A Christian Directory
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.
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 life that is hid with Christ in God, Col. 3. 4. and to him that is preparing you a mansion with himself; and whose office it is to receive the departing souls of true believers. Live therefore in the daily thoughts of Christ, and comfort your souls in the belief of that full supply and safety which you have in him.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Let the ancient mercies and experiences of God's Love through all your lives, be still before you, and fresh upon your minds, that they may kindle your Love and Thankfulness to God, and may feed your own delight and comfort, and help you the easier to submit to future weaknesses and death. Eaten bread must not be forgotten. A thankful remembrance preserveth all your former mercies still fresh and green: The sweetness and benefit may remain, though the thing itself be past and gone. This is the great privilege of an aged Christian; that he hath many years mercy more to think on, than others have: Everyone of those mercies was sweet to you by itself, at the time of your receiving it (except afflictions, and misunderstood and unobserved mercies:) And then how sweet should all together be? If unthankfulness have buried any of them, let thankfulness give them now a Resurrection. What delightful work is it for your thoughts, to look back to your Childhood, and remember how mercy brought you up, and conducted you to every place that you have lived in; and provided for you, and preserved you, and heard your prayers, and disposed of all things for your good: How it brought you under the means of grace; and blest them to you; and how the spirit of God began and carried on the work of grace upon your hearts? I hope you have recorded the wonders of mercy ever upon your hearts, with which God hath filled up all your lives? And is it not a pleasant work in old age to ruminate upon them? If a Traveler delight to talk of his travels, and a Soldier or Seaman upon his adventures, how sweet should it be to a Christian to peruse all the conduct of mercy through his life, and all the operations of the spirit upon his heart. Thankfulness taught men heretofore, to make their mercies as it were attributes of their God: As the God that brought them out of the Land of Egypt, was the name of the God of Israel: And Gen. 48. 15. Jacob delighteth himself in his old age, in such reviews of mercy: [ The God which fed me all my life long unto this day, The Angel which Redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads ]. Yea such thankful reviews of ancient mercies, will force an ingenuous soul, to a quieter submission, to infirmities, sufferings and death: and make us say as Job, Shall we receive good at the hands of God and not evil; and as old Simeon, Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. It is a powerful rebuke of all discontents, and maketh death itself more welcome, to think how large a share of mercy, we have had already in the world.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Draw forth the treasure of wisdom and experience, which you have been so long in laying up, to instruct the ignorant, and warn the inexperienced and ungodly that are about you. Job 32. 7. Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom: The aged women must teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands and children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed, Tit. 2. 3, 4, 5. It is supposed that Time and experience hath taught you more than is known to raw and ignorant youth. Tell them what you have suffered by the deceits of sin: Tell them the method and danger of temptations: Tell them what you lost by delaying your Repentance: and how God recovered you? and how the spirit wrought upon your souls: Tell them what comforts you have found in God? what safety and sweetness in a holy life? how sweet the holy Scriptures have been to you? how prayers have prevailed? how the promises of God have been fulfilled? and what mercies and great deliverances you have had. Tell them how Good you have found God; and how bad you have found si • , and how vain you have found the world. Warn them to resist their fleshly lusts, and to take heed of the ensnaring flatteries of sin: Acquaint them truly with the History of public sins and judgments and mercies in the times which you have lived in. God hath made this the duty of the aged, that the Fathers should tell the wonders of his works and mercies to their children, that the ages to come may praise the Lord, Deut. 4. 10. Psal. 78. 4, 5, 6.
§. 6. Direct. 6. The Aged must be examples of wisdom, gravity and holiness unto the younger. Where should they find any virtues in eminence, if not in you, that have so much time and helps and experiences? It may well be expected that nothing but savoury, wise and holy, come from your mouths: and nothing unbeseeming wisdom and godliness, be seen in your lives. Such as you would have your Children after you to be, such show yourselves to them in all your Conversation.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Especially it belongeth to you, to repress the heats, and dividing, contentious, and censorious disposition, of the younger sort of professors of Godliness. They are in the heat of their blood, and want the knowledge and experience of the aged, to guide their zeal: They have not their senses yet exercised in discerning good and evil, Heb. 5. 12. They are able to try the spirits: They are yet but as children, apt to be tossed to and fro, and carried up and down with every wind of doctrine, after the craft and subtlety of deceivers, Eph. 4. 14. The Novices are apt to be puffed up with pride, and fall into the condemnation of the Devil, 1 Tim. 3. 6. They never saw the issue of errors and sects and parties, and what divisions and contentions tend to, as you have done. And therefore it belongeth to your gravity and experience, to call them unto Unity, Charity and Peace, and to keep them from proving fire-brands in the Church, and rashly over-running their understandings and the truth.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Of all men, you must live in the greatest contempt of earthly things, and least entangle yourselves in the Love or needless troubles of the world: You are like to need it and use it but a little while: A little may serve one that is so near his journeys end: You have had the greatest experience of its vanity: You are so near the great things of another World, that methinks you should have no leisure to remember this, or room for any unnecessary thoughts or speeches of it. As your bodies are less able for worldly employment than others, so accordingly you are allowed to retire from it more than others, for your more serious thoughts of the life to come. It is a sign of the bewitching power of the world, and of the folly and unreasonableness of sin, to see the Aged usually as Covetous as the young; and men that are going out of the world, to love it as fondly, and scrape for it as eagerly, as if they never looked to leave it. You should rather give warning to the younger sort, to take heed of Covetousness, and of being ensnared by the world, and while they labor in it faithfully with their hands, to keep their hearts entirely for God.
