A Christian Directory
§. 11. 5. Another thinks he is no worldling because he is contented with what he hath, and coveteth no more. When that which he hath is a full provision for his fleshly desires. But if you overlove the world, and delight more in it than God, you are worldlings though you desire no more. He is described by Christ as a miserable worldly fool, Luke 12. 19, 20. that saith, [ Soul take thy ease, eat, drink and be merry, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. ] To overlove what you have is worldliness as well as to desire more.
§. 12. 6. Another thinks he is no worldling, because he gives God thanks for what he hath, and asked it of God in prayer. But if thou be a Lover of the world, and make provision for the desires of the flesh, it is but an aggravation of thy sin, to desire God to be a servant to thy fleshly lusts, and to thank him for satisfying thy sinful desires: Thy prayers and thanks are profane and carnal: They were no service to God but to thy flesh: As if a drunkard or a glutton should beg of God provision for their greedy throats, and thank him for it when they have it: Or a fornicator should pray God to be a pandor to his lusts, and then thank him for it: Or a wanton gallant should make fine clothes and gallantry, the matter of his prayer and thanksgiving.
§. 13. 7. Another thinks he is no worldling because he hath some thoughts of Heaven, and is loath to be damned when he can keep the world no longer, and prayeth often, and perhaps fasteth with the Pharisee twice a week, and giveth alms often, and payeth tithes, and wrongeth no man. But the Pharisees were covetous for all these: Luke 16. 14. The question is not whether you think of Heaven, and do something for it? But whether it be Heaven or Earth which you seek first, and make the end of all things else, which all are referred to: Every worldling knoweth that he must die, and therefore he would have Heaven at last for a reserve, rather than Hell. But where is it that you are laying up your treasure, and that you place all your Happiness and hopes? And where are your hearts? On earth or in Heaven? Col. 3. 1, 2, 3. Mat. 6. 20, 21. The question is not whether you give now and then an alms to deceive your Consciences, and part with so much as the flesh can spare, as a swine will do when he can eat no more: But whether all that you have be devoted to the will of God, and made to stoop to his service and the saving of your souls, and can be forsaken rather than Christ forsaken. Luke 14. 33.
§. 14. 8. Another thinks that he is not Covetous because it is but for his Children that he provideth: And he that provideth not for his own, is worse than an infidel. 1 Tim. 5. 8. But the Text speaketh only of providing necessaries for our families and kindred rather than cast them on the Church to be maintained. If you so overvalue the world, that you think it the happiness of your children to be Rich, you are worldlings and Covetous both for yourselves and them: It is for their Children that the Richest and Greatest make provision, that their posterity may be great and wealthy after them; and this maketh them the more worldlings and not the less; because they are covetous for after ages, when they are dead, and not only for themselves.
§. 15. 9. Another thinks he is no worldling because he can speak as hardly of covetous men as any other: But many a one revileth others as covetous that is covetous himself: Yea covetous men are aptest to accuse others of covetousness, and of selling too dear, and buying too cheap, and giving too little because they would get the more themselves. And many Preachers by their reading and knowledge, may make a vehement sermon against worldliness, and yet go to Hell at last for being worldlings. Words are cheap.
§. 16. 10. Another thinks he is not covetous, because he purposeth to leave much to charitable uses when he is dead. I confess that much is well: I would more would do so. But the flesh itself can spare it, when it seeth that it must lie down in the grave. If they could carry their riches with them, and enjoy them after death, they would do it, no doubt. To leave it when you cannot keep it any longer, is not thank-worthy. So the glutton and drunkard, and whoremonger, and the proud must all leave their pleasure at the grave. But do you serve God or the flesh with your Riches while you have them? And do you use them to help or to hinder your salvation? Deceive not yourselves, for God is not mocked. Gal. 6. 7.
§. 17. VI. Yet many are falsely accused of covetousness upon such grounds as these. 1. Because they possess much and are Rich: For the poor take the Rich for worldlings. But God giveth not to all alike: He putteth ten talents into the hands of one servant, and but one into another's: And to whom men commit much, of them will they require the more: Therefore to be entrusted with more than others, is no sin, unless they betray that trust.
§. 18. 2. Others are accused as covetous because they satisfy not the covetous desires of those they deal with, or that expect much from them, and because they give not where it is not their duty, but their sin to give. Thus the buyer saith the seller is covetous: and the seller saith the buyer is covetous, because they answer not their covetous desires: An idle beggar will accuse you of uncharitableness, because you maintain him not in sinful idleness. The proud look you should help to maintain their pride: The drunkard, and riotous, and gamesters expect their parents should maintain their sin. No man that hath anything, shall scape the censure of being covetous, as long as there is another in the world that coveteth that which he hath: selfishness looketh to no rules but their own desires.
§. 19. 3. Others are judged covetous because they give not that which they have not to give: Those that know not another's estate, will pass conjectures at it: And if their hansom apparel or deportment, or the common fame, do make men think them richer than they are, then they are accounted covetous because their bounty answereth not men's expectations.
§. 20. 4. Others are thought covetous because they are laborious in their callings, and thrifty, and saving, not willing that anything be lost. But all this is their duty: If they were Lord's or Princes, idleness, and wastfullness would be their sin. God would have all men labor in their several callings that are able: And Christ himself said, when he had fed many thousands by miracle, yet [ Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost ] The question is, How they use that which they labor so hard for, and save so sparingly. If they use it for God, and charitable uses, there is no man taketh a righter course. He is the best servant for God, that will be laborious and sparing that he may be able to do good.
§. 21. 5. Others are thought covetous because to avoid hypocrisy, they give in secret, and keep their works of charity from the knowledge of men: These shall have their Reward from God: and his wrath shall be the reward of their presumptuous censurers.
§. 22. 6. Others are thought covetous because they lawfully and peaceably seek their right, and let not the unjust and covetous wrong them at their pleasure. Its true, we must let go our right, when ever the recovering of it will do more hurt to others, than it will do us good: But yet the Laws are not made in vain: Nor must we encourage men in covetousness thievery and deceit, by letting them do what they list: Nor must we be careless of our masters talents: If he intrust us with them, we must not let everyone take them from us, to serve his lusts with.
§. 23. Direct. 2. Seriously consider of your everlasting state, and how much greater things than Riches you have to mind: Behold by faith the endless joys which you may have with God, and the endless misery which worldlings must undergo in Hell. There is no true cure for an earthly mind, but by showing it the far greater matters to be minded: by acquainting it better with its own concernments; and with the greater miseries than poverty or want which we have to scape; and the greater good than worldly plenty which we have to seek. Its want of faith that makes men worldlings: They see not what is in another world: They say their creed, but do not heartily believe the day of Judgment, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. There is not a man of them all, but if he had one sight of Heaven and Hell, would set lighter by the world than ever he did before; and would turn his covetous cares and toil, to a speedy and diligent care of his salvation. If he heard the joyful praises of the saints, and the woeful lamentations of the damned, but one day or hour, he would think ever after that he had greater matters to mind, than the scraping together a heap of wealth▪ Remember man that thou hast another world to live in; and a far longer life to make provision for; and that thou must be in Heaven or Hell forever: This is true, whether thou believe it or not: And thou hast no time but this to make all thy preparation in: And as thou believest and livest and laborest now, it must go with thee to all eternity: Th • se are matters worthy of thy care: Canst thou have while to make such a pudder here in the dust, and care and labor for a thing of naught, while thou h • st such things as these to care for, and a work of such transcendent consequence to do? Can a man that understands what Heaven and Hell is, find room for any needless matters, or time for so much unnecessary work? The providing for thy salvation is a thing that God hath made thy own work, much more than the providing for the flesh. When he speaks of thy Body, he saith, T • k • no thought for your life, what you shall eat or drink, nor for your body what you shall put on—for your father knoweth that ye have need of all these things, Math. 6. 25, 32. Be careful for nothing, Phil. 4. 6. Cast all your care upon him, for he careth for you. 1 Pet. 5. 7. But when he speaks of your salvation he bids you, work it out with fear and trembling, Phil. 2. 12. and give di • igence to make your calling and election su • e, 2 Pet. 1. 10. and strive to enter in at the strait gate, Mat. 7. 13. Luke 13. 24. Labor not for the me • t that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life, John 6. 27. That is, Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you: Mat 6. 33. Look up to Heaven man, and remember that there is thy Home, and there is thy Hopes, or else thou art a man undone forever: and therefore it is for that that thou must care and labor. Believe un • eign • dly that thou must dwell forever in Heaven or Hell as thou makest thy preparation here, and consider of this as becometh a man, and then be a worldling and covetous it thou cans • : Riches will seem dust and chaste to thee, if thou believe and consider thy everlasting state. Write upon the doors of thy Shop and Chamber, [ I must be in Heaven or Hell forever ] or [ This is the time on which my endless life dependeth ]; and methinks every time thou readest it, thou shouldst feel thy cov • tousness stabbed at the heart. O blinded mortals! that love like worms to dwell in earth! would God but give you an eye of faith, to foresee your end, and where you must dwell to all eternity, what a change would it make upon your earthly minds? Either faith or sense will be your guides. Nothing but Reason sanctified by Faith can govern sense. Remember that thou art not a beast, that hath no life to live but this: Thou hast a Reasonable Immortal soul, that was made by God for higher things; even for God himself, to admire him, Love him, serve him and enjoy him. If an Angel were to dwell a while in fl • sh, should he turn an earth-worm, and forget his higher life of glory? Thou art like to an incarnate Angel; and mayest be equal with the Angels when thou art free • d from this sinful fl • sh. Luke 20. 36. O beg of God a Heavenly light, and a Heavenly mind, and look often into the word of God, which tells thee where thou must be forever: and worldliness will vanish away in shame.
§. 24. Direct. 3. Remember how short a time thou must keep and enjoy the wealth which thou hast gotten: How quickly thou must be stripped of all. Canst thou keep it when thou hast it▪ Canst thou make a covenant with Death, that it shall not call away thy soul? Thou knowest beforehand that thou art of short continuance, and the world is but thy Inn or passage, and that a narrow grave for thy flesh to rot in, is all that thou canst keep of thy largest possessions, save what thou laiest up in Heaven, by laying it out in obedience to God. How short is l •• e? How quickly gone? Thou art almost dead and gone already. What is a few days or a few years more? And wilt thou make so much ado for so short a life? And so careful a provision for so short a stay? Yea how uncertain is thy time as well as short? Thou canst not say what world thou shall • be in tomorrow. Remember man, that Thou must die, Thou must die, Thou must quickly die; Thou knowest not how soon; breath yet a few breaths more and thou art gone: And yet canst thou be covetous, and drown thy soul with earthly cares? Dost thou soberly read thy Savior's warning, Luke 12. 19, 20, 21. Is it not spoken as to thee? Thou •• ol, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is everyone that layeth up Riches for himself, and is not Rich towards God. If If thou be rich today, and be in another world tomorrow, had not poverty been as good? Distracted soul! Dost thou make so great a matter of it, whether thou have much or little for so short a time? and takest no more care either where thou shalt be, or what thou shalt have to all eternity? Dost thou say, thou wilt cast this care on God? I tell thee, he will make thee care thyself, and care again before he will save thee? And why canst thou not cast the care of smaller matters on him, when he commandeth thee? Is it any great matter whether thou be Rich or poor, that art going so fast unto another world, where these are things of no signification? Tell me, if thou were sure that thou must die tomorrow, (yea or the next month or year,) wouldst thou not be more indifferent whether thou be Rich or Poor? And look more after greater things. Then thou wouldst be of the Apostles mind, 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Our eye of faith should be so fixed on invisible eternal things▪ that we should scarce have leisure or mind to look at or once regard the things that are visible and temporal. A man that is going to execution scarce looks at all the bussle or business that is done in Streets and Shops as he passeth by; because these little concern him in his departing case: And how little do the wealth and honors of the world concern a soul that is going into another world, and knows not but it may be this night. Then keep thy wealth, or take it with thee, if thou canst.
§. 25. Direct. 4. Labor to feel thy greatest wants, which worldly wealth will not supply. Thou hast sinned against God; and money will not buy thy pardon: Thou hast incurred his displeasure, and money will not reconcile him to thee: Thou art condemned to everlasting misery by the Law, and money will not pay thy ransom: Thou art dead in sin, and polluted, and captivated by the flesh, and money will sooner increase thy bondage, than deliver thee. Thy Conscience is ready to tear thy heart for thy willful folly and contempt of grace; and money will not bribe it to be quiet: Judas brought back his money, and hanged himself, when Conscience was but once awaked. Money will not enlighten a blinded mind, nor soften a hard heart, nor humble a proud heart, nor justify a guilty soul. It will not keep off a Feavor or Consumption; nor ease the Gout, or Stone, or Tooth-ache! It will not keep off ghastly death, but die thou must, if thou have all the world. Look up to God, and remember that thou art wholly in his hands: and think whether he will love or favor thee for thy wealth. Look unto the day of Judgment, and think whether money will there bring thee off: or the Rich speed better than the poor?
