A Christian Directory

PART II. Directions against Hardness of Heart.

§. 1. IT is necessary that some Christians be better informed what Hardness of Heart is who most complain of it. The Metaphor is taken from the Hardness of any matter which a workman would make an impression on: And it signifieth the passive and active Resistance of the heart against the Word and Works of God: When it receiveth not the impressions which the Word should make, and ob • yeth not God's Commands, but after great and powerful means rem • ineth as it was before, unmoved, unaffected, and disobedient. So that Hardness of heart is not a distinct sin, but the habitual power of every sin, or the deadness, unmoveableness and obstinacy of the heart in any sin. So many duties and sins as there be, so many ways may the heart be hardened against the W • rd which forbiddeth those sins, and commandeth those duties. It is therefore an ex • or that hath had very ill consequents on many persons, to think that Hardness of Heart is nothing but a want of passionate feeling in the matters which concern the soul; especially a want of sorrow and tears. This hath made them over-careful for such tears, and grief, and passions, and dangerously to make light of the many greater instances of the Hardness of their Hearts. Many beginners in Religion (who are taken up in penitential duties) do think that all Repentance is nothing, but a change of opinion, except they have those passionate griefs, and tears which indeed would well become the penitent: And hereupon they take more pains with themselves to affect their hearts with sorrow for sin, and to wring out tears, than they do for many greater duties: But when God calleth them to Love him, and to Praise him, and to be Thankful for his Mercies, or to love an enemy, or forgive a wrong; when he calleth them to mortify their earthly mindedness, their carnality, their pride, their passion, or their disobedience, they yield but little to his call, and show here much greater Hardness of Heart, and yet little complain of this, or take notice of it. I entreat you therefore to observe, that the greater the Duty is the worse it is to Harde • the Heart against it: And the greater the sin is, the worse it is to Harden the heart by obstinacy in it. And that the great duties are, The Love of God and man, with a mortified and heavenly mind and life, and to resist God's Word commanding these is the great and dangerous Hardning of the Heart. The life of grace lieth 1. In the preferring of God, and Heaven, and Holiness in the Estimation of our minds before all worldly things: 2. In the Choosing them, and Resolving for them with our Wills, before all others: 3. In the Seeking of them in the bent and drift of our Ende • vours. These three make up a state of Holiness. But for strength of parts, or memory, or expression, and so for passionate affections of sorrow, or joy, or the tears that express them, all these in their time, and place, and measure are desirable, but not of necessity to salvation, or to the life of grace. They follow much the temperature of the body, and some have much of them that have little or no grace, and some want them that have much grace. The work of Repentance consisteth most in loathing and falling out with ourselves for our sins, and in forsaking them with abhorrence, and turning unto God; And he that can do this without tears, i • truly penitent, and he that hath never so many tears without this, is impenitent still. And that is the hard hearted sinner that will not be wrought to a love of Holiness, nor let go his sin, when God commandeth him; but after all exhortations and mercies, and perhaps afflictions is still the same, as if he had never been admonished, or took no notice what God hath been saying o • doing to reclaim him. Having thus told you what Hardness of heart is, you may see that I have given you Directions against it at large before Chap. 3. Direct. 6. & 8. but shall add these • ew.

§. 2. Direct. 1. Remember the Majesty and presence of that Most Holy God, with whom we have to d • ▪ Heb. 4. 13. Nothing will more affect and awe the heart, and over-rule it in the matters of Religion, than the true knowledge of God. We will not talk sleepily or contemptuously to a King: How much less should we be stupid or contemptuous before the God of Heaven. It is that God whom Angels worship, that sustaineth the world, that keepeth us in life, that is always present, observing all that we think, or say, or do, whose commands are upon us, and with whom we have to do in all things, and shall we be hardened against his fear? Who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered? Job 9. 4.

§. 3. Direct. 2. Think well of the unspeakable greatness and importance of those Truths and Things which should affect you, and of those duties which are required of you: Eternity of I • y or Torment is such an amazing thing, that one would think every thought, and every mention either of it, or of anything that concerneth it, should go to our very hearts, and deeply affect us, and should command the obedience and service of our souls. It is true, they are things unseen, and therefore less apt in that respect to affect us, than things visible: But the Greatness of them should recompense that disadvantage a thousand fold. If our lives la • upon every word we speak, or upon every step we go, how carefully should we speak and go? But O how deeply should things affect us which our everlasting life is concerned in? One would think a thing of so great moment, as dying and passing into an endless life of pain or pleasure, should so take up and transport the mind of m • n, that we should have much ado to bring ourselves to mind, regard, or talk of the inconsiderable interests of the fl • sh. How inexcusable a thing, is a senseless, careless, negligent heart, when God looketh on us, and Heaven or Hell is a little before us? Yea, when we are so heavily laden with our sins, and compassed about with so many enemies, and in the midst of such great and manifold dangers, to be yet senseless under all, is (so far) to be dead. Will not the wounds of sin, and the threatenings of the Law, and the accu •• tions of conscience make you feel? He that cannot feel the prick of a Pin, will feel the stab of a Dagger, if he be alive.

§. 4. Direct. 3. Remember how near the time is when stupidity and senseless neglect of God will be banished from all the world? and what certain and powerful means are before you at death and judgment, to awaken and pierce the hardest heart. There are but few that are quite insensible at Death: There are none past feeling after death, in Heaven or Hell. No man will stand before the Lord in the day of Judgment, with a sleepy or a senseless heart. God will recover your feeling by misery, if you will lose it by sin, and not recover it by grace. He can make you now a terror to yourselves, Ier. 20. 4. He can make conscience say such things in secret to you, as you shall not be able to forget or slight. But if conscience awake you not, the approach of Death its likely will awake you; when you see that God is now in earnest with you, and that die you must, and there is no remedy, will you not begin to think now whither must I go? and what will become of me forever? Will you then harden your heart against God and his warnings? If you do, the first moment of your entrance upon Eternity, will cure your stupidity forever. It would grieve a heart that is not stone, to think what a feeling stony hearted sinners will shortly have: When God will purposely make them feel, with his wrathful streams of fire and brimstone? When Satan that now hindereth your feeling, will do his worst to make you feel; and Conscience, the never dying Worm, will gnaw your hearts, and make them feel without ease or hope of remedy. Think what a wakening day is coming.

§. 5. Direct. 4. Think often of the Love of God in Christ, and of the bloody sufferings of thy Redeemer; for it hath a mighty power to melt the heart. I • Love, and the Love of God, and so great and wonderful a Love, will not soften thy hardened heart, what will?

§. 6. Direct. 5. Labor for a full apprehension of the evil and danger of a Hardned heart. It is the Death of the soul, so far as it prevaileth: At the easiest it is like the stupidity of a paralytical member, or a seared part: Observe the names which Scripture giveth it. The Hardning of the heart, Prov 28. 14. The hardening of the neck, Prov. 29. 10. which signifieth Inflexibility: The hardening the face, which signifieth impudency, Prov. 21. 29. The se • redness of the Conscience, 1 Tim. 4. 2. The Impenitency of the heart: Rom. 2. 5. Sometime it is called, sottishness or stupidity: Ier. 4. 22. Sometime it is called a not caring, or not laying things to heart; and not regarding: Isa. 42. 25. & 5. 12. & 32. 9, 10, 11. Sometime it is denominated metaphorically from inanimates, A face harder than a rock: Jer. 5. 3. Stony hearts, Ezek. 11. 19. & 36. 26. A neck with an Iron sinew: Isa. 48. 4. and a brow of brass. It is called sleep, and a deep slumber, and a Spirit of slumber, Rom. 13. 11. & 11. 8. Matth. 25. 5. and Death itself, 1 Tim 5. 6. Ephes. 2. 1. 5. Col. 2. 13. Jude 12.

§. 7. Observe also how dreadful a case it is, if it be predominant, both symptomatically and effectively. It is a fore-runner of mischief, Prov. 28. 14. It is a dreadful sign of one that is far more unlikely than others to be converted: when they are alienated from the life of God by their ignorance, and are past feeling, they are given up to work uncleanness with greediness, Ephes. 4. 14. Usually God calleth those that he will save, before they are past feeling: Though such are not hopeless, their hope lieth in the recovering of the feeling which they want: And a hardened heart, and Iron neck, and brazen forehead, is a sadder sign of God's displeasure, than if he had made the Heavens as Brass, and the Earth as Iron to you, or let out the greatest distress upon your bodies. When men have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not, and hearts but understand not, it is a sad prognostic that they are very unlikely to be converted and forgiven, Mark 4. 12. Acts 28. 27. A hardened heart (pr • dominantly) is garrisoned and fortified by Satan, against all the means that we can use to help them: and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them. Let Husband, or Wife, or Parents, or the dearest friends entreat a hardened sinner to be converted, and he will not hear them. Let the learnedst, or wisest, or holiest man alive both preach, and beseech him, and he will not turn. At a distance he may reverence and honor a great Divine, and a learned, or a holy man, especially when they are dead: But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth, and entreat him daily to repent, and he will either hate and persecute him, or neglect and disobey him. What Minister was ever so learned, or holy, or powerful a Preacher, that had not sad experience of this? When the Prophet, Isa. 53. 1. crieth out, Who hath believed our report? And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them, and were abused, and scorned, and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved? Nay, Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him: And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed, scorned and murdered by sinners, what better should his ablest Ministers expect? St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africa, that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it: But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called, they could not convert one hardened sinner, by all their Authority, Wit or diligence, without the power of the Almighty God. For will they be converted by Man, that are hardened against God? What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts, and get within them, and do them good? Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgments of the Lord, and of his wrath against them? Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it, or laugh at them? Shall we tell them of Death, and Judgment, and Eternity? Why we speak to the posts or men asleep: They hear us as if they heard us not. Shall we tell them of endless Joy and Torments: They feel not, and therefore fear not, nor regard not: They have heard of all these, till they are a weary of hearing them, and our words seem to them, but as the noise of the Wind or Water, which is of no signification. If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher, that healed the sick, and raised the dead, they would wonder at him, but would not be converted. For Christ did thus, and yet prevailed but with few, John 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most, Acts 7. 57. & 22. 22. Nay, if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning, he might affright them, but not convert them, for Christ hath told us so himself, Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them, they would be hardened still, as Balaam and others have been. Christ rose from the dead, and yet was after that rejected. We read not of the Conversion of the Soldiers that watched his Sepulch • e, though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels; but they were after that hired for a little money, to lie, and say that Christ's Disciples stole him away. If Magistrates that have power on their bodies, should endeavor to bring them to Godliness, they would not obey them, nor be persuaded. King Hezekiah's messengers were but mocked by the people. David and Solomon could not convert their hardened subjects. Punish them and hang them, and they will be wicked to the death: Witness the impenitent Thief that died with Christ, and died reproaching him. Though God afflict them with rod after rod, yet still they sin and are the same: Psal. 78. H • s. 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face, and let them see that they must presently go to judgment, it will affright them, but not convert them. Let them know and confess that sin is bad, that Holiness is best, that death and eternity are at hand, yet are they the same, and all will not win their hearts to God: Till Grace take away their stony hearts, and give them tender fleshy hearts, Ezek 36. 26.

§. 8. Direct. 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world. This fills the world with wickedness and confusion; with Wars and bloodshed, and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion, which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth. How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mohammedanism, for hardening their hearts against the Lord! How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery, and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation; because they hardened their hearts against the light of truth. What vice so odious, even beastly filthiness, and bitterest hatred and persecution of the ways of God, which men of all degrees and ranks, do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts. This is the thing that grieves the godly, that wearieth good Magistrates, and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers: when they have done their best, they are fain, as Christ himself before them, to grieve for the hardness of men's hearts. Alas, we live among the dead: Our Towns and Countries are in a sadder case than Egypt, when every house had a dead man. Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground, and most of our seats had not a dead man, that sitteth as if he heard, and kneeleth as if he prayed, when nothing ever pierced to the quick. We have studied the most quickening words! we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner, and yet we cannot make them feel: As if we cried like Baals worshippers, O Baal hear us, or like the Irish to their dead [Why wouldst thou die, and leave thy house, and lands, and friends?] So we talk to them about the death of their souls, and their willful misery, who never feel the weight of anything we say: we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation, and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears: we cast the seed into stony ground, Matth. 13. 5, 20. It stops in the surface, and it is not in our power to open their hearts, and get within them. I confess that we are much too blame ourselves, that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears: (and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in ourselves; for which God now justly layeth so many of us by): But yet we must say our importunity is such, as leaveth them without excuse: we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world: we speak it to them in the name of God: we show them his own word for it: and plead with them the Arguments which he hath put into our mouths: and yet we speak as to posts and stones, to men past feeling: what a pitiful sight was it to see Christ stand weeping over Jerusalem, for the hardness of their hearts, and the nearness and greatness of their misery? while they themselves were so far from weeping for it, that they raged against the life of him that so much pitied them? We bless God that it is not thus with all: He hath encouraged some of us with the heart-yielding obedient attention of many great Congregations: But among the best; alas, how many of these hardened sinners are mixed? and in many places how do they abound? Hence it is that such odious abominations are committed; such filthiness, and lying, and perjury, and acts of malicious enmity against the servants of the Lord; and that so many are haters of God and Godliness. If Satan had not first hardened their hearts, he could never have brought them to such odious crimes, as now with impudency are committed in the Land. As Lots daughters were fain to make their Father drunk, that he might commit the sin of incest, so the Devil doth first deprive men both of reason and feeling, that he may bring them to such heinous wickedness as this, and make them laugh at their own destruction, and abhor those most, that fain would save them: And they are not only past feeling, but so hate any quickening Ministry, or Truth, or Means which would recover their feeling, that they seem to go to Hell as some condemned Malefactors to the Gallows, that make themselves drunk before they go, as if it were all they had to care for to keep themselves hoodwinkt, from knowing or feeling whither they go, till they are there.