§. 9. Direct. 9. You should highly esteem every minute of your time, and lose none in idleness or unnecessary things; but be always doing or getting some good; and do what you do with all your might. For you are sure now that your time will not be long: How little have you left, to make all the rest of your preparation in for eternity? The young may die quickly, but the old know that their time will be but short. Though Nature decay, yet grace can grow in life and strength: and when your outward man perisheth, the inner man may be renewed day by day, 2 Cor. 4. 16. Time is a most precious commodity to all: but especially to them, that have but a little more, to determine the question in, Whether they must live in Heaven or Hell forever. Though you cannot do your worldly businesses as heretofore, yet you have variety of holy exercises to be employed in: Bodily ease may beseem you, but Idleness is worse in you than in any.
§. 10. Direct. 10. When the decay of your strength or memory or parts, doth make you unable to read or pray or meditate by yourselves, so much or so well as heretofore, make the more use of the more lively gifts and help of others. Be the more in hearing others, and in joining with them in prayer; that their memory and zeal and utterance may help, to lift you up and carry you on.
§. 11. Direct. 11. Take not a decay of nature, and of those gifts and works which depend thereon, for a decay of grace. Though your memory and utterance and fervor of affection, abate as your Natural heat abateth, yet be not discouraged; but remember, that you may for all this grow in grace: if you do but grow in holy wisdom and judgment, and a higher esteem of God and holiness, and a greater disesteem of all the vanities of the world, and a firmer resolution to cleave to God and trust on Christ, and never to turn to the world and sin: This is your growth in grace.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Be patient under all the infirmities and inconveniences of old age. Be not discontented at them, nor repine not, nor grow peevish and froward to those about you. This is a common temptation which the Aged should carefully resist. You knew at first that you had a body that must decay: If you would not have had it till a decaying age, why were you so unwilling to die? If you would, why do you repine? Bless God for the days of youth and strength and health and ease which you have had already! and grudge not that corruptible flesh decayeth.
§. 13. Direct. 13. Understand well that passive obedience is that which God calleth you to in your age and weakness, and in which you must serve and honor him in the conclusion of your labor. When you are unfit for any great or public works, and active obedience hath not opportunity to exercise itself as heretofore, it is then as acceptable to God that you honor him, by patient suffering; And therefore it is a great error of them that wish for the death of all that are impotent, decrepit and bedrid, as if they were utterly unserviceable to God? I tell you, it is no small service that they may do, not only by their prayers, and their secret Love to God, but by being examples of faith and patience and heavenly-mindedness, and confidence and joy in God, to all about them. Grudge not then if God will thus employ you.
§. 14. Direct. 14. Let your thoughts of death, and preparations for it, be as serious as if death were just at hand. Though all your life be little enough to prepare for death, and it be a work that should be done as soon as you have the use of Reason, yet age and weakness call louder to you, presently to prepare without delay. Do therefore all that you would fain find done, when your last sickness cometh; that unreadiness to die may not make death terrible, nor your age uncomfortable.
§. 15. Direct. 15. Live in the joyful expectations of your change, as becometh one that is so near to Heaven, and looketh to live with Christ forever. Let all the high and glorious things, which faith apprehendeth, now show their power in the Love and joy and longings of your soul. There is nothing in which the weak and aged can more honor Christ and do good to others, than in joyful expectation of their change, and an earnest desire to be with Christ. This will do much to convince unbelievers, that the promises are true, and that Heaven is real, and that a holy life is indeed the best, which hath so happy an end: When they see you highest in your joys, at the time when others are deepest in distress; and when you rejoice as one that is entering upon his happiness, when all the happiness of the ungodly is at an end; this will do more than many Sermons, to persuade a sinner to a holy life. I know that this is not easily attained; But a thing so sweet and profitable to yourselves, and so useful to the good of others, and so much tending to the honor of God, should be labored after with all your diligence: and then you may expect God's blessing on your labors. Read to this use the fourth part of my Saints Rest.
CHAP. XXX. Directions for the Sick.
THough the chief part of our preparation for Death be in the time of Health, and it is a work for which the longest life is not too long; yet because the folly of unconverted sinners is so great as to forget what they were born for till they see Death at hand, and because there is a special preparation necessary for the best, I shall here lay down some Directions for the sick: And I shall reduce them to these four heads: 1. What must be done to make Death safe to us, that it may be our passage to Heaven and not to Hell. 2. What must be done to make sickness profitable to us? 3. What must be done to make Death comfortable to us, that we may Dye in Peace and Joy? 4. What must be done to make our Sickness Profitable to others about us?
Tit. 1. Directions for a safe Death; to secure our Salvation.
THe Directions of this sort are especially necessary to the unconverted impenitent sinner; yet needful also to the Godly themselves: and therefore I shall distinctly speak to both.