§. 26. Direct. 5. Be often with those that are sick and dying, and mark what all their Riches will do for them, and what esteem they have then of the world; and mark how it useth all at last. Then you shall see that it forsaketh all men in the hour of their greatest necessity and distress; when they would cry to friends, and wealth, and honor, if they had any hopes, If ever you will help me, let it be now: If ever you will do anything for me, O save me from death, and the wrath of God: But, alas, such cries would be all in vain. Then, O then, one drop of mercy, one spark of grace, the smallest well g • ounded hope of Heaven, would be worth more than the Empire of Caesar or Alexander! Is not this true sinner? Dost thou not know it to be true? And yet wilt thou cheat and betray thy soul? Is not that best now, which will be best then? And is not that of little value now, which will be then so little set by? Dost thou not think that men are wiser then than now? Wilt thou do so much and pay so dear, for that which will do thee no more good, and which thou wilt set no more by when thou hast it? Doth not all the world cry out at last of the deceitfulness of riches, and the vanity of pleasure and prosperity on Earth, and the perniciousness of all worldly cares? And doth not thy conscience tell thee, that when thou comest to die, thou art like to have the same thoughts thyself? And yet wilt thou not be warned in time? Then all the content and pleasure of thy plenty and prosperity will be past: And when its past its nothing: And wilt thou venture on everlasting woe, and cast away everlasting joy, for that which is today a dream and shadow, and tomorrow, or very shortly will be nothing? The poorest then will be equal with thee: And will honest poverty or over-loved wealth, be sweeter at the last? How glad then wouldst thou be, to have been without thy wealth, so thou mightest have been without the sin and guilt! How glad then wouldst thou be, to die the death of the poorest Saint? Do you think that Poverty or Riches are liker to make a man loath to die? or are usually more troublesome to the Conscience of a dying man? O look to the end, and live as you die, and set most by that, and seek that now, which you know you shall set most by at last, when full experience hath made you wiser.
§. 27. Direct. 6. Remember that Riches do make it much harder for a man to be saved, and the love of this world is the commonest cause of men's damnation. This is certainly true, for all that Poverty also hath its temptations; and for all that the poor are far more • umerous than the rich: For even the poor may be undone by the love of that wealth and plenty which they never get: and those may perish for over-loving the world, that yet never prospered in the world. And if thou believe Christ, the point is out of Controversy: For he saith, Luke 18. 24, 25, 26, 27. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God? For it is easier for a Camel to go through a Needles eye, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And he said, The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God. So Luke 6. 24, 25. But woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation: Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Make but sense of these and many such like Texts, and you can gather no less than this from them, that Riches make the way to Heaven much harder, and the salvation of the rich to be more difficult and rare, proportionably, than of other men: And Paul saith, 1 Cor. 1. 26. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. And the Lovers of riches, though they are poor must remember that it is said, 1 Tim. 6. 10. That the Love of money is the root of all evil: And 1 John 2. 15. Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world: For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: Do you believe that here lieth the danger of your souls? and yet can you so love, and choose, and seek it? Would you have your salvation more difficult, and doubtful, and impossible with men? You had rather choose to live where few die young, than where most die young? and where sicknesses are rare, than where they are common? If you were sick, you had rather have the Physician, and Medicines, and Dyet which cure most, than those which few are cured by? If the Country were beset with Thieves, you had rather go the way that most scape in, than that few scape in. And yet so it may but please your flesh, you will choose that way to Heaven, that fewest scape in; and you will choose that state of life which will make your salvation to be most hard and doubtful? Doth your Conscience say that this is wisely done? I know that if God put Riches into your hand, by your Birth, or his blessing on your honest labors, you must not cast away your Masters talents, because he is austere; but by a holy improvement of them, you may further his service and your salvation. But this is no reason why you should ov • r-love them, or desire and seek so great a danger. Believe Christ heartily, and it will quench your Love of Riches.
§. 28. Direct. 7. Remember that the more you have, the more you have to give account for. And • f the day of Judgment be dreadful to you, you should not make it more dreadful, by greatening your own accounts. If you desired Riches but for the service of your Lord, and have used them for him, and can t • uly give in this account, that you laid them not out for the needless pleasure or pride of the fl • sh, but • o furnish yourselves, and families, and others for his service, and as near as you •• uld employ them according to his will, and for his use, then you may expect the reward of good and faithful servants: But if you desired and used them for the pride and pleasure of yourselves while you lived, and your posterity or kindred when you are dead, dropping some inconsiderable • r • ms for God, you will then find that Mammon was an unprofitable Master, and Godliness with content would have been greater gain.
§. 29. Direct. 8. Remember how dear it costeth men, thus to hinder their salvation, and greaten their danger and accounts. What a deal of precious Time is lost upon the world by the Lovers of it, which might have been improved to the getting of Wisdom and Grace, and making their calling and election sure. If you had believed that the gain of holy wisdom, had been so much better than the gaining of Gold, as Solomon saith, Pr • v. 3. 14. you would have laid out much of that time in laboring to understand the Scriptures, and preparing for your endless life. How many unnecessary Thought • have you cast away upon the world, which might better have been laid out on your greater concernments? How many • ares, and vexations, and passions doth it cost men, to overload themselves with worldly provisions? Like a foolish travel • r, who having a days journey to go, doth spend all the day in gathering together a load of m • at, and clothes and money, more than he can carry, for fear of wanting by the way: or like a foolish runner that hath a race to run for his life, and spends the time in which he should be running, in gathering a burden of pretended necessaries. You have all the while God's work to do, and your souls to mind, and judgment to prepare for, and you are tiring and vexing yourselves for unnecessary things; as if it were the top of your ambition, to be able to say in Hell, that you died rich, 1 Tim. 6. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Godliness with contentment is great gain: For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content: But they that will be Rich, fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition: For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred (or been seduced ) from the • aith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Piercing sorrows here, and damnation hereafter, are a very dear price to give for money. For saith Christ himself, What shall it profit a man to gain all the world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? that is, What money or price will recover it, if for the love of gain he lose it? Mark 8. 36, 37. Prov. 15. 27. He that is greedy of gain, troubleth his own house, but he that hateth gifts, shall live. Do you not know, that a godly man contented with his daily bread, hath a far sweeter and quietter life and death, than a self-troubling worldling? You may easily perceive it. Prov. 15. 16. Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith.
§. 30. Direct. 9. Look much on the life of Christ on earth, and see how strangely he condemned worldliness, by his example: Did he choose to be a Prince or Lord, or to have great possessions, lands, or money, or sumptuous buildings, or gallant attendance, and plentiful provisions? His housing you may read of, Matth. 8. 20. F • xes have holes, and the Birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. His clothing you may read of at his crucifying when they parted it. As for money, he was fain to send Pet • r to a •••• h for some to pay their tribute. If Christ did scrape and care for Riches, then so do thou: I • he thought it the happiest life, do thou think so too. But if he contemned it, do thou contemn it: If his whole life was directed to give thee the most perfect example of the contempt of all the prosperity of this world, then learn of his example, if thou take him for thy Savior, and if thou love thyself▪ Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be rich, 2 Cor. 8, 9.
§. 31. Direct. 10. Think on the example of the primitive Christians, even the best of Christ's servants, and see how it condemneth worldliness. They that by miracle in the name of Christ could give limbs to the lame, yet tell him, Silver and Gold have we none. Acts 3. 6. Those that had possessions sold them, and laid the money at the Apostles feet, and they had all things common, to show that faith overcometh the world, by contemning it, and subjecting it to charity, and devoting it entirely to God. Read whether the Apostles did live in sumptuous houses, with great attendance, and worldly plenty and prosperity? And so of the rest.
§. 32. Direct. 11. Remember to what ends all worldly things were made and given you, and what a happy advantage you may make of them by renouncing them as they would be provision for your lusts, and by devoting yourselves and them to God. The use of their sweetness is, to draw your souls to taste by faith the heavenly sweetness. They are the Looking-glass of souls in flesh that are not yet admitted to see things spiritual face to face. They are the provender of our bodies; our travelling furniture and helps; our Inns, and solacing company in the way; they are some of God's Love-tokens; some of the lesser pieces of his Coin, and bear his Image and superscription: They are drops from the Rivers of the eternal pleasures; to tell the mind by the way of the senses how good the Donor is, and how amiable; and what higher Delights there are for souls; and to point us to the better things which these foretell: They are messengers from Heaven to testify our Fathers care and love, and to bespeak our thankfulness, love and duty; and to bear witness against sin, and bind us faster to obedience: They are the first Volume of the Word of God: The first Book that man was set to read, to acquaint him fully with his Maker: As the Word which we read and hear is the Chariot of the Spirit, by which it maketh its accesses to the soul; so the delights of sight, and taste, and smell, and touch, and hearing were appointed as an ordinary way for the speedy access of heavenly love and sweetness to the Heart, that upon the first perception of the goodness and sweetness of the creature, there might presently be transmitted by a due progression, or deep impression of the goodness of God upon the soul: That the creature being the Letters of God's Book, which are seen by our eye, the sense (even the Love of our great Creator) might presently be perceived by the mind: and no letter might once be looked upon but for the sense: no creature ever seen, or tasted, or heard, or felt in any delectable quality, without a sense of the Love of God: That as the touch of the hand upon the strings of the Lute do cause the melody, so God's touch by his mercies upon our hearts, might presently tune them into Love, and Gratitude, and Praise. They are the Tools by which we must do much of our Masters work: They are means by which we may refresh our brethren, and express our love to one another, and our love to our Lord and Master in his servants: They are our Masters stock which we must trade with, by the improvement of which, no less than the Reward of endless Happiness may be attained. These are the Uses to which God gives us outward mercies. Love them thus, and Delight in them, and Use them thus, and spare not: yea, seek them thus, and be thankful for them. But when the creatures are given for so excellent a use, will you debase them all by making them only the fuel of your lusts, and the provisions for your flesh? And will you love them and dote upon them in these base respects; while you utterly neglect their noblest use? You are just like children that cry for Books, and can never have enouw; but its only to play with them because they are fine; but when they are set to learn and read them, they cry as much because they love it not: Or like one that should spend his life and labor in getting the finest clothes, to dress his Dogs and Horses with, but himself goeth naked and will not wear them.
§. 33. Direct. 12. Remember that God hath promised to provide for you, and that you shall want nothing that is good for you, if you will live above these worldly things, and seek first his Kingdom, and the righteousness thereof. And cannot you trust his promise? If you truly believe that he is God, and that he is true, and that his particular providence extendeth to the very numbering of your hairs, you will sure trust him rather than trust to your own forecast and industry. Do you think his provision is not better for you than your own? All your own care cannot keep you alive an hour, nor cannot prosper any of your labors, if you provoke him to blast them. And if you are not content with his provisions, nor submit yourselves to the disposals of his love and wisdom, you disoblige God, and provoke him to leave you to the fruits of your own care and diligence: And then you will find that it had been your wiser way to have trusted God.
§. 34. Direct. 13. Think often on the dreadful importance and effects of the Love of Riches, or a worldly mind. 1. It is a most certain sign of a state of death and misery where it hath the upper hand. It is the departing of the heart from God to creatures: See the malignity of it before. Good men have been overtaken with heinous sins; but its hard to find where Scripture calleth any of them Covetous. A heart secretly cleaving most to this present world and its prosperity, is the very killing sin of every hypocrite, yea, and of all ungodly men. 2. Worldliness makes the Word unprofitable, and keepeth men from believing and repenting, and coming home to God, and minding seriously the everlasting world: What so much hindereth the Conversion of sinners, as the love and ca • es of earthly things? They cannot serve God and Mammon: Their treasure and hearts cannot be chiefly be both in Heaven and Earth? They will not yield to the terms of Christ that love this world: They will not forsake all for a treasure in Heaven. In a word, as you heard, The love of money is the root of all evil, and the Love of the Father is not in the lovers of the world. 3. It destroyeth holy meditation, and conference, and turneth the thoughts to worldly things: And it corrupteth Prayer, and maketh it but a means to serve the flesh, and therefore maketh it odious to God. 4. It is the great hindrance of men's necessary preparation, for death and judgment, and stealeth away their hearts and time till it is too late. 5. It is the great cause of contentions even among the nearest relations; and the cause of the Wars and calamities of Nations; and of the woeful divisions and persecutions of the Church; when a worldly generation think that their worldly interest doth engage them, against self-denying and spiritual principles, practices and persons. 6. It is the great cause of all the injustice, and oppression, and cruelty that rageth in the world. They would do as they would be done by, were it not for the love of money. It maketh men perfidious and false to all their friends and engagements: No vows to God, nor obligations to men, will hold a Lover of the world. The world is his God, and his worldly interest is his rule and law. 7. It is the great destroyer of Charity and Good works: No more is done for God and the poor, because the Love of the world forbids it. 8. It disordereth and pro • aneth families; and betrayeth the souls of Children and Servants to the Devil: It turneth out prayer, and reading the Scripture, and good books, and all serious speeches of the li • e to come, because their hearts are taken up with the world; and they have no rel • sh of anything but the provisions of their flesh: Even the Lord's own Day cannot be reserved for holy works, nor a duty performed, but the world is interposing, or diverting the mind. 9. It temp • eth m • n to sin against their knowledge, and to forsake the truth, and fit themselves to the rising side▪ and save their bodies and estates, whatever become of their souls: It is the very price that the D • vil gives for souls! With this he bought the soul of Judas, who went to the Pharis • es with a [ What will you give me, and I will deliver him to you: ] With this he attempted Christ himself, Matth. 4. 9. All these will I give thee, if th • u wilt fall down and worship me. It is the cause of Ap •••• acy and unfaithfulness to God: And its the price that sinners sell their God, their Conscience and their salvation for. 10. It depriveth the soul of holy communion with God, and comfort from him, and of all foretaste of the life to come, and finally of Heaven itself: For as the Love of the world keepeth out the Love of God and Heaven, it must needs keep out the hopes and comforts which should arise from holy love. It would do much to cure the love of money, and of the world, if you knew how pernicious a sin it is.