§. 9. See what a Picture of a hardened people God giveth to Ezekiel 3. 7. But the house of Israel will not hearken to thee; for they will not hearken to me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard hearted. Observe but what a case it is that they are so insensible of, and then you will see what a hard hearted sinner, past feeling, is.

1. They are the servants of sin, Rom. 6. 16. in the power of it; corrupted by it; and yet they feel it not.

2. They have the guilt of many thousand sins upon them, all is unpardoned that ever they committed, and yet they feel it not.

3. They have the threatenings and curses of God in force against them in his Word; even words so terrible, as you would think might affright them out of their sins or their wits; and they take on them to believe this Word of God; and yet they feel not.

4. They are in the power of the Devil; ruled and deceived by him, and taken captive by him at his will, Acts 26. 18. 2 Tim. 2. 26.

5. They may be certain that if they die in this condition they shall be damned, and they are uncertain whether they shall live another day: they are never sure to be one hour longer out of Hell: and yet they feel not.

6. They know that they must die, and that it is a great change, and of the greatest endless, consequence, that death will make with them, and they know that this is sure and near, and are past doubt of it, and yet they feel it not.

7. They must shortly appear before the Lord, and be judged for all that they have done in the body, and be doomed to their endless state, and yet they feel not.

8. They know that life is short, and that they have but a little time to prepare for all this terrible change, and that it must go with them forever, as they now prepare; and yet they feel not.

9. They hear and read of the case of hardened wicked men, that have gone before them, and have resisted grace, and lost their time, as they now do: and they read or hear of the miserable end that such have come to: and yet they feel not.

10. They have a world of examples continually before them: They see the filthy lives of many for their warning, and the holy lives of others for their imitation, and see▪ how Christ and Satan strive for souls; and yet they feel not.

11. They are always before the eye of God, and do all this before his face: He warneth them, and calleth them to repentance: and yet they feel not.

12. They have Christ as it were crucified before their eyes, Gal. 3. 1. They hear of his sufferings: They may see in him what sin is, and what the Love of God is: He pleadeth with them his blood and sufferings against their obstinate unkindness; and yet they feel not.

13. They have everlasting joy and glory offered them, and Heaven so opened to them in God's promises, that they may see it as in a glass: 1 Cor. 13. 12. They take on them to believe, how much the blessed Spirits there abhor such wickedness as theirs: and yet they feel not.

14. They have the Torments of Hell opened to them in the Word of God: They read what impenitent souls must suffer to all eternity: They hear some in despair in this life roaring in the misery of their souls: They hear the joyful thanksgivings of believers, that Christ delivereth them from those torments; and yet they feel not.

15. All the promises of Salvation in the Gospel, do put in an exception against these men, unless they be converted: They are made to the penitent, and not to the impenitent: There is Justification and life; but not for them. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit: Rom. 8. 1. But he that believeth not, is condemned already: John 3. 18, 36. and they that after their hardness and impenitent hearts, do treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, shall have tribulation and anguish, Rom. 2. 5, 6, 7. Here is comfort for repenting sinners, but none (but on condition they Repent) for them: when others are welcomed to Christ's marriage feast, he saith to these [ How came you in hither? ] and yet they feel not.

16. They still carry about with them the doleful evidences of all this misery: One would think the ambitious, and covetous, and voluptuous might see these death-marks on themselves; and the ungodly might feel that God hath not their hearts; especially they that hate the godly, and show their wolvish cruelty against them, and are the progeny of Cain; and yet they feel not any of this, but live as quietly, and talk as pleasantly, as if all were well with them, and their souls were safe, and their calling and election were made sure. Alas, if these souls were not hardened in sin, we should see it in their tears, or hear it in their complaints; they would after Sermon sometime come to the Minister, as they Acts 2. 37. & Acts 16. 30. Sirs, what must we do to be saved? or we should see it in their lives, or hear of it by report of others, who would observe the change that grace hath made; and Sermons would stick longer by them, and not at best be turned off with a fruitless commendation; and saying, it was a good Sermon, and there is an end of it. Judge now by this true description which I have given you, what a hardened sinner is. And then the godly may so see cause to bewail the remnants of this mischief, as yet to be daily thankful to God, that they are not in the power of it.

§. 10. Direct. 7. Live if you can possibly under a lively quickening Ministry, and in the company of seri • us lively Christian • : It is true, that we should be deeply affected with the truths of God, how coldly soever they be delivered: But the question is not, what is our duty, but what is our disease and 〈…〉 and the proper remedy: All men should be so holy, as not to need any exhortations to 〈◊〉 at all: But shall Ministers therefore neglect such exhortations, or they that need them •••• away their • ars? Hear if possible that Minister that first feels what he speaks, and so speaks what •• feels, as tendeth most to make you feel: Isa. 58. 1, 2. Cry aloud; spare not, lift up thy ••••• like a Trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins: Though •• c • •• seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a Nation that did righteousness, and forsook n • t •••• Or • inance • of their God. God is the chief agent, but he useth to work according to the •••••• of the instrument. O woeful case! to hear a dead Minister speaking to a dead people, the living truths of the living God! As Christ said, If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch: And if the dead must raise the dead, and the ungodly enemies of a holy life must bring men to godliness and to a holy life, it must be by such a power as once made use of clay and spittle, to open the eyes of the blind. It seems it was a Proverb in Christ's days, Let the dead bury their dead: But not, Let the dead raise the dead: God may honor the bones of the dead Prophet with the raising a Corps that is cast into its grave, and toucheth them: A meeting of a dead Minister and a dead people, is like a place of graves; and though it be a lamentable thing to hear a man speak without any life, of life eternal, yet God can concur to the quickening of a soul. But sure we have no great reason to expect that ordinarily he should convert men so miraculously, without the moral aptitude of means. It is most incongruous for any man in his familiar discourse, to speak without great seriousness and reverence, of things concerning life eternal: But for a Preacher to talk of God, of Christ, of Heaven and Hell, as coldly and sleepily, as if he were persuading men not to believe him, or regard him, that no more regards himself, is less tolerable. It is a sad thing to hear a man draw out a dreaming dull discourse about such astonishing weighty things? and to speak as if it were the business of his art, to teach men to sleep while the names of Heaven and Hell are in their ears; and not to be moved while they hear the message of the living God, about their life or death everlasting. If a man tell in the Streets of a fire in the Town, or a Soldier bring an Alarm of the enemy at the Gates, in a reading or jesting tone, the hearers will neglect him, and think that he believeth not himself. I know it is not mere noise that will convert a soul: A bawling fervency which the hearers may discern to be but histrionical and affected, and not to come from a serious heart, doth harden the auditors worst of all: A rude irreverent noise is unbeseeming an Embassador of Christ: But an ignorant saying of a few confused words, or a sleepy recital of the most pertinent things, do as little beseem them. Christ raised not Lazarus by the lowdness of his voice: But where the natural ears are the passage to the mind, the voice and manner should be suitable to the matter. Noise without seriousness and pertinent matter, is like Gunpowder without Bullet, that causeth sound, and no execution: And the weightiest matter without clear explication and lively application, is like Bullet without Powder: If you will throw Canon Bullets at the enemy with your hands, they will sooner fall on your feet than on them. And it is deadness aggravated by hypocrisy, when a lifeless Preacher will pretend moderation, as if he were afraid of speaking too loud and earnestly, le • t he should awake the dead, whom lightning and thunder will not awake; and when he will excuse himself by accusing those that are not as drowsy or dead as he; and would make men believe that seriousness is intemperate rage or madness: If you are cast upon a cold and sleepy Minister, consider the matter more than the manner: But choose not such a one for the cure of hardness and insensibility of heart.

§. 11. Direct. 8. Take notice how sensible tender hearted Christians are, of sins far less than those that you make a jest of: And how close those matters come to their hearts that touch not yours. And have not you as much cause to be moved as they? and as much need to lay such things to heart? Did you but know what a trouble it is to them, to be haunted with temptations to the unbelief and Atheism which prevaileth with you; though they are far from choosing them or delighting in them! Did you see how involuntary thoughts and frail • ies make some of them aweary of themselves! and how they even hate their hearts for believing no more, and loving God no more, and for being so strange to God and Heaven, when yet there is nothing in the world so dear to them, nor hath so much of their Estimation or Endeavor! You would think sure that if such hearts had your sin and misery to feel, they would feel it to their grief indeed, (unless the sin itself did hinder the feeling, as it doth with you). Let tender hearted Christians instruct you, and not be witnesses against you.

§. 12. Direct. 9. Take heed of hardening Company, Examples and Discours • . To hear men rail and s •• ffe at Holiness, and curse, and swear, and blaspheme the Name and Truth of God, will at first make you tremble. But if you willfully cast yourself ordinarily into such Company, by degrees your sense and tenderness will be gone, and you will find a very great Hardning power, in the company and frequent discourse and practices, which yourselves condemn.

§. 13. Direct. 10. Take heed of willful sinning against knowledge: much more of lying in such sin unrepented of. It greatly hardeneth to sin against knowledge; and much more to commit such sins over and over. This grieveth and driveth away the Spirit, and dangerously provoketh God to leave men to themselves.

§. 14. Direct. 11. Take heed of being customary in the use of those means that must be the means of curing hardened hearts. If once the lively preaching, and holy living and fervent praying, of the servants of God, be taken by thee but as matters of course, and thou go with them to Church and to prayers, but as to eat, or drink, or kneel with them but for custom; thou wilt be as the Smiths Dog that can sleep by the Anvil, while the Hammers are beating, and the Sparks are flying about his ears. It is dangerous to grow Customary and dull, under powerful lively helps.

§. 15. Direct. 12. Be often with the sick, and in the house of mourning, and read thy lesson in the Church-yard, and let the grave, and bones, and dust instruct thee: When thou seest the End of all the living; perhaps thou wilt somewhat lay it to heart. Sight will sometime do more than the hearing of greater things. Fear may possibly touch the heart, that hath not yet so much ingenuity as to be melted by the force of Love. And ordinarily the humbling and softening of a hard impenitent heart begins in Fear, and ends in Love. The work of preparation is in a manner the work of Fear alone: The first work of true Conversion is begun in a great measure of fear, and somewhat of Love; but so little as is scarce perceived, because of the more sensible operations of Fear. And as a Christian groweth, his Love increaseth, till perfect Love in the state of perfection have cast out all tormenting fear, though not our Reverence or filial fear of God. Look therefore into the grave, and remember man that thou must die! thou must die! it is past all controversy that thou must die: And dost thou know where thou must appear, when death hath once performed its office? Dost thou not believe that after Death comes Judgment? Dost thou not know that thou art now in a life of trial, in order to endless Joy or misery? and that this life is to be lived but once? and if thou miscarry now, thou art undone forever? and that all the hope of preventing thy damnation, is Now while this life of trial doth continue? Now is the accepted time: this is the day of salvation: If Hell be prevented, it must be Now prevented! If ever thou wilt pray, if ever thou wilt be converted, if ever thou wilt be made an heir of Heaven, it must be Now: O man, how quickly will patience have done with thee, and time be gone, and then, O then, it will be too late. Knowest thou not, that all the care, and labor, and hope of the Devil for thy damnation is laid out this way, if it be possible to find thee other work, or take thee up with other thoughts, or keep thee asleep with presumptuous hopes, and carnal mirth, and pleasures, and company, or quiet thee by delays, till time be gone, and it be too late? And wilt thou let him have his will, and pleasure him with thy own perdition? Dost thou think these are not things to be considered on? Do they not deserve thy speediest seriousest thoughts. At least use thy Reason and self-love to the awakening, and moving, and softening, thy Hardned heart.

PART III. Directions against Hypocrisy.

§. HYp • crisie is the acting the part of a Religious person as upon a stage, by one that is not Religious indeed. A seeming in Religion to be what you are not, or to do what you do not. Or a diss • m • ling or c • unterfeiting that piety which you have not: To counterfeit a state of Godliness is the sin only of the unregenerate, who at the present are in a state of misery: To c •• terfeit some particular act of Godliness, or some higher degree, is an odious sin, but such as a regen ••••• person may be tempted into. This act of Hypocrisy doth not denominate the person an Hypocrite; but the state of Hypocrisy doth. Every Hypocrite therefore is an ungodly person seeming Godly: or one that indeed is no true Christian, professing himself a Christian. Of Hypocrites there be two sorts: some desire to deceive others but not themselves, but know themselves to be but dissemblers; and these are commonly called, Gross Hypocrites: And some deceive both themselves and others, and think they are no Hypocrites, but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity, as if they were no dissemblers at all: But yet they are as verily Hypocrites as the former, because they seem to be Religious and sincere when indeed they are not, though they think they are: and profess themselves to be true Christians, when they are nothing less. These are called, Close Hypocrites, because they know not themselves to be Hypocrites; (though they might know it if they would.) This is the commonest sort of Hypocrites.