1. Directions for an uncoverted sinner in his sickness.
It is a very dreadful case to be found by sickness in an unconverted state. There is so Great a work to be done, and so little time to do it in, and soul and body so unfit and undisposed for it, and the misery so great (even everlasting torment) that will follow so certainly and so quickly if it be undone, that one would think it should overwhelm the understanding and heart of any man with astonishment and horror, to foresee such a condition in the time of his health; much more to find himself in it in his sickness. And though one would think that the near approach of Death, and the nearness of another world, should be unresistibly powerful to convert a sinner; so that few or none should Die unconverted, however they lived; yet Scripture and sad experience declare the contrary, that most men Die as well as live, in an unsanctified and miserable state. For, 1. A life of sin doth usually settle a man in Ignorance or Unbelief or both: so that sickness findeth him in such a dungeon of Darkness, that he is but lost and confounded in his fears, and knoweth not whither he is going, nor what he hath to do. 2. And also sin woefully Hardeneth the Heart, and the long resisted spirit of God forsaketh them, and giveth them over to themselves in sickness, who would not be ruled and sanctified by him in their health: And such remain like blocks or beasts even to the last. 3. And the Nature of sickness and approaching death doth tend more to affright, than to renew the soul; and rather to breed fear and trouble than Love. And though Grief and fear be good preparatives and helps, yet it is the Love of God and Holiness in which the souls Regeneration and Renovation doth consist; and there is no more Holiness than there is Love and Willingness. And many a one that is affrighted into strong Repentings and cries and prayers and promises, and seem to themselves and others to be Converted, do yet either Die in their sins and misery, or return to their unholy lives when they recover, being utter strangers to that true Repentance which reneweth the heart, as sad experience doth too often testify. 4. And many poor sinners finding that they have so short a time, do end it in mere amazement and terror, not knowing how to compose their thoughts, to examine their hearts and lives, nor to exercise faith in Christ, nor to follow any Directions that are given them; but lie in trembling and astonishment, wholly taken up with the fears of Death, much worse than a beast that is going to be butchered. 5. And the very pains of the body, do so divert or hinder the thoughts of many, that they can scarce mind any spiritual things, with such a composedness as is necessary to so great a work. 6. And the greatest number being partly confounded in ignorance, and partly withheld by backwardness and undisposedness, and partly disheartened by thinking it impossible to become new-creatures, and get a regenerate heavenly heart on such a sudden, do force themselves to hope that they shall be saved without it, and that though they are sinners, yet that kind of Repentance which they have, will serve the turn and be accepted, and God will be more merciful than to damn them. And this false Hope they think they are necessitated to take up: For there is but▪ two other ways to be taken: The one is, utterly to Despair; and both Scripture, and Reason and Nature itself are against that: The other way is to be truly converted and won to the Love of God and Heaven by a lively faith in Jesus Christ: And they have no such faith: and to this they are strange and undisposed, and think it impossible to be done: And if they must have no Hopes but upon such terms as these, they think they shall have none at all: Or else if they hear that there is no other Hope, and that none but the holy can be saved, they will force themselves to hope that they have all this, and that they are truly converted, and become new creatures, and do Love God and holiness above all: not because indeed it is so, but because they would have it so, for fear of being damned: And instead of finding that they they are void of faith and Love and Holiness, and laboring to get a renewed soul, they think it a nearer way to make themselves believe that it is so already: And thus in their presumption, self-deceiving and false hopes, they linger out that little time that is left them to be converted in, till death open their eyes, and hell do undeceive them. 7. And the same Devil, and wicked men his instruments, that kept them in health from true Repentance, will be as diligent to keep them from it in their sickness; and will be loath to lose all at the last cast, which they had been winning all the time before. And if the Devil can but keep them in his power, till sickness come and take them up with pain and fear, he will hope to keep them a few days longer, till he have finished that which he had begun and carried on so far. And if there be here and there one, that will be held no longer by false hopes and presumption, he will at last think to take them off by desperation, and make them believe that there is no remedy.
§. 4. And indeed it is a thing so difficult, and unlikely, to convert a sinner in all his pain and weakness at the last, that even the Godly friends of such do many times, even let them alone, as thinking that there is little or no hope. But this is a very sinful course: As long as there is life, there is some hope. And as long as there is hope, we must use the means: A Physician will try the best Remedies he hath, in the most dangerous disease which is not desperate: For when it is certain that there is no hope without them, if they do no good, they do no harm. So must we try the saving of a poor soul, while there is life and any hope; For if once death end their time and hopes, it will be then too late; and they will be out of our reach and help forever. To those that sickness findeth in so sad a case, I shall give here but a few brief Directions, because I have done it more at large in the first Tome and first Chapter, whither I refer them.
