A Christian Directory
§. 17. Direct. 3. Look upon the Minister as the Agent or Officer of Christ, who is commissioned by him to seal and deliver to you the Covenant and its benefits; And take the Bread and Wine as if you heard Christ himself saying to you, Take my Body, and Blood and the pardon, and Grace which is thereby purchased. It is a great •••• p in the application, to have Mercy and pardon brought us by the hand of a commissioned Officer of Christ.
§. 18. Direct. 4. In your preparation before hand, take heed of these two extremes: 1. That you come not profanely and carelessly, with common hearts, as to a common work: For God will be sanctified in them that draw near him, Lev. 10. 3. And they that eat and drink unworthily, not discerning the Lord's Body from common bread, but eating as if it were a common meal, do eat death to themselves instead of life. 2. Take heed lest your mistakes of the nature of this Sacrament, should possess you with such fears of unworthy receiving and the following dangers, as may quite discompose and unfit your souls for the joyful exercises of faith and Love and Praise and Thanksgiving, to which you are invited. Many that are scrupulous of Receiving it in any save a feasting gesture, are too little careful and scrupulous of Receiving it, in any save a feasting frame of mind.
The first extreme is caused by Profaneness and negligence, or by gross ignorance of the nature of the Sacramental work. The later extreme is frequently caused as followeth: 1. By setting this Sacrament at a greater distance from other parts of God's worship than there is cause: so that the excess of Reverence doth overwhelm the minds of some with terrors. 2. By studying more the terrible words of eating and drinking damnation to themselves, if they do it unworthily, than all the expressions of Love and mercy, which that blessed feast is furnished with. So that when the Views of infinite Love should ravish them, they are studying wrath and vengeance to terrify them, as if they came to Moses and not to Christ. 3. By not understanding what maketh a Receiver worthy or unworthy, but taking their unwilling infirmities for condemning unworthiness. 4. By Receiving it so seldom as to make it strange to them and increase their fear: whereas if it were administered every Lord's day as it was in the Primitive Churches, it would better acquaint them with it, and cure that fear that cometh from strangeness. 5. By imagining that none that want Assurance of their own sincerity can receive in faith. 6. By contracting an ill habit of mistaken Religiousness, placeing it all in po • ing on themselves, and mourning for their corruptions, and not in studying the Love of God in Christ, and living in the daily Praises of his name, and joyful Thanksgiving for his exceeding mercies. 7. And if besides all these the Body contract a weak or timorous melancholy distemper, it will leave the mind capable of almost nothing but fear and trouble, even in the sweetest works. From many such causes it cometh to pass, that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is become more terrible and uncomfortable to abundance of such distempered Christians, than any other ordinance of God: And that which should most comfort them doth trouble them most.
§. 19. Quest. 1. But is not this Sacrament more holy and dreadful, and should it not have more preparation than other parts of worship?
Answ. For the degree indeed it should have very careful preparation: And we cannot well compare it with other parts of worship, as Praise, Thanksgiving, Covenanting with God, Prayer, &c. because that all these other parts are here comprised and performed. But doubtless God must also be sanctified in all his other worship, and his name must not be taken in vain: And when this Sacrament was received every Lord's day, and often in the week besides, Christians were supposed to live continually in a state of general preparation, and not to be so far from a due particular preparation, as many poor Christians think they are.
§. 20. Quest. 2. How often should the Sacrament be now administered, that it neither grow into contempt or strangeness?
Answ. Ordinarily in well disciplined Churches it should be still every Lord's day. For, 1. We have no reason to prove that the Apostles example and appointment in this case, was proper to those times, anymore than that Praise and Thanksgiving daily is proper to them: And we may as well deny the obligation of other institutions or Apostolical orders as that. 2. It is a part of the se • led order for the Lord's days worship: And omitting it, maimeth and altereth the worship of the day; and occasioneth the omission of the Thanksgiving and Praise, and lively commemorations of Christ which should be then most performed: And so Christians by use grow habited to sadness and a mourning melancholy Religion, and grow unacquainted with much of the worship and spirit of the Gospel. 3. Hereby the Papists lamentable corruptions of this ordinance have grown up: even by an excess of reverence and fear, which seldom receiving doth increase: till they are come to Worship Bread as their God. 4. By seldom communicating, men are seduced to think all proper Communion of Churches lieth in that Sacrament, and to be more profanely bold in abusing many other parts of worship. 5. There are better means (by Teaching and Discipline) to keep the Sacrament from contempt, than the omitting or displacing of it. 6. Every Lord's Day is no ofter then Christians need it. 7. The frequency will teach them to Live prepared, and not only to make much ado once a Moneth or Quarter, when the same work is neglected all the year beside: Even as one that liveth in continual expectation of death, will live in continual preparation: when he that expecteth it but in some grievous sickness will then be frightened into some seeming preparations, which are not the habit of his soul, but laid by again when the disease is over.
2. But yet I must add, that in some undisciplin'd Churches, and upon some occasions it may be longer omitted or seldomer used: No duty is a duty at all times: And therefore extraordinary cases may raise such impediments as may hinder us a long time from this and many other privileges. But the ordinary faultiness of our imperfect hearts, that are apt to grow customary and dull, is no good reason why it should be seldom: Any more than why other special duties of Worship and Church-communion should be seldom: Read well the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, and you will find that they were then as bad as the true Christians •• e now, and that even in this Sacrament they were very culpable: and yet Paul seeketh not to cure them by their seldomer communicating.
§. 21. Quest. 3. Are all the members of the visible Church to be admitted to this Sacrament? or communicate?
Answ. All are not to seek it or to take it, because many may know their own unfitness, when the Church or Pastors know it not: But all that come and seek it are to be admitted by the Pastors, except such Children, Idiots, ignorant persons or Heretics, as know not what they are to receive and do, and such as are notoriously▪ wicked or scandalous, and have not manifested their repentance. But then it is presupposed that none should be numbered with the adult members of the Church, but those that have personally owned their Baptismal Covenant, by a Credible Profession of true Christianity.
§. 22. Quest. 4. May a man that hath knowledge, and civility, and common gifts come and take this Sacrament, if he know that he is yet void of true Repentance and other saving Grace?
Answ. No: For he then knoweth himself to be one that is uncapable of it, in his present state.
§. 23. Quest. 5. May an ungodly man receive this Sacrament, who knoweth not himself to be ungodly?
Answ. No: For he ought to know it; and his sinful ignorance of his own condition, will not make his sin to be his duty; nor excuse his other faults before God.
§. 24. Quest. 6. Must a sincere Christian receive, that is uncertain of his sincerity, and in continual doubting?
Answ. Two preparations are necessary to this Sacrament: The general preparation, which is a state of grace; and this the doubting Christian hath: And the particular preparation, which consisteth in his present actual fitness: And all the question is of this. And to know this, you must further distinguish, between Immediate duty and more Remote; and between the degrees of doubtfulness in Christians. 1. The nearest immediate duty of the doubting Christian is, to use the means to have his doubts resolved, till he know his case, and then his next duty is to receive the Sacrament: And both these still remain his duty, to be performed in this order: And if he say, I cannot be resolved when I have done my best; yet certainly it is some sin of his own that keepeth him in the dark, and hindereth his assurance: and therefore Duty ceaseth not to be duty; the Law of Christ still obligeth him both to get assurance, and to receive; and the want both of the knowledge of his state, and of Receiving the Sacrament, are his continual sin, if he lie in it never so long through these scruples: though it be an infirmity that God will not condemn him for: (For he is supposed to be in a state of grace). But you will say, What is still he cannot be resolved whether he have true faith and Repentance or not? What should he do while he is in doubt? I answer, It is one thing to ask, what is his duty in this case; and another thing to ask, Which is the smaller or less dangerous sin? Still his duty is both to get the knowledge of his heart, and to communicate: But while he sinneth (through infirmity) in failing of the first, were he better also omit the other or not? To be well resolved of that, you must discern, 1. Whether his judgment of himself do rather incline to think and hope that he is sincere in his repentance and faith, or that he is not? 2. And whether the consequents are like to be good or bad to him. If his hopes that he is sincere be as great or greater than his fears of the contrary, then there is no such ill consequent to be feared as may hinder his communicating; but it is his best way to do it, and wait on God in the use of his Ordinance. But if the persuasion of his gracelesness be greater than the hopes of his sincerity, then he must observe how he is like to be affected if he do communicate: If he find that it is like to clear up his mind, and increase his hopes by the actuating of his grace, he is yet best to go: But if he find that his heart is like to be overwhelmed with horror and sunk into despair, by running into the supposed guilt of unworthy Receiving, then it will be worse to do it, than to omit it. Many such fearful Christians I have known, that are fain many years to absent themselves from the Sacrament: because if they should receive it while they are persuaded of their utter unworthiness, they would be swallowed up of desperation, and think that they had taken their own damnation, (As the twenty fifth Article of the Church of England saith the unworthy receivers do.) So that the chief sin of such a Doubting Receiver is not that he receiveth though he doubt: for doubting will not excuse us for the sinful omission of a duty (no more of this than of Prayer, or Thanksgiving;) But only Prudence requireth such a one to forbear that, which through his own distemper would be a means of his despair and ruin: As that Physic or food (how good soever) is not to be taken which would kill the taker: God's Ordinances are not appointed for our destruction but for our edification, and so must be used as tendeth thereunto. Yet to those Christians who are in this case and dare not communicate, I must put this Question, How dare you so long refuse it? He that consenteth to the Covenant may boldly come and signify his Consent, and receive the sealed Covenant of God: For Consent is your preparation, or the necessary condition of your Right: If you Consent not, you refuse all the mercy of the Covenant. And dare you live in such a state? Suppose a Pardon be offered to a condemned Thief, but so that if he after cast it in the dirt, or turn Traitor, he shall die a sorer death, will he rather choose to die than take it, and say I am afraid I shall abuse it? To refuse God's Covenant is certain death: but to Consent is your preparation and your life.
§. 25. Quest. 7. But what if Superiors compel such a Christian to communicate, or else they will excommunicate and imprison him: What then should he choose?
Answ. If he could do it without his own souls hurt, he should obey them▪ (supposing that it is nothing but that which in itself is good that they command him.) But they have their power to edification and not to destruction; and he must value his soul above his body; and therefore it is past question that it is a smaller hurt to be excommunicated and lie and die in Prison, than to cast his soul into despair by doing that which he thinketh is a grievous sin, and would be his damnation. But all means must be used to cure the mistake of his own understanding.
§. 26. Quest. 8. Is not the case of an Hypocrite that knoweth not himself to be an hypocrite, and of a sincere Christian that knoweth not himself to be sincere, all one as to communicating; when both are equally in doubt?
Answ. No: For Being and Seeing are things that must be distinguished: The one hath grace in Being, though he see it not; and therefore hath a Right to the blessings of the Covenant: and therefore at once remaineth obliged both to Discern his Title, and to Come and take it: And therefore if he come doubtingly, his sin is not that he Receiveth, but in the Manner of receiving, that he doth it doubtingly: And therefore it will be a greater sin not to receive at all, unless in the last mentioned case, wherein the consequents are like to be worse to him: But the other hath no true Repentance or Faith, or Love in Being; and therefore hath no Right to the blessings of the Covenant: and therefore at present is obliged to discern that he is graceless, and to Repent of it: and it is not his sin that he doubteth of his title, but that he demandeth and taketh what he hath no title to: And therefore it is a greater sin in him to Take it, than to delay in order to his recovery and preparation. Yea, even in point of Comfort, there is some disparity: For though the true Christian hath far greater terrors than hypocrites, when he taketh himself to be an unworthy Receiver (as being more sensible and regardful of the weight of the matter), yet usually in the midst of all his fears, there are some secret testimonies in his heart of the Love of God, which are a Cordial of hope that keep him from sinking into despair, and have more life and power in them than all the hypocrites false persuasions of his own sincerity.
§. 27. Quest. 9. Wherein lieth the sin of an hypocrite and ungodly person, if he do receive?
Answ. His sin is, 1. In lying and hypocrisy; in that he professeth to Repent unfeignedly of his sin, and to be resolved for a holy life, and to Believe in Christ, and to Accept him on his Covenant-terms, and to give up himself to God as his Father, his Savior and his Sanctifier, and to forsake the flesh, the world and the Devil, when indeed he never did any of this, but secretly abhorreth it at his heart, and will not be persuaded to it: And so all this profession, and his very Covenanting itself, and his Receiving, as it is a professing-Covenanting-sign, is nothing but a very lie. And what it is to lie to the Holy Chost, the case of Ananias and Sapphira telleth us. 2. It is usurpation to come and lay claim to those Benefits which he hath no title to. 3. It is a profanation of these holy mysteries, to be thus used: and it is a taking of God's Name in vain, who is a jealous God, and will be sanctified of all that draw near unto him: 4. And it is a wrong to the Church of God, and the Communion of Saints, and the honor of the Christian Religion, that such ungodly hypocrites intrude as members: As it is to the Kings Army, when the enemies spies creep in amongst them; or to his Marriage-feast to have a guest in rags. Matth. 22. 11, 12. Object. But it is no Lye, because they think they say true in their profession. Answ. That is through their sinful negligence and self-deceit: And he is a liar that speaks a falsehood, which he may and ought to know to be a falsehood, though he do not know it. There is a Lyar in Rashness and Negligence, as well as of set purpose.
§. 28. Quest. 10. Doth all unworthy receiving make a man liable to damnation? Or what unworthiness is it that is so threatened?
Answ. There are three sorts of unworthiness (or unfitness) and three sorts of judgment answerably to be feared: 1. There is the utter unworthiness of an Infidel, or Impenitent ungodly hypocrite: And damnation to Hell fire is the punishment that such must expect, if conversion prevent it not: 2. There is an unworthiness through some great and scandalous crime, which a regenerate person falleth into: and this should stop him from the Sacrament for a time, till he have repented and cast away his sin: And if he come before he rise from his fall by a particular Repentance, (as the Corinthians that sinned in the very use of the Sacrament itself) they may expect some notable temporal judgment at the present; (and if Repentance did not prevent it, they might fear eternal punishment). 3. There is that measure of unworthiness which consisteth in the ordinary infirmities of a Saint; and this should not at all deter them from the Sacrament, because it is accompanied with a greater worthiness: yea, though their weakness appear in the time and manner of their Receiving: But yet ordinary corrections may follow these ordinary infirmities. (The grosser abuse of the Sacrament itself, I join under the second rank).
Quest. 11. What is the particular preparation needful to a fit Communicant?
Answ. This bringeth me up to the next Direction.
§. 29. Direct. 5. Let your Preparation to this Sacrament consist of these particulars following: 1. In your duty with your own consciences and hearts: 2. In your duty towards God: 3. And in your duty towards your neighbor.
§. 30. 1. Your duty with your hearts consisteth in these particulars: 1. That you do your best in the close Examination of your hearts about your states, and the sincerity of your Faith, Repentance and Obedience: To know whether your hearts are true to God, in the Covenant which you are to renew and seal. Which may be done by these enquiries, and discerned by these signs. 1. Whether you truly loath yourselves for all the sins of your hearts and lives; and are a greater offense and burden to yourselves because of your imperfections and corruptions than all the world beside is. Ezek. 6. 9. & 20. 43. & 36. 31. Rom. 7. 24. 2. Whether you have no sin but what you are truly desirous to know; and no known sin but what you are truly desirous to be rid of: and so desirous, as that you had rather be perfectly freed from sin, than from any affliction in the world, Rom. 7. 22, 18, 24. & 8. 18. 3. Whether you Love the searching and reforming light, even the most searching parts of the Word of God, and the most searching Books, and searching Sermons, that by them you may be brought to know yourselves, in order to your settled peace and reformation. John 3. 19, 20, 21. 4. Whether you truly love that degree of Holiness in others which you have not yet attained yourselves, and love Christ in his children with such an unseigned love, as will cause you to relieve them according to your abilities, and suffer for their sakes when it is your duty. 1 John 3. 14, 16. 1 Pet. 1. 22. & 3. 8. James 2. 12, 13, 14, 15. Matth. 25. 40, &c. 5. Whether you can truly say, that there is no degree of Holiness so high, but you desire it, and had rather be perfect in the Love of God and the obedience of his Will, than have all the riches and pleasures of this world, Rom. 7. 18, 21, 24. Psal. 119. 5. Matth. 5. 6. and had rather be one of the Holiest Saints, than of the most renowned prosperous Princes upon earth, Psal. 15. 4. & 16. 2. Psal. 84. 10. & 65. 4. 6. Whether you have so far laid up your treasure and your hopes in Heaven, as that you are resolved to take that only for your portion; and that the hopes of Heaven and interest of your souls hath the preeminence in your hearts against all that stands in competition with it, Col. 3. 1, 3, 4. Matth. 6. 20, 21. 7. Whether the chiefest care of your hearts, and endeavor of your lives, be to serve and please God, and to enjoy him forever, rather than for any worldly thing, Matth. 6. 33. John 5. 26. 2 Cor. 5. 1, 6, 7, 8, 9. 8. Whether it be your daily desire and endeavor to mortify the flesh, and master its rebellious opposition to the Spirit; and you so far prevail, as not to live, and walk, and be led by the flesh, but that the course and drift of your life is spiritual, Rom. 8. 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13. Gal. 5. 17. 21, 22. 9. Whether the world and all its honor, wealth and pleasure appear to you so small and contemptible a thing, as that you esteem it as dung, and nothing in comparison of Christ, and the Love of God and Glory? and are Resolved that you will rather let go all, than your part in Christ? and which useth to carry it in the time of trial, in your deliberate choice? Phil. 3. 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20. 1 John 2. 15. Luke 14. 26, 30, 33. Matth. 13. 19, 21. 10. Whether you are resolved upon a course of holiness and obedience, and to use those means which God doth make known to you, to be the way to please him, and to subdue your corruption: and yet feeling the frailties of your hearts, and the burden of your sins, do trust in Christ as your Righteousness before God, and in the Holy Ghost whose grace alone can illuminate, sanctify and confirm you, Acts 11. 23. Psal. 119. 57, 63, 69, 106. 1 Cor. 1. 30. Rom. 8. 9. John 15. 5. 2 Cor. 12. 9. By these signs you may safely try your states.