§. 2. There are also two Degrees of Hypocrites: Some of them have only a General profession of Christianity and Godliness which is the professed Religion of the Country where they live: and these are Hypocrites because they profess to be what they are not: And others make a greater and extraordinary profession of special strictness in their Religion, when they are not sincere: And these are Eminently called Hypocrites: Such as the Pharisees were among the Jews, and many Friars, and Jesuits, and Nuns among the Papists, who by their separating Vows, and Orders, and Habits, profess extraordinarily an extraordinary measure of devotion, while they want the life of Godliness.

§. 3. In all Hypocrisy there is considerable, 1. The thing pretended: 2. The pretence, or means of seeming, or the cloke of their deceit. 1. The thing pretended by common Hypocrites is to be true Christians, and servants of God, and heirs of Heaven, though not to be so zealous in it as some of a higher degree. The thing pretended by Eminent Hypo •• ites is, to be zealous eminent Christians, or at least to be sincere in a special manner, while they discern the common Hypocrite not to be sincere. 2. The cloak of seeming or pretense by which they would be thought to be what they are not, is anything in g • neral that hath an appearance of Godliness, and is apt to make others think them godly. And thus there are diverse sorts of Hypocrites according to the variety of their cloaks or ways of dissimulation: though hypocrisy itself be in all of them the same thing. As among the very Mahometanes, and Heathens, there oft arise some notable Hypocrites, that by pretended Revelations and austerity of life, profess themselves (as Mahomet did) to be Holy persons, that had some extraordinary familiarity with God or Angels. So among the Papists there are, besides the common ones, as many sorts of Hypocrites as they have self-devised Orders. And everywhere the cloak of the common Hypocrite is so thin and transparent, that it showeth his nakedness to the more intelligent sort: And this puts the Eminent Hypocrite upon some more laudable pretense that is not so transparent. As for instance, the Hypocrisy of common Papists▪ whose cloak is made up of penances and ceremonies, of saying over latin words, or numbering words and beads for prayers, with all the rest of their trumpery before named ( Chap. 3. Gr. Dir. 15. Dir. 11.) is so thin a cloak that it will not • atisfie some among themselves, but they withdraw into distinct societies and orders, (the Church and the profession of Christianity being not enough for them) that they may be Religious, as if they saw that the rest are not Religious. And then the common sort of ungodly Protestants have so much wit as to see through the cloak of all the Popish Hypocrisy: and therefore they take up a fitter for themselves: and that is, the name of a Protestant Reformed Religion and Church, joined to the Common Profession of Christianity: The Name or Profession of a Christian and a Protestant with going to Church, and a heartless lip-service or saying their Prayers, is the cloak of all ungodly Protestants. Others discerning the thinness of this cloak, do think to make themselves a better: and they take up the strictest opinions in Religion, and own those which they account the strictest party, and own that which they esteem the purest and most spiritual worship; The cloak of these men is their opinions, p • rty and way of worship, while their carnal lives detect their Hypocrisy. Some that see through all these pretenses, do take up the most excellent cloak of all, and that is, An appearance of serious spirituality in Religion, with a due observation of all the outward parts and means, and a Reformation of life, in works of piety, Justice and charity; I say, An appearance of all these; which if they had indeed, they were sincere, and should be saved: in which the Godly Christian goeth beyond them all.

§. 4. By this it is plain, that among us in England all men that are not Saints are Hypocrites, because that all (except here or there a Jew or Infidel) profess themselves to be Christians; and every true Christian is a Saint. They know that none but Saints or Godly persons shall be saved: And there is few of them that will renounce their hopes of Heaven; and therefore they must pretend to be all godly. And is it not most cursed horrid hypocrisy, for a man to pretend to Religion as the only way to his salvation, and confidently call himself a Christian, while he hateth and derideth the power and practice of that very Religion which he doth profess? Of this see my Treat. of The Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite.

§. 5. The Hypocrites Ends in his pretenses and dissemblings are not all the same: One intendeth the pleasing of Parents or some friends on whom he doth depend that will else be displeased with him, and think ill of him: Another intendeth the pleasing of the higher powers, when it falls out that they are friends to Godliness: Another intends the preserving of his esteem with religious persons, that they may not judge him wicked and profane. Another intendeth the hiding of some particular villainy, or the success of some ambitious enterprise. But the most common end is to quiet and comfort their guilty souls, with an Image of that Holiness which they are without, and to steal some peace to their Consciences by a lie: And so because they will not be Religious indeed, they will take up some show or image of Religion, to make themselves as well as others believe that they are Religious.

§. 6. Direct. 1. To escape Hypocrisy understand well wherein the life and power of Godliness doth consist, and wherein it differeth from the lifeless Image or Corps of Godliness. The life of Godliness is expressed in the 17 Grand Directions in Chap. 4. It principally consisteth in such a faith in Christ as causeth us to Love God above all, and obey him before all, and prefer his favor and the hopes of Heaven before all the pleasures, or profits or honors of the world: and to worship him in spirit and truth according to the direction of his word. The Images of Religion I shown you before §. 3. Take heed of such a lifeless Image.

§. 7. Direct. 2. See that your chief study be about the Heart, that there God's Image may be planted, and his interest advanced and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the Love of every sin cast out, and the Love of Holiness succeed: and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do go • d in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart. There it is that God dwelleth by his spirit, in his Saints; And there it is that sin and Satan reign in the ungodly. The great duties and the great sins are those of the heart. There is the root of Good and Evil: The tongue and life are but the fruits, and expressions of that which dwelleth within. The inward habit of sin is as a second nature: And a sinful nature is worse than a sinful act. Keep your hearts with all diligence: for from thence are the issues of life. Prov. 4. 23. Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good: But the viperous generation that are evil, cannot speak good: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Math. 12. 33, 34. Till the spirit have regenerated the soul, all outward Religion will be but a dead and pitiful thing: Though there is something which God hath appointed an unregenerate man to do in order to his own conversion, yet no such antecedent act will prove that the person is justified or reconciled to God, till he be converted. To make up a Religion of doing or saying something that is good, while the heart is void of the spirit of Christ, and sanctifying grace, is the Hypocrites Religion. Rom. 8. 9.

§. 8. Direct. 3. Make conscience of the sins of the thoughts and the desire and other affections or passions of the mind, as well as of the sins of tongue or hand: A lustful thought, a malicious thought, a proud, ambitious or covetous thought, especially if it proceed to a wish or contrivance or cons • nt, is a sin the more dangerous by how much the more inward and near the heart: as Christ hath shown you Mat. 5. & 6. The Hypocrite who most respecteth the eye of man, doth live as if his Thoughts were free.

§. 9. Direct. 4. Make conscience of secret sins, which are committed out of the sight of men, and may be concealed from them, as well as of open and notorious sins. If he can do it in the dark and secure his reputation, the Hypocrite is bold: But a sincere believer doth bear a reverence to his conscience, and much more to the all-seeing God.

§. 10. Direct. 5. Be faithful in secret duties, which have no witness but God and Conscience: As meditation and self-examination, and secret prayer: And be not only Religious in the sight of men.

§. 11. Direct. 6. In all public worship be more laborious with the heart, than with the tongue or knee: and see that your tongue over-run not your heart, and leave it not behind: Neglect not the due composure of your words, and due behavior of your bodies: But take much more pains for the exercise of holy desires from a believing, loving, fervent soul.

§. 12. Direct. 7. Place n • t more in the externals, or modes, or circumstances, or ceremonies of worship than is due; and lay not out more zeal for indifferent or little things, than cometh to their share; but let the great substantials of Religion have the precedency and be far preferred before them: Let the Love of God and man be the sum of your obedience: And be sure you learn well what that meaneth; I will have mercy and not sacrifice. And remember that the great thing which God requireth of you, is to do Justice, and love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Destroy not him with your meat f • r whom Christ died. Call not for fire from Heaven upon dissenters; and think not every man intolerable in the Church, that is not in every little matter of your mind. Remember that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is described by Christ, as consisting in a zeal for their own traditions and the inventions of men, and the smallest matters of the Ceremonial Law, with a neglect of greatest moral duties, and a furious cruelty against the spiritual worshipers of God. Math. 15. 2. Why do thy disciples transgress the Tradition of the Elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. v. 7. Ye Hypocrites well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, This people draweth ni •• • nt • me with their mouth, and h •••• ureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me: but in vain do they worship me teaching f • r doctrines the commandments of men. Math. 23. 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, &c. They bind heavy burdens, which they touch not themselves. All their works they do to be seen of men: They make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the burdens of their garments; and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief s • ats in the Synagogues, and greetings in public, and to be called Rabbi—But they shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men, and were the greatest enemies of the entertainment of the Gospel by the people: They tythed mint and annise and cummin, and omitted the great matters of the Law, Judgment and Mercy and Faith. They streined at a gnat and swallowed a Camel: They had a great veneration for the dead Prophets and Saints, and yet were persecutors and murderers of their successors that were living. v. 23, &c. By this description you may see which way Hypocrisy doth most ordinarily work: even to a blind and bloody zeal for opinions, and traditions, and ceremonies and other little things, to the treading down the interest of Christ and his Gospel, and a neglect of the life and power of Godliness, and a cruel persecuting those servants of Christ, whom they are bound to love above their ceremonies. I marvel that many Papists tremble not when they read the Character of the Pharisees? But that hypocrisy is a hidden sin, and is an enemy to the light which would discover it.

§. 13. Direct. 8. Make conscience of the duties of obedience to superiors, and of justice and mercy towards men, as well as of acts of piety to God. Say not a long mass in order to devour a widows house, or a Christians life or reputation. Be equally exact in justice and mercy as you are in prayers. And labor as much to exceed common men in the one as in the other! Set yourselves to do all the good you can to all, and do hurt to none: And do to all men as you would they should do to you.

§. 14. Direct. 9. Be much more busy about yourselves than about others: and more censorious of yourselves than of other men, and more strict in the Reforming of yourselves than of any others. For this is the character of the sincere: When the Hypocrite is little at home and much abroad; and is a sharp reprehender of others, and perniciously tender and indulgent to himself. Mark his discourse in all companies and you shall hear how liberal he is in his censures and bitter reproach of others? How such men and such men (that differ from him, or have opposed him, or that he hates), are thus and thus faulty and bad and hateful: Yea he is as great an accuser of his adversaries for Hypocrisy as if he were not an Hypocrite himself: Because he can accuse them of a Heart-sin without any visible control: If he called them Drunkards, or Swearers, or Persecutors, or Oppressors, all that know them could know that he belieth them: but when he speaks about matters in the dark, he thinks the reputation of his lies have more advantage. Many a word you hear from him, how bad his adversaries are, but if such hypocritical talk did not tell you, he would not tell you how bad he is himself.

§. 15. Direct. 10. Be impartial, and set yourselves before your consciences in the Case of others: Think with yourselves: How should I Judge of this in such and such a man that I use to blame? What should I say of him if my adversary did as I do? And is it not as bad in me as in him? Is not the sin most dangerous to me that is nearest me? And should I be more vigilant over any man's faults than my own? My damnation will not be caused by his sin; but by my own it may. Instead of seeing the gnat in his eye, I have more cause to cast out a gnat from my own than a camel from his.

§. 16. Direct. 11. Study first to be whatever (judiciously) you desire to seem. Desire a thousand times more to be Godly, than to seem so; and to be liberal than to be thought so; and to be blameless from every secret or presumptuous sin, than to be esteemed such. And when you feel a desire to be accounted good▪ let it make you think how much more necessary and desirable it is to be good indeed: To be godly is to be an heir of Heaven: Your salvation followeth it. But to be esteemed Godly is of little profit to you.

§. 17. Direct. 12. Overvalue not man, and set no more by the approbation or applause of his thoughts or speeches of you than they are worth. Hypocrisy much consisteth in overvaluing man, and making too great a matter of his thoughts and words: The Hypocrites Religion is Divine in Name, but Human in deed: It is man that he serveth and observeth most: and the shame of the world is the evil which he most studiously avoideth: And the high esteem and commendation of the world is his Reward. O think what a silly worm is man? And of how little moment are his thoughts or speeches of you, in comparison of the Love of God? His thoughts of you make you not the better or the worse; And if they either lift you up or trouble you, it is your proud and foolish fantasie that doth it, when you might choose. If you have not lost the key and government of your hearts, shut you the door, and keep all thence, and let men's reproaches go no further than your ears, and then what the worse will you be for all the liy • s and slanders of the world? And besides the pleasing of an effeminate mind, what the better are you for their applause?

§. 18. Direct. 13. Look upon all men that you converse with, as ready to die and turn to dust and passing into that world where you will be little concerned in their censure or esteem of you. If you do anything before an infant, you little care for his presence or observation of you: Much less if it be before the dead: If you knew that a man were to die tomorrow, though he were a Prince, you would not be much solicitous to avoid his censure or procure his applause; because his thoughts all perish with him; and it is a small matter what he thinks of you for a day. Seeing therefore that all men are hasting to their dust, and you are certain that all that applaud or censure you, will be quickly gone, how little should you regard their judgment? Look that man in the face whose applause you desire or whose censure you fear, and remember that he is a breathing clod of clay; and how many such are now in the grave, whose thoughts you once as much esteemed! and this will make you more indifferent in the case.

§. 19. Direct. 14. At least remember that you are passing out of the world yourselves and look every moment when you are called away, and certainly know that you shall be here but a little while. And is it any great matter what strangers think of you as you are passing by? You can be contented that your name, and worth, and virtues be concealed in your Inn, where you stay but a night, and that they be unknown to travellers that meet you on the road: The foolish expectation of more time on earth than God hath given you warrant to expect, is the cause that we overvalue the judgment of man, as well as other earthly things, and is a great maintainer of every sensual vice.