§. 5. Direct. 1. Set speedily and seriously to the Iudging of yourselves, as those that are going to be judged of God. And do it in the manner following. 1. Do it willingly and resolvedly, as knowing that it is now no time to remain uncertain of your everlasting state, if you can possibly get acquainted with it. Is it not time for a man to know himself, whether he be a sanctifi • d believer or not, when he is just going to appear before his maker, and there be judged as he is found? 2. Do it impartially; as one that is not willing to find himself deceived, as soon as death hath acquainted him with the truth: O take heed, as you love your souls, of being foolishly tender of yourselves, and resolving for fear of being troubled at your misery; to believe that you are safe, whether it be true or false. This is the way that thousands are undone by. Thinking that you are sanctified will neither prove you so, nor make you so: no more than thinking that you are well, will prove or make you well. And what good will it do you to think you are pardoned and shall be saved, for a few days longer, and then to find too late in Hell that you were mistaken? Is the ease of so short a deceit worth all the pain and loss that it will cost you? Alas poor soul! God knoweth it is not needlessly to affright thee, that we desire to convince thee of thy misery! We do not cruelly insult over thee or desire to torment thee? But we pity thee in so sad a case: To see an unsanctified person ready to pass into another world, and to be doomed unto endless misery, and will not know it till he is there? Our principal reason of opening your danger is because it is necessary to your escaping it: If soul diseases were like bodily diseases which may sometimes be cured without the patients knowing them and the danger of them, we would never trouble you at such a time as this. But it will not be so done: You must understand your danger if you will be saved from it: Therefore be impartial with yourself if you are wise, and be truly willing to know the worst. 3. In Iudging yourselves proceed by the same Rule or Law that God will judge you by; that is, by the word of God revealed in the Gospel. For your work now is not to steal a little short-lived quiet to your Consciences, but to know how God will judge your souls, and whether he will doom you to endless joy or misery: And how can you know this, but by that Law or Rule that God will judge you by? And certainly God will judge you, by the same Law or Rule by which he Governed you, or which he gave you to Live by in the world. It will go never the better or worse there with any man, for his good or bad conceits of himself, if they were his mistakes; But just what God hath said in his word, that he will do with any man; that will he do with him in the day of judgment. All shall be justified whom the Gospel justifieth▪ and all shall be condemned that it condemneth: and therefore judge yourself by it: By what signs you may know an unsanctified man, I have told you before, Tom. 1. Chap. 1. Dir. 8. And by what signs true grace may be known I told you before, in Preparation for the Sacrament. 4. If you cannot satisfy yourself about your own condition, advise with some Godly able Minister or other Christian that is best acquainted with you: that knoweth how you have lived towards God and man; or at least open all your heart and life to him that he may know it: And if he tell you that he feareth you are yet unsanctified, you have the more reason to fear the worst. But then be sure that he be not a carnal ungodly worldly man himself: For they that flatter and deceive themselves, are not unlike to do so by others: Such blind deceivers will daub over all, and bid you never trouble yourself; but even comfort you as they comfort themselves, and bid you believe that all is well, and it will be well; or will make you believe that some forced confession and unsound Repentance, will serve instead of true Conversion. But a man that is going to the bar of God, should be loath to be deceived by himself or others.
§. 6. Direct. 2. If by a due examination you find yourself unsanctified, bethink you seriously of your case, both what you have done, and what a condition you are in, till you are truly humbled, and willing of any conditions that God shall offer you for your deliverance. Consider how foolishly you have done, how rebelliously, how unthankfully, to forsake your God, and forget your souls, and lose all your time, and abuse all God's mercies, and leave undone the work that you were made and preserved and redeemed for! Alas did you never know till now that you must die? and that you had all your time to make preparation, for an endless life which followeth death? Were you never warned by Minister or friend? Were you never told, of the necessity of a holy heavenly life; and of a regenerate sanctified state, till now? O what could you have done more unwisely, or wickedly, than to cast away a life that eternal life so much depended on? and to refuse your Savior and his grace and mercies, till your last extremity? Is this the time to look after a new birth and to begin your life, when you are at the end of it? O what have you done to delay so great a work till now? And now if you die before you are regenerate, you are lost forever. O humble your souls before the Lord! Lament your folly; and presently condemn yourselves before him, and make out to Him for mercy while there is hope.
§. 7. Direct. 3. When you are humbled for your sin and misery, and willing of mercy upon any terms, believe that yet your case is not Remediless, but that Jesus Christ hath given himself to God a sacrifice for your sins, and is so sure and all-sufficient a Savior, that yet nothing can hinder you from pardon and salvation, but your own impenitence and unbelief? Come to him therefore as the Savior of souls, that be may Teach you the will of God, and Reconcile you to his Father, and pardon your sins, and renew you by his spirit, and acquaint you with his Fathers Love, and save you from damnation, and make you heirs of life eternal. For all this may yet possibly be done, as short as your time is like to be; And it will yet be long of you if it be not done. The Covenant of Grace doth promise pardon and salvation to every Penitent Believer when ever they truly turn to God, without excepting any hour, or any person in all the world. Nothing but an unbelieving hardened heart, resisting his grace, and unwilling to be Holy, can deprive you of pardon and salvation, even at the last. It was a most foolish wickedness of you to put it off till now: but yet for all that, if you are not yet saved, it shall not be long of Christ but you: Yet he doth freely offer you his mercy? and he will be your Lord and Savior if you will not refuse him: yet the match shall not break on his part: see that it break not on your part and you shall be saved. Know therefore what he is, as God and Man, and what a blessed work he hath undertaken, to Redeem a sinful miserable world, and what he hath already done for us, in his life and doctrine, in his death and sufferings, by his Resurrection and his Covenant of Grace, and what he is now doing at his Fathers right hand, in making intercession for penitent believers, and what an endless Glory he is preparing for them, and how he will save to the uttermost, all that come to God by him. O yet let your heart even leap for Joy, that you have an all-sufficient willing gracious Savior? whose Grace aboundeth more than sin aboundeth? If the Devils and poor damned souls in Hell were yet but in your case, and had your offers and your hopes, how glad do you imagine they would be? Cast yourselves therefore in Faith and Confidence upon this Savior: Trust your souls upon his Sacrifice and Merit, for the pardon of your sins, and peace with God: Beg of him yet the renewing grace of his spirit: Be willing to be made holy, and a new Creature, and to live a holy life if you should survive: Resolve to be wholly ruled by him; and give up yourself absolutely to him as your Savior, to be justified and sanctified and saved by him, and then trust in him for everlasting happiness! O happy soul, if yet you can do thus, without deceit.