§. 31. 2. When this is done, you are also to try the strength and measure of your grace: that you may perceive your weakness, and know for what help you should seek to Christ: And to find out what inward Corruptions and sinful inclinations are yet strongest in you, that you may know what to lament, and to ask forgiveness of, and help against. My Book called Directions for weak Christians, will give you fuller advice in this.
§. 32. 3. You are also to take a strict account of your Lives; and to look over your dealings with God and men, in secret and public, especially of late, since the last renewal of your Covenant with God, and to hear what God and Conscience have to say, about your sins and all their aggravations, Psal. 139. 23. 1 Cor. 11. 28.
§. 33. 4. And you must labor to get your hearts affected with your condition as you do discover it: To be humbled for what is sinful, and to be desirous of help against your weakness, and thankful for the Grace which you discern.
§. 34. 5. Lastly, you must consider of all the work that you go to do, and all the mercies which you are going to receive, and what Graces are necessary to all this, and how they must be used: and accordingly look up all those Graces, and prepare them for the exercise to which they are to be called out. I shall name you the particulars anon.
§. 35. II. Your duty towards God in your Preparation for this Sacrament is, 1. To cast down yourselves before him in humble penitent confession and lamentation of all the sins which you discover: And to beg his pardon in secret, before you come to have it publicly sealed and delivered. 2. To look up to him with that Thankfulness, Love and Joy as becomes one that is going to receive so great a mercy from him: And humbly to beg that grace which may prepare you, and quicken you to, and in the work.
§. 36. III. Your duty towards others in this your preparation is, 1. To forgive those that have done you wrong, and to confess your fault to those whom you have wronged, and ask them forgiveness, and make them amends and restitution so far as in your power: and to be reconciled to those with whom you are fallen out: and to see that you love your neighbors as is yourselves, Matth. 5. 23, 24, 25, 26, 44. James 5. 16. 2 That you seek advice of your Pastors, or some fit persons, in cases that are too hard for yourselves to resolve, and where you need their special help. 3. That you lovingly admonish them that you know do intend to communicate unworthily, and to come thither in their ungodliness, and gross sin unrepented of: that you show not such hatred of your Brother as to suffer sin upon him, Levite. 19. 17. but tell him his faults as Christ hath directed you, Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17. and do your parts to promote Christ's discipline, and keep pure the Church. See 1 Cor. 5. throughout.
§. 37. Direct. 6. When you come to the holy Communion, let not the over-scrupulous regard of the person of the Minister, or the company, or the imperfections of the ministration, disturb your meditations, nor call away your minds from the high and serious employment of the day: Hypocrites who place their Religion in bodily exercises, have taught many weak Christians to take up unnecessary scruples, and to turn their eye and observation too much to things without them.
Quest. But should we have no regard to the due celebration of these sacred mysteries, and to the Minister, and Communicants, and manner of administration?
Answ. Yes: You should have so much regard to them, 1. As to see that nothing be amiss through your default, which is in your power to amend: 2. And that you join not in the committing of any known sin: But, 1. Take not every sin of another for your sin, and think not that you are guilty of that in others which you cannot amend, or that you must forsake the Church and Worship of God, for these corruptions which you are not guilty of, or deny your own mercies, because others usurp them or abuse them. 2. If you suspect anything imposed upon you to be sinful to you, try it before you come thither; and leave not your minds open to disturbance, when they should be wholly employed with Christ.
§. 38. Quest. 1. May we lawfully receive this Sacrament from an ungodly and unworthy Minister?
Answ. Whoever you may lawfully commit the guidance of your souls to as your Pastor, you may lawfully receive the Sacrament from; yea, and in some cases from some others: For in case you come into a Church that you are no member of, you may lawfully join in communion with that Church, for that present, as a stranger, though they have a Pastor so faulty, as you might not lawfully commit the ordinary conduct of your soul to. For it is their fault and not yours, that they chose no better: and (in some cases) such a fault as will not warrant you to avoid communion with them. But you may not Receive if you know it, from a Heretic, that teacheth any error against the Essence of Christianity: 2. Nor from a man so utterly ignorant of the Christian faith or duty, or so utterly unable to Teach it to others, as to be notoriously uncapable of the Ministry. 3. Nor from a man professedly ungodly, or that setteth himself to preach down Godliness itself. These you must never own as Ministers of Christ, that are utterly uncapable of it. But see that you take none for such that are not such. And there are three sorts more which you may not receive from, when you have your choice, nor take them for your Pastors: but in case of Necessity imposed on you by others, it is lawful and your duty: And that is, 1. Usurpers that make themselves your Pastors without a lawful Call, and perhaps do forcibly thrust out the Lawful Pastors of the Church: 2. Weak, ignorant, cold and lifeless Preachers, that are tolerable in case of necessity, but not to be compared with worthier men. 3. Ministers of scandalous vicious lives: It is a sin in you to prefer any one of these before a better and to choose them when you have your choice. But it is a sin on the other side, if you rather submit not to one of these, than be quite without, and have none at all. You own not their faults in such a case, by submitting to their Ministry.
§. 29. Quest. 2. May we communicate with unworthy persons, or in an undisciplined Church?
Answ. You must here distinguish if you will not err: and that, 1. Between persons so unworthy as to be no-Christians, and those that are culpable scandalous Christians: 2. Between a few members, and the whole society or the denominating part: 3. Between sin professed and owned, and sin disowned by a seeming penitence: 4. And between a Case of Liberty when I have my choice of a Better society; and a Case of Necessity, when I must communicate with the worser society or with none. And so I answer.
1. You ought not to communicate at all in this Sacrament with a society that professeth not Christianity: if the whole body or denominating part be such: that is, 1. With such as never made profession of Christianity at all. 2. Or have Apostatized from it: 3. Or that openly own any Heresy inconsistent with the Essential Faith or Duty of a Christian. 4. Or that are notoriously ignorant what Christianity is.
2. It is the duty of the Pastors and Governors of the Church, to keep away notorious scandalous offenders, till they show Repentance: and the people's duty to assist them by private reproof, and informing the Church when there is cause. Therefore if it be through the neglect of your own duty that the Church is corrupted and undisciplined, the sin is yours, whether you receive with them or not.
3. If you rather choose a corrupted undisciplined Church to communicate with, when you have your choice of a better ( caeteris paribus ), it is your fault.
But on the contrary, It is not your sin, but your duty to communicate with that Church, which hath a true Pastor, and where the denominating part of the members are capable of Church-communion, though there may some Infidels, or Heathens, or uncapable persons violently intrude, or scandalous persons are admitted through the neglect of Discipline; in case you have not your choice to hold personal communion with a better Church, and in case also you be not guilty of the corruption, but by seasonable and modest professing your dissent, do clear yourself of the guilt of such intrusion and corruption. For here the Reasons and Ends of a lawful separation are removed: Because it tendeth not to God's honor, or their reformation, or your benefit: For all these are more crossed by holding communion with no Church, than with such a corrupted Church: And this is to be preferred before none, as much as a better before this.
§. 40. Quest. 3. But what if I cannot communicate unless I conform to an imposed gesture, as kneeling or sitting?
Answ. 1. For sitting or standing, no doubt, it is lawful in itself: For else authority were not to be obeyed if they should command it: and else the Church had sinned in for bearing kneeling in the act of Receiving, so many hundred years after Christ; as is plain they did, by the Canons of General Councils ( Nic. 1 • & Trull. ) that universally forbad to adore kneeling any Lord's Day in the year, and any Week-day between Easter and Whitsuntide; and by the Fathers, Tertullian, Epiphanius, &c. that make this an Apostolical or Universal Tradition. 2. And for kneeling I never yet heard anything to prove it unlawful: If there be anything, it must be either some Word of God, or the Nature of the Ordinance, which is supposed to be contradicted. But 1. There is no Word of God for any gesture, nor against any gesture: Christ's example can never be proved to be intended to oblige us more in this, than in many other circumstances that are confessed not obligatory: as that he delivered it but to Ministers, and but to a family, to twelve, and after Supper, and on a Thursday night, and in an upper room, &c. And his gesture was not such a sitting as ours. 2. And for the Nature of the Ordinance it is mixed: And if it be lawful to take a Pardon from the King upon our knees, I know not what can make it unlawful to take a sealed Pardon from Christ (by his Ambassador,) upon our knees.
§. 41. Quest. 4. But what if I cannot receive it, but according to the administration of the Common-prayer-Book? or some other imposed form of prayer? Is it lawful so to take it?
Answ. If it be unlawful to receive it, when it is administered with the Common-prayer-book, it is either, 1. Because it is a form of prayer, 2. Or because that form hath some forbidden matter in it, 3. Or because that form is imposed; 4. Or because it is imposed to some evil end and consequent. 1. That it is not unlawful because a form, is proved before, and indeed needs no proof with any that is judicious. 2. Nor yet for any Evil in this particular form: for in this part the Commonprayer is generally approved. 3. Nor yet because it is Imposed: For a Command maketh not that unlawful to us, which is lawful before: but it maketh many things lawful and duties, that else would have been unlawful accidentally. 4. And the intentions of the Commanders, we have little to do with; and for the consequents they must be weighed on both sides; and the consequents of our refusal will not be found light.
§. 42. In the General, I must here tell all the people of God, in the bitter sorrow of my soul, that at last it is time for them to discern that Temptation, that hath in all ages of the Church almost, made this Sacrament of our Union, to be the grand occasion or instrument of our Divisions: And that true humility, and acquaintance with our selves, and sincere Love to Christ and one another, would show some men, that it was but their pride, and prejudice, and ignorance, that made them think so heinously of other men's manner of Worship: and that on all sides among true Christians, the manner of their Worship is not so odious, as prejudice, and faction, and partiality representeth it: and that God accepteth that which obey reject. And they should see how the Devil hath undone the common people by this means; by teaching them everyone to expect salvation for being of that party which he taketh to be the right Church, and for worshipping in that Manner which he and his party thinketh best: And so wonderful a thing is prejudice, that every part by this is brought to account that ridiculous and vile, which the other party accounteth best.
§. 43. Quest. 5. But what if my conscience be not satisfied, but I am still in doubt, must I not forbear? seeing he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not in faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin?
Answ. The Apostle there speaketh not of eating in the Sacrament, but of eating meats which he doubteth of whether they are lawful, but is sure that it is lawful to forbear them. And in case of doubting about things indifferent, the surer side is to forbear them, because there may be sin in doing, but there can be none on the other side in forbearing: But in case of Duties your doubting will not disoblige you: Else men might give over praying, and hearing God's Word, and believing, and obeying their Rulers, and maintaining their families, when they are but blind enough to doubt of it. 2. Your erring conscience is not a Law-maker, and cannot make it your duty to obey it: For God is your King: and the Office of Conscience is to discern his Laws, and urge you to obedience, and not to make you Laws of its own: So that if it speak falsely, it doth not oblige you, but deceive you: It doth only ligare, or ensnare you, but not obligare, or make a sin a duty: It casteth you into a necessity of sinning more or less till you relinquish the error: But in the case of such duties as these, it is a sin to do them with a doubting conscience, but (ordinarily) it is a greater sin to forbear.
§. 44. Object. But some Divines write, that Conscience being God's Officer, when it erreth God himself doth bind me by it to follow that error, and the evil which it requireth becometh my duty.
Answ. A dangerous error tending to the subversion of souls and Kingdoms, and highly dishonorable to God. God hath made it your Duty to know his will and do it. And if you ignorantly mistake him, will you lay the blame on him, and draw him into participation of your sin, when he forbiddeth you both the error and the sin? And doth he at once forbid and command the same thing? At that very moment God is so far from obliging you to follow your error, that he still obligeth you to lay it by, and do the contrary. If you say You cannot: I answer, Your impotency is a sinful impotency: and you can use the means in which his graee can help you: and he will not change his Law, nor make you Kings and Rulers of yourselves instead of him, because you are ignorant or impotent?
§. 45. Direct. 7. In the time of the administration, go along with the Minister throughout the work, and keep your hearts close to Jesus Christ, in the exercise of all those graces, which are suited to the several parts of the administration: Think not that all the work must be the Ministers: It should be a busy day with you, and your hearts should be taken up with as much diligence, as your hands be in your common labor: But not in a toilsome weary diligence, but in such Delightful business as becometh the guests of the God of Heaven, at so sweet a feast, and in the receiving of such invaluable gifts.
§ 46. Here I should distinctly show you, I. What graces they be that you must there exercise: II. What there is objectively presented before you in the Sacrament, to exercise all these Graces. III. At what seasons in the administration each of these inward works are to be done.
§. 47. I. The Graces to be exercised are these (besides that holy fear and reverence common to all Worship) 1. A humble sense of the odiousness of sin, and of our undone condition as in ourselves, and a displeasure against ourselves, and loathing of ourselves, and melting Repentance for the sins we have committed; as against our Creator, and as against the Love and Mercy of a Redeemer, and against the holy Spirit of Grace. 2. A hungering and thirsting desire after the Lord Jesus, and his Grace, and the favor of God and communion with him, which are there represented and offered to the soul. 3. A lively faith in our Redeemer, his death, resurrection and intercession: and a trusting our miserable souls upon him, as our sufficient Savior and help: And a hearty Acceptance of him and his benefits upon his offered terms. 4. A Joy and gladness in the sense of that unspeakable mercy which is here offered us. 5. A Thankful heart towards him from whom we do receive it. 6. A fervent Love to him that by such Love doth seek our Love. 7. A triumphant Hope of life eternal, which is purchased for us, and sealed to us. 8. A willingness and resolution to deny ourselves, and all this world, and suffer for him that hath suffered for our Redemption. 9. A Love to our Brethren, our neighbors and our enemies, with a readiness to relieve them, and to forgive them when they do us wrong. 10. And a firm Resolution for future obedience, to our Creator, and Redeemer, and Sanctifier, according to our Covenant.
§. 48. II. In the naming of these Graces, I have named their Objects: which you should observe as distinctly as you can that they may be operative. 1. To help your Humiliation and Repentance, you bring thither a loaden miserable soul, to receive a pardon and relief: And you see before you the sacrificed Son of God, who made his soul an offering for sin, and became a Curse for us to save us who were accursed. 2. To draw out your Desires, you have the most excellent gifts and the most needful mercies presented to you that this world is capable of: Even the Pardon of sin, the Love of God, the Spirit of Grace, and the hopes of Glory, and Christ himself with whom all this is given. 3. To exercise your Faith you have Christ here first represented as crucified before your eyes: and then with his benefits, freely given you, and offered to your Acceptance, with a Command that you refuse him not. 4. To exercise your Delight and Gladness, you have this Savior and this Salvation tendered to you; and all that your souls can well desire set before you. 5. To exercise your Thankfulness, what could do more than so great a Gift, so dearly purchased, so surely sealed, and so freely offered. 6. To exercise your Love to God in Christ, you have the fullest manifestation of his attractive Love, even offered to your eyes, and taste, and heart, that a soul on earth can reasonably expect; in such wonderful condescension, that the greatness and strangeness of it surpasseth a natural man's belief. 7. To exercise your Hopes of Life Eternal, you have the price of it here set before you; you have the Gift of it here sealed to you; and you have that Savior represented to you in his suffering, who is now there reigning, that you may remember him as expectants of his Glorious Coming to judge the world, and glorify you with himself. 8. To exercise your self-denial and resolution for suffering, and contempt of the world and fleshly pleasures, you have before you both the greatest Example and Obligation, that ever could be offered to the world: when you see and receive a Crucified Christ, that so strangely denied himself for you; and set so little by the world and flesh. 9. To exercise your Love to Brethren, yea, and enemies, you have his example before your eyes, that Loved you to the death when you were enemies: And you have his holy servants before your eyes, who are amiable in him through the workings of his Spirit, and on whom he will have you show your Love to himself. 10. And to excite your Resolution for future Obedience, you see his double Title to the Government of you, as Creator and as Redeemer; and you feel the obligations of Mercy and Gratitude; and you are to renew a Covenant with him to that end; even openly where all the Church are witnesses. So that you see here are powerful objects before you to draw out all these Graces, and that they are all but such as the work requireth you then to exercise.
§. 49. III. But that you may be the readier when it cometh to practice, I shall as it were lead you by the hand, through all the parts of the administration, and tell you when and how to exercise every grace, and those that are to be joined together I shall take together, that needless distinctness do not trouble you.
1. When you are called up and going to the Table of the Lord, exercise your Humility, Desire and Thankfulness, and say in your hearts, What Lord, dost thou call such a wretch as I? What! me that have so oft despised thy mercy? and willfully offended thee, and preferred the filth of this world and the pleasures of the flesh before thee? Alas, it is thy wrath in Hell that is my due: But if Love will choose such an unworthy guest, and Mercy will be honored upon such sin and misery, I come Lord at thy call: I gladly come: Let thy will be done; and let that mercy which inviteth me, make me acceptable, and graciously entertain me; and let me not come without the wedding garment, nor unreverently rush on holy things, nor turn thy mercies to my bane!
§. 50. 2. When the Minister is confessing sin, prostrate your very souls in the sense of your unworthiness, and let your particular sins be in your eye, with their heinous aggravations; The whole need not the Physician, but the sick. But here I need not put words into your mouths or minds, because the Minister goeth before you, and your hearts must concur with his Confessions, and put in also the secret sins which he omitteth.
§. 51. 3. When you look on the Bread and Wine which is provided and offered for this holy use, remember that it is the Creator of all things, on whom you live, whose Laws you did offend; and say in your hearts, O Lord, how great is my offense? who have broken the Laws of him that made me, and on whom the whole Creation doth depend? I had my Being from thee, and my daily bread: and should I have requited thee with disobedience? Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son.