§. 35. Direct. 14. Remember how base a sin it is, and how dishonorable and debasing to the mind of man: If earth be baser than Heaven, and money than God, than an earthly mind is baser than a heavenly mind: As the Serpents feeding on the dust is a baser life than that of Angels, that are employed in admiring, and obeying, and praising the M • st Holy God.
§. 36. Direct. 15. Call yourselves to a daily reckoning, how you lay out all that God committeth to your trust, and try whether it be so as you would hear of it at judgment. If you did but use to sit in judgment daily upon yourselves, as those that believe the judgment of God, it would make you more careful to use well what you have, than to get more: And it would quench your thirst after plenty and prosperity, when you perceived you must give so strict an account of it: The flesh itself will less desire it, when it finds it may not have the use of it.
§. 37. Direct. 16. When you find your Covetousness most eager and dangerous, resolve most to cross it, and give more to pious or charitable uses though •••• t another time. For a man hath reason to fly furthest from that sin, which he is most in danger of. And the acts tend to the increase of the habit. Obeying your Covetousness doth increase it: And so the contrary acts, and the disobeying and displeasing it, do destroy it. This course will bring your Covetousness into a despair of attaining its desires; and so will make it sit down and give over the pursuit. It is an open protesting against every covetous desire: and an effectual kind of repenting: and a wise and honest disarming sin, and turning its motions against itself to its own destruction: Use it thus oft, and Covetousness will think it wisdom to be quiet.
§. 38. Direct. 17. Above all take heed that you think not of reconciling God and Mammon, and mixing Heaven and Earth to be your felicity, and of dreaming that you may keep Heaven for a reserve at last, when the world hath been loved as your best, so long as you could keep it. Nothing so much defendeth worldliness, as a cheating hope, that you have it but in a subdued pardoned degree; and that you are not worldlings, when you are: And nothing so much supports this hope, as because you confess that Heaven only must be your last refuge, and full felicity, and therefore you do something for it on the by. But is not the world more loved, more sought, more delighted in, and • aster held? Hath it not more of your hearts, your delight, desire and industry? If you cannot let go all for Heaven, and forsake all this world, for a treasure above, you cannot be Christ's true Disciples.
§. 39. Direct. 18. If ever you would overcome the love of the world, your great care must be to mortify the Flesh; for the world is desired but as its provision. A mortified man hath no need of that, which is a sensualists felicity. Quench your hydropical feverish thirst, and then you will not make such a stir for drink. Cure the disease which enrageth your appetite; and that is the safest and cheapest way of satisfying it: Then you will be thankful to God, when you look on other men's wealth and gallantry, that you need not these things! And you will think what a trouble, and burden, and interruption of your better work and comfort, it would be to you, to have so much land, and so many servants, and goods, and business, and persons to mind, as rich men have: And how much better you can enjoy God and yourself in a more retired quiet state of life. But of this more in the next Part.
§. 40. Did men but know how much of an ungodly damnable state, doth consist in the Love of the world; and how much it is the enemy of souls; and how much of our Religion consisteth in the contempt and conquest of it; and what is the meaning of their renouncing the World in their baptismal Covenant; and how many millions the Love of the world will damn forever; they would not make such a stir for nothing, and spend all their days in providing for their perishing flesh; nor think them happiest that are richest; nor boast themselves of their hearts desire, and bless the Covetous whom the Lord abhorreth, Psal. 10. 3. They would not think that so small a sin which Christians should not so much as name (but in detestation) Ephes. 5. 3. When God hath resolved that the covetous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6. 10. Ephes. 5. 5. And a Christian must not so much as eat with them, 1 Cor. 5. 11. Did Christ say in vain, Take heed and beware of Covetousness? Luke 12. 15. Woe to him that coveteth an evil Covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil, Hab. 2. 9. O what deserving servants hath the world, that will serve it so diligently, so constantly, and at so dear a rate, when they before hand know that besides a little transitory deluding pleasure, it will pay them with nothing but everlasting shame! O wonderful deceiving power, of such an empty shadow, or rather wonderful folly of mankind! That when so many ages have been deceived before us, and almost everyone at death confesseth it did but deceive them, so many still should be deceived, and take no warning by such a world of examples. I conclude with Heb. 13. 5. Let your conversation be without Covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
PART VII. Directions against the Master sin; SENSUALITY, FLESH-PLEASING or Voluptuousness.
§. 1. I Shall be the shorter on this also, because I have spoken so much already in my Treatise of Self-denial. Before we come to more particular Directions, it is needful that we discern the nature and evil of the sin which we speak against: I shall therefore 1. Telly you what is meant by [ Flesh ] here: And 2. What flesh-pleasing it is that is unlawful, and what sensuality is. 3. Wherein the Malignity of this sin consisteth. 4. I shall answer some Objections: 5. I shall show you the Signs of it. 6. The Counterfeits of the contrary: 7. And the false Signs, which make some accused wrongfully by themselves or others.
§. 2. I. Because you may find in Writings between the Protestants and Papists, that its become a Controversy, whether by [ flesh ] in Scripture (where this sin is mentioned) be meant the Body it self, or the soul so far as it is unregenerate, I shall briefly first resolve this question. When we speak of the unregenerate part, we mean not that the soul hath two parts, whereof one is regenerate and the other unregenerate: But as the purblind eye hath both Light and Darkness in the same subject, so is it with the soul which is regenerate but in part, that is, in an imperfect degree: And by the unregenerate part, is meant the whole soul so far as it is unregenerate. The word [ flesh ] in its primary signification, is taken for that part of the Body as such without respect to sin: and next for the whole body, as distinct from the soul. But in respect to sin and duty, it is taken 1. Sometime for the sensitive appetite, not as sinful in itself, but as desiring that which God hath obliged Reason to deny it. 2. More frequently for this sensitive appetite as inordinate, and so sinful in its own desires: 3. Most frequently for both the inordinate sensitive appetite itself, and the Rational powers, so far as they are corrupted by it, and sinfully disposed to obey it, or to follow inordinately sensual things: But then the Name is primarily taken for the sensual appetite itself, (as diseased) and but by participation for the Rational powers. For the understanding of which, you must consider, 1. That the appetite itself might innocently (even in innocence) desire a forbidden object: when it was not the Appetite that was forbidden, but the Desire of the Will, or the actual taking it. That a man in a Feavor doth Thirst for more than he may lawfully drink, is not of itself a sin: But to Desire it by Practical Volition, or to Drink it is a sin: For it is these that God forbids; and not the Thirst which is not in our power to extinguish. That Adam had an Appetite to the forbidden fruit was not his sin: but that his will obeyed his appetite, and his mouth did eat. For the Appetite and sensitive nature is of God, and is in nature antecedent to the Law: God made us Men, before he gave us Laws: And the Law commandeth us not, to alter ourselves from what he made us, or anything else which is naturally out of our power. But it is the sin of the will and executive powers, to do that evil which consisteth in obeying an innocent Appetite: The Appetite is necessary, and not free; and therefore God doth not direct his commands or prohibitions to it directly, but to the Reason and free-will. 2. But since man's fall, the Appetite itself is corrupted and become inordinate, that is, more impetuous, violent and unruly, than it was in the state of Innocency; by the unhappy distempers that have befallen the Body itself. For we find now by experience, that a man that useth himself to sweet and wholesome temperance, hath no such impetuous strivings of his Appetite against his reason (if he be healthful ) as those have that are either diseased, or used to obey their appetites: And if Use and Health make so great alteration, we have cause to think that the Depravation of Nature by the Fall did more. 3. This inordinate appetite is sin, by Participation; so far as the Appetite may be said to be Free by participation, though not in itself: Because it is the Appetite of a Rational free-agent: For though sin be first in the will in its true form, yet it is not the will only that is the subject of it (though primarily it be) but the whole man, so far as his acts are Voluntary: For the will hath the Command of the other faculties: and they are Voluntary acts which the will either commands, or doth not forbid when it can and ought. To lie is a voluntary sin of the man, and the tongue partaketh of the guilt. The will might have kept out that sin, which caused a disorder in the appetite. If a Drunkard or a Glutton provoke a venerous inordinate appetite in himself, that lust is his sin, because it is voluntarily provoked. 4. Yet such additions of inordinacy, as men stir up in any Appetite, by their own actual sins and customs, are more aggravated and dangerous to the soul, than that measure of distemper which is merely the fruit of original sin. 5. This inordinateness of the sensitive Appetite, with the mere Privation of Rectitude in the Mind and Will, is enough to cause man's Actual sin. For if the Horses be headstrong, the mere weakness, sleepiness, negligence, or absence of the Coachman is enough to concur to the overthrow of the Coach: So if the Reason and Will had no Positive inclinations to evil or sensual objects, yet if they have not so much Light and Love to higher things, as will restrain the sensual appetite, it hath positive inclination enough in itself to forbidden things to ruin the soul by actual sin 6. Yet (though it be a great controversy among Divines) I conceive that in the Rational Powers themselves, there are Positive habitual inordinate inclinations to sensual forbidden things. For as actually its certain the Reason of the Proud and Covetous do contrive, and oft approve the sin, and the Will embrace it; so these are done so constantly in a continued stream of action by the whole man, that it • eems apparent that the same faculties which run out out in such strong and constant action, are themselves the subjects of much of the inclining Positive habits: And if it be so in additional acquired sin, its like it was so in Original sin. 7. Though sin be formally subjected first in the Will, yet Materially it is first in the sensitive appetite (at least this sin of Flesh-pleasing or sensuality is): The flesh or sensitive part is the first Desirer, though it be sin no further than it is voluntary. 8. All this set together telleth you further; that the word [ flesh ] signifieth the sensual inclinations of the whole man; but first and principally the corrupted sensual appetite; and the Mind and Wills (whether Privative or Positive ) concurrence, but secondarily, and as falling in with sense. The Appetite 1. Preventeth Reason, 2. And resisteth reason: 3. And at last corrupteth and enticeth Reason and Will to be its servants and purveyors.
§. 3. And that the name [ flesh ] doth primarily signify the sensitive appetite itself, is evident in the very notation of the name. Why else should the Habits or Vices of the Rational powers be called [ Flesh ] anymore than [ Spirit ] or anything else? If it were only in respect of their object, they should be called [ the World ] also, because that is their object: It is a certain Rule, that That faculty is most predominant in man, whose Object is made his chiefest End. Sensitive delights being made the felicity and end of the unsanctified, it followeth that the sensitive faculties are predominant; which being called Flesh, (by a nearer Trope) the Mind from it receives the denomination. The Scriptures also show this plainly: I remember not any one place in the Old Testament where there is any probability that the word [ flesh ] should signify only the Rational soul as unrenewed: Matth. 16. 17. Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee: that is, mortal man hath not revealed it. Matth. 26. 41. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: that is, your Bodies are weak, and resist the willingness of your souls: For sinful habits are not here called weak. John 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that is, Man by natural Generation can beget but natural man, called Flesh from the visible part; and not the spiritual life which nature is now destitute of. Rom 7. 25. With my flesh I serve the Law of sin; that is, with my sensitive powers, and my mind so far as captivated thereto: Rom. 8. 1, 5. Flesh and Spirit are oft opposed: They that are of the flesh mind the things of the flesh, &c. that is, They in whom the sensitive interest and appetite are predominant: For it is called the Body here, as well as the flesh, v. 10, 11, 13. The mind is here included; but it is as serving the flesh and its interest, Gal. 5. 16, 17, 19. Flesh and Spirit are in the same manner opposed. And 2 Pet. 2. 18. the Lusts of the flesh are in this sense mentioned: And Ephes. 2. 3. Rom. 7. 18. Rom. 13. 14. 1 Cor. 5. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 11. in which there is mention of fleshly lusts, which fight against the Spirit, and fleshly wisdom, making provision for the flesh, &c. And Col. 2. 18. there is indeed the name of a fleshly mind, which is but a mind deceived and subservient to the flesh, so that the flesh itself, or sensitive interest and appetite are first signified in all or most places, and in some, the Mind as subservient thereto.
§. 4. It is of the greater consequence that this be rightly understood, lest you be tempted to imitate the Libertines, who think the flesh or sensitive part is capable of no moral good or evil, and therefore all its actions being indifferent, we may be indifferent about them, and look only to the superior powers: And others that think that the Scripture by [ flesh ] meaneth only the Rational soul as un • enewed, do thereupon cherish the Flesh itself and pamper it, and feed its unruly lusts, and never do anything to tame the body; but pray daily that God would destroy the flesh within them, that is, their sinful habits of Reason and Will, while they cherish the cause, or neglect a chief part of the cure. And on the contrary, some Papists that look only at the Body as their enemy, are much in fastings, and bodily exercises, while they neglect the mortifying of their carnal minds.
§. 5. II. How far flesh-pleasing is a sin, I shall distinctly open to you in these propositions, 1. The Pleasing or displeasing of the sensitive appetite in itself considered, is neither sin nor duty, good or evil; but as commanded or forbidden by some Law of God; which is not absolutely done.
2. To please the flesh by things forbidden is undoubtedly a sin, and so it is to displease it too: Therefore this is not all that is here meant, that the Matter that pleaseth it must not be things forbidden.