§. 8. Direct. 4. Believe now and consider what God is and will be to your soul, and what Love he hath shown to you by Christ, and what endless Joy and Glory you may have with him in Heaven for ever, notwithstanding all the sins that you have done: And think what the world and the flesh hath done for you, in comparison of God: Think of this till you fall in Love with God, and till your hearts and hopes are set on Heaven, and turned from this world and flesh, and till you feel yourself in Love with Holiness, and till you are firmly Resolved in the strength of Christ to live a holy life, if God recover you: and then you are truly sanctified, and shall be saved if you die in this condition. Take heed that you take not a Repentance and good purposes which come from nothing but Fear, to be sufficient: If you recover, all this may die again, when your fear is over: You are not sanctified, nor God hath not your hearts, till your Love be to him: that which you do through fear alone, you had rather not do if you might be excused: And therefore your Hearts are still against it. When the feeling of God's unspeakable Love in Christ, doth melt and overcome your hearts; when the infinite Goodness of God himself, and his mercies to your souls and bodies, do make you take him as more Lovely and desirable than all the world; when you so believe the Heavenly Joyes above, as to desire them more than earthly pleasures; when you Love God better than worldly prosperity, and when a life of such Love and Holiness seemeth better to you, than all the merriments of sinners, and you had rather be a Saint, than the most prosperous of the ungodly, and are firmly resolved for a holy life, if God recover you, then are you indeed in a state of grace, and not till then: This must be your case, or you are undone forever. And therefore meditate on the Love of Christ, and the Goodness of God, and the Joyes of Heaven, and the happiness of Saints, and the misery of worldlings, and ungodly men: meditate on these till your eyes be opened, and your hearts be touched with a holy love, and Heaven and Holiness be the very things that you desire above all; and then you may boldly go to God, and believe that all your sins are pardoned: And it is not bare terror, but these believing thoughts, of God and Heaven and Christ and Love, that must change your hearts and do the work.
§. 9. These four Directions truly practiced, will yet set you on safe ground, as sad and dangerous as your condition is: But it is not the hearing of them, or the bare approbation of them that will serve the turn: To find out your sinful miserable state, and to be truly humbled for it, and to discern the Remedy which you have in Christ, and penitently and believing to enter into his Covenant, and to see that your Happiness is wholly in the Love and fruition of God, and to believe the Glory prepared for the Saints, and to prefer it before all the prosperity of the world, and Love it and set your hearts upon it, and to resolve on a holy life if you should recover, forsaking this deceitful world and flesh; all this is a work that is not so easily done as mentioned, and requireth your most serious fixed thoughts: and indeed had been fitter for your youthful vigor, than for a painful weak distempered state. But necessity is upon you: It must needs be yet done, and thoroughly and sincerely done, or you are lost forever. And therefore do it as well as you can, and see that your hearts do not trifle and deceive you. In some respect you have greater helps than ever you had before: You cannot now keep up your hard-heartedness and security, by looking at death as a great way off. You have now fuller experience than ever you had before, what the fl • sh and all its pleasures will come to, and what good your sinful sports and recreations and merriments will do you; and what all the riches and greatness and gallantry, and honors of the world are worth, and what they will do for you in the day of your necessity: You stand so near another world, and must so quickly appear before the Lord, that methinks a dead and senseless heart, should no longer be able to make you sleight, your God, your Savior and your endless life: And one would think that the flesh and world should never be able to deceive you anymore. O happy soul if yet at last, you are not only frightened into an unsound Repentance, but can hate all sin, and Love the Lord, and trust in Christ, and give up yourself entirely to him, and set your heart upon that blessed life, where you may see and Love him perfectly forever!
§. 10. Quest. But will so late Repentance serve the turn, for one that hath been so long ungodly?
Answ. Yes, if it be sincere: But there's all the doubt; and that's it that your salvation now dependeth on.
Quest. But how many I kn • w whether it be sincere?
Answ. 1. If you be not only • rightened into it; but your very heart and will and Love is changed. 2. If it extend both to the end and the necessary means: so that you Love God and the Ioyes of Heaven above all earthly prosperity and pleasure; and also you had rather be perfectly Holy, than live in all the delights of sin: and if you hate every known sin, and Love the holy ways and servants of God, and this unfeignedly, this is a true change. 3. And if this Repentance and change be such as will hold, if God should recover you, and would show itself in a new and holy and self-denying life: (which certainly it will do, if it come not only from fear, but from Love ): But if you renounce the world and the flesh against your wills, because you know there is no remedy, and if you bid farewell to your worldly sinful pleasures, not because you love God better, but because you cannot keep them though you would, and if you take not God and H • aven as your Best, but only for Better than Hell, but not as Better than worldly prosperity, which yet you would choose if you had your choice; This kind of Repentance will never save you, and if you should recover, it would vanish away, and come to nothing, as soon as your fears of death are over, and you are returned to your worldly delights again. Though now in your extremity you cry out never so confidently, O I had rather have Heaven than Earth, and I had rather have Christ and Holiness than all the pleasures and prosperity of sinners, yet if it be not from a renewed sanctified Heart, that had rather be such indeed, but from mere necessity and fear, and against the Habit of your Hearts and wills, this is but such a Repentance as Judas had, that is neither sincere at present, nor if you recover will hold you to a holy life.
II. Directions to the Sanctified, for a safe departure.
§. 1. When the soul is truly Converted and Sanctified, the principal business is dispatched, that is necessary to a safe departure: But yet I cannot say that there is no more to be done. They were Godly persons that are exhorted, 2 Pet. 1. 10. to give diligence to make their calling and election sure; which being (as the Greek importeth) not only to make it known or certain, but to make it firm, doth signify more than barely to discern it. These following duties are yet further necessary.