§. 52. 4. When the words of the Institution are read, and the Bread and Wine are solemnly Consecrated, by separating them to that sacred use, and the acceptance and blessing of God is desired, admire the mercy that prepared us a Redeemer, and say, O God how wonderful is thy Wisdom and thy Love? How strangely dost thou glorify thy mercy over those sins that gave thee advantage to glorify thy justice? Even thou our God whom we have offended, hast out of thy own treasury satisfied thy own justice, and given us a Savior by such a Miracle of Wisdom, Love and Condescension, as men or Angels shall never be able fully to comprehend: so didst thou love the sinful world, as to give thy Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. O thou that hast prepared us so full a remedy, and so precious a gift, sanctify these creatures to be the Representative Body and Blood of Christ, and prepare my heart for so great a gift, and so high and holy and honorable a work.
§. 53. 5. When you behold the Consecrated Bread and Wine, discern the Lord's Body, and reverence it as the Representative Body and Blood of Jesus Christ; and take heed of profaning it, by looking on it as common Bread and Wine: Though it be not Transubstantiate, but still is very Bread and Wine in its Natural Being, yet it is Christ's Body and Blood in representation and effect. Look on it as the consecrated Bread of life, which with the quickening Spirit must nourish you to life eternal.
§. 54. 6. When you see the Breaking of the Bread, and the Pouring out of the Wine, let Repentance, and Love, and Desire, and Thankfulness, thus work within you, O wondrous Love! O hateful sin! How merciful, Lord, hast thou been to sinners? and how cruel have we been to ourselves and thee? Could Love stoop lower? Could God be merciful at a dearer rate? Could my sin have done a more horrid deed, than put to death the Son of God? How small a matter hath tempted me to that, which must cost so dear before it was forgiven? How dear paid my Savior for that, which I might have avoided at a very cheap rate? At how low a price have I valued his blood, when I have sinned and sinned again for nothing! This is my doing! My sins were the thorns, the nails, the spear! Can a murderer of Christ be a a small offender? O dreadful justice! It was I and such other sinners that deserved to bear the punishment who were guilty of the sin; and to have been fuel for the unquenchable flames forever. O precious Sacrifice! O hateful sin! O gracious Savior! How can man's dull and narrow heart, be duly affected with such transcendent things? or Heaven make its due impression upon an inch of flesh! Shall I ever again have a dull apprehension of such Love? Or ever have a favorable thought of sin? Or ever have a fearless thought of Justice? O break or melt this hardened heart, that it may be somewhat conformed to my crucified Lord! The tears of Love and true Repentance, are easier than the flames from which I am redeemed. O hide me in these wounds, and wash me in this precious blood! This is the Sacrifice in which I trust: This is the Righteousness by which I must be justified, and saved from the Curse of thy violated Law! As thou hast accepted this O Father for the world, upon the Cross, Behold it still on the behalf of sinners; and hear his blood that crieth unto thee for mercy to the miserable, and pardon us, and accept us as thy Reconciled Children for the sake of this Crucified Christ alone? We can offer thee no other Sacrifice for sin; and we need no other.
§. 55. 7. When the Minister applieth himself to God by Prayer, for the efficacy of this Sacrament, that in i • he will give us Christ and his Benefits, and pardon, and justify us, and accept us as his reconciled Children, join heartily and earnestly in these requests, as one that knoweth the need and worth of such a mercy.
§. 56. 8. When the Minister delivereth you the consecrated Bread and Wine, look upon him as the messenger of Christ, and hear him as if Christ by him said to you, Take this my broken body and blood, and feed on it to everlasting life: and take with it my sealed Covenant, and therein the sealed testimony of my Love, and the sealed pardon of your sins, and a sealed gift of life eternal; so be it you unfeignedly consent unto my Covenant, and give up yourselves to me as my Redeemed ones. Even as in delivering the possession of House or Lands, the deliverer giveth a Key, and a twig and a turfe and saith, I deliver you this house, and I deliver you this land: so doth the Minister by Christ's authority deliver you Christ and pardon and title to eternal life. Here is an Image of a sacrificed Christ of God's own appointing, which you may lawfully use: And more than an Image; even an Investing instrument, by which these highest mercies are solemnly delivered to you in the name of Christ. Let your hearts therefore say with Joy and Thankfulness with faith and Love, O matchless bounty of the eternal God! what a gift is this! and unto what unworthy sinners! And will God stoop so low to man? and come so near him? and thus reconcile his worthless enemies? Will he freely pardon all that I have done? and take me into his family and love, and feed me with the flesh and blood of Christ? I believe; Lord help mine unbelief. I humbly and thankfully accept thy gifts! Open thou my heart, that I may yet more joyfully and thankfully accept them: Seeing God will glorify his Love and mercy by such incomprehensible gifts as these, behold, Lord a wretch that needeth all this mercy! And seeing it is the offer of thy Grace and Covenant, my soul doth gladly take thee for my God and Father, for my savior, and my sanctifier: And here I give up myself unto thee, as thy Created, Redeemed and (I hope) Regenerate one; as thy Own, thy Subject and thy Child, to be saved and sanctified by thee, to be beloved by thee and to Love thee to everlasting: O seal up this Covenant and pardon, by thy Spirit, which thou sealest and deliverest to me in thy Sacrament: that, without reserve, I may be entirely and forever thine!
§. 57. 9. When you see the Communicants receiving with you, let your very hearts be united to the Saints in love, and say How goodly are thy tents O Jacob! How amiable is the family of the Lord! How good and pleasant is the unity of brethren? How dear to me are the precious members of my Lord! though they have yet all their spots and weaknesses, which he pardoneth, and so must we. My goodness O Lord extendeth not unto thee; but unto thy Saints, the excellent ones on earth, in whom is my delight. What portion of my estate thou requirest I willingly give unto the poor, and if I have wronged any man, I am willing to restore it: And seeing thou hast loved me an enemy, and forgiven me so great a debt, I heartily forgive those that have done me wrong, and love my enemies. O keep me in thy family all my days, for a day in thy Court is better than a thousand, and the door-keepers in thy house are happier than the most prosperous of the wicked.
§. 58. 10. When the Minister returneth Thanks and Praise to God, stir up your souls to the greatest alacrity; and suppose you saw the Heavenly hosts of Saints and Angels Praising the same God in the presence of his Glory; and think with yourselves, that you belong to the same family and society as they, and are learning their work, and must shortly arrive at their perfection: Strive therefore to imitate them in Love and Joy; and let your very souls be poured out in Praises and Thanksgiving: And when you have the next leisure for your private thoughts (as when the Minister is exhorting you to your duty) exercise your Love and Thanks and faith and hope and self-denial and Resolution for future obedience, in some such breathings of your souls as these: O my gracious God, thou hast surpassed all human comprehension in thy Love! Is this thy usage of unworthy prodigals! I feared le • t thy wrath as a consuming fire would have devoured such a guilty soul; and thou wouldst have charged upon me all my folly: But while I condemned myself, thou hast forgiven and justified me; and surprised me with the sweetest embracements of thy Love! I see now that thy thoughts are above our thoughts, and thy ways above our ways, and thy Love excelleth the Love of man, even more than the Heavens are above the earth. With how dear a price hast thou Redeemed a wretch, that deserved thy everlasting vengeance! with how precious and sweet a feast hast thou entertained me, who deserved to be cast out with the workers of iniquity! Shall I ever more slight such Love as this? shall it not overcome my rebelliousness; and melt down my cold and hardened heart? shall I be saved from Hell and not be thankful? Angels are admiring these miracles of Love? and shall not I admire them? Their love to us doth cause them to rejoice, while they stand by and see our heavenly feast? And should it not be sweeter to us that are the guests that feed upon it? my God how dearly hast thou purchased my Love? How strangely hast thou deserved and sought it? Nothing is so much my grief and shame, as that I can answer such Love, with no more fervent fruitful Love. O what an addition would it be to all this precious mercy, if thou wouldst give me a Heart to answer these thine invitations, That thy Love thus poured out, might draw forth mine, and my soul might flame by its approaching unto these thy flames? and that Love drawn out by the sense of Love, might be all my life? O that I could Love thee as much as I would Love thee? Yea as much as thou wouldst have me Love thee? But this is too great a happiness for earth? But thou hast shown me the place where I may attain it! My Lord is there, in full possession: who hath left me these pledges, till he come and fetch us to himself, and feast us there in our Masters joy: O blessed place! O happy company that see his Glory, and are filled with the streams of those rivers of consolation! yea happy we whom thou hast called from our dark and miserable state, and made us heirs of that felicity, and passengers to it, and expectants of it, under the conduct of so sure a guide! O then we shall Love thee without these sinful p • wses and defects! in another measure, and another manner than now we do: when thou shalt reveal and communicate thy attractive Love, in another measure and manner than now! Till then, my God, I am devoted to thee: By Right and Covenant I am thine! My soul here beareth witness against myself, that my defects of Love have no excuse: Thou deservest all, if I had the love of all the Saints in Heaven and Earth to give thee. What hath this world to do with my affections? And what is this sordid corruptible flesh, that its desires and pleasures should call down my soul, and tempt it to neglect my God? What is there in all the sufferings that man can lay upon me, that I should not joyfully accept them for his sake, that hath Redeemed me from Hell, by such unmatched voluntary sufferings? Lord seeing thou regardest, and so regardest, so vile a worm, my heart, my tongue, my hand confess, that I am wholly thine. O let me live to none but thee, and to thy service, and thy saints on earth! And O let me no more return unto iniquity! nor venture on that sin that killed my Lord! And now thou hast chosen so low a dwelling, O be not strange to the Heart that thou hast so freely chosen! O make it the daily residence of thy spirit! Quicken it by thy grace: adorn it with thy gifts: employ it in thy Love; delight in its attendance on thee: refresh it with thy joys and the light of thy countenance: and destroy this carnality, selfishness and unbelief: And let the world see that God will make a Palace, of the lowest heart, when he chooseth it for the place of his own abode.
§. 59. Direct. 8. When you come home review the mercy which you have received, and the duty which you have done, and the Covenant you have made: And, 1. Betake yourselves to God in Praise and Prayer for the perfecting of his work: and, 2. Take heed to your hearts that they grow not cold, and that worldly things or diverting trifles, do not blot out the sacred impressions, which Christ hath made, and that they cool not quickly into their former dull and sleepy frame. 3. And see that your Lives be actuated by the grace that you have here received, that even they that you converse with may perceive that you have been with God. Especially when Temptations would draw you again to sin; and when the injuries of friends or enemies would provoke you, and when you are called to testify your love to Christ, by any costly work or suffering; remember then what was so lately before your eyes, and upon your heart; and what you resolved on, and what a Covenant you made with God. Yet judge not of the fruit of your Receiving, so much by feeling, as by faith: for more is promised than you yet possess.
CHAP. XXV. Directions for fearful troubled Christians that are perplexed with doubts of their sincerity and justification.
§. 1. HAving Directed Families in the Duties of their Relations, and in the right Worshipping of God, I shall speak something of the special duties of some Christians, who in regard of their state of soul and Body have special need of help and counsel. As, 1. The Doubting troubled Christian. 2. The Declining or Backsliding Christian; 3. The Poor. 4. The Aged. 5. The Sick. 6. And those that are about the sick and dying. Though these might seem to belong rather to the first Tome, yet because I would have those Directions lie here together, which the several sorts of persons in Families most need, I have chosen to reserve them rather to this place. The special duties of the Strong, the Rich, and the Youthful and Healthful, I omi • , because I find the Book grow big, and you may gather them from what is said before, on several such subjects. And the Directions which I shall first give to doubting Christians, shall be but a few brief memorials, because I have done that work already, in my Directions or Method for Peace of Conscience and spiritual comfort: And much is here said before, in the Directions against Melancholy and Despair.
§. 2. Direct. 1. Find out the special cause of your doubts and troubles, and bend most of your endeavors to remove that cause. The same Cure will not serve for every doubting soul, no nor for everyone that hath the very same doubts: For the Causes may be various, though the doubts should be the same: and the doubts will be continued while the cause remaineth.
§. 3. 1. In some persons the chief cause is a timorous, weak and passionate temper of body and mind: which in some (especially of the weaker Sex) is so Natural a disease that there is no hope of a total cure; Though yet we must direct and support such as well as we are able. These persons have so weak a Head, and such powerful passions, that Passion is their life; and according to Passion they judge of themselves, and of all their duties. They are ordinarily very high or very low: full of joy, or sinking in despair: But usually Fear is their predominant Passion. And what an enemy to quietness and peace strong fears are, is easily observed in all that have them. Assuring evidence will not quiet such fearful minds nor any Reason satisfy them. The Directions for these persons must be the same which I have before given against Melancholy and Despair. Especially that the Preaching and Books and means which they make use of be rather such as tend to inform the judgment, and settle the will and guide the Life▪ than such as by the greatest fervency tend to awaken them to such passions or affections which they are unable to manage.
§. 4. 2. With others the Cause of their Troubles is Melancholy, which I have long observed to be the commonest cause, with those godly people that remain in long and grievous doubts: Where this is the cause, till it be removed, other remedies do but little. But o • this I have spoken at large before.
§. 5. 3. In others the Cause is a habit of discontent and pievishness and impatiency▪ because of some wants or crosses in the world: Because they have not what they would have, their Minds grow ulcerated, like a Body that is sick or sore, that carrieth about with them the pain and smart: And they are still complaining of the pain which they feel; but not of that which maketh the sore, and causeth the pain. The cure of these is either in Pleasing them that they may have their will in all things (as you rock children and give them that which they cry for to quiet them 〈…〉 or rather to help to cure their impatiency, and settle their minds against their childish sinful discontents (of which before).
§. 6. 4. In others the Cause is error or great ignorance about the tenor of the Covenant of Grace, and the Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ, and the work of Sanctification, and evidences thereof: They know not on what terms Christ dealeth with sinners in the pardoning of sin, nor what are the infallible signs of Sanctification: It is sound Teaching, and diligent learning that must be the cure of these.
§. 7. 5. In others the cause is a careless life or frequent sinning, and keeping the wounds of Conscience still bleeding: They are still fretting the sore, and will not suffer it to skin: either they live in railing and contention, or malice, or some secret lust, or fraud, or some way stretch and wrong their Consciences: And God will not give his peace and comfort to them till they reform. It is a mercy that they are disquieted and not given over to a seared Conscience, which is past feeling.
§. 8. 6. In others the Cause of their doubts is, Placing their Religion too much in humiliation, and in a continual poreing on their hearts, and overlooking or neglecting the high and chiefest parts of Religion, even the daily studies of the Love of God, and the riches of Grace in Jesus Christ, and hereby stirring up the soul to Love and Delight in God. When they make this more of their Religion and business, it will bring their souls into a sweeter relish.
§. 9. 7. In others the Cause is such weakness of parts and confusion of thoughts, and darkness of mind, that they are not able to examine themselves, nor to know what is in them: When they ask themselves any question, about their Repentance or Love to God, or any grace, they are fain to answer like strangers, and say, they cannot tell whether they do it or not. These persons must make more use than others, of the judgment of some able faithful guide.
§. 10. 8. But of all others, the commonest cause of uncertainty, is the weakness or littleness of Grace: When it is so little as to be next to none at all, no wonder if it be hardly and seldom discerned: Therefore,
§. 11. Direct. 2. Be not neglecters of self-examination; but labor for skill to manage aright so great a work: But yet let your care and diligence be much greater to get grace and use it, and increase it, than to try whether you have it already or not. For in examination, when you have once taken a right course to be resolved, and yet are in doubt as much as before, your over-much poreing upon these trying questions, will do you but little good, and make you but little the better, but the time and labor may be almost lost: whereas all the labor which you bestow in Getting, and Using and Increasing grace, is bestowed profitably to good purpose; and tendeth first to your safety and salvation, and next that to your easier certainty and comfort. There is no such way in the world to be certain that you have grace, as to get so much as is easily discerned and will show itself, and to exercise it much that it may come forth into observation: When you have a strong Belief you will easily be sure that you believe: When you have a fervent Love to Christ and Holiness, and to the word and ways and servants of God, you will easily be assured that you love them. When you strongly hate sin and live in universal constant obedience, you will easily discern your Repentance and obedience. But weak grace will have but weak assurance and little consolation.
§. 12. Direct. 3. Set yourselves with all your skill and diligence to destroy every sin of heart and life, and make it your principal ear and business to do your duty, and please, and honor God in your place, and to do all the good you can in the world: and trust God with your souls, as long as you wait upon him in his way. If you live in willful sin and negligence, be not unwilling to be reproved and delivered! If you cherish your sensual fleshly lusts, and set your hearts too eagerly on the world, or defend your unpeaceableness and passion, or neglect your known duty to God or man, and make no Conscience of a true reformation, it is not any enquiries after signs of grace, that will help you to assurance. You may complain long enough before you have case, while such a thorn is in your foot! Conscience must be better used before it will speak a word of sound well grounded peace to you. But when you set yourselves with all your care and skill to do your Duties, and please your Lord, he will not let your labor be in vain: He will take care of your peace and comfort, while you take care of your duty: And in this way you may boldly trust him: Only think not hardly and falsely of the Goodness of that God whom you study to serve and please.
