands, but fewer can hold their Tongues under the transport of it. If ever the teeth are useful to by't in the Tongue, it is when it is inflamed by Passion, and has broke in heat from the Government of Reason; either refrain Anger, or refrain speech altogether when angry, as you would not proclaim your own Folly. 5. Keep under Pride, that never keeps a decorum, but puts you forward beyond what becomes you, in contempt of others that are not Inferiors to you; whereas Humility will represent them at least even with you, that you would be awed into a graceful modesty. If we think we have all the wit, we shall next arrogate to ourselves all the talk, and by thinking ourselves wise make ourselves Fools. 6. Keep up Charity, which will secure from the transports of ill will and Envy. 2. The matter of our Discourse is to be regulated: and here occurs a twofold consideration of it. 1. Something it is our sin to make matter of our Discourse. 2. Other things it is our Duty. 1. As to sinful matter, we must wholly restrain our Tongues; Let no corrupt Communication proceed out of your mouths: and again, Psal. 34.13. Keep thy Tongue from evil. The particular evils of the Tongue are not to be reckoned up in a single Sermon. Some general Rules I will therefore lay down, whereto the most considerable may be reduced. 1. Those things are evil, and not to be uttered, whereby God immediately is dishonoured: And by this we are admonished to take heed of venting Heresies, uttering Blasphemies, all rash Swearing, forswearing, and taking God's Name in vain; Sins all of an high Nature, and committed generally in height of Spirit, and look as like presumptuous sins, for which God hath appointed no Sacrifice, as most we can reckon up, in regard of the small temptation to them, Numb. 15.30, 31. and the impudence that is common in them. 2. Those things also our Tongue is to be restrained from, whereby our Brother is wronged as to his outward man, whether as to Life, Estate, or Name: unrighteousness is the evil of such Speeches, a manifest evil, and is aggravated from the degree wherein he suffers, and from the directness of our intention in bringing it upon him; though whether directly, or indirectly, of malice and set purpose, or out of pure weakness, our Brother suffers and we sin, that we were no more tender of him in concerns that are so dear to ourselves, and about which we have been so specially cautioned of God: and of this Nature eminently are slander and false Testimony. 3. Those things must more especially be forborn, whereby our Brother's Soul is like to be defiled, and his manners corrupted, in that the greatest Charity is here transgressed. As for instance, all unclean Speeches, by which Lust may be drawn forth; provoking Speeches, whereby passion may be stirred up; all enticements to evil, and encouragements in evil; any thing whereby our Brother's spirit may be lightened, or his heart hardened. 4. Such things whereby the fundamental Laws of Society are violated, and all confidence in one another destroyed; I will instance particularly in three. 1. Lying, that makes words signify just nothing, and cuts off all communion between one another's Souls, that we can never know each others minds: we are hereby at a far greater loss than if we could not speak at all. How detestable this sin is you may learn by what you read, Rev. 21.8. Rev. 22.15. 2. Tale-bearing, that is a Trade set up directly against all Friendship, and the great bane of Love in the World; which yet has too much countenance from the generality of the World: but God that is always more than ourselves solicitous for our good, has especially cautioned against it, Leu. 19.16. and warned us of the evil effects of it, Prov. 18.8. 3. Revealing of Secrets, which destroys all confidence, and breaks the most sacred Bonds of Friendship. And as to these we may be doubly faulty. 1. In reference to such Secrets as are committed to us sub sigillo: these every one is convinced he ought to keep so for his truth's sake, and to answer the confidence that was put in him; though many are never quiet till they have broke this Bond, but are rather irritated by their being bound. Prov. 11.13. A Tale-bearer revealeth Secrets. Especially, 2. In reference to such as come to us without such a formal Bond, out of weakness or good nature; if there may be wrong to the party confiding in us by divulging what he hath so committed to us, the very matter of the case obligeth us, in justice, though not in faithfulness, we are bound to be his Secretaries, if a far greater good may not come by the discovery. And let me here give a special caution in a case wherein you may be liable to Temptation. Take heed what you do tell to a Friend, lest he should after prove an Enemy; this is prudence. Take heed you discover not, when an Enemy, what was told you as a Friend; that is Piety. 5. The matter of the Discourse is faulty, when the very ends of it are overlooked, and you fruitlessly and foolishly squander away both time and Talents, not considering that idle words are also evil words, and to be reckoned for another day, Mat. 12, 36, 37. Quest. How shall we restrain our Tongues from all this evil? 1. By purging the Seeds of it out of our hearts. Our Saviour looked upon it as an unnatural thing, and not to be expected, that they that are evil should speak good things, in as much as out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, Mat. 12.34. That therefore must be first cleansed, that the mouth may be kept clean; while there are filthy thoughts, malicious purposes, impetuous passions, and idle imaginations allowed there, by the Tongue as well as other ways they will have their vent: by every Member the heart will be discharging itself of its abundance; whence again he observes, that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false-witness, blasphemies, Mat. 15.19. Mind therefore how you are still directed to lay the Axe unto the Root, and crucify the evil affections of the heart, that you may prevent the Extravagancies of the Tongue, Eph. 4.31. Let all Bitterness, and Wrath, and Anger, and Clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice; he despaired Clamour and evil speaking should be restrained, except Wrath and Malice were extirpated. And to the same purpose Col. 3.8 9 Put off Anger, Wrath, Malice, and then he hath some hopes, they might also forbear Blasphemy, filthy Communication, Lying. Let your first care then be of the Heart, and it's first Motions, for every Member thence hath its impressions and all pretence of care without a regard to this Will be but a palliation, and we may expect a more violent Eruption. 2. By stopping our Ears, and shutting our Eyes against every thing that may feed the evil humours; if they be fermented afresh, they will flow anew, and be ware of remainders of them in the best of you: If we would effectually keep a fire from smoking, we must keep it from burning; and to secure it from burning, keep it from blowing and fresh supplies of fuel. We can easily apply this, no refining of the Tongue without purging of the Heart, no keeping that pure, if any thing that defiles is suffered to enter there, the ordinary passages into which are by the Eye and Ear; avoid therefore in prosecution of this Direction, all vain, idle, angry, envious, malicious Companions, lest they be infusing into thee their Venom. Bid adieu to all Profane Ranters and Ribalds, to all Tale-bearers and Whisperers; they will kindle the fire of Lust or Anger, if there be a spark in thee. And next to them, avoid all Books that are stuffed with profane Jests, or that gender to excessive heats; these assault us like form Armies, when occasional words are like slight Sallies of a small party. And lastly, beware of vain and filthy sights, and the more artificial, the more dangerous, as more affecting the fancy, sinking deeper into the memory, and pressing more importunately into the mouth, they tickle us into the talk of them. 3. By laying the Laws against all idle and evil speaking before our eyes, in their reasonableness and rigour: their reasonableness will appear, if we consider them as for us; would we any body should abuse us with lies? or load us with reproaches? no; why then it is well God hath provided by his Law that they shall not; and is it not alike equal, thou shouldest not deal by another, as thou wouldst not be dealt by thyself? The Law than is good, and the punishment is as great. Thy Soul may go for an ill word: consider of it, has an evil word sufficient pleasure to compensate for eternal pain? Sure it is wisdom to forbear such words, if we may pay so dear for them. 4. By considering the odiousness of it in others, and in them we may see it in its true colours; things are too near us to be aright discerned by us, when they are observed in ourselves. A Liar, a False-witness, a Back-bit●●r, a Tale-bearer, how do you like such men? Would you have your Child trained up in such things? Why then will you allow them in yourselves? How came they to be more tolerable in you than other men? Is it that it is no matter what becomes of you? How comes it that you have cast off all care of and love to self, that you would have every body better than yourself? 5. By reflecting upon the reproaches we have had from our own hearts for it, and the inconveniencies we have suffered, and the damages others have reaped by it, beyond our possible reparation; is it not time then to take up? 6. By remembering that God observes it, and will Judge thee for it. A Reverend man would awe thee, if there was danger, especially of the Pillory; and how canst thou cast off the fear of God, to talk before him so loosely? How wilt thou like to have all thy vain and vile words read and aggravated at the last day? It will be one part of that day's work, Judas 15, 16. 2. There is matter that it is our Duty to Discourse of, the general Nature of which I shall lay before you; as, 1. Such, as though of a common and inferior Nature, as referring to things of this Life; yet is of consequence to ourselves or Neighbours to be debated, for the right understanding or better managing of our joint, or several concerns: this as tending to Justice, Charity, Peace, or the like, by the good use it may be of, is Sanctified and becomes our duty, and we may not without sin decline it, when duly provoked to it; for, as mean as these matters seem, God hath concerned himself to make severe Laws, that we worst not one another in them, by which we are obliged to improve, and embitter each other as we can, and surely most of all when by a word it may be done. How does Job's Conscience approve him in his having been a faithful Counsellor? Job 19.15. I was eyes to the Blind. And what a Character does Christ give to the Peacemakers? Mat. 5.9. They shall be called the Children of God. And yet further, the command to Worldly business six days in seven does more than allow Worldly Discourse, especially when it hath a moral use. So that as it is a vain Superstition of some not to touch these things, so is it of others to decline necessary profitable talk of them, as if it were a piece of Service to God to be useless unto men, while by his providence we are among them. Know then, where by weakness your Brother needs advice, and by a greater stock of wisdom you are able to give it, it is his duty in order to the prudent management even of his Worldly affairs to ask it, and yours as freely to give it for you therefore; have it, and cannot otherwise give a good account of it. Caution. Let me only caution, that on this pretence you Launch not out into Discourse of this Nature Unseasonably, as on the Lord's Day; unnecessarily for mere talks sake; immoderately, to the burying of all other Discourse, or hindering more important business of your own or Brother's: it would also be carefully avoided that we intrude not ourselves as busybodies into the Discourse of others matters, while we are unconcerned, and to Persons unconcerned, for which we are like to go unthanked, whereby our Brother may be wronged, and no body is edified. 2. It may be our duty to Discourse of what is done in the World, wherein God's Justice, Power, Wisdom, Faithfulness or Goodness is advanced; One design of God's marvellous working is to furnish us with fit matter for talking. His Signs in Egypt are particularly noted to have had this reference, That they might tell in the Ears of their Sons, and Sons Sons, what things he had wrought in Egypt, that they might know that he was the Lord, Exod. 10.2. God's works are one of his Books, that we should much confer about. David pleases himself to see the whole World as set about a round Table, conferring their Notes of what they had seen and observed of God in his works from Generation to Generation. Psal. 145.5, 6. I will speak of the glorious Honour of thy Majesty, and of thy wondrous works, and men shall speak of the might of thy terrible Acts, and I will declare thy greatness, they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness. This seems to be talk for the Generality of men, there is something in it peculiarly pleasing to all palates, and an Example often affects, when a Precept would be over-looked; and I am confident, if we could prudently Discourse of the works of God, we might more advantage the profaner sort of men, than by talking to them out of the Word; for they are prejudiced against that, and shut upon it straight, as perceiving whereto that would, but they are pleased with story, and lie more open to it, that there is greater hope they be ware of their being caught with it, Psal. 107.42. That this Discourse may be profitable, take the following advice. 1. Make wise Observation, look with both Eyes on what happens, look into it, look after God in it, and spy what Attribute is eminently glorified by it. Psal. 107.43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. 2. Make faithful representations, lie not for God. The Romish Legends by their multitude of Fables have greatly minished the veneration of all Miracles. One fly spoils a whole pot of Ointment: the same does one lie in a most useful History. 3. Make Charitable Interpretations, as to persons or parties, be not too severe in censuring them that God makes Examples. It was the fault and folly of the Jews. Christ tells us, they were out: and we as well as they may be out; let us be warned by them, Luke 13.1, 2, 3. 4. And make pious applications, and still put in yourself as concerned where you note any thing to be learned, 1 Cor. 10.5, 11. Psal. 90.11, 12. Many profane the Providences of God by their slight Discourses of them, without regard to God or his Glory in them; but you on the other hand by observing Rules, may hollow his Name and spread his fame. 3. It is yet more especially our duty to be Discoursing to one another of what God hath said to the World for our mutual Direction, Caution, and Consolation; this is to be our familiar and frequent Discourse, wherein we should be most delighted, and whereby we may be most edified. Deut. 6.6, 7. These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy Children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine House, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Col. 3.16. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. What will we advise in Order to the more easy and profitable management of this Duty? 1. Furnish yourselves with all variety of pious matter, that you may have a word to adapt every occasion, and bring out of your Treasure new or old according to the Season; hence you will have a presentness of mind to the work, and there will be a peculiar gratefulness in your words, as savouring neither of force or affectation: in this sense Christ had the Tongue of the Learned, Mat. 13.52. and thus he would have every Scribe instructed: this would make our Discourse still pertinent, that it could not well be rejected, Prov. 25.11. a word upon the wheels he calls it, Isa. 50.40. in respect of readiness and regularity. 2. Affect your heart with what you are about to speak. David waited till his heart was hot, and the fire burned, and then he spoke, Psal. 39.3. And then it is that your words will slow from your mouths, and glow upon your Companions hearts, you seem in carnest, and they know not how to take it in j●st. 3. Fortify yourselves for such Discourse, reckoning you may meet with discouragements; but put on the brow of brass, be not dismayed nor ashamed: let iniquity be ashamed and stop its mouth; but while vanity and all manner of Ribaldry passes currant in every Company, let not good Discourse creep into a corner, as if it alone were guilty. Say as Paul, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and resolve to walk and talk according to it, say the World what they will of thee for it. 4. Watch occasions to fall most handsomely upon it; not as putting by Discourse of a lower allay, but as improving it, engraffing your good Fruit on their Crab-stock, as Christ hath given you frequent Examples; and assure yourselves the more Natural and insensible your transition is, the easier and better will the Discourse be entertained, in as much as the Company is less affronted, than if their Discourse was directly put by, and yours preferred. 5. Labour to make your good Discourse every way as grateful as it may, wisely considering persons you are conversing with, what is to be said, and how every thing may take best that you say: because the Preacher was wise he sought out acceptable, Eccl. 2.10. as well as profitable words; and no doubt acceptable, that they might be profitable. Now there are several things give a grace, and are a great set off to our words, some of which commend them to one, and some to others, and some to all. To begin with those that are more general and adorn all Discourse: such are measure, season, suitableness, sweetness, foundness, etc. These must be still regarded, or Company may justly be offended, as being some way abused, their time seems not valued, their businesses regarded, their passions considered, their Persons or parts duly reverenced, when their Ears are impertinently entertained, or perpetually with the same things tired. And then more particularly, modesty wins much on Superiors, familiarity on Inferiors, a pleasant Lepor or Saltness upon Equals, freeness on Friends, Courteousness on Strangers, meekness on Offenders, plainness on the Ignorant. You need take least care to please the wise, for he heeds the matter, and can make allowances for the manner of the Discourse. Quest. Is that Lepor or Saltness of Speech we spoke of allowable in holy Discourse? The grounds of doubt are in that the Apostle seems to reckon it inconvenient in any Discourse, Ephes. 5.4. And it may look like a transgression of that peculiar gravity that seems proper for our Religious Discourse. First, Answ. It is generally granted that the word (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) by which this J●sting or facetious expressing ourselves, condemned here by the Apostle, is noted, is of a good signification, and was of good Reputation among the soberest Heathen, and imported, as they deemed, one of the great virtues, or graces of Speech, as showing readiness of wit, and sweetness of manners, in which Original sense, Calvin says of it, that it is worthy of a Free and ingenious man. 2. It is as generally supposed, that this Lepor or Saltness of Speech was ordinarily abused, and under pretence of wit most men played the Fools, venting the froth instead of the Flower of their brains, which the Apostle is thought to have respected in joining together jesting and foolish talking; And you know that a Jester and a Fool are even Synonymous terms among us, none more idly squandring away their wit, without respect to those chief ends, for which God gave it, and they are obliged to use it, minding only the tickling of the flesh, having no regard to the profiting of the Spirit. This abuse of wit, that was even become general, I conceive the Apostle let's fly at, as also they apprehended, that Translated the word by scurrility, into which this Lepor was degenerated. Now our wit may be reckoned to be abused, 1. When we are conceited of it, and use it purely in Ostentation of self, and contempt of others; hereby we are injurious to our own Souls, nourishing Pride, which it should be our great business to pluck down. 2. When we are immoderate in it, and either vainly or extravagantly lavish it. Wit should be used like Salt, sparingly: a grain or two does well, a meal surfeits. It speaks vanity in us, and nourishes overmuch levity in others, and two to one we run dregs, if we know not when to have done, meddling with every thing and every one. 3. When we are offensive by it, either to God's holy Ears by our Profaneness, or to our Brother's by over-sharpness; and we should be especially tender, where there is more than ordinary weakness, or plainness; and a greater Liberty may be used in this latter kind, where there is great wickedness or conceitedness. 4. When to any base ends we prostitute it: as first, to expose holy things or Persons to the scorn of Fools, lessening their repute and reverence by our light mentioning of them, or playing upon them, this is a degree of Blasphemy; or, Secondly, when we design it only to make sport and raise Laughter, among those especially which we should rather provoke to weeping. From all this it appears that there needs great Caution in the use of this gift or faculty, But yet that it may be both innocently, and advantageously used, and Christian gravity maintained, I shall briefly prove from Scripture Examples, even in most serious and weighty matters. And I note eminently three occasions, where there may seem needful some more than ordinary strain of Speech, or use of Salt in it. 1. If what we say be for Food or Physic to a Sick or weak stomached Person, that may otherwise nauseate it, this Salt may be useful to give it a relish, and get it the easier down: for which purpose the plain way of speaking was waved by Nathan, 2 Sam. 12.1, etc. And again, by another Prophet, 1 Kings 20.38, etc. And almost generally by our Saviour: without a Parable he scarce spoke any thing; there was no coming upon those kind of Persons, without circumventing of them. On the like necessity we should endeavour to show like ingenuity, that we may catch Persons with guile, that will not otherwise come to hand. 2. If our words be intended for Swords, this kind of Speech doth set a keenness upon them, for which purpose it is most frequently used in Scripture, as you may see notable instances, 1 Kings 18.27. 2 Kings 17.32, 33. The proud Fool will not be convinced often by plain Reason, that there is almost a necessity of irrision; we must make him ridiculous that his Folly may be conspicuous, when he is throughly exposed, he may chance be humbled. I take the wise man, as directing us to this method with this sort of men, Prov. 26.5. Answer a Fool according to his Folly, lest he be wise in his own Conceit; according to his Folly, that is, according as his Folly does deserve, answer him sharply, smartly, utterly silence him, that he may take care to speak wiser another time, (repone illi verbera & virgam) as one says, answer him with words as smart as Rods, the Fool's back requires them, Prov. 26.3. 3. Eccl. 12.11. If as Nails we would drive our words (to which also they are compared) there is a tendency in this pleasantness of Speech to fasten them, and fix them more firmly in the memory; whence I conceive old dying Jacob gave his last Blessing in such harmonious words, as some of them are bearing allusion to his Sons names, such as Jehudah, Jodudah; Dan, Jadin; Gad, Gedud, etc. The Mothers imposed their names for one Reason, but something in their future condition the Father sees that agrees well enough to their names, whereon he chooseth to read their destinies as it were by them, for the more easy remembrance of them. I would not these Examples should be abused, to prevent which let me only caution, That we gravely, sparingly, and for like necessary ends, do imitate them; or pretend no Patronage from them. To proceed. 6. Naturalise this Discourse if possible, and as far as possible to you; then, and not till then you will speak with ease, and speak with a grace, and this facility is chief got by frequency. We must in a manner confine ourselves to this dialect, that we may get this Excellency in it; for which purpose let your converse be most with those that speak this Language, and converse with all that are any way capable in this Language; provoke them to it, use them to it, necessitate them to it, if they will converse with you, be as one that could hardly speak any thing but it, from your youths accustom yourselves to it, in your Houses and among your familiars, initiate yourselves herein, they will bear with your stammerings, which you might be ashamed of before Strangers, and having once got, take heed you do not forget the Language, but inure yourselves daily to it, you may travel through the World with it, it is one of the Learned Languages, that all Scholar's 〈◊〉 have been bred in Christ's School understand, you herein have con●●se with them; and it is no great matter if you are a Barbarian to others, if it quits you of their Company it does you a kindness, if this way you can be quit of vile and vain Companions, it is the honourablest way you can be rid of them, and so far as separated from them, you have Heaven's happiness on Earth; better a great deal they should be angered and estranged from you upon the holiness of your Discourse, than you grieved or defiled by the commonness or Profaneness of theirs. Though I must also tell you, if once this Discourse was habitual to you, it might be better born in you, and no body would expect other from you, but as they had occasions of dealing with you, might probably be awed into a Conformity to you. Further to engage you so far as may be in this holy strain of Speech, take these Motives. 1. No Discourse is so proper for you as Christians, Motives. it being the Language of the Country to which you do belong; further, your concerns generally lie in the word, all that are worth speaking of, why should you in a manner talk of any thing else? It is almost an impertinency for a Christian to talk of this World, wherein he is a Stranger, and whereof he can call little his own but a burying place. This was the utmost I find great Abraham to have grasped after, or reckoned of in this World that he made sure of, Gen. 23.4, 20. I am a Stranger and Sojourner with you, give me a possession of a burying place. And the Field and the Cave was made sure to Abraham for a Burial place. Truly this is all we are sure of here below, that if we talk of any thing in this World, it is most proper to talk of our Graves, and our daily readiness to drop into them: into which Discourse David Naturally fell when his Company would not bear higher, Psal. 39.4, etc. Lord make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am. But turn him to the Word, he has something there; God, Christ, Men, Angels, Life, Death, things present, things to come, all things are his. Confine then to your own matters, especially since you have so large a Field. Every one talks of their proper concerns: (Navita de ponto.) Have you nothing of your own to talk of? or is it not to compare with what others so much please themselves to prattle about? For shame Christians, that you alone should rove and ramble at this rate; holy heavenly Discourse is that one would expect from you, and that alone seems pertinent to you. 2. No Discourse is so profitable. One may hear a deal of other chat, and be neither the better nor wiser, or at least we are instructed unto some little mean designs; but when we talk out of the Word, we are in the way of Learning or Teaching, what will be for our universal accomplishment: for as he says, 2 Tim. 3.16. The Scripture is profitable for Doctrine, for Reproof, for Correction, for Instruction in Righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. Yea, such Discourse does not only fit us for the work of this World, the best, the noblest Achievements in it; but it prepares us for, and in a sense enters us into the Work of the other World, for that I conceive lies much in the holy use of the Tongue: we hear of no other employment of the Saints in glory, but that they night and day are praising God, he is always in their eyes, he is ever in their mouth. The work of Heaven will not be uncouth to them, that have been much Exercised in holy Heavenly Discourse on Earth; but for others, that can scarce frame their mouths to a good word on Earth, for my part I know not what they will do in Heaven, though I think there is no great danger of their coming thither. 3. No Discourse is so pleasant: next to the Songs of Angels, the pious conference of holy men, is the sweetest melody our ears can be entertained with; other things comparatively found harsh to the things of God, neither at the instant affect the Ear with that pleasure, nor afterwards leave it in that composure. To reflect a little by way of comparison: And first let us listen a little to what the World says; a buzz there is in both ears, but what do we hear? Such a man hath played the Knave, and such a man hath played the Fool, such a Family is at great Discord, or in great distress, such a Nation is involved in War, or such a Person hath shed the blood of War in Peace: for ordinary we hear nothing but what it is a vexation to hear, nothing but what may make our Ears to tingle; or if aught seems at present to tickle them, as profane Jests and idle stories may for a while do, this tickling ends in torment, the Ear is put out of Order, and the Heart as being defiled is not a little discomposed. He could see so little pleasure in the Speeches, that he abhorred the Songs of Sinners, as having no harmony in them, their Mirth was rather his Sorrow, Eccl. 7.5. It is better to hear the rebuke of the Wise, than for a man to hear the Song of Fools. But, 2. In listening to holy Discourse, we hear of the Love of God, the glory of Heaven, the Graces that do shine in some, the Duties that are performed by others, we hear of an end that shall be put to all earthly troubles, whereby the sharpest sufferings are allayed, and by what we may hear further, death itself comes to be despised. Are the stories we hear on one Ear and the other to be compared? we may hearken long enough the Ear will be satisfied with hearing, except we chance to hear something from Heaven; all the good News is in the Word of God, and to be heard from good men that bring us stories therefrom. 4. By neglecting holy Discourse you may lose opportunities of good both to yourselves and others, that you will wish you had taken. 1. It may be as to yourselves you were in Company with Persons eminent for grace and knowledge, here was an opportunity of doing your own Soul good, but by the stream of your impertinent tattle, all savoury Discourse was diverted, that Season was neglected, afterwards you see your lack of knowledge, the Instrument is removed, Ah Fools! do we not then cry out of ourselves, the opportunity is gone, and we are undone? How must it gall an awakened Jew to think what Discourse he had with Jesus Christ? Is it lawful to give Tribute to Caesar? Here is a Woman caught in Adultery. Why do not thy Disciples Fast? etc. Ah! had I nothing else to inquire of my Saviour? Would it not have been more pertinent to have asked, what I shall do to be saved? But he is gone, and I must die in my sins. How many Persons have we sent away, that have had a word of wisdom in their hearts, having learned only what a Clock it was, what weather, what News, forgetting to ask our own hearts, what all this was to us, and inquire of them things worthy of their wisdom and our learning? Secondly, as to others, you may rue the opportunities you have lost; here lay a poor wretch with one foot in Hell, would he not have started back, if he had had light to Discover his Danger? Well, you are together, something you must say, the same breath would serve for a compassionate admonition as a complacent impertinency, which will redound to neither of your advantages; you part, the man dies in his sins, and in the midst of Hell cries out against you, one word of yours might have saved me, you had me, you might have told me of my danger, you forbore, I hardened, the Lord reward your negligence. Oh give not poor Souls occasion to rail at you in Hell for your sinful silence or impertinent converse with them here on Earth. You will pretend (it may be) want of matter in excuse for your forbearing holy Discourse. Object. No, Friend, it was want of mind, Answ. thou art not straitened in thy Subject, but in thyself, Religious matter has no End; Eternity is not sufficient for it, but thou art resolved also it shall have no beginning. Well, you know your duty, and do as likes you. 3. In order to the right management of our Tongue, especial regard must be had to its scope, what is aimed at in every motion of it, either immediately or ultimately; for without some scope it is vain talk, and according to the goodness or badness of our scope, it is ordinarily good or bad talk: I say ordinarily, for some talk is so bad that it is scarce capable of a good scope, much less of being made good by it, yet less evil it does become, to instance in blasphemy and lying, great moral evils both in their own Nature, and no design can destroy the Nature of them, in that the Word of God allows not, but forbids the doing of evil that good may come of it, yet speeches materially so have been passed over, the evil as of simplicity pardoned, and the good aimed at in them as of sincerity rather rewarded. As Paul, Rahab, and the Egyptian Midwives might be instances; but let us take heed of making them Examples. But ordinarily, as I said before, the Scope does much unto the Specification of the Speech, so much, 1. That fair Speeches become foul, if dirty designs be couched under them or carried on by them; he cries out therefore for help against the Flatterer, as if he was a Murderer, Psal. 12.1, 2, 3. Help Lord for the faithful fail, they speak vanity every one with his Neighbour with flattering lips, etc. the Lord shall cut off all flattering lips. Psal. 55.21. His words are softer than Oil, yet are they drawn Swords. The like may be said of the fawning Woman, that entices to vice, Prov. 5.3, 4. The Lips of a strange Woman drop as an Honeycomb, but her end is bitter as Wormwood, sharp as a two-edged Sword. 2. Good Speeches become evil to the users of them, if evil be meant by them: as if we couch under them to cover sinful purposes, or colour sinful practices, hereby they are profaned, and the holier they be, the wickeder; Woe to you, ye devour Widow's Houses, and for a pretence make long Prayers. 3. Our most common Speeches, that might otherwise seem culpable, are not only allowable, but commendable as they may be referred unto some good purpose. As first for the remission of a mind over-bent and burdened with serious matter, that one may return with more vigour to it. Secondly, For the prevention of worse Discourse, where better will not be entertained. Thirdly, For insinuation into bad men, that we may gain an opportunity of doing good upon them; and for introduction into better Discourse; which abruptly cannot be brought in. So much then depending upon the Scope of our Discourse, let me give two Cautions hereon. Caution. First, That none Pride themselves in the material goodness of their Discourse; if the design be bad, it is like a fair Apple rotten at the core. 2. That we judge none rashly for the seeming commonness of their Discourse, if it be not their common dialect, and especially if they are among common spirited People, there may be a pious guile in it, a reason for it, and it is Charity to suppose it: but let every one judge himself, who only hath a Capacity to know himself, and let us all be cautious however, that we lay not a stumbling block before a weak Brother. How may Detraction be best prevented or Cured? Serm. XXI. Psal. 15.3. He that backbiteth not with his Tongue, nor doth evil to his Neighbour, nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour. AMong the many Sins for which God is contending with England, and especially with the Professors of Religion in it, I doubt not but one, and that none of the least is, the gross misgovernment of their Tongues. The abuses of the Tongue are many, one whereof is the malignity of it. And whereas in David's time a malignant and virulent Tongue was the badge and cognizance of an Atheist, Psal. 59.7. Behold, they belch out with their mouths, Swords are in their Lips, for who (say they) doth hear? Now alas! this Spot is become the Spot of God's Children, and high professors of Religion. A man can scarce come into any Company, but his Ears shall be filled with censures, detractions, reproaches, Party against Party, Person against Person: Instead of that old Christian Love and Charity, for which the Ancient Christians were noted and applauded even by their Adversaries, (Behold, said they, how the Christians love one another.) men's hearts are generally full of rancour, and their Tongues of sharp reflections, contemptuous and reproachful expressions, censures and slanders, against their absent, and ofttimes innocent and more worthy Brethren. This is the Disease which I would endeavour to administer some Physic to from these words. The Coherence is plain. David proposeth a Question, verse 1. Lord, who shall abide in thy Tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy Hill? By which you may understand either Zion, where the Ark then was, or Moriah, where the Temple was to be Built, and by either of them, the Church of God here, and especially the Heavenly Temple hereafter. So that it is as if David had said, and asked, what is the qualification of the true Members of God's Church, of the Citizens of the New Jerusalem? By what properties are they known and distinguished from other men? To this David doth not answer, that they are so differenced by their high Talks, by their crying out upon the sins of other men, or the wickedness of the times, by their frequent attendance at God's Tabernacle; but by the uprightness of their Hearts, by the good Government of their Tongues, by the holiness of their Lives. Verse 2. He that walketh uprightly, and worketh Righteousness, and speaketh the Truth in his heart. And in this 3d. Verse that I have now read, He that backbiteth not with his Tongue, nor doth evil to his Neighbour, nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour. It is the last clause which I intent to speak to, because it will comprehend the former. Nor taketh up a Reproach against his Neighbour. The words I shall explain in the handling of the Doctrine, which is this, Doct. It is the Duty, and must be the care of every true Christian, not to take up a Reproach against his Neighbour. I shall first explain the point, then prove it, and lastly, apply it. For Explanation, three things are to be enquired into. 1. Who is my Neighbour? There are some men of Name in the world that will tell you, that in the Language of the Old Testament, by Neighbour is to be understood one of the same Country and Religion, Popularis Israelita, and it is the peculiarity of the Gospel that every man is made my Neighbour. But if we examine Scripture, we shall find this to be a gross mistake. I need not go farther for the confutation of it, than to the Decalogue itself; Thou shalt not bear false Witness against thy Neighbour. I suppose it will seem a very hard saying to affirm that it is Lawful to bear false Witness against a Stranger. So when God commands, Thou shalt not lie carnally with thy Neighbour's Wife, Leu. 18.20. I presume these Gentlemen would not allow themselves that Liberty with the Wife of a Stranger. If God may be his own Interpreter, this Controversy will quickly be ended from Leu. 19 ch. where if you compare two Verses, Verse 18. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself, with Verse 34. But the Stranger that Dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; you will not need the help of an Artist to form this Conclusion, that the Stranger is in God's Account, and aught to be in mine Account, my Neighbour. To the same purpose you may please to compare two other places of Scripture together, Deut. 22.4. Thou shalt not see thy Brother's Ass nor his Ox fall down by the way, and hid thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again, with Exod. 23.4, 5. If thou meet thine enemy's Ox or his Ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring him back again. If thou seest the Ass of him that hateth thee lying under his Burden thou shalt help him up. He who is my Brother, which is nearer than a Neighbour, in the one place, is mine Enemy, and he that hateth me in another place. And it is further observable to this end, that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Neighbour is usually rendered in Scripture by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, another, as Rom. 13.8.9. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law, for the Law saith thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. Most true therefore is that of St. Augustine, Proximus est omnis homo homini, every man is a Neighbour to any other man. Nay, the more intelligent part of the Jews were of this Opinion, and Kimchi upon these words saith, He is called my Neighbour with whom I have any business. And the Scribe, of whom we read, Luke 10. knowing the mistakes of many of his Brethren, asks our Saviour this Question, Verse 29. Who is my Neighbour? And our Saviour gives him an Answer, the sum whereof is this, that even the Samaritan was to be looked upon as his Neighbour. 2. What is a Reproach? I answer in general, it is nothing else but an evil Report, or an evil Speech, unduly uttered concerning another. Now a Report is evil two ways. 1. When it is evil in itself, a false Report: when a man belies his Neighbour, and bears false Witness against him, either in judicial proceed, or in common Conversation. These kind of evil Reports David was Exercised with, Psal. 35.11. False witness did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew not. 2. When it is evil to a man's Neighbour, when your Speech tends to your Neighbour's disparagement and defamation. And here I must inform you that a man may be guilty of Reproaching men by Commendations, as David speaks of his Enemy, Psal. 55.21. His words were smother than Oil, yet were they drawn Swords. It is the usual Practice of some men to smooth the way to a reproach by a Commendation, and to raise a man's reputation, that he may tumble it down with more advantage. 2. When a man publisheth a Neighbour's secret Infirmities or sins. This all casuists allow to be a kind of Detraction: and good Reason; for though the matter may be true and good; yet the principle from whence this proceeds is evil. It proceeds from want of Love to my Neighbour, and of the just care that I ought to have of his Credit: And the Ends either of Speaker, or of the Speech in its own Nature, or of both, are evil, even to bring his Neighbour into contempt or disgrace. 3. When a man aggravates the real or supposed faults of his Neighbour either in Opinion or in practice. Certainly the Professors of this Age, and this City, are deeply guilty in both these respects. 1. In aggravating other men's real or supposed Errors and mistakes, Often-times men call that an Error through their own Ignorance or prejudicated Opinion, which in the judgement of far wiser and better men than themselves, and in reality, is a precious Truth of God: And the pardonable mistakes of their Neighbour they decry as fundamental and damnable Errors, or at least as Errors dangerous to Salvation. I am far from pleading for Errors that are really damnable, or highly dangerous, such as those of the Papists, Socinians, Quakers, and the like: But there are other and lesser differences among, Protestants, who holding the Head as the Apostle speaks, differ in Doctrines of less moment, or in the methods and modes of Worship, in Rites and Ceremonies, which possibly one man thinks to be necessary, another to be Lawful and indifferent, another sinful; and by these differing Opinions it is lamentable to consider, and, I confess, I cannot think of it without horror and loathing, how Protestants traduce and defame one another. The one is Superstitious, Idolatrous, a Formalist, a Profane Person, and one that hath no sense of Religion. The other is an Heretic, a Schismatic, a Fanatic, a licentious lawless Person, that follows his own sensuality, and hath not the fear of God before his Eyes. Thus they mutually rail at one another, as if they had neither sense nor Conscience. Nay, the Disease is grown to that height, that not content to censure men's Opinions, they will also judge of their Consciences, and secret intentions, as if they maintained such Doctrines against the light of their own Consciences. A Censure which proceeds from deep Ignorance of the merits of the Cause. It were, I confess, a very desirable thing that all men were of one mind, and Christians indeed are to labour for it, and to pray for it, 1 Cor. 1.10. I beseech you Brethren, by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same things, that there be no Divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement. But if a man consider the great weakness of most men's understandings, the Infinite variety of their parts and apprehensions, Educations, Inclinations, Interests, or what the Scripture hath foretell, There must be Heresies, that they that are approved may be made manifest, I think he will conclude, that he who shall expect this absolute harmony and uniformity in this World must either dream or dote. And therefore the Holy Ghost hath directed us what to do in case of such differences of judgement, to wit, to talk charitably toward those that differ from us: Rom. 14.15. If thy Brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably: And to agree with others as far as we can, Phil. 3.15, 16. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus, indeed and if in any thing you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Notwithstanding whereto you have already attained, let us walk by the same Rule, let us mind the same things. But for those mutual reproaches and censures one against another, I must take the boldness to charge you all, as you tender your Salvation, to have a care of them: for though these points wherein you differ be disputable, yet this is out of all dispute, that you ought to love your Neighbour as yourself, and that you ought not to take up a Reproach against your Neighbour. And therefore take heed, lest while you condemn another man for disputable and lesser Errors, you do not run into an indisputable Crime and fundamental Miscarriage. 2. Men are guilty of reproaching their Neighbours by aggravating their Errors in practice and conversation: When men censure and reproach others for things indifferent and of small moment. As for Example; In their Habits and Garbs. I am not Ignorant that there are great miscarriages in men's Habits, and that the Bush that hangs at the door doth frequently discover what is within, and tell the pride of men's hearts, and there are certain bounds and limits to be observed, that men's Habits be agreeable to their Quality, Estate, Calling, and Condition in the World: but yet there is a just Latitude in these things, the Lawfulness of them doth not consist in a Mathematical point, these are to be regulated by the Customs of times and places: Now if a man see another that doth a little vary from his fancy or practice, whose Garb is a little more Ornamental than his, though not much extravagant, if now he judgeth the state of this man, and concludes him to be a profane or carnal Person, this is a Reproach. So again, when a man commits some miscarriage towards his Neighbour through carelessness, or forgetfulness, or mistake, it is a common thing for men to charge it as a malicious design intended for their hurt; this is a Reproach. And you may easily multiply Instances in your own thoughts. 3. Question, What is it to take up a Reproach against a man's Neighbour? I answer: It is a defective manner of expression: and therefore is diversely supplied; but especially and most reasonably two ways, and accordingly a man may be guilty of taking up a reproach against his Neighbour two ways. 1. When he takes it up into his mouth. The Hebrew word is often so used: As Exod. 20.7. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain. Not take it, that is, not lift it up upon thy Tongue, or not take it into thy Mouth. So Isa. 14.4. Thou shalt take up this Proverb against the King of Babylon; that is, thou shalt take it up into thy lips, thou shalt utter and publish it. Thus Ezek. 26.17. They shall take up a lamentation for thee: which is explained in the following words, and say to thee, how art thou destroyed? And therefore elsewhere the word, Lips or mouth, is added: as Psal. 16.4. Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. Psal. 50.16. What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes, or that thou shouldest take my Covenant into thy mouth? And this phrase of taking up, may possibly respect the situation of the Mouth above the Heart; which, according to the Opinion of the Hebrews, is the seat of the Understanding: As if he had said; If there should rise in thy heart any evil thought or device against thy Brother, let it die there, let it never come up into thy mouth. Now in this respect a man may be guilty of this sin of taking up a reproach against his Neighbour two ways. 1. When he is the Author and first raiser of a reproach: Such as Sanballat was, Neh. 6.8. There are no such things as thou sayest, but thou feignest them of thy own heart. 2. When a man is the Spreader or Promoter of it. Suppose it comes from another Fountain, if thou art the Conduit-pipe by whom it is conveyed to others, thou art guilty of it. Leu. 19.16. Thou shalt not go up and down as a Tale-bearer among thy people. 2. When a man takes it into his Ear: So some expound these words, thou shalt not receive, not admit, not endure a reproach against thy Neighbour. You know the Receiver of stolen goods is as obnoxious to the Law, as he that takes them away: So than a man may be guilty of this sin, not only by speaking, but also by the hearing of a reproach against his Neighbour; and so he may be three ways. 1. When a man quietly permits it, and gives no check to it. This is certain, the great Law of Charity commands me not only to do no hurt to my Neighbour, but also to suffer no hurt to be done to him, which it lies in my power to prevent or remove. If another set his house on fire, I must lend my help to quench it; I must pull my Neighbour's Ox out of the Pit, though another man hath cast him in; and consequently, when the good name of my Neighbour is invaded by another, if I patiently bear the reproach, I make myself guilty. 2. When a man hears a reproach against his Neighbour greedily, and with delight. It is a sin, and that of no small size, for a man to take pleasure in the sins of others; and therefore the Apostle makes it an aggravation of sin, Rom. 1.32. Who knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also have pleasure in them that do them: 1 Cor. 13.6. Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Consider, I beseech you, the commonness of this sin; if a reproach be fastened upon one who is a man's Enemy, or of another Party, men commonly hear such reproaches with delight, not considering that this is not only a blemish to his own Party, but also a blot to Christianity, a reproach to the Protestant Religion, a sin against God, and against the Gospel, a scandal to men; and these things should rather call for tears, than laughter, and approbation. And therefore when a man seems to approve another man's reproach, and encourage the reproacher, he involves himself in the guilt of it. It is the saying of a very Learned Man upon the Proverbs, That it is not easy to know whether is a greater sinner, or whether is the greater plague to a Commonwealth, he that spreads a reproach, or he that willingly receives it. 3. When a man easily believes a reproach. It is said indeed, 1 Cor. 13.7. Charity believeth all things; but the object of this belief is the good of my Neighbour, and not his evil. Charity readily believes well concerning its Neighbour, where there is the least colour or foundation for it; but it is slow to believe evil concerning him: and when a man is prone to believe evil concerning another man, it is a great sign of an uncharitable disposition; the reason is, because men do most readily believe those things which comply with their own desires and inclinations; as in Wars and differing Factions, every man is apt to believe good tidings concerning his own Party. Good men are the least suspicious, and slowest to believe evil of others: of which you have a remarkable instance in Gedaliah; when Johanan told him of Ismael's design to murder him, it is said, he believed him not, Jer. 40.14. And when it was pressed upon him a second time, and Johanan offered to punish the Conspirator, and to prevent the Execution of the Treason, he said, Thou shalt not do this thing, for thou speakest falsely concerning Ishmael, verse 16. You may observe how backward fond Parents are to believe any ill report concerning their Children; and whence doth this proceed? even from an inordinate love and kindness to them: and therefore on the contrary, men's credulity unto evil reports concerning their Neighbours doth proceed from want of love and affection to them. So much for the Explication. 2. The Proof of the Doctrine shall consist in the representation of the sinfulness and injury of this practice of censuring, backbiting, and reproaching of others. And that I may more effectually dissuade and affright myself and you from it, I shall discover to you how pregnant a sin this is: There is a complication of injuries in it. It is injurious; First, to God; Secondly, to yourselves; Thirdly, to the Party censured or reproached; Fourthly, to other men. 1. To God and Christ in divers particulars. 1. It is an invasion of God's Prerogative. You know how dangerous a Crime this is, when it is committed against an Earthly Prince: nor can you in reason think it less criminal and hazardous, when it is committed against him who accepteth not the persons of Princes, and who is greater than the Kings of the Earth. And therefore observe how severely God rebukes this sin in the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. 14. when men did censure and Reproach one another, either for the Observation of days and meats, as guilty of Superstition, or for the neglect of them, as proceeding from licentiousness, what saith the Apostle? Who art thou that judgest another man's Servant? verse 4. And, But why dost thou judge or set at naught thy Brother? For we must all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ, verse 10. As if he had said, thou dost set thyself in the Throne of God, and thou dost take God's work out of his hands. 2. This is a manifest breach of the Laws of God and of Christ. The things, as I said before, which thou dost censure and reproach another for, are oftentimes doubtful and liable to dispute, but the Command of God against this sinful practice, is evident, and without controversy. He, whom thou censurest, possibly may sin, but thou that dost reproach him, certainly dost sin, and that against clear Light, and so thou dost put thyself into the Number of those that rebel against the Light, which is mentioned as a great aggravation of sin, Job 24.13. The Law of God hath so evidently forbidden this sin, that if thy Conscience doth not smite thee for it, if thou canst go on quietly in this sin, it is a sign thou art in a deep sleep, if not dead in Trespasses and sins. That this practice is so great a breach of the Laws of God, and of Christ, will appear by these particulars. 1. It is against particular and express Scriptures, forbidding this practice. The Text is evident, it is not like some places of Scripture, which are hard to be understood, and soon wrested, but it is so plain, that he that runs may read it, none shall dwell in God's holy Hill that allow themselves in this practice. Again, Exod. 23.1. Thou shalt not raise a false Report against thy Brother. A false Report, either that which thou knowest to be false, than thou art guilty of Forgery: or that which in the Issue shall be found to be false, in which case thou art guilty of rashness and uncharitableness. In the Hebrew it is a vain Report, a report that wants the solidity of a through information, and of real use to thy Neighbour, Jam. 4.11. Speak not evil of another, for he that speaketh evil of his Brother, and judgeth his Brother, speaketh evil of the Law, and judgeth the Law, and so, in the grossest sense, is an Antinomian, Tit. 3.2. Ministers must put people in mind to speak evil of no man. 2. This is against the fundamental Law of Love and Charity, which is the chief of the Laws of God, so great a Law that the rest of the Laws of God must give place to it; Sacrifice, Sabbaths, The Worship and Service of God must frequently give place unto this duty of Mercy and Charity to men; by which you may see, as how great a duty this is, so how great a sin the violation of this command is. God accepts no man's person, he regards no Service, where this is wanting. Though men pretend, or express never so much love to God, though they do or suffer never so much for him, yet if they have not Charity, it profiteth nothing, 1 Cor. 13.3. and 1 Joh. 3.10. In this the Children of God are manifest, and the Children of the Devil, whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his Brother, 1 Joh. 4.20. If a man say I love God, and hateth his Brother, he is a Liar: for he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? But possibly some may ask, who then is my Brother, to the love of whom I am thus obliged? Possibly he is one of my own party and Religion, and such I do love. No, every man is thy Brother in this sense and the object of thy Love. 'Tis true, good men are the principal objects of thy Love: but not the only objects of it, the commands of the Gospel in this matter are general, 1 Pet. 2.17. Honour all men, love the Brotherhood, that is, Love them in a more eminent degree, Gal. 6.10. As we have opportunity let us do good to all men, especially to the Household of Faith. But now, all Persons, yea, even those that censure and reproach others, will pretend they love them: but be not deceived, if thou dost sincerely love thy Neighbour, thou wilt be ready to do all good Offices for him, to seek his Good, to maintain his Credit, to Interpret all things in the best sense, to cover his failings, 1 Pet. 4.8. Charity will cover a multitude of sins. Didst thou love thy Neighbour, thou wouldst not be so apt to censure him, so greedy to hear, nor so ready to believe, evil reports concerning him. When God shall come at the last day to try men's Love to their Brethren by the Rules and Characters of it, which he did prescribe in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, 13th. Chapter, I doubt multitudes of Persons will be found deeply guilty, that thought themselves in a manner wholly Innocent. You should do well to study that Chapter, and to labour throughly to understand it, and that I commend to you as an excellent Antidote against this wicked practice. 2. This is a sin against that great and Royal Law of Christ, which even the Heathens have admired, and the Emperor Severus did so highly applaud, Mat. 7.12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Now let your own Consciences answer the Question, would you be thus dealt with by others? Would you have all your Infirmities sharply censured? Your secret miscarriages published to the World? The whole course of your Lives ripped up, and all your actions severely examined? No, no, they that are so forward to censure the real or supposed miscarriages of others, would have their own more tenderly dealt with: And generally those that are most severe Judges of others are most partial to themselves: they that will most freely defame other men will not endure to be reproved and admonished themselves. They that will turn the edge of the Sword to others, would have the back only turned to themselves. 3. It is sin against the great Law of maintaining Peace amongst men. This is prescribed as a remedy against this very sin, Rom. 14.9. Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace, and things wherewith we may Edify one another. Heb. 12.4. Fellow Peace with all men. Rom. 12.18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. He saith indeed, if it be possible, because in some cases it is impossible to have peace with wicked men without the neglect of our Duty, and without the loss of Truth and Holiness, but as far as it is possible, we are obliged to promote it. But what Peace can there be in the midst of Censures and Reproaches? The Natural Offspring of such Parents are Contentions, Divisions, Animosities; while Peace lies bleeding and languishing. 4. It is against that great Command laid upon all Christians, of excelling other men. Christ requires more from Christians than he doth from other men, Mat. 5.47. What do ye more than others? Christian's must be free from the Vices of other men, Eph. 4.17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye walk not as other Gentiles walk. So Luke 22.25, 26. The Kings of the Gentiles Exercise Lordship, they are Proud, Ambitious, Imperious. But it shall not be so among you. Christian's must be in the World like Lights shining in a dark place. They must have all the Virtues that others have, and they must be clean from all the Vices and Lusts in which others Live. Now the very Heathens have condemned this Practice of Reproaching and traducing others: Detractors were infamous amongst them, and therefore it is a shame this should be practised by Christians. 3. This is a sin against the whole design and scope of the Scriptures. These are, as I may say, the two Poles, upon which the Heavenly Globe of the Scripture turns; the Love of God, and the Love of our Neighbour. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself, Mat. 22.37, etc. Rom. 13.10. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, and the Law is enforced by Christ, Joh. 13.34. A new Commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another. So then, all the Scripture hath but one Neck, and this the Detractor cuts off, and so makes himself the greatest Anti-Scripturist in the World. 3. This is a great injury to God, because it is a Confederacy with God's greatest Enemy, the Devil. God judgeth of men's Relations by their Works, and not by their talks, John 8.39. If ye were Abraham 's Children, you would do the Works of Abraham. And verse 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil, and the Lusts of your Father ye will do. Now this among others is the Devil's great Work and Office, who is hence called the Accuser of the Brethren, Rev. 12.10. And from whence he hath his Name Diabolus, which is a Calumniator, a Slanderer, a Reproacher. And these Men as they do the Devil's Work, so they are called by the Devil's name, 1 Tim. 3.12. Not Slanderers, in the Greek, not Devils: And as they do the Devil's Work, so they serve the Devil's great Design. God is Love, and therefore his design is to promote Love in the World. The Devil is a malignant and hateful Spirit, and his work is to promote hatred, contention, and strife among men: And that is effectually done by this way. 2. This is an injury to thyself in these particulars. 1. Hereby thou dost contract guilt, the worst of all evils. A man's sin may injure another Man; but the greatest and the worst part of it falls upon his own head. Wickedness, saith Seneca, drinketh up the greatest part of it's own poison, Prov. 8.36. He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own Soul. Thou woundest another Man's Fame, but thou woundest thy own Conscience; which of these is the worst? He whom thou reproachest gets a blot before men; and thou dost procure to thyself a blot before God. Thou accusest him before other Men, and thy Conscience will accuse thee for it before God. 2. Hereby thou dost expel or weaken that excellent Grace of Love, that necessary and fundamental Grace, that sweet and amiable Grace. As all Virtue is a reward to itself, so is this in a more special manner. Infinite is the pleasure of the Holy Soul in loving God, and loving all Men, and loving Enemies. O this is a most delightful Work! And on the contrary, Hatred, and Malice, and Envy, as they are most sinful, so are they very miserable works, and a great Torment to him that hath them; while the mind of a wicked malicious man is like the raging Sea, continually casting up mire and dirt, and is its own Tormentor. The mind of a good Man exercising itself in love is, as it were, a Sea of Glass like unto Crystal, calm and serene, it enjoys God, and itself, and other men, yea, even a man's Enemies: By this Holy Art a Man may get comfort out of his Enemies whether they will or no. 3. Hereby thou dost lay a Foundation for thy own Reproach, Mat. 7.1, 2. Judge not, that ye be not judged, for with what Judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Methinks this Text should strike a terror into all Persons who are guilty of this sin. The Law of Retaliation prescribed by God is frequently inflicted by him also, James 2.13. He shall have Judgement without Mercy, that hath showed no mercy. So that thou dost engage the great God against thee, to pour contempt upon thy Name, and to make thee a Reproach in the World. 3. It is a great injury to the Person whom thou dost censure and reproach, and that in these particulars. 1. Thou dost rob him of the best Treasure which he hath in the World, Prov. 22.1. A good Name is rather to be chosen than Riches, and consequently thou art more Criminal than he that dyeth by the hands of Justice for taking away another Man's Goods: Thou robbest him of that which thou art not able to give him, thou robbest him of the most lasting good which he hath, and that which alone will abide after Death. So that thy cruelty extends beyond the Grave, and tends to this to make his Name rot above ground, while his Body rots in it: And this injury is the greater, because it cannot be prevented; there is no Fence against this Vice, it is the Arrow that flies by Night, which no man can either observe or avoid, and it is an Injury which can hardly be repaired. Breaches in men's Estates may be made up, Liberty lost may be recovered, a Conscience wounded may be healed: but a Reputation can hardly ever be restored. Calumnia re fortiter, aliquid adhaerebit, Slander a man resolutely, and something to be sure will stick. 2. Hereby thou dost disenable him from getting good both as to his outward, and as to his inward man. As to his outward Man. Who knows not the necessity of a good fame for the successful management of a man's Worldly concernments? By one Act of this sin thou mayst possibly undo a man and all his Family. It hinders him also from receiving inward good as to the state of his Soul: At least he is not likely to get any good from thee. Whereas it is thy duty to rebuke thy Neighbour, and not to suffer sin to rest upon him, Levit. 19.17. This is the way to make that work altogether unsuccessful; it stops his Ear against thy Counsels, it hardens his heart against thy admonitions, and many times such Reproaches make men careless, and by degrees impudent; and when once they have lost their Reputation by thy Calumnies, they are not careful to regain it, and it may be judge it impossible. 3. Hereby thou dost hinder him from doing of good in the World. It is certain a good Name is of absolute necessity to make a man considerably serviceable in the World; when a Man hath once lost this, the very good which he doth is despised and disregarded. And this reason especially concerns you in the reproaching of three sorts of Persons, which I do therefore in a special manner caution you against. 1. In reproaching of Magistrates, of Kings, and Persons in Authority. Magistrates, though bad in themselves, yet are to be looked upon as great blessings. And if we had the Persian Experiment of absolute Anarchy but for a few days, that every man might do that which seemed right in his own eyes, we should all be sensible of this Truth. Now, the Magistrate's Reputation is the great Supporter of that Majesty and Authority, which he bears, and the Magistrates Authority is the People's benefit. And therefore all Persons should be tender in this particular, they should not expose Kings and Magistrates to contempt and scorn, nor beget irreverence in People towards them. And therefore they ought to take heed not only of divulging false reports concerning them, but even such as possibly may be true, they must take heed of publishing the secret miscarriages of Princes, for this, as I told you, is a sin against any Man; but much more against Persons in Authority. 2. Against Ministers. Their Fame is most necessary for their usefulness in the Word. And therefore when a Man defames a Minister, besides that Injury which is common to other men, he doth this peculiar mischief, he endeavours to rob the World of all the good which such a Person may do in it. I cannot but take this occasion to vent my great grief, and the scandal I justly take at those Ministers and Christians, who, if a Man differ from them in some Doctrines or Rites of less moment, (though otherwise never so eminent,) make it their business to disparage and bespatter him, and think they do God good Service in blasting his Reputation, representing him as a Papist, Socinian, , etc. In the fear of God, consider the sinfulness of this practice. Whatsoever good such a Person might do in convincing, converting, and building up of Souls, so far as this is hindered by thy means, the Blood of such Souls will fall upon thy head: Nay, which is more, although good should not be hindered by it, yet thou shalt answer for all that might have been hindered by it. And for this reason Constantine the Great did profess, that if he should know any secret miscarriage of a Minister, he would cover it with a Mantle. 3. Against good men, or eminent Professors of Religion: who, I confess, when they are bad, are the vilest of Men, and when their sins are known and public, they ought to be used with most severity, and such shall have the hottest place in Hell who use Religion as a Cloak for their Villainies: yet when the sins of such Persons are secret and scarce known, we should take heed of spreading of them. Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, not for their sakes, but for the sake of Religion, which infinitely suffers by their misdemeanours, and the Reproaches which arise from them. 4. This is a great Injury to other men, in these particulars. 1. Thou corruptest others by thy Example. Especially Ministers and eminent Professors of Religion they should above all others avoid this sin, because their Actions are presidential: They that will not follow your counsel, will imitate your Example: and though our Saviour hath cautioned us concerning the Pharisees, Mat. 23.3. What they bid or teach you, observe and do, but do not after their Works: yet in spite of all that Christ hath said, Men will take a contrary course, they will not hear your Sermons, but will diligently attend to your conversations. O consider this, every time another hears thee censuring and reproaching thy Neighbour, thou dost in effect Preach and persuade him to this Practice; Thou settest a Copy which other men may write after when thou art gone into another World, and no man knows how far the contagion of such an evil Example may spread, nor how great a fire a little spark may kindle. 2. Thou art a disturber of Humane Society, an Incendiary in the place where thou dwellest. The Peace and tranquillity of Cities and Kingdoms is often disturbed by this means. Whence come Wars and Fightings among you? Come they not hence, even from your Lusts that War in your Members? They do not come from Men's Lusts as they remain in their own hearts, for so they are secret and unknown to the World, but as they break out, first, in their Lips, and then in their hands. 3. Thou art a great Enemy to the Church of God, however thou mayst seem to thyself, or others, a zealous Friend of it. It is not easy for any man to conceive the great mischief which these Censures and Reproaches produce in the Church; they break the peace of it, and fill it with sharp contentions and Divisions: Yea, they strike at the being of it. You know a Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand: they do their part to pull down the glorious Building of the Church, so as one stone should not be left upon another. They Eclipse the glory of the Church, which doth not consist in external splendour, in Riches and Ornaments; but in Love, Peace, and Unity among themselves. This was Jerusalem's Beauty, that it was Built as a City that is Compact together, Psal. 122.3. This hinders the growth and Progress of the Church, and of Religion. When Persons professing Religion allow themselves in such sins which are not only offensive to God, but also odious in the World, it fills the minds of men with powerful and invincible prejudices against Religious men, and against Religion itself for their sakes. I must tell you, if the Professors of Religion would learn the Government of their Tongues, and the right ordering of their Conversations, it would be the likeliest means to propagate Religion in the World. And, Christians, if ever you would do this, do it now: never was it more necessary or seasonable to wipe off those stains and blemishes which at this day lie upon Religion for the neglect of this Duty by the Professors of it. And thrice blessed are all you that contribute to so glorious a work as the Restauration of that Beauty and Glory, which Religion once had in some of our Remembrance. But when the Tongues of Christians are Exercised in this sinful practice, besides the particular injury to the Person Reproached, it hinders the conversion and Salvation of others. Consider, I beseech you, a little the greatness of this sin. You think it a great Crime, and so it was, in Elymas the Sorcerer, who, when Sergius Paulus called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired them to Preach to him the Word of God, withstood them, seeking to turn the Deputy from the Faith, Acts 13.8. He did this by his words, and thou dost it by thy Actions. Thou dost the Devil's work in stealing the Seed of the Word of God out of men's hearts, and making it unfruitful. These practices beget in men a mean esteem and contempt of God's Word, when they see how little good it doth to others, and how little power it hath with you that profess it. Before I come to the Application, two Questions are to be Answered. 1. May I not speak evil of another Person when it is true? Quest. 1. A Man may be faulty in so doing. The real secret faults of your Neighbour, as I told you, you ought not unnecessarily to publish. And suppose there be no untruth nor injustice in it, yet there is uncharitableness, and unkindness in it, and that is a sin. Thou wouldst not have all Truth said concerning thyself, nor all thy real faults publicly traduced. Out of thy own mouth will God Judge thee, O thou wicked Servant: Yea, thy own Tongue and Conscience shall another day condemn thee. 2. You may speak evil of another Person, when necessity requires it. It may be necessary sometimes for his good, and so you may speak evil of him unto those that can help it: as a man may acquaint Parents with the miscarriages of their Children, in order to their amendment. Thus, Gen. 27.2. Joseph brought to his Father the evil Report of his Brethren. Sometimes this may be necessary for the caution of others; as if I see a man ready to enter into intimate Friendship and Acquaintance with a Person whom I know to be highly vicious and dangerous: I may in such a case caution him against it; For certainly if Charity commands me, when my Neighbour's Ox is ready to fall into a Pit, to do my endeavour ro prevent it; much more am I obliged to prevent the ruin of my Brother's Soul, when I see him so near destruction. But for a man to do this unnecessarily, and unprofitably, this is the sin I have been speaking of. 3. If you will speak evil of other Persons, do it in the right method. Christ hath given us an Excellent Rule, Mat. 18.15, 16. If thy Brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy Brother; But if he will not hear thee, take two or three more, and if he will not hear them, tell it to the Church. But if Men will be preposterous, and will not follow Christ's Order, but instead of private admonishing, will publish men's faults to others, herein they make themselves Transgressor's. 4. In doubtful cases silence is the safest way. It is rarely men's duty to speak evil of Men; and when it is not their duty to speak, it is not their sin to be silent. It is seldom that any suffer by my silence, or concealment of his fault; but great hazards are run, and many Persons commonly are made sufferers, by my publication. Now, as Charity commands me to pass the most favourable judgement, so Wisdom obligeth me to choose the safest course. Quest. 2 But what if that Man I speak against be an Enemy to God and his People? May not I in that case speak evil of him? Doth not that Zeal I owe to God engage me to speak evil of such a man as far as I can with truth? This I believe is that which induceth many well meaning Persons to this sinful practice of detracting from divers worthy Persons, Ministers and others, as supposing them to be Enemies to God and to his ways, and so they think their reproaching and censuring of such Persons is nothing but zeal for God. For Answer to this, consider, 1. There is abundance of sinful Zeal in the World, and in the Church: Therefore the Apostle gives us a Caution, Gal. 4.18. It is good to be zealously affected in a good thing. Otherwise we know it was from Zeal that Paul persecuted the Church, Phil. 3.6. Zeal indeed is an Excellent grace in itself, but nothing more frequently both pretended where it is not, and where Envy, Interest, or Malice, lie at the bottom; and abused where it is. 2. True Zeal hath an equal respect to all God's commands, and especially to those that are most plain and most considerable. It is at least doubtful, whether the man thou traducest be an Enemy to God and his ways; sure I am it is so with some Ministers and Christians that are highly censured and reproached by those that differ from them, and it were great Impudence to deny it: But this is a certain truth, and evident duty, Thou shalt not take up an evil reproach against thy Neighbour. 3. Consider how easy a mistake is in this case, and how dangerous. Peradventure he whom thou callest an Enemy to God, will upon enquiry be found a Friend of God and his ways. But what dost thou mean by the ways of God? Possibly thy own ways or party that thou art engaged in, take heed of that. If you would Judge aright, you must distinguish between the circumstantials, and the essentials of the ways of God. Suppose a man be an Enemy to thy Party, and thy way and manner of Religious Worship and Government; yea, let us suppose that thine is indeed the way of God, wherein yet thou mayst be mistaken: if now this man be an able and zealous Assertor of the substantial and fundamental truths of God, and ways of Holiness, and this be attended with an Holy and exemplary Life, who dare say that this man is an enemy to God and his ways? O my Soul, come not into the secrets of such Persons. 4. You must not go out of God's way to meet with God's Enemies. If any man be really an Enemy of God and of his Truths and ways, I do not persuade you to comply with him, or by sinful silence to betray the cause of God: only let me entreat you to do God's work in God's way; you may apply yourselves to him, and endeavour to convince him, you may speak or write against his Doctrine, provided, you do it with modesty and moderation, and not with that virulence and venom wherewith too many Books are now leavened. But for this way of Detraction and Reproach, it is a dishonourable, and disingenuous way, it is a sinful and disorderly way, it is an unprofitable and ineffectual way, and no way suitable either to the Nature of God whom you serve, or to the Rule and Example of our Blessed Saviour, or to the great principle of Love and Charity, or to that end which you are to aim at in all things, the honour of God, and the good of other men. Now I come to the Application. Lamentation for the gross neglect of this Duty, or the frequent Commission Use 1 of this sin. What Tears are sufficient to bewail it? How thick do Censures and Reproaches fly in all places, at all Tables, in all Conventions? And this were the more tolerable, if it were only the fault of ungodly Men, of Strangers and Enemies to Religion; For so saith the Proverb, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked. When a man's heart is full of Hell, it is not unreasonable to expect that his Tongue should be set on fire of Hell; And it is no wonder to hear such Persons reproach good men, yea, even for their goodness. But alas! the D●sease doth not rest here, this Plague is not only among the Egyptians, but Israelites too. It is very doleful to consider, how Professors sharpen their Tongues like Swords against Professors; and one good man censures and reproaches another, and one Minister traduceth another: and who can say, I am clean from this sin? O that I could move your pity in this case! For the Lord's sake pity yourselves, and do not pollute and wound your Consciences with this Crime: Pity your Brethren, let it suffice that godly Ministers and Christians are loaded with reproaches by wicked men, there is no need that you should combine with them in this Diabolical work: You should support and strengthen their hands against the reproaches of the ungodly World, and not add affliction to the afflicted. O pity the World, and pity the Church which Christ hath purchased with his own Blood, which methinks bespeaks you in those words, Job 19.21. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O my Friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me: Pity the mad and miserable World, and help it against this sin, stop the bloody Issue, restrain this wicked practice amongst men as much as possibly you can, and lament it before God, and for what you cannot do yourselves, give God no rest until he shall please to work a Cure. Use 2 Caution. Take heed you be not found guilty of this sin. Wherein any of us have been guilty, let us be truly and throughly humbled for it, and for the future let us make conscience of abstaining from it. I will suppose what I have said may be sufficient for Arguments to convince, and for Motives to persuade you; And therefore I shall only give you some Directions in order to the practice of this Duty: And to assist you against this sin, Direct. 1 Avoid the causes of this sin. This is the most Natural and regular way to Cure a Disease, by taking away the cause of it. Particularly take heed of these things as the Causes of this sin. 1. Take heed of uncharitableness in all its kinds and degrees, Malice, Envy, Hatred; where these Diseases are in the Heart, they will break out at the Lips. Out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speaketh. 2. Take heed of Loquacity and multitude of words. A Man need not seek far for perpetual motion, he may find it in some Persons restless and incessant Tongues. Now Persons of this temper will not want matter of Discourse; and therefore pick up and spread abroad all sorts of censures and reproaches against others, not so much out of Malice against them, as for their own Diversion and ease, that their Tongues may not want Exercise. Take heed of this, it is in itself a sin, an abuse of the Tongue, a wasting of time, a reproach to thyself, it makes thee cheap and mean and contemptible in the eyes of others, and especially of wise and good men, and it is also the cause of many other sins. 3. Take heed of Pragmaticalness, which is, when Men are inquisitive and busy about other men's matters. A sin often reproved in Scripture, 2 Thes. 3.11. For we hear that there are some walking among you disorderly, working not at all. 1 Pet. 4.15. Let none of you suffer as an evil doer, or as a busy body in other men's matters. You may observe how Christ reproveth this in his own dear Apostle, Joh. 21.21, 22. Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith to him, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me: As if he had said, mind you your own business, do not busy your head about other men. 4. Take heed of man-pleasing. There are many whose great employment and business it is to spread evil reports concerning others, who are therefore called Tale-bearers; and this they do to please the humours of Persons with whom they converse, unto whom they know such Discourse is most acceptable. And thus many Persons make themselves guilty in hearing reproaches and not checking them, because they will comply with the Company, they will not displease nor offend their Friends. Take heed of this, and remember that severe Sentence of the Apostle, Gal. 1.10. If I yet pleased men, I should not be the Servant of Christ. He that pleaseth other men, so as to neglect any Duty, or to commit any sin, whatsoever he pretends, he is not the Servant of Christ. Direct. 2 Learn the government of your Tongues. Consider the necessity of it, The Apostle James lays the stress of all Religion upon it, Jam. 1.26. If any man among you seem to be Religious, and bridleth not his Tongue, this man's Religion is in vain. And if this be true, I am sure there are many high Professors that must be blotted out of the Saints Calendar. Consider also the easiness of this government of the Tongue. Men have more command of their Tongues and of their outward Members, than they have of their inward motions, concupiscences, and passions: If Tongues be unruly, God and Nature hath given you a bridle to restrain them, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the fence of the Teeth, as the Poet speaks. Learn distrust of Reports; it is a good Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, learn to disbelieve. Direct. 3 Fame hath lost its Reputation long since, and I do not know any thing which it hath done in our Age to regain it, and therefore it ought not to be credited. How few Reports are there in any kind, which when they come to be examined we do not find to be false? For my part I reckon, if I believe one Report in twenty, I make a very liberal allowance. And especially distrust reproaches and evil reports, because these spread fastest, as being grateful to most Persons, who suppose their own Reputation never so well grounded, as when it is built upon the ruins of other men's. 4. Reproach no man for that which you do not throughly understand. This, I am sure, is highly reasonable, and he that doth otherwise is altogether inexcusable, because he runs an infinite hazard, lest while he opposeth a man he be found to fight against God. And truly if this Rule were practised, some kinds of reproaches would be rare in the World: for Persons of true and clear understanding are not apt to reproach others for different Opinions in lesser matters; they consider the weakness of humane Nature, and the necessity of mutual forbearance. It is the weaker sort that are here, as in other things, most querulous; and generally where there is least light there is most heat. Those Persons by whose censures and reproaches the Church of God among us is most miserably torn and wasted, are generally the more ignorant part of Christians. How many are there that are full of rage one against another for being either for a Form of Prayer or against it, either for the Ceremonies or against them, that never searched into the state of the Controversy, and never took pains to examine the Arguments on both sides, which in all reason they ought to have done, or else at least to have restrained their Tongues from such unreasonable and sinful censures and reproaches? These, I say, are the Persons that are most guilty, nay, upon the matter, the only guilty Persons, except such whom base Lust and Interest doth corrupt and work to these animosities. 5. Converse much with yourselves. It is want of business at home in men's own hearts, that makes them ramble so much abroad, and rake into the Lives of others. Study yourselves more, and other men less. Did you search your own hearts and lives, you would find so much cause of self-judging and self-abhorring, that you would have little cause to despise others, and much cause of compassion towards others. 6. Judge of others as you would do of yourselves and your own Actions. It is worth our consideration, what a great difference there is between the Judgement men pass upon themselves, and other men. As for themselves, all their Errors are but small mistakes, and all their sins against God, however attended with ugly circumstances of light, of consent of the will, custom, and allowance, yet they are but sins of Infirmity, if themselves may be Judges in their own Cause; Their injuries to men are but small and trivial offences; and they do indeed expect both from God and Man a Pardon of course, which if they have not, they judge God tobe harsh and severe, Men to be cruel and implacable: But when they come to pass Judgement upon other Men, the Tables are turned, some mistakes are damnable delusions, and all their sins against God, which they can observe, are evidences of a naughty heart, and inconsistent with Grace, and the Offences of others against them are inexcusable and intolerable, great affronts and Indignities: whereas on the contrary, thou shouldest, as it was said of a great Man, Be severe to thyself, and Candid to others: Because thou knowest more wickedness by thyself, and more aggravation of thy own sins, than of all the sins that are in the World. But at least all the reason and Justice in the World requires this, that thou shouldest weigh thyself and others in the same Balance, that thou shouldest try thy own and their Actions by the same Touchstone; and more need not be done. Thou who art so prone to flatter thyself, wouldst certainly be more indulgent to other men, and pass a more favourable construction upon their Actions. What Light must shine in our Works. Serm. XXII. Matth. 5.16. Let your Light so shine before Men, that they may see your good Works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven. THE Work designed for this time, is to resolve this practical Case, [What is that Light which must shine before Men, in the Works of Christ's Disciples, for the Glorifying of God?] But the Explication of the Text is therein included. The Son of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, who giveth Light to every one that cometh into the World (or coming into the World, giveth Light to all,) from his fullness hath bespangled the Inferior Heavens, his Church, with many fulgent Stars, appointed freely to communicate the Heavenly light which they had freely received. In his corporal presence he prepared them; and his Spirit having moved on the darkened World, he unresistably said, at the descent of the Holy Ghost, Let there be Light, and there was Light; beginning at Jerusalem, but not fixed to any determinate place: But what he gave them, necessarily and antecedently, they were to Exercise as Free Agents, by a command more resistable; which here he gives them. Having told them their Office, and given them their Names, v. 14. [The are the Lights of the World,] he next tells them how they must be useful. They must be conspicuous, 1. Because the Church where they are placed, is like a City on a Hill, which cannot be hid. 2. Because it's the end of him that lighteth them and sets them up, not to put them under a Bushel, but on a Candlestick, to give light to all his House. And therefore not men's silencing or prohibitions, no difficulties or sufferings will excuse them from their Duty, Lights they are, and Shine they must: But lest they should think that it is Preaching only which he meaneth, he here commanding them their Duty, lets them know, that the splendour of Christianity is in Works as well as Words: And thereby giveth us cause to think, that it is all his Disciples or Christians that he speaketh to, though first, and eminently, to the Apostles and Teachers of the World. 1. By [Light] he meaneth both the Illuminating knowledge which must be uttered by Words; and the Splendour or Glory of Holiness which must be refulgent in their Lives. 2. He calls it [Your] Light, as being their own in his Graces, as the Subjects, and their own in Exercise as the Actors; though both under him. 3. It must [Shine,] that is, Appear in its splendour, for the Illumination and conviction of the World. 4. It must [So] shine, as is fittest to attain these ends: It is not every twinkling that will answer their great obligations. 5. It must be [Before men;] that is, both those within, and especially those without the Church, that are but Men. 6. It must be a Light shining in [Good Works,] and their [Own] Works: For that is the grand difference between the Disciples of Christ and others; He teacheth them not only to know and talk well, but to Do well: And he maketh men such as he Teacheth them to be: Non magna loquimur sed vivimus, said Tertullian. 7. [That Men may see] doth signify both the necessary refulgent quality of their Works, and also the end of God and them. 8. But it is not Hypocritical ostentation of what they are not; nor of what they are and have, as for their own Glory, to be honoured and praised of Men: but for the Glorifying of God. Who is called [their Father] to show their obligation to him, and to encourage them by the honour and comfort of their Relation, and to show why their Works will tend to the glorifying of God; even because they are so nearly related to him. And he is said to be [in Heaven,] because there he appeareth operatively in his Glory to the beautifying of Holy Spirits: As the Soul is said to be in the Head; and we look a man in the face when we talk to him, as if there principally we saw the Man; because it is in the Head that it operateth by Reason. So much of the meaning of the Words. Many Doctrines the Text affordeth us: as, 1. Christ's Disciples are the Lights of the World, both in the splendour of Wisdom and Holiness. 2. Their most eminent and convincing splendour is in their good Works. 3. Their Light and good works are their own, though by the grace of Christ: And it is no injury to Christ, or his Righteousness, or Grace, to say, that they are their own. 4. The splendour of Christians in their good Works must be such as may be seen of Men. 5. The Glorifying of God must be the end of our Good Works, and of their appearance unto men. 6. As bad as corrupted Nature is there is yet something in mankind which tendeth to the approving of the good works of Christians, and to their glorifying God thereupon. 7. God is glorified even by common men, when they approve of the Glory of Holiness in Believers: It is not only by Saints that God is glorified. 8. As contrary as Holiness is to corrupted Nature, there is such resplendent goodness in true Christians works, which common men may glorify God for: And so somewhat in them, and in Christianity, which hath such agreeableness, as may tend to further good. 9 The Excellency and Splendour of the good works of Christians, especially Teachers, is a grand means, ordained by God himself for the Conviction of the World, and the glorifying of God. But the resolving the Question, What the splendour of these works must be, is my present undertaken task. God is not glorified by our adding to him, but by our receiving from him; not by our making him greater, or better, or happier than he is, but by owning him, loving him, and declaring him as he is, that we and others may thereby be wise, and good, and happy. He is his own glory, and ours: And by his own light only we must know both him, and all things. We are not called to bring our Candle to show the World that there is a Sun, but to persuade them into its light, to open the Windows and Curtains, to disperse the Clouds, and to open the eyes of blinded sinners. I. The way of doing this, and glorifying God, is in the order following. 1. The first thing that our works must show is their own goodness: They can never prove the Cause good, till it is clear, that they are good themselves: Therefore doubtless Christ here intendeth, that we must abound, especially in those good works which the world is capable of knowing to be good, and not only in those which none but Christians themselves approve. If believers and unbelievers agreed in no common principles, we were not capable of preaching to unbelievers, nor convincing them, nor of conversing with them. There are many excellent things which Nature doth approve, and which both parties are agreed to be good: By the advantage of these, as granted principles, we must convince them of the conclusions, which they yet deny; and not, as the scandalous Christian, so absurdly affect singularity, as to make light of all good which is taken for good by unbelievers, and to seek for eminency in nothing, but what the World thinks evil. There is a glory in some good works, which all do honour, and which manifesteth itself. 2. And then the goodness of the work doth manifest the goodness of the doer. Every man's work is so far his own, that he is related to it, and by it, either as laudable, or as culpable; as it is, Gal. 6.4, 5. Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another; for every man shall bear his own burden. God himself will judge men according to their works; and so will men; and so must we (much) do by ourselves; for it is the rightest judging, which is likest God's. This subordinate honour God grants to his servants: If their works were not an honour to them, as the next Agents, they could be none to him in their Morality, as man's acts; though they might, as acts in general, ordered to good by his own goodness. If God's Natural Works of Creation (Sun, and Moon, and Earth, etc.) were not praiseworthy in themselves, God would not be praised for them, as their Maker. There are works that God is said to be dishonoured by, Rom. 2.23, 24. And what are they, but such as are really bad, and a dishonour to the Authors▪ It is so far from being true, that no praise, or honour, or comfort from good works is to be given to man, that God himself is not like else to be honoured by them as moral good, if the Actors be not honoured by them: The World must first be convinced that Christians are far better than other men, and the righteous more excellent than his Neighbour, before they will glorify God as the Author of their goodness. In God's own Judgement [Well done] is the first word, and [Good and Faithful Servant] is the second, and [Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord] is the third. Two sorts of Scandalous persons rob God of his honour in his Saints. 1. Those that professing Christianity, live wickedly, or at lest no better than other men; whose lives tell the World, that Christians are but such as they. 2. Those that slander and belie true Believers, and would hid their goodness, and make them odious to the World. As for them that say only, that we have no righteousness in our selvet by which we can be justified, I shall not differ with them, if they do but grant that all shall be judged according to their works; and that he that is accused as an Infidel, Impenitent, an Hypocrite, or an Unregenerate, Ungodly Person, must against that accusation be justified by his own Faith, Repentance, Sincerity, and Holiness, or be unjustified for ever. 3. The next thing to the Work and the Person that is hereby honoured is the Christian Religion itself, with the Spirit's operations on the Souls of Christians: The outward Doctrine and Example Of Christ, who teacheth his Servants to be better than the World; and the inward Sanctification of the Spirit which maketh them better. The Air and Food are commended which make men healthy, and the Medicines are praised which cure the disease: That is accounted good, as a means and cause, which doth good, and which maketh men good: If Christians were more commonly and notoriously much better than all other men, the World would believe that the Gospel, and the Christian Religion, were the best. But when scandalous Christians appear as bad or worse than Infidels, the World thinks that their Religion is as bad or worse than theirs. 4. The next ascent of Honour is to the Maker or Author of our Religion; the World will see that he is good that maketh so good a Law and Gospel, and that maketh all his true Disciples so much to excel all other men. And here the first honour will be to the Holy Spirit, which reneweth Souls, and maketh them holy: And the next will be to the Son our Saviour, who giveth us both the Word and Spirit: And the highest or ultimate Glory will be to God the Father, who giveth us both his Son, and his Spirit. And thus Honour ascendeth to the Highest by these steps, and the World beginneth at that which is nearest to them, and Reason will proceed by these degrees: 1. The excellent holy lives of Christians are better than other men's: 2. Therefore Christians are better than other men: 3. Therefore their Religion is the best, or the Word and Work which make them such: 4. Therefore the Spirit is good which makes them good; the Saviour is good who giveth them that Word and Spirit; and God the Fountain of all, even the Father of Mercies, Is the Fountain of all good, and consequently the End of all. And thus God is known and glorified by our works. II. The works which thus glorify him, are first to be described in general, and then enumerated in special. I. In General, 1. They must be such as make, or show men to be in their places like to God: They must be such as represent the particular Perfections of God, which are called his Communicable Attributes; and such as declare his Relations to us; and such as declare his Attributes, as so related, and his works. A● 1. We must so live, that men may see, that indeed we take not our self to be our own, but God to be our absolute Owner; and that it is not ourselves, but He that must of right dispose both of us and ours; and that we willingly stand to his disposal, 1 Cor. 6.19. Ye are not your own. 2. We must so live, as may declare that we are not lawless, nor the mere servants of men, but the resolved Subjects of God, the Sovereign King of all; and that really we are ruled by his Laws and Will, and not by our own lusts or wills, nor by the wills of any, but as under him; and that we fear not any hurt to the flesh, or them that can but kill the body, in comparison of that one Lawgiver and Judge, who is able to save, or to destroy for ever, Luke 12.4. Jam. 4.12. 1 Cor. 7.23. and that we are moved more by his Promises, than by all that mortal men can give us; and trust wholly to the Heavenly reward of glory, and not to the transitory prosperity of this world, believing that God is True and Just, and none of his Word shall ever fail. 1 Pet. 1.3. We are begotten again unto a lively hope, through the Resurrection of Christ to an Inheritance incorruptible, etc. 3. We must so live, as may declare that God is our Grand Benefactor, from whom we have all the good that ever we received, and from whom we hope for all that ever we shall possess; and that he is infinitely good, the Original and End of all created good: We must live as those that believe that we are made for God, even to glorify him, and please his blessed Will, not by making him beholden to us, but by a willing receiving of his mercies, and a willing improvement of them to our own felicity: And as those that believe, that his love is better than life itself; and that to know him, and love him, and glorify him for ever, is the ultimate End and Happiness of man, Psal. 4.7, 8. and 63.3. and 73.25, 26, 28. Phil. 3.7, 8. Matth. 6.33. 1 Pet. 1.5, 6, 8, 9 2 Cor. 5.1. 2. And we must so live in relation to Christ, and to his Spirit, as may declare to the world, that the mercy of the Father is conveyed to us by the Son, and the Grace of the Father and Son, by the Spirit; and what wonders of Wisdom, Goodness and Power, Truth and Justice, Holiness and Mercy, are manifested in Christ, and his Mediation to Mankind, Gal. 2.20. Eph. 3.16, 17. Phil. 1.20, 21. Job. 17.10. 