§. 2. Direct. 1. Satisfie not yourselves that once you found yourselves sincere, but, if your understandings he clear and free, renew the trial, and if you are insufficient for it of yourself, make use of the help of a faithful judicious Minister or friend. For when a man is going to the bar of God, it concerneth him to make all as sure as possibly he can.
§. 3. Direct. 2. Review your lives, and renew your universal Repentance, for all the sins that ever you committed: and also let your particular Repentance extend to every particular sin which you remember: but especially Repent of your most aggravated soul-wounding sins. For if your Repentance be universal and true, it will also be particular; and you will be specially humbled for your special sins. And search deep and see that none escape you. And think not that you are not called to Repent of them, or ask forgiveness, because you have Repented of them long ago, and received a pardon: For this is a thing to be done even to the last.
§. 4. Direct. 3. Renew your faith in Jesus Christ, and cast your souls upon his Merits and Mediation: Satisfie not yourselves that you have a habit of Faith, and that formerly you did Believe; but fly to your trusty Rock and refuge; and continue the exercise of your faith, and again give up your souls to Christ.
§. 5. Direct. 4. Make it your chief work to stir up in your Hearts the Love of God, and a desire to live with Christ in glory. Let those comforting and encouraging objects which are the instruments of this, be still in your thoughts: And if you can do this, it will be the surest proof, of your title to the Crown.
§. 6. Direct. 5. If you have wronged any by word or deed, be sure that you do your best to right them, and make them satisfaction: and if you have fallen out with any, be reconciled to them. Leave not other men's goods to your Heirs or Executors: Restore what you have wrongfully gotten, before you leave your Legacies to any. Confess your faults where you can do no more: And ask those forgiveness whom you have injured; and leave not men's names, or estates, or souls, under the effects of your former wrongs, so far as you are able to make them reparation.
§. 7. Direct. 6. Be still taken up in your duty to God, even that which he now calleth you to, that you may not be found idle, or in the sins of omission; but may be most holy and fruitful at the last. Though sickness call you not to all the same duties, which were incumbent on you in your health; yet think not therefore that there is no duty at all expected from the sick. Every season and state hath its peculiar duties (and its peculiar mercies ) which it much concerneth us to know. I shall anon tell you more particularly what they are.
§. 8. Direct. 7. Be specially fortified and vigilant against the most dangerous Temptations of Satan, by which he useth to assault the sick. Pray now especially, that God would not lead you into Temptation, but deliver you from the Evil one: For in your weakness you may be less fit to wrestle with them than at another time. O beg of God, that as he hath upheld you, and preserved you till now, he would not forsake you at last in your extremity. Particularly,
§. 9. Tempt. 1. One of the most dangerous Temptations of the enemy, is, to take the advantage of a Christians bodily weakness, to shake his faith, and question his foundations, and call him to dispute over his principles again, Whether the soul be immortal? and there be a Heaven and a Hell? and whether Christ be the Son of God, and the Scriptures be God's Word? &c. As if this had never been questioned, and scanned, and resolved before! It is a great deal of advantage that Satan expecteth by this malicious course. If he could, he would draw you from Christ to infidelity: But Christ prayeth for you, that your faith may not fail: If he cannot do this, he would at least weaken your faith, and hereby weaken every grace: And he would hereby divert you from the more needful thoughts, which are suitable to your present state: and he would hereby distract you, and destroy your comforts, and draw you in your perplexities to dishonor God. Away therefore with these blasphemous and unseasonable motions: Cast them from you with abhorrence and disdain: It is no time now to be questioning your foundations: You have done this more seasonably, when you were in a fitter case: A pai • ed languishing body, and a disturbed discomposed mind, is unfit upon a surprise, to go back and dispute over all our principles. Tell Satan you owe him not so much service, nor will you so cast away those few hours and thoughts, for which you have so much better work. You have the witness in yourselves, even the Spirit, and Image, and Seal of God. You have been converted and renewed by the power of that word, which he would have you question; and you have found it to be owned by the Spirit of grace, who hath made it mighty to pull down the strongest holds of sin: Tell Satan you will not gratify him so much as to turn your holy heavenly desires, into a wrangling with him about those truths which you have so often proved: You will not question now the being of that God who hath maintained you so long, and witnessed his being and goodness to you by a life of mercies; nor will you now question the being or truth of him that hath Redeemed you, or of the Spirit or Word that hath sanctified, guided, comforted and confirmed you. If he tell you that you must prove all things; tell him that this is not now to do; you have long proved the truth and goodness of your God, the mercy of your Savior, and the power of his Holy Spirit and Word: It is now your work to live upon that Word, and fetch your hopes and comforts from it; and not to question it.
§. 10. Tempt. 2. Another dangerous Temptation of Satan is, when he would persuade you to Despair, by causing you to mis-understand the tenor of the Gospel, or by thinking too narrowly and unworthily of God's mercy, or of the satisfaction of Christ. But because this Temptation doth usually tend more to discomfort the soul, than to damn it, I shall speak more to it under Tit. 3.
§. 11. Tempt. 3. Another dangerous Temptation is, when Satan would draw you to overlook your sins, and overvalue your graces, and be proud of your good works, and so lay too much of your comfort upon yourselves, and lose the sense of your need of Christ, or usurp any part of his office, or hi • honor. I shall afterward show you how far you must look at anything in yourselves: But certainly that which lifteth you up in pride, or encroacheth on Christ's Office, or would draw you to undervalue him, is not of God. Therefore keep humble, in the sense of your sinfulness and unworthiness, and cast away every motion which would carry you away from Christ, and make yourselves, and your works, and righteousness, as a Savior to yourselves.