3. To overvalue the Pleasing of the Flesh is a sin: And to prefer it before the Pleasing of God, and the holy preparations for Heaven, is the state of carnality, and ungodliness, and the common cause of the Damnation of souls. The Delight of the Flesh or Senses is a Natural Good; and the natural desire of it in itself (as is said) is neither vice nor virtue: But when this little natural Good is preferred before the Greater Spiritual, Moral or Eternal Good, this is the sin of Carnal minds, which is threatened with death, Rom. 8. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13.
4. To buy the pleasing of the flesh at too dear a rate, as the loss of time, or with care and trouble above its worth, and to be too much set on making provisions to please it, doth show that it is overvalued, and is the sin forbidden, Rom. 13. 14.
5. When any desire of the Flesh is inordinate, immoderate, or irregular for matter, or manner, quantity, quality or season, it is a sin to please that inordinate desire.
6. When Pleasing the flesh doth too much pamper it, and cherish filthy lusts, or any other sin, and is not necessary on some other account, as doing greater good, it is a sin: But if Life require it, lust must be subdued by other means.
7. When pleasing the flesh, doth hurt it, by impairing health, and so making the body less fit for duty, it is a sin: And so almost all intemperance tendeth to breed diseases: And God commandeth Temperance even for the Bodies good.
8. When unnecessary Flesh-pleasing hindereth any duty of Piety, Justice, Charity or self-preservation, in thought, affection, word or deed, it is sinful.
9. It any Pleasing of the Flesh can be imagined to have no tendency directly or indirectly to any moral Good or Evil, it is not the Object of a moral Choosing or Refusing; but like the winking of the eye, which falls not under deliberation, it is not within the compass of morality.
10. Every Pleasing of the flesh, which is capable of being referred to a higher end, and is not so referred, and used, is a sin: And there is scarce anything, which is eligible, which a vacant waking man should deliberate on, but should be referred to a higher end; even to the glory of God, and our salvation; by cheering us up to Love and Thankfulness, and strengthening or fitting us some way for some duty: This is apparently a sin, 1. Because else Flesh-pleasing is made our ultimate end, and the Flesh an Idol, if ever we desire it only for itself, (when it may be referred to a higher end) For though the sensitive Appetite of itself hath no intended end, yet whatsoever the will desireth is either as an End, or as a Means: That which is not desired as a Means to some Higher end, is desired as our ultimate end it •••• , (in that act.) But God only is man's lawful ultimate end. 2. Because it is against an express command, 1 Cor. 10. 31. [ whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God. ] 3. Because else we shall take God's creatures in vain, and cast them away in waste. 4. And we shall lose our own Benefit to which the Creature or Pleasure should be improved. 5. And we shall silence Reason, when it should direct; and we shall suspend the Government of the will, and give the government (so long) to the flesh or brutish appetite: For that faculty ruleth, who object is our end. These reasons clearly prove it a sin to terminate our desires in any act of flesh-pleasing as our end, and look no higher, when it is a matter of moral choice and deliberation.
11. But the sin here is not simply that the flesh is pleased, but that the duty of referring it to a higher end is omitted: so that it is a sin of omission (unless we proceed to refer hetter things as a means to it. )
12. The intending of God's Glory or our spiritual good, cannot be distinctly and sensibly re-acted in every particular pleasure we take, or bit we eat, or thing we use: But a sincere Habitual Intention well laid at first in the Heart, will serve to the right use of many particular Means. As a man purposeth at his first setting out to what place he meaneth to go, and afterward goeth on though at every step, he think not sensibly of his end: so he that devoteth himself to God, and in general designeth all to his Glory, and the furtherance of his duty and salvation, will carry on small particulars to that • nd, by a secret unobserved action of the soul, performed at the same time with other actions, which only are observed. He that intendeth but his health in eating and drinking, is not remembering his health at every bit and cup: and yet hath such a Habit of care and caution, as will unobservedly keep him in his way, and help him to fit the means unto the end. As the accustomed hand of a Musicion can play a Lesson on his Lute, while he thinks of something else; so can a resolved Christian faithfully do such accustomed things as eating and drinking and clothing him and laboring in his calling, to the good ends which he (first actually, and still habitually) resolved on, without a distinct remembrance and observable intention of that end.
13. The body must be kept in that condition (as far as we can) that is fittest for the service of the soul; As you keep your Horse, neither so pampered as to be unruly, nor yet so low as to disable him for travel: But all that health and strength which makes it not unruly, maketh it the more serviceable. It is not the Life of the Body, but the Health and the Cheerfulness which maketh it fit for duty: And so much pleasing of the flesh as tendeth but to its Health and Cheerfulness, is a duty, where it can be done without greater hurt the other way. A heavy body is but a dull and heavy servant to the mind; yea, a great impediment to the soul in duty, and a great temptation to many sins▪ as sickly and melancholy persons, and many dull and phlegmatic people know by sad experience. It is as great a duty to help the Body to its due alacrity and fitness for service, as it is to tame it, and bring it under by fasting and sackcloth when it is proud or lustful. And they that think fasting on certain days, in a formal manner, is acceptable to God, when the state of the body is not helped, but rather hurt and hindered by it, as if it were a thing required for itself, do mistakingly offer a Sacrifice to God, which he requireth not; and take him to be an enemy to man, that desireth his pain and grief, when it tendeth not to his good. A Mower that hath a good Sythe will do more in a day, than another that hath a bad one can do in two: every Workman knoweth the benefit of having his Tools in order: And every Traveler knows the difference between a cheerful and a tired Horse. And they that have tried health and sickness know what a help it is in every work of God, to have a healthful body, and cheerful spirits, and an alacrity and promptitude to obey the mind. When the sights of prospects, and beauteous buildings, and fields, and countries, or the use of walks, or gardens, do tend to raise the soul to holy contemplation, to admire the Creator, and to think of the glory of the life to come (as Bernard used his pleasant walks); this Delight is lawful, if not a duty where it may be had. So when Music doth cheer the mind, and fit it for thanks and praise to God: And when the Rest of the Body, and the use of your best Apparel, and moderate feasting, on the Lord's Day, and other days of Thanksgiving, do promote the spiritual service of the day, they are good and profitable, but to those that are more hindered by fullness, even abstinence on such days is best. So that the use of the body must be judged of as it is a Means or an Expression of the good or evil of the mind.
14. Sometime the present time must be most regarded herein, and sometimes the future. For when some great sin or judgment or other reason calls us to a Fast, when it becomes needful to the ends of that present day, we must do it, though the Body were so weak that it would be somewhat the worse afterward; so be it that the Good which we may expect by it that day, be greater than the good which it is like to deprive us of afterward: otherwise the after loss if greater is more to be avoided.
15. Many things do Remotely fit us for our main end, which nearly and directly seem to have no tendency to it. As those that are only to furnish us with natural strength, and vigor, and alacrity, or to prevent impediments: As a Travelers hood and cloak, and other carriage seem rather to be hindrances to his speed; but yet are necessary for preventing the cold and wet which else might hinder him more: yea, a possible uncertain danger or impediment if great, may be prevented with a certain small impediment. So it is meet that our Bodies be kept in that health and alacrity which is ordinarily necessary to our duty; and in eating and drinking, and lawful recreations, it is not only the next or present duty, which we prepare for, but for the duty which may be very distant.
16. Ordinarily it is safest to be more fearful of excess of fleshly-pleasure, than of defect. For ordinarily we are all very prone to an excess, and also the excess is usually more dangerous. When excess is the Damnation of all or most that ever perish, and Defect is but the Trouble and hindrance, but never or rarely the Damnation of any, it's easy then to see on which side we should be most fearful, cautelous and vigilant.
17. Yet excessive scrupulousness may be a greater sin, and a greater hindrance in the work of God, than some small excesses of flesh-pleasing, which are committed through ignorance or inadvertency. When an honest heart which preferreth God before the Flesh, and is willing to please him though it displease the flesh, shall yet mistake in some small particulars, or commit some daily errors of infirmity or heedlessness, it is a far less hindrance to the main work of Religion, than if that man should daily perplex his mind with scruples, about every bit he eats, whether it be not too pleasing or too much; and about every word he speaks, and every step he goes, as many poor tempted melancholy persons do; thereby disabling themselves, not only to Love, and Praise and Thankfulness, but even all considerable service.
In sum, All pleasing of the senses, or flesh which is lawful must have these qualifications. 1. God's Glory must be the ultimate end. 2. The matter must be lawful, and not forbidden. 3. Therefore it must not be to the hindrance of duty. 4. Nor to the drawing of us to sin. 5. Nor to the hurt of our health. 6. Nor too highly valued, or too dearly bought. 7. The measure must be moderate: where any of these are wanting it is sin: And where flesh-pleasing is Habitually in the bent of Heart and Life preferred before the Pleasing of God it proves the soul in captivity to the flesh and in a damnable condition.
§. 6. III. I am next to show you the evil or malignity of predominant Flesh-pleasing: For if the greatness of the sin were known, it would contribute much to the cure. And, 1. Understand that it is the sin of sins; the end of all sin, and therefore the very sum and Life of all. All the evil wicked men commit, is ultimately to please the flesh: The love of flesh-pleasing is the cause of all. Pride and Covetousness, and Whoredom, and wantonness, and gluttony and drunkenness, and all the rest are but either the immediate works of sensuality and Flesh-pleasing, or the distant service of it, by laying in provision for it: And all the malicious enmity and opposition to God and Godliness is from hence, because they cross the interest and desires of the flesh: The final cause is it for which men invent and use all the Means that tend to it. Therefore all other sin being nothing but the means for the pleasing of our fleshly appetites and fancies, its evident that flesh-pleasing is the common cause of them all, and is to all other sin as the spring is to the watch, or the poise to the clock; the weight which giveth them all their motion. Cure this sin and you have taken off the poise, and cur • d all the positite sins of the soul: Though the privative sins would be still uncured, if there were no more done; B • cause that which makes the clock stand still, is not enough to make it go right: But indeed nothing but the Love of Pleasing God, can truly cure the Love of flesh-pleasing: and such a cure is the cure of every sin, both positive and privative, active and defective.
§. 7. 2. Flesh-pleasing is the Grand Idolatry of the world: and the Flesh the greatest Idol that ever w • s set up against God. Therefore Paul saith of sensual worldlings, that their Belly is their God, and thence it is that they mind earthly things, and glory in their shame, and are enemies to the cross of Christ, that is to sufferings for Christ, and the doctrine and duties which would cause their sufferings. That is a man's God which he taketh for his chief Good, and Loveth best, and trusteth in most, and is most desirous to please: And this is the flesh to every sensualist: He loveth pleasure more than God▪ 2 Tim. 3. 2, 4. He savoreth or mindeth the things of the flesh, and liveth to it and walketh after it: Rom. 8. 1, 5, 6. 7. 8. 13. He maketh provision for it to satisfy its appetite or lusts, Rom. 13. 14. H soweth to the flesh; Gal. 6. 8. and fullfilleth his lust, when it lusteth against the spirit, Gal. 5. 16▪ 17. And thus while concupiscence or sensuality hath dominion, sin is said to have dominion over them, and they are servants to it, Rom. 6. 14, 20. For to whom men yield themselves servants to obey, his servants they are whom they serve or obey: Rom. 6. 16. It is not bowing the knee and praying to another; that is the chief Idolatry: As Loving, and Pleasing, and Obeying, and Trusting, and Seeking, and Delighting in him, are the chiefest parts of the service of God, which he preferreth before a thousand sacrifices or complements: So Loving the flesh, and Pleasing it, and Obeying it, and Trusting in it, and Seeking, and Delighting in its pleasures, are the chief service of the Flesh; and more than if you offered sacrifice to it, and therefore is the Grand Idolatry: And so the flesh is the great enemy of God, which hath the chiefest Love and Service which is due to him, and robs him of the Hearts of all mankind that are carnal and unsanctified. All the Baals, and Jupiter's, and Apolloes and other Idols of the world, set together have not so much of the Love and Service due to God, as the Flesh alone hath. If other things be Idolized by the sensualist, it is but as they subserve his flesh, and therefore they are made but inferior Id • ls: He may Idolize his wealth, and Idolize men in power and worldly greatness; but it is but as they can help or hurt his Flesh: This hath his Heart: By the interest of the flesh, he judgeth of his condition; by this he judgeth of his friends: By this he chooseth his actions or refuseth them; and by this he measureth the words and actions of all others. He takes all for Good which pleaseth his Flesh, and all for bad that is against his pleasure.
§. 8. 3. The flesh is not only the common Idol, but the most devouring Idol in all the world. It hath not, as subservient flattered Idol • have, only a knee and complement, or now and then a sacrifice or ceremony; but it hath the heart, the tongue, the body to serve it; the whole estate, the service of friends, the use of wit and utmost diligence; in a word, it hath All. It is loved and served by the sensualist, as God should be loved and served by his own, even with all the Heart, and Soul and Might: They honor it with their substance and the first fruits of their increase. It is as faithfully served as Christ requireth to be of his disciples: Men will part with Father and Mother and Brother and Sister and nearest friends, and all that is against it, for the pleasing of their flesh: Nay Christ required men to part with no greater matter for him than transitory earthly things, which they must shortly part with whether they will or no: but they do for the flesh ten thousand thousand fold more than ever they were required to do for Christ: They forsake God for it. They forsake Christ and Heaven and their Salvation for it: They forsake all the solid comforts o • this life, and all the joys of the life to come for it. They sell all that they have and lay down the price at its feet: Yea more than all they have, even all their Hopes of what they might have to all eternity: They suffer a martyrdom in the flames of Hell forever, for their flesh: All the pains they take is • or •• : All the wrong they do to others; and all the stirs and ruins that they make in the world, is for it: And all the time they spend is for it; and had they a thousand years more to live they would spend it all accordingly: If anything seem excepted for God, it is but the bones, or crumbs, or leavings of the flesh: Or rather its nothing: For God hath not indeed the hours which he seems to have: He hath but a few fair words and complements, when the flesh hath their hearts in the midst of their hypocritical worship, and on his holy day: And they serve him but as the Indians serve the Devil, that he may serve their turns, and do them no hurt.