§. 20. Direct. 15. Set yourselves to the mortifying of Self-love and Pride: For Hypocrisy is but the exercise of these. Hypocrisy is dead so far as Pride is dead; and so far as self-denial and humility prevail. Hypocrisy is a proud desire to appear better than you are. Be thoroughly humbled and vile in your own eyes, and Hypocrisy is done.

§. 21. Direct. 16. Be most suspicious of your hearts in cases where self-interest or Passions are engaged: For they will easily deal deceitfully and cheat yourselves, in the smoke and dust of such distempers. Interest and Passion so blind the mind, that you may verily think you are defending the truth, and serving God in sincerity and zeal, when all the while you are but defending some error of your own, and serving yourselves, and fighting against God. The Pharisees thought they took part with God's Law and truth against Christ: The Pope and his Cardinal, and Prelates think (as in charity I must think) that it is for Christ, and Unity, and Truth, that they endeavor to subject the world to their own power: And what is it but Interest that blindeth them into such Hypocrisy? So passionate disputers do ordinarily deceive themselves, and think verily that they are zealous for the faith, when they are but contending for their honor or conceits. Passion covers much deceit from the passionate.

§. 22. Direct. 17. Suspect yourselves most among the great, the wise, the learned and the godly, or any whose favor, opinion or applause you most esteem. It is easy for an arrant Hypocrite to despise the favor or opinion of the vulgar, of the ignorant, of the profane, or any whose judgment he contemneth. It is no great honor or dishonor to be praised or dispraised by a child, or fool, or a person that for his ignorance or profaneness is become contemptible. But Hypocrisy and Pride do work most to procure the esteem of those whose judgment or parts you most admire. One most admireth worldly greatness; and such a one will play the Hypocrite most, to flatter or please the great ones he admireth. Another that is wiser, more admireth the judgment of the wise and learned; and he will play the Hypocrite to procure the good esteem of such, though he can sleight a thousand of the ignorant; (and his pride itself will make him sleight them). Another that is yet wiser is convinced of the excellency of Godly men, above all the Great and Learned of the world: And this man is more in danger of Pride and Hypocrisy in seeking the good opinion of the Godly, and therefore can despise the greatest multitudes of the ignorant and profane: Yea pride itself will make him take it as an addition to his glory, to be vilified and opposed by such miscreants as these.

§. 23. Direct. 18: Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth, and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with s • ri usn • ss and reverence, and not to be dallied with or served with toys or lifeless lip-service▪ and that he is most holy, pure and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped: and that • e is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, is the most powerful means against Hypocrisy. Christ himself argueth from the Nature of God, who is a Spirit, against the hypocritical ceremoniousness of the Samaritans and Jews, John 4. 23, 24. Hypocrites offer that to God, which they know a man of ordinary wisdom would scorn if they offered it to him: If a man knew their hearts as God doth, would he be pleased with words, and complements, and gestures, which are not accompanied with any suitable seriousness of the mind? Would he be pleased with affected histrionical actions? One that seeth a Papist Priest come out in his Formalities, and there lead the people in a Language which they understand not, to worship God, by a number of Ceremonies, and canting, repeated, customary words, would think he saw a Stage-player acting his part, and not a wise and holy people, seriously worshipping the most holy God. And not only in worship, but in private duties, and in converse with men, and in all your l • ves, the remembrance of God's presence, is a powerful rebuke for all hypocrisy. It is more foolish to sin in the sight of God, because you can hide it from the world, than to steal or commit adultery in the open Market-place before the crowd, and be careful that Dogs and Crows discern it not. If all the world see you, it is not so much as if God in secret see you: Be not deceived, God is not mocked, Gal. 6. 7.

§. 24. Direct. 19. Remember how Hypocrisy is hated of God▪ and what punishment is appointed for Hypocrites. They are joined in torment with unbelievers: and as wicked men's punishment is aggravated by their being condemned to the fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels▪ so the punishment of ordinary ungodly persons, is aggravated by this, that their portion shall be with hypocrites and unbelievers. How oft find you the Lamb of God himself, denouncing his thundering Woes against the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees? How oft doth he inculcate to his Disciples, Be not as the Hypocrites, Matth. 6. 2, 5, 16. And no wonder if Hypocrites be hateful to God, when they and their services are lifeless Images, and have nothing but the Name and outside of Christianity, and some antick dress to set them off, and human ornaments of Wit and Parts, as a Corpse is more dressed with Flowers than the living, as needing those Ceremonies for want of life to keep them sweet. And a Carrion is not amiable to God. And the Hypocrite puts a scorn on God, as if he thought that God were like the Heathens Idols, that have eyes and see not, and could not discern the secret dissemblings of his heart? or as if he were like fools and children that are pleased with fair words and little toys. God must needs hate such abuse as this.

§. 25. Direct. 20. Come into the Light that your hearts and lives may be thoroughly known to you: Love the most searching faithul Ministry and Books, and be thankful to reprovers and plain dealing friends. Darkness is it that cherisheth deceit: It is the office of the Light to manifest. Justly do those wretches perish in their hypocrisy, who will not endure the light which would undeceive them; but fly from a plain and powerful Ministry, and hate plain reproof, and set themselves by excuses and cavils to defend their own deceit.

§. 26. Direct. 21. Be very diligent in the examining of your hearts and all your actions by the Word of God, and call yourselves often to a strict account. Deceit and guilt will not endure strict examination. The Word of God is quick and powerful, discovering the thoughts and imaginations of the heart. There is no Hypocrite but might be delivered from his own deceits, if by the assistance of an able Guide, he would faithfully go on in the work of self-trying, without partiality o • sloth.

§. 27. Direct. 22. Live continually as one that is going to be judged, at the bar of God, where all Hypocrisy will be opened and shamed, and Hypocrites condemned by the All-knowing God. One thought of our appearing before the Lord, and of the day of his impartial judgment, one would think should make men walk as in the light, and teach them to understand, that the Sun is not eclipsed as oft as they wink, nor is it night because they draw the Curtains: What a shame will it be to have all your dissimulation laid open before all the world? Luke 12. 1, 2, 3. Beware of the leaven of the Pharis • es which is Hypocrisy: For there is nothing covered, which shall not be revealed, neither • id, that shall not be known: Therefore what ever ye have spoken in darkness, shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets, shall be proclaimed on the house tops.

§. 28. Direct. 23. Think not that you avoid Hypocrisy by changing the expressions of it; but see that you run not into a more subtle kind, while you avoid a grossee. There is no outward way of worshipping God, nor no opinion in Religion so sound, but an Hypocrite can make a cloak of it. You see an ignorant ridiculous Hypocrite, such as Bishop Hall describeth in his character, that can pray up to a Pillar, when his heart knoweth not what his tongue is doing, that babbleth over a few words to God while he is dressing or washing him, and talking between to the standers by; who offereth to God the Sacrifice of a fool, and knoweth not that he doth evil, Eccles. 5. 2. that serveth God with toys and antick gestures, and saying over certain words which were never acquainted with the feeling of his heart; nor scarce with his understanding: And to avoid his hypocrisy perhaps you can merrily deride him, and make a formal Popish Hypocrite the subject of your jeasts; and you can yourselves with good understanding pour out yourselves many hours togethers in orderly and meet expressions of prayer: But remember that many an Hypocrite maketh himself a cloak of as good stuff as this: And that as Pride hath more advantage to work upon your greater knowledge and better parts; so Hypocrisy is but the offspring of Pride. All this without a Heart entirely devoted unto God, is but a carcass better dr • s • ; as the rich have more curious monuments than the poor. There is no outside thing, in which an Hypocrite may not seem excellent.

§. 29. Direct. 24. Be true to Conscience, and hearken diligently to all it saith, and be often treating with it, and daily conversant and well acquainted with it. Hypocrites bear little reverence to their Consciences: They make so often and so grossly bold with them, that Conscience is deposed from its office at the present, and 〈…〉 d by them, lest it should gall them by preaching to them those hard sayings which they cannot b •••• : And perhaps at last it is • eared or bribed to take part with sin: But usually an Hypocrite hath • secret Judge within him which condemneth him. Take heed how you use your Consciences, as you love your peace or happiness. Next Christ, it must be your best friend, or your gr 〈…〉 y: Palliate it how you will at present, if you wound it, it will smart at last. And it is easier to bear poverty, or shame, or torment, than to bear its wounds, Prov. 18. 14. 1. Mark the very principles and former judgment of your Consciences; and if they are changed, know what changed them. 2. Hearken to all the secret counsel and reproofs of Conscience: especially when it speaketh oft and terribly: Turn it not off without a hearing: yea, know the reason of its very scruples and doubts. 3. When it is sick and disquieted, know what the matter is, Psal, 53. 5. and vomit up the matter that justly disquiets it, whatever it cost you: and be sure you go to the bottom, and do not leave the root behind. 4. Open your Consciences to some able trusty guide when it is necessary; though it cost you shame. An over-tender avoiding of such shame is the Hypocrites sin and folly. Counsel is safe in matters of such importance. 5. Prefer Conscience before all men how great soever: None is above it but God. It is God's messenger when it is Conscience indeed: Remember what it saith to you, and from whom, and for what end. Let friends, and neighbors, and company, and basiness, and profit, and sports, and honor stand by, and all give place whilst Conscience speaketh. For it will be a better friend to you than any of these, if you use it as a friend. It would have been better to Judas than his thirty pieces were. 6 Yet see that it be well informed, and see its commission: for it is not above God; nor is it masterless or lawless. 7. Converse not with it only in a crowd, but in secret, Psal. 4. 4. 8. Keep it awake: and keep it among awakening means and company: It will much sooner fall asleep in an Ale-house, or a Play-house, or among the foolish and profane, than at a lively Sermon, or Prayer, or reverent discourse of God. If I could but get Conscience awakened to perform its office, and preach over all this that I have said, in secret, it would •• rret the Hypocrite out of his self-deceit. Go Conscience, and search that deceitful heart, and speak to it in the Name of God: Ask that Hypocrite whether Conversion ever made him a new Creature, and whether his soul and all that he hath be entirely devoted unto God? and whether his hopes and treasure be laid up in Heaven, and his heart be there? and whether he subject all his worldly interest to the Will of God, and the interest of his soul? and whether his greatest work be about his Heart, and to approve himself to God? and whether he make an impartial diligent enquiry after the truth, with a desire to receive it at the dearest rates? Tell him that a proud self-flattery may now make him justify or extenuate his sins, and take his formalities and lip-service and abuse of God for true devotion, and hate every man that would detect his hypocrisy, and convert him by bringing in the light: But a light will shortly appear to his soul, which he shall not resist. And then let him stand to his justification if he can? and let him then make it good that he gave up himself in sincerity, simplicity and self-denial to his God.

§. 30. Direct. 25. Remember that Hypocrisy lieth much in doubling, and in a divided heart and life: See therefore that you serve God in singleness of heart, or simplicity and integrity, as being •• s alone. Think not of serving God and Mammon: A deep reserve at the heart for the world, •• ile they seem to give up themselves in Covenant to God, is the grand Character of an Hypocrite. Live as those that have One Lord and Master that all power stoopeth to, and One End or Sc • pe to which all other are but means: and One work of absolute Necessity to do? and one Kingdom to seek first, and with greatest care and diligence to make sure of; and that have your hearts and faces still one way, and that agree with yourselves in what you think, and say, and do. A double heart, and a double tongue is the fashion of the Hypocrite. Psal. 12. 2. 1 Tim. 3. 8. He hath a heart for the world, and pride, and lust, which must seem sometimes to be lifted up to ask forgiveness, that he may sin with quietness and hope of salvation: you would not think when you see him drop his Beads, or lift up his hands and eyes, and seem devoutly to say his prayers, how lately he came from a Tavern, or a Whore, or a Lie, or from scorning at serious godliness. As Bishop Hall saith, He seemeth to serve that God at Church on Holy-days, whom he neglecteth at home; and •• weth at the Name of Jesus, and sweareth profanely by the Name of God. Remember that there is but one God, one Heaven for us, one Happiness, and one Way: And this one is of such moment, as calls for all the intention and attention of our souls, and is enough to satisfy us, and should be enough to call us off from all that would divert us. A divided heart is a false and self-deceving heart. Are there two God's? or is Christ divided▪ While you grasp at both (God and the world) you will certainly lose one, and it is like you will lose both. To have two God's, two Rules, two Heavens, is to have no God, no true Rule, no Heaven, or happiness at all. Halt not therefore between two opinions: If God be God▪ obey him and love him: If Heaven be Heaven, be sure it be first sought. But if thy Belly be thy God, and the World be thy Heaven, then serve and seek them, and make thy best of th • m.

§. 31. Direct. 26. Take heed of all that fleshly policy, or craft, and worldly wisdom, which is contrary to the wisdom of the Word of God, and would draw thee from the plain and open heartedness which godly sincerity requireth. Let that which was Paul's rejoicing, be yours, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, n • t in fleshly wisdom, you have had y • ur conversation in the world. Christianity renounceth not wisdom and •• nest self-preservation: But yet it maketh men plain-hearted and haters of crafty •••• dulent minds. What is the famous hypocritical Religion superadded to Christianity and called •••••• , but that which Paul feared in his godly jealousy for the Corinthians, lest as the Serpent beg •• le • •• ve by his s • btility, so their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. A forsaking th • Christian simplicity of DOCTRINE, DISCIPLINE, WORSHIP and CONVERSATION, is the Hypocrisy of Religion, and of li • e. Equivocating and dishonest • hi •• s and hiding, beseemeth those that have an ill cause, or an ill conscience, or an ill Master whom they d •••• not trust; and not those that have so good a cause and God as Christians have.