§. 13. Direct. 4. Be sure whatever condition you are in, that you understand and hold fast, and improve the General grounds of Comfort, which are common to mankind, so far as they are made known to them: and they are three (which are the Foundation of all our comfort). 1. The Goodness and Mercifulness of God in his very Nature. 2. The sufficiency of the satisfaction or sacrifice of Christ. 3. The universality and freeness and sureness of the Covenant, or promise of pardon and salvation to all, that by final impenitence and unbelief do not continue obstinately to reject it: (or to all that unfeignedly Repent and Believe ). 1. Think not meanly and poorly of the infinite Goodness of God: Even to Moses he proclaimeth his name at the second delivery of the Law, [ The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin —] Exod. 34. 6, 7. His mercy is over all his works: It is great and reacheth to the Heavens: It is firm and endureth forever: And he hath pleasure in those that hope in his mercy, Psal. 147. 11. & 100. 5. & 33. 18. & 57. 10. & 108. 4. 2. Extenuate not the Merits and Sacrifice of Christ: but know that never man was damned for want of a Christ to die and be a sacrifice for his sin, but only for want of Repentance and faith in him, John. 3. 16. 3. Deny not the universality of the conditional promise of pardon and salvation, to all that it is offered to, and will accept it on the offerers terms. And if you do but feel these three foundations firm and steadfast under you, it will encourage every willing soul. The Love of God was the cause of our Redemption by Christ: Redemption was the foundation of the Promise or new Covenant: And he that buildeth on this threefold foundation is safe.
§. 14. Direct. 5. When you come to try your particular Title to the blessings of the Covenant, be sure that you well understand the condition of the Covenant; and look for the performance of that condition in yourselves as the infallible Evidence of your title: And know that the condition is nothing but an unfeigned Consent unto the Covenant. Or such a Belief of the Gospel as makeeth you truly willing of all the mercies offered in the Gospel, and of the Duties required in order to those mercies. And That nothing depriveth any man that heareth the Gospel, of Christ, and pardon, and salvation, but obstinate unwillingness or refusal of the mercy, and the necessary annexed duties. Understand this well, and then peruse the Covenant of Grace, (which is, but to take God for your God and Happiness, your Father, your Savior and your Sanctifier ): and then ask your hearts, whether here be anything that you are unwilling of; and unwilling of in a prevailing degree (when it is greater than your willingness ): And if truly you are willing to be in Covenant with your God, and Savior, and Sanctifier upon these terms, know that your Consent, or Willingness, or Acceptance of the mercy offered you, is your true performance of the Condition of your title, and consequently the infallible evidence▪ of your title: even as Marriage Consent is a title-condition to the person and privileges: And therefore if you find this, your doubts are answered: You have found as good an evidence as Scripture doth acquaint us with: And if this will not quiet and satisfy you, you understand not the business; nor is it Reason or Evidence that can satisfy you, till you are better prepared to understand them. But if really you are unwilling, and will not consent to the terms of the Covenant, then instead of doubting, be past doubt that you are yet unsanctified: And your work is presently to consider better of the terms and benefits, and of those unreasonable reasons that make you unwilling? till you see that your happiness lieth upon the business, and that you have all the reason in the world to make you willing, and no true Reason for the withholding of your Consent: And when the light of these considerations hath prevailed for your Consent, the match is made, and your Evidence is sure.
§. 15. Direct. 6. Judge not of your hearts and Evidences upon every sudden glance or feeling, but upon a sober deliberate examination, when your minds are in a clear composed frame: And as then you find yourselves, record the judgment or discovery: and believe not every sudden inconsiderate appearance, or passionate fear, against that Record. Otherwise you will never be quiet or resolved; but carried up and down by present sense. The case is weighty, and not to be decided by a sudden aspect, nor by a scattered or a discomposed mind: If you call your unprovided or your distempered understandings suddenly to so great a work, no wonder if you are deceived. You must not judge of colors when your eye is blood-shotten, or when you look through a coloured Glass, or when the object is far off. It is like casting up a long and difficult account; which must be done deliberately as a work of time; and when it is so done, and the sums subscribed, if afterwards you will question that account again, you must take as full a time to do it, and that when you are as calm and vacant as before; and not unsettle an exact account upon a sudden view, or a thought of someone particular. Thus must you trust to no examinations and decisions about the state of your souls, but those that in long and calm deliberation, have brought it to an issue.
§. 16. Direct. 7. And in doing this, neglect not to make use of the assistance of an able faithful Guide, so far as your own weakness makes it necessary. Your doubting showeth that you are not sufficient to dispatch it satisfactorily yourselves: The Question then is, What help a wiser man can give you? Why, he can clearlier open to you the true nature of Grace, and the marks that are infallible, and the extent of the Grace and tenor of the Covenant; and he can help you how to trace your hearts, and observe the discoveries of good or evil in them: he can show you your mistakes, and help you in the application, and tell you much of his own and others experiences: And he can pass a strong Conjecture upon your own Case in particular, if he be one that knoweth the course of your lives, and is intimately acquainted with you: For Sin and Grace are both expressive operative things, like Life that ordinarily will stir, or Fire that will be seen: Though their judgment cannot be infallible of you, and though for a while Hypocrisy may hide you from the knowledge of another, yet ( fic • a non di • , &c. ) ordinarily Nature will be seen, and that which is within you will show itself: so that your familiar acquaintance that see your lives in private and in public, may pass a very strong conjecture at your state, whether you s • t yourselves indeed to please God in sincerity or no. Therefore, if possible, choose such a man to help you, as is 1. Able, 2. Faithful, and 3. Well acquainted with you: And undervalue not his judgment.
§. 17. Direct. 8. When you cannot attain to a Certainty of your case, undervalue not and neglect not the Comforts which a bare probability may afford you: I know that a Certainty in so weighty a case, should be earnestly desired, and endeavored to the uttermost. But yet it is no small comfort which a likelihood or hopefulness may yield you. Husband and Wife are uncertain every day, whether one of them may kill the other: And yet they can live comfortably together, because it is an unlikely thing; and though it be possible, it is not much to be feared: All the comforts of Christians dependeth not on their Assurance: It is but few Christians in the world that reach to clear Assurance: For all the Papists, Lutherans and Arminians are without any Certainty of their salvation: because they think it cannot be had: And all those Jansenists, or Protestants that are of Augustine's judgment are without Assurance of salvation, though they may have assurance of their Justification and Sanctification: Because their judgment is, that the justified and sanctified (though not the Elect ) may fall away. And of those that hold the Doctrine of Perseverance, how few do we find, that can say, they are certain of their sincerity and salvation. Alas, not one of very many. And yet many thousands of these do live in some peace of Conscience, and quietness, and comfort, in the hopefulness and probabilities to which they have attained.
§. 18. Direct. 9. Resolve to be much in the great delightful duties of Thanksgiving and the Praise of God: and to spend a considerable part (ordinarily) of all your prayers herein: especially to spend the Lord's▪ Day principally in these. And thus you will have three great advantages: 1. The very actings of Love, and Thanks, and Joy, will help you to comfort in a nearer way, than arguments and self-examination will do: even in a way of feeling, as the fire maketh you warm. 2. The custom of exercising those sweetest graces, will habituate your souls to it, and in time wear out the sadder impression. 3. God will most own you in those highest duties.
§. 19. Direct. 10. Mark well how far your doubtings do help or hinder you in your sanctification: So far as they turn your heart from God, and from the Love and sweetness of a holy life, and unfit you for thankfulness and cheerful obedience, so far you may be sure that Satan is gratified by them, and God displeased, and therefore they should be resisted: But so far as they keep you humble and obedient, and make you more tenderly afraid of sin, and quicken your desires of Christ and grace, so far God useth them for your benefit: And therefore be not too impatient under them, but wait on God in the use of his means, and he will give his comforts in the fittest season. Many an one hath sweet assurance at his death, or in his sufferings for Christ when he needed it most, that was fain to live long before without it. Especially take care, 1. That you miss not of Assurance through your own neglect: 2. And that your doubtings work no ill effects, in turning away your hearts from God, or discouraging you in his service, and then you may take them as a trial of your patience, and they will certainly have a happy end.
CHAP. XXVI. Directions for Declining or Backsliding Christians: and about Perseverance.
THe case of Backsliders is so terrible, and yet the mistakes of many Christians so common in thinking unjustly that they are backsliders, that this subject must be handled with the greater care. And when I have first given some Directions for the Cure, I shall next give some to others for Prevention, of so sad a state.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Understand well wherein Backsliding doth consist, the sorts, and the degrees of it, that so you may the more certainly and exactly discern, whether it be indeed your case or not. To this end I shall here open to you, I. The several sorts of Backsliders: II. The several steps or degrees of backsliding. III. The signs of it.
§. 2. I. There are in general three sorts of Backsliders. 1. Such as decline from the Truth by the error of their Understanding. 2. Such as turn from the Goodness of God and Holiness, by the corruption of their Will and Affections. 3. Such as turn from the Obedience of God, and an upright conversation, by the sinfulness of their lives.
The first sort containeth in it, 1. Such as decline to Infidelity from Faith; and doubt of the Truth of the Word of God: 2. Such as decline only to error about the meaning of the Scriptures, though they doubt not of the Truth of them. This corrupted Judgment will presently corrupt both Heart and Life.
§. 3. The second sort ( Backsliders in Heart ) containeth, 1. Such as only lose their Affections to Good; their complacency, and desire; and lose their averseness and zeal against sin: 2. And such as lose the very Resolution of the Will also, and grow unresolved what to do, if not resolved to do evil, and to omit that which is good.
§. 4. The third sort ( Backsliders in Life ) comprehendeth, 1. Those that fall from Duty, towards God or Man. 2. And those that fall into positive sins, and turn to sensuality, in voluptuousness, worldliness or pride.
§. 5. II. 1. Backsliders in judgment, do sometimes fall by slow degrees, and sometimes suddenly at once. Those that fall by degrees, do some of them begin in the failing of the understanding; but most of them begin at the failing or falseness of the Heart, and the corrupted Will corrupteth the understanding.
§. 6. 1. Those that fall by degrees through the failing of the Understanding, are those simple souls that never were well grounded in the truth: And some of them reason themselves into error or unbelief; and others of them (which is most usual) are led into it by the cunning and diligence of seducers. And for the Degrees, They grow first to doubt of some Arguments which formerly seemed valid to them; and then they doubt of the truth itself: Or else they hear some argument from a seducer, which (through their own weakness) they are unable to answer: And then they yield to it, as thinking that it is right, because they see not what is to be said against it; and know not what others know to the contrary, nor how easily another can confute it: And when once they are brought into a suspicion of one point, which they formerly held, they quickly suspect all the rest: and grow into a suspicion and disaffection to the persons whom they did before most highly value: And then they grow into a high esteem of the persons and party that seduced them; and think that they that are wiser in one thing, are wiser in the rest: and so are prepared to receive all the errors which follow that one, which they first received: And next they imbody with the Sect that seduced them; and separate from the sober united part of the Church: And so they grow to a zealous importunity for the increase of their party, and to lose their charity to those that are against their way; and to corrupt their Morals, in thinking all dishonesty lawful, which seemeth necessary to promote the interest of their Sect, which they think is the interest of the Truth and of God: And at last its like they will grow weary of that Sect, and hearken to another, and another; till in the end they come to one of these periods: either to settle in Popery as the easiest Religion; and being taken with their pretence of Antiquity, Stability, Unity and Universality; or else to turn to Atheism or Infidelity, and take all Religion for a mere deceit; or else, (if they retained an honest heart in their former wanderings) God showeth them their folly, and bringeth them back to Unity and Charity, and maketh them see the vanity of those Reasonings which before seduced them, and which once they thought were some spiritual coelestial light. This is the common course of error; when the Understanding is the most notable cause. But sometimes a deceiver prevaileth with them on a sudden, by such false appearances of truth which they are unable to confute. But still an ill-prepared unfurnished Mind is the chiefest Cause.
§ 7. 2. But those whose Judgments are conquered by the perverse inclination of their Wills, are usually carnal worldly hypocrites, who never conquered the fleshly mind and interest, nor overcame the world, nor ever were acquainted with the heavenly Nature and Life, nor with the power of Divine Love; and these having made a change of their profession, through the mere conviction of their understandings, and benefit of Education or Government, or the advantages of Religion in the Country where they live, without a renewed holy Heart, the bias of their Hearts doth easily prevail against the Light of their Understandings: And because they would fain have those Doctrines to be true, which save them from sufferings, or give them liberty for a fleshly, ambitious, worldly life, therefore they do by degrees prevail with their understandings to receive them.
§. 8. 2. Backsliders in Heart, do fall by divers degrees and means: for Satan's Methods are not always the same. Some of them fall through the corruption of their Judgments: for every error hath much influence on the heart: Some are tempted suddenly, into some gross or sensual sin; and so the errors of their lives call away their hearts from God. Not but that some sin of the Heart or Will, doth still go first, but yet the extraordinary declension and pravity of the heart, may sometimes be caused by the errors of the Judgment or the Life. But sometimes the beginning and progress is almost observable in the Appetite and Will itself: And here the Inclining to Evil, (that is, to sensual or carnal good) and the declining from true spiritual good, do almost always go together. And it is most usually by this method, and by these degrees.
1. The Devil usually beginneth with the fantasie and appetite, and representeth some worldly fleshly thing as very pleasant and desirable: 2. Next that he causeth this Complacency to entice the Thoughts, so that they are much and oft in thinking on this pleasure. 3. Next that the Will is drawn into a liking of it, and he wisheth he might enjoy it (whether it be riches, or pleasant dwellings, or pleasant company, or pleasant meats or drinks, or fleshly accommodations, or apparel, or honor, or command, or ease, or lust, or sports and recreations, or whatever else). 4. Next that the understanding is drawn into the design, and is casting and contriving how it may be obtained, and all lawful means are first considered of, that if possible, the business might be accomplished without the hazard of the soul. 5. Next to that, Endeavors are used to that end, by such means as are supposed lawful, and the conscience quieted with the conceit of the harmlessness and security. 6. By this time the man is engaged in his carnal cause and course, and so the difficulty of returning is increased: And the inclination of the heart groweth stronger to the sensual pleasure than before. 7. And then he is drawn to prosecute his design by any means, how sinful soever; if it be possible making himself believe by some reasonings or other that all is lawful still; or if the case be too palpable to be so cloaked, conscience at last is cast asleep, and seared and stupefied, that it may be silent under all: Till either Grace or Vengeance awake the sinner, and make him amazed at his madness and stupidity: This is the most usual Method of the Hearts relapse to positive evil.
§. 10. 2. And by such degrees doth the heart decline from the Love of God and Goodness: As 1. The thoughts are diverted to some carnal vanity that is overloved. And the thoughts of God are seldomer and shorter than they were wont to be. 2. And at the same time the thoughts of God do grow less serious and pleasing, and more dead and lifeless. 3. And then the means which should kindle love, are used with more dullness, and remissness, and indifferency. 4. And then Conscience being galled with the guilt of willful omissions and commissions (being acquainted with the fleshly designs of the heart,) doth raise a secret fear of God's displeasure; and this being not strong enough to restrain the man from sin, doth make his sin greater, and maketh him very backward to draw near to God, or seriously to think of him, or call upon him; and turneth Love into terror and aversation. 5 And if God do not stop and recover the sinner, he will next grow quite aweary of God, and out of love with a holy life, and change him for his worldly fleshly pleasures. 6. And next that he will entertain some Infidel, or Atheistical, or Libertine Doctrine, which may quiet him in his course of sin, by justifying it, and will conform his judgment to his heart. 7. And next that, he will hate God, and his ways, and servants, and turn a persecutor of them: Till vengeance lay him in Hell, where pain and desperation will increase his hatred; but his fleshly pleasure, and malicious persecution shall be forever at an end.
§. 11. 3. Backsliders in Life and Practice, do receive the first infection at the heart; and the life declineth no further than the Heart declineth: But yet I distinguish this sort from the other, as the effect from the cause: And the rather because some few do much decline in heart, that yet seem to keep much blamelessness of life, in the eye of Men. And it is usually done by these degrees.
§. 12. 1. In the man's backsliding into positive sin (as sensuality or worldliness) the heart being prepared as before. 1. The judgment doth reason more remissly against sin, than it did before: And the Will doth oppose it with less resolution, and with greater faintness and indifferency. 2. Then the sinner tasteth of the bait, and first draweth as near to sin as he dare, and embraceth the occasions and opportunities of sinning, while yet he thinketh to yield no further. And in this case he is so long disputing with the Tempter, and hearkening to him, and gazing on the bait, till at last he yieldeth: and having long been playing at the pits brink, his violent lust or appetite doth thrust him in. 3. When he hath once sinned (against knowledge) he is troubled a while, and this he taketh for true Repentance: And when he is grown into some hope that the first sin is forgiven him, he is the bolder to venture on the like again; and thinketh that the second may be as well forgiven as the first. 4. In the same order he falleth into it again and again, till it come to a custom. 5. And by this time he Loveth it more, and wisheth it were lawful, and there were no danger by it. 6. And then he thinketh himself concerned to prove it lawful, to quiet conscience, that it may not torment him: and therefore he gladly heareth what the justifiers of his sin can say for it; and he maketh himself believe that the Reasons are of weight. 7. And then he sinneth without remorse.
§. 13. 2. So in men's backsliding from the practice of Religion: 1. The Heart is alienated and undisposed as aforesaid. 2. And then the Life of the duty doth decay, and it dwindleth towards a dead Formality: Like a body in a Consumption, the vivid complexion, and strength, and activity decay. 3. Next this he can frequently omit a duty, especially in secret where no man knoweth it: till by degrees he grow more seldom in it. 4. All this he taketh for a pardoned infirmity, which consisteth with a state of grace, and therefore he is little troubled about it. 5. Next this he loseth all the life and comfort of Religion; and misseth not any duty when he hath omitted it; but is glad that he scapeth it, and when it is at an end, as an Ox is when he is out of the yoke. 6. Next he beginneth to hearken to them that speak against so much ado in Religion, as if it were a needless unprofitable thing. 7. And if God forsake him, he next repenteth of his former diligence, and settleth himself either in a dead course of such customary lip-service as doth cost him nothing, or else in utter worldliness and ungodliness, and perhaps at last in malignity and persecution.