3. In sum, the works that glorify God must have these three parts of his likeness upon them. 1. They must be works of Light, like the Light which from the Father of Lights doth illuminate us. Christian's must be much wiser than the men of the world, in holy, though not in worldly things, Col. 1.9, 28. and 3.16. Darkness is the state of Satan's Kingdom, and ignorant Christians are scandalous, and a dishonour to Christ; not those that are ignorant of unnecessary, unprofitable, or unrevealed things, but those that are ignorant of revealed, necessary, saving truths, 1 Cor. 3.2. Heb. 5.11, 12. 2. They must be works of Holy Love to God and Man, which show that God and Goodness have our hearts, and that we would imitate God in doing good to all according to our places and power, Gal. 6.10. Rom. 13.10, 11, 12. 3. They must be works of Life and Power, where serious diligence expresseth zeal, and we set ourselves no lower bounds, than with all our heart, and mind, and might, 2 Tim. 1.7. Rom. 12.11. Thus much for the general description of them. II. The description of a Christian, whose works glorify God, according to Scripture and Experience may be given you in the following particulars. I. He is one that placeth his saving Religion in the practical knowledge of the only true God, and Jesus Christ the Saviour, whom he hath sent, Joh. 17.3. He puts no limits to his endeavours after useful knowledge, but what God hath put by his Word or Providence: He would abound in holy wisdom, and thinks it worth his greatest diligence, and is still upon the increasing hand: He hath so much knowledge of the lesser matters of Religion, as to keep him from scandalous miscarriages about them: but it is the knowledge of God, and of a crucified and glorified Christ, in which he taketh wisdom to consist, Joh. 17.3. 1 Cor. 2.2. This is the Light in which he hath his daily conversation; the Light which governeth his will and practice; which feedeth his Meditations, his prayers, and his discourse; which repelleth his temptations; which maintaineth his hope; and is his daily work of Recreation, his Food, and Feast. For Men will now perceive, 1. That his Religion is not a matter of names and words, and trifling Controversies, but hath the greatest and most excellent Subject in the world: And as Nature teacheth all to reverence God, so it will tell them, that they must reverence that Religion, that Conversation, and that Person, who is most Divine, and where the most of God appeareth. 2. And they will see that his Religion consisteth not in uncertainties, which no man can be sure of, when he hath done his best; but in things so sure as none should doubt of: which will easily bring men over to consent, and shame or silence Contradicters. 3. And then they will see that it is a Religion which all sober personr are united in, and doth not lose its Authority, or Reverence, by the divisions, wranglings, and digladiations of Sects of different minds; for God is denied by no sober man, nor the Essentials of Christianity by any true Christian. 4. And men will see that our Religion is no matter of Indifferency, which one may do well enough without, but of absolute necessity to Salvation, and that which man was made and redeemed for. And a Religion of the greatest Subject, the greatest Certainty, the greatest Consent, and the greatest Necessity, will honour itself, and its Author in the world, if it be rightly represented in the Lives of them that do profess it. But when men's overdoing shall pretend that all this is too little, and shall seek to raise it, as to more perfection, by their own Inventions, or uncertain Opinions in Doctrine, Worship, Church-Discipline, or Practice, they presently cast it as a Football before the Boys in the Streets, and make it a matter of doubtful endless Disputations, of multiplied Sects, of pernicious Contentions, and cruel Persecutions: And then the Reverence and Glory of it is gone; and every Philosopher will vie with it in subtlety, and every Stranger will presume to censure it, if not to blaspheme it, and deride it. And thus Over-doers are the Scandals of the World. II. The Christian that will glorify God, and his Profession, must be conscionable in the smallest matters; but he must ever describe and open the Nature of his Religion, as consisting in great and certain things, and not talk too much of smaller matters, as if it were those that men were to be saved by. Tell men of the necessity of believing, fearing, obeying, trusting, and loving God, and of coming to him by Jesus Christ, the Great Mediator between God and Man: Tell them of the intrinsic evil of sin, and of God's Justice, and of Man's Corruption, and of the Nature and Excellency of Holiness, and of the necessity of being Newborn of the Holy Spirit, and of mortifying the desires and deeds of the Flesh; and tell them of Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, especially the certainty and excellency of the everlasting promised Glory; persuade them to believe all this, to think much of all this, and to be true to what they know, and to make it the work of Life to be always prepared for Death. Let this be your discourse with sinners, (as I told you in the first Character, it must be your own Religion) and then men will perceive that Religion is a matter that doth indeed concern them, and that they are indeed great and necessary things, in which you differ from ungodly men: But the Scandalous Christian talketh most of external Church-orders, and Forms, and Opinions, and Parties, and thereby maketh the ignorant believe, that the difference is but that one will sit, when the other kneeleth; and one will pray by the Book, and the other without Book; and one is for this Church Government, and another for that; and one for praying in White, and the other in Black. And talking too much of such things as these deceiveth the hearers: some it maketh formal hypocrites, who take up this for their Religion; and the rest it hardeneth, and maketh them think, that such people are only more humourous, and self-conceited, and giddy, and factious than others, but no whit better. III. The Genuine Christian hath an humble and cautelous understanding; sensible when he knoweth most, how little he knoweth, and how much he is still unacquainted with, in the great mysterious matters of God. His Ignorance is his daily grief and burden, and he is still longing and looking for some clearer Light: Not a new word of Revelation from God; but a clearer understanding of his Word. He knoweth how weak and slippery Man's understanding is, and he is humbly conscious of the darkness of his own. Therefore he is not conceitedly wise, nor a boaster of his knowledge; but saith, as Paul, 1 Cor. 8.2. He that thinketh that he knoweth any thing, (that is, is proudly conceited of his own knowledge,) knoweth nothing as he ought to know. And hence it is that though he daily grow in the firmer apprehension of necessary Truths; yet he is never confident and peremptory about uncertain doubtful things: And therefore he is not apt to be Quarrelsome and contentious, nor yet censorious against those that differ from him in matters of no greater moment. And hence it is, that he runneth not into Sects, nor burneth with the scaverish dividing Zeal, nor yet is scandalously mutable in his Opinions; because, as one that is conscious of his Ignorance, he doth not rashly receive things which he understands not, but suspendeth his judgement, till Evidence make him fit to Judge; and joineth with neither of the contending Parties, till he is sure or know indeed which of them is right. And thus he avoideth that dishonouring of Religion, which the scandalous Christian is woefully guilty of; who with an unhumbled understanding groweth confident upon quick and insufficient information, and Judgeth before he understandeth the case, and before he hath heard or read, and considered what on both sides may be said, and what is necessary to a true understanding: And thus either by audacious prating of what he never understood, or reviling and censuring Men wiser than himself, or by making himself a Judge where he hath need to be many years a Learner, or making a Religion of his own mistakes, and setting up dividing Sects to propagate them, or else by shameful mutability and unsettledness, he becometh a scandal to harden unbelievers, and a Disease to the Church, and a shame to his profession; Read James 3. Conceited Wisdom kindleth a contentious Zeal, and is not of God, but from beneath, v. 15.16, 17. iv The Christian who Glorifieth God by his Religion, is one that so Liveth, that men may perceive that his carnal Interest is not the End and Ruler of his Life; but that God is his End, and to please him is his Work, and his Reward, in which he is comforted, though the Flesh and World be never so much displeased; And that the perfect Light and love of God in the unseen Glory of another Life is the satisfying sum of all his hopes, for which all the World must be forsaken. To talk much of Heaven, and to be as much and as eager for the World as others, is the way by which the scandalous Hypocrite doth bring Religion into Contempt. It is no high, nor very honourable Work, to talk of the vanity of the World, but to Live above it, and to be out of the power of it: Nor is it any great matter to speak honourably of Heaven; but to Live as believing-seekers of it, and as those that have there their Treasure and their hearts, Mat. 6.20, 21. and are comforted more by the Hopes of the Life to come, than by all their possessions or pleasures in the World. If we will glorify God, our Lives must persuade Men, that he will certainly be our Everlasting Portion, and the sure and plentiful Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, Heb. 11.6. It is much of the use of a true Christian's Life to convince Unbelievers that there is a Heaven for Saints; and the scandalous worldling persuadeth them that there is none, Mat. 5.5, 11, 12. Phil. 3.26, 21. Col. 3.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. V Therefore it Glorifieth God and our Religion, when Christians Live in greater Joy, or at least greater contentedness and Peace, than other Men: when they can answer all the Crosses in the World sufficiently with this, that God is their God, and his Love shall be their endless Joy, Psal. 73.1. and 73.25, 26. And when they can Live by Faith, not by Sight, 2 Cor. 5.7. and can rejoice in hope of the Glory of God, Rom. 5.3, 5. and can comfort themselves and one another with this, that they shall for ever be with the Lord, 1 Thes. 4.17, 18. and can trust him to the Death, who hath said, I will never fail thee, nor forsake thee, Heb. 13.5. If you would have other Men honour your God and your Religion, and desire to be such as you, you must really show them that you are on safer grounds, and in a happier state than they: And that you will hardly do, if you be not more comfortable than they, or at least settled in more Peace and contentedness of mind, as those that have a certain Cure for the fears of Death, and the danger that ungodly men are in, of the revenging Justice of the final Judge. I confess it's possible for trembling, troubled, and distressed Christians to be saved: But O that they knew what a scandal they are to Unbelievers, and what a dishonour to God whom their Lives should Glorify! What Man will fall in Love with Terrors, and unquietness of mind? If you would Glorify God by your fears and tears, they must be such as are accompanied with Faith and Hope; and you must not only show men what would make you happy, if you could obtain it, but also that it is attainable. Happiness is every Man's desire, and none will come to Christ unless they believe that it tendeth to their Happiness: They take up with the present pleasures of the Flesh, because they have no satisfying apprehensions of any better. And if no Man show them the first-fruits of any better here, they will hardly believe that they may have better hereafter. It is too hard a talk to put a poor Drunkard, Fornicator, or a proud and Covetous Worldling on to believe that a poor, complaining, comfortless Christian is happier than he, and that so sad and unquiet a Life must be preferred before all his temporal contentments and delights. You must show him better, or the signs and fruits of better, before he will part with what he hath; You must show him the bunch of Grapes, if you will have him go for the Land of Promise, when he is told of Giants that must be overcome. And O what a blessing is reserved for every Caleb and Joshua, that encourage Souls, and glorify the Promise! And how much do dejected discouragers of sinner's dishonour God and displease him! I have known some ungodly Men, when they have seen believers rejoicing in God, and triumphantly passing through sufferings in the joyful hopes of Glory, to sigh and say, would I were such a one, or in his case: But I have seldom heard any say so of a Person that is still sad, or crying, or troubling themselves and others with their Scruples, Crosses, or Discontents; unless it be in respect to their blameless Living, perhaps condoling them they may say, Would I had no more sin to trouble me than you have. I confess that some Excellent Christians do show no great mirth in the way of their Conversation; either because they are of a grave and silent temper, or taken up with severe Studies and Contemplations, or hindered by bodily pains or weakness: But yet their grave and sober Comforts, their Peace of Conscience and settled hopes, and trust in God, delivering them from the terrors of Death and Hell, may convince an Unbeliever that this is a far better state than the mirth and laughter of Fools in the House of Feasting, and in the vanities of a short prosperity. The grave and solid Peace and Comfort of those that have made their Calling and Election sure, is more convincing, than a lighter kind of mirth, Joh. 16.22. VI The Dominion of Love in the hearts of Christians, appearing in all the course of their Lives, doth much Glorify God and their Religion: I mean a common hearty Love to all men, and a special love to holy men, according to their various degrees of loveliness. Love is a thing so agreeable to right reason, and to sociable Nature, and to the common Interest of all Mankind, that all Men commend it; and they that have it not for others, would have it from others: Who is it that loveth not to be loved? And who is it that loveth not the Man, that he is convinced loveth him, better than him that hateth him, or regardeth him not? And do you think that the same course, which maketh men hate yourselves, is like to make them love your Religion? Love is the powerful Conqueror of the World: By it God conquereth the enmity of Man, and reconcileth to himself even malignant sinners: And by it he hath taught us to conquer all the tribulations and persecutions, by which the world would separate us from his Love: Yea, and to be more than Conquerors through him that loved us, and thereby did kindle in us our reflecting love, Rom. 8.34, 35, 36. And by it he hath instructed us to go on to Conquer both his Enemies and our own; yea, to conquer the enmity rather than the Enemy, in imitation of himself, who saveth the sinner, and kills the sin: And this is the most noble kind of Victory. Every Soldier can end a Fever or other Disease by cutting a man's throat, and ending his Life: But it's the work of the Physician to kill the Disease, and save the Man. The scandalous Pastor is for Curing Heresy in the Roman way, by silencing sound Preachers, and tormenting and burning the supposed Heretics: or at least to trust for the acceptance and success of his Labours to the Sword: And if that which will restrain men from crossing the Pastor, would restrain them from res●sting the Spirit of God, and constrain them to the love of Holiness, it were well: Then the glory of conversion should be more ascribed to the Magistrate and Soldier than to the Preacher. But the true Pastor is Armed with a special measure of Life, Light, and Love, that he may be a meet Instrument for the Regenerating of Souls, who by holy Life, and Light, and Love, must be renewed to their Father's Image. Every thing Naturally generateth its like, which hath a generative power. And it is the Love of God which the Preacher is to bring all men to, that must be saved: This is his Office; this is his work, and this must be his study: He doth little or nothing if he doth not this. Souls are not sanctified till they are wrought up to the Love of God and Holiness. And therefore the Furniture and Arms which Christ hath left us in his Word, are all suited to this work of Love. We have the Love of God himself to Preach to them; and the love of an humbled, dying, and Glorified Redeemer; and all the amiable blessings of Heaven and Earth to open to them; and all the loving promises and invitations of the Gospel: And must not our Hearts, our Ministry, and our Lives be answerable to all this? Believe it, it must be a Preacher, whose matter and manner of Preaching and Living doth show forth a hearty Love to God, and Love to Godliness, and Love to all his People's Souls, that is the fit Instrument to glorify God by convincing and converting sinners. God can work by what means he will; by a scandalous, domineering, self-seeking Preacher, but it is not his ordinary way. Foxes and Wolves are not Nature's Instruments to generate sheep. I never knew much good done to Souls by any Pastors, but such as Preached and Lived in the Power of Love, working by clear convincing Light, and both managed by a holy, lively seriousness. You must bring fire, if you would kindle fire. Trust not here to the Cartesian Philosophy, that mere motion will turn another Element into fire. Speak as loud as you will, and make as great a stir as you will, it will be all in vain to win men's Love to God and Goodness, till their hearts be touched with his Love and Amiableness; which usually must be done by the Instrumentality of the Preacher's Love. Let them hate me, so they do but fear me and obey me, is the saying of such as set up for themselves, (and but foolishly for themselves,) and like Satan would Rule Men to damnation. If Love be the sum and fulfilling of the Law, Love must be the sum and fulfilling of our Ministry. But yet by Love I mean not Flattery; Parents do love as necessarily as any, and yet must Correct: And God himself can love and yet Correct: Yea, he chasteneth every Son that he receiveth, Heb. 12.6, 7. And his Love consisteth with paternal justice, and with hatred of sin, and plain and sharp reproof of sinners: And so must ours; but all, as the various operations of Love, as the objects vary. And what I say of Ministers, I say of every Christian in his place. Love is the great and the new Commandment, (that is, the last which Christ would leave at his departure to his Disciples.) O could we learn of the Lord of Love, and Him, who calleth himself LOVE itself, to love our Enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to the Evil, and pray for them that hurt and persecute us, we should not only prove that we are genuine Christians, the Children of our Heavenly Father, (Mat. 5.44, 45.) but should heap coals of fire on our Enemy's heads, and melt them into Compassion and some remorse, if not into an holy Love. I tell you, it is the Christian, who doth truly love his Neighbour as himself; who loveth the Godly as his Coheirs of Heaven, and loveth the ungodly with a desire to make them truly Godly; who loveth a Friend as a Friend, and an Enemy as a Man that is capable of Holiness and Salvation. It is he that Liveth, walketh, speaketh, converseth, (yea, suffereth, which is the great difficulty) in love, and is as it were turned by the love of God shed abroad upon his heart, into love itself; who doth glorify God in the World, and glorify his Religion, and really rebuke the Blasphemer, that derideth the Spirit in Believers, as if it were but a Fanatic Dream. And it is he that by tyranny, cruelty, contempt of others, and needless proud singularities and separations, Magisterially condemning and vilifying all that walk not in his fashion, and pray not in his fashion, and are not of his opinion, where it's like enough he is himself mistaken, that is the Scandalous Christian, who doth as much against God; and Religion, and the Church, and men's Souls, as he doth against Love. And though it be Satan's way as an Angel of Light, and his Minister's way as Ministers of Righteousness, to destroy Christ's Interest by dividing it, and separate things which God will have conjoined, and so to pretend the love of Truth, the love of Order, or the love of Godliness, or Discipline against the love of Souls, and to use even the name of love itself against love, to justify all their cruelties, or censures, and alienations; yet God will keep up that Sacred Fire in the hearts of the sound Christians which shall live and conquer these temptations, and they will understand and regard the warning of the Holy Ghost, Rom. 16.17. I beseech you mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them, (in their sinful, dividing, offensive ways) for they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus, (though they may confidently think they do) but their own bellies; (or carnal interests, though perhaps they will not see it in themselves) and by good words, and fair (or flattering) speeches, deceive the hearts of the simple. The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, hominum minime malorum, no bad men, or harmless well meaning men; who in case it be not to mortal Errors, perhaps may be in the main sincere, and may be saved when their stubble is burnt: But whether sincere or not, they are Scandals in the World, and great dishonourers of God, and serve Satan, when they little think so, in all that they do contrary to that Universal Love by which God must be glorified, and sinners overcome. VII. A public mind that is set upon doing good, as the work of his life, and that with sincere and evident self denial, doth greatly glorify God in the World. As God maketh his Goodness known to us by doing good; so also must his Children do. Nothing is more communicative than Goodness and Love; nothing will more certainly make itself known, when ever there is opportunity. That a wordy barren Love, which doth not help, and succour, and do good, is no true Christian Love, St. James hath told us fully in his detection of a dead and barren faith. No man in reason can expect that others should take him for a Good man, for something that is known to no one but himself (save only that public converse and communion must be kept up by the charitable belief of Professions, till they are disproved.) The Tree is known by its Fruits, and the Fruits best by the taste, though the sight may give some lower degree of commendation. The Character of Christ's purified peculiar people is, that they are zealous of good works, Tit. 2.14. The Scandalous Christian may be zealous against others, and zealous to hurt them, to persecute them, to censure them, to disparage them, and to avoid them; but the Genuine Christian is zealous in loving them, and doing them all the good he can. To do a little good upon the by, and from a Full Table to send an Alms to Lazarus at the door; yea, to give to the Needy as much as the Flesh can spare, without any suffering to itself, or any abatement of its Grandeur, pomp, and pleasure in the world, will prove you to be men, not utterly void of all compassion; but it will never prove you to be Christians, nor better than Infidels and Heathens. Look not that men should think you better than your fruits do manifest you to be; nor that they take you to be good, for saying that you are good; nor judge you to excel others, any further than your works are better than others: And marvel not if the World ask, What do you more than others? when Christ himself doth ask the same, Matth. 5.47. If ye salute your Brethren, and those of your own Opinion and way, and if ye love them that love you, and say as ye say, do not even Publicans and Infidels do the same? Matth. 5.46. Marvel not if men judge you according to your works, when God himself will do so, who knoweth the heart. He that is all for himself, may love himself, and think well of himself, but must not expect much love from others: Selfishness is the Boil or Imposthume of Societies, where the Blood and Spirits have an inordinate Afflux, till their corruption torment or gangrene the part. While men are all for themselves, and would draw all to themselves, instead of loving their Neighbour as themselves, and the Public Good above themselves, they do but hurt and destroy themselves; for they forfeit their communion with the body, and deserve that none should care for them, who care for none but themselves. To a Genuine Christian fewer good rejoiceth him as if it were his own; (and how much then hath such a one continually to feed his joy?) and he is careful to supply another's wants, as if they were his own: But the scandalous selfish hypocrite doth live quietly, and sleep easily, if he be but well himself, (and it go well with his Party) however it go with all his Neighbours, or with the Church, or with the World. To himself he is fallen, to himself he liveth, himself he loveth, himself he seeketh; and himself, that is, his temporal prosperity, he will advance and save, if he can, whatever his Religion be; and yet himself he destroyeth, and will lose. It is not well considered in the World, how much of sin consisteth in the narrow Contraction of men's love, and regard unto their natural selves, and how much of goodness consisteth in a Community of love; and what a glory it is to the Government and Laws of God, that he maketh it so noble and necessary a part of every man's duty to love all men, and to do good to all, as he is able, though with a difference. God could do us all good enough by Himself alone without one another: But what a mercy is it to the World, that as many Persons as there are, so many there are obliged by God to love their Neighbours as themselves, and to do good to all about them? And what a mercy is it to the Actor, that God will thus make him the Instrument and Messenger of his Beneficence? Ministers, and Christians all, Would you be thought better than others? Are you angry with men that think otherwise of you? What good do you more than others in your places? What good do you that other men 〈◊〉 see, and feel, and taste, and judge of? Every man loveth himself, and can feel what doth him good in natural things: And God that by giving you food, and other mercies to your bodies, would have you therein taste his love to your Souls, would use you just so for your brethren's good. Do you give them good words and counsel? It is well: But that is not it, that they can yet taste, and value: You must do that sort of good for them which they can know, and relish; not that this will save them, or is any great matter of itself, no more than God's common bodily mercies to you; but this is the best way to get down better. And he that seethe his Brother have need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? 1 Joh. 3.17. Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away, Matth. 5.42. That is, let not want of Charity hinder thee at any time from giving, though want of ability may hinder thee, and prudence may restrain thee, and must guide thee. If you say, Alas, we have it not to give: I answer: 1. Do what you can. 2. Show by your compassion, that you would if you could: Take care of your poor Brethren. 3. Beg of others for them, and put on those that can, to do it. Say not, These carnal people value nothing but carnal things, and cannot perceive a man's love by spiritual benefits: For it is not Grace, but the means and outside of things spiritual that you can give them, and for aught I see, the most of us all do very hardly believe God's own love to us, if he deny us bodily mercies. If you languish in poverty, crosses, and painful sickness any thing long, your murmuring showeth, that you do not sufficiently taste God's goodness without the help of bodily sense: And can you expect that natural men believe you to be good for your bare words, when you so hardly think well of God himself, though he promise you Life Eternal, unless he also give you bodily supplies? VIII. He that will glorify his Religion, and God, before men, must be strictly just in all his deal, just in governing, just in trading and bargaining; just to Superiors, and to Inferiors, to Friends, and to Enemies; just in performing all his promises, and in giving every man his Right: He that in love must part with his own Right for his Neighbour's greater good, must not deprive another of his Right; for Charity includeth Justice, as a lower Virtue is included in a higher and more perfect: He must not be unjust for himself for riches, or any worldly ends; he must not be unjust for Friends or Kindred; he must not be drawn to it by fear or flattery; no price must hire him to do an unrighteous deed: But above all, he must never be unjust as for Religion, as if God either needed or countenanced a lie, or any iniquity. No men are more scandalous dishonourers of Religion, and of God, than they that think it lawful to deceive, or lie, or be perjured, or break Covenants, or be rebellious, or use any sinful means to secure or promote Religion; as if God were not able to accomplish his Ends by righteous means. This cometh from Atheism and Unbelief, when men think that God will lose his Cause, unless our wits and sinful shifts preserve it, as if we, and not He, were the Rulers of the world. The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6.9. and seldom scape the hatred or contempt of men. IX. He that will glorify God, must know and observe the Order of Commands and Duties, and that God will have Mercy, and not Sacrifice; and must prefer the End before the Means as such. He must not pretend a lesser Duty against a greater, nor take the lesser at that time for a Duty, but for a sin, when the greater should take place. God hath made his Laws, and our Duty, to be the means of our own good. It is no profaneness, but duty, to omit that which else would be a duty, when a greater is to be preferred: God calls it the Sacrifice of a Fool, who knoweth not that he doth evil under the name of duty, when Sacrifice is preferred before an obedient hearing of God's Commands, Eccl. 5.1, 2, 3. It was no want of holy zeal in Christ, which made him bid the unreconciled, leave thy Gift at the Altar, and first go and be reconciled to thy Brother, and then come and offer thy Gift, Matth. 5.24. Some zealous Persecutors, Censurers, and Dividers now, would think I spoke like an ungodly person, if I should say to them, Let your Liturgy, and your Prayers, and your Worship stay, till you have confessed and lamented your injuries to your Brethren, and then come and offer your service to God, and lift up pure hands to him, without wrath and doubting: yet is it no more than God often calls for to the hypocritical Jews, Isa. 1.11, etc. To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices, when ye come and appear before me? Who hath required this at your hands, to tread in my Courts? Bring no more vain Oblations; Incense is an abomination to me— When ye spread forth your hands, I will hid mine eyes; when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean.— Relieve the oppressed, Isa. 58.2.3, etc. They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a Nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the Ordinances of their God; they ask of me the Ordinances of Justice; they take delight in approaching to God:— Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not?— Have we afflicted our Soul, and thou takest no knowledge?— Ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: Ye shall not fast as this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his Soul? to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to lose the bands of wickedness, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hid not thyself from thy own flesh? Then shall thy Light break forth as the Morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward: Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer, thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.— It is a point that our Lord Jesus layeth a great stress upon: He purposely healeth on the Sabbath day; and tells the censorious Pharisees, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; that is, the end, which is man's good, is to be preferred before the means; nay, it is no means, and so no duty, which is against it. He defendeth his Disciples for getting themselves food as they passed in the Cornfields; and he teacheth them the lawfulness of the Priest's labour on the Sabbath, and of David's eating of the Shewbread; and at two several times doth tell them, that God will have Mercy, and not Sacrifice; and biddeth them go learn what that meaneth, Mat. 4.13. and Mat. 12.7. And it is not only Pharisees, but many better men who have need to go learn the meaning of that Sentence. The meaning i● this, that caeteris paribus, the great duties of the Law of Nature, are to take place before the positive Institutions. God's Institutions are for man's good; whatever is a duty, is also a means to the happiness of man, and pleasing of God, which is the end of all: Love to God and 〈◊〉 greater than all the instituted means of them, as such; therefore 〈◊〉 no duty which is no means, or is against the Instituter's end. Preaching and Prayer must be omitted for some works of love and humane good: Discipline is a duty, when it is a means to the end for which it is ordained: But when it would hinder or destroy that end, (the reputation of Religion, and the glory of God's Holiness, and the Church's good) it is no duty, but a sin. To omit a Sacrament, to break the Rest of the Lord's day, to forbear the Sacred Assemblies, may be a duty, when the good of men requireth them. Ordination is a duty, when it is a means to its proper end: But if it were pleaded against those ends, and order set against the thing ordered, even the work of the Ministry, the case would be altered. When men mistake, and mis-time, and mis-place God's Institutions, to the excluding of the great Moral duties which are their end, and persuade men to that as a part of Religion, which would certainly do more hurt than good, they scandalously drive men away from Religion. Thus imprudent scandalous Professors can backbite and reproach others, and make them odious, and destroy Christian Love, and Peace, and Concord, on pretence of Zeal for Order, Government, Ceremonies, Forms, or for this or that Mode of Discipline or Worship; not having learned what this meaneth, I will have Mercy, and not Sacrifice, nor, that Forms and External Institutions were made for man, and not man for them. And yet I know, that this will not justify the Familist, or Hypocrite, who thinks that he may do any thing to save his flesh. Do you think it is not a scandal to Turks, or other Infidels, tempting them to deride, or hate Christianity, to find the Papists placing their Merits in hurtful Pilgrimages, which waste that time which should be spent, and in a multitude of unprofitable Ceremonies, and in unwholesome food and injuries to health, under the Names of Abstinence and Mortification? By this Rule they may next persuade us, that it will please God, if men famish, or hang themselves; and consequently, if they do so by others: For we must love our Neighbour but as ourselves. God himself hath made all our Religion so suitable to our good, that he expecteth not that we should take any thing for our duty, but what he giveth us Evidence in the thing, or security by his promise, shall be our gain. He that worketh upon self-love, and winneth man by a Saviour, and a glorious reward, and proveth the goodness of all his Word and ways, as to our happiness, hath instituted none of his Ordinances to our hurt. The Apostles had their power only to Edification, and not the Destruction, or hurt of Souls, 2 Cor. 10.8. and 13.10. Let all things be done to Edifying, 1 Cor. 14.26, is a word of greater comprehension and use, than many do conceive: When it is against Edification, it is not acceptable to God. One would think Christ had broken his own Law of Discipline, when he did familiarly eat with Publicans and Sinners: And yet that very Act of his, is one of those which he justifieth by the aforesaid Rule, I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice, Mat. 9.11, 12, 13. Learn this Lesson of preferring Mercy before Sacrifice, if ever you will glorify God. The right manner of Worshipping God is of great moment to the Honour of him and of our Religion before the World: That we give no false descriptions of God, or dishonourable attributes: That we teach no dishonourable Doctrine as his; especially of his own Will and Counsels, and of his Government, Laws, and Judgement: That we neither take down the Glory of the Gospel Mysteries by reducing them to the rank of Common Providence, nor yet be deceived by Satan or his Ministers, as the promoters of Light and Righteousness, 2 Cor. 11.15. to abuse and dishonour them by overdoing: That we seek not to glorify God by our lies, or by our own mistaken Interpretations or inventions. God must be Worshipped as a Spirit in Spirit and Truth, and not with Popish toys and fopperies; which make others think, that our Religion is but like a Poppet-Play and ludicrous device, to keep the People in Servitude to the Priests by a blind Devotion: God must be Worshipped Rationally, and with all holy wisdom; and not with Childish shadows and trifles, nor with slovenly and imprudent words, which tend to breed in the hearers derision or contempt: Neither the canting or scenical Actions, or affected Repetitions of the Papists, nor the rude, disorderly, incongruous Expressions of unskilful men, are fit to be offered to the Glorious God: Prudence, and Holiness, and Seriousness, and Reverence must appear in that Worship which must honour God. O with what Holiness should we hear from, and speak to the Holy, Holy, Holy God, Who will be Sanctified in all that draw near him, Leu. 10.3. and will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in Vain! They that will do it acceptably must serve him with Reverence and godly fear, Heb. 12.28. as knowing that he is a consuming fire; and yet with alacrity love and delight, as knowing that in his favour is Life, and that he is the infinitely amiable Good, the hope and only Portion of Believers. XI. The Humility, Meekness, and Patience of Christians, are greatly necessary to their glorifying of God: I join all three together for brevity sake. 1. It is a thing very amiable in the eyes of all, when Men have not too high thoughts of themselves, and seek not to be overvalued by others, either as great, or wise, or good: when they seek not precedency, preferment or honour; but take the lowest place, and envy not the precedence or honour of others; but take another's honour as their own, and take another to be fit (caeteris paribus) for places of Power, Trust, or Eminency than themselves: when they do (according to the measure of their worth) honour all men, 1 Pet. 2.17. And are kindly affectioned one to another in Brotherly Love, in honour, preferring one another, Rom. 12.10. Not dissemblingly and Complementally, saying [Your Servant, Sir,] while they would fain have others below them, and to be obedient to their wills: But really to think meanly of their own worth and Wisdom, Rom. 12.3. For I say, through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God hath dealt to every Man the measure of Faith. Not thinking himself something when he is nothing, Gal. 6.3. Nor to be more Learned, or Wise, or Pious than he is. We must be indeed his Disciples, who humbled himself, and made himself of no Reputation, Phil. 2.7, 8. and washed and wiped the feet of his Disciples, to teach them what to be, and do to one another; who hath taught us the necessity of Cross-bearing, and self-denial, and to humble ourselves as little Children, if ever we will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, Mat. 16.24. and 18.3, 4. and hath decreed and foretell us, that whosoever shall exalt himself, shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted; and therefore the greatness which his Ministers must seek, must be to be the Servants of the rest, Mat. 23.11, 12, 13. Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit, Prov. 29.23. But a man's Pride shall bring him low. Better is it to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoils with the Proud, Prov. 16.10. He that will honour his Religion, must put on as the Elect of God, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind (not of Tongue only) meekness, long-suffering forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a Quarrel against any, Col. 3.12, 13. He must not set out himself like the Richest, and desire to seem high or notable to others, nor set up himself with his Superiors, nor swell or grudge if he be not regarded or taken notice of; no, nor if he be reproved or dishonoured: But must learn of an humbled Christ to be meek and lowly, Mat. 11.29. and must not mind (or desire) high things; but condescend to men of low estate, and not be wise in his own conceit, Rom. 12.16. I beseech you therefore, that you walk worthy the vocation, wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in Love, Eph. 4.1, 2. Let nothing be done through strife, or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves, Phil. 2.3. What man loveth not such a Spirit and Conversation? O that it were more common and eminent among us, and then we should find that the disaffection of the Ignorant, would be much abated, and that, when a man's ways thus please God, his Enemies will be (the more) at peace with him, Prov. 16.7. But when they are proud, and we are proud, and we cannot yield nor bow, nor give place to the wrathful, but must justle and contend with them for our place and honour, we lose our Christian honour by seeking Carnal honour, and appear to be but like other men: And even the Proud themselves will disdain the Proud. 2. And though we may be Angry and not sin, and must be plain and zealous against sin and for God, though guilty galled sinners be displeased by it; yet meekness must be our temperature: For a turbulent, rough, unquiet spirit, is displeasing both to God and Man; such Persons have seldom peace with others or themselves. A meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price, 1 Pet. 3.4. Blessed are the meek for they shall Inherit the Earth; they shall speed better than others, even in this World, Mat. 5.5. The Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. Paul tells us what the good works are, which we must be always ready to. To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers; but gentle, showing all meekness to all men, Tit. 3.1, 2. The Scripture speaks more of this than I have leisure to recite: See Gal. 5.23. and 6.1. 1 Tim. 6.11. and 2 Tim. 2.25. 1 Pet. 3.15. Jam. 3.13. Zeph. 2.3. Isa. 29.19. Psal. 141.4. and 76.9. and 147.6. and 37.11. 3. And Patience both towards God and Man is a necessary Companion of Humility and Meekness. This greatly differeth from Natural dulness, and an insensible temperature. When a man's Soul is partly so much awed by God's Authority and Presence; and partly so much taken up with the great matters of his Service; and partly so much contented with his favour and grace and the hopes of glory, as to make light of all the Interests of the Flesh as such, and therefore to bear patiently such losses and crosses, and wants, and sufferings, as touch the Flesh, as taking it for no great matter to lose all the World, if we save our Souls; this is true Patience, by which God is glorified: For by this men will see that Christians have indeed such great things in their hopes, as set them quite above the transitory things of the Flesh and World. But when they are much troubled at every Cross and Loss; and whine and complain as if they were undone, if they live in Poverty or Reproach; and are at their wit's end in every danger; and fret and storm at every ill word, or every one that wrongeth them; they are the shame of their Profession, and scandals to the World. It is not a sudden Anger which is the great sin of Impatience; but an impotent disability to suffer in the Flesh, in Estate or Name, and a repining under every want, which showeth a Fleshly Worldly mind, and a want of true believing the heavenly Felicity: Though I confess that Pity must make some Excuse for many poor Women, whose Natural temper maketh their Passions troubles and fears invincible. He that said, In your Patience possess your souls, doth intimate, that we have lost ourselves and the government, order, and Peace of our Souls, when we have lost our Patience, Luke 21.19. See Eccl. 7.8. Jam. 5.7, 8. 1 Pet. 2.20. 1 Thes. 5.14. Be patiented towards all men, 1 Tim. 6.11. Col. 1.11. Whatever Zeal you seem to have in Prayer, in Preaching, and for purity of Worship, if you can bear wants and sickness, and the loss of all the World no better than others, you will appear no better in their Eyes; for if you faint in the day of Adversity your strength is small, Prov. 20.10. XII. And as a special fruit of Humility, An easy and thankful bearing of Reproof, and readiness to confess a fault upon due conviction, is a necessary duty to the Honouring of God. It will show men that you are Enemies to sin indeed, and that you are not Hypocrites, who weed only their Neighbours Fields, and see the Mote in another's Eye, and not the Beam which is in your own. If the Righteous smite us by Reproofs, it must be taken as a kindness, and as a precious Balsam which doth not break our Head, but heal us, Psal. 141.5. Not that we are bound to belie ourselves in compliance with every man's censorious humour that will accuse us; but we must be readier to censure ourselves than others, and readier to confess a fault, than to expect a confession from others whom we Reprove. Sincerity and serious Repentance will be honourable in that Person, who is most careful to avoid sin, and most ready penitently to confess it when he hath been overcome, and truly thankful to those that call him to Repentance; as being more desirous that God and his Laws and Religion have the glory of their Holiness, than that he himself should have the undue glory of Innocency, and escape the deserved shame of his sin. It is one of the most dangerous Diseases of Professors and greatest scandals of this Age, that Persons taken for eminently Religious are more impatient of plain (though just) reproof, than many a Drunkard, Swearer, or Fornicator: And when they have spent hours or days in the seeming earnest Confession of their sin, and lament before God and Man, that they cannot do it with more grief, and tears; yet they take it for a heinous injury in another, that will say half so much against them, and take him for a malignant Enemy of the godly, who will call them as they call themselves. They look that the chief business of a Preacher should be to praise them, and set them above the rest, as the only People of God; and they take him for an Enemy that will tell them the truth. But the scandal is greatest in those Preachers themselves, who cannot endure to hear that they are sinners: So tender and impatient of Reproof are some, yea, some that for their Learning, and Preaching, and Piety, are ranked in the highest form, or expect to be so, that almost nothing but flattery or praise can please them; and they can hardly bear the gentlest Reproof, no, nor a contradiction of any of their Opinions: But they seem to tell men that it is their part and privilege to be the Reprovers of others, and to have no Reprover; and to tell other men of sin, and be themselves accounted Innocent; and to call other men to Repentance for Particular sins, while they themselves must have no other Repentance, than in general to say that they a sinners; and to proclaim to all that their Public Confessions are formalities, and that it is a Christ to heal the Souls of others that they Preach, while they acknowledge but little work for his remedies on themselves. But he that refuseth reproof doth err, and he that hateth it is brutish, how Learned, or Reverend, or Pious soever he would be accounted, Prov. 11.17. and 12.1. He that regardeth reproof is prudent, and he that hateth it shall die, Prov. 15.5, 10. As ready humble penitent confession of sin doth tend to our Pardon from God; so doth it tend to our acceptation with Man: When God and Man will condemn the Pharisee, that justifies himself till Confession be extorted from him. XIII. It is another very Honourable fruit of Humility to have a learning disposition, and not to be Magisterial; and to be swift to hear, and sl●w to speak. All Christ's Disciples must be as little Children, Matth. 18.3, 4. especially in a learning, teachable disposition. A Child doth not use to set his wit against his Master's, or any other that will teach him, nor to rise up against instruction, as a Disputer that must have the better, and be accounted the wisest; but his daily business is submissively to learn. A Genuine Christian is indeed communicative, and willing that others should partake with him in the wisdom and happiness which God hath revealed to him: But he is ready first to learn himself, and knoweth that he must receive before he can communicate: And there is none so far below him, but he is willing to hear and learn of; but especially among his Equals he is readier to hear and learn, than to teach, because he is still conscious of his ignorance, and honoureth the gifts of God in others, which the proud despise, Jam. 3.1. and 1.19. But the scandalous Christian is so wise in his own eyes, that he is ever of a teaching humour, and those please him best that will sit and hear, and reverence him as an Oracle, and magnify every word that drops from his lips: He is so full of himself, that he hath scarce the patience to observe well what another speaks or writeth; and so valueth his own Conceptions, that he thinks they should be valued by the hearers: And so scandalous is the teaching humour of some Learned men, that they have not the common good manners or civility to suffer another to speak to the end, but they must needs interrupt him, that they may speak, as being more worthy: They take other men's speeches to be so tedious, that their patience cannot hold out the length of them: I mean not, that a Wise man is bound to lose his time in hearing every self-conceited person talk; but when men are engaged in Conference or Disputes, for a man to have such list to speak, that he cannot stay till another (though long) come to the end, it is scandalous incivility; yea, some can scarce stay till two or three Sentences be uttered, but their haste must tell you, that they take themselves to be much the Wiser, and to be fit to teach, than to hear and learn: And they are so overladen with their own conceited wisdom, that they can carry it no longer without some vent; and so full of their own, that they have no room to receive any more from others: And being all Masters, they receive from God and Man the greater Condemnation, Jam. 3.1. Prov. 12.17. and 1.5. and 18.13. XIV. The Genuine Christian hateth backbiting, and disgraceful reports of others, and yet can bear it from others to himself. He hath learned to love all, and to speak evil of no man, nor to receive or vend ill reports of others. He knoweth that this is the work of the Devil, the mortal Enemy of Love. He modestly rebuketh the backbiting tongue, and with an angry countenance driveth it away, Psal. 15.3. Tit. 3.2. Prov. 25.23. Backbiters tell us that they are haters of men: And the Apostle joins them with haters of God, Rom. 1.30. Debates, backbitings, whisper, envyings, are the scandalous Christian's work, 2 Cor. 12.20. He that heareth them, will either distaste them, or catch the disease, and be as bad as they: And he that heareth that he is calumniated or reproached by them behind his back, is tempted to abhor both them and their Profession. But to deal with men as faithful Friends, and in plainness (but with prudence and love) to tell them secretly of their defects and faults, this tendeth to good, and to reconcile the minds of men at last, and to the honour of the Christian way, Matth. 18.15, 16. Levit. 19.17. Prov. 9.8. and 24.25. and 27.5. Eccl. 7.5. Prov. 28.23. But yet when we are belied and reproached ourselves, though by Christians, or Teachers, or Superiors, it beseemeth us not to make too great a matter of it, as being tender of our own Reputation; but only to be sorry for the slanderer's or backbiter's sin and misery. For men's corruption will have vent; the angry, and malicious, and envious, will speak from the abundance of their hearts; and the guilty will be tender; and Children will cry and quarrel; and proud Contenders will be impatient: And how small a matter is it, as to us, to be Judged of Man, who must all be shortly Judged of the Lord? XV. He is one that would keep open to the notice of all, the great difference between the Godly, and the Wicked; and aspireth after the highest degrees of Holiness, as knowing the corruptions and calamities of the weak, and how much of Heaven is in Holiness itself; and yet he loveth, honoureth, and cherisheth the least spark of Grace in the weakest Christian; and is none of them that consoriously despise such, nor that tyrannically tread them down, or cast them injuriously out of the Church. 1. To make men believe that there is little difference between the holy and the profane, is to bring all Religion into contempt, and is a wickedness which God's Laws throughout condemn, and his Judgement shall publicly confute, Matth. 3.18. 2 Thes. 1.6. to 11. Judas 15. Matth. 13.25. throughout. 2. To take up with a little goodness, which consisteth with scandalous corruptions, is to be a scandal in the Church. 3. And yet to be supercilious, and to disdain the weak, or shut out any as ungodly, whom Christ hath not warranted us to shut out, and to make stricter Rules of Trial and Church-Communion than he hath made, this is justly displeasing both to God and Man: It tempteth men to abhor that Religion, which tendeth more to men's reproach than to their cure, and causeth Professors to set themselves higher above the weak, and at a greater distance from their Neighbours, than God would have them. Christ is tender of little ones, and would not have them scandalized: His own Apostles were very low in knowledge all the time that he was with them on Earth. It is not mere want of words, that will warrant us to take men for ungodly; even he that is weak in the Faith must be received, but not to doubtful disputations, Rom. 14.15. To Cull out a few that have learned to speak better than the rest, and shut out, with the Dogs, all the Infant-Christians who must be fed with Milk, because they want expressions, is one of Satan's ways of overdoing, by which he would banish Religion out of the World. XVI. He that will glorify God by his good works, must be zealous and diligent in them, and make them the serious business of his life: He must live so, that men may see, that indeed he doth believe, and hope for Heaven. That which a man coldly speaks of, and coldly seeketh, men will think he coldly desireth; and therefore that he doth but doubtingly believe it. A cold slothful Christian proclaims his unbelief to others, and so inviteth them to the like. When Christians bestir themselves, as for their lives, and ply God's work with greatest diligence, and redeem their lives, as knowing that all is short enough to prepare for an endless life; this wakeneth others to life and thoughtfulness, to inquire into the matter of our hopes. XVII. He that will glorify God must be wise and watchful, to see and take the opportunities of good before they are passed by, and to avoid temptations to error and iniquity, and especially Temerity in matters of great and publiek consequence. 1. Good works have their season: You lose them, if you take them not in their time; that may be done now, which, if you pass this time, you can never do. 2. Temptations also have their season, and must just then be resisted, lest many a year repair not an hours loss. And they are very many: And narrow-sighted careless persons, who avoid two, and fall into the third, or avoid nineteen, and are conquered by the twentieth, are always scandalous. 3. And rash adventures on any Opinions or actions, but especially of public consequence, are usually most scandalous and pernicious to the Church. As in Military Affairs, and in Physic, ubi non licet bis errare, mens lives must pay for our temerity and error, and all the World cannot remedy the effects of one mistake: So in matters of Religion, if we mistake by our rash conceitedness, and take not time for necessary trial, and proceed not as a man on the Ice, or among Quicksands, with great care and deliberation; the shaking of Kingdoms, the ruin of Churches, the silencing of Ministers, the corruption of Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline, and the sin and damnation of many Souls, may be the effect of our proud presumption and temerity: But the humble, self-suspecting man, that suspendeth his judgement and practice, till he hath throughly proved all, doth preserve the honour of Religion, and avoid such late and dear repentance. XVIII. The man whose works shall glorify God, must be devoted to the Unity and Concord of Believers, and be greatly averse to dividing and love-killing Opinions, words, and practices, and as much as in him lies, he must live peaceably with all men, 1 Cor. 1.10. Phil. 2.1, 2, 3. Eph. 4.3, 4, 14, 15, 16. Rom. 16.17. and 12.18. 1 Thes. 5.17. Joh. 17.24. When Paul saith, that Dividers serve not the Lord Jesus, but their own bellies, he intimateth to us, that though Truth and Purity be in their mouths, and really intended by them, as they take it; yet there is usually a secret self-interest that is carried on, that byasseth the judgement: And when he telleth them, Act. 20.30. that of their own selves should men arise, speaking perverse things, which they called (and it's like believed to be) the Truth; yet self-interest lay at the bottom, to be somebody in drawing Disciples after them: For it is so notorious a truth, that Unity and Concord are indispensably necessary to the Church, as it is to our Body, to Families, to Kingdoms; that men could not do so destructive a thing as dividing is, if some sin had not first caused the error of their minds. It greatly honoureth Christ and Religion in the world, when Believers live in love and unity: And their discords and divisions have in all Ages been the scandal of the World, and the great reproach and dishonour of the Church. When Christ's Disciples are one in him, it is the way to the Infidel-world's Conversion, that they may believe that the Father sent him, Joh. 17.24. And here the Devil hath two sorts of servants: 1. The true Schismatic or Heretic, who fearlessly and blindly divideth the Churches. 2. The overdoing Papist, and Church-Tyrant, who will have a greater unity than Christ will here give us, that so we may have none. And when Christ prays that we may be one in him, the Pope saith that we shall also be one in him, or we shall be accounted Schismatics, and destroyed as such. And when the Ancient Church, according to Christ's Institution, united all in the Baptismal Covenant, explained in the Creed, and Paul numbereth the necessary terms of unity, Eph. 4.4, 5, 6. 1. One Body (or Church of Christ) into which we are baptised. 2. One Spirit of Holiness in all. 3. One Hope of the Glorious Reward. 4. One Lord, by whom we do attain it. 5. One Faith, even the Christian Verity. 6. One Baptism, or Covenant of Christianity. 7. And One God, and Father of all; and in these God would have all his Servants to be One: then come in these Over-doers, and they must have us to be all One in all their Papal policy, and all the Decrees of their Popes and Counsels de Fide, and in their multitude of corruptions, and ceremonious impositions; which is as much as to say, You shall have no Unity: For he that saith to all the City or Kingdom, You shall be destroyed for discord, or reproached as dividers, if you are not all of one Complexion, or have not all the same Appetite, Age, or Bodily Stature, doth pronounce reproach or destruction on them absolutely: So is it with all others that put their self-devised terms on their Brethren as necessary to Unity and Peace, on how pious or fair pretences soever: Impossible conditions make the thing impossible. These are the Church-tearing scandals. These are the snares by which Satan hath made the Church a scorn, and our Religion a Stumbling block to Turks and Heathens: But had the Peacemakers been heard, who learned of the Holy Ghost (Act. 15.) to impose nothing on the Brethren but necessary things, and who have laboured to revive love, and shame emulations and divisions; God had been more glorified by men, and the reproach of the Churches and solemn Assemblies taken away. When all Sects and Parties have busled and raised a dust in the World, to foul the Church, and blind each other; if ever the Church's Glory be restored, and our shame taken away, it will be by men of Love and Peace, by healing, uniting, reconciling principles and means. XIX. He that will glorify God, must live in and to the Will of God, and seek to reduce his own will wholly into God's, and to destroy in himself all will that striveth against God's Will. 1. The disposing Will of God our Owner must be absolutely submitted to, and the bounteous Will of God our Benefactor thankfully and joyfully acknowledged. 2. The ruling Will of God our Lawgiver must be with daily study and care obeyed, and his punishing and rewarding Justice glorified. 3. The final felicitating Will and Love of God our ultimate end and object, that we may please him, and be everlastingly pleased in him, love him, and be loved by him, must be totally desired and sought, as the only and perfect Rest of Souls. O! that is the holy, the joyful, the honourable Christian, who daily laboureth (and in some good measure doth prevail) to have no Will but the Will of God, and that which wholly is resolved into it; who looketh no further to know what he should do, but to know by his Word what is the Law, or Will of God: who believeth that all that God willeth is good, and had rather have his life, and health, and wealth, and friends, at God's will and disposal, than his own; who knoweth that God's Will is love itself, and that to please him is the End of all the World, and the only felicity of men and Angels; and resteth wholly in the pleasing of that will. What can be more wise and just, than to have the same will (objectively) with him who is infinitely wise and just? What can be more honourable, than to have the same Will as God himself, and (so far) as his Children, to be like our Father? What can be more orderly and harmonious, than for the will of the creature to move according to the Creator, s Will, and to be duly subservient to it, and accurately compliant with it? What can be more Holy, nay what else is Holiness, but a will and life devoted and conformed to the Will of God? What can be more safe, or what else can be safe at all, but to will the same things which the most perfect Wisdom doth direct to, and infinite love itself doth choose? And what can be more easy and quieting to the Soul, than to rest in that Will, which is always good, which never was misguided, and never chose amiss, and never was frustrated, or missed of its decreed ends? If we have no will, but what is (objectively) the same with God's, that is, if we wholly comply with, and follow his will as our Guide, and rest in his will as our ultimate end; our wills will never be disordered, sinful, misled, or frustrate. God hath all that he willeth (absolutely,) and is never disappointed: And so should we, if we could will nothing but what he willeth. And would you not take him unquestionably for a happy man, who hath whatsoever he would have? Yea, and would have nothing but what is more just and good? There is no way to this Happiness, but making the Will of God our will. God will not mutably change his Will to bring it to ours: Should Holiness itself be conformed to sinners? and perfection to imperfection? But we must (by Grace) bring over our wills to God's, and then they are in joint; and then only will they find content and rest. O what would I beg more earnestly in the World, than a will conformed wholly to God's Will, and cast into that Mould, and desiring nothing but what God willeth? But contrarily, What can be more foolish, than for such Infants and ignorant Souls as we, to will that which Infinite Wisdom is against? What more dishonourable, than to be even at the very Heart so contrary, or unlike to God? What can be more irregular and unjust, than for a created Worm to set his will against his Maker's? What else is sin, but a will and life that is cross to the regulating Will of God? What can be more perilous and pernicious, than to forsake a perfect unerring Guide, and to follow such ignorant judgements as our own, in matters of Eternal consequence? What can that Soul expect, but a restless state in an uncomfortable Wilderness, yea perpetual self-vexation and despair, who forsakes God's Will to follow his own, and hath a will that doth go cross to God's? Poor self-tormenting sinners consider, that your own wills are your Idols, which you set up against the Will of God; and your own wills are the Tyrants to which you are in bondage; your own wills are your Prison, and the Executioners that torment you with fear, and grief, and disappointments. What is it that you are afraid of, but lest you miss of your own wills? For sure you fear not, lest God's Will should be overcome and frustrate. What are your cares about but this? What are your sighs, and groans, and tears for? And what is it else that you complain of, but that your own wills are not fulfilled? It is not that God hath not his Will. What is it that you are so impatient of, but the crossing of your own wills? This person crosseth them, and that accident crosseth them, and God crosseth them, and you cross them yourselves; and crossed they will be while they are cross to the Will of God: For all this while, they are as a bone out of joint; there is no ease till it be set right. In a word, a will that is contrary to God's Will, and striveth and struggleth against it, is the Offspring of the Devil, the sum of all sin, and a fore-taste of Hell, even a restless self-tormenter: And to will nothing but what God willeth, and to love his will, and study to please him, and rest therein, is the rectitude and only Rest of Souls; and he that cannot rest contentedly in the Will of God, must be for ever restless. And when such a Holy will and contentment appeareth in you, mankind will reverence it, and see that your Natures are Divine; and as they dare not reproach the Will of God, so they will fear to speak evil of yours: When they see that you choose but what God first chooseth for you, and your wills do but follow the Will of God, men will be afraid of provoking God against them as blasphemers, if they should scorn, deride, or vilify you. And could we convince all men that our course is but the same which God commandeth, it would do much to stop their reproach and persecution: And if they see that we can joyfully suffer reproach, or poverty, or pains, or death, and joyfully pass away to God, when he shall call us, and live and die in a contented complacency in the Will of God, they will see that you have a beginning of Heaven on Earth, which no Tyrant, no loss, or cross, or suffering, can deprive you of, while you can joyfully say, The Will of the Lord be done, Act. 21.14. Object. But if it be God's Will for sin to punish me, or forsake me, should I contentedly rest in that revenging Will? Answ. 1. That sin of ours, which maketh us uncapable objects of the complacential Will of God, is evil, and to be hated: But that Will of God, which is terminated on such an object, according to the nature of it, by just hatred, is good, and should be loved: And punishment is hurtful to us; but God's Will and Justice is good and amiable. 2. If you will close with God's Will, you need not fear his Will. If your will be unfeignedly to obey his commanding Will, and to be and do what he would have you, his Will is not to condemn or punish you: But if God's Will prescribe you a holy life, and your will rebel, and be against it, no wonder if God's Will be to punish you, when your wills would not be punished, Joh. 1.13. Heb. 10.10. Joh. 7.17. Luk. 12.47. XX. It glorifieth God and Religion in the World, when Christians are faithful in all their Relations, and diligently endeavour the sanctifying and happiness of all the Societies which they are members of. I. Holy Families well ordered do much glorify God, and keep up Religion in the World. 1. When Husbands live with their Wives in wisdom, holiness, and love; and Wives are pious, obedient, meek, and peaceable, Eph. 5.22, 25. Col. 3.18, 19 yea, unto such Husbands as obey not the Word, that without the Word they may be won by the conversation of the Wives, 1 Pet. 3.1, 2. 2. When Parents make it their great and constant care and labour, with all holy skill, and love, and diligence, to educate their Children in the fear of God, and the love of goodness, and the practice of a holy life; and to save them from sin, and the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil; and have more tender care of their Souls than of their bodies, that so the Church may have a succession of Saints: And when children love, honour, and obey their Parents, and comfort them by their forwardness to all that is good, and their avoiding the ways and company of the ungodly, Eph. 6.1. Col. 3.20. Psal. 1.1, 2. 3. When Masters rule their Servants as the Servants of God; and Servants willingly obey their Masters, and serve them with cheerful diligence and trust, and are as careful and faithful about all their goods and business, as if it were their own, Eph. 6.5, 9 Col. 3.21. and 4.1. 1 Pet. 2.18. When the Houses of Christians are Societies of Saints, and Churches of God, and live in love and concord together, and all are laborious and faithful in their Callings, abhorring idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, pride, contention, and evil speaking, and dealing justly with all their Neighbours, and denying their own right for love and peace; this is the way to glorify Religion in the world. II. Well ordered Churches are the second sort of Societies, which must glorify God, and propagate Religion in the world. 1. When the Pastors are Learned in the holy Scriptures, and skilful in all their sacred work, and far excel all the people in the Light of Faith and knowledge, and in love to goodness, and to men's Souls, and in lively, zealous diligence for God, and for men's Salvation, thinking no labour, cost, or suffering, too dear a price for the people's good; when no sufferings or reproaches move them, nor account they their lives dear to them, that they may but finish their course and Ministry with joy; when their public Preaching hath convincing light and clearness, and powerful affectionate application; and their private oversight is performed with impartiality, humility, and unwearied diligence, and they are able to resolve the people's Cases of Conscience solidly, and to exhort them earnestly, with powerful reason, and melting love: This honoureth Religion, and winneth Souls. When they envy not one another, nor strive who shall be greatest, or uppermost; but contrariwise, who shall be most serviceable to his Brethren, and to the people's Souls: When they oversee, and feed the Flock of God which is among them, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being Lords over God's Heritage, but being ensamples to the Flock; and seeking not theirs, but them, are willing to spend, and be spent for their sakes; yea, though the more they love them, the less they are beloved; not minding high things, but condescending to men of low estate. This is the way for Ministers to glorify God. 1▪ Pet. 5.1, 2, 3, 4. 2 Tim. 2.14, 15. 1 Tim. 4.10. Heb. 4.11, 13. Act. 20.24. 1 Thes. 2.8. 2 Tim. 4.1, 2, 3. Luke 22.24, 25, 26. 2 Cor. 12.14, 15. Rom. 12.16. When Ministers are above all worldly interest, and so teach and live, that the people may see that they seek not the honour which is of men, but only that which is of God, and lay not up a treasure on Earth, but in Heaven, and trade all for another world, and are further from pride, than the lowest of their stock: when they have not only the clothing of sheep, but their harmless profitable nature, and not the ravenousness or bloody jaws of destroying Wolves: when they use not carnal weapons in their warfare, but by an eminency of light, and love, and life, endeavour to work the same in others: when they are of more public spirits than the people, and more self-denying, and above all private interests, and envyings, and revenge, and are more patiented in suffering than the people, through the power of stronger Faith, and Hope, and Love: when they are wholly addicted to holiness and peace, and are zealous for the Love and Unity of Believers, and become all things to all men to win some; in meekness instructing opposers, abhorring contention, doing nothing in strife or vainglory, but preferring others before themselves; not preaching Christ in pride or envy, nor seeking their own praise, but thirsting after men's conversion, edification, and salvation. Thus must Christ be honoured by his Ministers in the world. When they speak the same things, being of one mind and judgement, uniting in the common Faith, and contending for that against Infidels and Heretics, and so far as they have attained walk by the same rule, and mind the same things; and where they are differently minded or opinioned, wait in meekness and love till God reveal to them reconciling truth: when they study more to narrow Controversies, than to widen them, and are skilful in detecting those ambiguous words, and verbal and notional differences, which to the unskilful seem material: when they are as Surgeons, and not as Soldiers, as skilful to heal differences, as the proud and ignorant are ready to make them, and can plainly show the dark Contenders, wherein they agree and do not know it: when they live in that sweet and amicable concord, which may tell the world that they love one another, and are of one Faith and Heart, being one in Christ. This is the way for Ministers to glorify God in the world. And with thankfulness to God I acknowledge, that such for many years I had my conversation with, of whom the world that now despiseth them is not worthy. Phil. 2.21. Matth. 6.19, 20, 21. John 5.44. 2 Cor. 10.4. 2 Tim. 2.25, 26. 1 Cor. 9.19, 20, 22. and 10.33. Phil. 2.1, 2, 3. 1 Tim. 6.3, 4. Jam. 3.14, 15, 16. 2 Tim. 2.14, 24. Phil. 3. 15, 16, 17. John 17.24. Eph. 4.3, 4, 5. 1 Cor. 1.10. James 3.17, 18. And the maintaining of sound Doctrine, Spiritual, Reasonable, and Reverend Worship, without ludicrous and unreverent trifling, or rudeness, or Ignorance, or Superstition, or needless singularity, much honoureth God, (as is aforesaid.) And so doth the Exercise of Holy Discipline in the Churches: Such Discipline whereby the precious may be separated from the vile, and the holy from the profane, by Authority and Order, and not by popular usurpation, disorder, or unjust presumptions: Where the cause is fairly tried and judged, before men are cast out, or denied the privileges of the Church: Where Charity appears in embracing the weakest, and turning away none that turn not away from Christ, and condemning none without just proof: And justice and holiness appeareth in purging out the dangerous leaven, and in trying and rejecting the obstinately impenitent Heretic, and gross sinner after the first and second admonition, and disowning them that will not hear the Church, Mat. 18.15, 16. Tit. 3.10. 1 Cor. 5.11. When the neglect of Discipline doth leave the Church as polluted a Society as the Infidel World, and Christians that are owned in the public Communion are as vicious, sensual and ungodly as Heathens and Mahometans, it is one of the greatest injuries to Christ and our Religion in the World: For it is by the purifying of a peculiar people, zealous of good works, that Christ is known to be really the Saviour of the World; and by making his followers better than others, that he and his Doctrine and Religion are known to be the best. Travellers tell me that nothing so much hindereth the conversion of the Mahometans, as their daily Experience that the Lives of the Greek Christians, and others that Live among them, are too ordinarily worse than theirs. More drunkenness, and more falsehood, lying, deceit, it's said, are among those Christians than among the Turks. If that be true, those are no true Christians; but woe be to them, by whom such offence cometh. I have oft heard those Soldiers justly censured as profane, who turn Churches into Stables (without great necessity:) But how much more hurtfully profane are they, who for carnal ends confound the World and the Church; and keep the multitude of the most sensual ungodly Persons in their Communion, without ever calling them Personally to Repentance; and use the Church Keys but to revenge themselves on those that differ from them in some Opinions, or that cross their Interest and wills, or that seem too smart and zealous in the dislike of their Carnality, Sloth, and Church-pollutions? When the Churches are as full of scandalous sinners as the Assemblies of Infidels and Heathens, the World will hardly ever believe that Infidelity and Heathenism is not as good as the Christian Faith. It is more by Persons than by Precepts, that the World will judge of Christ and Christianity. And what Men on Earth do more scandalise the World, more expose Christianity to reproach, more harden Infidels, more injure Christ, and serve the Devil, than they that fill the Church with impious Carnal Pastors (as in the Church of Rome) and then with impious Carnal People, maintained constantly in her Communion, without any open disowning by a distinguishing, reforming Discipline? When such Pastors are no better than the soberer sort of Heathens, save only in their Opinion and formal words, and when their ordinary Communicants are no better, it's no thanks to them, if all turn not Infidels that know them, and if Christianity be contemned and decay out of the World: And it's long of such, that disorderly separations attempt that Discipline and distinguishing of the godly and the notoriously wicked, which such ungodly Pastors will not attempt: See Leu. 19.17. Mat. 18.15, 16. 1 Cor. 5. Tit. 3.10. Jer. 15.19. Psal. 15. 2 Thes. 3. Rom. 16.17. 2 Tim. 3.4, 5. III. But O how great an honour is it to God and to Religion, when Kings, Princes, and States do zealously devote their Power to God, from whom they do receive it, and labour to make their Kingdoms Holy! When Truth, Sobriety, and Piety have the countenance of humane powers, and Rulers wholly set themselves to further the faithful Preaching and practising of the Holy Faith, and to Unite and strengthen the Ministers and Churches, and to suppress Iniquity, and be a terror to evil doers, it taketh Satan's great advantage out of his hand, and worketh on carnal Men by such means as they can feel and understand. Not that God needs the help of Man, but that he hath settled Officers and a Natural Order, by which he usually worketh in the World. And as it cannot be expected that an unholy Parent and Master should have a Holy Family, or an unholy Pastor a Holy Church, unless by extraordinary Mercy; no more can we expect that ungodly Magistrates should have a godly Kingdom or Commonwealth; of which the Sacred History of the Jewish and Israelitish Kings doth give you a full confirmation: But this I must now say no more of. And thus I have told you in Twenty particulars, what are those good Works in which the Light of Christians must shine before Men to the Glorifying of God. Object. Doth not Mat. 5.10, 11, 12. Contradict all this? Blessed are ye when men revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Answ. No: You must here distinguish, 1. Of Men. 2. Of Righteousness and Good Works. I. The Men that we have to do with are, 1. Ordinary Natural Men, Corrupted by Original sin; but yet not hardened to Serpentine Malignity, as some are: 2. Or they are Men that by sinning against Nature and common Light are forsaken and given up to malignant minds. II. The Good Works, which Natural Light and humane Interest can discern and commend, do differ from those which are merely Evangelical, of Supernatural Revelation. 1. Malignant Persons hardened in Enmity will scorn and persecute Holiness itself, and even that Good which Reason Justifies; and therefore are called unreasonable wicked Men, 2 Thes. 3.2. Good works with these Men make us odious, unless they are such as gratify their Lusts. 2. But there are Natural Men not yet so hardened and forsaken, who are usually them that the Gospel doth Convert: And these have not yet so blinded Nature, nor lost all sense of good and evil, but that they honour him that doth good in all the Twenty particulars which I have named, and think ill of those that do the contrary; though yet they relish not the Christian Righteousness, and things of Supernatural Revelation for want of Faith. Let us briefly now apply it. This informs us what an honourable state Christianity and true Godliness Use 1 is; when God hath made us to be the Lights of the world, to shine before Men to the Glory of his Holiness, as the Sun and Stars do to the Glory of his Power. No wonder if in Glory we shall shine as Stars in the Firmament of our Father, if we do so here, Dan. 12.3. Mat. 13.43. Phil. 2.15. This must not make us proud, but thankful; for our Pride is our shame, and our Humility is our Glory. And what wonder if all the Powers of darkness do bend their endeavours Use 2 to obscure this Sacred Light? The Prince of darkness is the Enemy of the Father of Lights: And this is the great war between Christ and Satan in the world, Christ is the Light of the World, and setteth up Ministerial Lights for the world, and for his House; his work is to send them forth, to teach them, and defend them, and to send his Spirit to work in and by them, to bring Men to the everlasting Light: And Satan's work is to stir up all that he can against them, high and low, learned and unlearned, and to put Christ's Lights (both Ministers and People) under a bushel, and to make the world believe that they are their Enemies and come to hurt them, that they may be hated as the Scorn and offscouring of the world, and to keep up Ignorance in Ministers themselves, that the Church's Eyes being dark, the darkness may be great. But let us pray that God would forgive our Enemies, Persecutors, and Slanderers, and turn their hearts; and that he would open our Lips, that our mouths may show forth his praise; and though his Ministers and People have their faulty weaknesses, that he would be merciful to our Infirmities, and grant that those things, which the craft and subtlety of the Devil, or Man worketh against us, may be brought to nought, and by the providence of his goodness may be dispersed; that we his Servants being hindered by no persecution, may give thanks to him in his holy Church, and serve him in holiness and pureness of life, to his Glory, through Jesus Christ. Use 3 You may see hence how much those men are mistaken, who talk of the Good Works or Lives of Christians, as that which must have no honour, lest it dishonour God: As if all the honour were taken from Christ, which is given to Good Works; and the Patient's health were the dishonour of the Physician: When we are Redeemed and Purified to be zealous of good works, and created for them in Christ Jesus, as Tit. 2.14. Eph. 2.10. Yea, and shall be judged according to our Works. This Informeth you, that the Good Works or Lives of Christians is a Use 4 Great means ordained by Christ for the Convincing of Sinners, and the Glorifying of God in the World. Preaching doth much, but it is not appointed to do all. The Lives of Preachers must also be a convincing Light: And all true Christians, Men and Women, are called to Preach to the World, by their Good Works: And a Holy, Righteous, and Sober Life, is the great Ordinance of God, appointed for the saving of yourselves and others. O that the Lord would bring this close to all our hearts. Christians, if you abhor dumb Teachers, because they starve and betray Souls, take heed lest you condemn yourselves; you own Men the convincing helps of a holy, fruitful life, as well as the Preacher owes them his Ministry. Preach by well-doing, shine out in good works; or else you are no Lights of Christ, but betrayers of men's souls; you rob all about you of a great Ordinance of God, a great means appointed by him for men's Salvation. The world will judge of the Scriptures by your Lives, and of Religion by your Lives, and of Christ himself by your Lives. If your Lives are such as tend to persuade men, that Christians are but like other Men, yea, that they are but self-conceited Sinners, as Carnal, Sensual, Uncharitable, Proud, Self-seeking, Worldly, Envious, as others, and so that Christianity is but such. This is a horrid blaspheming of Christ, how highly soever your Tongues may speak of him, and how low soever your Knees may bow to him. O that you knew how much of God's great Work of Salvation in the world is to be done by Christians Lives. Your Lives must teach men to believe that there is a Heaven to be won, and a Hell to be escaped: Your Lives must help Men to believe that Christ and his Word are true: Your Lives must tell Men what Holiness is, and convince them of the need of Regeneration, and that the Spirit of Sanctification is no fancy, but the witness of Jesus Christ in the world: Your Lives must tell Men by Repentance and Obedience that sin is the greatest Evil; and must show them the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked: Yea, the Holiness of God must be Glorified by Your Lives. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Scripture, the Church, and Heaven itself, must be known much by our Lives. And may not I say then with the Apostle, 2 Pet. 3.11. What manner of Persons than ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness, when the Grace of God, which bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and Worldly Lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world? Tit. 2.11, 12. Use 5 But alas! What suitable and plentiful matter doth this offer us for our Humiliation and Lamentation on such a day as this? A flood of Tears is not too much to lament the scandals of the Christian world. With what wounded Hearts should we think of the State of the Churches in Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Abassia, and all the oppressed Greeks, and all the poor deceived and oppressed Papists, and all the ignorant Carnal Protestants? O how unlike are your Lives to your Christian Faith, and to the Pattern left them by their Lord? Doth a worldly, proud, and fleshly and contentious Clergy Glorify God? Doth an ignorant Ministry Glorify him, who understand not the Message which they should deliver? Will the world turn Christians by seeing Christians seek the blood and ruin of each other? And hearing even Preachers Reproach each other? Or seeing them silence, or persecute each other? Or by seeing the People run into many Sects, and separate from one another, as unworthy of Christian Communion? Will Proud, Ignorant, Censorious, Fleshly, Worldly Professors of Religion, ever draw the World to love Religion? Or will peevish, self-willed, impatient, discontented Souls, that are still wrangling, crying, and repining, make men believe that their Religion rejoiceth, blesseth and satisfieth the Soul, and maketh men far happier than all others in the world? Alas! what wonder that so small a part of the world are Christians, and so few converted to the love of Holiness, when the Great Means is denied them by you, which God hath appointed for their Conversion, and the world hath not one Helper for a hundred or thousand that it should have? You cry out of those that put out the Church-lights under pretence of snuffing them, while yourselves are Darkness, or as a stinking Snuff. O Brethren, and Christians all, I beseech you let us now, and often, closely ask ourselves, What do we more than an Antonine, a Seneca, or a Cicero, or a Socrates did, beyond opinions, words, and formalities? What do you which is like to convert the world, to convince an Infidel, or glorify God? Nay, do not some among us think that it is the height (or part) of their Religion, to live so contrary to the world, as to be singular from others, even in lawful or indifferent things, and to do little or nothing which the world thinks well of? As if crossing and displeasing men needlessly were their winning conversation. O when once we go as far beyond them in love, humility, meekness, patience, fruitfulness, mortification, self-denial, and heavenliness, as we do in opinions, profession, and self-esteem; then we shall win Souls, and glorify God, and he will also glorify us. And here we see the wonderful mercy of God to the World, who Use 6 hath appointed them so much means for their Conviction and Salvation: So many Christians as there be in the World, so many Practical Preachers and helps to men's Conversion are there appointed by God. And let the blame and shame lie on us, where it is due, and not on God, if yet the World remain in darkness. It is God's Will that every Christian in the World should be as a Star, to shine to sinners in their darkness; and O then how gloriously would the World be bespangled and enlightened! If you say, Why then doth not God make Christian's better? That is a question which cannot be well answered without a larger opening of the Methods of Grace, than we can now have leisure for; and therefore must be don● its proper season. Those that honour God he will honour; and therefore let us also give Use 7 them that honour which is their due. The barren Professors, who honour themselves by over-valuing their poor knowledge, gifts, and grace, and affecting too great a distance from their Brethren, and censuring others as unworthy of their Communion without proof, are not the men that honour God, and can lay claim to no great honour from men: But God hath among us a prudent, holy, humble, laborious, patiented Ministry, that glorify him by their works and patience; and he hath among us a meek and humble, a blameless, and a loving, and fruitful sort of Christians, who imitate the Purity, Charity, and Simplicity, yea, and Concord of the Primitive Church: These tell the World to their sight and experience, that Religion is better than Ignorance and Carnality: These tell the World, that Christ and his Holy Word are true, while he doth that in renewing and sanctifying Souls, which none else in the World can do. These show the World, that Faith, and Holiness, and Self-denial, and the hopes of Immortality, are no deceits: These glorify God, and are the great Benefactors of the World. I must solemnly profess, that did I not know such a people in the world, who (notwithstanding their infirmities) do manifest a holy and heavenly disposition in their lives, I should want myself so great a help to my Faith in Christ, and the promise of Life Eternal, that, I fear, without it my Faith would fail. And had I never known a holier Ministry and People than those that live but a common life, and excel Heathens in nothing but their Belief or Opinions, and Church orders and Formalities, I should find my Faith assaulted with so great temptations, as, I doubt, I should not well withstand. No talk will persuade men, that he is the best Physician that healeth no more nor worse diseases than others do: Nor would Christ be taken for the Saviour of the World, if he did not save men: And he saveth them not, if he make them not holier and better than other men. O then how much do we owe to Christ for sending his Spirit into his Saints, and for exemplifying his holy Word on holy Souls, and for giving us as many visible proofs of his Holiness, Power, and Truth, as there are Holy Christians in the world! we must not flatter them, nor excuse their faults, nor puff them up: But because the Righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour, we must accordingly love and honour them, and Christ in them: For Christ telleth us, that he is glorified in them here, Joh. 17.10. And that what is done to them, his Brethren, even the least, is taken as done to him, Mat. 25. And he will be glorified and admired in them, when he cometh in his Glory at the last, 2 Thes. 1.8, 9, 10. And he will glorify their very works before all the world with a Well done good and faithful Servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. What is it to do all we do in the Name of Christ, and how may we do so? Serm. XXIII. Colos. 3.17. And whatsoever ye do in word and deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. THERE have been, and still are, many great and famous Names in the World into which men have been Baptised, according to which they have been called, and also walked in the world. Rev. 11.13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Men of great Name, or men of Renown, Gen. 6.4. What a Renowned Name had the Beast in the Earth, Rev. 13.3, 4. that the world wondered after the Beast, and worshipped the Dragon that gave power to the Beast, and they worshipped the Beast, saying, Who is like to the Beast? Pharaoh was a great Name amongst the Kings of Egypt, which were so called from their famous Predecessors: So the Kings of the Amalakites were called Agag, and of Tyre Hyram, and of Lycia Antiochus, of Pontus Mithridates, of the Emperors of Rome Caesar's, and in the Church Professors have affected to be called by the Name of some Eminent persons, 1 Cor. 3.4, 5. Some cried up Paul, others Peter; and this was a growing evil in the Church, 1 Cor. 1.12, 13, 14. They ambitiously affected to be denominated from some Eminent Persons among them: As the Lutherans, and Calvinists, and many others at this day, have been called and denominated from some great persons that have been famous in their Generation: But here is a Name in my Text is above all Names in Heaven and Earth; and all Christians are called by this Name, and call on this Name, Jer. 14.9. Amos 9.12. This Name you must trust in, and boast in, beyond and above all Names whatsoever, Isa. 45.24, 25. Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength; and in the Lord shall all the Seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. See what a Name is given to Christ. Isa. 6.7. And bow to it; his Name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor; and consider every Letter of his Name, and adore it. The Apostle, according to his usual manner, in this Epistle having spoken of the Doctrine of the Gospel, and how they received it, and the influence it had on them, v. 12, 13. And concerning Christ, in whom they had Redemption, v. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 And of the Excellency of his Person, and of the riches of the glory of his Grace revealed in it, v. 27. Then Chap. 2. he stirs them up to live such lives as becometh the Gospel, and to beware of Seducers, v. 16. to the end. Then Chap. 3. he puts them in mind of several duties throughout the Chap. He lays down some general Exhortations, with reference to the Gospel, and their living suitably to it; from v. 1. to 17. Then he proceeds to particular duties in our place and Relations; and in this v. 17. having laid down something, he gathers up all into one sum, how to carry themselves in the whole course of their lives in their thoughts, words, and works. We may observe from the general Scope: Doct. That the Doctrine of the Gospel carrieth the highest and strictest obligations upon all such (to whom it revealed) to duty and service in their places and relations to God and Man. In the words we have 1. A Rule laid down. 2. The things that are under the Rule, words, works, and thoughts, and secret motions of the heart; which works also are well known to God, and so they come under Rule. 3. Here is the Universality of the Rule in its extent and full compass; it fetcheth in all words and works without exception, and all persons: for this You takes in all persons, of what rank or degree soever. 4. Here is the manner how they must be done, so as to answer the Mind of God in the Name of Christ. 5. Here is a further Rule, or rather a part of the general Rule, that we should give thanks, etc. 1. Here's the duty itself, Thanksgiving. 2. The Object of it, God, etc. 3. How it must be managed, by Christ, or through Christ. 1. Obs. All our actions, thoughts, words, and works, must be done in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Obs. All Praises and Thanksgivings, as they are only due to God, so they must be performed by us to him by Jesus Christ, that they may be accepted of him. All thanks are due to God the Father, who is the Father of Christ, and in him our God and Father; and therefore this work is to be done only in, by, and through Jesus Christ, Ephes. 5.20. giving thanks always for all things unto God, and the Father, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. All glory be given by the Church to Christ, Heb. 10.12, 15. and Rom. 16.27. How this great Duty is to be performed to God through Christ Jesus. 3. Praises and Thanksgivings are the great duty of our lives; for if we do all things in the Name of Jesus Christ, than whatever we do in his Name is special matter of Thanksgiving. In every thing give thanks: if we think a good thought, or do a good work, it is of God; and therefore be thankful, and it is a Sacrifice to be tendered to God every day, Heb. 13.15. As to the first Doctrine, consider 1. What it is to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Why we must do all in that Name. 3. How shall we come to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 4. Some Uses. 1. What is it to do all in the Name of Christ? 1. It is to go to him as a Mediator, or to go to God by him: For we must upon all occasions go to God in a way of prayer by Christ, if we will be accepted, Psal. 65.2. God's Spirit tells us, that he is a God hearing prayer; therefore unto him shall all flesh come and appear: Not come to God in prayer, but by Christ as Mediator. Beza sets it out, Invocato Christi Nomine, we must go to God; quod autem addit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diligenter notandum est, ut sciamus Deum frustra coli nisi Christus Mediator interveniat. We must go to God (by him) we must take special notice of that word, for we do in vain make our Addresses to God, but by the intercession of our Mediator. All our Supplications are to be put in the Name of Christ, as he bids us, John 15.3, 16. and John 16.23, 26. he tells them, whatsoever they should ask the Father in his Name at that day (i. e. after his Ascension, and giving the Spirit) you shall ask in my Name; and I say not unto you, etc. He speaks this by way of encouragement unto them, that they should go in his Name, and then they should certainly speed: He gives as loving Friends sometimes do, when they certainly intent to do some special good for a Friend; they say, I will not tell you what I'll do for you, intimating thereby they will do what they can for them. 2. It is to do all by his Authority, Power, and Command, Mat. 18.18, 19, 20. Christ tells them, that whatever they did bind or lose on Earth in his Name, (i. e. by his Authority and Command) should be bound in Heaven: For when two or three are gathered together in his Name, (i. e. by virtue of his Command) he would be in the midst of them. All Power and Authority is given of the Father to Christ, Mat. 28.18, 19, 20. and therefore go in the Name of the Father, etc. Laws and Proclamations, which go forth in the Name of the King, they go forth in his Authority. All our actions come under his Command, he is our King and our Lawgiver, Isa. 33.22. Though other Lords besides Christ have had Dominion over us, but by him only will we make mention of his Name, Isa. 26.13. By virtue of his Command and Authority we'll make mention of thy Name, we will admire and praise thee. He is a Sovereign Lord who Commands, and doth impose Laws on the Consciences of men; his Laws reach the inward as well as the outward man, else all that we do cannot be done in his Name, and by virtue of some Authority from him, who is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, Rev. 19.16. and the only Potentate, 1 Tim. 6.11. 3. It is to do all in his strength and power, this is to do all in his Name. Thus Acts 4.6, 7. Annas and Caiaphas, etc. asked Peter and John, by what Power, or by what Name they had done this, v. 10. Peter told them that in the Name of Jesus Christ did that Man stand whole before them: thus did they come in the Power of Christ. To go about a work in the Name of Christ is to go about it and do it in his strength and Power, 1 Sam. 17.45. David went against Goliath in the Name of the Lord of Hosts; so David said, Psal. 108.10, 11. that in the Name of the Lord he would destroy them, i. e. in the strength and Power of the Lord. Paul can do all things through Christ who strengthens him, Phil. 4.13. His Grace was sufficient for him, 2 Cor. 12.9. No man in the strength of his own parts or gifts can do any thing so as to be accepted, John 15.5. (without me ye can do nothing) he doth not say, that you may do something, or that you can do but little, but you can do nothing without me. He worketh all our works for us, Isa. 26.12. even the will and the deed, Phil. 2.13. Paul laboured more abundantly than they all, 1 Cor. 15.10. but he presently corrected himself, Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me. 4. For his Glory, 1 Cor. 10.31. So that as he is the Author, so he is the end of all we do, Rom. 11.36. All people must honour the Son, as they honour the Father, Joh. 5.23. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all, Rev. 1.8. All Glory and Honour is due to Christ, as is due to the Father, Rev. 4.9, 11. they give glory to him that sits on the Throne, and Rev. 5.12, 13. there is all honour given to him that sitteth on the Throne, and to the Lamb, they which do all for the glory of God, do all their actions to the honour of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that when God doth any thing for us, he doth it for his Name's sake; and therefore when David begged of God, that for his Name's sake he would lead him, Psal. 31.3. he means, for his Glory, we should have an eye at the Glory of Christ. 5. To do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, is to live a life of Faith for a supply of all things for Life and Godliness, as the Apostle speaks, 2 Pet. 1.2, 3. he tells us, we have all things, that is, we that have like precious Faith, spoken of in v. 1. and that Live in the Exercise of it upon Christ, as Paul did, Gal. 2.20. This Faith in Christ's Name being Exercised in a way of Prayer is the way to obtain whatever we ask, Joh. 16.23. Every Believer doth live a life of Faith, Heb. 10.33. In all conditions, and at all times, in the whole course of his Life: so that what Peter said of the healing of the Cripple, may in a sort be said of a Believer in the course of his Life, by Faith in Christ's Name he does all. 6. To do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, it is to walk in the Religion of the Lord Jesus, according to his Rule, for Doctrine, Worship, and Practice of Life, Micah 4.5. The People of God do say, we will walk in the Name of the Lord our God. The Heathens did own and honour the Names of their gods, especially in the Religion, Worship, and Institutions of their gods: and so the People of God that walk in the Name of the Lord Jesus keep close to the Religion of Christ, 2 Tim. 2.19. He that nameth the Name of Christ must departed from Iniquity. It is on this account that the Servants of Christ are hated and persecuted, Mat. 10.22. Luke 21.17. for his Religion which they Professed, so Rev. 2.3. they are said for his Name's sake to have laboured, etc. 13. to hold fast his Name, and Rev. 3.8. not to deny his Name. All People join in Communion with their God and one another that trust in the Name of their God, Acts 2.42, 43. The Primitive Christians did walk and continue in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship, and they about the Throne at the Sea of Ordinances appointed by Christ, Rev. 15.2. worshipping of him in a way of visible Communion with all such as are joined to the God of Abraham, Psal. 47.9. All that walk in the Name of Christ walk in all the ways and Ordinances of Christ, Deut. 8.6. In all his ways, Deut. 11.22. and in no other, Mat. 28.19, 20. observe all things which I command you. 7. It is to follow his Example. The Examples of Persons, who have had great Names in the World, have prevailed much for doing and suffering. All such as are professedly the Disciples of Christ, his Name is upon them in a special manner, and therefore they should follow his Example, Mat. 16.24. And follow me. We must walk as Christ walked, 1 Joh. 2.6. We must follow his Example, for his Life was Exemplary, 1 Pet. 2.21, 22, 23. He presseth his own Example, Mat. 11.29. for meekness and lowliness, and Joh. 13.15. I have given you an Example, that you should do as I have done to you. It was an Example of the greatest condescension in the eleven Offices of Love, Eph. 5.25. Husband's have Christ propounded as an Example of Love to their Wives; Persons of Eminency and Dignity have great Names, and carry many followers, and many walk according to their Example, and upon that account are called by their Names: for Examples prevail more than Precepts. The second thing proposed, was the reasons why we must do all in the Name of Christ. 