§. 9. 4. How base an Idol is the Flesh? If all the derision used by Elijah and the Prophets against the Heathenish Idolatry, be due, is not as much due against the Idolatry of all the sensual? Is it so great a madness to serve an Idol of silver, or gold, or stone, or wood? What better is it to serve an Idol of flesh and blood? A paunch of gutts? That's full of filth and excrements within, and the skin itself, the cleanest part, is ashamed to be uncovered? We may say to the Carnal worldling as Elijah to the Baalists, and more▪ Call upon your God in the hour of your distress: Cry aloud: Perhaps he is asleep, or he is blowing his nose, or vomiting or purging; Certainly he will be shortly rotting in the grave, more loathsome than the dirt or dung upon the earth: And is this a God to sacrifice all that we can get to? And to give all our time and care and labor, and our souls and all to? O judge of this Idolatry •• God will make you judge at last!
§. 10. 5. And here next consider, how impious and horrid an abasement it is of the eternal God, to prefer so vile a thing before him? And whether every ungodly sensual man, be not a constant practical Blaspheamer? What dost thou but say continually by thy practice, [This dunghill, nasty flesh is to be preferred before God: to be more loved and obeyed and served! It deserveth more of my time than he: It is more worthy of my delight and love.] God will be judge, (and judge in righteousness ere long) whether this be not the daily language of thy life, though thy tongue be taught some better manners? And whether this be Blasphemy judge thyself. Whether thou judge God or the flesh more worthy to be pleased, and which thou thinkest it better to please, ask thy own heart, when Cards, and Dice, and Eating, and Drinking, and Gallantry, and Idleness, and Greatness, and Abundance, do all seem so sweet unto thee, in comparison of thy thoughts of God, and his holy word and service! And when morning and night, and whenever thou art alone, those thoughts can run out with unweariedness or pleasure, upon these provisions for thy flesh, which thou canst hardly force to look up unto God, a quarter of an hour, though with unwillingness.
§. 11. 6. Think also what a contempt of Heaven it is, to prefer the pleasing of the flesh before it. There is but two ends which all men aim at; the pleasing of the flesh on earth, or the enjoying of God in Heaven (unless any be deluded to think that he shall have a sensual life hereafter too, as well as here): And these two stand one against the other: And he that sets up one, doth renounce (or as good as renounce) the other: If ye sow to the flesh, of the flesh ye shall reap corruption: But if ye sow to the spirit, of the spirit ye shall reap everlasting life. Gal. 6. 8. Your wealth, and honor, and sports, and pleasures, and appetites are put in the scales against Heaven, and all the Joys and Hopes hereafter, (To say you hope to have them both, is the cheat of infidelity, that believes not God) And is not Heaven most basely esteemed of by those, that prefer so base a thing before it?
§. 12. 7. Remember that flesh-pleasing is a great contempt and treachery against the soul. It is a great contempt of an immortal soul, to prefer its corruptible flesh before it, and to make its servant to become its master; and to ride on horseback, while it goes, as it were, on foot: Is the flesh worthy of so much time and cost and care, and so much ado as is made for it in the world, and is not a never dying soul worth more? Nay it is a betraying of the soul: You set up its enemy before it; and put its safety into an enemies hands: And you cast away all its Joys and Hopes for the gratifying of the flesh. Might it not complain of your cruelty and say, Must my endless happiness be sold to purchase so short a pleasure for your flesh? Must I be undone forever, and lie in Hell, that it may be satisfied for a little time? But why talk I of the souls complaint? Alas it is itself that it must complain of! For it is its own doing! It hath its choice: The flesh can but tempt it, and not constrain it: God hath put the chief power and government into its hands: If it will sell its own eternal hopes, to pamper worms meat, it must speed accordingly. You would not think very honourably of that man's wit or honesty, who would sell the patrimony of all his children, and all his friends that trusted him therewith, and after sell their persons into slavery, and all this to purchase him a delicious feast, with sports and gallantry for a day! And is he wiser or better that selleth (in effect) the inheritance of his soul, and betrayeth it to Hell and Devils, forever, and all this to purchase the fleshly pleasure of so short a life?
§. 12. 8. Remember what a Beastly life it is, to be a sensualist. It is an unmanning of yourselves. Sensual pleasures are brutish pleasures: Beasts have them as well as men. We have the higher faculty of reason, to subdue and rule the beastly part: And Reason is the Man; and hath a higher kind of felicity to delight in: Do you think that Man is made for no higher matters than a Beast? And that you have not a more noble object for your delight than your Swine or Dog hath, who have the pleasure of meat, and lust, and play, and ease, and fancy as well as you? Certainly where sensual pleasures are preferred, before the higher pleasures of the soul, that man becomes a Beast or worse, subjecting his Reason to his brutish part.
§. 13. 9. Think what an inconsiderable pitiful felicity, it is that fleshly persons choose: How small and short as well as sordid. O how quickly will the game be ended? And the delights of boiling lust be gone? How quickly will the drink be past their throats, and their delicate dishes be turned into filth? How short is the sport and laughter of the fool? And how quickly will that face be the index of a pained body, or a grieved self-tormenting mind? It is but a few days till all their stately greatness will be levelled; and the most adorned pampered flesh will have no more to show, of all the pleasure which was so dearly bought, than a Lazarus, or the most mortified saint. A few days will turn their pleasure into anguish, and their jollity into groans, and their ostentation into lamentation, and all their glory into shame. As every moment puts an end to all the pleasures of their lives thats past, and it is now to them as if it had never been; so the last moment is at hand, which will end the little that remains. And then the sinner will with groans confess, that he hath made a miserable choice, and that he might have had a more durable pleasure if he had been wise. When the skull is cast up with the spade, to make room for a successor, you may see the hole where all the meat and drink went in, and the hideous seat of that face which sometime was the discovery of wantonness, pride and scorn: but you will see no signs of mirth or pleasure.
§. 14. 10. Lastly consider, that there is scarce a sin in the world more inexcusable than this. The flesh-pleaser seeth the end of all his sensual delights, in the faces of the sick, and in the corps that are daily carried to the earth; and in the graves, and bones, and dust of those that sometime had as merry a life as he: His reason can say, all this is gone with them, and is as if it had never been; and so it will shortly be with me. He knoweth that all the pleasure of his life past, is now of no value to himself. His warnings are constant, close and sensible: And therefore he hath the greater sin.
§. 15. IV. Object. 1. What hurt is it to God, or any one else, that I please my flesh? I will not believe that a thing so harmless will displease him. Answ. Mecr • y as it is Pleasure, it hath no hurt in it: But as it is inordinate or immoderate pleasure; or as it is overloved, and preferred before God and your salvation; or as it is greater than your delight in God; or as it wants its proper end, and is loved merely for itself, and not used as a means to higher things; and as it is made a hindrance to the soul, and to spiritual pleasure, and the service of God; and as it is the brutish delight of an ungoverned rebellious appetite, that mastereth reason, and is not under obedience to God. Though sin can do God no hurt, it can do you hurt, and it can do him wrong: I think I have shown you what hurt and poison is in it already: It is the very rebellion of corrupted nature: The turning of all things upside down: The taking down God, and Heaven, and Reason, and destroying the use of all the creatures, and setting up Flesh-pleasing instead of all, and making a Bruit your God and Governor. And do you ask what harm there is in this? So will your child do, when he desireth any play, or pleasure: and the sick when they desire to please their appetite. But your Father, and Physician, and Reason, and not Brutish Appetite must be Judge.
§. 16. Object. 2. But I feel it is natural to me, and therefore can be no sin. Answ. 1. The inordinate, violent unruly appetite is no otherwise Natural to you, than as a leprosy is to a leprous generation: And will you love your disease, because it is natural? It is no otherwise Natural, than it is to be malicious, and revengeful, and to disobey your Governors, and abuse your neighbors: And yet I think they will not judge you innocent, for rebellion or abuse, because its natural to you. 2. Though the Appetite be natural, is not Reason to Rule it as natural to you? And is not the subjection of the Appetite to Reason natural? If it be not, you have lost the nature of man, and are Metamorphosed into the nature of a Beast. God gave you a higher nature to govern your appetite and lower nature: And though Reason cannot take away your Appetite, it can rule it and keep you from fulfilling it, in any thing or measure thats unmeet.
§. 17. Object. 3. But it appeareth by the case of Eve, that the Appetite was the same in innocence: therefore it is no sin. Answ. You must not forget the difference between 1. The Appetite itself: 2. The violence and unruly disposition of the appetite: 3. And the actual obeying and pleasing of the appetite. The first (the Appetite itself ) was in innocence, and is yet no sin: But the other two (the violence of it, and the obeying it) were not in innocence, and are both sinful.
§. 18. Object. 4. But why would God give innocent man an Appetite that must be crossed by Reason? and that desired that which Reason must forbid? Answ. The sensitive nature is in order of generation before the Rational: And Reason and God's Laws do not make sense to be no sense. You may as well ask, why God would make Beasts which must be restrained and ruled by men? and therefore have a desire to that which man must restrain them from? You do but ask, Why God made us men and not Angels? Why he placed our souls in flesh? He oweth you no account of his creation: But you may see its meet that Obedience should have some trial by difficulties and opposition, before it have its commendation and reward: He gave you a Body that was subject to the soul; as the Horse unto the rider; and you should admire his Wisdom, and thank him for the governing-power of Reason; and not murmur at him, because the Horse will not go as well without the guidance of the rider, or because he maketh you not able to go as fast and well on foot. So much for the Sensualists Objections.
§. 19. V. The signs of a Flesh-pleaser or Sensualist are these, (which may be gathered from what is said already) 1. When a man in desire to please his appetite, referreth it not (actually or habitually) to a higher end, viz. the fitting himself to the service of God; but sticketh only in the delight. 2. When he looks more desirously and industriously after the prosperity of his Body, than of his Soul. 3. When he will not part with, or forbear his pleasures when God forbiddeth them, or when they hurt his soul, or when the necessities of his soul, do call him more loudly another way: But he must have his delight whatever it cost him, and is so set upon it, that he cannot deny it to himself. 4. When the pleasures of his flesh, exceed his delights in God, and his holy Word and Ways, and the fore-thoughts of endless pleasure; and this not only in the passion, but in the estimation, choice and prosecution. When he had rather be at a Play, or Feast, or Gaming, or getting good bargains or profits in the world, than to live in the life of faith, and love, a holy and heavenly conversation. 5. When men set their minds to contrive and study to make provision for the pleasures of the flesh; and this is first and sweetest in their thoughts. 6. When they had rather talk, or hear, or read of fleshly pleasures, than of spiritual and heavenly delights. 7. When they love the company of merry sensualists, better than the Communion of Saints, in which they may be exercised in the praises of their Maker. 8. When they account that the best calling and condition, and place for them to live in, where they have the pleasure of the flesh, where they have ease, and fare well and want nothing for the body, rather than that where they have far better help and provision for the soul, though the flesh be pinched for it. 9. When he will be at more cost to please his flesh, than to please God. 10. When he will believe or like no Doctrine but Libertinism, and hateth mortification as too strict preciseness. By these and such other signs, sensuality may easily be known: Yea, by the main bent of the life.
§. 20 VI. Many flesh-pleasers flatter themselves with better titles, being deceived by such means as these. 1. Because they are against the doctrine of Libertinism, and hold as strict opinions as any. But flesh-pleasing may stand with the doctrine of mortification, and the strictest opinions, as long as they are not put in practice.
2. Because they live not in any gross disgraced vice: They go not to Stage-plays, or unseasonably to Ale-houses or Taverns; they are not drunken, nor gamesters, nor spend not their hours in unnecessary recreations or pastimes: They are no fornicators, nor wallow in wealth. But the flesh may be pleased and served in a way that hath no disgrace accompanying it in the world: May not a man make his ease, or his prosperity, or the pleasing of his appetite without any infamous excesses, to be as much his felicity and highest end, and that which practically he taketh for his Best, as well as if he did it in a shameful way? Is not many a man a gluttonous flesh-pleaser, that maketh his delight the highest end of all his eating and drinking; and pleaseth his appetite without any restraint, but what his health and reputation put upon him, though he eat not till he vomit or be sick? Even the flesh itself may forbid a sensualist to be drunk, or to eat till he be sick. For sickness and shame are displeasing to the flesh. Many a man covereth a life of sensuality, not only with a seeming temperance, unreproved of men, but also with a seeming strictness and austerity. But conscience might tell them, where they have their good things.
3. Some think they are no sensual flesh-pleasers, because they live in constant misery, in poverty and want, laboring hard for their daily bread; and therefore they hope that they are the Lazarus 's that have their sufferings here: But is not all this against thy Will? Wouldst thou not fare as well as the rich, and live as idly, and take thy pleasure, if thou hadst as much as they? What thou wouldst do, that thou dost in God's account. It is thy will that thou shalt be judged by. A Thief doth not become a true man when the Prison or Stocks do hinder him from stealing, but when a changed heart doth hinder him.