§. 12. Tempt. 4. Another perilous Temptation is, by causing the thoughts of death, and the grave, and your doubts and fears about the world to come, to overcome the Love of God, and (not only the 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 comforts, but also) the desires and willingness of your hearts, to be with Christ. It will abate your Love to God and Heaven, to think on them with too much estrangedness and terror: The Directions under Tit. 3. will help you against this Temptation.
§. 13. Tempt. 5. Another dangerous Temptation is fetched from the remnants of your worldly mindedness; when your dignity, or honor, your house, or lands, your relations and friends, or your pleasures and contentments, are so sweet to you, that you are loath to leave them; and the thoughts of death are grievous to you, because it taketh you from that which you over-love; and God and Heaven are the less desired, because you are loath to leave the world. Watch carefully against this great Temptation. Observe how it seeketh the very destruction of your grace and souls, and how it fighteth against your Love to God and Heaven, and would undo all that Christ and his Spirit have been doing so long? Observe what a root of matter it findeth in yourselves; and therefore be the more humbled under it: Learn now what the world is, and how little the accommodations of the flesh are worth; when you perceive what the end of all must be. Would you never die? Would you enjoy your worldly things forever? Had you rather have them, than to live with Christ in the Heavenly glory of the New Jerusalem? If you had, it is your grievous sin and folly: And yet you know that it is a desire that you can never hope to attain: Dye you must whether you will or not! What is it then that you would stay for? Is it till the world be grown less pleasant to you, and your Love and minds be weaned from it? When should that rather be than now? And what should more effectually do it, than this dying condition that you are in? It is time for you to spit out these unwholesome pleasures, and now to look up to the true, the holy, the unmeasurable everlasting pleasures.
Tit. 2. Directions how to Profit by our Sickness.
WHether it shall please God to recover you or not, it is no small Benefit which you may get by his Visitation, if you do your part, and faithfully improve it, according to these Directions following.
§. 1. Direct. 1. If you hear God's call to a closer trial of your hearts concerning the sincerity of your conversion, and thereby are brought to a more exact examination, and come to a truer acquaintance with your state (be it good or bad) the benefit may be exceeding great. For if it be good, you may be much comforted and confirmed, and fitted to give thanks and praise to God: And if it be bad, you may be awakened speedily to look about you, and seek for a recovery.
§. 2. Direct. 2. If in the review of your lives you find out those sins which before you overlook • , or perceive the greatness of those sins which you before accounted small, the benefit may be very great: For it will help to a more deep and sound repentance, and to a stronger Resolution against all sins, if you recover. And affliction is a very great help to us in this. Many a man hath been ashamed and deeply humbled for that same sin, when sickness did awake him, which he could make his play-fellow before, as if there had been neither hurt nor danger in it.
§. 3. Direct. 3. There is many a deep corruption in the heart, which affliction openeth and discovereth, which deceitfulness bid in the time of prosperity: And the detecting of these is no small benefit to the soul. When you come to part with wealth and honor, you shall better know how much you loved them, than you could before. Mark therefore what corruptions appear in your affliction, and how the heart discloseth its deceits, that you may know what to repent of and reform.
§. 4. Direct. 4. When affliction calleth you to the use and exercise of your graces, you have a great help to be better acquainted with the strength or weakness of them: When you are called so loudly to the use of Faith, and love, and patience, and heavenly-mindedness, you may better know what measure of everyone of these you have, than you could when you had no such help. Mark therefore what your hearts prove in the trial, and what each Grace doth show itself to be in the exercise.
§. 5. Direct. 5. You have a very great help now to be thoroughly acquainted with the vanity of the world, and so to mortify all affections unto the things below. Now judge of the value of wealth, and honor, of plenty, and high-places? Are they a comfort to a dying man that is parting with them? Or is it any grief to a poor man when he is dying, that he did not enjoy them? Is it not easy now to rectify your errors; if ever you thought highly of these transitory things? O settle it now in your firm Resolution, that if God should restore you, you would value this world at a lower rate, and set by it and seek it but as it deserveth.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Also you have now a special help to raise your estimation of the happiness of the Saints in Heaven, and of the necessity and excellency of a holy life, and of the wisdom of the Saints on earth; and to know who maketh the wisest choice! Now you may see that it is nothing but Heaven that is worth our seeking, and that is finally to be trusted to, and will not fail us in the hour of our distress: Now you may discern between the Righteous and the Wicked; between those that serve God, and those that serve him not, Mal. 3. 17, 18. Now judge whether a loose and worldly life, or a holy heavenly life be better? and resolve accordingly.
§. 7. Direct. 7. You have also now a very great help to discern the folly of a voluptuous life, and to mortify the deeds and desires of the flesh: when God is mortifying its natural desires, it may help you in mortifying its sinful desires: Now judge what Lust, and Plays, and Gaming, and Feasting, and Drunkenness, and Swaggering are worth? You see now the end of all such pleasures: Do you think them better than the Joyes of Heaven, and worthy the loss of a man's salvation to attain them? Or better than the pleasures of a holy life?