1. Because all we have, are, or can do, is of Christ, 1 Cor. 3.22, 23. All Grace and strength to us is from him, 1 Cor. 1.30. So that he is a Believer's all and in all, Col. 3.11. All that God gives to us is through him, and by him only, Eph. 1.3, etc. Adoption is by him, v. 5. the Seal of the Spirit, and the earnest of our Inheritance is by him, v. 13, 14. We are created to good works in him, Eph. 2.10. Reconciliation and Peace is by him, 2 Cor. 5.18. All our actual supplies are by him, Phil. 4.19. His Grace is exceeding abundant in him, 1 Tim. 1.14, 15. For he is a Superexcellent Person, and hath the pre-eminence above all things, a Name above every Name; in him all things subsist, in him all fullness dwells, as the Apostle shows, Col. 1.16, 17, 18, 19 and therefore it pleaseth the Father that we should receive all Grace for Grace through him. 2. Because the Father hath exalted Christ, and given him a Name above every Name, that he who was so much despised and rejected, and whose Name was a Reproach and Scorn to all, Isa. 53.2, 3, etc. that Name so much abased, the Father hath appointed that it shall be exalted above every Name, Phil. 2.8, 9, 10. and all other names shall vanish, and be as nothing before this Name, Acts 4.12. there being no other Name in Heaven or in Earth by which we shall be saved; therefore all must honour the Son as they honour the Father, Joh. 5.23. Upon this account all People shall be beholding to him for all the good that ever they do, or have, or are. 3. Because we cannot be accepted either as to our Persons or performances, but by him, Eph. 1.6. accepted in the beloved, in him alone he is well pleased, Mat. 3.17. so that all that goes to God from us is by his hand, it must be presented by his hand, and perfumed with his Incense, Rev. 8.3, 4. Abel's Sacrifice found acceptation by faith in the Messiah, when he presented it to God, Heb. 11.4. We have our Lord Christ, Rev. 5.6. in the midst of the Throne, to negotiate between him that sits upon the Throne, and the Saints that are about the Throne; so that nothing comes from Heaven to us in a way of Blessing, but what comes through his hand, and nothing goes from us to Heaven in a way of Duty so as to be accepted, but only by his hand, Joh. 16.23. So that his Name is the only prevailing Name with God, he having satisfied the Justice of God, pacified the wrath of God, and removed the Curse of God from us; so that all Sacrifices whatever, that find the way to Heaven and find acceptance there, must of necessity be in his Name, Heb. 13.15. Heb. 5.1. 4. Because all that comes from God to us must be by his hand, he is the Jacob's Ladder, spoken of, Gen. 28.12. God acts towards us as a God in a Covenant of Grace and Peace with us only in Christ, Heb. 13.20, 21. 1 Pet. 5.10. and therefore the Apostolical Benedictions and Prayers for Grace, Mercy, and Peace, are from God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Rom. 1.7. 1 Cor. 1.3, 4. 2 Cor. 1.2. Eph. 1.2, 3. 1 Pet. 1.2, 3. He calls them Elect, etc. by God the Father, through Sanctification of the Spirit, and blood of Jesus, v. 3. We are said to be blessed by the Father and begotten, etc. through Christ; and therefore since God doth act as a God of all Grace and Peace, we must do all in his Name, by which the Father is propitiated toward us, he being made sin for us, 2 Cor. 5.20. and a Curse, Gal. 3.13. But here comes in a Quest. How they can be said to do any thing in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that are not one with him, though yet they pretend to do all in his Name, Mat. 7.22, 23. but are not owned by him. I Answer, It is one thing to pretend to do a thing in the Name of Christ, another thing to do it indeed; that is, by true Faith in his Name, by which they are made one with him. 2. There was in that Age a Faith of Miracles, which though it were an Extraordinary gift, and common both to Believers and Reprobates, they might be said to do those great things in Christ's Name; that is, by a Power derived from him, though they were not in Christ, neither did own him as their Saviour, nor were owned by him. Ponum non nisi ex integra causa, malum ex quolibet d●f●ctu. 3. What is done properly in his Name in the sense of the Text must take into its compass all the foregoing particulars mentioned, else it will not be accepted, it must be done in the Name of Christ as Mediator: Many things may be done in the Name of Christ, even Mountains may be removed, 1 Cor. 13.2. and yet not be done by Faith in his Name, as has been said. The third thing propounded was, how we may come to do all in the Name of our Lord Jesus, and this may be instead of a Use of Direction to us. 1. We must be supposed to be in Christ before we can do any thing in Christ's Name, according to that in John 15.4, 5. where he tells us, that except we abide in him, (that supposeth that they are in him first) we can do nothing, v. 5. for he compares our being in him to that of a Branch in the Vine, which cannot bear Fruit of itself unless it abide in the Vine. Luther, enquiring into the reason why so many ordinary things done by the Saints are set down in Scripture with a mark of Honour upon them, and yet the moral virtues and famous deeds of the great Philosophers and others are passed by, Answers, that the reason is, because their Persons are not in Christ, and therefore their actions are not accepted, and saith, Si vel Cicero, vel Socrates sanguinem sudasset, tamen propterea non placeret Deo, If Socrates or Cicero had sweat drops of blood, their actions had not pleased God. Coment. in Gen. 29. 2. Supposing we are one with Christ, we must Exercise Faith upon him, and have constant recourse to him in all that ever we do, for the supplies of his Grace and Spirit, 1 Pet. 2.20. By Faith resigning all to him, casting all our burdens and cares upon him, committing ourselves and all our affairs to him, and fetching in all our strength from him. Christ tells us, Whatever we ask the Father in his Name shall be given to us, John 15.16. John 16.23, 26. For whatever we ask in Prayer, believing, we shall receive, Mat. 21.22. Jam. 5.15. So that if we would be enabled to do all in the Name of Christ, we must Exercise Faith in his Name in Prayer to God for all things, for he is in Office in Heaven for this purpose, Heb. 7.25. for he ever Liveth to make Intercession for us. The hand of Faith put forth in Prayer, though but in ejaculatory Prayer, draws virtue from Heaven; as we read, when he was on Earth, those that did but touch him drew virtue from him, Luke 6.19. Luke 8.46. 3. Living close and secret Communion with the Lord Jesus in the use of all his Ordinances, by and through which he communicates himself in the fullness and freeness of Life, Light, Love, and Grace to our Souls; for they be the Golden Pipes spoken of, Zach. 4.12. by which the Golden Oil is conveyed to our Souls, for his Name is an ointment poured forth in days of Holy Communion, Cant. 1.3. By this means we come to have further acquaintance with him, and peace from him; to see his Power and Glory, and our Souls to be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, Psal. 63.5. and to be changed into his Image, 2 Cor. 3.18. and to be refreshed with fuller tastes of his love, which is better than Wine. 4. Exercise your thoughts much upon him, and be much taken up with him in the course of your lives: but in a special manner, upon singular occasions. The Psalmist Psal. 73.23. saith, I am continually with thee, that was, in his heart and thoughts. Let your thoughts be taken up much in the consideration how to manage your affairs, so as may be according to the mind of Christ by strength derived from him, and for his honour, that we may be accepted in our works. Perhaps you will object, that it is impossible we should in every business of our lives have actual thoughts of Christ and his Glory, or go actually to him for assistance and guidance in every particular business. I answer, 1. There may and must be an habitual, gracious, holy frame of heart in us wrought by the Spirit, by which we may be strongly inclined to the Lord Christ, and his Word as our Rule, and his Glory as our end; so that we do in the full purpose of our hearts resolve to trust in him, and commit ourselves to him, and rest upon him for help, assistance, guidance, acceptance, and success in all things. What David prayed for, for himself and people, when they were in a good frame of heart, is the desire and endeavour of every believer, 1 Chron. 29.18. (viz.) that the Lord would keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of their hearts, and prepare their hearts unto him: This is the habitual preparation of the heart for God; this frame of heart is the New Creature in us. 2. When we have especial and particular work to do for Christ, then there ought to be an actual preparation of our hearts for him, and stirring up the grace that is in us, an actual making out after him, and laying hold on him for strength and grace from him in time of need, Heb. 4. last. This is especially to be done upon more solemn and momentous occasions, than we must in an especial manner think upon that word that was spoken to Israel, Amos 4.11. Prepare to meet thy God. We read, Exod. 40.30, 31. there was a Laver before the Altar, in which they were to wash before they went into the Congregation for service. We cannot sanctify God in an Ordinance, except we prepare for him, which is all one with sanctifying of God, Levit. 10.3. 1 Sam. 16.5. Samuel, when he came to sacrifice to the Lord, said to the Elders of Bethleem, Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the Sacrifice. 3. The more frequent actual thoughts we have of Christ and his Word, and our eye upon the Rule, and his Glory as our end, it is the better ever; therefore we should often call upon ourselves as Deborah did, Judges 5.12. Awake Deborah, awake, etc. There must be an actual excitation of ourselves, and exercising of our Graces, when we have some special duty to perform. It is said of Samson, Judges 16.20. That he went out and shook himself, as at other times. It seems to have been his manner, when he went about any great work. We should stir up our hearts, and send up frequent Ejaculatory Prayers, though we cannot engage in a solemn way of duty to God: and much work is done that way, Exod. 14.15. Moses sent up an Ejaculation upon a great exigent, which reached Heaven, yet there was not a word spoken by him; yet saith God, Wherefore criest thou unto me? We should often cast the eye of Faith up towards God, Isa. 45.22. as they looked up to the Brazen Serpent, and were healed. The people of God looked to the Temple when they could not come near to it; and the Temple was a Type of Christ, 1 Kings 8.29, 30, 35. Jonah 2.4. This which hath been laid down by way of Direction, I would press by way of Exhortation, in a word, to have frequent recourse to the Lord Jesus Christ, since he doth so frequently press us to this very thing; the oftener we visit him, the more enlarged we are in our desires towards him, the more we receive from him, and the better welcome we are to him, and the Father for his sake. He bids us open our mouths wide, and he will fill them, Psal. 81.13, 14, 15, 16. and takes it very ill at our hands, when we are straitened in our hearts towards him: We can't go to God as a Father in Christ, in Christ's Name, but we must needs speed, Heb. 4. last verse, and we can't speed but by him, and upon his account; for 1. We have admittance and access to the Father only by Christ, Eph. 3.12. 2. We have assistance only through him, Joh. 15.5. Phil. 4.13. 3. In regard of acceptance, which is only in and through him, Eph. 1.3, 6. 4. In regard of recompense, Rev. 22.12. Our reward is only by him, Mat. 5.11, 12. that is a great reward for Christ's sake, eternal Life. The greatest reward is by Christ, Rom. 6.23. The Fourth thing propounded was some Uses, that since we must do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, hence may be inferred, First, That all our Actions as they must be done in his strength, and for his Glory, 1 Cor. 10.31. So by his Authority, and according to his Rule, and Word. It is not in our Power, nor at our Liberty, to Act as we please according to our own Fancy, or for our own ends, Rom. 14.7, 8. none of us Liveth to himself, as if he should say, we are none of our own, therefore Living and dying we are the Lords, and so in neither at our own disposing. He had spoken before of their eating or forbearing to eat, how they ought to eat or not to eat according to the Will of God, it must be to the Lord's Glory, especially considering that he who requires we should do all in his strength and Name, and for his Glory, hath such a Title to us, to lay Laws upon us as none else hath, 1 Cor. 6.20. So that all our Actions must come under some Rules general, if not particular. 1. Of Piety to God. 2. Of Charity to Men. 3. Of Sobriety to ourselves. And all this the Gospel teacheth us, Tit. 2.11, 12. The Grace of God which hath appeared to all Men, teacheth us, that denying all ungodliness, etc. we should Live Soberly, Righteously, and Godly in this present World: There is the Rule of the New Creature, Gal. 6.16. by which a Saint doth walk in his general and particular Calling in all holy Conversation and Godliness, 2 Pet. 3.11. They are a proud Generation that say as they, Psal. 12.4. Our Tongues are our own, who is Lord over us? We will not be bounded by any Laws, nor walk by any Rule, nor be controlled by any whatever; but we have not so learned Christ, we have our bounds and limits set us not only in Sacred, but civil things. Therefore Bishop Davenant, upon Col. 3.17. speaks fully to our purpose, Fallitur vulgus cum judicat licere sibi uti victu, vestitu, sermone, aut quaecunque adiaphora suo arbitrio: nam haec omnia ad Regulam adhibenda sunt, alioquin licet ipsa re nullum sit vitium, erit tamen in utente, The vulgar sort are much mistaken, who judge it Lawful for them to use their Liberty wholly in Eating, Drinking, Clothing, Speaking, or any other indifferent things according to their own wills and pleasure, for all these things are to be brought under Rule, otherwise what is lawful in itself may be unlawful to him that useth it. 2. Inference, That they are very bold and saucy wretches, who presume to entitle Christ to their impious and wicked courses; In nomine Domini incipit omne malum. How many do justify themselves in their superstitious practices by the Word of God? How many be like Satan, who, when he tempted Christ, produced Scripture to enforce his temptations? Mat. 4.2, 3, 4, etc. So too many cite Scripture for their False Worships, and for their False Doctrines, and wicked Lives; but Wisdom is justified of her Children, Mat. 11.19. It was a profanation of God's Name, when the Israelites proclaimed a Feast to the Lord, which was to their Idols, Exod. 32.5. We find the false Apostles pretend as much to the Name of Christ, as the Apostle Paul did, and to Preach in his Name, though they Preached false Doctrine, 2 Cor. 11.13. And Antichrist himself pretends to be like the Lamb, when he speaks like a Dragon, Rev. 13.11. 3. Infer. Hence we infer, That we cannot expect God's Blessing upon any thing which is not done in the Name of Christ. What we undertake, and not in the fear of the dreadful Name of the Lord Jehovah, not for his Honour, and according to his Word, we cannot expect his Blessing: None can expect God's guidance, assistance, or success in that which cannot be warranted by the Word of Christ, all Blessings being wholly and only in his Name, Eph. 1.3. We have all things in Christ in a way of Blessing, 1 Cor. 3.22, 23. Whilst we are with him, he will be with us, 2 Chron. 15.2. While we are with him in a way of Duty, he will be with us in a way of Blessing. 4. Infer. Hence it follows, That it is not in the power of any Person by natural or acquired parts to do any thing according to the Rule of Christ, or for his Glory, which is not done in his strength; and therefore Paul, who could do all things through Christ which strengthened him, Phil. 4.13. could not so much as think a good thought without him, 2 Cor. 3.5. And this our Lord Christ puts out of Question, John 15.5. where he tells us, Without me ye can do nothing. It is not in the name of the most excellent parts, or gifts, or grace whatever, that we can do any thing acceptable or well pleasing to God. 5. Infer. Whatever Excellency there is in any Action or worthy Achievement, so as to commend it to God, it is from Christ through Faith in his Name. Though the Action may be a common Action in itself, or perhaps, some base servile low employment, yet being done in the Name of Christ, with Faith in him, with care and conscience to please him, such an Action far surpasseth the great and noble exploit of Alexander the Great, of Pompey, or Caesar, or of any of the Renowned Hero's in the World, who in the name of parts or gifts or any acquired Excellencies have done great things in the World. There may be a great difference betwixt Persons and their Employments, as betwixt a Prince and a Peasant in their places, and yet a poor Peasant doing some common work in an ordinary way, it may be a piece of drudgery, yet his work being done by Faith in Christ's Name, it doth as much surpass the Person and Actions of a Prince in a worth and Excellency, which doth not manage his Public and weighty affairs of State in the Name of Christ, as the Prince doth surpass him in place. They have great advantage above all others, who go about their common Employments in the Name of Christ, and for the honour of Christ, above all others who Act in their own name; as it was with David and Goliath, 1 Sam. 17.45. The lowest Actions done by Faith have a very great honour put upon them by the Spirit of God above all others, Heb. 11.31. The Harlot Rahab receiving the Spies by Faith, is put among the worthies upon that account. Civil and natural Actions done in the Name of Christ are raised to a very great height, to have the name of Religious put upon them: Thus doth Faith in Christ's Name turn Brass and Copper into Gold. Luther saith, that if he might have his Option, he would rather choose the lowest and basest Employment of a poor Rustic, or Maid-Servant, doing their work in Faith, before all the Victories and Triumphs of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar. Why? Because hic est Deus, illic est Diabolus; haec est differentia essentialis, hoc non omnes possunt cernere, neque Erasmus quidem vidit; that is, because with a poor Saint God is, and the Devil with them; and this is an essential difference betwixt them, every one does not see it; Erasmus himself did not perceive it. By this Name the most contemptible Persons in the World are come to be renowned in the Church, Heb. 11.2, 38, 39 Those that Live by Faith on that Name, had a great and good Report in Heaven, and though they were despised by the World, yet the World was not worthy of them. God never speaks such a word of all the men of great Name in the World, as he does of the poorest Saint on Earth, that the World is not worthy of them. Sure I am that many of those great Men of the World were not worthy to Live in the World: the World was weary of them, and the worse for them. 6. Infer. If all we do well in the World is to be done in Christ's Name, and through his strength, it is very fit that we should give him the glory of all: Since all we can do is of him, and from him, all must be to him, Rom. 11.36. We find in Rev. 5.8, 9, 10, etc. that the Saints and Angels fell down and gave glory to God, and to the Lamb. The Lord is very jealous of his Honour, when Men take the glory that is due to him to themselves, and Sacrifice to their own Acts; and as God is jealous of his Honour, Isa. 42.8. and will endure to have no Copartners with him: so the Servants of Christ are also jealous of themselves, lest when they have done worthily, they should rob him of his Honour; and therefore, 1 Cor. 15.10. the Apostle Paul, when he had said, I laboured more abundantly than they all, seems presently to correct himself, yet not I, but the Grace of God in me. 7. Infer. Hence it will follow that whatever Service or Worship is done in any Name to God, than that of Christ, it is rejected; or what is done in his Name, but not according to his mind is abhorred of God, though he may do that which is commanded by God, which for Substance may be the same that a Believer doth, yet being not done in the Name of Christ God abhors it, Isa. 66.3. Though they did Sacrifice such things as God commanded, Isa 58.1, 2, 3, etc. yet being not done in the Name of the Lord for his Glory, and according to his Word, it is rejected of God, Isa. 1.10, 11, 12. Their Incense, which was appointed for expiation, was an abomination to God: so that all the Worship of the Jewish Synagogue was abhorred of God, because the Name of Christ is abhorred by them; and all the Services of Papists, who are of the Synagogue of Satan, which are tendered in the Name of Saints or Angels, or of their own merit or Righteousness, are rejected with greatest detestation; all the Service of the whole Nations of Turks, what are done in the Name of Mahomet and their Koran, are an abomination to God. 8. Infer. Hence Learn, that there is no honouring of God, but in the Name of his Son, John 5.23. There can be no true praise given to God in any work by any Person, but in and through Christ, Eph. 2.10. We are Created in Christ Jesus to good Works; so as they must be a new Created People through Christ, which are a People to his Praise, Psal. 102.8. The lowest, meanest work done by Faith in Christ, as it brings great Honour to God, so it is greatly honoured by God, Mat. 10. A Cup of cold water given upon the account of Christ has a great reward from him. Salvian speaks to this point very notably, non perdiderit mercedem suam, Mat. 10.42. Etiam eam rem in futuro habituram praemium esse dicit, quae in praesenti praetium non dabit; tantum honoris cultori suo tribuit, ut aliquid esset per fidem, quod hic omnino nihil esset per servilitatem, He shall not lose his reward (says he) in the World to come; he shall have a great reward, which perhaps in the present Life he may miss of; so great an honour is God pleased to put upon an Action done in Faith, however mean and inconsiderable, and which by reason of its vileness in the eyes of men is nothing. A visit of a poor Member of Christ, sick or in Prison, or an Alms given to feed or them, what an honour is put upon these at the last day? Mat. 25.34, 35, 36. But what shall we think of Cyrus and Darius, and others, who did so great things for the Church of God? Isa. 45.1, 2, 3, 4. And of the King of Tyrus, who upon account of the Protection that the People of God had from him, is called the Anointed Cherub that covereth? Ezek. 28.14, 16. To this I Answer, that as for Cyrus, though God made great use of him, yet the Lord says expressly of him, that he know him not; and therefore as for all those Actions they did for the Church of God, though God did gain Honour by them, yet they did not honour God, nor were they accepted of him, because they were not in Christ. Use of Exhort. To study the Name of the Lord Jesus: for by how much the more we know of his Name, by so much the more we shall trust in him, Psal. 9.10. It is the Name which is above every Name, Phil. 2.9. His Name is as sweet precious Ointment poured forth, Cant. 1.3. The richest Treasuries of Grace are laid up in that Name of Christ, John 1.16. Study it, that you may be able to comprehend with all Saints, what is the height and depth, etc. of it, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, Eph. 3.18, 19 There is a surpassing Excellency as in that Name, so in the knowledge of it, Phil. 3.8. for by this knowledge we come to the fairest and clearest discoveries of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; the Lord shines into the hearts of such Students, and communicates a glorious Light unto them. We come by this knowledge as to see into the Treasuries of Grace in him, so to possess and enjoy them; and this knowledge carries Eternal Life with it, John 17.3. The next Use is of Reproof; 1. Too many of great parts, Learning, and Worth, yet have ambitiously affected a great name in the Church and in the World, to gain followers and make a party, to be cried up as teaching Men, Mat. 23.8, 9, 10. This was it, which Christ saw was a very prevailing evil among the Scribes and Pharisees, and utterly decried it, saying, be not called Rabbi, Rabbi, that is, do not affect to be so called, or through Pride and Ambition delight in these Titles. Augustine was a Person of great Piety and Parts, and he abhorred this Spiritual preeminency, which he took notice of in many in his time, who took up their Religion and Faith upon trust, and upon the Credit of some Men of great name in the Church; non ad 〈…〉 nomen ambulo, (said he) Christi nomen tenea; pert●em si essem de p●●te pauli ●●●omodo non per irem si essem ex parte Donat●? recedent 〈…〉 I walk not according to the names 〈◊〉 Titles 〈…〉 of Christ; I should perish if I took 〈…〉 more under the name of Donatus: away 〈…〉 the same Augustine, in Soliloquio speaking of Christ, saith, vocast● 〈◊〉 n●mine tuo, signasti me sanguine tuo, unxisti me oleo tuo, de quo a ictus fuist, at à te Christo dicerer Christianus, Thou hast signed me with thy Blood, thou hast called me by thy Name, I have been anointed by thee and from Christ I am a Christian. And Luther, Tom. 2. Wittemb. saith, primum oro, nomen meum taceatur, & nemo Lutheranus, sed Christianus appelletur. Quid est Lutherus? atqui Doctrina non est mea, nec pro quopiam sum Crucifixus. Vnde mihi putido vermium Sacco hoc accideret, ut filii Christi à meo vilissimo nomine denominentur? Absit, amici: deleamus Schismatica nomina, & denominemur à Christo, cujus Doctrinam habemus. I desire first, that my name may be concealed, and that none should be called a Lutheran, but a Christian. What is Luther? my Doctrine is not mine, but Christ's; I was not crucified for any. How comes it to pass that I who am but a filthy stinking bag of Worms, that any of the Sons of Christ should be denominated from my Name? Away with these Schismatical names, let us be denominated from Christ, from whom alone we have our Doctrine. This very thing of affectation of a Name and Fame in the Church hath been very pernicious: The greatest Heresies have been owned, propagated, and maintained upon this account, as _____ L. 1. C. 20. tells us the Simonians from Simon Magus; and Justin Martyr in his Dialogue saith some have been called Marcionites, others Valentinians, others Bazilidians, * _____ some by one name, some by another, from their first Founders. But Lactantius tells us, l. 4. de vera sapientia, when once men come under such denominations, Christiani esse desierunt, qui, Christi nomine amisso, humana & externa vocabula induerunt, they cease to be Christians, when they come under humane names and titles in matters of Religion; and therefore Paul would have none follow him further, than he followed Christ, 1 Cor. 11.1. He rejects the honours which some would have put upon him with an indignation: some affected to be called by his, and other great names in the Church, 1 Cor. 1.12, 13. Some said they were of Paul, etc. but when he comes to speak as to himself, he speaks with an abhorrence that any should set up his name with Christ's. What was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptised into the name of Paul? God forbidden that any should be guilty of so great a sin, as to come under that denomination. 2. Others are to be blamed, even the generality of Professors, that having taken the Name of Christ upon them, and are called by his Name, are a reproach to this high and holy Name, who are so far from doing all things in the Name of Christ, as they do nothing in his Name, but do live against that Name, they do not departed from iniquity, as every Christian upon that account ought to do, 2 Tim. 2.19. How many say they are Christians but are not? Rev. 3.9. He calls it Blasphemy in them that said they were Jews, that is, Christians, but were not; they pretended indeed to be true Christians, but held such Doctrines, and lived in such lewd sinful practices, as were opposite to Christ. Such persons profane the sacred Name of Christ, who live in such a way as cast a blot and imputation upon him. Christians, as such, should be so far from the practice even of such sins as many have very light thoughts of, that they must not so much as name them, Eph. 5.3, 4. Fornication, Uncleanness and Covetousness must not so much as be named by them. The Lord Christ and his Gospel suffer more by Christians that bear his Name, than by others that despise him; they open the mouths of the enemy to blaspheme the holy Name of Christ, and the Religion of Christ, Jam. 2.7. They blaspheme that worthy Name by which they are called. He had spoken before of some Professors, who had the Faith of the Lord Jesus with respect of persons, v. 1, 2, and 6. proud rich ones that did oppress others, such men by their wicked practices did blaspheme the Name of Christ, by such practices they did cast a blot and scandal upon the Religion which they did profess, and by that means caused others to blaspheme the Name of Christ. To the like purpose Paul speaks concerning the Jews, who were high pretenders to the Law, yet lived in the continual breach of it, Rom. 2.24. Through them the Name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles. So 2 Pet. 2.2. He had spoken of some, who by their Doctrines denied the Lord Christ that bought them, by reason of whom the way of truth was evil spoken of by the false Doctrines and flagitious lives of Professors, the Name and Religion of Christ is rend and torn in pieces, and brought into contempt among the worst of men. And therefore we find, that when Professors are pressed to walk as becometh the Gospel, one great Argument is taken from the great reproach that else will follow, 1 Tim. 6.1. he presseth servants to account their Masters worthy of double honour, that the Name of God, and his Doctrine be not blasphemed. The like Argument we have upon Wives, that they be discreet, etc. obedient to their own Husbands, Tit. 2.4. that the Word of God be not blasphemed, that the way of Religion, in which they profess to serve God, be not made vile and contemptible in the eyes of such as have little regard to any Religion at all. Averro was most taken with the Christians Sect, (as he called it) but when he saw the Christians do what he thought was a great offence against the God whom they served or worshipped, he said, Moriatur anima mea cum Philosophis, Let me die amongst the Philosophers, and not among the Christians. It is reported of one Hathway an Indian, as blind as he was, so possessed with prejudice against the Christian Religion by the cruelty of the Spaniards, that he refused to be Baptised, because of their vile carriage, and said he would not go to the same Heaven with them. Of all persons, Christians have cause to walk most wisely, and uprightly, in reference to that honourable Name which they bear, lest otherwise they expose it to contempt. Let us do as the Primitive Saints did, Acts 9.31. of whom it is said they walked in the fear of the Lord, and the Churches had rest. They were in the midst of persecuting bloody Enemies, who seeing them walk in the fear of the Lord, and according to the Rules of the Christian Religion, which did strike such an awe into them of the Majesty of their Religion, which did shine forth in their holy, heavenly Conversation, as brought their Enemies under so great Convictions, as they durst not at that present attempt them, or hinder their peace. A Saint sanctifies the Name of the Lord in the course of his life, while he walks in the fear of the Lord, Isa. 8.13. This was a great Argument which prevailed with Nehemiah, and he propounded it to the people, to walk in the fear of the Lord, because of the reproach of the Enemy, Nehem. 8.9. It is not the Jew which denieth the Name of Christ, or the Turk which defieth it, or the Pagan Dragon, Rev. 12.2, 3. which persecuteth the Name of Christ, that casts so soul a blot and reproach upon the Name of Christ, as he which takes upon him the Name of Christ, and under a form of godliness lives in the practice of those foul abominations spoken of, 2 Tim. 3.1, 2, 5. from which turn away. How we may steer an even Course between Presumption and Despair. Serm. XXIV. Luke 3.4, 5. As it is written in the Book of the words of Isaiah the Prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the Wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his Paths straight. Every Valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. THIS Chapter gins with the Ministry of John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ: In which you have, 1. The Time of his Ministry, when it began, set down and ascertained by some particular, and very memorable remarks upon it, from the names of those who were then in Authority, chief Governors, and Rulers both in Church and State, whose several Offices and Commands bore the same date with John's preaching, ver. 1, 2. The reason of this, I shall not now trouble you with. 2. His Call unto this Office, ver. 2. The Word of God came unto John. 3. The Subject matter of his preaching, viz. The Baptism of Repentance for remission of Sins, ver. 3. 4. The occasion, that prompted him to this subject, and made him fix his thoughts upon it, which was an ancient prophecy out of Isaiah, ch. 40.3. The Holy Ghost bringing this into his mind, telling him it was now to be fulfilled by his preaching, and therefore no doubt directed him to pitch upon such a subject, as might tend most to the accomplishment of that Prophecy. The Prophecy or Promise (for it is both) you have in the words of my Text, and in the last Clause of the succeeding Verse. I shall not insist upon the several Metaphors in the Text, but in short give you the general sense of the whole. By mountains and valleys I understand all sorts of Men, high and low, rich and poor; who considered in their natural condition, whether convinced or unconvinced, do all stand in a direct opposition to Jesus Christ, are exceeding averse from, and unprepared for the Doctrine of the Gospel, will not submit to the Law of Faith, some upon one account, and some upon another, till God by a further work of the Spirit doth open their eyes and draw their hearts to Christ. Now the words of the Text do contain this Preparatory Work of the Gospel upon poor Sinners, in order to due reception of Christ, and, aright application of him by Faith unto the Soul. It consists of two parts, 1. Pulling down Mountains. 2. Filling up Valleys, both very difficult work. John had to do with some, who were puffed up with a conceit of their own Righteousness and would be their own Saviour's, and not be beholding to Christ and free Grace for any thing, thinking themselves to be something, when indeed they were nothing, Gal. 6.3. Revel. 3.16, 17. These were the proud Pharisees boasting of their own Righteousness; and besides these there are also a company of Profane Atheistical Sadducees, who gloried in their sins, and denying the Resurrection of the Body, and the Immortality of the Soul, ran out into all licentiousness. Others again were so convinced of Sin, and of the dangerous consequence of it, that they were ready to sink into Despair, knew not what to do, fearing their sins were greater than could be forgiven, these are the Mountains and Valleys in the Text. Presumption on the one hand, and Despair on the other, that rises too high, this sinks too low, that inclines too much one way, this too much the other; and there is a crookedness and obliquity in both, which must be rectified and straightened by the Preaching of Repentance in order to the Remission of Sins: This John doth, first urging the necessity of Repentance upon the proud Pharisees, who thought they needed no Repentance, Luke 15.7. Secondly urging the great Gospel Privilege that Christ hath purchased for Believers upon their repentance, viz. Remission of Sins, upon poor dejected Sinners, that both the one and the other might see the right way of Salvation by Jesus Christ: for though the Light of Nature, by which we are convinced of the equity and righteousness of the Moral Law, do bind us to Repentance, when we act against it, yet it cannot promise that we shall get any thing by our Repentance, being altogether ignorant of the Mystery of the Gospel. Thus we see the Mountains must be brought low, and the Valleys filled up, and both reduced to such an exact level, evenness, and plainness, that Christ may sit close upon the soul without the least interposition of any thing between him and us, or the least remaining vacuity or emptiness in ourselves, into which his Fullness doth not descend, making up whatsoever is wanting in us; and when it is so, there is a through perfect closure with Christ in the greatest nearness, in the strictest and most intimate union that can be. But you will say, How shall we come to this? How shall we walk thus between the Mountain and the Valley in a straight direct line of Faith and Hope to Jesus Christ? which brings me to the Case or Question now to be spoken to from the Text, which is this, viz. How may we steer an even course between Presumption and Despair? The true state of this Question depends upon a clear discovery of the real difference that is between the Grace of Hope, and both these extremes, Presumption and Despair; therefore 1. I shall distinguish between Presumption and Hope. The difference between Hope and Despair is more apparent; but we are too too apt to confound Presumption and Hope, there being a greater Affinity between these than the other; as in Morality, some virtue? come nearer to one extreme, than to the other: So here, there is something of the general nature of Hope in Presumption. Presumptio non excludit spem sed rectitud●nem spei, Zanch. Therefore we must be the more accurate, and strict in distinguishing between the Grace of Hope, and the Sin of Presumprion, which fallente quâdam Specie (Aquinas) resembles the grace of Hope; and those who are guilty of this Sin, do always put the specious name of Hope upon it; they are not sensible of any Presumption as others are of Despair, and therefore their case is more dangerous; Eo magis desperati quo minus desperantes, Ames. de Consc. And where one despairs, thousands do presume. Before I come to particulars I must distinguish of a double Presumption. 1. Of ourselves and our own merits. 2. Of God, and his mercy. Both stand in a direct opposition to the true Grace of Hope, and I shall show you where the difference lies. I begin with 1. The First sort of Presumption, which is of ourselves. This is a proud arrogant presumption, arising from a vain conceit of our own supposed worth, and righteousness; we think to stand upon our own legs, insisting not upon what Christ is to us, or hath done for us, but upon what we are in and to ourselves, and have done for Christ. We have Prophesied in thy Name, etc. Mat. 7.22. We are not as this Publican, we have done thus and thus, and aught to be considered for our good works; and we doubt not but we shall: 'tis not the Promises of Freegrace, but the Law, and their strict observance of that, which these men ground their hope upon. But the true Grace of Hope is always grounded upon Faith in the Promises, and is all along fed, nourished, maintained, and strengthened by those believing persuasions, that it hath of the truth of those Promises, which at first produced and begat this hope in the Soul, and in the continual exercise of this Grace, in its daily actings, it eyes the Promises, hath daily recourse to them for its further confirmation, 'tis bottomed upon them, taketh its rise from thence, and bears up the Soul upon the credit of them, Rom. 15.4. Psal. 119.74. this is the hope of the Gospel, Col. 1.23. that carries us out of ourselves. A Christian's Hope is hope in another, and not in himself. The right notion of Hope, as it is an Evangelical Grace, implies our sole dependence upon God, as the only Author and Fountain of all that good which we desire and look for; which doth sufficiently difference it from that false hope, or self-presumption, that I have been speaking of, and which was principally aimed at by John in the Text, being a Presumption more peculiar to those times, and persons here spoken of, who lived under the Law, and were much in doing, but understood not the End of their Moral or Ceremonial Works, but trusted in them, and made Saviour's of them; and at the first entrance of the Gospel they opposed the Doctrine of Freegrace, would hear neither John nor Christ himself, but rejected the Counsel of God against themselves, Luke 7.30, 33, 34. See what a Character Paul gives of them, and of all others throughout the world, who should entertain the least thought of Salvation out of Christ, Rom. 3.16, 17. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. This one Scripture, if well weighed, is enough to shake the confidence of the most Presumptuous Self-justitiary that is, and to convince him, and all the world of their need of Christ. In Psal. 14. which Paul quotes in this Chapter, God is brought in taking a strict Survey of Mankind, before he sent his Son into the World, to see if there were any that stood in no need of him. q. d. If there be any such, let him come forth and show himself. David answers for himself, ver. 7. Not I Lord, not I Lord, I wait for Christ, I long for Christ. O that the Salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. O that Christ were come, that the Free grace and mercy of God were more clearly revealed, than Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad; this will be good news indeed. So Jer. 17.5, 6, 7. The result of all is this, true Hope eyes God in Christ, and argues from him: this Presumption now spoken of, eyes self, and argues from thence in all its actings. 2. The second sort of Presumption to be distinguished from Hope is that by which we presume upon God, and his mercy. This is grown up since the preaching of the Gospel: there is indeed too great a spice of the former Presumption among Professors, and as that wears off, this succeeds, nay, they unhappily mingle together. If Legal Presumption cannot altogether shut out conviction, yet it minces the matter, 'tis a little one, and my Soul shall live, and so makes way for this credulous presumption, that brings in a Salvo for all presently; God is gracious, mercy is promised, Christ has died for Sinners, and all will be well, we shall go to Heaven of course without any more ado; and so they sit down in security all their days, till they are surprised, with their everlasting doom unawares. This is Infidelis fiducia (Bern.) a faithless confidence, a fond credulous presumption, arising from a groundless over easy persuasion of the mercy of God towards us; this kind of Presumption may be joined with some sense and conviction of sin, and the dangerous consequence of it, but presently salves all with the general air and breath of a Promise misconstrued and misapplied. The Mistakes are these. 1. This is more Fancy than Faith or Hope. 'Tis a vain imagination, that deludes men into a belief and expectation of that which they are in no likelihood of, in no capacity for: they promise themselves what God hath never promised, cry peace, peace, when God hath not spoken peace. 2. Such an one doth not rightly distinguish between the workings of natural affection towards any good propounded, and the rational actings of Hope for the obtaining of it in a probable or certain way, in the use of due and proper means: Heaven, glory, and eternal Life, are good words, and better things, at the first mention of them, we naturally desire them, and wish for them, but shall we be carried away with a mere sound of words? must we needs have all we hear of? we shall quickly bring ourselves into a fools Paradise this way, dreaming we eat, and yet awake an hungry: there is more ado than so to inherit, the Promises; we must prove our title first; the Promises give us an interest in Heaven, but 'tis Christ, that gives us an interest in the Promises, he opens the mouth of a Promise to speak comfort to us, in him they are all Yea, and Amen, but out of him they all cry no, no, we have nothing for you, who are out of Christ, they will deny all the world, that come not in his Name, and never let out any thing of their treasure to such; no wring out of one drop of solid comfort: The bare History or outward Relation of the Mercy of God in the letter of the Word, gives us no interest in the things promised: the carnal Jews, as Paul observes, had the Promises and boasted of them, but got little by them: Christ is the door of every Promise, let us not think to make a forceable entry, to climb up at the windows like Theives to steal out mercy, as if we cared not how we came by it; you will find what is so gotten will thrive accordingly, and quickly come to nothing. What I drive at is this: 'tis not the report of the worth or amiableness of a thing, but an apprehension of the possibility of it as to us, that causes hope; till we are clear in this, our hope cannot act rationally: if it have no other ground, besides our own desires and natural inclinations raised and kindled in us by the specious appearance and ravishing beauty of some taking objects, this argues rather what we would have, than any likelihood of obtaining of our wishes, which is of the very essence of hope: earnest desires are very apt to run out into a forward presuming hope, we know not well why or wherefore. Quae volumus facile credimus. 3. Another mistake in this fond credulous presumption is, that it takes up promises in its own sense, and not in the true sense and meaning of God. So the Jews, John 8.33. cried they were Abraham's seed, etc. and the Promise run in these very words, to Abraham and his seed, therefore who but they must be included in it? but it was the Spiritual seed that God meant, not that after the flesh; they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, Rom. 9.6. No says Christ, you are the Children of the Devil, of your Father the Devil, John 8.44. and they took up stones and threw at him, ver. 59 being not able to bear any contradiction to their false hopes. So when we read those Promises of salvation to those that come to Christ, believe in him, call upon his Name, we must not understand them, as if a bare form of Godliness, and crying, Lord have mercy upon us, would bring us to heaven: No, My brethren, the Mystery of Religion lies deeper than so; 'tis the labour of the heart, that requires the greatest diligence, intention, and seriousness imaginable, strong workings within, great agonies and contentions of Spirit in our deal with God in any duty: The life of our Worship does consist in these inward spiritual motions of the Soul towards God. This is that coming, that believing, that praying, to which Salvation is promised. The grace of Hope inquires after the Secrets of the Covenant, the real intent and mind of God in every Promise, prays for a right understanding of all particulars, Open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of thy Law, Psal. 119.18. Besides the true meaning of a Promise a Child of God is very solicitous to know, whether God do indeed mean him, and speak to him, and offer those pearls to him; whether he be a person rightly qualified, and under all those due circumstances, that belong to persons, entertaining such an hope, 'tis a great comfort and satisfaction to a Believer, when God does own his hope, and encourage him in it, by some sensible demonstrations of his undoubted interest in such and such Promises; he hears God saying to him, take, eat, this is thy portion purchased by Christ for thee, thou art my Child, and this is children's bread, it belongeth to thee: While we are musing and praying over a promise, God does sometimes feed us out of that promise himself, and with his own hand puts many a sweet morsel into our mouths. O this is overcoming kindness; this is a double, a triple welcome, to have such fare, and the Master of the Feast standing by, and looking on, and carving to us himself, and crying out as it is, Cant. 5.1. Eat O my friends, drink, yea drink abundantly O beloved. When we have shut our Bibles, and have done with a promise, and are setting down the Cup of Salvation out of our hands, God many times makes us to mend our draught, and go deeper than ever we did: drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved. But presumption is a bold guest, thrusts in uninvited, catches at this and that in a rude manner. The word Presumption notes a taking beforehand, before 'tis offered, before 'tis due: before he is called, he runs away with a promise, puts his own sense upon it, and deludes himself with vain hopes from it, and when the King comes to review his Guests shall be cast out into outer darkness, Mat. 22.11, 12, 13. 4. Another error or mistake in presumption is, that it picks and chooses out some Promises, and rejects others; the privileges of the Saints it catcheth at freedom from condemnation, eternal life and glory; but the Promises of Grace, Sanctification, and Holiness, it minds not; it hopes to see God without Holiness, and to go to Heaven as well as the best, it is more for the wages than for the work. But the grace of Hope fastens upon every Promise, gathers honey out of every flower, is as earnest for grace as for glory. Thou hast delivered my soul from death, wilt thou not deliver my feet from falling, etc. Psal. 56.13. and refrain them from every evil way, Psal. 119.101. Lord I have hoped for thy Salvation, and done thy commandments, Psal. 119.166. But Presumption makes men more remiss and careless in their whole course; it does not quicken our endeavours, and make us more active for God, as hope does, by which we purify ourselves, 1 John 3.3. it puts us upon preparing ourselves for the actual possession of what we hope for, that we may be meet for the Kingdom of God, and ready to enter in with the Bridegroom, it uses all means to attain its end. If thy hope be not a heart-purifying hope, a life-reforming hope, 'tis no better than presumption, 1 Pet. 1.13. and Psal. 37.3. 5. Those things that presumption counts upon in a careless way, it doth not bring them so close to the Soul: it doth not give us that lively taste and sense of them as true hope does, they do not work so kindly upon the heart; Presumption apprehends something in gross in a confused manner, pleasing itself with the names and empty notions of things, rather than with the things themselves, is contented with a negative happiness, and understands no more by going to heaven and being saved, than that he shall not be damned and be tormented in hell. A presumptuous person knows not what heaven is, what the blessedness of the Saints is, he studies not those things, but at all adventures he would exchange hell for heaven, and pleaseth himself with an imaginary happiness. Presumption never makes men heavenly minded, for all their high words and confident boasting, yet they are not in earnest for heaven; they don't savour these things, something they must say, something they must pretend to, to silence their consciences, and to keep down those fears that otherwise would distract them. There may be an affectation of heaven, where there is no true affection for it: Heaven, glory, and eternal life are gay things, and signify some great good, but what they know not. But hope brings things home to the heart, we see the substance of what we hope for, Heb. 11.1. Faith comments upon our hope, discourses of the excellent nature of those things we wait for, tells us many pleasing stories of heaven and Christ, and the glory that is above, this mightily heightens hope, ravishes the soul, makes it even leap for joy that its reward shall be so great in heaven; faith lifts us up within the vail, gives us a strong taste of the powers of the world to come, and so feeds and nourishes hope, encourages it to a patiented waiting for that which will quit cost at last, and fully answer our expectations. 6. Presumption as it neglects the use of all means for the attaining its end (as I said before) so it is signally guilty of the neglect of Prayer, Psal. 10.4. 'Tis the presumptuous sinner blessing himself in his wickedness David there speaks of, verse 3. But true Hope is full of holy breathe, and long after that which it hopes for, Rom. 8.23. 2 Cor. 5.2. That hope may well be suspected, that puts us not upon frequent and earnest prayer; they have little ground for their hope of Salvation, Omne desiderium post spem impatientius. who call not upon the Lord, Rom. 10.13. If thy hope be not a praying hope, 'tis a presuming hope. 7. Presumption, though it talk much of Christ, as one who must do all for us, and will save us, yet such an one studies not the mystery of Christ, doth not make it his business to search the Scripture, to inquire after him, to satisfy himself about him, that he is able to save. Herein appears the unreasonableness of this sin, we trust we know not whom; for a man to commit his greatest concern to an unknown hand, and to rest secure is very unreasonable, but true Hope is well acquainted with Christ, much in the studies of the Mystery of Christ, having reposed so great a trust in him is very desirous to know him throughly, and can never act with confidence till then. I know (saith Paul) in whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, 2 Tim. 1.12. I dare trust him he won't fail me. The reason of our hope must be fetched from somewhat in Christ, rendering him sufficient for the work he hath undertaken, else 'tis unreasonable, nay it must needs sink and die without Christ, without hope, Eph. 2.12. When God sent Christ into the world to save us, what a high Character doth he give of him, purposely to encourage us to trust in him? I have laid help upon one that is mighty, Psal. 89.19. able to save to the uttermost, mighty to save, Isa. 63.1. Isa. 49.26. Take all the promises of the Gospel, nay all the contents of the Bible, and consider them apart by themselves, not in conjunction with God, nor in relation to him, who is the author and owner of them, and the great undertaker of all things mentioned therein, we shall have little ground to believe them, but in God I will praise his word, Psal. 56.4. In God I have put my trust. ibid. Christ in us is our hope of glory, Col. 1.27. How glad is a believer to hear any thing of the fullness, power and excellency of Christ, O his heart leaps within, this is my God, my Saviour, my Redeemer, what a happy man am I? Psal. 144.15. This is my beloved, and this is my friend O daughter of Jerusalem, Cantic. 5.16. A believer is very proud of Christ, (if I may so speak) this enlivens hope and raises it to a very high pitch; if our thoughts of Christ and love to him be not raised and heightened by our hope in him, 'tis not right— There is nothing more common in the mouths of the ignorant profane sort than to say, I hope to be saved by Jesus Christ; but who ever thou art that sayest so of course, not minding what thou sayest, take up those words again, and make common sense of them, if thou canst, to thy own understanding: what? hope to be saved by Christ whom thou knowest not, hast no acquaintance with, art a mere stranger to! O lay aside those vain hopes till thou hast learned Christ; let me enjoin thee never to utter those words more till thou knowest Christ better: how possible thy Salvation may be I will not now dispute; but I am sure thy present hopes of it are very unreasonable and groundless. Thus having showed the difference between Presumption and Hope, I shall in the next place speak something but more briefly of the difference between Despair and Hope. As I did before distinguish of a double Presumption, so I must in the same terms distinguish of a double Despair. Despair is either 1. Of ourselves, which is an humble, holy despair, very consistent with hope, and a necessary preparation, and introduction to it: a valley never to be filled up; the Gospel doth by no means allow of Self-Exaltation; no flesh must glory in his presence. 1 Cor. 1.29. we must still seem vile in our own eyes. 2. Of God and of his mercy which is twofold. 1. Privative, which is a total privation of the habit, root, or principle of true saving hope, as in all unbelievers. 2. Negative, a cessation of the acts of hope, which is twofold. A total cessation (at least as to our sense and discerning) of the actings of Hope for a time, this is temporary Despair. Gradual, arising from a weakness in the actings of Hope; which is Despair in opinion, counted so by weak doubting Christians: both these last mentioned are incident to true Believers, and occasion much sorrow and sadness to them. But this Privation or negation of hope doth not fully set forth the nature of despair, in which there seems to be somewhat positive, recessus a re desiderata (as the Schools speak) an actual withdrawing from Christ, the heart falls off from the Promises, doth act against them, puts them from us, despair argues and reasons the soul out of its hope, puts in a caveat against itself, cannot think that a person under such circumstances can be within the meaning of the promise, and so sinks and faints away, Job 17.15. This is more than mere privation or negation, there is an evil disposition wrought in the heart by unbelief, which fills the soul with many prejudices against the truth, makes it pertinaciously to adhere unto its own erroneous judgement, so that it can do nothing now but quarrel, dispute, and except against all that may be said on t'other side. These things premised I now come to show the difference between Despair and Hope. 1. Despair is the result of strong legal convictions, urging the sentence of the Law against us, without any consideration of Gospel-Grace for our relief and succour. This works great consternation, fills the soul with amazing fears, shuts it up in a dark dungeon, claps it in irons, binds it hand and foot, and so leaves it under a fearful expectation of fiery indignation to devour it. But Hope deals in the promises, is begotten by them, and bears up the soul under the condemnation of the Law. 2. Despair indisposes the soul from harkening to the free grace of the Gospel when 'tis offered, because it still retains those strong impressions and dreadful apprehensions which the Law hath wrought, and will not be comforted. But Hope allays these fears, makes the soul willing to debate the matter, to hear what the Gospel says, to see what may be done in so dangerous a cause. 3. Despair sees more in sin than in Christ, and supposes the wound incurable, my sin is greater than can be forgiven. But Hope sees Grace superabounding, large enough to cover all our sins. 4. Despair is very peremptory and positive in concluding against itself; 'tis resolved upon nothing but death, greater than can be forgiven, a lost undone creature to all eternity, it cannot be otherwise. As in the highest decree of faith and hope, there is assurance of salvation, so here there is a dismal uncomfortable assurance of damnation. But Hope though it may be accompanied with many fears and doubts, yet there is some expectation of good, a patiented looking for and solicitous waiting (though sometimes with trembling) for salvation; the soul doth not give over its pursuit after life and pardon, but when 'tis at the lowest ebb doth apprehend some possibility of escape through Christ; it may be (for all this) we shall be hid in the day of the Lords anger, Zeph. 2.3. it may be we shall be delivered from the wrath to come. Thus Hope draws on the soul to Christ encouraging it to come forward. Directions how to avoid both extremes. 1. Against Presumption, whether of ourselves, or of God. 1. Against that Presumption, that is of ourselves, take these following Directions. 1. Take up so much of a sense of sin into the mount of Hope as may keep thy hope from swelling into presumption, or from feeding upon any thing in thyself. 2. Be much in proving thy hope, in giving thyself and others a reason of it, 1 Pet. 3.15. this is the way to keep it right: consider what that reason is, whether it be a true Gospel-ground of hope: as natural affections in a man must be guided by reason, so spiritual affections in a Christian must be regulated and influenced by Faith. I believed and therefore have I spoken, 2 Cor. 4.13. so it holds here: I believe and therefore do I hope. 3. Suspect those acts of Hope, that have their rise from any thing else but Christ and the promises; the heart of man is deep and very deceitful; 'tis no easy matter to understand our hope at all times, and to manage it aright, we are apt to forget ourselves: flesh will be putting in, and contributing something from its self towards the support of our hope; it will be casting in something into the scale with Christ to make better weight. This we must carefully watch against, keeping our eye only upon Christ, as David, Psal. 62.5, 6. When we find our hearts pleasing themselves with any self-reflections upon our own personal worth in any kind, we should fear lest those thoughts should gather too fast, and puff us up in a vain conceit of ourselves; we should see nothing but meanness; vileness, and unworthiness in ourselves, under the highest actings of our hope in Christ. Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul, Job 8.21. 4. Begin thy Hope with an act of humble holy despair of thyself, that thy hope may be discharged on that hand, forced to quit all expectations from thence, and not be tempted to any sinister aspect that way, upon so poor empty insufficient a thing as thou knowest thyself to be. We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee, 2 Chron. 20.12. Our hope, though it look never so directly upon Christ, yet it is too too apt to take in some collateral encouragements from self, which do cause a further dilation in the heart, and make some secret (and if we observe our own spirit) some sensible additions to the joy and complacency we have in our hope; we bless ourselves the more, and though we are pleased with Christ, yet we are pleased with something besides Christ; and this spoils all, it poisons our hope, is like a Canker, eats like a Gangrene, and is a great blemish to our hope. 5. If all this will not do, but still thy proud heart is big with expectation of something from God upon its own account, and thou canst not separate self from Christ in the out-goings of thy hope, than my advice is— Answer thy foolish heart for once in its folly, and take its supposed worth into thy serious consideration; weigh it well, prove it, examine all its pretences, that the truth may appear: and that you may do this, consider yourselves out of Christ; 'tis necessary for believers to do so sometimes: I do not say, you should put off Christ, that must never be done, but it may be convenient as the case stands to let the wedding garment hang lose about you, that you may see your own poverty and nakedness, and then cover all again, and admire the free grace of God, who hath provided thee a better righteousness, than any thou canst see in thyself, to trust in, and to ground thy hope upon. This is the way to correct the exorbitancy of thy immoderate hope, and to keep it within its proper sphere. We never have more lively heart-ravishing thoughts and apprehensions of free grace, than after fresh and warm apprehensions of our own vileness and wretchedness by nature, Ephes. 2.3. by nature the children of wrath, and then he breaks out into a great admiration of the mercy of God, verse 4. 2. Directions against that kind of Presumption that is of God and his mercy, which I called a fond credulous presumption. 1. Study the doctrine of Election, that tells us, that God is the Sovereign Lord of the whole world, hath put a vast difference between man and man; there are some that he hates, as well as some that he loves: of the same lump of clay, some made vessels unto honour, and some unto dishonour, some vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, some vessels of mercy prepared unto glory, Rom. 9.20, 21, 22, 23. That God is a free voluntary Agent, not necessarily bound to choose thee or me rather than others, No, he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth, verse 18. Whence is it then that men are so confident of the favour of God? you may be in the number of the many that are called, and yet not in the number of those few that are chosen, for all your confidence: hath Electing Redeeming Love set any peculiar mark upon thee, by which thou mayst be known and distinguished from the reprobate world at the last day? if not, 'tis strange presumption in thee to nourish such vain hopes. 2. Consider the strict limitations and provisoes of the Covenant of Grace, by which all obstinate impenitent sinners remaining such are shut out from mercy; and art not thou such an one? examine thyself, hath grace taught thee to deny ungodliness? till than it will never save thee. 3. Consider the difficulty of Salvation, 'tis not so easy a matter to get to Heaven as you imagine; narrow is the way, straight is the gate, and few there be that find it. The righteous are scarcely saved, 1 Pet. 4.18. Things that are arduous and difficult are not easily swallowed, will not in reason admit of a rash credulous hope, but call for serious counsel and debate. There are in such cases many agitations in the mind, accessus & recessus (Aquin.) the soul goes and comes, backward and forward, off and on, cannot presently fix and settle itself in an even, steadfast, constant hope. Most Christians do pass through such fluctuations and perplexities to a quiet comfortable hope of Salvation. 4. Consider this also, have the promises thou boastest so much of begot fear in thee as well as hope? A Christian's hope is a heedful, careful, solicitous hope, 2 Cor. 7.1. Heb. 4.1. Hope without fear is presumption. 5. Let thy hope be grounded upon some inward experience of the mighty saving power of Christ put forth upon thy soul; experience worketh hope, Rom. 5.4. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it, Phil. 1.6. To him that hath shall be given, Mat. 13.12. What pledges then of divine favour, what love-tokens hast thou by thee? what taste and sight of the goodness and grace of God? we hope for the compliment and perfection of that which in some measure we have already attained; when we see God pursuing us with his kindness in any particular expression of his love, this begets hope, that we shall have all at last, those greater things that are promised. God's end in bestowing lesser mercies upon us, is to quicken and strengthen our hope of greater: 'tis strange presumption for persons, who never received the least token of special grace from God, to expect such great things as heaven and glory. God gives many things before he gives heaven, don't think at first dash to have heaven; there are many preparatory mercies always antecedent to that; the Saints are compassed about with mercy and Songs of deliverance, Psal. 32.7, 10. And from those experiences they argue as David did, 1 Sam. 17.32. He will do this and that for us, and not destroy us after he hath done us so much good. But if thou hast nothing to show as a convincing evidence of God's love and good will to thee, it looks too much like presumption, to hope for pounds, for the whole sum, before we have received the earnest-penny. Hope is not the first work of the Spirit upon the heart, 'tis a secondary grace, the natural result of faith, which gives very satisfactory intimations of God's love to us, and so begets hope in us. Consult therefore the experiences of God's goodness to you in some measure, before you soar too high in the actings of your hope. Secondly, Directions against Despair. 1. To those in Christ who are sometimes liable to these fainting fits, and find their hope shaken, are to seek of it, being suddenly struck with an amazing sight and sense of sin, and wrath, they conclude their case desperate, and cry out as Job did, Job 44.19, etc. The devil hath two ways or methods, by which he seeks to undermine and overthrow the hope of a Christian. I shall discover both to you, and endeavour to secure you against both. 1. If thy Hope be strong and lively, he will slander it with the name of presumption, that he may shake thy confidence, and discourage thee from those eminent actings of thy hope wherein thou hast had so much comfort: he does envy thy happiness, he would fain clip the wings of thy faith and hope, that he may rob thee of the joy of thy Salvation, and keep thee at a low ebb all thy days; he would take off thy helmet, that he may knock thee down at one blow. Groundless fears of presumption do exceedingly bauk and check our hope, bring it into suspense, which is negative despair. In such conflicts, and fierce assaults, gird up thyself, stand fast, and hope to the end, hold fast thy confidence; and that you may do this, Call in thy faith to maintain and justify thy hope, as rightly grounded upon Gospel-promises, and consequently capable of no excess. Let it run in the right Channel never so swiftly, and rise never so high, 'tis so much the better; true grace is not confined to such a scantling or degree, it can never be overgrown, its beauty and comeliness do increase with its stature; the greater, the larger, the fuller, the higher it is, the more conspicuous and glorious. Hence are those commendations of grace, where it is in any eminency; So great faith, no not in Israel, Mat. 8.10. O woman great is thy faith, Mat. 15.28. The Scriptures do exhort us to grow in every grace. Let these things be in you and abound, 2 Pet. 1.8. 1 Thess. 4.1. More and more, we can never have too much. Paul prays, Rom. 15.13. that we may abound in hope. Presumption does not lie in having too high thoughts of the mercy of God in Christ, for that is infinite, beyond all our conceptions; but in a vain expectation of that from God, which is inconsistent with his justice and holiness, and contrary to his revealed will: 'tis not the Great hope, but the Groundless hope that is presumption: therefore tell the Devil to his face thou wilt hope more and more, Psal. 71.14. That thy hope is a growing hope, so far from being too great, that thou dost judge it yet too little, daily praying for its further increase, this is the way to quench those fiery darts. We may observe that when temptations do work so contrary to the Devils intentions, that instead of drawing us into evil, they incite us to more watchfulness, and prove occasions of good, and provocations to duty, they presently vanish and die; the Devil would have it so, and usually it is so, unless God by a special hand do continue us under them for the further exercise of grace. 2. If thy Hope be small and weak the Devil will call it Despair, he would make thee believe a little grace is no grace; he will argue from thy weakness in grace to thy total want of it. If under such temptation thou findest thy spirit sinking, ready to faint away, rouse up thyself and bespeak thy Soul, as David did, Why art thou cast down O my soul? and take these following directions. 1. Consider, it is not the degree of grace, but the truth of grace, to which Salvation is promised. 2. Put a just value and estimate upon the lowest degree of grace, that it may not seem contemptible, and as nothing in thy sight; 'tis more worth than the whole world; a pearl of great price. 3. Labour to distinguish aright between the weakness of thy grace, and the grace itself that is under that weakness; and whilst thou art mourning under one, be sure you rejoice in the other; do not throw away one corn with the chaff, do not sweep up one groat with the dust behind the door, but light thy candle, and find it out; don't bury thy talon because 'tis a single one, but be faithful over a little, and thou shalt be made ruler over many things, Mat. 15.21. 4. Consider the many promises that are made to the lowest degree of grace; if there be any good thing in thy heart towards the Lord thy God, he accepts of the Will for the Deed, of the day of small things; he will not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed; to whom little is given, of them little is required: the widow's mite is a great deal in the account of God. Therefore think and judge of thyself not according to any thing inherent in thee, be it more or less, but according to the measure of acceptance thou hast with God; 'tis his kindness that makes thee great, 2 Sam. 22.36. his favour is better than life; if he hath wrought that in thee which is beautiful in his fight, why should you so much except against his workmanship, as to blot all out again, drawing the black lines of dismal despair upon the comely features of true and saving hope, though weak and small for the present? the high esteem God hath of the lowest degree of true grace in his Saints, should make them not to droop so much under it, but rather be better pleased with what God is so well pleased with. 5. Consider how ill God takes it of his children, when they suffer them selves to be persuaded by the Devil out of all good liking and esteem of those smaller measures of grace, that God hath given them; when they are brought out of conceit of themselves, and of every thing that God hath done for them, as if their case were now desperate. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed over from my God? Isa. 40.27. Let me speak my thoughts out: My brethren, to deny the least measure of grace in us, or to us, against plain demonstrations and evidences brought to convince us of it, is a kind of denying Christ himself, which we would be loath to be guilty of for a thousand worlds; and yet, may not Christ say? I have sent in provision into such a soul, and have often invited myself to come and sup with him; I have come into my garden to gather my myrrh, and to eat of my pleasant fruits, which my own hand had planted there, Cantic. 5.1. But I had no entertainment, no welcome, they would be known of nothing that ever they had from me, plead nothing but poverty, and bare walls; and did I not know it to be otherwise, that I have laid in a sufficiency of grace, and that there is that in the house which I love, and could feed hearty upon, I should not take it ill that they set nothing before me; but 'tis great unkindness not to give me of my own, not to entertain me at my own cost, but to tell me to my face, that all my fruit is rotten fruit, all my meat unsavoury meat, all my wine adulterated wine, nothing fit for them or me to feed upon, all is stark nought, they are never the better for any thing I have yet done for them, to seek of every thing, their faith is dead, their hope is presumption, or else quite vanished into despair, their love is cold and false, every grace is counterfeit, Christ must needs take this very ill: many of the Children of God are greatly guilty in this thing. I would press this consideration upon those who do too too much indulge themselves in these despondencies, still multiplying objections against themselves, and meditating evasions how to put off Christ and the promises, how to distinguish themselves out of the favour of God. I know there is a great deal of pity and commiseration due to such, but when other means will not prevail, they must not take it ill, if we endeavour to fright them out of their fears and doubts, telling them plainly what an offence, what an affront it is to Christ, to have all his kindnesses overlooked and slighted as nothing worth by a froward, habitual, querulous scrupulosity, which is jealous of every thing but itself. 6. When the Devil is urging thee to conclude thy weak hope to be downright Despair, instead of disputing with the Devil about the truth of any grace, labour through the help of the Spirit to act it in that degree which thou hast attained; then if it be as a grain of mustardseed, it will remove mountains; 'tis not imaginable what great things a little grace will do, when stirred up and acted; the strength of God is in it: out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he ordains strength, Psal. 8.12. The smallest degree of true grace is able to secure itself against the gates of hell, at least so far as to prevent a total overthrow: Nay let me say further (though with submission) I am persuaded that never any child of God fell before a temptation, under the actual exercise of that measure of grace, (be it more or less) that God hath given him to withstand it. I do not Arminianize upon facienti quod in se est, etc. I speak not of the power of nature, but true grace acted to the highest degree of attainment, 'tis that which does great things, and hath the blessing; he that is faithful in a little, shall be ruler over much; but if the good man slumber and sleep, no wonder if the enemy break in upon him: when we are putting forth ourselves to the utmost in any conflicts with Satan, God with the temptation will find out a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it, 1 Cor. 10.13. in that very hour it shall be given, Mark 13.11. Mat. 10.19. when we seem to be surprised and over-matched by a temptation, God will come in with more strength, and out of weakness we shall become strong, Heb. 11.34. thus little David overcomes great Goliath with a sling and a stone: the Devil himself flies from the Children of God, when they resist him in the strength of that grace they have.— to him that hath, shall be given, the weak shall be as David, and David as God (vel, as the Angel of God.) Many times weak Christians don't put forth that strength which they have: would they but lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees, Heb. 12.12. their spirits would return, and their courage would increase, and something might be done: but alas! they give way to their fears, and despairing thoughts, lie flat upon the ground, and give up all for lost; they don't attend to the actings of their hope whilst it goes by another name, all is despair, as good never a whit, as never the better; 'tis to no purpose for them to do any thing, they are past recovery, undone for ever. O, my brethren, don't give the Devil such an advantage against you, but set yourselves to act that grace you have, be it never so little, look among the ashes, blow up the least sparks you see; you don't know how soon it may break out into a flame; and remember this, that repeated acts of weak grace are equivalent to strong grace, both as to thy success, and God's acceptation; who requires no more of thee, than what is proportionable to that which he hath given to thee. 7. Consider, that all graces are joined with their contraries in this state of imperfection here below; no faith but is unequally yoked with some unbelief, no hope without some despair and desponding: that which is perfect is not yet come, and that which is imperfect is not yet done away: we are flesh as well as spirit, and they two are contraries: As there is some kind of hope in presumption, so there may be some kind of despair in hope; no degree of true Christian hope is consistent with the damning sin of final despair; but some degrees of despondency, and that which thou callest despair, and which in a degree is so, may be consistent with saving hope; and so it holds true in all other graces, from that mixture of corruption wherein the weakness of every grace doth lie, yet grace is grace still, hath all its essential parts, and deserves not that nickname which thou puttest upon it; all dimness is not stark blindness, every cloud doth not make midnight; what must you have all or none? 'tis indeed a sign of sincerity to covet all grace, and as true a sign of humility and submission to the will of God thankfully to accept of a little, owning those first fruits of the Spirit, which in due time will be seconded with an after increase to thy plenary content and satisfaction; our heavenly Father waters every plant of his own planting, that it may bring forth more fruit: therefore do not call every weak act of Hope, despair, do not call every fit of despair, final despair: what if the Sun be set, must it never rise more? if thou art cast down, art thou utterly forsaken? if mercy is at present gone out of thy sight, must it be clean gone for ever? these are but the break out of those peccant humours, that will be predominant sometimes in the best of men. By what hath been said, we may answer those Objections, which the Devil makes against our hope from the weakness of it. I have but one thing more to add by way of direction to weak Believers, who are never in more danger of being drawn into despair, than when they are musing upon their sins, examining and judging themselves by the Law; charging themselves home with all that guilt that lies upon them, in order to their further humiliation in the sight of God; then does the Devil many times strike in and suggest such frightful considerations to them, that make them start back further than God would have them: Therefore I shall now show, how we should prepare ourselves for, how we should order and manage ourselves under a deep and serious consideration of our sins and unworthiness, which we are called to, and it is requisite (the swelling temper of our proud hearts requiring it) sometimes to set ourselves apart for this work, Zach. 12.12. The Direction is this, Take down along with thee into the Valley of conviction, contrition, and self-abhorrency, so much of a sense of God's love and free grace in Christ, as may keep thee from being overwhelmed, and from sinking into despair; before you set out be sure you have some hold (at least of the hemm) of the garment of Christ's righteousness; you know not what foul weather, what storms and tempests, what thunder and lightning you may meet with before you return; carry your cordial along with you, though you never smell to it, or taste it, but in a fainting fit: my meaning is, you should take (at least) some general view of mercy before you take a strict particular view of sin: usually they are the deepest and truest humiliations, that are occasioned by some previous sense of God's love to us, Ezek. 16.61, 63. A man that is to go down into a deep pit, he does not throw himself headlong into it, or leap down at all adventures, but fastens a rope at top upon a cross beam, or some sure place, and so lets himself down by degrees: So, let thyself down into the consideration of thy sin, hanging upon Christ, and when thou art gone so low that thou canst endure no longer, but art ready to be overcome with the horror and darkness of thy miserable estate, dwell not too long at the gates of hell, lest the devil pull thee in, but wind thyself up again by renewed acts of faith, and fly for refuge unto the hope that is set before thee, Heb. 6.18. And all the way thou goest admire the infinite grace and love of God to thee in delivering thee from so great a death. My brethren, there's no entering into the maze and labyrinth of sin without this clew in your hands. Solitary considerations of sin, if we dwell too long upon them, will work too violently: therefore we should make frequent transitions from sin to free grace, from the Law to the Gospel, from our miserable and wretched selves, to our merciful and mighty Redeemer— But you'll say, how can this be? to pass from one contrary passion to another, who can make such transitions? The Schools tell us, it must be per magnum conatum, by some great endeavour, that is a strain beyond ordinary, and such endeavours we must put forth, counting it as much our duty to rejoice in mercy, as to mourn for sin, and we cannot do both at once: though there be a connexion of divine Graces as well as moral virtues, yet this implies rather a successive continuation, than any simultaneousness (at least) as to the intense actings of different graces: 'tis true, where there is one grace, there is every grace, that is, in semine, in the seed or root of it, and it may be also, as to some weaker, latent, actual influences; yet those particular graces which upon different distinct considerations do work contrary passions in us, they cannot be both intensely acted at the same time, sed per vices & intervalla: there is a time to mourn, and a time to rejoice, a time to fear, and a time to hope, particular graces do take their turns in the soul, and act suitably unto the present occasion. 2. Direction against despair for unbelievers convinced of sin, but unacquainted with Christ and free Grace. The distraction, fear, and amazement of spirit that seizes upon such is unexpressible; till God break in upon them, and begin with them, speaking peace to them, man can do little, yet means must be used. I shall name a few things. 1. Look upon this conviction of sin thou liest under, rather as a mercy than a judgement, as a token for good, in as much as God hath given thee timely notice of thy danger, and fair warning to flee from the wrath to come. 2. Look upon thyself now in a far greater capacity for grace and pardon than ever heretofore. 3. Set thyself with all seriousness to study the doctrine of free grace in Christ, never more need than now, meditate much upon the great goodness of God, and his excellent loving kindness, Psal. 31.19. Psal. 36.6. Intense thoughts of sin, and slight perfunctory thoughts of mercy drive us to despair. 4. Be persuaded to come to Christ under all thy fears. Hast thou been as a Dove of the valley, mourning on the mountains for thy iniquity, Ezek. 7.16. come down from those mountains, those solitary places, and go weeping to the Lord, Jer. 50.4. Bemoan thyself at the feet of Christ, he will hear thee, Jer. 31.18, 19 tell God all thou hast to say of thy miserable condition: complaining to thyself and to men signifies little, it heightens thy fear, but God sympathizes with thee, Jer. 31.20. put thyself into his hands, he will lead thee, ver. 9 refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord, Acts 3.19. there will be a lifting up, Job 22.29. what ever the issue be, thou canst be no worse than thou art in thy own judgement; to sin is mors animae, but to despair is descendere in infernum; sin is death, and despair is hell; cry out of the belly of that hell to Christ, and see if he do not bring thee forth. But alas! those who are under a spirit of bondage and fear, have a thousand objections against this I have been pressing them to: I shall go over some of these and answer them as I go.— they come to Christ? they'll tell us; They cannot come. Tell the Lord than thou art willing to come, but canst not be persuaded to come as thou canst; canst thou not go into thy chamber, into thy closet, and shut thy door, and throw thyself down in the dust before the Lord? this is coming, and this thou canst do I am sure: do it then, and call upon the name of the Lord. But, Object. 2 I cannot pray. Answ. It may be not now at this time; but how canst thou tell what thou mayst do at such a time, when in obedience to an Ordinance of God, thou hast put thyself into a praying posture, in that very hour it may be given, and hath been? I am persuaded, to thousands of God's children; he will prepare thy heart, Psal. 10.17. if thou canst not utter thy mind as thou wouldst, pray as thou canst; and if thou hast nothing to say, if no one savoury expression drops from thee, it may be it is because the inward sense thou hast of sin is too big for utterance, it may be so sometimes, and 'tis best when it is so, and then out of the abundance of thy heart weep and mourn out thy inward meaning, Lacrymae pondera vocis hahent; groan and sigh, and look wishfully towards heaven, and believe that God sees thee when thou hast no sight of him: this is prayer. But, Object. 3 I have lived hitherto as without God in the world, neglecting prayer altogether, I am a mere stranger unto Christ, and will he hear such a one as I, who come upon this pinch, just when necessity drives me? certainly no, he will tell me to my face, as well he may, he knows me not, and bid me go to those empty creatures I formerly trusted in. Answ. Don't you take upon you to personate Christ in his deal with sinners, his thoughts are not as your thoughts; what if you would do thus and thus if you were in Christ's stead, does it therefore follow that he must do so too? O no, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his thoughts above thy thoughts, Isa. 55.8, 9 do you think and say what you will; Christ will act like himself, and do that for thee that never entered into thy heart to conceive of; his ways are unsearchable and past our finding out, his love passeth knowledge; thou dost not know, thou canst not tell beforehand what infinite rich grace is able to do for thee; O come then and make a trial, and know for thy further encouragement, that poor humble sinners are always welcome to Christ, but never more welcome than at their first coming, Luke 15.22, etc. There are two jubilees kept in heaven, one at the conversion of a sinner here on earth, Luke 15.7. the other at his glorification in heaven, Judas 24. Christ does then present us to glory with exceeding joy; how glad is Christ when he hath brought a sinner safe and sound to heaven, and secured him there to all eternity. I mention this to show the great delight Christ takes in showing mercy to poor sinners, in opposition to those evil surmizes and hard thoughts which thou hast of him: but yet it may be thou repliest, Object. 4 My case is not the case of common sinners, none so great an offender as I, no sins like mine, capable of such high aggravations; were there but one man in the whole world to be damned, and to go to hell, I have reason to believe that I am he, and since things are so bad with me, I cannot be comforted. Answ. This is a sad case indeed, we see objections rise higher and higher, and doubting souls out of our very answers to one objection, will pick out matter for another; but I am loath to leave thee behind me in the very bottom of the pit, let me then reach down a helping hand to thee once more, let me give thee one lift more; and I hope in answering this objection I shall answer all, and silence thy unbelief for ever— Is it so, that thou art the worst of men, the greatest of sinners, under matchless guilt— be it so, we will admit all this to be true, and take thee under that black character, which thou hast now given of thyself, and yet I say there is hope; my advice to thee in short is this,— come as the greatest sinner that ever was in the world to Christ, and I dare undertake for thy welcome; let that which hath been hitherto thy discouragement, turn now to thy great encouragement. Christ came not to the whole, but to the sick, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, even the greatest of sinners, and since thou takest thyself to be so, obey this loud call, and come immediately to Christ, though thy sins be as scarlet, and as crimson, they shall be as white as snow and as wool, Isa. 1.18. therefore turn thee to thy God, and wait continually on him, Hosea 12.6. etiam cum ad culmen perveneris omnium peccatorum, as Zanch. upon the place, lib. 1. de relig. when thou art come to the height of all sin and wickedness. Thus whoever thou art, O poor trembling doubting soul, remember, that God hath once more called thee to come to Christ this day, to come as thou art, in thy rags, in thy poverty, in thy emptiness and insufficiency, that he may be all in all to thee: though means and ordinances do not presently take off our doubts, and overcome our fears, and fully satisfy our souls, but still we remain hopeless, and heartless, and unbelieving; yet if they do so far prevail with us, as to put us upon the trial and use of those means we are directed to, compelling us to comply with the counsel that God gives us by his Ministers, this may be a sign for good, that God hath taken a secret hold of thy heart, and is drawing thee on in the way wherein he will be found. Go home then and say, though I am as cloudy and dark as ever, unsatisfied as ever, though I have no heart to come to Christ, no expectation of any success in coming, yet I will come however, if it be but to satisfy the importunity of others, of the Ministers of the Gospel, who in Christ's name and in his stead do so earnestly beseech me once more to make trial of the freeness of his grace.— Tell Jesus Christ, who sent you, we will own it at the last day, and justify our message to you;— tell him then, what thou hast heard this day, and that thou couldst not make away with thyself, and throw thyself headlong into hell, till thou hast once more exposed thyself to his wont pity and commiseration to such as thou art— tell him, thy soul is ready to break for the longing desire it hath after Christ; cry out and say, how long Lord, holy and true? when wilt thou shine out upon thy poor creature, who is walking in the valley of the shadow of death, and can see no light? O make haste to help. O arise and save me; come, Lord Jesus, come quickly with relief and succour to my poor soul: offer thyself in this manner to Christ, present thyself thus before the Lord; and if thou findest thyself pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch as thou despairest even of life, as 2 Cor. 1.8, 9 O than cast thyself, burden and all upon Jesus Christ, Mat. 11.28. and when thou canst not gather comfort from any present sensible impressions made upon thy heart, then argue from promises made to thy coming, take them as an answer from God to thee; and make thy best of them as David did, Psal. 119.81. My soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word: hath not Christ said? John 6.37. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out: if he should never speak one word more to thee all thy days, here is enough said already to support thee: we say omne praeteritum est necessarium, that which is past can never be recalled, Christ will never unsay what is passed out of his lips; keep thy hold here, and thou art safe to eternity. Nothing but raptures and particular revelations, some strong sensible feelings of comfort will satisfy some, whereas indeed God hath revealed his whole counsel to us in the Scriptures, and has nothing more to say to sinners, than what is already expressed in the Gospel: the particular answers that God gives his people sometimes, what are they but inward repetitions of Gospel-promises to the heart, sealed up there by the Spirit? How a Christian may get such a faith that is not only saving but comfortable and joyful at present? Serm. XXV. 1 Peter 1.8. Whom having not seen, ye love: in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. THE Question, which this Text was chosen to resolve, is, How a Christian may get such a Faith, as is not only saving at the last, but comfortable, and joyful at present? This case hath two things in it; one it takes for granted, the other it doth suppose may, and sometimes doth come to pass: it takes (first) for granted, that joy and comfort arise from Faith, (viz.) Faith unfeigned (as the Apostle speaks,) which purifies the heart, and sets love a work to obey the Law, and so the commandment hath the end for which it was made, 1 Tim. 1.5. and this is very sure, for all comfort must begin in God, and be derived from him, he is the father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, 2 Cor. 1.3. and he hath given us everlasting consolations through grace, 2 Thess. 2. last. but it is not from God absolute, or without a Mediator, alas there is no comfort in that! What comfort can a malefactor that hath myriads of inditements against him upon the file, the least whereof must take away his life, expect from a just and righteous judge? the case is thine and mine, infinitely more dreadful than between a malefactor and a magistrate: my sins are innumerable, the least is mortal, God is judge; and hell is the prison; wrath, horror, fire, the worm, and all endless, that is the punishment; the judge is, and cannot be otherwise than most true and righteous, what comfort can I think to find now from God absolute, (i. e.) without relation to Christ? behold instead of comfort, a devouring flame, and instead of joy, a consuming fire. I speak this because of abundance of our people, they say God is merciful, and they do their best, they hope God will be their comfort, and they serve him, and all this while they think not of Jesus Christ: we are all naturally Socinians, those that never heard their names, much less read their books, live in their heretical and blasphemous principles. O the amazing stupidity of the world, called Christian, that we can smile and laugh, and hug ourselves in deceiving comforts upon the brink of hell! there can be nothing comfortable to us, without the God of all comfort, and no comfort can be to us from God, but by the Lord Jesus; and no Jesus to us without Faith; we rejoice in God, (saith the Apostle) but how? by Jesus Christ, why? by him we have received the atonement, he hath made it by his blood, and we receive it by Faith, Rom. 5.11. he is the Salvation of God, Luke 2.30. and the consolation of Israel, verse 25. he is our comfort by being God's Salvation. That the business of Christ in the world was to teach us no more humbling precepts than Plato or Moses, and then to seal them with his death, there is little comfort; this comfort and joy is the affections, 'tis wrought by the blessed Spirit, joy in or by the Holy Ghost, Rom. 14.17. the fruit of the Spirit is joy, Gal. 5.22. 'tis joy in the Father by the Mediator, through the Comforter: this tells that joy and comfort are noble and divine goods, they are not little debonnaires, or complacency with some facetious or gentle garb, that is but thin and beggarly, nor are they friends to a sour face and cloudy countenance, 'twas inward comfort that made Stephen's face to shine as an Angel, this joy is not a joy in the face and not in the heart, as some did rejoice, who put on a good face under the strokes of an angry conscience, and reproached Paul for a frantic, 2 Cor. 5.13. Neither is this comfort a floating thing in the mouth; when persons without good cause are prating their assurance, and comfort, it seems to argue too much froth, and lightness, (res severa (saith Seneca) est verum gaudium, the richest mines lie deep, and the deepest rivers minimo labuntur sono make the least noise,) but it is marrow and fatness to the soul, the joy of the Lord is your strength. I cannot express the excellency of it, the Text saith it is joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The sum is this, a Christian, that would live comfortably, must live holily, if he will live holily, he must live so primarily by the faith of the Son of God, and he must endeavour after such a degree of faith as to say, Christ loved me, and gave himself for me, Gal. 2.20. that comfort in life, and to, and in death, is the joy of Faith, the victory of Faith, the triumph of Faith, all joy and peace in believing, Rom. 15.13. a special application of the righteousness of Christ to a man's own soul, there is the rise and origine of joy and comfort, if the Scripture may take place. Object. I see an objection, which it will not be unseasonable nor impertinent to refute (viz.) here is a noise of Faith, Faith believing, and the righteousness of another is the way to drive all good works out of the world. Answ. Answ. The clean contrary is most true, it is the only way to bring all good works and all comfort into the world, a man not sanctified by Faith in Christ cannot do a good work, but spoils it in the doing, neither can he see a comfortable day, while he is such, this objection is hugely irrational, a man may as well argue against marriage, and say that marriage is the ready way to drive all lawful seed out of the world, and bring in bastards, it is the same case, Rom. 7.4. or he might as well plead against the rising of the Sun, and say it was the way to drive all light out of the world, and to bring in darkness, 'tis the same case, 2 Cor. 4.6. he may as well say, that eating of bread is the way to drive out all vigour and strength of the body out of the world, the way to bring in starvedness, it is still the same case, Joh. 6.54. the truth is, Children before marriage are spurious, the world without the Sun is darkness, and without eating no living, so without union to and interest in Christ Jesus, who is Jehovah our righteousness, there is no holiness or comfort in the world. To set up any thing for righteousness in the sight of God but the righteousness of Jesus, that is the way indeed to drive the Doctrine of the Church of England, and all the Reformed Churches, with all their most eminent Doctrines out of the world, nay to drive all good works and all comfort out of the world, nay to drive the Gospel and Christ and Salvation by him out of the world; if the Galatians, that were professed believers, received Paul as an Angel, received the Spirit, shall turn aside to their own works, and make them concurrent with Christ, though but as a less principal part (which was their case) then mark the issue, the grace of the Father is frustrated, the death of Christ is in vain, frustra sine fructu, Gal. 2.21. Christ is of none effect, they are fallen from Grace, Christ profits them nothing: and all this Paul doth testify with a great deal of vehemence and Solemnity, once and again, and with such Apostolical majesty, as seldom occurs, Behold I Paul testify unto you, Gal. 5.2, 3, 4. I suppose that no man that understands Paul will say, that he disputes only against the ceremonial Law: therefore I will leave it, and conclude this with that, 1 Joh. 5.12. he that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life, and this is written to them that believe, that they might know that they have eternal life, and they that know it cannot altogether want this in my Text, joy unspeakable and glorious. The second thing in the question is supposed, (viz.) that a Christian may have Faith that is saving in the end, which is not comforting in the way. I Answ. 1. You must not so understand it, as though saving Faith and comforting were two kinds of Faith, nor secondly, as if saving Faith in the close were in some believers altogether, and always void of all light and comfort, but how a Christian, who is saved when he dies, may live comfortably while he lives, than the resolution of the case is this, that, that Faith which is saving in the end, is also sanctifying in the way, and would be comfortable also, if the Christian did not Ponere obicem, hinder it himself, and therefore that he may live joyfully, he must remove these hindrances, and use the means proper to the end, of which anon: at present he must do as these believers in the Text did, and he shall find comfort as they did, in these four particulars. 1. They did persist in the simplicity of the Gospel, as it is in Christ, 2 Cor. 11.2. false Apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the Ministers of Christ began then, v. 13. Paul was jealous of the Church of Corinth, lest that chaste Virgin should be corrupted, v. 2. as the Churches in Galatia were bewitched with these jugglers, Gal. 3.1. the great design of the old serpent from that day to this hath been to adulterate the Doctrine of faith in a crucified Redeemer, knowing full well that this is the most effectual course to ruin all true holiness and solid comfort. But these believers received the grace of God in truth, as it was fully and plainly proposed to them, they did not spin out the high and vital truths into needless disputes, nor darken them with nice distinctions, and subdistinctions, this serves for little else but to distract the mind, and disturb the quiet of men's souls. 