4. Others think that they are no flesh-pleasers, because their wealth, and places, and degrees of honor allow them to live high in diet and delights. Its like the Rich man, Luke 16. who was clothed with purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, did live upon his own, and as he thought agreeably to his rank and place: And the fool, Luke 12. 19, 20. that said, Soul take thy ease, eat, drink and be merry, did intend to please himself but with his own, which God had given him as a blessing on his land and labor. But no man's Riches allow him to be voluptuous: The commands of taming and mortifying the flesh, and not living after it, nor making provision for it, to satisfy it lusts, belong as much to the rich as to the poor: Though you are not to live in the same garb with the poor, you are as much bound to mortification and self-denial as the poorest. If you are Richer than others, you have more to serve God with, but not more than others to serve the flesh with. If poverty deny them anything which might better enable their bodies or minds to serve God, you may so far go beyond them, and use with thankfulness the mercies given you: But you must no more be flesh-pleasers than they.
5. And some deceive themselves by interposing sometimes a formal fast, as the fleshly Pharisee that fasted twice a week, Luke 18. 12. and then they think that they are no sensualists. I speak not of the Popish fasting with Fish and Delicates, (this is not so much as a show of mortification) But what if you really fast as oft as the Pharisees did, and quarrel with Christ's Disciples for not fasting, Matth. 9. 14, 15. Will not a sensualist do as much as this, if his Physician require it for his health? If the scope of your lives be fleshly, it is not the interruption of a formal fast, that will acquit you; which perhaps doth but quicken your appetite to the next meal.
§. 21. VII. Yet many are wrongfully taken by others (if not by themselves) to be sensual by such mistakes as these. 1. Because they live not as meanly and scantly as the poor who want things necessary or helpful to their duty: But by that rule I must not be well, because other men are sick; or I must not go apace, because the lame can go but slowly! If poor men have bad Horses, I may ride on the best I can get, to dispatch my business, and redeem my time, so I prefer not costly useless ostentation, before true serviceableness. 2. Others are accused as sensual, because the weakness of their bodies requireth a more tender usage, and diet, than healthful men's: some bodies are unfitter for duty if they fast: And some are useless through sickness and infirmities, if they be not used with very great care. And it is as truly a duty to cherish a weak body to enable it for God service, as to tame an unruly lustful body, and keep it from offending him. 3. Some Melancholy conscientious persons are still accusing themselves through mere scrupulosity; questioning almost all they eat; or drink, or wear, or do, whether it be not too much, or too pleasing: But it is a cheerful sobriety that God requireth, which neither pampereth the body, nor yet disableth or hindereth it from its duty, and not an unprofitable wrangling scrupulosity.
§. 22. Direct. 1. The first and Grand Direction against Flesh-pleasing, is, that you be sure by a serious living faith to see the Better things with God; and to be heartily taken up in minding, loving, seeking and securing them. All the other directions are but subservient to this: For certainly man's soul will not be idle, being a living active principle: And its as certain, that it will not act but upon some End, or for some End. And there are no other Ends to take us up, but either the things temporal or eternal: And therefore there is no true cure for a sensual Love of temporal things, but to turn the heart to things eternal. Believingly think first of the certainty, greatness and eternity of the Ioyes above: and then think that these may more certainly be yours, than any worldly Riches or delights, if you do not contemptuously reject them: And then think that this is the time in which you must make sure of them and win them, if ever you will possess them; and that you are sent into the world of purpose on this business: And then think with yourselves, how fleshly pleasures are the only competitors with the everlasting pleasures; and that if ever you lose them, it will be by over-loving these transitory things, and that one half of your work for your salvation lieth in killing your affections to all below, that they may be alive to God alone: And lastly, think how much higher and sweeter pleasures even in this life, the godly do enjoy than you; and you are losing them while you prefer these fordid pleasures. Do you think that a true Believer hath not a more excellent delight in his fore-thoughts of his immortal blessedness with Christ, and in the assurance of the Love of God, and communion with him in his holy service, than you or any sensualist hath in fl • shly pleasures. Sober and serious Meditation on these things, will turn the mind to the true delights.
§. 23. Direct. 2. Be acquainted with the range of sensual desires, and follow them, and watch them in all th • ir extravagancies. Otherwise while you are stopping one gap, they will be running out at many more. I have given you many instances in my Treatise of Self-denial. I will here briefly set some before your eyes:
- 1. W •• ch your Appetites as to meat and drink, both quantity and quality: Gluttony is a common un • bs • rv •• sin: The flesh no way enslaves men more than by the appetite: As we see in Drunkards and Gluttons, that can no more forbear, than one that thirsteth in a burning Feavor.
- 2. Take heed of the Lust of uncleanness, and all degrees of it, and approaches to it: especially immodest embraces and behavior.
- 3. Take heed of ribald filthy talk, and Love Songs, and of such incensing snares.
- 4. Take heed of too much sleep and Idleness.
- 5. Take heed of taking too much delight in your Riches, and lands, your buildings, and delectable conv • niences.
- 6. Take heed lest Honors or worldly Greatness, or men's applause become your too great pleasure.
- 7. And lest you grow to make it your delight, to think on such things when you are alone, or talk •••• y of them in company with others.
- 8. And take heed lest the success and pro • perity of your affairs do too much please you, as him, Luke 12. 20
- 9. Take not up any inordinate pleasure in your children, relations, or nearest friends.
- 10. Take heed of a delight in vain, •• profitable, sinful company.
- 11. Or in fineness of apparel, to set you out to the eyes of others.
- 12. Take heed of a delight in Romances, Play-books, feigned stories, useless news, which corrupt the mind, and waste your time.
- 13. Take heed of a delight in any recreations, which are excessive, needless, devouring time, discomposing the mind, enticing to further sin, hindering any duty, especially our delight in God. They are miserable souls that can delight themselves in no more safe or profitable things, than Cards, and Dice, and Stage-plays, and immodest dancings.
§. 24. Direct. 3. Next to the universal Remedy mentioned in the first Direction, see that you have the particular remedies still at hand, which your own particular way of flesh-pleasing doth most require. And let not the love of your vanity prejudice you against a just information, but impartially consider of the diseas • and the remedy. Of the p •• ticul • rs anon.
§. 25. Direct. 4. Remember still that Go • would • ive y • u more pleasure, and not less, and that he will give you as much of the • elights of sense, as is truly good for you, so you will take them in their place, in subordination to your heavenly delights. And is not this to increase and multiply your pleasure? Is not health, and friends, and food and convenient habitation much sweeter as the • ruit of the Love of God, and the fore-tastes of everlasting mercies, and as our helps to Heaven, and as the means to spiritual comfort, than of themselves alone? All your mercies are from God: He would take n • ne from you, but sanctify the • ▪ and give you more.
§. 26. Direct. 5. See that Reason keep up its authority, as the Governor of sense and appetite: And so take an accoun • , what • ver the Appetite would have, of the Ends and Reasons of the thing, and to what it doth c •• duce. Take nothing and do nothing merely because the sense or appetite would have it; but because you have Reason so •• do, and to gratify the appetite. Else you will deal as Brutes, if Reason be laid by (in human acts).
§. 27. Direct. 6. Go to the G • ave, and see there the end of fleshly pleasure, and what is all that it will do for you at the last. One would think i • should cure the mad desire of plenty and pleasure, to see where all our wealth, and mirth, and sport, and pleasure must be buried at last.
§. 28. Direct. 7. Lastly, be still sensible that flesh is the grand Enemy of your souls, and flesh-pleasing the greatest hindrance of your salvation. The Devils enmity and the worlds are both but subordinate to this of the Flesh: For its Pleasure is the End, and the world and Satan's temptations are both but the means to attain it. Besides the malignity opened before, consider,
- 1. How contrary a voluptuous life is to the blessed example of our Lord; and of his servant Paul and all the Apostles? Paul tamed his body and brought it into subjection, left having preached to others, himself should be a castaway, 1 Cor. 9. 27. And all that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. Gal. 5. 24. This was signified in the ancient manner of baptizing, (and so is still by Baptism itself); when they went over head in the water and then rose out of it, to signify that they were dead and buried with Christ, Rom. 6. 3, 4. and rose with him to newness of life: This is called our being Baptized into his death: And seems the plain sense of 1 Cor. 15. 29. of being Baptized for the dead, that is, for dead; or to show that we are dead to the world, and must die in the world, but shall rise again to the Kingdom of Christ, both of Grace and Glory.
- 2. Sensuality showeth that there is no true belief of the life to come, and proveth so far as it prevaileth the absence of all grace.
- 3. It is a home-bred continual traitor to the soul: A continual tempter, and nurse of all sin: The great withdrawer of the heart from God: and the common cause of Apostasy itself: It still fighteth against the Spirit: Gal. 5. 17. And is seeking advantage from all our Liberties, Gal. 5. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 10.
- 4. It turneth all our outward mercies into sin, and strengtheneth itself against God by his own benefits.
- 5. It is the great cause of our afflictions: For God will not spare that Idol which is set up against him: Flesh rebelleth, and flesh shall suffer.
- 6. And when it hath brought affliction, it is most impatient under it, and maketh it seem intolerable. A flesh-pleaser thinks he is undone, when affliction depriveth him of his pleasure.
- 7. Lastly, It exceedingly unfitteth men for Death: For then Flesh must be cast into the dust, and all its pleasure be at an end: O doleful day to those that had their good things here, and their portion in this life! When all is gone that ever they valued and sought; and all the true felicity lost, which they brutishly contemned? If you would joyfully then bear the dissolution and ruin of your flesh, O master it, and mortify it now. Seek not the ease and pleasure of a little walking breathing clay, when you should be seeking and fore-tasting the everlasting pleasure. Here lieth your danger and your work: Strive more against your own flesh, than against all your Enemies in Earth and Hell: If you be saved from this, you are saved from them all. Christ suffered in the flesh, to tell you that it is not pampering, but suffering that your flesh must expect, if you will reign with him.
PART I. Directions against UNBELIEF.
§. 1. I Know that most poor troubled Christians, when they complain of the sin of Unbelief, do mean by it, their not Believing that they are sincere believers, and personally justified, and shall be saved. And I know that some Divines have affirmed, that the sense of that Article of the Creed [ I believe the Remission of sins ] is [ I believe my sins are actually forgiven. ] But the truth is, to believe that I am elect or justified, or that my sins are forgiven, or that I am a sincere Believer, is not to Believe any word of God at all: For no word of God doth say any of these; nor anything equivalent; nor anything out of which it can be gathered: For it is a Rational Conclusion; and one of the premises which do infer it, must be found in myself by reflection; or internal sense and selfknowledge: The Scripture only saith [ He that truly believeth is justified, and shall be saved. ] But it is Conscience, and not Belief of Scripture, which must say, [ I do sincerely believe ] Therefore the Conclusion [ that I am justified, and shall be saved ] is a Rational Collection from what I find in Scripture and in myself, set together; and resulting from both, can be no firmer or surer than is the weaker of the premises: Now Certainty is objective or subjective: in the Thing, or in my Apprehension: As to Objective Certainty in the thing itself, all truths are equally true: But all Truths are not equally discernible; there being much more cause of doubting concerning some (which are less evident) than concerning others (which are more evident). And so the Truth of God's promise of Justification to believers, is more certain, that is, hath fuller surer Evidence to be discerned by, than the Truth of my sincere believing: And [ that I sincerely believe ] is the more Debile of the premises, and therefore the conclusion followeth this in its Debility: And so can be no article of faith. And as to the subjective Certainty, that varyeth according to men's various apprehensions. The premises as in their evidence or aptitude to ascertain us, are the cause of the Conclusion as evident, or knowable. And the premises as apprehended are the Cause of the Conclusion as known.
Now it is a great doubt with some, Whether a man can possibly be more certain that he believeth, than he is that the thing believed is true; because the act can extend no further than the object; and to be sure I believe, is but to be sure that I take the thing believed to be true: But I shall grant the contrary, that a man may possibly be surer that he believeth, than he is that the thing believed is true; because my believing is not always a full subjective certainty, that the thing is true, but a believing that its true. And though you are fully certain that all God's word is true, yet you may believe that this is his word with some mixture of unbelief or doubting: And so the question is but this, Whether you may not certainly without doubting know, that you Believe the Word of God to be true, though with some doubting. And it seems you may. But then it is a further question, Whether you can be surer of the saving sincerity of your faith, than you are that this Word of God is true: And that ordinarily men doubt of the first as much as they doubt of the later, I think is an experimented truth. But yet grant that with some it may be otherwise (Because he believeth sincerely, that so far believeth the Word of God, as to trust his life and soul upon it, and forsake all in obedience to it: And that I do so, I may know with less doubting, than I yet have about the Truth of the Word so believed) All that will follow is but this, That of those men that doubt of their Justification and Salvation; some of their doubts are caused more by their doubting of God's Word, than by the doubting whether they sincerely though doubtingly believe it: and the doubts of others whether they are justified and shall be saved, is caused much more by their doubting of their own sincere belief, than by their doubting of the truth of Scriptures. And the far greatest number of Christians seem to themselves to be of this later sort. For no doubt, but though a man of clear understanding can scarcely believe, and yet not know that he believeth; yet he may believe sincerely, and not know that he believeth sincerely. But still the knowledge of our own justification, is but the effect or progeny of our Belief of the Word of God, and of our Knowledge that we do sincerely believe it, which conjunctly are the Parents and Causes of it: And it can be no stronger than the weaker of the Parents, (which in esse cognoscibili is our faith, but in esse cognito is sometime the one, and sometime the other.) And the effect is not the cause: The effect of faith and knowledge conjunct, is not faith itself. It is not a Believing the Word of God, to believe that you believe, or that you are Justified: But yet because that faith is one of the Parents of it, some call it by the name of faith; though they should call it but an effect of faith (as one of the causes.) And well may our doubtings of our own salvation, be said to be from Unbelief, because Unbelief is one of the Causes of them, and the sinfullest Cause.