§ 32. Direct. 27. Remember how much of sincerity consisteth in seriousness, and how much of Hypocrite consisteth in seeming, and dreaming, and trifling in the things of God and our salvation: see therefore that you keep your souls awake, in a sensible and seri • us frame. Read over the fifty Considerations which in the third Part of my Saints Rest I have given to convince you of the necessity of being serious. See that there be as much in your faith as in your Creed, and as much in your Hearts and Lives as in your Belief. Remember that seeming and dreaming will not mortify deeprooted s • s, nor conquer strong and subtle enemies; nor make you acceptable to God, nor save your s •• ls from his revenging justice. Remember what a mad kind of profaneness it is to j •• st and •• ifle about Heaven and Hell, and to dally with the great and dreadful God. Seeing all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy con •••• sation and godliness? 2 Pet. 3. 11. You pray for an obedience answering the pattern of the heavenly society, when you say [ Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. ] And will you be such Hypocrites as to pray that you may i • itate Saints and Angels in the purity and obedience of your hearts and lives, and when you have done, take up with shows, and seemings, and saying a few words, and a lifeless Image of that Holiness which you never had; yea, and perhaps deride and persecute in others, the very thing which you daily pray for. O horrible abuse of the All-seeing God! Do you no more believe or fear his justice? When the Apostle saith, Gal. 6. 7. Be not deceived, God is not mocked; he intim •••• th that Hypocrites go about to put a scorn on God by a Mock-religion, though it is not he, but themselves that will prove mocked in the end. They offer God a deaf Nutt, or an empty Shell or Ca • k for a Sacrifice. An Hypocrite differeth from a true Christian, as a Fencer from a Soldier, He playeth his part very form • lly upon a Stage with much applause; but you may perceive that he is not in good sadness, by his t • fl • ng and formality, and never killing any of his sins. Would men show no more of the great everlasting matters of their own pro • est Belief, in any seriousness of affection or endeavor, than most men do, if they were not Hypocrites? Would they hate and scorn men for doing but that (and part of that) which they pray and profess to do themselves, if they were not hypocrites? Woe to the world, because of Hypocrisy! Woe to the carnal members of the Church! Woe to Idol Shepherds, and the seeming 〈◊〉 lifeless Christians, of what Sect soever: For God will not be mocked. They are Christians, but it is with a Mock-Christianity; while their souls are strange to the true esteem and use of Christ. They are Believers, but with a mock belief, described, James 2. They believe God should be loved above all, but they love him not. They believe that Holiness is better than all the pleasures of sin; yet they choose it not, but hate it: They are Religious, with a seeming vain Religion, which will not so much as humble them, nor b • idle their tongues, I am. 1. 26, They are wise, with a mock-wisdom: They are wise enough to prove their sins to be all lawful, or but venial sins: And wise enough to cast away the Medicine that would • eal them, and to confu • e the Physician, and to answer the learnedst Preacher of them all, and to scap • salvation, and to secure themselves a place in Hell, and keep themselves ignorant of it till they are there. They are converted, but with a mock-conversion, which leaveth them as carnal, and proud, and worldly as before; being born of Water, but not of the Spirit, and being sensual still, John 3. 5▪ 6. Jude 19. They Repent, but with a mock-repentance: They Repent, but they will not leave their sin, nor confess and bewail it, but hate reproof, and excuse their sin. They are Honest, but with a mock honesty: Though they swear, and curse, and rail, and slander, and backbite, and scorn at piety itself, yet they mean well, and have honest hearts: Though they receive not the Word with deep ro •• ing in their hearts, but are abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate, they are honest for all that, • u • e 8. 15. Tit. 1. 16. They Love God above all, though they love not to think or speak of him seriously, but hate his Holiness and Justice, his Word and holy ways and servants, and are such as the Scripture calleth h • ters of God; and keep nor his Commandments, nor live not to his glory. They Love the servants of God, but they care not if the world were rid of them all, and take them to be but a company of self conceited troublesome fellows, and as very hypocrites as themselves: And the poor Christians that are cruelly used by them, think they are neither in good sadness nor in • east, when they profess to love the worshippers of God. They love not their money, nor lands, no • lusts, with such a kind of love, I am sure. They have also always good desires; but they are such mock-desires as those in James 2. 15. that wished the poor were sed, and clothed, and warmed, but gave them nothing towards it: And such good desires as the sluggard hath that lieth in bed and wisheth that all his work were done, Prov. 21. 25. The desire of the sluggard killeth him, because his hands refuse to labor. They pray, but with mock-prayers: you would little think that they are speaking to the most holy God, for no less than the saving of their souls, when they are more serious in their very games and sports. They pray for grace, but they cannot abide it: They pray for Holiness, but they are resolved, they'll have none of it: They pray against their sin, but no entreaty can persuade them from it. They would have a Mock-ministry, a Mock-discipline, a Mock-Church, a Mock-Sacrament, as they make a Mock-profession, and give God but a Mock-obedience, as I might show you through all the particulars, but for being tedious. And all is, because they have but a Mock-faith: They believe not that God is in good earnest with them in his commands and threatenings and fore-telling of his judgments: As L • t to his Sons-in-law. Gen. 19. 14. He seem •• to them as one that mocked: and therefore they serve him as those that would mock him. O wretched hypocrites! Is this agreeable to your holy profession? You call yourselves Christians, and profess to believe the doctrine of Christ: Is this agreeable to Christianity? to your Creed, to the ten Commandments, to the Lord's Prayer, and to the rest of the Word of God? Had you none but the holy Jealous God to make a mock of? Had you nothing less than Religion, and matters of salvation and damnation to play with? Do you serve God as if he were a child, or an Idol, or a man of straw? that either knoweth not your hearts, or is pleased with toys and complements, and shows, and saying over certain words, or acting a part before him as on a stage? Do you know what you offer, and to whom? His Power is Omnipotency: his Glory is ten thousand fold above that of the Sun: his Wisdom is infinite: Millions of Angels adore him continually: He is thy King and Judge: he abhorreth hypocrites: If thou didst but see one glimpse of his glory, or the meanest of his Angels, the sight would awake thee from thy dreaming, and dallying, and frighten thee from thy canting and trifling into a serious regard of God and thy everlasting s • ate. Mal. 1. 8. Offer this now to thy Governor: Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of H • sts. If your servants set before you upon your Table, the Feathers instead of the Fowl, and the Hair and Wooll instead of the Flesh, and the Scales instead of the Fish, would you not think they rather mocked than served you? How dear have some paid even in this life for mocking God? Let the case of Aaron's Sons, Lev. 10. 1, 2, 3. and of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5. inform you: If with the big-tree, Matth. 21. 19. you offer God Leaves only instead of fruit, you are nigh unto cursing, and your end is to be burnt: Do you not read what he saith to the Church of Laodicea, Rev. 3. 15, 16. I would thou were cold or hot: Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth: that is, either be an open Infidel, or a holy downright zealous Christian: But because thou callest thyself a Christian, and hast not the life or zeal of a Christian, but coverest thy wickedness and carnality with that holy name, I will cast thee away as an abominable vomit. It would make the heart of a believer ache to think of the Hypocrisy of most that usurp the name of Christians, and how cruelly they mock themselves. What a glory is offered them, and they lose it by their dallying? What a price is in their hands? What mercy is offered them, and they lose it by their dallying? What danger is before them, and they will fall into it by their dallying! Doth not the weight of your salvation forbid this trifling? You might better set the Town on fire, and make a jest of it, than jest your souls into the fire of Hell. Then you will find that Hell is no jesting matter: If you mock yourselves out of your salvation, where are you then? If you play with time, and means, and mercy till they are gone, you are undone forever. O dally not till you are past remedy. Alas poor dreaming trifling Hypocrites! Is time so swift, and life so short, and death so sure and near, and God so holy, just and terrible, and Heaven so glorious, and Hell so hot, and both everlasting, and yet will you not be in earnest about your work? Up and be doing, as you are men! and as ever you care what becomes of you forever! Depart from iniquity, if you will name the name of Christ, 2 Tim. 2. 19. Let not a cheating world delude you for a moment, and have the kernel, the heart, while God hath but the empty shell. A mock-Religion will but keep up a mock-hope, a mock-peace, and a mock-joy and comfort till Satan have done his work, and be ready to unhood you and open your eyes. Job 8. 13. So a • e the paths of all that forget God, and the Hypocrites hope shall perish. Job 27. 8, 9. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he bath gained, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his • ry when trouble cometh upon him? Job 20. 4, 5, 6, 7. Knowest thou not this of old—that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Though his excellency mount up to the Heavens, and his head reach unto the Clouds, yet he shall perish forever like his own dung, they which have seen him, shall say, where is he? Away then with hypocritical formality and dalliance, and be serious and sincere for thy soul and with thy God.

PART IV. Directions against inordinate Man-pleasing: or that Over-valuing the Favor and Censure of Man, which is the fruit of Pride, and a great Cause of Hypocrisy: Or Directions against IDOLIZING MAN.

§. 1. AS in other cases, so in this, iniquity consisteth not simply in the hearts Neglect of God, but in the preferring of some competitor, and prevalence of some object which standeth up for an opposite interest. And so the obeying man before God and against him, and the valuing the favor and approbation of man before or against the approbation of God, and the fearing of man's censure or displeasure more than God's, is an IDOLIZING MAN, or setting him up in the place of God. It turneth our chiefest observance, and care, and labor, and pleasure, and grief into this human fleshly channel, and maketh all that to be but Human in our hearts and lives, which (objectively) should be Divine. Which is so great and dangerous a sin, partaking of so much Impiety, Hypocrisy and Pride, as that it deserveth a special place in my Directions, and in all watchfulness and consideration to escape it.

§. 2. As all other Creatures, so specially Man, must be regarded and valued only in a due subordination and subserviency to God. If they be valued otherwise, they are made his enemies, and so are to be hated, and are made the principal engine of the ruin of such as overvalue them. See what the Scripture saith of this sin: Isa. 2. 22. Cease ye from Man whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? Matth. 23 9. And call no Man your Father upon the earth: for one is your Father which is in Heaven. 8. And be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ: but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. Jer. 20. 15. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm —Psal. 118. 6, 8▪ 9. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what man can do unto me: It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man—yea, in Princes. Job. 32. 21, 22. Let me not accept any man's person; neither let me give flattering titles unto man: For I know not to give flattering titles: in so doing my Maker would soon take me away. Job. 21. 4. As for me is my complaint to man? Gal. 1. 10. Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ. 1 Cor. 4. 3. But with me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of man's judgment. Luke 14. 26. If a man come to me and hate not his Father, and Mother, and Wife, and Children, and Brethren, and Sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in Heaven. Matth. 5. 11, 12. Not with eye-service as men-pleasers. Ephes. 6 6. Col. 3. 22. 1 Thess. 2. 4. So we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts. Jude 16. Having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. This is enough to show you what Scripture saith of this inordinate man-pleasing, or respect to man: And now I shall proceed to Direct you to escape it.

§. 3. Direct. 1. Understand well wherein the nature of this sin consisteth, that you may not run into the contrary extreme, but may know which way to bend your opposition. I shall therefore first show you, how far we may and must please men, and how far not.

§. 4. 1. Our Parents, Rulers and Superiors must be honored, obeyed and pleased in all things which they require of us in the several places of authority which God hath given them over us: And this must be not merely as to man, but as to the Officers of God, from whom, and for whom, (and not against him ) they have all their power. Rom. 13. Exod. 20. 12. Titus 3. 1. 1 Pet. 2. 13. & 2. 2, 10.

§. 5. 2. We must in charity and condescension and meekness of behavior seek to please all men in order to their salvation: We must so thirst for the conversion of sinners, that we must become all things (lawful) to all men that we may win them. We must not stand upon our terms, and keep at a distance from them, but condescend to the lowest, and bear the infirmities of the weak, and in things indifferent not take the course that pleaseth ourselves; but that which by pleasing him may edify our weak brother: We must forbear and forgive, and part with our right, and deny ourselves the use of our Christian liberty, were it as long as we live, if it be necessary to the saving of our brethren's souls, by removing the offense which hindereth them by prejudice. We m • st not seek our own carnal ends, but the benefit of others, and do them all the good we can.

§. 6. 3. As our neighbor is commanded to Love us as himself, we are bound by all lawful means to render ourselves amiable to him, that we may help and facilitate this his Love, as it is more necessary to him than to us: For to help him in obeying so great a command must needs be a great duty: And therefore if his very sin possess him with prejudice against us, or cause him to distaste us for some indifferent thing, we must as far as we can lawfully remove the cause of his prejudice and dislike (Though he that hateth us for obeying God, must not be cured by our disobeying him): we are so far from being obliged to displease men by surliness and morasity that we are bound to pleasing gentleness, and brotherly kindness, and to all that carriage which is necessary to care their sinful hatred or dislike.