2. They did taste that the Lord (viz.) Christ is gracious, to whom coming as the living stone, they as lively stones were built upon him a spiritual house for God, 1 Pet. 2.4, 5. they did not content themselves with orthodoxy, to rest satisfied in this, that they were not Simonians, or Ebionites, or Menandrians, or the sectators of them that did destroy Christ's righteousness, by dividing it: let us not only profess Christ, but feel him; 'tis one thing to preach Christ and another thing to feel him, were the last words of Mr. Ash. 3. They minded the mystery of the Gospel, the eternal Deity, grace, and righteousness of our Lord Jesus, as Peter prayed for them, 2 Pet. 1.3. and exhorts them to grow in this, 2 Pet. 3. last. as for Church modes and membership, and privileges, they did enjoy them without censuring and animosity, but knowledge of and communion with Jesus Christ accompanied with love, and obedience, and peace of conscience, was the main business of their life, this is the way to comfort, let us do so. Assure yourselves there is little joy in a ceremony to a dying man; modes and membership are but sorry comforters. Lastly, As they had Faith and Love, so they did exercise them, they did believe, and they did go on to believe, and so to be acquainted with the righteousness of God from Faith to Faith: you may observe how the Apostle remembers the works of Faith, Love, and Patience, in Christ of the Thessal. 1. cap. 1.3. and in the 2. Epistle, cap. 1. verse 3. He thanks God their Faith did grow exceedingly, there was but a little time between the writing of these two Epistles, this latter being written shortly after the first, to rectify their mistake about the day of Christ. The primitive Christians did not content themselves with habits, and let them be as fire under the ashes, or as seed under the clods, but did stir them up that they might warm, and they did water them that they might spring, and blossom like a rose. If a man that hath the power of seeing should walk up and down the streets from morning to night with his eyes shut, without any actual seeing, would you not suspect him to be distempered? what comfort can this man take in the light of the Sun? much like this is a believer that hath Faith habitual, he riseth in the morning, and lies down at night, and hath not an act of Faith upon, nor a privy thought of blessing Jesus all the day; how can any comfort be expected in such a strangeness as this is? So then the sum is this, these believers received the Gospel of Salvation by Christ, pure as it was proposed to them, they gave the Apostle this honour, that they had wisdom enough to express themselves plainly, fully, significantly; and honesty enough, that they would not deal fallaciously, or ambiguously, they valued not the tradition of their fathers, nor the fancies of Philosophers, they had no vain janglings amongst themselves, but coveted the sincere unmixed milk of the word that they might grow thereby, 1 Pet. 2.1, 2. The Gospel came to them not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, Assurance of understanding, assurance of Faith: their communion was with the Father, and fellowship with Jesus Christ, that made their joy to be rich and plentiful: their privileges and ordinances were their delight, but not their confidence, they came to God by them, and waited upon God in them in dangerous times, for the enlarging and confirming of their knowledge, Faith, and comfort: let us be exhorted to do as they did, and doubtless we shall speed as they sped. My business now is to speak something to the Text, and then more to the practical case in hand, only first I would crave leave to speak a few words to the context; for this reason, because as my Text is the true portraiture of practical godliness, so the context gives us a system of godliness doctrinal. The Epistle is written to the strangers, v. 2. Jews and Gentiles, (say some) but especially Jews scattered in four now Roman provinces, not long before distinct and considerable Kingdoms together with Asia, sc. the proconsular or less Asia, yet including also those parts in and about Chaldea: Peter was at this time in or about Babylon, in which parts were many myriads of the Jews, of whom he was the Apostle with James and John, Gal. 2.9. 1 Pet. 5.13. That Babylon in the Text should mystically be Rome is a mere conceit, and a groundless fancy, this Epistle was written thirty years at least before John had received the revelation, Grotius and others are quite beside the truth, 'tis forty to one odds that Peter was never there; well, these Jews were effectually called, according to God's election; the terminus or the thing to which, not for which, or upon which, but to which they were chosen and called, is said to be this: sc. to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus; the great efficient of this in them is the blessed Spirit, through the sanctification of the Spirit; the same verse: being thus sanctified, they had hope, where observe, the property of this hope, it was a lively hope. 2. The term or object, an inheritance. 3. The way whereby they obtained this hope, they were begotten of God as a father to it. 4. The cause moving God to this, his abundant mercy. 5. The ground of this hope, it was the resurrection of Christ from the dead, than the fruit of it, which was great joy, v. 3. And then 6. here is their perseverance, and how that is effected, they were kept by the power of God to Salvation, v. 5. No doubt but holiness is loseable, the Angels lost theirs, and we lost ours, and the Saints at this day would quickly lose theirs totally and finally, if they were left to a stock of grace received, to trade for another world; to grace received there must be grace supplied, the grounds of perseverance are without us: viz. the promise of the Father, the purchase and intercession of the Lord Jesus, the power and supply of the blessed Spirit, a Doctrine full of comfort, but for certain, as full of grace and humility too, indeed if the comfort were not sanctifying it were not found. So that here we may see the Doctrine of the glorious Trinity, and every person in his work, according to the most wise, and divine Oeconomy, and propriety in working towards fallen men quite dead in sin, and dead in law, and that irrecoverably as to themselves, or any created power in heaven on their behalf, here is, I say, the Father electing to life and glory, here is Jesus Christ dying and rising, here is the blessed Spirit sanctifying, here the three Graces, Faith, Hope, and Love, inseparably accompanied with obedience, cherished with joy and comforts, and crowned with perseverance by the power of God, all arising from the Sovereignty of God's will, and his rich abundant mercy, to the praise of the riches of his glorious grace, that they that glory should glory in the Lord. Pelagius was the first that set up nature, for which the Church of God abhorred him, saith Austin, and the Fathers call it virus illud Pelagianum, the most learned Usher called it detestandam illam haeresin, that pestered the Church of Christ olim & body, saith that holy man in his Hist. Pel. But to proceed, these strangers notwithstanding their holiness were unde● manifold temptations, v. 6, 7. persecutions in a tumultuary way were raised against them by the unbelieving Jews, who were egged thereto by the Priests, Priests who did stir up the people against them, there was no Imperial Edict at this time against the Christians. Nero was the first, he was dedicator damnationis nostrae; I need not quote Tertullian, every Lad of the upper form may know this out of Suetonius and Tacitus. God kept the Gospel in the first publishing of it free from any disturbance by the civil powers about 34 years; that Claudius banished John into Patmos, and that then he had the revelation is a mere figment of the learned Grotius, and his Annotations built upon it have neither sap nor sense. Under these persecutions their Faith did not only continue but shine, and their love was evident, and their comforts were so far from abating, that they did rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious. But you will say, what is this to the question? I answer, here are two directions how a Christian may get that Faith, whereby he may live comfortably as well as die safely. 1. Be clothed with humility, 1 Pet. 5.5. ascribe all thy gifts, and graces, thy profiting under afflictions, ordinances, thy peace and comfort, wholly to the grace of God by Jesus Christ through the Spirit of holiness. If there be any way in the world to get special Faith, and to live comfortably, it is this, to live humbly; the evangelically humble soul is the serene cheerful soul; heart-pride doth not only deprive believers of comfort, but brings vexations, disappointments, and disgusts, which are a torment to pride where ever it is; 'tis a sin that is very incident, very pleasing to us, very displeasing to God, and very disquieting; 'tis an easy thing to preach, and hear, and discourse humility, but believe it, it is not so easy to live it; a man's soul is never so fit to receive the shines of God's love, as when he is nothing in himself, be sure to crush the sprawling and motions of this cursed pride, see God in all, bless him for all, see the Lord Jesus the purchaser of all, and the blessed Spirit the Sanctifier of all, study this well, and live that Text in Rom. 11. last. God is Principium, efficiens, & finis; of him, through him, and for him, are all things, give him the glory, reduce this to practice, this is every day practicable, and were it practised, would make every day comfortable, envyings and provokings arise from vainglory, Gal. 5. last. Ind nata sunt schismata, quip (Hierome) cum dicunt homines nos justificamus impius, nos sanctificamus immundos, we would be somebody's, away with these thoughts, let God have the glory, and thou wilt have the comfort; in this way God will give Faith special, and that is the Faith that brings comfort. 2. The way to comfort is to do as these believers in my Text did, they did choose rather to forego their earthly comforts than their consciences, made choice of affliction rather than iniquity, esteemed the reproaches of Christ rather than their safety, prisons are not so terrible as they are imagined, the best men have rejoiced in the honour of suffering, they suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods, all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, Col. 1.11. Scripture-History primitive and modern abound with instances of all Sexes, Ages, Conditions in this particular. The noble Galeacius had that joy in Christ at Geneva beyond all the Marquisates in Italy or the whole world. In suffering comes assurance, and that is comfort. You will say we are not called to suffering; and I say the God of peace give us truth and peace always: but then if you would live comfortably, live in religious honesty, choose poverty before knavery, an honest meanness before secretly sinning gains. Conscience is the best friend next to Jesus Christ. Our rejoicing is this, not that we are Preachers, so was Demas; nor an Apostle, so was Judas; but the testimony of our conscience, that not in fleshly wisdom, but in godly sincerity, through the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world, 2 Cor. 1.12. Light, i. e. comfort, is sown for the righteous, and joyful gladness for the upright, Psal. 97.11. Now I come to my Text. The words contain the essence of Christianity or godliness. The constituent parts of it are Faith and Love: the necessary consequences are obedience evangelical, and joy unspeakable. Faith in Jesus is the great command of the Gospel, Joh. 1.5, last. 'Tis the work of God, Joh. 6.29. this is that work. Love is the great command of the Law, Matth. 22.36. Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy soul. Faith acts upon Jesus and sets Love on work. Love desires after him and delights in him, and sets obedience on work: divine comfort flows in proportionably. In this is the formal nature of Christianity, and what ever is not this in truth is but nature. The revelation left in nature tells us that there is a God, that he is to be worshipped, that the soul is immortal, that there is a state of bliss in another world, that righteousness is the way to that bliss. Now as there are but two righteousnesses, the righteousness of Christ; (of which the whole Creation is silent, and nature altogether ignorant, and Angels knew it not until it was revealed to them) and a man's own righteousness: So there are but two Religions in the world, sc. Christianity and nature. Call Religions by what names you list, Judaisme, Turcism, Paganism, Popery, common Protestantism, 'tis still but nature. The Sea hath many names from the Countries and shores, but still it is the same Sea. These two righteousnesses cannot be mixed in the business of justification in the sight of God. If it be of Christ as the Scripture faith, it is no more of works: if it be of works, as nature saith, it is no more of Christ: we cannot be justified in his sight partly by the righteousness of Christ's obedience, and partly by our own. The Law is not of Faith, Gal. 3.13. as many as are of the works are under the curse, v. 10. the just shall live by faith, ergo not by law. This is Paul's Logic, v. 11. A man cannot be Son of two mothers. Gal. 4. lat. end. Cast out the bondwoman and her Son, for the Son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the Son of the freewoman. And a woman cannot be wife to two husbands together, Rom. 7.4. There is but one straight gate, Matth. 7.13. one door, Joh. 10.9. one way, Joh. 14.5. one name, Acts 4.12. Paul is the most lively instance in this great case: while he was alive to the Law, he was dead to Christ; and when he was alive to Christ, he was dead to the Law, Gal. 2.19. dead to the Law as a rule of righteousness, and alive to the Law as a rule of obedience, dead to the Law in point of dependence, and alive to the Law in point of love and practice: his Christianity did ennoble and heighten his morality: he was just and sober, and temperate, blameless, while he was a Pharisee; but when he was a believer, he did the same things from a noble principle, in a spiritual manner, for the right ends: before he did act from himself, for himself, now from Christ and for Christ. The deduction from hence is this. If we would live in true comfort, we must be true Christians. A man may be a Protestant, yet not a Christian indeed; a man may be blameless, and Christless, and by consequence Godless. Remember the parable of the foolish Virgins: they were not harlots, profane, but Virgins: they were not persecutors, or blasphemers, or malicious, but foolish, i. e. supine, careless, negligent: they had lamps in their hands, but no oil in their hearts: the parable of the bvilders, the sandy believers, of the King's supper, the man that had not on a wedding garment. Indeed most of the preaching of the Lord Jesus tends this way, and these parables live to this day, and as much at this day. Let us look to ourselves, the oil of Faith and comfort go together, the oil of holiness and the oil of gladness, true Christians are anointed with both. Consider the man that wanted the wedding robe was not discerned by any at the table, the Lord espied him quickly: who would have thought such a professor should go to hell? bind him hand and foot: he did pretend to Christ, and it was but a pretence. I may dispute for, preach up Christ's righteousness active and passive, and the imputation thereof according to the Scripture, and the judgement of the best learned that ever the Churches have had, and yet I may go about to establish mine own; I may lift up Christ to you, and pull him down in mine own heart. The sum is this. Nullum bonum sine summo bono, Austin. I will expound it thus, No good work without God, no God without Christ, no Christ without heart-Faith, no Faith without love, no love without obedience, no such obedience without comfort, Doct. more or less. This brings me to the Doctrine, It is the property and practice of believers to love the Lord Jesus, and to rejoice in him, and in the hope of eternal life by him. 1. First, It is their property, they, and all they, and always, and none but they: there is no man in the world that loves God, and the Redeemer Jesus, but a believer; the Philosophers were haters of God, Rom. 1.30. the Gentiles and their wise men, for it is plain that the Apostle speaks of them, (not of the Gnostics, that is an idle conceit) and I am bound to believe Paul's Characters of the Gentiles and their Philosophers, before Diogenes, Laertius, Plutarch, or any man else: the Jews hated Jesus Christ, John 15.24. the world hated him, John 7.7. Luke 19.14. All Gospel-Atheism (said that incomparable Dr. Twisse) is against Jesus Christ. So for joy, there's never a joyful man alive but a believer. Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins? why, that is the Devil's joy; or that they rejoice in full barns, and bags? that is the Fool's joy; or that they rejoice in wine, i. e. all dainties that gratify the palate? that is a Bedlam joy. I have said of mirth, thou art mad. Read and believe Eccles. 2.3. indeed from the first v. to the 11. The whole book, but especially that Chapter, is the divinest Philosophy that ever was or will be. 2. 'Tis their practice, they love the Lord Jesus in incorruption or sincerity, Eph. 6. last. The Church, i. e. Believers jointly and singly say of Jesus, that he it is whom their soul loves, Cant. 1.7. in the 3. chap. the 4 first ver. we have it four times, and none but that: I sought him whom my soul loveth, v. 1. I will arise and seek him whom my soul loveth, v. 2. I said to the watchmen, saw ye him whom my soul loveth? v. 3. after a little while I found him whom my soul loveth, v. 4. here is no supernumerary repetition, every believer's soul bears a part in this divine song: so for joy, that is their practice too, we have no confidence in the flesh, but rejoice in Christ Jesus; which joy in him did plainly flow out of their confidence of an interest in him, Phil. 3.3. as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, 2 Cor. 6.9. we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, Rom. 5.2. and we rejoice in God by Jesus Christ, v. 11. with many more Texts to the same purpose: there need no more, only observe, 'tis we rejoice, 'tis not only Paul or the Apostles, but the Philippians, Romans, and so all believers, we rejoice. I shall speak something. 1. For the explication of the Doctrine. 2. For the vindication of the truth. 3. For the resolution of the case. 1. For explication: these two affections Love and Joy will be best described by their properties, objects, causes. Love is the return of an holy affection to Jesus Christ, with desires after him, and delight in him, whose properties are these: 1. 'Tis a sovereign love: he it is whom the soul loveth, as before out of the Canticles, chap. 1.7. a transcendent love, arising out of some due apprehension of his own excellency, and those most inestimable benefits procured by him: he is the standard-bearer amongst ten thousand, Cant. 4.10. as the appletree for shade, and fruit to the weary travellers, above all the trees of the forest, Cant. 2.3. Saints and Angels are but shrubs and fruitless things to him, they have fruit for themselves from him, but none for us. 2. It is unsatisfiable with any thing besides him: love is a restless affection, therefore compared to the grave and death, Cant. 8.6, 7. amor semper quaerit nova; it cannot say I have enough, till it be terminated on Jesus Christ and God by him. 3. 'Tis ardent; and therefore it is compared to coals of fire in the Text, Cant. 8. it is not a flat and faint thing, but it warms and enlarges the heart. 4. 'Tis very chaste; 'tis not to be frighted away by the troubles and affrightments of the world, neither is it to be bribed off by the blandishments and allurements of it, many waters cannot quench it, and if any would offer all the substance of his house to corrupt it, to withdraw it, it would be utterly contemned, ibid. 5. And chief it is obediential: what would not a man do or suffer for such a Saviour? for such a Salvation as from sin and hell, and such a Salvation as into grace and eternal glory? it is the fulfilling of the law, Rom. 13.10. A man that loves the Lord Jesus would fulfil every one of his commands, the law of his God is in his heart, Psal. 37.31. and his heart is to the law: there is a kind of perfection secundum intentionem, and he goes on gradually quoad perfectionem. Love makes the yoke easy; his commands are not grievous, i. e. They are precious: Oh how I love thy Law! says David, Psal. 119.97. I delight in the Law of God in my inner man, saith Paul, Rom. 7.22. Try yourselves by this: compare yourselves with that of Christ in his farewell Sermon, Joh. 14.15, 21, 23. withal remember and dread that Text, 1 Cor. 16.22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus, i. e. malign him, oppose him, let him be accursed till the Lord comes. 2. The object of this love, we have it in the Text (viz.) the Lord Jesus, and all of him: he is altogether lovely. A believer loves him as King, loves his Laws and institutions, and none but his; loves him as Priest, in the holiness of his nature and life, in the suffering of his soul, and death; how precious is Jesus? 1 Pet. 2.7. loves him as a Prophet, revealing the mystery of Salvation, the glorious mystery of the Gospel hidden from generations, hidden from the wise and prudent. Believers love him most intimately as a King for holiness, as a Priest for righteousness, and as a Prophet for wisdom. Lust like the harlot divides him; but love like the true mother will have him whole, as well holiness to save from sin, as righteousness to save from hell. 3. The cause of it is the blessed Spirit: the fruit of the Spirit is love, Gal. 5.22. The Lord thy God shall circumcise thy heart, and cause thee to love the Lord thy God, Deut. 30.6. Alas 'tis not in corrupt nature, the wisdom of the flesh; the best in that hedge is enmity; not a bare enemy, but enmity against God; 'tis not subject, i. e. ordinarily, regularly subject to his Law, neither can be; there is a remotio actus and posse too, 'tis a divine work. The other holy affection is joy: in the Text we have the properties of it. First, 'Tis unspeakable: the joy of harvest, rich spoils, great treasures, when they are right, i. e. when they are derived from God by Jesus Christ, they have their weight, but what are these to the joy of a pardon to a trembling and condemned man? and what is this to the joy in Christ to a man that understands and is sensible what damnation is? what hell is? what eternity is? the highness, the sweetness, the revivement is indeed ineffable, no man that feels it can find words fully to express it. 2. 'Tis full of glory, i. e. (say some) a slander by cannot judge of it. That is true, but is too short, 'tis initium vitae aeternae, 'tis glorificatum gaudium, 'tis a part of heaven: Austin seems to think that is too much: our present comfort (saith he) is rather Solatium praesentis miseriae, than gaudium futurae beatitudinis, rather a collation or refreshment upon our journey, than a set meal at our journey's end. What if we should take the word here glorious, for strong, full of glory, full of divine power, a holy joy, an heart-enlargeing joy, strong to do, and strong to die? certainly sin is never more odious, the heart is never more soft, the commandments never more precious, the World never more regardless, Jesus never more glorious, than when we humbly rejoice in the sense of God's love by Jesus Christ, through the witness of the blessed Spirit. If our comforts be not heart-enlarging to love and duty, they may be suspected for unsound. I will add one property, viz. The joy of Believers is soul-satisfying joy, it fills the heart and every chink of it, it is abundantly, nay victoriously satisfying the Soul of itself without praying in the help of the Creatures. Light all the candles in the world, and they will not, cannot make it day: let the Sun arise, and that will do it without their help. Read Hab. 3. the latter end, in our phrase, our manner of speech it is this, if no bread in the cupboard, nor money in the purse, nor Friend to help, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the God of my salvation. The Object of this Joy is present interest in Jesus, and a lively hope of Glory, or Glory hoped for: the cause efficient is the blessed Spirit, joy in the Holy Ghost, i. e. by him: the inward instrument is Faith, Faith special, or Assurance, Christ loved me, and gave himself for me, Gal. 2.20. The outward instrument is the Gospel, the Angel called it, Tidings of great joy. I pray you try again, where is your joy? whence doth it arise? upon what is it fixed? of what kind is it? what is the power of it? joy is natural and pleasing, every man seeks it, many there be, that say, who will show us any good? they are for sensible, palpable good, Corn, Wine, or Oil, Riches, Honours: here they think to find joy and comfort. Alas they seek the living among the dead, they suck an empty breast. David had all this, but he sought far higher, he was of a more noble and heavenly temper, lift up the light of thy countenance, cause thy face to shine upon thy Servant, that will put gladness into my heart, Psal. 4.5. Out of these premises we conclude that Christianity is a glorious thing: which is the second particular, 2. Particular or vindication. which I call a Vindication of the Truth. Religion is not a little formality in duties joined with some morality in life; but it consists in the new creature, or Faith working by love, Gal. 5.6. & 6.16. It consists in the exercise of Repentance, self-loathing, hatred of Sin as such, (for these are necessarily implied) Faith actual in Jesus, love to him, obedience before him, communion with God by him, peace and comfort from him, and well grounded hope of eternal life through him; the smell of his garments, Psal. 45.8. the savour of his ointment, Cant. 1.3. the taste of his preciousness makes a Believer think he can never do enough for Jesus. If his Holiness were as an Angel, and his days as the days of Heaven, yet all were too short, too little for such a Saviour, the love of Christ constrains him. He is a debtor to the Spirit, to live after the Spirit, and what ever is not this in truth (there is a difference in degrees) is (as you heard before) but nature raised, and varnished, and modified with distinctions, still it is but nature. Wash and dress a Swine as you please, 'tis a Swine still. The Fathers (when the breaking out of Pelagianism made them more studious in the point of grace, and more wary in their expressions) have left us their judgement in this case: you bring in a kind of doctrine (saith Austin to the Pelagians) that men do righteousness, and please God without Faith in Christ by the Law of nature: this is that for which the Church doth most of all detest you, Hoc est undè vos maximè Christiana detestatur Ecclesia. Lib. 4. Cap. 3. contr. Again, (saith he) far be it from us to think that true virtue should be in any man, unless he were righteous, and far be it from us to think, that any man should be truly righteous, unless he did live by Faith, for the just shall live by Faith, absit autem & sit justus vere, nisi vivat ex fide: and again, who would say that a man Diabolo mancipatus, a slave to the Devil, were a righteous man, though he were Fabricius or Scipio? To the naked, (saith he) is not sin as the fact is considered in itself; but of such a work to glory, and not in the Lord, none but a wicked man but will grant this to be sin: thus far Austin, with more to the same purpose in the same place: and upon this account he did correct some expressions, Lib. 1. Cap. 3. Retract. The whole Chapter is seasonable; the sum this, Austin had called the Muse's Goddesses, had highly advanced the liberal sciences, now corrects it upon this reason, (viz.) that many Godly men knew them not, and many that did know them were ungodly: the same he doth about Pythagoras his books, in which (saith he) are Plures, many errors, iidemque capitales. Especially this he recants, that he formerly said the Philosophers, who were not pious, were yet shining in virtue; no Faith in Christ, no virtue, 'tis spectrum, 'tis but simulacrum, but imago virtutis, it is not virtue; painted fire, is not fire: Hierom to the same purpose in Cap. 3. Galat. Paul (saith he) blameless did not live; he was dead while blameless. Paul the Christian was indeed alive. Men speak of temperance and justice without Faith; that cannot be; none live without Christ, sine quo omnis virtus est in vitio: without Christ all virtue is accounted vice; thus he. 'Tis most evident, there dwelleth no virtue in the minds of ungodly men: their wisdom is not heavenly but earthly, not from the Father of lights, but from the prince of darkness; ac sic vitium, quod putatur virtus, and so that is a vice which is accounted virtue. Non Deo serviunt sed diabolo, they serve the devil not God, Prosp. Con. Coll. Cap. 28. tota vita infidelium est peccatum, the whole life of unbelievers is sin, idem scent 106. to the same purpose saith Fulgentius with others. The Scripture is full and clear, an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. The carnal mind cannot please God, Rom. 8.7. 1 Cor. 1.2.3. the Apostle doth raise his discourse to the highest strain, Though I speak with the tongue of Angels, which no man doth; if I had all knowledge, which no man hath; if I could move mountains, which no man can; if I give all my goods to feed the poor, the highest beneficence; and my body to be burnt, the greatest suffering; yet if I have not love, I am nothing: he doth not say, these things are nothing; he doth not say, knowledge is nothing, or giving to the poor is nothing, but I am nothing, I have no profit, I am a hollow tub, an empty vessel, I make a noise amongst men while I live, and go to hell when I die. And according to Scripture and Fathers the doctrine of our Church hath determinated in her thirteenth Article thus, Works done before the grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasing to God; forasmuch as they spring not from Faith in Jesus Christ, yea rather for that they are not done, as God hath commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin: and this is the judgement of the reformed Churches also. Sirs, be sure you get and exercise this Faith unfeigned in Jesus Christ, and love sincere to him. A fair deportment with great gifts, and splendid performances without Christ, is but a more gentile way to perdition everlasting. 3. Resolution of the case. I come now to the resolution of the practical case, How a Christian may get that Faith by which he may live comfortably as well as die safely. Where this I think fit to premise: first, he must not only get such a Faith, but he must keep it in exercise, for without this there is no living comfortably: then, this also I premise, that to get and keep comfort, or that a Christian may have comfort, two things are necessary, viz. proportion and propriety; ex parte objecti, it must be a good proportionable; and then ex parte subjecti, it must be mine: it must be commensurate and adequate to the soul, and it must be the souls own, tolle meum, and tolle gaudium. The comfort and sweetness of the Gospel lies in pronouns (as the common saying is) as for instance; suppose the conquests of Alexander, and triumphs of Pompey, nay all the world were thine, there is propriety, 'tis thine; but herein would be no comfort at all to thee, because here is no proportion, no sutableness to an immaterial, vast and immortal soul; on the other side, Christ is proposed to thee, and in him there is proportion, for in him dwelleth all fullness, he is an infinite, spiritual and eternal good; but what comfort is this without propriety, unless he be thine? my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour, Luke 2. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, Hab. 3. your Father Abraham saw my day, and did rejoice to see it: the plain English is this, Abraham saw Jesus Christ in the promises, sc. his obedience, and sufferings, and the glory that came by Christ's righteousness, and did apply it to himself by Faith, and was assured of his interest in it, which made him to rejoice in that sight. Though a Prince may have a legal right to a treasure hid in the field, yet till it be discovered to him, there is no joy: the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, and so we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, Rom. 5.2, 5. I will not dispute whether assurance be of the nature of Faith: our Reformers were of renown, and other learned men since at home and abroad, that are for assurance, do not at any hand exclude adherence; some think that Faith is a mixed habit, adherence and assurance are two acts of the same Faith, two flowers from the same root. 'Tis true, there may be adherence without assurance, but it is as true, that there cannot be assurance without adherence. If I know and believe that Christ died for me, I should stick to it in negotio justificationis, without taking notice of any inherent holiness either in men or Angels: how do the stars disappear at the rising brightness of the Sun, yet no disparagement to the stars at all? But I say I will not dispute, and if I could, it were both unseasonable and needless; for whether assurance be of the nature of Faith, or whether it be an effect of Faith, is all one in this case before us, for there must be something of assurance that must bring in joy and comfort. The believers here in my Text they loved Christ, and in whom after they believed, they did rejoice with joy unspeakable: their first acts of Faith might be recumbency, afterwards evidence, than joy; so the Ephesians, after they believed in Christ, they were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise as an earnest, Ephes. 1.13, 14, 15. The note of the old learned and pious Piscator is, unusquisque fidelis verus est, not esse potest, or esse debet, but est certus suae salutis, I will name but one Scripture more, 'tis Cant. 2.6. my beloved is mine, and I am his, he feeds among the lilies: my beloved is mine, there is the Gospel with its marrow in the heart of a believer, there is assurance: and I am his, there is the law in the same heart, there is obedience: he feedeth among the lilies, there is joy and comfort: he died for me, and I am his, soul and body for his service. Hence comes joy, and sometimes such that even overwhelms. This for the entrance, now to the directions. First, If you would get Faith, comforting in life as well as saving at death, you must not sit down satisfied with a bare recumbence on Jesus Christ. Mistake me not, I do not discourage, and I dare not disparage it. If it be right (as I take that for granted) it is a grace more precious incomparably than all treasures, and happy is the bosom that wears so inestimable a Jewel. But when Christians sensible of their sin and hell do attain to this, they rest satisfied here. They are told (and that is truth) that their state is safe, there they acquiesce, set up their staff behind the door, and go no further, they do not press on for assurance, they will rather argue against it, thus, Object. That assurance is not so necessary. Answ. So necessary, what do you mean? is it not commanded? is it not promised? is it not purchased? is it not attained by the people of God? sure it is necessary to the vigour of grace, and to the being of joy and comfort; be of good comfort, thy sins are pardoned, Object. 2. Yea, but many do live and die and do well without it. Answ. Who told you so? the Scripture saith, the Spirit himself doth bear witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, Rom. 8.16. and we know and believe the love that God hath given us, 1 John 4.16. with many very many more Texts to that purpose. A tempted believer may bear false witness against himself: sure such a position as this with mercy upon uncertainties is not the way to comfort him: the sure way were to advise him to see his sins more, and humble his soul more for them, and to study Jesus Christ, and to come to him more, with the like, and God will return and speak peace: they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Object. 3. But this joy is not so necessary. Resp. What do you mean again? so necessary, why? 1. It is frequently commanded, take one Text, Phil. 4.4. Rejoice in the Lord, (i. e. Christ) always, and again I say rejoice. 2. It is frequently promised, I will make them joyful in my house of prayer, Isa. 56.7. I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. 3. It is practised frequently, we rejoice in Christ Jesus, Phil. 3.3. 4. It is often prayed for, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, Rom. 15.13. 5. It is Christ's office to give the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness, Isa. 61.3. 6. It is the special work of the blessed Spirit, who is therefore the Comforter. Take the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in what notion you will, his work is either comforting or tending to comfort. Lastly, It is the privilege of the Gospel-Ordinances to feast the soul with marrow and fatness, and with wine well refined, i. e. God hath not given us the spirit of bondage to fear again, (as formerly) but the Spirit of adoption, whereby (or rather by whom, i. e. cujus ) we cry abba Father. Surely joy and comfort is necessary for the measures of grace. If you had a child infirm, sickly, hard-favoured, and a friend should say, this strength, quickness, and comeliness is not so necessary, your child is alive, is it not? you would think this were hardly suitable, much less comfortable. Object. 4. A Christian that doth come to, and rely on Christ for righteousness may have comfort: Answ. yes, but than it must be by the way of a practical syllogism. He that cometh to Christ shall never perish, Joh. 6. but I do so, therefore. Here his coming, together with repentance and obedience, which are concomitants, beget evidence, and from thence comfort. Object. 5. but many good people want this joy and comfort. Answ. confessed; but than it is our own fault: did we use the means, especially secret duties, meditation, prayer, which we neglect, it would be otherwise. Object. Last. But those that do these yet are in great darkness. Answ. Yea, for sometime. The holy spirit teacheth many lessons, excellent ones in this School, chief these three. 1. They learn what dismal creatures they must have been for ever without Jesus Christ. 2. They learn to give a guess, what were the unintelligible amazements and consternatious that were upon the soul of Jesus Christ in their room. 3. The blessedness that comes by Jesus Christ. And when they have learned their lessons in this School out of the word by this ever blessed Tutor, God brings them out with silver, joy, and gold, and comfort. 2. Direct. Make serious use of marks and signs. The best search is in a man's own heart, and there, the greatest case of conscience is, whether Christ be in you, 2 Cor. 13.5. One of the best uses the preacher can make, is a use of trial. Skilful ones lay open these marks with much evidence and vehemence; beseech, require, charge that impartial search be made: And Christians hear and affect, and say it is a home-Sermon; but do not seriously upon retirement bring themselves to the truth. The Minister may preach his lungs out of his body, and it is not minded. If self-tryal were impartially practised, the blessed spirit in this way would give in evidence, and by that comfort: for instance, Jesus Christ tells us, he lays down his life for his sheep, John 10. there he gives the marks of his sheep: as first, They do not follow the voice of strangers. i e. Strange doctrines, duties, worship; as Socinianism, Popery, Pelagianism new or old, Quakerism; they fly from them: they know not the voice of strangers, v. 5. 2. They know Christ with an high appreciating and obedient knowledge, v. 14. 3. They hear his voice, and they follow him; not a stranger. v. 28. Now if you would try yourselves by these and many, very many such like, if you would impartially see the complexion of your souls in the glass of the word, this would beget certainty, and that would beget comfort. 3. Direct. Be not slothful in the business of Faith, remove away far from you a sluggish frame, stir up, blow up the coals, exercise thy Faith, exert new acts of application of Jesus Christ to thee daily. We want comfort, and why? Jesus Christ is not in our serious thoughts all the day. We eat bread daily for life natural, and ourselves daily to cover our nakedness before men: sure the soul hath as much need of food and raiment as the body: Jesus crucified is the only, the Heavenly food and raiment; stir up thine appetite, Mitte sidem, put forth thine hand, put him on; repeated acts of recumbency and application will rise up into acquaintance and evidence, and will let in this precious joy and consolation. Believe it, Sirs, it is a sin of a far greater nature than we are ware of, a sin of horrid unkindness, neglect, slighting of our best friends, (viz.) that we make sure of every thing, but Jesus Christ. A little land, a small Tenement, a little money, there we cry fast bind, and fast find; there we have a male in the flock, and can defend our diligence very smartly: but in the great concern of our souls we are at uncertainties, and hap hazard; there the blind and the lame is for sacrifice. What a noise is there about a civil propriety in mint and cummin? and what a Silence and remissness about the soul's propriety in the Son of God? 'tis a prodigious and inexcusable indiscretion and folly; and an unspeakable mischief into the bargain. 4. Direct. Take heed of thy heart, fetch not thy comforts from, and terminate not thy joy upon any creature; this were clear idolatry: therefore check thy joy about these things, cut off the suckers, and the boughs will be laden with fruit, stop these back-ditches and the stream will be strong. Remember Job could approve his sincerity by this, that he did not rejoice because his wealth was great, and because his hand had gotten much. Cap. 31. v. 24. Remember our Lord Christ abated his disciples joy, Rejoice not in this that the Devils are subject to you; (a man may cast out Devils and go to hell.) but rejoice rather in this, that your names are in the book of life. Act Faith to see God the giver, Christ the purchaser of your daily mercies, and thence fetch your joy into them: My first must have warmth from my body, and then they warm me. 5. Direct. If a Christian would attain to that Faith (viz. certainty) that will make his life comfortable, he must go on to be more holy in both the parts of it: he must die to sin more. The Scripture calls upon us every where to hate, abhor, mortify, crucify (viz.) to death, lay aside as a dead corpse, put off as filthy rags, cast away as a plague-sore, what all this while? why, lusts, filthy lusts, wrath, anger, vainglory, pride, impatience, filthy wanton thoughts. You know the Apostle presseth these things as the main use of the Doctrine of Jesus: Paul is abundant in this in his Epistles to the Churches; do it then, dwell upon these Scriptures much, daily let them dwell in you, be docrs of the word. Your ministers are afraid, either of the rickets, the head is big with airy notions, or but notions, and the joints be weak; or Childdishness, that people are more taken with a little gaudy trimming than with the substance of the cloth. Study these truths, and look to your hearts, and conform to them, this is the way for to get, and when you have gotten to keep some assurance, and that will comfort your hearts; the pure in heart shall see God, and any glimpse of that is a most comfortable sight. The Scripture saith, especially in Gospel times, that the people of God should walk in the light of his countenance: if thou put away iniquity from thy heart, thou shalt lift up thy face; the more conscience, the more sense of love, and the more sense the more comfort; the less clouds the more fun. The old Puritans had a great deal of feeling, and much Serious joy. 6. Direct. Look well to the other part of holiness, live to righteousness, live in it, live the Col. 3.17. read it over and over, as many as walk according to this rule, peace shall be upon them, Gal. 6.16. to such a one Christ will manifest himself, Joh. 14.21. his Father and himself will come to such a one and will make their abode with him v. 23. the Father will love him (it is meant of love manifestative, not initial) he will manifest his love, there is joy indeed to the upright, I will show the Salvation of God, not I will begin to be, but I will show, Psal. 50. last. Look to your trades, let there be holiness to the Lord upon your weights and measures; look to your family duties; study well and observe your relation-duties: family-passions cloud Faith, disturb duty, darken comfort. 7. Direct. All this while I take it for granted that thou art a Christian. Why then, if thou wilt get and keep this Faith that will get and keep comfort alive, The seventh direction is, To be much and frequent in Divine meditation; Faith is enlarged and grows up by converse with divine objects: meditate upon these things, 1. Christ's Deity. Be well stored with Scriptural knowledge of this great truth, set thy heart to it, and let it be fixed in the midst of thy heart, assure yourselves that the eternal Godhead of Jesus is the most practical point in Heaven, and will be so while Heaven is Heaven. 2. Be intimately acquainted with Christ's righteousness; that it is the only righteousness that can present us holy, unreprovable, unblameable, in God's sight; that it was his business in the world to bring in this everlasting righteousness; that it is done and finished; that he hath nothing to do with this righteousness now in Heaven, but to us with, to present us in, before God. 3. Meditate on God's righteousness, that it is not only his will, but his nature to punish sin; sin must damn thee without Christ, there is not only a possibility or probability that sin may ruin, but without an interest in Christ it must do so; whet much upon thy heart that must, God cannot but hate sin, because he is holy; and he cannot but punish sin, because he is righteous. God must not forego his own nature to gratify our humours. 8. Direct. Be well skilled and settled (as it becomes a Christian) in the great article of justification before God: thy Faith, and duties, and comforts depend might and main upon this. Know that no servant of God, be he Abraham, Moses, or Paul, if God enter into judgement with him, can stand justified in his sight, God will not justify us without a righteousness, and that righteousness must be unblamable; and therefore in all numbers perfect: God will not call that perfect which is not so, for his judgement is according to truth, Rom. 2.2. where shall we find this perfect righteousness, but in Christ, who is Jehovah our righteousness, Jer. 23.6. and made of God to us righteousness? 1 Cor. 1.30. how shall this become ours, but by imputation? Rom. 4.6. how shall we receive this gift of righteousness, but by Faith? Rom. 5.17. be well skilled in the good old way, go in the foot steps of the flock, and feed besides the shepherd's tents. Believe it, Sirs, there is no way but Christ, unto the Father; his blood is that new and living way, Heb. 10.19. there is no standing in God's presence but in him, no acceptance but by him, no comfort but from him. Be wise and wary; there are many adversaries. Only give me leave to say this, I think that the Socinians had never set up man's obedience for his righteousness, if they had not with wicked hands, quantum in illis, first pulled down Chist's Deity: and as they are abhorred for this blasphemy of blasphemies, so I cannot abide them for daubing over man's obedience in this affair so deceitfully, and deceivingly, (viz.) in saying it is not only causa sine quâ non in our justification, as if the material cause or the matter which God imputes for righteousness, were only a poor causa sine quâ non; but no more now of this juggling. 9 Direct. If you would preserve a right understanding of the nature of Faith take heed of advancing it into Christ's place, as if God should impute the act of Faith for righteousness, or that God should impute Faith and obedience as the condition or matter of our righteousness and not Christ's obedience; for both cannot be imputed: if God imputed Christ's obedience, than not ours; if ours, than not Christ's. The nature of Faith consists in coming to Christ for righteousness and pardon: only; the man hurt with the fiery sting, looks to the brazen Serpent for cure. Fides que, that Faith which is justifying takes in Christ as Lord, with all the heart; but qua justificat, in the business of justifitation qua sic, it looks only to Christ as crucified: This plain old distinction will stand. If the nature of Faith did consist in Christianity, I say, if this were true, I believe all believers could be contented to have it so, for any harm they should have by it, for they willingly devote themselves to the obedience of God; only they cannot make this Faith, or Christianity to be the condition or matter of justification, for this were to fall from grace, to make of none effect the death of Christ; and to drive Christianity and comfort out of the world. 10. Direct. Get and keep this Faith, specially by a constant and conscionable living in duty, and living above it. Say to the commandments you are my rule, and love, and joy; to Christ thou art my life, Col. 3.4. 'Tis the height of Christianity to live in duties, and to live above them. 'Tis quickly said, 'tis an easy matter to distinguish in the Schools or pulpit, but to distinguish in the conscience, practically to distinguish, is not so easy: qui novit distinguere inter legem & evangelium, sciat se esse edoctum à Deo. Had I all the holiness of the Saints from the beginning to this day, I would bless God for the least, and prise it above all treasures; yet I would lay all aside and be found in Christ. In the midst of thy duties ask thy soul the question, soul, what is thy title, thy plea? If I were to die this day, what have I to plead? in what shall I stand before God? what have I to plead, why I should not perish in hell? ask thyself, what is thy righteousness? ask it solemnly, frequently; is it not Christ and he only? this would much conduce to confirm thy Faith, such a Faith that would bring in comfort. The thoughts of this so affected Dr. Mollius, that he seldom names Jesus with dry eyes, 11. Direct. Be much in secret prayer, ejaculations; this will breed acquaintance, and that comfort; the non exercise of this breeds a strangeness between God and the soul, and that's uncomfortable. This and meditation who can hinder? The soul is active, breathe and thoughts are quick, it is soon done, it will never hinder your business, and in this way the blessed spirit causeth us to know and believe the love that God hath to us, 1 Joh. 4.16. and refresheth the soul with joy and comfort in believing. Do not only pray for the comforts and supplies of the holy spirit, but pray to him to this purpose: Blessed spirit convince me of my sins more, and convince me more and more of Jesus Christ; Holy Spirit take of Christ's and show it unto me, and the like. To pass by the profane scoffs of many, and the gross ignorance of more, I take it to be a very great neglect in believers, that they do not glorify the Holy Spirit, as the Lord and giver of Faith and comfort. Remember this, qui unum honorat, & omnes, he that honoureth one person aright, honoureth every one; and he that doth not honour every person honoureth none, qui non omnes, nec unam. 12. Direct. If you would get and keep this special comforting Faith, then keep a good conscience in evil times; choose suffering before secular safety; remember who did shrink from the truth, and lost this Faith and comfort, even to the gates almost of despair and self violence for twelve months together, and never did recover till some hints of mercy to him, he began to revive and have some quiet. Spira said with tears running down his face, that time was when he could have called God Father, but now he could not. 13. Direct. You may and aught to get this special rejoicing Faith out of sanctified afflictions, thus: whom God doth correct, and teach, him he loves, he is blessed, Psal. 94.12. Heb. 12. but God doth so to me, ergo: here are bills and prayers for mercies, but who looks after the issue? The teaching, the holy use, sanctified affections are very good evidences, and so very comfortable. There are that would not have lost their bussetings, temptations, various temptations, afflictions for any good: the blessed spirit hath taught th●m that way, many a divine truth by heart out of the word, they are sensible of it, and from it conclude the love of God in Christ to them, and thence they have joy and comfort, that joy that Angels cannot give, and Devils cannot take: sanctified troubles are tokens of special love. 14. Give diligent attendance upon the ordinances, set thyself in the sight of God to hear what God will speak as Cornelius did, Act. 10.33. and rejoice to do it, such shall walk in the ight of God's countenance, Psal. 89.15. Take heed of the common humour, we begin to be very sqeamish, and carnal; one is of Paul, another of Apollo; we attend more the man and his artifice, than God and his word. Mr. Bolton, in his florid, but profane wit, thought Perkins was a sneaking fellow; But when God changed his heart, he was of another mind. Lastly, Be more intent upon your duty, then upon your comfort, and comfort will follow. Order your steps in the paths of Divine precepts, walk in all relations according to the rule, and be not so earnest after comfort, so solicitous in that behalf. Walk uprightly, and the face of God will behold the upright. You pray for assurance, be sure your ends be right, let it be more for holiness that the name of Jesus Christ may be glorified by you, than for comfort. I think some good people are too carnal in their prayers for assurance; they desire it not so much for holiness, as for safety. I have known such; take heed, look well to your aims. I will conclude with Paul's prayer. 2 Thess. 2.16, 17. Now our Lord Jesus, and God our Father, who hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work. How Christians may learn in every State to be content. Serm. XXVI. Phil. 4.11. For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. OUR Apostle makes this profession of his high attainments in the grace of Contentation upon a very weighty Reason, The Occasion of the words. or Motive: (viz.) that he might obviate all misconstructions, and bad interpretations, which possibly some might put upon what he had said in the foregoing verse, (and should further say in the 14, 15, and 16. Verses) In every of which we have him expressing his great and affectionate resentment of the Philippians bounty and liberality to him, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; ye have well done, that you did communicate with my afflictions, etc. No Church communicated with me, as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only; For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity. Now he foresaw, that this his just acknowledgement might have some base and ugly censures put upon it, which therefore he makes it his business to prevent. And he enters a double Caveat about them; Not because I desire a gift, v. 17. (q. d.) O Philippians, I have received your Gifts, and I am very thankful to you for them; but do not think I do this out of any * Gratam sibi esse testatur eorum beneficentiam, etc. li à tamen orationem temperans, ut ab omni sordium suspicione se purum esse— testetur Beza. base spirit, as if I desired thereby to be enriched or advanced in worldly possessions; No (saith he) it is not so with me; all that my eye is upon in your kindness to me is this, I desire fruit that may abound to your account. Again, Not that I speak in respect of want, as if I were so exceeding low in the world, that I could not live without your supply; or as if I were a person so tender and delicate, that I could not bear a little want or hardship: No, it is not so with me neither; for let my outward condition be what it will, never so low as to outward things, yet I have one Reserve always by me, a contented Mind; I cannot have so little, but that little shall suffice: So † Non quòd penuriam passus sim, id dico; didici enim ut Sufficiat mihi id quod habeo, V Syr. the text comes in, Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, etc. In the words (wherein I am concerned) we have, The Text divided. 1. A Lesson to be learned, to be content. A rare and excellent Lesson! than which there is scarce any one higher and harder in the whole compass of Christianity. 2. Paul's great proficiency in this lesson; I have learned, in whatsoever state I am (or as 'tis in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In quibus sum, i. e. qualiscunque sit meâ conditio, etc. Calvin. 'Tis more than if he had sa●d. In iis quae habeo. Vide Muscul. in loc. Greek, In whatsoever things I am,) therewith to be content: He had in the course of his life passed through various states, and some of them were bad enough, (according to the account which he himself gives of them, 2 Cor. 4.8, 9, 10. 2 Cor. 6.4, 5. 2 Cor. 11.23.) But no condition came amiss to him, his spirit was always composed and calm, he lived in the constant practice of divine Conrentment; I have learned (saith he, and we may believe him) in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. What an apt Scholar, what an admirable proficient, was this blessed man in this high and difficult piece of practical knowledge! Surely he that can master such a lesson as this, may well be placed in the highest form of Christ's school. Of the supernaturalness and Mysteriousness of contentment. When he saith he had learned to be content, two things are implied in that expression; the Supernaturalness, the mysteriousness of Contentment. The Supernaturalness of it; I have learned it, (q. d.) 'twas not a thing known by me from the first, I brought not this frame with me into the world, 'twas not ingenit, or connate with me, I had it not from nature or natural light: No, it was purely adventitious, being in part infused by God, and in part acquired by myself; I was not made with it, but I was taught it. Where and how did he learn it? not at the feet of Gamaliel, not in the Schools of the great Philosophers; but in the school of Christ, and by the teachings of the Spirit. He might say of this what he saith of his Office, Gal. 1.1. it was not of man, nor by man; but of God, 1. He attained unto it, not by the teachings of man's wisdom, but by the teachings of the holy Ghost, (to allude to that 1 Cor. 2.13.) This blessed Spirit set up a supernatural light in him, wrought a supernatural work in him, gave in divine and supernatural discoveries to him; and so he arrived at his Contentment. And further he learned it (in a subordinate sense) by his own prudent observation, Christian experience, daily and constant † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. Homil. 15. in C. 4. ad Philip. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Oecum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Phot. Dicens didici significat hanc rem esse disciplinae & exercitationis: atque hujus rei habitum longo usu se assecutum, Estius. exercise: all of which, when Sanctified and blessed by God, do contribute much to the making of the heart quiet in every condition. The word notes also the mysteriousness of heavenly Contentation. I have learned it, (saith the Apostle) as a great Secret, as a thing that lies out of the Common road, and is not so easy to be understood. This notion is not so fully reached by the word [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] here used, as it is by another word used in the next verse; Every where, and in all things, I am instructed, etc. 'Tis [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,] which we render by instructed, others by initiated; It implies * Initiatus sum Beza Utitur verbo quod rebus Sacris convenit, ut significet pio esse ad haec omnia à spiritu sancto sanctificatos & consecratos: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enim est sacris initiari. Est igitur Sacra institutio Zanch. I am consecrated to this knowledge of Contentment in all estates, Dr. Sibbs Saints-Cordial, p. 4. Est propriè initiari mysteriis, Erosm. Dicit institutus sum, ut in sinuet hanc ratio nem vitae velut sacrum mysterium se divinitus edoctum esse. Est enim in Graeco verbum à quo mysteria dicuntur, Estius. Initiatus sum i. e. institutus: Non formidavit Apostolus vocem Graecae superstionis ad meliores usus transfer; Nam & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vox hinc venit. In Glossario 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, initio, imbuo. Diod. Siculus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grot. Usurpavit hoc verbum omnium pertinentissimé. Nam omnino sacra est haec disciplinae Christianae Scientia, etc. Et institutio illius non est simpliciter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sed sacra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Muscul Innuens Apostolus hanc vitae rationem velut grande sacrumque mysterium à Deo divinitus accepisse, Velasquez. both initiation, and also instruction in things sacred and mysterious (as is commonly observed.) Now (saith Paul) I am instructed both to be full and to suffer hunger; as if he had said, This indeed is a very mysterious thing, yet God hath brought me to the knowledge and practice of it. So that Contentment is not a facile, or common matter, such as is open and obvious to every person; but 'tis an abstruse, hidden, secret thing: there are mysteries in it which only some few do discern; it carries an holy art and skill in it, which he that hath learned is one of the greatest Artists in the world. Paul had arrived at this Art, for he had learned in every, etc. The observations from the words are four. Observations raised. Obs. 1. Such who are true Disciples of Christ, partakers of the true spirit of Christianity, they have learned to be Content. Obs. 2. True Contentment is a divine and supernatural thing: 'Tis a flower, which doth not grow in nature's garden, but God plants it in the Soul. He only knows and lives it, who is taught of God, and who learns it, by the teaching of the Spirit. Some of the † Plutarch. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Seneca de tranquil. animi. As Austin speak of Seneca upon another account. Libertas, quae Scribenti affuir, viventi defuit. See this opened in M. Burroughs of Contentment. P. 17. etc. Heathen Moralists have spoke much and wrote very well of it; but yet they, ('tis to be feared) were great strangers to the practice of it: 'Tis the sincere Christian only who doth indeed live it. There must be a Divine light beamed into the Soul, the communication of special grace from Christ, the supernatural workings of God's Spirit in the heart; or else there can be no true Contentment. Obs. 3. Christian Contentment hath great mysteries wrapped up in it: A contented life is a mysterious life. The Apostle speaking of the Doctrine of Godliness, saith, 'tis a great mystery, 1 Tim. 3.16. We may say the same of the practical part of godliness (as it lies in Contentment,) 'tis a great mystery. Here is a man that hath very much, and yet he is not contented; here is another that hath little, or nothing, and yet he is contented, surely there is a mystery in the case. Obs. 4. Then a man doth truly know and live Contentment, when he hath learned in every state and condition therewith to be content. Paul's contentment was universal, extending to all occurrences of Providence; I have learned in every state, etc. every where, and in all things I am instructed, etc. 'Tis not enough in this or that want and cross to be contented, but in every thing that befalls us we must be so; and then we have indeed learned this heavenly lesson. These are the Doctrinal Truths which the Text presents us with: I have named them, but shall not fall upon the prosecution of all or any one of them. 'Tis the Duty itself which I am only to speak unto; And concerning that too, I am not to launch out into the General handling of it, so as to treat upon the several Heads which are proper to it, (which work is already done fully and profitably by many of our own Writers:) I am confined to one Particular about it, which will be mainly directive; to show, How, and by what means, this blessed Contentation may be attained. The main Question propounded and answered. A threefold notion of Contentment. 'Tis a very important Question which I am to answer this Morning, (viz.) What are all Christians to do, that they, with Paul, may learn in every state to be content? For the more distinct answering of which, I will consider Contentment in a threefold notion, as it consists, 1. In self-sufficiency. 2. In the bounding of the Desires. 3. In the calmness and quietness of the spirit in every condition. How it may be attained as it lies in self-sufficiency. 1. As it lies in self-fulness, or self-sufficiency. So 'tis opposed so emptiness, want, indigence, and to that vexation and dissatisfaction of mind, which ariseth from that emptiness. Contentment is a blessed Autarchy, or self-sufficiency. When may a man be said to be contented? why, when his soul is full in his possessing of that good which is commensurate, and adequate to all his desires and wants. This is one explication of Contentment, and 'tis that which the notatio nominis directs us unto; for the Greek word, by which it is set forth, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (rendered by sufficiency 2 Cor. 9.8, by contentment; 1 Tim. 6.6.) 'Tis the word used in my Text, I have learned in whatsoever state I am [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] therewith to be content: So that Paul's being contented was his having a fullness and sufficiency in himself, in so much that he wanted nothing. And this is the happiness of every Believer; he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, self-sufficient, (and therein lies his Contentment, if not formally, yet fundamentally:) Prov. 14.14. A good man shall be satisfied from himself. 'Tis very emphatical that of the Apostle, in 2 Cor. 9.8. that ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work; (he is speaking to the Corinthians of God's supplying of them in temporal blessings, that they might always have a stock by them, and be thereby in a capacity to relieve the poor:) I take the expression more generally, and bring it to the thing which I am upon: A Godly man hath sufficiency in himself, and that too [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] in all things, always, all sufficiency; (for so full it is in the Original.) It may be objected, how can this be? can any creature be self-sufficient? is not that a thing peculiar to God himself? are not all here in themselves indigent and necessitous? I answer, Original and inherent self-sufficiency belongs only to God; but there is a dependent, derived, and borrowed self-sufficiency, and that every gracious person hath. He having God for his God, and he possessing this God (the Catholic and universal Good,) in and from him, he hath all that ever he can desire or need: and so in a borrowed sense he is self-sufficient. Jacob told his Brother he had all (for so 'tis in the Hebr.) Gen. 33.11. As having nothing and yet possessing all things, 2 Cor. 6.10. I have all and abound, I am full, etc. Phil. 4.18. Now let us bring the Question to Contentment in this notion, How may men come up to this self-sufficiency? Answ. By their getting a Covenant-interest in God, and then by their improving and living upon that God, who is theirs by Covenant. Till this be done, there is no self-fulness, nothing but want and emptiness; and consequently no contentment, or satisfaction. Whatever good is in the creature, it is a finite, scanty, defective good; and therefore that can never fill up all the desires, or answer all the wants of a soul. We see even where there is much of that good, yet the heart is restless and unsatisfied, Job 20.22. In the fullness of his sufficiency, he shall be in straits: But God is a perfect, complete, comprehensive good; all goodness whatsoever concenters and concurs in him, and thereupon, when a man is once brought to have and to possess God, he is satisfied, all his desires are answered; in the having of God he hath all, and this must needs content him. This explication of Contentment is not so much taken notice of; but it points to that which is the highest and most excellent part of it. Oh, to be self-sufficient, for the poor Creature to have all in himself, (he having that God who is All,) how near doth this bring him to that which is the incommunicable glory and perfection of God himself! As ever you desire to be partakers of this, follow the Direction here given you. We should be contented (i. e. quiet and composed) under the least of the Creature; but men shall never contented (i. e. fully satisfied) under the all of the Creature. The * Aug. Conf. L 1. c. 1. & de Civit Dei. L. 12. c. 1. Non nisi beatitudine animae indigentia expletur, nec eidem explendae nisi Deus sufficit. Solil. c. 13. Omnis copia, quae non est Deus meus, mihi est egestas. How, as it lies in the b unding of the desires after earthly things. Soul being made by God, and for God, nothing can fill it but God. Let a man enjoy never so much of the world, yet if there be but some petty thing (which his fancy is much set upon) withheld from him, this is the bane of his contentment; (as we see in Ahab and Haman:) On the other hand, let a Child of God enjoy never so little of the world, yet he having and knowing God to be his God, and he by faith living upon this God, his soul is at rest, he hath full contentment and satisfaction. 2. Contentment lies in the bounding and moderating of the desires after earthly possessions; so that the heart is not still craving and desiring more and more, but well contented with the present proportion allotted by God. So it is opposed to Covetousness, Heb. 13.5. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. A covetous person never thinks he hath enough; Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops, Nec sitim pellit. Horat. Carm. L. 2. Ode. 2. like one that is hydropical (the more he drinks the more he thirsts,) so it is with the man I am speaking of, the more he hath, the more he desires to have: he is like the four things spoken of by Solomon, Prov. 30.15, 16. that are never satisfied, that never say it is enough: an insatiable greediness of wealth possesseth him, so that his pounds must be Hundreds, his Hundreds, Thousands (and so in infinitum) Contentment now suppresseth these exorbitant and extravagant desires; it makes a person to enjoy with cheerfulness what he hath, and not to be always reaching after more. O, (saith the Contented person,) the Lord hath very well provided for me, I have enough for me and mine; God gives me food and raiment, 'tis enough; I have as much as I need, a great deal more than what I deserve, and had I more, it would be but burdensome; 'tis very well, God hath made a good choice for me; Others may have more, I have that which is sufficient: here's Contentment. Let's bring the Question to it, as thus stated; How may persons learn to be content with what they have, so as not to be covetously greedy of having more? I answer, this must be attained 1. By the mortification of that imbred Lust or natural Corruption, from which, all these inordinate desires after more wealth do proceed. 2. By a deep conviction of the greatness of the sin of Covetousness, as also, of the greatness of the folly that accompanieth that sin. 3. By frequent and serious meditation upon death, and the eternity which follows upon it. 4. By the getting true notions of the vanity of riches and all things here be low. 5. By the turning the desires into the right channel, and the placing of them upon their proper Objects, God and Christ and Spiritual things. 6. By Considering how well others do, who have but a slender proportion of these things, and how thankful they are for that little which God measures out to them. I do not at all enlarge on these things, both because this is not that notion of Contentment which I most design, as also because I shall have cccasion to speak more to them in what will follow. How, as it lies in the quietness of the mind, etc. 3. Therefore we are to consider Contentment, as it imports a calmness and composedness of mind in every condition; stillness and sedateness of spirit under all occurrences of Providence. When a man likes whatsoever God doth to him or with him, doth quietly submit unto and acquiesce in God's dispose of him, this is contentment; And so there is a great affinity (though not a perfect identity) 'twixt it and Patience; so 'tis opposed to all vexing, fretting and murmuring, to all undue perturbations of mind under God's dispensations towards us, (though they be never so cross to our natural desires.) Unquestionably this was one thing (if not the main) intended by our Apostle, when he saith, I have learned in every state to be content: 'Tis as if he had said, I am brought to this, always to think well of God, and of every state into which he is pleased to bring me; whatever pleases him, pleaseth me, be it imprisonment, poverty, sickness, reproach, death itself, let but God's will be done and I am content; I am taught to bear all things with great * A. Christo omnia aequanimiter far Sum edoctus Hieron. equanimity or eavenness of Spirit. The Question than will come to this; How may we, and Others, get this excellent frame, to have the heart in every state calm and quiet, without being disturbed and discontented under any thing that doth befall us? (the resolving of this Question will be my present work.) Three Helps to Contentment. For answer to it, I will reduce all to these three Helps or Means; Consideration, Grace or Godliness, Prayer. He that would learn and live Contentment, must be a Considering man, a godly man, a praying man. Consideration will do much, Godliness will do more, Prayer will do most of all. In the former we have what Reason and Judgement can do; In the second, we have what a Divine Principle can do; in the third we have what God himself can do. In consideration, we have the strength of the Man; In grace, the strength of the Christian; In prayer, the strength of God: all of which being united they must needs do the work effectually. Now (as to these three Directions) it is with me, as it sometimes is at the head of a spring; where the stream at first is so narrow, that with ease any may stride over it, but afterwards it doth very much widen and dilate itself, in so much that the little stream is turned into a vast river. So here, take these three Heads in the General, and at the first naming of them, so my work seems to lie in a very small compass; but when I come to make a further, and more distinct inquiry into them, truly there is a vast sea before me, where 'tis hard to find any bounds or limits. I shall go over them with as much brevity as the Subject will admit of, and as may best conduce to the great end, (the furtherance of Contentment.) The first means is Consideration. By which I understand, Of the past help, viz. Consideration. not only that which is rational and proper to a Man, (as a Man,) but that which is religious and divine; both together, but especially the latter, have a great influence upon contentment. Few do live Contentation, because few do act consideration: we are passionate, because we are inconsiderate. Were there but more considering doubtless there would be less murmuring. David said in his haste, All Men are liars; Men are hasty and sudden and indeliberate, Psal. 116.11. they do not duly weigh and ponder things, and thereupon passion and discontent prevail over them. 'TIs good advice, that in Eccles. 7.14. In the Day of adversity consider: when we meet with any thing which runs cross to our desires (which makes it a day of adversity,) did we but sit down and consider about the matter, this would much tend to the quieting of our spirits. Consideration is an excellent help to Contentation. He who is not thoughtful, will never learn the lesson of the Text. Discomposures of mind are not to be kept off by any Spells or Charms, but by solid and judicious consideration. But we must leave the General and come to Particulars; and now I am going out of the Straits and launching out into the main Ocean. The enquiry is, How is a Christian to manage consideration in order to his attaining of contentment? For your direction in this, I will 1. Set before you that special Matter, Directions how to manage Consideration in order to Contentment. which you are to consider upon for this end. 2. Instance in some of those common Cases, wherein Contentment, or Discontent are usually acted, and show, what those considerations are which are proper to each, for the promoting of the one, and the preventing of the other. 3. Speak a little to the Manner, wherein Consideraion is to be managed. For the first. Of the special matter of it. Would you know what is that special and proper Matter which your Consideration is to work upon, to further contentment in every state? then bring it to to these three Heads; Consider. 1. Who it is that orders the State. 2. What there is in the State itself. 3. The excellency of a contented frame. Who order the state, and how 'tis ordered. 1. Who it is that orders the estate: surely the Supreme, Sovereign, all disposing God. My times are in thy hands, Psal. 31.15. 'Tis so with every man in the world, and with every thing about every man; all is in God's hands. There is an hand above which directs all Events here below. He that numbers our hairs, orders our state. Good and Evil do not come by chance, or happen in a casual and fortuitous way; but both are disposed by God's Providence, and according to his Will. This we seem to give a full assent unto, and yet (in practice) we do either wholly forget it, or flatly deny it. My advice therefore is this; when at any time your hearts begin to storm and fret at your condition, pray sit down and seriously consider, who it is that orders that condition; let your thoughts dwell upon that, and see if it be not to your advantage for the suppressing of all undue perturbations of mind. Psal. 39.3. David tells us, while he was musing the fire burned (that is the fire of passion as many do expound it;) There is indeed a musing which tends to heart-disquietment, (when all our thoughts are taken up in poring upon that which troubles us;) but that musing (which I am now urging) hath a quite other effect; Vide Boeth, de Cons. Philos. l. 1 Prosa. 6. it will quench the fire, not kindle it, Methinks that Christian should not easily be disturbed at what befalls him, who considers, let it be what it will, it is all of God. What? believe and own a Providence, (as carving out every condition,) and yet be discontented? that's very sad! Is it fit for the Creature to be angry with God, as † Jon. 4.9. Is. 43.9. Rom. 9.20. Ionas was? shall man dispute with God? the clay say to the Potter, Why hast thou made me thus? must Providence be arraigned at our tribunal? and our Will clash with God's? by no means. There's all the Reason in the world, that whatsoever pleaseth God, should please the Creature. 'Tis the Lord, (saith * 1 Sam. 3.18. Eli) let him do what seems him good. I was dumb (saith † Psal. 39.9 David) and opened not my mouth, because thou Lord didst it. The Lord gave (saith † Job 1.21. Job) and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. I do not know a more effectual Help to stillness of Spirit, than the consideration of this, that all is ordered by God: And certainly he that is quiet and composed upon this, that frame demonstrates him to have not only a good, but a great and a noble spirit. 'Tis an excellent passage that of Seneca, † Magnus est animus qui se Deo tradidit, pusillus & degener qui ob. lectatur, & de ordine murdi malè existimat, & Deos mavult emendare quàm se. Ep. 107. 'Tis a great soul which surrenders up itself to God; but that's a poor low soul which contends, and thinks ill of the ordering of the world, and which would rather mend the Gods than itself. But here in our considering (in order to the having of the heart smooth and calm,) 'tis good to take in more; viz. not only to employ our thoughts upon the thing, but also upon the modification, and circumstances thereof; not only to think of this that all is ordered by God, but how and in what manner all is ordered by him. Oh this (if duly weighed and digested) would be of great efficacy to further Contentation. Now take an account of this in four things. 1. All is ordered by God irresistibly Is. 43.13. I will work, and who shall let? 'Tis applicable to God's providential deal with every single person in the world; these are carried on with such a mighty power, that 'tis a vain thing for any to go about to resist and hinder God in what he will do. If Man will be cross, and thwart and control him, what doth it signify? God's will shall be done for all that: He will do all his pleasure: there is no contending with him. Job 34.33. Should it be according to thy mind? he will recompense it, whether thou refuse or whether thou choose, etc. Christian! Thou passionately desirest such a mercy; thou shalt have it never the sooner for that: If God will bestow it, thou shalt have it; If he will withhold it, all thy earnestness and striving will do no good. Or thou wouldst fain have such an affliction removed; that will not do thy work: If God will take it off from thee, there's an end of it; If he will continue it, thou must bear it still. Humble Contentment may do much; but proud contending will do nothing. God knows what he hath to do, and he will not be hindered in what he sees fit to do. Pray therefore, whenever passion gins to rise in the soul, think of this speedily: If it be thus, that the tide of Providence will have its course, that there's no hindering of the Almighty and Soveraign-acting God, (for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him, Eccl. 8.3. and worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, Eph. 1.11.) than our Reason and judgement will tell us, that 'tis best to yield and submit to this God, and to comply with that which we cannot alter. 2. All is ordered by God righteously. He is righteous, and he doth nothing, but what is righteous; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen 18.251 Psal. 145.17. Rev. 15.3. Psal. 97.2. Job 34.23. the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works: Just and true are all thy ways, O thou King of Saints. Clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgement are the habitation of his Throne: He will not lay upon man more than right, that he should enter into judgement with God. This is an excellent subject for our Thoughts to dwell upon when any thing troubles us. Well may there be our contentment in every state, when there is God's righteousness in every state. Providence may sometimes be dark and mysterious, yet 'tis always just and righteous. God may sometimes cross us, but he never wrongs us. He doth not see it good in all our desires to gratify us; but 'tis good for us in all his dispensations to Psal. 51.4. Lam. 1.18. justify him. Doth he remove a mercy, which we have not forfeited? Doth he lay on an affliction, which we by sin have not deserved? and if so, doth it not become us to be silent before him? Lam. 3.39. Mic. 7.9. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin? Oh (saith the Church) I will bear the indignation of the Lord, for I have sinned against him. 'Tis a smart passage that in Prov. 19.3. The foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord: we provoke God to afflict us, and then we are angry with him; whereas we have reason only to be angry with our ourselves, our own sins being the procuring cause of all our miseries. We have often too just Grounds of being troubled with our own hearts, (because of their pride, carnality, unthankfulness, unbelief, etc. this is good discontent;) but we never have any just Grounds of being disturbed at what God doth; he being in all his actings holy and righteous. Bring it to this in your consideration, such a good I want, such an evil I feel; but is God unrighteous in either? surely no; For do I deserve the one, and do I not deserve the other? why then should I quarrel or fret against God? Discontent is a bold impeachment of God's righteousness; and is not that a thing of a very heinous nature, grounded upon the greatest falsehood that is imaginable? Oh take heed of it. When you are wronged, then complain; but do not do it till then, and then I am sure you'll never complain. In a word, let this Heart-quieting Consideration be much upon your thoughts, all is Righteously ordered by God; and therefore, all must be contentedly undergone by you. 3. All is ordered by God wisely; He's a God of Judgement, Isai. 30.18. We read of the rings, Ezek. 1.18. that they were full of eyes; take the several rounds, and wind of Providence, they are all full of wisdom. As God at the first made all things with infinite wisdom, Psal. 104.24. so he doth also dispose and govern all things with infinite wisdom. And this holds true, not only with respect to the whole Creation, in the general lump and mass thereof; but also with respect to every part and parcel of the Creation: especially to man, and to every individual man in the world. Now if this was believed and considered, it could not but much conduce to make us contented in every condition; for certainly it must be most absurd folly in us to find fault with, or dislike that which is done by God in admirable wisdom. In our worldly affairs, wherein we have to do wtth men, if we apprehend them to be persons endued with understanding and prudence, we can upon this wholly refer ourselves and our Concerns to them, and quietly acquiesce in what they advise and order. The Patient likes the Physic (though never so nauseous) which his skilful Physician prescribes: If the Pilot be skilful, the passenger saith, Let him alone, he knows how to order the vessel; (and so in several other Instances:) And why do not we in all our Concerns carry it thus towards God, whose wisdom and faithfulness doth infinitely transcend what is in man? shall we not contentedly rest in what he sees to be fittest and best for us? Vain man would be wise, Job 11.12. he thinks he could order things better than God doth; he will be finding faults in God's disposal of him; but this his wisdom is the highest folly. What a wise Choice doth God always make for men? the Saints shall see it when they come to Heaven, if not before; may they not therefore quietly resign up themselves to him, saying Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us, (as 'tis, Psal. 47.4.)? On the other hand; what a sad choice do men make for themselves, when in their discontent they will be their own choosers? Rachel must have a Child, or she dies; she had her desire, but it cost her her life. Jacob cannot stay God's time for the blessing; by which hastiness, in what a world of troubles did he involve himself? Poor Creature! thou needest nothing more to undo thee, than to be left to choose thy own condition. Didst thou but consider this, wouldst thou not be contented when the wise God chooseth for thee? Qui create noverat, ordinare non noverat? Aug. Reason with thyself in secret thus, Did God know how to make my person, and doth he not know how to order my condition? He that hath wisdom enough to steer the great Vessels of the World and of the Church, hath he not wisdom enough to steer my little Boat? He that hath by an unerring Providence brought so many Saints safe to Heaven, doth he not know the best way to bring me safe thither also? shall he mistake in my case, who never yet, in all the works that hwe passed through his hands, was guilty of the least mistake? I say reason thus, and 'tis to be hoped this will lay all storms of passion. Oh what a blessed security of mind should we have in every state, did we but live in the steady belief, and ferious considrration of God's unsearchable wisdom! 4. All is ordered by God graciously. Psal. 25.10, All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant, and his testimonies. Is it Poverty, Pain, Sickness, loss of Relations, worldly crosses? all is in mercy, or in order to mercy to God's Covenant-people. I do not say, that all is mercy to these formally (as to the things themselves which befall them,) but I say all is mercy, or in order to mercy. Afflictions are not mercy in their formal nature, but they are of mercy originally (they coming from God's love,) and for mercy finally, (God by them designing good, and nothing but good to them that love him.) This is a thing in special to be thought of by those who belong to God; Others have the Sovereignty and Righteousness of God to awe them, but Saints have the mercy and goodness of God to work their hearts to a quiet submission to his Will. And how much is there in this for the furtherance of such a frame of heart in them, could they but by consideration draw it out and work it home upon the soul! What? a Child of God to vex and fret at this, or that? when all is intended for his good, and shall be for good to him? (according to that great Promise Rom. 8.28.) God always knows what is best for his (such is his wisdom,) and he always doth what is best for his (such is his mercy:) what a heart composing meditation is this! There's much in the other Attributes before mentioned to suppress inward perturbations; but there's more in that which I am now upon. Is mercy and goodness the ingredient in every condition? then be it never so bitter, the sense of this must needs sweeten it. Is all ordered by a Father? in love? not to hurt men, but to do them good? Oh, why then should I give way to discontent? The truth is, it is too low for the Saints in every state barely to be content; there's something higher that they should come up unto, namely to rejoice evermore in the Lord, and in every thing to be giving thanks. Phil. 4 4. 1 Thes. 5.18. So much for the first thing that I would have you fix upon, as the special matter of your Consideration, in order to the learning of Contentment: And I beseech you put it in practice: when ever heart-disquietment gins to rise in you, sit down, consider, pause upon it, Who it is that orders your Condition? and how he order it? irresistibly, righteously, wisely, graciously. 2. Secondly; Act your Consideration upon the state itself in which you are; Consideration about the state itself. for out of that much may be fetched to further Contentment. Paul (our great Instance in the Text) weighed and considered every state into which he was brought, and by that means he learned in every state to be content. Let us take the same course, and (through the blessing of God) we shall find the same effect. How is a Christian to manage Consideration with respect to his state? I answer, 1. Let him consider that his state is mixed. It's neither purely good, 'Tis mixed. nor purely evil, but there's a mixture of the one with the other; 'tis sweet and bitter mingled together: 'Tis not all mercy (that's reserved for Heaven;) nor all misery (that's reserved for Hell;) but something of both (that's proper to the middle state of earth) Eccl. 7.14, God hath set the one over against the other (Prosperity and Adversity, Comforts and Crosses, Mercies and Afflictions,) to the end that man should find nothing after him (so as to find fault with what God doth, or to say this and that might have been better ordered by him.) Now if men would but let their thoughts dwell upon this, how would it tend to the quieting of their minds in every Condition! For shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil? Job 2.10. Especially when we consider, (1.) That the good is much more than the evil; and (2.) That the evil is our desert, the good of mere grace. We take but a partial view of our condition, eyeing the dark side of it only, and then we vex and repine under it: whereas did we view the whole, and think of our mercies as well as of our afflictions, we should not carry it so disingenuously towards God. Hezekiah had a sad message sent to him, but he received it with all submission; because there was a mixture of mercy in it; Isa. 39.8, Good is the word of the Lord, etc. for there shall be peace and truth in my days. There's (o) Acquiescendum conditioni suae, & quam minimè de illa querendum; & quicquid habet circa se commodi apprehenden dum est. Nihil tam acerbum est, in quo non aequus animus solatium inveniat. Sen. de Tranq. Anim. & ad Helvid: c. 10. no state so sad, in which a good man may not pick out something to comfort and quiet him: therefore, Christian, deal wisely, and faithfully in this, set the good against the bad, and there will be no discontent. 2. This is to be thought of, be the estate what it will, 'tis but common: whatsoever your troubles are, you have many sharers and companions therein. * 1 Kin. 19 14, 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Euripid. vide Plut. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 475. The Prophet fancied he was left alone (which made him the more froward in his condition;) but God told him he had reserved some thousands in Israel, who had not bowed their knees to Baal: And so some in their trials are apt to think they are alone, their case is singular, none so crossed, so afflicted as they; when God knows, there are many thousands who drink of the same Cup. 1 Cor. 10.13, There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to men; (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉:) 1 Pet. 5.9. Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. If this was but considered by persons under afflictions, their Spirits would not be so disturbed as they are; when 'tis but with me as 'tis with others, why should not I be content? men will quietly submit to that which is the lot of others as well as their own; Far quam sortem patiuntur omnes Nemo recusat. The Greek Tragedian brings in one as heightening his misery, and crying out, Woe is me! but why (saith he) Woe is me, when we suffer nothing but what is incident to all Mortals? Did we but in time of need revive this upon our thoughts, it would much alleviate our grief and obviate all heart-disquietment. That which is proper to the present life. 3. This state doth but agree and suit with the present life. Thou canst not expect it should be much better whilst thou art here below; consider this and be content. We forget where we are, and look for that here on earth which we cannot have; and this betrays us to impatience and discontent. Did we but remember and urge it upon ourselves, that this life is the time of Trials; that we are born to trouble here; that 'tis vanity to expect rest, and ease, and comfort, and felicity in this world; surely we should not be much disturbed at any trouble that doth befall us: Shall Israel, when in the Wilderness, murmur, if there they meet with hardship? Shall they who are at Sea be angry, if they meet with storms? shall the Traveller be offended at a little bad way? in the lower region would we have nothing but serenity and calmness? 'Tis a thing no less foolish and absurd, for Christians to be discomposed in their minds, if here troubles and afflictions seize upon them: Alas! these are inseparable from the present life. 4. No state is so bad as it might be: ponder upon that, It might be worse. and it will teach you in every state to be content. 'Tis bad, but it might be worse; yea, it is worse with many: their wants are more pinching than thine, their pains more acute than thine, their losses greater than thine, etc. thou hast cause rather to be thankful than impatient, in as much as a lesser evil carries mercy in it. But why do I instance in these lower matters? thy state is an afflicted state, but it is not a damned estate; 'tis chastening, but 'tis not condemning; 'tis some temporary cross, but 'tis not the everlasting curse; 'tis affliction for a moment, but 'tis not eternal misery: It might be Hell, separation from God for ever, burning in that fire which is unquenchable; thou that art freed from these tremendous things, wilt thou fret because of some petty trials or calamities? Oh think of this, and be still. Shall the malefactor fret at his Judge for sentencing him to some corporal punishment, when he might have passed the sentence of death upon him? shall the offending son be angry with his father for correcting him, when he might have disinherited him? Oh Christian! this is thy case towards God; act thy reason and consideration upon it to suppress all passion. 3. The third thing, Consideration of the frame of contentment. that thoughts must dwell upon and be employed about in order to Contentment, is Contentment itself; in considering what an happy and excellent frame that is. And indeed the due consideration of what it is to be Content, as è contra what it is to be discontented, is not only a strong motive but also a very proper means to further the exercise and practice of Contentment. As to the large handling of this subject (the excellency of a contented frame,) I must not engage therein, (for that I refer you to others, who have done it fully;) I will but hint a few things for your thoughts to work upon as occasion shall require: Contentment therefore, 1. Is a frame that carries much grace in it. 'Tis a holy, 'Tis a gracious frame. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Laert. in vit. Epicuri. Gen. 32.10. good and gracious temper of Soul: It speaks the creature to have a due sense of God in his Sovereignty, righteousness, wisdom, goodness, etc. It speaks the creature to have a due sense of what he is in himself, a poor, vile, worthless nothing, less than the least of all the mercies of God. It speaks the due subjection of the creatures' Will to the Will of his Creator, and that he lives in an entire surrender and resignation of himself to the dispose of his Maker. Is not this holy and gracious? wherein doth grace more show itself than in such things as these? Contentment evidenceth much grace, Discontentment much sin. The former is a compound of several graces, the latter a compound of several sins; In a contented frame there's Humility, Faith, Hope, Patience, Heavenly-mindedness, Crucifixion to the world, etc. in a discontented frame, there's Pride, Unbelief, Impatience, Carnality, nay practical Atheism itself. The truth is, contentment is better than any comfort which we want, Discontent is worse than any evil which we feel: no outward enjoyment is comparable to the good of the one, no outward affliction is comparable to the evil of the other. Highly pleasing to God. 2. ItsIts a frame highly pleasing to God. When a man is once brought to this, to lay himself and all his Concerns at God's feet, to say It is the Lord, let him do (with me and mine) what seems him good, I'll like well of whatsoever he doth; O this pleaseth God greatly. We are well pleasing to him, when his Providences are well pleasing to us. The discontented Person is angry with God; for which to be sure God is angry with him. Nothing provokes God more than a murmuring and fretful spirit; nothing pleases him more than a quiet Spirit. Great advantages so ourselves. 3. The advantages of it to ourselves are very great; it fills with comfort. He never wants comfort that lives Contentment. A contented spirit is ever a cheerful spirit. 'Tis an heaven upon earth, (as the opposite to it is an Hell upon earth.) 'Tis the mind at rest in every condition. A contented man hath not only the comfort of what he hath, but also of what he hath not. What he wants in outward possession is made up to him in inward submission. It fits for Duty: Lord! When the heart is repining and mutinying against God, how unfit is a man for Duty! but when the spirit is still and quiet, all is done well. Passion unfits us for converse with men, much more for converse with God in holy Duties. 'Tis sad praying, when discontent prevails. Animus aequus optimum est aerumnae condimentum, Plaut. It always procures that very mercy which we desire, or some other that is better for us. Discontent makes us to lose what we have; Contentment gets us what we want. Fretting never removed a Cross nor procured a comfort; quiet submission doth both. The Father continues to correct the froward Child, but when once it yields and is quiet, he gives it any thing. It sweetens every bitter Cup. This ingredient takes off the bitterness of every State, (as the wood cast by Moses did the bitterness of the Waters.) Nothing can come amiss to him, that hath learned to be content. Many such advantages do accrue from Contentment: but as to the contrary vice, 'tis a thing greatly mischievous. 'Tis a sad inlet to Sin: what will not a man do, when he is under the power of discontent? he'll shift for himself, use unlawful means, do any thing to better his condition; if nothing will do this for him, he can even lay violent hands upon himself; (Oh that we had not too many sad examples of this)! 'Tis a sad preparation to all temptations: the Devil will be sure to be fishing where the waters are troubled; as Flies settle upon the galled back, so the Tempter betakes himself to the man that is in pain with his condition. It deprives of Happiness; for the discontented person always thinks himself miserable, and so he can never be happy: Nemo felix est, qui suo judicio miser est; (Salvian. de Provide.) It exposes to dreadful judgements: What severe punishments did the Israelites murmuring bring upon them? (Read Numb. 14. per. tot. Psal. 106.24, 25. 1 Cor 10.10. Now if these things were but laid to heart, and seriously considered by Christians, would not the consideration thereof much conduce to their attaining and living of Contentment? Certainly the due fixing and working of the thoughts upon the excellency of this frame, of the Sin and evil of the contrary frame, would be of great use, and very effectual towards the composing and quieting of their spirits, in every condition. Suppose it pleaseth the Lord so or so to afflict me, to exercise me with such or such things, which are very cross to my desires, and hereupon I find my heart to begin to be moved; what's now to be done to prevent the further growth of Passion? why I'll retire, and weigh with myself what a gracious temper of Soul contentment is, what a sinful and cursed temper of Soul discontent is; how much I shall please God and profit myself by the one, how much I shall offend God and prejudice myself by the other: this my thoughts shall stay upon, and I'll reason with myself, Why art thou, O my Soul, thus disquieted within me? Psal. 42.11. This is the Course which I resolve to take in my afflicted condition to keep my heart still and composed, hoping that God will bless it to the end. Ay and so do, for 'tis a good one; and many by experience have found the benefit of it. But to close this Head; We are undone for want of Consideration; the world groans under the mischievous effects of inconsideracy (which might be made out in several particulars;) I shall go no furthered than that one thing, which I am upon. Whence is it that there is amongst Men, amongst Professors, so little of Contentment? that so few have learned in every state to be content? that impatience, repining, quarrelling with God, discontent, are so epidemical? that the most live in the dislike of their condition? I say, whence is this? I answer, 'tis (in a great measure) from the general neglect of Consideration. Can we but bring men to this, Contentation would not be so rare a thing as now it is. I do not assert this one Means to be sufficient, but (believe me) it would go very far. Well, as any of you desire for the time to come to be, as here Paul was, whenever any thing troubles you, see that you fall upon consideration; and draw it to these three Heads, Who order your state, How your state is circumstantiated, What the frame itself is. So much for the first thing in the Direction, the special Matter upon which Consideration is to be acted in order to Contentment. I go on to the second, Particular cases wherein Consideration is to be acted in order to Contentment. viz. to instance in some of those special Cases unto which contentment doth mainly refer; and to show, how Consideration is to be managed to help on the practice of the Duty in each of them. I have (in what hath gone before) seldom made any particular mention of these Instances, because I designed to speak particularly and apart to them under this Head. To speak to all (and that too according to the copiousness of the subject) would be a vast work; I shall only single out some few of the most usual Cases, and be also but very brief upon them. Heart-inquietude or Discontent doth too often arise from what is in and about the inner man, and is of a spiritual nature; as lowness of gifts, weakness of grace, the continuance and strength of sin, temptations by Satan, God's withdrawings, want of Assurance and of the Comforts of the Spirit, (and the like.) But most commonly it ariseth from things of a worldly nature, wherein the outward part is concerned, (for that is our tenderest part, and therefore, if we be troubled there, we are most apt to complain:) such as lowness of Estate, crosses in Relations, bodily Infirmities, badness of the Times, injuries and bad usages of Men, meanness of rank and Quality in the world, etc. These are the things which usually disturb and disquiet us: But now for each of them, there is that Consideration which is proper for the settling and composing of our minds: I must speak only to the two first, Lowness of Estate. As to lowness of Estate, how is the world filled with Discontent about that? Poverty is an affliction which few do with patience undergo: When the belly pines, the backstarves, 'tis hard to keep the heart in a submissive frame. 