§. 2. And that the Article of Remission of sin is to be Believed with application to ourselves, is certain: But not with the application of Assurance, Perswasion or Belief that we are already pardoned: but with an applying Acceptance of an offered pardon, and Consent to the Covenant which maketh it ours. We believe that Christ hath purchased Remission of sin, and made a Conditional Grant of it in his Gospel, to all, viz. if they will Repent, and Believe in him, or take him for their Savior, or become Penitent Christians: And we consent to do so, and to accept it on these terms: And we believe that all are actually pardoned that thus consent.
§. 3. By all this you may perceive, that those troubled Christians which doubt not of the truth of the Word of God, but only of their own sincerity, and consequently of their Justification and Salvation, do ignorantly complain that they have not faith, or that they cannot believe: For it is no act of unbelief at all, for me to doubt whether my own heart be sincere: This is my ignorance of myself, but it is not any degree of unbelief: For God's Word doth nowhere say that I am sincere: and therefore I may doubt of this, without doubting of God's Word at all. And let all troubled Christians know, that they have no more unbelief in them, than they have doubting or unbelief of the truth of the Word of God: Even that despair itself, which hath none of this in it, hath no unbelief in it (i • there be any such): I thought it needful thus far to tell you what unbelief is, before I come to give you Directions against it: And though the mere doubting of our own sincerity be no unbelief at all, yet real unbelief of the very truth of the Holy Scriptures, is so common and dangerous a sin, and some degree of it is latent in the best, that I think we can no way so much further the work of Grace, as by destroying this: The weakness of our faith in the truth of Scriptures, and the remnant of our unbelief of it, is the principal cause of all the languishings of our Love and Obedience and every Grace; and to strengthen faith, is to strengthen all. What I have • ullier written in my Saints Rest, Part 2. and my Treatise against Infidelity I here suppose.
§. 4. Direct. 1. Consider well how much of Religion Nature itself teacheth, and Reason (without supernatural Revelation) must needs confess: (as that there is another life which man was made for, and that he is obliged to the fullest Love and Obedience to God, and the rest before laid down in the Introduction: ) And then observe how congruously the doctrine of Christ comes in, to help where Nature is at a loss; and how exactly it suits with Natural Truths, and how clearly it explaineth them, and fully containeth so much of them as are necessary to salvation: and how suitable and proper a means it is to attain their Ends, and how great a testimony the Doctrines of Nature and Grace do give unto each other.
§. 5. Direct. 2. Consider that man's End being in the life to come, and God being the righteous and merciful Governor of man in order to that End, it must needs be that God will give him sufficient means to know his will in order to that end: And that the clearest fullest means must needs demonstrate most of the Government and Mercy of God.
§. 6. Direct. 3. Consider what full and sad experience the world hath of its pravity and great corruption; and that the natural tendency of Reason is to those high and excellent things, which corruption and bruitishness do almost extinguish or cast out with the most: and that the prevalency of the lower-faculties against right Reason is so lamentable and universal to the confusion of the world, that it is enough to tell us that this is not the state that God first made us in, and that certainly sin hath sullied and disordered his work. The wickedness of the world is a great confirmation of the Scripture.
§. 7. Direct. 4. Consider how exactly the Doctrine of the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is suited to the lapsed state of man: even as the Law of Works was suited to his state of innocence: so that the Gospel may be called the Law of Lapsed Nature as suited to it, (though not as revealed by it) as the other was the Law of Entire Nature.
§. 8. Direct. 5. Compare the many Prophecies of Christ with the fulfilling of them in his person. As that of Moses recited by Stephen, Acts 7. 37. & Isa. 53. & Dan. 9. 24, 25, 26, &c. And consider that those Jews which are the Christians bitterest enemies, acknowledge and preserve those Prophecies, and all the Old Testament, which giveth so full a testimony to the New.
§. 9. Direct. 6. Consider what an admirable suitableness there is in the Doctrine of Christ to the relish of a serious heavenly mind: and how all that is spiritual and truly good in us, doth close with it and embrace it from a certain congruity of Natures, as the eye doth with the light, and the stomach with its proper food. Every good man in reading the Holy Scripture, feeleth something (even all that's good ) within him, bear witness to it. And only our worser part is quarrelling with it, and rebels against it.
§. 10. Direct. 7. Consider how all the first Churches were planted by the success of all those Miracles mentioned in the Scripture. And that the Apostles and thousands of others saw the Miracles of Christ; and the Churches saw the Miracles of the Apostles, and heard them speak in Languages unlearnt: and had the same extraordinary gifts communicated to themselves. And these being openly and frequently manifested, convinced unbelievers: and were openly urged by the Apostles to stop the mouths of opposers, and confirm believers; who would all have scorned his arguments, and the faith which they supported, if all these had been fictions, of which they themselves were said to be eye-witnesses and agents. So that the very existence of the Churches, was a testimony to the matter of fact. And what testimony can be greater of God's interest and approbation, than Christ's Resurrection and all these miracles?
§. 11. Direct. 8. Consider how no one of all the Heretics or Apostates, did ever contradict the matters of fact, or hath left the world any kind of confutation of them, which they wanted not malice or encouragement, or opportunity to have done.
§. 12. Direct. 9. Consider how that no one of all those thousands that asserted these miracles are ever mentioned in any history as repenting of it, either in their health, or at the hour of death: whereas it had been so heinous a villainy to have cheated the world in so great a cause, that some consciences of dying men, especially of men, that placed all their hopes in the life to come, must needs have repented of.
§. 13. Direct. 10. Consider that the witnesses of all these Miracles, and all the Churches, that believed them, were taught by their own doctrine and experience, t • forsake all that they had in the world, and to be reproached, hated and persecuted of all men, and to be as lambs among wolves, in expectation of death; and all this for the hope of that blessedness promised them by a Crucified, Risen Christ. So that no worldly end could move them to deceive or willingly to be deceived.
§. 14. Direct. 11. Consider how impossible it is in itself, that so many men should agree together to deceive the world and that for nothing, and at the rate of their own undoing and death: and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously. And that none of these should ever confess the deceit and disgrace the rest. All things well considered, this will appear not only a Moral but a Natural impossibility: Especially considering their quality and distance, there being thousands in several countries, that never saw the faces of the rest, much less could enter a confederacy with them, to deceive the world.
§. 15. Direct. 12. Consider the certain way by which the Doctrine and Writings of the Apostles and other Evangelical messengers, hath been delivered down to us, without any possibility of material alteration: Because the Holy Scriptures were not left only to the care of private men, or of the Christians of one country, who might have agreed upon corruptions and alterations: But it was made the office of the ordinary Ministers to read, and expound, and apply them: And every Congregation had one or more of these Ministers: And the people received the Scriptures as the Law of God, and that by which they must live and be judged, and as their charter for Heaven: So that it was not possible for one Minister to corrupt the Scripture Text, but the rest with the people would have quickly reproved him: Nor for those of one Kingdom to bring all other Christians to it, throughout the world, without a great deal of consultation and opposition (if at all): which never was recorded to us.
§. 16. Direct. 13. Be acquainted as fully as you can with the History of the Church, that you may know how the Gospel hath been planted, and propagated, and assaulted, and preserved until now: which will much better satisfy you, than general uncertain talk of others.
§. 17. Direct. 14. Judge whether God being the Wise and Merciful Governor of the world would suffer the honestest and obedientest subjects that he hath upon earth, to be deceived in a matter of such importance, by pretence of Doctrines and Miracles proceeding from himself, and which none but God (or by his special grant) is able to do, without disowning them, or giving any sufficient means to the world to discover the deceit. For certainly he needeth not deceit to govern us. If you say that he permits Mohammedanism, I answer, 1. The main positive doctrine of the Mahometanes, for the worshiping of one only God against Idolatry, is true: And the by-fancies of their pretended Prophet are not commended to the world upon the pretense of attesting Miracles at all; but upon the affirmation of revelations without any credible seal or Divine attestation; and obtruded on the world by the power of the sword. 2. And God hath given the world sufficient preservatives against them, in the nullity of the proof of them, and the evident foppery of the writings and the things themselves. So that honesty and diligence will easily escape them.
§. 18. Direct. 15. Observe the supernatural effects of the Gospel upon the souls of believers: How it planteth on man the Image of the Holy God: Powerfully subduing both sense and the greatest interest of the flesh, to the will of God; and making men Wise and Good: and putting an admirable difference between them, and all other men: And then judge whether it be not God's seal having his Image first upon itself, which he doth use and honor to be the instrument of imprinting his Image upon us.
§. 19. Direct. 16. Mark well the certain Vanity of all other Religions that prevail on the earth: Idolatry and Mohammedanism which openly bear the mark of their own shame, have shared between them almost all the rest of the earth: For mere Deisme is scarce anywhere in Possession; and Judaism hath no considerable inheritance; and both of them as sensibly confuted by man's corruption, necessity and desert.
§. 20. Direct. 17. Mark the great difference between the Christian part of the world, (those that receive Christianity seriously and in sincerity) and all the rest: Those that are farthest from Christianity, are furthest from piety, honesty, civility or any laudable parts or conversations: Most of them are beastly and ungodly: And the rest are but a little better: And ignorance and bruitishness cannot be the perfection of a man. Nay among professed Christians, the multitudes that have but the Name, and hate the Nature and Practice of it, are like Swine or Wolves and some of the worst, near kin to Devils: When all that receive Christianity practically into their hearts and lives, are heavenly and holy, and (in the same measure that they receive it) their sins are all mortified, and they are devoted to God, and possessed with Justice, Charity and Patience to men, and are carried up above this world, and contemn that which the rest do make their felicity and delight. So that if that • e Good which doth Good, then is the Goodness of the Christian faith, apparent to all, that have any acquaintance, reason and in partiality to judge.
§. 21. Direct. 18. Bethink you what you should have been yourselves if you had not been Christians? Yea what would yet be the consequent if you should fall from the Christian faith? Would you not look at the life to come as doubtful? And resolve to take your pleasure in the world, and to gratify the flesh, and to neglect your souls, and to venture upon almost any vice, that seemeth necessary to your ca • nal ends. Christianity hath cleansed and sanctified you if you are sanctified: And if (which God forbid) you should forsake Christianity, it is most likely you would quickly show the difference, by your dirty, fleshly, worldly lives.
§. 22. Direct. 19. When you see the evidence of Divine Revelation and authority, it is enough to silence your doubts and cavils about particular words or circumstances. For you know that God is True and Infallible; and you know that you are silly ignorant worms, that are utterly at a loss, when you have • ot one at hand to open every difficulty to you: And that all arts and sciences seem full of difficulties and contradictions to ignorant inexperienced novices.
§. 23. Direct. 20. Allow all along in your learning, for the difficulties which must needs arise, from the translation, ambiguity of all human language, change and variety of words and customs, time, place and other circumstances, and especially from your own unacquaintedness with all these: That so your own infirmities and ignorance, and mistakes in reasoning, may not be ascribed to the truth.
§. 24 Direct. 21. Understand the proper use of holy Scripture, and so how far it is Divine; that so you be not tempted to unbelief, by expecting in it that which never was intended, and then finding your causeless expectations frustrate. It is not so Divine as to the terms, and style, and order, and such modal and circumstantial matters, as if all the exactness might be expected in it, that God could put into a Book: Nor is it intended as a system of Physicks, or Logic, or any subservient sciences or arts: But it is an Infallible Revelation of the will of God, for the Government of the Church, and the conducting men to life eternal: And it is ordered and worded so as to partake of such human infirmity, as yet shall no way impeach the Truth or efficacy of it; but rather make it more suitable to the generality of men, whose infirmity required such a style and manner of handling. So that as a child of God hath a Body from Parents, which yet is of God, but s • of God, as to partake of the infirmities of the parents; or rather as Adam had a body from God, but yet from Earth; and accordingly frail; but a soul more immediately from God, which was more pure and divine; so Scripture hath its style, and language, and method so from God as to have nothing in it unsuitable to its ends; but not so from God as if he himself had shown in it his own most perfect wisdom to the utmost, and as if there were nothing in it of human imperfection: But the Truth and Goodness which is the soul of Scripture, is more immediately from God. The style and method of the penmen may be various; but the same soul animateth all the parts. It is no dishonor to the Holy Scriptures, if Cicero be preferred for purity of style, and phrase, and oratory, as for other common uses: But certainly it is to be preferred as to its proper use: that being the best style for an Act of Parliament, which is next to the worst in an Oration. The means are for the end.
§. 25. Direct. 22. Consider how great assistance Apparitions, and Witch-crafts, and other sensible Evidences of Spirits conversing with mankind, do give to faith. Of which I have written in the forementioned Treatises, and therefore now pass it over.