§. 14. III. Though the Signs or Symptoms of declining may be gathered from what is said already, I shall add some more. 1. You are declining when you grow bolder with sin, or with the occasions of it, and temptations to it, than you were in your more watchful state. 2. When you make a small matter of those inward corruptions and infirmities, which once seemed grievous to you, and almost intolerable. 3. When you settle in a course of Profession o • Religiousness, that putteth your flesh to little cost, in labor, reproach or suffering from the ungodly; but leave out the hard and costly part, and seem to be very Religious in the rest. 4. When you are quiet and contented in the daily customary use of Ordinances, though you find no profit, or increase in grace by it, or communion with God. 5. When you grow strange to God and Jesus Christ, and have little converse with him in the Spirit; and your thoughts of him are few, and cold, and lifeless, and your Religion lieth all in conversing with good men, and good Books, and outward duties. 6. When you grow neglecters of your hearts, and strangers to them, and find little work about them from day today; either in trying them, or watching them, or stirring them up, or mortifying their corruptions; but your business in Religion is most abroad, and in outward exercises. 7. Yea, though your own hearts and duties be much of your care and thoughts, you are on the losing hand if the Wonders of Love and Grace in Christ have not more of your thoughts; or if you set not yourselves more to the study of a Crucified and Glorified Christ, than of your own distempered hearts. 8. All is not well with you when spiritual helps and advantages are less relished and valued; and you grow more indifferent to the Sermons, and Prayers, and Sacraments which once you could not live without: And use them but as bare Duties for necessity, and not as Means with any great hope of benefit and success. 9. When you grow too regardful of the eye of man, and too regardless of the eye of God; and are much more careful about the words and outside of your Prayers and discourses, than the Spirit and inward part and manner of them; and dress yourselves accurately when you appear abroad, as those that would seem very good to men, but go at home in the • ordidst garb of a cold and careless heart and life. 10. When you grow hottest about some Controverted smaller matters in Religion, or studious of the interest of some private opinion and party which you have chosen, more than of the interest of the common Truths and Cause of Christ. 11. When in joining with others you relish more the fineness of the speech, than the Spirit, and weight, and excellency of the matter: and are impatient of hearing of the wholesomest truths, if the speaker manifest any personal infirmity in the delivery of them: And are weary and tired, if you be not drawn on with novelty, variety, or elegancy of speech. 12. When you grow more indifferent for your company, and set less by the company of serious godly Christians than you did, and are almost as well pleased with common company and discourse. 13. When you grow more impatient of reproof for sin, and love not to be told of anything in you that is amiss; but love those best that highliest applaud you. 14. When the renewing of your Repentance is grown a lifeless cursory work: When in preparation for the Lord's Day, or Sacrament, or other occasions, you call yourselves to no considerable account, or make no greater a matter of the sins which you find on your account, than if you were almost reconciled to them. 15. When you grow more uncharitable and censorious to brethren that differ from you in tolerable points; and less tender of the names or welfare of others, and love not your neighbor as yourselves, and do not as you would be done by. 16. When you grow less compassionate to the ungodly world, and less regardful of the common interest of the Universal Church, and of Jesus Christ throughout the earth, and grow more narrow private-spirited, and confine your care to yourselves, or to your party. 17. When the hopes of Heaven and the Love of God cannot content you, but you are thirsty after some worldly contentment, and grow eager in your desires, and the world groweth more sweet to you, and more amiable in your eyes. 18 When sense, and appetite, and fleshly pleasure is grown more powerful with you, and you make a great matter of them, and cannot deny them, without a great deal of striving and regret, as if you had done some great exploit, if you live not like a beast. 19. When you are more proud and impatient; and are less able to bear disesteem, and slighting, and injuries from men, or poverty, or sufferings for Christ; and make a greater matter of your losses, or crosses, or wrongs, than beseemeth one that is dead to the flesh and to the world. 20. Lastly, When you had rather dwell on Earth than be in Heaven; and are more unwilling to think of death, or to prepare for it, and expect it, and are less in love with the coming of Christ, and are ready to say of this sinful life in flesh, It is good to be here. All these are signs of a declining state; though yet you are not come to apostasy.
§. 15. But the signs of a mortal damnable state indeed are found in these following degrees. 1. When a man had rather have worldly prosperity, than the • avour and fruition of God in Heaven. 2. When the interest of the flesh can do more with him, than the interest of God and his soul, and do more rule and dispose of his heart and life. 3. When he had rather live in sensuality, than in Holiness: And had rather have leave to live as he list, than have a Christ and Holy Spirit to sanctify and cure him: or at least will not be cured on the terms proposed in the Gospel. 4. When he loveth not the means that would recover him (as such): The nearer you come to this, the more dangerous is your case.
§. 16. And these following signs are therefore of a very dangerous signification. 1. When the pleasure of sinful prosperity and delights, doth so far over-top the pleasures of holiness, that you are under trouble and weariness in holy duties, and at ease and merry when you have your sinful delights. 2. When no persuasion of a Minister or friend, can bring you so thoroughly to repent of your open scandalous sins, as to take shame to yourselves in a free confession of them (even in the open Assembly if you are justly called to it,) to condemn yourselves and give warning to others, and glorify the most Holy God: But you will not believe that any such disgraceful confession is your duty, because you will not do it. 3. When you cannot bring your hearts to a full Resolution to let go your sin; but though Conscience worry and condemn you for it, you do but slightly purpose hereafter to amend, but will not presently resolve. 4. When you will not be persuaded to consent to the necessary effectual means of your recovery: as to abstain from the bait and temptation and occasion of sin. Many a Drunkard hath told me he was willing to be reformed: but when I have desired them then to consent to drink no Wine or Ale for so many months, and to keep out of the place, and to commit the Government of themselves for so many months to their Wives or some other friend that liveth with them, and to drink nothing but what they give them, they would not Consent to any of this, and so shown the hypocrisy of their professed willingness to amend. 5. When sin becometh easy, and the Conscience groweth patient with it, and quiet under it. 6. When the judgment taketh part with it, and the tongue will plead for it, and justify or extenuate it, inste • d of repenting of it. These are dangerous signs of an impenitent unpardoned miserable soul. And the man is in a dangerous way to this, 1. When he hath plunged himself into such engagements to sin, that he cannot leave it, but it will cost him very dear: as it will be his shame to confess it, or his undoing in the world to forsake it, or a great deal of cost and labor must be lost, which his ambitious or Covetous projects have cost him: It will be hard breaking over so great difficulties. 2. When God letteth him alone in sin, and prospereth him in it, or doth not much disturb him or afflict him: This also is a dangerous case.
§. 17. By all this you may perceive that those are no signs of a backsliding state, which some poor Christians are afraid are such. As, 1. When poverty necessitateth them to lay out more of their time and thoughts and words about the labors of their callings than some richer persons do. 2. When age or sickness causeth their memories to decay; so that they cannot remember a Sermon so well as heretofore. 3. When age or sickness taketh off the quickness and vigor of their spirits, so that they have not the lively affections in prayer, or holy conference or meditation or reading or hearing as formerly they had: But (though they are as much as ever Resolved for God, against sin and Vanity, yet) they are colder and duller, and have less zeal and fervency and delight in holy exercises. 4. When age or weakness or melancholy hath decayed or confounded their Imaginations, and ravelled their Thoughts, so that they cannot order them and command them as formerly they could. 5. And when age or melancholy hath weakened their parts and gifts, so that they are of flower understandings, and unabler in prayer, or preaching or conference to express themselves than heretofore. All these are but bodily changes, and such hindrances of the soul as depend thereon, and not to be taken for signs of a soul that declineth in holiness, and is less accepted of God.
§. 18. Direct. 2. When you know the Marks of a Backslider, come into the light, and be willing to know yourselves whether this be your condition or not, and do not foolishly cover your disease. Enquire whether it be with you as in former times, when the light of God did shine upon you, and you delighted in his ways: when you hated sin, and loved holiness; and were glad of the company of the heirs of life: when the Word of God was pleasant to you; and when you poured out your souls to him in prayer and thanksgivings: When you were glad of the Lord's day, and were quickened and confirmed under the teaching and exhortation of his Ministers: when you took worldly wealth and pleasures as childish toys and fooleries, in comparison of the contents of holy souls: when you hungered and thirsted after Christ and righteousness; and had rather have been in Heaven to enjoy your God and be free from sinning, than to enjoy all the pleasures and prosperity of this World. And when it was your daily business to prepare for death, and to live in expectation of the everlasting Rest which Christ hath promised. If this were once your case, inquire whether it be so still? or what alterations are made upon your hearts and lives?
§. 19. Direct. 3. If you find yourselves in a Backsliding case, by all means endeavor the awakening of your souls, by the serious consideration of the danger and misery of such a state. To which end I shall here set some such awakening thoughts before you (For security is your greatest danger).
§. 20. 1. Consider that to fall back from God was the sin of the Devils: They are Angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitations, and are now reserved in chains under darkness, to the judgment of the great day, Jud. 6. And shall they entice you into their own condemnation?
§. 21. 1. It was the sin of our first Parents Adam and Eve, to revolt from God and lose their holiness. And is there any sin that we should more carefully avoid than that which all the world hath so much suffered by. Everyone of the Creatures that you look on, and every pain and misery you feel, doth mind you of that sin, and and call to you to take heed by the warning of your first Parents, that you suffer not your hearts to be drawn from God.
§. 22. 3. It is a part of Hell that you are choosing upon earth: Depart from me, ye cursed, is the sentence on the damned: Matth. 25. 41. & 7. 23. And will you damn yourselves by departing from God, and that when he calleth you and obligeth you to him. To be separated from God is one half the misery of the damned.
§. 23. 4. You are drawing back toward the case that you were in in the days of your unconverted state. And what a state of darkness, and folly and delusion and sin and misery was that. I • it were good or tolerable, why turned you from it? and why did you so lament it? and why did you so earnestly cry out for deliverance? But if it were as bad as you then apprehended it to be, why do you again turn towards it? Would you be again in the case you were? would you perish in it? or would you have all those heart-breakings and terrors to pass through again? May I not say to you as Paul to the Galatians? O foolish sinners! who hath bewitched you? that you are so soon turned back? who have seen that of sin and of God and of Christ and of Heaven and of Hell as you have done? Gal. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4.
§. 24. 5. Yea, it is a far more doleful state that you are drawing towards, than that which you were in before. For the guilt of an Apostate is much greater than if he had never known the truth. And his recovery is more difficult, and of smaller hope: Because he is twice dead and plucked up by the root, Jud. 12. 2 Pet. 2. 20, 21, 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the later end is worse with them than the beginning: For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them: But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb: The Dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire; Heb. 10. 26, 27. For if we sin willfully (by Apostasy) after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. I know this speaketh only of total apostasy from Christ: (such being worthy of f • r sorer punishment than he that despised Moses Law, v. 28, 29.) But it is a terrible thing to draw towards so desperate a state. A habit is easier introduced upon a negation than a privation; in him that never had it, than in him that hath totally lost it.
§. 25. 6. What abundance of Experience do you sin against in your Backsliding? You have had experience of the evil of sin, and of the smart of repentance, and of the deceitfulness of all that can be said for sinning; and of the goodness of God, and of the safety and sweetness of Religion: And will you sin against so great experience? If your horse fall once into a quicksand, he will scarce be forced into it again. And will you be less wise?
§. 26. 7. What abundance of promises and Covenants which you have made to God, do you violate in your backsliding? How often in your fears, and dangers, and sicknesses, at Sacraments and days of humiliation, have you bound yourselves afresh to God! And will you forget all these, and sin against them?
§. 27. 8. By what multitudes of mercies hath God obliged you? mercies before your repentance, and mercies that drew you to repent, and mercies since? How mercifully hath he kept you out of Hell? How mercifully hath he born with you in all your sins? and maintained you while you provoked him? and pardoned all that you have done against him (if you were truly penitent believers)! How mercifully hath he taught you, and sanctified you, and comforted you; and plentif • lly provided for you? And yet do you forsake him, and return to folly? For which of all his mercies is it, that you thus unworthily requite him? Can you remember how he hath dealt with you, and not be ashamed of your backslidings. Doth it not melt your heart to look back on his Love, and to think of your ungrateful dealing?
§. 28. 9. Nay what a multitude of present mercies dost thou run away from? Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that it is safer and better for thee to be true to Christ, than to return to sin? Wilt thou take thy leave of thy God and thy Redeemer and thy Comforter? wilt thou quit thy title to pardon and protection and all the promises of grace? wilt thou bid farewell to all the comforts of a Saint? Dost thou not tremble to think of such a day? Thou forsakest all these when thou forsakest God.
§. 29. 10. Yea look before thee man, and consider what greater things are promised thee, than yet thou ever didst enjoy? Christ is conducting thee to eternal happiness, in the sight of God. And wilt thou forsake thy Guide, and break away from him, and quit all thy hopes of everlasting life?
§. 30. 11. Consider for what it is that thou art about to run so great a hazard? Is it not for some worldly gain or honor; or some fleshly pleasure, sport or ease? And hast thou not known long ago what all these are? What have they done for thee? or what will they ever do? Can anything in the world be more causeless and unreasonable, than thy forsaking God, and turning back from the way of holiness: Will the world or sin give more for thee than God will? or be better to thee here and hereafter? what wouldst thou have in God or in thy Savior that thou thinkest wanting in him? Is it anything that the world can make up? which hath nothing itself but what's from him? what wrong hath God or his service done thee, that thou shouldst now forsake him and turn back? For thy souls sake, man, think of some reasonable answer to such questions, before thou venture thyself upon a course, which thou hast found so bad and perilous heretofore? Let all the malice of earth or Hell, say the worst it can against God and Holiness, it shall never justify thy revolt!
§. 31. 12. Consider what abundance of labor and suffering is all lost, if thou fall away from Christ. Is all thy hearing and meditation and prayer come to this? Is all thyself-denial and sufferings for Christ and godliness come to this? Heb. 10. 32, 33, 34. Call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions: partly while ye were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used—Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. You should have let Christ alone, if you would not follow him to the end: He is less foolish that fitteth still, than he that first tireth himself and then turneth again. The idle beggar is not so foolish, as the husbandman that will plow and sow, and at last lose his crop for want of the labor to reap it and carry it home. Shall all thy pains and sufferings, be lost at last, for nothing?
§. 32. 13. God is not so forward to cast you off, who hath just cause! And why then should you be forward to turn from him? If he had, what had become of you long ago? yet what abundant occasion have you given him, when he never gave you any at all? Thy sins have testified and cried against thee? abused mercies have witnessed against thee? and yet he hath not cast thee off. Satan hath stood up before God to accuse thee; and glad he would be to see thee utterly forsaken of God, and yet he hath not utterly forsaken thee? even while thou art forsaking him, he is protecting and supporting thee, and providing for thee? Did he forsake thee when thou wast in sickness, want and danger? If he had, thou hadst not now been here. And wilt thou begin, and run away from him? what if Christ should offer thee a bill of divorce, and say [Seeing thou hast so little mind of me or of my service, take thy course and seek another master, I discharge thee from all thy relations to me; follow thy own way and take what thou gettest by it]; would this be welcome tidings to thee? or durst thou accept of it, and be gone?
§. 33. 14. If thou do turn back for the pleasures of the flesh, or the preferments or profits of the world, thou wilt have less pleasure in them now, than thou hadst heretofore, or than the unconverted have. For they that sin in the dark do not know their danger, and therefore sin not with so much terror, as thou wilt hereafter: Thou hast known the danger; thou hast confessed the folly; the reasons of God's word will never be forgotten; nor thy convictions ever totally blotted out; Thou wilt be remembering the ancient kindnesses of Christ, and thy former purposes and promises and ways; and thou wilt be thinking both of the days that are past, and the days that are to come, and foreseeing thy terrible account: so that thou wilt sin in such terrors, that thou wilt have a taste of Hell in the very exercise of thy sin, and be tormented before the time: And will the world and sin be worth the enjoying on such terms as these?
§. 34. 15. Either thou hopest to recover from thy backsliding by a second Repentance, or else thou purposest to go on. If thou shouldst be so happy as to be recovered, dost thou know with how much pain and terror it is like to be accomplished? When thou thinkest of thy backslidings, and what thou hast done in revolting after such convictions and promises and mercies and experiences, thou wilt be very hardly kept from desperation: Thou wilt read such passages as, Heb. 6 4, 5, 6. and Heb. 10. 26, 27, 28, 29. with so much horror, that thou wilt hardly be persuaded that there is any hope: Thou wilt be ready to think that thou hast sinned against the Holy Ghost, and that thou hast trampled underfoot the blood of the Covenant, and done despite to the spirit of grace: And thou wilt think that there is no being twice born again! Or if thou be restored to Life, thou wilt hardly ever be restored to thy comforts here; if thy backsliding should be very great. But indeed the danger is exceeding great, lest thou never be recovered at all, if once thou be twice dead and plucked up by the roots, Jud. 6. and lest God do finally forsake thee! And then how desperate will be thy case?
§. 35. 16. Is it not the example of Backsliders very terrible, which God hath set up for the warning of his servants, as monuments of his wrath? Luk. 17. 32. Remember Lot's Wife, saith Christ to them that are about to lose their estates or goods or lives by saving them? How frightful is the remembrance of a Cain, a Judas, a Saul, a Joash, 2 Chron. 24. 2. a Julian? How sad is it to hear but such a one as Spira, especially at his death, crying out of his backsliding in the horror of his soul? and to see such ready to make away themselves?
§. 36. 17. Consider that there is none that so much dishonoreth God, as a Backslider. Others are supposed to sin in ignorance. But you do by your lives as bad as speak such blaspheamy as this against the Lord: As if you should say [I thought once that God had been the best Master, and his servants the wisest and happiest men, and Godliness the best and safest life, but now I have tried both, and I find by experience, that the Devil is a better master, and his servants are the happiest men, and the world and the flesh do give the truest contentment to the mind.] This is the plain blaspheamy of your lives. And bethink thee how God should bear with this?