'Tis an easy matter, for them that are full to advise them that are in want to be content; but if they themselves were in wants, they would not find it so easy a matter to follow their own advice. To live Faith and Patience under straits as to worldly things, is sooner spoken of than done. The several discontents of several men about worldly things. But to take in more than what th●s Head (in strictness) leads me to, (because I would speak a little to the several discontents of men about their earthly Estates,) I will consider them as thus diversified: Some are poor indeed, having little or nothing of this world's goods; some have a competency; some have abundance, but yet they are not satisfied; and some lose what once they had: Now all of these (though in different circumstances) are to endeavour after contentment; how? by Consideration. How is that to be managed? thus: Such who are in poverty, what they are to consider of in order to contentment. 1. Is extreme poverty the case? Consider then, 1. The Lord maketh poor and he maketh rich, 1 Sam. 2.7. God measures out to every person his proportion of these things. He makes what Dividend, and gives what Allowance he pleases to every man in the world. Is this considered? I wish we could see it, in the calmness of their minds who are under a low estate. The Father divides his estate among his children, giving to every one of them his share (more or less) as he thinks meet, and this being his act and will, they all submit and acquiesce therein: And shall your heavenly Father's allotting to you what he thinks meet signify nothing to the making of you contentedly to rest in his will? may not this great dispenser of Blessings do with his own what he pleaseth? 2. None so poor but they have more than what they deserve. Who can claim or challenge any thing at God's hands? surely he that merits nothing must not murmur because he hath but little. Thy apparel is very mean, thy diet is very course, thy habitation very uncomfortable; be it so, yet even in these there is mercy; 'tis from the wisdom of God that thou hast no better, from the mercy of God that thou hast so good. Mat. 20.15. 3. As low as you are in these things, hitherto the Lord hath provided for you and yours; and assuredly (you being his people, walking in his fear, trusting of him) he will still provide. You have in the promise what you want in the visible estate. Discontent is in part founded in distrust; take but this out of the heart, and the other vanisheth. Now why should God's poor (I sp●ak only of such) distrust his provision? what abundant assurance hath he given thereof? read Psal. 73.3. Psal. 39.10. Psal. 111.5. Mat. 6.25. ad finem cap. Rom. 8.32. Heb. 13.5. with many other Scriptures. 4. A little with God's blessing will go very far, and do very well: Psal. 132. 15. I will abundantly bless her provision, I will satisfy her poor with bread. Exod. 23.25. Ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread and water. Daniel (and his companions) fed upon nothing but pulse and water, and yet their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh, than all the children which did eat the King's meat, Dan. 1.12.15. 1 Kin. 17.12. The widow was reduced to a low ●bb, there was left but a little oil in the cruse and a little meal in the barrel; yet these held out, and the more she spent of them the more they increased: what strange things are done with small pittances where the blessing of God is! 5. The Saints Little is better than the Sinner's All. Prov. 15.16. Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith, Psal. 37.16. A little that a righteous man hath, is better than the riches of many wicked. 6. No man can judge of God's love or hatred by these things; for he often * Eccles. 9.1. Et iratus dat, & propitius negat Aug. gives riches to those whom he hates, and denies them to those whom he loves. 'Tis very usual, for those who have most of his love to have least of worldly things: Joseph and Mary themselves could bring but a pair of Turtle doves (the poor man's offering,) Luke 2.24. Nay how poor was our Lord himself! The foxes have holes, etc. Math. 8.20. 2 Cor. 8.9. 7. God keeps you low in earthly possessions, but how is it with you in higher and better things? You are poor without, are you not rich † Intus dives, foris Pauper; Pauper in cella, dives in conscientia; arcam respicis au●o inanem, conscientiam respice Deo plenam. Aug. in Psal. 36. In animo divitiae sunt, non in patrimonio. Senec. within? Prov. 13.7, There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. Rev. 2.9. I know thy poverty, but thou art rich. No riches like to Soul-riches; To be rich in faith, Jam. 2.5. in good works, 1 Tim. 6.18. towards God, Luk. 12.21. this is to be rich indeed: Mountains of gold are nothing to one dram of true grace in the Soul. 8. You think God is strait-handed towards you in temporal; but is he not abundantly gracious in spiritual and eternal blessings? He denies the pebble, but gives you the pearl, withholds shadows and trifles, but gives you what is solid and substantial; you have not worldly wealth, but you have the Pardon of sin, the Love of God, Adoption, Union with Christ, etc. You have no inheritance here, but you are heirs of the * Dejectae mentis est, qui familiaris rei meminit cum vocatur ad regnum, Chrysolog. Serm. 22. Kingdom, Jam. 2.5. the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not, away (1 Pet. 1.4.) is yours; you have little in the stream, but all in the fountain; God is yours, and in him † Semper est dives Christiana paupertas, quia plus est quod habet quà●● quod non habet; nec pavet injusto mundo indigentiâ laborare, cui donatum est in omnium rerum Don into omnia possidere. Leo. Serm. 4. de Quadrag. Su●h who have better Estates, what are they to consider in order to contentment? all is yours. And are these things true? certainly than you have no reason to complain or to be discontented because of your poverty. Pray, under heart-rising because of this, turn your thoughts upon what hath been hinted, work these and such like Considerations home upon your hearts, be intent upon them, weigh them throughly; and I hope this will very much settle and quiet your spirits under the lowness of your Estates. 2. Secondly, There are Some with whom it is much better; they have a good Allowance from God, a comfortable supply in these things, so that they want nothing convenient or necessary: Nay there are some who abound in wealth, riches flow in upon them, their coffers are full of silver and gold, their incomes vast and great; and yet neither of these have learned to be content, no not in their good state. Discontentedness lodges not only in the breasts of them who have nothing, but of some who have a competency, yea of some who have abundance of these things: both are dissatisfied with their Condition, as thinking they have not enough, and therefore are full of vexatious desires after more. Now if this be your condition without, and your frame within, then 'tis a most necessary Enquiry, how and wherein you are to act Consideration so, as thereby to arrive at contentment? For answer to which I shall direct you to a few things: Consider therefore, 1. The greatness of the sin of discontent in you above what it is in the persons spoken of before. 'Tis in them who want what is necessary very sinful; but in you to whom God is so good and bountiful, 'tis out of measure sinful. We blame the beggar that is angry, though we give him nothing; but if we give him something (be it never so little,) especially if we give liberally to him, and yet he grumbles and repines, this aggravates his crime exceedingly: So here, 'tis a great sin in the poorest to murmur against the Lord; but in you, to whom he is so liberal (at least to give you enough,) the sin is much greater. This speaks you to be guilty of prodigious ingratitude to God, and of very inordinate love to the world, (both of which are sins of a crimson tincture.) 2. How contented and thankful would many be, if it was but with them, as it is with you! Had they but pence for your shillings, shillings for your pounds, Quàm multos esse conjectas, qui sese caelo proximos arbitrentur, si de fortunae tuae reliquiis pars iis contingat; Both de Cons; Phil. l. 2. pr. 4. and pounds for your hundreds, they would think themselves well provided for, and serve the Lord with joyfulness: Nay, you yourselves in your first entrance upon the world, when your beginnings were very low, when (Jacob like) you had little more than a staff in your hands; Gen. 32.10. did not you then think, if you might but have that measure of worldly things which now you have, you would look upon God as dealing very graciously with you? And now he hath answered your expectations and desires, and yet you are not contented. 3. Christians are to bond their desires after things below, not to seek great things for themselves here, Jer. 45.5. If God will give them but what is necessary, they are not to quarrel for the want of what is superfluous. The Covenant-indenture goes no further than food and raiment; therefore, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidor. Nihil habet dives de divitiis nisi quod ab illo postulat pauper, victum & vestitum: caetera omnia superflua sunt. August. de Verb. Dom. Cibus & potus sunt divitiae Christianorum. Hieron. having food and raiment let us be therewith content, 1 Tim. 6.8. Jacob went no higher than those, Gen. 28.20, 21. Christ directs us to go no further in our prayers than daily bread, Math. 6.11. If we may be supplied with these, we have no reason to be discontented for the withholding of what is more. A competency is all that we can or should expect. The Israelites murmur if they have not Quails, Manna would not content them: they had their Quails, but they had better have been without them. 4. A little sufficeth Nature, less sufficeth Grace; Satis est populis fluviusque Ceresque Lucan. Cito expletur naturae necessitas; frigus & fames simplici vestitu & cibo expelli potest. Hieron. in Jovin. Ad manum est quod sat est; Senec. Parabile & expositum quod natura desiderat. Id. Quod naturae satis est, homini non est Id. Ep. 119. Discite quàm parvo liceat producere vitam. Lucan. but Covetousness is never satisfied. Was it not for this, how happy might we be, and always say, as to God's allowance, 'tis enough? Nature is content, Grace is thankful, Corruption only is ravenous and querulous. 5. A great and overgrown estate is not the best estate; which if mwn did consider, they would not be greedy to have it or discontented upon the not having of it. As to the truth of this, do but set Ambition and Avarice aside, and let Reason, Experience, prudent Observation be consulted, and the thing will be unquestionable. Optimus pecuniae modus est, qui nec in paupertatem cedit, nec procol à paupertate discedit. Sen. de Tranq. animi. There is a middle state (both as to honour and riches) which certainly is the best state. Agur made a wise choice, when he prayed, Give me neither poverty, nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me, Prov. 30.8. A full estate is not best for Duty; for we often see (through the naughtiness of men's hearts,) that they who have most in the way of Mercy do least in the way of Duty. I deny not, but that some who are very rich are also very good, living in all due picty towards God, and doing much good in their places towards men (and 'tis pity it should be otherwise;) but I fear this conjunction is somewhat rare. The ground that lies lowest usually is most fruitful; the earth that hath the richest mines in it commonly is most barren: Who serves God less than they who are most wealthy? (to their shame be it spoken.) You would have more of this world, and fret that God keeps you so much under; alas! you know not what you desire: had you more it would be hurtful, if the estate was better the heart would be worse. Again, Eccl. 5.13. as 'tis not best for Duty, so neither for Safety: who are exposed to so many dangers as they who swim in earthly treasures? Saepius ventis agitatur i●gens Pinus, etc. Horat. The higher is the building the more 'tis endangered by fierce winds; great Vessels strike where lesser go with safety; the Ship that Sails with a full wind, and all its fails up, is apt to overset; such who feed high are in most danger of Fevers and Surfeits: Every condition hath its snares, but the high condition is exceeding full of them. And (once more,) 'tis not the best for Comfort: the poor envy the rich when in truth they have more cause to pity them. Oh the cares, distractions, hurries that they live under! In all their great enjoyments how little do they enjoy either God or themselves! Pauperes diti●ribus eo plerumque laet●ores, quò animus eorum in paucioribus distringitur Sen. ad Helvid. c. 12 (and can any state be comfortable without these?) Luk. 12.15. Take heed of Covetousness; for a man's life (i. e. the comfort of his life) consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. Tantis parta malis cu●á majore metúque Servantur; misera est magni custodia census. Juven. Sat 14. The easiness of the garment or shoe doth not lie in its bigness, but in its fitness: And so, 'tis not the greatness of the Estate that gives comfort; but the suiting of the mind and of the elate (be it what it will.) There often is that serenity of mind in a poor cottage which is not enjoyed in the stately palace: The mean man sleeps better on a hard bed than he who lies upon his bed of down; and there is a more cheerful spirit where the fare is course than where there are the greatest dainties. You fond imagine, could you but screw up your estates to such an height, than you should (and would) live with comfort: but (I pray you) why may you not do so now, under what you have already? (as that Commander answered Pyrrhus, designing so and so to enlarge his conquests which when he had done than he would fit down and be quiet and live merrily:) should you arrive at what you aspire after, you would find yourselves then to be as far from what you promise to yourselves as now you are. It appearing then that the great Estate is not the best, why should any vex and be disturbed because that is denied to them? Cui cum paupertate bene convenit dives est. Sen. Non qui parum habet, sed qui pl●s cupit, pauper est. Idem. Ep. 2. Nihil interest utrum non desideres an habes, Ep. 119. Desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia. Ep 108, Nunquam parum est quod satis est, nunquam multum est quod satis non est. Ep. 119.— Semper inops quicunque cupit— Claud. Multa petentibus desunt multa; bene est cui Deus obtulit parcâ quod satis est manu, Horat.— etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— Plato. 6. The contented man is never poor (let him have never so little,) the discontented man is never rich (let him have never so much.) He is not rich who possesseth much, but he who desires no more than what God gives him. The way to be rich indeed, is not to increase the wealth but to lessen the covet of the heart after more: He that is ever desiring is ever wanting, and he that is ever wanting is ever poor. 7. What are these earthly riches that any should be thus insatiably greedy of them? Surely there's but little in them (fancy, mistakes, ignorance, being laid aside:) they are no better than unsatisfying, perishing, uncertain things; Eccles. 5.10. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. Men may fill their bags and chests with silver nnd gold, but they cannot with them fill their Souls: no, the Soul is a thing too great to be filled with such little things as these are. Had you all that you desire you would be but where you are, dissatisfied still; for your * Auri naque fames parto fit major ab auro. Prudent. Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam, Majorumque fames Horat. Inflammatur lucro avaritia, non restinguitur. Ambros. desires would still grow as fast as your riches should grow; yet more must be had, and that is the banc of satisfaction. † Est vat insoelix augusto limit mundi. Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis. Alexander could conquer the World, but the world could not satisfy him; he wept because there was no more worlds to conquer: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation. I say too, they are perishing and uncertain things; that's the Epithet of the Apostle, trust not in uncertain riches, 1 Tim. 6.17. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings, they fly away as an Eagle towards heaven. This we see verified every day; and if so, doth it become a man, much more a Christian, to be discontented because he hath but little of such vain things as these are? Methinks such should scorn to have their generous minds discomposed for such trifles. 8. As they are dying things, so we are dying Persons. What though we be straitened in them? 'tis not necessary our Estates should be very large when our Lives are not like to be very long. A little money serves the Traveller that hath but a short journey to go; Parum viae, quid multum viatici? Might we either always live, or when we die carry with us into another world what we have laid up in this, than our greediness of these things would be more excusable: but neither of these are to be expected. Job 1.21. Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. 1 Tim. 6.7. For we brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. Grace will accompany us into the other World, but other things must be all left behind. And (which I would further add) Is it not stupendious folly for dying men (who yet have never-dying souls) to trouble themselves so much about dying things? have not they other things to mind? and should not all their sollicitudes be employed about those things? such as the things above, Col. 3.1. Math 6.33. Math. 6.20. the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, treasures in Heaven, etc. If eternal things and the eternal state was but thought of, every state here would be good enough. 9 The less any have, the less they are to account for at the Great Day. Every man is accountable to God for what he hath of this world's good; for that is but a Trust, and he that is the Lord and owner of all will reckon with men how this trust is fulfilled: and according to the proportion which they are entrusted with so will the account be taken: They therefore who have great Estates, and do but little good with them, will have a sad account to make at the Great Day. Now how little is this considered? We are always grasping at more, not considering that the more we have the more we stand accountable for when we shall be judged. Do we improve what we have? if we do not, 'tis mercy that the Lord entrusts us with no more. One Talon will be too much if that be not traded for God: why then should we be angry if we have not five? All would live in large houses, but will they be able to pay the Rent that such houses are set at? if not 'tis better for them to content themselves with a meaner habitation: and so 'tis with the thing which I am upon. Many at the Great Day will rejoice they had no more, whilst many will wish they had not had so much. 10. To conclude this Head, doth any man better his Estate by discontent? Plutarch, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is that the way to improve it? certainly No; It often makes us to lose what we have, but it never gets us what we want, (as was said before in the general.) In the distribution of his blessings God will not be dealt with in this way. He that will eat or drink more than what is sufficient, often vomits up all; so he that will have more than what God sees convenient for him, loseth all by this greediness. I have been large upon this because of the Commonness of discontent in this Case, and the exceeding great sinfulness of it. You whom the Lord hath blessed with competent Estates, especially You whom the Lord hath blessed with full Estates, be sure you learn and live contentment: and whenever the heart gins to be unquiet about the proportion allotted to you go over in your thoughts what hath been propounded for you to consider of, and I trust you will find good by it. 3. There is a third Case, viz. Some have lost what once they had, C nsideration to further Contentment under L●sses. or God pursues them in the way of their Callings with Loss upon Loss. This is a trial under which means hearts are prone to be inflamed; 'tis no easy thing to bear it with patience and contentment: Especially when losses come thick and go very deep; Cogita●dum est quanto levior dolor sit non habere quam perdere, & intelligemus paupertati eo minorem tormentorum quo minorem damnorum esse materiam: Senec. de Tr-An. Tolerabilius est faciliusque non acquirere, quam amittere; ideoque laetiores videbis quos nunquam fortuna respexit, quam quos deseruit, idem ibid. when a considerable part of the estate is taken away, nay (as it often falls out) the whole: Oh! this is greatly afflictive and wounds the spirits of men very much. Of the two, we find it by experience an easier matter to be contented under that poverty which a person hath always been in, than under that which he is brought into by some severe interposures of Providence: Former plenty puts more bitterness into present penury; 'tis a greater affliction (to common sense) to have an estate and to lose it, than to be without an estate where it was never had; this fuisse foelicem is a great aggravation of misery. But to the thing itself; It pleased the Lord lately to lay this City in ashes; and O how great, how universal were the losses then sustained! your houses were burnt down, many of your goods consumed by the merciless flames, the great supports of your livelihood removed; and many thousands of you had that Wound then given you that you must halt of all your days: Since that you feel the sad effects of War, losses at Sea, decay of Trade, etc. upon which it is not with you as formerly it was; there's a great diminution in your estates. Now was, and is, all this undergone with contentment? In these dispensations of Providences have you learned contentment? would to God it was so! If it be not so as yet, I would desire you to fall upon Consideration; and I hope for the future it will be so. How, or wherein is Consideration to be acted, so as that under worldly losses you may be contented? why thus: Consider: God's hand is in them, and they all issue out of his will. Men may be the instruments, but that's all; they do but accomplish that which God will have to be done. Therefore whatever thy loss be, for the matter and degree of it, however it befalls thee, eye God in it, see it as ordained and ordered by him; let thy thoughts fix upon this, and thy heart will not dare to murmur. What are thy losses to those which Job underwent? all was swept away from him in a moment; yet he considered the Supreme Agent in all this, and this kept down all passion, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken, Job. 1.21. Abstulit, sed & dedit. Sen. Ep. 64. Hos. 2.9. blessed be the name of the Lord: O (saith he) 'tis the Lord, and the Lord who gave; I submit. May not the great Sovereign of the world do with us and ours what he pleaseth? may not he diminish and withdraw all our blessings as he he sees good? he that gives may not he take? hath not he a greater propriety in what we have than we ourselves? It being his corn, his wine, his wool and flax, may not he dispose of it at his pleasure? doth it not become us contentedly to * Quandocunque redde●e jubebitur, non queretur cum fortunâ, sed dicet, gratias ago pro eo quod possedi habuique Idem de Tranq. An. return what he sees meet to lend us but for such a time? Pray think of this, or you'll never learn in a losing state to be content. 2. Possibly something is taken away, but all is not; more is left than what is taken: He that might have stripped thee to nakedness hath only cut off a skirt of thy garment; hast thou any reason to fret against the Lord? (that would be highly base and dilingenuous:) He to whom all was forfeited takes but a part instead of the whole; surely thou art not to impeach his justice, but to admire his goodness, 3. Whenever we meet with these rebukes 'twould be well to consider, whether we did not need them? A full diet is naught for distempered bodies, 1 Pet. 1.6. therefore these Physician prescribes a more sparing diet. When we are full fed with these comforts, have no losses or crosses in the world, we are apt to grow proud, secure, wanton, to forget God, to cast off Duty, to dream of an earthly paradise, to say its good being here, to neglect spiritual and divine things; 'tis high time therefore for God by these ways to cut us short, thereby to reduce us to a little better temper of soul. If the sap run out too much into the branches, there's no way to preserve the root but by the cutting off the luxuriant branches. God will have a thousand Estates to be lost rather than that one soul should be lost: the burning of Cities is nothing, if that be necessary to the saving of souls. 4. Suppose all be lost, in that All we lost but little; for the All of this world is but one remove from a mere Nothing. Perdidit infoelix totum nil is applicable to the losses of the rich as well as of the poor. Is there any thing in this but what might be expected from the nature of the thing? therefore there should be no disturbance about it. Who will be concerned at the melting of snow? what wise man will be moved for the breaking of a glass? 'Tis strange that a Jonah should be in such a pet for the withering of a gourd; Prov. 27.24. Riches are not for ever, and doth the Crown endure to every generation? 1 Cor. 7.31. The fashion of this world passeth away. All the estate here is made up of Movables: that usual distinction which is good in Law is not so in Divinity. 5. Again, thou sayest all is lost, — perdiderat omnia quae dederat Deus; sed hahuit ipsem qui omnia dederat Deum. August. but if thou be'st a child of God the best is yet secure. God, and Christ, and Grace, and Heaven are yet thine; and no loss is very considerable so long as these are safe. O believer! in all thy losses be quiet and cheerful; God who is thy portion is the same for ever. Job lost all he had from God, but God himself he did not lose; and in him he had all that he had lost. Never complain till God be lost: Fas tibi non est de fortunâ conqueri salvo Caesare (said Seneca to Polybius.) Let the stars disappear, if we may have the Sun who will be troubled? let earthly things vanish, so long as God abides 'tis enough. Had we the whole world to lose, one God would abundantly recompense the loss of all of it. Many are inward gainers by their outward losses; by having the less of the Creature they have the more of God; O happy exchange! the worse their condition is without, the better it is within (in respect of grace and comfort.) 6. 'Tis an excellent frame of spirit under losses to be patiented and contented. All the possessions of Job, when he was in the height of them, did not reflect so much glory upon him, as his blessed submission when he was deprived of them; then God blessed him, now (in another sense) he blessed God: All are convinced they should do this when God gives, but 'tis very rare for any to do it when God takes away. Micah's mother had some shekels of silver taken from her and she falls a cursing, Judg. 17.2. this precious Saint had all taken from him yet no cursing (as Satan had belied him;) not, nothing but blessing God. 'Tis an excellent temper, comfortably to enjoy outward blessings whilst God shall continue them, contentedly to part with them when God shall remove them. Suave est si quid dás; parvus dolour hoc ubi tollis. When I see any carrying it thus, I conclude, that earthly things are not too fast riveted in their hearts, (as 'tis a sign the tooth is lose which is drawn out without much pain;) and that they are duly affected towards God, heaven, and heavenly things. These are some of the things the due consideration whereof would much help on Contentment under Losses. And so much for the using of this Means towards the furtherance of tranquillity of mind, with respect to what may disturb it in and about the Estate. How Consideration ought to be acted in order to Contentment under cr ss●s in Relations. 2. Secondly, I'll instance in Relations. In and about whom, there is as much of mercy or affliction, of comfort or discomfort, and (consequently) of content or discontent, as in any one thing whatsoever. The Discontent usually is occasioned and vented in these three Cases The want of Relations much desired. The death of Relations much beloved. The uncomfortableness of Relations who are spared. Now Consideration, wisely and faithfully managed, would be of great use to allay all storms and to keep the heart even and calm in all these Cases: and therefore my next work is to show, what we are, under each of them, to consider in order to the promoting of this frame. But I must of necessity be briefer under this Head than I was under the former, that I may not draw out this Discourse to too great a length. Wherefore I will but shortly set the Particulars before you that you are to consider of, and leave the enlargement of them to yourselves in your consideration. 1. When Relations are much desired, but denied and withheld, there is too often discontent. How as to the want of Relations desired. As to instance only in Children: what daily inquietudes of spirit are there in some because of the want of these! they have many other Comforts, but the not having of this imbitters all. Abraham himself was much troubled about it, Gen. 15.2, 3. Lord God, what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless? Behold to me thou hast given no seed, and lo one born in my house is mine heir. But Rachel's passion risen very high, Give me Children (saith she to her husband) or else I die, Gen. 30.2. Children are very great blessings; they are promised as such, Psal. 128.3, 4. (and in other places;) and indeed they are one of the sweetest flowers that grow in the garden of earthly comforts; hence 'tis hard for persons contentedly to bear the want of them. But whoever you are upon whom this affliction lies, pray labour after a contented mind under it; and in order thereunto Consider. 1. It is the Lord who withholds this mercy; for he gives it or withholds it as seems good to him. Providence is not more seen in any of the affairs and Concerns of men, than in this of Children; that there shall be many or few, some or none, Gen. 32. all falls under the good pleasure and dispose of God. When Rachel was so passionate under the want of these, Jacob rebuked her sharply, am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb? Psal. 127.9. Lo children are an inheritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward, Psal. 113.9. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful Mother of children. Now if this was duly thought of, would it not quiet the heart? when the thing is ordered by God, shall we dislike and fret at what he doth? may not he dispense his blessings where he pleaseth? Oh if he will give, we should be thankful in the owning of his Goodness; if he will deny, we must be patiented in the owning of his Sovereignty. 2. Sometimes this mercy is denied, but better are bestowed. God doth not give Children but he gives himself; and is not he better than ten Sons (as Elkanah said of himself; to Hannah, 1 Sam. 1.8.?) There is a better name, than that of Sons and Daughters (promised, Isa. 56.3.4.) they who have that better name have no reason to murmur because they have not that which is worse. They who have God for their Father in heaven may well be content to go childless here on earth. If God will not give me the lesser, yet if he gives me the greater Good, have I cause to be angry? surely no more than he hath to be angry with me, to whom I deny a brass farthing and give him a purse of Gold. 3. Children sometimes are withheld a long time, but they are given at last; (of which we have many Instances.) The case is never desperate so long as we can submit and wait; 'tis to be hoped God designs to give us that comfort under the want of which we can be contented. 4. If Children be given after froward and irregular desires of them, 'tis to be questioned whether it be done in mercy, and 'tis to be feared this frame will very much spoil the mercy. What we get by discontent we seldom enjoy with comfort. How many Parents have experienced the truth of this? they were not quiet till they had Children, and less quiet after they had them; they proved so undutiful, stubborn, naught, that there was much more of vexation in the having than there was in the wanting of them. 5. Many wanting the comfort of this Relation, it pleaseth God to fill up the comfort of their other Relations: The Husband or the Wife are the better because there are no childrn; and so the Lord recompenses what is denied in one Relation by doubling the comfort of another Relation. 6. Children are great comforts but they are but mixed comforts. The Rose hath its sweetness, but it hath its pricks too; and so 'tis with Children. Oh the cares, fears, distractions, that Parents are filled with about them! they are certain cares, uncertain comforts, (as we usually express it.) We eye the sweet only of this Relation (and that makes us fretful:) did we eye the bitter also we should be more still and calm. 7. Had we this mercy in the height of it filled up in all respects according to our desires and expectations, 'tis a thousand to one but our hearts would be too much set upon it. And that would be of fatal consequence to us upon many accounts; and therefore God foreseeing this, 'tis out of kindness and love that he withholds it from us. These things being considered as to this affliction, methinks they should very much dispose the heart to contentation under it. 2. Secondly: when dear Relations are taken away by death then it's a time of Discontent. To lose a tender Husband, an affectionate Wife, an hopeful Child, How as to the loss of Relations. a faithful Friend, oh! this is a cutting trial, a very smarting rod! under which 'tis no easy thing to keep the spirit sedate, free from all passion and discomposures: Yet as hard as it is, Consideration would much facilitate it; Consider therefore, 1. About the true stating of this affliction. 'Tis great to us because of the greatness of our affection; but otherwise as to the thing in itself, is it more than the breaking of a pitcher? than the dying or withering of a flower? than the nipping of a blossom? and will any considerate person be much moved at such things as these? The Heathen bore the death of his child very well upon this consideration; when news thereof was brought to him he was not disturbed, for (said he) I knew I begot my child mortal. We forget what these comforts are and then we fret at the loss of them. 2. Think of the commonness of this affliction. You think never was any sorrow like to yours, never did any lose such a Husband, or such a Wife, or such a Child as you have done; alas! this is but the fondness and excess of love. Many have lost as dear Relations as you have lost (let them be what they will;) you are not the first, nor will be the last, who are thus exercised. When a Mercy is common in our eye, we set it too low; when an Affliction is singular in our eye, we set it too high, 3. 'Tis God himself who makes this rod: If a sparrow doth not fall to the ground without him, Math. 10.29. certainly a dear Relation doth not; shall we not be silent before him? He that gave he hath taken; he that hath a greater right to Husband, Wife, Child, than any of the Possessors have, he hath seen good to call back what is his own; shall any vex at this? Dead Relations are not * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lost, but restored to their first Owner; and though 'tis our Affliction to lose them, yet 'tis † Sustulisti liberos quos ipse dederas: non contri. stor quod recepisti ago gratias quod dedisti. Hier●n. ad Julian. Non moeremus quod talem amisimus, sed gratias agimus quod habuimus. Idem. mercy that ever we had them: both must be put together and then the heart will be quiet. 4. Is all taken? if not, thou hast no reason to complain. The child is taken, but 'tis but one of many; but the Husband is yet spared; thou must not be impatient for what is removed but thankful for what is continued; as Themistocles when Amyntas took away some of his dishes, bore it contentedly, saying, he might have taken all. And pray keep down all passion, for this may make you lose what you have, though it will not regain you what you have lost. Oh but (some will say) my only child is dead: Is it so? thy affliction is the greater, but thy contentation must be never the less. He that gave an only son to thee may take an only child from thee: Isaac was an only son, and yet Abraham willingly offered, him up to God. 5. 'Twas high time for God to make a breach upon you. 'Tis the wisdom of God to his, he will not let them have long what they over love: had you loved less the child might have lived longer. When these comforts are too much in our hearts, they must not be long in our hands. It's infinite mercy that God will secure our love to himself, and take that away from us which would take off our affections from him. 6. 'Tis that temper of soul which Christianity calls for, quietly and readily to resign up all our comforts to God's dispose. Christian, 'tis a great part of thy religion to be content under these crosses; not to have thy comforts ‖ Omnia ista nobis accedant non haereant, ut si abducantur, fine ullâ nostri lacetatione discedant Senec. Ep. 74. torn from thee (as the plaster is from the flesh) but to come off easily (as the glove doth from the hand. 5. Where there is ground of hope that the everlasting state of dead Relations is secured (as there is for the Adult who lived in the fear of God, for Children descending from Parents in covenant with God) there 'tis mere self-love which must cause discontent. For had we true love to the dead we should rejoice in their advancement, as Christ saith, Joh. 14.28. if ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I go to my Father. You are troubled because they are not with you, but you should joy in this that they are with Christ (which is far better. Phil. i 21. ) 8. Think how others have undergone this trial. Aaron had his sons cut off by a dreadful Judgement; but 'tis said of him, he held his peace: Levit. 10.3. Job 1.21. 2 Sam. 12.15. etc. See Val. Max. l. 5. c. 10. So it was with Job, and yet he blessed the Lord: So long as there was hope of the life of the child, David prayed and fasted; but when he saw God's will was done, he risen up, and eat, and afflicted himself no more. Nay I might recite several examples of Heathens, who did (to the shame of us Christians) bear the death of dear Relations with great equanimity and undisturbedness of spirit. Well, I hint these several things to you, when any of you are thus tried, I allow you a due and regular grief and sense of God's afflicting hand; but there must be no vexing or discontent under it: which the Considering of the forementioned particulars may very much prevent or remove. 3. Thirdly, Wben Relations continued prove uncomfortable; How as to uncomfortable Relations? this occasions daily rise of heart and much discontent. O the sad fires of passion which hereby are kindled in many (too many) hearts and houses! The comfort of Relations is grounded upon suitableness; where that is not, the rose is turned into a briar or thorn: What is unsuitable is uncomfortable, (as the yoke that doth not suit or fit the neck is always uneasy.) Now this unsuitableness refers either to the natural temper or to something of an higher nature, in both 'tis very afflictive; but especially in the latter. There is an unsuitableness in respect of the natural temper or disposition. I intent in this principally, Husband and Wife; the one is loving, mild, gentle, of an even and calm spirit, sweet and obliging in his (or her) converse; the other is quite contrary, froward, passionate, choleric, hard to be pleased, always quarrelling, etc. Here's a cross now, and a heavy cross too; but what's to be done by them that bear it, so as that they may learn Contentment under it? why, let them be often in considering these things: 1. That God hath a special hand in this affliction: 'Tis he who brings persons together in this relation; he made the match in Heaven before it was made on earth; and therefore he is to be eyed in all the Consequences that attend it: if it be comfort, he is to be blessed for it; if it be discomfort, he is to be submitted to under it. 2. Though this be a sharp trial, yet 'tis for good where it's sanctified. It drives many nearer to God, weans them more from the world, keeps them humble, draws out their graces, gives them experience of supporting mercy, learns them to be more pitiful to others (and the like.) 3. May be this is the only affliction with which some are exercised. In all things else 'tis mercy, only in this thing God sees it good to afflict: surely such have little reason to be discontented. What? under such variety of signal mercies canst thou not bear contentedly one signal affliction? 4. The Cross is heavy, but patience and contentedness will make it lighter. Levius fit patientiâ quod corrigere est nefas: The more the Beast strives the more the yoke pinches, the more quiet he is, the less it hurts him: and so it is in that Case which I am upon. 5. Possibly more suitable Relations were once enjoyed, but forfeited. So that if you will be angry it must be with yourselves not with God. 6. Death will soon put an end to this Cross; and we shall shortly be in that state wherein we shall have nothing unsuitable to us. But (2.) There is an unsuitableness in higher things: such as do more immediately concern the honour of God and the everlasting condition of Souls; as Grace and no Grace, Holiness and sin, Godliness and Ungodliness. Here now I principally intent Parents and Children, (though other Relations may be included also.) Here is a Parent that fears God, that lives an holy and godly life, that owns the good ways of God, and walks in them, etc. But his Child or Children are of a quite other Spirit, and take a quite other course: oh! they live in sin and wickedness, in open enmity to God, carrying it as the Sons of Belial; they curse, swear, drink, defile their bodies, profane Sabbaths, neglect duties, scoff at Godliness, puff at all good counsel, discover a Spirit obstinately set against God, etc. This is an affliction of a very great stature, taller by the head and shoulders than several that have been spoken unto before; yet many godly Parents groan under it, whose head and hearts are broken by ungodly Children, (and never was this affliction more common than now when youth is so much debauched.) I verily believe, many good Parents could with much less grief bear the death of their Sons (were they but fit for it,) than that which they daily undergo through the wickedness of their lives. Truly these are much to be pitied; yet I would desire them to labour to be contented, and submissively to bear this heavy cross. In order to which frame let them consider. 1. That 'tis no new thing for good Parents to have bad Children, Sometimes it so happens that when the Father is bad the Son is good, but it more frequently happens (and God suffers it to be so, that the world may see Grace doth not run in a blood) that when the Father is good the Son is bad. It hath been so from the beginning; Adam had his Cain, Noah his Cham, Abraham his Ishmael, Isaac his Esau, David his Amnon, (and so in many others:) and it will be so to the end of the world. Pray think of this, though 'tis a cutting yet but common affliction. 2. Children are ungodly, yet there is hope at last they may be reclaimed. As stubborn as they are, God can make them yield: he can change their hearts, and alter their course; and who knows at what day or hour he'll come? So long as there's Life there's hope of their Conversion. What a wicked Son was Manasse? yet God wrought upon him at last: What a sad life did the Prodigal live? yet he returned to his Father at last. God can turn notorious Sinners into eminent Saints; wait therefore, but do not fret. 3. The Case is sad, but discontent will do no good in it. Earnest prayer and quiet submission may do much, but impatience will do nothing. It troubles me much when I see gracious Parents vexing themselves for their ungracious Children: Alas, by this they do but hurt themselves, but do no good to them. 4. I suppose it to be but your affliction, not your sin. You have done your duty in godly education, in setting a good example, in exhorting, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metrocles to Stilpo concerning his bad daughter in Plutarch's Moral●. p. 458 reproing, &c, in praying to God for your Children: if after all this they will be naught, their blood will be required of themselves; you have freed your souls from their eternal ruin and perdition. 5. God will secure, and advance his own glory. That's the thing that cuts you, that God should be dishonoured by any that descends from you; but as to that satisfy yourselves, he will even by your sinful Relations one way or other promote his honour. If he be not glorified by them (which we should desire,) he will be glorified upon them (which we must submit unto.) 'Tis (to many Divines) an unquestionable truth, that, when at the day of Judgement the sentence of condemnation shall be pronounced upon wicked Children, their Godly Parents shall so rest in God's will and be so swallowed up in his glory, that they shall not grieve at this sentence but rather rejoice at it. Now than if God here will harden their hearts, and give them up to their own Lusts, though you are not to rejoice at this, yet you ought quietly to submit to it. 6. 'Tis good to reflect upon the grace of God to yourselves; and to consider that 'tis infinite mercy that you are not as bad as they. Discriminating grace if duly thought of, would be an excellent Antidote against Passion in the present trial. But I must say no more of this. I have as briefly as I could (for the matter would have admitted of far greater enlargement) gone over two grand Cases, the one referring to the Estate, the other to Relations; * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Orat. 16. H w Consideration is to be managed for the manner of it. and shown under each how consideration is to be acted in order to Contentment. There is a third referring to the Body. (1.) With respect to deformity. (2.) To defects. (3.) To infirmittes, pain, sickness, (an affliction, both very common and also very † great) to which I would fain have spoken something, but I must forbear, lest I should too much exceed the bounds of such a discoutses as this is. Only there is a third General which I propounded at the first to say something of, which I will but just touch upon, and so dispatch this fir●t Help or Means to the learning of Contentment. Hitherto I have been directing you as to the matter of consideration; Now I am to direct you as to the manner of it. He that would so consider, as thereby to get and keep his heart settled and composed under every trouble, he must be therein frequent, speedy, serious. 1. Frequent. If you be but seldom in the practice of this duty, you will never arrive at being masters of the divine art of Contentment. You must consider again and again, by repeated thoughts to work upon your hearts that which is proper for the quieting of them. By much chase the ointment pierceth into the part affected, and so it gives ease. When the disease is hard to be cured or apt to return, the remedy must be often useds and so 'tis here. As to the prevention or removal of Discontent the mind must be often in consideration. Plutar. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The fiercest creatures by frequent converse become more tame and governable; Dogs bark not at those to whom they are used: The Moralist applies it to the Passions of the mind; which do in a great measure lose their fierceness, and are more easily brought under command, when a man inures himself to consideration. 2. Speedy. As soon as ever the hellish fire of Discontent gins to kindle in thy heart, presently think of that which may be as water for the quenching of it. If you let it alone, like other fires 'twill get such a head that it will be too hard for you. Impatience is the soul in mutiny against God; now Mutinies in an Army must be suppressed speedily. 'Tis good to take the distemper at the beginning; as soon as there's any commotion in the spirit because of this or that cross, immediately retire, ply the heart with consideration, reason with yourselves, Is not all of God? Shall not all be for good? (and so on, as hath been directed. Nay indeed, 'twould be of great advantage to us to be before hand with the affliction, not only to see it before it comes, but to lay up heart-quieting thoughts for it against it shall come. How is an evil * (res adversas) infregit quisquis prior vidit. Senec. de Tra●q. An. lessened by the foresight of it! praevisi mali mollior ictus: how patiently is it undergone when one hath had some forecast in his thoughts about it! Few are so fit for consideration after a trouble as they are before it; the foregame is much easier to be played than the aftergame; And its efficacy too is the greater when persons are so early at it. Before God strikes the blow cast with yourselves, What if my Child, or my Estate, should be taken from me? how should I bear such an affliction contentedly? why, things stand thus or thus and therefore I must be contented. What would follow upon this? Why, matters being digested beforehand, the mind would be the more still when the evil shall actually seize upon you. 3. Serious. Lose, and careless, and sudden thoughts signify but little to a froward heart; but when they are intent and fixed, so as to dwell upon what lies before them, than they have a good effect. The plaster must lie upon the sore and then it works the cure: When consideration is managed with the utmost intention of the mind, with the staying of the soul upon the proper object, than (and never but then) doth it further contentation. So much for the first Help or means. The second Help to contentment, viz. Godliness. 2. The second is Godliness. The Apostle links them together 1 Tim. 6.6. Godliness with contentment is great gain; what may be the reason of this connexion? Not only because they do ever accompany each the other; or because they being conjoined do make the Christian Complete, (in Godliness he submitting to the Praeceptive, in Contentment to the Providential will of God;) or because Godliness gives the highest motives to contentment; and that again reflects a great beauty, and lustre upon Godliness: but chief because Godliness issues out in contentment and causes that blessed frame of heart, and because without Godliness there can be no Contentment. He that is not a Godly man (i. e. a sanctified and gracious man; for I shall consider Godliness principally in its habitual notion,) cannot be a contented man (in that sense wherein the Apostle speaks of it in the Text.) Many of the old Heathens seemed to go very far in contentment, to have a great mastery over passion, in all occurrences to be very sedate and calm: They notably improved their Reason and consideration (if not wholly to suppress Discontent yet however to keep it in, so as that Others should not perceive it;) and many of them, through the firmness and greatness of their spirits, could and did bear much with great tranquillity of mind, (for the spirit of a man may bear his infirmity, Prov. 18.14.) But yet as to true Evangelical Contentment they knew nothing of it; for that necessarily requires a divine principle within, and a divine and special assistance from above, to both of which they were altogether strangers. And so it is still with all mere Moral men, such as are destitute of Grace and of the Spirit. So that as ever you desire to learn in every state to be content, you must look to this, that ye be renewed and sanctified. All motives without (let them be never so high,) all consideration within (let it be never so serious,) will not prevail to the keeping of the heart quiet under crosses, unless there be a work of saving grace there. The true and only way to be content, is to be godly; for indeed Contentment is the daughter of Godliness. For the better opening of this Direction, How Godliness doth further Contentment. it will be requisite that we inquire, How Godliness (or Grace) doth produce this effect of Contentation. Ans. It doth it by these ways or methods. 1. As it rectifies and works in and upon the several Faculties of the Soul. For this is necessary to be done in order to Contentment; and it being done, Contentment cannot but follow upon it. Let me make this out particularly: 1. Grace rectifies the Understanding: which it doth by dispelling its natural darkness, and setting up a clear and saving light in it. Now this light hath a great influence upon Contentment; for the Understanding being thus enlightened, Fancy and Imagination do not carry it in the soul as before they did; and hereupon the heart is brought to a more quiet temper. Our inquietudes of mind are founded in the power and prevalency of Fancy: We fancy such and such things to be evil, when in truth they are not so, (at leastwise as God sanctifies them,) or to be more evil then in truth they are; and upon this, when those things are laid upon us, we fret and vex: whereas do but take away this vanity and mistake of fancy, Nihil est miserum nisi cum putes. Both. de Consol. l. 3. Phil. 3.8. there would be no such great evil in what we suffer; Nihil admodum atrox passus es nisi id tu tibi fingis (as he of old truly said.) And again, we fancy such and such things to be good, yea good in a very high degree; and then upon the want of them we are disturbed: Whereas (if Fancy did not delude us) they have but very little good in themselves, and as to us (in our special circumstances) may be none at all: and therefore why should we be troubled about them? The winds then arising from this point, Grace lays them by freeing the person from the power of fond imagination, and instead thereof by setting up solid judgement in him; so that he shall be able to judge aright of things, and not to perplex himself (one way or another) further than the nature of the thing before him will bear. Men generally are unquiet because they are injudicious; if sanctifying grace therefore, by that heavenly light which it brings into the Understanding, shall make them more judicious, by doing of this it must also make them more quiet. An enlightened head promotes a submissive heart; when 'tis right counting about worldly things then 'tis contentedness. No wonder that Paul had learned in every estate to be content, he having before learned to count all things but loss for Christ. 2. Grace rectifies the Will, thus; in causing it to comply with and yield unto the Will of God. Whenever this supernatural habit is infused into a man there is a melting of his will into God's Will; so that there is but one and the same will between them. Now by this means it doth the work which I am speaking of; for when 'tis thus, certainly there can be nothing but Contentment. What can put the spirit into disorder when 'tis come to to this, Not as I will, but as thou wilt? When wind and tide go contrary ways then the waters are rough and boisterous, but when they both go the same way then all is calm and smooth: So here when God's will and Ours differ then storms of passion rise; but when they agree, there's nothing then but evenness and stillness in the spirit. Oh! we are never discontented but 'tis from the jarring and clashing of our wills with God's: Quod si●, esse velis nihilque malis. As he said, Cesset voluntas propria, non erit infernum; so say I, Let but Christians lay aside their own will, and rest in the will of God; and assuredly there will be no perturbation of mind in them. Indeed the duty of universal contentment is unpracticable till it come to this; and grace bringing the Creature to it, so it works Contentment. 3. Grace rectifies the Affections; in taking away their inordinacy towards earthly things, in keeping of them within their due bounds and limits; and so it works Contentment. What is it that causes unquietness in us? for the most part we may resolve it into the unmortifiedness of some affection or other. Lust is the fuel that kindles and feeds this fire, that makes us to quarrel and fall out with God, because our conditions are so and so. Great Vessels must have much water or else they split themselves. Where the love is too great to earthly things, if much of them be not possessed there's great danger of discontent, but where 'tis duly bounded, a little of these things sufficeth (as smaller vessels sail well enough even in shallow waters) The pain in the head proceeds from the foulness of the stomach; Purge but that, and the head hath ease: Purge but the heart from its unholy affections and a man hath ease and comfort in every condition. That which endangers impatience, is the greatness of the Affliction? but what puts a greatness into the affliction? why, the greatness of the Affection: If the Relation was not overloved, the loss of him would not amount to such an affliction as 'tis usually made: he that over-loves will over-grieve (Qui nimis amat nimis dolet,) and he that overgrieves will be apt to murmur. Grace then confining the Affections to these sublunary things, so it furthers Contentment. 4. It makes the Conscience good: And a good conscience is that Ark into which God uses to put the manna of concentment. It carries joy in it, 'tis a continual feast, Prov. 15.15; now he that hath this joy within is not easily (or much) moved at any trouble without; let the weather be what it will there is nothing but serenity in his soul. If the part be sore you cannot touch it but 'tis in pain; let it be but firm and sound and it can bear a smart blow without complaining: when Conscience is sound and good a man can bear any thing; but when 'tis not so, he can bear nothing without being under great anguish of mind. 2. Secondly, Godliness works Contentment by making a person to have a powerful sense of God's Glory, so as always to rest in that as his ultimate end and most desirable good: (this is that glorious effect which Grace produceth in the heart.) And thereby it doth effectually further quietness of spirit in every condition. Pray observe it, Selfishness and lowness of men's ends is at the bottom of all their discontent: they look no higher than their sensual ease, delight and satisfaction; and if they be crossed in these then they storm and are angry: But now a Godly man (living up to his Godliness) his eye is upon God's glory, as the thing which he chief aims at and mainly centres in, and upon this he is content in every state. For (saith he) let my state be what it will, God will glorify himself by it; and 'tis that state which God did see would most tend to his glory, (otherwise he had not put me into it,) oh! therefore I'll like it, yea rejoice in it; in as much as it is most conducive to that which is better than all my little comforts, namely the Glory of God. Methinks he should live in all contentedness who knows and minds these two things, that all occurrences tend to the promoting of God's Honour, and then too of his Own Good: but the knowing and minding of these is proper only to one that is Godly; how necessary therefore is Godliness to contentment? Take an unregenerate man, these neither do nor can signify any thing to him: for as to the First, the advancement of the Honour of his Creator, he being all for Self (for so every one is before conversion,) the honour of God is nothing to him; and so it can have no influence upon him for the quieting of his heart under troubles: and as to the second, the advancement of his own good, he, not being in Covenant with God (on which the sanctification of all Providences doth depend) can have no assurance of this; and therefore cannot from this fetch that which may quiet and comfort him: but both of these have their full power and strength where grace is, and thereupon it becomes an effectual means to contentment. 3. Thirdly, In the general habit of Grace there are contained certain special Graces which do very much further Contentment. I'll instance in Humility, Faith, Repentance, Heavenly-mindedness, Self-denial. 1. Humility. The humble man is always a contented man, the proud man is always of a contrary temper. Pride puts us upon contending with God, Humility upon yielding and submitting to him. Pride makes us think we are wiser than God, can order our conditions better than he; Humility dreads this heart-blasphemy. Pride must be at the top of the pinnacle, no condition, no mercy is high enough for it, a proud person cannot bear a low state, he looks upon himself, as wronged if he be not chief (as he said to his Daughter, Si non dominaris injuriam te accipere existimas: Sueton. ) Humility accepts of the lowest condition and the lowest mercy; Oh! (saith the humble person) what can be too low for me who deserve to be in H●ll? what too little for me who am less than the least of all mercies? Pride is for charging God; Gen. 32.10. Humility is altogether for admiring God: that will be finding faults with what God doth, this only finds faults with what we ourselves do. Pride is the heart-disquieting sin; Humility is the heart-quieting grace. 'Tis never well enough with the proud (the Angels that fell even when they were in Heaven, and Adam even in Paradise in all his Glory, were 〈◊〉 ●f his: 〈◊〉 always very well with the humble. Well, Godliness work● 〈…〉 by ●he ●oo●ing out of pride and planting humility in the 〈◊〉 2. Faith. That's another Grace which doth eminently help on Contentation: how readily, and how aptly, doth it interpose upon all occasions for the keeping down of all turbulent rise in the heart! Doth the man begin to be froward? What will become of me and mine? be still, saith Faith, God will provide for thee and thine. Oh but such and such blessings are denied me; yet be still, Of the pride and vanity of this speech of Alexander, see Philo. l. de Cherubin. p. 91. saith Faith, thou hast all in God; thou may'st say that truly, which the great Conqueror once vainly said (when he had Europe and Asia in his eye,) & haec & haec mea sunt; these and these blessings, yea all are mine, for God is mine. But the Providences of God towards me are very bitter; yet be still, saith Faith, there is abundant sweetness in the Promise to take off that bitterness that is in the Providence. But it is at present very ill with me; yet be still, saith Faith, wait but a little and it will be better. But what have I to comfort me? why, saith Faith, enough and enough; the unchangeable love of God, the pardon of all thy sins, the Covenant-state, eternal life, etc. They (saith an holy Writer) never felt God's love, or tasted the forgiveness of sin, who are discontented. Thus Faith with great readiness and strength answers all Objections which tend to the disturbing of the spirit. 'Tis the Grace which keeps from * Psal. 27.13. fainting, and from † Psal. 42 11. fretting also. 3. Repentance. He that truly mourns for sin doth not easily murmur because of some outward cross. Where sin is heavy nothing besides, comparatively, 2 Cor. 4.17. is heavy. What light things are afflictions to him who groans under the burden of sin! Godliness turns the grief and anger into the right channel, it works Contentment by diversions: when the sinner would be grieving and complaining because of poverty, sickness, etc. this makes him to look into the naughtiness of his heart, and to grieve for that pride, and passion, and unbelief that is within, and so it prevents or puts a stop to inordinate sorrow for what is externally afflictive, (as bleeding at the arm stops bleeding at the nose.) Where 'tis repenting there 'tis not repining. 4. Heavenly mindedness. The more a man doth mind things above the less he is concerned about things below; he who hath his heart and conversation in heaven, will not be solicitous or querulous about what befalls him here on earth: Math. 6.21. Phil. 3.20. Nihil sentit crus in nervo cum animus est in coelo, (Tertul.) 5. Self-denial. A grace that hath a great tendency to Contentment, because it takes men off from their own wisdom, will and affections, and causeth them wholly to resign up themselves to the wise and gracious dispose of God. Oh (saith the self-denying Christian) I am not fit to be my own chooser, God shall choose for me; I would not have my condition brought to my mind but my mind brought to my condition; I would not have God give me what I desire, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Iambl. in V Pythag. L. 1. C. 28. but I would desire nothing but what God sees good to give me: (As that Philosopher, when one wished for him that he might have from the gods whatever he would; nay rather, saith he, wish for me that I may will nothing but what the gods will give me.) Surely when 'tis once come to this, it must needs be Contentment. These are some of the ways, (others there are but I must pass them over,) by which Godliness doth promote and work Contentment. So that as you desire to learn it you must look to this, that you be gracious and godly persons; without Grace (in the habit and exercise thereof) it cannot be composedness and tranquillity of spirit in every state. I do not affirm, that he who hath grace is so constant and universal in this frame, as that he is never under discontent, (for even such a one hath his infirmities and surprisals, and pro hic & nunc corruption may be too hard for grace;) but this I say, he, as to the general course, and when he is himself, is contented; and that he is the person who is fitted and qualified to live contentment. The Third and last Means is Prayer. The third Help to contentment, viz. Prayer. without this the two former will be ineffectual. Let a man be never so considerative, yea never so Godly, yet Prayer is necessary to his being contented. Humility, Faith, Repentance, Heavenly-mindedness, self-denial, are the heart-quieting Graces. and Prayer is the heart-quieting Duty. He that hath not learned to pray, will not learn to be content. When God is seldom spoke to, he will be often hardly thought of. There must be good striving with God in prayer, or else there will be bad striving with him in the way of Discontent. O Sirs! are you afflicted? pray: Jam. 5.13. do you meet with crosses? pray: doth the Estate decay, the Relations die, the Body consume by pain and sickness? pray. The best way to be content in every state is to pray in every state. We study this hard lesson best upon our knees. Prayer furthers contentment, 1. As it gives a vent to the mind under trouble. Vessels that are full, if they have not some vent, are apt to burst; and so when the heart is full of grief, if it hath not a vent it breaks. Sorrow kept in overwhelms the spirit: Strangulat inclusus dolour;— let it be vented a little and the spirit is much at ease: Now prayer is the best vent; the poor Christian goes to God, tells him his case, pours out his heart before him, upon this his heart (that was ready to break before) is now greatly relieved. When Hannah had prayed under her trouble, she went away and did eat, and her countenance was no mo●e sad, 1 Sam. 1.18. What sad work doth the wind make where 'tis penned up? whence come the dreadful shake of the earth, but from its being shut up in the cavities thereof? And so here, when we keep in our troubles, do not open them, (first to the Lord in prayer, and then to some experienced Christian,) what commotions and perturbations of mind is that the occasion of? 2. As it obtains Grace and strength from God to enable the creature to be contented. For 'tis he, and he only, that can work up the heart to this excellent frame; he that stills the sea when it rages doth also still the soul in all its passions and discontents. When Paul had spoken thus high of his Contentment, lest any should think he ascribed this * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophyl. Quia de maximis ●e●us gloriatus f er●t, ●e superbiae id tribueretur, vel nè aliis jactantia● occasionem daret, su●jicit, hâ● fortitudine se à Christo instrui Calvin. in loc. to himself or had it from himself, immediately he subjoins, I can do all things through Christ strengthening of me; to note, that the quietness of his mind was divine and supernatural. We read of our Saviour how (he being at sea, and a great tempest arising) he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm; And the men marvelled, saying, what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? Matth. 8.24, etc. Truly the calming of the heart in its inward storms is a thing every way as marvellous as what Christ here did; and that which requires as great a power to effect it. If therefore you desire to arrive at this even temper of mind in every condition, often go to God and beg it of him: Say, Lord, I have a Peevish, froward discontented heart, that is ready upon every cross to vex and fret against thee: this I hope is my burden, I would fain have it otherwise; but I cannot get victory over my passion, I cannot bring myself to a calm and submissive frame: wherefore I seek to thee to enable me thereunto. Blessed God, do thou help me; through the power of thy grace let there be evermore a contented mind in me; such and such crosses I meet with, but Lord, under all let me be patiented: here's an hard lesson for me to learn, but through the teachings of thy spirit let me learn it. Oh do but thus pray, and in due time God will give you what you pray for. Thus I have answered this weighty Question, What Christians are to do that they may learn in every state to be content? Now (to close all) I leave it with yourselves to inquire what your attainments are as to this Contentment. 'Tis a sad thing that even amongst Christians there is so little of it; that many mere Heathens (who had nothing but reason and the dim light of Nature) seem herein to outstrip those who have far greater helps to it: Nemo facile cum fortunae suae conditione concordat. Both. de Co●sol Phil. l. 2. prosâ 4. Quis est tam compositae foelicitatis, ut non aliqua ex Parte cum statús sui qualitate rixetur? Idem ibid. Oh this is much to be lamented! Let us bring it down to ourselves. Paul had learned in every state to be content; we have scarce learned in any state to be content: We are not well either full or fasting: When its Summer then 'tis too hot, when 'tis winter than 'tis too cold. Every condition is (more or less) uneasy to us. If it be Mercy we complain it is not enough, if affliction we complain 'tis too much; and so we are always in statu querulo & moroso (as he in Seneca expresseth it.) The great God is willing to be pleased with what we do, but how hard are we to be pleased with what he doth? He finds no fault with our duties (though attended with many defects) if done in sincerity; we will be finding fault with his Providences (though there be nothing in them but what speaks infinite Wisdom and Goodness.) The generality of men carry it as if the fretting leprosy was upon them; yea many, even of those who belong to God, are too much sick of this disease. Surely if he was not a long-suffering and compassionate Father, he would not bear as he doth with such froward Children. The most like their inward state too well, and their outward state too ill. Such who have the world are contented without God, Such who have God are not contented without the world. It being thus, is it not highly necessary that we should for the time to come set ourselves with our utmost diligence to get a Contented spirit? May be, we dare not let the fire of our passion break forth; but it lies smothering and hid in the heart; when shall it be quite extinguished? oh that that might be wholly cast out, and that instead thereof, sedateness of mind, submission to God, contentation in every condition, might come in into the soul! My Brethren, will you fall upon the studying of this excellent lesson of Contentment? You have learned nothing in Christianity till you have learned this: you are no better than Abcedarians in Religion if you have not mastered this great piece of practical knowledge. You have heard much, read much of contentment, but have you learned it so as to live in the daily practice of it? pray take up with nothing short of that. The design of this Sermon hath been to help you herein, to direct you what you are to do in order to Contentment, Now will you make use of the Directions that have been given? viz. to be considerative, godly, praying persons. These are the best remedies that I could think of against that Spiritual Choler that doth so much trouble you: Use them and (I hope) you will find the virtue and efficacy of them to this end. Look to your state and course that you be godly; when any thing troubles you, retire for Consideration and Prayer: hold on in this way, and in tim you also will be able to speak these great words as to yourselves, that you have learned in every state to be content.— How to bear Afflictions. Serm. XXVII. HEB. 12.5. My Son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Prov. 3.12. THe words are an excellent passage from the Book of the Proverbs; wherein the Supreme eternal Wisdom is represented giving instruction to the afflicted, how to behave themselves under troubles, so as they may prove beneficial to them: the counsel is that they should preserve a temperament of Spirit between the excess and defect of patience and courage, and neither despising the Chastening of the Lord by a sinful neglect of them, as a small unconcerning matter, nor fainting under them, as a burden so great and oppressing that no deliverance was to be expected. To enforce the exhortation Wisdom useth the amiable and endearing title, My Son, to signify that God in the quality of a Father, afflicts his people; the consideration whereof is very proper to conciliate reverence to his hand, and to encourage their hopes of a blessed issue. The Proposition that ariseth from the words is this, 'Tis the duty and best Wisdom of Afflicted Christians to preserve themselves from the vicious extremes of despising the chastenings of the Lord, or fainting under them. To illustrate this by a clear method, I shall endeavour to show. 1. What it is to despise the chastenings of the Lord, and the causes of it. 2. What fainting under his rebukes signifies; and what makes us incident to it. 3. Prove that 'tis the duty and best wisdom of the afflicted to avoid these extremes. 4. Apply it. 1. To despise the chastening of the Lord imports the making no account of them, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unworthy of serious regard; and includes inconsiderateness of mind; and an insensibleness of heart. 1. Inconsiderateness of mind with respect to the Author or end of Chastening. Job. 5.6. 1. With respect to the Author, when the afflicted looks only downwards, as if the rod of affliction sprang out of the dust, and there were no superior cause that sent it. Thus many apprehend the evils that befall them, either merely as the productions of natural causes, or as casual events, or the effects of the displeasure and injustice of men, but never look on the other side of the veil of the second causes to that invisible providence that order all. If a disease strikes their bodies, they attribute it to the extremity of heat or cold, that distempers their humours; if a loss comes in their estates, 'tis ascribed to chance, to the carelessness and falseness of some upon whom they depended: but God is concealed from their sight by the nearness of the immediate agent; whereas the principal cause of all temporal evils is the overruling Providence of God. Shall there be evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3.6. They come not only with his knowledge and will, but by his efficiency. Exod. 10.13, 19 The Locusts that infected Egypt were as real an effect of God's wrath, as the most miraculous Plague, although an East-wind brought them, and a West-wind carried them away. The arrow that was shot at a venture, and pierced between the joints of Ahab's armour, was directed by the hand of God for his destruction. 1 King. 22.34. Shimei's cursing of David, though it was the overflowing of his Gall, the effect of his malignity, yet that holy King looked higher, 1 Sam. 16.11. and acknowledged the Lord hath bidden him. As the Lord is a God of power and can inflict what judgements he pleaseth immediately; so he is a God of Order, and usually punisheth in this world by subordinate means. Now where ever he strikes, though his hand is wrapped up in a cloud, yet if it be not observed, especially if by habitual incogitancy men consider not with whom they have to do in their various troubles, this profane neglect is no less than a despising the chastenings of the Lord. 2. Inconsiderateness of the end of the Divine discipline is a great degree of contempt. The evils that God inflicts are as real a part of his providence, as the blessings he bestows; as in the course of nature the darkness of the night is by his order; as well as the light of the day: therefore they are always sent for some wise and holy design. Sometime though more rarely they are only for trial, to exercise the Faith, humility, patience of eminent Saints, for otherwise God would lose in a great measure the honour and renown, and his favourites the reward of those graces, afflictions being the sphere of their activity. But for the most part they are castigatory, to bring us to a sight and sense of our state, to render sin more evident and odious to us. They are fully expressed by pouring from vessel to vessel, that discovers the dregs and sediment, and makes it offensive that before was concealed. The least affliction even to the godly is usually an application of the physician of spirits for some growing distemper, every corrosive is for some proud flesh that must be taken away. In short they are deliberate dispensations to cause men to reflect upon their works and ways, and break off their sins by sincere obedience, Therefore we are commanded to bear the voice of the rod, and who hath appointed it. 'Tis a preacher of repentance, Micah 6.9. to lead us to the knowledge and consideration of ourselves. The distress of Joseph's brethren was to revive their memory of his sorrows caused by their cruelty: now when men disregard the embassy of the rod, are unconvincible notwithstanding its lively lessons, when they neither look up to him that strikes, nor within to the cause that provokes his displeasure, when they are careless to reform their ways, and to comply with his only will, as if afflictions were only common accidents of this mutable state, the effects of rash fortune or blind fate without design and judgement, and not sent for their amendment, this is a prodigious despiseing of God's hand. For this reason the Scripture compares men to the most inobservant creatures, to the wild asse's colt, Job 11.12. Psal. 58.4. Hos. 7.11. the deaf adder, to the silly dove without heart; and the advantage is on the beasts side, for their inconsideration proceeds merely from the incapacity of matter, of which they are wholly composed to perform reflex acts, but man's incogitancy is in sole fault of his spirit, that wilfully neglects his duty. The Prophet charges this guilt upon the Jews: Lord, when thy hand is lifted up they will not see. Isa. 26.11. 2. Insensibility of heart is an eminent degree of despising the Lord's chastenings. A pensive feeling of judgements is very congruous, whether we consider them in genere Physico or Morali; either materially as afflictive to nature, or as the signs of divine displeasure: for the affections were planted in the humane nature by the hand of God himself, and are duly exercised in proportion to the quality of their objects. And when grace comes it softens the breast, and gives a quick and tender sense of God's frown. An eminent instance we have in David; though of heroical courage, yet in his sad ascent to mount Olivet, 2 Sam. 15.30. he went up weeping with his head covered and his feet bare, to testify his humble and submissive sense of God's anger against him. Now when men are insensible of judgements either considered as natural or penal evils, if when they suffer the loss of relations or other troubles they presently fly to the comforts of the Heathens, that we are all mortal, and what can't be helped must be endured, without the sense humanity requires, that calm is like that of the dead sea a real curse: or suppose natural affection works a little, yet there is no apprehension and concernment for God's displeasure, which should be infinitely more affecting than any outward trouble how sharp soever, no serious deep humiliation under his hand, no yielding up ourselves to his management, this most justly provokes him. Of this temper were those described by Jeremiah, Jer. 5. 3● Thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved, thou hast consumed them but they refused to receive correction. 2. The causes of this despiseing of God's chastenings are, (1.) A contracted stupidity of soul, proceeding from a course in sin. There is a natural stubborness and contumacy in the heart against God, a vicious quality derived from rebellious Adam: we are all hewn out of the rock, and digged out of the quary, and this is one of the worst effects of sin, and a great part of its deceitfulness, that by stealth it increaseth the natural hardness, Heb. 3.13. Zech. 7.12. by degrees it creeps on like a gangrene, and causes an indolency. The practice of sin makes the heart like an adamant the hardest of stones that exceeds that of rocks. For hence proceeds such unteachableness of the mind, that when God speaks and strikes yet sinners will not be convinced; that briers and thorns are only effectual to teach them; and such untractableness in the will, that when the sinner is stormed by affliction, and some light breaks into the understanding, yet it refuseth to obey God's call. 2. Carnal diversions are another cause of slighting God's hand. Luke 21.34. The pleasures and cares of the world as they render men inapprehensive of judgements to come, so regardless of those that are present. Some whenever they feel the smart of a cross, use all the arts of oblivion to lose the sense of it. The affliction instead of a leading them to repentance, leads them to vain conversations, to Comedies and other sinful delights to drive away sorrow. Others although they do not venture upon forbidden things to relieve their melancholy, yet when God by short and sensible admonitions calls upon them, they have presently recourse to temporal comforts, which although lawful and innocent in themselves, yet are as unproper at that time, as the taking of a cordial when a vomit gins to work: for whereas chastisements are sent to awaken and affect us by considering our sins in their bitter fruits, this unseasonable application of sensual comforts wholly defeats God's design. For nothing so much hinders serious consideration as a voluptuous indulging the senses in things pleasing; like opiate medicines they stupefy the conscience and benumb the heart. 'Tis Solomon's expression, I said of laughter it is mad: for as distraction breaks the connexion of the thoughts, so mirth shuffles our most serious thoughts into disorder, and causes men to pass over their troubles without reflection and remorse. And as the pleasures so the business of the world causes a supine Security under judgements. We have an amazing instance of it in Hiel the Bethelite, 1 Kings 16. who laid the foundation of his city in the death of his firstborn, and set up the gates of it in his youngest son, yet he was so intent upon his building, that he disregarded the Divine Nemesis, that was apparent, fulfilling the terrible threatening prophesied against the builder of Jericho. Josh. 6.26. 3. An obstinate fierceness of spirit, a diabolical fortitude is the cause that sometimes men despise afflicting providences so far as to resist them. There is a passive malignity in all, an unaptness to be wrought on and to receive spiritual and Heavenly impressions from God's hand; but in some of the sons of perdition there is an active malignity whereby they furiously repel judgements as if they could oppose the almighty. Their hearts are of an anvil-temper, made harder by afflictions and reverberate the blow: like that Roman Emperor who instead of humbling and reforming at God's voice in thunder thundered back again. All judgements that befall them are as strokes given to wild beasts, that instead of taming them enrage them to higher degrees of fierceness. Isai. 3.9, 10. The Prophet described some of this rank of sinners, who said in the pride and stoutness of their hearts, the bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones, the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into Cedars: And thus many, though not explicity, yet virtually declare a resolution, notwithstanding the most visible discouragements from Heaven, to proceed in their sinful courses with more greediness, and from a sullen secret atheism are more strongly carried to gratify their lusts when they are in afflictions. 2. I shall proceed to consider the other extreme of fainting under God's rebukes. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The original word signifies the slackening and relaxing of things that were firmly joined together. The strength of the body proceeds from the union of the parts, when they are well compacted. By their disjointing 'tis enfeebled, and rendered unfit for labour. In this notion the Apostle in the 12 verse, Exhorts them to lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees: That is to encourage and strengthen their souls by a real belief of the promises made to afflicted Christians. 2. It may respect the sinking, and falling away of the soul like water, being hopeless of overcoming troubles. When water is frozen into hard ice, it will bear a great burden; but when 'tis dissolved and melted, nothing is weaker: So the Spirit of a man confirmed by religious Principles, Prov. 19.14. is able to sustain all his infirmities: Si fractus illabitur orbis, if the weight of the heaviest afflictions fall upon him, yet his mind remains erect and unbroken, and bears them all with courage and constancy: But if through impatience under tribulation, and diffidence in the divine Promises, we shrink from our duty, or reject the comforts of God as if they were small, and not proportionable to the evils that oppress us, This is to faint when we are rebuked by him. The causes of this despondency are usually, 1. Either the kind of the affliction: when there is a singularity in the case, it increaseth the apprehension of God's displeasure, because it may signify an extraordinary guilt, and singular unworthiness in the person that suffers, and upon that account the sorrow swells so high as to overwhelm him. 2. The number and degrees of afflictions: when like those black clouds which in winter days join together and quite intercept the beams of the sun, many troubles meet at once, and deprive us of all present comfort. Job lost his children by a sudden unnatural death; and was tormented in all the parts of his body, and reduced from his rich abundance to the dunghill and a potsherd to scrape his boils. Indeed his heroical spirit was supported under those numerous and grievous troubles, but such a weight were enough to sink the most. 3. The continuance of afflictions: when the clouds return after rain, and the life is a constant scene of sorrows; we are apt to be utterly dejected, and hopeless of good. The Psalmist tells us, all the day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning, and from thence was strongly tempted to despair. Psal. 73●●4. 4. The comparing their great sufferings with the prosperity of those who are extremely vicious, inclines some to despair. For not only their present evils are heightened and more sensibly felt by the comparison, but the prosperous impiety of others tempts them to think there is no just and powerful providence that distributes things below, and looking no higher than to second causes that are obvious to sense, they judge their state past recovery. The next thing is to prove that 'tis the duty and wisdom of the afflicted not to despise the chastenings of the Lord, nor to faint under them. 1. 'Tis their duty carefully to avoid those extremes, because they are very dishonourable to God. 1. The contempt of chastisements is a high profanation of God's honour, who is our Father and Sovereign, and in that quality afflicts us: 'Tis our Apostle's argument, Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh, Heb. 12.9. which corrected us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much more be subject to the Father of Spirits, and live? 'Tis a principle deeply planted in the humane nature, which the most barbarous Nations have kept inviolable, to express humble respects to our Parents, from whom we derive our life, and by whose tender care we have been preserved, and educated, although their discipline be rigorous: But it is infinitely more just and reasonable, that we should reverently submit to the Father of Spirits, who hath the highest right in us. As much as the immortal spirit excels the infirm corruptible flesh, proportionably should our reverence to God, when he most sharply rebukes us, exceed our respects to our earthly fathers when they correct us. The manner of the Apostle's expression is very significant, Shall we not much rather? if there be any vital spark of conscience remaining in our breasts; if reason be not wholly declined to brutishness, we cannot do otherwise. 2. Fainting under chastenings reflects dishonourably upon God. 'Tis true in some respect, those who are extremely dejected are not so guilty as the despisers; for usually they acknowledge the order and justice of his providence. But that false conception of the Father of mercies, either that he willingly afflicts the children of men, or that he hates them, because he afflicts them here, is so contrary to his holy nature, and injurious to his goodness, 1 Joh 4.9. the special Character of his nature, that 'tis an equal provocation, with the slighting his Sovereignty. 'Tis the best wisdom not to despise God's chastenings, nor faint under them: I will not insist upon the consideration, that 'tis the counsel of the supreme wisdom to us, nor that 'tis the avoiding the vicious extremes, which is the chiefest point of moral prudence; but it is the only way to prevent the greatest mischiefs that will otherwise befall us. 'Tis said, He that is Wise is profitable to himself, that is, either in obtaining good, or preventing evils. Job 22.21. Now it will appear how pernicious those extremes are, by considering, 1. The contempt of chastenings deprives us of all those benefits which were intended by them. God's end in them is to embitter sin to our taste, and make us disrelish that deadly poison: for as according to the rules of physic, contraries are cured by contraries; so sin, that prevails by pleasure, by something delightful to the carnal part, is mortified by what is afflictive to sense. Repentance is a duty that best complies with affliction: for when the spirit is road sad, and brought to the sobriety of consideration, it will more readily reflect upon the true causes of troubles: when the springs overflow, 'tis but directing the stream into a right channel, the changing the object of our grief, viz. mourning for sin instead of sorrowing for outward trouble, and we are in the way to happiness. Sensible sorrow leads to Godly sorrow. The natural is first, than the spiritual. Now the despisers of God's hand, that are unaffected with judgements, are incapable of this benefit. For if they do not feel the blow, how shall they take notice of the hand that strikes? if they are not softened with sorrows, how shall they receive the divine impression? if they have no sense of his displeasure, how shall they fear to offend him for the future? if the medicine doth not work, how can it expel noxious humours? 2. The neglect of chastenings doth not only render them unprofitable, but exposes to greater evils. 1. It provokes God to withdraw his judgements for a time. This the sinner desired, and thinks himself happy that he is at ease: miserable delusion! 1. This respite is the presage of his final ruin. 'Twas the desperate state of Judah, Isa. 1.5. as God expresses it, Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: The words of an anxious Father that has tried all methods, counsel, kindness, corrections, to reclaim a rebellious obstinate son, and finding no answerable effect gives him over, to follow the pernicious swing of his corrupt desires. No severity is like the suffering him in his licentious courses. Thus when God hath used many gracious ways to reduce the sinner by his Word, Spirit, and judgements, but he is inflexible to the calls of the Word, impenetrable to the motions of the Spirit, and insensible of afflicting providences, when after a combat with the rod sin comes off unwounded, and the rod retires; this calm is more dreadful than the fiercest storm: Nothing can be more fatal to the sinner; for by this divine desertion he is given over to a reprobate mind and vile affections, he goes on undisturbed in his sins, and every day increaseth his enmity against God, and provokes God's enmity against him. 'Tis not conceivable that one who is not made pliable to the grace of God by afflictions, should submit when he is in pleasant circumstances, and disposed to enjoy sensual satisfactions. If the whip and spur cannot break and tame the unruly beast, certainly the rich pasture will never make him manageable. So that God's ceasing to punish the sinner at present is so far from being a favour, that 'tis the effect of his deepest displeasure; for it contributes to his hardening. 'Twas the case of Pharaoh, when any of the plagues were removed, indulgence occasioned his induration. As water taken from the fire freezes sooner and harder, because the thinner parts are evaporated by the former heat, so when men are taken off from the fire of affliction, they are more confirmed in their vicious courses, ●han if they had never been afflicted. 3. The slighting of lighter strokes provokes God sometimes to bring more dreadful judgements in this life upon sinners. No man can endure that his love or anger should be despised. Nabuchadnezzar commanded the furnace to be heated seven times hotter for those who contemned his threaten. Leu. 26.23, 24 God tells the Israelites, If ye will not be reform by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times more for your sins. He will change the rods into scorpions, and scourge them for their continued rebellions. Amos 3.5. 'Tis the intent of that expostulation, Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall God remove his judgements while sinners are careless and unreformed, as if they might be final conquerors over them? no, he will multiply and greaten them. It may be at first God blasts part of the estate, and the sinner is not apprehensive of his hand; then he comes nearer and snatches away a dear relation; if still the sinner is unaffected, he strikes his body with a lingering or acute disease; if still he be not concerned for God's displeasure, he wounds his spirit, makes him sick in sense and conscience at the same time, fills him with terror by the reflection upon his wicked ways, and the foresight of that dreadful Tribunal before which he must appear: So that although he cannot live, he dare not die; though his earthly tabernacle be ready to fall upon him, he is afraid to go out and meet the supreme Judge. And if this doth not work a sincere thorough change, God casts him into hell to the company of the Giants, Prov. 21.16. Vid. Mr. Mede in loc. those bold rebels that fought against God. Briefly, as under the law, an incorrigible son that neglected his father's reproofs was to die without mercy, so an unreformed sinner who kicks against the pricks, and refuses to submit to God's corrections, shall be cut off in his obstinacy. Justice will proceed to excision, and acts of vengeance against him. 2. Fainting under chastenings is pernicious to sufferers: for it renders them utterly indisposed for the performance of duty, and uncapable of receiving the comforts proper for an afflicted state. 1. It renders them utterly indisposed for the performance of duty. Hope draws forth all the active powers of the soul, 'tis the great motive to diligence, and instrument of duty: Despair, like extremity of cold that checks the spring, and binds up the earth that its fruits cannot appear, hinders the free exercise of reason and grace, and cuts the sinews of obedience. He that is hopeless of a good issue out of troubles, will neither repent, nor pray, nor reform, but indulges barren tears instead of real duties. Besides it often falls out, that the same affliction is sent from God's displeasure upon his people for their sins, and is the effect of the rage of men against them, upon the account of their professing his Name. Such is the Wisdom and Goodness of God, that by the same fiery trial he may refine his servants from their dross and impurities, and render the Glory of the Gospel more Conspicuous. The hatred of Religion, and a blind fury may transport men to acts of Cruelty against the Saints, but 'tis by the permission of the universal Sovereign, who hath the hearts of all in his hands, and suffers their rage for holy ends. The enemy designs against their Faith, but God's aim is to make them change their lives. Now if either through strong fears, or the stinging sense of troubles, upon the account of Religion, our Courage fails, we are presently in danger of falling away, and denying our Master. The faint-hearted person is usually falsehearted, and for want of resolution, being frighted out of his Conscience and duty, chooses sin rather than suffering, and thereby justly deprives himself of the Crown of life, that is promised only to those who are Faithful unto the death. Besides not only the loss of heaven, but the torments of hell, are threatened against those who withdraw from the service of God to avoid temporal evils. Rev. 21.8. The fearful and unbelieving are in the front of those that shall have part in the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Now what folly is it, when two evils are propounded, to choose the greatest; that is, eternal death rather than temporal? and of two goods, to prefer the less; a short life with its Conveniencies on earth, before that which is eternally glorious in heaven? By which it appears, how much it concerns us to fortify and fix our minds, by a steadfast belief of God's supporting presence with us in all troubles, and of his gracious promise, that in due time we shall reap, if we faint not in well-doing. 2. They are incapable of the Comforts proper to an afflicted state. Those arise from the apprehension that God loves whom he chastens: Rev. 3. for the least sin is a greater evil than the greatest trouble, and his design is to take that away, and from the expectation of a happy issue. Hope is the anchor within the vail, that in the midst of storms and the roughest seas preserves from shipwreck. The character of Christians is, Rom. 12.12. that they are rejoicing in hope: But when the afflicted are under fearful impressions that God is an irreconcilable enemy, and sadly conclude their miseries are past redress, those divine Comforts that are able to sweeten the most bitter sufferings to believers are of no efficacy; their deep sorrows are not like the pains of a travelling woman, that end in a joyful birth, but the kill tortures of the stone, that are fruitless to the patiented. An obstinate grief and rejecting the Consolations of God, is the beginning of sorrows, the first payment of that sad arrear of mourning that shall be exacted in another world. The Use shall be to excite us to those duties that are directly contrary to the extremes forbidden, viz. to demean ourselves under the chastenings of the Lord, with a deep reverence and humble fear of his displeasure, and with a firm hope and dependence upon him for a blessed issue, upon our complying with his holy Will. 1. With a humble reverence of his hand. This temper is absolutely necessary, and most congruous with respect to God, upon the account of his Sovereignty, Justice and Goodness, declared in his chastenings; and with respect to our frailty, our dependence upon him, our obnoxiousness to his Law, and our obligations to him, that he will please to afflict us for our good. This is the reason of that expostulation, Will the Lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey? Shall God's threaten and judgements have no effect? Who ever hardened himself against him and prospered? Amos 3.4. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? the most sensible and severe attribute, when it is incensed, Are we stronger than he? Can we encounter offended Omnipotency? Can we with an army of lusts oppose myriads of mighty Angels? 'Tis not courage, but such a prodigious degree of folly and fury, that one would think 'twere impossible a reasonable creature were capable of it. Yet every sinner unreformed by afflictions is thus desperate: Job 15.25, 26 He stretches out his hand against God, and strengthens himself against the Almighty, he runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers. Such a furious rebel was Ahaz, who in the time of his distress did trespass more against the Lord; This is that King Ahaz. But God hath most solemnly declared, that he will be victorious at last over the most fierce obdurate enemies. 2 Chron. 28. As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me. His power is infinite, and anger puts an edge upon his power, and makes it more terrible. If our subjection be not voluntary, it must be violent. 'Tis our wisdom to prevent acts of vengeance by humble submissions. The duty of the afflicted is excellently expressed by Elihu: Job 34.31, 32 Surely it is meet to be said to God, I have born chastisements, I will not offend any more: that I know not teach thou me, if I have done iniquity I will do so no more. Add further, upon another account reverence is due to God's chastenings: for when love is the motive that incites one to give us counsel, though it be mixed with reproofs, and his prudence is not great, yet a respect is due to the affection. Now God who is only wise, chastises men from a desire to make them better and happy: he intends primarily to refine, not to consume them by afflictions; so that a serious regard to his hand is the most just and necessary duty of the creature. Briefly, every chastisement should leave deep and permanent impressions upon us, the sense of God's displeasure should make our hearts mournful and mollified, broken and contrite, that his will may be done by us on earth as 'tis in heaven. 2. Let us always preserve an humble dependence and firm hope on God for a blessed issue out of all our troubles: The support and tranquillity of the soul ariseth from hence; Christian patience suffers all things as well as charity, being encouraged by a continual expectation of good from him. Patience confirms all other graces, and is to the whole armour of God, what the temper is to material weapons, that keeps them from breaking in the combat: Now to maintain a constant hope in affliction, 'tis necessary to consider the reason of the Exhortation, as 'tis admirably amplified by the Apostle. 