§. 26. Direct. 23. Consider what advantage faith may have, by observing the nature and tendency of the soul, and its hopes and fears of a life to come, together with the superior glorious worlds, which certainly are possessed by nobler inhabitants. He that seeth every corner of earth, and sea, and air inhabited, and thinks what earth is in comparison of all the great and glorious Orbes above it, will hardly once dream that they are all void of inhabitants, or that there is not room enough for souls.
§. 27. Direct. 24. The ministry of Angels, of which particular providences give us a great probability, doth give some help to that doctrine which telleth us, that we must live with Angels; and that we shall ascend to more familiarity with them, who conde • cend to so great service now for us.
§. 28. Direct. 25. The universal wonderful implacable enmity of corrupted man to the holy doctrine and ways and servants of Christ, and the open war which in every Kingdom, and the secret war which in every heart, is kept up between Christ and Satan through the world; with the tendency of every temptation, their violence, constancy, in all ages, to all persons, all making against Christ and Heaven and Holiness, do notoriously declare that the Christian doctrine and life do tend to our salvation, which the Devil so maliciously and incessantly opposeth. And thus his Temptations give great advantage to the tempted soul against the Tempter. For it is not for nothing that the enemy of our souls makes so much opposition. And that there is such a Devil that thus opposeth Christ and tempteth us, not only sensible Apparitions and Witch-crafts prove, but the too sensible temptations, which by their Matter and Manner, plainly tell us whence they come. Especially when all the world, is formed as into two hostile Armies, the one fighting under Christ, and the other under the Devil; and so have continued since •• in and Abel to this day.
§. 29. Direct. 26. The prophecies of Christ himself of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the gathering of his Church, and the cruel usage of it through the world, do give great assistance to our faith, when we see them all so punctually fulfilled.
§. 30. Direct. 27. Mark whether it be not a respect to things temporal that assaulteth thy Belief, and c • me not with a biased sensual mind to search into so great a mystery. Worldliness, and pride, and sensuality are deadly enemies to faith; and where they prevail they will show their enmity, and blind the mind: If the soul be sunk into mud and filth, it cannot see the things of God.
§. 31. Direct. 28. Come with humility and a sense of your ignorance, and not with arrogance and self-conceit, as if all must needs be wrong that your empty foolish minds cannot presently perceive to be right. The famousest Apostates that ever I knew, were all men of notorious Pride and selfconceitedness.
§. 32. Direct. 29. Provoke not God by willful sinning against the Light which thou hast already received, to forsake thee, and give thee over to infidelity, 2 Thes. 2. 10, 11, 12. Because men receive not the L • ve of the truth that they might be saved, for this cause God sends them strong delusions to believe a lie; that they all might • e damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Obey Christ's doctrine so far as you know it, and you shall fullier know it to be of God, John 7. 17. & 10. 4.
§. 33. Direct. 30. Tempt not yourselves to Infidelity by pretended Humility, in ab • sing your Natural faculti • s, when you should be humbled for your moral pravity: Vilifying the soul, and its Reason and Natural Freewill, doth tend to Infidelity, by making us think that we are but as other inferior animals, uncapable of a life above with God: When as self-ab • sing because of the corruption of Reason and Free-will, doth tend to show us the need of a Physici • n, and so assist our faith in Christ.
§. 34. Direct. 31. Judge not of so great a thing, by sudden apprehensions, or the surprise of a temptati • n, when you have not leisure to look up all the evidences of faith, and lay them together, and take a full deliberate view of all the cause. It is a mystery so great as requireth a clear and vacant mind, delivered from prejudice, abstracted from diverting and deceiving things; which upon the best assistance, and with the greatest diligence, must lay all together to discern the truth. And if upon the best assistance and consideration you have been convinced of the truth, and then will let every sudden thought, or temptation, or difficulty seem enough to question all again, this is unfaithfulness to the truth, and the way to resist the clearest evidences, and never to have done. It is like as if you should answer your adversary in the Court, when your witnesses are all dismissed, or out of the way, and all your evidences are absent, and perhaps your Counselor and Advocate too. It is like the casting up of a long and intricate account, which a man hath finished by study and time, and when he hath done all, one questioneth this particular, and another that, when his accounts are absent: It is not fit for him to answer all particulars, nor question his own accounts till he have as full opportunity and help to cast up all again.
§. 35. Direct. 32. If the work seem too hard for you, go and consult with the wisest most experienced Christians, who can easily answer the difficulties which most p • rplex and tempt you. Modesty will tell you that the advantage of study and experience may make everyone wisest in his own profession, and set others above you while you have l • ss of these.
§. 36. Direct. 33. Remember that Christianity being the surest way to secure your eternal hopes, and the matters of this life which cause men to forsake it, being such transitory •• ifles, you can be no losers by it, and therefore if you doubted, yet you might be sure that its the safest way.
§. 37. Direct. 34. Judge not of so great a cause in a time of Melan • holy, when fears and confusions make you unfit; But in such a case as that, as also when ever Satan would disturb your settled faith, or tempt you at his pleasure, to be still new questioning resolved cases, and discerned truths, abhor his suggestions, and give them no entertainment in your thoughts, but cast them back into the Tempters face. There is not one Melancholy person of a multitude but is violently assaulted with temptations to blasphemy and unbelief, when they have but half the use of Reason and no composedness of mind to debate such controversies with the Devil: It is not fit for them in this incapacity to hearken to any of those suggestions, which draw them to dispute the foundations of their faith, but to cast them away with resolute abhorrence: Nor should any Christian that is soundly settled on the true foundation, gratify the Devil so much as to dispute with him when ever he provoketh us to it, but only endeavor to strengthen our Faith, and destroy the remnants of unbelief.
§. 38. Direct. 35. Remember that Christ doth propagate his Religion conjunctly by his spirit and his word, and effecteth himself the faith which he commandeth: For though there be sufficient evidence of credibility in his word, yet the blinded Mind and corrupt perverted hearts of men, do need the cure of his medicinal Grace, before they will effectually and savingly believe a doctrine which is so holy, high and heavenly, and doth so much control their lusts. See therefore that you distrust your corrupted hearts, and earnestly beg the Spirit of Christ.
§. 39. Direct. 36. Labor earnestly for the Love of every Truth which you believe, and to feel the renewing power of it upon your hearts; and the reforming power on your lives; especially that you may be advanced to the Love of God and to a Heavenly mind and life: And this will be a most excellent help against all temptations to unbelief. For, the Heart holdeth the Gospel much faster than the Head alone. The seed that is cast into the earth if it quicken and take root, is best preserved; and the d • eper rooted, the surer it abideth: but if it die, it perisheth and is gone. When the seed of the holy word hath produced the new creature, it is sure and safe: But when it is retained only in the brain as a dead Opinion, every temptation can overturn it. It is an excellent advantage that the serious practical Christian hath, above all hypocrites and unsanctified men: Love will hold faster than dead belief. Love is the Grace that abideth forever; and that is the enduring faith which works by Love. The experienced Christian hath felt so much of the power and Goodness o • the w • rd, that if you puzzle his head with subtle reasonings against it, yet his heart and experience will not suffer him to let it go. He hath ta • ted it so sweet, that he will not Believe it to be bitter, though he cannot answer all that is said against it. If another would persuade you to believe ill of your dearest friend or Father, Love and experience would better preserve you from his deceit, than reasoning would do. The new creature, or new nature in believers, and the experience of God's Love communicated by Jesus Christ unto their souls, are constant witnesses to the word of God: He that believeth hath the witness in himself, that is, The Holy Ghost which was given him, which is an objective testimony or an evidence, and an effective. Of this see my Treat. of Infidelity. Unsanctified men may be 〈◊〉 turned to Infidelity, For they never felt the renewed quickening work of faith; nor were • v •• brought by it to the Love of God and a holy and heavenly mind and • i •• . They that never were Christians at the Heart, are soonest turned from being Christians in opinion and name.
Quest. BY what Reason, evidence or obligation were the Jews bound to believe the Prophets? Seeing Isaiah, Jeremy, Ezekiel, &c. wrought no miracles, and there were false Prophets in their days; How then c • uld any man know that indeed they were sent of God, when they nakedly affirmed it?
Answ. I mention this objection or case, because in my book of the Reas. of Christian Religion (to which for all the rest I refer the Reader) it is forgotten: And because it is one of the hardest questions about our faith.
1. Those that think that every book of Scripture doth now prove itself to be Divine prop • ia luce, by its own matter, style and other properties, will accordingly say, that by Hearing the Prophets then, as well as by Reading them now, this intrinsic satisfactory evidence was disc •• nable. All that I can say of this is, that there are such Characters in the Prophecies as are a help to faith, as making it the more easily credible that they are of God, but not such as I could have been ascertained by (especially as delivered by parcels then,) if there had been no more.
2. Nor do I acqui • sce in their answer who say that, Those that have the same spirit, know the style of the spirit in the Prophets. For, 1. This would suppose none capable of believing them groundedly that had not the same spirit; 2. And the spirit of sanctification is not enough to our discerning Prophetical inspirations, as reason and experience fully proveth. The guist of discerning spirits. 1 Cor. 12. 10. was not common to all the sanctified.
3. It is much to be observed that God never sent any Prophet to make a Law or Covenant on which the salvation of the people did depend, without the attestation of unquestionable Miracles. Moses wrought numerous open miracles, and such as controlled and confuted the contradictors seeming Miracles in Egypt. And Christ and his Apostles wrought more than Moses. So that these Laws and Covenants by which God would rule and judge the people were all confirmed beyond all just exception.
4. It must be noted that many other Prophets also wrought Miracles to confirm their doctrine, and prove that they were sent of God: as did Elias, and Elisha.
5. It must be noted, that there were Schools of Prophets, or Societies of them in those times: 1 Sam. 10. 10. & 19. 20. 1 Kings 20. 35, 41. & 22. 13. 2 Kings 2. 3, 5, 7, 15. & 4. 1, 38. & 5. 22. & 6. 1. & 9. 1. 1 Cor. 14. 32. Who were educated in such a way as fi • ted them to the reception of prophetical inspirations, when it pleased God to give them. Not that mere education made any one a Prophet; nor that the Prophets had at all times the present actual gui • t of prophesy: But God was pleased so far to own men's commanded diligence, as to join his blessing to a meet education, and at such times as he thought meet, to illuminate such by Visions and revelations above all others. And therefore it is spoken of Amos as a thing extraordinary, that he was made a Prophet of a herdsman.
6. Therefore a Prophet among the Jews was known to be such, usually, before these Recorded Prophecies of theirs, which we have now in the Holy Scriptures: 1. The spirits of the Prophets which are subject to the Prophets, were judged of by those Prophets that had indeed the Spirit: And so the people had the testimony of the other Prophets concerning them. 2. The Lord's own direction to know a true Prophet by Deut. 18. 22. is the coming to pass of that which he foretelleth. Now it is like that before they were received into the number of Prophets, they had given satisfaction to the societies of the Prophets, by the events of things before foretold by them: 3. Or they might have wrought miracles before to have satisfied the members of the College of their calling, though these Miracles are not all mentioned in the Scripture. 4. Or the other Prophets might have some Divine testimony concerning them, by visions revelations or inspirations of their own. So that the people were not left to the credulity of naked unproved ass • rtions, of any one that would say that he was sent of God.
7. There were some signs given by some of the Prophets to confirm their word: As Isaiah's predictions of Hezekiah's danger, and remedy, and recovery, and of the going back of the shadow on Ahaz dial ten degrees, &c. And more such there might be, which we know not of.
8. All Prophecies were not of equal obligation. The first Prophecies of any Prophet, who brought no attestation by Miracles, nor had yet spoken any Prophecy that had been fulfilled, might be a merciful revelation from God, which might oblige the hearers to a reverent regard, and an enquiry into the authority of the Prophet, and a waiting in suspense till they saw whether it would come to pass: And the fulfilling of it increased their obligation. Some Prophecies▪ that foretold but temporal things (captivities or deliverances) might at first (before the Prophets produced a Divine attestation) be rather a bare prediction than a Law; and if men believed them not, it might not make them guilty of any damning sin at all, but only they refused that warning of a temporal judgment, which might have been of use to them had they received it.
9. But our obligation now to believe the same Scripture Prophecies is greater; because we live in the ages when most of them are fulfilled, and the rest are attested by Christ and his Apostles who proved their attestations by manifold Miracles.
10. When the Prophets reproved the known sins of the people, and called men to such duties as the Law required, no man could speed ill by obeying such a Prophet; because the Matter of his Prophecies was found in God's own Law, which must of necessity be obeyed. And this is the chief part of the recorded Prophecies.
11. And any man that spake against any part of God's Law (of natural or super-natural revelation) was not to be believed, Deut. 13. & 18. Because God cannot speak contrary to himself.
12. But the Prophets themselves had another kind of obligation to believe their own Visions and Inspirations, than any of their hearers had: For God's great extraordinary Revelation, was like the Light, which immediately revealed itself, and constrained the understanding to know that it was of God: And such were the Revelations that came by Angelical apparitions, and Visions. Therefore Prophets themselves might be bound to more, than their bare word could have bound their hearers to. As to wound themselves, to go bare, to feed on dung, &c. And this was Abraham's case in offering Isaac. Yet God did never command a Prophet, or any by a Prophet, a thing simply evil, but only such things as were of a mutable nature, and which his will could alter, and make to be good. And such was the case of Abraham himself, if well considered.
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