§. 7. 4. We must not be self-conceited, and prefer a weak unfurnished judgment of our own, before the greater wisdom of another; but in honor must prefer each other; and the ignorant must honor the knowledge and parts of others that excel them, and not be stiff in their own opinion, nor wise in their own eyes, nor undervalue another man's reasons or judgment, but be glad to learn of any that can teach them, in the humble acknowledgement of their own insufficiency.

§. 8. 5. Especially we must reverence the judgment of our able faithful Teachers, and not by pride set up our weaker judgment against them, and resist the truth which they deliver to us from God. Neither must we set light by the censures or admonitions of the lawful Pastors of the Church: When they are agreeable to the word and judgment of God, they are very dreadful: As Tertullian saith, If any so offend as to be banished from communion of prayer, and assembly and all holy commerce, it is a judgment foregoing the great judgment to come. Yea if the Officers of Christ should wrong you in their censures by passion or mistake, while they act in their own charge about matters belonging to their cognizance and judgment, you must respectfully and patiently bear the wrong, so as not to dishonor and contemn the authority and office so abused.

§. 9. 6. If sober godly persons that are well acquainted with us, do strongly suspect us to be faulty where we discern it not ourselves; it should make us the more suspicious and fearful; and it judicious persons fear you to be Hypocrites, and no sound Christians, by observing your temper and course of life, it should make you search with the greater fear, and not to disregard their judgment. And if judicious persons, especially Ministers, shall tell a poor fearful doubting Christian, that they verily think their state is safe, it may be a great stay to them, and must not be slighted as nothing, though it cannot give them a certainty of their case. Thus far man's judgment must be valued.

§. 10. 7. A good name among men, which is the reputation of our integrity is not to be neglected as a thing of naught; for it is a mercy from God for which we must be thankful, and it is a useful means to our succesful serving and honoring God: And the more eminent we are, and the more the honor of God and Religion is joined with ours, or the good of men's souls dependeth on our reputation, the more careful we should be of it; and it may be a duty sometimes to vindicate it by the Magistrates justice, against a slander. Especially Preachers, (whose success for the saving of their hearers depends much on their good name) must not despise it.

§. 11. 8. The censurers of the most petulant, and the scorns of enemies, are not to be made light of as they are their sins, which we must lament; nor as they may provoke us to a more diligent search, and careful watchfulness over our ways. Thus far man's judgment is regardable.

§. 12. But 1. We must know how frail and erroneous and inconstant a thing man is: and therefore not be too high in our expectations from man: We must suppose that men will mistake us, and wrong us, and slander us through ignorance, passion, prejudice or self-interest: And when this befalls us, we must not account it strange and unexpected.

§. 13. 2. We must consider how far the enmity that is in lapsed man to holiness, and the ignorance, prejudice and passion of the ungodly, will carry them to despise, and scorn, and slander all such as seriously and zealously serve God, and cross them in their carnal interest: And therefore if for the sake of Christ and righteousness, we are accounted as the scorn and off-scouring of all things, and as pestilent fellows, and movers of sedition among the people, and such as are unworthy to live, and have all manner of evil spoken of us falsely, it must not seem strange or unexpected to us, nor cast us down, but we must bear it patiently, yea and exceedingly rejoice in hope of our reward in Heaven.

§. 14. 3. Considering what remnants of pride and self-conceitedness remain in many that have true grace, and how many Hypocrites are in the Church, whose, Religion consisteth in Opinions and their several modes of worship, we must expect to be reproached and abused by such as in Opinions, and Modes, and Circumstances do differ from us, and take us therefore as their adversaries: A great deal of injustice, sometime by slanders or reproach, and sometimes by greater violence, must be expected, from contentious professors of the same Religion with ourselves: especially when the interest of their faction or cause requireth it: and especially if we bring any truth among them, which seemeth new to them, or crosseth the opinions which are there in credit, or would be Reformers of them in anything that is amiss.

§. 15. 4. No men must be Pleased by sin; nor their favor preferred before the pleasing of God▪ Mans favor as against God, is to be despised, and their displeasure made light of. It doing our duty will displease them, let them be displeased; we can but pity them.

§. 16. 5. We must place none of our happiness in the favor or approbation of men, but account it as to ourselves to be a matter of no great moment; neither worth any great care or endeavor to obtain it, or grief for losing it. We must not only contemn it as compared to the approbation and favor of God, but we must value it but as other transitory things, in itself considered, estimating it • s a means to some higher end, the service of God and our own or other men's greater •••• d: And further than it conduceth to some of these, it must be almost indifferent to us what men ••••• or say of us: And the displeasure of all men, if unjust, must be reck • ned with our light af • fl •••• i • ns.

§. 17. 6. One truth of God, and the smallest duty, must be preferred before the pleasing and favor of all the men in the world: Though yet as a means to the promoting of a greater truth or duty, the favor and pl •• sing of men must be preferred before the uttering of a lesser truth, or doing a less • r •• od at that •••• : (because it is no duty then to do it.)

§. 18. 7. Our hearts are so •• l •• sh and deceitful naturally, that when we are very solicitous about •••• 〈…〉 , we must carefully watch them lest self be intended, while God is pretended: And w • 〈◊〉 take special care, that we be sure it be the honor of God, and Religion, and the good of soul • •• 〈◊〉 greater benefit than honor itself, that we value our honor and reputation for.

§. 19. 8. Mans nature is so prone to go too far in valuing our • steem with men, that we should more f •• r •••• we • rr on that hand, than on the other, in undervaluing it. And it is far safer to do too little than too much in the vindicating of our own reputation, whether by the magistrates justice, or by d • s • uting or any contentious means.

§. 20. 9. W • must not wholly rest on the judgment of any about the state of our souls, nor take their judgment of us for in •• llible; but use their help that we may know ourselves.

§. 21. 10. If Ministers or Councils called General do err and contradict the word of God, we must do our best to discern it; and discerning it must desert their error rather than the truth of God. As Calvin, and after him Pareus on 1 Cor. 4. 3. say, [ We must give an account of our doctrine to all men that require it, especially to Ministers and Councils: But when a faithful Pastor perceiveth himself oppressed with unrighteous and perverse designs and factions, and that there is no place for equity and truth, he • ught to be careless of man's esteem, and to appeal to God, and fly to his tribunal: And if we see ourselves condemned our cause being unpleaded, and judgment passed our cause being unheard, let us lift up our minds to this magnanimity, as despising men's judgment, to expect with boldness the judgment of God ] and say with Paul, With me it is a small matter to be judged of you, or of man's judgment; I have one that judgeth me, even the Lord.

§. 22. 11. God must be enough for a gracious soul, and we must know that in his favor is life, and his loving kindness is better than life itself; and this must be our care and labor that whether living or dying we may be accepted of him, and if we have his Approbation it must satisfy us, though all the world condemn us: Therefore having faithfully done our duty, we must leave the matter of our reputation to God; who if our ways please him can make our enemies to be at peace with us, (or be harmless to us as if they were no enemies). As we must quietly leave it to him what measure of wealth we shall have, so also what measure of honor we shall have: It is our duty to Love and Honor, but not to be beloved and honored.

§. 23. 12. The prophesy of our Savior must be still believed, that the world will hate us, and his example must be still before our eyes, who submitted to be spit upon, and scorned, and buffeted, and slandered as a traitor or usurper of the Crown, and made himself of no reputation, and endured the Cross, and despised the shame: leaving us an example that we should f • llow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not, but c • mmitted all to him that judgeth righteously. This is the usage that must be the Christians expectation, and not to be well spoken of by all, nor to have the applause and honor of the world.

§. 24. 13. It is not only the approbation of the ignorant and ungodly that we must thus set light by; but even of the most Learned and Godly themselves, so as to bear their censures as an easy burden when God is pleased this way to try us: and to be satisfied in God alone, and the expectation of his final judgment.

§. 25. Direct. 2. Remember that the favor and pleasing of man is one of your snares; that would prevail against your pleasing God: Therefore watch against the danger of it, as you must do against other earthly things.

§. 26. Direct. 3. Remember how silly a creature man is; and that his favor can be no better than himself. The thoughts or words of a mortal worm, are matters of no considerable value to us.

§. 27. Direct. 4. Remember that it is the judgment of God alone that your life or death forever doth depend upon: and how little you are concerned in the judgment of man. 1. An humbled soul, that hath felt what it is to have displeased God, and what it is to be under his curse, and what it is to be reconciled to him by the death and intercession of Jesus Christ, is so taken up in seeking the favor of God, and is so troubled with every fear of his displeasure, and is so delighted with the sense of his Love, as that he can scarce have while to mind so small a matter as the favor or displeasure of a man. God's favor is enough for him, and so precious to him, that if he find that he hath this, so small a matter as the favor of a man, will scarce be mist by him.

§. 28. 2. God only is our supreme judge, and our Governors as Officers limited by him: But for others, if they will be usurpers, and set themselves in the throne of God, and there let fly their censures upon things and persons which concern them not, why should we seem much concerned in it? If a beggar step up into a seat of judicature, and there condemn one, and fine another, will you fear him, or laugh at him? Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own Master doth he stand or fall: Men may step up into the throne of God, and there presume to judge others according to their interests and passions: but God will quickly pull them down, and teach them better to know their places. How like is the common censure of the world, to the game of boys, that will hold an Assize, and make a Judge, and try and condemn one another in sport? And have we not a greater Judge to fear?

§. 29. 3. It is God only that passeth the final sentence, from whom there is no appeal to any other: But from human judgment there lieth an appeal to God. Their judgment must be judged of by him: Things shall not stand as now men censure them: Many a bad cause is now judged good, through the Multitude or Greatness of those that favor it: And many a good cause is now condemned: Many a one is taken as a Malefactor because he obeyeth God and doth his duty; But all these things must be judged over again, by him that hath denounced a Woe • to them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness. He that saith to the wicked▪ thou art Righteous, pe • ple shall curse him, nations shall abhor him: Prov. 24. 24. It were ill with the best of the servants of Christ, if the judgment of the world must stand, who condemn them as fools, and hypocrites, and what they list: Then the Devils judgment would stand: But he is the wise man that God will judge to be wise at last; and he only is the happy man that God calls happy. The erring judgment of a creature is but like an ignorant man's writing the names of several things upon an Apothecaries boxes; If he write the names of Poysons upon some, and of Antidotes on others, when there are no such things within them, they are not to be estimated according to those names. How different are the names that God and the world do put upon things and persons now? And how few now approve of that which God approveth of, and will justify at last? How many will God judge heterodox, and wicked, that men judged orthodox, and worthy of applause? And how many will God judge orthodox and sincere, that were called Heretics and Hypocrites by men? God will not verify every word against his servants, which angry men, or contentious disputants say against them. The learning or authority or other advantages of the contenders, may now bear down the reasons and reputations of more wise and righteous men than they, which God will restore and vindicate at last. The names of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and many other excellent servants of the Lord, are now made odious in the writings and reports of Papists, by their impudent lies: But God judgeth otherwise, with more righteous judgment. O what abundance of persons and causes will be justified at the dreadful day of God, which the world condemned? And how many will be there condemned, that were justified by the world? O blessed day! most desirable to the just! most terrible to the wicked and every Hypocrite? How many things will be then set strait, that now are crooked? And how many innocents and saints, will then have a resurrection of their murdered names, that were buried by the world in a heap of lies, and their enemies never thought of their reviving. O look to that final judgment of the Lord, and you will take men's censures but as the shaking of a leaf.

§. 30. 4. It is God only that hath power to execute his sentence, to our Happin • ss or Misery: There is one Lawgiv • r that is able to save and to destroy, I am. 4. 12. If he say to us, Come ye blessed, we shall be happy though Devils and men should curse us: For those that he blesseth shall be blessed. If he condemn to hell, the applause of the world will • etch no man out, nor give him ease: A great name on earth, or histories written in their applause, or a guilded monument over their bones, are a poor relief to damned souls. And the barking of the wicked, and their scorns on earth, are no diminution to the joy or glory of the souls that shine and triumph with Christ. It is our Lord that hath the keys of death and Hell. Rev. 1. 18. Please him, and you are sure to scape, though the Pope and all the wicked of the world, should thunder out against you their most direful curses. Woe to us if the wicked could execute all their malicious censures! Then how many Saints would be in Hell? But if it be God that justify us, how inconsiderable a matter is it, who they are that condemn us? Or what be their pretenses? Rom 8. 33.

§. 31. Direct. 5. Remember that the judgment of ungodly men, is corrupted and directed by the Devil: And to be over-ruled by their censures, or too much to fear them, is to be ov • r-ruled by the Devil, and to be afraid of his censures of us. And will you honor him so much? Alas, it is he that puts those thoughts into the minds of the ungodly, and those reproachful words into their mouths. To prefer the judgment of a man before God's is odious enough, though you did not prefer the Devils judgment.

§. 32. Direct. 6. Consider what a slavery you choose, when you thus make yourselves the servants of every man, whose censures you fear, and whose approbation you are ambitious of. 1 Cor. 7. 23. [ Ye are bought with a price: be not ye the servants of men ]: that is, Do not needlessly enthrall yourselves. What a task have men-pleasers? They have as many Masters as beholders! No wonder if it take them off from the service of God: For the friendship of the world is enmity to God: and he that will thus be a friend of the world is in enemy to God. They cannot serve two Masters, God and the world. You know men will condemn you, if you be true to God: It therefore you must needs have the favor of men, you must take it alone without God's favor. A man pleaser cannot be true to God; because he is a servant to the enemies of his service: The wind of a man's mouth, will drive him about as the chas • , from any duty, and to any sin. How servile a person is a Man-pleaser? How many Masters hath he, and how mean ones? It perverteth the course of your hearts and lives, and turneth all from God to this unprofitable way.