1. The relation God sustains when he afflicts believers. He is a Judge invested with the quality of a Father. The Covenant of grace between God and Jesus Christ, our true David, contains this observable cause, If thy children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgements, if they break my statutes, Psal. 89.30, 31, 32. and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. The love that ariseth from this relation, though it cannot hate, yet it may be displeased, and chastise them for their follies. Moses tells the Israelites, Thou shalt consider in thy heart, Deut. 8.5. that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord thy God chastens thee. In children reason is not fully disclouded, they are not capable to govern themselves, and are only taught with sensible pleasure or pain; so that a father is obliged to join correction with instruction to form them to virtue. This is so far from being inconsistent with paternal affection, that 'tis inseparable from it. For a parent to suffer a child to go on pleasantly in sin without due punishment is pure cruelty disguised under the mask of pity; for by the neglect of discipline he is confirmed in his vicious courses, and exposed to ruin. The Apostle therefore adds, Whom the Lord loves he chastens. As from the severest wrath he sometimes forbeareth to strike, so from dearest love he afflicts. Humble believers through a cloud of tears may see the light of God's countenance; for having elected them by special love to a glorious inheritance above, he dispenseth all things here in order to the preparing them for it, and all temporal evils as means are transformed into the nature of the end to which they are subservient. So that the sharpest sufferings are really from God's favour, since they are beneficial for our obtaining real happiness. The devil usually tempts men in a paradise of delights, to precipitate them into hell; God tries them in the furnace of afflictions, to purify and prepare them for heaven. 2. 'Tis a strong cordial against fainting to consider, that by virtue of the paternal relation; He scourges every son whom he receives; for no troubles are more afflictive and stinging, than those that are unexpected: Now when we are assured that there is no son whom the heavenly father doth not chasten, we are less surprised and less troubled when we meet with crosses. Indeed there is hardly any kind of affliction that may befall us, but we have some instance in Scripture of the Saints suffering the same. Are we poor and mean in the world? we should consider that poverty with holiness is a divine complexion, Jesus Christ the holy and beloved Son of God had not where to lay his head. Are we under bodily distempers? good Hezekiah was struck with an uncomfortable disease as to the quality of it, and Gaius had a flourishing soul in a languishing body. Are our dear relations taken away? Aaron and David lost some of their sons by terrible strokes. Are our spirits wounded with the sense of God's displeasure? Job and Heman were under strong terrors, yet the favourites of heaven. Briefly, how many most dear to God were called forth to extreme and bloody trials for the defence of the truth? How many deaths did they endure in one torment? How many torments in one death? Yet they were so far from fainting, that the more their pains were exasperated, the more their courage and joy was shining and conspicuous; as the face of the heavens is never more serene and clear, than when the sharpest northwind blows. 'Tis the Apostle's inference, Seeing we are compassed with such a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Verse. 8 This is further enforced by the following words, If ye be without chastening, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. If God doth not vouchsafe us the mercy of his rod, 'tis evident we are not part of his fatherly care. The bramble is neglected, while the vine is cut till it bleeds. 'Tis a miserable privilege to be exempted from divine discipline, and by ease and prosperity to be corrupted and made fit for destruction. Saint Austin represents one expostulating with God, O Deus, ista est justitia tua, ut mali floreant & boni laborent? In Psal. 25. O God, is it righteous with thee that the wicked should prosper and the good suffer? Dicis Deo, ista est justitia tua? & Deus tibi, ista est fides tua? haec enim tibi promisi, ad hoc Christianus facius es, ut in seculo isto floreres, & in inferno postea torquereris? God replies to him, is this your faith? did I promise you temporal prosperity? were you a Christian for this, that you might flourish in this world, and be miserably tormented in hell? Verse. 9 3. The Apostle represents the special prerogative of God as the Father of Spirits, and so hath a nearer claim to us than the fathers of our flesh, and that he is not liable to those imperfections that attend the earthly relations. They for a few day's chastened us for their own pleasure; humane love is a troubled irregular passion, mixed with ignorance and prone to error in the excess or defect. Sometimes parents are indulgent, and by a cruel compassion spare their children when they are faulty; sometimes they correct without cause; sometimes when the reason is just, yet they err in the manner or measure of the correction, so that their children are discouraged. But in God there is a perfect union of wisdom and love, of discretion and tenderness; his affection is without the least imperfection, his will is always guided by infinite wisdom. If his children offend, he will chastise them with the rod of men, that is, moderately: 2 Sam. 7.14. For as in Scripture things are magnified by the Epithet, divine, or of God, so they are lessened by the Epithet, humane; accordingly the Apostle declares to the Corinthians, that no temptation had befallen them, but what was common to man; 1 Cor. 10.13. but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. As a prudent Physician consults the strength of the patiented as well as the quality of the disease, and proportions his medicine: so all the bitter ingredients, their mixture and measure, are dispensed by the wise prescription of God, according to the degrees of strength that are in his people. 4. The Apostle specifies the immediate end of God in his chastenings: But he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. This is the supreme excellency of the divine nature; and our conformity to it is so valuable, that it renders afflictions not only tolerable, but so far desirable, as they contribute to it. In the present state our graces are imperfect, and our conformity to the divine purity is like the resemblance of the Sun in a watery cloud, very much beneath the perfection and radiation of that great light. Now God is pleased to fashion us according to his image by afflictions, as a statue is cut by the Artificer, to bring it into a beautiful form. He is pleased to bring us into divers temptations to try our faith, to work in us patience, to inflame our prayers, to mortify our carnal desires, to break those voluntary bands whereby we are fettered to the earth, that we may live with those afflictions wherewith others die. And certainly if we make a true judgement of things, we have not the least cause to suspect the love of God, when he chastises us to take away sin, the only abominable object of his hatred and deep detestation, and to render us partakers of the divine nature. And the present peaceable fruit of righteousness is the product in those who are duly exercised by their troubles. It is an allusion to the reward of the conquerors in the Olympic games, who had a crown of Olives, the emblem and shadow of peace. But true peace, a divine calm in the conscience, shall be the recompense of all that exercise the graces suitable to an afflicted state. In short, the Apostle assures Believers, 1 Cor. 11.32. that they are chastened of the Lord, to prevent their condemnation with the world. 'Tis this rod truly delivers them from hell, 'tis this consideration that changes thorns into roses, and extracts honey out of wormwood. If the way be stony or flowery that leads to blessedness, a Christian should willingly walk in it. To conclude, from the consideration of what the Scripture declares concerning temporal evils, Let us lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees, and make strait paths for our feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed, i. e. in our affliction let us take courage and resolution from the promises, and live in a holy conformity to God's will, that the weak or faint may be restored. The first and last ●●sson of Pagan Philosophy was to support men under the storms to which 〈◊〉 are liable in this open state, to render the soul velut pelagi rupes im●●●●, ●s a rock unshaken by the waves. But all their directions were unsuccessful, and so could not secure them from impatience or despair; but the Gospel that assures us of the love of God, in sending afflictions for our spiritual and eternal good, is alone able to compose the mind: And when ever we faint in troubles, 'tis either from infidelity or inconsideration. 'Tis impossible a person should be a Christian, and be incapable of comfort in the most afflicted state, for we are really so by the holy Spirit who is the Comforter. When we speak sometimes to those we judge infirm, we speak to Infidels, who only receive remedy from time, which they ought to receive from Faith; they have the Name of God only in their mouths, but the world is in their hearts; their passions are strong and obstinate, not subject to sanctified reason; the difficulty they have of being comforted, discovers the necessity of their being afflicted; they need conversion more than consolation. Others who are sincere in the Faith, yet are apt to faint under troubles, from an error, like that of the Apostles, when their Lord came upon the waters in a stormy tempestuous night to their assistance, they though he was a spirit; so they look on God as an enemy, when he comes to sanctify and save them. The sovereign remedy of our sorrows is to correct the judgement of sense by a serious belief of God's promise; thus we shall reconcile the roughness of his hand with the sweetness of his voice: He calls to us from heaven in the darkest night, 'tis I, be not afraid; he corrects us with the heart and hand of a Father. A due consideration of these things will produce a glorified joy in the midst of our sufferings: Rom. 15.4. Whatsoever things were written afore-time, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. How we may bring our Hearts to bear Reproofs. Serm. XXVIII. Psal. 141.5. Let the Righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness: and let him Reprove me, it shall be an excellent Oil, which shall not break my Head: for yet my Prayer also shall be in their Calamities. IT is generally agreed by Expositors, that this Psalm, as that foregoing, with two of those that follow, were composed by David in the Time of his Banishment, or slight from the Court of Saul. The state wherein he describeth himself to have been, the matter of his Pleas and Prayers contained in them, with sundry express circumstances regarding that season and his condition therein, do manifest that to have been the time of their composure. That the Psalmist was now in some distress, whereof he was deeply sensible, is evident from that vehemency of his spirit, which he expresseth in the reiteration of his request, or Supplication, v. 1. And by his desire, that his Prayer might come before the Lord as Incense, and the lifting up of his hands as the evening Sacrifice, v. 2. The Jewish Expositors guess not improbably, that in that Allusion he had regard unto his present exclusion from the Holy services of the Tabernacle, which in other places he deeply complains of. For the matter of his Prayer in this beginning of the Psalm (for I shall not look beyond the Text) it respecteth himself, and his deportment under his present condition, which he desireth may be harmless and holy, becoming himself and useful unto others. And whereas he was two ways liable to miscarry; First, by too high an exasperation of spirit against his Oppressors and Persecutors; and Secondly, by a fraudulent and pufillanimous compliance with them in their wicked courses; which are the two extremes that men are apt sinfully to run into in such conditions: he prays earnestly to be delivered from them both. The first he hath respect unto, v. 3. Set a watch, O Lord, before my Mouth, keep the door of my Lips; namely, that he might not under those great provocations which were given him, break forth into an unseemly intemperance of speech against his unjust Oppressors, which sometimes fierce and unreasonable Cruelties will wrest from very sedate and moderate spirits. But it was the desire of this Holy Psalmist, as in like cases it should be ours, that his heart might be always preserved in such a frame, under the conduct of the Spirit of God, as not to be surprised into an expression of Distempered passion in any of his words or say. The other he regards in his earnest Supplication, to be delivered from it, v. 4. Incline not my Heart unto any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity; and let me not eat of their Dainties. There are two parts of his request unto the purpose intended. (1st.) That by the Power of God's grace influencing his mind and Soul, his heart might not be inclined unto any Communion or Society with his wicked Adversaries in their wickedness. (2ly.) That he might be preserved from a liking of, or a longing after those things, which are the baits and allurements whereby men are apt to be drawn into Societies and Conspiracies with the workers of iniquity; And let me not eat of their Dainties. See Prov. 1.10, 11, 12, 13, 14. For he here describeth the condition of men prospering for a season in a course of wickedness: They first jointly give up themselves unto the practice of iniquity, and then together solace themselves in those Satisfactions of their Lusts, which their power and interest in the world do furnish them withal. These are the Dainties, of which an impotent longing and desire do betray the minds of unstable Persons unto a Compliance with ways of sin and folly: for I look on these Dainties to comprise whatever the Lust of the eyes, the Lust of the flesh, or the pride of life can afford. All these David prays to be delivered from any inclination unto; especially when they are made the Allurements of a course of sin. In the enjoyment of these Dainties, it is the common practice of wicked men to soothe up, approve of, and mutually encourage one another in the way and course wherein they are engaged. And this completes that goodly felicity which in this world so many aspire unto, and whereof alone they are capable. The whole of it is but a Society in perishing sensual enjoyments, without control, and with mutual Applauses from one another. This the Psalmist had a special regard unto; who casting his eye towards another Communion and Society which he longed after, v. 5. that in the first place presents itself unto him, which is most opposite unto those mutual applauses and rejoicings in one another, which is the salt and cement of all evil Societies; namely Rebukes and Reproofs for the least miscarriages that shall be observed. Now whereas the Dainties, which some enjoy in a course of prosperous wickedness, are that alone which seems to have any thing in it amongst them that is desirable; and on the other side Rebukes and Reproofs are those alone which seem to have any sharpness, or matter of uneasiness and dislike in the Society of the godly, David ballanceth that which seemeth to be sharpest in the one Society, against that which seems to be sweetest in the other, and without respect unto other advantages, prefers the one above the other. Hence some read the beginning of the words, Let the Righteous rather smite me, with respect unto this Comparison and Balance. Let the Righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness: and let him Reprove me, it shall be an excellent Oil, which shall not break my Head; for yet my Prayer shall be in their Calamity. The view of our Translation will evidence the words to be Elliptical in the Original by the various Supplements which we make to fill up the sense of them, and render them coherent. And this hath put some difficulty on the Interpretation of the Text, and caused some variety of apprehensions in sober and Learned Expositors. It is not unto my present purpose to engage into a discussion of all the difficulties of the Text, seeing I design to found no other Doctrine thereon, than what all will acknowledge to be contained in the words and their coherence: I shall only therefore briefly open them, with respect unto our present purpose, and its concernment in them. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Righteous, is any one opposed to the workers of Iniquity, v. 4. any Righteous person whatever, any one who is of the Society and Communion of the Righteous ones: For all the World falls under this distribution, as it will one day appear. Let him smite me: The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is seldom used in the Scripture, but to signify a severe Stroke which shakes the Subject smitten, and causeth it to tremble. See Prov. 23.25. 1 Sam. 14.6. Psal. 74.6. And as it is used for the stroke of the Hammer on the Anvil in fashioning of the Iron, Isa. 41.7. Wherefore the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 following may be taken adverbially as a Lenitive of that Severity which this word importeth. Let him smite me; but Leniter, Benign, Misericorditer: Gently, Kindly, Friendly, Mercifully; And so some Translations read the words; Let the Righteous smite me friendly, or kindly. But there is no need to wrest the word to such unusual sense; for the Psalmist intends to show, that so he may be delivered from the Society of ungodly men, and enjoy the Communion of the Righteous, he would not deprecate the greatest severities, which according to Rule, might be exercised in rebuking, or reproving of him. And this he doth with so full a satisfaction of mind, with such an high valuation of the advantage he should have thereby, that he says not he would bear it patiently and quietly, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be unto me a Benignity, a Mercy, a Kindness, as the word imports. And as it seems that some reproofs, at least some regular deal of Righteous persons with us, may come as a stroke that makes us shake and tremble; so it is a good advance in Spiritual Wisdom, to find out kindness and mercy in those that are so grievous unto our natural spirits, unto Flesh and Blood. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And let him reprove me. This manifests what he intends by smiting in the foregoing words. It is reproofs that he intends; and these he calls smiting in opposition unto the flattering, compliance of wicked men with one another in the enjoyment of their Dainties, and with respect unto that smart unto the mind and Affections, wherewith some of them are sometimes accompanied. But this word directly expressing that subject matter whereof I intent to treat, must be again spoken unto. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These words have a double Interpretation; for they may be either deprecatory of an evil implied, or declaratory of the Psalmist's sense of the good he desired. Kimchi on the place observes, that his Father Joseph divided the words of the Text, and began here a new sense, wherein the Psalmist returns unto the close of the fourth verse; Let me not eat of their Dainties, and let not their precious Oil, that is, their flatteries and soothe in sin, break my Head; but let the Reproofs of the Righteous preserve me. And this sense is followed by the vulgar Latin; Oleum autem peccatorum non impingat caput meum; but the other Construction and sense of the words is more Natural: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oleum capitis, the Oil of the Head, we render an excellent Oil; and countenance may be given unto that Interpretation from Exod. 30.23. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spices of the Head, is well rendered Principal Spices. But I rather think that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oil poured on the Head, which was the manner of all Solemn Unctions, is intended. This being a great privilege, and the Token of the Communication of great mercy, the Psalmist compares the rebukes of the Righteous thereunto; and therefore he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it shall not break my Head. Considering Reproofs in their own Nature, he calls them smitings; some of them being very Sharp, as it is needful they should be, where we are obliged to rebuke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a piercing and cutting manner, 2 Cor. 13.10. Tit. 1.13. But with respect unto their use, benefit and advantage, they are like unto that anointing Oil, which being poured on the Head, was both gentle and pleasant, and a Pledge of the Communication of Spiritual privileges, whence no inconveniences would ensue. The last clause of the words belonging not unto our present design, I shall not insist on their explication. Some few things must be further premised unto our Principal intention, concerning the nature of those Reproofs which are proposed as a matter of such Advantage in the Text. And, 1. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used, signifieth to Argue, to Dispute, to Contend in judgement, as well as to reprove, rebuke, or reprehend. Its first signification is to Argue, or to plead a Cause with Arguments. Hence it is used as a Common Term between God and man, denoting the Reason's real or pretended only on the one side and the other. So God himself speaks unto his People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa. 1.18. Go to now and let us Plead, reason, or argue together. And Job calls his Pleas, or Argument in Prayer unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 23.4. I would fill my mouth with Arguments. Wherefore that only hath the true Nature of a Reproof, which is accompanied with Reasons and Arguments for the evincing of what it tends unto. Rash, groundless, wrathful precipitate Censures and rebukes are evil in themselves; and, in our present case, of no Consideration. Nor indeed ought any one to engage in the Management of Reproofs, who is not furnished with Rule and Argument to evince their necessity, and render them effectual. Sometimes things may be so Circumstanced, as that a Reproof shall so carry its own Reason and efficacious Conviction along with it, as that there will be no need of arguing, or Pleas to make it useful. So the look of our Blessed Saviour on Peter under the Circumstances of his case, was a sufficient Reproof, though he spoke not one word in its Confirmation. But ordinarily Cogent Reasons are the best conveyances of Reproofs to the minds of men, be they of what sort they will. 2. Reproofs do always respect a Fault, an evil, a miscarriage, or a sin in them that are reproved. There may be mutual admonitions, and exhortations among Christians, with respect unto sundry things in the course of their Faith and Obedience, without a regard unto any evil or miscarriage. The general nature of a Reproof is an admonition, or exhortation, but it hath its special nature from its regard unto a fault in Course, or particular fact. And hence the word signifies also to Chastise, wherein is a Correction for, and the means of a recovery from a miscarriage; 2 Sam. 7.14. I will reprove him by the Rod of men, that is, Chastise him. This therefore is that reproof which we intent, a warning, Admonition, or Exhortation given unto any, whereby they are rebuked for and with respect unto some moral evil or sin in their course, way, practice, or any particular miscarriage, such as may render them obnoxious unto Divine Displeasure, or Chastisement: for it is essential unto a regular reproof, that in him who gives it, it may be accompanied with, or do proceed from an apprehension, that the person reproved is by the matter of the reproof rendered obnoxious unto the displeasure of God. 3. It may also be considered, that Reproving is not lest arbitrarily unto the wills of men. Whatever seems to be so, it loseth its nature, if it be not a duty in him who Reproves, and come short of its efficacy. No wise man will reprove, but when it is his Duty so to do, unless he design the just reproach of a busy body for his Reward. The command is general with respect unto Brother and Neighbour, Deut. 19.17. Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thine heart; Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him; But as to the particular discharge of this work as a Duty, there must be either an especial Office, or an especial Relation, or a concurrence of Circumstances for its warranty. God hath in his wisdom and care given Rules and bounds unto our Engagement unto Duties; without a regulation whereby, we shall wander in them with endless Dissatisfactions unto ourselves, and unnecessary Provocations unto others. But the Duty of reproving with the love, wisdom, tenderness and compassion required in the discharge of it; its Motives, Ends and Circumstances; its proper Rules and Limitations, fall not under my present consideration; but these things in general were necessary to be premised unto what do so, That which the Text instructs us in may be comprised in, this general Observation, Reproofs, though accompanied with some sharpness, if rightly received and duly improved, are a mercy and advantage incomparably above all the satisfactions, which a joint consent with others in sin and pleasures can afford. The latter part of the Proposition I have mentioned only to express the balance, that is proposed by the Psalmist, between the best and most desirable advantages of wicked society on the one hand, and the sharpest or most displeasing severities that accompany the communion of thc Righteous, or godly. But I shall not at all handle the comparison, as designing only some Directions how men should behave themselves under Reproofs, that they may be a kindness and an Excellent Oil unto them; or how they may by them obtain Spiritual benefit and Advantage unto their own Souls. And this, however at present the matter may be managed, is of itself of great Importance. For as in the state of weakness and imperfection, of mistakes and miscarriages wherein we are, there is no outward help or aid of more use and advantage unto us, than seasonable Reproofs: so in the right receiving and improving of them, as high a trial of the spirits of men, as to their interest in Wisdom and folly, doth consist, as in any thing that doth befall them, or wherewith they may be exercised. For as scorners of Reproofs, those that hear them unwillingly, that bear them haughtily and impatiently, with designs of revenge, or disdainful Retortions, have the Characters of Pride and Folly indelibly fixed them by the Holy Ghost; so their due Admission and Improvement is in the same infallible Truth represented as an evident pledge of wisdom, and an effectual means of its increase. This is so much and so frequently insisted on in that great Treasure of all wisdom, Spiritual, Natural and Political, namely, the Book of Proverbs, that it is altogether needless to call over any particular Testimonies unto that purpose. Two things we are to inquire into, in compliance with our present Design. 1. How Reproofs may be duly received. 2. How they may be duly improved; whereunto the Reasons shall be added why they ought so to be. I. That we may receive Reproofs in a due manner, three things are to be considered. (1) The general Qualification of the Reprover; (2) The Nature of the Reproof; And (3) The matter of it. 1. The Psalmist here desires that his Reprover may be a Righteous man. Let the Righteous smite me, let him reprove me. To give and take reproofs is a Dictate of the Law of Nature, whereby every man is obliged to seek the Good of others, and to promote it according to their ability and opportunity. The former is directed by that love which is due unto others; the latter by that which is due unto ourselves: which two are the great Rules, and give measure to the Duties of all Societies, whether Civil, or Spiritual. Wherefore it doth not evacuate a Reproof, or Discharge him who is reproved, from the duty of attending unto it, that he by whom it is managed, is not Righteous, yea is openly wicked; For the Duty itself being an effect of the Law of Nature, it is the same, for the substance of it, by whomsoever it is performed. Yea ofttimes such Moral, or rather immoral Qualifications, as render not only the Reprover less considerable, but also the Reproof itself, until thoroughly weighed and examined, obnoxious unto prejudicated Conceptions, do occasion a greater and more signal Exercise of Grace and Wisdom in him that is reproved, than would have been stirred up, had all things concurred unto the exact Regularity of the Reproof. However it is desirable on many accounts, that he who Reproves us be himself a Righteous person, and be of us esteemed so to be: For as such a one alone will or can have a due sense of the evil reproved, with a right Principle and End in the Discharge of his own Duty; so the minds of them that are reproved, are by their sense of his Integrity excluded from those insinuations of evasions, which prejudices and Suggestions of just causes of Reflections on their Reprover will offer unto them; especially without the exercise of singular Wisdom and humility, will all the Advantages of a just Reproof be lost, where the allowed practice of greater sins and evils than that Reproved, is daily chargeable on the Reprover. Hence is that Reflection of our Saviour on the useless, Hypocritical Diligence of men in pulling the mote out of their Brother's eyes, whilst they have beams in their own, Mat. 7.3, 4, 5. The Rule in this Case is, If the Reprover be a Righteous person, consider the Reprover first, and then the Reproof; if he be otherwise, consider the Reproof, and the Reprover not at all. II. The Nature of a Reproof is also to be considered; and this is threefold: for every Reproof is either Authoritative, or Fraternal, or merely Friendly and occasional. Authoritative Reproofs are either (1) Ministerial; or (2) Parental; or (3) Despotical. 1. There is an especial Authority accompanying Ministerial Reproofs, which we ought especially to consider and improve. Now I understand not hereby those Doctrinal Reproofs, when in the Dispensation of that Word of Grace and Truth, which is profitable for Correction and Reproof, 2 Tim. 3.16. they speak and exhort and rebuke the sins of men with all Authority, Tit. 2.15. but the occasional Application of the Word unto individual persons upon their unanswerableness in any thing unto the Truth wherein they have been instructed. For every Right Reproof is but the orderly Application of a Rule of Truth unto any Person under his miscarriage, for his healing and recovery. Where therefore a Minister of the Gospel in the Preaching of the Word doth declare and Teach the Rule of Holy obedience with Ministerial Authority, if any of the Flock committed to his charge shall appear in any thing to walk contrary thereunto, or to have transgressed it in any offensive Instance, as it is his Duty, the discharge whereof will be required of him at the great Day, particularly to apply the Truth unto them in the way of private, personal Reproof: so he is still therein accompanied with his Ministerial Authority, which makes his Reproof to be of a peculiar nature, and as such to be accounted for: For as he is thus commanded as a Minister to Exhort, Rebuke, Admonish and reprove every one of his charge as occasion shall require; so in the doing of it he doth discharge and Exercise his Ministerial Office and Power. And he that is wise will forego no considerations, that may give efficacy unto a just and due Reproof; especially not such a one as, if it be neglected, will not only be an aggravation of the evil for which he is reproved, but will also accumulate his guilt with a contempt of the Authority of Jesus Christ. Wherefore the Rule here is, The more clear and evident the representation of the Authority of Christ is in the Reproof, the more Diligent aught we to be in our Attendance unto it, and compliance with it. He is the great Reprover of his Church, Rev. 3.19. All the use, Power, Authority, and efficacy of Ecclesiastical Reproofs, flow Originally and are derived from him. In Ministerial reproofs there is the most express and immediate Application of his Authority made unto the minds of men; which if it be carelessly slighted, or proudly despised, or evacuated by perverse cavillings, as is the manner of some in such cases, it is an open evidence of an Heart that never yet sincerely took upon it his Law and Yoke. These things are spoken of the Personal Repoofs that are given by Ministers, principally unto those of their respective Flocks, as occasion doth require, wherein I shall pray, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the Sheep, would yet make us all more Faithful and diligent, as the season wherein we live doth abundantly require it. But moreover Church-censures in Admonition and Excommunication have the nature and ends of Ministerial reproofs. But the handling of their nature and use, with the Duties of those persons who justly fall under them, and the benefit which they may reap thereby, is too long and large a subject to be here diverted unto. 2. Authoritative reproof is Parental. Reproof is indeed one of the greatest and most principal Duties of Parents towards Children, and without which all others for the most part do but pamper them unto slaughter and Ruin. Neglect hereof is that which hath filled us with so many Hophni's, Phinease's, and Absoloms, whose outrageous wickednesses are directly charged on the sinful lenity and neglect in this matter even of godly Parents. And indeed whereas some Parents are openly vicious and debauched even in the sight of their Children, in a sensual neglect and contempt of the Light of Nature, whereby they lose all their Authority in reproving, as well as all Care about it; and whereas the most have so little regard unto sin as sin, whilst things are tolerably well in outward concerns, that they neglect the reproof of it as such; and many through a foolish contemptible prevalency of fond Affection, will take no notice of the sinful follies, extravagancies and miscarriages of their Children, until all things grow desperate with them; but soothe up and applaud them in such effects of Pride, Vanity and Wantonness, as aught to be most severely reproved in them, the woeful and dreadful degeneracy of the Age wherein we live owes itself much unto the horrible neglect of Parents in this Duty. That Parental reproof is a Duty taught by the Law of Nature, confirmed in the Scripture, enjoined under severe threaten and penalties, exemplified in Instances of Blessings and Vengeance on its Performance or neglect, rendered indispensably necessary by that Depravation of our Natures, which works in Children from the womb, and grows up in strength and efficacy together with them, I should not need to prove, if it lay directly before me; it being a matter of universal acknowledgement. I shall only say, that whereas there is on many accounts an immediate impress of Divine Authority on Parental reproofs, that which Children ought to consider and know for themselves is, that a continuance in the neglect, or contempt of them, is a token that seldom fails of approaching temporal and eternal Destruction, Prov. 30.17. 3. Authoritative reproof is Despotical; namely that of Governors, Rulers, and Masters of Families. This also partakes of the Nature of those foregoing, and being a Duty founded in the Law of Nature, as well as enforced by positive Divine commands, casts a peculiar obligation to obedience on them that are so reproved. And where Servants regard not sober and Christian reproofs, as the Ordinance of God for their good, they lose the advantages of their condition, and may be looked upon as unsanctified Sufferers in a state of Bondage, which hath an especial Character of the first curse upon it. 2. Reproof is Fraternal, or such as is mutual between the members of the same Church, by virtue of that especial Relation wherein they stand, and the obligation thence arising unto mutual watchfulness over each other, with Admonitions, Exhortations and Reproofs. As this is peculiarly appointed by our Saviour, Mat. 18.15. in confirmation of the Ordinance in the Church of the Jews to that purpose, Leu. 19.17. and confirmed by many Precepts and Directions in the New Testament, Rom. 15.18. 1 Thes. 5.14. Heb. 3.12, 13. Chap. 12.15, 16. So the neglect of it is that which hath lost us, not only the benefit, but also the very nature of Church Societies. Wherefore our improvement of Rebukes in this kind depends much on a due consideration of that Duty and Love, from whence they do proceed: For this we are by the Royal Law of Charity obliged unto the belief of, where there is not open evidence unto the contrary. And whereas it may be those things, for which we may be thus reproved, are not of the greatest importance in themselves, who that is wise will by the neglect of the reproof itself contract the open guilt of contemning the Wisdom, Love and Care of Christ in the Institution of this Ordinance? III. And Lastly, Reproofs are Friendly or occasional, such as may be Administered and managed by any Persons, as Reasons and Opportunities require, from the common Principle of universal Love unto mankind, especially towards them that are of the Household of Faith. These also having in them the entire Nature of Reproofs, will fall under all the ensuing Directions, which have a general respect thereunto. If then we would duly make use of, and Improve unto our Advantage the Reproofs that may be given us, we are seriously to consider the nature of them, with respect unto those by whom they are managed, for all the things we have mentioned are suited to influence our minds unto a regard of them, and compliance with them. 2. The matter of a Reproof is duly to be weighed by him who designs any benefit thereby. And the first consideration of it is: whether it be true, or false. I shall not carry them unto more minute Distribution, of the Substance and Circumstances of the matter intended, of the Whole, or Part of it; but do suppose that from some Principal consideration of it, every Reproof, as to its matter, may be denominated, and esteemed true or false. And here our own consciences with due Application unto the Rule are the proper Judge and Umpire. Conscience, if any way enlightened from the Word, will give an impartial sentence concerning the Gild or Innocence of the Person, with respect unto the matter of a reproof. And there can be no more infallible evidence of a miscarriage in such a condition, than when Pride, or Passion, or Prejudice, or any corrupt Affection, can either outbrave, or stifle that compliance with a just reproof, which Conscience will assuredly tender. Rom. 2.14. If a Reproof, as to the matter of it, be false, or unjust, and so judged in an Conscience, it may be considered in matter of Right, and of Fact. In the first case the matter may be true, and yet the reproof formally false and evil. In the latter the matter may be false, and yet the reproof an acceptable duty. 1. A Reproof is false in matter of right, or formally, when we are reproved for that as evil, which is indeed our duty to perform. So David was fiercely reproved by his Brother Eliab for coming unto the Battle against the Philistines, ascribing it to his Pride and the Naughtiness of his Heart: whereunto he only replied, What have I done? Is there not a Cause? 1 Sam. 17.28, 29. And Peter rebuked our Lord Jesus Christ himself for declaring the Doctrine of the Cross, Mark 8.33. And so we may be reproved for the Principal Duties that God requireth of us. And if men were as free in reproving, as they are in reproaching, we should not escape from daily rebukes for whatever we do in the worship of God. Now though such reproofs generally may be looked on as Temptations, and so to be immediately rejected, as they were in the cases instanced in; yet may they sometimes, where they proceed from Love, and are managed with moderation, be considered as necessary cautions to look heedfully unto the Grounds and Reasons we proceed upon in the Duties opposed, at which others do take offence. 2. If the Reproof be false in matter of Fact, wherein that is charged on us, and reproved in us, whereof we are no ways guilty, three things are to be considered, that it may not be unuseful unto us. I. The Circumstances of the Reprover; as (1) Whether he do proceed on some probable mistake; or (2) Credulity and easiness in taking up reports; or (3) On evil, groundless surmises of his own; or (4) From a real godly jealousy, which hath been imposed on, as easily it will be, by some appearances of Truth. Without a due Consideration of these things we shall never know how to carry it aright towards them, by whom we are reproved for that whereof we are not guilty. 2. Consider aright the difference between a Reproof, and a Reproach: for they may be both false alike, and that whereof we are reproved, have no more truth in it, than that wherewith we are reproached. Yea, we may be honestly reproved for that which is false, and wickedly reproached with that which is true; so Augustin calls the Language of the Maid unto his Mother about drinking of Wine, durum convitium, though the matter of it were true enough. But a Reproach is the Acting of a mind designing of, and rejoicing in evil. Unto a Reproof it is essential that it spring from Love. Whom I love I rebuke, is the absolute Rule of these things. Let a man rebuke another, though for that which indeed is false, if it be in Love, it is a Reproof; but let him rebuke another, though for that which is True, if it be from a mind delighting in evil, it is a Reproach, and if it be false, it is moreover a Calumny. 3. Where a man in such cases is fully justified by the Testimony of his own Conscience, bearing Witness unto his Integrity and Innocency, yet may he greatly miscarry under the occasion, if he attend not diligently unto his own Spirit, which most men judge to be set at the utmost liberty under such injurious Provocations as they esteem them. Wherefore to keep our minds unto Sedate, Christian moderation in such cases, and that we may not lose the Advantage of what is befallen us, we ought immediately to apply them unto such other Duties as the present Occasion doth require: As, 1. To Search our own Hearts and ways, whether we have not indeed upon us the guilt of some greater evils, than that which is falsely charged on us, or for which we are reproved on mistake. And if it appear so upon examination, we shall quickly see what little reason we have to tumultuate, & rise up with indignation against the charge we suffer under. And may we not thence see much of the Wisdom and goodness of God, who suffereth us to be exercised with what we can bear off with the impenetrable Shield of a good Conscience, whilst he graciously hides and covers those greater evil of our hearts, with respect whereunto we cannot but condemn ourselves? 2. To consider that it is not of ourselves that we are not guilty of the evil suspected and charged. No man of sobriety can on any mistake reprove us for any thing, be it never so false, but that it is merely of sovereign Grace that we have not indeed contracted the guilt of it. And humble thankfulness unto God on this occasion for his real preserving Grace will abate the edge and take off the fierceness of our indignation against men for their supposed injurious deal with us. 3. Such Reproofs, if there be not open malice and continued wickedness manifest in them, are to be looked on as gracious Providential warnings, to take heed lest at any time we should be truly overtaken with that which at present we are falsely charged withal. We little know the Dangers that continually attend us, the Temptations wherewith we may be surprised at unawares, nor how near on their account we may be unto any sin or evil, which we judge ourselves most remote from, and least obnoxious unto. Neither on the other hand can we readily understand the ways and means whereby the Holy Wise God issueth forth those hidden provisions of preventing Grace, which are continually administered for our Preservation. And no wise man, who understands any thing of the deceitfulness of his own heart, with the numberless Numbers of invisible occasions of sin, wherewith he is encompassed continually, but will readily embrace such Reproofs as Providential warnings unto watchfulness in those things whereof before he was not ware. 4. When the mind by these Considerations is rendered Sedate and weighed unto Christian moderation, then ought a man in such cases patiently and peaceably to undertake the Defence of his Innocency, and his own Vindication. And herein also there is need of much Wisdom and Circumspection; it being a matter of no small difficulty for a man duly to manage self, and Innocency, both which are apt to influence us unto some more than Ordinary vehemency of Spirit. But the Directions which might, and indeed aught to be given under all these particular Heads, would by no means be confined unto the Limits fixed to this Discourse. 3. If the matter of the Reproof be True in fact, than it is duly to be considered, whether the offence, for which any one is reproved, be Private, or Public attended with scandal. If it be private, than it is to be weighed, whether it was known unto, and observed in and by the Person himself reproved, or no, before he was so reproved. If it were not so known, as we may justly be reproved for many things, which through Ignorance, or Inadvertency, or Compliance with the Customs of the World, we may have taken no notice of; and if the reproof bring along light and conviction with it, the first especial improvement of such a peculiar reproof is thankfulness to God for it, as a means of deliverance from any way, or work, or path that was unacceptable in his sight. And hence a great Prospect may be taken of the following deportment of the mind under other Reproofs. For a readiness to take in Light and Conviction with respect unto any evil, that we are ignorant of, is an evidence of a readiness to submit to the Authority of God in any other Rebukes that have their Convictions going before them; so the heart that is prone to fortify itself by any Pleas or Pretences against convictions of sin, in what it doth not yet own so to be, will be as prone unto obstinacy under Reproofs in what it cannot but acknowledge to be evil. If it were known before to the person reproved, but not supposed by him to be observed by others, under the covert of which imagination sin often Countenanceth itself, that Soul will never make a due improvement of a Reproof, who is not first sensible of the Care and kindness of God in driving him from that retreat and hold, where the Interest of sin had placed its chiefest Reserve. Sins, so far Public as to give matter of offence or scandal, are the ordinary Subject of all orderly Reproofs, and therefore need not in particular to be spoken unto. Having showed the Nature of Reproofs in general, with such considerations of the matter of them, as have afforded occasion unto sundry particular Directions relating unto the duty under Discussion, it remains only that we farther explain and confirm the two generals comprised in the observation deduced from the Text; namely, (1) Why we ought to receive reproofs orderly, or regularly given unto us, esteeming of them as a singular privilege? and (2) How we may duly improve them unto their proper end, the Glory of God, and the Spiritual Advantage of our own Souls? As to the first of these we may observe, 1. That mutual reproofs for the curing of evil, and preventing of danger in one another, are Prime Dictates of the Law of Nature, and that Obligation, which our Participation in the same Being, Offspring, Original and End, to seek the good of each other, doth lay upon us. This God designed in our Creation, and this the rational Constitution of our Natures directs us unto. To seek and endeavour for each other all that good, whereof we are capable in Time, or unto Eternity, was indelibly implanted upon our Natures, and indispensably necessary unto that Society among ourselves, with the great end of our joint living unto God, for which we were made. All the mutual evils of mankind, whether of Persons, or of Nations, designed or perpetrated against one another, are effects of our fatal Prevarication from the Law of our Creation. Hence Cain, the first open violent transgressor of the Rules and bounds of Humane Society, thought to justify or excuse himself by a Renunciation of that Principle, which God in Nature had made the Foundation of a Political or Sociable life with respect unto Temporal and Eternal ends; Am I, saith he, my Brother's keeper? Gen. 4. Yea, God had made every man the keeper of his Brother so far, as that they should in all things in their opportunities, and unto their Power, seek their good, and Deliverance from Evil. In those things which are good unto us, those which are Spiritual and Eternal have the Preeminence. These nothing can prejudice but Sin and Mortal evils, whose prevention therefore in one another, so far as we are able, is a Duty of the Law of Nature, and the prime effect of that Love which we own unto the whole Offspring of that one Blood, whereof God hath made all Nations. And one of the most effectual means for that end are the reproofs whereof we treat. And the Obligation is the same on those that give them, and those to whom they are given, with respect unto their several Interests in this Duty. Wherefore to neglect, to despise, not thankfully to receive such reproofs, as are justly and regularly given unto us at any time, is to contemn the Law of our Creation, and to trample on the prime effect of Fraternal Love. Yea, to despise Reproofs and to Discountenance the discharge of that Duty, is to open a Door unto that mutual hatred and dislike, which in the sight of God is Murder. See Leu. 19.17. with 1 Joh. 3.15. Let us therefore look to ourselves, for there is no greater sign of a degeneracy from the Law, and all the ends of our Creation, than an unwillingness to receive reproofs justly deserved and regularly administered; or not to esteem of them, as a blessed effect of the Wisdom and goodness of God towards us. 2. Whereas the light of Nature is variously obscured, and its directive power debilitated in us, God hath renewed on us an Obligation unto this Duty by particular Institutions both under the Old Testament and the New. The Truth is, the efficacy of the Law of Creation, as unto Moral Duties, being exceedingly impaired by the entrance of sin; and the exercise of Original native love towards mankind being impeded and obstructed by that confusion and disorder, whereinto the whole state of mankind was cast by sin, every one thereby being made the enemy of another, as the Apostle declares, Tit. 3.3. not being cured by that coalescency into evil Societies which respects only Political, and Temporal ends, the discharge of this Duty was utterly lost, at least beyond that which was merely Parental. Wherefore God in the Institution of his Church, both under the Old Testament and the New, did mould men into such Peculiar Societies and Relations, as wherein way might be made meet again for the exercise thereof. He hath so disposed of us, that every one may know every one whom he is obliged to reprove, and every one may know every one whom he is obliged to hear. And as he hath hereby cured that confusion we were cast into, which was obstructive of the exercise of this Duty; so by the Renovation of positive commands, attended with Instructions, Directions, Promises and Threaten, enforcing the giving and receiving of Reproofs, with respect unto Moral and Spiritual ends, he hath relieved us against that obscurity of Natural light which we before laboured under. Should I go to express the Commands, Directions, Exhortations, Promises and Threaten, which are given in the Scripture to this purpose, it would be a work as endless, as I suppose it needless to all that are conversant in the Holy Writings. It may suffice unto our present purpose, that, there being an express institution of God for the giving and taking of Reproofs, and that an effect of infinite Goodness, Benignity and Love towards us; not thankfully to receive Reproofs, when it is our Lot to deserve them, and to have them, is to despise the Authority of God over us, and his gracious Care for us. When therefore it befalleth any to be justly and orderly reproved, let him call to mind the Authority and love of God therein, which will quickly give him that sense of their worth and excellency, as will make him thankful for them; which is the first step unto their due Improvement. 3. A due consideration of the use, benefit and advantage of them, will give them a ready admission into our minds and affections. Who knows how many Souls, that are now at rest with God, have been prevented by Reproofs, as the outward means, from going down into the Pit? Unto how many have they been an occasion of conversion and sincere turning unto God? How many have been recovered by them from a state of backsliding, and awakened from a secure sleep in sin? How many great and bloody sins hath the perpetration of been obviated by them? How many snares of Temptations have they been the means to break and cancel? What revivings have they been to grace, what disappointments unto the snares of Satan, who can declare? The Advantage, which the Souls of men do or might receive every day by them, is more to be valued than all earthly Treasures whatever: And shall any of us, when it comes to be our concern, through a predominancy of Pride, passion and prejudice, or through cursed Sloth and Security, the usual means of the defeatment of these advantages, manifest ourselves to have no interest in, or valuation of these things, by an unreadiness or unwillingness to receive Reproofs, when tendered unto us in the way, and according to the mind of God? But now suppose we are willing to receive them, it will be enquired in the last place, what Considerations may further us in their due Improvement? and what Directions may be given thereunto? An Answer to this enquiry shall shut up this Discourse. And I shall say hereunto, 1. If there be not open evidence unto the contrary, it is our Duty to judge that every Reproof is given us in a way of Duty. This will take off offence with respect unto the Reprover, which unjustly taken is an assured entrance into a way of losing all benefit and advantage by the Reproof. The reason why any man doth regularly reprove another, is because God requireth him so to do, and by his command hath made it his Duty towards him that is reproved. And do we judge it reasonable that one should neglect their Duty towards God and us, and in some degree or other make himself guilty of our sins, for no other cause, but lest we should be displeased, that we are not suffered to sin securely, and it may be to perish eternally? And if we are convinced that it is the Duty of another to Reprove us, we cannot but be convinced that it is our Duty to hearken and attend thereunto. And this will fix the mind unto a due consideration of the present Duty that lies before us, and what is our just concernment in the Reproof. Besides if it be done in a way of Duty, it is done in Love; for all orderly rebukes are effects of Love. And if we are convinced of any one, that he doth reprove in a way of Duty, we must be satisfied that what he doth proceedeth from Love, without by-ends or Dissimulation. For what doth not so, be it what it will, belongs not to rebuking in a way of Duty. And this will remove all obstructing prejudices in all who have the least gracious ingenuity. Ahab despised the warning of Micaiah, because he thought they mutually hated one another; he knew how it was with himself, and falsely so judged of the Prophet by his necessary sharpness towards him. But where there are such surmises, all advantages of reproofs will be assuredly lost. Where therefore our minds are satisfied that any reproof is an effect of Love, and given in a way of Duty, Dimidium facti, we are half way in the discharge of the Duty directed unto. 2. Take heed of cherishing habitually such disorders, vices and distempers of mind, as are contrary unto this Duty, and will frustrate the design of it. Such are (1) Hastiness of Spirit. Some men's minds do with such fury apply themselves unto their first apprehension of things, that they cast the whole Soul into disorder, and render it uncapable of further rational considerations. There may be, it is possible, some failures and mistakes in useful and necessary Reproofs, in matter, manner, circumstance, some way, or other. This immediately is seized on by men of hasty Spirits (a Vice and Folly sufficiently condemned in Scripture,) turned unto a Provocation, made a matter of strife and dispute, until the whole advantage of the Reproof is utterly lost and vanisheth. A Quiet, Gentle, Considerative, Sedate frame of Spirit is required unto this Duty. (2) Pride, and Haughtiness of mind, Self-conceit, Elation of Spirit, which will be inseparably accompanied with the contempt of others, and a scorn that any should think themselves either so much wiser, or so much better than ourselves, as to reprove us in any kind, are a fenced Wall against any benefit, or advantage by Reproofs; yea, things that will turn Judgement into Hemlock, and the most sovereign Antidote into Poison. No wild Beast in a toil doth more rave and tear and rend, than a Proud man, when he is reproved. And therefore he who manifests himself so to be, hath secured himself from being any more troubled by serious reproofs from any wise man whatever. See Prov. 9.7, 8. (3) Prejudices; which are so variously occasioned, as it were endless to recount. If now we make it not our constant business to purge our minds from these depraved Affections, they will never fail effectually to exert themselves on all occasions to the utter defeatment of all use in, or benefit by the most necessary and regular reproofs. 3. Reckon assuredly, that a fault, a miscarriage, which any one is duly reproved for, if the reproof be not received, and improved as it ought, is not only aggravated, but accumulated with a new crime, and marked with a dangerous Token of an incurable Evil. See Prov. 29.1. Let men do what they can, bear themselves high in their expressions, grow angry, passionate, excuse or palliate, unless they are seared, and profligately obstinate, their own Consciences will take part with a just and regular Reproof. If hereupon they come not up to amendment, their guilt is increased by the occasional excitation of the Light of Conscience to give it an especial charge, and there is an additional sin in the contempt of the Reproof itself. But that which principally should make men careful, and even tremble in this case is, that they are put on a Trial whether ever they will forsake the evil of their ways and do or no: For he who is orderly reproved for any fault, and neglects or despiseth the Rebuke, can have no assurance that he shall ever be delivered from the evil rebuked; but hath just cause to fear that he is entering into a course of hardness and impenitency. 4. It is useful unto the same end immediately to compare the Reproof with the Word of Truth. This is the measure, standard and directory of all Duties, whereunto in all dubious cases we should immediately retreat for advice and counsel. And whereas there are two things considerable in a Reproof; First, the matter of it, that it be true, and a just cause or reason of a rebuke; and Secondly, the right which the Reprover hath unto this Duty, with the Rule which he walked by therein; if both these for the substance of them prove to be justified by the Scripture, then have we in such a case no more to do with the Reprover, nor any of his circumstances, but immediately and directly with God himself: for where he gives express warranty and direction for a Duty in his Word, his own Authority is as directly exerted thereby, as if he spoke unto us from Heaven. Hereby will the mind be prevented from many wander and vain reliefs, which foolish imagination will suggest, and be bound up unto its present Duty. Let our unwillingness to be reproved be what it will, as also our prejudices against our Reprover, if we are not at least free to bring the Consideration and Examination of the one and the other unto the Word of Truth, it is because our deeds are evil, and therefore we love Darkness more than Light. No milder, nor more gentle censure can be passed on any, who is not free to bring any Reproof that may be given him unto an impartial Trial by the Word, whether it be according to the mind of God, or no. If this be done, and conviction of its Truth and necessity do then appear; then let the Soul know it hath to do with God himself, and wisely consider what answer he will return, what account he will give unto him. Wherefore 5. The best way to keep our Souls in a readiness rightly to receive and duly to improve such Reproofs as may regularly be given us by any, is to keep and preserve our Souls and Spirits in a constant awe and reverence of the Reproofs of God which are recorded in his Word. The neglect, or contempt of these reproofs is that which the generality of mankind do split themselves upon, and perish eternally. This is so fully and Graphically expressed, Prov. 1. that nothing can be added thereunto. And the great means, whereby much hardness comes upon others through the deceitfulness of sin, is want of keeping up a due sense or reverence of Divine Reproofs and Threaten on their Souls. When this is done, when our hearts are kept up unto an awful regard of them, exercised with a continual meditation on them, made tender, careful, watchful by them, any just Reproof from any, that falls in compliance with them, will be conscientiously observed, and carefully improved. 6. We shall fail in this Duty, unless we are always accompanied with a deep sense of our frailty, weakness, readiness to halt, or miscarry, and thereon a necessity of all the Ordinances and Visitations of God, which are designed to preserve our Souls. Unless we have due apprehensions of our own state and condition here, we shall never kindly receive warnings beforehand to avoid approaching dangers; nor duly improve Rebukes for being overtaken with them. It is the humble Soul, that feareth always, and that from a sense of its own weakness, yea, the treacheries and deceitfulness of its heart, with the power of those Temptations whereunto it is continually exposed, that is ever like to make work of the Duty here directed unto. Wherein doth appear the Blessedness of Forgiveness? and how it may be obtained? Serm. XXIX. Psal. 32.1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose Sin is covered. OF all the pains or torments that any of the Children of Men do or can feel in this Life, none are comparable to those which proceed from the lashes and wounds of a guilty conscience, under the apprehensions of the anger of a Sin-revenging God, and the impression of some scalding drops of his wrath upon the Soul. Prov. 18.14. The Spirit of a Man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded Spirit who can bear? David had ventured to transgress, and that very heinously: and in his breaking of God's Law, he had broken his own peace; in his dishonouring of God's Name, he had wounded his own Conscience. After his sin, David is shy of God, and keeps silence for a while, maketh no confession; God is highly offended, and hides his face from him, but layeth his hand sorely upon him, making such a deep impression of his displeasure upon his Spirit, that he sunk under the weight of it; and it became so very grievous unto him, that he roareth out all the day under the horrible anguish which he felt hereby; yea, he complaineth that his moisture was hereby turned into the drought of Summer. In this condition David could find no relief, no ease, or assuagement of his grief, until upon acknowledgement of his Sin he had obtained forgiveness, and God through his free grace, and tender mercy, had covered his iniquity, as we shall find in the 3, 4, and 5. verses of this Psalm; which I take to be the occasion of the joyful acclamation, and sweet expression in my Text, the first verse of the Psalm, concerning the blessedness of remission, or happiness of the man that hath, with him, obtained so great a privilege; which privilege none have a greater sight of, than those that have felt the wounds and smart, and roared under the horror of an accusing Conscience, and been terrified with the furious rebukes of God's angry Countenance. And because this was David's case, therefore he might the more feelingly Pronounce those to be Blessed, whose Sins were pardoned. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed] The word in the Original signifies Blessedness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is read in the plural number, because as one saith: That Man is many ways blessed, he is blessed in this world; Vir ille est multis modis beatus, nempe in hoc mundo, & in altero est beatissimu●, & faelicissimus, ut propriae videantur beatitudines & ad eum singulariter pertinere. Genebrardus. Quia multa bona debent concurrere ad beatitudinem; vel ut ostenderet t●lem cumulatè beatum esse. Pol. Synop. Alii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est interjectio sive adverbium, & sic Rhetorica exclamatio ex abrupte, vel laeta exclamatio, de faelicitate ejus. O beat illum! Sic Schindler. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quibus remissa est iniquitas. Calvin. Condonatis praevaricationis cui demittitur praevaricatio. Pagnin. Qui levetus à defectione. Jun. Trem. Vel qui exoneratus à transgressione; a quo ablata transgressio. Pisca. absolutus à crimine. Pol. ex Gei. and in the other world, he is most blessed and happy; So that Blessedness seems most properly to be his, and singularly to belong to him; and it is the plural number, because many good things concur to true Blessedness; or to show that such a one is cumulatively happy, he hath a heap of blessings upon him; Thus our learned Mr. Pool in his Synopsis. The same Author observes, that some take the word Blessed in the Hebrew to be an Interjection, or Adverb: And so make this to be a Rhetorical, though abrupt, exclamation, or a joyful acclamation at the happiness of such. Whose transgression is forgiven] There are divers versions of these words. One translates them out of the Hebrew, whose iniquity is remitted. Another, whose prevarication is forgiven. Others, and that nearer the sense of the Hebrew words, who is eased of his defection, or unburdened of his transgression. Another, from whom his transgression is taken away. Another, who is absolved from his Crime; all which versions agree in the same sense with our Translation, whose transgression is forgiven; for remission of Iniquity, or Prevarication, is the same as the forgiveness of Transgression; to have the sin taken away, to be eased and unburdened of the transgression, what is it more than to have the sin forgiven? forasmuch as the weight and load of guilt is by forgiveness removed, whereby alone the Conscience is truly eased; and so to be absolved from Crime, is as much as to be acquitted from all Obligation of punishment; and this is done in forgiveness of sin. Whose sin is covered] He is Blessed whose sin is covered, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not he whose sins are covered by himself; So Prov. 28.13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; all aught to acknowledge unto God without hiding any, as v. 5th. of this Psal. I acknowledged my sins unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. But he is Blessed whose sin is covered by God. Psal. 85.2. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy People, thou hast covered all their sin. Sin is covered, when it is covered by God; and when it is covered from God; not as if any sin were or could be covered from the Eye, and view of his Omnisciency; but sin is covered from him, when it is covered from his angry Eye, and his wrathful, revengeful Countenance: That is, when God ceaseth to be angry for the sin, through his reconciliation to the Sinner. Piscator noteth upon the place, that sin is here compared to filthinesses, which use to be covered, that they may not offend the Eye. When the offence of God's Eye is removed, than sin may be said to be covered. And it is observed, that in the Hebrew the same word, Tectum ab irae vel ultionis Dei fa●te. Pol. ex Gei. Peccatum comparatur serdibus, quae tegi solent, ne oculos offendant. Piscator. operculo illo lex tegehatur per quam cognitio pec●ati: Sic Christus peccata tegit, remittit & expiate, ne lex ultra accuset & condemnet, placatum Dei Patris irae per Filium, tectum est (seu opertum) peccatum per Christum scilicet prepitiatorium nostrum. Merc. in Pasco. which signifieth a covering, doth signify also an expiation: and the covering of the Mercy-Seat, which here may be alluded unto, which was called the Propitiatory, comes from the same Root; which Propitiatory, or Covering, did cover the Tables of the Law, the Handwriting against us; and this was a Type of Christ our Propitiation; who having appeased his Father's anger doth cover our sins, that the Law shall not accuse or condemn us. Sin is covered by God, when he hides his Face from it. Psal. 51.9. when he casts it behind his Back. Isa. 38.17. when he throws it into the depth of the Sea. Mic. 7.19. So that this covering of sin is of the same import as the former expression, namely, the forgiving of it. Quest. 1. Wherein doth appear Blessedness of forgiveness? Quest. 2. How forgiveness may be obtained? Quest. 1. Wherein the Blessedness of forgiveness doth appear? To evidence this, I shall give the Reasons, why such must needs be Blessed whose transgressions are forgiven. Reas. 1. Such must needs be Blessed whose transgressions are forgiven, because God doth pronounce them Blessed, as in the Text, Blessed is he whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. David wrote these words not from himself, but as he was inspired by the Holy Ghost; and if any saying in the whole Book of the Scriptures be the Word of God, (as all of them are) this is his Word, and this is his Sentence, which is confirmed in the New Testament, Rom. 4.7. the Apostle Paul quoting these very words to prove the Doctrine of justification by Faith without works; God pronounceth such to be Blessed whose Iniquities are forgiven, and therefore they must needs be Blessed, because God speaketh of things as they are; never did a lie, falsehood, or mistake proceed out of his Mouth. God, who alone giveth the Blessing, pronounceth pardoned Persons Blessed, and therefore they are Blessed. When Isaac gave his Fatherly Blessing unto Jacob, though it were upon a mistake, he supposing him to have been Esau his firstborn Son; yet afterward did not, he would not retract it, but telleth Esau, who too late sought for it, Gen. 27.33. I have Blessed him, and he shall be Blessed. Surely then, where God, who never mistaketh, doth pronounce the Blessing upon any, he doth not, he will not retract it, but they are Blessed, and shall be Blessed. Reas. 2. Such must needs be Blessed whose iniquities are forgiven, because they are delivered from the greatest evil, and that which doth expose them to the greatest misery, and which alone can deprive them of eternal happiness. Pardoned persons are delivered from the greatest evil, and that is sin, which is the greatest evil in itself, because most opposite to the chiefest good, and forasmuch as it is the cause of all other evils, that either do or can befall mankind. Besides the miseries of this life, it is sin, and only sin, which exposes unto future miseries, and the vengeance of eternal fire in Hell: The curse of the Law is for sin, whereby the Law is broken Gal. 13.10. Cursed if every one, that continueth not in all things, which are written in the Book of the Law, to do them. The threaten of eternal destruction are for sin, especially for sins against the Gospel. 2 Thess. 1.7, 8, 9 The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven, with his mighty Angels, in flaming Fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel; who shall be punished with everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord, and from the Glory of his power. Gild for sin, in the Nature of it, is Obligatio ad paenam, an Obligation to punishment, not Temporal only, but such as may bear Proportion to the demands of God's infinite justice, which therefore must be eternal. Such whose iniquities are forgiven, are delivered from the guilt of sin, they are free from Obligation to punishment, and so are no longer exposed thereunto: through Christ they have remission, being by Faith interested in his merit and satisfaction; and God's justice cannot require the satisfaction again of them, which he hath already received of Christ, and accepted for them. Christ is their surety, who hath paid their Debts, in forgiveness they are discharged, and God will not require the Debt any more of them. Therefore there is no Condemnation to them, Rom. 8.1. Jesus having delivered them from the wrath to come, 1 Thess. 1.8. It is sin also which can alone deprive any of eternal happiness; In the first Covenant God promised life and everlasting felicity upon the condition of perfect obedience; it is only disobedience which doth hinder the fulfilling of this promise. It was sin which threw man at the first out of Paradise, and which still doth keep men out of Heaven; nothing doth hinder men's happiness here, nothing can deprive them of happiness in the other world, but this evil of evils, Sin; hence than it will undeniably follow, that pardoned Persons, who are delivered from sin, must needs be Blessed, there being nothing which can procure their misery or prevent their Blessedness, because in the forgiveness of sin their sin is removed with the evil consequences and effects thereof. Psal. 103.12. As far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Reas. 3. Such men must needs be Blessed whose iniquities are forgiven because they are taken into Covenant with God; God is their God, and they are his People. The promise of the New Covenant, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more, is coupled with the other promises, I will be their God, and they shall be my People, Jer. 31.33, 34. Where ever God fulfils the one promise, he doth fulfil the other too. God forgiveth iniquity to none, but at the same time he becometh their God, and brings them into the Blessed relation of his Covenant-people. They are Blessed that have the Lord for their God. Psal. 144.15. Happy is that People that is in such a case, yea, happy is that People wh●se God is the Lord. Psal. 33.12. Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord, and the People whom he hath chosen for his own Inheritance. Such as are taken into Covenant with God are Blessed, because 1. They are taken into God's favour. 2. They are taken into God's family. 3. They are under God's providence. 4. They have free access unto God in Prayer. 5. They have Communion with God in all his Ordinances; and thus it is with all pardoned Persons, and therefore they are Blessed. 1. Pardoned Persons being taken into Covenant are taken into God's favour. Nothing doth hinder God's special favour but unpardoned sin, nothing but that which is the only Object of his hatred, and cause of his displeasure; and this is nothing else but sin. Although God's love have many Objects, yet his hatred hath but one, and that is sin; God hateth none of his Creatures, as they are Creatures, but as they are sinful; never did any thing offend or displease God but sin; nothing else hath power to enkindle God's anger, and to blow it up into a flame. When God forgiveth sin, his hatred ceaseth, his anger is removed, and he receiveth them whom he pardoneth into the arms of his special love. God's favour is the peculiar privilege of God's pardoned People. Psal. 106.4. Remember me with the favour which thou bearest to thy People: O, visit me with thy Salvation. Therefore all pardoned Persons being in God's favour, they are Blessed; because his favour is the Fountain of Blessedness: In his favour there is life, Psal. 30.5. Yea, his loving kindness is better than life, Psal. 63.3. The favour of an earthly King is counted a great Privilege, but the favour of the King of Heaven is really a great Blessedness. The God of Heaven who is so Powerful, Wise, Faithful, Good, Merciful, hath a special favour and kindness for them, and doth love them with an incomparable, incomprehensible, unchangeable, and eternal Love, therefore they must needs be the happiest People on the Earth. 2. Pardoned Persons being in Covenant are taken into God's family; being reconciled by the Cross of Christ, Eph. 2.16. they are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-Citizens with the Saints, and of the Household of God, v. 19 And being of God's Household they are God's Children. 1 Cor. 6.18. I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. This is a privilege which rendereth all those, above all others, most Blessed who partake of it. Joh. 1.12. To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name. To them gave he power, The Original word signifieth Right or Privilege, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. it is the greatest privilege in the World to be numbered amongst God's Children; hence it is that John writing of it in his Epistle, doth break forth into an exclamation of joy and wonder: 1 Joh. 3.1. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the Sons of God He seems to be in an ecstasy of joy at the greatness of this privilege, and the happiness of such as had attained it. If beggars were lifted up from the Dunghill, to be adopted Children of the greatest Prince upon the Earth, it would not be so great an honour to them, as this honour and dignity which is conferred upon pardoned Persons, in their being advanced into the number of the adopted Children of the great Jehovah, the Lord of Heaven and Earth; and will any question whether they are Blessed? 3. Pardoned Persons being in Covenant are under God's special Providence. There is a General Providence that doth attend all the Children of men, but God's especial Providence doth attend his own Children, and his peculiar People, who are reconciled unto him by Jesus Christ; such are under God's especial Providence, they dwell in the secret place of the most High, and under the shadow of the Almighty, Psal. 91.1. God's Name is their strong Tower, unto which they run and are safe, Prov. 18.10. God is frequently called their Rock, and Fortress, Buckler, Shield, and Deliverer, and hath made many Promises unto them of Defence, and Deliverance. They are under God's special Provision; as a Father provideth for his Children, so God provideth for his People: he provideth for their Bodies, When the young Lion's lack, and suffer hunger, they shall not want any good thing, Psal. 34.10. He promiseth to Feed them, and Cloth them, and to withhold no good thing from them; and if they always have not as much in the World as they wish, they shall be sure to have as much as God seethe they do really need; but more especially he provideth for their Souls, the Robes of his Son's Righteousness to Cloth them, sweet and precious Promises to Feed and Nourish them, Jewels of Grace to enrich and adorn them, the guard of Angels to attend them, himself and his Son to be Companions to them, the Peace and Joys of the Holy Ghost to cheer them, and to sweeten their passage through the valley of the World, and the dark entry of Death. This is the privilege of pardoned Persons, and surely than they are Blessed. 4. Pardoned Persons being in Covenant have free access unto God in Prayer: Eph. 2.18. Through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Chap. 3.12. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the Faith of him. Heb. 4.16. Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find Grace to help in time of need. Being pardoned and reconciled through Christ, they may with boldness and confidence come daily to the Throne of Grace, and there by Prayer and Supplication make known their requests unto God, and they shall be sure to have both acceptance and audience. God who hath given them a pardon, will deny them nothing that is really for their good; having interest in Christ, who hath such interest in Heaven, whatever they ask of the Father in his Name, if it is according to his will, they may be assured, because Christ hath faithfully promised it, that he will do it for them. Surely then such Persons are happy. 5. Pardoned Persons being in Covenant have Communion with God in all his Ordinances, not only in Prayer, but hearing of the Word, sing, and at the Table of the Lord; when others rest in the outside of Ordinances, they meet with God there; Sin being removed, which before made a separation, they now attain Communion with God, and their hearts close with him as their chief good. There is nothing more sweet in the World than Communion with God; hence David doth account those most happy that had the liberty of God's House, and Ordinances, where they did or might enjoy so great a privilege. Psal. 84.4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy House. And Psal. 65.4. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy Courts; he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy House, even of thy Holy Temple. Such only are truly Blessed that find satisfaction; it is not the Enjoyment of Creatures will give this; but in the Enjoyment of and Communion with God in his Ordinances, which is the goodness of God's House, true satisfaction may be found; and therefore pardoned Persons, who do attain this, are truly and the only Blessed Persons. Reas. 4. Such must needs be Blessed whose iniquities are forgiven, because they are in a better state than Adam was in his first Creation. None will deny, who read and believe the Scriptures, that Adam was Blessed before he sinned; there was no Curse of the Law upon man, until the Law was broken by him; and as God made all other things good, so man as he came out of God's hand was made both Good and Happy. The primitive Blessedness of Adam consisted chief in two things. First, In the Innocency which was in him. Secondly, In the Image of God which was upon him; whereby he was capacitated for, and had a nearness of Communion and fellowship with God. In both respects pardoned Persons are in a better estate than Adam. 1. In respect of Innocency, although they cannot so properly be called Innocent in themselves, doubtless they are not so Innocent as Adam before his fall; yet upon their pardon they are guiltless, they are reputed Innocent in the sight of God, and (however God may chastise them for sin here) they shall no more be punished for any sin in the other World, than if they had never offended, than if they had never committed any the least sin from their Birth unto their Death, but had been as white and clean, as pure and Innocent as the first Adam before his fall, or the second Adam who never fell: and herein their condition is better than that of Adam in Innocency, because no guilt shall be charged upon them unto their Condemnation; whereas Adam had no such security against Condemnation; for afterward he falling into sin, would certainly have fallen into Hell, had not pardoning mercy prevented it. 2. In regard of the Image of God, that is repaired in all those that are pardoned; when God forgiveth their sin, he changeth their nature; and that Faith which justifieth the Person, doth also purify the heart. Acts 15.9. Indeed pardoned Persons are renewed but in part; and the inherent Righteousness and Holiness, which they attain unto in this life, is but imperfect; yet in this they are in a better condition than Adam was at first, because, although Adam's inherent Righteousness were perfect, yet it was left to his own keeping, and he quickly lost it, and fell quite off from God, putting himself out of God's favour and out of Covenant together, and there was no Salvation attainable by him, until God had promised Christ, and made a New Covenant of Grace with him: But the inherent Righteousness of pardoned Persons, although it be far short, many degrees, of absolute perfection, yet it is committed to the keeping of Christ by the Spirit in them, who is both able and hath promised to bring it unto perfection; so that they shall never totally fall from Grace, but grow up from one degree of Grace unto another, until they arrive unto Heaven, where they shall be absolutely perfect both in Holiness and happiness; and in the mean time they are accepted as complete and perfect in their head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose perfect Righteousness is through Faith imputed unto them, whereby the defects of their righteousness are supplied, and they adopted to eternal Life. Pardoned persons are in a better state than Adam, therefore they are blessed. Reas. 5. Such whose iniquities are forgiven are blessed because they shall be blessed; the blessedness of pardoned persons is chief in hope of future blessedness, without which hope in some circumstance of time, they would be, as the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 15.19. of all Men most miserable; and therefore I shall chief speak of the future blessedness of the pardoned; and here 1. Show what the future blessedness is which pardoned persons shall have. 2. Prove that pardoned persons shall most assuredly attain this blessedness. 3. Show how this future blessedness doth render them blessed at the present; and this will be a full proof that pardoned persons are blessed. 1. The first thing is to show, what the future blessedness is which pardoned persons shall have; and here I must premise that there is but little of this future blessedness revealed in comparison of what it really is, and what pardoned persons will find it to be; Ministers have preached and written much concerning it, but they have not told one half, no nor the thousand part of the Glory and excellency thereof; and it must be but little then that I have time or room to speak of it in this discourse; yet something I must say, and it is no difficult thing to set it forth by Scripture-light and in a few words, as far exceeding all outward happiness, and earthly felicity. The blessedness which pardoned persons shall have, doth lie in three things. 1. In the blessed and glorious place where they shall live. 2. In the blessed and glorious company which they shall converse withal. 3. In the blessed and glorious state which they shall attain to. 1. Pardoned persons shall live and take up their eternal abode in a most blessed and glorious place; Here they have no continuing City, but they seek one to come, Heb. 13.14. The most strong and flourishing Cities in the World may be demolished by the hands of Men, or overthrown by Earthquakes, or consumed and turned into ashes by the devouring flames of fire; but the City they shall dwell in cannot be demolished, overthrown, or consumed; that City will abide and continue so long as God shall abide, the Maker of it; They look for a City which hath Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God, Heb. 11.10. The Foundations of this City are sure and strong, such as shall never be moved; the Cities and Houses they now dwell in are made by man, and therefore are but mean; but the City they shall dwell in is of God's Building and Making, and therefore is very glorious. It is the New Jerusalem which they shall hereafter inhabit, the Jerusalem which is above, the Walls and Gates thereof are Pearls, and the Streets thereof pure Gold, as it is described, Rev. 21. at the latter end of that Chapter: But the place is beyond all comparison, and doth exceed in glory whatever description may be made of it. 2. Pardoned persons shall have most blessed and glorious company to converse withal in Heaven. 1. In Heaven pardoned persons will have the company of all the Saints, there they will find all their godly friends and acquaintance, and that both such as die before them, and those that die after them; in whose Society they will have a mutual sweet complacency, and their joy one in another will exceed what tongues can express. There they shall have the company of all those Godly Ministers, either whom they have known and heard, or whose Writings only they have seen and read; and how will the spiritual children delight to see the glory, and live always in the company of their spiritual Fathers, whom God hath made instrumental for their conversion? then they will rejoice indeed that ever they saw their face, that ever they heard their voice, that ever they believed their report, that ever they were persuaded by them to repent of their sins, and accept of God's Son, to come into, and to keep in God's ways, when they see whither those ways have brought them. There they will meet with all the Holy Martyrs, so famous in their generations for their courage and constancy; with all the Holy Prophets and Apostles, the Penmen of the Scriptures, so famous in their time for the large and plentiful effusion of the Spirit of God upon them; with all the good Kings and Princes, and all the righteous persons whatever, that have lived in all ages and generations, of all kindreds, Nations, and Languages; they shall then be gathered all into one body under Christ their head, and join together in blessing, and praising, and singing Hallelujahs unto the Lord for ever. 2. In Heaven pardoned persons will have the company of all the glorious Angels; here the Angels guard them, and are ministering Spirits unto them, Heb. 1.14. Hereafter they will be their companions, and there will be mutual and most sweet converse between them. Some delight in the company of Nobles, and the great ones which belong to the Courts of great Princes; they shall have the company and conversation of the glorious Angels, who are the Nobles of Heaven, and Courtiers of the King of Kings. How the Angels and Saints will converse together, and communicate their minds one to another, is too high for us to conceive, and too difficult for us to determine; but surely the converse will be very sweet, and full of love and delight. 3. In Heaven pardoned persons will have the company and fellowship of the glorious Spirit, the Holy Ghost; here they have his presence and powerful operations; they feel now, especially at some times, his sweet breathe and powerful operations, which do wonderfully enlighten them, greatly quicken and inflame their hearts with divine love, yea, and fill their hearts with spiritual and heavenly joy: But in Heaven they shall have a fuller, sweeter, more powerful and constant presence of the glorious Spirit; they shall there be filled with the Holy Ghost, as full as they can hold, yea, beyond their present capacity; they shall be under the sweet breathe of the Spirit, whereby the flame of divine love will be kept alive in them perpetually in the greatest height, and heat of it, and this shall abide to Eternity. 4. In Heaven pardoned persons shall have the company of the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory. Here they have heard of him, there they shall see him; here they see him with the eye of Faith, there they shall see him eye to eye, and face to face. Austin did wish to have seen three things, above all other things that were to be seen in the World; Rome in its Glory, Paul in the Pulpit, and Christ in the flesh; The righteous in Heaven will see that which is far beyond Austin's wish, they will see Zion in its Glory, Paul in his Glory, and Christ in his Glory. They will see Zion in its glory, which will far exceed Rome in its greatest splendour, when it was most illustrious for wealth and riches, through the spoils of so many conquered Kingdoms which were brought into it, when it was most illustrious for stately houses, and sumptuous buildings, for wise and learned Men, famous and valiant Captains and Soldiers. The new Jerusalem, Mount Zion which is above, will outshine Rome in glory, more than the Sun doth outshine the smallest Star in Heaven, or the faint light of a Candle here upon earth. They shall see Paul in his glory, they shall hear him praising God with triumphant acclamations of joy, which will be far more than to hear him preach in a state of weakness and infirmity; but chief they shall see Christ in his glory, the sight of Christ in his humiliation was nothing in comparison of a sight of him in his state of exaltation. They shall see him then as he is, 1 Joh. 3.2. Behold now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Christ was never seen on earth as he is; his glory was shadowed, his Divinity was vailed, and his humanity was most evident to the view, which had its infirmities: but hereafter his humanity will appear to be lifted up into such glory as doth exceed all created glory of Men or Angels, and his Divinity will be most illustrious to the view of the Saints, at the sight of which they will be astonished with admiration and love; and O how will they gaze and wonder at his marvellous beauty, and shining excellency, when they see him come down from Heaven attended by all the holy Angels, and when they shall not only see him, but meet with him, be owned and welcomed by him, and be taken to live with him! 1 Thes. 4.16, 17. The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. It was a great privilege which the Apostles had to live with Christ when he was humbled and vilified here on earth; what a privilege than will it be which all the righteous shall have to live with Christ when he is glorified in Heaven, and that not for a few years, but for ever? What a happiness will it be to see the glory which Christ had with the Father before the World was, and not only to see it, but to share in it? 5. In Heaven pardoned persons shall have the company of the Father; they have his gracious presence here on earth, they shall have his glorious presence in Heaven; there they shall have the immediate Beatifical vision of him, and the full most blessed fruition of him. The sight of God's backparts, the glimpses and glances of his eye at a distance, the mediate enjoyment of him in and by Ordinances doth sometimes even transport them, and strangely fill them with wonder and delight; but O what Soul-ravishing admirations, what transports and ecstasies of joy will they have, when in Heaven they shall behold God's face, be always under the beams of the light of his countenance, and have continual, close, intimate, full enjoyment of him, fellowship and communion with him, and this to abide for ever and ever! In Heaven they shall dwell with God, and God will dwell with them, Rev. 21.3. I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, behold the Tabernacle of God is with Men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. This, this will be happiness indeed, to have God himself to dwell with them, and manifest himself not only in his grace, but in his glory unto them, therefore it followeth, v. 4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; There will be no grief where God's presence is, in his presence there being fullness of joy, and pleasures for evermore, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor ●●●ing, neither any more pain, the full sight of God will cure of all pain and sorrow, and fill with delight and joy, as Herbert in his Poem called, The Glance. If thy first glance so powerful be, A mirth but opened, and sealed up again; What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see Thy full eyed love. When thou shalt look us out of pain, And one aspect of thine spend in delight, More than ten thousand Suns disperse in light, In Heaven above. 3. Pardoned persons shall in Heaven attain a blessed and glorious state; a state of peace and tranquillity; a state of wealth and plenty; a state of honour and dignity; a state of holiness and purity; a state of perfect happiness and glory, in Soul and Body. 1. In Heaven pardoned persons shall attain a state of peace, of perfect peace and tranquillity: they shall have perfect peace without them, and they shall have perfect peace within them; here they have Wars about them, and rumours of Wars; and when they don't hear of Wars, except it be afar off, they have jars near at hand, and that every day; they see Men and Women fight, wounding and murdering one another with the Sword of the Tongue, and many are the thrusts, which they themselves have received on every side; and howsoever desirous they are of peace, and follow after it, yet they cannot attain it, but are forced to complain with David, Psal. 120.6, 7. My Soul hath long dwelled with him that hateth peace, I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for War. But in Heaven they shall be hid for ever from the wounds and scourge of the Tongue; Heaven is a Kingdom wherein dwells righteousness, and wherein dwells peace. In Heaven they shall be freed from all strife and contention, from all bitterness, clamour, and evil speaking, no unpeaceable Spirit shall be admitted into the new Jerusalem, and never shall any the least quarrel arise between the Inhabitants of that place. And as they shall have perfect peace without them, so they shall have perfect peace within them. Here they are often wounding themselves, and that more deeply and sorely than any Man can do, I mean, they too often wound their consciences by their sins; and if peace be attained by them, through faith in Christ's blood, this peace is often interrupted and broken by them through their renewed provocations; and at the best their peace it is but imperfect in this life: But in Heaven they shall have perfect peace within, such a calm and serenity, such a quiet and tranquillity of Spirit, as shall never have the least disturbance any more. In the upper region of the Air there are no storms or tempests, all that be are in the middle or lower region; and when they are exalted unto the highest Heavens, that region which is beyond the Stars, they shall be removed beyond all those storms of consciences within, and all those tempests of troubles without, which are common and ordinary in the lower region of this World; there they shall have most sweet rest for their Souls for ever in the bosom of God. 2. In Heaven pardoned Persons shall attain a state of wealth and plenty; however poor some of them are as to this World's riches, yet they shall be Rich, yea, they are Rich in Faith; the Riches which they have in hand, or heart rather, are great, but the Riches which they have in their eye or hope are far greater, their Grace is beyond the worldling's Gold, their Peace is beyond the worldling's Jewels, the privileges which they are here invested with, are far more excellent than the largest earthly Possessions, which any worldlings have or hope to have; but the Riches which they shall have are far more transcendent; here they have only an earnest Penny, in Heaven they shall have large sums; here they have the first Fruits, in Heaven they shall reap the Harvest; here they have the Deeds of Conveyance which give them title, in Heaven they shall have possession of the uncorrupted and glorious Inheritance, 1 Pet. 1.4. They shall have treasures in Heaven, which neither Moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thiefs break through to steal them away, Mat. 6.20. In Heaven every want will be supplied, every defect removed, every desire satisfied; in their Father's House there is plenty, and bread enough, which they shall be enriched and filled with, and which they shall live upon to all eternity; when Death shall turn others out of their houses, rob them of their Estates, and bereave them of all that they have in the World, Death will befriend them, and convey them to the place where their Treasure and Inheritance lies, which they then shall be admitted to the possession of, and never be turned out of possession. 3. In Heaven pardoned Persons shall attain a state of honour and dignity; here some of them, yea, all of them, are slighted and disesteemed, vilified and accounted as the filth and offscouring of the World, and yet they are really and in God's esteem the most honourable, they are the Sons and Daughters of the Lord Almighty, as hath been said; but they shall be advanced far higher than they are, not to a high Seat upon earth, but a high Seat above the earth, yea, above the Stars and visible Heavens, they shall sit with Christ on his Throne, Rev. 3.21. They shall have a Crown, not an Earthly Crown, but an Heavenly; not a Crown of Gold, but a Crown of Glory, which fadeth not away, 1 Pet. 5.4. They shall have a Kingdom, in comparison of which all the Kingdoms of the World are not worthy to be named, it is the Kingdom that is promised to them, Mat. 5.3. At the day of Christ's second appearance they shall be honoured, when they are sent for by the Angels, and caught up in the Clouds to meet their Lord in the Air; then he will own and Crown them, and take them to live and reign with them for ever in Heaven. 4. In Heaven pardoned Persons shall attain a state of Holiness and purity: here they are renewed but in part, and their Holiness is imperfect, they find corruption remaining, and feel it daily working in them, which is the greatest grief and trouble to them in the World: but in Heaven they shall be made perfect in Holiness; they shall have not only perfect Peace, but also perfect purity, the being of sin shall be removed, and all the spots and stains of it shall be washed away; in Heaven, as they shall sigh no more, so they shall sin no more; as they shall grieve no more, so they shall offend no more; nothing in Heaven shall offend them, and in Heaven they shall no more offend God; nothing in Heaven shall break their Peace, and they shall no more break God's Laws; in Heaven they shall be like the Angels, not only without Marriage, but without sin, they shall be like to them in Holiness and in happiness; and this will be their happiness to attain perfection in Holiness. 5. In Heaven pardoned Persons shall attain a state of perfect happiness and Glory in Soul and Body; their Souls shall be glorified and their Bodies glorified in Heaven. 1. In Heaven the Souls of pardoned Persons shall be glorified; a shining excellency and marvellous spiritual beauty shall be put upon them, the Image of God will there be drawn to the life in them; all the faculties of their Souls will there be elevated, ennobled, and beautified with wondered perfections, and filled brim full with glory, such as doth far exceed their present capacity; they shall have the brightest beams of light in their minds, the purest and sweetest flames of love in their hearts, and that with such heart-ravishing joy as is to us unconceivable, but to them will both be full and everlasting. Psal. 16.11. 2. In Heaven the Bodies of pardoned Persons will be glorified; their vile Bodies will be fashioned into the likeness of Christ's most beautiful and glorious Body. Phil. 3.21. All the defects and deformities which some of their Bodies have here will be removed, and they shall shine like the new burnished Heavens; what a rare mixture of colours, what an exact Symmetry of parts their Bodies shall have, what lovely Proportion and feature in their Face, what sparkling motions in the eye, what graceful gestures in the whole Body there will be, it is not for us to describe, for the beauty of glorified Bodies will be beyond all descriptions. And thus much concerning the future blessedness itself which pardoned Persons shall have. 3. The second thing is to prove that pardoned Persons shall assuredly attain this future blessedness. This will appear by several Scriptures, and several Arguments drawn from the Scriptures. 