§. 8. Direct. 8. Also now you have a great advantage, for the quickening of your hearts that have lost their Zeal, and are cold in Prayer, and dull in Meditation, and regardless of holy conference: If ever you will pray earnestly, sure it will be now: If ever you will talk seriously of the matters of salvation, sure it will be now. Now you do better understand the reason of servant prayer, and serious Religion, and circumspect walking than you did before: And you can easily now confute the scorns or railings of the loose ungodly enemies of holiness; even as you consute the dotage of a fool, or the ravings of a man beside himself.
§. 9. Direct. 9. You have a great advantage more sensibly to perceive your Dependance upon God alone: and what reason you have to please him before all the world, and to regard his favor or displeasure more, than all the things or persons upon earth. Now you see how vain a thing is man! and how little the favor of all the world, can stand you instead in your greatest necessity: Now you see that it is God and God alone that is to be trusted to at last: And therefore it is God that is to be obeyed and pleased, what ever become of all things in the world.
§. 10. Direct 10. You have now a great advantage to discern the Pretiousness of Time, and to see how carefully it should be redeemed, and to perceive the distractedness of those men, that can waste it in pastimes, and curiosity of dressings, and needless complements and visits, and a multitude of such vanities as rob the world, of that which is more precious than Gold or treasure. Now what think you of idling and playing away your Time? Now do you not think that it is wiser to spend it in a holy preparation for the life to come, than to cast it away upon childish fooleries, or any unnecessary worldly things?
§. 11. Direct. 11. Also you have now a special help to be more serious than ever in your preparations for death, and in your thoughts of Heaven; and so to be readier than you were before: And if sickness help you to be readier to die, and more to set your hearts above, whether you live or die, it will be a profitable sickness to you.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Let your friends about you be the witnesses of your open Confessions and Resolutions, and engage them if God should restore you to your health, to remember you of all the promises which you have made, and to watch over you, and tell you of them when ever there is need: By these means sickness may be improved, and be a mercy to you.
§. 13. I might next have given some special Directions to them that are Recovered from sickness: But because I would not be needlessly tedious, I refer such to what is here said already. 1. Let them but look over these twelve Directions, and see whether these benefits remain upon their hearts: 2. Let them call to their lively remembrance, the sense which they had and the frame they were in, when they made these Resolutions. 3. Let them remember that sickness will come again; even a sickness which will have no cure, And 4. Let them bethink themselves, how terribly Conscience will be wounded, and their souls dismayed, when the next sickness cometh, to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery, and how falsely they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises: Foresee this that you may prevent it.
Tit. 3. Directions for a Comfortable or Peaceable Death.
COmfort is not desirable only as it Pleaseth us, but also as it strengtheneth us, and helpeth us in our greatest duties. And when is it more needful than in sickness, and the approach of death? I shall therefore add such Directions as are necessary to make our departure comfortable or peaceful at the least, as well as safe.
Direct. 1. Because I would make this Treatise no longer than I needs must, in order to overcome the fears of Death, and get a cheerful willingness to die, I desire the sick to read over those twenty Considerations, and the following Directions which I have laid down in my Book of Self-denial: And when the fears of death are overcome, the great impediment of their comfort is removed.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Misunderstand not sickness, as if it were a greater evil than it is; but observe how great a mercy it is, that Death hath so suitable a harbinger or fore-runner. That God should do so much before he taketh us hence, to wean us from the world, and make us willing to be gone: that the unwilling flesh hath the help of pain: and that the senses and appetite languish and decay, which did draw the mind to earthly things, and that we have so loud a call, and so great a help to true repentance and serious preparation? I know to those that have walked very close with God, and are always ready, a sudden death may be a mercy: as we have lately known divers holy Ministers and others, that have died either after a Sacrament, or in the Evening of the Lord's Day, or in the midst of some holy exercise with so little pain, that none about them perecived when they died: But ordinarily it is a mercy to have the flesh brought down and weakened by painful sickness, to help to conquer our natural unwillingness to die.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Remember whose Messenger sickness is, and who it is that calleth you to die. It is he that is the Lord of all the world, and gave us the Lives which he taketh from us: And it is he that must dispose of Angels and Men, of Princes and Kingdoms, of Heaven and Earth, and therefore there is no reason that such Worms as we should desire to be excepted: You cannot deny him to be the Disposer of all things, without denying him to be God: It is he that Loveth us, and never meant us harm in anything that he hath done to us: that gave the life of his Son to Redeem us, and therefore thinketh not Life too good for us: Our sickness and death are sent by the same Love, that sent us a Savior, and sent us the powerful Preachers of his Word, and sent us his Spirit, and secretly and sweetly changed our hearts, and knit them to himself in Love: which gave us a life of precious mercies for our souls and bodies, and hath promised to give us life eternal: And shall we think that he now intendeth us any harm? Cannot he turn this also to our good, as he hath done many an affliction which we have repined at?
§. 4. Direct. 4. Look by faith to your dying, buried, risen, ascended, glorified Lord. Nothing will more powerfully overcome both the poison and the fears of Death, than the believing thoughts of him that hath triumphed over it. Is it terrible, as it separateth the soul from the body? So it did by our Lord, who yet overcame it. Is it terrible as it layeth the body in the grave? So it did by our Savior; though he saw not corruption, but quickly rose by the power of his Godhead. He died to teach us believingly and boldly to submit to death. He was buried, to teach us not overmuch to fear a grave. He rose again to conquer death for us, and to assure those that rise to newness of life, that they shall be raised at last by his power unto glory: and being made partakers of the first resurrection, the second death shall have no power over them. He