§. 37. 18. There is none that so much hardeneth the wicked in his sin, and furthereth the damnation of souls, as the Backslider: If you would but drive your Sheep or Cattle into a house, those that go in first do draw the rest after them; but those that run out again, make all the rest afraid and run away: One apostate that hath been noted for Religion, and afterwards turneth off again, doth discourage many that would come in: For he doth as it were say to them by his practice [Keep off, and meddle not with a Religious life: for I have tried it and found that a life of worldliness and fleshliness is better.] And people will think with themselves [Such a man hath tried a Religious life, and he hath forsaken it again, and therefore he had some reason for it, and knew what he did.] Woe to the world because of offenses; and woe to him by whom the offense shall come, Mat. 18. 7. How dreadful a thing is it think that men's souls should lie in Hell, and you be the cause of it? It were good for that man that a millstone were hanged about his neck and be were drowned in the depth of the Sea, Matth. 18. 6, 7. Luk. 17. 2.
§. 38. 19. There is none that are so great a terror to weak Christians, as these Backsliders, For they are thinking how far such went before they fell away: And those that think that true grace may be l • st, are saying, [Alas how shall I stand when such that were better and stronger than I have fallen away]. And those that think true grace cannot be lost are as much perplexed and say [How far may an Hypocrite go that after falleth away! How piously did this man live? how sorrowfully did he rep • nt? how blamelessly did he walk? how fervently and constantly did he pray? how savourily did he speak? how charitably and usefully did he live? And I that come far short of him, as far as I can discern, can have no assurance that I am sincere, till I am sure that I go further than ever he did]. Woe to thee that thus perplexest the consciences of the weak and hinderest the comforts of believers.
§. 39. 20. Thou art the greatest grief to the faithful Ministers of Christ: Thou canst not conceive what a wound it giveth to the heart and comforts of a Minister, when he hath taken a great deal of pains for thy Conversion▪ and after that rejoiced when he saw thee come to the flock of Christ, and after that labored many a year to build thee up, and suffered many a frown from the ungodly, for thy sake; to see all his labor at last come to naught, and all his glorying of thee turned to his shame, and all his hopes of thee disappointed? I tell thee this is more doleful to his heart, than any outward loss or cross that could have befallen him: It is not persecution that is his greatest grief, as long as it hindereth not the good of souls: It is such as thou that are his • orest persecutors, that frustrate his labors, and rob him of his joys: And his sorrows shall one day cost thee dear. The life and comforts of your faithful Pastors is much in your hands: 2 Cor. 7. 3. 1 Thes. 3. 8. Now we Live if ye stand fast in the Lord.
§. 40. 21. Thou art more treacherous to Christ than thou wouldst be to a common friend. Wouldst thou forsake thy friend without a cause? especially an old and tried friend? And especially when in forsaking him, thou dost forsake thyself? Prov. 27. 10. Thy own friend, and thy fathers friend forsake not. Pr • v. 17. 17. A friend loveth at all times; and a brother is born for adversity. If thy friend were in distress, wouldst thou forsake him? And wilt thou forsake thy God, that needs thee not, but supplieth thy needs? Ruth was more faithful to Naomi, Ruth 1. 16, 17. that resolved Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: where thou diest I will die —And hath God deserved worse of thee?
§. 41. 22. Nay thou dealest worse with God, than the Devils servants do with him: Alas they are too constant to him: Reason will not change them: nor the Commands of God, nor the offers of everlasting life, nor the fears of Hell: nothing will change them, till the spirit of God do it. And wilt thou be less constant to thy God?
§. 42. 23. Consider also that thy end is so near, that thou hadst but a little while longer to have held out: And thou mightest have known that thou couldst keep thy worldly pleasures but a little while. And it is a pitiful thing to see a man, that hath born the forest brunt of the battle, and run till he is almost at the end of the race, to lose all for want of a little more: And to see a man fell his God and Soul and Heaven for fleshly pleasure, when perhaps he hath not a year or a month, or for ought he knoweth a day more to enjoy it. For a man to be weary and give over prayer, just when the mercy is at hand! and to be weary and give over a holy life, when his labor and sufferings are almost at an end! How sad will this day be to thee, if Death this night be sent to fetch away thy soul! Then whose will all those pleasures be, that thou • oldst thy soul for, Luk. 12. 19, 20, 21. If thou knewest that thou hadst but a month or year to live, wouldst thou not have held out that one year? Thou knowest not that it shall be one week. This is like the sad story of a Student in one of our Universities, who wanting money and his Father delaying to send it him, he stayed so long, till at last he resolved to stay no longer, but steal for it rather than be without: And so went out, and robbed and murdered the first man he met; who proved to be his Fathers messenger, that was bringing him the money that he robbed and killed him for: which when he perceived by a letter which he found in his pocket, he confessed it through remorse of Conscience, and was hanged: when a few hours patience more might have saved his innocence and his life. And so is it with many a backsliding wretch, that is cut off, if not like Zimri and Cozbi in the act of their sin, yet quickly after; and enjoy the pleasure which they forsook their God for, but a little while.
§. 43. Direct. 4. When you are awakened to see the terribleness of a relapsed state, presently return and fly to Christ to reconcile your guilty souls to God, and make a stop and go not one step further in your sin, nor make no delays in returning to your fidelity. It is too sad a case to be continued in. If thou darest delay yet longer, and willfully sin again, thou art yet impenitent, and thy heart is hardened, and if the Lord have not mercy on thee, to recall thee speedily, thou ar • lost forever.
§. 44. Direct. 5. Make haste away from the occasions of thy sin, and the company which ensnareth thee in it. If thou knewest that they were Robbers that intended to murder thee, thou wouldst be gone: If thou knewest that they had plague sores running on them thou wouldst be gone: And wilt thou not be gone when thou knowest that they are the servants of the Devil, that would infect thee with sin, and cheat thee of thy salvation? Say not, Is not this company lawful, and that pleasure lawful? &c. If it be like to entice thy heart to sin, it is unlawful to thee, whatever it is to others: It is not lawful to undo thy soul.
§. 45. Direct. 6. Come off by sound and deep repentance, and shame thyself by free confession, and mince not the matter, and deal not gently with thy sin, and be not tender of thy fleshly interest; and skin not over the sore, but go to the bottom, and deceive not thyself with a seeming cure. Many a one is undone, by repenting by the halves, and refusing to take shame to themselves by a free confession, and to engage themselves to a through reformation by an openly professed resolution: Favouring themselves and sparing the flesh, when the sore should be lanced and searched to the bottom, doth cause many to perish while they supposed that they had been cured.
§. 46. Direct. 7. Command thy senses, and at least forbear the outward acts of sin, while thy Conscience considereth further of the matter. The drunkard cannot say that he hath not power to shut his mouth; Let the forbidden cup alone: No one compelleth you: You can forbear it if you will. The same I may say of other such sins of sensuality. Command thy hand, thy mouth, thy eye; and guard these entrances and instruments of sin.
§. 47. Direct. 8. Engage some faithful friend to assist thee in thy watch: Open all thy case to some one, that is fit to be thy guide or helper; And resolve that whenever thou art tempted to the sin, thou wilt go presently and tell them before thou do commit it: And entreat them to deal plainly with you; and give them power to use any advantages that may be for your good.
§. 48. Direct. 9. Do your first works, and set yourselves seriously to all the duties of a holy life: And incorporate yourselves into the society of the Saints: For holy employment and holy company are very great preservatives against every sin.
§. 49. Direct. 10. Go presently to your companions in sin, and lament that you have joined with them, and earnestly warn and entreat them to repent, and if they will not, renounce their course and company, and tell them what God hath shown you of the sin and danger. If really you will return, as with Peter you have fallen, so with Peter, go out and weep bitterly, and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren, and help to recover those that you have sinned with, Luk. 22. 32.
§. 50. I have suited most of these Directions to those that relapse into sins of sensuality, rather than to them that fall into Atheism, Infidelity or Heresy; because I have spoken against these sins already; and the Directions there given show the way for the recovery of such.
Tit. 2. Directions for preventing Backsliding: or for Perseverance.
APostacy and Backsliding is a state that is more easily prevented than cured: And therefore I shall desire those that stand, to use these following Directions lest they fall.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Be well grounded in the Nature and Reasons of your Religion: For it is not the highest zeal and resolution, that will cause you to persevere, if your judgments be not furnished with sufficient Reasons, to confute gainfayers, and evidence the truth, and tell you why you should persevere. I speak that with grief and shame which cannot be concealed: The number of Christians is so small that are well seen in the Reasons and Methods of Christianity, and are able to prove what they hold to be true and to confute Opposers, that it greatly afflicteth me to think, what work the Atheists and Infidels would make, if they once openly play their game, and be turned loose to do their worst! If they deride and oppose the immortality of the soul and the life to come and the truth of the Scriptures, and the work of Redemption and office of Christ, alas, how few are able to withstand them, by giving any sufficient Reason of their hope? We have learnt of the Papists, that he hath the strongest faith that believeth with least Reason; and we have been (truly) taught that to deny our foundations is the horrid crime of Infidelity: And therefore because it is so horrid a crime to deny or question them, we thought we need not study to prove them: And so most have taken their Foundation upon trust (and indeed are scarce able to bear the trial of it), and have spent their days about the superstructure, and in learning to prove the controverted less necessary points: Insomuch that I fear there are more that are able to prove the points which an Antinomian or an Anabaptist do deny than to prove the immortality of the soul, or the truth of Scripture or Christianity; and to dispute about a Ceremony, or form of prayer or Church-government, than to dispute for Christ against an Infidel. So that their work is prepared to their hands, and it is no great victory to overcome such • awe unsettled souls.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Get every sacred Truth which you believe, into your very hearts and lives; and see that all be digested into Holy Love and Practice. When your food is turned into vital nu •• iment, into flesh and blood, it is not cast up by everything that maketh you sick, and turneth your stomachs: as it may be before it is concocted, distributed and incorporated. Truth that is but barely known, is but like meat that is undigested in the stomach: But Truth which is turned into the L • ve of God, and of a holy life, is turned into a new nature; and will not so easily be let go.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Take heed of Doctrines of presumption and security, and take heed lest you fall away, by thinking it so impossible to fall away, that you are past all danger. The Covenant of Grace doth sufficiently encourage you to obey and hope, against temptations to despair and casting off the means: But it encourageth no man to presume or sin. or to cast off means as needles • things. Remember that if ever you will stand, the fear of falling must help you to stand: and if ever you will persevere, it must be by seeing the danger of backsliding, so far as to make you afraid, and quicken you in the means which are necessary to prevent it. It is no more certain that you shall persevere, than it is certain that you shall use the means of persevering: And one means is, by seeing your danger, to be stirred up to fear and caution to escape it. Because it is my meaning in this Direction, to save men from perishing by security upon the abuse of the Doctrine of Perseverance, I hope none will be offended that I lay down these Antidotes.
§. 4. 1. Consider, That the Doctrine of Perseverance hath nothing in it to encourage security: The very Controversies about it, may cause you to conclude that a certain sin is not to be built upon a Controverted Doctrine. Till Augustine's time, it is hard to find any ancient Writers, that clearly asserted the certain perseverance of any at all: Augustine and Prosper maintain the certain perseverance of all the Elect, but deny the certain perseverance of all that are Regenerated, Justified or Sanctified: For they thought that more were Regenerate and Justified than were Elect, of whom some stood (even all the Elect) and the rest fell away: So that I confess, I never read one ancient Father, or Christian Writer, that ever maintained the certainty of the perseverance of all the Justified, of many hundred, if not a thousand years after Christ: And a Doctrine that to the Church was so long unknown, hath not that certainty, or that necessity, as to encourage you to any presumption or security. The Churches were saved many hundred years without believing it.
§. 5. 2. The Doctrine of Perseverance is against security, because it uniteth together the End and the Means: For they that teach that the Justified shall never totally fall from Grace, do also teach that they shall never totally fall into security, or into any reigning sin: For this is to fall away from Grace! And they teach that they shall never totally fall from the use of the necessary means of their preservation; nor from the cautelous avoiding of the danger of their souls: God doth not simply Decree that you shall persevere: but that you shall be kept in perseverance by the fear of your danger, and the careful use of means: and that you shall persevere in these, as well as in other graces. Therefore if you fall to security and sin, you fall away from grace; and show that God never decreed or promised that you should never fall away.
§. 6. 3. Consider how far many have gone that have fallen away: The instances of our times are much higher than any I can name to you out of History: Men that have seemed to walk humbly and holily, fearing all sin, blameless in their lives, zealous in Religion, twenty or thirty years together, have fallen to deny the truth or certainty of the Scriptures, the Godhead of Christ, if not Christianity itself: And many that have not quite fallen away, have yet fallen into such grievous sins, as make them a terrible warning to us all, to take heed of presumption, and carnal security.
§. 7. 4. Grace is not in the nature of it a thing that cannot perish or be lost: For, 1. It is a separable quality: 2. Adam did lose it. 3. We lose a great degree of it too oft: And the remaining degrees are of the same nature: It is not only possible in itself to lose it, but too easy: and not possible without co-operating grace to keep it.
§. 8. 5. Grace is not Natural to us: To love our ease, and honor, and friends is natural: but to love Christ, and his holy ways and servants is not Natural to us: Indeed when we do it, it is our Natural powers that do it: But not as Naturally disposed to it; but as inclined by the Cure of supernatural Grace: Eating, and drinking, and sleeping we forget not, because Nature itself remembereth us of them: but Learning and acquired habits may be lost, if not very deeply radicated: And its commonly concluded as to the Nature of them, that Habitus infusi habent se ad modum acquisitorum: Infused Habits are like to acquired ones.
§. 9. 6. Grace is as it were a stranger or new-comer in us: It hath been there but a little while: And therefore we are but raw and too unacquainted with the right usage and improvement of it: and are the apter to • orget our duty, or to neglect it, or ignorantly to do that which tendeth to its destruction.
§. 10. 7. Grace dwelleth in a heart, which is not wholly dispossessed of those objects which are against its work, nor delivered from those Principles which have an Enmity against it. The love of the world and flesh was in the heart, before the love of God and holiness; and ignorance was before knowledge, and Pride before humility, and selfishness before self-denial. And these are not wholly rooted out: We have dealt so gently with them, (as the Israelites with the Canaanites, Jebusites and other Inhabitants of the Land) that they are left to try us, and to be thorns in our sides: And the Garrison is not free from danger, that hath an enemy always lodged within: Our enemies are in the house with us: They lie down and rise up with us; and are as near us as our flesh and bones: we can never be where they are not, nor leave them behind us whithersoever we go, or whatever we do. No marvel if Brother be against Brother, and the Father against the Son; when we are so much against ourselves? And are we yet secure?
§. 11. 8. And the number of the snares that are still before us, and of the subtle malicious enemies of our souls, may easily convince us that we are wholly free from danger. How subtle and diligent is the Devil? How much do his servants imitate him? Every creature or person that we have to do with, and every common mercy which we receive, hath matter of danger in it, which calleth us to fear and watch.
§▪ 12. 9. Perseverance is nothing else but our continuance in the grace which we received: And this grace consisteth in Act as well as in Habit: And the Habit is for Action, and the Act is it that increaseth and continueth the habit: And the Fear of God, and the belief of his threatenings, and repentance, and watchfulness, and diligent obedience, are a great part of this grace: And the Acts are ours, performed by ourselves, by the helps of God: God doth not Believe, and Repent, and Obey in us, but causeth us ourselves to do it. Therefore to grow cold, and secure, and sinful, upon pre • ence that we are sure to persevere, this is to cease persevering, and to fall away, because we are sure to persevere, and not to fall away: which is a mere contradiction.
§. 13. 10. Lastly, Bethink you well what is the meaning of all these Texts of Scripture, and the Reason that the Holy Ghost doth speak to us in this manner! Col. 1. 21, 22, 23. And you—hath he reconciled—to present you holy—if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel —John 15. 4. Abide in me, and I in you: 6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withered —7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in y • u, ye shall ask what ye will —Heb. 4. 1. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Jude 21. Keep yourselves in the Love of God. 1 Cor. 10. 4, 5, 12. They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ: But with many of them God was not well pleased: Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall: Rom. 11. 20, 21. Be not high-minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee. Gal. 5. 4. Ye are fallen from grace —Matth. 10. 22. He that endureth to the end shall be saved: Matth. 24. 13. Heb. 3. 6, 14. Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of hope firm unto the end. For we are partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Heb. 4. 11. Let us labor therefore to enter into that Rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Rev. 2. 25. Hold fast till I come. 26. And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give power over the Nations —Rev. 3. 2, 3. & 2. 4.
§. 14. Take heed therefore of that Doctrine which telleth you, that sins to come are all pardoned to you before they are committed, and that you are Justified from them, and that it is unlawful to be afraid of falling away, because it is impossible, &c. For no sin is pardoned before it is committed, (though the Remedy be provided): For it is then no sin: And you are Justified from no sin, any further than it is pardoned: Suppose God either to decree, or but to fore-know the freest most contingent act, and there will be a Logical impossibility in order of Consequence, that it should be otherwise than he so decreeth or foreseeth: But that inferreth no natural impossibility in the thing itself: For God doth not Decree or foresee that such a man's fall shall be Impossible, but only nonfuturum.
§. 15. Direct. 4. In a special manner take heed of the company and doctrine of deceivers; yea, though they seem most Religious men, and are themselves first deceived, and think they are in the right: And take heed of falling into a dividing party, which separateth from the generality of the truly wise and godly people. For this hath been an ordinary introduction to backsliding: False doctrine hath a mighty power on the heart? And he that can separate one of the sheep from the rest of the flock, hath a fair advantage to carry him away. See Rom. 16. 16, 17.