1. The Scriptures which prove that pardoned Persons shall assuredly attain future blessedness are these, Eph. 1. v. 7, and 11. compared. v. 7. In whom we have redemption through his Blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of his Grace. v. 11. In whom also we obtained an Inheritance. This Inheritance here spoken of can be no other than the Heavenly Inheritance, and the Apostle plainly asserteth that such who had obtained the forgiveness of sin, they had also obtained the Inheritance: in whom we have obtained, that is, they shall as certainly obtain it, as if they had it already in Possession. A more full proof is in Rom. 8.30. Whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified; This is that Golden chain, so much spoken of by Divines, the links of which are so fast joined together, that all the power of men or Devils can never be able to pluck them asunder. As such whom God hath Predestinated before time, shall certainly be called and justified in time; so those who are called and justified and so pardoned in time, shall certainly be glorified at the end of time, and when time shall be no more. And the third Scripture to prove this is, Rom. 5.10. For if when we were sinners we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life. Pardoned persons are reconciled persons, and if when they were sinners they were reconciled through Christ's death and satisfaction, surely when reconciled, taken into favour, and become friends, they shall be saved not with a temporal, but with an eternal Salvation, by Christ's life and intercession, which hath sufficient efficacy and prevalency to effect this thing for them. Here besides the Apostle's assertion, he doth insinuate an Argument for the proof of it; but I shall add some other Scripture-Arguments to prove that pardoned persons shall most assuredly attain future blessedness. Arg. 1. The first Argument may be drawn from God's decree of predestination or election. Whom God hath predestinated or elected to the blessedness of Heaven, they shall most assuredly attain it; But God hath predestinated or elected all pardoned persons to the blessedness of Heaven, therefore they shall certainly attain it. That all such whom God hath predestinated or elected unto the blessedness of Heaven shall certainly attain it, is evident to any who impartially do read and weigh the Scriptures, which clearly do reveal the eternity of God's decree of particular predestination or election. Ephes. 1.4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the World. Ver. 5. Having predestinated us according to the good pleasure of his will. God's decree of predestination or election (which is to eternal happiness, therefore called an ordination to eternal life, Acts 13.48. an appointment and election to Salvation, 1 Thes. 5.9. 2 Thes. 2.13.) being eternal is therefore unchangeable, and therefore shall certainly be accomplished. If any thing hinder the accomplishment of God's decree, it must be either something within him, or something without him; 1. Nothing within him can hinder its accomplishment, unless he should change his own mind, and alter his decree, and this would infer a changeableness in God, which is against both reason and Scripture; and besides other imperfection, it would infer an imperfection in God's knowledge and wisdom, that he did not foresee or consider those after-reasons, which should incline him unto a change from his first determination, and this is inconsistent with his infinite foreknowledge, and eternal counsel of his wisdom, in his willing and decreeing this thing; Men may change their purposes upon this account, but God so infinitely wise and sore-knowing, cannot do it. If he had fore-seen reason to have altered the thing, he would never have decreed or determined it. 2. Nothing without God can hinder the accomplishment of his decree, because of his infinite power to effect what he hath designed, and against infinite power no resistance can be made; the Elect which the Apostle Peter writeth unto, 1 Pet. 1.2. As they are chosen to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for them, V 4. So they are sure to be kept by the power of God to Salvation, V 5. And surely there can be no hindering of the Salvation and Blessedness of the Elect, who are kept for it or unto it by the Almighty power of God. And thus I think it is very clear, that all whom God hath predestinated or elected to blessedness shall certainly attain it. Hence are the words of the Apostle, which may put all out of doubt, Ephes. 1.11. In whom also we have obtained an Inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. That all pardoned persons are predestinated or elected unto the blessedness of Heaven is also evident, because pardon of sin is the effect of predestination, Rom. 8.30. Whom he hath predestinated, them he also called and justified; Because pardon of Sin is the means, and a necessary means of obtaining the blessedness of Heaven, which God doth elect some of the Children of Men unto; and as wherever God doth elect to the end, he doth elect to the means, without which the end could not be accomplished; so wherever he doth elect to the means, he doth elect to the end, without which the means would be in vain: pardoned persons having therefore obtained the means of blessedness, which is remission of sin, without which they could have no admission into Heaven, it is an evident sign that they are chosen to this blessedness of Heaven; and moreover all pardoned persons are true believers, it being alone through Faith that any are justified and pardoned. Rom. 5.1. Being justified by Faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 10.43. Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. And all true believers are elected, true Faith being called the Faith of God's Elect, Tit. 1.1. And such are ordained to Eternal Life, Acts 13.48. As many as were ordained to Eternal Life believed. Faith is the fruit of our election; and our Saviour telleth the Jews, They did not believe because they were not of his Sheep, Joh. 10.26. Therefore all pardoned persons being true believers are elected, and therefore they shall certainly be saved, and attain the Eternal blessedness of Heaven. Arg. 2. The Second Argument may be drawn from God's Covenant and promise. All those to whom God is engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal blessedness, they shall certainly attain Eternal blessedness: But God is engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal blessedness unto all pardoned Persons; therefore all pardoned Persons shall certainly attain Eternal blessedness. That all such to whom God is engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal happiness, shall certainly attain it, is evident, because of God's truth and faithfulness. Heb. 10.23. He is faithful that hath promised. Numb. 23.19. God is not a Man that he should lie, nor the Son of Man that he should repent: hath he said it, and will he not do it? hath he spoken it, and will he not make it good? Tit. 1.2. In hope of Eternal Life, which God that cannot lie, promised. Heb. 6.17, 18. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show to the Heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an Oath; That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. Therefore God's Covenant is called an everlasting Covenant, and the mercies thereof, sure mercies. Because of his faithfulness; Isa. 55.3. I will make an everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. It is clear then, that all those to whom God is engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal blessedness, they shall certainly attain it; because otherwise God would prove unfaithful and a liar, which is impossible. And it is clear that God hath engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal blessedness to all pardoned persons, because they are all taken into Covenant, as hath been already proved; God is engaged by Covenant to be their God; and as our Saviour doth prove the Resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because God was their God, so might I, by the same Argument, prove the Eternal blessedness of all pardoned persons, because God is their God, which relation doth engage him to make them perfectly and Eternally happy; but besides this God hath expressly promised Eternal happiness. 1 Joh. 2.25. This is the promise which God hath promised us, even Eternal Life. Joh. 3.16. Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have Everlasting Life. Many other promises there are of the same import, all belonging to the Covenant of Grace, and all pardoned persons being in this Covenant, they belong to them; they are made to believers, and all pardoned persons are believers, therefore God is engaged by Covenant, and hath promised to give Eternal Life and blessedness unto them, and therefore they shall certainly attain it. Arg. 3. The Third Argument may be drawn from the union of all pardoned persons unto Christ, and his undertaking for them, to bring them unto Eternal blessedness. All those who are united unto Christ, and whom he hath undertaken to bring to Eternal blessedness; they shall certainly attain Eternal blessedness: But all pardoned persons are united unto Christ, and he hath undertaken to bring them to Eternal blessedness; therefore they shall certainly attain Eternal blessedness. All pardoned persons being true believers, are by Faith united unto Christ, and so made members of the Body, whereof Christ is the Head, and Christ will not suffer any of his members to perish: his body would not be complete in Heaven, if he should miss any of his members there; they are espoused unto Christ, and Christ will certainly bring his Spouse to his Father's house. The union between Christ and believers is indissoluble; and therefore as certainly as Christ is there, he will bring them thither too in the appointed time; they, by virtue of this union, are said to be already in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Eph. 2.6. They are there in their head, who hath for them taken possession of those places, and therefore he will surely give them possession: He hath undertaken to do it, Joh. 10.27, 28. My Sheep hear my voice and they follow me, and I give unto them Eternal Life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any Man pluck them out of mine hand. And Christ will make good his undertaking. As he hath made good his undertaking in purchasing blessedness for them; so he will make good his undertaking to give them possession of this blessedness; Therefore pardoned persons shall certainly attain unto it. Arg. 4. The fourth Argument may be drawn from the Right, which pardoned persons have unto Eternal blessedness: having a Right to it, they shall certainly attain it, God will not, cannot do them that wrong to keep them out of that Inheritance, or deny them that blessedness, which they can show a right unto. Pardoned persons have a double right to Eternal blessedness. 1. The right of Justification. 2. The right of Adoption. 1. They have a right of Justification, wherein they are not only acquitted from guilt, but accepted as perfectly Righteous in God's sight, through the imputation of Christ's perfect Righteousness; and so they have received in the second Adam that right to Eternal Life, which they lost in the first Adam; and it is a Righteous thing with God to give them this Eternal Life and blessedness, which perfect Righteousness doth entitle unto. 2. They have the right of Adoption as believers, they are the Children of God, Gal. 3.26. Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Jesus Christ. And as Children they are heirs, Rom. 8.17. If Children, than heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; and as heirs they have right to the Eternal Inheritance, and they shall certainly attain it. Arg. 5. The fifth Argument may be drawn from the certainty of all pardoned persons perseverance in Grace unto the end. All such as persevere in Grace unto the end, shall certainly obtain Eternal blessedness, Mat. 24.15. He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved, Rev. 2.10. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a Crown of Life. Rom. 2. 6, 7. Who will render to every Man according to his deeds; to them who by patiented continuance in well-doing, seek for Glory, and Honour, and Immortality, Eternal Life. All pardoned persons shall persevere in Grace unto the end; they shall not only persevere through Faith, 1 Pet. 1.5. but they shall persevere in it. God will fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness in believers, and the work of Faith with power. 2 Thes. 1.11. God will keep them in his hand, out of which none is able to pluck them. Joh. 10.29. He that hath begun a good work in them, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Phil. 1.6. God hath promised them to enable them to persevere. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them, and I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not departed from me, Jer. 32.40. The Scripture is very full and clear in the Doctrine of the true believer's perseverance: and all pardoned persons being believers, as I have already showed, all pardoned persons shall persevere to the end, and therefore shall certainly attain future Eternal blessedness of Heaven. 3. The third particular to be spoken unto is, to show how this future Eternal blessedness of Heaven doth render pardoned persons blessed here upon the Earth; this will appear in these following particulars. 1. Pardoned persons have a sight of their future blessedness, and the excellency of it. 1. They have a sight of the Eternal blessedness itself, 1 Tim. 1.10. Christ hath abolished death, and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel. The Lord hath made a clear Revelation in his Gospel unto them, of that Eternal Life and blessedness, which he hath laid up in Heaven for them; This in former ages and generations was not made known to the Sons of Men, as now it is made known unto them by the Spirit of Christ in the Gospel. Man by his fall, hath lost his eyes, and cannot find the way unto Paradise, and this is one part of his misery, that he doth not know what his chief happiness is, nor how it is to be obtained. The Heathen Philosophers have had several hundred opinions concerning the chief good, and in all mistaken; The Heathen Poets had foolish and groundless fancies of the Elysian pleasures and delights, which the Souls of the virtuous should enjoy in the other world; but they were in the dark as to the true discovery of Heaven. The Saints themselves had the future happiness of Heaven discovered in a dark way, under Types, Figures, and Shadows; the earthly Canaan Typifying the Heavenly Canaan; the Jerusalem below shadowing forth the Jerusalem which is above; the Holy of Holies in the Temple made with hands, figuring the holy place made without hands eternal in the Heavens. But now the darkness is past, and the true light shineth, the shadows are fled, the vail before the Holiest is rend, and the cloud in the Temple removed; so that now with open face, though still in a glass, the glory which is above may be seen. The Gospel doth reveal what Man's chiefest happiness is, and wherein it doth consist; that it doth not consist in earthly riches, nor worldly honours, nor Epicurean pleasures, nor the Stoick's Apathy, nor the Platonist's dark contemplation of Ideas, nor the Peripateticks exercise of Moral virtues; but that God is the chief good of the Children of men; the Gospel reveals God in the face of Jesus Christ, and that man's chief happiness doth consist in the Vision and fruition of him begun here, and which will be perfected in Glory hereafter; the Gospel reveals Heaven to pardoned sinners, discovers the Holy of Holies that is above, and the way to it, as well as the Glories that are in it. And pardoned sinners have not only a notional knowledge of the chief happiness hereafter; But, secondly, they have a sight of the excellency thereof, which cannot be seen by any carnal Eye, and this they have by the Eye of Faith and the light of the Spirit; by the Eye of Faith Heaven is realized to them, and made evident to their view in its transcendent excellency, Faith being the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, Heb. 11.1. But this, as the Eye of Faith, is enlightened by the Spirit of Wisdom and revelation, whereby they perceive the Riches of the Glory of his Inheritance, Eph. 1.17, 18. When the Apostle speaking of those things which God hath prepared for them that love him, saith, That neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; yet God saith, he hath revealed these things to us by his Spirit, 1 Cor. 2.9, 10. This foresight of Heaven, and something (although comparatively little) of the Glory and excellency thereof, doth render pardoned persons blessed even in this World. 2. That which doth further contribute to the present blessedness of pardoned persons, is not only their foresight of future blessedness, but also their hopes of it, that they shall one day have possession of so great felicity. They are blessed now in hopes of what they shall be; they carry about with them in their Bosoms the greatest hopes of any in the World, and their hopes are such as shall not make them ashamed, Rom. 5.5. The hopes of worldlings make them ashamed, in that either they fall short of the thing which they hope for, God's providence oftentimes bringing upon them unthought of crosses and unexpected disappointments, yea, that which is quite contrary to their hopes, disgrace instead of honour, poverty instead of riches, trouble instead of peace, pain instead of pleasure; yea, sudden death, which cuts off them and their hopes together: or if they attain the thing which they hoped for, they are ashamed of their hopes; in that they are always disappointed of that satisfaction and contentment which they looked for in the thing; the waters of the Cistern cannot quench the thirst of man's desire; the Creatures cannot give more than they have, and they which hope for contentment in any thing beneath the chief good, must needs meet with a disappointment; riches may fill the House, Gold and Silver may fill the bags, but none of these things can fill the heart; honour and esteem of men may swell and puff up the mind, but the Soul cannot be filled unto satisfaction with Air, and Wind; sensual delights may cloy the Appetite, but the desires of the Soul are too high and capacious for such things to fill up. So that worldling's hopes must needs one way or other make them ashamed, and so will the hopes of the Hypocrite too: but the hopes of pardoned persons, which they have of future blessedness, have an excellency in them beyond the hopes of all others, and they shall never be ashamed of them. The happiness they hope for, they shall certainly have; none can deprive them of it; men cannot deprive them, they may take away their earthly Inheritance, but they cannot touch their Heavenly Inheritance; Devils cannot deprive them, they may attempt it, but they cannot effect it; Death cannot deprive them, death will bereave of whatever riches of the world any of them have, but it will put them into the possession of their Treasures in Heaven; none can deprive them but God, and God will not do it, as hath been already proved, and therefore their hopes are of a certain thing, which they shall not fail of; and withal they know that the happiness of Heaven will exceed all their expectations, even the highest, which ever they have had of satisfaction and contentment there, that they shall find more sweetness and joy there than ever hath entered into their hearts to conceive; and therefore their hopes shall not make them ashamed; yea, in their very hopes of Heaven, especially at some times, they find more real satisfaction, than ever was found by any in the fullest and sweetest enjoyment, which they have had of the good things of this life. 3. Pardoned persons have the beginnings of future blessedness here, in this life, in the Work of Grace, and sometimes foretastes and first fruits of it, through the witness, seal, and earnest of the Spirit; and this renders them blessed in this life. 1. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the work of Grace upon their hearts. Grace is the beginning of Glory; Grace is Glory in the bud, Glory is Grace in the flower, and when the work of Grace is carried on, the Scripture saith, that they proceed from Glory to Glory. 2 Cor. 3.18. But we all with open face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord, are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord: They are happy here, as they have some degrees of that Holiness and likeness unto God, in the perfection of which hereafter in Heaven their perfect happiness doth consist. 2. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the first fruits and foretastes of it through the witness, seal, and earnest of the Spirit; God sometimes gives them first fruits of the Heavenly Canaan, he sends in a few bunches of those sweet Grapes that are there, and lets them have some foretastes of those Soul-ravishing Heavenly joys which hereafter will be full and for ever abiding; he sometimes takes them up into the Mount, and gives them a Pisgah-sight of the Land of promise through the prospective-Glass of his Ordinances; he brings some even to the Gate of the New Jerusalem in their Heavenly Contemplations, and let's out such beams of that Glorious Heavenly light, and drops into their hearts such taste of future joys, through the sudden elapses of the Spirit of Glory upon them, that they are rapt up into an ecstasy, and such a sweetness they feel in their Spirits as is ineffable, such as words cannot utter, nor the minds of any conceive, but those that have had the like; when God giveth them the witness of his Spirit, that they shall assuredly attain eternal life, and sealeth them up by his Spirit to the day of Redemption, he doth commonly give the earnest also of the Spirit in some Soul-ravishing joys, in comparison of which the softest pleasures of the flesh, and the sweetest delights that can arise from any objects of sense, are most vain, thin, empty, and not worthy to be named with them. And thus the Eternal blessedness which pardoned persons shall have, doth render them blessed here in this life beyond all others, whatever confluence of good things they be surrounded withal. The foresight, first fruits, hopes, and sweet foretastes of this future blessedness, do sweeten their life; but especially they do sweeten their death, they knowing that death will be their friend, and prove an outlet to all earthly misery, and an inlet to their heavenly glory; that death will open the prison doors of this world unto them, and usher them into the palace of the great King; they know their death will be like a Ship to convey them over Sea, as it were, from the far, strange, and Enemy's Country, unto the heavenly Country, where their glorious Jehovah, their heavenly Father, where the Lord Jesus Christ their elder Brother and dear Saviour, and where the departed Saints, their chief kindred, are together, and where their inheritance doth lie, and where they shall take up their Eternal abode. Where pardoned persons have a clear foresight, and strong hope of this, death is no more to them than a sleep; they can as willingly put off their flesh and go into their graves, as they can put off their clothes at night to go into their beds, they can as willingly compose themselves to die, as they can compose themselves to sleep after a weary day. Thus much for the proof of the blessedness of forgiveness, or of all those persons whose sins are pardoned. Quest. 2. The second Question, wherein I must be more short, is, How this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained? That this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained; there are some things must be known and believed; and there are some things must be done and practised. 1. Some things must be believed: I shall instance in one or two chief Doctrines of the Gospel, which all sinners must know and believe if they would attain forgiveness of sin. The First is, The Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto God's Justice for the sins of men. The Second is, The Doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ. 1. Sinners must know and believe the Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto the Justice of God for the sins of Men. To discourse fully of this great Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction, would require a Treatise which might fill a great volume, but I must comprise it within a little room; who am to speak of it, only in the direction of a Sermon. Briefly, 1. That there is absolute need of satisfaction to God's justice for the sins of men, without which forgiveness of sins would be impossible and utterly unattainable, is evident both from the nature of God's justice, which doth oblige him to punish all sinners Eternally without it, and from the truth of God's threaten, wherein he hath revealed that he will thus punish them without it. 2. That there is need of the satisfaction of Christ is evident, because sinners themselves being finite, cannot give that satisfaction unto God, which shall bear any proportion to the demands of his infinite justice, and if any be in a capacity to give it, it must be such a one, as is both innocent, and so cannot suffer for his own faults, and whose person is of infinite dignity, that thence may arise an equivalency of merit in his sufferings, as may prove satisfactory to God's infinite justice; and because no mere man, being a finite creature, hath this dignity, and God cannot suffer, because this would argue weakness and infirmity, which is infinitely removed from him; therefore it is requisite that the person who can satisfy should be God-man, that as in one nature he may be capable of suffering, so the other nature may put a virtue and efficacy upon it; and such a person was Jesus Christ. 3. That Jesus Christ hath done that which is sufficient to satisfy God's justice for the sins of men, is evident from his Death and other sufferings which we have upon record in the Gospel; which sufferings were not for himself, he being an innocent person; and it would have argued injustice in God, had he permitted such sufferings to have been laid on his body, especially had he himself inflicted such dreadful inward sufferings on his Soul, were it not that he stood in the room of sinners, and endured all these sufferings for their sins, that he might give satisfaction to his justice hereby. 4. That Christ's sufferings have given to God satisfaction, and that he hath accepted of this satisfaction in the behalf of sinners, is evident from the Compact and Covenant which he made with Christ, that if he would offer up this sacrifice of himself, he would be well pleased, and sinners should hereby be justified; from his sending his Son into the world for this very end, and anointing him to the office of Highpriest, that he might first make satisfaction, and then Intercession, for the people; from his owning him when here, raising him when dead; receiving him to glory when raised, which he would not have done, had not he accepted his satisfaction; from his Covenant he hath through him made with man, and promises therein of remission of sins through his blood, which he would never have made, had not Christ's death given him satisfaction. Moreover, all those places of Scripture which speak of Christ's death as a sacrifice, as a ransom, as a punishment, which he endured that sinners might be, and whereby believers are, actually reconciled unto God, do clearly and abundantly prove that Christ hath given satisfaction to God's justice, and which God is well pleased withal. 5. That all sinners must know and believe this Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction, that they may attain remission of sins is evident, because God never did, never will forgive any sin without respect unto it; this way of remission is the chief thing which he hath revealed in the Scriptures; In the Old Testament it was shadowed under the sacrifices for sin which were offered; in the New Testament it is the end of the Revelation of Christ, this being the chief design of his sufferings and death, to give satisfaction to God's justice, in order to the forgiveness of man's sin. And they that are ignorant hereof, or do not believe this, do not know nor believe in Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and therefore cannot obtain forgiveness by his death. 2. Sinners must know and believe the doctrine of Justification by Christ's Righteousness, that they may attain remission of sins. 1. They must know the nature of Justification itself, that it doth consist in the remission of our sins, and the acceptation of our Persons, as perfectly Righteous in God's sight; they must know that they have no Righteousness of their own to present God withal, because guilty of sin, and the least guilt is inconsistent with a perfect Righteousness, and therefore if they were, as some are, really Holy, yet that they could not be accepted as perfectly Righteous in God's sight, upon the account of a perfect Righteousness of their own, which none here do attain unto, much less when they are naturally void and empty of all good and real Holiness, and polluted all over with Sin. 3. They must know that the Righteousness of Christ is perfect, and was intended for them, and held forth to them, which they must submit unto, and accept of, if they would be justified in God's sight. 4. That the Righteousness of Christ is made theirs by Faith, God imputing it and accounting it unto believers, as if it were their own, and they had wrought it out in their own persons. This way of Justification by Christ all must know, and be persuaded of, that would obtain Justification, which doth include forgiveness of sin. 2. Some things must be done and practised by sinners, that they may attain this blessedness of forgiveness. 1. They must get conviction of sin. 2. They must make confession of sin. 3. They must by Faith make Application of Jesus Christ. 4. They must forsake sin. 5. They must make Supplication and earnest Prayer unto God for pardoning Mercy. 6. They must forgive others. 1. Sinners, would you attain the blessedness of forgiveness? Labour to get conviction of sin; get conviction of your Original sin, the guilt of Adam's first sin in which you are involved, your present emptiness of all Spiritual good, and the Universal depravation of all the powers and faculties of your Souls with inherent pollution, which renders you opposite unto all real good, and naturally prone unto nothing but evil; get conviction of your actual sins, of all your heinous breaches of God's Law, whether the first or second Table of it, whether sins against God more immediately, his Nature, his Worship, his Name, his Day, or against your Neighbour, whether relative sins, or sins against the life, or chastity or estate or good name of any; and get conviction that all inordinate motions that have not the consent of the will, and much more inordinate affections which are influenced by it, are sinful and provoking unto God; Get also convictions of your more heinous disobedience to the Gospel, what an aggravation it is of all your other sins that you have repent of none, when you have so much need, and have been so often called hereunto; what an affront is it unto God, a disparagement unto Christ, that you have neglected your Salvation by him, and have been guilty of unbelief in not receiving, yea refusing Christ, so able and willing to save you, and when you have had such frequent and earnest as well as gracious and free tenders of him? Get conviction of the guilt of your sins, and what an Obligation you are under hereby to undergo eternal Destruction in the flames of Hell fire for it, and let this awaken you out of your security, let the thoughts of this pierce and wound your consciences, and make you cry out with those Sinners which were convinced by Peter's Sermon, Acts 2.37. When they heard this they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles: Men and brethren what shall we do? Get conviction also of the horrid baseness and ungratefulness of sin, as it dishonours and displeases that God by whom you were at first created, are continually preserved and maintained; and who, though he could so easily destroy you, and glorify his justice hereby, yet is both patiented with you, and willing also to be reconciled unto you, and sends his Ambassadors in his name to tell you that he entreats you that you would be reconciled, and let these considerations affect you with ingenuous grief for sin. Lastly, Get conviction of the defilement of sin, how your Souls are stained by it, and hereby degenerated and debased into a lower degree of vileness than is in the beast that perisheth, yea, that hereby you are become without regeneration, and until your Souls are washed, more loathsome in the eyes of God, than the most nasty thing in the World is in your eyes. 2. Make confession of sin. In some cases it is requisite you should confess some sins unto man, but it is absolutely universally necessary in order to forgiveness, that you should confess your sins unto God; the promise of pardoning mercy is made to confession. Prov. 28.13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. David found by experience the evil of covering and keeping close his sins, and the benefit of acknowledgement and confession. Psal. 32.3, 4, 5. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long: for day and night thine hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid: I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Sinners, make a full confession of your sins, that you may have a full pardon and discharge; do not hid any sin as a sweet morsel under your tongue; it is a vain thing to seek and endeavour the hiding of any sin from him who is omniscient, God hath knowledge of all your Iniquities, do you therefore acknowledge all unto him. Make free confession of your sins. Stay not till God force you by his Scourges, and even drag you unto it by his cords of affliction; but let it be your voluntary act, and be ingenuous herein; mingle not your confession with excuses and extenuations. Say not, though you are bad, yet you are not so bad as others: that your hearts are good, though your lives have been naught; that such and such gross sins were your slips and failings; that you were overtaken, overperswaded, and drawn unto such wicked practices by your companions; and so, by transferring your guilt, endeavour to make yourselves as Innocent as you can; this is abominable in the sight of God, and a certain sign of sin's dominion, which is inconsistent with the remission of it, and will shut you out from pardoning Mercy: but in confession of your sins, acknowledge yourselves to have been the chief of sinners. Sinners, take all the blame to yourselves, and set your sins out in the deepest Crimson and Scarlet colours, and with all their heinous circumstances and aggravations; tell God that your heart is the worst part, and if there have been some abominations found in your lives, there are a thousand-fold more abominations in your hearts. Confess your sins with humility and self-loathing; say with Agur, Prov. 30.2. Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man; with David, Psal. 73.22. So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a Beast before thee; with Job, Chap. 42.6. I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Confess your sins with shame like Ezra, Chap. 9.6. O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift my face unto thee: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the Heavens. Confess your sins with grief and godly sorrow like David, Psal. 39.18. I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for sin. 3. Make Application of Christ by Faith, that you may attain forgiveness. There is no other Name given under Heaven amongst men whereby you can be pardoned and saved: Acts 4.12. And he is able to save you, and procure a pardon for you in the uttermost extent of your most heinous guilt. Heb. 7.25. And the reason is given in the same Verse, because he ever liveth to make Intercession for sinners; it is his Office as Highpriest, wherein he is most merciful and faithful to make Reconciliation for the sins of the People: Heb. 2.17. Christ is near to the Father, being at his right hand in Heaven; and hath great interest in him, being his dearly beloved Son; and his Intercession for pardon is always accepted, it being for no more than what himself hath purchased, and what his Father hath promised: and therefore you that are the worst of Sinners have great encouragement to come unto Christ, and to make Application of him; you have his promise that whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast out, Joh. 6.37. and if you apply yourselves unto him, and apply unto yourselves his merits and Righteousness by believing, you shall certainly attain the forgiveness of all your sins, however numerous and heinous they have been. Acts 10.43. To him give all the Prophet's witness, that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. And our Saviour himself telleth us, Joh. 3.16. God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And the Apostle doth discourse at large in the former part of his Epistle to the Romans concerning Justification, which he proveth by manifold Arguments, that it cannot be works, that it must be by Faith; therefore by Faith make Application of Christ and his imputed Righteousness, and rest therein only that you may be justified, that you may be pardoned and saved. 4. Forsake every sin, that you may attain the forgiveness of it. Prov. 28.13. He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy. Isa. 55.7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return to the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon him. Isa. 1.16, 17, 18. Wash ye, make ye clean, put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as Scarlet, they shall be as white as Snow, though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as Wool. You must loathe your sins, that you may be pardoned; and withal you must leave them, you must cease from doing evil, if you would have God cease from his displeasure: and unless you do forsake your sins, never expect that God should forgive them; there must be a returning to God, that you may be received unto favour, and this cannot be without a turning from sin. It would be a dishonour unto God to pardon you whilst that you continue in your rebellions, and wage War still against Heaven by going on still in your trespasses. 5. Make your Supplication unto God, and be earnest in Prayer unto him, that he would forgive you your sins; it is against God that your sins have been committed, and it is God's Prerogative to remit and pardon, and though he pardon freely for his Name's sake, yet he will be enquired after and sought unto for his high favour. Isa. 43.25, 26. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy Transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put me in remembrance, etc. If you would have pardon, you must ask it; if you would find God's favour, you must seek it; if you desire the door of Mercy to be opened unto you, you must knock at the door by earnest Prayer, Mat. 7.7. Hence are David's earnest cries in Prayer for pardoning Mercy in so many of his Psalms, especially Psal. 51. in the first verse, Have Mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender Mercies blot out my transgressions. v. 9 Hid thy face from my sins, and blot out mine iniquities. v. 14. Deliver me from Bloodguiltiness O God, thou God of my Salvation, etc. Be earnest in Prayer at the Throne of Grace for this blessedness of forgiveness, wrestle with God by importunate Supplications, fill your mouths with Arguments, plead the gracious disposition of God, the multitude of his tender Mercies, and the riches of his free Grace; plead the Glory of his Name, which would greatly be advanced and admired, if your great sins might be pardoned; plead the merits of Christ, and Satisfaction given to his justice by his Son, together with his Intercession for you at his right hand; plead the promises of the Covenant of Grace, and his faithfulness, which doth engage him to fulfil them; humble, believing, fervent Prayer will prevail for forgiveness. 6. Forgive others, if you would that God should forgive you: Mat. 6.11. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. v. 14, 15. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. If you do not forgive the hundred Pence of smaller offences unto your fellow-servants, you will be called to an account, and imprisoned in Hell, and there tormented for the ten thousand Talents of heinous transgressions which you have committed against your Lord, Mat. 18. at the latter end of that Chap. If you bear hatred and malice and revenge in your hearts against others, whatever their offences, their wrongs or injuries have been, you put yourselves out of capacity of obtaining pardoning Mercy; Do not say, I forgive such a one who hath wronged me, but I will never forget him, for this is a deceit of your hearts, whereby you seek to stop the mouth of your consciences, that they may not trouble you by these Scriptures; for if you do not forget injuries, so as to carry it towards such Persons as if they had not wronged you, so as to love them cordially, and to be ready to show kindness unto them, you do not forgive them, and so you cannot be forgiven by God. If then you would be pardoned by God, you must from the heart forgive others, receive the Exhortation of the Apostle: Eph. 4.31, 32. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Thus I have finished my Answer unto the two Queries, wherein doth appear the blessedness of forgiveness, and how this blessedness may be attained; and now give me leave to borrow a little room for some Application. Application. I might speak much here by way of comfort unto pardoned Persons, but the most that I have already spoken, yea all that I have spoken under the first Query, may be turned into a Use of comfort to yourselves, and therefore referring you thither I shall pass you by, and bend my speech only unto you that are unpardoned, too many of whom are to be found in every Assembly, and therefore I cannot think that this Assembly is free. I shall take leave to chide you in a Use of Reproof; endeavour to awaken you in a Use of Terror; and in the conclusion press you to endeavour after this blessedness of forgiveness in an Use of Exhortation. Use 1. For Reproof; Is there such blessedness in forgiveness? Whence is it then that so many of you neglect this blessedness, in the neglect of your pardon? Are not all of you sinners? Have not all of you need of forgiveness? Will not your own Consciences tell you that forgiveness is a great privilege? And have not Ministers often told you of this privilege, and the way of attaining it? Hath not God by them held forth a pardon to you, and used many arguments with you, that you would accept it? Whence is it then that so many of you slight and undervalue it, as if it were of no worth? Whence is it that so many of you are without pardon when proffered, when none of you are without sins often committed, and those highly aggravated, and whereby your Souls are so greatly endangered? May not Robbers, and Murderers, and other notorious Malefactors, rise up in judgement against you that are without a pardon? When such Persons are apprehended, found guilty, and condemned, though but unto a temporal death, they will make all friends, and use all means to escape, and O! how welcome is a pardon to them? And yet, though you are all guilty of sin, and condemned for it unto eternal death, and a pardon is purchased, proclaimed, and proffered unto you, there are too many of you that slight and neglect it, that have no earnest desire after it, and hitherto have not been persuaded by any arguments to make use of the means which God hath appointed with any diligence for the obtaining of it. Who is there that to any purpose doth look after a pardon? Who do diligently hear for it, earnestly pray for it? Who do make full and free confession of sin, that you may attain remission of it? Who do prize Christ, and by Faith make application of him, that they may have a pardon by him? Who do forsake sin, which God absolutely requires of all to whom he doth forgive sin? Who do, when injured, hearty forgive others, as they desire God would forgive them? Sinners, will not many of your consciences accuse you of unpardoned guilt, unto which you have added the neglect of forgiveness? And is not your sin hereby doubled, and most highly aggravated, and the guilt of it fastened upon you? Use 2. Let me tell you by way of Terror for your awakening, that God is displeased with all workers of iniquity, but he is most highly displeased with you that slight his mercy. Your sins are inexcusable, your condemnation is unavoidable, and your punishment hereafter in Hell will be most dreadful and intolerable. Possibly now you are careless and secure; sin is sweet, and conscience is quiet; you are at ease, and conscience asleep; but will this ease and sleep always continue? Is there not a time coming when you shall be awakened? If you are not awakened under God's Word, may not God awaken you under his Rod? If you are not awakened under God's threaten, will you not awake when he cometh to execution? If you are secure in the midst of outward peace and prosperity, can you be secure in the midst of trouble and adversity? Think what you will do when death doth approach: Think what a dreadful aspect unpardoned sin will have, when you are brought down unto the sides of the pit, to the brink and border of eternity, and when you are summoned to make your appearance before the highest Majesty: O the horror that then will seize you! O the fearfulness that then will surprise you! To have the black guilt of drunkenness or swearing, of uncleanness or deceiving, or any other iniquity to stare you then in the face, O how dismal will it be and affrighting! And think with what rage and fury your consciences will then reflect upon your forepast sins; especially your neglect of a pardon, then unattainable, and how tormenting will this be unto you? You may then cry out, Lord have mercy on us; Christ have mercy on us; But will God then hear you who have refused to hearken unto him? Will Christ regard you, who have neglected, refused, and shut the door of your hearts against him all your days? But sinners, what will you do at the day of judgement, when the Lord Jesus shall come in flaming fire to take vengeance upon you for unpardoned sins? That great day will certainly come, and it will quickly be here: Time runs away swiftly, and it will quickly be run out; yet a little while and the Angel will lift up his hand, and cry with a loud voice, and swear by him that liveth for ever and ever that time shall be no longer, Rev. 10.5, 6. Then the mystery will be finished, the prophecy accomplished, and the whole frame of this visible world dissolved; the Sun then and the Moon will be darkened, and the Stars will fall unto the earth, as the figtree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the heavens themselves then shall be rolled together as a great scroll, and so pass away with a great noise; the earth and all the elements shall be on fire, and consume away on that day, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall appear from Heaven with Millions of mighty Angels, in power and brightness of majesty, and then you must come out of your graves, and will stand trembling before Christ's great Tribunal, and none of you will be able to hid yourselves under any Rock or Mountain from his angry face. Then, than you will fully know what a privilege it is to be pardoned, when you see where pardoned persons are placed, when you see them gathered to the right hand of the great Judge, and there acquitted openly, owned graciously, and crowned by him with honour and glory, and invited by him to take possession of those eternal habitations of rest and joy in his Kingdom prepared for them by his Father: But O the tearings of spirit, and heart-vexing tormenting grief which you will have, that no place is found for you amongst them, that through your neglect of pardoning mercy you have forfeited and eternally lost a share in eternal glory; and not only so, but have by sin also plunged yourselves into a bottomless gulf of endless misery! Think how dreadful the irreversible sentence of condemnation will be unto you, Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels. Alas! Alas! sinners what will you do? no thought can conceive what your horror will be, when you come to reap the bitter fruit of all your unpardoned sins. It is the punishment of Hell, Sinners, which the guilt of sin unremoved doth oblige you to undergo; And therefore I am sent this day to forewarn you, and in the name of my Master to foretell you, that if you do not now sue out for, and obtain this forgiveness of sin, your sin hereafter will bring eternal ruin and destruction of soul and body in Hell. Without a pardon profaneness will be your ruin: Some of you it may be can swear and curse and blaspheme the Name of God; hereafter God will swear in his wrath that you shall not enter into his rest, and you shall be banished out of Christ's presence with a curse, Depart from me ye cursed, etc. Those tongues which have been so liberal of oaths and blasphemies, must be tormented in flames of fire without one drop of water to cool them. Without a pardon, drunkenness will be your ruin: you that have so often inflamed yourselves with wine and strong drink. God will inflame you with the wine of his vengeance, he will make you to drink the dregs of his wrath, which is at the bottom of the cup of his indignation. Without a pardon, uncleanness will be your ruin: your pleasures are empty and of short continuance, but your pains will be full hereafter, and they will abide for ever. Without a pardon, unrighteousness will be your ruin: your unrighteous gains one day will prove your unspeakable loss, and God will be the avenger of all such upon you as have been wronged and defrauded by you. Without a pardon, your neglect of Christ and Salvation will be your ruin, and if you persevere in this neglect, it is impossible that you should escape. Sinners, think seriously and think frequently of your unpardoned iniquities, and withal think of the dreadful punishment they will bring upon you, think of your eternal damnation unto the most exquisite torments of Hell; and then drink on, swear on, and scoff your fill, be unholy and profane, unjust and unclean if you think good; but know that for all these sins God will bring you to judgement, know that these iniquities unpardoned will be your ruin. Should I tell you of one that were condemned for some vile fact to be slayed alive, or burned alive, or sawn asunder, or dragged to pieces with wild horses, or starved with hunger and cold, or any other ways cruelly tortured to death; but that he might escape all this misery, if he would accept of a pardon ready provided for him, and withal leave off such vile facts for the future; you would count him worse than mad, should he neglect his pardon, and expose himself to ruin and misery through his carelessness and obstinacy: And yet though you are condemned for sin to far worse torment and misery, that which is more dreadful than ten thousand painful deaths, and all this mischief and punishment may be avoided and escaped, if you will accept of the pardon which Christ hath provided, and in the Gospel is proffered unto you, and withal break off your sins by repentance; yet no words or arguments will persuade you to use the means of prevention, but still you live in the neglect of pardon and so great salvation, and are secure, however great your danger be. O the folly and strange madness of unconverted sinners! O the unspeakable sottishness and senslesness they are under! Although we make it appear to their consciences that their condition is unutterably miserable, they are not moved, except it be with choler against the Minister that warns them of the sword of God's vengeance which hangeth over them, and they champ at the Bridle that would hold them from running to their destruction: But O that you would rather turn your anger against your sins, and say, this iniquity will be my ruin, and that sin without pardon will be my damnation. Use 3. Therefore in the next place let me exhort all of you that lie under the guilt of sin, that you would labour after this blessedness of forgiveness. O that you would pity your own souls, think what provision you have made for them, think whither they are like to go upon their separation from your bodies, and what you will do at the last day when Christ cometh to judge and punish unpardoned sinners; think how you will be able to dwell with devouring fire, to inhabit everlasting burn. Methinks you should take up such thoughts as these, and argue thus with yourselves; What! Shall I undo myself for a filthy lust? Shall I lose my Soul to gain a little uncertain earthly riches? Shall I forfeit a Crown of Glory for the empty honour of this world? Shall I cast myself into everlasting horror and pain for a little vain, fading, carnal delight and pleasure? Can I be contented to be tormented for ever in Hell to satisfy the desires of my flesh on earth, and that when they will never be satisfied? Shall I hug a viper in my bosom that will kill me? Harbour lusts in my heart that will slay me? Shall I dishonour God, and damn my own soul, to gratify the Devil my enemy, and please my flesh, which will soon be turned into dirt and rottenness, and withal throw away the hopes of a glorious resurrection for my body hereby? Away than ye foolish filthy lusts, I'll no more hearken to you, or be entangled or enslaved by you. Be gone thou deluding tempting Devil, I'll lend my ear no longer to thy lying suggestions, nor yield any more to thy beguiling and bewitching temptations; farewel thou glozing flattering world, with all thy charms and allurements, thy gold is but dross, thy wine mixed with water, thy honour but wind and vanity, thy delights are bitter-sweets, such as will end in death and ruin, I'll choose another portion, and look after a better blessedness, than thou canst give me, even the blessedness of forgiveness, which will bring me unto eternal blessedness. Methinks you should take no sleep nor rest, and find no comfort in house, or trade, or friends, or any thing, until the anger of God be appeased, your sins all pardoned, and so your souls set in safety from all that ruin unto which they are exposed by unpardoned iniquity. The absolute necessity of forgiveness should quicken you to look after it; you have not so much need of food to remove your hunger, as you have need of mercy to remove your guilt; you have not so much need of clothes to cover your bodies, as you have need of righteousness to cover your iniquities. Better be starved than damned, better be hanged than burned, better be exposed to the misery of the weather, and any bodily distemper, than to be exposed unto the storms and strokes of God's vengeance, and the eternal ruin of body and soul in Hell, which there is no possibility of escaping without a pardon. And that which may encourage you to seek after forgiveness is the attainableness of it, and that by the vilest and most guilty amongst you: others have obtained pardoning mercy that have been found as guilty: Manasseh was pardoned who was so heinous a transgressor; Paul, who was so Zealous a Persecutor; Marry Magdalen, who was possessed with seven Devils; the Corinthians, some of whom were Idolaters, Adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, Thiefs, Covetous, Extortioners, Drunkards, Revilers; yet they were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus; some of them who had imbrued their hands in Christ's Blood, had the guilt of their sins washed away by it. There is Mercy enough in God to give a pardon for the greatest Transgression; there is merit enough in Christ to purchase a pardon, and prevalency in his Intercession to procure it, whatever your offences have been; the invitation unto Christ for Remission and Salvation is General, none are excluded, but such as exclude themselves; the promises are full, Crimson sins, such as are of the deepest dye, God promiseth to make as Wool; and the promises are free, the acceptation of a pardon by Faith makes it yours, without any price or merit on your part. We Ministers have a commission to preach Remission of sins in the Name of Christ, and to declare to you the glad tidings of Salvation, yea, we have instructions, as Ambassadors, in the Name of God and Christ to beseech you that you would be reconciled, that you would accept of forgiveness. 2 Cor. 5.20. Now than we are Ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled unto God. Give me leave to press this Argument upon you: the great God of Heaven and Earth, so glorious in Holiness and Righteousness, is so infinitely Merciful and Gracious, as to beseech you that you would be reconciled, although you are so infinitely inferior unto him. He condescends to entreat you, not that you would show kindness unto him, but that you would show kindness to yourselves, and accept of the greatest kindness at his hands of Forgiveness and Reconciliation. God might command, and upon once the least refusal, he might execute his vengeance upon you; but although some of you have stopped your Ears so long, refused his gracious prosfer so often, though you have abused his kindness, trampled upon his Patience, slighted his invitations, despised his threaten, disregarded his promises, and turning all his rich Grace into wantonness, do continue still in your disobedience; yet the Lord doth again make suit unto you, stretcheth forth his hands unto you, however disobedient and gainsaying you have been, and by me doth entreat you that you would be reconciled. Need we use entreaties with condemned Malefactors to accept of a pardon? if we had commission to preach pardoning Mercy unto Devils would they need entreaties to accept? would they be fooled out of such a gracious prosfer by any as you hitherto have been by them? Sinners I beseech you in the name of the great and glorious Jehovah, and the Lord Jesus Christ your gracious Redeemer that you would be reconciled, and that you would befriend yourselves and accept of the forgiveness of all your sins, I entreat you that you would not through neglect of pardon and perseverance in a sinful course irrecoverably ruin and damn your Souls; methinks my heart doth yearn over you, and Bleed for you who are wounding yourselves and rushing on inconsiderately towards the place of everlasting weeping and woe, from whence there is no coming back, no coming out for ever. Sinners, why should you be so hard to be persuaded, without any further delay, to be reconciled unto God? Why do I need to use so many entreaties? May I at length prevail with you that you would not be miserable, and prove your own Murderers; that you would be blessed here and hereafter, through your ready acceptation of pardoning mercy. What answer must I carry back to my Master who sent me this day to proclaim in your ears the blessedness of forgiveness, and to use entreaties with you in his name that you would become thus blessed? Must I complain? Lord, there are a company of obstinate sinners whom I have entreated to accept of pardon; but there is not the least spark of ingenuity amongst them; nor the least sense of their sins upon them; had I been to preach to Beasts, or Fowls, to the Earth or Stones, they would have been as much moved as these sinners; Lord, I spent my strength and pains, my voice and lungs for nought, I know not how to persuade; I know not which way to prevail with them; I thought thy beseechings would have taken with them; that the entreaties of God, like a sweet flame, would have melted their hearts as Wax within them; I thought that when thou didst vouchsafe by me to request them to leave their sins, and be reconciled unto thee, that this would marvellously have affected them, and that they would readily have complied in a thing so necessary for them, and so much for their own happiness: I did begin with terror to them, and yet they were not affrighted; but I hoped when I came to end with Mercy and to speak in the soft and sweet Language of thine entreaties, and to urge th' s most winning Argument of thy Requests unto them, that then they would immediately have yielded, and most thankfully have accepted so gracious proffers made unto them; But alas, Lord, I found it far otherwise than I expected; if their ears were open, their hearts were shut up, and they would not receive my message, which from thee in faithfulness and tenderness I delivered unto them; And what may I farther hope will prevail with them, if thy entreaties be thus disregarded? Must I thus complain, or may I have occasion to say; Lord, I have been preaching the blessedness of forgiveness, which I backed with thine entreaties of sinners that they would accept of it; and through thy blessing, the Arguments I used, were not altogether in vain; some sinners that had stouted it out a long time against thee, began at length to relent and yield, when they heard thine entreaties of them to be reconciled: Lord, I heard scalding sighs break forth from such and such, whose hearts were breaking within them for their sins; I saw brinish tears trickling down from some eyes, proceeding from a spring of godly sorrow within, newly given them by the Spirit; how did they look, and seem to long after thy Salvation? how greedily did they hearken, even like the condemned Malefactor, when he hath first tidings of a pardon? I hope they are gone home to entreat that of thee, which thou hast by me been entreating of them to accept of; O Lord, grant them their desires; be reconciled to that Drunkard and unclean wretch; forgive the iniquities of that Swearer, Sabbath-breaker and profane Sinner. What do you say Sinners? will you send me back to my Master sadned or rejoiced? Accept of my Message, and it will be the joy of my heart; yea, it will be the joy of Angels in Heaven; and however it will cost you some grief and tears in your repentance of sin at the first, yet if you so seek after this blessedness of forgiveness, as to obtain it, the issue will be joy to yourselves, you will have the beginnings of joy here, and in the other world your joys will be full, ineffable, and eternal. Methinks some of you seem almost persuaded; O that you were quite persuaded without further delay, to put in practice the Directions given for the obtaining the blessedness of forgiveness! How we may overcome inordinate love of Life, and fear of Death. Serm. XXX. Acts 20.24. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself, that I may finish my course with joy, etc. THE Context tells us, that the Apostle was now at Miletus, v. 17. and from hence he sends to Ephesus, and calls for the Elders of the Church. Now these Elders were not Timothy and Trophimus; for they were in his company already, v. 4. and had been with him in his journey hither; but rather those twelve men on whom he laid his hands, and bestowed the Holy Ghost, in order to their Ministry at Ephesus, Acts 19.1, 2, 6, 7. and the rest whom Timothy had ordained whilst he was there. From v. 18. of this Chapter, we have the Apostles Farewell Sermon; wherein he clears himself by close and smart addresses to their Consciences and Experiences, as to all charges and surmises of ministerial miscarriages among them, v. 18.27. and works them all within the Conscience of their ministerial charge and trust from God, to imitate his Ministerial faithfulness, by urging such significant and cogent Arguments, as were apt and proper to startle and engage them to and in their work. And these Arguments are drawn from the present and instantly succeeding circumstances and concernments of the Church of God. They were in danger of Wolves breaking in upon them, and seducers arising from amongst them: They were the Church of God, the price of his Blood, committed to the care and guidance of these Ministers, to whom the Apostle spoke; and therefore the interest and worth of Souls, and their relation to them, and all those sad and dangerous exercises, undermine and obstructions which they were sure to meet with in their Pastoral work, did call aloud upon them for all possible circumspection, activity and resolution in and for their work; of all which, the Apostle was an exemplary and awakening instance and example. My Text is the Generous Heroicism of an awakened and prepared heart, occasioned by the Tidings that were brought him by the Spirit, v. 23. Who told him there, that bonds and afflictions did abide him in every City. Here you may see those sinews cut of hopes and fears, which might obstruct his Faith, Diligence and Perseverance; he is mortified to all that love of Life, and fear of Death, which possibly might control his better prospect, hopes and work. In the Words we have the Apostle concerned in reference to a double state. 1. As to this mortal Life; it is implied in the Text, and expressed in the Context, that it is a Theatre of smart contentions and miseries, and that he was concerned in the agonistical exercises thereof. 2. As to the other Life, he had the prospect of transcendent joys, exhibited to his views and hopes, as the determined and proposed reward of his well-managed exercises; the influences and impressions whereof did strangely invigorate and fix his resolutions to maintain such a Masculine frame of spirit, as should entertain and answer all the challenges of danger, difficulties and temptations, and to preserve that necessary liberty from, and useful indifferency to the hopes and love of Life, and fears of Death and Danger, which might secure the spirit and prowess of a resolved and successful valour: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I make no reckoning of any thing, and he grows regardless of his life, and hath mortified the vigour of all the arguments and inducements that can be fetched therefrom; for the utmost reach of rage and villainy is to effect no more, and can extend no farther than the loss of Life, Mat. 10.28. And all those Comforts, which are liable to the casualties and sequestrations of transient time, and cannot run parallel with our capacious souls beyond the limits of a dying breath, cannot be valued beyond the value of their end; and therefore he that conquers and subdues the estimation of his Life, hath so far overcome all the disturbing and ensnaring influences of hopes and fears relating to it, and derived from it. Well, we have here an instance and example (in this great and gracious Apostle) of a resolved and proficient Christian; yea, and a visible practical demonstration of what Blood and Spirits are in the veins of Christianity, and are bred there, and what an energy and force there is in one right believing look and glance at things to come, 2 Cor. 4.16, 18. Heb. 12.2. And if it be objected, that as the Apostles course was ministerial, so were his joys which fixed his eye; and therefore in neither can he be proposed to others as their imitable pattern or exact encouragement, seeing all are not Ministers, neither can all expect his Exercises, Furniture, Encouragements and Attainments, and so that we pluck not the fruit from the right tree. I answer. This doth not prevent his being our pattern, argument and encouragement, if but these few things be seriously considered. 1. The Apostle had a double Course to run; he had the trust and business of a Christian, as well as of a Minister to discharge; he had a God to please, a Soul to save, an Hell to escape, an Heaven to reach, an Heart to cleanse, and Sins to mortify, unruly Passions and impetuous Affections to be kerbed and managed by their proper Discipline, as well as others; he was a man subject to like Passions with ourselves; he dwelled in flesh, and was opposed by the Devil as well as others; he had Corruptions to be mortified and pardoned; and loved his Life, and what might make it comfortable, saving where Inordinacies were to be corrected and subdued, because of inconsistency with better work and joys; yea, he had such forcible inclinations to desire and beg some intermissions of, and respite from his tedious Exercises, as forced him to repair to Prayer and Arguments to get support, so that he might not Oneri succumbere; and thus I understand that Thorn in the flesh, 2 Cor. 12.7, 10. And so the Sense seems facile, and it amounts to this; The Apostle had been labouring in the fire for God, and for the interest of Christianity, and managed all his Exercises in the face of danger; and growing aged, he was tempted to desire of God, that he might spend the residue of his declining age in liberty and quietness; but when the flesh (so weatherbeaten by the storms) grew so desirous of some respite from the severity of Travel, Chains and Labours, the messenger Satan comes again threatening and acquainting him with designed and determined repetitions of former Buffet, and the renewals of Reproaches, Necessities, Persecutions, etc. for Christ's sake: Which, when he understood, and apprehended that Christ and his Gospel were so concerned in them, he thought (and took them as) the matter of his Glory, in that they might be serviceable to the Interest of Christ, and great occasions of some special Illustrations of the remarkable Power and Grace of Christ; but this pace aliorum. The truth is, Sirs, he had such Exercises and Temptations, as that (had not the expectations and persuasions of these joys above, which succeeded the Course well finished; interposed to fortify and compose his spirit) this world had never been conquered, nor so easily forsaken and disclaimed by him; nor Death so tamely entertained, nor Hopes and Fears so managed and subordinated as they were, 1 Cor. 15.19, 31, 32, 58. Now thus far he stands on equal grounds with other Christians, and hath the same Exercises, Arguments, Encouragements, Interest and Obligations, that every Christian hath; and if it was possible for him to finish his course under the powerful Influences of this Prospect and Design, it is as possible for us; for no impossibility, whilst such, can be our duty. 2. His Ministerial Work and Trust was (as to its full discharge) a necessary and essential part of his saving Christianity. No Minister of Jesus Christ by office, can be a sound and faithful Christian, that is unfaithful in his Ministry; it is in so doing, that he must save himself as well as those that hear him, 1 Tim. 4.15, 16. 3. Our accommodations being made answerable to Trust and Work, our faithful management thereof is of equal necessity in much or little; for we must be answerable to Relations, Trust and Places, and other Circumstances, as God hath placed us in and under them; for we must be judged, and are to act accordingly to what we have received. No man is commanded and encouraged faithfully to discharge his Ministry, but upon some supposition that the Ministry is his lawful Calling; and where that is, unfaithfulness will damn him that is guilty of it; for it is his place of Service, even as faithful service of all Servants in general is their Duty: Yet places of Service, and the matter and measure of their service may be different, according to the master's pleasure and affairs. 4. The close connection of his whole Course and Comforts clears the Case. For, 1. It is not imaginable that any man can be a faithful Minister, whose heart is alienated from the true powerful Principles, Sentiments and Impressions of Christianity. For how can any man be separated cordially to this most costly painful Calling, and regularly bear the heat and burden of his Place and Day, who hath not well concocted the Substance, Evidence and Importance of this great Mystery of Salvation (which is the indispensable and adequate exercise of his Function) into deep persuasions, warm affections, and most unconquerable resolutions? Who can unweariedly pursue the Souls of others with close and pressing importunities to prize and prosecute that Element and State of Joys and Holiness, which is not credited, relished and valued by himself? And further, 2. Were it supposed also that the regular faithfulness of a Minister was separable from the spirit & faithfulness of a Christian either in themselves, or in the Subject, yet how can we imagine such operative influential apprehensions and true relishes of the joy reported and proposed, as shall prevail against all oppositions and discouragements and competitions from the frowns and flatteries, bribes and strokes of Earth and Hell, to animate a Minister's breast, so as to make him through in all the Erterprises and Employments of his Function, whilst his own Work and Interest, as a Christian, is neglected, and those influences of this joy (entailed upon a course well finished) though they be powerful to make him faithful in the one, shall yet be found too languid to issue in the same diligence and success as to the other? And, 3. We must conclude, that this Eagle-eyed Apostle saw and reckoned on it, that a Christian Minister and an Apostle, must be a through-Christian, and something, yea, much more, or else he could not possibly conclude, his Course would bring him to his Joys, 1 Cor. 9.24, 27. Therefore the Sense and Errand of the Text amounts to this; Doctr. That the comforts of a well completed course will make all discerning serious Christians to be above the regard of Life, or fear of all afflictions, bonds or death to compass them. Rom. 8.18. and Phil. 1.20.23. The very instance, argument, and errand of my Text, and Doctrine grounded thereupon, imply and include several things, as that, 1. there is a state of future joys and retributions, for we have no reason to imagine that our Apostle was so blind as to be deceived himself: nor so wicked as to deceive others. No man that knows and credits the existence of a Deity, but he must take him to be the strongest, wisest, & the best of beings, and so that he must needs be omnipotent, omniscient, and all-sufficient, and if so, than it is beyond all controversy, that omnipotence can at such a rate address itself to Creatures, as to make them happy or miserable as it best becomes itself. He that ordained and framed this state cannot be thought to have acted to the utmost of his strength, for what can stint omnipotence? and doth it suit the wisdom of God, to make a Creature capable of an everlasting state, and of the hopes and prospect of it, and to implant in it an expectation of it, and rule him by those hopes and fears which do and must derive their influences from an eternal state, and after all to make it evident, that man was only made to be imposed on, or ruled and managed by mistakes and mere fallacious arguments and errors? or hath God afforded us the least intimation of his mind, in nature, providence or scriptures, that this is the way of conciliating that love and honour from his Subjects, or of implanting and maintaining those necessary fears in man, which government requires for the attainments of its ends, to make them live in expectation of what is no ways fit to reach its ends, because it is either false or mean? and therefore I need not go about to prove what here is granted and improved, and what so many incomparably better pens have proved before me. 2. this state hath sufficient force as to argument and motive to press us to do and suffer all that we can meet with or be called to in our whole Christian course. All those severe perplexities which our religion calls us to, as to obedience in sufferings and duty, are not beyond the compensations of these approaching expected joys: and if they obstruct the influences, and eclipse the light and glory of what is proposed and promised as our great argument and encouragement, 'tis utterly & only our own fault that makes what is sufficient to be ineffectual. 3. The comforts of a course well finished cannot be had without the regular management & finishing of our course, & this can never be without resolution and preparation of the heart, by which it must be born and kept above immoderate love to life and fear of sufferings and death. Faith is the spirit of religion: the spirit of faith is hope; and the spirit of hope is love; and these are all the most successful preparations of the heart. Had faith its liberty, power and prospect in the heart of all professors, it would make them too sagacious & concerned to be imposed on by plausible delusions, and bold pretences in all these sublunary trifles, to that substantial solid satisfaction and excellency, which are expected by ductile mortals to be experienced therein, or hoped for therefrom. Did we but look beyond the grave and wilderness, and search and see that land of promise which is beyond them, we might be entertained and alured with such clusters from it, as would afford us more grateful relishes and spirits, than all the feculent extractions of these transient comforts could amount to. All our delights and pleasures in, and great sollicitudes about these lower things would be effectually mortified and conquered. 2 Cor. 4.17, 18. what breasts of consolation are evidence & substance? Heb. 11.1. sense and presence do strangely invigorate & strengthen the dangerous influences of this World's comforts and concernments in their addresses to the heart of man. 2 Tim. 4.10. And because the gain and comforts of true Religion are invisible and distant, therefore their certainty and transcendent excellency must be concocted into deep and sound Persuasions, and be digested into answerable Affections, Resolutions and Pursuit; and all those Arguments and Motives which must prevail upon us to run and finish the course and race which is set before us, must be derived from and are to be reduced to this deep persuasion of these certain and transcendent comforts, nor is it possible that Religion should live or thrive but in the power of and true proportion to our apprehensions and persuasions of those fundamental truths and principles of God's existence and rewarding excellency, Heb. 16.6 Man must be ruled as God hath made him, and as fear and love are the commanding passions and affections of every subject capable of moral government, so something there must be reported and determined, fit for the exercise and discipline thereof, and if transcendency, in what must influence, ●oth be not credible and demonstrable, their influences must of necessity prove too languid to attain their end. Equality spoils choice, as far as i● extends, and if the comforts of another state do not exceed what we can meet with here, sure powerful Godliness would lose its life and breasts together, nor could it be existent in its practice without its arguments and motives, and (with submission to better judgements) I think, that impossibility of pleasing God without faith, spoken of Heb. 11.6. Results, not only from God's arbitrary ordination, but from the very frame and habitude and fitness of means and ends themselves, and the sense is this (as I have elsewhere lately and largely showed on the forementioned place, though not in print, nor fit to be so) that unless I be persuaded that God's Majesty deserves, and that he can and will reward us for the cost and exercises of Godliness to infinite advantage, no man could be prevailed on to be Religious. The very difficulties, burdens and temptations of Religion, under the present circumstances of revolted man, would press too sore upon the frailty and concernments of flesh and blood, to suffer him to obtain of himself to submit to the discipline and severities of true and powerful Godliness. Nor can I see (if this be once denied) where the Apostles argument prevails and pinches, 1 Cor. 15.19, 29, 23, 58. Adam in Innocency was influenced by arguments, and I do not see, that the oeconomy of grace destroys the frame of nature, but rather comes in by way of Medicinal Ordination to repair it, that so Religious government may revive again, by such energetical arguments and influences as are proper to the case. Psal. 130.4 Nor did the Son of God and Saviour of the World appear for the supplanting of the Father as to his Throne, and interest, but rather acted all along in a professed state and way of delegation, and ordinate substitution to this end, that government might flourish, and poor apostate man might be Encouraged to seek and s●rve and please his God again; and were this well considered, I think that all our censorious malignant flames would die, which have no other fuel but such confidences as are grounded on, and fomented by our rash mistakes, and we might peaceably Credere de verbis, but not the jure veritatis. And I confess I cannot see how the joys of Godliness can have the vim motivam of pressing arguments to quicken us to what activity, faithfulness and resolution and perseverance are enjoined us and expected from us, if persevering Godliness (which is the finishing of our course with joy) be not the great condition of our Crown and triumph; and therefore 'tis ignorance and inconsiderateness that strengthens our infidelity and consequent reluctances, to run the hazards of Religion, and entertain the work and cost of this our Christian course, to reach its compensations. One piercing glance and sober look within the Veil would strangely help us unto a right estimate of things, and make our quick reflections upon our foolish former choice and trifling carriages to minister to our present grief and shame. 'Tis but a dotage to imagine that any thing short of Holiness and Heaven, or inconsistent with our present work, can be the true enrichment or content of Souls. What man can keep his heart below his work, that knows and credits the blessed resolutions wherewith the all-sufficient God is fixed to recompense all self-denying, regular and resolved Racers? see 1 Joh. 3.3. Who can advance that life into a competition with the present work and Will of God, which must be swallowed up of a surpassing immortality, when he hath regularly finished his course? so that now the way is clear to lead us to answer these Queries. Quer. 1. What is this finishing our course with joy, which is to influence us into this regardlesness of life and death, and every thing in order thereunto. 1. Joy is the * Privileg●um est Principis benef●ciu n contra jus common indultum, non enim est privilegium nisi aliquid indulgent speciale. Say the Civilians. privilege and satisfaction of the Soul at rest in the possession and embraces of its both adequate and desired end and object, which is the sum of what is intended by the expression in the Text. 1. I call it a Privilege, as it importeth some considerable excellency in the object or gift, and thus 'tis God in Christ when he becomes the portion of once Apostate man (though now recovered by relative and real grace) when he appears in the perfection of his Image favour and presence, and that reciprocal intimacy which is consequent thereupon; and as its a favour peculiar to some, by way of discrimination and difference from others, for 'tis the joy of God dispensed only to the Godly. And I call it, 2. Satisfaction, as importing sutableness to the subject on whom it is bestowed on all accounts, and as such apprehended and resented by it. And, 3. I appropriate it to the Soul, as being first and most concerned in it, and most capable of it, for till the Resurrection the Soul alone enjoys it. Before the dissolution of the body the Soul is only capable of the prospect and improvement of it, and therefore most concerned and engaged about it: and after the Resurrection of the person, and his introduction into glory, the Soul is made the most immediate recipient of it; and the comforts and perfection of the body are resultant from the Soul's satisfaction and delights, and truly subordinate thereunto, as both are subordinate unto God, not to h●s joys but will and honour. And 4. I fixed it on the Soul at rest, as the result of all its aims and motions: for 'tis both the recompense and cessation of all its painful exercises and pursuits. 5. I make the matter of this joy to be the Soul's adequate End and Object, which none but God can be; since it is apparent that neither Heaven nor Earth have any besides God to make and be a portion for the Soul, Psal. 73.25. And then, 6. I lay the formality of this joy in the possession and embraces of this End and Object, both as adequate and desired; for as it is adequate, it speaks no want nor deficiency in the Object; and as it is desired, so it speaks the preparation of the Subject; and as it is embraced and possessed, so it speaks no cost and labours lost, nor expectations frustrated. And now indeed the Soul is most ravished, when all its motions are directed to their End, and terminated there, with unconceivable satisfaction, when God is all in all, and the poor painful Christian is, through tedious oppositions, difficulties and travels, safely conducted to its most proper Portion; Choice and Joy. 2. By Course, is meant the Time of Life in reference to our stated work and difficulties. The Metaphor is fetched from that Olympic Exercise which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; in which the Racers ran in Armour, because of sharp Assaults and Oppositions all the way. In armis Cursorum fuere Galea, quam capite, Ocreae, quas tibiis, Aspis sive Clypeus, quem manibus ferrent qui eo certamine contenderent. Pet. Fab. Agonistic. lib. 2. cap. 23. p. 186. Hence we have something in our Christian Panoply answerable hereunto; as, The Helmet of Salvation, Eph. 6.17. Feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, answering to the Ocreae; v. 15. And the Shield of Faith, v. 16. And therefore after the Apostle had showed the Ephesians their Race and Course of Duties which they had to run in, Eph. 4.5, 6. & 1.9. He acquainteth them also what oppositions they might expect, and what Enemies they had to grapple with, and what a Panoply or Armour they must put on and use; Eph. 6.10, 18. that so their Course might be successful. 3. By finishing the Course with joy, is meant, to have it managed and completed so, as that the Comforts, Prize and Glory of it might be theirs who run to discharge Trust and Duty with all Activity, Prudence, Constancy and Delight; to face and conquer Difficulties with such masculine courage and success, as best becomes the Spirit, Hopes and Furniture of a Christian: to make our matchless estimation of approaching Glory remarkable in all our strokes and steps. No man is crowned that strives not lawfully, 2 Tim. 2.5. Our Motions must be persevering, swift and even, and herein answerable to the great ends of God Christ, in calling us to our Trust and Care; and all our warrantable ends in our voluntary undertaking to be Combatants and Racers to hold Integrity so fast, to prise the Crown so much, to watch over Hearts so strictly, and discipline the whole Man so exactly, as that the Gospel may not be ashamed to own us, nor Christ ashamed of us. Our Trust nor Talents must not be imbezeled, nor managed with slightness nor falsehood, nor any way abused by us, lest those Comforts should be lost that are before us, as the determined recompense of faithful Racers: For God resolves to render to every man as his work shall be, Rom. 2.6, 10. 2 Cor. 5.10. Jer. 17.10. We know the Apostle's Care and Counsel, 1 Cor. 9.24, 27. Phil. 2.12. He knew all running would not serve the turn; and he was apprehensive of all those Dangers, Snares and Oppositions which called for universal Watchfulness, Resolution, Care and Courage; and knew the Crown of Life could never fit the Sluggard's or Coward's Temples. Nor will God prejudice the Interest of Religion, nor restrain and mortify all those awakening Arguments, which are to be derived from this Principle and Topick, viz. That only faithful Racers must be Crowned with Life and Joys. Query 2. How far must love to Life be conquered and subdued, and every thing be disregarded, for the right finishing of our course with joy? 1. These things must be distinguished, in order to the understanding of the Nature and Measure of this Duty and Attainment. 1. It is one thing what may be loved and valued simply and abstractedly, as only considered in itself; and 'tis another thing what may be loved and valued, as compared with something else. And, 2. It is one thing what degree of value of Love and Care may suit the excellency and importance of the Object, and another thing what may exceed it. 3. It is one thing how I may love a thing, when consistent with, and conducing to our best Concernment; and 'tis another thing how I may love what is withdrawn from and set against it. And, 4. It is one thing to have Affections to be Snares and Hindrances, and another thing to have them Helps and Furtherances to something better. And, 5. A moderate and subordinate love is one thing, and a supreme and love is another. And, 6. It is one thing to love with true submission to God's commanding and disposing Will, and another thing to love to the prejudice of God's Prerogative and Providence; so as to murmur and quarrel with the great Jehovah for what he doth. 2. And upon these Distinctions may we ground these following Propositions and Conclusions. 1. Life and the Comforts of it are eligible and desirable as they are considered in themselves; and in this sense God hath not forbidden the loving of them. They come from God as emanations and expressions of his Goodness: They are good and perfect gifts, and lovely in their kind and places; for had not Life been lovely, it could have been no punishment to die; for all punishment is Malum Physicum propter Malum Morale; and when it is laid in a privation, the want cannot be evil, if the thing we are deprived of be not good and lovely; nor could the promise of long life have been a quickening Argument to Holiness and Duty (as it is, 1 Pet. 3.10, 11. Exod. 20.12.) had we not loved it. Nor would God have promised to us as a Mercy, what is not good and lovely. Adam in Innocence had the love of Life implanted in him; & he did ill in that he feared the loss of Life too little, to make him regularly careful to preserve it. And it had been no argument of awful cogency that he should die upon transgression, had not the love of Life been deeply rooted and implanted in him; for who can rationally fear the loss of what he cares not for? It is plain that Adam's love to Life was the result of God's Creation, and therefore good; for it was in him in his Innocence: And the Argument was framed to prevent Transgression, as something possible, but not yet existent; and God was never angry with him, till he through sin had forfeited his Life; and this proved his love to Life to be every way consistent with a state of Innocence. And for all the Comforts of Life, they are desirable in themselves, and lovely: As, Relation, Eph. 5.25. Liberty, 1 Cor. 7.21. and Birth-priviledges Acts 22.28. Credit, Prov. 22.1. Outward Supplies, Prov. 30.8 Yea, Plenty of them, Eccl. 7.11. & 10.10. And it is impossible and inhuman for any man simply to desire and attempt his own personal Misery and Destruction; yea, it is his sin to do it. See Acts 26.29. Neither doth Grace itself mortify or correct our love to Life and all its Comforts, as simply considered in themselves; for if it did, it could neither be the trial nor the commendation of a gracious sober Christian to part with Life and Comforts, since it would only be demanding from him what he cared not for, Gen 22.1 2, 12. 2. Life and the Comforts of it have their subserviency to better things; and thus it is more our Duty not to disregard them. Life makes us capable of serving God, and of the enjoyment of him. Our spiritual and eternal Life suppose; natural Life: and further, 'tis our state of usefulness and trial. We cannot actually serve God any further, or our Generation longer, than we have our Lives and Being's here. The usefulness and comforts of Relations are reciprocal. How can I see or serve God with what I have not? They are my helps, and trust and trials. Relations may be mutually won and ripened for eternal Glory by each others Conversation, 1 Pet. 3.1. Credit is valuable because of usefulness to others, and our own necessary confidences and encouragements, 1 Tim. 3.7. Places of Honour and important Trust must not be disregarded. Joseph, Mordecai and Daniel were greatly serviceable through their great interest and estimation in their respective Prince's Courts. What useful Instruments have holy Kings and Princes been for God upon their Thrones? Plenty and fullness are desirable: 'Tis better to give than to receive, Acts 20.35. Innocence and Independence steel the Countenance. 'Tis comfortable to be the poor man's staff, and the rich man's pattern. The like I may say of Liberty, Gifts, Parts, etc. And when God throws these things upon us, to make us useful, it would be our misery, shame and sin to cast them from us with contempt; and as both Life and Comforts stand in relation to usefulness and Glory, Grace rather heightens than abates esteem and value of them; and rather quickens and engages thankfulness and affections for and to them, than sets the heart against them thus considered. 3. It is the Apostasy of our state and hearts from God, that sets our lives and comforts in their capacity of being snares to us. Had it not been for sin, God, and our Lives and Comforts had not been reduced to such an inconsistency as now they are; nor had our natural Lives and Comforts been our snares, had not their end and ours been changed: they had never been so insignificant, as to our safety and delight, had we not torn them from that their Figure, God himself, to whom their true subordinate relation gave them their whole worth and value. Our snares and surfeits come from our own irregular appetites, 1 Tim. 6.9, 10. Luke 21.34. Life and its Consolations are God's, and good, Jam. 1.17. The Lust is ours, 1 John 2.16. 4. Life and all things must be disregarded, as they are separate from God, and set against him; as they are separated from God, so they must be neglected; and as they are set against God, so they must be opposed. Our lives must never be a course of lusts, Rom. 13.13. Nor must their Comforts and Continuance be entertained or indulged, as God's Opponents or Corrivals; nor be preserved, possessed or prosecuted to the prejudice of better things, even holy works and joy; while they and better things may keep together, the elder must serve the younger. Our present Life and Comforts must minister to the great Concernments of another better state; and when Religion or our Lives must go, we must disclaim the latter to secure the former. Nothing must bond or circumvent Religion; nor must it be subjected to the trifling ends and dotages of a transient Life. Our Lives and Comforts are dispensed to us for usefulness, not satisfaction. We must secure obedience and submission to God's preceptive and disposing Will, and a true, constant, practical relation and subserviency unto God's Glory, and our own eternal Welfare, and the full credit of Religion, and its advancement in ourselves and others: And wherein soever the love of Life threatens or makes towards an equality with God and Life-to-come-concernments, or makes us change our Lord, to serve our Lusts, or grow reluctant to that great Seal and Testimony, which we own to the full Interest and Claims of Christianity, or makes us more remiss, sluggish and fearful in our Christian Course of holy, painful and resolved exercises, than our Hopes and Circumstances can admit of, therein must Life be wholly disregarded. Query 3. Whence is it evident that this Design and Prospect will have such powerful influences upon concerned serious Christian, as to make this regardlesness of Life and every thing, to be a possible attainment? 1. From personal Instances. All that are gone to Heaven have reached this Frame. Oh what a Cloud of Witnesses is afforded us? Heb. 11.2, 39 & 10.32. The Apostle here himself stands like a Monument, with this Superscription, 'Tis possible to be a Conqueror of Life and Death, 2 Tim. 4.6.8. Acts 21.13. Phil. 1.20, 23. Nor doth he want his Seconds; as Barnabas; Acts 15.26. Epaphroditus; Phil. 2.30. Daniel also, and the Three Children long before, Dan. 3.16, 18. & 6.13, 22. and those in Rev. 12.11. and many others. 2. From Scriptural Injunctions and Comminations, Luke 14.26. 1 Pet. 4.12, 16. It is no ways probable that such weighty Accents of Command, Concernedness, and Importunity and Caution should be laid upon Impossibilities; or that God should urge and threaten man, and press upon him both with promises and menaces, and be at such expense; of cost and patience, grace and bounty, and digest his Name and Treasures into such cogent arguments, and make both Heaven and Earth, yea, Hell and Conscience, minister to this Design of ripening and advancing him to such a p t●h of ex●ltation above all prejudicial love of Life, and fear of Death; if this were foreign to his own capacity, and therefore unattainable; for this would be the way even to distract the Harmony of God's whole Name with such unaccountable and impossible Discords, as that account which God hath given us thereof would not admit of; nor is it consonant to that Analogy which his Image on the New Creature expressly beareth unto himself. 3. From the Advantages which the Design and Prospect of the Text afford us. We have something nobler to attempt, than to preserve and cherish that Life and Interest which is separate from God, and set against him; and something better to expect and promise to ourselves, than such contracted transient Comforts as Death can strip us of; namely, the finishing of an honourable Course that is set before us, and reaching of those matchless Consolations which are tendered to us, and affixed to the end and termination of that costly, painful Race which we have to run. And such things have an exact sufficiency in their kind, as Arguments and Motives to our Hopes, and Diligence and Resolution, to make us more than Conquerors both of, and in Life and Death, Rev. 2.10. Rom. 8.18. 2 Tim. 1.8, 12. & 2.12. Acts 24.14, 16. Rom. 8.32, 39 4. From the Assistance which God is ready to afford us, 1 Cor. 10.13. 2 Cor. 1.3, 5. & 12.7, 10. John 14.18. Mat. 28.20. Jer. 1.8. Our Winter-work hath suitable furniture and provisions, Jam. 1.2, 6. We shall have Counsels, Comforts, Quickning, and suitable Relishes, Views and Strength to all our Work and Exercises. Query 4 and the Case in hand. What must we therefore do to (and how must we) overcome the inordinate Love of Life and Fear of Death? For no man can love or dare to die, that loves this Life inordinately; and values it too dear to let it go; or that prevailingly doubts, or fears, or undervalues a better Life hereafter. Now in this instance in my Text, Bonds and Afflictions seemed to minister to Death; and Death is very terrible to Nature, as its Dissolution, and terrible to interested Souls in the Concernments of this Life, as ending all the Pleasures, Profits, Honours that Sense & Fancy can be courted with; 'tis terrible to those that are not satisfied of another state, because it ends what they were sure of the existence of, and had the greatest desires of, and pleasures in; and because it ushers them thither where their doubt will be resolved, and that for aught they know (and they have great jealousies and suspicions of it in sober thoughts and cool blood) to their eternal sorrow, cost and shame. 'Tis terrible to those that never valued the joys, and hopes and work of Godliness, and cannot then expect the recompenses of that Godliness which they declined and hated. And it is terrible to those that are uncertain, as to their spiritual state, dark in their evidences, low in their hopes, and disturbed with melancholic or other fears about their interest in God and Christ, and everlasting welfare of their immortal Souls. So that where all or any of these things prevail, men dread to leave this Life, and to be transmitted to another state by Death, be it natural or violent. And the same Reasons, Helps and Motives that may be useful for the one, may be also useful for the other; and therefore before the Case can be resolved, something must be premised to prepare the way; and that is this: viz. The Argument of the Text is a successful proper Antidote against a double evil, and it is the ground and measure of a necessary Duty. 1. The Evils are, the inordinate love of Life, and the fear of Bonds, Afflictions, Death. 2. The Argument imports, 1. A prospect of something better than what we are called to mortify, feel or quit, and that is joy resulting from a Course well finished; and a state (if I may call it so) of mere nonexistence cannot deserve or claim the name of Joy, 1 Cor. 15.17, 29, 32. And nothing but this prospect could necessitate his sufferings, or his disregard of Life; nor could this do it, had he not sure foundations for his Confidence, Heb. 11.6. Tit. 1.2. 2 Tim 1.10. 2 Cor. 4.17, 18. And therefore the Prospect mortifies the inordinate fear of Death. Now, 2. The Argument imports a Project too; and that is this: viz. so to manage and complete the Course, as to secure the Joy; which cannot be, if Life or any thing have an equal or transcendent interest in us or influence upon us; and therefore the necessary Duty is the Conquest of the Love of Life, and Fear of Death. The measure of our necessary Conquest is fetched from its relation and subserviency to the Prize; So far as Love of Life and Fear of Death are opposed to, and inconsistent with our better hopes and work, so far they must be overcome. And the ground of the Duty is in the Text; because otherwise our Course cannot be finished with joy; it can be neither regular nor successful without the conquest and attainment of my Text: And therefore my Answer to the Case before us, shall lie in these few following Directions. Direct. 2. Be throughly persuaded of, and hearty affected with a Life to come, 2 Cor. 4.17, 18. This is the poise and pondus of Religion. Heb. 11.6. This is the heart and strength of Godliness. Acts 24.14, 26. 'Tis this that strips that King of Terrors, Death, of all his frightful looks and strength. This spoils his fatal Conquest, Gripe and Sting. 2 Tim. 4.6, 8. 2 Cor. 5.1, 10. and 1 Cor. 15.51, 58. It was this that did invigorate the confidence and courage of that Noble Army of Martyrs, Heb. 11. throughout. This the Brow with Confidence, to face the storms, and entertain the challenges of Earth and Hell. Rom. 8.35, 39 This startles hearty Resolutions into awakened Exercises; & forceth such expressions of inward strength and fixedness, as shall amaze the world, and shame the daring stupid Infidel into strange Convictions of the transcendent joys & gain of godliness, and its approaching triumphs. This makes the heart indifferent to live or die, so that by either the great concernment may be prosperous and successful, and need I furnish you with arguments to persuade you to believe another state? doth not the word of God, the soul of man, the course and consequence of moral government pass into arguments to prove this thing? would God create capacity in the soul of man to render him proper for another state, and do this, as the result of his remarkable love and wisdom, and make him capable of being influenced by motives drawn from hence, and after all turn his capacity into his wrack, and abuse and rule him by mistakes and errors, and shame those hope; and confidences in the Soul, and strip it of those proper ends and exercises, which God himself ordained, enjoined and started? Moreover, will not the state and element of everlasting retributions be more significant than a probationary state and theatre? and if so, no way more proper to conquer the inordinacy in our case, than right persuasions and resentments of another state of life. It is no wonder that an Infidel should be inordinate in his love of life, for he that looks for nothing when he is dead, cannot attempt divorcement from his Idols, interest and consolations here; for now he must conclude, that a living dog is better than a dead man; and if the smart conviction will not suffer him to remain an Infidel (for Atheists and Infidels cannot be such, without his permission, if not judicial stupefaction and desertion by whom they were created) yet if he relish not the joys and exercises of another state hereafter, he cannot but be wanton and imposed upon by his ensnaring dreams and shadows, and parcel out his heart (till he have lost himself) amongst the incoherent transient vanities of sense and fancy. The world and present life are this man's all: and 'tis no wonder if when he hath nothing else on which he can place his heart, he fix it here; but oh when better things appear in chase and view, when things commensurate with his capacity and duration strike his concerned eye with close and smart appulses, and so affects his heart, shadows must fly away, and the Sons of the Morning must suit their exercises and attempts to the discoveries of their day, and alienate their hearts from what will be abusive of their souls and hopes; as their discoveries will make them then conclude. Direct. 