§. 33. Direct. 7. Remember what a pitiful reward you seek. Verily, saith our Lord, concerning hypocrites and man-pleas • rs, they have their reward, Matth. 6. 25. O miserable reward! The thought and breath of mortal men! Instead of God, instead of Heaven, this is their reward! Their happiness will be to lie in Hell, and remember that they were well spoken of on earth! and that once they were accounted religious, learned, wise or honorable! and to remember that they preferred this • eward before everlasting happiness with Christ! If this be not gain, your labor is all lost, which you •• y out in hunting for applause. If this be enough to spend your time for, and to neglect your G • d • o • , and to l • se your souls for, rejoice then in the Hypocrites Reward.

§. 34. Direct. 8. And remember that honor is such a thing as is found sooner by an honest contempt of it, than by an in • rdinate affectation of it, and seeking it. It is a shadow which goeth from you if you follow it, and follows you as fast as you go from it. Whose names are now more honorable upon earth, than those Prophets, and Apostles, and Martyrs, and Preachers, and holy mortified Christians, who in their days set lightest by the approbation of the world, and were made the scorn or football of the times in which they lived? Those that have been satisfied with the approbation of their heavenly Father, who saw them in secret, have been rewarded by him openly. It is even in the eyes of rational men a far greater honor to live to God, above worldly honor, than to seek it. And so much as a man is perceived to affect and seek it, so much he loseth of it: For he is thought to need it; and men perceive that he plays a low and piti • ul game, that is so desirous of their applause! As they would contemn a man that should lick up the spittle of every man where he comes, so will they contemn him that liveth on their thoughts and breath, and honor him more that lives on God.

§. 35. Direct. 9. If nothing else will cure this disease, at least let the Impossibility of pleasing men, and attaining your ends, suffice against so fruitless an attempt. And here I shall show you how impossible it is, or at • east a thing which you cannot reasonably expect.

§. 36. 1. Remember what a multitude you have to please; and when you have pleased some, how many more will be still unpleased, and how many displeased when you have done your best. Alas, we are insufficient at once to observe all • those that observe us, and would be pleased by us: You are like one that hath but twelve pence in his purse, and a thousand Beggars come about him for it, and everyone will be displeased if he have it not all. If you resolve to give all that you have to the poor, if you do it to please God, you may attain your end: But if you do it to please them, when you have pleased those few that you gave it to, perhaps twice as many will revile or curse you, because they had nothing. The Beggar that speeds well will proclaim you liberal; and the Beggar that speeds ill, will proclaim you niggardly, and unmerciful: And so you will have more to offend and dishonor you, than to comfort you by their praise, if that must be your comfort.

§. 37. 2. Remember also that all men are so selfish, that their expectations will be higher, than you are able to satisfy. They will not consider your hindrances, or avocations, or what you do for others, but most of them look to have as much to themselves, as if you had nobody else to mind but them. Many and many a time, when I have had an hour or a day to spend, a multitude have everyone expected that I should have spent it with them: When I visit one, there are ten offended that I am not visiting them at the same hour: When I am discoursing with one, many more are offended that I am not speaking to them all at once: If those that I speak to account me courteous, and humble, and respectful, those that I could not speak to, or but in a word, account me discourteous, and morose. How many have censured me, because I have not allowed them the time, which God and Conscience commanded me to spend upon greater and more necessary work? If you have any Office to give, or benefit to bestow, which one only can have, everyone thinketh himself the fittest, and when you have pleased one that hath it, you have dipleased all that went without it, and mist of their desires.

§. 38. 3. You have abundance to please that are so ignorant, unreasonable, and weak, that they take your greatest virtues for your faults, and know not when you do well or ill: And yet none more bold in censuring than those that least understand the things they censure. Many and many a time my own and others Sermons have been censured, and openly defamed, for that which never was in them, upon the ignorance or heedlessness of a censorious hearer: Yea, for that which they directly spoke against; because they were not understood: especially he that hath a close style, free from tautology, where every word must be marked by him that will not misunderstand, shall frequently be misreported.

§. 39. 4. You will have many factious Zealots to please, who being strangers to the Love of Holiness, Christianity and Unity, are ruled by the interest of an Opinion or a Sect: And these will never be pleased by you, unless you will be one of their side or party, and conform yourself to their opinions: If you be not against them, but set yourselves to reconcile and end the differences in the Church, they will hate you as not promoting their opinions, but weakening them by some abhorred Sy • cr • tisms. As in Civil, so in Ecclesi • stical Wars, the Fire-brands cannot endure the Peaceable: If you will be Neuters, you shall be used as enemies. If you be never so much for Christ, and Holiness, and Common Truth, all's nothing, unless you be also f • r them, and their c • nceits.

§. 40. 5. M •• t of the world are h • ters of holiness, and have a serpentine enmity to the Image of God; being n •• renewed by the Holy Gh •• t; and will not be pleased with you, unless you will sin against your Lord, and do as they d • . 1 Pet. 4. 3, 4, 5. Walking in lascivi • usness, lu • ts, exc • ss of wine, revellings, banquettings, and abominable id • l • tries, wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same ex • ess of riot, speaking evil of you; who shall give acc • unt to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. You must be counted as Lot among the Sod • mites, a busy fellow that comes among them to make himself their Judge, and to control them, if you tell them of their sin. You shall be called a pre • ise hypocritic • l Coxcomb (or somewhat much worse) if you will not be as bad as they, • nd i • by your abstinence (though you say nothing) you seem to reprehend their sensuality and contempt of God. Among Bedlams you must play the Bedlam if you will escape the fangs of their revilings. And can you h • pe to pleas • such men as these?

§. 41. 6. You shall have Satanical God-haters, and men of seared and desperate consciences to please, that are malicious and • ruel, and will be pleased with nothing but some horrid iniquity, and the damning of your own souls, and d •• wing • thers to damnation. Like that Monster of Milan, that when he had got down his enemy, made him Blaspheme God in hope to save his life, and then stabd him, calling it a noble revenge, that killed the body, and damned the soul at once. There are such in the world, that will so visibly act the Devils part, that they would deb • uch your Consciences with the most horrid perjuries, perfidiousness and impiety, that they may triumph over your miserable souls. And if you think it worth the willful damning of your souls, its possible they may be pleased. If you tell them, we cannot please you, unless we will be dishon • st, and displease God, and sin against our knowledge and consciences, and hazard our salvation, they will make but a jest of such arguments as th • se, and expect you should venture your souls and all upon their opinions, and care as little for God and your souls as they do. Desperate sinners are loath to go to Hell alone: It is a torment to them to s • e others better than themselves. They that are cru • l and unmerciful to themselves, and have no pity on their own souls, but will sell them for a Whore, or for preferment, and honor, or sensual delights, will scarce have mercy on the souls of others, Matth. 27. 25. His blood be on us, and on our children.

§. 42. 7. You will have rigorous, captious, uncharitable and unrighteous men to please: who will make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught, and watch for iniquity, Isa. 29 20, 21. That have none of that charity which covereth faults, and interpreteth words and actions favourably; nor none of that justice which causeth men to do as they would be done by, and judge as they would be judged, but judging without mercy, are like to have judgment without mercy. And are glad when they can find any matter to reproach you: And if once they meet with it (true or false) they will never forget it, but dwell as the Fly on the ulcerated place.

§. 43. S. You will have passionate persons to please, whose judgments are blinded, and are not capable of being pleased. Like the sick and • ore that are hurt with every touch; and at last, saith Senec • , with the very conceit that you touched them. How can you please them, when Displeasedness is their disease that abideth within them, at the very heart.

§. 44. 9. You will find that Cens • riousness is a comm • n Vice, and though few are competent judges of your actions, as not being a • quainted with all the case, yet everyone almost will be venturing to •• st in his censure: A proud presumptuous understanding is a very common vice; which thinks itself presently capable of judging as soon as it heareth but a piece of the case, and is not conscious of its own fallibility, though it have daily experience of it. Few are at your elbow, and none in your heart, and therefore know not the circumstances and reasons of all that you do, nor hear what you have to say for yourselves; and yet they will presume to censure you, who would have absolved you, if they had but heard you speak. It is rare to meet even with professors of greatest sincerity that are very tender and fearful of sinning, in this point of rash ungrounded judging, without capacity or call.

§. 45. 10. You live among unpeaceable twatlers and tale-carryers, that would please others by accusing you. Who is it that hath ears that hath not not such Vermin as these Earwigs busy at them? Except here and there an upright man, whose angry countenance hath still driven away such backbiting tongues. And all shall be said behind your backs, when you are uncapable of answering for yourselves. And if it be a man that the hearers think well of that accuseth or backbiteth you, they think it lawful than to believe them: And most that are their friends, and of their party, and for their interest, shall be sure to be thought so honest as to be credible. And it is not strange, for a learned, ingenious, yea, a godly person to be too forward in uttering from the mouths of others, an evil report: And then the hearer thinks he is fully justified for believing it, and reporting it again to others. David himself by the temptation of a Ziba, is drawn to wrong Mephi •• sheth the Son of his great deserving friend, 2 Sam. 16. 3, 4. No wonder then if Saul do hearken do hearken to a Doeg to the wrong of David, and murder of the Priests, Prov. 18. 8. The words of a tale-bearer are as wounds. Prov. 26. 20. Where no wood is, the fire goeth out: so where there is no tale-bearer the strife ceaseth. And when these are still near men, and you far off, it is easy for them to continue the most odious representation, of the most laudable persons actions in the world.

§. 46. 11. The imperfection of all men's understandings and godliness is so great, that the differences of judgment that are among the best, will tend to the injury and undervaluing of their brethren: One is confident that his way is right, and another as confident of the contrary: And to how great contendings and injuries such differences may proceed, he that knoweth not in this age, shall not know for me. We need not go to Paul and Barnabas for an instance (that was a far lighter case): Nor to Epiphanius, Jerome and Chrysostom; nor to those Ag • s and Tragedies of contending Bishops that in the Eastern and Western Churches have been before us: Everyone thinking his cause so plain, as to justify himself in all that he saith and doth, against those that presume to differ from him. And surely you may well expect some displeasure, even from good and learned men, when the Churches have felt such dreadful concussions, and bleedeth to this day, by so horrid divisions, through the remnants of that Pride and Ignorance which her Reverend Guides have still been guilty of.

§. 47. 12. You have men of great Mutability to please: That one hour may be ready to worship you as God's, and the next to stone you, or account you as Devils, as they did by Paul, and Christ himself: What a Weather-cock is the mind of man? especially of the vulgar and the temporizers? When you have spent all your days in building your reputation on this Sand, one blast of Wind, or Storm at last, doth tumble it down, and all your •• st and labor is lost. Serve men as submissively and carefully as you can; and after all, some accident or failing of their unrighteous expectations, may make all that ever you did forgotten, and turn you out of the world with Wolsey's groans, [If I had served God as faithfully as man, I had been better rewarded, and not forsaken in my distr • ss.] How many have fallen by the hands or frowns, of those whose favor they had dearly purchased? perhaps at the price of their salvation? If ever you put such confidence in a friend, as not to consider that it is possible he may one day prove your enemy, you know not man; and may perhaps be better taught to know him, to your cost.

§. 48. 13. Every man living shall unavoidably be engaged by God himself, in some duties which are very liable to misconstruction, and will have an outside and appearance of evil to the offense of those that know not all the inside and circumstances. And hence it comes to pass, that a great part of History is little worthy of regard: Because the actions of public persons are discerned but by the halves by most that write of them. They write most by hearsay; or know but the outside and seemings of things, and not the Spirit, and life, and reality of the case. Men have not the choosing of their own duties, but God maketh them by his Law and Providence: And it pleaseth him oft to try his servants in this kind: Many of the circumstances of their actions, shall remain unknown to men, that would justify them if they knew them, and account them as notorious scandalous persons, because they know them not. How like to evil was the Israelites taking the goods of the Egyptians? and how likely to lay them open to their censure? So was Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his Son? And so was David's eating the Shew-bread, and dancing almost naked before the Ark: Christ's eating and drinking with publicans and sinners: Paul's circumcising Timothy, and purifying in the Temple; with abundance such like, which fall out in the life of every Christian. No wonder if I • seph thought once of putting Mary away, till he knew the evidence of her miraculous conception: And how liable was she to censure by those that knew it not? O therefore how vain is the judgment of man! And how contrary are they frequently to the truth? And with what caution must History be read? And O how desirable is the great day of God, when all human censure shall be justly censured?