§. 16. Direct. 5. Be very watchful against the sin of Pride: especially pride of gifts, or knowledge, or holiness, which some call spiritual Pride: For God is engaged to cast down the proud, Prov. 16. 18. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Satan assaulted our first Parents by that way that he fell himself; and his success encourageth him to try the same way with their posterity: And alas, how greatly hath he succeeded through all ages of the world till now.
§. 17. Direct. 6. Take heed of a divided hypocritical heart, which never was firmly resolved for God, upon expectation of the worst, and upon terms of self-denial: nor was ever well loosed from the Love of this present world, nor firmly believed the life to come: For it is no wonder that he falleth from grace, who never had any grace but common, which never renewed his soul. It is no wonder that false hearted friends forsake us, when their interest requireth it: Nor that the seed which never had depth of earth, do bring forth no fruit, but what will wither when persecution shall arise; or that which is sown among thorns be choked, Matth. 13. Sit down and count what it will cost you to be Christians, and receive not Christ upon mistakes, or with reserves.
§. 18. Direct. 7. Take heed lest the world or anything in it steal again into your hearts, and seem too sweet to you. If your friends, or dwellings, or lands and wealth, or honors begin to grow too pleasant, and be over-loved, your thoughts will presently be carried after them, and turned away from God, and all holy affection will be damped and decay, and grace will fall into a consumption. It is the Love of money that is the root of all evil; and the love of this world which is the mortal enemy of the Love of God. Keep the world from your hearts, if you would keep your graces.
§. 19. Direct. 8. Keep a strict Government and watch over your fleshly appetite and sense. For the loosing of the reins to carnal lusts, and yielding to the importunity of sensual desires, is the most ordinary way of wasting grace, and falling off from God.
§. 20. Direct. 9. Keep as far as you can from Temptations, and all occasions and opportunities of sinning. Trust not to your own strength: And be not so fool-hardy as to thrust yourselves into needless danger. No man is long safe that standeth at the brink of ruin: If the fire and straw be long near together, some spark is like to catch at last.
§ 21. Direct. 10. Incorporate yourselves into the Communion of Saints, and go along with them that go towards Heaven, and engage yourselves in the constant use of all those means, which God hath appointed you to use for your perseverance: Especially take heed of an idle slothful unprofitable life: And keep your graces in the most lively exercise: For the slothful is Brother to the waster: And idleness consumeth or corrupteth our spiritual health and strength, as well as our bodily. Set yourselves diligently to work while it is day, and do all the good in your places, that you are able? For it is acts that preserve and increase the habits: And a Religion which consisteth only in doing no hurt, is so lifeless and corrupt, that it will quickly perish.
§. 22. Direct. 11. Keep always in thine eye the doleful case of a Backslider, (which I opened before). O what horror is waiting to seize on their consciences? How many of them have we known that on their death-beds have lain roaring in the anguish of their souls, crying out, [I am utterly forsaken of God, because I have forsaken him? There is no mercy for such an apostate wretch: O that I had never been born, or had been anything rather than a man! Cursed be the day that ever I hearkened to the counsel of the wicked, and that ever I pleased this corruptible flesh, to the utter undoing of my soul! O that it were all to do again! Take warning by a mad besotted sinner, that have lost my soul for that which I knew would never make me satisfaction, and have turned from God when I had found him to be good • nd gracious]. O prepare not for such pangs as these, or worse than these in endless desperation.
§. 23. Direct. 12. Make not a small matter of the beginnings of your backsliding. There are very few that fall quite away at once, the misery creepeth on by insensible degrees. You think it a small matter to cut short one duty, and omit another, and be negligent at another; and to entertain some pleasing thoughts of the world; or first to look on the forbidden fruit, and then to touch it, and then to taste it: but these are the way to that which is not small: A thought, or a look, or a taste, or a delight hath begun that with many, which never stopped, till it had shamed them here, and damned them forever.
CHAP. XXVII. Directions for the Poor.
THere is no condition of life so low or poor, but may be sanctified, and fruitful, and comfortable to us, if our own misunderstanding, or sin and negligence, do not pollute it or embitter it to us: If we do the Duty of our condition faithfully, we shall have no cause to murmurr at it. Therefore I shall here direct the Poor in the special Duties of their condition; and if they will but conscionably perform them, it will prove a greater kindness to them, than if I could deliver them from their poverty, and give them as much riches as they desire. Though I doubt this would be more pleasing to the most; and they would give me more thanks for money, than for teaching them how to want it.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Understand first the use and estimate of all earthly things: that they were never made to be your portion and felicity, but your provision and helps in the way to Heaven. And therefore they are neither to be estimated nor desired simply for themselves (for so there is nothing good but God ) but only as they are Means to the Greatest Good. Therefore neither Poverty nor Riches, are simply to be rejoiced in for themselves, as any part of our happiness: But that condition is to be desired and rejoiced in which affordeth us the greatest helps for Heaven, and that condition only is to be lamented and dislikt, which hindereth us most from Heaven, and from our duty.
§. 2. Direct. 2. See therefore that you really take all these things, as matters in themselves indifferent, and of small concernment to you; and as not worthy of much love, or care, or sorrow, further than they conduce to greater things. We are like runners in a race, and Heaven or Hell will be our End; and therefore woe to us, if by looking aside, or turning back, or stopping, or trifling about these matters, or burdening ourselves with worldly trash, we should lose the race, and lose our souls. O Sirs, what greater matters than poverty or riches have we to mind? Can those souls that mu •• shortly be in Heaven or Hell, have time to bestow any serious thoughts, upon these impertinencies? Shall we so much as look at the temporal things which are seen, instead of the things eternal that are unseen? 2 Cor. 4. 18. Or shall we whine under those light afflictions, which may be so improved, as to work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? v. 17. Our present life is not in the abundance of the things which we possess: Much less is our eternal life, Luke 12. 15.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Therefore take heed that you judge not of God's Love, or of your happiness or misery by your riches or poverty, prosperity or adversity, as knowing that they come alike to all, and Love or hatred is not to be discerned by them: except only God's Common Love as they are common mercies, to the body. If a Surgeon is not to be taken for a hater of you, because he letteth you blood, nor a Physician because he purgeth his Patient, nor a Father because he correcteth his child; much less is God to be judged an enemy to you or unmerciful, because his wisdom and not your folly disposeth of you, and proportioneth your estates. A carnal mind will judge of its own Happiness and the Love of God by carnal things, because it savoreth not spiritual mercies: But Grace giveth a Christian another judgment, relish and desire: As Nature setteth a man above the food and pleasures of a Beast.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Stedfastly believe that God is every way fitter than you to dispose of your estate and you: He is infinitely wise, and knoweth what is best and fittest for you: He knoweth before hand what good or hurt any state of plenty or want will do you: He knoweth all your corruptions, and what condition will most conduce to strengthen them or destroy them, and which will be your greatest temptations and snares, and which will prove your safest state: Much better than any Physician or Parent knoweth how to diet his Patient or his Child. And his Love and kindness is much greater to you, than yours is to yourself: And therefore he will not be wanting in willingness to do you good: And his authority over you is absolute, and therefore his disposal of you must be unquestionable. It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good, 1 Sam. 3. 18. The Will of God should be the Rest and satisfaction of your wills, Acts 21. 14.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Stedfastly believe that ordinarily Riches are far more dangerous to the soul than poverty, and a greater hindrance to men's salvation. Believe experience: How few of the Rich and Rulers of the earth, are holy, heavenly, self-denying, mortified men? Believe your Savior, Luke 18. 24, 25, 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 unpossible with men, are possible with God. So that you see that the difficulty is so great of saving such as are Rich, that to men it is a thing impossible, but to God's Omnipotency only it is possible. So 1 Cor. 1. 26. For ye see your calling, Brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, nor many noble are called. Believe this, and it will prevent many dangerous mistakes.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Hence you may perceive, that though no man must pray absolutely either for Riches or Poverty, yet of the two it is more rational ordinarily to pray against Riches than for them, and to be rather troubled when God maketh us Rich, than when he maketh us poor. (I mean it, in respect to ourselves, as either of them seemeth to conduce to our own good or hurt: though to do good to others Riches are more desirable.) This cannot be denied by any man that believeth Christ: For no wise man will long for the hindrance of his salvation or pray to God to make it as hard a thing for him to be saved, as for a Camel to go through a needles eye: when salvation is a matter of such unspeakable moment, and our strength is so small, and the difficulties so many and great already.
Object. But Christ doth not deny but the difficulties to the poor may be as great.
Answ. To some particular persons upon other accounts it may be so: But it is clear in the Text, that Christ speaketh comparatively of such difficulties as the Rich had more than the poor.
Object. But then how are we obliged to be thankful to God for giving us Riches, or blessing our labors?
Answ. 1 You must be thankful for them, because in their own nature they are good, and it is by accident, through your own corruption, that they become so dangerous. 2. Because you may do good with them to others, if you have hearts to use them well. 3. Because God in giving them to you rather than to others, doth signify (if you are his children) that they are fitter for you than for others. In Bedlam and among foolish children, it is a kindness to keep fire, and swords, and knives out of their way: But yet they are useful to people that have the use of reason. But our folly in spiritual matters is so great, that we have little cause to be too eager for that which we are inclined so dangerously to abuse, and which proves the bane of most that have it.
§. 7. Direct 7. See that your poverty be not the fruit of your idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, pride or any other flesh-pleasing sin. For if you bring it thus upon yourselves, you can never look that it should be sanctified to your good, till sound Repentance have turned you from the sin: Nor are you objects worthy of much pity from man, (except as you are miserable sinners). He that rather chooseth to have his ease and pleasure, though with want, than to have plenty, and to want his case, and pleasure, it is pity that he should have any better than he chooseth.
§. 8. 1. Sl • thfulness and idleness is a sin that naturally tendeth to want; and God hath cursed it to be punished with poverty: as you may see, Prov. 12. 24, 27. & 18. 9. & 21. 25. & 24. 34. & 26. 14, 15. & 6. 11. & 20. 13. Yea, he commandeth, that if any (that is able) will not work, neither should be eat, 2 Thess. 3. 10. In the sweat of their face must they eat their bread, Gen. 3. 19. And six days must they labor, and do all that they have to do. To maintain your idleness is a sin in others. If you will please your flesh with ease, it must be displeased with want; and you must suffer what you choos • ▪
§. 9. 2. Gluttony and drunkenness are such beastly devourers of mercy, and abusers of mankind, that shame and poverty are their punishment and cure: Prov. 23. 20, 21. Be not among wine-bibbers, amongst riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. It is not lawful for any man to feed the greedy appetites of such: If they choose a short excess before a longer competency, let them have their choice.
§. 10. 3. Pride also is a most consuming wasteful sin: It sacrificeth God's mercies to the Devil, in serving him by them, in his first-born sin. Proud persons must lay it out in pomp and gawdiness, to set forth themselves to the eyes of others: In building, and entertainments, and fine clothes, and curiosities: And Poverty is also both the proper punishment and cure of this sin: And it is cruelty for any to save them from it, and resist God that by abasing them, takes the way to do them good, Prov. 11. 2. & 29. 23. & 16. 18.
§. 11. 4. Falsehood also and dec • it, and unjust getting tend to poverty: For God doth often even in this present life, thus enter into judgment with the unjust: Ill-gotten wealth is like fire in the thatch, and bringeth ofttimes a secret curse and destruction upon all the rest. The same may be said of unmercifulness to the poor; which is oft cursed with poverty, when the liberal are blest with plenty, Prov. 11. 24, 25. Isa. 32. 8. Psal. 73. 21, 22, 25, 26, 34, 35.
§ 12. Direct. 8. Be acquainted with the special temptations of the poor, that you may be furnished to resist them. Every condition hath its own temptations, which persons in that condition must specially be fortified and watch against: And this is much of the wisdom and safety of a Christian.
§. 13. Tempt 1. One Temptation of Poverty will be to draw you to think highlier of Riches and Honors than you ought: To make you think that the Rich are much happier than they are: For the world is like all other deceivers: it is most esteemed where it is least known: They that never tried a life of wealth, and plenty, and prosperity, are apt to admire it, and think it braver and better than it is. And so you may be drawn as much to over-love the world by want, as other men by plenty. Against this remember, that it is folly to admire that which you never tried and knew: and mark whether all men do not vilify it, that have tried it to the last: Dying men call it no better than vanity and deceit. And it is rebellious pride in you so far to contradict the wisdom of God, as to think most highly of that condition, which he hath judged worst for you; and to fall in Love with that which he denieth you.
§. 14. Tempt. 2. The Poor will also be tempted to over-much care about their wants and worldly matters: They will think that Necessity requireth it in them, and will excuse them: So much care is your duty as is needful to the right-doing of your work: Take care how to discharge your own duties; but be not too careful about the event, which belongs to God. If you will care what you should be and do, God will care sufficiently what you shall have. And so be it you faithfully do your business, your other care will add nothing to the success, nor make you any richer, but only vex and disquiet your minds. It is the poor as well as the Rich, that God hath commanded to be careful for nothing, and to cast all their care on him.
§. 15. Tempt. 3. Poverty also will tempt you to repining, impatience and discontent and to fall out with others; which because it is one of the chief Temptations, I will speak to by itself anon.
§. 16. Tempt. 4. Also you will be tempted to be Coveting after more: Satan maketh Poverty a snare to draw many needy creatures, to greater Covetousness than many of the Rich are guilty of: None thirst more eagerly after more: And yet their poverty blindeth them, so that they cannot see that they are covetous; or else excuse it as a justifyable thing. They think that they desire no more but necessaries, and that it is not Covetousness, if they desire not superfluities. But do you not covet more than God allotteth you? And are you not discontent with his allowance? And doth not he know best what is necessary for you, and what superfluous? What then is Covetousness, if this be not it?
§. 17. Tempt. 5. Also you will be tempted to Envy the Rich, and to Censure them in matters where you are incompetent Judges. It is usual with the Poor to speak of the Rich with Envy and Cens • riousness: They call them Covetous merely because they are Rich, especially if they give them nothing: when they know not what ways of necessary expense they have, nor know not how many others they are liberal to, that they are unacquainted with. Till you see their accounts you are unfit to censure them.
§. 18. Tempt. 6. The poor also will be tempted to use unlawful means to supply their wants: How many by the temptation of necessity have been tempted to comply with sinners, and wound their consciences, and lie and flatter for favor or preferment, or to cheat, or steal, or over-reach! A dear price! to buy the food that perisheth, with the loss or hazard of everlasting life; and lose their souls to provide for their flesh!
§. 19. Tempt. 7. Also you will be tempted to neglect your souls, and omit your spiritual duties, and as Martha to be troubled about many things, while the one thing needful is forgotten: And you will think that Necessity will excuse all this: Yea, some think to be saved, because they are poor, and say God will not punish them in this life and in another too? But alas, you are more inexcusable than the Rich, if you are ungodly and mindless of the life to come. For he that will love a life of poverty and misery better than Heaven, deserveth indeed to go without it much more than he that preferreth a life of plenty and prosperity before it. God hath taught you by his providence to know, that you must either be happy in Heaven, or no where: If you would be worldlings, and part with Heaven for your part on Earth, how poor a bargain are you like to make. To love rags, and toil, and want, and sorrow, better than Eternal joy and happiness, is the most unreasonable kind of Ungodliness in the world. Its true, that you are not called to spend so many hours of the Weekdayes in Reading and Meditation, as some that have greater leisure are: But you have reason to seek Heaven, and set your hearts upon it, as much as they: And you must think of it when you are about your labor, and take those opportunities for your spiritual duties, which are allowed you. Poverty will excuse ungodliness in none! Nothing is so Necessary as the service of God and your salvation; and therefore no necessity can excuse you from it, Luke 10. 41, 42. Read the case of Mary and Martha: One would think that your hearts should be wholly set upon Heaven, who have nothing else but it to trust to. The poor have fewer hindrances than the rich, in the way to life eternal! And God will save no man because he is poor; but condemn poor and rich that are ungodly.
§. 20. Tempt. 8. Another great Temptation of the poor, is to neglect the holy education of their children: so that in most places, there are none so ignorant, and rude, and heathenish, and unwilling to learn, as the poorest people and their children: They never teach them to read, nor teach them anything for the saving of their souls: and they think that their poverty will be an excuse for all. When reason telleth them, that none should be more careful to help their children to Heaven, than they that can give them nothing upon earth.
§. 21. Direct. 9. Be acquainted with the special Duties of the poor; and carefully perform them: They are these.
1. Let your sufferings teach you to contemn the world: It will be a happy poverty if it do but help to wean your affections from all things below; that you set as little by the world as it deserveth.
2. Be eminently Heavenly-minded: The less you have or hope for in this life, the more fervently seek a better. You are at least as capable of the heavenly treasures as the greatest Princes: God purposely straitneth your condition in the world, that he may force up your hearts unto himself, and teach you to seek first for that which indeed is worth your seeking, Matth. 6. 33, 19, 20, 21.
3. Learn to live upon God alone: Study his Goodness, and faithfulness, and all-sufficiency: When you have not a place nor a friend in the world, that you can comfortably betake yourselves to for relief, retire unto God, and trust him, and dwell the more with him. If your poverty have but this effect, it will be better to you than all the Riches in the world.
4. Be laborious and diligent in your Callings: Both precept and necessity call you unto this: And if you cheerfully serve him in the labor of your hands, with a heavenly and obedient mind, it will be as acceptable to him, as if you had spent all that time in more spiritual exercises: For he had rather have Obedience than Sacrifice; and all things are pure and sanctified to the pure: If you cheerfully serve God in the meanest work, it is the more acceptable to him, by how much the more subjection and submission there is in your obedience.
5. Be humble and submissive unto all. A poor man proud is doubly hateful: And if Poverty cure your Pride, and help you to be truly humble, it will be no small mercy to you.
6. You are specially obliged to mortify the flesh, and keep your senses and appetites in subjection: because you have greater helps for it than the Rich: You have not so many baits of lust, and wantonness, and gluttony, and voluptuousness as they.