2. Look upon life and comforts as they are, not as they seem to be, under their present circumstances; and make your choice and value suitable thereunto. Your life is but a shadow which must disappear, a cloud that must be scattered, more easily passed through than embraced, and all the glory of this World is easily winked into blackness and distaste, and all the lower comforts of our lives are but the crumbs we gather from the broken world. The world itself is but an Element of Sin and Sorrow, and through that curse upon it, which was derived by our first apostasy, it is become a stormy and disturbed Region. There is nothing suitable to our better part therein when separate from God and set against him. Our Souls (the noblest part of Man) are entertained with nothing but burdens, stints and snares. A chain of Gold may pinch as hard as one of Iron. There is nothing here that can endure those warm affections and close embraces which our true happiness deserves; and should we thus embrace them, our Idols arms and hearts would certainly be broken altogether. Our lawful comforts and delights are hereby embittered and polluted, and melt away to nothing, and bid farewell with dreadful gripes and bitter relishes, and fly away upon the wings we give them, for indeed the great affections of our inflamed hearts cannot but turn them all to smoke. It is their subservient usefulness and relation to God, our present work, and future glory that make and speak them excellent, and if you change their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, you rob the cluster of its best juice and blessing: and if your lives and comforts turn God's competitors and enemies, you Spin them into snares and ruins. And were but this the rule and measure of all our fears and love, there would be joy in keeping and resigning them; God would be with them in their stay, and in their stead and places when they are gone; in Psal. 73.24, 26. Oh! how disgracefully is this world reflected on in holy Writ? 2 Cor. 4.18. Mat. 6, 19, 1. Rom. 8.18. And when you do compare it with that above, and cast them both into an equal balance in your considerate and serious thoughts and pauses, then think which is noblest in its nature, most indisturbed in its possessions, most uniform in its constitution, most enduring in its excellence, most adequate in its proportions, and most desirable in its full dimensions, 1 Pet. 1.4. And what advantages herein are others testimonies in the Case! Would you but measure the good and evil of both worlds by the experiences and apprehensions of dying and awakened persons, how vast a difference would you see betwixt the life and comforts of them both; yea, and their sorrows too! Where have you any thing in this world that can preponderate or equal the comforts of God's blessed Face and Favour? especially when all clouds and frowns are gone? what is this world more apt to do, than to deface God's Image in us, (or prevent it) darken his Glory, obstruct his comfortable emanations and addresses to us, and to foment our Jealousies and suspicions about his present interest in us, and his eternal kindness to us? O what a difference is there betwixt the mantle of our mortal life, which falls upon that dark and sluggish world where purblind man delights to be, and those more glorious and enduring Robes of Righteousness, Salvation, Praise and Immortality which our Redeemer hath provided for us, where by our death he calls and takes us? What therefore but our inconsiderateness can make us love our Prisons, Chains and Rags, or the pretences of ensnaring Cheats, Impostures and Delusions? Direct. 3. Look upon life and all its Comforts as a probationary state for something else, and use them so, Prov. 9.12. Eccles. 9.10. 2 Cor. 5.10. Rom. 2.6.10. Heb. 9.27. Trifle not here, for it is your time of trial; we are all designed to live elsewhere; and future retributions must be answerable to our present carriage. This is our trading season, and would you be always in the Shop or Market? Would you be always travelling homeward, and never reach your Father's house? 2 Cor. 5.6, 9 We must not dream of being always on the Stage; we have our parts to act, our work to do, and must be called off ere long, that others may succeed us; and after a few successive Acts, the Theatre must be taken down, and can we fancy shadows, representations and resemblances to be everlasting? What! hath God sent us hither to dote upon those Lives and Comforts which are built upon the weak, uncertain Sands, and spend themselves in triflings upon the hasty streams of short uncertain Time? Or is it not rather that we should be acting and ripening for eternal joys and exercises? This is our time of Discipline, Exercise and education for the Prince's Court, to fit us for our everlasting Ministrations before the great Jehovah. Now we are learning Principles, and labouring to understand and try what it is to love and honour God; what to be ruled and taught, that so we might be saved by Christ, to thrive upon and under preparatory quickenings, counsels and consolations of the Spirit, what it is to receive, reflect, refract God's Holiness and Image in his instituted ways and methods; and can we terminate our Affections, Pleasures and Desires upon these preliminary elements and prelusions to those more lofty Exercises and enjoyments that wait for us when we have regularly finished our probationary Course? Surely our dark discoveries, slender attainments, cold affections, frequent and great disturbances, and faint attempts to get near God, our mean proficiency, and the true prospect of what we want, as to both our accomplishments and enjoyments, should make us easily resolve our value, care and love into this one single aim and enterprise; namely, to see that Comforts, Lives and Time be most effectually managed and improved for the securing of these joys before us; for there is nothing that we are and have below, but it is a Talon for the Market, not the Napkin: and therefore neither Life nor Comforts should lie as dead Goods upon our hands, nor be as Idols in our hearts. Have we but one thing needful to secure, and are we upon our trial for it? and shall we turn our trust and helps to snares and hindrances, by doting on them; and by fixing and abiding, where we should be in motion? Are not we called to labour in the Vineyard, in order to our reckoning and reward at night? and is it not to day that we must work? Heb. 3.12, 15. John 17.4.5, Will not our Crop and Harvest be answerable to our Seed? Gal. 6.7, 9 What wonder is it that the guilty Drone so much desires to live, and fears to die, or that he rages, frets and trembles to hear his Hour and the Judge is come? When men have trifled all the day, 'tis a most frightful sight to see the lengthened shadow and declining Sun. Stupefaction is no conquest of the fear of Death, or love of Life: But when the awakened soul expects and sees the King of Terrors in the head of his whole Army, and on his hasty March, what then can steel that countenance, whose heart and life have been expended and embezzled in trifling dotages and mistakes; yea, and gross neglects of what the man was sent into the world to do? He that was sent into the world to please his God, and save his Soul, and to grapple with, and trample on the twisted strength and subtleties of Earth and Hell, and to acorn and propagate Religion by an exact and exemplary conversation, and so under Christ, to make all clear within and sure above, when he hath neglected all, cannot be comfortably furnished to sacrifice or part with life for the Concernments of Eternity, with cheerfulness, and out of choice; or to conquer the Exercises, Fears and Challenges of a dying hour. And besides did we but carry as upon our trial, weaning our hearts from things below, and wedding them to things above, and managing all our Duties with all diligence and resolution; the very oppositions and difficulties of the way, and of our work in this world, would make us weary of our entertainment here, and full of vehement long and desires to be gone. We should have little heart to wish for long continuance where we can have neither welcome nor satisfaction. Our very works and sufferings would abate our love to Life; and our encumbrances about many things and from them, when they are apprehended as prejudicial to the one thing needful, would be rejected by us, because distasteful to us. Direct. 4. Keep up your ordinate fear of Death, as the Corrective of your inordinate love to Life; and see that this be well improved, Psal. 49.6, 14. Why? should our hearts be where we must not stay? Had Eve but thought more upon Death, the forbidden Fruit had never been betwixt her teeth. We fancy Immortality in a maze of Vanity, and our imagined continuance here inflames our hearts; and did we more consider how short a time we have to stay, and how much work to do, how sure we are to die, and why Death came into the world, and how suddenly, yea, and surprisingly the King of Terrors (who receives not Bribes) may make dispatches of his sharp and hasty Arrows into our sides and hearts, the enamouring influences of this mortal Life would more effectually be mortified and obstructed. Why should I dote on that to day, from which I may be gone to morrow? The fear of Death hath its ordained place and use, and calls upon us to prepare, Job 14.14. He that is sensible of his own vanity here below, and capable of Immortality above, aught to be ready for his change and call. If we be negligent in the Discipline of our Affections, within the prospect of our dying day, our misery becomes our choice, and we betray our souls to startling sorrows and surprisals, and give our hearts away for trifles in the very face of danger. Security makes us prodigals and wantoness, and exposes us to the powerful charms of fearful fascinations. Extinguished Lamps and empty vessels are only in the hands of slumbering Virgins; by whom the Midnight-cry is clear forgotten. Treasures and Goods laid up for many years, and then the heart is gone and sold to empty confidences and vain delights, until that Cry (Thou Fool, this night thy Soul must go) correct the Cheat, and shame the dreaming wanton. Methinks the awful thoughts and looks of Death should quench those flames of Love which have no other Fuel, but a Vapour or thin exhalation, which hath no light and glory but in its own destruction; and they should rather make us careful to secure that Treasure in the Heavens, which remains to be possessed, when our Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life. Our daily instances of Mortality should start such fresh remembrances in us of our own approaching dissolution, and that amazing alteration of our comforts and employments which will ensue thereon, as should irresistibly prevail upon us to guard and fortify our hearts against the inroads and invasions of such addresses as the corrupting flatteries and pretences of Life and Comforts here below, are apt to make upon our hearts; for this inordinacy of love to Life, gives Death a fatal sting to strike us with. Direct. 5. As to the inordinate fear of Death, labour to get a perfect understanding of its Grounds and Cure; for our mistake herein, may make the application of the Medicine both dangerous and successless: And therefore let us first inquire into what it is that makes us loath or afraid to die; and then, what Antidotes are expedient for this Cure of such inordinate Fears? and then direct your Application. 1. That which makes Death terrible to us, is either relating to, 1. What we leave behind us; as Life, Comforts or Advantages here, for getting and exercising Grace in order to eternal Glory, Or, 2. The state we are going to; as to which, we either, 1. Doubt of its existence as to eternal comforts; Or, 2. Want a Title to them, and so fear the loss of them, and pains of Hell for ever. Or. 3. A value for them. Or, 3. The passage from one state to another; and that either, 1. As to its pains, or, 2. Its conflicts; or, 3. It's separation of Soul and Body; and 4. A remaining in that state of separation of Soul and Body, through a defect of Divine Power or Faithfulness to, and Mercy for us. 2. The proper Antidotes and Expedients for the Cure of these excessive Fears, which I shall briefly give you, are in these following Propositions. Propos. 1. There is a state of Life and Immortality designed and prepared for holy persons. It is prepared, Mat. 25, 34. Discovered, 2 Tim. 1.10. Purchased by Christ, and proposed by God, Eph. 1.11.14. Promised, Tit. 1.2. And reserved in Heaven for such, 1 Pet. 1.4. We have all the imaginable proofs & demonstrations of it, that things invisible, and at a distance from us, can be capable of. God hath made us capable thereof, and hath implanted in us a desire of, and longing for it; though some, through sin, have rotten these desires at the roots. And further, on these desires, capacity, and inclinations, God hath grounded Laws for Moral Government, and rules the world by hopes and fear, whose vital influences are derived from this future state. And further still, God hath sent his Son to tell us of these preparations, who in the humane nature published such reports, which God attested by frequent apparent Miracles, and sealed them with his blood, and rose again as the first fruits of them that sleep; and after taught this Doctrine, and went to Heaven to take possession, and make necessary preparations for our conduct thither, and title and possession there; and sent the Spirit down for the repeated Seals and Publication of this Doctrine of a Life to come; who did inspire Apostles to write and preach it, and urge it upon the Consciences of men, and to prepare the heart of man for this Inheritance, to urge it as an Argument of weight upon them, and start joys and sorrows in them as they carry in relation hereunto: And he hath declared, that he will judge the world by Christ, in order to their legal settlement in this state. Prop. 2. Our present state of life and comforts is no way comparable to what is designed hereafter. It is a State and City, in respect whereof God is not ashamed to be called our God, Heb. 11.16. with Luke 20.34.38. Oh what a change of persons shall we meet with there! Phil. 3.21. 1 John 3.2. 1 Cor. 15.49, 54. Our bodies shall not be what they now are; even the wracks and loads and chains of souls. What are they now but foul unactive lumps of Clay? they are pierced with cold, and worn with labours, appalled with griefs and dangers, and gripped with pains, and macerated with keen and envious passions, and after all mouldered to dust by death and rottenness; but there, neither deformity, pains, nor death shall be their fear nor exercise. Our Souls shall quit their prisons, clouds and chains; our apprehensions shall be clear, 1 Cor. 13.12. and Consciences full of peace and joy. Oh what an harmony and concord shall there be betwixt God's will and ours! what purity, order, warmth and vigour shall there be in our affections? and what subserviency and due prostrations in our passions? yea, what comfort and constancy shall there be in full and grateful exercises in the whole man! No Jars and Discords shall spoil the Melody of our Spheres; our Holiness shall need no Crutch, but reach the fullness of a perfect stature; no broken-winded nor imperfect praises there; the pulse of perfect Souls shall know no intermissions nor unequal motions, but keep one constant rate of work and joy. And what a change of state, as well as persons shall we meet with there? Phil. 1.23. A vale of tears quit for Rivers of eternal pleasures; an element of joys succeeds our bitter Cups; our rights can never be invaded there; nothing can slain the comforts of that world; no blots nor wounds are there contracted nor endured; no troubles in that Israel; there are no pauses of astonishment through surprisals of afflictions; death smites no corners there; Providence makes no storms, there lies that Ark wherein no vile or wicked Cham shall dwell, the glory of that place it knows no eclipse nor cloud; no dim discoveries or flat notes shall be the exercise or entertainment of that state. How sprightly are the Airs and descants of their Hallelujahs. No worm on Conscience or carcase there; there Charity knows no breach; no maladministrations in that Kingdom; nor bad constructions of God's providence, or of the Actions of his servants there; there are no cuts from Friends, nor gripes from Enemies; no frailties to report, nor Enemies to report them; no falls in Israel to grate upon these holy hearts, nor fears to be their painful exercises; there are no wrinkles on the brows of God, nor frowns upon the face of Majesty, nor one dejected look amongst those blessed Myriads of Saints and Angels; their Ark hath neither shake nor cover, nor any startling strokes to terrify its attendants. Souls once arrived at this harbour, are entertained with perfection in a morning-blush and everlasting youthfulness. Oh who can draw these Breasts of Consolation dry; These upper Springs they run clear and freely; and all the Fountains of the great Deep shall there be broken up to overflow the Banks of Paradise with everlasting joys and satisfaction. With what a torrent shall these clear and pleasant Rivers run? Should I attempt a full description of this joyful state, I might far sooner set Rhetoric upon the wrack, and contract the Character of being one that quaintly did attempt to play the fool, and was eloquently mad, than think to escape that censure, Job 38.2. Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge? Oh, it must be Vision and Fruition, and not the Flourishes of expression that must reach the excellent perfections of that state, 1 Cor. 2 9 See Psal. 16.11. And now shall we fear to leave this world and die? What! shall we be undone by being happy? Is it the misery of man to be with God, like him, and dear and near unto him? What is this state and theatre of woes and sorrows, that we are so loath to quit it? Methinks I see the Angels overmatcht with strange astonishment at our reluctancies to be gone, and our averseness to desert our Dotages and Prisons. It might in reason be expected from us, that no exercise of our patience should be so sore and pinching as this, that we must stay from Heaven so long; and shall we after all, raise such a false report about the Land of Promise, by our averseness to be gone thereto, as to insinuate into the thoughts of others, that either the trifles of this mortal Life, or the pains and terrors of our passage to the Land of Rest, are much beyond the Recompenses and Reparations that we shall meet with there? View then the difference, and be free to go? Prop. 3. Death is an enemy which Christ hath conquered; and God hath given us the victory through Christ, 1 Cor. 15.54, 57 Heb. 2.14.15. Oh what an emancipation hath Christ here wrought! That Christ hath conquered it, 'tis clear in Acts 2.24. That Prophecy is now accomplished, Hos. 13.14. with Rom. 1.4. And blessed are the consequences of this Victory to us; John 6.39, 40. Why should we fear this King of Terrors, who gives his stroke, but has no sting? the stab is deep, but the captivity short? for we shall have our lives again, which are hid with Christ in God till Christ appear, Col. 3.3, 4. And Soul death is escaped; for when we are absent from the body, we shall be present with the Lord, 2 Cor. 5.8. Sin bound us over to eternal death by Law; and here was the strength and sting of Death: but this Sentence is reversed through the Law of the Spirit of Life, Rom. 8.1, 4. And Death itself can neither come from, nor end in any want of Love in God to us. And how triumphantly doth the Apostle speak when animated with this Meditation? Rom. 8.32, 39 What an allay is it amidst our pangs and fears of death, to think upon those Confidences, Encouragements and Consolations, before, and in, and after the shakes and conflicts, yea, and execution of a dying hour, which God allows, intends, and is resolved to give us then! 'Tis now consistent with the dearest love to die, and introductive of the best delights and state; and therefore we have little cause to fear it, seeing we shall be gainers by it; 'tis but a Moment's blow, and that shall be healed again, 1 Pet. 1.3. 4. He that is true to his baptismal covenant hath now the title, and shall have the honour and advantages of this victory, if God be served and sought and loved as our great end and happiness; Psal. 73.25.26. if we be freely for Christ, Joh. 6.37. faithful to him, Rev. 2.10.3.10. Heb. 5.9, and fruitful in him, Joh. 15.1.10. 2 Pet. 1.5.10. if we live in the spirit and walk by it, Gal. 5.25. Rom. 8.9.17. and sow to it, Gal. 6.8. and if we hearty and prevailingly answer the claims and ends of the Gospel of the grace of God, Tit. 2.11 15. What need we perplex ourselves with fears, as if we served a rigid or unfaithful Master? Oh let not our unvoluntary weakness and surprisals discourage us, for God is merciful, his goodness is exceeding great, and our High priest is sensible of our weaknesses, and true to all our interest, Heb. 7.25, 9, 24. Heb. 2.14. 18, 4.14.16. And now having thus prepared the way by these preliminary Propositions, what now remains for us to do, but to take these following Directions, which will come something closer to the case in hand? Direct. 1. See that you lay foundations right and deep. How can it be imagined, much less expected that unprepared and estranged Souls from God and Christ should face the challenges and terrors, or escape the dangers of a dying day? what can support the confidence of that man who is dispirited by the deserved rebuke & buffet of an exasperated, because a guilty, conscience? for conscience is the mouth of God, and speaks his mind (and what speaks otherwise in point of charge or censure is rather ignorance than conscience) and by his order and commission, and in his name and Majesty whips the careless soul. It is impossible to still the cries of guilt and wrath. It is far more easy for us to charm and stupefy the man than truly cure him. He that is negligent of the main affair is like to bear the smartings of his own voluntary wounds; and the more voluntary our negligence appears to be to our awakened consciences when startled by gripes and fears of death, the less cause will there be for help and pity. All fears arising from an unconverted state, have God to back and sharpen them, because they are truly grounded on God's professed resolution and legal comminations, to bring those fears on them by whom they are deserved. So that our only way to cure and quell these fears, is to remove their Cause, by giving up ourselves to God the Father, to know him, love him, and live to him, and to delight ourselves in God's Image, Presence and Favour; in his Son Jesus Christ more than in all the treasures and delights of lower things; to know the Lord that bought us, and to serve him in righteousness, peace and joy in the holy Ghost, with confidence to commit ourselves to his tendered conduct, government and protection; and entertain him with all sutableness of apprehension, affection and conversation to all his excellencies, offices and appearances; to answer all his kindnesses, cost and care with all such faithful, fruitful, cheerful conversations as God & Christ determined and designed in man's Redemption, Eph. 1.4. Yea, to be ruled, assisted and refreshed by what the Spirit of Grace, and Holiness and Wisdom hath done for us, and is sent from the Father and the Son to perfect and complete in us; to live the Life of Faith and Holiness, and endeavour to spend our days in the delightful hopes and foretasts of, and ripening for, and hasting to (or hastening, as the word imports, * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 2 Pet. 3.12.) your everlasting state of Joys and Glory; to make the unseen world the exercise, poise and spring of your most vehement desires, most vigorous pursuit, and most inviolable satisfaction: and in a word, to walk in all due conscience of your trust and charge, to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to others and yourselves; in all things to think, and speak, and do as in the sight of God, relation to him, and special interest and delight in him, and not through ignorance, enmity and sloth, to let the Devil, Flesh or World mortify your delight in God, your motions towards, affections to, and resolutions for God. And harken not to those discouraging thoughts and jealousies of God and Christ, which your grand enemy the Prince of lies and darkness is ready to abuse you with. Where hath God told you that the willing, thoughtful, painful Soul, though much distempered and imperfect, shall be rejected by him? For when the Son protests so solemnly against rejecting such as come, he speaks his Father's heart, Jo. 6.37, 40. And I profess, when I most seriously consider the terms & tenor of the covenant of Grace, I am much confirmed in this, that all grounded jealousies, suspicions & discouragements as to our hopes of everlasting happiness, can only fix upon our voluntary rejecting of God and Christ, and holiness and Heaven: And though many things may humble us, and aught to do it, yet nothing can implead our Title to the purchased possession, nor our comfortable hopes at death, when once our wills are sixth on Christ, and well resolved for him, and prevail upon our lives for walking worthy of our great Vocation. We have no impossible conditions imposed on us; especially if we consider Gospel-assistances, indulgence and encouragements: for when we know our way, as God hath shown it us in Christ, and have our hearts inclined and fixed for God, we are but to exert what strength and power we have to serve and please our God, and proportionably to our abilities and advantages, to wait upon God for more, according to his instituted ways and methods. Improvements are but required to be proportionable to our Talents; and he that brought ten Talents to his Lord, had more than one or two at first to make improvement of. I do indeed believe the Law * By the Law of the Nature I ● ean God's revealed will, as Ruler, objectively signified in the nature of things within us and without us; concerning our Duty and Rewards, or Punishments; and this Law is written upon, and discovered by our own capacity & constitution, our relations to God and others, and our furniture and advantages from what we are encompassed and entrusted with in the whole firm of Nature. of Nature yet in force, though now incorporated into the Law of Christ; and that the Decalogue is yet in force to bind and rule us, and never look to see its abrogation proved, till they that hold this abrogation, can demonstrate that the Father lost his Right & Throne of Government by the appearance of his Son; and that Christ acted not as his Father's Delegate, and for his Glory, and that Grace was not designed and directed to the reparation of declined Religion in the world; but that God was so prodigal of his Pardon and Indulgence, as to grow regardless of his Government: But yet that Law is one thing, and this Covenant another thing; For the Covenant of Grace respected those distempers & perplexities & disadvantages (and supposed them, and was suited to them in its Tenders and Provisions) for which it did design Relief. And now our terms of Life are not so strict as those on which God dealt with healthful, sound and innocent Adam; for now sincere and prevalent Faith and Love and Holiness shall reach those Consolations after Death, which once (viz. antecedently to Christ's undertaking and completing satisfaction) they could not do: and therefore if your insincerity and fundamental unpreparedness for your change, be that which starts and feeds your fears, labour, to be sincere and faithful in Covenant-making and Covenant-keeping, and you may be sure of this, that Death will lose its sting and victory, and thereupon its fearful looks; when Sin hath lost its Throne, and when God and Christ have got your hearts, and lifeto come concernments influence and rule your purposes, projects and pursuits. It is with relation to our manifold temptations, wants and weaknesses, and all despondencies and discouragements consequent thereupon, that Christ hath undertaken to be our great High Priest, Physician, Advocate and Saviour. His satisfaction related to our forfeiture of all the good we had in promise and possession; and his Intercession is with respect to our great distance and unworthiness. His deep compassions suppose our Misery, and his assistance and supplies imply our wants and disadvantages. We are to be taught, because we are ignorant; and healed, because we are sick; and disciplined, because so prone and subject to disorders; and succoured and supported, because we are tempted: and when the heart is once resigned to Christ and God by him, Christ looks upon himself as much concerned to perfect in and for us every thing that can concern us in life and death, and after death. Direct. 2. Labour to understand your fears distinctly, and know their reasons, ends and measures. We are buffeted in the dark, while we are ignorant of, and so mistake the reasons of our fears, and know them not in their original and end. The Devil loves and labours to disturb us by such boisterous storms and winds as none shall know either whence they come or whither they go; he loves to walk and speak and act in the Clouds to our astonishment and confusion, that we may be disturbed, even when he knows we cannot be destroyed; because he sees our hearts are gone for God. 'Tis here as in Polemical Divinity; a Case when it is clearly stated and discovered, is half answered by the stating of it; for than our Arguments are driven and directed to a point: but when words and things are ambiguously used and rendered, there will be great contention, and but little satisfaction. We are too often frighted with clouds and shadows at a distance, but when by near approaches and clear inspection we understand the matter, our fears become our shame; and therefore to come nearer to the Case and our own Consciences, what makes us thus reluctant and afraid to die? 1. Is it the loss of what you must be divorced from by death? If so, then think a little on what you are like to lose. What is this state which you must leave that it hath stolen your hearts away? What is the Wise man's Motto on it but vexatious Vanity? Eccles. 1.14. Is it not a state of blindness, enmity and active wickedness? a state of distance and distractions? Is it not a state wherein nothing is more sure and frequent than sin & sorrows? The mind and heart of man are sooner stupefied and corrupted, than comfortably exercised and satisfied. The pleasures and delights of this distracted transient state are most near of kin unto the sluggish drossy part of man his Senses and his Fancy, and when the impetuous cravings of Sense and Fancy have got their gluts and surfeits, the Soul, that nobler and more capacious part, is furiously invaded, sadly imposed on, and prevented and obstructed in its sublimer exercises and enjoyments; it is degraded by a base captivity, stripped of its choicest Ornaments and Enrichments, and made to slight and quit its best concernments, that so the brutish part of man may rule and ruin all. The excellency of all things here lies in their ordinate usefulness and subserviency to better things, from which when you abstract them, you have no right, propriety nor proportion in them for you; but by your own averseness to be gone from them, you show your little or no love to God. 2. Is it your startling apprehension of what you must encounter and sustain in death, that makes you fear to die? It is true, the terrors, jealousies and pains, that commonly do attend a dying hour, together with that dissolution to which our Natures are averse, make Death appear an Enemy in the way ready to meet us, like Balaam's Angel, with an amazing Sword, and therefore formidable. But yet the serious, painful and resolved Christian hath many things wherewith to scatter or correct the evil influences of all discouraging apprehensions of this amazing exercise and change. For, 1. Those sins that have truly and regularly lost their Throne and Interest in the heart, shall never be the ruin of the man; through Christ the domineering and damning power of sin are left together. He that hath subjugated and mortified his vile Affections, Interests and Corruptions, and hath broken off his sins by righteousness, and hath changed his Principles, end, and actions, hath that immortal seed of life and peace and joy, which will assuredly ripen into his everlasting life, security and triumphs, 1 Cor. 15.56, 58. Your former provocations lose their damning strength, when you have deserted them by penitent conversion, Acts 3.19. And when he that hath the Keys of Death and Hell, hath told you this (as he hath, Luke 24.47.) what have you then to exercise your jealousies and sad suspicions, but sinful and groundless infidelity, which gives the lie to all those testimonies and assurances of the ability and fidelity of God and Christ, who have engaged themselves by promise to save you from those dangers which you fear; and of whose gracious Nature the Gospel, and all those wondrous mercies that attend it have informed you? 2. This being granted, what then hath the Devil to shake your confidences with, but lies and falsehood? 'Tis your own fault to credit Satan when he invalidates the truth of God, and would weaken and enervate all the assurances which God hath given you of his resolved design to save you. If he can prove that sin may be repent of and yet unpardoned; that sin may be pardoned, & yet the Soul undone; that God and Christ are either forgetful, impotent or false, then be dejected; but 'tis your comfort, that he hath no other Arguments but what are bottomed on these great Absurdities. And 3. As to the Terrors of that hour, which may arise from Satan's furious onsets and assaults, God will not let you walk alone; he hath his Rod and Staff in readiness for your assistance and support. Christ, our compassionate High Priest, knows what it is to die, he knows the subtlety and fury of the Tempter by smart experience, and his sympathy hath taught him pity; and our compassionate Head will not forget his exercised Members under their pains, and terrors, and great temptations at that hour. Christ is not exalted above the exercise of pity, but went to heaven for the reception and possession of that capacity, throne and dignity at God's right hand, which he is resolved to improve for our security and relief when we are most afflicted and in danger. And 4. As to the pains and stroke of Death, they are but short and sudden, and made our necessary passage to everlasting Glory. And may not much be born when all shall be secured? What are the struggle, gasps and stretches of departing Saints, unto those gripes of Conscience and fears of vengeance, which are the inward, frequent exercises of Sinners when they live and when they die too? Nay it is a great allay unto the bitterness and fears of Death, that God hath such rich and mighty cordials and consolations proper for that hour. O! what refreshments do oft times issue and arise from those discoveries of God's image in us presence with, and favour for us, which are made by us, when we are forced to retire within, when all things round about us fail, and lose their interest in, and favour with us, because our flesh decays and wastes through pains and rottenness, to which the bewitching dotages of time could make their easiest and most successful applications! And it ofttimes happens that our fears exceed our pains, and that the King of Terrors doth not gripe so hard, nor stab so painfully as we are apt to think and look for; but when the stroke is given indeed, and the pains are gone, how easily and quickly do the first openings of our eternal morning even swallow up all the remembrances of our dying sorrows? Oh, when the joys and visions of our God invade and exercise our departed Souls, then comes the great prelusion and welcome pledge of our eternal conquest of this last enemy; and after a short sleep of Bodies in the dust (whilst Souls retire and go to God) the Trump will found, the Lord will come, the World shall perish, or be refined by the flames, and the dead rise again, and die no more. 3. Is it because you fear a change of state to your great disadvantage when you are dead, that you are loath and dread to die? If so, than it is because either, 1. You credit not or question the certainty and excellency of the world to come. Or, 2. Because you do not understand and value it. Or, 3. You do suspect your interest in and fitness for it. If it be the first, concoct those Arguments and Intimations which God hath given you, by diligent inquiries, sober pauses, faithful meditation; reflect upon the first and second Propositions, and those more cogent useful Treatises which are written on this Subject, and wherewith the world abounds; and let not the bribes and flatteries of a vain world divert you, nor the malignant influences of a wanton Fancy corrupt and mortify the Faculties which God hath given you for this end; for here the light is ready for the prepared eye. 2. If you do not understand its excellence, and so have no value for it, compare both states together, that so your choice and value may result from wisdom, and be the product of true and sober judgement. Is it so good to dwell, delight and perish in the flames of smart contention betwixt God and you, or to have your breath and spirits expended in dreadful groans and echoes to the Apostle's deep complaints and cries? in Rom 7.18, 21, 23, 24. Is there no melody like heart-reproaches for practical despising and displeasing God? Psal. 51.3, 4. Is there such harmony and advantage in the sluggish exercises & motions of diseased souls? Is there such pleasure in dark and difficult discoveries, which are but one remove from the thick darkness of damning Ignorance and Blindness, as that your aversation to be sent away unto that Element of clearer views and visions in the other world may well be fixed there? Can you delightfully be exposed to temptations, to injurious and unworthy thoughts of God, and dwell where God is little discerned, prized and served? What! is an Hospital such a desirable habitation, that you are loath to quit it? Are the distractions, pains and vanities of a forsaken world such Charms and Lodestones to your hearts, as to set you on building Tabernacles and fixing there? Who ever loved to be exposed to miseries, or to build his Palace on the sands or hasty Streams? and what is this state of Life but the true Theatre and Centre of all these woes and miseries? But of this, see more in Prop. 2. But if you look above, and pierce the Heavens, there you will meet with clear discoveries and vehement flames of Love, and all desirable, unconceivable vigour, liberty and satisfaction in an immortal state. 4. Is it because you do suspect your interest in, and fitness for the life to come? If so, then know the terms of Life, and try your state thereby. Do you not know what God is, believe what he saith, accept what he tenders, and do what he commands? Know you not who Christ is, what he hath done, what he expects, what he promises, and will do? Are you an enemy to the Graces, Truths and motions of the Spirit, and to his directing, quickening and comforting influences? Are ye not dead to sin, & alive to God through Christ? Is not another Life the exercise and object of your chief desire, pursuit and satisfaction? have you no prevalent inclinations, affections and resolutions to renounce the World, Flesh, Devil, and to discharge all your Duties to God, yourselves and others, with wisdom, holiness, activity and courage? And to do all this as in the sight of God, and with delight, as in the hopes and prospect of a better world; and to expect what God hath promised, in the ways which he commands. If these things be in you, and abound, your hearts are right, condition safe, and title good. If you be wanting here, this is your way of reparation and security: Do these things, and Death is yours; and when these things are done, all your discouraging doubts & fears are answered and dispelled, by being clearly understood. For, 1. It is one thing to be fit to die, and another thing to know it. 2. It is one thing to have your Title good, another thing to be sinless, and so fully ripe for Heaven immediately. 3. It is one thing to have a serious, fixed heart and will for God, and another thing to have passionate affections, which depend more upon the temper of the Body, than the power and ripeness of the Grace of God upon the heart. 4. It is one thing what we cannot be, though we would be with strength and readiness of will, & another thing what we have little or no will to be. 5. It is one thing to love and hate proportionably to what God and sin are and deserve; and 'tis another thing to love and hate as God requires in proportion to our strength, and with reference to our Work and Joy, And, 6. It is one thing to have Corruption dwell in us, and another thing to have it rule. 7. It is one thing to be tempted of the Devil, and another thing to yield thereto. And, 8. It is one thing to have ground of Hope and Joy, and another, to have the sense thereof. 9 Joy is also considerable, as our Duty, and God's Gift. And these 9 Distinctions well observed, rightly applied, and carefully improved, will go exceeding far towards answering all those Doubts which animate unwarrantable Fears of Death in those whose hearts are right; whilst their hopes are low, their jealousies great, their Spirits faint, and so their Lives uncomfortable, through their own ignorant and sad Mistakes. Infer. 1. Christian Religion at the worst, is better than a course of wickedness at the best. Inf. 2. men's carriages will be answerable to the truth and power of their Faith and Hope, in reference to the comforts of the unseen world. Inf. 3. All the dejectedness of thorow-Gracious Christians arises from their inconsiderateness. Inf. 4. To understand the regular measures of Fear and Love, is of considerable concernment in our Christian Course. Inf. 5. To look and act for joys to come, and to make them quickening arguments to our obedience and preparations, is an essential part of our Religion, 2 John 8. Inf. 6. Immoderate love of Life and fear of Death is sinful and of dangerous consequence. Inf. 7. It is of great use to understand the truth and worth of the Comforts of a well-finished Course. Inf. 8. Infidelity in whole or in part, as far as it reaches, cannot but mortify those noble dispositions and necessary preparations which Christianity calls us to; for it is impossible to be religious any further than God's existence and rewarding excellencies and resolutions are credited, Heb. 11. 6. Inf. 9 The want or distance of pertinent and smart temptations is the only reason of perseverance in the formality of Godliness amongst Professors whose hearts and aims are not upon, and for the joys of Heaven. Inf. 10. To have our Faith and Hope well fixed and exercised, is the best Method and Expedient for Cheerfulness, Constancy and Courage in the whole frame of Christian sufferings and duty. This makes exalted active Souls in Godliness, and for it. Inf. 11. Then what considerable friends are God and Christ to Christianity and serious Christians, who have furnished us with hopes and arguments drawn from the certainty and transcendent excellence of joys to come. Inf. 12. No man hath cause to quarrel with what he is called to do and suffer for the Christian Cause, nor reason to decline Religion because of difficulties in the way. These Inferences should and might be enlarged upon, but that the determined Bounds of a single Sermon must not be exceeded. Close with the Truth delivered here, and with the Author lament, and pray for the heightening of his (too mean) accomplishments and furniture. What Gifts of Grace are chief to be exercised in order to an actual preparation for the coming of Christ by Death and Judgement. SERMON XXXI. Matth. 25.10. And while they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and they that were ready, went in with him to the Marriage, and the door was shut. WE have two large and weighty discourses of Jesus Christ to his Disciples newly before his Death; Joh. 14, 15, 16. the one to comfort them against his departure out of the world, the other to prep re both them and us against his return to judge the World; of which the present Chapter treateth, and part of the precedent. In the former Chapter we have Christ's Exhortation unto watchfulness against his second coming; Chap. 24.42. urged from the uncertainty of the time of his return: And this Exhortation is continued in this 25th Chapter, in which there are these three parts. The first is contained in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, from the first to the fourteenth Verse. The second, in that of the several Talents given by the Master to his Servants, to be employed and improved by them against his return, from the fourteenth to the thirty first Verse. The third containeth the Description of the Coming of Christ to judge the world; from Verse 31, to the end of the Chapter. My Text lieth in the first Parable. viz. That of the Ten Virgins; of which, five were wise, and five were foolish. And whereas Christ very often opened his mouth in Parables, none of them comes closer to the Consciences of men than this, as I may have occasion to show hereafter. I shall not insist in opening the whole Parable; seeing the following Discourse will take in most thereof: I will hasten therefore to that part thereof which I have now read unto you. Now as for these Ten Virgins, they professed alike; and who were the wise, and who the foolish, lay undiscovered till the Midnight-cry was heard; Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him; behold, he cometh with Clouds, he cometh to judge the Earth; he shall judge the world in righteousness, and his People with equity. This was an awaking Cry to slumbering Virgins in the midst of the dark and black night, who little dreamed that Christ was so near at hand; but wise and foolish are startled and raised with it, & all of them betake themselves forthwith to the trimming of their Lamps; when the foolish finding theirs extinguished, desire the wise to communicate of their Oil unto them; they speak like persons not well awaked: For though there is a Communion of Saints in the exercise of their Graces mutually among themselves, yet there is no communication of personal Graces to each other, and moreover, the just shall live by his own, and not by fewer Faith. What therefore say the Wise? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Nequaquam; By no means, say they, lest there be not enough for us and you; we have no Oil to spare; but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Salsa derisio, non cohortatio, saith Beza. The Wise answer the Foolish wisely; yea, wittily upbraid them for their Folly; for was this a time to get Grace, when the Bridegroom was come, and time was slipped? Is that a time to have Oil to buy, when we should have Oil to burn? Or is this Oil to be bought with money and price, which is most freely given in the day of Grace and Mercy? What therefore do the foolish do? As if they foolishly understood an Exprobration for an Exhortation, they are thinking now of buying; but while they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and they that were ready, went in with him, and the Door was shut. In which words you have, 1. The going of the Foolish to buy. 2. The coming of the Bridegroom to the Marriage. 3. The preparedness of the Wise to enter with him. 4. The shutting of the Door after them. But not to insist upon these things distinctly, let me gather up the principal scope of our Saviour in the words; which is to show us, Obs. That very miserable is the condition of such, especially Professors of the Gospel, who have Grace to seek and get at the coming of Jesus Christ; Observe. and as happy is the state of such who are ready to enter with him into the Bride-Chamber of eternal Rest and Peace. This is the Point that I shall insist upon; which, in the Application, will lead me to the Question that is to be spoken to. 1. I say, Very miserable is the condition of such, i. e. of such in general, and not only of such as profess to Christ, but of others also that profess not to him at all, as to any show of Godliness in their lives, such as are the far greatest part of men; yea, and commonly too, where the Gospel is preached, who are (sure enough) to seek not only of the Oil of Grace in their Vessels, but of Light also in their Lamps. 2. But more miserable is the state of such who are Professors of the Gospel, and yet have Grace to seek and get at such an hour; yet so will it be, as you see in my Text; for such are these foolish Virgins, who go to purchase Grace when the Bridegroom cometh. 3. Very miserable is their case, because the Door of the Bride-Chamber is shut against them. They profess to the Bridegroom in common with the Wise; and now the Wise are admitted, and the Foolish excluded: For the everlasting Doors of Glory stand open unto saving, but never unto common Grace. 4. It must needs be then, that the state of the Wise is very blessed, because they are prepared, and their Lights are burning, and their loins girded, and their Oil of Grace in exercise when Christ is coming to them, and therefore they are brought to the King in raiment of Needle work; yea, with gladness and rejoicing they are brought, and enter into the King's Palace, where the wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and even as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father. But I shall not stand upon this second part of the Doctrine, to show the happiness of the Wise prepared Virgins; the Time, and Question to be handled, will not permit it; only something I shall speak to it in the close of this Exercise. 1. Therefore, in opening of the other part, viz. The misery of such as profess to Jesus Christ, who have Grace to get and seek at the coming of the Bridegroom; let me show you that there are such as profess at an high rate, and yet are no better than foolish Virgins; for such are these here in my Text, who rise very high in their Professions, as excelling the ordinary rank of Pretenders unto Christ. How so? 1. They are Virgins; and what is that? 1. They have renounced Antichristian Idolatry, and all the false worships of the Mother of Harlots, and they will in no wise conform to the Inventions of men, as it is said of the hundred forty four thousand which stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion; these are they that have not defiled themselves with women; for they are Virgins: Rev. 14.14. i.e. They have abandoned the spiritual Fornications of the great Whore, and kept their garments undefiled in that respect. 2. They have also renounced the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Pet 2.20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Puddles or Sloughs wherein the Swine of the world do wallow; they flee from these as the word doth signify: yea, they are not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not only such as flee from these Puddles, but such as (at least seemingly) abhor them. For these Virgins are too neat to defile themselves with the world's mire and dirt; they arise (you see) and trim their Lamps; they are therefore trim Virgins, who have not visibly defiled themselves. 3. And more especially, they are Virgins, in professing Espousals to Christ the Bridegroom, who, as it was prefigured under the Law, marrieth a wife in her Virginity, Lev, 21.13. These Virgins therefore are visibly espoused unto Christ, and joined in the same Communion with the wise; for here is a fellowship between the Ten; they stand at so great a distance from the world's defilements, that they profess Communion visibly with the choicest Saints. And indeed, the Saints in Gospel Fellowship are Virgins, and every Church of Christ is a Virgin: Hence, saith the Apostle to the Church at Corinth, 2 Cor. 11.2. I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you a chaste Virgin unto Christ. And therefore the Members of the Churches are to be reputed such, Eadem est tatio partis & totius. seeing they are parts of the same homogeneal Body. And thus you see how these Professors are Virgins. 2. They have their Lamps as well as the Wise. 1. In that they are persons of light and understanding, guides to the blind, and lights to them that are in darkness, instructers of the foolish, and yet themselves but fools. The Word is also a Lamp to their feet, and a Light unto their paths, so far, that they will conform their Actions to the Rule; for the Commandment is a Lamp, and the Law is a Light, Prov. 6.23. And in these two respects (their knowledge and external conformity) their Lamps shine as brightly as the wise Virgins do. 3. They profess not only their expectation of Christ's coming, but make also preparation for it, in that they go forth together with the wise to meet the Bridegroom. And though at last they are found unready, yet they prepare so far that they go forth to meet him, as hoping to partake in the blessing and comfort of the Nuptial day; whereby it appeareth that they had tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. And though they fell into their midnights-sleep, so did the wise Virgins also. For it will indeed be such a drowsy time immediately before the coming of Christ, that not one of ten that profess unto him, will be awaked; no, nor one in five of such as do truly love him. And at the first too, they only slumbered, and neither slept nor waked; but by degrees they fall fast asleep; for Security hath its gradual progressions before it be midnight with the Soul. But this was not proper to these five, but common to all the Ten. 4. They are no less awaked than the Wise with the Midnight-cry of Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him; for saith the text, Then all those Virgins arose; so that they take the Alarm equally with the rest. Thus one may be awaked with the Cry of the word of God, and yet be void of Grace in his heart. 5. They likewise fall to trimming of their Lamps no less than the Wise Virgins do; i.e. They fall to furbishing of that Profession which had contracted Scurf and foulness in the time of their midnight-security. For now they looked upon themselves as espoused unto Jesus Christ, and begin to deck and trim themselves with Ornaments against the Nuptials, as conscious that preparation is most necessary for those who desire to be found of Christ in peace at his appearance; for there is no meeting him with Lamps untrimmed, and Lives unguided by the Word. 6. They persevere unto the Bridegroom's coming; they were guilty of security indeed, and so were the Wise also; but here is neither Apostasy, nor discovered Hypocrisy thus far; viz. until the Midnight-cry. They held out to the last, and die at Heaven's door; and, like the Levite's Concubine, with their hands upon the Threshold, Jud. 19.27. Thus they professed far; for such a sort (I say) there is, that rise thus high, and yet are foolish Virgins. 2. In the next place let us consider where the defect is, and wherein the folly of these Virgins lieth. For you have heard of their Virginity in their separation from and profession against Antichristian Idolatry and men's Inventions, and also in their escaping the world's pollutions; and you have seen their Virginity in their Espousals unto Christ, and visible Communion with the Wise in the enjoyment of Gospel-Ordinances; you have heard also of their Light, their Hopes, their Awaking, their Trimming their Lamps, and how near they came to Heaven. But here now was the one thing lacking, that all this was the effect only of an external and ineffectual work, wherein, though there was something internal, it was but light and transient, which never wrought a thorough and powerful change of the heart; whereas the Wise had an inward and powerful Call to Christ, insomuch that the Gospel came to them not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, whereby they were made to know wisdom in the hidden part, and became Virgins in affection and disposition, as well as in profession and action. Mean while the operations of the Spirit are languid, weak and transient upon the hearts of foolish ones, as we see in the stony ground, in which there is no thorough, powerful and abiding change. And hence it is said, The foolish took their Lamps, but took no Oil with them; they wanted the Oil of the Spirit of God, and his saving gifts in the Vessels of their hearts. Briefly, the wise Virgins were sincere professors and followers of Christ; the other, mere Hypocrites and foolish Builders, who laid their foundation on the Sand. And yet I do not say, That foolish Virgins have always saving Grace to seek at the coming of Christ; because there is Repentance and Pardon to be had in time for Hypocrites. A foolish Professor may go forth to meet the Bridegroom, with his Lamp only in his hand, and no Oil at all in his heart, and yet he may meet with timely awaking by the way, and Christ may infuse the Oil of saving Grace into his heart before the Midnight-cry, whereby he becometh wise in the latter end, who was a fool in the beginning; for Christ calls upon Hypocrites as well as others to repent. Mat. 23.26. Jam. 4.8. Hypocritical Sardis is called hereunto as well as the other Virgin-Churches of Asia: And many unsound Professors have been effectually converted, when many others have lived and died in their hypocrisy; and perseverance in profession unto Christ is no Argument of a good estate to a dying Virgin, except she be found in the way of wisdom. 3. There remaineth one thing more to be spoken to for the clearing of the Point; and that is, That very miserable is the state of such as these who have Grace to get when Christ cometh. For the Door is shut upon them. In which words is declared their punishment of loss; which some have thought to be greater than that of Sense; which I shall not dispute, but briefly discourse of that of loss, as mentioned only in the Text; which is inevitably followed by that of Sense. 1. All the profession of these Virgins is lost, their prayers, praises, humblings, external reformations, communications both of their worldly substance, and likewise of their Parts and Gifts; and so are their sufferings and their witness-bearing to the Truth, etc. All these are excluded from God's acceptance of them, through want of an interest in the Bridegroom; for none of these were offered up in Christ, and the greatest and most glorious services, without unfeigned Faith and Love, are nothing, Leu. 17.5, 6. Heb. 13.15. Col. 3.17. 1 Cor. 13.1, 2, 3. 2. All opportunities and means of Grace are now lost, never to be enjoyed more; the door of opportunity (as the Apostle calleth it, 2 Cor. 2.12. & 16.9.) is for ever shut against them; they have survived all their seasons, which now give place unto Eternity. For the Bridegroom cometh first by Death; and it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the Judgement; not, after this, and further means of Grace; not, after this a Sabbath, or a Sermon, or a time to pray and repent; but, after this the Judgement: And what then succeeds the Judgement? the perpetual execution of it: in which respect it is called the eternal Judgement, Heb. 6.2. So that the door of opportunity is now for ever shut. 3. There is a door of Hope, and that also is shut against them, Hos. 2.14. These Virgins had hopeful expectations of entrance with the Bridegroom; for that was it they waited for; whereas now their hope is perished and hath given up the Ghost, for at best, it was but a finespun Spider's web, Job 8.14. but never a true lively hope. 4. It followeth upon this, that the door of Grace is shut, never to be opened more. Christ stretched forth his hands to them all the day long, but now the accepted time and day of salvation is ended, and there is no further place for Grace and Mercy, nor hopes of seeing the King in his Beauty. 5. They have now lost their Communion with the wise Virgins, who are safe within the door; that whereas they separated from the world, to join in fellowship with Saints, they are now for ever separated from the Saints to take their portion with the world, Mat. 7.23. Time was, when the Door of Christ's house upon earth (which is the Church of God) stood open to them as well as unto the wise, and the Key of the Kingdom of heaven gave them admission into this lower house, upon their visible subjection to his Rule and Government, and they had entrance equally with the wise to partake of all the privileges thereof; and now when they think to enter into the Upper House of Eternal Glory, the key is turned against them. 6. These Virgins now have lost their Vails, and are discovered to the wise, who see not the Virgins their Companions brought to the King in fellowship with themselves in Glory; and now they are discovered also to themselves and to all the world, and known to be what they are; so that they have nothing henceforth to cover them but everlasting shame and contempt. Time was, that they were taken together in the same net with them who are within the door; but the Angels have gathered the good fish into their Vessels, and cast away the bad. Mat. 18.47, 48, 49. That therefore now is taken from them which they seemed to have, even the shows and shadows of that Grace they never had, by him that brings to light the hidden things of darkness, and maketh manifest the counsels of the heart. Their Lamps were going out when they awaked at the Midnight-cry, v. 8. and now they are quite extinguished, never to shine more; the Word shall shine no longer to them, nor their Knowledge and other Gifts to any. 7. It now remains, that they who ere while were in their midnights-sleep, are now in their midnight's darkness; even there where the light of a candle never shined, nor the voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride was ever heard: For they are driven out of light into darkness; and an eternal night of grief and desperate sorrow, to have their portion with Hypocrites, their Lamps to be put out in obscure darkness. This door of separation (like to the pillar of the cloud between the Israelites and Egyptians) yields light to the wise within, and darkness to the fools without. These things (which are mostly Textu●l) are enough to demonstrate the misery of these Virgins; I need not spend further time to dilate upon the pain of loss, nor at all upon the pain of Sense, which followeth inevitably upon what you have already heard. Let me therefore apply the Truth thus opened, and hasten to the Question. Use. Are these things so? What then shall we think of such, who fall as short of the foolish Virgins, as the foolish do of the wise? And where shall the profane and ignorant Sinner appear? O how many are there in a La●d of Light, who are far from this Virginity fore mentioned, as being defiled with Antichrist's and the world's pollutions? How many, who never engaged in the Saint's Communion, and who never pretended to the Bridegroom, never waited for his Coming, never went forth to meet him, never regarded a Lamp of Light without them in the Word, nor of the knowledge of Christ within them, and who are so fast asleep in sin, that no midnight-cry can awake them? Surely the door of Grace will be shut against these when they die, who never cared to come near it whilst they lived. And if foolish Virgins perish with their hands upon the gates of Glory, what will become of them who live & die at so vast a distance from them? And if five of ten that go forth to meet and marry the Bridegroom, are yet shut out of doors, what can they expect who go out to meet him in an hostile manner and professed opposition to him? 2. The Point admonisheth all that profess unto the Bridegroom, to take heed of resting in aught that is common to them, with the foolish Virgins. For except your righteousness exceed theirs, you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven, Mat. 5.20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; there are two Negatives in the Original Text; as much as to say, you shall not, you shall not enter. The Door is double locked against them. Now you have heard of their attainments, their Virginity, i.e. their protesting against Idolatry and Superstition, and also the world's pollutions; yea, their joining in Communion with sincere Believers, their light, their fellowship in all the Ordinances, their expectations of the Bridegrooms coming and preparation for it, their awaking and taking the Alarm of his Approach, the trimming of their Lamps, and perseverance in these attainments to the end. Verily these are great things, and more than we can find in many that profess to Christ this day: Surely our Lord Jesus did foresee the slumbering frame of all the Virgins both wise and foolish from age to age, especially against his coming, that he hath left behind him such a Parable as this to awaken them, which is sufficient to make one start in his midnight-sleep, and arise and himself with tremble. You read, Heb. 6.4, 5, with 9 of enlightenings and tasting of the heavenly gift, partaking of the Holy Ghost, tasting also of the good Word of God, and powers of the world to come, and yet these things do not infallibly attend Salvation; but may at last determine in Apostasy. Here are three things; Illuminations, Common Gifts and Operations, and Tastings, 1. Of the Heavenly Gift, which is Christ. 2. Of the Promise. 3. Of the Joys of Heaven. But (I say) these things do not infallibly conclude Salvation, except effectual saving Grace be joined with them; for they may be where there is no saving Grace, and they may be where there is, or they may precede a saving work; but bare illuminations, as to the Doctrine of Christ, and attaining the Literal knowledge of the Gospel, is no saving work. The like may be said of common Gifts and Operations of the Holy Ghost, as, a Gift of Prayer, of Preaching, of Utterance, of Tongues, and of working Miracles, as in the primitive times: So for the Tastes either of the heavenly Gift, Christ Jesus, and the glorious divine things of the Gospel, or of the good word of God in the Promises, or of the joys of the world to come; all these things may be found in temporaries, Mat. 7.22, 23. Supernatural gifts are given sometimes to mere Natural men. John Baptist's Hearers rejoiced in his light for a season; the stony ground received the word with Joy; and even Balaam had a taste for the time, of the world to come, when he desired to die the death of the righteous; and these foolish Virgins lived to the last in hopes of entering into Glory. But the immortal Soul cannot live upon light, superficial Tastes, which yield only a transient relish; there must be a feeding on, as well as a tasting of the heavenly gift, the good word of promise, and the Glory of an higher world. Tasting is a thing distinct from feeding; and therefore when the Apostle useth a similitude to illustrate what he had said of this kind of tasting, in distinction from eating and drinking, digesting and living upon the things thus tasted, saith he, The Earth that drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth a blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briers, is rejected, and near to cursing, and their end is to be burned. In which comparison he intimateth, that as it is not enough that the rain doth fall upon the earth, except the earth doth drink it in, without which it will not be fruitful nor receive a blessing; even so it sufficeth not that these heavenly things do fall more lightly upon the spiritual , except the Soul so drinketh them in, as that it liveth upon them; for then (and then alone) it receiveth a blessing from the Lord; whereas otherwise such persons are rejected and nigh to cursing, and their end is to be burned. Brethren! The Parable now in hand, and that Text to the Hebrews, are of an awaking nature; for God knoweth our slumbering dispositions. You have heard then of the Attainments of these Virgins, and of those Professors mentioned by the Apostle to the Hebrews. Heb. 6.9, to the end. And they are indeed good things; but, saith he, there are better, and such as do accompany salvation: For in the second part of that Chapter, he speaketh of the work of Faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope in the sight of God and the Father, 1 Thess. 1.5. i.e. Such as are not spurious and adulterine, but german and genuine, and will endure the Test as to their sincerity, in the presence of an heart-searching God. And by these infallible Notes we must take our measures. Illuminations, common gifts and operations, and light transient tastes and relishes are no evidences; we must have these better things to bear up our hearts against the coming of the Bridegroom. It sufficeth ●ot to be enroled among Professors, and to enjoy the charitable thoughts and approbations of the wisest Virgins under Heaven. It is singular mercy to be rightly guided in self-esteem and valuation; for they that measure themselves by themselves, or compare themselves among themselves, are not wise The Apostle, 2 Cor. 10.12. would not have us to take up with the positive degree of good things; but to take our aims by the comparative of better. These good things are more light, ineffectual and superficial, and too often like the Seal that is impressed upon bare Paper; whereas these better things are like the Seal's impression on the Wax. Yet let no trembling Soul or broken reed be affrighted at the end of these foolish Virgins, to see the Door thus shut against them; the tender heart of Jesus Christ aimeth not at our consternation, but awaking, and to prepare and hasten us unto Glory before the Key be turned. Nor doth his Apostle, in the foresaid place, despise the day of small things, but his real scope and purpose is, to excite Professors to look carefully to their foundations, and then to go on unto perfection, Heb. 6.1. And blessed for ever be the Lord for the second part of that sixth Chapter to the Hebrews; in the close whereof we may see the afflicted heart tossed with tempests, and not comforted, yet hoping in Mercy, and fleeing to Jesus as his Refuge, and casting the Anchor of his floating Soul within the Veil, whither the Forerunner is entered for us, who himself was once tossed in the Ship of the Militant Church, albeit without sin; but is now gone ashore to heaven as our forerunner, both to look to our Anchor, which is fastened there, and to hold all fast, and to draw our tossed Ship to shore, and to see all safe; that where our forerunner is, there may we be also. And thus the sweet conclusion of that Chapter doth fully recompense the severity of its beginning. Let us comfort ourselves and one another with these things. Thirdly, You have heard the miserable condition of such (especially Professors of the Gospel and Pretenders to Christ) who have Grace to seek at his coming. As for the happy state of such as are ready to enter in with him into the Bride-chamber of eternal peace and joy, I shall speak a little in the Close. Now therefore in the remainder of this Exercise, it will be expected, as seasonable, that it be considered, What gifts of Grace are chief to be in exercise in order to an actual Preparation for the coming of Christ by Death and Judgement? For his coming is first by Death, and then by Judgement. And I say, an actual Preparation, because there is always a general and habitual preparedness to meet Christ Jesus in hearts that are truly godly, but not always a particular actual fitness: And this we see here in the five wise Virgins, who are found in their midnight-sleep, with Lamps that have need of trimming at the coming of Christ. Thus Hezekiah was fit to die, as to a general and habitual fitness, in that he could assert his sincerity before God, when the message of death was brought him; but he was to seek of a particular actual fitness, in that he begs for longer life with prayers and plenty of tears. The Message of Death awaked him, and the holy man is startled, and hath his Lamp to trim; for the tidings of his death at hand, was as much in effect, as if it had been said unto him by the Prophet, Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go forth Hezekiah to meet him. The nature of his distemper, which some by the remedy (a lump of Figs applied to the Bile) conceive to have been the Pestilence; and this, considered with the shortness and sharpness of the Message, and the Prophet Isaiah's quick & abrupt departure from him, & that the King had then no Heir to succeed him in the Throne, and also that he was now at the full strength of Nature, being but nine and thirty years of age; and his fear also what might become of his Kingdom, and of his former Reformation after the grand Apostasy of his Father Ahaz, I say, these considerations made him to apprehend that there was a rebuke of God in this present Dispensation, and therefore he is loath to die under a temporal frown; albeit his a vowed integrity would (at the worst) have seen him safe at heaven. For though a Child of God cannot die in his debt, yet he is unwilling to departed under the sense of his temporal displeasure, so as the good Prophet did, whom the Lion slew at his return from Bethel to Judah, 2 Kings 13.24. When David therefore was under God's rebukes for sin, and even almost consumed with the blow of his hand, he betakes himself (as Hezekiah did) to prayers and tears; saith he, Psal. 39.10, 11. to the end, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my Cry, hold not thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger with thee, and a Sojourner as all my Fathers were; O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more. Thus you see that the dear Children of God, who have a general and habitual fitness to meet Jesus Christ when he is coming to them by Death and Judgement, may yet be to seek of a particular actual preparation. 2. Before I come to the answer of the Question, let me premise this also; That though a state of Grace is here supposed, seeing Grace cannot be exercised where it is not; yet there may be need to have it cleared, inasmuch as the want thereof is a great hindrance in the way of this Duty. You know that one that feareth God, and obeyeth the voice of his Servant Jesus Christ, may yet walk in darkness and see no light, Isa. 50.10. and he may say with Jonah, he is cast out of God's sight, and his soul is filled with troubles when his life draweth nigh unto the Grave; wherefore let your eye be not only on your Lamp, but also on your Vessel, and examine your Oil, as well as mind your light. For though you have received an Unction from the Holy One, and felt the sweet influences of the Spirit, and have had the witness in yourself, yet the Comforter, which sometimes relieved your Soul, may (at the present) be far from you, and suspend his testimony; for Grace inherent is not self-enlightning, but like the Moon, which holdeth forth Light no longer than the Sun shineth upon it; and though the Dial hath its Lines and Figures, to declare the time of the day, yet you will be to seek, if the Sun withdraw hi● Light: Even thus, though the Spirit of God hath drawn the Lines and Figures of his Gifts and Graces in your heart, yet if he also do not shine upon them, you will not know what time of day it is with your Soul. Pray therefore and strive for renewed sights of Grace, and for anointing with fresh Oil; for the Saints do often lose their Impressions through carelessness and inadvertency, whilst they have here and there to do, or indulgence to some Carnality, and through the malignancy of some over beating temper or temptation in an hour and power of Darkness: And this makes the Soul to drive heavily, which sometimes ran as pleasantly as the Chariots of Aminadib, but now the Wheels begin to skreek, through want of fresh anointings. It being so, look to your Vessels and your Oil, and see how they are stored with it and how the Spirit shineth at any time upon his own Lines and Figures. This also I premise to the answer of the Question, because the soul never acteth Grace so vigorously as when one's state is cleared. First therefore for resolution; Maintain your Faith in frequent exercise, and make no less conscience of acting daily Faith, than you do of daily Prayer. For we are apt to rest in a quondam Call to Christ, and in the original work of Faith, and not to be coming still to Christ; and that as earnestly and studiously as if we had never come before. He that is coming unto me, saith Christ, John 6.35. 1 Pet. 2.4. The word in the Original is a Participle of the Present Tense. And through the neglect of this daily coming the soul is often in the dark, and seemeth to have lost the Promise in which it was formerly drawn to Christ; by means whereof, it is sometimes midnight with the wisest Virgins, as well as so at other times, by means of their security. For instance; By Faith, Abraham, when he was called, not only unto Canaan, but unto Christ, obeyed; for he looked more to the Promised Seed, than to the Promised Land, else, what had his Faith been? But now in tract of time (viz. about ten years after) he gins to call the Promise into question, Gen. 15.2. and to make the Steward of his house his Heir, till God renewed the Promise, to revive thereby the actings of his sleeping Faith; Look now towards Heaven, saith God, and tell the Stars if thou be able to number them, and he said unto him, so shall thy Seed be: Upon this, Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Why? Did he not believe before? Yes, The Apostle dateth his Faith from his coming out of Vr of the Caldees Heb. 11.8. And yet here we meet with a second Date, i. e. as to an eminent reviving act of his Faith, as if he had omitted to believe, as indeed he did, and now began again, which was only an interruption, not an intercision. Now thus it may be with you who believed many years ago; but the Promise and Impression of it is perhaps almost worn out, and your Faith gins to languish; but the Promise is still the same; and the word of the Lord endureth for ever, and that is the word of the Gospel which is preached to you; wherefore take hold of it again and again, and of Christ therein; and not only of that particular promise wherein Christ at first was held out unto you, but of any other that occurreth; and in the frequent renewings of your Faith, your drooping hearts will be revived, and long at last for the coming of him in whom your Soul believeth. You know that your Faith will determine with your Life, and therefore improve it daily for your Death, which draweth on by gradual steps, in which you are still making forwards towards the Bridegroom's coming, who keeps equal paces with you; so that he and you will meet together at the point of dissolution: Your Faith cannot conquer Death: for there is no discharge in that war between Death and Nature; only Faith will vanquish the dread and horror of it. For Death (in which the Bridegroom first cometh to us) is, in itself, the King of Terrors; other Afflictions (as Poverty, Reproach, Imprisonment, Debt, Exile, Sickness, etc.) are inferior fears, which possibly may be escaped, and out of which there is oftentimes deliverance; but Death is the Sovereign Lord and King of all of them, from whence there is no return. He that goeth down to the Grave, shall come up no more, but passeth presently unto the highest Tribunal, there to receive the eternal judgement, whether of Absolution, or of Condemnation. And upon this account, the fear of the King of Terrors, is the King of Fears, and a sore and painful bondage, in which many are held all their Life-time, till Faith in Christ release them; yea, and afterwards also, if their Faith be not the stronger. What shall I say then, but, Awake Faith, and flee to him for refuge, who through death hath destroyed him that hath the power of Death, that is the Devil; and delivered them, who through fear of Death were all their life-time subject unto bondage. For without this Refuge of Faith, Christ's coming by Death, is terrible and astonishing, which the bare habit of Faith cannot cure and conquer. Believe therefore that you are Christ's, and believe it daily by frequent closings with him, and resignations of yourselves unto him, and then you are not so much Death's, as Death is yours, 1 Cor. 3.22, 23. Make good your interest in the Bridegroom, and then you will rejoice at his coming; Make haste, my Beloved, saith the Bride, Cant. 8. ult. Why so? Because he is Beloved, and my Beloved. And the Spirit and the Bride say Come, Rev. 22.17. i e. The Spirit in the Bride, or the Spirit of the Bride: for a Bride hath a Bridelike Spirit, which longeth for the coming of the Bridegroom. But perhaps the weak Believer cannot reach to say thus; and therefore saith the Bridegroom to him, Let him that is athirst come; If thou canst not say Come, to me, I say, Come, to thee: For we must first come to Christ, before we can say Come, to him; yea, we must have some sense of our coming unto him, before we can hearty say, Come, to h m. And this Faith that I have spoken of, is the principal Grace, preparing the Believer for the coming of Christ, provided that it be maintained in frequent exercise; for hereby the Person is justified, the Heart purified, the Conscience pacified, a sweet Correspondence continued between Christ and the believing Soul, Death conquered, and Heaven opened. Secondly, This Faith doth necessarily work by Love, and as they always do cooperate, so are they commensurate, and carry a just proportion each to other, though peradventure you may be more sensible of your Love, than of your Faith. But now, the more you abound in both, the more you will long for the coming of Christ, and be the more prepared for it. No marvel therefore that the Apostle loved the appearance of Christ, 2 Tim. 4.8. with Acts 21.13. who had so great a love to his person, that he was not only ready to be bound, but to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus. To die at Jerusalem, for there (he remembered) Christ died for him. And this inflameth his love towards him, and makes him willing to die for him, and to be for ever with him. No marvel also, that he was straightened between the choice of Life and Death, and that the balance seemed to incline mostly towards departure and being with Christ. He crieth, Phil. 1 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I am constrained between two: Why so? Because he could say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; The love of Christ (i e. to serve him with all my might) constraineth me. The Original word is the same in both places. And how came Peter to sleep so sound and sweetly in his chains between the Soldiers, the night before his intended death, in which he was to go to Christ? Why, he could say, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee, John 21.17. When Christ lieth in the Embraces of Faith and Love, what followeth next but Nunc dimittis? How so? Thus; The more we are purified, the more prepared. Now as the heart is purified by Faith, so also by Love; For herein is our Love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of Judgement; because as he is, so are we in this world, 1 John 4.17. Love doth assimilate a godly Soul to Christ; and than what followeth? There is no fear in Love, 1 John 4.18. i e. no fear of the day of Judgement; for perfect Love casteth out fear, i. e. strong Love; for so is perfect taken sometimes, 1 Cor. 14.20. In understanding be men, or perfect; i. e. strong, and not like Children. So Heb. 5.14. So that strong Love casteth out the fear of the day of Judgement, which every degree of Love will not do; for he that feareth is not made perfect in love: he may have a true sincere love, but it is too weak to overcome his tormenting fears about that great and terrible day of the Lord. Be much therefore in the exercise of this Grace, keeping yourself in the love of God, and looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal Life: and be often in the contemplation of the preventing love of God and Christ; to which John in the foresaid place directeth us for the strengthening of Faith, Amat ille non immerito qui amatus est sine merito. Bern. and overcoming our fears: saith he, We love him, because he loved us first, 1 John 4.19. And Christ is deservedly beloved of him, who is undeservedly beloved of Christ. And though there is a force in Anathema Maranatha, to put the Soul upon the love of Christ, yet be taken rather with, Grace be with all them that love him in sincerity. Valdè sunt cognatae sorores Fides & Spes, D. Par. in Heb. 6. Thirdly, As Faith and Love are co-operary, so Faith and Love are very near of kin; only Hope is the younger Sister, as to operation, as waiting with patience for that good which faith layeth claim to in the promise; and without this Hope we can neither live nor die with comfort. For the promise is many times deferred as to accomplishment; and without hope's patience, how will you spend the interval? God made a promise to Abraham of multiplying his Seed, but neither he, nor yet Isaac, nor Jacob must live to see it fulfilled. But saith Stephen, When the time of the promise drew near, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, so that God's promises have their stated times and seasons, during which, there is work for hope, or else the Soul would swoon away. My soul (saith David) fainteth for thy Salvation, but I hope in thy word, Psal. 119.81. i e. thy word of Promise. Hope is a Cordial against the Soul's fainting fits. Again; During this interspace between the promise and the accomplishment, you may meet with many tribulations, thorough which you must enter into the Kingdom of heaven, fightings without, & fears within, the watchmen may smite you, and the keepers of the walls may take away your Veil, as if you were no Virgin, but a Prostitute, you may meet with sad eclipses, and the hidings of God's face, his wrath may lie hard upon you, and all his waves afflict you; nay, you may meet sometimes with such a storm, that neither Sun nor Stars may in many days appear; during which time, you may reel to and fro like a drunken man, and be at your wit's end; your tackling and fraught may be thrown overboard with your own hands, you may call all the work of God in you into question, and your hull may be laid a drift either to sink or swim. In these, and the like cases, what will you do without casting the Anchor of your Hope within the vail, and riding it out till Sun and Stars appear again? O let the patience of hope have its perfect work, for you will have great need hereof, that when you have done the will of God, you may receive the Promise. Though the wise Virgins fell asleep, yet so far as they waited for Christ's coming, they exercised their hope; and such can say at the Coming of Christ, Lo this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us: This is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his Salvation. Fourthly, Keep even accounts with God, and still be perfecting that repentance which is the work of every day, and let there be no old reckon between God and you; for so it may be with a true Believer, and it may be called to his remembrance in an evil day, and lie heavy too upon his Conscience. For this (I conceive) was Jacob's case, who had sinned greatly in his fraudulent and surreptitious way of getting the Blessing from his Brother Esau, for which he was not thoroughly awaked to see the evil of it, for the space of twenty years; namely, at his return from Padan Aram, and that Esau was coming forth against him to be revenged on him; but then his sin came fresh to his remembrance, and he set apart a night to seek the Lord by solemn Prayer, and to wrestle with the Angel of the Covenant. And what did he wrestle with him for? You may see by his Answer to the Angel, I will not let thee go without a blessing, Gen. 32.26. Why, did not his Father bless him? Yes; I have blessed him, saith he to Esau; yea, and he shall be blessed, Gen. 27.33. And not only so, but when Isaac sent him to Padan-Aram, he blessed him again, Gen. 28.1. But Jacob would not trust to this, seeing the first and chief blessing (which was due to him by Oracle and Promise) had an ill foundation, as to the manner of obtaining it, and in that respect there was a flaw in the Title, which therefore now he striveth to corroborate, before he dares to look his Brother Esau in the face; as if he should say, My Father indeed hath blessed me, but there was Error personae, he mistook the person, and therefore the Blessing is null; and moreover, what the meaning of this Providence is, that my Brother should come forth against me in this hostile manner, I know not: Wherefore I humbly beg thy Blessing, and the confirmation of that Title which hath so great an error in it. Thus God brought an old reckoning to his remembrance in an evil day, and set it on his conscience, and put him to repent and mourn; for he wept and made supplication to the Angel, Hos. 12.4. He came not off so easily, but was fain to wrestle hard all night, to lose his rest, and to struggle, and sweat, and pray, and weep, and shed many a tear, and to go halting afterwards upon his Thigh unto his dying day. Take heed therefore of old Reckon undischarged; look back and consider how it hath been, and omit not a day without reviewing your Actions and Repenting; I say, as duly as the day determineth: let not the Sun go down upon any guilt contracted, that so your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and exercise yourself to have always a Conscience void of offence towards God and men; and this will the better prepare you for the coming of Jesus Christ both by Death and Judgement. Fifthly, Be much in the exercise of Goodness, Mercy, and works of Liberality towards Christ in his needy Members, according to your opportunity and power. For though you shall be saved by your Faith, yet you shall be judged according to your Works. And it greatly concerneth us, to be laborious in that Service upon which the judgement shall pass at Christ's appearance, Mat. 25.35, 36. Call yourself therefore to an account what you have done in this way for Christ, as how you have fed, clothed, visited, relieved him in his Members here on earth. And if this were more considered, such as profess to Christ, would be more active for him in aught wherein they might be more serviceable to him; but when we see but little activity in the exercise of this Grace, we may well fear there is but little Oil in the Vessel; for rich anointings will make men agile and ready for every good work, inasmuch as the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and they that hope for eternal Life when Christ shall come by Death and Judgement, must seek for Glory, Honour and Immortality, not only in well-doing, but in continuance in it. Beware of Omissions, and among others, of this great duty. The Judgement will reach unto all sins, In the Narrative of his Life and Death and to omissions in a special manner, Mat. 25.37, 38. For which, that learned and holy Usher was humbled upon his deathbed. The Nobleman hath put a Pound into your hand, saying. Occupy till I come; yea, he hath given you many Pounds in a literal sense, with which you must trade, as well as with the Talents of your Parts and Gifts of Grace: And I know you would be glad to find Mercy with Onesiphorus, in the day of Christ; Remember therefore, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, Mat. 5.7. But, He shall have judgement without mercy, who hath showed no mercy, whereas mercy rejoiceth against judgement. A merciful man is so far from fearing judgement at Christ's coming, that he rather rejoiceth at the thoughts of it. Sixthly, Exercise diligence and faithfulness in your particular Calling. For when Christ speaketh of his Coming, saith he, Be ye ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh. What followeth? Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh, shall find so doing, Mat. 24.44, 45, 46. When Christ was speaking to this Point, saith Peter, Lord, speakest thou this Parable to us, or even unto all? Luke 12.41. Truly Christ spoke it unto all, though in a special manner to such as Peter; for Christ will have an account how every one of us have managed our particular Callings. But they that are Stewards in the House of God, which is his Church, have a very great account to give; and it is required of them in a special manner, that a man be found faithful; and of all Christ's servants, his Stewards have most to answer for; that if a dispensation of the Gospel, and the care of souls were not committed to them, he that understandeth the weight of Stewardship, would dread to undertake it; but a necessity is laid upon them, and woe unto them if they Preach not the Gospel. It is said of Calvin, that when Nature began to decline in him, Melch. Adam in vit. Calv. and the symptoms of a dying man appeared on him, he would be diligent at his Studies, from which his friends dissuading him, saith he, Nunquid me Dominus inveniet otiosum? Shall my Master find me idle? Let such therefore, and all be diligent and faithful in their respective place; and employments: And indeed every man is a Steward more or less. You know what the Master saith of the slothful Servant, Take him and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Such slothful servants shall be under the tribute of eternal pains, Prov. 12.24. when the good and faithful Servant shall be made ruler over many things, and enter into the joy of his Lord, Mat. 25.23. Would you stand before Christ at his coming? Oh dread Idleness and unfaithfulness in your Callings, as you desire to be sound of him in peace, at his appearance! Fill up your days with Duty, and give your time to him who gave it to you. Paul was a great lover of Christ and his Appearance, and who more abundant in his Labours for him? For he had the Conscience of his indefatigable industry and fidelity in his work for his Master. Saith he, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith, 2 Tim 4.7, 8. He meaneth especially his military faith and oath in fight a good fight for Christ. And wherefore do we hear him groaning so earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from Heaven? It was because he laboured ambitiously, that whether present or absent, he might be accepted of him; For, saith he, We must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ, that every one might receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad, 2 Cor. 5 2. with 9.10. Lastly, That I might not multiply particulars, let me add what Christ hath joined together; Sobriety, Watchfulness and Prayer. Luk. 21 34.36. And therefore take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this Life, and that Day come upon you unawares. Gird up therefore the loins of your minds, be sober, and hope to the end for the Grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; for we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God, and when Christ who is our Life shall appear, then shall we appear in Glory with him. Mortify therefore your earthly Members, Fornication, Uncleanness, inordinate Affections, evil Concupiscence, and Covetousness, which is Idolatry. You must not only deny all visible gross ungodliness, which even the very Sons of Morality will decline and decay; but also all worldly lusts, and their secret operations, living soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearance of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Take heed of slumbering in these secret lusts, for ye are children of the light and of the day, and therefore take heed that you sleep not as others do, but watch and be sober, for they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that are drunk, are drunk in the night; but let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the Breast plate of Faith and Love, and for an Helmet, the hope of salvation, watching and praying always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape those things which shall befall the foolish Virgins, and that ye may stand before the Son of man, who is coming with ten thousand of his Saints to execute Judgement upon all; and therefore be sober, and watch unto Prayer, seeing the end of all things is at hand; and look well to your Lamps, which are your Watch-lights, that they burn brightly in this World's Midnight, and pray particularly for daily supplies of Oil, and sincerity in all your Actions and Duties both to God and man; never omitting to beg for Death-bed-Grace that so you may live and die to the honour of your Bridegroom. And as for this present World, use it as if you used it not, and have no more to do with it than bare need requireth: And set your Hearts and Houses, and all your civil secular Affairs in order, having your conversations in Heaven, whence you look for Christ the Saviour. And thus walking with God in the exercise of these gifts of Grace, when we come to die, we shall change our places only, but not our company. And let none of you behold Death at a distance, nor have it seldom in your thoughts, but daily in your eye, that you may not fear it when it cometh. A Lion is not terrible to his Keeper that seethe him every day. You must frequently converse with God, Christ, Death and Judgement. For when Christ speaketh of his coming to Judgement, he so expresseth it, as if he were to come in their time to whom he spoke it, Matth. 24 42. Mark 13.33.35, 36, 37. Luke 21.34, 35, 36. And so indeed he did; for he comes to every man at the hour of his Dissolution. And we are his Agents or Factors in a foreign Land, and how soon he may remind us home, and call us to an Account, we know not. Say not therefore, My Lord delayeth his coming; lest we are thereby rocked into a midnight sleep, and scared with a midnight-cry of, Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. I shall not detain you much longer. You have heard what those Graces are, which are chief to be exercised in order to an actual preparation for the coming of Christ by Death and Judgement. I now commend them to your daily exercise; and for your encouragement therein, shall leave a few Considerations with you, and conclude. First, That the Door of eternal Rest and Glory shall stand open for you at Christ's coming to you by Death. Why? 1. Because you are ready; and they that are ready, go in with the Bridegroom. God hath made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the Saints in light, Col. 1.12. and hath wrought you for the self same thing, 2 Cor. 5.5. You are a Vessel of Mercy prepared for Glory, Rom. 9.23. 2. You admitted Christ into the door of your hearts, when there he stood and knocked, Rev. 3.20. 3. You had your conversation in Heaven, whilst you lived here on earth. It was your Father's house where you used daily to converse, the doors whereof shall open to you at your Death. Secondly, Consider the place into which you shall be admitted; for the wise Virgins shall enter into the King's Palace, Psal. 45.14, 15. into Paradise, the third Heavens, your Father's House, a City that hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God, Heb. 11.10. A magnificent Structure surely, that hath such a Builder and Maker; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. one that hath built the City most artificially and curiously, and for public show, as the original words do import. Such a City it is, yea, a Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, Mat. 25 34. The first handsel of God's workmanship, Gen. 1.1. This is the place whither you shall enter. Thirdly, You shall enter thither with the Bridegroom, even our Lord Jesus Christ; and this is heaven enough, viz. to be where Christ is, Luke 23.42, 43. John 14.3. & 17.24. Phil. 1.23. 1 Thess. 4.17. Heaven is described by being with Christ. And when Christ shall descend from heaven with a shout, to judge the world, if all the Saints (suppose) should not descend with him, but any of them be left behind, what an alteration would they find in heaven? whereas all of them going with Christ, it is all one as if they were still in heaven with him. You know Paul was caught up into the third heavens, and yet when he comes to describe heaven, and the Saints everlasting happiness there, he calls it being for ever with Christ: for this is a comprehensive expression. How so? 1. If the Saints shall be with Christ, then shall they be exempt from all troubles and trials; these fall off from them like Elijah's Mantle, when he went to heaven. There is now a glorious door of partition between these and them, they are all excluded, viz. Sin, Sorrow, Afflictions, Reproaches, Necessities, Persecutions, Poverty, Sickness, Pain, Death, Curse, wicked men and Devils; you shall never be troubled with these any more. 2. If they enter in with Christ, they shall enjoy the Father in him, John 20.17. and be filled with the Holy Ghost from them both, and thereby with unspeakable consolations, and the fullness of God, and they shall live for ever in the immediate contemplation, and vision and fruition of one God in three persons, and be replenished to the brim with eternal love from them and to them. 3. You shall enjoy the fellowship of an innumerable company of Angels, and shall then know who they are, and love them entirely, and be as intimately beloved of them, though now in your present state you cannot bear the presence of one of them. 4. You shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, and enjoy communion with the Spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. 12.23. All this followeth from your entrance into Heaven with Christ. Fourthly, Consider that you shall enter into Heaven with Christ the Bridegroom, and therefore to be married to him. And hence again it will follow, 1. That there will be the nearest relation possible between Christ and you; for you shall be one conjugally for ever with him. You are one with him mystically and matrimonially, who is one with the Father essentially. 2. You shall be invested with unutterable Glory, seeing it is a Marriage-time, wherein the Bridegroom and Bride shall shine in the richest Attire and Embroidery that is in all the Wardrobe of Heaven. Christ and the Saints shall wear the very same Glory, John 17.22. 3. There shall be unconceivable Love, Joy, Delight and Complacency between the Bridegroom and the Bride; and as the Bridegroom rejoiceth over the Bride, so shall the Lord Jesus rejoice over his Spouse. O there will be a most glorious, delightful, loving, sweet familiarity and conjugal rejoicing between Christ Jesus and the Saints! Marriage-joy upon earth is usually great, what then will that be in heaven, when shall be fulfilled th●● which Christ spoke at his last Supper? I will not drink of the fruit of the Vine until the day that I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom, Mat. 26.29. Where, by fruit of the Vine, we understand Wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, Psal. 104 15. and causeth it to rejoice, and shadoweth out the Love of Christ, and Joys of Heaven to us; Cant. 1.2, 4. And by New, we understand other, Mark 16.17. with Acts 2.4. in the Original. So that in this Marriage there shall be new, i. e. other (yea, othergess) wine, viz. Love, Joy and Rejoicing, than there is in the Lord's Supper; For Christ, who kept the best wine to the last at the Marriage in Cana in Galilee, will surely do so at his own Marriage at the last day. 4. This Marriage is not on Earth, but in Heaven, and therefore it shall never dissolve, as Marriages on Earth do, but continue unto Eternity. O how will the Holy Angels rejoice and sing at this Marriage! For they that sang at the Birth of Christ when he lay in the Manger, will sing to the purpose at his Marriage, when he sitteth upon his Throne in the highest Glory. Now the consideration of these things is greatly inducing to be very studious in actual preparations for the coming of Christ. Be ye therefore much in the exercise of Faith, Hope, Love, Repentance, Goodness, Mercy, and works of Bounty, Diligence and Faithfulness in your Callings, Sobriety, Watchfulness and Prayer, that so at last you may have an entrance ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And now, Brethren, Abide in him, that when he shall appear, you may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming; but lift up your heads with joy unspeakable and full of Glory. Hear wisdom therefore, and receive instruction, that you may be wise in the latter end. And God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ make you to increase in all these Preparatory Graces, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in Holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints. And now, Grace be with all them that love him in sincerity. Amen. FINIS.