§. 49. 14. The perverseness of many is so great, that they require contradictions and impossibilities of you, to tell you that they are resolved never to be pleased by you. If John use fasting, they say, He hath a Devil: If Christ come eating and drinking, they say, behold a gluttonous person, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. If your judgment and practice be conformable to superiors, especially if it have admitted of a change, you shall be judged mere Knaves and Temporizers: If it be not, you shall be judged disobedient, refractory and seditious. If you speak fair and pleasingly, they will call you flatterers and dissemblers: If you speak more freely, though in a necessary case, they will say you rail. I • I accept of pref • rment, they will say, I am ambitious, proud and worldly: If I refuse it (how modestly soever) they will say, I am discontented, and have seditious designs. If I preach not when I am forbidden, I shall be accused as forsaking the Calling I undertook, and obeying man against God: I • I do preach, I shall be accounted disobedient and seditious. If a friend or kinsman desire me to help him to some place or preferment which he is not • it for, or which would tend to another's wrong; if I should grant his desire, I shall be taken for dishonest, that by partiality wrong another: If I deny it him, I shall be called unnatural or unfriendly, and worse than an Infidel. If I give to the poor as long as I have it, I shall be censured for ceasing when I have no more: They that know not whether you have it to give or not, will be displeased if you do not: And if many years you should maintain them freely, it is all as nothing as soon as you cease, either because your stock is spent, or because some other is made the necessary object of your Charity. If you be wronged in your estate, if you go to Law, they will say, you are contentious: If you let go your estate to avoid contention, they will say, you are silly fools or ideo • s. If you do any good works of charity to the knowledge of men, they will say, you are hypocrites and do it for applause: If you do it secretly, that no one know of it, they will say, you are covetous and have no good works, and though you make a greater profession of Religion, you do no good; and others shall be censured so also for your sakes. If you be pleasant and merry, they will censure you as light and vain: If you be more grave and sad, they will say, you are melancholy or discontent. In a word▪ whatever you do, be sure by some it will be condemned; and do or not do, speak or be silent, you shall certainly displease, and never escape the censures of the world.

§. 50. 15. There is among men so great a cont • ariety of judgments, and dispositions, and interests, that they will never agree among themselves; and if you please one, the rest will be thereby displeased. He that you please is an enemy to another; and therefore you displease his enemy, by pleasing him. Sometime State-differences divide Kingdoms into parties, and one party will be displeased with you, if you be of the other, and both if you are neuters, or dislike them both: and each party think their cause will justify any accusations they can charge you with, or odious titles they can give you, if not any sufferings they can bring upon you. Church-differences and Sects have been found in all ages: And you cannot be of the opinion of every party: When the world aboundeth with such variety of conceits, you cannot be of all at once. And if you be of one party, you must displease the rest: If you are of one side in controverted opinions, the other side accounteth you erroneous: And how far will the supposed interest of their cause and party carry them? One half of the Christian world at this day, condemneth the other half as Schismatical at least, the other half doing the like for them. And can you be Papis • s, and Protestants, and Greeks, and everything? If not, you must displease as many as you please. Yea, more, if mutable men shall change never so oft, they will expect that you change as fast as they, and whatever their contrary interests require, you must follow them in: One year you must swear, and another you must unswear all again: whatever cause or action they engage in, be it never so devilish, you must approve of it and countenance it, and all that they do, you must say is well done. In a word, you must teach your tongue to say or swear anything, and you must s • ll your innocence, and hire out your consciences wholly to their service, or you cannot please them: Michaiah must say with the rest of the Prophets, Go and prosper, or else he will be hated, as not prophesying good of Ahab, but evil, 1 Kings 22. 8. And how can you serve all interests at once. It seems the providence of God hath, as of purpose, wheeled about the affairs of the world to try and shame man-pleasers and temporizers in the sight of the Sun. It is evident then, that if you will please all you must at once both speak and be silent, and verify contradictions, and be in many places at once, and be of all men's minds, and for all men's ways. For my part, I mean to see the world a little better agreed among themselves, before I will make it my ambition to please them. If you can reconcile all their opinions, and interests, and complexions, and dispositions, and make them all of One Mind and Will, then hope to please them.

§. 51. 16. If you excel in any one Virtue or Duty, even that shall not excuse you from the contrary defamation, so unreasonable are malicious men. Nothing in the world can secure you from censorious slanderous tongues. The perfect holiness of Jesus Christ could not secure him from being called a gluttonous person and a wine-bibber, and a friend of publicans and sinners. His wonderful contempt of worldly dignities and honors, and his subjection to Caesar, could not secure him from being slandered and crucified as Caesar's enemy. The great piety of the ancient Christians excused them not from the vulgar calumny, that they met together for filthiness in the dark; nor from the cry of the rabble, Tol • ite impios, away with the ungodly, because they were against the worshipping of Idols. I have known those that have given all that ever they had to the poor except their food and necessaries, and yet (though it was to a considerable value) have been reproached as unmerciful by those that had not what they expected. Many a one hath been defamed with scandalous rumors of uncleanness, that have lived in untainted chastity all their lives. The most • minent Saints, have been defamed as guilty of the most horrid crimes, which never entered into their thoughts. The principal thing that ever I bent my Studies and care about, hath been the reconciling, Unity, and peace of Christians, and against unpeaceableness, uncharitableness, turbulency and division: And yet some have been found, whose interest and malice hath commanded them to charge me with that very sin, which I have spent my days, my zeal and study against. How oft have contrary factions charged me with perfectly contrary accusations? I can scarce remember the thing that I can do in all the world, that some will not be offended at? Nor the duty so great and clear, that some will not call my sin? Nor the self-denial so great (to the hazard of my life) which hath not been called self-seeking, or something clean contrary to what it was indeed. Instead therefore of serving and pleasing this malicious unrighteous world, I contemn their blind and unjust censures, and appeal to the most righteous God.

§. 52. 17. If you have a design for a name of honor when you are dead, consider what power a prevailing faction may have to corrupt the History of your life, and represent you to posterity perfectly contrary to what you are; and how impossible it is for posterity to know whose History is the product of malicious s •• meless lies, and whose is the narrative of impartial truth. What contrary Histories are there of particular persons and actions written by men of the • ame Religion: as of Pope Gregory the seventh, and the Emperors that contended with him: and about Pope John, and many the like cases, where you may read scores of Historians on one side, and on the other.

§. 53. 18. Remember that the holiest Saints or Apostles could never please the world, nor escape their censures, slanders and cruelties; no nor Jesus Christ himself. And can you think by honest means to please them better than Christ and all his Saints have done? You have not the wisdom that Christ had to please men, and to avoid offense: You have not the perfect innocence and unblameableness that Christ had: You cannot heal their sicknesses and infirmities, and do that good to them to please and win them, as Jesus Christ did. You cannot convince them, and constrain them to reverence you, by manifold miracles, as Jesus Christ did. Can you imitate such an excellent pattern as is set you, by the holy, patient, charitable, unwearied Apostle Paul, Acts 20. & 1 Cor. 4. & 9. & 2 Cor. 4. & 5. & 6. & 10. & 11. & 12. If you cannot, how can you please them that would not be pleased by such unimitable works of love and power? The more Paul loved some of his hearers, the less he was beloved, 2 Cor. 12. 15. They used him as an enemy for telling them the truth, Gal. 4. 16. Though he became all things to all men, he could save but some, nor please but some, 1 Cor. 9. 22. And what are you that you should better please them?

§. 54. 19. Godliness, virtue and honesty itself will not please the world, and therefore you cannot h • pe to please them by that which is not pleasing to them. Will men be pleased by that which they hate? and by the actions which they think accuse them and condemn them? And if you will be Ungodly and Vicious to please them, you sell your souls, your Conscience, and your God to please them. God and they are not pleased with the same ways: And which do you think should first be pleased? I • you displease him for their favor, you will buy it dear.

§. 55. 20. They are not pleased with God himself: yea, no man doth displease so many and so much as he: And can you do m • re than God to please them? or can you deserve their favor more than he? They are daily displeased with his works of providence: One would have rain, when another would have none: One would have the winds to serve his voyage, and another would have them in a contrary end: One party is displeased, because another is pleased and exalted: Every enemy would have his cause succeed, and the victory to be his: Every contender would have all go on his side. God must be ruled by them, and fit himself to the interest of the most unjust, and to the will of the most vicious, and do as they would have him, and be a servant to their lusts, or they will not be pleased with him. And his Holy Nature, and his Holy Word, and Holy Ways, displease them more than his ordinary providence. They are displeased that his Word is so precise and strict, and that he commandeth them so holy and so strict a life, and that he threateneth all the ungodly with damnation: He must alter his Laws, and make them more loose, and fit them to their fleshly interest and lusts, and speak as they would have him, without any difficulties, before they will be pleased with them (unless he alter their minds and hearts). And how do you think they will be pleased with him at last, when he fulfills his threatenings? When he killeth them, and turneth their bodies to dust, and their guilty souls to torment and despair.

§. 56. 21. How can you please men that cannot please themselves? Their own desire and choice will please them but a little while. Like children, they are soon weary of that which they cried for: They must needs have it, and when they have it, it is naught, and cast away: They are neither pleased with it, nor without it. They are like sick persons that long for every meat, or drink they think of: and when they have it, they cannot get it down: For the sickness is still within them that causeth their displeasure. How many do trouble and torment themselves by their passions and folly from day today? And can you please such self-displeasers?

§. 57. How can you please all others, when you cannot please yourselves? If you are persons fearing God, and feel the burden of your sins, and have life enough to be sensible of your diseases, I dare say there are none in the world so displeasing to you, as you are to yourselves. You carry that about you, and feel that within you which displeaseth you more than all the enemies you have in the world. Your passions, and corruptions, your want of Love to God, and your strangeness to him and the life to come; the daily faultiness of your duties and your lives, are your daily burden, and displease you most. And if you be not able, and wise, and good enough to please yourselves, can you be able, and wise, and good enough to please the world? As your sins are nearest to yourselves, so are your graces▪ and as you know more evil by yourselves, than others know, so you know more good by yourselves. That little fire will not warm all the room, which will not warm the hearth it lieth on.

§. 58. Direct. 10. Remember what a life of unquietness and continual vexation you choose▪ if you place your peace or happiness in the good will or word of man. For having shown you how impossible a • ask you undertake, it must needs follow that the pursuit of it must be a life of torment: To engage yourselves in so great cares, and be sure to be disappointed! To make that your end, which you cannot attain! To find that you labor in vain, and daily meet with displeasure instead of the favor you expected; must needs be a very grievous life. You are like one that dwelleth on the top of a mountain, and yet cannot endure the wind to blow upon him: Or like him that dwelleth in a wood, and yet is afraid of the shaking of a leaf. You dwell among a world of ulcerated, selfish, contradictory, mutable, unpleasable minds, and yet you cannot endure their displeasure. Are you Magistrates? The people will murmur at you, and those that are most incompetent and uncapable will be the forwardest to censure you, and think that they could govern much better than you: Those that bear the necessary burdens of the common safety and defense, will say that you oppress them; and the malefactors that • re punished, will say you deal unmercifully by them, and those that have a cause never so unjust, will say you wrong them, if it go not on their side: Are you Pastors and Teachers? You will seem too rough to one, and to smooth to another; yea too rough to the same man when by reproof or censure you correct his faults, who censureth you as too smooth and a friend to sinners, when you are to deal in the cause of others. No sermon that you preach is like to be pleasing to all your hearers; nor any of your ministerial works. Are you Lawyers? The Clients that lost their cause, behind your backs will call you unconscionable, and say you betrayed them: And those that prevailed, will call you covetous, and tell how much money you took of them, and how little you did for it: So that its no wonder that among the vulgar, your profession is the matter of their reproach. Are you Physicians? You will be accused as guilty of the death of many that die; and as covetous takers of their money whether the Patient die or live: For this is the common talk of the vulgar, except of some few with whom your care hath much succeeded. Are you Trades-men? Most men that buy of you are so selfish, that except you will beggar yourselves, they will say you deceive them, and deal unconscionably and sell too dear: Little do they mind the necessary maintenance of your families, nor care whether you live or gain by your trading; But if you will wrong yourselves to sell them a good penny-worth, they will say you are very honest men: And yet when you are broken, they will accuse you of imprudence, and defrauding your creditors. You must buy dear, and sell cheap, and live by the loss, or else displease.

§. 59. Direct. 11. Remember still that the Pleasing of God is your business in the world, and that in Pleasing him your souls may have safety, rest and full content, though all the world should be displeased with you. God is enough for you: And his approbation and favor is your portion and reward. How sweet and safe is the life of the sincere and upright ones, that study more to be good than to seem good? And think if God accept them that they have enough? O what a mercy is an upright heart? Which renounceth the world, and all therein that stands in competition with his God? And taketh God for his God indeed, even for his Lord, his Judge, his Portion and his all? Who in temptation remembereth the eye of God, and in all his duty is provoked and ruled by the will and pleasure of his Judge? And regardeth the eye and thoughts of man, but as he would do the presence of a bird or beast, unless as piety, justice or charity, require him to have respect to man, in due subordination to God. Who when men applaud him as a person of excellent holiness and goodness, is fearful and solicitous lest the all-knowing God should think otherwise of him than his applauders: And under all the censures, roproaches and slanders of man (yea though through temptation good men should thus use him) can live in peace upon the approbation of his God alone; and can rejoice in his justification by his righteous judge, and gracious redeemer, though the inconsiderable censures of men condemn him. Verily I cannot apprehend, how any other man but this, can live a life of true and solid peace and joy. If God's approbation and favor quiet you not, nothing can rationally quiet you. If the pleasing of him do not satisfy you though men, though good men, though all men should be displeased with you, I know not how or when you will be satisfied. Yea if you be above the censures and displeasure of the profane, and not also of the godly, (when God will permit them as Job's wife and friends to be your trial) it will not suffice to an even contented quiet life. And here consider.

§. 60. 1. If you seek first to please God and are satisfied therein, you have but one to please instead of multitudes. And a multitude of masters are hardlier pleased than one. 2. And it is One that putteth you upon nothing that is unreasonable, for quantity or quality. 3. And one that is perfectly wise and good, not liable to misunderstand your case and actions: 4. And one that is