7. Your corporal wants must make you more sensibly remember your spiritual wants; and teach you to value spiritual blessings: Think with yourselves, If a hungry, cold and naked body, be so great a calamity, how much greater is a guilty, graceless soul! a dead or a diseased heart? If bodily food and necessaries are so desirable, O how desirable is Christ, and his Spirit, and the Love of God and life eternal?
8. You must above all men be careful Redeemers of your Time: Especially of the Lord's Day: Your labors take up so much of your time, that you must be the more careful to catch every opportunity for your souls! Rise earlier to get half an hour for holy duty; and meditate on holy things in your labors; and spend the Lord's Day in special diligence: and be glad of such seasons; and let scarcity preserve your appetites.
9. Be willing to die: Seeing the world giveth you so cold entertainment, be the more content to let it go, when God shall call you: For what is here to detain your hearts?
10. Above all men, you should be most fearless of sufferings from men, and therefore true to God and Conscience: For you have no great matter of honor, or riches, or pleasure to lose; As you fear not a Thief, when you have nothing for him to rob you of.
11. Be specially careful to fit your children also for Heaven: Provide them a portion which is better than a Kingdom: For you can provide but little for them in the world.
12. Be exemplary in Patience and Contentedness with your state: For that grace should be the strongest in us which is most exercised: And Poverty calleth you to the frequent exercise of this.
§. 22. Direct. 10. Be specially furnished with those Reasons which should keep you in a cheerful contentedness with your state; and may suppress every thought of anxiety and discontent.
As, 1. Consider as aforesaid, that that is the best condition for you, which helpeth you best to Heaven: and God best knoweth what will do you good or hurt. 2. That it is rebellion to grudge at the Will of God; which must dispose of us, and should be our Rest. 3. Look over the life of Christ, who chose a life of poverty for your sakes: and had not a place to lay his head! He was not one of the Rich and voluptuous in the world, and are you grieved to be conformed to him? Phil. 3. 7, 8, 9. 4. Look to all his Apostles and most holy Servants and Martyrs? Were not they as great sufferers as you? 5. Consider that the Rich will shortly be all as poor as you: Naked they came into the world, and naked they must go out: And a little time makes little difference. 6. It is no more comfort to die Rich than poor; but usually much less: because the pleasanter the world is to them, the more it grieveth them to leave it. 7. All men cry out, that the world is vanity at last. How little is it valued by a dying man? and how sadly will it cast him off? 8. The time is very short and uncertain in which you must enjoy it: We have but a few days more to walk about, and we are gone. Alas, of how small concernment is it, whether a man be rich or poor that is ready to step into another world. 9. The Love of this world drawing the heart from God, is the common cause of men's damnation: And is not the world liker to be over-loved, when it entertaineth you with prosperity, than when it useth you like an enemy? Are you displeased that God thus helpeth to save you from the most damning sin? and that he maketh not your way to Heaven more dangerous? 10. You little know the troubles of the Rich: He that hath much, hath much to do with it, and much to care for; and many persons to deal with, and more vexations than you imagine. 11. It is but the flesh that suffereth: and it furthereth your mortification of it. 12. You pray but for your daily bread, and therefore should be contented with it. 13. Is not God, and Christ, and Heaven enough for you? Should that man be discontent that must live in Heaven? 14. Is it not your lust, rather than your well-in-formed Reason that repineth? I do but name all these Reasons for brevity: You may enlarge them in your Meditations.
CHAP. XXIII. Directions for the Rich.
I Have said so much of this already Tom. 1. about Covetousness or Worldliness, and about Good Works, and in my Book of Self-denial, and that of Crucifying the World, that my Reason commandeth me brevity in this place.
Direct. 1. Remember that Riches are no part of your Felicity: or that if you have no better, you are undone men. Dare you say that they are fit to make you happy? Dare you say, that you will take them for your part? and be content to be turned off when they forsake you? They reconcile not God. They save not from his wrath: They heal not a wounded Conscience: They may please your flesh, and adorn your Funeral, but they neither delay, nor sanctify, nor sweeten death, nor make you either better or happier than the poor. Riches are nothing but plentiful provision, for tempting corruptible flesh. When the flesh is in the dust, it is Rich no more. All that abounded in wealth since Adams days till now, are levelled with the lowest in the dust.
Direct. 2. Yea, remember that Riches are not the smallest Temptation and Danger to your souls. Do they delight and please you? By that way they may destroy you? If they be but Loved above God, and make Earth seem better for you than Heaven, they have undone you; and if God recover you not, it had been better for you to have been Worms or Bruits, than such deceived miserable souls. It is not for nothing that Christ giveth you so many terrible warnings about Riches, and so describeth the folly, the danger and the misery of the worldly rich, Luke 12. 17, 18, 19, 20. & 16, 19, 20, 21, &c. & 18. 21, 22, 23, &c. and telleth you how hardly the Rich are saved. Fire burneth most when it hath most fuel. And Riches are the fuel of worldly Love, and fleshly Lust, 1 John 2. 15, 16. Rom. 13. 13, 14.
Direct. 3. Understand what it is to Love and Trust in worldly prosperity and wealth. Many here deceive themselves to their destruction. They persuade themselves that they desire and use their Riches but for necessity, but that they do not Love them, nor Trust in them, because they can say that Heaven is better, and Wealth will leave us to a grave? But do you not Love that Ease, that Greatness, that Domination, that Fulness, that Satisfaction of your appetite, eye and fancy, which you cannot have without your wealth? It is fleshly Lust, and Will, and Pleasure, which carnal worldlings Love for itself; and then they Love their wealth for these. And to Trust in Riches, is not to Trust that they will never leave you; for every fool doth know the contrary: But it is to Rest, and Quiet, and Comfort your minds in them, as that which most pleaseth you, and maketh you well, or to be as as you would be. Like him in Luke 12. 18, 19. that said, Soul take thy Ease, Eat, drink and be merry, thou hast enough laid up for many years: This is to Love and Trust in Riches.
Direct. 4. Above all the deceits and dangers of this world, take heed of a secret hypocritical hope of Reconciling the World to Heaven, so as to make you a • elicity of both; and dreaming of a compounded portion, or of serving God and Mammon:
Direct. 5. Accordingly take heed lest when you seem to Resign yourselves and all that you have to God, there should be a secret purpose at the heart, that you will never be undone in the world for Christ, nor for the hopes of a better world. A knowing hypocrite is not ignorant that the terms of Christ proposed in the Gospel are no lower than forsaking all, and that in Baptism, and our Covenant with Christ, all must be resigned and devoted to him, and the Cross taken up instead of all, or else we are no Christians, as being not in Covenant with Christ. But the hypocrites hope is, that though Christ put him upon these promises, he will never put him to the trial for performance, nor never call him to forsake all indeed: And therefore if ever he be put to it, he will not perform the promise which he hath made. He is like a Patient that promiseth to be wholly ruled by his Physician, as hoping that he will put him upon nothing which he cannot bear. But when the bitter Potion or the Vomit cometh, he saith, I cannot take it: I had hoped you would have given me gentler Physic.
Direct. 6. And accordingly take heed lest while you pretend to Live to God, and to use all that you have as his Stewards for his service, you should deceitfully put him off with the leavings of your lusts, and give him only so much as your flesh can spare. It is not likely that the damned Gentleman, Luke 16. was never used to give anything to the poor: else what did beggars use his doors for? When Christ promiseth to reward men for a cup of cold water, the meaning is when they would give better if they had it. There are few Rich men of all that go to Hell, that were so void of human compassion, or of the sense of their own reputation, as to give nothing at all to the poor. But God will have all; though not all for the poor, yet all employed as he commandeth; and will not be put off with your tithes or scraps. His Stewards confess that they have nothing of their own.
Direct. 7. Let the use of your Riches in prosperity show, that you do not dissemble, when you promise to forsake all for Christ in trial, rather than forsake him. You may know whether you are true or false in your Covenant with Christ, and what you would do in a day of trial, by what you do in your daily course of life. How can that man leave all at once for Christ, that cannot daily serve him with his riches, nor leave that little which God requireth, in the discharge of his duty in pious and charitable works? What is it to leave all for God, but to leave all rather than to sin against God? And will he do that, who daily sinneth against God by omission of good works, because he cannot leave some part? Study as faithful Stewards, to serve God to the utmost with what you have now, and then you may expect that his grace should enable you to leave all in trial, and not prove withering hypocrites and apostates?
Direct. 8. Be not Rich to yourselves, or to your fleshly Wills and Lusts: but remember that the Rich are bound to be spiritual, and to mortify the flesh, as well as the poor: Let lust fare never the better for all the fullness of your estates! Fast and humble your souls never the less; Please an inordinate appetite never the more in meat or drink; Live never the more in unprofitable idleness. The Rich must labor as constantly as the poor, though not in the same kind of work. The Rich must live soberly, temperately and heavenly, and must as much mortify all fleshly desires as the poor. You have the same Law and Master, and have no more liberty to indulge your lusts, but if you live after the flesh, you shall die as well as any other. O the partiality of carnal minds! They can see the fault of a poor man that goeth sometime to an Ale-house, who perhaps drinketh water (or that which is next it) all the Week: when they never blame themselves, who scarce miss a meal without Wine and strong drink, and eating that which their appetite desireth? They think it a crime in a poor man, to spend but one day in many, in such idleness, as they themselves spend most of their lives in. Gentlemen think that their Riches allow them to live without any profitable labor, and to gratify their flesh, and fare deliciously every day: As if it were their privilege to be sensual, and to be damned? Rom. 8. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13.
Direct. 9. Nay, remember that you are called to far greater self-denial, and fear, and watchfulness against sensuality and wealthy vices than the poor are. Mortification is as necessary to your salvation as to theirs; but much more difficult. If you live after the flesh you shall die as well as they: And how much stronger are your temptations! Is not he easilier drawn to gluttony or excess in quality or quantity, who hath daily a Table of plenty and enticing delicious food before him, than he that never seeth such a temptation once in half a year? Is it not harder for him to deny his appetite, who hath the baits of pleasant meats and drinks daily set upon his Table, than for him that is seldom in sight of them, and perhaps in no possibility of procuring them, and therefore hath nothing to solicit his appetite or thoughts? Doubtless the Rich, if ever they will be saved, must watch more constantly, and set a more resolute guard upon the flesh, and live more in fear of sensuality than the poor, as they live in greater temptations and dangers?
Direct. 10. Know therefore particularly what are the Temptations of Prosperity, that you may make a particular prosperous resistance. And they are especially these:
1. Pride: The foolish heart of man is apt to swell upon the accession of so poor a matter as wealth: and men think they are got above their neighbors, and more honor and obeisance is their due, if they be but richer.
2. Fulness of bread: If they do not eat till they are sick, they think the constant and costly pleasing of their appetite in meats and drinks is lawful.
3. Idleness: They think he is not bound to Labor that can live without it, and hath enough.
4. Time-wasting sports and recreations. They think their hours may be devoted to the flesh, when all their lives are devoted to it. They think their wealth alloweth them to play, and court, and complement away that precious time, which no men have more need to redeem. They tell God, that he hath given them more time than they have need of: And God will shortly cut it off, and tell them that they shall have no more.
5. Lust and wantonness: Fulness and idleness, cherish both the cogitations and inclinations unto filthiness. They that live in gluttony and drunkenness, are like to live in chambering and wantonness.
6. Curiosity and wasting their lives in a multitude of little, ceremonious, unprofitable things, to the exclusion of the great businesses of life. Well may we say that men's own Lusts are their Jailors, and their fetters, when we see to what a wretched kind of life, a multitude of the Rich (especially Ladies and Gentlewomen) do condemn themselves. I should pity one in Bridewell that were but tied so to spend their time: When they have poor, ignorant, proud, worldly, peevish, hypocritical, ungodly souls to be healed, and a life of great and weighty business to do for eternity, they have so many little things all day to do, that leave them little time to converse with God or with their Consciences, or to do anything that is really worth the living for: They have so many fine clothes and ornaments to get, and use; and so many rooms to neatifie and adorn, and so many servants to talk with that attend them, and so many dishes and sawces to bespeak, and so many flowers to plant, and dress, and walks and places of pleasure to mind, and so many Visitors to entertain with whole hours of unprofitable talk, and so many great persons accordingly to visit, and so many Laws of Ceremony and Complement to observe, and so many Games to play (perhaps) and so many hours to sleep, that the day, the year, their lives are gone, before they could have while to know what they lived for? And if God had but damned them to spend their days in picking straws, or filling a bottomless Vessel, or to spend their days as they choose themselves to spend them, it would have tempted us to think him unmerciful to his creatures.
7. Tyranny and oppression: When men are above others, how commonly do they think that their wills must be fulfilled by all men, and none must cross them, and they live as if all others below them were as their beasts, that are made for them, to serve and please them.
Direct. 11. Let your fruitfulness to God and the public good be proportionable to your possessions. Do as much more good in the world than the poor, as you are better furnished for it than they. Let your servants have more time for the learning of God's Word, and let your families be the more religiously instructed and governed. To whom God giveth much, from them he doth expect much.
Direct. 12. Do not only take occasions of doing good when they are thrust upon you; but study how to do all the good you can, as those that are zealous of good works, Tit. 2. 14. Zeal of good works will make you, 1. Plot and contrive for them, 2. Consult and ask advice for them: 3. It will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful opportunity. 4. It will make you do it largely, and not sparingly, and by the halves. 5. It will make you do it speedily, without unwilling backwardness and delay. 6. It will make you do it constantly to your lives end. 7. It will make you pinch your own flesh, and suffer somewhat yourselves to do good to others. 8. It will make you Labor in it as your Trade, and not only consent that others do good at your charge. 9. It will make you glad when good is done, and not to grudge at what it cost you. 10. In a word, it will make your neighbors to be to you as yourselves, and the Pleasing of God to be above yourselves, and therefore to be as glad to do good, as to receive it.
Direct. 13. Do good both to men's souls and bodies: but always let bodily benefits be conferred in order to those of the soul, and in due subordination, and not for the body alone. And observe the many other Rules of Good Works, more largely laid down Tom. 1. Cap. 3. Direct. 10.
Direct. 14. Ask yourselves often, How you shall wish at death and judgment your estates had been laid out: and accordingly now use them. Why should not a man of Reason do that which he knoweth before hand he shall vehemently wish that he had done?
Direct. 15. As your care must be in a special manner for your children and families; so take heed of the common error of worldlings, who think their children must have so much, as that God and their own souls have very little. When selfish men can keep their wealth no longer to themselves, they leave it to their children, who are as their surviving selves. And all is cast into this gulf, except some inconsiderable parcels.
Direct. 16. Keep daily account of your use and improvement of your Masters Talents. Not that you should too much remember your own good works; but remember to do them; and therefore ask yourselves, What Good have I done with all that I have, this Day or Week?
Direct. 17. Look not for long life; for then you will think that a long journey needeth great provisions: But die daily, and live as those that are going to give up their account: And then Conscience will force you to ask, whether you have been faithful Stewards, and to lay up a treasure in Heaven, and to make you friends of the Mammon that others use to unrighteousness, and to lay up a good foundation for the time to come, and to be glad that God hath given you that, the improvement of which may further the good of others and your salvation: Living and Dying let it be your care and business to Do Good.
CHAP. XXIX. Directions for the Aged (and weak).
HAving before opened the Duties of Children to God and to their Parents, I shall give no other particular Directions to the Young; but shall next open the special Duties of the Aged.
§. 1. Direct. 1. The old and weak have a louder call from God than others, to be accurate in examining the state of their souls, and making their calling and election sure. Whether they are yet Regenerate and Sanctified or not? is a most important question for every man to get resolved: but especially for them that are nearest to their end. Ask counsel therefore, of some able faithful Minister or friend, and set yourselves diligently to try your Title to eternal life, and to cast up your accounts, and see how all things stand between God and you: And if you should find yourselves in an unrenewed state, as you love your souls, delay no longer, but presently be humbled, for your so long and sot • ish neglect, of so necessary and great a work. Go, open your case to some able minister, and lament your sin, and fly to Christ, and set your hearts on God as your felicity, and change your company and course, and rest not any longer in so dangerous and miserable a case: The more full Directions for your Conversion I have given before, in the beginning of the Book, and in divers others, and therefore shall say no more to such, it being others that I am here especially to Direct.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Cast back your eyes upon the sins of all your life, that you may perceive how humble those souls should be, that have sinned so long as you have done? and may feel what need you have of Christ, to pardon so long a life of sin. Though you have repented and been justified long ago, yet you have daily sinned since you were Justified: And though all be forgiven that is repented of, yet must it be still before your eyes, both to keep you humble, and continue the exercise of that Repentance, and drive you to Christ, and make you thankful! Yea your forgiveness and Justification are yet short of perfection (whatever some may tell you to the contrary) as well as your sanctification: For, 1. Your Justification is yet given you but conditionally as to its continuance, even upon condition of your perseverance. 2. And the temporal chastisement, and the pains of death, and the long absence of the body from Heaven, and the present wants of grace and comfort and communion with God, are punishments which are not yet forgiven executively. 3. And the final sentence of Justification at the day of Judgment, (which is the perfectest sort) is yet to come: And therefore you have still reason enough to review, and Repent of all that is past, and still pray for the pardon, of all the sins that ever you committed, which were forgiven you before. So many years sinning should have a very serious Repentance, and lay you low before the Lord.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Cleave closer now to Christ than ever; Remembering that you have a life of sin, for him to answer for and save you from: And that the time is near, when you shall have more sensible need of him, than ever you have had. You must shortly be cast upon him as your Savior, Advocate and Judge, to determine the question, what shall become of you unto all eternity, and to perfect all that ever he hath done for you, and accomplish all that you have sought and hoped for. And now your natural life decayeth, it is time to retire to him that is your Root, and to look to the